Goodbye To The South

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After Milford Sounds we headed on to Queenstown. It is a very pretty place, just as I would imagine an alpine resort. There are a lot of things to spend your money on, most of which involve you jumping off of something. We set up camp in a posh site only 5 mins from the centre. As we arrived at the weekend it was obviously necessary to sample the local night life. There are a lot of bars and clubs to choose from most of which have some promotion or another. We started in an Irish pub and made use of the happy our, the place was a bit dead so we only stayed for a couple. After that on to the altitude club, where the fly by wire crew were out with paint-on tattoos. I got a couple along with pretty much everyone in the bar. After that we had a bit of a boogie with Nicky and Taffy, a couple Jackie and Kirsty knew from Oz, and then crawled back to the tents.

I felt it was compulsory to do some sort of adrenalin sport so went river boarding on the advise of the tour guy. It was meant to be the most physically demanding and really good fun. I enjoyed it but it wasn't quite the adrenalin rush I was looking for, still plenty of time for that later!

From Queenstown we made our way towards the Franz Joseph Glacier via Wanaka. On the way out of Queenstown we saw a forest fire next to the road and the fire brigade getting it under control. It wasn't something that I thought that I would see in New Zealand.

Once at Wanaka we had a brief lunch stop as it was pouring with rain. We booked up our Glacier hike for the next day. Kirsty and I went for the full day hike while Jackie opted for the half day. It was a long time in the car along some steep and twisty roads but we got to our campsite in the end. The following was an early start, but well worth it.

The hike on the glacier was an excellent and unique experience. It is something that many people don’t get to see but really should. The landscape is almost alien, surreal but very beautiful. We walked for about 6 hours most of which was on the ice. The start of the climb was easy as steps had been cut into the ice already. After a quick break we went freestyle with the guide and just headed where ever he decided looked best. The ice is quite dirty at the bottom but gets a lot clearer and bluer the higher you go. The weather was pretty much perfect and I spent must of the day in just a T-shirt. After some clambering through tight gaps and sliding down some drops, we headed back to camp.

Another long drive to the top of the south island, Nelson, where we spent the night. Our ferry was for the next day but it was a short drive to Picton where we were to depart on the ferry across the Cook straight. The journey between South and North islands is notoriously rough, and it wouldn’t fit with the rest of my trip if we had it easy. We were delayed by 15 hours and spent the night in the car. The two women complained as when ever I moved I managed to rock the entire car and wake them up. In my defense I did have the steering wheel and foot pedals to negotiate. We were told that the swell was at about 10m and winds were over 100km/hr, probably a bit blowy.

We eventually got on to the ferry and suffered a stomach churning crossing to Wellington.

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