End of the Road…?

This is probably the last travel post for a couple of weeks as we’re heading back home for a week or so before heading back to Australia to start working (fingers crossed!). Will be odd being back in the UK and seeing everyone especially little Nicholas, my girlfriend-nephew who I’ve not even see yet! Muchly looking forward to being reunited with my clothes too – will be so nice to have a choice of things to wear again as I am very sick of my blue fleece right now :-)

For info, here are maps of our North and South Island adventures – North Island we went clockwise from Auckland, South Island anticlockwise from Christchurch:

Anyways… catch up time for the last week or so…

From Fox & Franz Jospeh Glaciers we headed down the coast to Haast  where the road headed inland again. This was untamed coast and Antarctic waters, but we had another lovely weather day so the sea didn’t look too uninviting (if only the air temperature was above 10 degrees…).

We went up and over the Southern Alps again and stopped the night on the shores of Lake Wanaka – unfortunately the clouds had descended and we didn’t get a glimpse of the peaks that surround the lake :-( We awoke to even more cloud until we increased our altitude as we headed the scenic route to Queenstown via Cardrona and the Crown Range saddle. There had been freezing fog overnight so everything was covered in a beautiful layer of frost and the veiws down onto the cloud covering Lake Wanaka to the North and Lake Wakatipu to the south were quite stunning:

We spent two nights in Queenstown making use of a nice campsite to provide us with heater protection against the chilly temperatures. We did a day’s skiing up at Coronet Peak – again amazing views from the snowfield down on the green, farm-filled valley and lake.

From Queenstown we headed to Te Anau through very wild country with less farmland that most of NZ with mountain ranges in the distance every which way we looked. It was a spectacular journey only then topped by the journey from Te Anau to Milford Sound. The 120km route winds and wiggles through forest, marshland, moraine, rivers and narrow gorges with huge rock faces bearing down from above. We made it 3/4 of the way to Milford the first afternoon so spent the night in a small camping area (gravel patch with drop toilet) and were so so so cold – ice on the inside of the van in the morning brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. But the views made up for the chilliness:

We arrived in Milford after braving the icy roads and a very long tunnel in time to see a cruise boat leave the harbour grrr, so we had to wait a couple of hours in which time we found some people who knew Sarah from her time working on the boats, and we wangled free cruise tickets, lunch and underwater observatory tickets :-) We had a 2hr cruise out onto the sound passing under some huge waterfalls, enormous rock faces and even saw some seals splashing around in the water and lazing about on the rocks. Pictures are better than words so….

 

We would have loved to have spent some more time there and done some walks (as with everywhere we’ve breezed through!), but time was not our side so we headed back to Te Anau for the night and then straight off again in the morning to drive the southern scenic route to Invercargill – was not too scenic in the morning as the fog had once more descended… Luckily, once we got out of the hills and closer to the coast it all disappeared and the sun popped out again :)

We passed through Invercargill only stopping to use the internet – just another town… We spent the afternoon driving along the coastline through the Catlins – a very hilly and green corner of the southern most part of mainland NZ and spent the night in the middle of absolutely nowhere – it was our coldest night yet and we even had an icicle hanging from our tap in the morning!

We carried on up the coast passing through muchos farmland and small agricultural towns until we got to Dunedin – the largest town in the South and home to the Cadbury factory! Which we had to visit mostly for the goody bag :-) mmmm chocolate…

Dunedin is a nice little town and has a lot of old-style buildings and looks very english/scottish:

From Dunedin, we headed north along the coast (the sea here did not look inviting) buffeted by wind and rain – our luck with the weather seems to have run out a little… We turned inland again at Oamaru and drove up towards the Alps where the rain turned to… snow! We stopped the night in Twizel and played in the snow and even made a snowman!

 

From Twizel, we were going to dive up to Mt Cook village and visit the Edmund Hillary Centre which was high on my list of things to do in NZ… but it snowed some more overnight and made the 110km return journey up to the village into a bit of a mammoth task. So we knocked it on the head as we didn’t have too much spare time. We continued northwest through the snow to Lake Tekapo where the views of Mt Cook and the blue lake are supposed to be spectacular. We could see this:

Hmm. So we carried on down from the mountains via Geraldine and Methven and towards Christchurch and the Banks Peninsula. The peninsula was formed by a couple of volcanic eruptions and is a mishmash of hills and bays surrounded by ocean. Bit cloudy so we couldn’t quite appreciate it’s full prettiness but we still had some glimpses of nice views:

Just gonna head back to Christchurch for one night now and then we’ll be UK bound on Monday… so goodbye New Zealand. It’s been awesome :-)

South Island – Christchurch to Fox Glacier

Mmmm it’s so nice to be warm… I’m sat in our new campervan (number 4) in a campsite with power so we can have the heater on and it is toasty warm :-) Weird to think that it’s midsummer back in the UK and it’s still light at 9pm instead of 5pm and not frosty in the mornings. But I wouldn’t change it for the world as the landscape here in the South Island is just perfect with snowcapped mountains.

We left the North Island on Saturday and Chris has summed up the remainder of our North Island adventures on his blog www.rootfest.com. We flew to Christchurch, on the Eastern edge of the middle of the South Island and arrived Saturday evening to some chilly chilly rain. We’d cooked every night in our van on the North Island so our few days in Christchurch in a hostel made for a nice excuse to sample some restaurants and cafes in the city. We spent Sunday night at a Ye Olde English Pub, which are usually best avoided but we were just in the mood for a cosy pub atmosphere and tasty pub grub… and they had a quiz on so I was happy :-) And we didn’t even do too badly seeing as we were a team of two and not Kiwis!

We spent our couple of days in Christchurch just exploring the city, and visiting every outdoor clothing store in search of new thermals for Chris (any excuse to visit outdoors shops….). The city is quite different to those in the North with quite an English feel to it and some nice old buildings. We spent some time exploring the Arts Centre which is housed in the old Canterbury University buildings and the museum which had a great exhibit on all Antarctica related history, animals and exploration.

We picked our new van up on Tuesday morning and we’ve used another company again and have a different shaped van. We’re definitely up to speed with all the various types of van available in Australasia and think we’ve finally chosen a van that suits our needs down to the ground. Although a potato peeler would be nice…

We headed straight west from Christchurch across the Canterbury Plains and up into the Southern Alps. It was a spectacular journey and we had an amazing sunny day:

We attempted to find a free place to camp but somehow missed the turning so ended up in a caravan site in a summer lakeside resort – we were the only ones there and it was FREEZING. Luckily, we had power so we had the heater on in the evening, but it took some struggle to get out of bed in the morning when there was ice on the inside of the windows brrrrrrrrrrr

We continued west until we hit the Tasman Sea coast at Greymouth. Not a fat lot to see there so we continued driving along the coast. We stopped at a gorgeous lake for lunch and Chris took some pretty nice pics:

down to Franz Joseph Glacier – a small town harbouring the tourists who come to look at, walk on, climb up and fly over the glacier. We got there a bit late in the day to do the walk up close, so we just hiked up a small path to a lookout. Bit cloudy but still pretty awesome. We would have like to have done a climb or flight, but it’s all pretty expensive so we’ll have to save that one for when we have incomes again :-)

We spent last night in a cheapo Department of Conservation campsite beside a beautiful lake – no showers and no power (so no heater) which meant we spent the night huddled under the quilts watching DVDs :-) Was even harder to get up this morning…

We’re heading South until the road runs out at Haast and then inland to Wanaka and Queenstown and maybe some skiing :-D

Driving, driving, driving…

We’re now on day 11 of our North Island Campervan Adventure, and have driven over 1900km of mostly wiggly windy roads (which are the main highways, just not bearing any resemblance to the M6 thank god). We’ve wiggled our way down to Wellington and are now heading back North to Auckland for Saturday when we have to say goodbye to Bertha (the van).

I think I last left off in Roturua where we soaked ourselves to prunes in the hot springs. We headed South a hundred km or so to Taupo – along the ‘Thermal Highway’ so there was lots of steamy streams and a big fat geothermal powerstation. We spent an afternoon hiding from the rain in Taupo (involving coffee, internet, bakery visiting and soup eating in our van), and then decided to get a bit wet and do a short walk to a natural hot springs bathing spot – a hot stream spilling out into the river. Was quite surreal getting into my bikini in the cold and drizzle, but once I was sat on the slightly slimy bottom of the stream in the toasty water, it was worth it :-) 

We spent the night in a free campsite next to the river, and then on our way out of town thought we’d have a quick look at the Taupo Bungy. A quick look at the bungy ended up with Chris having a go (surprise surprise) and you can watch the video here www.rootfest.com/jump.mp4  - crazy fool jumping 47m headfirst towards a river.

That was enough excitement for one day, so we spent the rest of the day driving across the country to Napier, on the East Coast. Napier sits smack bang in the middle of Hawkes Bay wine country, so it seemed obligatory to partake in the wine drinking. So we chose to go on a tour as then we could both sample the goodies and not worry about driving. Our friendly guide, Ian, gave us a fab tour and obviously knew his stuff about all the local wines. We ended up trying about 6 wines at 3 wineries, and they were not small portions. After also visiting a beer and cider company, I was quite sozzled! Was a great afternoon and I even learned stuff too :-)

From Napier, we headed south hugging the coast down towards Wellington, and overnighted in a Department of Conservation campsite (a field) on the edge of Tararua National Park. Again, the sky was leaking so we only did a small walk around the river but it was a nice stretch of legs after driving all morning. We had the field to ourselves all night and were constantly serenaded by the rain hammering on the roof of the van – vans are great but they do tend to get hot when it’s hot, cold when it’s cold and sound like the rain is in your ears in a downpour. We had our first glimpse of NZ snow on the journey from Tararua to Wellington along with a whole lot of farmland.

We spent a couple of days in Wellington, and met up with a friend from Sydney who has just moved over so she showed us all the sights in an afternoon. There’s not much camping to be had in Welly, so we had to stay about 15km outside and then drive back into town in the morning. We spent a great morning exploring Te Papa museum and Weta Cave – the company who made the models/costumes etc for Lord of the Rings and Narnia.

Some pics of Welly:

We drove a couple of hours North of Wellington for our campsite for the night, at Foxton Beach and arrived for a spectacular sunset:

We continued driving North the next day and drove through some quite pretty countryside on the way to Tongariro National Park:

We were aiming towards Ohakune, but got there quite early so decided to carry on North to Whakapapa ski resort – right on the slopes of Mt Ruapehu (an active volcano that last had a major eruption in 1996). The summit was clouded over as we drove up – typical:

But as we got closer, the clouds drifted away (or we drove past them) and revealed the snow capped crater and summit:

We drove all the way up to the ski lifts which were being assembled (guys lifting chairs onto the chairlift cable) ready for the start of the season in 2 weeks time. So we couldn’t ski, but we’re planning on doing some on the South Island in a couple of weeks.

We stayed in Whakapapa village overnight (so so so cold) and awoke to rain that turned into sleet just as we were doing our morning chores of emptying the van of ‘waste’. Lovely. First proper snowfall we’ve seen for 18 months though… We were going to do a walk, but seeing as everywhere was covered by cloud, we decided to head on down the mountain and get some more km under our belts.

We headed West towards the sticky-out bit on the North Island – Taraknaki region. The State Highway that heads that way, is known as the ‘Forgotten World Highway’ and is 155km of farmland, jungle lined gorges, amazing windy roads up to grass covered ridges, and no shops or petrol. Luckily I read the petrol part in the Lonely Planet or we may have come unstuck somewhere in the middle of nowhere. The scenery was amazing and the photos don’t quite do it justice:

The Forgotten World Highway ends in Stratford – the gateway to the Taranaki region, named for Mt Taranaki, a 2500m volcano dominating the surrounding flat countryside. We drove up as close as you can get to the summit and still couldn’t see it… maybe tomorrow…

Tomorrow… the sun is shining and the misty mountain appeared!

Adventures in Kiwi-land

We’ve been in New Zealand almost a week now and are on the road circling the North Island for two weeks. We had a couple of days in Auckland and did all the usual touristy stuff – visited Devenport, Rangitoto and did a lot of wandering the city. Chris has written all about it on his blog (www.rootfest.com) so I won’t double up but here are some of my photos of Auckland:

Rangitoto from Devenport:

Auckland city from Devenport:

Rangitoto wharf:

We’d booked a campervan to pick up at Auckland airport on Saturday morning, but after a bit of to-ing and fro-ing with e-mails and phone calls, it turned out that our booking hadn’t made it through the system and the branch didn’t actually have any vehicles available for us to take. Unfortunately, we didn’t find this out until we’d got ourselves to the airport and the lovely campervan company (who will remain nameless but it rhymes with Lucy) left us stranded at Auckland domestic terminal with no wheels and no accommodation booked, and a potential $30 shuttle ride back to the city. Needless to say we were not too amused by this. Chris saved the day by calling another company who luckily had a van for us and also have a free shuttle from the airport – yippee! We had to wait a couple of hours but the staff were thoughtful enough to lend us a car (swanky 4x4 in fact) to pop to the supermarket to stock up on groceries for the trip. We also got an upgraded van and so have ended up in a swanky Britz van complete with shower and toilet! We’re moving up the campervan ladder – from our Wicked ‘shitbox’ van in WA with mismatched crockery and shonky engine, to our Hippie van in Queensland with no space to swing a cat, to our swanky Britz van which we can stand up in and shower in and has 2 gas rings!! It’s so nice to be able to cook 2 things at once :-) And because we’re in low season, Swanky van is costing us less than shitbox van – crazy. So our crappy start to the day ended up being pretty darn good thanks to the very helpful Britz/Backpacker people :-)

So, we eventually hit the road around 2pm on Saturday and drove South and East to the Coromandel Peninsula. We passed through some pretty spectacular countryside and snaked along a pretty narrow coastal road until we reached Coromandel town and set up camp for the night. The views we woke up to were pretty nice:

We had a cheeky bimble around the town in the morning but being 10am on a Sunday, not a fat lot was going on. So we jumped back in the van and drove across the peninsula up and down some very steep hills – complete with picturesque viewpoint looking back on Coromandel:

 

We next hit Hot Water Beach – which does exactly what it says on the tin. For 2 hours either side of low tide, you can dig a hole in the sand and create your own thermal pool in the sand. Unfortunately we didn’t have a spade or our swimming things so we just watched everyone else:

From there it was a short drive around the corner to Hahei and a walk to Cathedral Cove – a beautiful beach with limestone caves and stacks – easy to imagine it packed with tourists in the summer as the sea was amazingly blue, and there were still quite a few people around on Sunday and one girl even went in the sea (I was wearing a scarf it was that chilly…)

As our van is pretty much self-sufficient, we’re trying not to stay in too many paid-for campsites and so we diverted off our planned route south to a small town called Paeroa (famous for Lemon and Paeroa drink) where our camping book said we could camp for free – yay! We drove alongside a river through a beautiful gorge to reach the town but unfortunately it was a bit dark to take pics. We arrived at the designated camping spot – basically a few parking spaces just off the main road, but it did have power sockets, water and toilets – which is pretty much all we ever use in the proper campsites anyway.

We headed directly South from Paeroa through flat farmland with mountains on each side in the distance. We passed through Matamata, where Hobbiton was set in Lord of the Rings – we decided to pass on the tour as they charge $50 for the privilege of looking at some mounds of grass. We drove on to Rotarua which stinks. I’m sure it’s pleasant enough town, but who could live somewhere that smells of rotten eggs?! Having a steaming bubbling pool of mud in your garden would be pretty cool though.

 

We made the most of the thermal activity, and stayed in a campsite right next door to Waikite thermal pools which gave us unlimited access to the set of pool heated by a natural boiling hot water spring. It was so nice to lounge around in hot water seeing as we haven’t had a proper bath since leaving home (note: we have had lots and lots of showers – we’re not that stinky).