The South Island Fall Break Road Trip of Lifetime

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The road trip was in one word: scrumtrulescent. Everything went well, including learning to drive on the other side of the road. I think we hit up every major (and minor) tourist attraction in the south island of New Zealand. It didn’t feel rushed at all and the scenery was so great it made 7-8 hour drives in a mini-wagon bearable. While the company made it fun. I went with Kaye, Kat (both Geneseo girls) and their two friends from their university in Australia, Steph and Aash. I’ve already put up my nearly 350 pictures taken. Sadly, my camera finally died the last day of the trip. It’s been malfunctioning for quite a while and I consider myself lucky that is lasted as long as it has. That was really the only down fall of the entire trip. I’m going to just go through day by day and give a short version of what we did, where we were, and what we saw. The pictures are amazing as well, but I feel like they don’t begin to capture the things we saw. This country is more beautiful than I imagined it to be. I’ve split this up by days so you can read small parts at a time or if you’re bored/ambitious, the whole thing. So…get a cup of tea, a map of New Zealand, and cozy up. Here is the story of the road trip of a life time.
Day One-Christchurch to Marahau
We started off from good old Christchurch in the rain. I was the first to brave driving, which turned out to be so much easier than I’d thought! (Thankfully). We headed up the east coast and stopped for fish and chips and pictures in Kaikoura. From there on in we headed north into wine country and passed through Nelson but continued on towards the west. We made a pit stop in Motueka but decided to stay in Marahau because that was where our kayak company we were renting from is located. Little did we know that Marahau is literally a one road town consisting of a campsite, an overpriced restaurant, and a few kayak rental companies. We tented at the campsite and explored the seashore in the dark. The moon was amazing that night, it was so big and reflecting off the ocean. But my little camera, unknowingly on its way toward death, couldn’t get a good pic of it.
Day Two-Abel Tasman and Nelson
We got up early and headed to the kayak place to start out our day of kayaking and hiking. Abel Tasman is the smallest national park in New Zealand, but the most frequently visited and for good reason. It has beautiful beaches, you can boat or kayak on the water, and there is a coastal walking track that takes about 4 days of complete. We kayaked in the morning from about 8 am til noon. It started out quite rainy and cold, but cleared up once we got on the water. Our guide, Stephen, was great and knew a lot about the park and the animals in it so that made me happy. The water is such a beautiful shade of blue-green. All of the water here is so clean, I’ve only seen one muddy-looking river after a rain. We paddled up the coast and then began our walk back out of the park. The views were amazing, as usual, and we enjoyed our first peanut butter and jelly lunch which soon became a diet staple over the next 9 days. This was also Easter Sunday and more importantly Kaye’s 21st birthday! So we decided to ditch the little town of Marahau once we were done and head back to Nelson for the evening. We had a nice little cake and really good champagne at the hostel. Sadly because of the holiday most of the bars were closed, but we still managed a really nice dinner (I even took pics of the food) with some great New Zealand wine (Brightwater, if you see it, get it). It was a fun night, not exactly what we had planned, but a good one none the less!
Day Three - Nelson to Franz Josef
We had a long drive from up north in Nelson down the west coast to Franz Josef. We made pit stops in Punakaiki and Hokitika. Punakaiki isn’t really a town, more of a place, but there are these rocks on the coast called the Pancake Rocks. They are made of very thin layers of compressed rock that give them a pancake-ish look. They were neat to see. I didn’t think I could be so entertained by various rock formations, but if you continue reading you’ll see that NZ is FULL of peculiar ones. We stopped for a short jade shopping trip in Hokitika, which the the town that the “Wildfoods” festival was held in. While we were there the Aussie kids saw a bunch of guys that they go to school with in Melbourne. I’d say it’s a small world, but I’m learning it’s really just a small country. We eventually arrived in Franz Josef and got a really nice motel room complete with DVD player and warm shower. We went to a really cool restaurant and bar there called the Landing. They had suuuch good food. I had a chicken, cranberry, and brie pizza. We stayed after dinner for a few drinks, but retired pretty early because of our glacier hike planned for the next day.
Day Four - Glacier Hiking and on to Wanaka
Today, I climbed a glacier. (Pronounced glay-see-yah here) It is still crazy to think we were climbing up such a massive heap of ice. Franz Josef is the fastest moving glacier in the world. Our guide, Nicky, was this tiny little blonde girl that was surprisingly stealthy with an ice axe. Every day they have to go on the glacier and carve out steps for the hikes because the ice changes so much. We were on the glacier from about 9am til 2pm. We had lunch on it, not on the very top mind you. The top of like miles and miles away from where we went and it receives some of the highest snowfall totals in the world. Like 9-10 times more than our little CNY snowbelt. Hard to imagine. The day was also made more interesting by my choice of attire. I wore these striped thermal pants, which are essentially spandex. I didn’t think twice about it, I just though it would be funny to wear them with no shorts. Apparently that is not common in NZ and I got lots of strange looks and was even told by a guide that I was the first person he’s ever seen climb in just thermals. I was very proud of myself. After our glacial excursion we drove onto Wanaka with a quick stop at Lake Matheson. Usually there are nice views of Mt. Cook and Mt. Tasman from here but it was pretty cloudy and we couldn’t see much. Before Wanaka we also stopped in a town called Haast that literally had two cafes and a few houses. We stopped at the one open café for coffee and hot chocolate. The place was covered in antlers on the inside, but for such a small town it was surprisingly nice. If you like the dead animals displayed on the wall kind of look. Speaking of dead animals, we did our civic duty to New Zealand on this part of trip by running down a possum that picked a bad time to cross the road. Normally I don’t support the flattening of animals with cars, but the possum are not native to New Zealand and they are a huge threat to the native species and the biodiversity in NZ. They are hunted, trapped, and generally celebrated when killed. They even manufacture possum fur clothing ranging from hats and mittens to possum fur thongs. Just let me know if you’d like me to pick one up for you. Once in Wanaka we got another motel, which with 5 of us ended up being cheaper than hostels and much nicer.
Days Five and Six - Wanaka to Queenstown, the “Scenic Route”
We strolled around Wanaka that morning while enjoying our delicious breakfast of tea, coffee, and organic muffins. The town is really nice, reminded me a lot of Lake Placid. We found a cool playground right by the lake that is one of the best I’ve ever put to use. I hope I never grow up. While we were shopping and walking that morning we were talking to a shop owner that gave us a more scenic route to Queenstown and told us we had to stop at this place called the Cardrona Hotel. We took her advice and successfully found the coolest random pit stop ever. It was very western themed and had been there a long, long time. There was a cool bar, fireplace, lots of rooms to explore, and a great garden out in the back. We enjoyed some hot chocolate in front of the fire. The ceiling was covered in all sorts of money from all over the world. It was also in the middle of nowhere, but apparently a popular stop for road trippers such as ourselves. We continued on to Queenstown, and I had to grapple with descending down the side of a mountain via 180 degree hairpin turns on extremely narrow roads. It was exhilarating…that’s being euphemistic. Queenstown is great! Really fun and a bigger city than I expected. There are people from all over the place there, I even ran into a girl from Manlius while waiting for the ATM. It is also known as the adventure capital of the world. The AJ Hackett bungee jump is the first one ever set up and it still running today. There are all sorts of things to do besides bungee, skydiving, riverboarding, jet boating, but we decided that canyoning looked fun. It is a mixture of zip-lining, repelling, abseiling, cliff jumping, waterfall sliding, and river hiking. Being the dumb tourists that we are we failed to take into account that it is no longer summer and that the river was a frigid 5 degrees celcius. It made it even more of an extreme venture. I’ve never been so cold in my life but it was totally worth it! It was so crazy to be just climbing around this huge gorge using the river as a playground. And our guide was intense! While his real name was Mike, we prefer to call him “Manimal” due to his high level of hardcore intensity. I think he thought we were pretty dumb to be going, and told us we’d be one of the last groups out for the season. Oh well! We spent two nights in Queenstown. It was nice to be in one place for more than a day. While there, we also met up with some more guys that go to school in Melbourne with the rest of the crew. The last night we were there we had a fire right by the lake. It reminded me of summer and being home. Except with much better scenery.
Day Seven - The Drive to Milford Sound
We got up and enjoyed a delicious ten dollar “brekkie” at a café in Queenstown then headed onto to Milford Sound. The drive from Te Anau to Milford is said to be most beautiful drive in New Zealand. Minus the snow at the beginning, it was. Fjordland is the national park it is located in and it’s full of lush foliage that is a shade of green that looks like it’s out of a computer generated scene. It’s almost an iridescent emerald. Mossy trees and ferns all over! I loved it! There were pictures stops and small hikes all along the road, but we chose to only stop at one because of time. It was called “The Chasm” which sounds more impressive than it truly was. But just to bring home what a small country this is, I ran into Alex Harden there. Out of all the random pit stops on that road, we met on the path into the Chasm. I knew she was going to be in the country, but we didn’t think we’d meet up like that! We chatted for a minute but we had to be to Milford to get on our boat by 4, so we kept on driving. Milford the town, isn’t even really a town. There was a backpackers lodge, a café, an airport, and an employee living area. This is one of the largest tourist attractions in New Zealand mind you. Most people stay in Te Anau instead of Milford. We boarded the Milford Wanderer and began our overnight cruise. I can easily say that Milford Sound is the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen. Not that I have seem much of the world, but this definitely tops my list. Pictures don’t even begin to express the massive size of the mountains or how clean but dark the water is. The waterfalls are the size of skyscrapers. It was, to use a terribly cheesy word, breathtaking. We got to kayak before dinner which was amazing. You feel so small sitting there right on the water with these mountains just looming over the top of you. After that we had dinner and the boat docked in a cove for the night. The boat was very split, there were a lot of families with small children and then there were a few other young child-less groups like ours. We ended up playing cards and charades and enjoying wine with the other under 30’s. It was a little more family oriented than we all expected, but it was actually fun to just sit around and not be out in a loud and crowded bar. Bedtime was late, but we made the most of our one night on the Wanderer.
Day Eight - Dolphins and Milford to Dunedin
We woke up the next day and were out on the deck enjoying hot tea on a cold morning when my life suddenly got 10 times more awesome. A pod of bottlenosed dolphins complete with BABIES swam up next to the boat and began riding our bow wake. If you have ever met me, you can imagine how completely enthralled I was. I got videos of them as well as pictures. Hard to top that wake up call. We had a good breakfast and cruised the rest of the sound. It was freezing, but I tried to stay outside as much as I could because hello, it’s Milford Sound and there were dolphins. I’ve never drank so much hot tea in my life. It was sad to dock and have to get off the boat. I could’ve stayed there for a long time. We changed our mode of transport back to land and headed off in our little green wagon towards the east coast. The drive across the southland was beautiful again. it felt great just to be driving again. Add in the great ipod selections we had and the views and it made driving better than being a passenger. We arrived in Dunedin and found a hostel to stay at. It was…different. The owner was a younger guy that actually lived there and he was very dedicated to his little hostel. It was Saturday and we decided to go out. We played some cards with another group staying at the hostel, they were all Europeans. We went out to a bar with them. I had my first absinthe experience. I won’t go into details with that one. I can’t say I recommend it.
Day Nine - Dunedin to Tekapo to Christchurch
We headed out up the east coast with our ultimate goal being Lake Tekapo for some camping and good views of Mt. Cook. Along the way we stopped at Shag Point which is a popular seal and penguin viewing area. We saw both! This one seal was a ham, he was much closer than all the others and seemed to be almost posing for us. The penguins kept their distance, so they were hard to get pictures of. The view was amazing as well. Further up the coast are the Moeraki boulders, which as these giants round rocks that have washed up on the shore from the Pacific Ocean. They weren’t as cool as I thought they’d be but they were still fun to play on! The tide was up really high and we got wet, especially Kaye because she fell right in. We reached Lake Tekapo about an hour before sunset. It was great, there were clouds but they weren’t covering Mt. Cook and Mt. Tasman so we finally got to see them. The lake is so clear and it was refreshing to see such a beautiful body of water without obscene lake homes smothering the shores. The only thing near the water is the Church of the Good Shephard, which is a tiny stone church built by the first settlers in the area. We played around on the lake, the crazy kids swam in the cold water, and we watched the sunset. This was the point in the trip in which my camera decided it was time to die. Luckily I got good lake pictures first! We planned to stay there for the night but learned that despite the fact that camping was free there was a fire ban. We decided to grab dinner and make the few hour drive back to Christchurch instead. We arrived back at my flat around 9:30 Sunday night. It felt good to be back, and I was surprised as how nice it was to be at the flat. I don’t think of it as home, but it’s more like it than I thought. It’s no 10-4 or Camden though.
Day Ten - Christchurch and Spontaneity
It was nice to be back a day earlier, I hadn’t thought about the fact that everyone else didn’t really get to see Christchurch before we left for the trip. It was a beautiful day and it felt great to sleep in! We decided to go to Sumner which is a beach just outside the city. We spent the afternoon there and then drove our little wagon back to the rental car place. It was sad to give her up, she was good to us! We walked around downtown, checked out the cathedral, shopped a bit, and ended our trip where we began it by eating bagels at the Yellow Rocket café in Cathedral Square. To throw a bit of spontaneity in there, Kaye had been talking about getting her nose pierced and she decided to go through with it. I’d been thinking about it as well and we both ended up with new piercings. It didn’t hurt too much. I kept my eyes closed the whole time, I really have to desire to see a giant needle sticking out of my face. Mom and Dad aren’t too enthused, but I stand by the argument that it is better than a tattoo. It’s quite small anyway, I’m actually kind of surprised how tiny it is. A little commemoration of a big road trip. I’m sad that it’s over. I was looking forward to it so much and it went by quick. Kind of a smaller version of my whole New Zealand trip I guess. We had such a great time, I’m so glad that they came over to NZ. We had a great group and I’m really hoping I can find a cheap flight to Melbourne sometime to repay the visit. Today was a lazy day for me, but tomorrow I am heading out at 8am to Kaikoura for a marine biology field school trip. We’ll be collected marine invertebrate samples for 12 hours a day. Not the most exciting thing, but at least it’s in Kaikoura and not on Conesus Lake back in Geneseo! If you’ve finished this entry, congratulations. I hope that the snow is stopping back home and that warm weather finds it way to NY or wherever you are. Thanks for reading, mel.

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Photos

It Starts...
day one in kaikoura with our little waggon that could...and did.

Kayaks
our morning on the ocean in Abel Tasman NP

the Abel Tasman Coastal Track
views from the VERY small part that we hiked

Glacier Climbing!
thats a cool ice chunk...let's climb it!

Wanaka
me in a tree

Cardrona Hotel
best pit stop theres ever been

Crazy Canyoning!
this is our "manimal" shot

Wacki Moeraki
having fun on the boulders

me loving life in Tekapo
one of the last pics my camera will ever take...she was good while she lasted.

Comments

[Toni]

oh marine invertebrates
We had a smaller version of that field trip last week, Mike Nemeth and I had to catch some invertebrates for Dr. Bosch, we caught a stone fly. It was kind of fun. Bring galoshes.