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Published: October 2nd 2008
The ferry crossing to Picton was actually quite smooth so no travel pills were needed. Kim was entertained by a little baby boy sitting across from her who wouldn’t stop staring at her…James was getting a little worried that Kim might be getting broody and was trying to distract her by pointing out the spectacular mountains and rainforest that lined the coast…
Picton is a cosy little town and we stayed in a lovely hostel which had free chocolate pudding with ice-cream, just what you needed after a full day of travelling. It was also a nice finish to our Indian meal which we had from a restaurant down the road. We only stayed in Picton for one night as we were catching the TransScenic train the next morning to Kaikoura.
The train journey ran along the East coast and was very picturesque with mountains on one side of the track and the coast on the other. If you looked hard enough you could see the seals resting amongst the rocks.
Kaikoura in Maori means “meal of crayfish” and it is believed by the Maoris that it is the point from where Maui fished up the North Island
from the sea. Kaikoura is famous for its sea life including seals, dolphins and many different types of whale’s species. As Kim wasn’t sure if she wanted to do a whale watching tour we aimed to spend two nights here. A painful walk due to our bags from the train station, bearing in mind we had not booked any accommodation we went for the first hostel we saw. Let this be a lesson to us. Although the hostel was extremely good, clean and provided us with video player and free videos to watch it was decorated in the era of the 1920’s. Kim was certain that the hotel was haunted which caused her sleepless nights…and this was confirmed when we checked out because Kim asked if there had been any ghoulish experiences; and the staff said that room 6 had had numerous reports of weird and unexplainable events……..
It rain solidly for 48 hours causing flooding and landslides over the roads and rail tracks; therefore meaning we couldn’t catch our train and so we were stuck in Kaikoura for an extra 2 days!! There was that much to do as the weather was so poor. Luckily, a guy rescued
our boredom and said that he would take us to the winery. The winery wasn’t very big, only seven acres but we got to taste 8 different wines and see how they were made. Feeling a little bit tipsy we ventured back to the hotel for more wine, videos and T.V. After 3 days and nights of sheltering from the rain and watching dvd’s we decided to do some all day drinking to brighten up our day. On the evening to soak up the alcohol we went to a nice Thai restaurant before heading to the Quiz night at the local pub.
Fourth day in Kaikoura and the weather was looking better; however the train wasn’t running until the next day. So stuck in Kaikoura again we did a 3 hour trek to the seal colony stopping along the way so James could indulge in some garlic mussels. James didn’t stand on a wasp this time but he did stand in dog poo which Kim found hilarious because he had only warned her about it 2 seconds previous…oh he wasn’t happy! The seal colony was home to fur seals just lazing around on the beach and in the car
park. On a massive board it clearly displayed some rules warning visitors not to get less than 10 metres close to the seals for our own safety, however James was after an up close and personal photo of Man and Beast and managed to get within one metre before the seals turned around, roared and gave him a nice smile showing him their lovely 6” teeth. The seals weren’t generally phased by our presence, either that or just very lazy. What we learnt though was how unfit we were, after two months of no exercise; our legs were giving in on our way back and we wished we had taken bikes.
Although the train wasn’t running the next day, we were able to catch the coach for another ride of bendy roads and limited space…next stop Christchurch for two nights. Christchurch is the largest city on the South Island situated in Canterbury and is also known as New Zealand’s “English City” and the closest city to Antarctica. We didn’t do much in Christchurch as it was just another large city and we are flying from ChristChurch on the way back so we are going to leave the activities till the
end of the trip.
Two days later we caught the Trans Scenic train to Greymouth, this trip has been named as one of the worlds greatest rail journeys. We travelled from one coast to the other, passing alongside Lake Brunner and on through spectacular gorges and river valleys, taking a stop at Arthur’s Pass to take some amazing photos. Words really don’t do this journey justice but I am sure you will get a good idea from the photos….In our carriage we were sat with 6 kids; and in the 4 hours they must have consumed their own body in sweets and chocolate. We swear by the end of the trip they we climbing the bloody walls due to all the E numbers. One of the girls obviously had had far too much as she went a shade of green and threw up all over our table, it smelt discussing but we reluctantly helped the poor single mom clean it up.
Greymouth is the largest town on the West coast. It was founded by the Maoris as a trading post for greenstone, and later boomed as a result of the gold rush in the 1800’s. We only had
one night here and in the evening we visited the Montheith’s Brewery, which is one of the oldest companies in New Zealand supplying beer to supermarkets and local pubs. It began with a tour of the working brewery, including the brewing room and the bottling plant. Once it had been explained in great detail how the beer is produced it was time for the best part….the tasting! We were allowed to taste a selection of beers ranging from a girly larger that had lime extract in to a ale similar to Guinness, I am sure the lads back in Sheffield would have enjoyed this one but was a bit heavy on the stomach for James. As Kim’s taste buds are too delicate she could really handle the light largers which meant James could have double the amount of free beers to taste. After the tasting we were allowed to pull our own pint of our favourite beer. Kim was all ‘beered out’ and therefore gave her pint to James. Four pints later we walked / staggered (Kim / James respectively) to the pub for a free ‘All you can eat BBQ’. Again the boys from Sheffield would have been in
their element.
The following morning we were up bright and early (yes again!!) to catch the Magic bus to the Alpine village of Franz Joseph which offers some of New Zealand’s most unique scenery. Located just 5Km from a huge ice glacier and only 6Km from the seacoast is a situation found nowhere else on earth. The main attraction of Franz Joseph is the guided glacier hikes which can be done in a number of ways - a half day or full day walk, or catching a helicopter to the summit of the glacier. As we couldn’t afford the helicopter we chose the full day hike as this had been strongly recommended. The evening before our hike we were both a little apprehensive as it states that you need to have a good level of fitness to complete the hike and judging by the size of James’s beer belly we had good reason to be! The following morning we were up early to make our pack lunch and do our stretches (not really). At 8am we wandered down to the Glacier centre and got kitted out with specialised equipment (including pickaxe and crampons - the spikes you put on
your boots) and water proof clothing. We then got on the bus for a short ride to the bottom of the valley where we were required to walk 1 hour to the base of the glacier. It was half way through this first walk that we really wondered what we had let ourselves in for as we were both sweating and panting even though the temperature was approx 5C. Soon enough we reached the base of the glacier wall then strapped on our crampons and with our pickaxes in hand we started climbing up the ice…
For those of you like James who know a little about glaciers (apparently he studied them at A Level) you will know that it is a huge block of moving ice that ‘flows’ through a valley, transporting and depositing rocks along the way. Snow falls in the basin of the valley (the very top) and over time is compacted into thick sheets of solid ice, which as it melts moves slowly down through valley. Normally it takes 1,000’s of years for the snow that was collected in the basin to travel thought the valley towards the wall but this glacier was quite unique
because it was classed as a ‘Warm Glacier’ as it was situated in an alpine forest environment which meant that it only took 50 years for this process to occur. Kim found it strange to think that the ice was moving and was shocked to hear that it can move up to 1 meter a day down the valley!!
Once over the glacier wall we were onto the lower plateau of the glacier and it was like being on a different planet. We were surrounded by 15,000 tonnes of solid ice in which we were guided to some incredible sights - huge ice crevasse, water falls and ice caves among others. James was in his element as this was one of his ‘must do’s’ for New Zealand but Kim was like Bambi on Ice. Even though she had 1 inch spikes on her feet she couldn’t seem to master walking over the ice and ended up on all fours for the majority of the time, to which James found hilarious. However the funniest / scariest incident must have been when we were trying to negotiate our way through a very narrow passage way (just shy of 1 foot across)
and the floor gave away when Kim stood on it and she was wedged between two vertical walls of solid ice only being kept in place by her boobs and bum! Kim automatically started to panic as she was trying to grab a hold of something but kept slipping against the ice and James and the guide had to pull her out. Ha Ha Ha. After an exhausting 6 hours of walking we were back on the bus and ready for a nice warm bath and a strong drink.
The following day we were both feeling a little sore and the majority of our muscles were in some sort of pain but we had no time to recover as we were back on the Magic bus heading south towards Queenstown. First up we passed though Fox, another town nestled next to a large glacier before stopping off at Lake Matheson. Often called the ‘Mirror Lake’ as apparently the lake reflects the Southern Alps which dominate the skyline, but unfortunately we were only able to view this on the postcards in the gift shop as it was pouring with rain and the lake wasn’t visible. After a few more hours
on the bus we stopped at Wanaka for a few nights as it was a recommended stop over and offers some more awe-inspiring scenery. The town is situated on the edge of a pristine lake and offers lots of activities to take part in. Unfortunately as it was raining we didn’t want to be outside for too long so we visited the famous Puzzling World - a unique attraction specialising in puzzling eccentricity and confusing the minds. It consisted of many different illusions that really played tricks with your head. The illusions included 3D Holograms, a room filled with 120 faces that followed you across the room, another room called the ‘Ames False Perspective Room’ - an illusion technique used in the Lord of the Rings to make Gandalf look very tall and the hobbits appear tiny and also an entire room that was built at an obscure angle to give many different effects including water running up hill and the famous Michael Jackson leaning pose…..you might need to see the picture to understand what we mean.
After pushing our brains to their limits in Puzzling World we ventured into the maze. Now normally it should only take 45 -
60 mins to get to all four corners and then find your way out, after 90 mins of scurrying around in the rain we had only completed 3 out of the 4 corners and were starting to get a little worried that we wouldn’t get out before it got dark. Therefore, when no one was looking we cheated and sneaked out through the fire exit and went home.
After Wanaka we were back on the Magic bus heading towards the notorious Queenstown but not before stopping at the home of the bungy, the Kawarau Bridge, the worlds first commercial bungy site. Neither of us really fancied jumping head first from a bridge suspended 50 meters over a valley, so we gave that a miss and just stood back and watched the other crazy people take part.
Queenstown is known as the ‘adventure capital of the world’, which is a fitting description for the huge range of activities on offer. Before arriving we excepted it to be very commercial and a bit of a dump, however we couldn’t have been further from the truth. Surrounding Queenstown are huge snow capped mountains and a beautiful lake that really make for a
great photo.
On our first evening we got persuaded to join a bar crawl around the town, sampling the many bars that were available. For $25 you received 8 free drinks, entry to the bars, photos and a guaranteed good time. Excited by the free drinks we put our names down and handed over the money. When we found out that the ‘free’ drinks were only shots Kim stormed up and asked for her money as she was expecting a nice Malibu and Coke or WKD, plus she didn’t want a repeat performance of Fiji, where she was nearly sick in front of a whole village. Never to back away from a drink James joined the rabble of crazed adrenaline junkies and was excited about the night. As we all staggered down the street from bar to bar it reminded us of being on an 18 - 30’s holiday in Benidorm and we soon realised we were too old for these foolish antics. After the 3rd bar we had had enough; the sickly jelly shots, repeated small talk conversations (Where are you from, Where have you been, How long have you been travelling etc etc….) and the fact that
James had spilt a brownish looking cocktail over his white t-shirt made us give up and go make to the hostel for a glass of red wine and TV….hahaha do you think we are ready for our pipe and slippers yet!
The following day we had a walk around the town, got some lunch and chilled next to the lake while we decided what mad activity we wanted to do next. Kim had always wanted to try white water rafting but James quite fancied the idea of learning how to ski. This debate lasted the whole day and as normal Kim managed to wear James down and he caved in. So we went to put our names down only to be told that the only available route was the advanced grade 6 that consisted of strong currents, 7 meter water falls drops and a good chance of falling out of the raft! As James isn’t the strongest swimming in the world, he went a little quiet and kindly asked Kim to reconsider. So 10 minutes later we were marching over to the snow centre to get kitted out with our ski wear!!
A late night and offensively early
Jmes and his ski school group.
Minus Kim, she had to wander back to the shop in her socks to get new boots!start we were packed on the bus with the other ski folk heading to Cardrona skifield. It took us 30 minutes to reach the base of the mountain and a further hour to make the slow climb to the summit. After a short while we soon picked up some of the skiing lingo and discovered that a ‘half pipe’ was not in fact a piece of equipment used by plumbers but a tube like slope that snow boarders use to perform tricks on. Our new found ‘coolness’ was soon demolished when Kim practically burst into tears going up the steep inclined and screamed at the driver ‘turn turn turn!!!’ at all the windy corners. We finally made it to the summit and even though Kim was a little shaking and James extremely embarrassed we both agreed that the view was amazing! We were so high up that the sun was languidly resting just above the clouds. As far as we could see there was a blanket of snow bright enough to burn the hangover haze from James’s retina.
Once suited and booted we fought our way through the queue to get our skis fitted and headed out for our first
lesson. Neither of us had skied before so even trying to master walking in the huge ski boots was taking a little while and after a nerve racking 10 minutes we managed to stumble the short walk to the beginners section.
There were about 10 people in our ‘First Timers’ group, and our first task was to drop our skis on the floor, clip one foot in and glide around in a circle…..How hard could this be! Pfffft, we were already one step away from back flipping our way down the expert path. With James’s cockiness growing, we soon realised it wouldn’t be quite so easy when he fell over trying to attach the other ski.
When asked by the ski instructor “What’s the first rule of ski club?” James ventured a guess and blurted out “Don’t eat yellow snow?” From the auditable tuts and disappointing stares coming from the ski group we guess that’s a no, then. With that and Kim clonking a small child of her ski’s our first lesson wasn’t going to plan. It also didn’t help the matter when Kim took off her ski boots and could them back on. In the space of 5
minutes her foot had magically grown and as James was trying with all his might to force her ankle into her boots, Kim was screaming out in pain and the instructor said that she should change her boots and join the next lesson.
As Kim walked bare footed across the cold snow back to the chateau, James continued with the lesson and seemed to be picking it up. Left foot ski circle - Success!, Right foot ski circle - Success! Both skis in a straight line - Could do better! (A for effort though). Once the basics were mastered we were taken up onto the beginners slope and let loose. Now when James thought of skiing, he had in mind images of James Bond machine gunning his way through alpine forestry and parachuting over rooftops. Seeing a four year old whizz past us as we struggled to stand was a mildly depressing realisation, but one that fuelled us with determination. Increasingly frustrated, we felt like we were learning to walk all over again. That is, if you were born with 4 foot clubfeet!!
After a short while we gradually learnt to manoeuvre around and with a couple of
glides down the shallow gradient, things were starting to look up. The next vital trick we learnt was how to stop. You needed to create an inverted V shape with your skis (officially called a wedge) and this should slow your momentum. It took a short while to master and even though Kim had to be caught by her instructor before gliding into the ski lift queue we were carving sweet trails through the fresh snow. After a few more practices our confidence was starting to grow and this prompted us to tackle a little but steep hill heading towards the chateau for lunch. Kim bottled out but James soared down the hill at a speed unmatched by most Olympians and performed a near perfect stop. Obviously this was the topic of conversation throughout the entire lunch.
Once we demolished our hearty bowl of soup we were back on the slopes for lesson number two - Turning. We had a new female ski instructor who was Scandinavian, blonde, had amazingly pearly white teeth and the ski moves that could knock the socks of Eddy the Eagle. James seemed mesmerised and was convinced it was an angel who had
fallen from the sky…..Anyway, we soon realised that learning how to steer might prove very beneficial and not before long we were both making snake like movements down the slope. Swishing and swooshing down the mountain is a liberating experience and slowly controls any jealous murmurings to trip up the children zooming past you.
For the piste de resistance, we were asked to draw a giant ‘C’ down the slope, we both excelled at this, and James went beyond the call of duty and managed to spell out ‘CWNOOOP’!!
With the evening closing in the temperature was starting to plummet so we jumped back on the bus for the Zig-Zag decent down. Again Kim went a shade of white and was seen biting all the nails off her fingers. It was only at the last corner when James realised she had a good reason to be afraid - 2 minutes ahead of us a bus’s brakes had failed, resulting in missing the corner and crashing into the mountain side. They were amazingly lucky that it was the last corner; otherwise it would have been game over. For the remainder of the bus journey Kim kept saying things like “See
what can happen!” & “I told you so, no one is invincible”. Even though that did freak us both out a little bit we thoroughly enjoyed the day and James is busy planning the next few holidays in the Alps as he believes he is a pro skier now. Plus Kim had to admit she had a better time skiing than she would have white water rafting.
We returned to Queenstown and finished the day off with a ‘Ferg Burger’ - a restaurant famous for selling huge delicious burgers; a must when visiting Queenstown.
After 3 days in Queenstown we were back on the Magic Bus heading along the old gold mining trail towards Dunedin a small city founded by Scottish settlers and actually means “Edinburgh of the South”. Neither of us has ever been to Edinburgh but understand it to be quite beautiful, Dunedin must be the complete opposite. Huge grey concrete buildings dominate the skyline and it generally looks rundown. We only stayed here one night as we were really disappointed, before moving on to Lake Tekapo.
We started the following day by running up the world’s steepest street, well we both stayed on the bus
and watched the other people do it as we were far too tired. After there we drove to Benmore Dam, the largest earth dam in the Southern Hemisphere and also took lots of amazing photos of Mount Cook (New Zealand’s largest mountain). We arrived at Lake Tekapo and were astounded by the beautiful scenery; it was like something from a postcard. The lake gains its unique colour from the minerals in the rocks which reflects the sunlight and therefore protecting a mirror image of the Southern Alps. Again we only stayed here for one night (James wanted to stay longer but Kim wouldn’t allow it) before catching our last Magic Bus trip back to Christchurch. After leaving the shores of Lake Tekapo, we travelled around the edges of the Southern Alps and then headed through the Canterbury Plains, the largest area of flat land in New Zealand. This might be better known to you as The Land of Rohan from Lord of the Rings.
We stayed three nights in Christchurch and didn’t really do much apart from go to the cinema twice and drank lots of coffee. We are going to be quite sad to leave New Zealand as
it really is an amazing country with breath taking scenery around every corner. From here we go down under to Australia and plan to base ourselves there for 6+ months visiting family, working and generally living the Ozzy lifestyle!!
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Alex
non-member comment
Ferg
Got to love the fergburger!!! I had a big Al and a Mr Bi awesome!!!