Another bulk update, sorry!

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Hello there, its actually on the 2nd December that I am writing this, so its been catch up time again. How do all these bloggers manage to keep their blogs so up to date? We are far too busy with having a fab time and washing our socks. ……speaking of which, have you any idea how long it takes to wash socks without a washing machine…no, well neither do I, we use the machines available on the campsites haha!
As you can tell I am in a rather good mood as the last few days have been such fun, let me start with day 23 The Catlins……:
After our posh cruise on Doubtful we decided to take a rather remote and somewhat dusty drive through the far South of the island. The drive is known as the Catlins and our guidebook advised us to stock up on fuel and food as there are few and far between places to buy more.
So stocked up we get and off we go…… we drive through various little coastal fishing villages until we hit our fist destinations of Slope Point and Porpoise Bay. Our campsite is perched on the cliffs of Slope Point and is rather rough and ready, but the location is amazing.
After a rather nice dinner of asparagus with Hollandaise sauce (not all backpackers live of pot-noodles you know), we go for a walk on the beach at porpoise bay and try to spot the resident Hector dolphin pod. Unfortunately they evade us and we head up on the cliffs for a view of the sunset instead where we imagine spotting a blue penguin instead.

After a reasonable night sleep we head off feeling a bit grubby as the showers did not appear to be the place to get in any state of clean.
We attempt to view the Cathedral Caves between Chasland and Papatowai, but the access road is closed due to erosion. Mmmh so far no dolphins or caves.
But finally a little gem, we stumble across an old curiosity shop called the Gypsy Caravan. It was filled to the brim with recycled toys and games, and played very much on the human instincts to touch, hear and see….we loved it and spent a fair bit of time playing with the delicate toys.
After tearing ourselves away from the Gypsy we head for a nearby waterfall called Purakaunui. I think Milford somewhat spoilt us for falls as we were left unimpressed by the trickles that cascaded past us…..
Never mind, onwards!
We ventured down a narrow gravel road that gives Ellie our camper a rather dusty coating but eventually leads us to the aptly named beach of Cannibal Bay.
And here we come across some wonderfully sleepy New Zealand Sealions. They were so gorgeous I could hardly contain myself. We gently approached the lions from the dunes as we didn’t want to cut off their escape route to sea should we accidentally spook them. We needn’t have worried as they were really fast asleep and also upwind from us.
Jaime managed to get some fab photos for us!
After a few minutes of watching them snooze, we gently snuk away again to a safe distance for me to perform my dance of joy at seeing these amazing creatures in the wild.

In the afternoon we decided to venture onto yet another gravel track to hunt down Jacks Blowhole, a 200 metre subterranean tunnel that leads to an inlet where seawater splashes up a 60m metre deep blowhole in the middle of a sheep pasture.
It was a very peaceful place to be, although I doubt whether even the locals had ever seen water spout out of the blowhole itself.
For the evening we make it to the city of Baclutha, a rather small farming service town with a tiny campsite BUT lovely hot shower!
(mmh I am beginning to think this blog is listing the words “hot shower” too much, but you wont believe how happy just a hot shower can make you after a dusty or wet day on the road)

Day 25 Christmas Shopping with wings….
We have arrived in the city of Dunedin after our tour of the Catlins and are eager to finally commence our Christmas shopping.
We checked into the local campsite which seems somewhat crowed after our last few days of driving through the most isolated area of New Zealand.
Time to hit the shops, the last Christmas post date to England is the 29th and we want to send some treats back home.
Dunedin is known as the “Edinburgh of the South”, it takes its name from the Gaelic translation of its Scottish counterpart, with which it also shares street and suburb names.
It was founded by Scottish settlers and is bursting its banks with over 25,000 Students studying at the University of Otago.
There are a few nice historic buildings for Jaime to explore and whilst he decides to venture out on a 4hour train journey I make my way to the Otago Museum.
The museum houses a wonderful discovery world and butterfly enclosure.
Unfortunately the battery on my camera goes flat so I don’t manage to get many snaps of the multi coloured butterfly’s. However, I do manage to persuade Jaime to visit the Museum again with me a couple of days later and he gets a few cracking pics for me.
We also visit the Botanic and Chinese gardens which are in full bloom and could have us spending days exploring, but the next stage of our journey was calling me- The Otago peninsula.
Otago houses the worlds only land based colony of Royal Albatross which I have been looking forward to seeing since we started planning our trip.
We book ourselves in for the 12 O’clock guided viewing and then decide to fill our time by visiting another extremely rare creature known as the yellow eyed penguin.
The penguins are in breading season and there are several fluffy chicks for us to spot from our viewing trenches. These guys are adorable, just love the way they waddle to and from sea only to then blow you away by swimming with incredible agility.

Its Albatross time! We get to see several nesting birds and one juvenile waiting for high winds to take him out to sea. They are simply enormous, with wingspans of up to three and half metres.
Our encounter may seem a little humble, but considering the rarity of these majestic birds and that they spend the first five years of their lives in continuous flight out at sea I am simply thrilled to have seen them.
We also added a little detour to our Albatross encounter that involves a historic viewing of the Fort Taiaroa. The Fort still houses a “disappearing gun/cannon” which we get to view after finding our way through a warren of tunnels. I don’t mind this gun so much as it has never taken a life and has only been shot in practise and the tour was quite interesting.

By now we are on Day 28 and its time to decide if we head onto Christchurch, Mount Cook or make the trip back to Queenstown.
To give ourselves some time to decide, we head a little further north to view some rather famous rocks. Don’t laugh, they are actually quite cool. Known as the Moeraki Boulders, they are large grey and almost perfectly spherical. Up to 2 meters in diameter and some broken ones actually reveal their honeycomb inners. I could bore you with how these strange phenomena appear on the mids of a NZ beach, but I am sure Jaime will give you a more detailed and scientific analysis on his blog (ps look for nickname “Aber”) so I’ll save myself the bother.

Somehow we make a decision to head to Queenstown by turning left instead of right and head of on a rather rainy afternoon into the centre of the Otago district.
We have actually touched down in Queenstown before on our rush down to Milford Sound, but promised ourselves to spend some more time here. After all it’s the adventure capital of New Zealand.

Day 29 Jets, Horses and Paradise
Touchdown in sunny Queenstown!
Stunning mountains surround Lake Wokatipu with funky Queenstown nestled on its banks. We decide to join the adventurous fever gripping all the tourists in the area and book ourselves onto the Shotover Jetride for the morning and some horse trekking for the afternoon.
The shotover Jetride is a thrill, you speed along through a deep river gorge, barely missing the rocks and skimming the surface of water that’s only 10 centimetres deep in places. Our driver Clay manages to get every single one us wet with his numerous 360 degree turns. LOVE IT, WANT ONE…they only cost around £100K, please for Christmas?
We head into town for a yummy Thai Curry lunch and then make our way to our pick up point for the 40 minute drive to Glenorchy where we are booked in to meet our horses for the afternoon.
The drive simply takes our breath away, this is Lord of the Rings country and some of the most amazing scenes from the movies have been filmed right here (alongside another movie coming out soon called Wolverine which I cant wait to see!).

We stop at the farm for riding boots and hats and are then bumped along a dusty gravel road to meet the heard of horses in a rather aptly named place called Paradise.
Jaime is allocated a lovely chestnut called Randall and I heave myself onto a huge horse called Chester. Unfortunately Chester turned out to be far too strong for me and I am reallocated to a rather cheeky horse called Seth.
Seth likes munching his grass and tries on several occasions to throw me out of the saddle by pulling on his reigns with significant horsepower, but we soon make friends.

After half an hours riding we settle into the smell of horse and hay and enjoy the stunning scenery. Aragon (very cute king from LOTR movie) could be riding up to me any moment now to whisk me away to his castle by the sea…..hope we don’t meet that annoying elf woman Liv Tyler along the way…..

I must admit that our guides appeared a little disorganised and scared us up a few rather steep hillsides and through some creeks that the horses just loved to jump over.
I have not been on a horse in over 20 years and certainly didn’t feel experienced enough to canter and jump on my first ride, but Heyho, we all managed to hang on to our horses and really enjoyed the experience.

Day 30/31 Mount Cook and sore legs
Morning Campers
The day after sitting on a horse for the afternoon, autsch you find muscles you didn’t know you had! Jaime’s just fine of course, grrr!

We stayed in a tiny town called Twizle last night. Very sweet little campsite with a resident kitty called Possum.
Today we are heading for Mount Cook. It’s a breezy but very sunny day and we make it in good time and with fab views of the mountains along the way.
Once we make it to Mount Cook Valley we decide to do a hike to view one of the Cooks glaciers called Hooker.
It’s a 4 hour hike which manages to loosen my sore legs a little, but unfortunately we didn’t realise how strong the sun was as the wind made it feel quite chilly. And even though we put on sun-cream I manage to get a nasty sunburn on my neck and ears.

The hike itself was nice and we actually saw floating blue ice that had broken off the glacier at the end.
We had to cross two swingbridges along the way, the second of which scared the wollys of me. Very high winds and a raging river beneath- yikes, very safe I was assured, just a psychological issue HA HA! Anyway, lovely hike and with only a couple of minor hills.

Day 32 Christchurch
Our campers poorly, she’s been making broken driveshaft noises for some time now so we decide to swap her in at the depot in Christchurch and have a look at the city whilst there.

We have a new camper called Walley. Walley appears to have been mistreated by his last occupants as he reeks of cigarette smoke and is a little worn round the edges.
Never mind, at least he wont break down in the middle of nowhere (we hope).

We head into the city and after hunting for an hour for a parking space (forgotten what its like to need a parking space!) find the Tourist information office and book ourselves a combo of Tramrides, Punting and a Gondola ride for just 50 dollars! (under £20).
My first ever tramride! Lovely worn old trams with very cheery conductors.

We decide to board our punting boot near the botanic gardens and are swiftly nestled under a blanket before Phil our punter (is that what you call the guys who do the stick in the water thingy?) anyway, yes Phil our not so authentic punter (he’s from the Wirral in the UK) punts us along the river.
Lovely, could do this all day!

Its time for our Gondola ride. Unfortunately the weathers closed in and we don’t get much of a view of Christchurch but heyho.


Day 33 High winds in Arthur’s Pass
All done with the city again, we head out to the west coast and across Arthur’s Pass - a spectacular road crossing from the east to the west coast with mountain ranges and lovely valleys.
We make it to Arthurs Village by midday where we head straight to the information office only to be told that there are storm winds and thick clouds on the mountains surrounding us. Jaime was quite keen on walking the 1800 metre ascending Avalanche trek but was told that the weathers just too bad. (I am kinda relieved as a trek called Avalanche could never make for completely safe walking).
So here we are, we have made it through Arthur’s Pass and are parked up in a quirky campsite by the sea. Its quite cold and my fingers are stiffening up as I try to type….time to go for a brisk walk on the beach to warm up and then its sausage time. Have I mentioned sausage time before? Well Jaime and I have silk sleeping liners, yes very posh, and you kinda have to wriggle a lot to get into them. So bedtime is now sausage time……Night, night All…..mind the swingbridges….. xxxd


Day 34 Rocks that are Pancakes and the flying fox
Hello there!
Today we looked at some more interesting rocks! Yep rocks are interesting and not just the sparkly ones.
We visited Dolimite Point on the west coast to see these fascinating formations. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t on our side today so we didn’t spend much time at the point and soon retreated to the local café for a treat of cake and coffee.
After the pancakes it was time to head inland again, so we made our way along the Buller River which has some of the most stunning gorges in NZ.
Along the way we found the longest swingbridge yet- 165m, you can tell from the pics that the crossing of this one was just as enjoyable as any other we’ve encountered to date. This one did come with a nice twist though, instead of having to make your back over the bridge on foot, you could strap yourself in a harness and zipwire back over the raging river. Also known as a flying fox in NZ. FUN!!! Could have done that all day.
After the swingbridge and fox we were under severe attack by sandfly and decided to head away from the river. The fly’s were so ferocious that Jaime actually let me commit mass-murder by using an insecticide spray in the van.
Tonight we are in a rather nice lodge called Sabienes Travers in the Nelson lakes.
Its warm, dry and has the usual lovely hot shower - me equals happy.
We’re going to spend some time around the lakes (weather permitting), and then head up further south for some more seal encounters.
Til then, signing off XXd

Day 35 Huge Eels and some black swans!!
After a lovely nights rest at the lodge we headed for lake of Rotoiti where we encountered some simply huge and rather tame eels. We laid on the jetty and peered down into the crystal blue waters only to have several eely eyes stare back at us.
The eels are under protection by the department of conservation and practically floated horizontal they were so relaxed in our presence.
After a while a pair of black swans came floating over to say hello, but even then the eels didn’t seem fazed. Jaime read that eels take up to 80 years to mature which explains how they manage to reach their enormous size.
For the rest of the day we headed to the far north towards Marauhau, with the full intention to book ourselves onto the ‘swimming with seals’ and kayaking adventures, but I must admit that once we got there I kinda chickend out. I still don’t do so well with being out in the open sea. For those of you who don’t know, Jaime and I ran into some difficulties in some freak waves whilst on holiday in Tenerife a couple of years ago. We got caught under the strong currents and had to pull ourselves out over sharp rocks between several huge waves. I really thought we were going to drown. I’m a strong swimmer, but was utterly powerless to stop myself from panicking and gulping in water whilst being thrown against the rocks.
My legs became unusable through lactic acid and Jaime had to pull me up the last few metres. I still feel that he saved my life that day and it has left me with a complete and utter trust and faith in him…hence the 2 months in a tiny camper together haha!
Enough of that horror story, it just leads me to say that I have developed a real fear of drowning and have little faith in myself for keeping panic at bay, so once we looked into what was involved I decided against the swimming and kayaking.
The next day (Day 36) we ventured out to the golden bays of Able Tasman and found a lovely beach called Kaiteriteri. The beach was covered in numerous spiral shells and of course the usual sandfly.
I managed to get my legs and feet bitten 18 times to match Jaimes 10 bites on his hands, Its NOT a competition honest. Those fly’s really do enjoy us pale English sorts.
We ventured on up the coast via the Able Tasman drive and stopped to take in some beautiful fresh water springs called Pupu. Unfortunately New Zealand suffers from numerous introduced algae pests in its waterways and rivers, so the DOC had protected the springs from contamination by preventing any form of contact. This did result in us being unable to test the DOC’s claim that it was the cleanest water in the world- It did looked amazingly clear though.
After a little hippy style shopping in Takaka we headed for the Groves, a rather mystical walk through a secluded jungle forest.
It was like being in an Indiana Jones movie. Jungle noises surrounded you, vines and huge fern leaves barred your way, and enormous spider webs promised monstrous encounters. Jaime climbed several of the limestone rocks that protruded through the trees which made for good picture taking.
We decided to spend the night next to the lovely Kaiteriteri beach we had found earlier in the day and bedded down to watch the clear stary night through our sunroof in the camper…stary, stary night…….

Day 37 What not to wear?
Onwards to Nelson and Marlborough Sounds. We stopped to take in the WOW museum, which has a fascinating collection of wearable art and some rather fab classic cars.
If you like your bra’s embedded with taps and chandeliers - this is the place to come.
The car collection was incredible and included a Maybach and ‘Back to the future’ style Delorean. My favourite was a black, shiny 1920’s Cadillac though. Could see myself cruising down the M62 in that one!
After Nelson it was time to head for the port of Picton and decide whether we would embark on the 72km walk of the Queen Charlotte track. Although longer than Milford, this one is far more commercial with swanky places to spend the night and your packs ferried on for you each day by watertaxi’s.
Unfortunately my sandfly bites had really kicked in by this time and had swollen my ankles to double their size. Walking far was out of the question and as we had spent some time adding up our dwindling finances the night before, we decided against the hike.
So now we are on the ferry back to Wellington and the North Island again.
It seems such a shame to leave the South behind, we have had so many adventures here and I really loved the incredible landscape. Some good news though, sandfly’s are suppose to be far less in number on the North Island…here’s hoping, bye for now.
XXd

Day 38 Freedom Camping
After the last evaluation of our dwindling finances we decided that we should tighten our belts and camp more on the DOC provided wilderness campsites. The campsites are very basic and usually just boast a toilet and perhaps some water siphoned from lakes or rivers. But hey as they are either free or a max of 10 dollars - needs must.
We found a free site near Featherstone about an hours drive from Wellington in our guidebook and headed straight for it.
The DOC campsites are quite hard to find as directions usually lead you out into the general wilderness, but we did alright with this one, It was very tranquil, next to a babbling river (with added sandfly of course) and amongst some lovely old beach trees.
We settled in for the night, made some pasta on our trusty stove and spent the rest of the evening avidly listening to the lovely bell birds and woodpigeons.
When night calls however, nature is not far behind and we realised that this site only had one toilet available that was simply unusable due to the millions of fly’s occupying it.
Now my apologies to the boys reading this, but us girlies know what a pain it is to try and have a tinkle in bushes whilst keeping your dignity and balance intact! In addition, it would not be fitting to leave any toilet paper behind, so your constantly rustling around with plastic bags and hand-disinfectant. Anyway boys, count yourself lucky your anatomy appear more suited to the outdoorsy life.

Day 39 Rivers, ducks and mangojuice
After a restful nights sleep, I decided it would be quite fitting with our new ‘back to nature’ approach to have a morning wash in the river. Boy, that was cold and of course the sandfly’s barely gave me time to wash my face before the attacks commenced. So back up to our camper I ran for a breakfast of jam sandwiches and mangojuice.

Our journey continued north via Palmerston, where we stopped off for a visit to the tourist information office to collect some brochures of the Whanganui River area.
Palmerston was quite busy, but had a nice little park in the central square.
We decided to have lunch there and where soon under siege by the resident pond ducks. Cheeky little things that would almost steel the food from your plate if you let them. (we didn’t though, as Jaime just gave up most of his lunch to them willingly anyway ahhh bless)
We then made our way to a little town next to the Whanganui river called Raetihi, where we spent the night. It had started to rain and we didn’t hold out much hope for our plans for the next day - a jet boat ride up the river, with lunch stop off at a historic site called Bridge to Nowhere and a 4 hour Canadian canoe trip back.

Day 40 Rain, Rain & more Rain
The heavens opened and our nicely laid plans for the day floated down the drain - hahahaha! Yes, it blumming rained again and we didn’t fancy getting the camper any damper that it already was so got back on the road towards our next desitination of the Tongariro National Park.

This is where volcano land starts and we had planned to do a day walk over the Tongariro crossing. With promises of emerald lakes and hardened lava flows it sounded like a very scenic hike.
After stopping off in a local backpackers for some transport information we were told that the weather front was set in for the week and the Tongariro may not be worth the effort as the volcanoes would be shrouded in mist.
As the Jaimster loves his pics it hardly seemed worth the 18km hike (and not to mention 1800m accent) for pics of mist, mist and more mist.
So onwards we went again. It feels like all we have done for days now is just drive, drive, drive. Its time to do some stuff!! Oh and staying in the same place for more than one night at a time wouldn’t go a miss either!! Sorry, I’m full of complaints, but the campers no fun when it rains and everything we want to do seems to depend on the weather. Grr and double Grr…….
Heyho, I have a treat coming up - ROTORUA, also known as Hells Gate!

I mentioned previously that we have now entered volcano land and on the way to Rotorua we came across our first steamy encounters.
Firstly we stopped off at the roaring Huka Falls - here the full flow of the Waikaito River, one of New Zealand most voluminous rivers, funnels into a narrow chasm before plunging over a 10 metre shelf into a seething whirlpool.
The sheer power of the water is incredible. Would you believe some fruitcakes actually kayak down this thing….Jaime got quite excited at the idea of this but I managed to tie him to the railings before he got too enthusiastic.
Next was our visit to the moon, or more precisely the Craters of the Moon - a geothermal area that displays hyperactivity with high pressure steam rising to the surface with cracks and craters turning the landscape into an ere site.
After that steamy encounter it was time for some TLC, so we stopped off at the Beehive.
The Beehive is basically a large shop that sells anything and everything to do with Bee’s. The fun part is though that you can try as much honey as you like, indulge yourself with several nips of the honeywine and slaver on some lovely creams and lotions all handmade from yummy honey! Delicious!

We have made it to Rotorua for the night and my treat I mentioned earlier is to visit the mud baths at Hells Gate. Apparently its like playing with silk in a large hot bathtub - lets see shall we. Mom and I visited a swanky spa in Hudderfield not so long ago where we booked ourselves in for the mudspa - it involved being given just three tiny clumps of mud and a hot steam room for an hour and although we really enjoyed ourselves I am hoping to encounter some proper mud in the morning!!!

For now we are in a camper park that boasts its own thermal pools - not the cleanest pool I’ve ever been in, but it certainly warmed us up a bit along with a yummy veggie chilli that Jaime rustled up for us - your boy can cook now Trixie!
So its sausage time again (for those in the know). Night, night ….wake me if the volcanoes decide to have a paddy. xxd



Day 41 Feeling Hot, hot, hot
Yeay its stopped raining and the day is promising to be scorcher!
Its time for our muddy encounter. Our chosen spa for the morning is called the ‘Gates of Hell’. What a place! First you go for a 2 hour tour around the most ere landscape…. There are hot bubbling mud pools everywhere and steaming geysers throw out sulphurous smelling clouds. The Gates even boast the tallest hot waterfall in the world.
After our rather hot encounters its time to go play in some mud. We are shown to our own private mudpool that is heated by thermal springs to about body temperature. Unfortunately there were no mud-fights allowed so we had to make do with just caking ourselves in the silky stuff.
And then for the shock therapy, we were told to rinse ourselves off under the coldest shower ever before we could move into the mineral pools - YIKES!
The pools were nice though, bit hot for me at 40 C but Jaime liked it.

Unfortunately we didn’t bargain for that superhot New Zealand sun again and I managed to collect yet another sunburn.
We returned back to the campsite and spent the afternoon chilling out and reading in the camper.

Day 42 Swimming with the stars
We didn’t do much on day 42 either except for drive over to the east coast to a little township called Whakatane.
Whakatane plays host to some fantastic volcanic activity sites including the worlds only active marine volcano. This was a site not to be missed so we booked ourselves on a sailing trip for the following day (day 43).
Our evening was spent in a campsite 15km outside of Whakatane. We didn’t think much to the general facilities but they had 2 huge thermal pools that we were able to use until 10.30 at night. We went for our first swim around 6pm and decided to come back for nigh time experience once it got dark.
It was so lovely, the stars were out, we had a full moon and the water was about bubblebath temperature.
Swimming by moonshine - I could do this every night.

Day 43 The White Island
We boarded our rather swanky vessel called Peejay IV and headed out across the south pacific for 50km or so.
The White island loomed ominously over us as we avidly listened to our safety instructions incase the volcano decided to pop its top. Not such a far fetched idea either, the last eruption was in the year 2000.
We were handed hard hats and gas masks and then boarded our dingy to be ferried across the see.
The photos really speak for themselves, but lets just say it was one of the most bizarre feelings to be stud on a live volcano. (Well we didn’t stand still too long as boots were starting to melt) There were bubbling pools of mud, sulphuric gases in the air and venting hot steams chimneys. The most awesome sight of all was the crater lake, which was one the most acidic lakes in the world - basically you dip a toe, you loose a toe - that’s if you survive the poisonous gases.
Wow, wow and double wow - what an experience!!!!


Sorry again for all the bulk updates guy's, we really are struggling to find good internet access.
Love to you all, and dont forget to email me for crimbo and New Year!!!! XXd

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