New Zealand (South Island) 25th April - 10th May 2009

We’re currently both fighting colds as we travel across the Cook Straight to Wellington (me more than Darren!) So I thought it was a great time to wipe the dust off the laptop and bring it to life with some stories to tell you from the south island!
Well where do I start?
We have had the busiest 16 days on the south island of NZ, its definitely been an adventure! I don’t think I’m going to have time to write a blog for all the destinations, so instead I’m going to do a quick round up of all our events!
(Sorry!!!!!!!……Although I bet this blog turns out to be a big one!)

We arrived into Christchurch on April 25th, definitely a bit cooler but it was dry! We picked up our campervan ‘Cuddles’ (its name is on the side- I love it, Darren not quite so much haha!) and we headed to our first camp site in town to get our bearings with the van! To cut a long story very short, Cuddles was ready to go after three trips back to the depot to fix lights/water tap and a faulty fridge!!!!!! We had a free tank of petrol for our troubles!

CHC felt like home, as it is described as the most English city of NZ. Autumn is very much in full swing and it was lovely to see green parks wit golden leaves on the ground, we felt like we were at home!!!!! The city is small but very pretty with the River Avon meandering through it. We took a gondola ride (no, not a boat, but a cable car!) to the extinct volcano mountains for great views of CHC, Lyttleton Harbour where the first British settlers arrived in the 1840’s and in the distance you could see the Southern Alps Mountain Range on the West Coast. Very pretty.

On the 27th April we woke up in Banks Peninsula, south west of CHC and had a stroll around the town of Akoroa, the settlement of the first French people who thought that NZ was going to be their colony. But the Brits beat them to it and stuck a great big union jack flag in the centre of town on their arrival. A British monument and flag still remains, however the town still retains its French feel with street names and cafes everywhere. Banks Peninsula is the remains of an extinct volcano that erupted for thousands of years millions of years ago…..when sea level rose the crater filled up with water creating the most stunning views from the mountain tops. The summit road is a fantastic drive and the views incredible as you admire the volcanic crater! The road is definitely not for the faint hearted…….Mum!!!!!
From there we joined the main highway SH1 and travelled south on the east coast towards the little town of Oamaru, home to the Blue Penguins. We can not believe how quiet everywhere is and how few cars we pass every hour. The motorways here are equivalent to our B roads! They don’t need big roads as they don’t have to traffic to contend with. Its so refreshing!
We stopped in Oamaru over night, took a coastal walk in the morning and passed burrows of the penguins. We took a walk through the historic quarter which was like being in St Fagan’s, buildings restored at used today. Even in the bakery the lady behind the counter was dressed in Victorian style apron and bonnet! We treated ourselves to some vintage cheddar at the cheese factory and then moved another 100miles south to the oldest city in NZ - Dunedin.

We checked out the museum which had a little bit of Maori information and visited the steepest residential street in the world…it was a hard climb to the top! The next day we did our own little wildlife tour of the Otago Peninsula which sits off the east coast by Dunedin. A area which reminded us very much of Gower, big green hills and plenty of farms, sheep and cows, you can see how people do consider Wales and NZ to be quite similar.
The weather wasn’t great today but we got to see so much! At the tip of the peninsula we got to ogle at the Royal Albatross in flight with a beautiful 3m wingspan, even I was highly impressed with the beauty of this bird.
In the afternoon we visited Lanarch Castle, their only one! Well its more of a big house, but because it was so cloudy the views were obscured.
By 4pm we took a walk down to Sandfly Bay and came across many big fat sea lions, where one decided to unexpectedly charge at us and chase us down the beach!!! (Maybe we did get a little too close!) But it was sooooo cool seeing them just chill out on the beach!!
And finally at dusk we saw our first penguins (yellow eyed) come ashore, they were quite far away but luckily someone had binoculars and we were able to see them clearly….so cute! And we were so happy as we’ve tried to see them quite a few times without paying! All in all it was a fab day!!

On Thursday 30th April we made our way over to the west coast, just skipping the southern tip of Invercargil and arriving into Te Anau early morning, the gateway to Milford Sound. We picked up some more warm clothes as it was bitterly cold now and then we headed towards Milford, a 70 mile dead end road!!! Millions of people come this way to see the beautiful fiords and to do the Milford walking track. There are also plenty of one day walks to do, so Darren and I went off on a walk to Lake Marian (recommended by Sophie). It was a 3 hours return walk and the first 90 minutes we were tramping up hill over big boulders, trees and rocks! We both started with 4-5 layers on, half an hour later we were down to our t shirts!!!!
The walk so definitely worth it, absolutely stunning! Lake Marian sparkled while surrounded by big mountains and cascading waterfalls. It was so peaceful and tranquil we could of stayed there all day. The weather wasn’t too great today, a lot of low cloud but still it was perfect!
We eventually got back to the van and continued the drive towards Milford, where the scenery while driving kept getting better and better. You should just visit this area for the road trip, its incredible! Mighty mountains surround the whole area and a rainforest trees make it look so pretty. The Homer Tunnel which travels 140m through a massive mountain is insane!!!!!
Anyways moving on……we did a boat trip on Milford Sound on the Friday, had it for an absolute bargain as they got the times wrong and we had a buy1 get one free offer! So we got a $150 tour for $60 for the two of us! No words can describe the scenery at Milford Sound. If any of you who have been there and is reading this, I hope you agree with me when I say it has to be some of the most dramatic scenery in the world and just the scale of it isso hard to capture on a camera. We had a great day and seeing beautiful waterfalls and even a pod of dolphins riding the bow of our boat was a bonus!
Milford Sound gets an annual rain fall of 7m and it is very likely that it will rain during your visit. We had absolutely stunning blue skies all day and the peaks of the mountains were in clear view. Mitre Peak looked very dominant and you could even see a few surviving glaciers high up on some ranges. We had the underwater observatory thrown in for free which was good fun and plenty of tea and coffee to keep us warm on the boat.
One of the explorers from the time was from Wales and obviously named Milford Sound after Milford Haven. There is also the Cleddau River and Mount Pembroke. I could go on describing it all but I better move on, so far everything has been outstanding and we both cant get over how jaw dropping the scenery is……and we’re told we the west coast gets even better.

On Saturday 2nd May we made our way to the adventure capital of the world ‘Queenstown’. Zoe, a school friend of mine moved out here 2 years ago and has pretty much settled. So we spent 5 days with her and her boyfriend Andrew and most definitely fell in love with the town. We turned into adrenalin junkies and had an absolute ball!!!! Im going to write a separate blog fort QT as we got up to so much!

After QT we headed an hour north to Wanaka, a smaller version of QT with a pretty lake and surrounding mountains. We didn’t stay here long, we just checked out the crazy funny cinema which has sofa’s as seats and even a VW Beetle with seats inside! It was hilarious and you could take dinner inside and be merry too if you wanted to! We saw Slumdog Millionaire and we both thoroughly enjoyed it.
Next stop on Thursday 7th May was the West Coast and Glacier Land. I just cant reiterate how beautiful the south island is. The west coast Southern Alps Mountain Range had snowy peaks and all of a sudden on the drive the wide open expanse roads turned into rainforest. We were driving through the middle of a rainforest…..CRAZY!
We had a stop at Fox Glacier, took some photos and then continued onto Franz Josef Glacier town, a tiny little community totally reliant on tourism for the mountain range and the glacier. We did a guided hike of the glacier the following day which was unreal. Its uncomprehendable to imagine these two glaciers (Fox and Franz Josef) once reached the ocean and only 100 years ago were about 400m bigger. They say they are growing and receding at the moment so global warming isn’t having too much of an effect. We did a walk on the lower part of the glacier and even had to climb through a tiny blue ice cave. Very scary! Our guide Basil carried a big pick ice and carved out some lovely steps for us along the way and we enjoyed 2 hours of ice time! All the walking we did ment we didn’t get very cold and yet again we were lucky with the weather, it was lush!!!! A few hours after we finished the rain set in!!

We now had a long drive ahead of us to reach the north coast of the south island. We had to miss out a few places on the way as we maybe spent 1-2days too long in QT, but it was all worth it. We passed through a little town called Hokitika and continued north. We reached Abel Tasman and Golden Bay area on Saturday 9th and had some lovely beachside resorts to visit! We took a walk up Takaka Hill and had stunning views of the north coast and Abel Tasman National Park. We could even see Farewell Spit at the tip of the north coast and yet again it was a beautiful day.

On our last day of the south island we rented kayaks and paddled around Abel Tasman NP , a popular way to see the beautiful beaches and islands. During the summer time this place is heaving with tourists and holiday makers and there can be up to 250 kayaks out on the bay. There is also a popular 3 day walking track so it’s a very busy place. However in winter its dead!!!!! And we only saw 4 other kayaks out on the ocean! We spotted seal pups on Adele Island and had a lunch break on the deserted beach of Fisherman Island, spotting shag birds on the sand, it was perfect. We started with sunshine but unfortunately the cloud came over and stole it away from us half hour into our kayak. We were out for a good 4 hours and by the time we got back I was frozen and we were both pretty wet! But it was still great fun.

So all in all we’ve had a brilliant adventure so far, NZ is so different to Oz and we’re also seeing it in a different climate! We’re both used to the cooler weather now so that’s not a problem! Its absolutely stunning and we still cant get over that the population is just over 4 million and less than a million live on the south island! How cool is that! The south island is incredible and has so much to offer. We wish we could have done a little more but we are very happy with what we’ve achieve thus far!!!!!! We’ve seen a little of middle earth and there is plenty more to see on the north island! We’re also looking forward to experiencing some Maori culture and learning more about the history.

We’re half way across the Cook Straight now so I’m going to check out the views. We both hope our colds don’t stop us from getting up to some more fun over the next few days!!

Hope everyone is well and jealous of our crazy adventure!!!!!