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Published: January 9th 2008
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Christchurch
The Fitzpatricks And so on to the South Island...
We arrived in Picton and headed south down the east coast. The landscape was a whole lot different to the North Island so we had a fairly leisurely drive down through the wine region as far as Kaikoura. Unfortunately the weather was miserable when we arrived in Kaikoura and so our first impressions weren't great, but we decided to stay put for the night anyway. I think it was either a little early in the season or the weather had just scared everyone away but the place seemed a little like a ghost town. However we did see lots of New Zealand fur seals lying up on the rocks around the coastline. Our stay in Kaikoura was probably the spookiest of our trip- the campsite was way too scary for me. The weather hadn't improved by next morning and so we moved on to Hamner Springs. The drive alone "The alpine pacific route" made this trip worthwhile but Hamner Springs was also well worth the visit. It's a really pretty little village famous for its hot springs. I had a great day of relaxation in the thermal springs topped off by a mud wrap,
which I really enjoyed. Not exactly backpacker style but sure everyone needs a treat once in a while! From Hamner Springs we headed for Christchurch where we met up with Mum and Dad again. We had a few great days with them in Christchurch. The city itself is pretty small with nothing much of note to see, but there are some nice restaurants and bars. We spent a couple of hours in the Antarctic centre, it was good but smaller than I expected. We also played some golf (well I opted for swimming instead of golf- but the other 3 golfed- I'm too young for golf!). The next day we headed for Akaroa and the beach. The scenery around here was fabulous and the little village very cute. The weather was fairly nice so I managed a bit of a swim (but I think thats the last time I saw any sunshine). Before Mum and Dad headed for home, we helped with the customary souvenir shopping. Hope you have enough Mum! The next morning Mum and Dad left for home (we are convinced they bottled the sunshine and brought it back to Ireland- its been raining here ever since).
Christchurch
Pat and Carmel So from Christchurch, we moved further down the east coast where the next stop was Dunedin. Dunedin is a nice town and we hit it on the day of a graduation so there was a good buzz around. Dunedin has a brewery and a cadburys factory- both of which we had to check out of course. The brewery tour was defintely the better of the two-plenty of samples! Cadburys here doesn't taste the same as at home, but they insist they use the same ingredients. It must be the milk- those kiwi cows.... While in Dunedin we also did a bit of a tour of the Otago peninsula and visited the only castle in New Zealand- not a patch on our Irish castles.
Beer and chocolate sampled we set off of on the southern scenic route through the Catlins to Invercargill. I'm sure this is a beautiful area, but we spent a lot of the time wet. It rained non-stop for the whole trip- our van even leaked one of the days. The dryers at our campsite that night got great use! On this drive we saw waterfalls and sheep and not much more- on the plus side the
rain meant the waterfalls were in full flow which was cool.
From Invercargill we headed into Fiordland to Te Anau and this is where the south island began to rival the north island for me. We did the first day of the Kepler track- a nice 14km climb to the top of Mt Luxmore where we had lunch in the clouds before returning. The weather hadn't improved too much and so the views were fairly limited. I later found out that it rains 200 days of the year around here so we would have been very lucky to get a clear day.
The next day we headed for Milford where we had reserved an overnight cruise on Milford sound. Having booked the budget option we were delighted to find out we had been upgraded to a cruise worth twice what we had paid! The fiord itself was amazing and this was probably the highlight of the south island for me. The cruise was really enjoyable- all the little extras were greatly appreciated.
Back to Te Anau to witness the local Santa parade. They had these all over New Zealand instead of the Santa's grottos we have at
Oamaru
A picnic with Humpty Dumpty home. From Te Anau we headed for Queenstown. We spent a night there and sampled a little bit of the nightlife before heading on to Wanaka. Again we just stopped in Wanaka for a night before driving up to see the glaciers. Now if I've mentioned rain once or twice already in this blog it was minor compared to what we experienced on the way from Wanaka to Fox and Franz Josef. When we arrived at the glaciers, they were both closed as the access routes were flooded. We decided to hang around for a day or two to see if the rain subsided. Luckily enough we managed a half day trek on the Fox glacier (Franz Josef was still inaccessible). The glaciers were cool, not as big as the ones we saw in South America, but the fact that they were on land made them a little different. The Patagonian ones were probably more impressive though.
From glacier region we headed back to Wanaka where the weather eventually picked up :-) This was what I expected for Christmas in the southern hemisphere! Eddie did a skydive in Wanaka, which looked cool. After getting the advice of three medical
Dunedin
Speights brewery tour professionals I eventually accepted that I have to avoid all free fall activities because of my eyes. I was soooo jealous as he headed of in the plane. He really enjoyed it and reckons he wasn't scared at all-yeah right. After the skydive we headed back in the direction of Queenstown and stopped at nice quiet campsite by the lake that unfortunately had a large population of sandflies. How can these tiny little things cause so much damage??
Next stop was Arrowtown- a quaint little village about 20 minutes from Queenstown. Well worth the trip if you are spending some time in Queenstown. And so back to Queenstown where we spent a couple of nights before leaving New Zealand. Having done most of the adventure activities, we just spent the time in Queenstown walking and getting into the Christmas party mood. We attempted the 12 pubs of Christmas but failed miserably and also went for dinner at the top of the gondola -a great dinner with a fabulous view.
New Zealand is a great place made better by the really friendly people.
And so time to move on to Sydney...
ps. I wrote this blog and
Dunedin
Cadbury chocolate factory Eddie added the pictures so this one is a joint effort!
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Carmel
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No we didn't spend all our time in Christchurch drinking cocktails! Wish we were still in New Zealand though, our trip was brilliant, I would highly recommend it to anyone.