Adventures in the land of sheep and mountains

Country number four on our round the world trip; New Zealand!


We arrrived in a sunny Christchurch a very cute little 'city' that feels a bit like Cambridge without all the bikes. I was overwhlemed by how "English" it is! We wanted to get on the road so only spent one whole day there, we walked in a beautiful oak tree filled park full autumnal golden colours, where the adjacent "Kings college" public school pupils were all playing rugby or tennis and took in a bit of art at the city gallery.

From Christchurch we picked up a giant motorhome. We had two days to relocate it back to Queenstown but only paid the equivalent of a fiver for the hire. Our route took in some coast and then headed into the foothills that run along the centre of the south island, at this time we couldn't see the fabulous backdrop of the southern alps proper as it was overcast, but we did have a wonderful stopover in a place called Lake Taupo - which has a bright cloudy blue colour from glacial minerals deposits. That evening we went on a star gazing tour (there is a university run observatory positioned on a hill above the lake as there is very little light pollution) sods law.... the wind and the cloud cover came in so we only saw a few with the help of some huge telescopes. It was still cool, especially to learn about the southern cross (which you see on the NZ flag) and how to use it to find true south. It was not as our man in the hut on the razorback walk had told us!

We then drove the motorhome to a remote camping spot alongside another lake (in the dark this took decidedly longer than it should, such that we ended up cooking pasta in the well equiped kitchen at midnight - the red wine helped to smooth the stresses though!). Waking up to the epic view of geese landing, ducks quacking and a mountain backdrop really woke me up to how beautiful this trip was going to be. The scenery has ever increased in "wow" factor with each step our journey. Basically, when you next come back to antipodia, make it NZ it wont dissapoint. Australia's scenery becomes a Holland next to New Zealand's Switzerland!

So our challenge was to get the vehicle back by 3pm, seemingly simple with only 300km and all day to do it. So we checked out a few views, had a hot chocolate and cruzily got on our way, even stopping to heat up the leftover pasta dish in our"luxury" kitchen. Of course, we hadn't added a "NZ" factor - the roads are incredibly windy and hilly with plenty of farm vehicles to slow you down! We were on route 1 (equivilent of the M1) yet met with steep inclines and spaghetti single lane roads. Not that this was unpleasant, the scenery was continually intriguing and ever changing from mountains,to flat plains and vinyards, to lush farming valleys, to ravines with white water rivers. And the roads are in perfect condition and well signed...just about 50mph slower than we had assumed!!

Anyway we made it more or less (thanks to the laid back staff at the hire company) and dropped off the motorhome without too much stress. And so we found ourselves at Queenstown "international" airport (where you can practically touch the planes taking off) starring up at the imposing craggy face of the 2500m Remarkables range. Its a pretty impressive greeting.

Queenstown itself is basically a British occupied Ski resort, awaiting its first snow. Over the three days we were there, we took advantage of the great micro-brewed beer, indulged in a Ferg Burger (a Bun Laden and a Sweet Bambi), went to see Boy (definately look out for in UK - great NZ film), and played a game of Frisbee golf; they have an offical course with holes, tee points and pars!! They even have different weight frisbees, for putting or driving etc.

We also took advantage of the clear blue skies and did 3 days of local walks including the impressive Ben Lomond (1800m) which revealed great vistas of the snowcapped southern alps - pretty tough ascent though starting at 400m and climbing pretty steadily the whole way!

Aside from that, our mission was to organise and prepare for a Great Walk (there are about 7 Great multi-day treks in NZ). We found that south island had recently suffered severe flooding (severe by NZ standards, really means it - this is landscape that is regularly landsliding, earthquaking, erupting and ...well...raining!!) and much of the tracks were washed out. The Department for Conservation (DOC) whose function is a cross between the National Trust, the Foresty Commission and the Third Reich, warned that difficult river crossings were likely, huts where emptied of firewood and track damage may have occurred.

Despite this, we actually managed to do the 60km Kepler Route in 3 days without incident! It was a lovely mixture of fern ridden temperate rainforest, mossy cloud forest, exposed moorland hilltops and huge lakes. We also impressed ourselves by consistently beating the times it said the sections would take, though there were some crazy Czechs who overtook us and basically jogged the route. We had to stay in the backwater huts for two nights, luckily both the huts great with plenty of people and fire wood to keep us warm. We teamed up with a couple from California for much of the time and really enjoyed it.

From the vicory of the Kepler we took in a few more of the amazing sights of the Fiordland National Park (a huge expanse of primary wilderness covering the south west of South Island) including glow worm caves and sea kayaking up Milford Sound. We managed to pick a seriously wet day to take to the water so we didn't see quite as much if the sound as we would have liked but all the waterfalls were out instead which was cool and the mist added a certain mystery to the place. As well as the kayaking the drive to and from the sound was completely stunning, huge expanses of rock and ice towered above us and we were surrounded by amazing waterfalls, we drove home as the sun set with orbital on the stereo, the perfect music for that setting.

So, with our goals in the deep south completed, we began our 3000km road trip north, which would eventually end in Auckland.