Our final stop on this huge tour of New Zealand was Christchurch. Located on the east coast, it is possibly the best known city on the South Island. Unfortunately it was raining for the two days we were there and so there was very little sightseeing done and no photos taken.
We did take a day trip to Akaroa, located about 85km from Christchurch on the Banks Peninsula. There is a significant French influence with all the roads named “Rue” something. It would have been idyllic if it was not for the constant downpour! Such a shame.
But the real excitement and fear came from the fact that we were leaving for Australia. Bye bye NZ and hello OZ!
Mount Cook, or Aoraki to the Maori’s, is the highest peak in New Zealand. It is part of the Southern Alps range where Franz Josef and Fox glaciers are located and runs along the length of the west coast of the south island. In fact the Franz Josef area is on the western side of this range and Mount Cook is on the eastern side. They are only 100km apart but to drive between the two takes over 8 hours!! The Tasman glacier and the Hooker glacier run down it’s slopes.
The area is absolutely stunning and over the three days we were there we covered quite a distance completing various tramping routes which run around the glaciers and through the glacial valleys. The weather was fantastic which allowed some stunning views:
What was even more amazing, for a Londoner anyway, were the stars. With a cloudless night one can look up and gaze for hours on end. The night sky almost seems overwhelmed by stars and the photographs highlighted colours that out eyes struggle to make out. The sunsets were pretty good too. This one is of Mount Cook:
It will be sad to leave because, even though it is a favourite for coach holidays, it still feels untouched. A very special place.
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Yet another city as we climb our ways back to the centre of the South Island. Dunedin is a colourful city with a strong student population and a well preserved Victorian and Edwardian heritage. It is on the Otago Peninsula which is renowned for the world’s only mainland albatross breeding colony at Taiaroa Head and the home of the rarest of penguins, the yellow eyed penguin. We tried to find some but failed miserably!It was beautiful excursion though.
Among other sights, Dunedin is also home to the Cadbury factory which was a lot of fun. Feeling a bit ill now though! And also the world’s steepest street (this is a fact endorsed by the Guiness Book Of Records), Baldwin Street:
It is hard to portrey it in a photograph so you’ll just have to take my word that it is a very very steep street. Dunedin has the Gutbuster Festival which encourages people to have a race running up and down it one day out of the year - I might have to come back for it. Although it does look and feel impossible. You cannot stand upright on the steepest bit. The inclination is 1:2.9 - this means for every 2.9 metres horizontal it goes up vertically 1 metre!! The tire marks are a bit worrying too!
It would have been nice to have stayed longer in Dunedin but unfortunately we had to press on to Mount Cook and the glaciers….
Invercargill prides itself in being the southern most city of the south island. But apart from that there is not much to it. It is a quiet city on the Southern Scenic Route which is beautiful and is a great base from which to explore The Catlins and the neighbouring islands. We were only here for one day and so went down to Bluff on the southern peninsula. A nice town with some great views of the area. It also had a signpost which gave direction and distance to some of the key places in the world:
Funny it was sponsered by the AA though!
We had four days in Fiordland which involved staying in Te Anau and the Milford Sound. There are many famous tracks for tramping in these areas but we did not do any. I think our laziness had spread from Queenstown! Te Anau was a nice place and we stayed outside of town in a deer farm which was exciting. Great place.
Milford Sound, which was the reason why so many come to this area, was amazing. It is not a sound but a fiord. Unfortunately Cpt Cook did not know the word fiord and so he named the area Milford Sound after Milford Haven in Wales. The name has stuck ever since even though by scientific definition it is a fiord. I was not fussed - whatever it was it was stunning!!
The cruise we went on to tour the Sound was quite adventurous and would take us underneath waterfalls to get everybody soaked! We had such a fine day that we managed to see Bottle Nosed Dolphins and Fur Seals!! An amazing trip with some great sights - two rainbows - if only I had found the end I could have been doubly rich!!
And that amazing place was Queenstown. Sat snuggly within the mountains and Lake Wakatipu in the Southern Lakes dirstrict of NZ, Queenstown has a very cosmopolitan vibe. It is also the adventure capital of the world although I did not try! Our view was stunning from the hostel which was located on a hill so it was very hard to be tempted down by the town below to explore:
But, of course, we did explore and it had some great nightlife. We met up with a few old uni friends - had a great time and relaxed a lot! It was so nice to put things on hold for a while and chill!! Especially as the weather was great for our stay. We were also there for Waitangi Day which celebrated the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi founding New Zealand. This was celebrated in quirky Queenstown by a reggae festival! Great fun!!
Our ride out of Queenstown to Te Anau was unfortunately cloudy but this produced some interesting effects even if we could not see the full majesty of the mountains:
After all the frivolities in Franz Josef and Fox Glacier we had a lot of driving to do to go to Queenstown in the south east of the South Island. But it was not as laborious as it sounds because the drive was through the Haast Pass. This pass follows an ancient Maori route in their search for jade. First we got some great views of the tip of the Franz Josef glacier:
On the trail we came across some amazing features including great views of Mt. Cook. Most impressive to me were all the waterfalls that were attached to the Haast River. One we found was called the Thunder Creek Falls. Justly named as it is 28m high it drops from the level of the glacier ice when a glacier was carving out the future bed of the Haast River 10,000 years ago:
A great trail and it led us to an amazing place…..
The town of Fox Glacier was built around gold and now is dominated by glacier touring. On the way there we had breathtaking views of New Zealand’s highest peaks Aoraki (Mt Cook) and Mt Tasman. We were very much looking forward to walking on the glacier as we had bought a day guided hike. The glacier walk itself was not challenging but amazing as, at 13kms, Fox Glacier is the longest of the awe-inspiring New Zealand West Coast glaciers:
The unique combination of climate and shape means that Fox (and Franz Josef) Glaciers move at approximately 10 times the speed of other valley glaciers around the world. We obviously could not feel this movement but we often heard distant rumbles of ice breaking off into the river below our feet. This led to a braided river system like no other I had ever seen especially as the weather was so changeable:
The bus they used to transport us to Fox Glacier are a nice link to the past. They are preserved an restored Bedford’s, painted up in the same deep red and black colour as the original Newmans coaches which took visitors to the glacier in 1922. I thought it was a very nice touch and rounded off a fantastic days hike. The geology weren’t ‘alf bad neither!
Hokitika is a small town in the centre of a jade and gold rich region. Being on a large beach it is idyllic. The shot below was caught on our first night there:
The place we stayed at also offered jade carvings and so we got to create our own piece of jade. A great experience if not a bit laborious! Much of the time, unfortunately, was spent in doors due to the poor weather but we did get to see Casino Royal for the second time in a week! I was well chuffed with that!!
Today we had a long drive from Golden Bay to Hokitika on Route 6. We saw some fantastic views on the way of the Tasman Sea (the gulf of sea between NZ and Australia) and the edge of New Zealand:
We also got to Punakaiki which has a strange rock formation known as the Pancake Rocks. These our limestones which have distinctive layering in them. One cause for this is intermittent layering of limestone and mudstone allowing a weakness for erosion in certain areas. The explanation still lacks proof - what do you think?:
