New Zealand

Having done all the “getting up to date” we needed to do before progressing on our trip, we were now free to explore Christchurch a bit. Although, as these things invariably happen, the weather had turned for the worst so we had to contend with rain all day long.

We’d already looked around the shopping areas in the past two days, so spent today wandering around the older parts of town. By European standards, the “older” parts of town aren’t that old (less than two hundred years old), but by Oceanic standards that’s pretty ancient.

We headed from Cathedral Square towards the Botanic Gardens. Our thoughts on this part of town is that it’s a cross between Canterbury and Worcester in England, and very nice for it. And it’s probably been intentionally designed to look exactly like these two cities, given that the area that Christchurch is in is called Canterbury and we saw a building called Worcester House!

We passed a statue to Captain Scott of Antarctic fame,

crossed a quaint bridge over a river,

and passed a couple of nicely designed older buildings

before arriving at the entrance to the Botanic Gardens. By now it had started to drizzle quite badly, so, as luck would have it, we entered the Canterbury Museum at the entrance to the gardens. It was free, it was dry, so we were there!

It really was very good. Its always a toss up going into a museum at the best of times, nevermind one that doesn’t charge an admission fee, but it kept us occupied for ages!

It had an interactive area

obviously designed for kids, with lots of buttons to press and things to turn, but when has that ever stopped us!

It had exhibitions of Chinese and Egyptian artefacts (including a mummy in the Egyptian section)

It had a really good, large section on the Antarctic, along with many old vehicles used to traverse the continent

and last, but not least, it had a Penny Farthing just ripe for an idiot to get on for a photo opportunity!

We had a really good time, and it was the sort of place we would gladly have paid an admittance fee to enter. And when we left, the rain had stopped!

We then took a gentle stroll through the Botanic Gardens. It was basically just a normal, large park but had the River Avon running around its perimeter, a couple of nice fountains, landscaped garden areas, and lots of ducks!

We walked around reflecting on our trip so far. Its hard to get our heads around the fact that things we have done so far happened so long ago. For example, we were trying to work out the last museum we had been in before today, realised it was in Melbourne, and then realised it was two months ago! We honestly don’t know where the time is going to! It’s hard enough to believe we have had three weeks in New Zealand; before this trip that would have been our joint longest holiday ever but it’s gone in a blink of the eye!

So, obviously, our thoughts are now turning to home. We have around just under seven weeks left on the trip, and it’s going to be over before we know it.

But before it is, we have the small matter of flying to the Cook Islands tomorrow (and crossing the International Date Line), followed by Tahiti, Easter Island, and most of South America. So although it feels like the end of our trip, it really has only just begun!

As we’ve been doing for the past few days, we’ve been mentally gearing up again for a life of short stays in countries and lots of flights, which we did for two months in Asia and will be doing for one and a half months in South America.

We had always planned to have an idea of what we were doing in South America before we left Australia. Well, three weeks later, we are now about to leave New Zealand and still had major gaps in even knowing what was possible.

So we booked a shedload of internet time, sat at the pc, and researched. And researched. And researched.

And finally, finally, knew what we were going to do.

We’ve still not booked everything, in case there are any delays along the way, but at least we have a rough plan of action now!

And we also created our box of delights to send back home. This box contained much of the crap that we’d carried around with us all trip, it’s probably stuff that we wont even want when we get home, but couldn’t bear the thought of dumping it now. So, a quick trip to the post office later, 2.5kg of assorted rubbish started it’s journey back to the UK.

Our first impressions of Christchurch are that it is a very nice city. We’ve only been on a couple of shopping streets (having probably our last Asian meal of the trip today) and in the main Cathedral Square, but it seems like quite a pleasant place.

Architecturally, the Cathedral Square area seems very much like a European city, reminding us of places such as Bremen and Bruges (although for anyone who’s seen In Bruges they weren’t filming midgets!).

We’re going to have a proper look around tomorrow, as we didn’t really have the time today, but we’re quite looking forward to it.

And then, from 8pm to gone midnight, I did something that I’d almost forgot about – WORK! Using a remote desktop connection, I managed to get a problem resolved for the company I left in January, and it was quite a weird experience. To be sat almost as far away from work as I could possibly get in the world, and yet be accessing the desktop of a computer back in the UK was surreal! I shouldn’t be amazed at things like this; it’s the equivalent of seeing slack jawed yokels staring at airplanes in the sky, but it was fun! As was using my brain for the first time in months!

Still got it! Never lost it!

We left our room before 8am this morning, keen to get the five hour plus journey to Christchurch done as soon as possible. We had also made the decision to hand the campervan back a day early, and extend our stay in Christchurch city centre by an extra night instead.

The drive itself to Christchurch was quite scenic. We passed a couple of picturesque bays,

mountain rivers,

we drove on New Zealand’s longest bridge

and we passed lots and lots of sheep!

The scenery on the drive was amongst the most consistently pleasant we have experienced on our drives in New Zealand, mainly for its variety and lack of hours driving past nothing but fields. But, if ever we needed telling, we had reached the end of the road (and the end of our tether) for this trip as far as driving is concerned. We just wanted to get to the campervan depot, dump the van, and have a few days in a city where we didn’t have to cover major distances on the road every couple of days!

So, around 2pm, we finally arrived at the campervan depot in Christchurch, and handed “Arthur” back.

We named him Arthur as he was only ever Arthur Campervan to us for this trip. As in Half A Campervan. As in, we only used him as a campervan for half the time. And by half the time I mean we used him as a campervan in North Island and as a glorified car in South Island. Get it?? No?? Oh Well!

And so after driving in a campervan for 3,235 km (about 2,020 miles) in New Zealand, and 12,541km (about 7,830 miles) in total on this trip, we hung our driving gloves up. From now on, we’re back on public transport!

One very entertaining taxi journey later, where the taxi driver (amongst other topics) tested our knowledge on Kings and Queens of England, we arrived at the IBIS hotel in Christchurch, where we will be staying for the next three nights. And we were so tired from the drive and the (still affecting us) cold-induced lethargy that we just crashed in our room and didn’t surface again all day!

Total Distance Driven In New Zealand: 3,235km

The snow had more or less abated during the night and, apart from pockets of thick snow on high ground, much of Dunedin was back to normal today.

So, seeing as we’d been here for two nights already and hadn’t really set foot outside our room, we thought it might be an idea to see some of the sights.

Dunedin was built at the end of the nineteenth century by Scottish Immigrants, and was based upon Edinburgh in Scotland. There are a lot of similarities; it’s quite hilly, they sell haggis in shops we passed, the schoolchildren wear tartan uniforms, and most of the inhabitants seemed like dour-faced, miserable English haters! (to be honest I’m lying about the English hating!).

It even has a statue of Robert Burns in the centre of town.

And it is a nightmare to drive around, park a van in, and avoid being hit by dozy drivers not looking where they’re going.

To be fair to the town, it does have some nice architecture such as one or two of the churches

and the railway station is pretty special

and I’m sure that if I’d been walking around in the sort of weather it had experienced in the past two days I would have been dour faced and miserable myself!

We couldn’t be bothered going around the shops in the city centre, so took a drive around the harbour and headed to the adjacent Otago Peninsula.

We decided to head to Lanarch Castle, which is described as New Zealands only castle. It looked more like a stately home from the brochure, but we had nothing better to do so headed up the hill to take a look.

We didn’t drive that far above sea level before the snow still settled on the high ground from yesterdays blizzards became apparent.

The roads at time were treacherous, with the sludge having turned to ice. At times along the journey we had difficulty keeping the van fully under control.

But the views from the top of the hill, with the juxtaposition of the snow filled hills and the sea, were worth the effort.

Having negotiated a particularly scary strip of road/ice, we arrived at the castle. And realised it would cost NZ$50 for us to get in. Now the main reason to visit here is the gardens and views. Well the gardens would have been a foot under the snow, and the views we had already seen. So keeping our money firmly in our pocket, we headed back down to sea level. Possibly a wasted journey, but we did see some nice views from up there.

We reached sea level about ten kilometres away from the end of the peninsula, so decided we might as well continue our drive and reach the end.

So we continued our drive and reached the end!

And at the end were a car park, a café and some rocky cliffs being battered by the sea. So we parked in the car park, ignored the café and went to look at the rocky cliffs being battered by the sea.

They were quite good, as far as rocky cliffs being battered by the sea go, and we looked at them for several seconds before heading back to the relative warmth of the van.

And then we headed back towards our room, having done enough today to justify not doing any more!

And we decided to get to Christchurch a day earlier than planned, which (weather permitting) we’ll be doing tomorrow.

We then spent the rest of the day unpacking and repacking our rucksacks, trying desperately to get the weight down in preparation for South America. In the end, we threw out four carrier bags of irrelevant crap we had accumulated which lightened our loads somewhat, but we still seem to have a lot more than what we set out with!

But it felt exciting. It felt like we were about to go on holiday. We have spent the past three months living in countries very similar to home. This time next week we’ll be in Easter Island and then South America. We’re really looking forward to the change! And we’re now entering the last fifty days of the trip!

Total Distance Driven In New Zealand: 2,868km

I was woken around four by the howling wind outside banging a door. Being awake, I took a quick peek outside and saw a blanket of white snow covering everything. Obviously I woke Mandy up, and then promptly went back to sleep myself!

Later that morning, when I woke up properly, the snow was still there.

Although not that bad in the immediate vicinity of our room, the roads outside the campsite were full of cars sliding around unable to cope with the conditions.

We put the early morning news on, and discovered that Dunedin was, in effect, cut off from the rest of the world. The snow on the hills had been so severe that the only road in and out of the city had been closed in both directions for the day, with warnings that it might not even be open tomorrow. Schools had been shut, businesses closed for the day; in effect the New Zealanders were just as inept as the British at coping with a bit of winter snow.

So, we were stuck in Dunedin and were not going anywhere fast.

Deciding to book our room for the next couple of nights, we then had the strange experience of not being able to do a thing all day!

And luckily, having not had a day off in weeks, that suited us completely down to the ground!

So, apart from managing to get provisions from a nearby supermarket later that afternoon, we chilled out, read some of the books we have been carting around with us (which seem strangely to be multiplying every time a motel or campsite has a book swapping section!), and finally got around to editing the video for our time in Victoria and New South Wales (which’ll be in the post to our parents within the week and for which we’ll be setting an exam to ensure they’ve sat through all two hours of it!).

And we did some laundry! Mandy was quickly running out of clothes, but I wasn’t too bad as the t-shirt and jeans I put on four weeks ago hadn’t started evolving their own life-systems yet!

So, an hour later, we descended further into Gypsy mode by running a clothes line throughout our room and drying all our washing. We couldn’t even walk two metres without having to limbo-dance our way past jeans and socks!

And all through the day, the weather continued to have mini-snow blizzards. Just over two weeks ago we were burning in tropical conditions. Today we’re dodging snow! And next week we’re back to the tropics! It's just like being in Manchester!

We woke up after our last night in Queenstown, and were treated to an amazing last view from our hotel window of the mountains, tinted pink with the sunrise.

When we woke up we still hadn’t decided where we would go to today. Our choices were to head further south to Invercargill, or go east towards Dunedin. As we were packing up to leave, the weather forecast on the TV mentioned that both Invercargill and Dunedin had heavy snow weather warnings for that evening. So, factoring in that we could end up stuck in whichever one we chose, and that we needed to be in Christchurch to hand the van back in five days time, we chose the nearest destination to Christchurch.

So, we set off towards Dunedin.

For the first part of the journey, we continued to pass dramatic rugged scenery.

Raging mountain rivers flowed downstream.

The roads at times looked like they had been hewn out of the hills surrounding them.

And then, almost at once, the dramatic scenery was replaced with rather more mundane surroundings. The mountainous hillsides became flat fields. The towns became plainer and less alpine like.

This is one of the paradoxes of New Zealand that we have had difficulty getting to terms with. New Zealand is world-renowned for its spectacular natural scenery, and some of the mountain regions we have seen fully deserve all the hype. But for every mountain and stunning vista, you also have a hell of a lot of boring, agricultural fields. Probably the best way of describing our thoughts on this is that we don’t feel like we’ve moved from England. Mountains aside, we’re surrounded at home by agricultural fields and don’t really have any particular interest in seeing any more. In essence, we’ve travelled about as far away from home as it is possible to do, and day after day we’re seeing sights that we could see ten miles from home! It’s quite frustrating to say the least!

But, onwards we went, and soon reached the most southerly point of trip (we’re heading gradually north from hereon in) and by default the furthest south we’ve ever been in our lives. This was in a small town called Milton.

It describes itself as the “town of opportunities”. And it was right. We saw at least two possible exit roads, which obviously would give anyone living here the opportunity to leave!

Just outside Milton, (we took the opportunity of not setting foot there!), we pulled up at a rest stop to plan where to head towards in Dunedin. The wind here was unbelievably strong; we struggled to even open the doors of the van, and the lake at the rest stop was more reminiscent of a fierce sea than an inland lake!

With the van rocking from side to side with the gale battering it, we found where the motels were located and headed into Dunedin.

Which, for the next hour and a half, started the most depressing period of the trip since the Malaysian Railway fiasco three months ago.

We hit the motel area right in the middle of the school run, which made stopping and starting quite difficult, and we had to deal with Dunedin’s confusing one way system at all times. This was probably the most irritating aspect of all; we inadvertently took a wrong turn at one stage and had to travel for ages before we could navigate ourselves back again. Every, and I mean every, motel had vacancies. Most of the motels didn’t even look like motels (more like B&B’s). And without fail, every single motel wanted a kings ransom per night to stay there!

So started a pattern of navigating the one way system, pulling up at a motel, getting out into the driving winter rain, finding out I’d rather sleep naked in a gutter than pay the inflated prices demanded (in some places sleeping naked in a gutter would have been less risky to my health!), taking five minutes to set off again because of the heavy traffic, and repeating this ad nauseum.

We eventually pulled up in a hotel car park and took stock of the situation. Mandy was tired from doing the driving all day, I was dying with my cold, and we just couldn’t be arsed anymore with any of it. So we found a nearby campsite, spent the next half an hour trying to work out how to get out of Dunedin city centre to get there, and then finally we pulled into Dunedin Holiday Park.

And miracles upon miracles, part of the campsite was a motel-esque building that offered accommodation for NZ$50 less per night than the cheapest motel we had found in town!

It was brilliant! Our room was a family unit which could have slept six people (one double bed and two sets of bunk beds), it had its own ensuite bathroom, and a shared kitchen facility two steps from our door. On entering the room, I headed straight to the highest bunk bed, which was at least seven feet from the ground, and wouldn’t come down until Mandy started pulling my feet off the end! Within five minutes, I’d tried every bed out in the place, running around like a manic lunatic while Mandy unloaded the van. And then I got over-tired and had to settle down!

It was a lot more basic than the hotel in Queenstown, but we loved it! It was warm, comfortable and cheap. What more could anyone want!

So we settled down for the night, and constantly kept an eye on the weather outside, waiting for the night to grow cold and the constant rain to turn to snow………

Total Distance Driven In New Zealand: 2,784km

Today was our last day in Queenstown, and our colds had already prevented us doing half of what we had planned yesterday. So today was the day we caught up on some of what we had planned. And for some reason, I’ve been calling Mandy Apricorn all day. Don’t ask me why. What’s an Apricorn anyway? Is it a hybrid of an Apricot and an Acorn? Is it a Unicorn that only comes out in April? I don’t know! I need help!!

Firstly, we did more Lord of the Rings sightseeing. The first couple of film locations were literally just down the road from us. The first of these (Amon Hen in the film where a village was burnt down) was near Wilson Bay; we didn’t really recognise it from the movie but it was worth a two minute drive to see anyway.

The second, a further two minutes up the road, was much more fun. In the film it is called Ithilien and is where Frodo and Sam see the Olyphants and where Smeagal has captured some coneys and doesn’t fancy chips with them! Which means nothing to you if you haven’t seen the films (and in fact sounds quite sad when I’ve just read back my words) but tough. That’s where we went and that’s what you’re going to read about. So if you’re bored with this, just cover up your eyes for five minutes and then continue reading; I’ll have covered all the Lord of the Rings stuff by then and I’ll let you know when you can uncover your eyes!

So, the film set for Ithilien is at a place called Twelve Mile Delta, just west of Queenstown. It does, however have a slight problem if you want to see where the filming took place. To get to the film area, you need to cross quite a large stream.

Apricorn had decided that she’d rather sit in the van than go stream crossing so, armed with my trusty camera and camcorder, I set off on a mini-expedition. So my first problem was how to get across the stream.

Between the bank of the stream I was stood on, and the bank of the stream I wanted to get to, were a couple of sandbanks. So I decided to try this route first.

Jumping onto sandbank #1 was quite easy. However, sandbank #2 was about 3 metres away over the water. Now, I’m quite good at jumping. I was always an expert at the high jump at school, and could quite easily have won athletics tournaments at this when I was sixteen (if my school wasn’t absolutely useless at encouraging people). However, my jumping ability only seems to have ever been vertically. Ask me to jump horizontally and I usually land further back than where I started. So maybe I should have known what would happen. So, taking a run up on sandbank #1, I ran to the edge, jumped, and actually got my left foot on sandbank #2. The only problem was that my left foot landed AFTER my right foot plunged a foot deep into the icy stream water!

And the worse thing was, even worse than a completely soaked foot, was that when I got onto sandbank #2 I realised it was impossible to jump to the other bank from there. So I got wet for nothing!

So getting even wetter jumping back to where I started, I looked for another route. I found a series of stepping stones and logs lying across the stream, so used these to get nearly over to the other side, using my soggy foot for any particularly dodgy stones. And, requiring a leap from the last partly submerged stone to the bank, I made it!

I walked around a track and finally got to the area where the hobbits had seen the Olyphants.

But this wasn’t enough; I wanted to be actually on top of the ten metre high ledge from where they had seen them, and where Smeagal didn’t want his food cooking. So, I found a climbable route to the top of the ledge and started my ascent.

As I climbed, the earth beneath my feet constantly slipped, so I ended up using tree roots, plants and anything I could get my hands on to climb. But then, eventually I managed to haul myself up and made it!

The view was no better from up here, the bushes prickled me to death, but I’d made it!

The next problem was getting back down! So, realising that all the branches and plants I’d used to climb the ledge had now fallen down to the ground after I’d pulled them up, the only course of action left was to slide down. So, taking a deep breath, I half slid, half ran down the steep slope, rocks and earth following me down in a mini-avalanche. Remarkably, I made it down to the bottom without breaking an ankle or my neck. The route I climbed on looked a little worse for wear, but what can you do!

So, all urges to climb now sated, I headed back to the stream to cross the stepping stones. And had a problem. When I first used the stepping stones, I’d used a partly submerged stone to leap to the bank, which was easy. Not so easy was leaping from a river bank to a partly submerged stone! So, arms stretched out at my sides like an acrobats pole, the camera in one hand and the camcorder in the other, I took a breath, jumped, wobbled and slightly slipped on the stone…………AND DIDN’T FALL IN!

Phew!

Quickly traversing the rest of the stones, I got back to the van to find Apricorn looking for me as I’d been missing for ages!

So, slightly muddy and definitely wetter than when I started out, I recalled my travels to her as we set off back onto the main road. I’m aware that you probably had to be there, enjoy pointless exertion, and have a mental age of seven, to appreciate how much fun it was, but I enjoyed it! Which kinda says it all!

So, our next destination was a few kilometres east of Queenstown, and was the filming location for the Pillars of the Kings. Our guide book had told us to head up a service road to a Winery and the view would be immediately recognisable. So we headed up the service road to the Winery, saw the view, recognised it vaguely as being from the film, and headed back down faintly disappointed.

We weren’t expecting the large statues to be there; we knew they were computer generated. But we did expect to be able to view the scenery and imagine them to be there. Maybe we were just looking in the wrong place. Who knows. But, as probably the last Lord of the Rings site we go to (unless we happen to pass another on our travels) it was a bit of a let down.

Anyway, for all of you who have been covering your eyes for the past five minutes, you can safely continue reading now. There’s no more mention of hobbits, strangely named places, or coneys from now on!

So, the final item on our list (for our list read my list) was to do a jetboat ride through Shotover Canyon. This is the sort of boat that moves extremely fast, looks like it is about to hit a wall at any stage, spins in 360 degree circles etc. etc. Right up my street and something I’ve never done. And the Apricorn’s worst nightmare.

So, using the sort of diversionary tactics one would normally apply to kids (such as saying “lets just go and look at it”), we drove back through Queenstown and headed the four kilometres to Arthurs Point, where the Shotover Jet lives.

By now, Apricorn had completely shut down. She was in complete and utter denial about doing the ride, and completely terrified. But I knew she’d love it so we bought the tickets and went to get life-jacketed and waterproofed up.

A nervous ten minute wait followed; nervous for Apricorn because she was thinking of all the things that could go wrong, and nervous for me because I expected her to bolt and run back to the van at any opportunity (I didn’t let her out of my sight!).

But then the boat came, we got in, and we were away.

I looked at Apricorns face; for a split second after setting off she looked terrified but then straight afterwards terror changed to sheer delight.

It was total, non-stop, sheer exhilaration for the next 45 minutes. The 520 horsepower engines hurtled us within centimetres of the canyon wall faces, the boat powered through incredibly shallow water (10 cm at times), the driver swerved towards jagged rocks at each twist and turn, narrowly avoiding disaster at the last second, and we had at least ten 360 degree spins in our time.

We hid rapids at high speed, we got absolutely saturated, and it was one of the best things we have ever experienced.

So the cowardly Apricorn, having summoned up courage from somewhere, left the jet boat deliriously happy on a major adrenaline rush, having loved every single second. And was now the brave Apricorn.

And me? It was fantastic, I loved every second myself, but maybe I should have worn a hat!

So, to reward the brave Apricorn, we popped back into Queenstown, grabbed some take-out, and parked up by Lake Wakatipu to eat it, taking in our last views of Queenstown at dusk.

Queenstown has been everything we hoped for and more. We have unequivocally loved it and, if we had more money and time, we’d probably end up doing lots more here.

But, the remainder of New Zealand is calling; after tonight we have four nights left before the van needs handing back and we haven’t got a clue which route we’re taking! So nothing changes there then!

Total Distance Driven In New Zealand: 2,464km

We both had colds this morning; Mandy’s finally starting to abate after a week and mine just starting. We were determined though not to let it get in the way of enjoying ourselves; the whole reason we had come to Queenstown was to “do things” so we allowed ourselves a lazy morning and headed out at 2pm into the day.

The views of yesterday were almost a distant memory. The low lying clouds that had ruined our views of the mountains on the west coast had found us and returned with a vengeance. The cloud cover was impossibly low; a thick unbroken veil of it hovering around 50 metres from ground level.

So it was with some trepidation that we drove to complete our trilogy of luges, finally reaching the beginning of our last one on this trip. We’d been on our first in Sentosa, Singapore, where we became aware that others existed in Rotorua and Queenstown. We did the Rotorua tracks last week. So here we were. At the Queenstown luge. And our hearts sunk when we looked at the gondola car taking us to the luge tracks and realised that the cloud cover was obscuring absolutely everything above.

Not even knowing if the luge would be open, we bought our tickets anyway and headed up the hill in the gondola. Within seconds, we were in the middle of impenetrable clouds, visibility reduced to mere metres in front.

Then, almost miraculously, we passed above the cloud level into clear blue sunshine. And were rewarded with one of the most beautiful inspiring sights we have ever seen in our lives.

Out of the thick cloud completely obscuring Queenstown and Lake Wakatipu below, the mountains rose out of the cloud like islands in water.

The bottom of the luge track and ski lift sat just above the cloud line; with the blue skies and sunshine it felt like we’d replaced the dull and grey weather below with an alpine paradise.

So we donned our Luge helmets, got onto the ski lift, and headed towards our final luges of the trip.

Stopping for a quick photo opportunity,

we started on the compulsory-for-the-first-ride “scenic track”, which with the mountain backdrop certainly deserved it’s name.

Having done the “easy track”, we spent our final four rides on the advanced track. The level of skill required to travel at full speed down this without crashing into the side barriers was immense. We had a couple of runs to get accustomed to the bends and then it was full out, high speed racing each other. On the final run, our ninth luge run on the trip, determined to use my brakes only as a last resort, I nearly tipped the luge on several occasions, pulled every muscle in my body, but had a brilliant and exhilarating ride down to the bottom, pulling up just before the end to wait for Mandy so we could get a photograph together. I’d like to put it on record that she didn’t beat me as this photograph suggests (I’d been sat for hours doing a newspaper crossword by the time she caught me up) and the fact that she seems in front of me is down to a lack of understanding the simple phrase “bloody slow down so we go through the camera at the same time”!

By the time we had finished our luges, the sun was starting to fall which reflected amazing contrasts of spectacular light on the mountains in front of us.

After taking in the views for ages, we finally boarded the gondola back down to ground level, replacing the blue skies and sunshine above for the grey murk below in town.

We took a quick walk around the town

before our colds got the better of us and we headed back to the hotel before we dropped dead of cold-induced fatigue.

So.

Luging.

Probably the best discovery of the trip for us, and a great source of fun every time we’ve done it. The only problem now is that, before finishing today, we thought we had done all the tracks we were aware of in Singapore. However, we found out on the way down on the Gondola that there are also now tracks in Canada! Oh well! We’ll just have to have another holiday!!!!!

Last night we managed to get some decent internet time, so got quite a few nagging things sorted out. One of these was to find and pre-book accommodation for the next three nights in Queenstown. We’ve enjoyed staying in the motels for the past three days, but by turning up unannounced each night we’re probably paying the rack rate for the rooms. So, having done our research, we booked a room in the Mercure Queenstown Resort for the next three nights for less than our current motel was costing!

Our motel in Haast had no kitchen facilities, so we decided to pack all our stuff, head for the first rest stop, and sort ourselves something there. So off we set, in quite atrocious weather conditions, over the mountain ranges. Again, the hills and mountains were completely obscured by low lying cloud/ mist, so it was as exciting a drive as watching paint dry.

Twenty minutes later, we had parked up in a rest stop and, like complete gypsies, were busy cooking bacon sandwiches in the van. A few cars pulled up and seemed to find us interesting, but they weren’t having any of our breakfast! A little bird even got in on the act, constantly trying to get into the van at every opportunity.

We ended up taking it in turns to stand as sentries to the entrance of the van, so insistent was the bird that it was coming in!

Having had our breakfast, we continued along the road. We had only probably gone around ten minutes when we spotted a sign to Thunder Creek Falls. So we parked up the van, put on our waterproofs (the rain being really heavy at this point), and walked along a rainforest path to the falls.

We were only there for a couple of minutes before the weather got the better of us, but the falls were certainly impressive. At least 50 metres high, if not higher, the extreme power of the water could be heard and felt before we even got a view of them. And we timed it to perfection; we had the falls to ourselves and as we left as a coach load of tourists pulled up and headed towards the rainforest path!

The deluge we had been experiencing was certainly having a dramatic impact on the area we were driving through. We passed a raging river shortly after Thunder Creek Falls

and small waterfalls on the hills surrounding the road became a common feature.

Although it did much for the landscape we were passing through, I can honestly say that driving through rain is not one of my favourite pastimes!

We pulled up for a rest stop at Boundary Creek, which was normally a campground on Lake Wanaka, but with the rainfall was now just a swamp.

Still, it was picturesque and had its very own scarecrow.

I didn’t see any crows so it must have worked; it certainly scared me!

Right next to Lake Wanaka, separated by a small range of hills, was Lake Hawea. And in a strange quirk of the weather, as soon as we crossed these hills, the rain stopped and the sun came out! It was less than a mile between the two locations, but it was as if an invisible forcefield was keeping the bad weather at bay.

Maybe it was the improvement in weather, or maybe it was the idyllic snow capped mountains shrouded in low lying clouds falling gently into the lake, but our spirits noticeably lifted as we travelled on the road around the lake.

In fact they had lifted so much when we had rounded the lake and reached the town of Wanaka, that we made quite a brave decision. We reached a junction in the road; we could turn left and follow the same highway in a long route to Queenstown (and not having any scenery to look at), or we could take a shorter route right through the mountains, past ski resorts, and hopefully have spectacular views. Bravely (or foolishly depending on your point of view as we had no snow chains in the van), we decided upon the mountain route.

So we headed off Highway 6 onto the Cardrona Valley Road, the roadside vegetation becoming more sparse and barren as we approached the snowline.

It was slow-going; my usual speed demon urges being replaced by caution as the van struggled with the steep inclines and the wheels at times struggling to grip properly on the ice and grit. But when we made it to the highest point, and stopped at the lookout, we knew we had made the best choice possible.

The landscape in front of us was vast; the snow capped mountains descending as far as the eye could see into distant valleys below.

We could see the road in front of us snaking impossibly far down the mountains, and we could see Queenstown and Lake Wakatipu in the distance.

It was cold, the wind threatened to whip us straight off the hill and away, but it was a truly awe-inspiring sight. And we’d only been saying today that New Zealand had nice but similar views to the Austrian Alps. This blew away any mountain scenery we had ever seen in our lives.

So down the winding mountain road we went, stopping at every opportunity for more jaw dropping vistas.

We arrived in Queenstown shortly after, passing through the main town centre and driving past winter sports shops and gangs of snowboarders as we went.

We arrived at the Mercure Queenstown Resort, and experienced for only the second time in our lives the sheer delight of a complimentary upgrade to our room. We had booked the cheaper option of a “Garden View” room, with the more superior “Lake View” rooms out of our budget at £25 a night more. Having seen the views on our arrival, we were obviously slightly disappointed we wouldn’t be able to gaze on this view from our room. But we got an upgrade free of charge to a Lake View room. And what a view it was!

We may have said this about other rooms on this trip, but this was definitely, definitely, definitely the best view from a hotel room we have ever had. We just couldn’t stop looking at it. And it was costing us less than the motels we had stayed in previously, and significantly less than even the private rooms in the nearby hostels. It obviously pays to be prepared!

So all that was left to do was pop into town, grab some excellent fish and chips, take a walk around the town, and then get back to the hotel, the first traces of a cold now hitting me. At least if I’m laid up for the next few days, I can’t think of a nicer place to be ill in!

Total Distance Driven In New Zealand: 2,344km

Packing our belongings back into the van this morning, we got chatting to the woman overseeing the motel. Apparently, the lightening and rain storm last night was one of the worst they’ve had this year. Again, we breathed a huge sigh of relief to think we’d avoided a night like that in the van!

We continued on our relentless drive on south island, today heading directly south down the west coast.

Our first place of note was Lake Ianthe which we hit within an hour of Greymouth. It was very pretty, very lakey, and the weather was very rainy, so we didn’t waste any time here. Besides, it’s not like we haven’t seen a lake before!

Continuing south down highway 6, we came to our first intended destination, the Franz Josef Glacier.

To get there, we had to veer off highway 6 onto a small service road. I say road; it was more like a muddy dirt track.

The van was slipping and sliding all over, and couldn’t grip properly in the sludge. By some miracle though, we managed to get to the car park in one piece and set off to see the glacier. The rain was coming down quite heavily still, but luckily the trees overhead acted as a roof so we didn’t get absolutely saturated. To see the glacier, we had to walk up a steeply inclining forest path, finally reaching the lookout point after a ten minute slog.

The glacier has spent thousands of years expanding and retracting; at present it had been in retreat for over a hundred years and indeed a hundred years ago had been right up to the lookout point we were now at.

Our viewing was cut short by the sudden and unexpected appearance of a yeti though

so off we headed back to the van and spent the next five minutes sliding back down to the Highway 6.

Our next stop, and the subject of some excitement in our van, was the Fox Glacier. Now we both grew up eating Fox Glacier Mints; for anyone not aware of these they are little clear blocks of mint which had the appearance of little glass blocks and often had the same effect as chomping glass by shattering into sharp shards! So we were excited to see the glacier that the mints were obviously hewn from, and in particular the polar bear with sunglasses that for years advertised them!

So, skilfully ignoring the sign on the approach road which said it was unsuitable for campervans, we headed up a 5km rainforest surrounded track barely wide enough or high enough for the van to fit on. Pulling up at the patch of ground which passed for a car park, the sign there indicated a five minute walk to the lookout view point.

All I can say is that the five minutes must have been the time it took someone to trip and fall all the way to the viewpoint, because ten minutes of walking down steep wooden steps later, we still hadn’t reached it!

Maybe it took us longer to reach the viewpoint because Mandy had to hold onto the edge of each step and dangle her legs over the edge until she could feel the ground with her tip toes; we’ll never know!

Well, eventually we got there and were quite disappointed.

Firstly we couldn’t smell any mints.

Secondly the polar bear was nowhere to be seen.

Thirdly, we’d spent the last fifteen minutes walking down steep stairs to see an almost identical view to that we’d seen at Franz Josef Glacier.

And finally, we now had to go back up the same steep steps to get back to the van, and Mandy didn’t have her step-ladder!

So we spent the next twenty minutes climbing the steps (in Mandy’s case literally climbing them!) and got back to the campervan, beginning to suspect that Fox Glacier Mints were made in factories and had nothing to do with Fox Glacier! If I ever meet that polar bear, I’m going to do something very imaginative with his sunglasses!

We left the Fox Glacier behind, eating A DIFFERENT BRAND OF MINTS (take note Fox Glacier Mints – your lies will have no further impact on us), and continued south.

We were hoping to see Mount Cook, New Zealand’s highest mountain, but the low level cloud and rain completely obscured any possible chance of seeing it. So that was a slight disappointment, but we’ll get over it!

We arrived at a place called Bruce Bay; it was extremely picturesque with the Tasman Sea crashing into the beach, but we actually turned around and went to look closer, not because of the view, but for the strange stone structures around the bay.

They were fascinating. There were hundreds of them arranged on one small stretch, and no indication whatsoever why they were there. Our own theory, based upon noticing a small cross in between a couple of them, is that they were some sort of monument to the dead. We could be hopelessly wrong of course (they could be a local joke added to each time a campervan stops at the site), but we treated them with respect all the same.

Pretty soon after Bruce Bay, we reached a lookout point called Knights Point. The views from here were great. The sea crashed over jagged rock formations, the water reflected magically on the sea, and small waterfalls gushed from the hillside directly into the sea.

It reinforced an opinion that had been forming all day; that landscape-wise this stretch of the west coast of South Island had a lot in common with places like Queensland in terms of the rainforest which dominated the landscape. It was just a pity that it also didn’t share Queensland’s weather!

We finally arrived in Haast, and decided to go no further today. Haast is probably the smallest place we have ever stayed in; it seemed like the entire population consisted of one man and his dog, although the dog had obviously gone on holiday and the man was a woman. But you get the idea. It was small!

But we got a room for the night in another motel, and once again the rain came down, battering the roof of even the motel. So three nights now in motels, and three nights that there would have been no way we could have slept in the van! It’s costing us a fortune to do it, but the money is so worth it!

Total Distance Driven In New Zealand: 2,113km