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New Zealand
South Island
Our first stop in the south island after leaving the ferry was the Marlborough wine region. it's an extremely challenging & twisty drive from the ferry terminal to Marlborough with numerous hairpin bends and hill climbs. You are rewarded with beautiful views of Marlborough sounds ("sounds" are kind of inland beaches/coves). Upon arriving in Marlborough, we got lucky by following one of the Lonely Planet recommendations and stayed in a nice place right in the centre of the wine region
9 kms from Nelson. As a result, we were able to take in a number of wineries on foot. We ended up trying and tasting lots of Pinot Gris (same grape as Pinot Grigio but the French spelling and producing method) which was very different to the Pinot Grigio we drink in Europe: all smooth, sweet and fruity not dry and acidic - we ended up buying about 4 or 5 bottles of the stuff. 2010 had been a really good year apparently so lots of good wine next year, although a number of the wineries were talking about over -supply following very good years in 2008 and 2009 which had driven the prices done so that no one was willing to spend £10 on a bottle of wine anymore. Maybe this explains why we were buying such cheap Australian wine in California? We also tried lots of sauv blanc (which Marlborough is famous for) and as with Hawkes Bay proved a great way to spend an afternoon.
We had much conflicting advice about where we to go and which routes to take around the South Island. We decided to head to the East Coast, Kaikoura. The costal drive down is spectacular, something akin to Highway One in California. Curiously, it really isn't mentioned in our guide book which goes to show that Lonely Planet doesn't always get it right…. At the stop off points down the coast to Kaikoura we saw seals basking in the sun, many of them asleep and as I type this on the East coast of Australia, we have today heard on ABC radio that many seals in the Kaikoura area have been mysteriously clubbed to death in recent weeks. Fingers are being pointed at the fishermen, but the seals don't even eat fish that the fishermen coach so it's a strange one. You are supposed to do whale watching in Kaikoura but it was so expensive (£100 per person!) that we skipped that. We did the same kind of thing in Cape Cod a year or two ago and it was less than half the cost. In Cape Cod there were numerous companies providing the service but curiously only one in Kaikoura: we experienced this quite a lot in New Zealand; only one provider and prices to match, competition is a good thing. . .
Instead of staying in Kaikoura we continued the drive and stayed one night in Christchurch. Christchurch is apparently the most English of settlements and walking around it certainly felt like a British provisional city, with its mix of 60's , 70's and 80's architecture and a church that would fit in any small British city. Christchurch suffered a 7.1 Richter scale earthquake in September 2010 so we were curious to see what visible damage had been done, (although we had been warned that "rubberneckers" weren't welcome). There was surprisingly little visible damage: maybe half a dozen buildings obviously damaged and a number of streets closed and as you may be aware, miraculously no-one died.
It was pointed out to us more than once while we were there that Haiti also suffered a 7.1 Richter Scale earthquake and the death and devastation was obviously of a far greater magnitude. Apparently earthquake experts are flocking to Christchurch to understand why it faired so well. We were told its partly due to the British materials shipped over and used in construction but also I'd imagine its about first world building regulations (yes the State is good for something) and the lessons learnt from similar disasters in the 1930's in Napier. We didn't really warm to Christchurch on our first visit but it got better on our second visit a week later.
Leaving Christchurch, we headed to lake Tekapo. There is only one place you'd want to stay in Tekapo given the views and that is on the shores of the lake. We found a nice backpacker double room and spent the sunset sipping Marlborough Pinot Gris on the shore watching the sunset. The lake is so clean and pure you could see right to the bottom and with Mount Cook in the distance, reflecting in the lake, its one of those jaw droppingly beautiful places. There are only a million people on the whole of the south island and most people live in the cities so its amazing how quiet and relatively unspoilt and unbuilt-up places like Lake Tekapo are. There are maybe a dozen places to stay and a few shops so it's a very peaceful and uncrowned experience and you feel like your experiencing something special that relatively few people get the chance to see.
The following day the lake looked different again as the wind had dropped and the lake was stiller, making for a more perfect reflection. When you are in places like this, you don't need lots of nightlife or bars or things to do, just taking in all in is enough and fills you with a sense of wellbeing. Tekapo was also a perfect place to spend Erin's birthday; after that we headed south to Queenstown, the adrenalin hub of the south island where all manner of adventure sports are possible.
We liked Queenstown and stayed for two days in a great YHA just out of town overlooking the lake. I'm afraid we chickened out of both bungy jumping and skydiving (there were groups of early twenties doing a package of all of them which made me feel very old) but we did do the cable car up to Bob's Peek and took the luge (like a go-cart without an engine) down the 1500m hill trick which was addictive. We also did one of those powerboat rides through a white water canyon which was great fun: the driver steers the boats at high speed perilously close to the rocks then turns the boat away at the last second. We were slightly perturbed when our driver explained that during his training runs he had broken his instructors ribs and inflicted 80,000 NZ dollars of damage by clipping rocks. Two days after our ride, 10 people on the same ride with the same company were taken to hospital with a mixture of minor and major injuries when a boat hit a rock . . . .at the time of writing, they have suspended all trips!
Queenstown is also the set off point for one of the highlights of the South Island: Milford Sound. The pictures look amazing: waterfalls and sheer rock faces rising up but in the end, we just didn't have enough time to do Milford Sound. On the maps it appears a short hop across from Queenstown, but unfortunately there is no direct road and you have to drive for three hours on a long loop to reach it. With slightly heavy hearts we decided that we had already seen some amazing scenery and we simply didn't have the time to do Milford Sound without rushing back to Christchurch and missing other things. Instead we decided to head up in the direction of the west coast. If we had our time again, we'd probably would have liked an extra 2 days to do Milford Sound so if you wanted to follow our itinerary you would need the eighteen days we had plus at least another 3 or 4 days.
Another day and another lake, this time it was Lake Wanaka, equally blue and still as Tekapo but with not quite so many stunning mountains. From Wanaka we began the stunning drive to and up the west coast to the Franz Joseph and Fox Glaciers. The drive to the beginning of the west coast at Haast was amazing. Going through Mt Cook National park it was once again gorgeous vista after gorgeous vista and waterfalls at every corner. Once on the west coast the road follows the Tazman sea which was again very scenic if slightly scary with waves crashing against cliffs only metres from the road. The whole drive up the west coast, although beautiful, was tinged with sadness because it was during the first days of the Greymouth mining disaster and with every mile up the coast we got a mile closer to where the mine was. It was understandable all over every radio channel and tragic to be listening to it blow by blow.
Franz Joseph Glacier was out last main 'sight' in NZ and boy what a sight it was. A 90 minute walk along a now dry river bed you get within 200 metres of the Glacier face and it's simply phenomenal. I'm not even going to try to describe it because I'd fail, just look at the pictures! www.flickr.com/photos/byerin and then click on the folder for West Coast. Amazing.
After the Glacier we made our way across Arthur's Pass, and another amazing road which takes you from the west coast back across to Christchurch on the east coast. We stopped for the night in Arthur's Pass village which is tiny, alpine and very cute. Bar the Kia birds… Kia's are very rare, only about 4000left in the world and most seem to live in Arthur's Pass. They look like overgrown parrotts, minus the talking and they like to eat cars! So on our last day in NZ, the day where we have to hand back our old banger of a hire car in one piece in order to get back the $1000 deposit, we awake to find the car's aerial stripped of all it's black covering. Some panicking and one genius idea later, we are outside the supermarket carefully applying masking tape to the aerial and then covering it in dust to make it look authentic. Bingo, deposit back. Thanks very much New Zealand. Next stop: Aussie Aussie Aussie!
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