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
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