Southern Lakes District

As well as jumping off mountains around Wanaka, we've also enjoyed the views from the ground. The scenery around Wanaka, Arrowtown and Queenstown has to be some of the best in New Zealand.

The lakes are surrounded by incredible snow-capped mountains, as you can see in this photo of Lake Wanaka. We really liked the town, too; it has a stunning location right next to the lake and lots of lovely cafes to relax in. We were a lucky with the weather and cloud-free blue skies and sunshine made it even more appealing.

 

Driving through the mountains is wonderful and we have to stop to admire the view every few kilometres. We loved this look out point so much that we spent the night there. Sitting in the van eating our dinner we doubted if any expensive restaurant in the world could deliver such an impressive view.

Arrowtown was a busy spot during the 1860s gold rush and, unusually for NZ, still retains many of its original buildings. The Chinese Settlement is a fascinating place, with restored huts and information about the tough lives of the Chinese who followed the rush. Arrowtown's a sweet little place now, with boutiques, chocolate shops and gourmet restaurants; I'm not sure if the gold prospectors would recognise it!

 

Queenstown is known as the centre for all things adventurous and we felt we couldn't leave without at least witnessing something extreme, so we went down to the Kawarau Bridge to watch some bungy jumping. I think that having your body flung around like that looks pretty unpleasant, to be honest, but this young girl was totally fearless and didn't even hesitate before throwing herself off the bridge.

While we were in the Southern Lakes District, we met up with my mum and dad and their friends Polly and David, who are also visiting from the UK. Polly and David had a lovely cruise on this old steam boat, The TSS Earnslaw, which took them out onto Lake Wakatipu.

Rob and I managed to convince my dad that paragliding is great fun, so he had a go from the top of the Skyline Gondola. Anyone who knows him will not be surprised to hear that he absolutely loved it! 

Rachel x

Paragliding!

NZ is well known as the capital of adrenaline sports. Doing something scary while you're here is pretty much obligatory. Feeling that skydiving or bungy jumping were a little bit too scary, we opted for paragliding.

So, when we woke up to a beautiful morning on Friday with clear skies, almost no wind and a flyer for $20 off with Wanaka Paragliding, it was fate. We phoned up and made a booking to 'fly' an hour later.

We met the paragliding team at the base of the Treble Cone ski area near Wanaka. They then drove us up to the take-off point, 800m higher. After a fairly quick briefing, we ran off the side of the mountain and floated off into the air.

Yes, it really does feel like you're flying. It's very easy (you're really just sitting down for half an hour); I was even able to take some pictures while I was gliding around. We had awesome views of Lake Wanaka and the Mt Aspiring National Park.

On the mountainside where we were flying there happened to be an Australasian Harrier nesting. As we crossed into his territory, he flew around to try to warn us off. He even tried to land on top of Rach's glider! Luckily he didn't; they have pretty sharp talons that could easily damage a paraglider!

For the rest of the day we were buzzing with the excitement of such a fantastic experience. It was beautifully serene and calm - not that scary after all!

Rob

Glacier Country

We had a brilliant couple of days in Franz Josef and Fox, two tiny isolated villages famous for their enormous glaciers. We took the easy option at Franz Josef and just walked up to a viewing point where you get a decent view of the glacier. It's a really impressive sight and even more amazing when you realise you can really only see a small section of the ice.

That afternoon we experienced the full force of the West Coast weather with hours and hours of heavy rain so we escaped to the lovely Glacier Hot Pools. Unlike lots of similar places we visited in Central America, the water here isn't naturally heated, but it is real glacial water, so that was a first. It's also a lot swankier than any others we've been to and surrounded by rainforest so has a really nice atmosphere.

The next day the sun came out and we had perfect weather to get out onto the ice! This time we went to Fox Glacier, just down the road.

You're not allowed to go on the glacier without a guide unless you're experienced alpine mountaineers, (which we're definitely not!), so here's out guide, Cole. He looks the part, don't you think?!

 There was quite a hike to get onto the ice, including 700 steps and some risky sections where there are frequent rock falls. We stopped at a fresh water spring for a refreshing drink.

 

Once we got onto the glacier we were given an alpenstock (a big stick with a spike on the end) and crampons. We fitted these over the very retro boots that they had lent us and were told to tuck our trousers into our socks so we didn't catch them on the crampons. I felt like an old fashioned mountaineer along the lines of Kiwi hero Sir Edmund Hillary and felt ready to tackle the glacier!

 

The ice was a lot more grey than I had expected but it was still incredibly beautiful how it has formed into all sorts of peaks and cravasses. Where you can see into the glacier, it's a vivid blue colour.

This is my favourite photo because Cole let me pose with his ice axe!

On average, the Fox Glacier flows at over 1 metre a day and can get up to a speed of 5m a day, which is about 10 times faster than the European Alpine glaciers.



I really loved the whole experience and it's definitely one of the best things we've done so far.

Amazingly, after several hours hiking on and around the glacier, we found enough energy to almost run to the end of Lake Matheson. It has a very reflective surface and is famous for its evening views of Mount Tasman and, the highest peak in NZ, Mount Cook. We managed to get there just in time before the sun went down and got this lovely shot.

Rachel x

Okarito Kiwi Spotting

Okarito is a very small township about 25km from Franz Josef. Population: 35. One of those people is a guy called Ian from Hertfordshire, who runs nightly birdwatching tours in the nearby Pakihi reserve, which is a designated kiwi habitat.

Ian has the right attitude for a nature guide: he doesn't feed the birds, he doesn't chase the birds, and he tries his absolute hardest not to disturb the birds or disrupt their natural behaviour. He manages to enable people like us to see kiwis in their natural habitat because he knows the birds in the area and their behaviour.

We started the evening with a thorough breifing from Ian. Kiwis are territorial birds, and a breeding pair's territory can be about 60 times the area of a football pitch. In the reserve where we were headed, there were just 3 pairs; 6 birds in an area 180 times the size of a football pitch. What's more, we were restricted to the relatively tiny area of the track that passed through the 3 pairs' territories. (Bashing through the dense bush looking for kiwis is pointless - there's no chance of hearing a kiwi over the noise, not to mention the fact that they'd all be scared off!) A guide is obviously essential.

On the way into the reserve - dressed in our fetching mosquito hats and sporting high-viz safety vests to avoid being shot by deer hunters - we saw a couple of classic tell-tale kiwi clues. Firstly, a fresh track laid by an adult kiwi. To give you an idea of scale, the left and right toes are about 10cm apart at the tips (if you were to make that photo onto a 6x4" print, it would be approximately life-sized). Further down the track, some pretty fresh, and surprisingly large, kiwi poo. It has a white crust and smells not like normal animal dung, but strongly of ammonia.

As it happens, one of the three kiwi pairs is currently incubating an egg in their burrow, which is pretty close to the track. Kiwis are nocturnal birds, but they get up about 20 minutes before sunset to start feeding. We positioned ourselves near the burrow on the track, and waited in silent anticipation.

As the light faded, we wondered whether we might be out of luck tonight (see previous post from the Bay of Islands re dolphin spotting). But, in the fading light of dusk, we spotted the female kiwi strutting by, searching the bush for grubs and insects. Amazing! We were now part of a very elite group: only about 0.5% of New Zealanders have seen kiwis in the wild. I don't know what proportion of foreign tourists have done the same, but we're two of them!

The night had started well, but there was more to come. We followed the kiwi, keeping silent and listening for any sounds she made, as she moved around the bush. After a pretty long time standing virtually motionless and silent, we could hear her heading back towards us and out onto the path. By this time it was completely dark, so we needed special low-intensity red torchlight to see the bird (which, by the way, didn't seem to bother her one bit). She snuffled around at the edge of the path just a few metres away from us, then ran across to the other side, hopping from foot to foot. Our patience certainly paid off!

This is now up there as one of our best wildlife spotting moments, no doubt about it. A wild kiwi, in her natural habitat. Does NZ get better than that?

Rob

Hokitika

A few years ago I read, and thoroughly enjoyed, a book called The Colour by Rose Tremain, which is about the gold rush in New Zealand. Hokitika is one of the main settings in the book and I had been looking forward to visiting the town for a long time.

When gold was discovered in the Hokitika River in 1860, thousands of hopeful prospectors arrived in this wild and remote location, and a busy, chaotic town sprung up from nowhere. Ramshackle hotels, banks and, most importantly, pubs, were built in a matter of weeks to support the new community and it was a scene of both great excitement and terrible disappointment until the gold ran out in the early 20th Century.

Nowadays, Hokitika is a strangely lonely sort of a place - or at least it is on a rainy Saturday afternoon when all the shops are already closed! The streets are amazingly wide and there's a definite air of the Wild West about it.

In the evening, however, the rain stopped and we were treated to a stunning sunset down on the beach. Just watch out for those sand flies!

We also found time to visit nearby Hokitita Gorge. It's a beautifully peaceful spot, with turquoise water that is turned milky from glacial flour - suspended rock particles come down from the Southern Alps. The landscape around there is really dramatic with rugged snow-capped mountains jutting out of the plains. It's a beautiful place with a lot of fascinating history.

Rachel x

Go West!

New Zealand's West Coast is known for it's rugged shore lines, wild ocean and colourful history. We've spent a few really enjoyable days driving along the coast, calling in at several towns and tourist sites, and we've been very impressed.

On our way west we called in at Golden Bay and Farewell Spit. The weather wasn't fantastic so you may not be able to make out much more than a grey line in the photo but the spit is an immense sand bar that seems to go on forever. We actually had a better view of it from the plane on our way to the South Island!

Ironically, by the time we reached Cape Foulwind, the weather got a lot better.



We've had a bit more luck with "freedom camping" (aka not having to pay for a camp site!) recently and are really enjoying the independence of the camper van. This was our wonderful view in a quiet spot along the Motueka Valley Highway.

 

One of my favourite places was the Pancake Rocks near Punakaiki. The limestone has been formed into what look like stacks of pancakes and, in some places, eroded into bizarre shapes. The sea there is incredibly powerful and makes loud booming noises and lots of spray as it rushes into the hollows and caves. We went back in the evening, for high tide, to the see the ocean at full strength, pounding against the coast. Impressive.

Greymouth is a rather dull and depressing town, so we weren't keen to stay long, but we did do a tour of its Monteith's Brewery. They've been brewing beers such as the Original Ale, Black and Celtic Red since the 1840s and it's a real West Coast icon.



Here I am with the fermenting tanks. Sadly they weren't actually brewing when we visited, so you'll just have to imagine them brimming with beer!


After a rather whirlwing tour with a slightly rowdy group of dairy farmers, we were able to sample their full range of 8 beers in the bar - this was clearly the bit the farmers had been waiting for!



Rob liked the Original Ale the best!

We stopped in a lovely village called Okarito, which has only 35 residents and is just a tiny strip of houses between the sea and the mountains. It has a really special atmosphere, I think, and the lagoon is beautiful, too. Once again we are astonished by New Zealand's diversity.

Rachel x