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Published: March 18th 2014
Tuesday 11
th On the road again today and the sky is brilliant blue and sunny. We’re on the way to Queenstown.
The scenery is huge rugged mountains and wide U shaped valleys that remind me of my A level geography work.
Around lunch time we reach Kingston at the bottom end of Lake Wakatipu and it’s a beautiful spot. We drive on a short way and find a large lay bye on the lake shore and pull in.
We decide to stay for the rest of the day. Christine reads while I go fishing, without any success. We read while over looking the lake and mountains and get really hot in the sunshine. We decide to go for a swim and find the lake is like ice melt ! really cold and we don’t stay in for more than a couple of mins.
As Christine prepares dinner I go fishing again and haul in a 4lb trout ! I give it to our camping neighbours as I don’t know how to gut it and any way the fun is in the catching ! Spurred on by my success I go fishing again after dinner but the
only bite I get is from the midges.
Wednesday 12
th We wake to wonderful views of the lake and mountains. We drive around Lake Wakatipu, the longest lake in NZ to Queenstown. The thrill seekers capital of NZ.
There’s hundreds of backpackers signing up for sky diving, rafting and bungy jumping. We take a walk along the water front and wander through the shops. Leaving them to it ! (Unfortunately discretion is the better part of valour these days )
We drive back to Frankton and have a look at the lake from there before setting off for Kawarau Gorge where bungy jumping off the bridge was the start of the craze. It’s big business now at £100 a go. We watch people hurl themselves off the bridge hoping to dip their hair in the river 141 feet below. Some do and some don’t but they all scream !
We move on and shortly arrive at Arrowtown. The high street is narrow and full of original 1890’s buildings. It’s the prettyist town we’ve seen in the whole of NZ. After slowly wandering down the street we go off to the Chinese settlement. The remains and
restored little huts and buildings of Chinese gold miners from the 1890’s. It’s well done and interesting. The buildings look about as warm as our van !
Thursday 13
th A nice bright sunny morning so we park in town and go on the Sawpit Gully Trail. A walk of 8K described for those of medium to high fitness levels. Well that’s us ? Firstly we walk along the Arrow river in a gorge and gradually climb out of it. That bit needs the fitness bit ! We then walk up Sawpit Gulley where gold panning used to be done. We scrape around in the creek bed ever hopeful of finding gold. No such luck.
The path leads through valleys and light forests and up and over a couple of very steep hills till eventually we reach the top of the climb and get great views of Arrow town and Lake Hayes.
The down bit is tough going and we reach the river bed outside of town just as it starts to rain.
We lunch in the van as the rain gets a bit heavier. We got back just in time.
We then set off
for the day’s destination in Wanaka. We take the scenic drive up Crown Range Road. It’s a series of hairpin bends and it get’s a bit “exciting” when we meet other vans on the tight bends. Some just can’t keep to their side of the road !
The view from the top is stunning ! Coming down is a careful operation to stop the van from running away.
The rain gets heavier as we near Wanaka and we park up and have a wander around the shops. We need to restock on wine as it’s run out.
We’re fully into backpacker mode and call in at a Salvation Army second hand shop and buy two beanie hats for £4.5 !
For the evening we drive around Lake Wanaka and find a site on the lake shore. The lake is lovely and we have a back drop of enormous mountains. In the distance across the lake we see mountain tops covered with snow. Another picture postcard site !
Friday 14
th We set off early for once and drive along side Lake Hawea and then Lake Wanaka. The mountain and lake scenery is simply stunning all
the way.
We stop off at the Blue Pools. Actually they aren’t blue nor pools but part of where two rivers meet. Pretty but a bit of a disappointment.
We continue for a while and then stop at Fantail Falls. I wish we hadn’t. They were quite ordinary and we got blocked in in the car park by another camper van and the chap didn’t want to move. We ask him to move twice before we can get out. In my new calm state I remain polite ! Even though he didn’t deserve it.
Our next pull in is at the Thunder Falls. They’re 90 feet high and quite impressive.
We eventually reach Haast and call in at tourist info. They don’t have much of interest but we discover that the weather after Saturday is going to be very wet. This will spoil our plans for the next few days so we decide to continue driving and pass Lake Moeraki and Lake Paringa and reach the Fox Glacier late afternoon.
We park up and walk the trail to the glacier head. The glacier has retreated over the last 50 years and is gradually melting. The
head of it is not that large and just looks like grubby ice. The valley it is coming from is huge and so was it many years ago.
Finally we park for the night in a motel car park. It’s good to have a rest after driving about 250 miles.
Saturday 15
th First thing we go and top up the diesel. The garage is charging 20c a litre more than any one else we have come across. A real rip off just because they know there’s no where else to go.
We then drive out to a Mount Cook look out point and get a good view of the mountain we didn’t get to see before because of the weather. A kiwi couple tell us of a view point just down the road where it’s possible to get photos of the mountain reflected in a lake.
We pull in at Lake Matheson and take the 4.4K walk around the lake. From various spots we get great mirror image photos of the mountains reflected in the lake.
We then set off for the Franz Josef Glacier about 18 miles away. It’s a bit of a
tortuous road but after a short while we arrive.
It’s an easy 4 k walk to the glacier head. It’s another grubby lot of snow. The glacier front has retreated nearly half a mile since 1960 and cannot be walked on any longer.
Due to a mix up of arrangements on where to meet, I walk another 4 k to two other points of interest before meeting up with Christine again.
We decide to go off to the hot spas for a rest. My legs could do with it ! Only to find they’re closed due to technical problems !
Finally we drive up the road and park in a free site around Lake Mapourika. It’s almost full by the time we get there and parking ‘s a bit of a problem.
Sunday 16
th We wake to a very warm morning and grey skies. We have been warned to expect the remains of a cyclone that’s hit North Island. Heavy rain is due later today.
We set off at a slow pace as we expect to be just driving for the day in the rain.
Our first stop is at Harihari where
we look at a small building with a replica of the first plane to fly from Sydney across the Tasman Sea to NZ in 1931. It’s an interesting little story.
We next stop at Ross as the weather improves and walk along the gold field heritage trail. It’s a steep old walk and not a lot to see for our efforts ! Just a few remnants of water pipes and replica huts. The woman at tourist info was so enthusiastic too !
As we approach Hokitika the rain lashes down and the storm we were promised has arrived. We pull in in the town centre and the rain stops and it all brightens up !
We wander around town and Christine buys another souvenir to post home. We visit a couple of galleries and jade factories as the town’s “famous” for it.
We treat ourselves to a night at the cinema later. It’s a huge theatre cum cinema and holds about 300. Plenty of room for the 8 people watching the film !
Monday 17
th In the morning we drive into Hokitika and visit a glass factory where we bought a souvenir yesterday and
watch glass blowing. They’re making a shot glass and it’s extremly skillful and hot !
We then go on another heritage trail walk. We’re getting very used to these and most of the time there’s not much to see. True to form there isn’t. Just a lot of drift wood on the beach and the town’s name formed by some of it.
The poor weather we’ve been promised arrives and the day turns very wet.
We set off for Greymouth up the coast and pull off to visit Shanty Town. It’s a reconstructed town all about the West Coast gold mining period. A steam train takes us to a saw mill and there’s many interesting buildings and exhibits and a chance to do some gold panning if you wish. It’s a really well done “town” and well worth visiting.
We next arrive at Greymouth and wander around the town but there’s not much to see and we quickly leave.
As we drive further north the coastline gets much more rugged and dramatic with steep mountains bordering the road and huge rocks on the beach.
Finally we park up in Punakaiki for the night.
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Dave and allys
non-member comment
My friend is from arrowtown and insisted we go there as he said it was the prettiest town in NZ . He will be happy you think as we\\\'ll. hope you are both well