NZ - Ev's Birthday

Today was Evelyn’s 26th birthday, but with all the illness going round the last week, there wasn’t much celebration. In fact, there was almost none, as Marc forgot what day it was!

Marc’s excuse was this:

“Having been in bed suffering until recently, and then the activities and planning draining what little energy Marc had, his memory didn’t serve him quite as well”

Luckily, Evelyn’s mum called to wish happy birthday at about 9am, whilst she was in the shower, then after about 5 minutes, Marc twigged why she had called (he over heard the word birthday in the conversation). How bad did Marc feel for not remembering ;((((( Though he’s still adamant he would have remembered as soon as he went to pack his backpack, as of course he had brought a pressie. It would have taken something really special to get him out of this mess though, and a new fancy swatch watch went some way to repairing the damage, but the missing card didn’t help matters!!

It’s here Ev has to mention that Marc luckily had bought her this pressie in Melbourne, with her birthday in mind, but also as a backup in case she had bought him too much – this was also wrapped in lovely Christmas paper! – lucky for Marc she was understanding.

The plans for today weren’t ideal for a birthday either – we were driving to Franz Joseph Glacier some 500kms away!! Before leaving, we popped into Queenstown for one last visit, to take a few more photos, and admire this amazing scenery for one last time. And of course Buckies (Starbucks)

We have promised ourselves that we’ll be back in a few years. You just fall in love with the scenery, people and atmosphere of his place, and it’s very hard to leave, especially as we’ve been ill, we’ve missed a lot of what the town offers…

Still, we picked up the hire car, and brought Dave the Lord of the Rings trilogy, as a 3-in-1 pressie, 1 as a thank you, 2 being sorry and hope you don’t get our dreaded flu, and 3 so that he spot all the movie locations that he showed us ;)

We made a couple of stops en route. Our first was at the top of the mountains or hills, depending on which way you look at them; here we had amazing lookouts and views over the mountains, lakes and fields. Pretty spectacular stuff!

We then stopped for lunch at Wanaka, which is a town like Queenstown on a lake, with the mountains in the backdrop. This place is a bit more family orientated as it has a beach on the lake. It’s a really nice place, and deserves a longer stay than a lunch break – we stopped at a café, planned our trip, and watched the world go by. When we come back to NZ and QT, we will also come here for a few days.

Whilst at the tourist office, and with time getting on, we booked our excursion for tomorrow – the full day glacier climb at Franz Joseph. We do hope that we are sufficiently recovered from flu to fully enjoy the 8hr trip…

Marc booked the nights accommodation at The Rainforsest Lodge, which was advertised as having tree houses & a spa, this sounded a nice place to stay. However, they had none left so Marc instead booked a normal room. On reflection, Marc should have shopped around a bit, as this turned out to be a bit of a shoddy backpackers place, in characterless blocks of double rooms. Not really what we were after on Evelyn’s birthday.

The rest of the drive was pretty uneventful. We just drove, and drove, and drove. There was the customary almost-running-out-of-petrol due to infrequent and closed gas stations ;)

When we arrived at the Fox Glacier village we took the detour for the reflective lakes at Lake Matherson. After about 10 minutes of walking we decided that it would be best to come back tomorrow so we continued the windy and hilly journey on to the Franz Josef Glacier village.

We didn’t arrive until 9ish, which of course meant that most of the eateries in town were closed (by town we mean one street consisting of tourist office, supermarket, garage, 2 pubs and 2 restuarants), so we were left with the sports bar, which had a pretty limited bar snack menu at this time and of course the Cricket was on in the background… how romantic ;(

As we had to provide our own food for the hike, we headed on back to the room and made up some snacks and then got a fairly early night.

Marc is very sorry for such an unglamorous birthday, especially after what Evelyn did for his 30th. He will make up for it at some point, and next year will have to be something double special ;)

NZ - Doubtful Sounds

So we opted for Doubtful Sounds over Milford Sounds. Milford is the better known of the sounds, and the drive there is supposed to be spectacular – the road passes through a mountain, and when you enter the tunnel you leave behind glorious sunshine, and when you emerge the other side, there is torrential rain!!

We did contemplate the drive to Milford, stopping for lunch, then driving back, but decided that the 4-5 hour round trip was too much, so we stuck with Doubtful. Of the two, Doubtful is supposed to be the more amazing, and less touristy. And at these prices, you can see why the tourists go elsewhere ;)

The Sounds themselves are fiords, where the ocean meets the river/lake and the erosion of rocks has formed a network of lagoons surrounded by vertical cliffs and temporal rain forest. The rain and cliffs create quite a few dramatic waterfalls.

We arrived the night before our trip, as it was an early start, and as we still weren’t 100% we needed our rest. It’s a two-hour drive from Queenstown to Lake Manapouri. The place we stayed at was like stepping back in time. There are Morris Minors all over the place, and the TV is a push button, with a manual dial tuner!! The American lady running the place is really nice, and after about 10 minutes chat we checked into our log cabin, which was basic but adequate. We went to find somewhere for dinner, and lucky the hotel next door was still open, though they only served roadside café kind of meals. We were just in time for our favourite TV series - CSI, but we couldn’t get the TV tuned. The old man can down with a screwdriver to try and help tune the TV, but by the time he came down, the main TV room became free, then it took about 5 minutes to explain that the problem was solved ;) So we sat down on the sofa and had our take-away whilst watching the telly.

We had an early night as Marc was beginning to feel ill again - Ev has to mention that with Marc having a cold since just before New Years, it’s been really difficult for him to get to sleep. This is when Ev finds herself in a bit of a dilemma. She too needs her sleep and knows how important it is for Marc to get his rest too in order to get better. But with Marc snoring so LOUD she doesn’t want to wake him but she also can’t get to sleep herself!!

Next morning, with a bit of a groggy wakeup, we made our way to the pick up point for the first boat. This turned out to be an amazing day - however, we didn’t realise how wet we would get and would have been better off wearing quick dry clothes rather than our “warm” jeans!! We couldn’t get quite as involved as we would have liked, but it was still great fun watching everyone else though, especially the mad crew!!

The first leg of the trip was 1-2 hours on a ferry over to the main land between the 1st lake and Doubtful Sounds itself. We stopped at a few caves, islands and waterfalls en route. Once we got to the main land - a few cups of tea and about 100 photos later we bordered a bus.

The bus took us to the power station, which produces quite a lot of the South islands energy taken from the lake water. The tunnel leading to it is a very narrow single lane, and at the bottom of the tunnel, Stephen, our driver had to make a very, very tight 3-point turn. He mentioned whilst doing this that the bus was relatively new and was apparently worth about $750k, so any damage to this baby was not taken lightly! Once the scary u-turn was done, we had a chance to go into the power station and look at all the turbines pumping the water. All the figures and stats are long forgotten now and we would have to check the many leaflets that we picked up ;)

We then got back on the bus and got on with business. The views were spectacular, and the sun came out for a while. We enjoyed seeing the many waterfalls that Stephen pointed out for us and along the way he quizzed us to see how clever we all were. Unfortunately it was the loud Auzzies that beat everyone to the answers and the last tally was Auz 3, NZ 1, UK 1.

The rain started and then we saw the area in its prime. We were told that the scenery here changes everyday and new waterfalls appear within minutes of there not being one – some just breath taking. By the time we arrived at our boat, Pateu Explorer, the torrential rains had began and we just about made it onto the boat without being totally drenched.

As the weather was so bad we couldn’t really enjoy the outer decks as much… but this didn’t stop the crew. Stephen and John (the guide for the boat) kept going onto the front deck and getting soaked by the rain – at least this kept the tourists happy to see them enjoying themselves (or the tourists just thought that they were absolutely mad)

Along the way the captain was able to manoeuvre the boat quite close to the cliff face, as the water was really deep in all areas of the lake. He was also able to stick the bow of the boat into the little cracks along the way so we could see the little wonderful waterfalls and mossy cliffs surrounding it. At times the captain would even go directly under the waterfalls that were cascading off the cliffs higher up.

Sneak peak into a crack in the mountain

It was at one of the largest waterfalls that Stephen gave Evelyn a glass and told her to go fill it up from the waterfall… now this was a once in a lifetime opportunity so she went out onto the deck and ran forward to fill the glass – unfortunately for her the boat was also moving in the same direction so by misjudging how far to run she ended up directly under the waterfall! Getting absolutely drenched – and we all know how quickly jeans dry!!

Evelyn not realising that the boats still moving forwards ;)

Thirsty?

When we got close to the mouth, where the river meets the ocean, it became really choppy and soon people started to feel a little seasick. Thankfully the captain didn’t stop here long and just wanted to show us a colony of smelly seals on the rocks.

Unfortunately we weren’t able to see any dolphins, which sometimes play around the boat, but with the view so hazy there might have been some that we didn’t even see.

As we had reached the furtherest point we turned around and headed back to the bus, along the way seeing so many waterfalls we lost count. It was so spectacular to see what nature can create and even though we were soaked to the bone, and sniffling from our colds, we thoroughly enjoyed this experience.

When we got to the bus we had to make haste as Stephen mentioned that it would be likely that one of the bridges could be under water as the rains had been really bad today. Along the way he mentioned that John was really fascinated by one of the upcoming waterfalls and that could someone pass forward an empty water bottle so that he could fill it up. John however looked a little confused.

We rounded a corner and the doors opened; John was sat right in front by the door & had no idea as to what Stephen was about to do. He then manoeuvred the bus right up to the cliff face and right into a full flowing waterfall, drenching John, and the dash of the bus with water! Everyone was laughing and John didn’t look impressed!!

The boys then hurriedly tried to wipe clean the inside of the bus and it was at this point that Ev thought to ask Stephen how much the bus was worth ;D

We then caught the ferry back over the lake, and into a much warmer climate.

When we got back to the car we managed to change into some dryer clothes – Ev’s being her PJ’s :) and then made the 2 hour drive back to Dave’s for our final night in Queenstown.

NZ - Queenstown

This blog on Queenstown is considerably shorter than we were expecting and hoping, as we both came down with the flu. We were in Q’town for a week, and the majority of the time we were laid up in bed unable to move with a fever and runny nose. We also needed an everlasting supply of tissues ;)

The drive to Queenstown was amazing as we had a large blue lake on one side & the Remarkable mountain range on the other - spectacular!!

When we arrived in Queenstown we met Dave at the pub – typical meeting point :D and it wasn’t long before the boys were catching up. At this stage it was just Ev that had the bad cold.

Next morning Marc started to realise just how bad Ev felt the day before as he had suddenly come down with the flu that Ev was battling with. We dropped the car off in town, and Dave was nice enough to lend us his spare car while we were visiting.

We got our first sight of the beautiful town centre, which opens up onto the huge lake with the backdrop of mountains, and you catch your first glimpse of adrenaline sports with the jet boats picking up and dropping off, and helicopters occasionally whirring above. The small shop fronts are full of character, and you can see the gondolas going up the closest mountain.

Everywhere you look is stunning, and its so relaxing just to sit at a café by the lake and just watch the world go by… We stopped off for some breakfast, as our energy was low, then popped to the pharmacy to stock up on tissues and cough mixture – this soon became a regular trip for us during the upcoming week – then back to Dave’s…

Luckily Dave had internet (with the signal only strong enough from outside or by the kitchen sink ;) so we managed to do some blogging out in the sunshine when we had a little energy to spare.

For dinner we got some take outs and watched some telly – we must have been really entertaining for poor Dave… not – we really do hope he doesn’t catch our flu.

The week pretty much consisted of us sleeping, buying more drugs from the chemist (it costs $100pp to see the doctor and he wouldn’t be able to prescribe any antibiotics so we decided to spend the money on medicine instead), blogging, sleeping and blowing our noses! We were lucky with the weather, as it was beautiful clear blue skies for the whole week, so whilst we couldn’t do much, we could sit in the garden or hammock to relax and chat to the neighbour. One day we headed down to the lake to sunbath. There were a few families down here with their boats, playing with waterskis and rubber rings on the back of the boats.

View of Walters Peak

For dinner one night we managed to get out to town and get some Fern Burgers. Dave had been raving about them so we had to try them and boy were they big burgers. We didn’t have much of an appetite for the last few days so these burgers were a Godsend, yummy!! We ate these by the waterfront and we had little birds chirping around us eating crumbs off the table. We even got to hand feed them – just too cute!

We wanted to do walking around the parks and hills, and explore some of the nearby towns. We also wanted to do some of the adrenaline sports such as jetboating, canyoning, maybe skydiving or bungee, white water rafting and the luge.

Whilst we couldn’t do this, Dave took time out to show us a few sights. One evening he took us for a drive up the Remarkables Mountain range in his 4x4 as the other car probably wouldn’t have made it up the gravel track. We had great views over the town and Dear Park Heights, and we watched the sunset over the lake. There was a camper van up here – there can’t be many better places to spend the night!! We can definitely see why he has chosen to move here from Ringwood as there is so much character and amazing scenery here, and he gets to see if every day from his front door!

The Remarkables

When we felt a little better we booked ourselves on the Earnshaw steamboat and joined in on the tour of the boat on the way over to the sheep farm at Walters Peak. Here we got to see some deer and highland cows. The tour guide was really funny but spoke as if he was being serious, so most of the Japanese tourists believed every word he was saying, as they didn’t understand his sarcasium.

We then got treated to scones, muffins, tea and juice whist we sat on the patio overlooking the lake in a really beautiful house. This was just fantastic. Afterwards we got to see the sheep dog round up some sheep and then the farmer showed us how to sheer a sheep, all the while keeping a witty dialogue going.

As we were still feeling okay we joined Dave for dinner and then went on to the Frankton Arms (Dave’s local) for a few drinks, but we soon realised that we weren’t feeling as good as we thought and only managed one drink :( We had really hoped to go out for a few sessions with Dave but with this flu we couldn’t manage much.

Dave had gone out rowing in the morning (Saturday) so round lunchtime he picked us up and took us for a drive through Skippers Canyon. This was really great and scary at the same time as it was a sheer drop down the side of the dirt track running along the cliff face. Not to mention when another 4x4 came along in the opposite direction, there wasn’t much space to manoeuvre round. You can only visit this route in a 4x4 and hire cars aren’t allowed!!

We made our way to the valley floor and got to see the river (milky blue of course) where they filmed the scene from LOTR where Arwen takes Frodo across the river whilst being chased by the Black riders.

We then headed on to a little spot by an old school come museum; across a really weak looking wooden bridge for a picnic. You can’t believe that people used to live out here, as it’s so isolated. In the winter the road must be impassable by car, let alone horse and cart. Dave has been really great this past week and packed a lovely picnic for us to have.

Dave then took us to the graveyard that they have out here and showed us a few of the plaques on the wall where they mention the cause of death. Some of these were quite funny like “died whist trying to dry out TNT over the fire” and “shot himself whilst temporarily insane (drunk)”.
To end our day we had a BBQ back at Dave’s and got chatting to the owner of the house (Brian) who was also having a BBQ with some of his guests. Brian told us how he travelled to England and whilst driving on the motorway thought that the cars drove a lot faster as he was only doing 100km/hour but after a while he realised that he was in fact doing 100mph!

Our last full day in Q’town we all got up a little late and had brunch in town. Whilst not fully recovered, we had to see some of the sights, so booked a tour to Doubtful Sound. We also booked a car for our onward journey as we had our schedule to keep. We want to stay for longer though ;(

After brunch, it started raining so instead of going up the gondola and doing the luge (type of go-kart) we went and did some indoor mini-golf. This was good fun as the theme was based on the surrounding areas so you had one hole that was a ski-lift replica and another being a castle. We had some really good laughs here and on the final hole, and an hour later, we got a free lolly! With our entrance ticket we also got a free cold drink so we drank this whilst chatting about the game we just played.

As it was still raining we decided that it wasn’t wise to do the luge & gondola so we headed off to Arrowtown, another LOTR location where we had a drink at one of the pubs. There were a few people doing gold panning in the shallow river, and Dave was telling us about his dad who did the gold panning for a whole day, and his only reward was his legs covered in sandfly bites ;) We decided to look into accommodation for the Doubtful Sounds, as it was a long drive we either had to leave Q’town at 8.30 in the morning or drive there tonight. And with a long drive the day after the tour we decided to drive down to Doubtful sound tonight.

NZ - South Scenic Route

We drove along the Southern Scenic Route, which was not too dissimilar to the Great Ocean Road, with views over the cliffs and out to see.

When we finally reached our destination at Pounewa, which was a decent place on the mouth of the river. The river was little more than mud flats and when the tide receded we took a little walk across the flats to enjoy the peacefulness and admire the hilly, green scenery.

The campsite had decent facilities so we sat in the camper kitchen, planned our next few days, and watched a bit of the NZ classic film – Whale Rider. However once we went to bed, the night was not so peaceful, and Marc was kept up until gone 1am by people chatting and drinking at one of the tents on the far side of the site. This was when we realised that nights are very cold, and we were unprepared.

The next day, Marc went for an early morning run hoping that this would make him feel better, and Evelyn’s cold took a turn for the worse. Despite this she managed to stick to the plan and went on the various walks. She should have stayed in bed though (not that we had one), as she was really sick - something Marc would appreciate more in the coming days ;(

But as our travelling is a once in a lifetime opportunity we started the gorgeous sunny day off with a walk along the beach at Stewart Bay closer to the river mouth. This was a really nice stroll, walking through fields of long grass, seeing the spiders webs glisten with the morning dew, before getting to the beach. Our first sight on the beach was when Marc spotted a big log. Though this didn’t really look like a log, and Evelyn quickly corrected him as on closer inspection this was actually a big seal ??

Careful not to disturb the seal, we got quite close and took a few snaps before walking a bit further along this beautiful beach. It was so peaceful, with the wind gently blowing sand across the surface of the beach, giving a wavy dessert like effect. It was so cold as well though, and this not only looked, but also felt like one of the closest beaches to the Antarctic!!

We then came across a few more seals, which seemed to acknowledge us. One lay there for a few minutes, then sat up on his front flippers arching his back, taking up the “I’m the boss” position, yawned, scratched his head, but as this took a lot of effort, lay back down to sleep again ;)

We then began the days long drive, which would end about 400ks away at Queenstown. We had 2-3 stops on the way, the first being Nugget Point, which was again another beautiful spot, once you got passed the traffic jam (this being caused by a flock of sheep and not cars ;) This was a short cliff top walk, with the peninsula surrounded by rocks in the shape of nuggets (though technically a nugget is an indefinable shape;) Around the base of the rocks, sea lions played in the waves, and the wind howled in our ears, you could even hear the sea lions yelping.

Our next stop was Purakauri Falls and then McLean Falls where we had our lunch stop. It was a 20 minute walk through the forest to a pretty little waterfall, where we sat and chilled out for a bit. Some guys came really well prepared and had a little stove going.

Marc did fancy a stop at Cathedral Caves, where you wade though the sea at low tide to reach these beautiful caves, but we weren’t there at the right time, and Evelyn was beginning to feel a lot worse so wasn’t really up to much more today.

We had one more stop at Curio Bay, which was very interesting. There were fossilised tree stumps and logs down on the rocks at sea level. This has been formed over millions of years. Again, this sight can only really been seen at low tide. The trees look like real wood, but when you touch it, it has actually become stone. Amazing!! We also saw another yellow-eyed penguin here…

On the way to Invercargill, the next big town still 100+ kms away; we got another little scare with the petrol gauge. There are not many gas stations along these roads, with each town having a population of 10, and not necessarily having fuel. We passed a couple of gas stations, but they were all closed, as were the info centres so we couldn’t ask for help!! Luckily, when we were 50ks from Inver, and dangerously close to empty, we came to one gas station, which we caught just before closing!! Phew ;)

We then stopped off at the Bluff to photograph the signpost that they have at the peninsular to say how far away from home we were – being 18 958km’s. We also drove up to the top of the hill to have a look out over the islands but the wind was so strong here we almost got blown over!

Our last stop was at Invercargill to refuel ourselves this time at MacDs, before embarking on the final leg of our journey to Queenstown 100ks or so up the road. This was the most beautiful part of the drive, with some spectacular scenery. From the southern point of the lakes, some 50ks from the northern tip of QT, the drive became more and more beautiful. The large lakes, surrounded by lush green hills and mountains, this was the beginning of the Lord of the Rings settings and we could see why. Absolutely awesome!! We just knew we were going to enjoy staying here ;)

NZ - Dunedin sightseeing

Next day, we went on a walking tour, taking in the old gaol and court house, some old colonial style buildings, the old railway station (which is really pretty and the most photographed building in NZ), before heading to the main attraction - The Cadbury Factory…


Dunedin Railway Stn

Our timing here was a little off as the factory wasn’t in full action so only the short tour was available. The factory did open the next day but as our schedule was quite tight we didn’t have much choice. Once we went round the factory and found out the vital stats, saw the chocolate waterfall that poured 1 ton of chocolate down one of the cylinders that we climbed up and afterwards they offered you the chance to scoop some out of the basin! The only thing is that they run the waterfall for a whole year before they bin the chocolate – ew! We then bought some new chocolate goodies from the cheap, on location shop.


mmmmmm chocolate.....

Afterwards we then walked through the university and along the river into the botanical gardens. These gardens were really pretty, and we stopped for tea and pancakes at the café. Evelyn’s cold was getting worse, and wasn’t too keen on walking much further, but Marc persuaded her to walk up the very steep hill to the aviaries. This was worth the trip as they had loads of birds and we had a little chat with a cockatoo. We then got lost trying to find our way out of the gardens, and decided that was enough for the day, so missed out the museum, and headed back to the YHA via Starbucks and the bookstore (for our "Ben & Bill's how to cook" book)

We picked up the car and headed to Baldwin Street, the steepest street in the world, with the average gradient of 1:3.41 and the steepest gradient being 1:2.86. We decided to park at the bottom of the road and walk up the hill and boy what a steep hill it was. We heard stories of how the uni boys used to initiate 1st years by putting them in a wheelie bin and sending them on their way down the hill… that was until someone died :( Crazy kids.


how many seconds do you think it'll take to weelie bin down there?




It was a good day out here, and we crammed a lot into the day. We would like to spend more time here, as it is a really pretty city, with loads to do and much more to see. There is also the peninsula where you can get close to the penguins and an albatross colony, but we decided to skip this and begin our trip along the Southern Scenic Route.

NZ - Dunedin

We drove an hour to the Mt Cook turn off, and we could just about make out the base of the mountain. We ummed and ahhed about going as the weather was getting worse, but as we were here, we decided to drive the 50km to the campsite. When we got there the cloud had dropped further and we could no longer see any of the mountain, and the tourist office confirmed that the weather was beautiful until about 3hrs ago, but as Mt Cook is close to the coast the weather is very unpredictable and can change in an instant. The weather could get better tomorrow, but then again it may not.

Disappointed, because we wanted to do some exploring and walking over swing bridges, we decided that our time would be better spent elsewhere, and that we would try and come back later in our trip. So we turned around and headed to Dunedin…

Dunedin was back on the East coast of NZ, 4 hours drive away, so we made haste. The drive was very picturesque, driving by lots of green mountains, milky rivers, sheep (with 40 million across the country and outnumbering humans 10-1, we have to give these woolly mammals a mention), and deer (not as many as there are sheep, but cuter).

As we were on a long drive, we had to rush a bit, and ordinarily we’d like to have stopped at the look out points and walks. There was one stop with Maori rock art, where we considered stopping, and we wished we had as they filmed “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” here.

En route to Dunedin, we stopped at Ourama, which is home to the yellow eyed and blue penguin. They also had a museum and we wanted to stop for a tea break, but silly us, it had gone 4pm and everything had shut!!

Still, the beach with the wild penguins never closes, and the best viewing time is from 5pm onwards when the penguins come in from the ocean after a days fishing to roost and check on their babies. They apparently go as far as 40km from shore to find food. We arrived about 4:30, so a bit early, but we weren’t disappointed despite the rain. The footpath took us along the cliff to a couple of lookouts, and our first spot was a seal on the beach below.

After watching the seal for a bit, this extremely dodgy old man approached us unshaven, rain dripping off his snotty nose, wearing this old raincoat, and badly fitting jeans. He asked us if we wanted to see penguins, and that they were just around the corner. Stories of Peter Falconie and not accepting sweets from strangers flooded our mind, as he was very adamant that we should follow him. He said he’d already asked one couple to follow him, and they declined, which just confirmed his was a psycho killer looking for victims…

But of course, we wanted to see the penguins, and we reluctantly followed him, slowly at a distance, ready to defend against any sudden movements. He then led us passed the bird hide and started walking down a closed off path. We questioned him if “the path was closed” and he replied “which path” as there were a couple of walkways. We continued to follow nervously, and when we turned a corner 50yds from the bird hide he stopped and pointed, and sitting there at the top of the cliff, minding their own business, were two cute yellow-eyed penguins. He was actually an honest man and we were safe ;)



This is the closest that we are ever likely to get to these endangered creatures, so we are quite grateful to the strange old man. We wonder how these penguins get up to the top of the cliff, as after going back to the bird hide, we watched them come ashore, walk up the beach, and then begin their climb up the almost vertical cliff face. Its quite incredible that they can barely waddle on land, yet they can still make this climb that even a human would struggle with.

After watching the penguins for about an hour, we headed onto Dunedin. The drive was quite scary as the mist came tumbling in and you could barely see anything on the roads. As we didn’t have a phone card, we couldn’t call ahead to book somewhere. This caused us a bit of stress because it turned out all the campsites and cabins were fully booked. Luckily we managed to get the last room at the YHA. This actually worked out well for us, as it was close to the centre of the city, and was a really lovely cosy place to stay (clean, warm, and extra blankets for chilly nights). They recommended an excellent place to eat, and suggest a self-guided walking tour.

That evening we headed into the centre, which was surprisingly lifeless. The Octagon is the epicentre, which is full of bars, restaurants and cafes, yet they were all empty. We couldn’t work it out with accommodation being fully booked!! Apparently, the city gets like this during the university holidays, and when the students are around, the place is buzzing. Anyhow, we found the Italian that they recommended, and this was so packed and for good reason, they had amazing pizzas…

NZ - Lake Tekapo

Once we picked up the car we stopped off at the shops to get a couple of blankets. We realise that the weather is not going to be as good here as it was in Auz. Yet again, today was cloudy and rainy…

Our destination for today is Lake Tekapo. The drive was quite hilly and windy, and we saw a few long distance cyclists struggling up the steep inclines with their bags in tow. We thought that NZ would be a nice place to cycle – if flat. You’ve got to have some serious motivation to put yourself through the pain of these hills ;) Just after these cyclists, we saw our first NZ river. This was a brilliant milky, icy blue and was really beautiful.



We had a scheduled stop en route to Tekapo – McKenzie Country. Here was home to the “big tree” which is between 800 – 1000 years old. There were also various waterfall walks in the Peel Forest but as we arrived at lunchtime, we decided that we didn’t have enough time, as these were 3-4hrs return walks. Instead we took a peek at the tree, and enjoyed lunch listening to the sounds of the forest.

When we got to Tekapo, the clouds cleared and it seemed that just the skies around the lake were blue, giving us great views to the mountains in the distance. Then there was the brilliance of the blue lake surrounded by deep green hills – picture perfect. This lake was unlike any other lakes we’ve ever seen. The milky blue is the effect of rock flour, which is created by the movement of the ice glaciers over the mountains. This grinds the rock into a fine white powder that floats in the water…



We set up camp, and discovered that we had to pay $2 to use the showers!! We then headed into the town and got some info about the observatory. Evelyn wasn’t feeling too well, and wasn’t sure about doing the tour, but it’s one of the reasons we came. So we made dinner by the lake and watched the sunset change the colour of the mountains, as we took a walk around the lake. This was a really beautiful evening, and looked for perfect for viewing stars :)



With weather being such an unstable thing the observatory tour only gets confirmed 1 hour before so we popped into the shop and managed to get 2 of the remaining 3 spots ;) lucky us. We just made sure we dressed really warm as Marc seems to have gotten better but Ev’s cold is getting worse.

The bus left the village round 10.30 and got to the top of Mount John at 11pm. The ride up was quite interesting as in the surrounding area you have to use your park lights only, so to add to the steep, windy road up the hill you could barely see where the bus was going. Then about 500m before the observatory it becomes a no light area…

We soon understood the reasons behind this when we were told that when the astronomers are doing their research they need dark surroundings and light would hamper their observations. We were also told that the surrounding area is a low light area and when we spotted a car coming from the distance we could understand why. The brightness of the lights was so strong that if you were looking through one of the really strong telescopes it would obstruct your view.

We all walked up the last bit of the hill to one of the huge telescopes (180x) in one of the domes. Our guide then programmed the telescope to see various stars - Taurus, Orion, the Southern Cross pointers (only seen in the southern hemisphere), nebulas (gas clouds), the milky way and planets such as Alpha Centauri (the brightest star & is actually 2 stars), Sirius (the closest star at 4 light years away) & Saturn with its rings. It was so amazing to see and you start realising just how huge the universe really is and how small & insignificant Earth is. With the magnification you see so much more detail and one star seen with the naked eye may actually be made up of several stars. Around midnight we headed back as the next group had arrived, but not before spotting a few shooting stars.

When we drove back to the campsite from the village we discovered that the barrier to the car park had been locked, so we had to park up and walk the last 500m to the tent in the cold and dark ;(

After a good nights sleep, one of the best we’ve had in a tent (we didn’t wake until 10am, partly due to not waking up from the scorching heat), we got some change for the showers, collected the car, and then headed down to the cute little church and the collie dog statue erected to recognise the contribution the sheep dog has made to life in the area.

With the sun shining again, we took a short walk along the lake, before heading back up to the observatory to see what it was like in the daytime. We ended up admiring the views, then just laying down on the side of the hill, listening to the peace and quiet.

Then the rain came, so we decided it was time to head to Mt Cook…

NZ - Christchurch

It was an early flight from Sydney, and we had a few probs at the airport. Marc, in his wisdom, thought that because most other flights around Oz had asked us to put hand luggage in the hold, that we should pre-empt this. So we went to put everything in, ended up about 20kgs over, and looking at a $200 charge!! We explained that it was our hand luggage, but the guy was having none of it. With it being early, we were in no mood for this, so Ev was preparing to throw away all unessentials, including the tent!! Marc is in love with the tent, so stopped any silliness before it got out of control ;) In the end, we tried check in again, with someone different, just taking out our hand luggage and got through fine ;)

This is what happens when you fly with Jet Star (Oz version of Easyjet). We weren’t to thrilled to be flying with a budget airline, considering the cost of our ticket, but not much we can do about it. And our morning took another turn for the worse, as we waited to board, Liverpool got pasted by Arsenal 5-2, and Ev realised that we left our picture tube at the check-in desk. Luckily, she managed to get this back just in time for the last boarding call!!

It was a 3hr flight, with a 3hr time difference, so we arrived around lunchtime. NZ has the strictest customs in the world, and our bags got searched – they also took out our tent to check it for dirt and seeds!!

When we left the airport, we realised how different NZ was to Oz. It was so peaceful, so quiet. There was a thick layer of low cloud (not quite fog) over the city, which gave the atmosphere a really dense feel, and it just muffled all sound, not that there was much noise anyway…

We checked into Chester St Backpackers, and we were in a self-contained cottage across the road. We were sharing with another couple, but we only saw them when they left the next day and no one turned up to replace them. So, we pretty much had the place to ourselves which was great ;)

For our first look around the city, we headed down to the Cathedral Square. This was about a 10-minute walk along the river from Chester St, where willow trees over hang the riverbanks, and kids were feeding the ducklings, and we could already see that this was a beautiful place.



The Cathedral Square was quite nice, and we stopped for some lunch and then nipped into the tourist office. We wanted to ride the gondola into the mountains, but it was too cloudy. There was also a tram ride, gondola up the river, and Antarctica museum, but we decided to just chill out and relax instead and try get over our colds.



We explored a bit of the city, located the library so we could do more blogging and went for a walk to the supermarket - seeing the less attractive side of the city. On our way back, we stopped for dinner by the cathedral and had a really nice curry – Evelyn had the Mango curry, which was one of the best curries she’s ever had!! On our walk back to Chester St, we were surprised to see the ladies of the night loitering only a few minutes away from our place. It just didn’t seem to fit with the area…

Next day, we just wondered around the city again. It was still really heavy with clouds, so we still couldn’t see the hills surrounding the city. We had a look inside the cathedral and around the shops before we visited a Maori gallery selling artefacts carved from bone (both human and whale). Afterwards we headed to the market in Cathedral Square and then on to the museum, which told us about NZ and the Maori history and had exhibitions on about the South Pole - this was one of the best museums we’ve been to and it was really well displayed.



We had lunch upstairs overlooking the gardens and then went for a wander around the beautiful botanical gardens and the river with our Starbucks ;) In the evening we chilled out as we had the place to ourselves, so we could cook dinner at home and watched a DVD – The Incredibles.


Mowhawk chick

It’s a shame to leave here, as its so peaceful and quiet, but there isn’t really a great deal to do apart from lazy at the coffee shops. Now suitably relaxed, we were ready to explore NZ, and went to pick up our car. We were given the tourist car – a real heap with over 200,000km on the clock. We weren’t at all impressed – Ace Car Hire hasn’t lived up to its name – but as we’d waited ½ hour already we took it (Blue Taurus Bluebird) and began our journey…