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Published: March 3rd 2014
Monday 24
th An easy and lazy morning as we get the van ready for sailing to South Island. After cleaning out the holds we stock up and drive to the ferry port.
The ferry takes three and a half hours to reach Picton on South Island. The sea’s quite rough but we’ve had our sea sick pills and are fine. Mine puts me to sleep for an hour or so.
As we pull in to Queen Charlotte Sound we see many islands and a beautiful coastline.
After settling on our site we stretch our legs by walking into Picton town centre. It’s a lovely little town with lots of interesting shops, cafes and a really nice water front looking out at the head land and islands.
Back on site I sort out extra time for our dongle which is quickly running out.
Tuesday 25
th We start our journey south, it’s the only direction we can go. It’s a good day to be driving as it’s very grey and overcast and quite chilly. We quickly go through Blenheim and continue on until we reach Ohau bay. We stop and watch a fur seal colony laying
on the beach and rocks. Christine clicks away for ages.
We drive on until we reach Kaikoura our destination for the day. We collect some info from the tourist office and study it over lunch before going off to book a sperm whale watching trip for tomorrow.
We then have a quick walk around town, there’s not much to see before driving off along the coast to Whakatu Quay. We park and walk up along the head land for about half an hour. It’s a very “English” walk. Grey skies and fairly blustery !
We return to the whale watching office and park in their car park for the night. We have to be up very early tomorrow and this is a good way of not being late !
Wednesday 26
th Up at 6.45 so that we can have a bit of breakfast and our sea sickness tablets before nipping across the car park to the whale watching office. We’re given a safety briefing and then bused round to the boat. It’s a high speed cat.
We shoot out to sea and are about 2 miles out when we stop and the captain puts
down a microphone to listen for whales.
Unsuccessful we shift position. We then get a call from another boat who’s found one!
We fly over to join them and see the head of a sperm whale. We get up close and it’s huge ! It’s just laying there breathing in air ready for its next dive. We watch for about 15 mins and then it takes its last breath and flips up its tail and disappears. It’s about 15m long.
We go in search of another one and eventually get see one come up and lay on the surface. It’s about the same size. Ten to fifteen minutes later it flips up and disappears.
We run out of time looking for any more and start to come in shore and stop off to look at a seal colony on some rocks.
It’s been a good trip to see such huge whales and no sea sickness !
We then leave and drive the inland route south. It’s pretty hilly but the scenery is wonderful. Huge rolling green hills everywhere.
We reach Christchurch and pull into in a car park on the edge of the
city and take a bus into the centre.
Wow ! there’s nothing left of the city from the earth quakes in 2010 and 2011. There are huge bare sites where buildings have been demolished and new buildings going up everywhere. The whole city is being re built. The roads are closed or with major diversions. There’s nothing left to look at !
We walk to the main shopping area and it’s called Restart. It’s a number of small shops housed in shipping containers. Very arty but not much shopping. After a walk along the river we decide to leave. We were going to stay 2 days but there’s no point.
We find an over night site and park up.
Thursday 27
th We have decided to go off plan and drive down to Banks Peninsula to the small town of Akaroa. The road is extremely narrow, windy and very hilly as it follows the coast line at first. We get absolutely fantastic views of the various bays at every turn. It’s a wonderfully scenic drive but A bit testing on the driving skills !
Eventually we reach Akoroa and free camp on the harbour edge.
The town has a wonderful setting with bays in front and steep hills behind. We look out over the water and back towards a town green where they are laying cricket.
We book an afternoon dolphin cruise in a sailing ketch.It’s an attractive boat with red sails. It’s late picking us up but the captain makes up for it by taking us out into the ocean, we’ve taken our sea sickness pills, and we see small Hector’s dolphins swimming alongside our boat. They swim back and forth under the boat in pairs. The speed is incredible.
On the way out of the harbour and on the return the captain points out Albatross, penguins and shags. It’s a great nature cruise and the captain’s not worried about time. No wonder he’s always late collecting people.
In the evening we treat ourselves to fish and chips.
Friday 28
th We wake to a bright sunny sky and after breakfast take a walk along Akoroa high street and look in the souvenir shops. Nothing to buy ! We then walk up hill to an artist’s house with sculptures in the garden but it’s closed until mid day. We walk
on and into the local park but it’s nothing more than rough grass and scrub land. We return to the high street and look in the remaining shops as we return to the van. Akoroa is a really pretty place.
The temperature’s dropped and it’s turned very threatening. As we drive off it starts to rain and then pour.
Our drive up and out of Akoroa is pretty awful with rain beating down and the roads twisting and turning. The weather’s so poor we decide to just drive for the rest of the day. Christine’s quite happy driving along until her kindle runs out of battery and she has to navigate !
We eventually stop in Geraldine on the way to Mount Cook. It’s been a fairly boring day.
Saturday 1
st It was a freezing night and if this keeps up we’re going to need extra bedding material. Today’s bright and sunny but very chilly.
As soon as we drive out of town we see snow capped mountains after yesterday’s rain. Our journey towards Lake Tekapo is stunning. The scenery is just like the Alps.
An hour or so later we pull up
on the shores of the lake and take more photos. We visit the tourist office who aren’t particularly helpful with info and then book in to a site on the lake shore.
After lunch we take a walk along the water ‘s edge and then I try out my new telescopic fishing rod. I won’t need to leave this one behind !
There’s supposed to be salmon in the lake but after two hours I’ve not had a bite and call it a day. John West obviously got here first ! I’m freezing and need a cup of tea to warm me up.
Adjacent to us is Mount John with an observatory as the sky is supposed to be the clearest in the southern hemisphere and good for star gazing. So after dinner we take a walk along the lake side and wait for darkness. Unfortunately it’s cloudy tonight so we walk back in the dark without having seen a thing !
Sunday 2
nd First thing we drive up to the Mount John Observatory and get wonderful panoramic views of the landscape. Mountains and lakes all around.
We then drive towards Mount Cook, NZ’s
highest mountain. Again the landscape is stunning with huge mountains to both sides of us as we drive through the valley.
We call in at the mountain information office and it’s bad news. There’s a weather front moving in for the next two days and there will be rain, snow and thunder. We have planned to stay two nights and do some mountain walking.
Nevertheless we drive further into the mountains and park at the campsite. The weather’s already closing in. We don our fleeces and wet weather gear and go for a walk but after 15 mins it starts to rain. We get as far as a suspension bridge over a gushing white water rapid and it starts to rain even harder. We have to turn back, the weather’s beaten us.
We decide that there’s no point staying two nights in the rain and cold. A major disappointment.
We drive off back the way we’ve come until we reach Twizel. A nothing little town that’s closed it’s tourist info office.
We drive on in the rain towards Omarama and then take a turn off turns Lake Ohau, we’ve never heard of it but it
sounds interesting. After 10 miles we reach Middleton Lake and see others camped around it and decide to park up for the night.
We’re right on the lake shore with mountains all round us, it’s a lovely spot if only it would stop raining !
Later I try fishing in the lake to no avail. We spend the evening looking at the rain ! One piece of good news is that I’ve finished all my antibiotics and my leg’s better.
Monday 3
rd For the second night running it’s very cold and we sleep in our sleeping bags under the duvet and we’re still cold ! It’s rained most of the night and we wake to see snow capped mountains all around us.
A gentle start to the morning and we drive off towards the coast passing Omarama and Otememata, two very small townships.
We then take a short side turning, well we think it’s short, and drive along a river and up to Benmore Dam. The sign board tells us its one of the largest earth dams in the S. Hemisphere. It certainly looks big ! We continue down the other side of the
river for 21k just to get back to the road. Not such a short trek !
We next come across some Maori rock drawings. Unfortunately what’s not been eroded or taken to museums has been graffitied over. There’s not much to see.
Finally we pull into a site in Omaru on the coast. We walk through the park into the town centre.
We first go into the Steampunk House. It turns out to be a sort of modern art gallery where Gothic art meets Mad Max. It’s full of industrial equipment welded into fighting machines and strange gothic figures. I’m not sure if it’s art or just rubbish. The viewer will have to decide for themselves.
There’s also lots of Victorian buildings to see and most house arty crafty shops and we buy another souvenir. I hope it survives posting home.
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Roger Smith
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Following on
Hi guys. Interesting to see you visiting some of the spots we went to last time. I took a picture of the weird engine from the other side just after we had dinner in an equally strange restaurant nearby. Sounds like your whale watch was a bit quiet. We saw 5 or 6 sperm whales, a school of pilot whales and bottle nosed dolphins, hector dolphins (just. We had to spin round quick and come away as there are regulations for the boats as to times they can approach. It would appear that the dolphins stop their normal activity and show off whenever a boat approaches. If the tourists came by all day they would be too exhausted to feed. (Some scientist ought to work on that and see if there's some way it could be implanted into the mindset of obese Americans, etc). Also an albatross having a rest in the middle of nowhere. I reckon Dunedin will be your best place for retail therapy in South Island. Wasn't affected by the earthquakes and it's the second largest city in South Island and has a university which offers lots of student hangouts for you to seamlessly blend into!!!!!!!!! Sharon's brother Shaun is there with his wife, Barbara and their daughter, Hollie. If you want to hear a Staines accent I can forward his number, just let me know. You seem to be broadcasting a lot earlier these days. Is this a result of the New Zealand night life being a little thin on the ground? Everything was shut by 9.00pm when we were there, including the street lights. Right, got to go, my car is poorly and I need to get a mechanic to look at it. Cheers Roger