Haere Ra Kody, Haere Ra New Zealand

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So, in my excitement to put up the blog about the skydive, I managed to miss out a few days, and now I’m so far behind it’s unreal. I'm currently sitting in Sydney airport departures lounge waiting for my flight to Darwin, so thought this would be the ideal time to at least write up the blog and catch up again, so sorry, this could be another long one.

I am most definitely my father’s daughter when it comes to getting to the airport - I like to leave nice and early to make sure I’m there in plenty of time, then factor in a bit of city centre rush hour traffic and then just a bit extra for the unexpected. As it happens, after checking in, getting through security, having some breakfast and finding a spot to sit, I only have 90 minutes to wait, so the plan has worked out quite nicely. There were a a few people on my shuttle bus this morning who maybe should adopt that kind of plan - I think they thought that once the bus picked them up it should have gone straight to the airport instead of going round the city picking up the other people who had also booked and paid for the same service - they huffed and puffed the whole journey long and even at one point when we were picking up a young couple with a baby, went to the door of the bus and shouted at them to hurry up and get on because he had a plane to catch! I was chatting to the mum later (we were going to a different terminal to the grumpy ones) and she said when he did that she had a good mind to slow down and fuss with the baby a bit more before getting on! But, I digress.

Wednesday 11 March

Today I was booked to do my sky dive, but unfortunately the weather (lots of wind and cloud) meant that I got postponed to the afternoon, and then postponed for the day. I decided to rebook for Saturday when the forecast was looking better. Due to having to hang around waiting to see if I was getting to go, I didn’t really do much today except read and relax and try not to think about falling through the sky too much!

Thursday 12 March

I drove today from Wanaka up to the glaciers on the West Coast. There are 2 main glaciers that are the big drawcards for the area - Fox Glacier and Franz Josef. These glaciers are unusual in that they come right down to the valley floor - apparently there are only a few places in the world where that happens (I think Argentina was named as one of the other places). Normally, at Fox Glacier, it is possible to park up at the bottom of the glacier, take a fairl short walk and be at the terminal face (i.e. the end of the ice) of the glacier. Unfortunately however, there have been some really serious rock falls along the DOC maintained path, and 2 people have been killed on the patch in rockfall since the start of the year. As a result, the path has been closed and it is only possible to reack the terminal face and get onto the ice if you are with one of the guiding companies. From the area where the have blocked off the path, you can still see the terminal face so that was good enough for me. There were some people who were crossing over the barrier and taking the risk, but I decided that it wasn’t worth the risk. A couple of days later, I read in the paper that another tourist had been injured in a rockfall on the glacier.

I also took a walk around Lake Matheson. On clear days it is possible to see the reflection of Aoraki (Mt Cook) and Mt Tasman in the lake - both peaks were shrouded in cloud the day I was there, so my reflection photo didn’t really work, so I’ve settled for a nice postcard of it.

Speaking of postcards, I’ve discovered that I’ve been a bit of a goose (I learned that phrase from an Aussie farmer - see I’m picking up the language!!). It turns out that in NZ there is NZ post which is the main postal service, but then there is also another postal service that just sends postcards (found in all the touristy places and hotels), but they both sell their own stamps and each have their own post boxes, and you don’t mix them up. I didn’t realise tyhis - I just thought the prettier stamps were nice editions that they sell to us tourists for our postcards. I’ve bought both kinds of stamps and used both kinds of boxes, just depending on where I am at the time and the box I see. I spoke to a lady at the post office - she says they will all arrive eventually, but they might take a while if they’ve been in the wrong box. Elizabeth is heading up the postcard poll for me - mum and dad finally got their first NZ card this week!

Friday 13 March

After the worst shower I’ve had on my trip so far (I still can’t believe that I paid for a cold shower!) I headed from Haast back to Wanaka - it was a beautiful day. I stopped off for a walks at Boundary Creek, Lake Wanaka and Lake Hawea. Back in Wanaka, it was the first day of the Wanaka A&P show, so I went that and had a wander around and watched some of the events. I didn’t do too much else, just started gearing myself up for my big day on Saturday knowing that if the weather stays as clear as this there won’t be any more postponements! As you’ll have seen from the blog, it all went ahead on the Saturday afternoon, and it was great!!

Sunday 15 March

I had decided that I wanted to return to Aoraki Mt Cook National Park for a couple of days, so today I drove there from Wanaka stopping off at Twizel. At Twizel, I stopped off for some late lunch/early tea at the Musterer’s Hut (where I had the huge breakfast before) and the couple who ran it recognised me and we chatted for a while about why I had changed my route - these people obviously have great memories for what their customers tell them as they knew that I wasn’t meant to be coming up this way on my way back north!

Monday 16 March

I spent today at Aoraki Mt Cook National Park wandering around, reading the paper and generally relaxing in the sunshine - bliss!

Tuesday 17 March

Leaving Aoraki Mt Cook behind, I headed further north and east. I passed though a nice little town called fairly and reached another nice little town called Geraldine, and decided to stay here the night rather than driving any further. I spent some time wandering around and had a look in their museum which was quite interesting.

Wednesday 18 March

I drove today from Geraldine to Kaikoura via Christchurch, where I managed to negotiate the motorway with no problems, so I was feeling quite pround of myself! Kaikoura was the place where I saw the whales and dolphins quite some weeks ago now, and made a good stopping point for the night after quite a long drive. I’ve made some good progress now and have caught up a bit after spending longer in some places than I had originally thought I would and then gone back to other places for a second visit, but there’s still not really a lot of time left here in NZ and still so much to see and do.

Thursday 19 March

It’s now been 2 months since I left home! Today I drove from Kaikoura to Blenheim to Motueke - I’ve now decided that I would like to visit the Abel Tasman national park which wasn’t on the original plan - but that’s the beauty of travelling like this - I can change my mind when I want to and just head wherever I want to - we’re out of the main season now so things are a lot quieter and you don’t need to plan ahead where you’re going to camp - you can just drive in and get a spot no bother.

On my route to Motueke which is the gateway to the Abel Tasman national park, I came across a farmer droving his sheep from one paddock to the next - the state highway is his stock route! I stopped and was crawling along behind them but the farmer told me I had to just push through the mob and keep going - thankfully a local was behind me so he pulled in front and started us off in a convoy and I just tailed along behind.

Friday 20 March

I headed today for Cape Farewell and the Farewell spit which are at the very northwest tip of the south island. Some precarious roads but some nice views into the national park area - I stayed overnight at Pohara beach.

Saturday 21 March

I drove back through Motueke today and headed to Hhavelock where they were holding their annual Mussel Fest. Havelock is the green lipped mussel capital of NZ. There were lots of events and stalls: I watched various mussel opeining competitions and also witnessed an attempt to break the guiness world record of opening mussels. The boy was trying to break his sister’s guiness record after she had beaten his 2 years ago - nothing like keeping it in the family. He didn’t break the record, but he wasn’t that far off it. There was also a competion called the mussel munch in which competitors were given a pot of cooked mussels and a glass of beer - the winner was the first to finsh all their mussels and then drink their beer. I didn’t take part in the mussel munch competition but I did have a small tray of mussels for lunch, so I suppose you could say I did do a mussel much afterall.

After this I drove to Picton to see about getting booked onto the ferry back to the north island. I had arrived around 430pm and there was a sailing at 7pm which still had spaces, so I just decided to go for that. All I’ll say about that is that I don’t think I was built for long boat rides!!

Sunday 22 March

A long drive today - longer than I had planned initially. I drove from Wellington to Taupo, buit via the scenic route through Wanganui and National Park passing by Tongariro.

Monday 23 and Tuesday 24 March

I spent a couple of days here in Taupo. This is the trout fishing capital of NZ. I read somewhere that it’s illegal to sell trout, so the only way to have trout for tea is to catch your own - although even as I’m typing that I’m feeling a little gullible!! There is also a lot of geotheraml activity in the area.

I visited the Craters of the Moon which is an area whereyou can wander along a path through some of the areas where there are many steam vents and pools of boiling mud. The craters are formed when the pressure builds up and the boiling mud errupts. Wandering around at some points you could hear the mud bubbling away and there were loads of steam vents all over the place. It was quite strange to think that at any time a new steam vent could appear or there could be an eruption - I walked around quite quickly!! There was a side path you could take up a hill to get some good views of the whole area.

I also visited the Huka Falls, known in Maori as Hukunui. These are just big falls created when the wider river is forced to go through the narrower channel, but still impressive nonetheless. I had a little wander around there too.

Not far from the Huka falls is the Huka prawn park where you can fish for prawns - I didn’t go in so I’m not sure how you do that - I thought you netted prawns.

I finished my day by driving to Rotorua

Wednesday 25 and Thursday 26 March

I drove to Raglan, my last camping stop before taking Kody back home to his spacestation in Auckland. Raglan is a lovely little town, famous for its many surf beaches in the surrounding area. It is also home to many artists and craftspeople. I spent my last couple of days wandering around Raglan, visiting some of these beaches, cleaning Kody inside and out, and packing my bag again.

Friday 27 March

Well, today was a sad day: after driving to Auckland, I had to take Kody home and leave him; he was probably quite pleased to be back amongst the other spaceships and away from my terrible singing as I drive! (I keep the car stereo up really loud so that I can’t hear myself sing, it’s that bad, and the louder I sing the louder the stereo has to go to drown me out!!).

In the last 7 weeks I have driven approximately 8,000km; my route has taken me over most of the south island and a fair bit of the north island - leaving enough undone to warrant another visit some time in the future! The maps in the links will hopefully give you an idea of the ground I've covered - they might take a while to load when you click through to google maps as there is quite a lot of information to be processed to enable the map to be drawn!

North Island

South Island


Saturday 28 March - Monday 30 March

Back sleeping in a real bed again - bliss!! As much as I loved camping out with Kody, and wouldn't have done this part of the trip any other way, it's very nice to have a little bit of space to spread out, and spread out I have - I'm justifying the mess with the fact that I need to get all my laundry done and pack properly for international travel. I've had a few days in Auckland and have spent most of them just wandering around enjoying the city and the harbour and so on. I took the ferry (thankfully only a short 15 minute harbour crossing!) over to Devonport and wandered around there for a while.

And that is the end of my tikitour around NZ. I’ve had a brilliant time driving around NZ with Kody; I’ve seen some amazing sights, done some amazing things and met some brilliant people. I'm pretty sure I've not recorded everything I've seen and done - when I get the chance to go over all the NZ blogs, I'll probably have to post another one to fill in all the missing parts.

Haere ra (Farewell) for now
lots of love
Claire
xxx

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Comments

[Wendy]

Sounds like you had a fantastic time in NZ!! Hope the next leg of the tour is just as good!