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Published: December 18th 2008
Everyone says how amazing New Zealand is, but until you're there it's hard to imagine just how spectacular it could be. We didn't have much time off and were worried about having to rush through, but in five days we saw so much I am really happy with how well we got to see the South Island.
Day One Well this was really day 2 as we arrived in Christchurch the night before, but since we didn't land till 11pm I don't really count that as a day. We stayed in a cute little backpackers called Frienz, and unfortunately, that was the last time we'd have en ensuite till we stayed there again on our last night. It might not seem like that much of a big deal, but when you're a couple on holidays it's really preferable to have an ensuite because trapsing down corridors and stepping over drunken foreigners on the way to the communal bathroom isn't so much fun.
Anyhoo, we woke up in Christchurch all excited about our trip. Because of the fact we didn't have much time we'd planned everything in advance; mapped out where we were driving to, booked all our hotels -
Lake Te Anau
Watching the sunset here we were so glad we'd booked 2 nights.all we had to do was pick up the car and drive away. I didn't panic so much when the first car hire place said they had no cars, but at the second place when they told us they didn't have any because it was a public holiday weekend and everything was booked out, I started to get a little stressed! At the third car hire place the lady told us she didn't have anything either and my heart sank, running through my mind all the cancellations I was going to have to make, until I realised she was telling us to come back in an hour and she'd have something then. SO LUCKY! We nearly messed that one up but luckily it all worked out.
Mental Note - In future, always book the hire car before arrival! So we left Christchurch as soon as we could and headed south to a little town called Akaroa. It came highly recommended and was also settled by the French so we had to have a look. It was such a lovely drive going there, we had to wind up hills and down again into the little valley where the town sits
right by the river. It makes the most of its French heritage, flying a French flag and all the street are names in French. That's about where the Frenchness ends but it is still a lovely spot - the kind of place a family would go to hire a cabin for a week and paddle on canoes. We stayed for about an hour.
We kept driving south and stopped next about 300km south in a place called Oamaru. It was getting late in the day by then and we were getting hungry and wanted to pull over for something to eat. Only problem was, as soon as we got out of the car we heard that awful hissing sound that can only be air leaking from a tyre! So we spent the next hour on the curb changing a tyre, watching the towns folk, dressed in Victorian costumes for some festival they were having, walking past us and feeling like we were on another planet! It's funny now, but JB definitely wasn't laughing at the time! We had wanted to see the Moeraki Boulders on the way down to Dunedin but the sun was going down and we had
a couple of hours of driving left and didn't want to be too late checking in so we gave them a miss. We got to Dunedin, checked in, grabbed a quick bite from a 711 as it was the only thing still left open and slept like we were in a coma - at least that was the most amount of kilometres we had to do in one day.
Day Two Over breakfast we decided we didn't want to miss the Moeraki Boulders so we decided to go back up the coast before heading west. It was only about an hour away from Dunedin, and I'm so glad we went because it was really worth the trip. The sun was shining, and we got to see the coastline that we'd missed the night before when it was getting dark. The boulders were spectacular - they're just round rocks on a beach but they're really beautiful. A bit further south was the tiny village of Moeraki, a little fishing town by the sea. We had a pit stop there on the cliff top - a pit stop I could enjoy with a glass of wine as JB had decided he
loved driving on the left hand side of the road and had completely taken over chauffer duty. And it definitely helped to have numbed the nerves a little because as soon as he pulled back out onto the highway his French instincts kicked in and he went straight onto the right hand side of the road - after a few seconds of me screaming he realised his error and was back on the left looking rather sheepish!
We drove for the rest of the day, heading west towards our next stop, Te Anau. It was a lovely drive, and we just watched the scenery change from coastal to mountainous, which was really nice. As soon as we pulled into Te Anau we were so excited to have booked for 2 nights. It was this gorgeous little town made up predominantly of tourists on the side of a lake - almost like a campsite but with flash hotels and a lil ol' YHA where we were staying. We went for a walk by the lake, watched the sunset, and then went for dinner where I ate one of the best meals I'd eaten on the whole trip (we hadn't been
so lucky in the way of food up until then, what with arriving at 11pm the first night, and spending dinner time the second night changing a tyre and all). We ate at the Fat Duck, JB had some meaty thing and I ate the most scrumtious pumkin and fetta ravioli in a cream sauce, that I will never be able to think of Te Anau again without getting hungry!
Day Three Day three was our day to relax and enjoy nature. We drove just a short way (one hour) south from Te Anau to Milford Sound. The drive was just breathtaking and we kept stopping and taking photos because every few minutes the view changed and there was something else more breathtaking than the last. We arrived in Milford Sound, but it was as if that side of the mountain didn't have any sunlight. There wasn't much to do there but take a boat around the river, so we drove back and stopped at one of the hiking trails. We did the Lake Marian hike which was one of the craziest, roughest hikes I've ever done. It started off so peaceful with wooden decking next to a river,
but then ended up so that at times we didn't even know where the trail was! We had to climb over dead trees, cross over old rivers by balancing on tree logs, and climb up parts of the trail that were so steep they almost felt like rock climbing. But it was all worth it at the end when we arrived at the top to see Lake Mariam; a gorgeous alpine lake surrounded by snow capped mountains. We just stayed there a while, ate a sandwhich and enjoyed that special calm that only mountain peaks can offer. I think this was my favourite day.
Day Four We left Te Anau, sadly - it was just such a beautiful place - and drove on to Queenstown. Although I was looking forward to seeing a city again, but I shouldn't have because Queenstown isn't really a city. It's just a lump. A lump of alpine lodges that are filled with tourists who spend their day doing crazy extreme sports, but you can tell that the whole city is just biding its time waiting for the snow so that it can really come alive. You can tell I wasn't so happy there?
Well, we'd just left the most beautiful place on earth to end up in a shanty town that was pouring with rain (the first and only time it rained our whole trip so we were actually pretty lucky weather wise). And worse still was that we'd taken the car back so we were walking around getting saturated to the point where when we got home we literally rung out our socks! But all was not lost - fantastic meal number two was in Queenstown. We ate a gorgeous little French restaurant, Solera Vino, and had treated ourselves to a very expensive meal, but it was worth every cent. Delicious!
Day Five We flew back from Queenstown to Christchurch and spent our last full day checking out Christchurch. It's a cute town, but again, very small and definitely not somewhere you would need to spend more than a day. They have some nice restaurants, a quaint little river with gondaliers and a pretty cool art gallery that has free entry and some interesting exhibitions. We spent our last night in our hotel room with takeaway, watching the little TV in our room and just chilling out. We didn't get much
sleep as our shuttle left at 4am to take us to the airport. All in all, it was an amazing getaway and we really packed as much as we could into the limited time that we had. We kept on the move the whole time, but still managed to arrive back in Sydney feeling relaxed and destressed - the perfect graduation present for me after five years of studying!
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