Alive and well and in Mt Cook. Had amazing couple of days with a night visit to an observatory, then a grand scenic flight for 50 mins today around the tallest mountains, glaciers and Lake Tekapo.
Today’s flight was the best I’ve ever done, and I’ve done some mean heli drops snowboarding before. Amazing and for once, worth every expensive dollar.
We have arrived in Christchurch awaiting my mum’s arrival on Thursday (erm, which I thought was on Wednesday until recently!). Ooops.
The last 10 days have been great heading down the West Coast and stopping for the night in lakeside campsites. We spent about a week in and around the Arthur’s Pass mountainous area which was great – very limited spending (although the money still disappeared), surrounded by mountains, and doing some active things.
We stopped for a couple of days of relaxation on the way into the pass at a pretty fancy campsite with very little around it, reading our books in the sun. From here we went up to Arthur’s Pass village and did an amazing walk called Avalanche Peak which is one of the best one days walks in New Zealand. It was a bit of a grunt up to the top, but with a reward of amazing alpine views and surrounding glaciers. Around us the alpine parrots (or Keas as they’re called) were hanging around just waiting for us to leave something loose so they could fly away with it.
We then moved just along the valley about 10km to a great free camping spot by a lake that we could swim in which was superb. We used this as a base for a couple of days to go to a bouldering area called Castle Hill to do some climbing type stuff. On the way we stumbled across an underground cave system that was free to enter in Cave Stream Scenic Reserve that was absolutely amazing. When you enter the cave, you check the water level and make sure it’s below your waist, then you walk up the underground stream, fully inside the cave for up to an hour, the passage only lit by your headtorch.
We somewhat reluctantly left Arthur’s Pass, but may be back later in the trip. We headed to Akaroa on the peninsula south of Christchurch for a couple of day’s more sun, and we are now in Christchurch. We saw an amazing exhibition by Ron Mueck in the art gallery yesterday – hand crafted human forms which were so lifelike it was stunning.
A storm is due with some rains and winds over the next couple of days. Wev’e not felt any aftershocks in Chritchurch so far. It’s quite sad to see quite a few buildings that have been flattened due them being unsafe. We have the van in for a service today and Ciara is off to meet some relatives tonight, then we’re getting prep’d for a busy three weeks after mum arrives on Thursday. Cities are dangerous for our budgets as we’ve plumped ourselves in a fairly central campsite at $39 a night, but it’s good to have a base, and we have both been sucked into the sales in the outdoors shops already, but have grabbed ourselves a couple of absolute bargains.
The blogging will be quiet again over the next few week’s but I’ll try to keep it up. We’re off to the tourist highlights including Tekapo, Mount Cook, Wanaka, Queenstown and the Sounds. Hopefully we’ll stop off in an observatory where you can attach your own camera’s for some night shots through their powerful telescopes. We’re leaving Christchurch on Saturday.
We got our first hardcore walk in today. It was a bit more than a walk but took us to the 1800m or so summit of Avalanche Peak in Arthur’s Pass..it was a cracking day. We were surrounded by Keas at the top, an alpine parrot which apparently is super intelligent. I remember them from the last time…you cant leave anything out or they’ll fly off with it. Wont write much more as I’m writing this on my phone.
Hi All, and a belated Happy New Year to everyone. Although it may sound like we’ve been living ‘off grid’ with no updates, we haven’t been, it’s just that time on the road flies, and days are busy, and laptops aren’t picked up. Photos for this post will come later!
We took in Christmas in Collingwood then headed towards Takaka just down the road in Golden Bay. It was time to try and climb, and experience at least one night out in the laid back (hippy!) town on Takaka. It’s a great vibe around here but you can tell there are quite a few who have moved for the vibe of the place. There’s loads of outlets for local artists and clothesmakers, organic cafes and outlets and all the normal stuff associated with a small town. We had a nice evening in one of the bars speaking to the owner about the place.
From spending a night in the town, there was more rain predicted so we headed to a full blown campsite on the coast to sit back and read our books. Luckily it only lasted a few days, so we managed to get a couple of morning’s climbing in, another short attempt at fishing with no joy (but another tangled line!), and a couple of nights free camping in the harbour carpark! We managed to climb over a ridge on the coast over a pretty awesome gravel road to one of the beaches in the Abel Tasman National Park.
The climbing we did was in a great setting right behind the road (short walk!) and right on the coast (great views). One day was almost perfect – a good couple of hours climbing one easyish routes, some decent people to chat to next to us, a kite flying session on the beach, and a short swim in the sea – what a great way to spend the last day of the year.
Our New Year was spent in a local inn just outside of Takaka – we left it too late to get into the campsite, and didn’t want to just park up on the road randomly. It was full of locals, bar the odd unexpecting tourist. I say locals – I should say local ‘characters’ – quite a bizarre but interesting night. We were pretty much parked in a field next to the Inn, had to go to the toilets inside, and the biggest nightmare of the night was that this was our second New Year’s night with no countdown….nope, no-one said “10, 9, 8…..” – we were gutted. THey just went straight into a crap rendition of Auld Lang Syne (they were a pretty naff band – a Swedish tourist managed to get on stage to play and stayed on for 20 minutes getting more praise than the band!).
Reluctantly we decided we should leave Golden Bay and head towards Nelson Lakes and the West Coast. We had so many things we still wanted to do in and around Golden Bay from biking to climbing and walking, and the weather had held us up a bit (our excuse anyway!). We decided that we could still be there in a few weeks and still think the same, so we left as it is one of the closest areas to Wellington (albeit across the sea) where we think we’ll end up heading back to.
We headed down to Nelson Lakes and managed a day of walking and another with some biking. We also managed to cross paths with our previous ‘flattie’ (housemate) and friend from Wellington on her return from New Years holidays so managed to get some post, grab a coffee and have a natter. Our friend had just been in a place called Karamea on the West Coast so we decided to head up there as it’s a bit off the beaten track, and there’s a high chance we wouldn’t be there again unless we did the Heaphy Walk. It wasn’t on our plans, but that’s the joy of being on the road!
One the way over we stopped off in a cheap DOC camp site and squeezed in our first activity of doing a tandem zip line swing across the river. It looked like good fun, but it ended up confirming our fears of spending money on the big activities. It was lame, and we felt cheated of our $60.
Karamea was lovely and we managed to hit it up pretty well in two days – we walked through caves, limestone karsts, had some great views and beach walks, and camped at the end of a road for a night, and really experienced the wild, rugged, west coast.
We were lucky in Karamea as the weather held out, so we decided to head down the West Coast just as it turned. Unfortunately that stopped us doing some cycling in one area, and climbing in another but hey ho.
There’s less than a two week until my mum comes down the road. The road trip’s great but despite having all the time in the world (relatively), we could have three, four, five times as long and we’d still struggle to do everything we wanted. Sometimes we’re struggle as we want to do so much we end up doing only small bits of each of them, but who’s complaining!
Between now and the 19th when my mum arrives, we’re going to head a bit further down the west coast, over Arthur’s Pass to hopefully stop for several days for biking, walking and climbing, then over to Christchurch for some shake, rattle and roll (although I joke, the poor buggers are still suffering from many aftershocks from the big quake so we may not spent so long there). We’re currenty in and around Hokitika, and heading to Arthur’s Pass today or tomorrow, so we’ may well be out of reception a wee bit for a few days – not sure.
The van is doing well, it doesn’t seem to be so leaky of late but the roof, and insect mesh on the side windows are starting to resemble a cemetary of sandflies…..they’re like mosquitos and are a bit of a pain, but we’ve got off relatively lightly so far, despite all our bites!
I’ll try to get some photos up when next online…..
