Christchurch

After our winter clothing spending we couldn't afford to do much so spent our last night in the van eating left over food but more importantly, drinking leftover booze!

The next day we woke up early as we needed get our stuff back into 2 bags and take the van back to the depot. As we both returned back from the toilet we realised the keys were in the van and it was now locked! I got the blame as I left just after Emma and closed the (unlocked) door which then decided to lock itself! So there we were, stood outside our van, Emma in her PJs and me in my shorts. It took a while to get hold of the owners, especially as when we explained our problem to the helpful lady behind reception and asked her to look on the internet for the campervan company's companies contact number, she suggested we look on the paperwork. We tend not to take the paperwork every time I goto the toilet!!

We eventually got hold of them and they asked us to look for the spare key under the back bumper. It wasn't there because.... when we (I) hit the bumper in Wellington, we saw a key fob on the floor which didn't look like a key so we left it....that was obviously the spare key! We didn't tell the owners that though!

When the owners eventually turned up they didn't have a spare key or any tools on them which was as useful as a chocolate teapot! we went looking for some wire so we could break into the van. One of the guys commented, "if I could only look in the van, I bet theres a metal coat hanger in there!". Great idea mate, heres a better one, get the keys while you're in there!! We struggled not to be too obvious about our frustration from the useless and unhelpful words leaving his mouth!

We finally found some wire and they impressively unlocked the door with the wire. We chucked everything out of the van and then they took it, leaving us and our stuff in a mess on the floor!

Luckily our hostel for the next few nights was around the corner. The next few days were spent doing not a lot! We watched tele, ate chocolate from the Cadburys factory and wondered around Christchurch (particularly the shops that sells crap for tourists, Kris loves them!! - am I not a tourist?!).

New Zealand was really cool and having the van was excellent! Kiwis are less annoying than the Aussies!

To cap off our time in New Zealand who should be on our flight out of Christchurch but Sir Cliff Richard!!! He was in Business Class of course and we were in the chicken coop, but we passed him on our way to the back! Unfortunately he didn't come round half way through the flight and sing summer holiday though, sham!

We haven't uploaded all the pictures from Christchurch yet...

Next stop, and last stop :( is the craziness of Japan.

Another thing... Skins (ignore this bit Nan) which is filmed in Bristol was advertised on tele in New Zealand by a guy with a very over the top cockney accent! We both shouted at the tele 'They're not cockneys!!', they're from Brizzle, init!!

Akaroa

After a long drive we stopped for the night 10km outside of Akaroa at a nice campsite by the lake. We were looking forward to a bit of a lie in as we were going to spend the day exploring the area and watching the wildlife. Oh how we were wrong!!

At 7.30 we got woken up by the site owner warning us of a tsunami alert! In true fashion we didn't panic so had a shower, bushed our teeth and then thought about what to do! We took advice from the great Metallica and 'ran to the hills' (it was also the official advice). So there we were eating our coco pops from the safety of about 500 metres to protect ourselves from the expected 1 metre tsunami! We watched from the hill and saw nothing so left shortly after it was expected to hit the area, only to hear on the radio that the tsunami we had evacuated from turned out to be 50cm high!!! It was from the Chile earthquake so it was predicted to be bad but it's good to know that they have precautions in place. We were still advised to stay away from the sea and tidal lakes (like the one we slept next to) so never actually got to see Akaroa itself, and headed straight to Christchurch a day early.

Later that day we went and purchased our winter clothing ready for the artic weather of Japan!

Dunedin

Dunedin was our last big town stop before Christchurch. The heritage of the town is very Scottish, this is obvious in the architecture, even the name Dunedin is the Gaelic word for Edinburgh. It seemed like a really nice town with quite a bit to do, so we decided to stay 2 nights!

We kicked off our first day with a look round the shops and a visit to Cadbury World and the Speights brewery! Now I know what your thinking, why would two people from Britain, the home of Cadburys, go to the factory in New Zealand?! Well to put it simply it was cheap and they gave away loads of free chocolate! It was quite interesting though, although the Speights factory was even better! The guide was great and we rounded off the tour in the free bar trying as many different types of Speights ales and beers as we could in the time it took to play us the Speight adverts. The brainwashing worked and we now both love Speights, all a bit pointless though as they don't export!!!

We treated ourselves to a meal out at an all you could eat Asian restaurant! We totally stuffed ourselves and rolled back to the van!

With the realisation of how cold Japan is going to be we thought we better buy some warmer clothes! We're finding it pretty cold in New Zealand so the 10degrees in Japan is going to be painful!! After a pretty unsuccessful afternoon we went see the penguins on Otago Peninsula but some stupid tourists were walking along the beach, so there was no chance of the penguins coming ashore! Some people are so stupid!!

We were up and off early the next morning to head to Akaroa. Before leaving Dunedin we stopped off to climb the Guinness Book of Records steepest street (35% at its steepest point). Emma managed to walk up and down only to hurt her foot on the flat bit (-anything to get out of driving!). We also stopped at 'shag point' to see some shags, more seals and the Moeraki Boulders later on.

The Catlins

The Catlins is an area south east of the south island.

We headed to an i-site which is a tourist information and they gave us some tips on spotting wildlife. We headed to Nugget bay as we heard that it was a chance to spot the rare and endangered yellow eyed penguin.

There was a hut that had been built to allow viewing. We didn't think they were going to show up but then one surfed it's way in and suddenly popped up and waddled onto the beach! We watched 5 or 6 waddle up the beach in the space of an hour. It was so good watching them and we were glad we made the effort!

Most people stuck to the rules but unfortunately a few of our Eurozone neighbours had to get a better view and sat a bit closer, which at some will scare the little fellas off somewhere else. We walked to the lighthouse on Nuggett bay and heard and saw some more seals squawking on the rocks below.

Note: The penguins are in the picture! This is one of those times where a big zoom lense camera would have been handy!!

Milford Sound

The drive from Te Anua to Milford was very nice with lush landscape. The campsite at Milford was full so we stopped at a council run campsite ( no faculties but cheap!) at Lake Gunn. It's the last campsite before Milford so is the busiest but also the nicest! We rocked up at 7.30pm. It was busy but we found a spot overlooking the lake and mountains. It was actually the best spot! We realised later that we were parked on a road and partially blocking people in, never mind we had a good view!

The next day we did the remaining km to Milford. Our cruise started at 9.15. The area was pretty cool. Our boat took us past a few famous sights including a waterfall (Stirling falls) that was used in the film Wolverine (not seen it either!). We saw some more seals lazying on some rocks and on the way back a few bottlenose dolphins swam right next to the boat for about 15 minutes. You could see how playful they are with each other it was so funny!

Milford was a bit out of the way (400km!) but well worth it.

We left Milford after the cruise and headed to the east coast to get away from the annoying sand flies. When we got to Gore, we started our drive along the 'President highway' which runs from Gore to Clinton. We decided that was pretty sad of NZ to name such a road!

On that subject they run out of names when it comes to naming things or are not very imaginative. We've driven down quite a few 'high streets'. If there's a lake at the bottom of the road it's called 'lake road'. They also name all of there creeks even if the name is ' Creek No. 45'!

We did stick a video on the end of this one to try. You have to click on the photos which then opens picassa. Its the last one and should play automatically!

Fox Glacier

We arrived at about 8.30pm, it was a really scenic drive, so nothing like traveling 250km at home!!

ANOTHER early start for our Fox Glacier hike!

The glacier is pretty unique as it's only 30km from the sea and is only 250 above sea level. As it's summer there wasn't any snow, so it's just ice and mountains! It looks pretty cool though especially as we were lucky to have a sunny walk. We drove passed signs that said glacier in 1750 which indicated how much it had retreated since then! The last few years had seen the glacier grow and shrink which is part of the cycle. The area was probe to land slides and there were lots of rocks on the ground. We were assured that the ice would be stable!!
The walk took 4 hours and the guide was pretty knowledgeable. It was good for value but I think we may splash out extra next time and take a helicopter to ice caves nearer the summit!

We departed Fox Glacier town and drove to Hasst and Jacksons bay. The drive was again good with plenty of lookouts.

On another note, we saw some Fox Glacier mints and wondered if they came from or at least the name came from there...!

Queenstown

Queenstown is labelled as the adventure capital of NZ and walking around the town you can see hundreds of trips to do. On arrival the van struggled up a steep hill in first gear! First activity, tick!

The campsite that night was like at Glastonbury, people had to park literally a metre next to each other. Luckily no-one snored loudly enough to keep us awake!

We left the campsite not fancying another night and headed to Arrowhead to do some gold panning! As I'm writing this and not my servant you'd be correct in assuming we found nothing! It was fun either way. The picture of me and plastic wok is the pan in Goldpanning!

The weather wasn't good enough for the activity we wanted to do and with nothing taking our fancy we left for Milford Sound. The drive was again really good with lots of places to stop for a photo!

Kaikoura to Punakaiki

We drove from the ferry on an impressive road towards Kaikoura. On our way we were amazed to see a colony of seals on some rocks, right next to the road. They were playing and larking about by the rocks. They weren't bothered by us watching them which was good.

We booked our whale watching trip for the next day (the evening trips were cancelled due to bad weather) and found a campsite. We headed out to another known seal hot spot. We saw a few being lazy and got pretty close which again they didn't seem bothered by. They did bark at a couple who got way too close which we were happy about. I'm no big animal lover but if people want to see things in the wild then they need to leave them be!!

We went on a walk around the coast to find another seal spot. The weather suddenly turned bad and the tide came in. It was fair to say we were a bit stuck! We had visions of being a story on 999 where the story would start with "2 young walkers went unprepared wearing only flip-flops and shorts on slippery rocks"...etc!!

We saw a set of stairs 3/4 up the cliff. We decided to climb it through the long weed...in our flip-flops! We got to the top and could see the path we should've taken which was about 10 metres to the right of where we started!! Nevermind, it was fun climbing up and getting thorns in my foot! We got back and we were proper soaked.

We got up early the next day, the weather was good so we headed to the whale watching place only to be told it was cancelled due to rough seas. We luckily booked on a later one so went back to the campsite we technically checked out of and went back to bed (it was 7am).

We finally got our shabby mops cut, as we found a cheap hairdressers. As it was so cheap we were expecting the worse, and yep we got the worse. When I said 'choppy' for a style I think she thought I was talking about the weather. Emma said she hadn't had a cut that bad since she was little!

Thankfully our whale watching trip wasn't cancelled this time, although they did issue a sea sickness warning! After our last experience we didn't like the sound of that. But we'd been taking sea sickness tablets since we arrived in Kaikoura just in preparation...this time we weren't taking any chances! We sat at the back of the boat as we were told it's the least rocky place. It was pretty choppy heading out. Our guide pointed out sea birds, including huge albatross (which can have a 4m wingspan) but we were just too busy trying to ensure we didn't throw up again!

We stopped where the sperm whales were last sighted, and after about a 20 minute wait he appeared! From the photos it may just look like a large log floating in the water as only 10% of the whale is visible, but we assure you it is a sperm whale!! The most impressive part was when he dived back under, tale in the air. Unfortunately we don't have a picture to do it justice, but we were just too busy watching the whale!!!

As sperm whales usually stay underwater for 40-50 minutes the tour guide took us to see a pod of Dusky dolphins. Now we got excited when we saw a few jumping out of the water following the boat, but when the boat actually slowed down we realised just how many there were!!! Literally 100's of dolphins were swimming with our boat all jumping out of the water and even doing back flips! It has to be one of the most amazing things we have ever seen! I know it was meant to be a whale watching trip, but seeing the dolphins was by far the best part!

We got straight in the campervan and drove until it got dark, which took us to Oxford, just short of Sheffield! Yes we are still in New Zealand!

Back on the road early next morning to drive the famous Arthur's Pass road (don't worry I hadn't heard of it before I came out here either!) The scenery was amazing, and made a long road trip a lot more interesting! We made a stop at Lake Pearson which was an amazing area.

We took a detour (of about 3hours) to Punakaiki to see the pancake rocks and blow hole. We fought through the Japanese tourists to get a few good photos!!

After booking ourselves onto a glacier walk for the next morning we needed to travel all the way to Fox Glacier that evening!

We've added a little video of baby seals playing in the rockpools!! Click on photos which will open Picasa. The video will be the last one.

Wellington

As we drove into Wellington we got great views across the Harbour. We had a while until we met up with Kris's friend so we headed into and found a good parking spot. Unfortunately someone had put scaffolding behind the van and Kris reversed and contact was made and put a dent in the bumper!! Oh dear :(

That evening we ate pizza and caught up with Brett and Andrea

Enjoying the luxury of Bretts house it took us a while to get out the next day! When we did we went to the museum and took a ride to the top of the hill in the tram. The weather wasn't great so we couldn't do that much.

In the evening we went to a Welsh pub which smelt badly(!) and didn't have Welsh beer, but we were told it was on order (no good for us!). We had an amazing meal and a few drinks. At 1.30am reality hit as Brett and Andrea had work and we had to catch our ferry to the south island! Thanks to Brett and Andrea for their amazing hospitality.

We made the ferry despite the k of signs and was a pretty smooth ferry ride across the channel. The scenery was good but it was raining and cold so we watched tele instead!!

Mt. Doom (Mt. Ngauruhoe)

We decided to stay a night on Mount Doom from Lord of the Rings (mountaineers will know it as Mt. Ngauruhoe!!). It was a really cool campsite with a Alpine feeling (as its a ski resort in the winter) but there was no view the whole time we were there. We tried to go higher the next day but the cloud was still so thick when we reached the end of the road. I don't think the campervan enjoyed climbing the mountain though!!

Note the really good picture of Mt. Doom (covered by the cloud!)

White Island

Volcano day! We hadn't heard about this before we left but were looking forward to it and a bit nervous.

The boat was nice and once the safety talk and the 'if you feel sick' speech was finished, we were underway. We sat at the front outdoors when it started to go up and down really badly! Within about 5 minutes of that starting the first person was being sick, within 10 minutes 5 people were being sick and so on. I lasted about 30 minutes before chundering and Emma lasted about an hour! The remaining hour was unbearable! The boat was going up and down so much, some people shrieked when we went over one wave, the whole boat shuddered and sounded like it had snapped in half!! The waves were fun at first but I wanted someone to turn off the wave machine after 15 minutes!! The staff were super good though. They were taking peoples sick bags and handing out towels to clean their sticky faces (us included!). They said the crossing was 'moderate' and the day before had been much worse!

We arrived at White Island with relief but also apprehension as we were standing on an active volcano wearing a hard hat and a gas mask round our necks for protection!! The guide didn't make us feel any better when she said it last erupted in 2003 and also that it's not a lava volcano it was the type that explodes and fires rocks at the speed of a bullet!

It was such a surreal place with vents blowing noisily from the rocks. Streams were bubbling and were brightly coloured. The main crater lake (which was a new thing and they're not sure why it appeared) was green and had a acidity measure of -2 on the PH scale. It was difficult to breath around the lake so we put on our masks.

We walked round the crater for about 2hour (it was pretty big!!), including an abanded sulphur factory that was distroyed by a landslide in the 30's. Because of the acidic air some things had been presevered, whilst others had erroded away. The tractor's tyres were still completely in tact!

The guide was very informative and had been doing the tour for 5 years!

We had a pretty good lunch and headed back out to sea. The ride back was really smooth compared. The skipper was able to ride the waves rather than heading into them. As a result no-one was ill.

It was an absolutely amazing experience and hopefully the photos go some way to displaying what it was like as it's so hard to explain how amazing it was!!

We decided to head to Lake Taupo as it wasn't that far. We even forgot it was valentines day in all the excitement and we went for a 3 course meal at... The Welshman! It even played Welsh songs which was nice especially as we beat Scotland (convincingly!!).

The next day we headed to Hukka falls which is the most visited attraction in the whole of New Zealand!

White island photos



Lake Taupo photos

Rotorua

We were up earlyish to goto Rotorua. We were arriving and Emma asked if I'd passed wind the cheeky girl! It stunk of eggs so I wasn't sure but them we realised the area was full of sulphur! The whole town stinks, and it pretty smelly too! Haha.

After arriving we went to 'Hells Gate' which is Rotorua's most active geothermal reserve. We walked around the area which resembled (what I imagine) another planet. There were bubbling mud pools, yellow rocks and steam coming out of the ground!! We also stood 1 metre away from the largest volcano in New Zealand.... Mud volcano that is which stood at about 1 metre high and had bubbling substances erupting from the top. With pools/holes named things like 'sulphur bath', 'devils bath', 'inferno pools' and 'devils cauldron' it summed up the eeriness of the place!

After the walk we hand carved our own Maori symbols. Now, I'm not going to say who's was better but mine had smooth lines and no scratches(!) and Emma was sad that hers looked rubbish!

We then went for our mud bath! We had to resist a mud pit fight as if it got in your eyes you go blind (not quite that severe but it still hurts!). We covered each other in mud and sat in it for 20 minutes! We absolutely stank of sulphur. We changed into a clean pool before having a shower. Our skin still smells of sulphur even though we had a shower, hopefully it will be OK tomorrow!!

Unfortunately the next day we still smelt a bit as did the towels and our swimmers.

We decided to goto another geothermal park to see an errupting geyser. We had two parks to choose from. We luckily chose the right one, as we got to see a natural geyser consistently errupting the whole time we were there! We found out that the other geyser was a fake eruption and set off manually at 10.15 everyday!!

We had a really good guided tour from a mauri lady and were shown the geysers. It was excellent and shooting metres into the air. One was even called the Prince of Wales feathers!!

We were so impressed by all the volcanic activity that we decided on a new plan so made a booking to go see and walk on an active volcanoe, as you do, no biggie(!) and headed north to Whakatane. When we arrived we had a beer while watching a band at a mini festival which was nice to chill out too.

We had to call the tour company to check they were going which they confirmed they were! Yay.

Coromandel + Watimo

We were so exited on seeing the van and after being given the guided tour we were on our way.

We stocked up the van and headed to the Coromandel Peninsula. We found a campsite and paid extra for a pitch with a view! It was an amazing view too. We went for a walk along the beach which appeared pink in places(!) as crushed pink shells filled areas of the beach.

The next morning we left early and headed for Cathedral cove. It was a triangle cave that went to another beach which was also very nice. Unfortuately the cave is starting to collapse in places so they have put ugly signs everywhere, which sort of spoils the view!!! So no great photos there!

We drove to Hot Water beach. At either side of low tide you can dig a hole and it will fill with hot water on the beach creating a spa! We looked down the beach wondering where to start digging, but then we saw the mass of people that were already there.

There was a clearing where people were standing around looking, so we thought this would be a good place to build our spa. After 2 seconds we knew why nobody was there. The sand was actually boiling (bubbling) and we had to make a quick dash off it to avoid having burnt feet!! We eventually found a good spot which was a bit too hot but could be cooled down with sea water (that we carried in our washing up bowl!). We obviously had such a good idea with as other people asked to use the bowl! Geniuses.

Time was ticking so we headed to Watimo, famous for it's glowworm caves. We had a tour around the caves and then a boat ride. The cave was pitch black apart from the light from the glow worms lighting the way!! There were hundreds of them and it looked like stars in the sky. We had to sshh the Japanese tourists though as they would not shut up!! It was a truely amazing sight though.

We ended up camping at a YHA for cheap. It had an amazing view, a swimming pool, a trampoline and 2 very well placed hammocks. That is camping luxury people!!

Auckland

We landed in new Zealand to rain but it stopped by the time we got off the plane. We booked a double room and it was a welcome sight not to see 6 other student looking people in our room!

As it was late we just had a wander, went for a curry and went to bed.

We got up early the next day to fit a full day in. We started off with holiday chores again. Posting, washing and buying our Japan rail pass (as you have to do it outside the country).

The afternoon was better though and we went to the rugby world cup 2011 shop, the market and caught a bus to Mt. Eden which towered over the city at 198 metres! There was a cone at the top as it was once a volcano. We heard a couple of rumbles whilst standing on the volcano but that was just Emma's belly!! It had good views over the city which stretched for a long way.

A new day and it's back to the airport to get our campervan!! Waahhooooo!!