Campervan South Island Part Two

Saturday 21st June - Monday 30th June

Wanaka - Queenstown - Te Anua

We had a good look around Wanaka on Saturday 21st June your longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere but it's the shortest down here. The lake side shore has the most amazing views but it was a bit on the cold side so we played some pool in one of the pubs and watched a bit of the 2008 football. We found a surf shop with a 60% of everything sale and bought a few bits cause they were like super cheap.

Later in the afternoon we drove the short distance to Queenstown past even more lakes and mountains. We checked into the queenstown top 10 site and got cosy for the evening and had some tea.

On Sunday 22nd June we went to Glenorchy a small town around 40km from Queenstown. Arriving in Glenorchy it brings you immediately closer to the mountains that make up the amazing scenery seen from Queenstown, we drove through the town and straight onto the road to paradise. It's so amazing we took the campervan virtually off road passing through rocky streams and got to some more of the lord of the rings locations of Isengard and elvish woods. Once back at Glenorchy and feeling hungry we went to the local hotel for a ROAST DINNER. It was great and our first one since Washington DC the beef was amazing and it even had roasties, but there wasn't a Yorkshire pudding.

On the way back to Queenstown we stopped at a few more lord of the rings locations from the book, it's been great fun to find all of the sights some of them are really recognisable and some not so. The rain then started to come down and stayed for the evening, so that meant we stayed in the van for the night.

Monday 23rd June was a day where we had jobs to do, things for jobs and booking a few bits as we would soon be moving on. Wolfie had to get a couple more copies of documents for the nurse's board of Victoria and post them off. Afterwards in the afternoon we had a look around the town and took some pictures. In the evening we met up with the nice Irish girl from the glacier walk Natasha and her friends. We went around a few bars and had a few drinks, it was good to chat to them and after a while we headed back to the camper.

The next day after having a drive around Arrowtown an old gold town a little outside Queenstown (Tuesday 24th June) we had a trip to deer park heights which is a working farm with deer (it's in the name), goats, cattle, pigs, donkeys and very inquisitive llama's. We got some food and had lots of fun as the animals would come running over and try and get all the food. The area was also used extensively in the second lord of the rings films and you may recognise this on some of the pictures. After spending some time trying to get some goats from under the van as they had pushed the food tins underneath that Corinne had dropped. The views from the top of the heights were great and there had been lots of snow overnight. We then spent the early evening driving to Te Anua near to Milford Sound. We once more arrived after dark and checked into the Campervan Park.

Te Anua - Invercargill/Bluff - Dunedin - Christchurch

Wednesday 25th June was a blustery rainy day like the ones we get in the UK. The rain cleared for long enough so that we could look around the DOC bird park, they had Kea's which we great to see and so cleaver, their cousins the Kaka's, lots of native parakeets, the super rare takahe and the wood pigeon. We then left Te Anua bound for Invercargill and the bluff the beginning of highway one and the opposite sign to the one that we had seen at Cape Reinga and the completion of our journey from one end of the country to the other. We didn't stop in Invercargill as there wasn't much to see but carried straight onto Dunedin and the little yellow eyed penguins and Cadburys world.

Thursday 26th June was a miserable day and we stayed at the camper watching the rain pour outside. Dunedin is where a lot of the Scottish people moved during the original series of immigrations years ago and it's said that they left Scotland that's grey and dreary and moved to Dunedin that's grey and dreary.

We arrived at Cadburys world for our 11am tour on Friday 27th June and after a little look around the information boards we went off for a tour around the factory, we got to see the blocks of chocolate for commercial use and chocolate buttons being made. We got lots of free chocolate, seen the warehouse where there was so much chocolate stored. After a little look around the Cadburys shop and a few of the shops in Dunedin we headed out to the Penguin place on the Otago Peninsula. We went down into the reserve and straight away got to see some that had stayed in their hides for the day. They were amazing and so cool, the little yellow eyed penguin is one of the most ancient of all the penguins and also one of the rarest. The Penguin Place is a reserve and they hope to encourage the penguins to breed and make more little penguins. We eventually through the hides worked our way to the beach and after a little patience we watched them start to appear out of the water for the evening. Soon darkness started to settle in and that meant our time was up with the penguins so we went back to the campsite.

It was time to work our way up to Christchurch so we left Dunedin on Saturday 28th June and drove north, stopping at the Moerki boulders which are these big round weird type boulders. Some look like footballs and some like turtle shells. There are ones that have been broken open and it shows that they are hollow. After a good look around we carried on to Christchurch.

We had as before a lazy Sunday on the 29th June eventually getting dressed and going to the cookie time factory and bought some nice well cookies. On our finally evening in the camper we got a DVD and chilled out eating the rest of the makana chocolate yum.

Finally on Monday 30th June after what has seemed like ages we dropped the camper van back of at the hire place and it turns out we had driven around 8500km or just over 5000 miles. The END for now, check back soon for Christchurch and Fiji.