Campervan South Island Part One

Tuesday 10th June - Friday 20th June

Picton - Blenheim - Kaikoura

Waking in Picton which is set amongst the hills and fiords off the Marlborough sounds we set of early on Tuesday 10th June so that we could have a look around before driving to Kaikoura. We made our first stop at the Picton aquarium which had the animals/fish ect that are found in the sounds. It also had a wicked exhibition on the giant squid found off Kaikoura. We had a little time shopping and bought a few bits in the sales as the surfing brand clothes aren't as cheap here as they are in the states.

Afterwards we started our journey south and a little more than an hour from Picton we came to Blenheim famous as a wine region. We found another one of the makana chocolate factories and got some more and also went to the Villa Maria winery which sells lots of wine in the UK and one of Wolfie's lovely work colleagues Debbie V had got us a bottle for wedding which was very nice so we went back for more.

The rest of the evening was just a big drive across flat plains and rolling mountains which eventually gave way to coastal roads we slowed down at parts as the signs warned of sleeping seals on the road (don't get that in the UK), and pretty soon we arrived in Kaikoura. We booked into the Top 10 and got the 2nd Lord of the Rings film to watch.

Wolfie woke up on Wednesday 11th June even fuller of the cold which he'd had so we stayed at the van and planned the time for the south island and made some arrangements for activities that we wanted to do. In the afternoon we went looking for NZ fur seals, which we found loads of on the peninsula which now means that we have seen 5 different types of seal since we'd been away.

1.Californian harbour seals

2.Californian Elephant seals

3.Californian Sea Lions

4.Hawaiian monk seals

5.NZ fur seals

The rocks were pretty slippy on the walk and Corinne slipped and she had a big paddy and refused to walk any further, was really funny. We then had a little drive around to the south bay and just after dark the little blue penguins came home for the evening, despite only being little they were so noisy. We watched them running around before getting into their beds for the night.

Kaikoura - Nelson - Motueka

Thursday 12th June found us at the Kaikoura dolphin encounter centre kitted up and ready to go swimming with the dusky dolphins. With our wetsuits and snorkelling gear like the Black water rafting we jumped on the boat and headed out looking for them. In 2 hours we couldn't find them which was a little disappointing but we did find HUGE wandering albatross, loads of seals out feeding, sperm whales from the distance and a Humpback whale up close.

Once changed it was time for us to head north to Nelson, on the way on the advice from someone local we stopped off at the Oahu point seal colony and took a walk up the Oahu point stream, a little up the stream is a deep pool which is feed by a waterfall in a shaded area of forest. It's like the nursery for the seal pups whilst the mums go fishing, there were loads of seals around 3-4 months old swimming and jumping about, it really was AMAZING!!! After we spent a while watching them we left and drove the 3 hours to Nelson arriving just after dark.

On FRIDAY 13th JUNE we visited the jewellers that made the rings for the Lord of the Rings films; we got to hold the giant ring (8 inches in diameter) that was used for the spinning shots at the start of the films. Afterwards we watched some football in the MAC's brewery pub and Corinne wrote out some postcards.In the evening we got a movie out and had some dominos pizza.

Saturdays are Market days in Nelson and the 14th June was no different, we bought some great stuff homemade mango chutneys and peanut butter, we spent a good couple of hour's looking around the market before leaving we could have gotten so much cool stuff there was just nowhere to keep it. We then went and found the brewery that made the beer for the LOTR film scenes on the pubs which was a special 1.1% to stop the cast getting drunk if repeated scenes needed doing, Wolfie tried some and then bought some proper ale at 6.6% which was very nice. We then drove a little bit over an hour up the coast and checked into the campsite in Motueka and had curry for tea (as you can get the pataks curry stuff which isn't bad).

Another day another adventure on Sunday 15th June as it was time for some sea kayaking in the Abel Tasman Park to a town just on the edge of the park and met our guides Marty and Crissy before getting some kit, becoming acquainted with our kayaks and heading down to the sea. We paddle through the shallow beach water before hitting the deep stuff, hugging the coast line and trying to spot wildlife. We paddled for about an hour before stopping for a bit of a break to give us energy to paddle the mad mile, we stopped on a deserted beach only accessible from the water, explored caves and watched birds (not the boring kinds we have in the UK). Afterwards it was time for the mad mile and it wasn't to mad today we spotted seal pups and their mums either sleeping or making lots of noise.

About half way down the mad mile we stopped for a lunch of soup and muffins, the soup was great and we lost a muffin to the seagulls. Whilst we were having lunch we were also lunch to loads of sand flies wolfie had 63 bites when counted Corinne 10ish. We finished the mad mile and it turns out we had paddled around 18kms that day. Tired and achy we got the water taxi back and then drove back to the campsite for a soak in the hot tub.

Motueka - Cape Foul wind - Greymouth (Arthurs Pass)

Tired and a little achy we left for Greymouth on Monday 16th June with the intention of stopping of at Westport/Cape foul wind on the way there.Cape foul wind was named so by the very imaginative Captain Cook who is suppose after travelling to many places must have got bored and said the first thing that came to mind, Cape Foul Wind cause when he passed there it was stormy (cape kidnappers near Gisbourne because the Maori kidnapped one of his crew there) great guy just not very imaginative. We had a walk around and even seen a weka which is the Kiwi's cousin, and some more seals not to mention more blinking sand flies. We spent the evening watching a free movie from the campsite.

We used Greymouth as a kind of stepping stone so that we could go to Arthurs pass a small alpine town famed for its kea's (the world's only alpine parrot). It was a 150km round trip so we left early on Tuesday 17th June and braved the blowing winds and the campervan braved the steep hills and eventually made it up there. It was beautiful lots of waterfalls, forests and snow capped peaks. We went for a little walk to look for the Kea's with no luck. Shame but the scenery made up for it and the devils waterfall was great. We had a hot chocolate in the wobbly kea before heading home for the night.

Grey mouth - Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers - Wanaka

We went about 40 minutes back up the coast on Wednesday 18th June to catch a glimpse at the pancake rocks and blow holes.The Pancake rocks are named so as you can see on the pictures cause its limestone that looks like flat slabs stacked on top of each other the blow holes where great and we had gotten there early because it was high tide and they work then. There was the chimney pot and Pukai, the first chimney pot looked like smoke most of the time with drops of water and mostly spray with a funny sound when it came out, where as Pukai was just really powerful with big loads of water flying everywhere.

We then had a look around Greymouth getting a few necessities and checking the few sites before leaving for the glaciers. When we arrived you could see the snow on top of the mountains reflecting in the moon light. It was bed early so that we would be ready for the Glacier walk tomorrow.

We checked in for our glacier walk on Thursday 19th June around about 8.30ish and got our modern walking boots and crampons. We met our guides Tamra and Matty and we had a brief history lesson on the glacier, before boarding the bus and driving a little closer to the bottom. We then spilt into smaller groups we went with Tamra, Daniel from the Netherlands, Sam UK, Natasha from Ireland and Phoebe from Malaysia. We let the first group go ahead a little before walking the 500 or steps to the edge of the glacier through bush and rocky outcrops. High up next to the mid section of the glacier we put on our crampons and headed off to explore.

The ice is amazing and so blue and clear it's unbelievable unfortunately we didn't find any animals frozen in the ice reaching for a nut but hey. We explored ice caves, crawled through ice tunnels, ice corridors and just messed about really. We did have to dodge a few big crevasse's and holes, it turns out the ice at the bottom of the glacier can be at least 60-200 years old depending on the route it takes down the mountain side. The whole glacier is around 14km (one more than the Franz Josef) and varies in length from year to year. We had a really fun day and once back at the base went for a beer with the people from our group minus Phoebe who didn't really talk much. At the end of the night we swapped email addresses and headed off for bed.

Friday 20th June we drove to Wanaka near Queenstown, the scenery was amazing a little like the lake distance only a lot BIGGER. It took around 5 hours to drive it and we checked in at you guessed it another campsite getting the last LOTR DVD to watch completing our trilogy.