Wandering Scotsman

I had my last night in Dunedin with Claudia, T and James (the latter two being the guys I met on the boat in Whitsundays).  ‘Dunny’ was now a tad better as they managed to take us to a lovely little bar tucked round the back of a car park, with one of the best barman I’ve ever had serve me – very knowledgable about all the booze served, a toasty warm fire, and what could get better?  Well James, a recently quit student bought a $130 bottle of Champers to sup.  Yes, even better. 

The next day I undertook the ‘you could easily do that in a day’ drive from Dunedin to Fox Glacier.  But I didn’t leave until 11am.  I’ve found that any Kiwi’s driving time estimates have to have a third to half added on when travelling in tourist mode.  Anyhoo, the drive through Central Otago was cracking – wall to wall, or farm to farm fruit farms and fantastic rocky scenery when you got around Cromwell.  I bombed through though.  Heading over to Wanaka was a superb little stint, and when I arrived there I felt like I just got back home again.  I was so tempted to hang around a couple more days there.  The fantastic Earth From Above exhibition was still on along the lakeside (I saw this a good few years ago in Krakow, Poland – google it, it’s amazing).

Reluctantly I pushed on, and never looked through any more estate agent windows.  I did however stupidly glance in a clothing shop window and bought a lovely ‘Pure Local’ NZ Hoody.  One of the classier tourist tops you can buy!  So my quick stop proved to be expensive.

(Picture : Lake Hawea)  The drive from Wanaka over the Haast Pass was again super scenic – actually seeing the rest of Lake Wanaka was impressive, and Lake Hawea next to that was one of the nicest I’ve seen in NZ.

As per the usual driving estimates I had considered staying in Wanaka to avoid driving in the dark, but pushed on.  I ended up crashing on the western edge of the Haast Pass at a nice quiet basic Pleasant Flat DOC campsite as darkness loomed.  I was quickly joined by a Hiking New Zealand minibus.  Unlike meeting a Kiwi Experience or Magic Bus, the chat was good – diving, outdoors work, international folk and they invited me to join them around their open fire under the natural disco lights (stars) – the clearest view I’ve seen yet.

(Pictures : My car and the Hiking New Zealand van and tents, and the crystal clear river next to the campsite)

In Franz Josef….after a mega drive (in distance and scenery) yesterday from Dunedin over Haast Pass. Camped at a DOC site just to have a Hiking New Zealand minibus pull up next to me, but all good as they shared their fire.
Heading further up west coast tomorrow… more soon.

I’ve updated a few blog entries as I’ve been on the move quite a lot over the last few days.  It may be the same over the next few as I drive over to the west coast.

So, it’s a long shot, but I have as much in the heading as I can in the hope that someone will stumble on this blog entry.

I met a girl from Chicago in Hamner Springs, South Island, New Zealand.  Her dad was planning a round the world sailing trip starting in September 2007.  Stupidly I never got her email address but gave her mine.  She was travelling with an English girl.  I’m curious about the trip….so someone who knows her (from Chicago, dad works in real estate, she’s been travelling for over two years) or about the trip, drop me an email……you never know.

Heed to road signs!  The other day I saw a tiny handmade sign saying :

‘Stock’

Yeh sure I thought. 

I turned the corner and had a cow running towards me, and me driving towards it at 70km/h.

I turned the next corner, albeit far slower and had the herding dog runnning around.

I’m quite keen to start heading towards the North Island again so I can spend some time with Jono in Wellington before I explore further north.  Tomorrow (Wednesday?) I’ll head west via Wanaka towards Fox and Frans Joseph Glaciers.

I may end up hooking up with a local I met in Malaysia for a couple of days on Abel Tasman and around, but due to my lack of planning it’s a bit unlikely.

Unfortunately I pretty much decided a week or two wouldn’t really do justice to Vanuatu without doing relatively expensive internal flights so have all but binned the idea of making a last minute escape there before heading to Japan.  Boo hoo hoo.  I’ll be missing some excellent volcano trekking, diving, and witnessing the home of ‘bungy’ where traditionally men leap off tall platforms connected to vines or similar.  Gutted. 

(Picture : Me at the steepest street in the world – nice new pants eh?)  Having got a bit bored of driving we went for a drive around Dunedin and the Otago Peninsula today.  I started off by walking up the steepest street in the world, the drove round the Otago Peninsula and failed to see any of the wildlife (except seals) on the very brief walks we did.  But I still had music in the car!  The peninsula was nice enough to scoot around though with some pretty stunning beaches with surf crashing in over them.

(Picture : Otago Peninsula)  A couple of hours was spent in town looking at guidebooks with me purchasing a probably never to be read Japanese phrasebook for the forthcoming visit.  I did managed to walk in and out of Bivouac Sports without buying anything – a mighty feat indeed!

Mr T has made some contact so I hope to hook up with him tonight and will try to avoid his international rules drinking games as I head over the to West coast on my own in the morning.

…are beautiful.  Isn’t everything?  Can you tell I’m a bit travelled out?

After some lovely hostel home cooked bread and honey, we headed off in a two car convoy to drive through the Catlins for a day or two.  But this drive I had music!  And fresh tunes from my recently increased collection.  I also threw on some Billy Connolly incase I wanted something a bit different.

We stopped at a couple of lookouts over beaches and the like, and stopped at Jack’s Blowhole which didn’t really blow (although it was quite neat  – a big sea water blowhole 200m inland, 55m wide blah de blah which was surrounded in the typically amazing array of New Zealand plantlife from bush to palm tree type thingies.

After lunch in Owaka the scenery improved but as my timing was impeccable as usual, we couldn’t see the coastal Cathedral Caves as it was high tide during most of the day. 

We hot footed it to Dunedin.

I had tried to contact ‘Mr T’, a local from Dunedin whom I met on the sailing trip in the Whitsundays but Vodafone being the monopoly it is here appeared to have broken their text messaging last night.

Pizza seemed to be the order of the day so we ended up walking for about three miles to find a pizza place open (of course the following day we saw one in the centre of town), found a closed bar (before 10pm!) so couldn’t have a beer while we waited, and couldn’t find a bottle shop open to takeaway.  After eating pizza in the street it was a struggle to even find a bar open at 10pm.  Deciding to avoid the one that’s ‘always open but not very nice clientele’ it was an early kip.  Needless to say Dunedin, despite being a Monday night, could only improve.

I had a quick peek in the DOC office and wildlife park before taking the Southern Scenic Route to Invercargill.  It turned out the Swiss girl Claudia, whom I met in Kaikoura, was heading there too to check out the Catlins so we agreed to hook up there.

I drove the Southern Scenic Route from Te Anau, which wasn’t actually that scenic in my book.  Nothing wrong with it, just not really worth the effort. The one thing I wanted to do was wander through the Clifden Caves, a natural cave formation with no guides or tours – just pop your donation in, switch on the headlamp, and in you go for a few hundred metres.

 (Picture : Clifden Caves entrance)  The Rough Guide had warned that you may have to scramble through the odd bit.  At the start was a bizarre doorpost and door, freestanding with no visible buildings around with a sign which ended ‘If you see our pony please give him a pat.’ 

 Was the pony in the caves?  Off I went, a little bit nervous as darkness quickly loomed, and even Petzl couldn’t lighten that much of it up.  I turned a corner, followed the direction to the reflective strip, looked down to a jumble of small rocks, and immediately thought to myself

:

‘How the f*!! do I get through there?’

I then recalled the notice out front : ‘…..always go with at least two people, and with two flashlights each’. Now I knew why.

I walked back out.  Surely another car would turn up?  As it was a camper van was there with a couple of Brits.  I shouted to them if they were coming in as I wanted some company since it was so narrow (there were a few ladders and drops further along) but they said they may come back later ‘if you survive and get out’.  I went back in as they pulled away.

I heard another car pull up, and German voices at the cave entrance.  I said hello from the darkness, which must have freaked them out as they left.

I waited the best part of 45 minutes for others to turn up but nada.  I couldn’t even see the exit to try and go in to see the end of it.  I was a bit hacked off for being uber cautious and missing out on the one thing I wanted to do in the area, and with a complete lack of crowds or entrance fees….but somehow I just couldn’t crawl through that in the darkness on my own……     woose.

I hot footed it towards Invercargill.  I took a brief detour to Bluff, the southernmost town on the South Island and the gateway to Stewart Island.  I would’ve quite liked to go here but it was the ferry cost and the cost of water taxis to see stuff that put me off.  Bluff was nothing to write home about, but as the picture shows I was a long way from home – around 19000km! 

I then hooked up with Claudia which gave me a good enough excuse to head out for a Masuman curry from a Thai place and a couple of pints of Speights.

(Picture : the view from Key Summit over the start of the Routeburn Track)  As I was feeling a bit travelled out before Milford I had to do something to perk me up.  One of the girls on the boat was tiny and from Chicago.  She had just done the Milford Track, joined the overnight cruise and was walking back via the Routeburn so I decided that despite my Mount Aspiring mission I needed some exercise so I eventually talked myself into heading up the short Key Summit walk from the Great Divide on the Milford Road – the very start of the Routeburn Track (albeit a tiny wee miniscule 60 minute section!).  Great views were had and it was off to Te Anau to see the film they show of the Milford Sound in the Fjordland Cinema.  I had to hang around for a couple of hours which made me decide to hang out in the area that night. 

(Picture : A view from the Key Summit track)   The film was superb, all shot in Fjordland from helicopter flyovers featuring all kinds of cinematography of wildlife, nature and even a sequence with climbers in it.  Despite being amazing I still managed to have a couple of short kips during the 30 minute film!

(Picture : Room with a view – DOC Campsite)  In an attempt to perk back up into travelling mode I opted to stay in a Deptartment of Conservation simple (i.e. unserviced) campsite by the lochside, 23km out of town. Superb.  Simple camping by the lochside with the waves lapping up the shore just several feet short of the tent.  There was no-one else around until another couple parked up a couple of hundred feet from me after darkness fell.

(Picture : My morning view through the flysheet)  I was a bit perturbed to find a stick formation in the rocky beach in the morning – I hadn’t noticed it the night before.  There was a stick pointing towards my campsite….  had the Blair Witch made an appearance during the night?  I sure as hell didn’t hear anything in my epic 12 hour sleep the night before.  Bliss. The joy of earplugs.

(Picture : Blair Witch?)