Arthur's Pass

After our freezing night at a D.O.C camp site just above Franz Josef we drove north to Greymouth, it was a fair drive and took most of the morning. Here we stocked up on essentials, doing a big shop and filling the fuel tank up. It was then time to drive inland through Arthur's Pass. This is a road which links the west and east coasts, Arthur's Pass being in a mountain range with an impressive road through the mountains. As we drove towards the mountains the weather was abit grim, but fortunately the weather faired up when we got into Arthur's Pass national park.

We parked up in Arthur's Pass village and had some lunch before going on two walks to two waterfalls. The first falls we visited were the impressive Devils Punchbowl falls, then we headed to the Bridal Veil falls which wasn't too brilliant! After our two walks we drove 8km south of the village and camped at Klondyke corner.

6am in the morning Peter got woken by Lucy, a rattling sound coming from under the vehicle... sounded like something was trying to get in or rip something of the vehicle. Brillian..we thought we had scared whatever it was, away by turning the lights on and slamming the door... but 5 minutes later the noises started again, so Peter went outside and dived onto the floor with the torch shining under the van. Peter wasn't sure what it was to be honest, but we think it was a beaver!!! Back in bed and nearly falling asleep again, rattling on the roof starts... Peter not very happy jumps out of bed and out of the van... he didn't see anything so god knows what that was!

When we finally got up for the day we drove to Craigieburn forest park. This is where we began the helicopter hill walk. The walk began walking through the forest in cold and frosty conditions... by the time we reached the top of the hill we were in glorious sunshine and boiling hot. At the top the views were brilliant with different mountain ranges all around us. The walk took us around 3hours in total and we really enjoyed it.

That evening we free camped at a D.O.C camp site next to the lovely Lake Pearson, where we chilled out with a few well deserved beers.

The following morning we had planned to do a walk up castle hill but we didn't bother as it was really misty so we wouldn't of seen much. So we drove the rest of the way to Christchurch along the remaining bit of Arthur's Pass. Once out of the mountains we were greeted by glorious sunshine as we drove through the Canterbury plains.

We were back where we started our road trip, back at Apollo motorhomes picking up a new water tank cap and some more toilet tablets. We didn't get charged for the cap strangely, fingers crossed they don't charge us at the end of our trip!

Later we checked in at the very smart top10 holiday park in Christchurch, it even had a drive-thru check-in!! Here we did a big laundry and clean up job. After all our jobs were done, we walked to the Fox & Ferrit pub where our friend Amanda works, the walk took slightly longer than expected. Here we enjoyed a lovely tea, the massive steak and ribs combo which we destroyed. After a few more drinks we were then joined by Will and then later by Amanda after she'd finished work. In good spirits we went back to our campervan for some more beer, moscato and jagermeister!

The next morning we woke up.. rough.... we blame Will for buying the jager! haha