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Published: April 17th 2007
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Banks Peninsula
Our first stop a short drive from Christchurch Hi All,
What an amazing country, we are having a ball... We picked up our campervan about two weeks ago to start exploring the South Island a bit further. It has been the best thing we ever did. It is an EZY camper, which for me sums the whole experience up.
Our first stop was Akoroa and Banks Peninsula, this was a great place to start- pretty, peaceful and friendly. The town had a slight french feel to it (bloody french!! get everywhere), the walks around the town kept us amused and it was great to see some boats! Wonder if the owners would notice if we took them for a quick spin.
Our drives are sometimes long, but we always fill them with fun stops. On the second day we found a massive Cookie factory. They made the largest cookie in the world. We grabbed a big bag and got on the road. Only to stop a few miles down the road, as we found some fresh rasberries, strawberries and jam... Yum, I hope this eating continues. As you have all gathered eating has been a main theme of our tour. Well it has suddenly got beter.
Cookie Time
Our Diets have consisted of what we can buy at farm shops and places along the way... Just happened to be cookies here.. mmmm We can cook ourselves three massive meals and eat when and what we want. After being on a tour this has been great.
A great stop on the way down to Dunedin was the Moeraki Boulders, these were pretty amazing. The boulders just look like they had randomly fallen out of the sky onto the beach. A bizarre attraction but a great place to have a big lunch!
Dunedin and the Otago Peninsula were our next stops, Dunedin is a student city but the coastline and peninsula is amazing. Its pretty untouched, and not very many people travel here. We are glad we made the journey. We climbed the pyramid hills. Simon came down the quick way- mainly on his bum! We made our way down onto Victory beach, were sealions are suppose to hang out. They looked more like drift wood to me, we couldn't get close enough to prove it! So we will just say we saw sea lions... Big scary ones that chased us off their beach. Another great lunch stop on the top of a hill looking over both sides of the peninsula. Great until a bunch of tourists stopped to take photos of the
Moeraki Boulders
These famous boulders look like they have just fallen from the sky!! Makes a good photo though. sheep! Tourists!!!! HE HE! After lunch another great walk to lovers leap (Simon lept).
We started the Southern Scenic Route, the tourist drive along the south coast. The road was interesting, you would think that it would all be tarmac being a busy tourist drive. (Considering campers and hire cars are not suppose to use unsealed roads.) The lovely smooth roads turned into gravel roads very quickly! It was funny, but it did mean that we had to limit the number of stops. We couldn't risk getting stranded in the middle of nowhere. Well at least we would have had enough food...
A couple of good stops along the way were the Puakaunui falls, the walk was through thick forest and the waterfalls were pretty impressive, the photo speaks for itself. The next stop was cathedral caves, this stop you have to get the time right, we turned up unaware of this, but the tides were perfect (Perfect timing by us.) It was an hour walk down to the beach and into the caves. The caves went back along way, amazing to see the power of the Southern Ocean.
We drove through Invercargill, but being Good Friday everything
was closed, it was better to keep driving.
Queenstown was our next stop, one of our favourite places. We had a fairly relaxed time here, as we had already explored the town. We decided we woud see a bit more of the area by going to a little town called Glenorchy. It is 45 minutes from Queenstown, following the lake along for better views of the white capped mountains. It was brilliant, only 700 people live in the town, so pretty small and friendly.
Easter Sunday, it was necessary to have one egg. It was hidden in the safety deposit box away from our mouths. We drove up onto the mountains overlooking Queenstown, boiled the kettle and had Easter egg admiring the view. What a way to spend Easter... It was probably my best day of driving, through the mountains, winding but with every corner a new amazing view. It was pretty special, we stopped at Wanaka, a similar town to Queenstown. We did an amazing 3 hour walk to Diamond Lake and Rocky Mountain, it was challenging. But the panoramic views were worth it. Lakes, mountains covered in snow, and glacier in the distance. To round off
The Purakaunui Falls
Pretty nice lookling water falls a good day a soak in the SPA! This is the life!
We got very puzzled and lost at Puzzle World. Our poor little brains were fryed! There were many illusions and things to test whether our brains cells were still active after 5 months!! The maze was the highlight 1.5 km of tracks to get lot in.. This kept us busy for about and hour and a half walking about 5 kms, ridiculous! but fun.
Two days relaxing in the Abel Tasman National Park was just what we needed, there are some very popular walks here, we did a four hour tramp. The only access to the park is by boat. So we caught the water taxi from the beach to the start of the walk, and got to see some of the coastline. Some great views!
Wine Tasting was a highlight, in the Marlborough regions. Some of the best wines come from here and I tasted a lot of them... It was a brilliant morning, starting at the farmers market picking up all our fresh produce. Then onto about 5 wineries. I have some great bottles to try when we get home.
We left
Glenorchy
Amazing scenery arouond Queenstown the South Island today, it has been a great few weeks here. We have seen a lot and are looking forward to our next few weeks in the North Island.
Its the 17th of April today so we will be back in a month, time is going so fast. We are going to make the most of it, and we are looking forward to Fiji.
Speak to you all soon
Loads of Love
Catherine and Simon
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Vicky
non-member comment
Hmmm Cookies!
Well, there appears to be a lot of chocolate and treat eating going on! You two better watch those waistlines (especially you Cath!) I remember when we took that stupid shopping trip to S'oton at Easter and everything was closed! You sound like you did it better this time! I love the Flinstone car by the way...an excellent way to work off that egg! Lots of love, me xxx