South Island blew us away straight off the bat. We hadn’t even left the ferry and we were looking at some amazing fiord-land as we pulled into Picton. We then began our motoring on Queen Charlotte Drive which snakes along a mountainside, with vistas of bays and beaches that have you pulling the car over every 5 minutes (oh and we had sunshine too)!
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| The sail into Picton |
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| The Queen Charlotte Drive |
Our first stop on South Island was Abel Tasman National Park where we had booked a hike and kayak adventure. This starts off with a water taxi that takes you way up the coast into the park and then you make your way back with the walking/kayaking combination. We saw cormorants, fur seals and blue penguins amongst other wildlife and we trekked across some beautiful beaches and headlands. The weather was warm, the water was crystal clear and our backdrop was snow-capped mountains.
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| Marahau Beach at Abel Tasmen |
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| Split Apple Rock and the cormorants |
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| All alone on a pristine beach |
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| We hiked as far as Bark Bay |
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| and then kayaked our way home (oooh love the skirt!) |
From here we made our way to Hanmer Springs for a bit of a soak in their famous thermal pools. The drive was, as usual, spectacular and we stopped for an interesting burger (over-filled and held together by jamming a knife through it) along the way. After soaking in the open air while looking at some more frosted mountains we set off for the west coast.
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| The road to Hanmer Springs |
On the west coast our first destination was the Punakaiki rocks which have a jaw dropping drive (coming from Westport) to reach them. There were some interesting road signs too. The weather wasn’t as good for photos on this particular day but we both thought that the wildness of what we saw really made the experience more awesome. The pancake rocks were impressive in their own right and we got there just as light was fading and almost had the place to ourselves.
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| Watch out! |
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| Wild Coastline |
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| The Punakaiki (Pancake) Rocks |
As we moved on down the coast we arrived in glacier country and after a lot of trying to figure out which one is better, we decided on the Franz Josef Glacier over Fox Glacier to take a ½ day glacier walk. We also walked up to Fox but you’re not allowed onto the ice without a guide and they’re not cheap. None of the photos we’ve seen (as well as our own) can really describe the immensity of these glaciers, in fact your mind doesn’t even notice it until you realize that ants that you can see climbing around on the glacier are people. We got less ice time than we would have liked thanks to a bit of a farm animal tour operation (there’s only 1 operator) but it’s the best geography class we’ve ever had (in fact most of New Zealand fits that description).
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| Hopping along towards Fox Glacier |
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| Franz Josef - the neve is around that corner |
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| Ice Time |
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| Chilly path |
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| NZ camp site humour |
With rugby world cup final day upon us we headed to the lively town of Wanaka to soak up the atmosphere. En route we stopped time and again for the scenery and the evening caught us off guard. I put the pedal down on Star Strider to make some time but fate was having none of it and we got a flat tyre about 30 minutes from Wanaka with about an hour to go to the game (i.e. there was nobody on the road).
Thankfully we had a spare but with dusk upon us and being right beside a lake we got to really meet the New Zealand phenomenon that is sandflies. The Maori legends say they were created by the Gods to remind us of our mortality and while not in any way deadly they are without doubt the most annoying thing about NZ. By the time I got the tyre changed they had made such a meal of me I could have starred in a Clearasil commercial. Did they itch? – not for the first 24 hours but then with a fire that makes you want to rake your skin off. Mercifully a friend had warned us and given us a present of anti-itch spray (thanks Melissa).
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| Sittin' on the dock of the bay |
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| Bruce Bay |
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| Knights Point |
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| Lake Wanaka |
We arrived in Wanaka with 5 minutes to spare before the big game and watched NZ triumph over tinned soup and local wine. We were just thankful that the camp site owner was willing to leave the pre-match buildup to check us in. The Kiwi’s are incredibly harsh on their rugby team. The celebrations were muted and the next day’s conversation was as much about how badly they played as that they’d won. The Prime Minister’s congratulation basically said; "well done now make sure you win it in 4 years’ time"! Who’d want that kind of stress (not the NZ coach anyway).
Still, it’s fantastic to see how absolutely everybody is fluent in the language of rugby with little old ladies talking about mental preparation or getting up to the game line or other stuff that I didn’t understand; just smile and nod, smile and nod…
Wanaka itself is a great little spot with a fantastic ‘Puzzleword’ that has a big maze & a hall of illusions, a lovely lake and some great walks/views. We chilled out here for a day or so while waiting to get a new car tyre (as it was a public holiday). The weather was good to us and we enjoyed an NZ brunch which was a feast, perfect for our first meal out in a while. We also spent some time socialising and trading tips with a lovely and really interesting American couple who had been stalking us in a similar camper all the way down the west coast (although they say it’s the other way around). I’ve never met anybody before that casually says ‘oh I’ve worked on an Antarctic icebreaker’ over a beer.
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| The Giant Maze at Puzzleworld |
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| Wanaka from the hills |
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| Super Claire saves the day |
Back to a full complement of tyres, we may our way to Queenstown to try the world famous Fergburger, a burger that is worth the journey. We were going to stay a night or two but on the spur of the moment we decided to push on to Milford Sound as the weather was awful. This turned out to be an inspired move and the whole fortunate sequence of events was actually driven by our flat tyre messing up the schedule.
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| My jaw aches just looking at this |
We got to Milford Sound just as light was fading in the bleakest weather you could imagine. We welcomed a few dozen uninvited sandflies into our little camper and fell asleep once dampness and fly-swatting got the better of us. At 7am the following morning we woke up to discover that our prayers for good weather had been answered. The sun was working away at burning off the remaining cloud cover and everything was glistening from the sunshine and water.
Our luck was in and it just kept on rolling. We made a point of catching the first boat tour of the day as we knew none of the day-trippers could reach the Sound this early. The tour boat doesn’t leave if they have less than 6 people – we had 8! So out we went with the whole of Milford Sound to ourselves. The pictures and video below tell the rest. Thanks to the previous day's rain, the waterfalls in the Sound were extra spectacular and our guide informed us that a number of these only existed/flowed after heavy rains. As we arrived back at the pier circa 11am we saw hundreds of tourists queuing to get 4 different boats out onto the Sound – wry smiles and high fives all round!
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| Early morning - setting off into the sound |
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| Hard to find - the entrance to MS from the ocean |
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| Waterfalls in full flow |
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| The famous Mitre Peak - that rock is 1 mile high |
The drive back to Queenstown in sunshine was yet another jaw dropper. Stop car, walk 5-20 minutes, say woowww, take pictures and repeat. A helpful sign reminded us that this was as close to the South Pole as we were going to get. We got back to our Queenstown camp site for sunset and met our American friends for lamb shanks and beers. We also had a drink at their boutique hotel which was the greatest accommodation envy we’ve experienced on this trip.
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| Ok, we'd better start making our way home now... |
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| A kea bird, NZ's strange parrot variety (the world's only alpine parrot) |
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| Pretty white-water |
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| Time for a cup of tea! |
The next day we toured Queenstown and prepared to make our way North again. We’d burned out our adrenalin candle so the bungy jumping and myriad of other crazy things you can do in Queenstown will just have to wait for our return. Walking through the botanical gardens, eating Fergburgers by the lake and playing with the ducks was the best we could manage. This is a place you could spend a holiday in every year for the rest of your life or in our case, a reason to buy lotto tickets.
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| Queenstown Lake |
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We set off Northwards with the sad feeling that our epic NZ journey was almost over but this majestic place had a few tricks left up her sleeve. The first was a total surprise. Lake Tekapo is about half way between Queenstown and Christchurch (our NZ exit point) and got a muted write-up at best in the guidebook. There’s a mountain there called Mount John and well I’ll let the pictures say the rest.
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| The road to Mount John |
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| The lake at Mount John |
From here we made our way to Akaroa which is a small and originally French settlement nestled on the coast below Christchurch. They were having their yearly French festival and one had to appreciate the irony of all of the ‘Vives Les All Blacks’ banners plastered around town. We treated ourselves to a fantastic meal in ‘Le Petit Bistro’ (run by a Welsh/NZ couple who work in Galway for half the year) and soaked up the atmosphere/scenery combo. There were mimes and the New Zealand army band was in town (these guys would not look out of place on a Hawaiian cruise ship). Good times!
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| The sleepy hamlet of Akaroa |
We spent our last night with Star Strider and prepared ourselves to hand back our old friend and return to housing without wheels. Over the 3 weeks Claire had become queen of the camp-site and I was a little worried that she might struggle to re-adjust to the settled life. We also hadn’t picked up our 20kg backpacks in 3 weeks and we’d eaten a lot of dairy; oh dear.
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| Claire holds court on the camp site |
Our final destination of Christchurch was just an airport in our minds as we’d heard that the heart of the city was still closed following the earthquake. We arrived on the day that they opened a lot of the centre again and got our last and completely unexpected treat in the form of the Christchurch Botanical Gardens.
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