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New Zealand - South Island
Picton
We arrived in the very pretty town of Picton late morning, had some lunch and wandered around, before hopping straight onto the Tranz Scenic train from Picton to Christchurch. Fortunately both the train and ferry service were included in our bus tickets so we didn't have to pay anything extra for them. The train journey was amazing, with stunning scenery the whole way. We travelled along the coastal road, with the sea on one side of us and snow capped mountains and lush green fields on the other side! It was definitely a great way to start the south island. Our train ride was 5 hours long, so we ended up arriving in Christchurch early Sunday evening, ready for a good old sleep!
Christchurch
We were due to pick up our 'Explore More' campervan from Christchurch on the Monday morning. We wanted however, to do some exploring first, so after changing our collection time, we spent Monday morning walking around the city and taking in some of the sights. We walked along the river running through the city, through the botanical gardens and then had lunch in a small cafe. The city was fairly small, but was very pretty and had a slightly 'british' feel to it... in a good way! After lunch we collected our van, did a big shop in the nearby supermarket before heading off towards the north of the island, with the plan to drive for as long as we could before Jess got tired!
Hamner Springs
Hamner Springs was a brief stopover on our way to Nelson, but it was a beautiful first stop! The drive from Christchurch to Hamner Springs was amazing, with stunning views in every direction. We took a couple of hours to get there, driving nice and easy to take in the beautiful surroundings. We arrived early evening in Hamner and pulled into a campsite, which had good facilities and snow capped mountains serving as a backdrop (an almost every day occurance in the south island)! As we were on a tight schedule, we had to set off again the next morning towards Nelson.
Nelson
After a long drive, we arrived in Nelson late afternoon. As the weather had been so nice, we thought we should have a look around the town whilst it was sunny, in case the next day was horrible (which ended up being a very good idea). From our hostel, (which had spaces in the carpark to park our van and we just paid to use the hostel facilities) we walked along the river into the town centre, which was small but cute, with a lovely little hill park surrounding a church overlooking the town, where we sat for a while and took pictures. The next day it was raining, so we went to see 'Up' at the cinema, had a spot of lunch, then set off towards our next stop, Abel Tasman National Park.
Kaiteriteri and Abel Tasman
We arrived in Kaiteriteri early Wednesday evening, to stay the night at a beachfront campsite, which was a short drive from Abel Tasman. It was very quiet, but the location was lovely and our van was parked literally 5 metres from the beach. We walked along the beach and watched the sunset, before cooking and heading to bed for the night. The next day we set off early(ish) towards the national park. There are several walks to do in the park which runs alongside the coast, with lots of coves and beaches to explore. Some walks are a lot longer than others, and because we were short on time we decided to just walk along the coast for an hour or so to one of the beautiful beaches. After our walk, we had some lunch before setting off again towards the west coast of the island, to a town called Westport.
Westport, Greymouth and Hokitika
The start of the west coast was pretty dull. We didn't have very good weather, so having arrived in Westport Thursday (15th) evening, we left again Friday morning, passing through Greymouth and Hokitika on our way down the coast. We were aiming to drive all day to get to Franz Josef, and were hoping to fill up our tank in a tiny place called Harihari, but the petrol station was closed, as was the next one in Whataroa. The red light was on by this stage, and we were trying to decide whether we should carry on driving to Franz in the hope we would make it in time, or whether we should stop and set up camp for the night. In the end we decided to carry on driving (at an ultra slow speed we should add!) until eventually, after what seemed like a lifetime of hoping we wouldn't stop in the middle of nowhere, we arrived in Franz Josef just in the nick of time to fill up with petrol before the pumps closed there too! A lucky escape indeed!!
Franz Josef
We stayed at a lovely rainforest themed campsite in Franz, which was a tiny town (literally just a couple of streets) right near the Franz Josef glacier. Saturday morning we walked around the town (which took about 5minutes!) and booked a half day guided trek on the glacier for the next day. The weather wasn't very nice, but we decided to drive to some nearby lakes we had passed on our drive into Franz to have some lunch. That afternoon, we drove to a reflection pool near the glacier, but the weather was still pretty crap so we headed back to our campsite for an early night. The next day we were up early for the glacier trek. Fortunately the weather had brightened up, and we had some amazing views as we were climbing the glacier, both of the valley below and the glacier above us. The trek was good fun and afterwards we had got discounted tickets for the Glacier Hot Pools, so we had a relaxing hour or so there before setting off again towards Wanaka.
Haast and Wanaka
On our way we stopped at Lake Matheson, a very calm and beautiful lake which mirrored everything surrounding it. Further on, we stopped again at a stunning beach which was lined with piles of stones perched on top of one another (a tradition we had discovered in South America). We wrote on our own stone and placed it on top of one of the piles. We then stopped at another beautiful lake for some more photos before driving on with the aim to reach only Haast, not Wanaka, as it was starting to get dark. When nearly at Haast, we drove to a lookout point which overlooked a beach below from where we could see the sun set. We decided to cook dinner in our van, whilst watching the sun go down and getting some awesome pictures... it was the most beautiful sunset we had ever seen. Eventually, we arrived in Haast, only to find the nearest campsite reception wasn't open (and there was nowhere really to free camp) so we had to drive 20km further to a campsite near the beach. There wasn't much to do in Haast, so we headed off Monday morning, reaching Wanaka that afternoon. Wanaka was a beautiful town on the edge of a lake, with snow capped mountains in the background. We parked up at the lake and had a late lunch, then wandered around the town for a bit before it started to rain. As we didn't have enough time to spend any longer in Wanaka, we headed off again to Queenstown.
Queenstown 1
Queenstown was an amazing little town, overlooking a stunning lake with snow capped mountains providing a beautiful backdrop! (We know that 'amazing', 'stunning' and 'beautiful' have featured heavily in the NZ blogs, but that's all you can really use to describe the scenery in NZ, as you will see by the photos!) We loved it the minute we arrived, and thought it reminded us a lot of Bariloche in Argentina. On Tuesday (20th) the weather was gorgeous, so we went up in the gondola to a viewing point looking out over the whole of Queenstown - the views were incredible. There were people paragliding off the mountain which looked like great fun, but twe couldn't quite stretch our funds for that as we were still hoping to do a skydive. That afternoon we walked around the town and sat by the lake for a while enjoying the sun.
The next day we left Queenstown to head to Te Anau, the nearest town to the Milford Sound. The weather was horrible, so when we arrived late in the afternoon, we checked into our campsite, cooked dinner and went to bed ready for an early start the following morning. On Thursday we drove the 2hour drive to Milford, and then caught a 1hour 30mins ferry cruise through the Milford Sound. Fortunately we had good weather and the scenery was stunning - not sure if it quite lived up to expectations, but it was enjoyable and definitely a worthwhile trip. That afternoon we drove from Milford to Te Anau, and Te Anau back to Queenstown, to spend a couple more days there before making our way back towards Christchurch.
Back in Queenstown, we spent the next couple of days relaxing. The gardens beside the lake provided a perfect sunbathing spot one afternoon, we went out on the Friday night for some well deserved drinks, and eventually left on Saturday afternoon to head to Twizel.
Twizel
We stopped in Twizel Saturday night as it was a good halfway point between Queenstown and Christchurch, and our van was due to be back on the Sunday afternoon. Sunday morning, we left early and drove to Lake Tekapo to have breakfast. On our way we drove past another lake across which Mount Cook and the surrounding mountains were visible. It was a perfect day and the views could not have been any better. Once at Lake Tekapo, we had some brekkie before taking a walk down to the lake to admire yet more amazing scenery! We eventually arrived back in Christchurch late afternoon, returned our van and spent the night there, before catching a very early train the next morning to Picton, and then the lunchtime ferry to Wellington and back to the North Island.
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