Unfortunately it has taken me a lot longer than it should have to get around to writing this post, but in an effort to not do homework I decided that updating my blog would be a relatively productive form of procrastination.
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Part of Queenstown and Lake Wakatipu |
On the Saturday, April 22, starting off mid-semester break, Jonne and I made it to the airport on a long awaited trip to discover and explore New Zealand's beautiful South Island. After landing in Queenstown we made our way to the backpackers that we would be staying at and met up with Jordan, who had flown down earlier to do some backpacking of his own. Queenstown is a quaint ski town and tourist destination located towards the southern part of the South Island and is situated at the foot of massive mountains and at the end of Lake Wakatipu. Perhaps most shocking was the cold alpine weather and realization that we had left the subtropical climate of Auckland. Having gotten our room situated, our plan for the day had been to take a gondola ride up one of the mountains to enjoy the view and go luging, one of the non-snow attractions of the area. Unfortunately, the windy and damp conditions had the luge close, so Jordan, Jonne, and I chose to explore Queenstown instead. We ended up walking around the town a bit, and with its 4 block city centre, we managed to visit every street, before going to the lake front to enjoy the scenery. It is indeed a beautiful town with a very ski town vibe, all enhanced by the beauty and natural surroundings. Following some hot chocolates in town, we returned to the hostel to use the hot tub and make dinner and read before our early wake up the next morning.
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Kea - Alpine Parrot |
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Rise and shine! 6:30am on sunday, indeed two quite early days to start our vacation we got on the bus for a day trip to the beautiful and infamous Milford Sound. Throughout the 3.5 hour drive to Milford, our bus driver pointed out filming sites off the road. We must have passed at least 10 separate locations, for obvious movies like Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, but also some others such as X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and How to Tame Your Dragon, among many others. Our driver told us about alpine marathon competitions, and local venison industry, as well as stopped at multiple places for us to hike and take photographs in the Fjordlands before we finally made it to Milford Sound. On one such stop, we saw a kea, the world's only alpine parrot, raging rivers, and got to drink from a glacially fed stream. Another stop, I tried a venison meat by, made from local venison; needless to say that it was delicious.
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Milford Sound |
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The Lion 1,302m (crouching, it's head is the peak) |
At Milford Sound - which incidentally is a fjord not a sound - we took a cruise through the fjord. If you're curious, fjords are glacially carved, and thus Milford Sound is actually a fjord. In any case, as we were boarding the cruise, several of our friends from Auckland ended up being on the same cruise so it made the ride through Milford that much more fun. The mountains surround the fjord are all almost 1000m or taller making the experience of being in the middle of it aw inducing and humbling. There were waterfalls over 150m talls, one of which we got within meters of touching (intentionally). While most everything seems to rise straight up out of the water at nearly vertical angles, the mountains continue that trend for about another 300m to the fjord's floor. Each mountain seemed to rise higher than the next. We learned about one mountain named the bishop's hat, and another named the lion, each for the way they looked when seem from the back of the fjord. The entire cruise was beautiful and amazing, but unfortunately a bit rainy and overcast, and the rest of the trip mostly followed with similar weather.
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Mirror Lake (Fjordlands) |
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We got back to our hostel over 12 hours from when we left having spent the entire day seeing a beautiful and world famous part of the country. Monday morning I woke up and went back to the airport so that I could meet Corrie there. Corrie had spent the past 18 hours or something crazy travelling to Queenstown from Australia, where she is studying abroad, to join us on the rest of our trip. Having picked her up, we checked in at the Jucy Rental kiosk so that we could pick up the lime green campervan that we would be using for the rest of the week. The van is basically a modified Nissan van, with an extra bed on top, a fridge, sink, stove, power outlets, casette toilet (which we didn't use), TV/DVD, pull out bed/storage table, and mini kitchen. All in all, it was a perfect vehicle for what we needed and is quite impressively designed. My one complaint, not that it can be fixed, is that any time someone on the bottom bed moves, the entire van shakes so Corrie and I who were in the top bed felt the entire van rock back and forth and woken from sleep. And complaint two is that it is difficult for anyone to get out of the van without waking anyone else when all of the doors are right next to the bottom bed. But oh well, the van was great and did its job.
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Lake Wakatipu |
Anyways, after getting Corrie, I drove the van on the left side of the street back to the hostel to get Jordan and Jonne. Yes, I drove on the left because that's the side that you drive here, and it is weird. I would say for my first time it went pretty well. I only clipped a few curb corners and didn't do any real damage. I'm very glad that Queenstown is a small town though or it would have been a bit more stressful and terrifying. Once we loaded up the campervan, we headed towards Arrowtown where we had booked a horse back tour through multiple filming sites from the Lord of the Rings. On the way, we pulled over next to Lake Wakatipu and made lunch. The ride itself was gorgeous and even before we got to the stables we were able to see that every single place you look in this country is beautiful. The ride was amazing and we got to see sites from other movies as well, all of them were amazing and some didn't even look like the movies.
That night following our ride, we returned to Queenstown, so we could go to Ferg Burger for dinner. This restaurant has had a line out the door every time we see it. In fact, it seems that any time I mentioned that I was going to Queenstown to anyone, locals, kiwis, fellow study abroad students, literally
anyone, they told me that I
must go to Ferg Burger. Wow, I'm glad I did. I ordered the "Tropical Swine: Prime New Zealand beef, American streaky bacon, cheddar cheese, pineapple, lettuce, tomato, red onion, aioli & tomato relish". American streaky bacon, is bacon as you would be served in America; if you order bacon here you get the equivalent of Canadian bacon. The burger was amazing, one to battle any reputable and delectable burger I've had before. In fact, there is Ferg Bakery next door, that is a full on bakery which looks equally delicious, but also makes the burger buns fresh for their sibling restaurant, and they must have done this several times while we were eating dinner. It was amazing, and writing this is making me really want to go back to Queenstown for another one. Anyways, several of our friends who were doing similar trips through the South Island decided to meet up with us so we had a reunion of international students at Ferg Burger.
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Painting with light over Lake Hayes |
Having hung out with friends and gorged ourselves on food we headed off to start our road tripping adventure. It was my turn to drive again, and this time I had Jonne to help me realize that as someone who learned to drive on the right, we tend to put the car too far left in the lane in New Zealand. So, he helped correct this as I was driving through the winding roads in total darkness. We were the only cars out and the roads following the mountains are extremely windy. Some of the turns required us to slow down to 15km/hr so it was quite the rollercoast ride, halfway up the side of a mountain with a cliff edge dropping to a lake on one side and the other side the mountain. Finally, we arrived to a DOC (dept of conservation) camping area on Lake Hayes. In fact, freedom camping as it's called when you camp in a self-contained vehicle, such as our Jucy van, is allowed on most any DOC property unless it's explicitly illegal, and better, it is free. So, we pulled up to the lakeside, made dinner, and played with some long exposure and painting with light before going to sleep.
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Lake Wanaka |
Tuesday morning we drove to Lake Wanaka, and went to the local i-site. Most cities/towns have an information center, called an i-site, to ask for a coffee shop with internet and a cool hike. We decided to do an amazing hike to the highest local point just in time for sunset. From the top, we could watch the sun set behind the lake and the snow covered mountains in the background. We made some more progress on our trip and ended up that night camping on another cliffside, but this time it was overlooking the Tasman Sea. We were the only cars in the area and it was an amazingly peaceful and soothing place.
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Fox Glacier |
The next morning was cloudy and gloomy, but we had intended to visit the Fox and Franz Josef glaciers. We found a cool hike at Fox Glacier National park and hiked to a viewing platform so we could see the glacier. The hike crosses over a river and boulder field, which was luckily crossable because of the drought. Although it had been rainy more lately, the river was not flowing that high so we could boulder hop across it to complete the hike. Still, the entire hike was through a drizzle that only proceeded to get stronger throughout the day. From the viewing platform however, we were still luckily able to see Fox Glacier and enjoy our premade PB&Js. Yummy yummy.
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Three Mile Lagoon |
From Fox Glacier we drove a bit further north to Franz Josef Glacier so that we could see another glacier that day. Why not, right? Sadly, the fog had rolled in too much and we could see nothing but that our rain coats didn't prove to be the most waterproof. So we retreated to the shelter of our campervan and attempted to put on dry clothing and not soak the entire interior of the van. With all of the wet clothing inside, the van became very humid and our efforts were not the most successful. Wet, cold, and getting hungry for dinner, we pushed on until we found another DOC site a bit further on and made dinner and dried off before watching Les Miserables and going to sleep.
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Tasman Sea |
We woke up on Thursday and drove to Okarito so that we could do a hike around Three Mile Lagoon in the hopes of being able to see Mount Cook, the tallest mountain in the country. Unfortunately, the weather still wasn't being friendly to us and it was too overcast inland to see that far away. But, it was luckily a clear day overhead and we had great views of the coast. So, wh
ile we didn't get to see Mt. Cook, it was still a fun hike that I'm glad we did.
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Hut at the DOC Site in Arthur's Pass |
Having failed to see Mount Cook, we headed on towards Arthur's Pass, the last major stop of our trip before Christchurch. I'm quite sad that we didn't get to see more of the pass while driving in the daylight, because the entire canyon pass seemed to be amazing. It was filled with hairpin turns and the entire thing was at a very steep grade. But, we made it to the town of Arthur's Pass and found a nearby DOC site with a little hut and fireplace. So, as per usual, we parked, unloaded, made dinner, and relaxed. However, this time we were able to have a little fire in the hut to fight off the cold. Being away from the coast and in a massive valley, and at a bit over 900m, the area definitely was frigid. The i-site there said that it was getting down to 4-5 degrees celsius and that there was snow only 600m higher. But, we stayed warm and cozy for the night.
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Devil's Punchbowl |
Friday morning was a chilly and brisk morning, with winds gusting up to 80km/hr as the i-site had also predicted. We got up and went to do a quick hour long hike, hoping we wouldn't get rained on before the expected rains rolled in. The hike we chose to do was called the Devil's Punchbowl. It's an easy hike to the base of a 131m tall waterfall. We even went on the start of a track so we could get closer and the wind/water blowing off the base were enough to soak Jordan and Jonne who got to the water's edge. It was another impressive site and we saw rainbows and the daunting clouds rolling in so we took it as our hint to leave. Thus, the drive through the rest of the pass was filled with powerful winds that blew the entire van side to side and spectacular landscape views.
On the drive to Christchurch, we pulled over at the top of a massive hill to take some pictures of a scenic view. I could barely open the door because of the wind and was able to lean over quite far with the wind keeping me up. A bit later on we drove through Castle Hill, one of the best and most famous climbing areas in the country. I was quite disappointed that I hadn't brought any climber gear with me, and it was getting damp. I don't think I'll be able to make it there, so this may be one big regret that I have for my time here. I guess I'll just have to come back to New Zealand.
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Random lake on the way to Christchurch |
Friday night we arrived to Christchurch, checked into a holiday park (which is basically just an RV park) and made dinner. Jonne and Jordan showered while Corrie and I made dinner. A quick dinner later and we headed off to the local cinema so we could see Iron Man 3 which recently came out. As expensive as everything else is in this country, the ticket prices were only $10/person, which was quite shocking. The movie was fun and we went back to the park for the night.
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Holiday Park |
Saturday morning I woke up and showered, having not showered since Monday morning and was grateful for a warm shower to wake up to. We cleaned the van and enjoyed having a lazy morning before driving to the city centre so we could see the effects of the February 2011 6.3 earthquake that destroyed most of the town. The city is being rebuilt, but it was shocking how much damage and destruction could still be there for so long. It was also amazing to see thriving markets right across the street from dilapidated buildings.
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Building in Christchurch |
Finally, after exploring the city we dropped off the van and went to the airport. In an effort to save costs on the pricy trip, we decided to spend the night in the airport and fly out at 6:30am. So, we killed time until about 8 when we got kicked out of the food court concessions area to the overnight area. We hung out and read a bit longer, and slowly the 4 of us, one by one, ended up curled up on the floor. I was grateful to have my sleeping bag with me so I was warm and cozy for the night on the floor. Somehow I slept surprisingly well and got about 7 hours of sleep.
And, Sunday morning we said good bye to Corrie as she returned to Australia, and took our bright and early flight home to Auckland. All in all, a great trip with some awesome people, and a gorgeous country that I've seen a bit more of.