Bye Bye NZ
Greetings again! This time you find us just about to leave New Zealand; A wondrous place of snow capped mountains, star strewn night skys and psychedelic sunsets. If I was tasked with the job of finding somewhere to film some great fantasy epics, you know, Lord of the Rings, or maybe Narnia, that kind of thing, then I would definitely choose to do it in NZ.
We've also had the much overlooked pleasure of spending the entire 5 weeks living in the back of a Ford Transit - with home and car rolled into one the journey really has become part of (occasionally predominantly) the adventure. And we've also learned the hard way why this is the low season for camper rentals; Sleeping in a tin box when faced with what the locals call a 'hard frost' ( a.k.a an outside air temperature of -10 degrees) is not for the faint hearted.
So onto the trip itself...
Christchurch, as are most places in the South Island, is surrounded by great mountain peaks. Reacting violently against our generally sloven behaviour in Australia we immediately set about walking over them and, with the sun in the sky, were instantly rewarded with panoramic views of unspoilt (ok, bar a few hundred years of aggravated deforestation) landscape plunging all around us into cobalt coloured waters. We also noted down our the first recorded use of the phrase "the photos really don't do it justice".
At this point, if you're really short of time, you could probably just keep re-reading that earlier sentence and just mentally place us in different locations around NZ. You'll miss out on some of the more exciting (stupid?) things we did, but you'd still have a pretty clear picture of day-to-day travelling life over here.
Just down the road is Akaroa. And I'll take a moment for an aside here. Akaroa, like quite a few other towns in the South Island, requires an oddly specific purpose in order to go there, as there's just the one road in. It's a beautifully made road, winding expensively for tens of kilometers over hills and around lakes, but ultimately it goes only to the town and then ends. It doesn't go anywhere else. You can't drive through Akaroa on the way to somewhere else, which is an odd sensation for a Brit used to the endless spaghetti of tarmac covering our island. You just have to turn around and go back the way you came.
Anyways (and I'll assume you found that as interesting as me), the town is billed as being 'French' but despite an exhaustive search we found no moustached men on bicycles with stripy tops and onions around their necks. The best we could do was find a couple of streets going by the name of 'rue'. Pretty, but what a swizz.
We then took the scenic route (note the start of 'photos through the windscreen' as we realised that we wouldn't get anywhere fast if we stopped every time some new angle of the light took our breath away) through the middle of the country to lake Tekapo (not pronounced take-a-poo. New Zealanders, although friendly, are quite pedantic about their place name pronunciations). Another place of quality hill walks, this time in a few foot of snow, cool views and a neat little observatory serving THE best hot chocolate in the universe (and I reckon you could use their telescopes to prove the grandeur of that claim). Mount Cook at the other end of the lake had even more snow, so much in fact that we were forced for the first time to open the bag marked 'snow chains'.
Snow chains are, well, just simple chains really. If you do what the rental company suggest you just whip them out wrap them round the tire with a flick of the wrist, and slip the catch over just like so. Reality check number 1: The chains need to be long enough to go all the way round the tire. A quick call to the rental company confirmed that we would indeed be spending the night exactly where we were with the promise of some new, bigger, chains the next day (if we could move at all...).
Well fortunately (and after obligatory scenic tramp through the snow to see some avalanches and glaciers and stuff) we were able to get the van back on the road and headed off to Queenstown to get said new chains. On the way we did pass through a town called Twizel, my only comment being that they also don't like their town being miss pronounced 'Twizzel', and that the guys who run the skydiving shop would have made some money out of us if they'd bothered showing up to work. Ever.
Queenstown is largely very pretty and didn't seem to deserve the 'over touristy' bashing that the lonely planet gave it. It does rightly deserve the title of adrenalin capital though, and quickly claimed it's next two victims as we signed up to throw ourselves of a) a mountain, b) a bridge and c) a cable car while attached to a bungee cord of twisted knicker elastic (and it really is knicker elastic - no space age tech here for sure) - all drawn out over three heart thumping consecutive days. The feeling really is indescribable; Fear? Joy? Panic? Elation? All of the above and more? Just try it if you get the chance - highly recommended!!!!
Having calmed down with a go on the merry-go-round and a trip to see Thomas the Tank Engine (although I reckon it was James or Percy though, cos Thomas is blue right?) we tootled off across the country to Te Anue (home of the tourist trap) and Milford Sounds (holiday cottage of the tourist trap). Everyone we have met who'd been there assured us that it was truly the jewel in the crown of Fijordland. Rightly so on a sunny day, we'd guess. But 'guess' it was to remain as we were wrapped in a blanket of cloud for the entire day. Never mind. It did turn us into weather snobs though, and now not wanting to go to the next stage of our plan, namely ski-ing, until we had perfect conditions (and because diesel is cheep here) we motored right across the island to Dunedin.
Dunedin is home of the most photographed railway station in Australasia, a surprisingly good museum, the steepest street in the world and the Cadbury's factory (which loses some of it's Willy Wonka magic when you've actually done the minimum wage box-packing job on the other side of the screen...). Next.
Snow chain reality check number 2: Even with correct sized chains, don't wait until midnight, after a long drive, on top of a hill, with the van sliding sideways, in blizzard conditions to find out how to fit them. And we hadn't even reached the ski resort yet. Mind you it was lucky we did get the practice in because when we did arrive at the resort the next day it wasn't quite what we were expecting. Used only to package ski-ing tours where you just need to keep handing over money until you arrive at the bottom of the slope, we were naturally surprised to arrive at the bottom, of a long, frozen, dirt track heading off near vertically up the side of the mountain. 4 wheel drives whizzed around us as we wound our rear wheel drive, automatic, camper van up the slope whilst loose fingers of chain rhythmically shot blasted flecks of paint from around the mud guards.
It was pretty good fun once we'd got to the top though :)
Tired from boarding, but still maintaining our blind belief that winter sports are fun we set off up the west coast to go ice climbing on a glacier. Do we know no bounds we hear you ask? Not yet, no.
Glaciers are pretty amazing in their own right, unimaginably big pieces of ice - all the gin and tonic in the world couldn't float a block of ice considerably bigger than Christchurch - much as we might wish it could. Huge crevices and tiny crawl-through tunnels added to the fun of making our way over it armed with ice axes and crampons. The only improvement at all I would make would be to the stupid plastic shoes we had to wear in order that the crampons had something to attach to - but fashion considerations are really a minor gripe I suppose....
So on we went with our road trip, abandoned gold mines, more snowy walks, and Hamner Springs. The location of both the famous natural hot water pools (hmm, nice taking a dip in 39 degrees at night, while the air around plunges below freezing) and also snow chain reality check number 3: Snow chains are not built to last. Be very aware of this if thinking about driving off to any remote areas. Especially those marked 'ski area'. Very realistically the sign could be pointing at the road rather than along it. Also be very wary of New Zealander's continual underestimation of the weather. Phrases like 'yeah you should be alright' will usually indicate a minimum 6 inch covering of snow over ice, while things like 'you may need chains towards the end' translates as 'put them on straight away, take a spare set, and possibly three days worth of food and water just in case'. We ended up being towed backwards off the top of a mountain over a bridge barely wider than the van and then lowered back into town at about 15km/h. I bet the kindly sole that rescued us has never needed to buy his own beer during tourist season....
Carrying on we saw some seals living in a car park, drunk some absolutely splendid wine, went to another museum, saw my cousins and got onto the ferry to the North Island.
The North island is where everybody lives, and because of this we think it's the more 'Englandy' bit of NZ, although for their own romantic reasons the citizens of the North think the South island is more 'Englandy' because it looks a bit like the Lake District. It's also where a few of our ex-pat friends from blighty have settled down, so we've been looked after like kings here. Luxuries such as constant hot water and soft beds have become the norm and we're very happy about it too.
Wellington clings to the shore waiting to be washed into nothingness by the next tsunami, or possibly just global warning if it's patient, but didn't really light any fires with us. The national museum is HUGE, and even being guided by our rent-a-locals Sophie, Marie and Matt we couldn't have taken it all in in the time we were there.
Up the east coast Napier may well be art deco dominated, but in all fairness is actually just crap. Gisbourne is a fair bit better, and is actually quite a neat place serving the heart of the logging community with an enormous port full of timber waiting to be shipped to B&Qs around the globe. Then there's the east cost highway which encircles what appears to be one huge traveller camp. Piles of forgotten cars, loud and large mongrel dogs and lots of 'is it a house or is it a caravan?' accommodation. It has a gypsy charm to it all too, and a bit of western ghost town history - a good trip, but hardly a destination...
Rotorua is pretty special though. Built in a volcanically active zone (because it keeps the houses warm for free, never mind about it burying whole towns for free too, once every few hundred years or so) steam and mud boil out of the ground everywhere. It really does look spooky. Despite the everywhere-ness of this steam, enterprising communities have also fenced off various areas where you can also pay $50 to see god's kettle whistling and so springs forth one of NZ's most touristy areas. We were particularly lucky here in that Marie is part of a large Maori family (think Irish, or Indian to gauge what 'large family' means in this context) which effectively owns the whole of Rotorua. Therefore by cleverly exploiting the ongoing disquiet between the Europeans and the Maori, we got to go everywhere for free, Hooray! Thanks guys...
Once we'd had enough of their garden shed being larger and more sumptuous than our Brighton home we nipped over to Lake Taupo (an hour away and steam still comes out of the ground). We had been recommended a good walk here, but we found a little notice in the information centre advising ice axes and alpine clothing. Remembering our hard earned knowledge about underestimating the weather conditions we sacked that off instantly and (finally) managed to throw ourselves out of a plane instead. Yee-Haa!
We're now in Auckland being looked after by more friends, pinching their Internet and the like, and getting ready to depart these hallowed shores for a quick stop over in Fiji. Couple of days rest and then we hit the USA, Guatemala and Mexico. Sorry its been a long one; there's even more in the photo album if work will allow you the time to sit there browsing it all...
Speak to you all again soon.
We've also had the much overlooked pleasure of spending the entire 5 weeks living in the back of a Ford Transit - with home and car rolled into one the journey really has become part of (occasionally predominantly) the adventure. And we've also learned the hard way why this is the low season for camper rentals; Sleeping in a tin box when faced with what the locals call a 'hard frost' ( a.k.a an outside air temperature of -10 degrees) is not for the faint hearted.
So onto the trip itself...
Christchurch, as are most places in the South Island, is surrounded by great mountain peaks. Reacting violently against our generally sloven behaviour in Australia we immediately set about walking over them and, with the sun in the sky, were instantly rewarded with panoramic views of unspoilt (ok, bar a few hundred years of aggravated deforestation) landscape plunging all around us into cobalt coloured waters. We also noted down our the first recorded use of the phrase "the photos really don't do it justice".
At this point, if you're really short of time, you could probably just keep re-reading that earlier sentence and just mentally place us in different locations around NZ. You'll miss out on some of the more exciting (stupid?) things we did, but you'd still have a pretty clear picture of day-to-day travelling life over here.
Just down the road is Akaroa. And I'll take a moment for an aside here. Akaroa, like quite a few other towns in the South Island, requires an oddly specific purpose in order to go there, as there's just the one road in. It's a beautifully made road, winding expensively for tens of kilometers over hills and around lakes, but ultimately it goes only to the town and then ends. It doesn't go anywhere else. You can't drive through Akaroa on the way to somewhere else, which is an odd sensation for a Brit used to the endless spaghetti of tarmac covering our island. You just have to turn around and go back the way you came.
Anyways (and I'll assume you found that as interesting as me), the town is billed as being 'French' but despite an exhaustive search we found no moustached men on bicycles with stripy tops and onions around their necks. The best we could do was find a couple of streets going by the name of 'rue'. Pretty, but what a swizz.
We then took the scenic route (note the start of 'photos through the windscreen' as we realised that we wouldn't get anywhere fast if we stopped every time some new angle of the light took our breath away) through the middle of the country to lake Tekapo (not pronounced take-a-poo. New Zealanders, although friendly, are quite pedantic about their place name pronunciations). Another place of quality hill walks, this time in a few foot of snow, cool views and a neat little observatory serving THE best hot chocolate in the universe (and I reckon you could use their telescopes to prove the grandeur of that claim). Mount Cook at the other end of the lake had even more snow, so much in fact that we were forced for the first time to open the bag marked 'snow chains'.
Snow chains are, well, just simple chains really. If you do what the rental company suggest you just whip them out wrap them round the tire with a flick of the wrist, and slip the catch over just like so. Reality check number 1: The chains need to be long enough to go all the way round the tire. A quick call to the rental company confirmed that we would indeed be spending the night exactly where we were with the promise of some new, bigger, chains the next day (if we could move at all...).
Well fortunately (and after obligatory scenic tramp through the snow to see some avalanches and glaciers and stuff) we were able to get the van back on the road and headed off to Queenstown to get said new chains. On the way we did pass through a town called Twizel, my only comment being that they also don't like their town being miss pronounced 'Twizzel', and that the guys who run the skydiving shop would have made some money out of us if they'd bothered showing up to work. Ever.
Queenstown is largely very pretty and didn't seem to deserve the 'over touristy' bashing that the lonely planet gave it. It does rightly deserve the title of adrenalin capital though, and quickly claimed it's next two victims as we signed up to throw ourselves of a) a mountain, b) a bridge and c) a cable car while attached to a bungee cord of twisted knicker elastic (and it really is knicker elastic - no space age tech here for sure) - all drawn out over three heart thumping consecutive days. The feeling really is indescribable; Fear? Joy? Panic? Elation? All of the above and more? Just try it if you get the chance - highly recommended!!!!
Having calmed down with a go on the merry-go-round and a trip to see Thomas the Tank Engine (although I reckon it was James or Percy though, cos Thomas is blue right?) we tootled off across the country to Te Anue (home of the tourist trap) and Milford Sounds (holiday cottage of the tourist trap). Everyone we have met who'd been there assured us that it was truly the jewel in the crown of Fijordland. Rightly so on a sunny day, we'd guess. But 'guess' it was to remain as we were wrapped in a blanket of cloud for the entire day. Never mind. It did turn us into weather snobs though, and now not wanting to go to the next stage of our plan, namely ski-ing, until we had perfect conditions (and because diesel is cheep here) we motored right across the island to Dunedin.
Dunedin is home of the most photographed railway station in Australasia, a surprisingly good museum, the steepest street in the world and the Cadbury's factory (which loses some of it's Willy Wonka magic when you've actually done the minimum wage box-packing job on the other side of the screen...). Next.
Snow chain reality check number 2: Even with correct sized chains, don't wait until midnight, after a long drive, on top of a hill, with the van sliding sideways, in blizzard conditions to find out how to fit them. And we hadn't even reached the ski resort yet. Mind you it was lucky we did get the practice in because when we did arrive at the resort the next day it wasn't quite what we were expecting. Used only to package ski-ing tours where you just need to keep handing over money until you arrive at the bottom of the slope, we were naturally surprised to arrive at the bottom, of a long, frozen, dirt track heading off near vertically up the side of the mountain. 4 wheel drives whizzed around us as we wound our rear wheel drive, automatic, camper van up the slope whilst loose fingers of chain rhythmically shot blasted flecks of paint from around the mud guards.
It was pretty good fun once we'd got to the top though :)
Tired from boarding, but still maintaining our blind belief that winter sports are fun we set off up the west coast to go ice climbing on a glacier. Do we know no bounds we hear you ask? Not yet, no.
Glaciers are pretty amazing in their own right, unimaginably big pieces of ice - all the gin and tonic in the world couldn't float a block of ice considerably bigger than Christchurch - much as we might wish it could. Huge crevices and tiny crawl-through tunnels added to the fun of making our way over it armed with ice axes and crampons. The only improvement at all I would make would be to the stupid plastic shoes we had to wear in order that the crampons had something to attach to - but fashion considerations are really a minor gripe I suppose....
So on we went with our road trip, abandoned gold mines, more snowy walks, and Hamner Springs. The location of both the famous natural hot water pools (hmm, nice taking a dip in 39 degrees at night, while the air around plunges below freezing) and also snow chain reality check number 3: Snow chains are not built to last. Be very aware of this if thinking about driving off to any remote areas. Especially those marked 'ski area'. Very realistically the sign could be pointing at the road rather than along it. Also be very wary of New Zealander's continual underestimation of the weather. Phrases like 'yeah you should be alright' will usually indicate a minimum 6 inch covering of snow over ice, while things like 'you may need chains towards the end' translates as 'put them on straight away, take a spare set, and possibly three days worth of food and water just in case'. We ended up being towed backwards off the top of a mountain over a bridge barely wider than the van and then lowered back into town at about 15km/h. I bet the kindly sole that rescued us has never needed to buy his own beer during tourist season....
Carrying on we saw some seals living in a car park, drunk some absolutely splendid wine, went to another museum, saw my cousins and got onto the ferry to the North Island.
The North island is where everybody lives, and because of this we think it's the more 'Englandy' bit of NZ, although for their own romantic reasons the citizens of the North think the South island is more 'Englandy' because it looks a bit like the Lake District. It's also where a few of our ex-pat friends from blighty have settled down, so we've been looked after like kings here. Luxuries such as constant hot water and soft beds have become the norm and we're very happy about it too.
Wellington clings to the shore waiting to be washed into nothingness by the next tsunami, or possibly just global warning if it's patient, but didn't really light any fires with us. The national museum is HUGE, and even being guided by our rent-a-locals Sophie, Marie and Matt we couldn't have taken it all in in the time we were there.
Up the east coast Napier may well be art deco dominated, but in all fairness is actually just crap. Gisbourne is a fair bit better, and is actually quite a neat place serving the heart of the logging community with an enormous port full of timber waiting to be shipped to B&Qs around the globe. Then there's the east cost highway which encircles what appears to be one huge traveller camp. Piles of forgotten cars, loud and large mongrel dogs and lots of 'is it a house or is it a caravan?' accommodation. It has a gypsy charm to it all too, and a bit of western ghost town history - a good trip, but hardly a destination...
Rotorua is pretty special though. Built in a volcanically active zone (because it keeps the houses warm for free, never mind about it burying whole towns for free too, once every few hundred years or so) steam and mud boil out of the ground everywhere. It really does look spooky. Despite the everywhere-ness of this steam, enterprising communities have also fenced off various areas where you can also pay $50 to see god's kettle whistling and so springs forth one of NZ's most touristy areas. We were particularly lucky here in that Marie is part of a large Maori family (think Irish, or Indian to gauge what 'large family' means in this context) which effectively owns the whole of Rotorua. Therefore by cleverly exploiting the ongoing disquiet between the Europeans and the Maori, we got to go everywhere for free, Hooray! Thanks guys...
Once we'd had enough of their garden shed being larger and more sumptuous than our Brighton home we nipped over to Lake Taupo (an hour away and steam still comes out of the ground). We had been recommended a good walk here, but we found a little notice in the information centre advising ice axes and alpine clothing. Remembering our hard earned knowledge about underestimating the weather conditions we sacked that off instantly and (finally) managed to throw ourselves out of a plane instead. Yee-Haa!
We're now in Auckland being looked after by more friends, pinching their Internet and the like, and getting ready to depart these hallowed shores for a quick stop over in Fiji. Couple of days rest and then we hit the USA, Guatemala and Mexico. Sorry its been a long one; there's even more in the photo album if work will allow you the time to sit there browsing it all...
Speak to you all again soon.
posted by fuzzweed at 6:14 PM
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