The last Days with Clive, aka Four Seasons in One Day!

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Te Anau and Doubtful Sound

So we arrived into the beautiful little town of Te Anau after a long drive past many a sheep. or shup as we have decided that they needed a singular noun! (We do sometimes get bored during the long nights in Clive!)
The town is sat on a very picturesque lake and is obviously a tourist town, although I loved it. There were some fantastic restaurants which we sampled and the sun shone. What more can you ask for? We were in Te Anau for a trip down Doubtful Sound which is within Fiordland and were ready for an early start the next morning. The trip takes all day as you cannot just drive to the sound. We were ready for our pick up at the time on our tickets only to find that the place we had booked at had got the time wrong. Luckily we had a lovely campsite manager who had rearranged our trip for half an hour later. Kiwi's are wonderful people!
Once aboard the bus we had a 20 minute drive to Manapouri where we boarded a catamaran to cross Lake Manapouri. This journey is beautiful and takes about 45 minutes. Lake Manapouri is the site of a huge underground hydroelectric power station that we visited on the way back. Once we reaced the far shore ofthe lake we again boarded a bus this time to drive up and over the Wilmott Pass. This road was built to service the power station and the only way to reach it is by boat either from the ocean or across the lake. The buses even had to be sailed in! The road was small and steep and we had the obligitory photo stops on the way up. After about 30 minutes on the bus we arived at the start of the sound. Now Doubtful Sound is just gorgeous. The water is black and reflects the surrounding mountains and bush like a mirror. We had about three hours on the sound and were luckily to see a pod of about 50 dolphins jumping in the water and playing around the boat. They were bottlenosed dolphins but apparently larger then the ones that live in the open ocean for some reason that was explained to us but I now forget. We sailed right to the end of the sound and saw some more seals! Seals that is all I see in this country!
Then on the way back they turned off the boat engines and everyone went quiet. It really was magical, no sound at all apart from the birds in the bush. The water was dead calm and apart from a pesky bee buzzing around my head I could have stayed there for ages!
The trip back was lovely too and I would definately recommend it as a trip out.
After Te Anau we were heading up to Queenstown, the centre of adrenaline and excitement, or so the tourist brouchures say.

Queenstown

Well Queenstown was definately the busiest place we had been in the South Island. The drive up was impressive heading through some amazing scenery and it doesn't supprise you that a lot of the Lord of the rings was filmed around here. We were staying at a huge campsite that I could tell mum was not best impressed with. The toilets were like something from Prisoner Cellblock H but it was clean. We were also at the top of a hill looking down over the town which was a bit tough after feasting in one of the many, many restaurants there.
We did touristy things here, like a trip up the gondola to the top of the mountain and played Mini Golf which i only won by one stroke. (Is that what you say?) Mum burned that afternoon in the sunshine but I am obviously getting used to the sun, and I had applied liberal amounts of Ambre Solaire!
On the second day I booked in for another horse trek, honestly I am getting into the whole horse thing. The trek left from a small town called Glenorchy and we had an hours drive in a van very like the volunteer van with a mad Norwegian driver. When we thankfully got out we were partnered with our horses. I was riding Nigel who was a total star in more ways then one. He was so placid and did exactly what he should have done, but he was also famous. He had been in the Lord of the Rings a lot and featured in all the battle scenes in the third film. I don't think the celebrity had gone to his head though! We rode across many rivers and fields and were right at the bottom of some fantastic mountains, the Misty Mountains for any LOTR fans.
After the ride my thighs were not up to much but we had a good couple of days in Queenstown and were ready to head off the next day further up the West Coast.

And the rain came down!

Well the drive from Queenstown to Wanaka was uneventful, unless you count the disgusting smell that Clive had developed as we left and we had to put up with for over 2 hours. Windows open and plenty of mints sucked! Then as we left Wanaka the rain started. This was not nice English rain but heavy torrential Kiwi rain and it didn't stop for three days. We were headedup the West Coast which is meant to be spectatcular and I'm sure it is if you can see it. All we saw were the window wipers.
We arrived at Franz Josef late that night and were staying in the Rainforest Campsite who's bar proclaimed ''When it rains, we pour!'' Fairly apt I thought. We spent a soggy night there and the next day in a break in the rain we headed up to look at the glacier. I had thought of going on the glacier walk but honestly couldn't be bothered and apparently the amount of rain had made it dangerous up there and had rerouted a number of the glacial rivers so I was kind of glad.
We were fed up of the rain so headed off a day early further north to the small and very unimpressive town of Hokitika. There are many jade shops here and mum managed to find a jade necklace she loved but I could not find a special one so the search continues!

Snow!

The next morning we headed off in the rain to make the crossing over to Christchurch. Luckily we stopped for a cup of tea and were told that Arthur's Pass across the mountains was snow covered and only passable with chains on the wheels! Well there was no way I was fixing chains to Clive and skidding across the tops of mountains so we headed further North to the lower Lewis Pass. As we headed along the pass the rain let up a bit and then it started snowing. Honestly it was meant to be summer and here we were in the rainforest with bush all around us covered in snow. It was totally mad and freezing. Mum tried to find a camera to take some piccies but couldn't so we only have the ones from the bottom when we were finally able to stop. We stayed that night in Hamner Springs and wussed into a hotel. Poor Clove but it was absolutely freezing! I managed to persuade mum to go in the hot springs there and even though she hung to the stair rail the whole time and was hailed on I think she enjoyed it.

The Journey Back for Clive

The next day we headed back to Christchurch, stopping to feed some ducks and hang about on a beach. The weather had decided to warm up!
We stayed our last night in Clive in Christchurch. We were returning him the next day.
Our last day with Clive was my birthday so we headed to the Antarctic centre for a bit of a treat. This is the place where most Antarctic missions head out from and they have built a tourist attraction there. We got to ride on a Hagglund. This is an Antarctic vechicle that bumps you about on an assault course and although I thought it might have been a bit lame I loved it.
The centre has loads of interesting things to look at but I loved the cold room. Here you are given boots and a special jacket and then you go in where they have snow and an igloo and the temperature is usually minus 5 but then a storm rolls in and the wind howls and the temp drops to about minus 25. BBRRRRRRHH! Was a real laugh but took ages to warm up afterwards. Reminded me off being in Canada.
Then they have also rescued some Little Blue Penguins so we got to see them up close. Very cute.

Returning Clive turned into a bit of a nightmare as we had to fill him with Diesel and I managed to snap the fuel cap in half when it was still in the hole and then a woman reversed her car into the drivers door. This was at the petrol station right next to the rental place. Typical we had done 2500 kms and we had two accidents just as we returned him. Well we miss Clive and he was a great way to see the country.

Let the train take the strain

So after leaving Clive behind we were reliant on good old public transport and caught the early train from Christchurch to Kaikoura the next morning. Kaikoura is the whale watch capital of New Zealand. They have resident pods of sprem whales and at other times of the year you can see most species of whales swim about in the sea just off the coast. We were lucky to see 3 whales on our trip and enjoyed a potter about on the ocean although mum had taken the sea sickness pills this time and then totally knocked her out. we met up with Courtney and Barbara from GVN on the bus which was nice as we didn't know they would be there.
That night in the hostel was interesting as it was St Paddy's day and lets just say that being woken at 5am by a man in underpants in your room trying to either pee on you or climb in your bed is not as much fun as it sounds!

From Kaikoura we travelled onto Picton our last stop in the South Island. We managed to book two nights in the most amazing lodge up the Marlborough Sounds. It was heaven here! It is called the Lochmara Lodge and you have to get a boat to reach it. They have 35 hammocks to try out hidden across the property and I tried out a fair few of them. The bird life was amazing and I got to kayak the sound again. There is a glowworm dell which was cool to see and a private spa on the hillside that was delightful!
They have a resident chef there over the summer who cooked the most amazing food and we really did not want to leave. Two days was definately not long enough but it was a lovely place to just veg.

So the last day in the South Island was spent in Picton and then we boarded the ferry to Wellington. I was excited about seeing welly again and catching up with people before heading off again to explore the North Island. So we have 11 days in Wellington and then are heading up to the North.

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Comments

[anonymous]

en route to wanaka did you go to puzzle world? looks cheap and tacky- best bit of the trip qtown to wanaka besides the bungy for me! lol! ahhh good times. and which minigolf did you do? the indoor or outdoor? the indoor one was immense and my score was immpressive. Ill show the score sheet sometime. Sounds like your having a brill time. Am jealous all over again.