We drove across from the Christchurch and the East coast to the West coast through the Southern Alps, with some (OK, all of it) amazing scenery and some hairy roads we travelled to Arthurs Pass Village (Population 50, highest settlement in NZ) where we planned to stay the night, although a lovely village and a cheap little campsite we neglected to think through our accomidation. Arthurs Pass is THE route through the mountains with the rail road one side and the main highway the other, our tent, slap in the middle.
In the morning, after a noisy night, and little sleep and a catastrophic tent faliure (we’d like to thank Terra Nova for making tents that just won’t die. our tent was as good as new by the next night), we went off the the DOC office to find out about local walks. I wanted to do Avalanche Pass, a crazy walk, a steep 1 kilometre rise over 4 hours, but with a lot of low cloud (low cloud? or high mountains?) and bags under our eyes, we decided against it, settling for a nice 3 hour hike through the valley and then another drive down to the West Coast
Photos Here : http://www.kitjunkie.org/albums/v/travelling/nz/southernalps/
Blenhiem and the Marlborough region are home to many of New Zealand’s prize winning wines, so we couldn’t pass without stopping and finding somewhere to try a few. The Marlborough wine festival is kind of an up market version of Newt Beer Fest in Somerset. The girls (and some of the men) get dressed up, hats and all and spend the day listening to the live bands, and more importantly, tasting and eating the local produce. We tried many, many wines and I absolutely have a better idea of what I like!
As with all day time drinking, we gave up, tired, some of us more drunk than others (Becky) and went back to our hostel for a nap and dinner, with no energy to cook, we went out for Fish and Chips!
Photos : http://www.kitjunkie.org/albums/v/travelling/nz/blenhiem/
Our next stop was Hanmer for its Hot Springs. It was a drizzly day so we were quite excited to sit in bath hot water for a few hours! Hamner is a little alpine village, so it was a effort getting the car up those steep alpine roads! There were 9 ‘rock pools’ 36-37 C water, 3 sulpher pools (40 C!!) and a few mineral pools. It was lovely sitting in the waters while it was cold outside!
As we felt refreshed we decided to keep driving the 180km to Christchurch. A really nice drive; cutting through mountains, past stoney rivers and smal villages. We arrived in Christchurch early enough to get to the i site and tried but failed to get somewhere to stay in the city, so we went to our fall back- Top 10! They had a ‘lodge’ avaliable (a considerable step up from camping) so we took it up for 3 nights (over Valentines) and it was dark and raining!
The following day we did the sightseeing thing. We saw the Catherdral, went on the tram tour, tried to see kiwis (but 4pm is kiwi bedtime) so we couldn’t. On Valentines day we went to the International Antarctic Centre, home off little blue penguins. We messed around in the snow room, got chilled to -18, went on a snow mobile (huggland vehicle), saw blue penguins, saw Scotts Base (in Antarctica), and read many amazing displays and saw many awesome photos – Andy wants to go there as well now! Later we went to the cinema and watched Music and Lyrics, watch the 80′s spoof classic here! It’s brilliant! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0A7dtdc-nU
And photos from there : http://www.kitjunkie.org/albums/v/travelling/nz/christchurch/
We sat down on the beach of Kaiteriteri bright and early raring to get in the water but first we had to go through our safety briefing with Tim, one of the Kaiteriteri Kayaking guides.
We were setting off for 3 days paddling with their kayaks, fully loaded up with tents, sleeping kit, food for the duration, everything we needed, hardly surprisingly they wanted to make sure their kit got back to them and didn’t float off to sea (with us). We went through capsize routines, watching the weather, landing the kayaks on the beach, and which bits of the kayaks would keep our clothes the driest.
Once in the water and ready to go we slowly paddled away from the shore leaving the guide behind. Becky and Zoe in their double kayak and me, apparently being the more competent in a single. Our first stop was appletree bay to try our first beach landing. (which went great)
Kayaking through the Abel Tasman National Park was absolutely fantastic, amazing pointy hills, little green islands full of wildlife, seals, dolphins, white sandy beaches, secluded campsites only accessible from the sea, three days absoluetly isn’t enough, I could have kept going and going, sadly the kayaks were hired and had to go back.
Our two nights accomadation were provided by DOC, the guys in charge of all the parks in New Zealand. Our first night in my tent, a little cramped with the 3 of us but we stayed dry, our second night in a hut at Bark Bay, which was also on a walking path, with luxurious bunk beds, and even a cold outdoor shower! a couple 4 year olds to keep us entertained (or maybe us entertaining them). Our food was of the dehydrated variety, with soups, pastas (and dehydrated ice cream for Becky) on the menu.
We paddled around the coast for the three days getting more and more excited by the day. We kayaked about with seals swimming underneath us, we splashed through the wake of the speeding water taxis, navigated our way through reefs. Our last day we landed on the beach (landing involves paddling as fast as you can at the shore, and as you slide up the sand, jumping out before the waves try to drag you back), dragged our kayaks up, got all our kit out and did a spot of sun bathing before our taxi arrived.
Words just don’t do the three days justice, so look at these photos!
