South Island New Zealand

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We jetted off from Auckland to Christchurch on Saturday 17th March (after Joe fully satisfied his craving for MacDonalds chicken nuggets). Picked up our rental car and then went to explore Christchurch. I'm not quite sure what I was expecting the earthquake damage in Christchurch to be like, I certainly had no idea of the scale of the destruction - the whole city center is blocked off. We went to see the beautiful cathedral which is, tragically, being pulled down in a couple of weeks. However, despite the damage, we loved Christchurch. The current city center is made up of shops that have been put into brightly coloured shipping containers and the whole place had a real festival feeling about it.

We camped the whole time we were travelling around the South Island (albeit we were only there for 10 days..). We mainly stayed in free DOC campsites which were amazing, often at the most fantastic places and almost always an adventure in themselves to get to. Our first night was fairly uneventful, but we did share the campsite with a convention of bikers who played progressive rock far into the night.

The next day we drove up through the Southern Alps. Absolutely insanely gorgeous scenery. Very dramatic. We stopped to go for a couple of short walks but, with the time scale we had, it was hard to get much of a sense of the scale of the whole place. Stopped at Haitaki where a lady wanted to show us her eels.. she was lovely but we decided not to stay. Camped just outside Franz Joseph.

I was SO excited about Franz Joseph glacier that I dragged poor Joe there mega early to walk up to the face. Walking through the glacial valley was great although you can't actually see much from the face itself as there are fences to keep you away from it. Theres a much better view from the lookout point (although its a much steeper walk!). Stayed at Gilespies beach that night, undoubtably my favourite DOC campsite. The beach is dark sand covered in white pebbles and dry driftwood - its a surrealists dream. We took a walk and went for a swim in the lagoon where the water looks red from all the minerals in it (I hope). The next day we went on an epic walk onto Fox's Glacier. It was incredible! The guide took us up onto the glacier and we got to go through ice arches, peer down into the waterfalls within the ice and (best of all) down into an ice hole where you had to crouch down and shimmy backwards into a small hole to look up into an ice chimmney. Incredible. We spent the evening relaxing in the hot pools which were lovely but a bit of a traveller soup - no conversations veered away from New Zealand backpacking.

The next day we drove down to Queenstown - very exciting. Beautiful day so we just spent the afternoon sitting by the lake and enjoying the sun. We camped at 12 mile beach which was one of the locations for Lord of the Rings filming (!). In the morning we had our parasail! I was pretty nervous but it was excellent, you could see for miles and it felt quite safe apart from when the wind made us swoop about. We spent the rest of the day driving down to Te Anau where we visited the brilliant FREE DOC bird sanctuary - Joe was sceptical but we saw some excellent birds including parrots, ducks and an owl.

The following day we drove down to Milford Sound and the rain began.. We stayed in a campsite and spent the day sheltering from the downpour and dreading the evening when we would have to get back inside the tent.. But it wasnt too bad in the end. We were up bright (ish) the next day to go on our Milford Sound cruise. Very excitingly they gave us a free muffin each. Unfortunately the muffin was probably one of the highlights of the cruise as the rain was so heavy that we couldnt actually see anything out of the boat. In brief moments where you could see the cliffs at either side you could see the waterfalls going up as the wind was so strong that it was taking the water away before it could fall into the sea. Very bumpy boat ride. All in all I think we were glad to get back into the car and escape to the relatively dryer Queenstown. Picked up a lovely hitchhiker on the way who was drenched when we picked her up.

Luckily the weather cleared up for the next few days where we did little except drive up the east coast. We stopped in Kaikoura (brilliant fish and chips) where we went searching for seals and managed to see some frolicking in the sea about 100m away from us. The next day, when driving, we stopped to look at the sea and there were HUNDREDS of seals on the rocks about 10m away from us. They were huge. There were also baby ones who were surfing in the waves 😊

We took the Interislander over to Wellington. Lovely views of Marlborough Sound on the way out - its quite cool how the boat weaves between the hills on the way out. Then we drove back up to Auckland stopping at Napier (we're now converts to art deco) and Taupo. Taupo was pretty exciting - we went for a walk up to Huka Falls (not their biggest fan.. just seemed like big rapids to me) and then we went to the 'Craters of the Moon' park where you walk past loads of steaming holes and these large craters that have formed. Felt like being on another planet.

On our final day in Auckland we went to the zoo. It was excellent. Best bit was that we FINALLY saw some kiwis!! We went to their enclosure first and stayed there for ages but couldnt see anything. Eventually decided that it was a waste of zoo time to stay there all day so we went to look at other animals but we went back just before we left and we saw two kiwis having a nibble of food and a scrub around in the undergrowth 😊

Onto Chile next.. the adventure continues.. xx

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Comments

[Andrea]

Sounds Amazing!
Really makes me want to go to New Zealand! I loved the surrealist beach, and the campsites sound great. Sounds like you are having the kind of adventures I wish I had been brave enough to pursue. Can't wait till you get back so you can tell me more! xx