New Zealand - Queenstown to Christchurch

Day 112 - 26th March

We had an incredibly cold night in Wendy last night, with temperatures well below freezing, judging by the amount of frost on the windscreen this morning. We both wore our thermals and layers of other clothes but weren't able to get warm enough to sleep properly. Luckily the weather today was glorious and the sun warmed us up nicely as we had a leisurely breakfast on the shores of Lake Wakatipu. We spent the day walking around Queenstown, which is our favourite Kiwi town so far. It has loads of clothes shops, cafes and art galleries and feels a little like a ski resort town (which it is in the winter) but set in the most beautiful location. We walked along the shores of Lake Wakatipu, the tops of the mountains visible today without the clouds. We stopped for a slice of cake in the Queenstown Gardens, a pine forest park on a peninsula at the edge of town, and watched people playing frisbee golf. We treated ourselves to a seafood dinner from a fish an chip kiosk, which consisted of gigantic prawns, green-lipped mussels, calamari, scallops and fish & chips, and drew envious looks from passers-by. After that we spent some time in the Central Otago Wine Experience, a tasting shop a bit like The Sampler in Islington, where you can buy taster-sized samples of wines. We sampled several of the nearby Central Otago region's delicious pinots noirs and hope to be able to get out to some of the vineyards to try some more in the next few days. Tonight we're camping in a freedom spot on the shores of Lake Wakatipu with beautiful views and the sound of the waves lapping on the beach, which more than makes up for the lack of facilities (we do have our own toilet anyway!)

Queenstown

TSS Earnslaw

Jon enjoying our seafood banquet

Day 113 - 27th March

We had a significantly warmer night last night than the previous night and woke feeling refreshed. We set off at about 9:30 to drive to Milford Sound. Our route took us along the shore of Lake Wakatipu with more great views of the mountains and then along through some lower country of hills and grassy plains, that reminded us of the lowlands of Scotland. We stopped in the town of Te Anau to top up on petrol and headed off into the beauty of Fjordland National Park. Although the weather was terrible and the low cloud meant that visibility was bad, the scenery was still magnificent. The tops of most of the mountains were totally covered in cloud and I'm sure the views would be much better on a clear day, but the mist and rain gave the whole area a mystical, ethereal feel as we drove down through deep valleys and through the Homer Tunnel. The scenery on the other side of the tunnel was more spectacular, with the deep valley below us shrouded in low cloud. Unfortunately, just as we were enjoying the scenery, and debating whether to head out on a cruise of Milford Sound this evening, there was a loud pop from Wendy's engine! At first we thought it was a problem with her exhaust, as the noise she made when driving was quite something, but we couldn't see any obvious problems with it. Grateful that it wasn't our problem to fix, we drove her very gingerly to the nearest accommodation we could find and used their phone to call the company. They agreed to send a tow truck out to us and even arranged it so that we could still do our cruise of the sound tomorrow morning. Thankfully the lodge we'd pulled in at had camping sites and we could sleep there for the night (albeit in their carpark). As the rain hammered down we made good use of their lovely warm dry lounge, thinking how helpful it was of Wendy to have prevented us venturing out on a cruise this evening as we had originally planned.

Waterfall on the way to Milford

The drive to Milford

The view from the other side of the Homer Tunnel

Day 114 - 28th March

we got up early for the 9:00 cruise on the sound, which came complete with free breakfast. The rain had stopped overnight and, although there was still a low cloud base, it was beginning to lift and the mountains around us were becoming visible at last. In the morning light the Sound looked really beautiful and the mist gave a magical quality to our voyage as we slowly cruised around with only a few other people on our boat and only one other boat in sight. We learnt that Milford is not a sound at all, but a fjord, and a deep one at that. The sides are steeper than the ones we saw in Patagonia, but other than that they were very similar. Once again we were amazed by the silence in the fjord – just the gentle thrum of the boat, the occasional sea bird and the sound of waterfalls trickling down the walls all along the length of the fjord. By the time we reached the Tasman Sea the sun was fully up and the entrance to the fjord was bathed in light. After our cruise we walked back to the lodge, had a shower and waited for our tow truck to arrive at 2:00. With Wendy safely on board we made our way slowly back out of the valley to Te Anau. There were no clouds at all by this time and we were able to take in the views that were hidden from us yesterday – and what fantastic views they were. The mountains were topped with snow and glaciers with white waterfalls running down all around us. The only pity was that we weren't able to stop the truck and take any photos. We arrived at the garage, fearful that we'd have to bid farewell to Wendy if they couldn’t fix here, and certainly expecting to spend the night in Te Anau. We were amazed when, after about 15 minutes tinkering, her engine roared into life sounding happier than she had since we'd picked her up a month ago. Apparently one of the spark plugs had come loose and was rattling around inside the engine! With Wendy fixed we happily drove back to Queenstown, where we camped in our free spot by lake again, amazed that we were still on schedule.

Me at Milford Sound

Milford Sound waterfall

Milford Sound

Our boat

Poorly Wendy

Day 115 - 29th March

This morning we went into Queenstown for coffee and wifi and treated ourselves to some tasty cake. Once we'd checked e-mails, news and finances, we drove up into Gibbston Valley to bungy bridge and watched some jumpers. The bridge was quite low and the jumps looked a little dull, and were over incredibly quickly. Even Jon was glad that he hadn't signed up for one. I think we've discovered that New Zealand has more to tempt us than adventure sports. Speaking of which, after watching a little bungy we walked up to the Winehouse, owned by Henry Van Asch, partner to AJ Hackett and co-creator of the bungy, who has turned his hand to wine tasting. We spent some time sampling six wines in very generous tasting measures, and decided that we have developed a taste for Otago Pinot Noir – yum! After lunch in the van to sober up we drove on towards Mount Cook. We stopped for the night in a campsite by the road at Omarama in the mountains, where once again it was very chilly at night.

The gorge at Bungy Bridge

Day 116 - 30th March

we finished our drive to Aoraki Mount Cook, New Zealand's tallest mountain, and set in the magnificent Mount Cook National Park, which contains 22 of the 27 peaks in New Zealand higher than 3050m. We enjoyed beautiful views along Lake Pukaki as we came in, with Mount Cook and Mount Sefton visible in the background in haze of cloud and morning sun We settled Wendy in at a DOC campsite underneath Mount Sefton and walked to Kea Point to look out over Mueller Glacier. The glacier itself has now totally disappeared, leaving only a muddy lake but with views towards Mt Cook, and right underneath Mount Sefton, which was beautifully covered with snow and glaciers. After that we walked the three-hour Hooker Valley Track to Hooker Lake. The track took us over rivers on cable bridges and we had great views of Mount Cook all the way up the valley. The lake at the end of the trail was right in the shadow of the mountain and filled with small icebergs from the Hooker Glacier. We had a very scenic picnic lunch then walked back to Wendy for wine. Being this high up and so close to the snow line it was once again very cold at night.

Mount Sefton

Mount Cook from Lake Pukaki

Mount Cook at Hooker Lake

Mount Cook

Day 117 - 31st March

Today was a long day of driving as we made our way up to Kaikoura. We drove through pretty countryside that reminded us of England, full of rolling hills and pastures and very pretty. After around 7 hours of driving we set up camp for the night at a site beside the beach just south of Kaikoura, ready to explore the area tomorrow.

Day 118 - 1st April

We got up and drove into Kaikoura, where I decided to have another go at swimming with dolphins after we failed in the Bay of Islands. I booked on a trip at 12:30, Jon decided to sit it out in the name of cost-saving. We had a look round town , decided there isn't much there, had lunch, and went to check in – 1 hour early as the clocks had gone back and we hadn't realised! I got changed into my wetsuit and we were split into two groups – around 15 on each boat. We had only travelled about 10 minutes out of the harbour when we found the pod of dusky dolphins, around 200-250 of them! We all got our masks and snorkels on and jumped off the back of the boat into the pod, where we were able to swim and play with them, making noises and diving down to attract their attention. As silly as it felt singing through a snorkel, the noise did seem to attract them and, while most of the dolphins just swam past me, some did come up to investigate. It was an amazing feeling having so many dolphins swimming around me on all sides, sometimes they would swim straight at me and sometimes appear right in front of me as if from nowhere. From time to time one would take enough interest that I could catch its eye and entice it into a game of swimming round in circles. This game usually only lasted 20 seconds or so but occasionally one would really decide to play and change directions or dive down and up again, with me desperately trying to keep up. Dolphins swim really fast so it was quite exhausting trying to keep up. We were able to swim with them 5 times (the maximum that their permit allows) before drying off on the boat and warming up with hot chocolate and biscuits. On the way back into the port we caught up with the pod again and watched them jump and splash around us. The dusky dolphins were much smaller than the bottlenose we saw in the Bay of Islands but have a reputation as being the most acrobatic of all the dolphins, and it was easy to see why. It was an incredible trip and I feel really lucky to have been able to get so close to two species of dolphin. Jon spent the afternoon using the internet and drinking coffee in the cafe. In the early evening we went for walk along the cliffs and saw lots of seabirds along the beautiful coastline. We sat and watched the sunset on the top of the cliffs before driving to our free campsite in the lovely Puhi Puhi Valley. What a spectacular day.

Dusky Dolphin

Ready for swimming

Sunset in Kaikoura

Cormorant at sunset, Kaikoura

Day 119 - 2nd April

We went to the seal colony at Kaikoura in the morning, where 4 huge New Zealand Fur Seals were sunning themselves on the rocks. We watched the tide coming in with a cup of tea while a heron fished near our van and the seals tried to avoid getting wet. 

New Zealand Fur Seal

Kaikoura

Heron at Kaikoura

We drove towards Christchurch and stopped for lunch at New Brighton, which the guidebook had made sound like a charming beachside town, but which was in fact nearly and quite rundown. After hot-footing it out of New Brighton we decided to drive round the Banks Peninsula from Lyttleton. The Banks Peninsula was formed when two under-sea volcanoes erupted, creating a landscape of mountains, steep coves and two really pretty harbours. Unfortunately we had to duck back to Christchurch over the rather high Dykes pass as we were nearly running out of petrol. It was a little hairy climbing over the cliffs but we made it in time. We drove out the other side of the Banks Peninsula towards Akaroa, past pretty inlets and steep bays. We stopped overnight at the small harbour of Duvauchelle at a campsite right by the beach.

Day 120 - 3rd April

We got up and drove along the peninsula to the small town of Akaroa, a former French settlement on one of the volcanic harbours, which was pretty scenery but very small. We drove into Christchurch itself and managed to find a hostel, although the range of accommodation in town is currently greatly reduced since the earthquake and we were quite lucky to find anywhere. We spent a bit of time walking around what's left of the centre of town, but most of the CBD is still off limits after the quake. A few projects have started up, trying to get some life back into the centre, such as a quirky shopping mall build out of shipping containers, but other than that the city still feels eerily deserted with a sort of post-appocalyptic feel, although the people of Christchurch themselves seem very determined not to let the quake defeat them. We bid a sad farewell to our trusty Wendy as we dropped her off at the rental company and headed back to hostel for quiet night of reading, take away pizza and a dodgy film in the lounge, after packing our bags ready for our flight to Australia