The TranzAlpine and Christchurch and… Sheffield

I haven’t yet written anything about the TranzAlpine journey from Christchurch to Greymouth and back, or the last day in Christchurch.  Needless to say, both were good.  The weather was a bit rubbish on the way to Greymouth so we didn’t go to the viewing car but what we saw from the comfort and warmth of our seat was very beautiful.  On the way back it was dry so we did go and take some photos so hopefully some of those will make it into Grahams final edited photo album for me to share…

Christchurch centre was pretty nice too.  In some areas it would have been almost impossible to see any evidence of the recent earthquake, but there were some streets which had been fenced off and some cracks along and down some buildings hinting to it.  We spent most of our time in the Botanical Gardens which had some very beautiful plants and flowers, and a whole room full of cacti, in which I immediately shouted “Middle Earth” – because I have named the cacti at work after Lord of the Rings characters – and yes, again I know I am weird so no need to tell me.  For anyone who is interested, I found a Gandalf though!! We went for a lovely meal out in the evening – I had a whitebait omelette as I thought one of us should try something a bit local and we’d heard a few people mention how much New Zealanders love catching and eating whitebait. I was a bit apprehensive at the thought of eating lots of tiny whole fish but I ignored the fact that they had eyes and tucked in.  It wasn’t bad at all.  Although I think it paled in comparison to Grahams 500g ribeye steak.  We also watched the big match later on – All Blacks v Australia.  I was cheering on the All Blacks but Graham (being even weirder than me when it comes to Rugby) decided to support Australia, who in the very end were triumphant. Then it was bed time (and at this point we were at a hotel, and as much as I loved Firenze and was almost tearful when we said goodbye) a proper bed was a welcome sight.

But now we’re back.  It took ages – 40 hours in total, and it felt like much longer.  I don’t think I will ever be able to watch 4 films consecutively ever again as it may remind me of the hell of the journey home.  I don’t think it was that much different to the journey there but having something to look forward to clearly makes a difference.

We had a brilliant time and I really wish that I was still there.  I don’t just mean that I wasn’t here and back at work, I just wish I could live there really! I wanted to emigrate there after my degree but I ended up doing my PhD and I never really thought about it again, but actually being there really did make me consider it again.  I even looked at some jobs there today – and I found one which looks right up my street!  Unfortunately, I don’t think I can persuade Graham to come with me and having a house (and mortgage) and a cat wouldn’t make the move any easier. Plus, it’s quite a long way and a lot of money to get back to the UK if we should ever need to in a hurry. But it would be wonderful.

They have the best scenery – driving in most places there was like driving through our most scenic National Parks and since there are only 4 million people living in such a large area the majority of the country is countryside. They are also extremely friendly and helpful and I loved how frank and honest people were (although I should say that most of the latter observation is what I have gathered from watching their news!). They love sport. We only paid to park once – and even then because we only needed to pay for 10 minutes we were only charged for 10 minutes and not a whole hour.  Overall, it just seems like a really relaxed and happy place.

 

Dunedin to Christchurch

From Dunedin, we made our last, and possibly longest single journey, to Christchurch. Graham took the morning drive, stopping off at the Moreaki boulders, where fortunately the tide was on it’s way out and the clouds were starting to clear away. There were more of the boulders than I’d expected, and even though I knew the dimension of the larger ones, I was still surprised by their enormous size!

I took over the drive after lunch, where again we took the longer, inland scenic route to Christchurch. This took us very close to Sheffield and brought the Southern Alps into view for most of the afternoon. I did get in trouble for going too fast over a section of road which was a bit bumpy though and I have to admit that it was quite a bump. At some point, all the clouds had disappeared and the sun was shining quite brightly, so it was pretty warm and humid when we finally arrived in Christchurch. We were bit excited when we reached the 4000km mark but then seconds later we were gutted when we realised this had reset the trip computer!! At 3999km, we had done an average speed of 65km per hour and just under 72 hours of driving though. We stayed in a holiday park very close to the railway station, as we had to be at the station at 7.55am for our TranzAlpine train the next day but I have to say it wasn’t the nicest of sites we’ve stayed in – but I will give them the benefit of the doubt because of the Earthquake….

Riverton to Dunedin

Hrm, I’m not quite sure where I last finished but it might have been in Riverton. If that’s the case, then hearing a little bit about our journey from Riverton to Dunedin might be interesting (or not!). Riverton is a small town on the South coast of the island, so from here we headed East along the Southern scenic route to Dunedin. This took us along very lush, bright green land on one side and the sea on the other. And for a little while, we could see Stewart Island too. We drove through Invercargill, stopping only for fuel as we’d heard it wasn’t that great. From here we reached the Catlins, an area of rolling green hills and forest. We took a small detour off the southern scenic route to Curio bay where there is a petrified forest. Along the way to Dunedin, we also passed some lovely looking bays and we also made another mini detour down a gravel road to visit. New Zealand’s most photographed waterfall. It took us about 5 hours to get there, however we were staying in one of the outer suburbs so it was only later on when we drove into the town itself that we appreciated the steepness of it.

I thought some of the hills in Sheffield we’re steep but Dunedin but those into perspective as well. As we came down the main hill into town there were some traffic lights, but the hill is so steep that there is an additional set of warning lights further up the hill which warn you to prepare to stop once the light sequence goes green! So, it’s little surprise that Dunedin is home (no pun intended) to the steepest residential street in the world at 1 in 1.2. We visited the railway station briefly, as by the time we got tree it was almost 6pm so all the regular tourist attractions were closed. They’d obviously gone to a lot of trouble when they made the station as the stairs and floor were all patterned with railway related motifs and patterns and there were two stained glass windows of trains. There were also lots of wool/knitting shops too, including Knitting World, I Love Merino and another whose name I can’t remember. Graham was relieved it was after closing time as he didn’t want me to spend as much as I did in New York on wool here too!

Milford Sound

Part 2 of the update, but I’m still going to be behind as I’m only up to the end of Tuesday!

I didn’t sleep very well in Te Anau on Sunday night because of the wet and windy weather but when we woke up om Monday morning it was dry and just a bit overcast. The plan was to do a short walk around the lake at Te Anau (the 2nd largest lake in NZ and the largest lake in the South Island) before driving to Milford Sound on the Milford Road, stopping to do some short walks and one medium walk on the way.

We drove to the control gates on the lake and walk led around to Dock Bay and back through forest for the most part but quite close to the lake edge. By the time we’d got to Dock Bay, which took about 30 minutes, I was already regretting wearing my black polo neck top with my black walking pants because a) I was too warm and b) Graham decided to continually (and tunelessly) sing the Mission Impossible theme tune at me…

We set off toward Milford Sound at around mid-morning. The road was open with only a low avalanche risk and no need for snow chains so that was all good. We stopped about half way along the road at “Mirror Lakes” for a 2 minute walk around some tiny lakes before we stopped near Lake Gunn for lunch. Then it all got a bit weird.

Just after we got our lunch together another camper van pulled in to the parking area where we were and then did a u turn. Unfortunately they reversed into the banking, bashing their exhaust into the banking, and then when they pulled away pulled their exhaust off. Whoops. We weren’t really sure what to do as there wasn’t very much we could do but there’s no phone reception on the road so they’d have to drive back to Te Anau or onward to Milford. Then, just as we were about to get out and ask if we could help, a different couple knocked on our door to ask if we could give them a jump start! Then the people who crashed knocked and asked if we had a metal coat hanger as they wanted to try and tie their exhaust up. We didn’t but we did try and jump start the Slovakian couple. It didn’t work.

So, after failing to help either group, we continued on our journey to The Divide – where the road forks to the Hollyford track, (an unsealed road), and the Milford road. From the carpark there we walked to Key Summit, a height of 919m (but the road is at about 500m! so it’s not as much of an achievement as it sounds). We were a bit rushed after our delay at lunch so we trogged up the hill – and it was up all the way – reaching Key Summit in about an hour, and I was flipping knackered, and since the clouds had long gone, very hot too and still enduring Grahams awful humming! We came down at a much more leisurely pace though – taking just under 2 hours for what should have been a 3-3 1/2 hour walk, not too bad!

From here, we headed past the divide toward the Homer Tunnel. The views here were jaw dropping – the surrounding mountains were so sheer it was scary and there were waterfalls everywhere. Then we got to the tunnel – and it went down hill! What kind of tunnel does that?! It was quite long too and a bit scary when tour buses were coming the other way but we made it through to similarly sheer cliffs and waterfalls on the other side. After booking in at Milford Lodge, the only place whe you can stay near Milford, we head on to the sound to see it for ourselves. It looked just the like the picture on this blog as the weather was so nice by then! We almost hopped onto a late afternoon cruise to take advantage of the (unlikely) good weather but we really wanted to go to the deep water observatory which is only open until 3.30pm so we decided to wait until the following morning.

After we got back to the lodge, we needed to fill our water tank up, and as Graham set to it we had a minor disaster. At first, he laughed when he said he’d got soaked, and then I noticed that water was running through the inside of the van!! So I shouted at him to stop filling up, and fortunately we were parked slightly downhill so it was running towards the doors, but this meant I had to open the side door. No problem you say? Usually, no. But at Milford, this meant that trillions of sandflies swarmed into the van!! Arggh!!!!! We managed to find out what had happened easily enough, the force of the water had pushed the inner hose of the outside mounting so we got it fixed and then carefully filled up. Meanwhile , I spent the next hour militantly slaying sandflies armed with only my finger and a tea towel but I kicked sand fly ass!!!

We woke up to clouds surrounding most of the hills – boooooo. We knew it was a risk to wait kto go on our boat trip on the sound whine the weather was gorgeous the previous afternoon, but we really did want to see the black coral. The cruise we went on was one of the smallest, which meant that it could get closer to the sides and it certainly did. Twice we went so close to the bottom of waterfalls that we got quite wet! The clouds we sat about half way up the mountains so it was difficult to appreviate the full depth of the sound but it was still pretty steep and high! We saw penguins, seals and dolphins on the way to the sea which was really exciting. Then we got dropped off at the observatory where we were the only visitors so we had a really nice guide (Jonno) all to ourselves!

The observatory was really impressive. It floats on the water, linked to 2 arms but don’t ask me any more about that part- all I know is that it has withstood an earthquake of 7.2! In the observatory itself, we saw quite a few different kinds of fish. I can’t remember many of their names but because we had a guide to ourselves, I just kept saying “Whats this fish?” or “what’s this?” or “How old is this?” . It was brilliant. There weren’t any massively exciting fish (by that I mean anything big or octopus -sy) but seeing everything that was there, including the coral, was cool.

Affer this, we got on a different boat back to the main wharf, and wonderfully, in the hour that we’d spent at the observatory, the sun had come out and the clouds were gone so we got to the sea the sound (although it is technically a Fiord) in all it’s glory!! Yaaaaay.

We stopped for a short walk to see The Chasm waterfall on the way back toward Te Anau, which was a pretty powerful waterfall indeed and well worth the 15 minute stop off. We stopped off in Te Anau for food supplies before headed south, on the Southern scenic route, to Riverton. The weather was great and the views back towards Fiordland and then along the south coast were fab but I may have truckers arm as I was driving with the window down! But, that’s all for now as Ive been writing this for aaaages and Graham wants his iPad back.

Tomorrow, we’re driving from Dunedin to Christchurch – our last big journey in Firenze (sob!). Night night, x

Queenstown and Te Anau

Woop – Internet access ahoy so I will attempt to bring you up to speed with our trip. So, part 1 will cover Saturday and Sunday when we went to Queenstown and Te Anau respectively. Saturday was a lovely day again, lots of sunshine and no clouds 🙂 it didn’t take too long to get from Wanaka to Queenstown so we drove past Queenstown to Glenorchy, passing a couple of LOTR filing locations on the way. Glenorchy was very small but very beautiful and the drive there was worth it on it’s own, as we skirted the edge of the lake most of the way there. We popped into a very popular looking cafe for coffee and cake (it was a very yummy chocolate brownie) before heading back ton Queenstown.

Queenstown isn’t that big but it had lots of surfer/snowboard shops, which I guess reflects the fact that during winter time, its a popular base for winter spoprts as The Remarkable mountain range which surrounds the lake is one of (I think) 6 ski areas in NZ. We grabbed a pie for lunch!!!!!!! So I was well chuffed – not only was it a pie, it was a pretty good pie too, which does make me wonder why pies in South Yorkshire are so crap, when New Zealand, like 20,000km from Lancashire, can do a much better job? There was some kind of jazz festival going on, so we listened to some jazz whilst eating our pies too. And then, because an individual pie isn’t very filling, we had some chips too. I’m not usually a chip fan, but when its sunny and you’re on holiday they seem so much better!

After lunch we went to the Kiwi Birdlife Park, mainly so that we could see a kiwi. There weren’t loads of birds there but we did succeed in seeing a kiwi, along with some other rare birds. After this, we took the skyline gondola up the hill where we got a really good view of the lake, Queenstown and the Remarkables. We walked around the lake and through the gardens, where we watched some people play frisbee golf – which looks really fun – before heading for a Fergburger. We’d heard very good things about this place and it had been packed the two times we’d passed it during the day so our expectations were pretty high. But (sorry Dad) I have to say that the Fergburger lived up to my expectations and perhaps a little more, and I would even go as far as saying it was the best burguer I’ve ever had. And it was pretty big too. I took a photo on my phone so once we’re home I’ll show you!

I drove to Te Anau the next morning, which was probably a good thing as there were quite a lot of police around as it as Labour Day bank holiday here and we did see a couple of tourists get stopped, which I’m sure we would have been if Graham had been driving! The drive to Te Anau was great, as once again, snow capped mountains appeared on the horizon as we got closer to Fiordland. The weather wasn’t as nice but it was still dry so that was fine by us.

We took a boat trip across the lake to see the glowworm caves in the afternoon which was fun. When we arrived at the caves we watched a presentation which explained all about the glowworms, which are actually maggots really but they didn’t think that would attract any toursust so they essentially lie and say they’re worms! The “worms” spin a sticky “fishing line” which hangs from the ceiling to catch insects, which are attracted to said sticky “fishing line” when the “worm” lights up it’s intestine (there wasn’t much information about how this glowing actually happens but I did find out it was luciferase based for any biology peeps!). After this we were taken into the caves, which was almost as difficult as the ice cave to get into, as you had to bend right over, and we walked through some of the cave before we got into a little boat to see the glowworms. Unfortunately, you weren’t allowed to take any photos in the caves so that you didn’t scare the glowworms, and you also had to be totally silent once you were in the boat – again, so you don’t scare them and make them turn their “light” off.

It was tricky for me to be quiet for the duration of the boat trip but I did manage it. And it was worth it as it was very pretty to see lots of tiny lights on the cave roof – they looked a lot like fairy lights really so I hope no one is tricking us…. The weather started to get worse once we got back to shore, until it eventually chucked it down just after tea time so we weren’t very optimistic about Monday, when we were hoping to do a couple of short walks when we went to bed. But, more about that later as the washing has finished and its time to walk into Dunedin in search of… Yep, you guessed it, food!! But, hopefully I’ll finish catching up later as the best of the last 5 days is still to come……

“The best drive I’ve ever done”

Today we have once again been treated to a glorious day of weather – hardly any clouds in the sky and lovely sunshine – woohoo! This morning we did a short walk to the Fox glacier before heading to Wanaka. The drive here was fantastic – we drove along the East coast before heading inland on the Haast pass, so all the time we’ve had the Southern alps either on one side of us or on both. And then to top it all we reached Lake Hawea and Lake Wanaka, which were both glorious! (Parents – we ended up listening to Queen – Greatest Hits as we drove alongside the Lakes, full blast on the stereo and both of us singing along; I don’t think this is normal behaviour for adults of our age and I’m blaming you both for brainwashing us as children). When we got here Graham declared it the best drive he had ever done – hens the title of this post!

Here are some photos from yesterday and today though….
View from the Holiday Park yesterday morning

One of many pictures from the Air Safari

Me (being very silly) at Lake Wanaka

Rrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrgggggghhhhhh!

Fantastic Franz

Today was flipping amazing. After an awful nights sleep due to what sounded like heavy rain and winds, we were very relieved when we woke up to clear blue skies and stunning views up the valley and to the peaks of the nearby mountains. Since we’d expected much worse weather this gave us hope that we’d be able to do our scenic flight. The clouds did start to gather in the valley shortly after breakfast though and when we went to the flight place they said the weather wasn’t looking too good so we needed to wait another hour and then see if we could go then. So, in true Kiwi style we grabbed a “flat white” and had a wander to the local gift shop to size up the level of tackiness in the gifts.

Lucky for us, when we went back they decided that we could fly – yippee! So off we went to the smallest plane I’ve ever been on (It seated 8 including the pilot) – including the one I did my sky dive from, which I thought was quite small! The take off was fine although once we started to climb I got a bit scared when the wind seemed to blow us about a bit but that soon passed once we were higher and I started to see the most amaaaaaaaaaazing views. We saw Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers, Tasman glacier, Mt. Cook, Mt. Tasman, Lake Matheson (where we walked yesterday), the West Coast rainforest, Lake Tekapo, Lake Pukaki and the glacial lake from the Tasman glacier which had some icebergs in it from the glacier. It was truly stunning. I did have a few other moments of fear though, when at about 11,000 feet and fairly close to some of the peaks, the wind decided to blow us around a bit and we went up and down and side to side and for some reason my reflex action was to move my arms to try and grab something but there wasn’t anything to grab and I have no idea how this would have helped in the slightest had anything gone awry! (Mum and Dad – I think I almost started flapping like I used to do when I was excited; I really need to get it into my brain that I can’t fly!). It was such a great way to see the whole area though, especially when you could see snow drifting off the top of the peaks and see the whole expanse of the glaciers. Awesome.

After a quick change into our walking gear we went off for our half day glacier hike. We were allowed to use our boots so we only needed to get crampons from them, which was a relief as they gave you socks to wear with their boots too -it reminded me of bowling shoes but worse. I was also somewhat perturbed by the fact that most of the guides looked about 12 and that the majority of people weren’t wearing walking gear but once we got to the car park we were split up into 3 groups based on how quickly you wanted to walk. Obviously we went in the fastest group (even if I’d been tempted to go for the middle group, I saw the guide of that group hit himself in the shin with his pick axe so I didn’t trust him) so it didn’t take that long until we reached the terminal face of the glacier. Aftfer the recent wet weather there were some pretty big waterfalls on the way there too and we were really lucky as it was still dry and clear. The guide we had, Bryce, told us that they got rain 2 out of 3 days so I guess that’s why they call it Wetland instead of Westland. We walked up a steep bit of rock encrusted ice at the front of the glacier before we were shown how to put our crampons on. Whilst we did this, Bryce scooted ahead and found an ice cave, which he described as one of the best ice features he’d found in a few months, so decided to take us off to see it and go through it. This caused a bit if a delay as Bryce and Zach (the guide who hit himself in the shin) had to wield their axes to move rocks which might fall on us and whack out some nice easy steps for us. But, after a short wait basking in the reflected sun, we were off up the steps and then into the cave!

It was a bit scary at first as it was really narrow and we had to duck down, step over a hole/puddle, and then step upwards in a very short distance and maybe only 2 feet wide at most. I struggled at first as I couldn’t get through face on, but the very helpful German lad in front of me told me I needed to take my back pack off. So, back pack off and in I went. I don’t know how Graham felt but I’m glad I’m not a chubster as I was squished with ice up my front and back -it was reet cold! Unfortunately, it was at this point that forward progress was halted as the people at front had to wait for more rocks to be moved and ice steps to be made. We didn’t know this though so it was a bit worrying, when we were essentially trapped in a narrow ice cave, that we heard a big BOOM! But it was just a big rock being moved. The cave was brilliant though and after the first few seconds of fear I enjoyed hanging about in it!

The rest of the walk was relatively uneventful in comparison as we made our way up to a wider, higher point before heading back down. The glacier is in retreat at the moment but we were shown the various trim lines from the different advances from 20,000 years ago to 1999. It must be a Geography teachers delight.

Throughout the day the weather has been brilliant today and it was so beautiful to look at the mountains in clear blue skies. I reckon this has got to be one of the best days ever. So please – no one mention the Spending Review, as I don’t want to give George Osbourne the pleasure of spoiling such an awesome awesome awesome day.

From Abel Tasman to Franz Josef

After a brilliant days walking in Abel Tasman National Park we headed to the West coast of South Island to drive along one of the worlds top 10 road trips (according to Lonely Planet) and see the Pancake rocks yesterday. Again, we seemed to drive through several mountain ranges, all of which all had hills bigger than Snowdon, Ben Nevis or Scafell, many of which also had a nice dusting of snow on them too. We drove through both the upper and lower Buller gorge valleys in the morning on our way to Westport, stopping off at a nice lookout in the Upper Buller area to take in the scenery and unfortunately about 30 midges!

I took the second leg of the driving, from Westport to Greymouth, and again the weather seemed to get worse once I was at the wheel. The road we were on SH 6 hugs the coast most of the way along Westland so it was a windy and narrow road with great views out to the Tasman sea. And it was apparently only because Graham wasn’t getting enough time to enjoy the wonderful views, despite the grey clouds and rain, that I got shouted at to slow down!! We stopped for a late lunch at a lookout where we were treated to see some Weka (although Murray pronounces this as Waka).

After lunch we headed further south (more slowly) to the Pancake rocks. When we got there it had dried up so we set off out if the van in our jeans and jackets, and after about 5 minutes the heavens opened! We got totally soaked but we did the short walk around the various pancake stacks and blowholes as we were already wet. We did have to stop taking pictures about half way around though as there was so much water on the camera lens. The noise from the waves crashing against the rocks was astonishingly loud so we did get to appreciate the blowhole aspect of this natural geographic feature at least!

Once we got to Greymouth the weather only seemed to get worse, although the motorhome is a lot like a tent and seems to make the rain sound worse than it is. But, we decided that a nice hot meal in a nice warm room was definitely needed so we went into town and had yummy, giant pizzas 🙂

This morning the weather was fine as we carried on further South to Franz Josef. We saw some road features which worried Graham a lot – the first was a bridge which both cars AND trains had to use the exact same piece of road/rack, and the second, which was close by, was a roundabout with the railway tracks straight through the middle of it – and there didn’t seem to be any traffic lights or barriers to stop you driving straight on even if a train was coming! Graham’s quote at the time was “You could kill yourself twice!”. It’s at this point that I definitely think it’s worth mentioning the New Zealand road signs – they’re brilliant. We’ve seen ones with a penguin on, one with a Kiwi on, ones with trucks tipping over and my favourite so far was also near the railway track today, was a cyclist getting its bike wheels stuck in the track and tipping the cyclist off. When I get back I am going to find some pictures of these signs online and share them on here so you can see for yourself!

As we got closer to Glacier country, we started to see even more snow covered mountains and we also passed a couple of picturesque lakes which were formed when the glaciers were more advanced and then retreated. We decided not make the most of the better weather and did a lovely short walk around Lake Matheson, near Fox Glacier, where we we lucky enough for the clouds to stay away enough for us to catch sight of Mt. Tasman and Mt. Cook. It still seems very odd that we’re so close to the sea and yet only ~ 5km for two glaciers, and although the road to Fox Glacier was windy and over the hill, we didn’t climb much to get to Franz Josef but it’s because all the mountains are just so steep!

Tomorrow we’re hoping to do the Air Safari in the morning, but we did pop into see them this afternoon, and the weather forecast isn’t that great (the clouds are surrounding all the hills now so you cant see any of the snowy ones) so we might have to postpone this until Friday morning. But our half day walk should go ahead whatever the weather in the afternoon, but the forecast for then is much better so lets hope it stays that way.

Tramping in Abel Tasman National Park

Promise this is a quickie as I have food to eat before we set off for the day. Yesterday we took a water taxi (why don’t they just call it a boat?) into the Abel Tasman National Park whe we got to see some fur seals on the way to Tonga Bay before we walked along the coast track to Bark bay and then Torrent bay. I’m running out of superlatives though as the views of the bays were simply stunning. They all have golden sand due to oxidised iron in it but that combined with the wonderfully blue Tasman sea made everywhere look like a tropical paradise! Once we got back to Torrent bay we were told we’d have to walk out to about knee deep into the water to get back into the boat because then tide was too low for the boat to get closer in – turned out this was almost waist deep for me mso it was a wet and fun end to the day. We’ll be setting off to Greymouth soon and keeping our fingers crossed that the rain passes quickly as there are severe weather warnings for Westland (where we are heading).

More photos…

Whoops-this was meant to be 2 different pics, sorry. Got to set off now though so cant fix it