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March 31st 2006

Published: March 31st 2006

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James Anne

James at Nugget Point in the Catlins

We left Bluff at the southern point of South Island to drive through the scenic countryside of the Catlins. Camped on a deserted campsite, visited a fossilised forest and saw Elephant Seals on Nugget Point before reaching Dunedin.

Stayed at gorgeous Backpackers - essentially we had a house to ourselves. The next day we drove down the Otago Peninsula - failed to see the Royal Albatros but went on to see both blue and yellow eyed penguins from specially made hides. A lengthy walk down a deserted beach allowed us to see further penguins followed by a cold walk back in the dark with bare feet.

Had a lengthy drive to Mount Cook village where we camped the night prior to being woken up at 6am by the noisy Kea (alpine parrot) - concerned that they were going to destroy our tent we were forced up (Anne was in a foul mood for the rest of the day). Our plan was to Accend Mount Ollivier (the first mountain Edmond Hiliary climbed) after staying in the Mueller hut at 1800m. A steep climb in the mist and rain led to the hut. A leisurely afternoon eating food, drinking tea, reading

Anne with 60 million year old boulders

and cross stitching made us sleepy so went to bed around 8.30pm.
Another early start the following morning at 6.30am (Anne doesn't know whats hit her!!) to watch sunrise - perfect weather with fantastic cloud inversion and great views of the hanging glaciers, Mount Sefton and Mount Cook (highest mountain in NZ - but much smaller than many Kiwi's would like to think - for example apparently Mount Cook would be over 60000 metres tall if not for erosion and thus higher than Mount Everest - what they forget is that Everest would probably be 120000m!!).
A perfect morning ascent of Mount Ollivier (non technical but with good going cliffs) was followed by porriage back at the hut.

We then drove to Lake Tekapo where we camped outside the Youth Hostel with a fantastic view over the glacial blue Lake. The next morning we were foiled in our attempt to climb Mount Edward as it is on private land so you are not allowed to walk on the path without getting permission from the farmer. So we headed up the nearby but much smaller Mount John. It has loads of telescopes on top and clearly lots of astrophysicists -

Looking down to Mount Cook Village

The start of our trek to Mount Ollivier. No surprise it is about to start raining again!!

I felt like I had come home! We tried to go up in the evening to do some observing but unfortunately it was cloudy.

Another long drive up to Christchurch the next day and we stopped at the Peel forest for a walk to Big Tree -3m diameter and 1000 years old. We stayed the night on the banks Peninsula, camped in the garden of a very cool hostel on a 1,000 acre sheep farm. We went for a nice but very steep walk on the farm (James had loaded my bag up with books without my knowledge) and then headed into Christchurch after a picnic on the beach.

This morning we have sold the car for the princely sum of $200 (80 pounds). We are now carless, homeless and jobless! In 2 days time we head for Australia - James can hardly contain his excitment!

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