Our Little Adventure

Technical Difficulties

2010-12-16T14:38:00.001-08:00

Due to Chris deleting all my hard work, I will now try to re-create the 6 weeks of our blog over the Xmas.

This is long and arduous so please bear with me! Will do my best but it takes hours and hours just to do one blog!!!

Have a great festive season and hopefully there will be something to read and pictures to see relatively soon :)

Naomi xx

San Pedro (Chile) to Salar de Uyuni (Bolivia) 5th – 9th October 2010

2010-11-05T17:48:00.001-07:00

San Pedro

Day 1

We arrived mid morning into what could only be described as a wild west town. Dusty, quiet streets with little doorways that could be anything from someone’s home to a tour agency. It was only when you looked closer, or when they put the signs outside their doors that you could really tell.

The town lies at 2,440m, our first experience of altitude, and you really could feel it. The air felt thinner and doing anything slightly exertive resulted in getting out of breath!

Our hostel for 2 nights was like a little courtyard village. The buildings were made with clay, which is in abundance here, and the ceilings were thatched with corrugated iron on top. The clay walls and thatched roof made our room feel very unique and authentic.

We headed out into the village/town pretty much straight away to see what was on offer. As it grew closer to midday, tourists started emerging after there morning activities and the thriving town looked a little more like the tourist trap we had heard about, and yet there is still an incredible silence about the place, with psychedelic moon-like landscapes and in the evening, star scattered heavens and hammock strewn hostels! Around most corners, the imposing view of the Licancabur volcano (which is half Chilean, half Bolivean) can be seen.

The afternoon to early evening we spent in the Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley). It is located 16km out of town in the Atacama Desert, the driest desert in the world. It has various stone and sand formations that have been created through the centuries by floods and wind and has also given it an impressive range of colour and texture, funnily enough making it resemble the surface of the moon, hence the name! Some areas of the desert have not received rainfall for hundreds of years!

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The highlight of the trip has to be watching the sunset on top of one of the great sand hills! After an exhausting walk up the hill, we were presented with an array of colours that were just mind blowing!

As you can see, we took a lot of pictures on this tour so to see them all, please take a look at the album :)

Day 2

Today was a complete chill out day. We were exhausted from the day before and the altitude was a bit of a killer. Also we had booked ourselves on to the Salar de Uyuni 3 day tour for the next day, so we wanted to be well rested and acclimatized before heading up to the extreme heights of 5000m!!!

So we enjoyed a simple lunch of empanadas (a pastry filled with meat and cheese) and some shopping before bumping into some of our friends from Santiago, who we had a very nice dinner with (plus early night as we were all heading out on tour early in the morning).

Day 3

So we set off on our exciting adventure to Bolivia! The Salt Flats of Uyuni and the Eduardo Avaroa National Reserve of Andean Fauna was calling.

But first a long queue at the Chilean border to sign ourselves out. Then a 45 minute into the mountains to get to the Bolivian border. Now the road we were on was lovely asphalt that was like heaven on the bottom. As we got to the ridge of the mountain, the road continued up and over, however we took a dodgy dirt track off the nice road and this was our way to Bolivia. The asphalt road led to the Argentinean border. It was very obvious where the money was here.

This was the last we were to see of asphalt for a long time!!!

A 10 minute drive along this dirt track led us to a shanty hut that was Bolivian immigration. What a way to start our Bolivian adventure!!!

Literally from the border, we could see our first destination, Laguna Blanco (White Lake), called thus as it was dazzlingly white. It was also still iced over from the previous evenings chill, which gave some fantastic reflective views of the mountains in the Laguna.

Chris wanted to test how thin the ice was. At first he was reluctant to jump…. Then he did, and it wasn’t very thin at all!!!

Then we jumped back into the car for another 1 hour, past dry mountains and deserts to the next stop, Laguna Verde (Green Lake). This one was a toxic lake that no animal was near!!! It was also called Green Lake for it’s many different colours of green, which in the space of 10 minutes, we saw many of!

Our next stop were the hot springs, an hours drive away! Yes, at 4500m there were hot springs!!! Although we were told we were not allowed to stay in them for long as it is bad for your health at such an altitude!!! The lads all jumped in, but the girls chose to jump dip their legs in!

It was then another 45 minutes to the geysers (there was a heck of a lot of driving on this trip!!!).

Now what you must understand about the Atacama desert and the National Park here is that it is very very dry. From the moment you enter, your skin dries up and you are very dehydrated! Hence the fact Naomi was having fun trying to transfer water in the back of the truck!!!

And then it was on to our final destination for the day, our hostel just west of Laguna Colorado. It was another hours drive to here. On the way we saw some ichuna (in the llama family). We do not know what they were living off here, looked like they were eating the rocks!!!

We had lunch a very late lunch at the hostel, before setting out to investigate the lake for the late afternoon. This was our first experience of the flamengos, and they were fascinating!!! Such elegant and yet daft birds! There are three types in this national park: Andean, Chilean and James. We never did learn how to tell the difference though, our Spanish wasn’t good enough to translate!!! At this time of year, only a thousand or so inhabit the lake, in the summer, there can be up t 30,000 here!!!

Laguna Colorado (Colourful Lake) is a magnificent red, which matches the pink of the flamingos. But it is multi-coloured hence the name.

Here the come the flamingos! (and trust me when I say this, this is a very very small selection of many lol)!

By the time we left the lake, it was getting pretty cold and dark. On average, at this time of year, the evenings get down to around –12 to –15 degrees!!! We were well prepared with our season 3-4 sleeping bags. Only thing that wasn’t ready was our hostel. Thin walls, thin sheets and concrete blocks for beds made everything seem even colder.

As dinner was over by 6.30pm, rather than go to bed, Phoebe and Drew, our fellow Aussie travellers, cracked out the travel Monopoly!!!! And then proceeded to whoop all our arses (think they had practised too much on their trip lol!) so that killed a few hours and settled the spirits before bed!

Day 4

After a very cold evening (which was barely noticeable except on our faces as they were the only exposed bits) we were ready to leave our hostel at 8am!!! However, our lovely trucks were not ready to go!!! One of them had died overnight, and then the driver flooded the engine trying to get it started in the morning! In all fairness though, we watched as they took apart a full engine, and rebuilt it!

We all just chilled out during this time, meditating, contemplating, listening to music, chatting, wandering……whatever took our fancy.

Naomi chose the scenic music listening point!!!

Until the llamas came to join us and entertain for a while!

So at 10am we were ready to go!! Once again, we had a long drive (about an hour) to the first point of interest, the rock tree, to be honest, the mountains in the background were just as impressive!

Then we drove on to an amazing and huge rock formation with strange green, moss like plants growing on it. Forgetting the altitude, we all had a rock climbing session that left us all shattered lol!

We broke down again here, so had some more time to contemplate………

Then headed to a collection of four lakes, the focal lake being next to the Flamingo Ecolodge (our lunch break) where we got to see even more animals and even more flamingos!!!!

Ichunas trying to get away from the trucks by running onto the lake!?!?!

And now time for the flamingos. Now this lake was even better than yesterday’s for flamingos and it was like a challenge to get as close as possible to get a good picture without scaring them off!

Very randomly, a solitary duck!!! In the middle of the driest place on earth!!! Couldn’t understand where he came from!!! We reckoned he lost his way while migrating!!

From our lunch spot, it was all driving for the afternoon :( as we were 2 hours behind, we had to make it to our salt hotel before night fall!!!

As we approached the fourth lake, there was a Culpeo or mountain fox (having obviously just come for a dip for some lunch) wandering back into the mountains, but was metres from the car!

We did have two brief pit stops on the way to see one of the active volcanoes and the first (small) salt flat, but other than that, it was all driving!

Just before getting to the town that housed our hotel, we passed through what was meant to be an army outpost, but looked like a derelict fort with teletubby buildings. It also manned the only railway line for miles!

And then we arrived at ‘home’ for the night. A hotel made completely of salt. Not just the walls and windows, but also all the furniture!!! It was amazing! Very comfortable and very accommodating for the evening!

The hotel also had a ‘bar,’ so before it shut, we got 3 bottles of wine between our group of 6 and enjoyed a very pleasant meal! And, as pre-arranged by Chris the previous evening, a night of poker and drinking ensued!!! Phoebe once again being the winner (we think something dodgy was going on lol!!!). Some star gazing before bed and then a very good nights sleep before our big day!!!

Day 5 SALAR DE UYUNI (The Uyuni Salt Flats)

The big day had arrived, the day that this trip was all about. The Uyuni salt flats.

Very early, cold faces!!

It was an early start (4am) as we had all agreed to get up and drive to the salt flats for sunrise. But unfortunately we lost the other truck on the way, and after repeatedly telling our driving vamos (let’s go), after 30 minutes (and the sun nearly being up) he drove on at startling speed to get us there on time (when we got there, the other car was there and had just taken another route. Hmmmm not amused!). Didn’t spoil the sunrise though :)

We got a little bit eager and tried to do some cool pictures early on, but realising it was too dark, waited while watching the sun come up and played football!!!

As the sun comes up, you start to realise the spectacle around you. It’s just vast! The Salar de Uyuni is 10,582 sqm and is the world’s largest salt flat. It is at 3600m above sea level and it is so flat, that the most major the variance across the whole flat is only 1m in height!

There is a thick layer of salt across the top which is used for different kinds of salt (including the one you put in your food) all over the world.

We drove to a spot where you can see how the salt is dug up and produced.

And then it was time to drive to Incahuasi Island where not only was breakfast being served, but its also the main point for where all the legendary pictures of the salt flats are taken. We’ll let the pictures do the talking, but it was a lot of fun taking them!

In the palm of his hands (he wishes!!!)

To get to this photo it took a bit of effort lol!

Then we decided to climb Incahuasi Island which is an amazing island. It means Inca house and is an island in the middle of the salt flats. The terrain is harsh and rocky and it is covered in enormous cacti that are up to 10m tall (which takes over 100 years to grow)!

Back off the island and it was back to funny pics again, but this time with our fab group! Oh, and some more football!

The group spelling out Uyuni!

This took some effort and some salt burns on Naomi’s back afterwards lol!

Our great group (with Daniel the driver) and our truck that got us through all the fun!

So our 5 hours on the Salt Flats were up :( sad times :( after a great morning, we had to keep heading towards the town of Uyuni where we were to be dropped off :(

On the way, we stopped in at the original salt hotel with all original salt artifacts!

We were not amused as there were flag poles outside this museum, but no British flag, Naomi tried to block out the NZ flag while Chris made his own British out of the NZ flag!

And then onto the small village of Colchani for lunch. This village survives off the processing of salt and selling salt souvenirs!

There was a massive religious festival going on in the village when we got there. It was something to do with the Virgin Mary, but what exactly we couldn’t make out (and Uyuni were not celebrating it when we got there so possibly a local event!). There were a lot of very drunk locals, but all in traditional wear.

Their depiction of the Virgin Mary, a doll with her legs sprawled open!!!

Naomi asked in her best spanish if she could take a picture of a grandmother and her daughter. The grandmother insisted on Naomi paying (much to the embarrassment of her daughter) and try to charge quite a lot. Naomi haggled and got her down and got a very good picture out of it!

Chris just hid behind a wall with the camera and took sly pictures without people knowing!!! Lol!!!

We were dropped in Uyuni, a pretty unimpressive and dirty town! We were thinking of spending a night there, but as the only cash machine in town was not working, and could possibly not be working till the end of the weekend, our only option was to move on to La Paz on the over night bus. But not before saying a decent goodbye to our friends ]]over pizza and death by chocolate cake desert first!!!

And that was the end of our wonderful tour with the fantastic and very fun Phoebe, Drew, Daniele and Luana.

Santiago, Valparaiso and La Serena Chile 28th – 4th October 2010

2010-10-13T05:45:00.001-07:00

Santiago

Day 1

Finally arrived in Santiago after a 6 hour delay. LAN airlines was brilliant, great reclining seats, good food, alcohol…… did Naomi see any of it, nope, she was passed out the whole way lol! First good nights sleep since caving last week because of her chest infection! Good for Chris though because he got peace on the aeroplane :)

We took the public bus from the airport into the centre of town, using our beautiful broken and very basic Spanish. Then managed to get ourselves onto the Metro (with our hostel only 2 mins from one of the stops).

Checked into our 9 bed dorm around 8pm and the receptionist said there were free burgers in the kitchen/bar. Great we thought, perfect timing, but there was no one there. So we took a wander up the street in search of quick food, pizza it was :)

When we got back to our hostel, it was in full swing. The bar was heaving with people ready to go on a night out! We settled in with a ginormous beer (at a grand price of £2.60) and chatted the night away, trying to help kick the jetlag! Went to bed just after midnight, Chris slept the whole night, Naomi had a horrible night after 4am, but bar the odd talking and very loud snoring from one of the lads in our room, our dorm was great :)

Day 2

So firstly down to practicalities. We had the bus office, post office and electronics shop to try to contend with today. None of them speaking English, so the jobs taking a lot longer than expected. But we did it! Felt very proud of ourselves. Chris is even speaking some Spanish words now (that goes to show how much English they speak here lol). After almost losing her bank card by leaving in the cash machine in the bank, and a small blind panic and rush back to the bank, we were ready to start enjoying Santiago.

With the weather being 20* in the afternoon and the sun shining down, we thought what a great afternoon to spend in the Parque. It was a nice stroll along the Rio Mapucho (river) and hitting a right into the Barrio Bellavista area of town which is full of upmarket cafes, bars, restaurants and shops, not forgetting the millions of university buildings too. But Pio Nono took us up to Cerro San Cristobal,a large mound/small mountain that towers over Santiago at 870m. It is also home to Parque Metropolitano, the city’s largest open space. But it is either vertical or a 5.5km road up, so we chose to use the Funicular to get us up to the summit, a rickety thing built in 1923! Did the job though.

Apart from amazing views of the smoggy city at the top, there was also a Virgin Mary statue that towers and looks down over the city. Underneath the statue is a large open air church (very Lourdes) and a St Christopher Chapel (much to Chris’s amusement!).

The Chilean flag which was everywhere as 2 weeks ago they celebrated there 200 year anniversary. It was the law that every building had to fly the Chilean flag on a white flag pole on the 19th September!!!

So back down the Funicular to street level, stopped off for a coffee and to go over some plans for the pending weeks! Naomi’s feet were really sore (first time wearing flip flops in ages and walked miles today!) so we headed back to the hostel to have a breather and get ready for the evening.

We sat chatting till late, then Chris went to bed and Naomi decided to stay out and head to the clubs with everyone from the hostel for some Santiago party experience. Going to a Chilean club, you learn to appreciate how chilled English clubs are. Men just letch and try to dance all the time with you, but in a way no man in England dances! Dirty dirty dirty and its soooooooooooo wrong! One of the girls described the dancefloor as a mass sex orgy just with clothes on lol!!! But a lot of English style dancing, cutting shapes and gawping in amazement at some of the sights, and around 3.30am a group of us headed back to the hostel to rest our tired legs! Good fun night :)

Day 3

After a good lie-in, we headed to the bus shop and bought all of our bus tickets to get us to the North of Chile.

Important stuff done, we got on the metro to the centre of town, heading straight for Place de la Moneda, the government square. There is a beautiful old palace building set behind rails and smothered in flags (as they celebrated Independence day 2 weeks ago). Not able to go in the building, we just observed from afar.

We then walked in the direction of the Museum of Pre-Colombian Art (to you and me, that means very very old Inca style pottery and statues etc). After spending 8 months in countries that are barely 200 years old, seeing this art was astounding. Each piece told a different story. The museum was split into the different regions (i.e. North America through to South Andes) and displayed pieces of art from the pre-Colombian era. Most of it was ritual and sacred items that was from tombs or was used for some disgusting death ritual. Some very scary details of items, like the urn that was used to store the bones of a dead person once the skin had been peeled off! Eeek!

Anyways admired this for a little while, then headed back onto the streets and wandered for hours. There is not a huge amount to actually do in Santiago. Most of the older buildings, although still intact are either museums or house shops!

We enjoyed the amazing art and street acts, and the many historic buildings in the Place de Armas and then got on the metro back to the hostel.

We were recommended dinner in a restaurant around the corner from our hostel, but were prewarned that the place is eempty, but the menu del dia (daily set menu) was reasonable and very good. So we had the menu del dia, a mammoth steak, egg and chips (very Chilean I hear you say lol) and neither of us could finish our meals! Felt very rude. But we were placed right in the central window looking over the dead road outside, we seriously think we were the only customers all night long!!!

We took a stroll through the local park after our meal as they have a wonderful, lit up fountain that runs into the early hours.

Then back to the hostel bar for a bevvie and some usual chit chat and book some hostels for later on in the week.

Santiago has been a lovely first stop to our South American adventure. There has not been as much to see here as we would have liked, but it was a nice and gentle way to settle into the Spanish way of life and our hostel was a top class hostel, couldn’t have asked for anymore :)

Valparaiso

Day 4

We checked out of our hostel after saying a sad goodbye to the place, but it was onwards and upwards from here. We had an 11am bus booked to Valparaiso, a coastal city 120km west of Santiago.

The bus ride was lovely. We got to see all of the mountains as soon as we got out of the smog, and it there were lots of green pastures. Valparaiso is a very long beach front city. So when we arrived, as we weren’t 100% sure where our hostel was, we caught a cab. A good 15 minutes later, and up into the steep hills of Valpo and we were at our destination, Hostal Licunantay (sp?)!!!

As we had been sat on a bus and in a taxi for a few hours, we were eager to get out onto the streets and just have a look at the local area. No map in hand, we just wandered the streets aimlessly.

Valpo is a mad port with houses stacked to mad heights along the sea. It is also a Unesco World Heritage Site, although some travellers may disagree. The buildings are a little worn, needing a new lick of paint and there are unused, tangled cables on every street. We felt it just added to the character.

Down on the harbour front and in the city centre, it wasn’t so elegant, but the minute you started heading into the hills, there where this place really came to life!

Because of how steep some of the ascents into the hills are, there are also fantastically old and famous ascensores (elevators) which take you up to the more difficult bits of town.

After wandering for a couple of hours, we settled for a menu del dia in the Plaza Anibal Pinto. The waiter threw a lot of spanish in our direction and we hazarded a guess at what he was offering us to eat, but turned out we did well and ended up having a great, Chilean 4 course meal, all for the grand price of 5000 pesos (£8)!!! Brilliant!

We took the long way back to the hostal, via the cemetery at the top of the one of the big hills, and back via some sketchy and steep stairs. When we arrived back, there were two Argentinean students who help to run the hostal, just chilling in the lounge area. There English was as good as our Spanish, but we managed to have a great conversation with them. At the end of the conversation, they were telling us about a party that was happening at the top of Valpo all weekend long. The party was actually a big festival called the Festival of a Thousand Drums! Naturally we had to go and check it out.

By the time we arrived at the festival (which was being held in a football stadium) the party had been in full swing for a number of hours, so we were well behind. The noise was thunderous, with many different groups performing. Some orchestras, some dance groups, but all with drums and all having the time of their lives!!! It was great because we were the only white people there, like we had found a piece of local tradition that no one else knew about.

We hung around for an hour, but began to realise that all the serious groups and spectators were heading off, and leaving the youngsters (and their alcohol) to continue the festivities into the wee hours of the night!

And that they did!!! There was a party in our hostel that started well after midnight, us and our friends next door had long been in bed by then, but it seemed that was how things were done here, especially as it illegal to drink on the streets. So a very sleepless and noisy night later, meant a lovely lie in the next morning :)

Day 5

It was gone midday by the time we emerged from our pits!!! But we had good reason to get up today, we were meeting one of Naomi’s old school friend’s and her fiance, who lived in the neighbouring town for lunch.

Waiting to meet Natalie and Stuart on the Avenida Brazil next to the memorial, A la Ciudad de Valparaiso la Colonia Britanica!

A few crossed wires and a long street later, we were sat in the local food market having a very good catch up and some fantastic food. It was great to hear about Chile and Valpo from a ‘local’s’ perspective.

After lunch, we wandered around the parts of town that we hadn’t seen yet and Natalie and Stewart showed us some amazing local secrets. E.g. the old part of the port that is now occupied with a small colony of sea lions.

The sea lions and a view of Valpo.

We caught our first locale bus from here into the centre of town. It was our first locale bus as they can be very confusing and we only had the confidence to jump on one because we had Natalie and Stuart with us, and they knew where they were going lol!

From the centre of town, we took the Ascensor Reina Victoria up into the districts of Cerro Alegre and Cerro Concepcion, which are the most well known and typical of the hill areas. Unfortunately, the sun was already setting as we got here, so the pictures are a little dark. But they give you a rough idea of the heritage buildings and arty graffiti that line these streets!

From here we had to say our goodbyes, as we had a lovely overnight bus that evening to our next stop.

Apart from the sleepless night, we had a great time in beautiful Valpo, and a special thanks to Natalie and Stuart for showing us around :)

La Serena

Day 6

A very early arrival into La Serena at 5.30am, a unseemly hour compared to what we have been used to! The main reason we were stopping off in La Serena was because we were not able to book a bus all the way through to San Pedro, but La Serena is meant to be the trendy beach resort that all the Santiagans visit in the summer. Shame it wasn’t the summer though!!!

After a cat nap, we headed out to check out La Serena, completely forgetting that it was Sunday. Everything was shut and it was like a ghost town.

There were some very old churches in the city centre, but as it was Sunday, they were only open at service times!

The only place we found any life was in the local park. The park had a free petting zoo with unbelievable animals and birds in it: from condors to reindeer, rabbits to giant tortoise. This kept Naomi occupied and happy as a child for a few hours!

Ostriches

Condors

Emus and a very cute goat

Eagles and a mahusive turkey

Llamas and reindeer

As it was now the early evening, everything except for bars and restaurants were open, so we had another nice menu del dia and then headed back to the hostel as town was empty.

Day 7

Once again we were on an overnight bus this evening which left mid-afternoon, so we didn’t have much time to spare.

All the museums in town were still shut (as things often are on a Monday too, very Spanish)! As we got into the main square in town though, what a difference. We could now see what the busy city that La Serena is supposed to be. The streets, shops and market stalls were all full of vendors and buyers. The hustle and bustle was like any other city around the world.

We spent the day mulling around the shops and markets, buying presents and just enjoying the city atmosphere before our 16 hour bus ride!!!

The weather today was also completely different. It was like a summer’s day and we wished we had the time to head to La Serena’s famous beach :(

Oh well, onto San Pedro de Atacama…….

NZ North Island 18th to 28th September

2010-10-12T11:09:00.001-07:00

Ferry to the North

The ferry to North island from Picton travelled through Queen Charlotte Sound, beautiful, tranquil and peaceful! The ferry took 4 hours and we were in the centre of Wellington eventually!

Wellington

Our campsite had views over one of the bays around Wellington, and when we woke, there were some seriously dark clouds looming in the north. But as it was a Sunday, it didn’t deter us from being up early and ready to head into the city centre to explore!

Our first stop on our tour of Wellington was the famous Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. This museum is a very well thought out and modern museum that takes you into the heart of what New Zealand is all about. From earthquakes to interactive touch pad map floors, art to giant squid, its got it all! We could have easily spent all day here!

We then strolled along the art-lined harbour front to Civic Square.

We had a some lunch in the shopping and bar centre of Wellington, Cuba Street, which was full of entertaining buskers! Then we walked to the Cable Car that takes you up to the Botanical Gardens and has some of the best views of Wellington.

It was a long and steep walk back down to the city centre and by the time we got there, most of the tourist attractions were closing for the day, Sunday trading hours :( so we took a stroll past the government buildings, including the very strange and very ugly beehive, and then spent the rest of the day chilling in cafes, internet cafes and restaurants.

Tongariro/Taupo

Ok, this is going to be very brief. We were very much looking forward to Tongariro National Park, the setting for Lord of the Rings, skiing, mountaineering and many other activities we had planned on doing there. However, Mother Nature was not on our side, and the day we got to Ohakune (one of the villages at the base of the park) was one of the worst weather days in a few decades. Winds at over 100kph at ground level and driving rain meant that all tourist attractions in the north island were shut, and not just on that day, but for 3 days!!! We did hang around for 3 nights hoping the national park would be opened up or that we would at least be able to see the mountains but there was no such luck. By the end of the fourth day, we were in Taupo and very bored! Sad I hear you say, but unfortunately there is nothing you can do when the weather is against you. On the up side, we did stay at a fantastic DOC campsite for three nights just off the Desert Road.

Once at Taupo, as we only had 5 days remaining, rather than do the activities we had wanted to, we decided to move on closer to Auckland. But we have a very good excuse to come back to the north island one day in the future :)

Anyways, so we had lunch on Lake Taupo looking over Mt Ngauruhoe and Mt Tongariro (we still couldn’t see Mt Ruapehu) and the lake.

Just up the road from Taupo is an incredible waterfall called Huka Falls. At the Huka Falls, the Waikato River which is normally 100m wide, is squeezed through a 20m wide gorge and over a 20m drop. Every second, up to 220,000 litres of water gushes through the gorge and shoots out over 8m beyond to create a lovely blue/green pool. The name Huka means ‘foam’ in Maori, which is very appropriate as the falling water and rapids definitely resemble foam. The noise at the Falls is thunderous!!!

Rotorua

Naomi was the only person really interested in Rotorua as it is all about the Maori culture and history here. When we got to town, we got a deal from the i-site for entry to Te Puia, the home of Maori arts and crafts and also the Pohutu geyser, the biggest geyser in the southern hemisphere.

Naomi left Chris in the car for a couple of hours and went and got Maori educated.

The entrance to Te Puia (a Te Heketanga a Rangi comprises of twelve monumental carvings reaching skywards, each representing a celestial guardian in Te Arawa culture)

First up was a concert demonstrating many different traditional Maori songs and music, including the war dance of the Haka, performed by the local Maori tribe, Te Arawa. The concert was held in the Rotowhio Marae, a fully carved wharenui (meeting house).

From there we were taken to the Kiwi House, however, it was only when in the house and with an empty enclosure that our guide told us that kiwis sleep 18 hours a day, so it is quite rare to see them up and about!!!

Rotorua is famous for being a geothermal area and part of the main geothermal activity is within the grounds of Te Puia. There are the bubbling mud pools:

And the geysers; Pohutu (30m) and Prince Charles (10m) erupting up to 20 times a day:

We also got to visit the Carving and Weaving schools which still train Maori in traditional practises. All in all, a thorough enjoyable and very educational trip :)

Waitomo Caves

We drove over from Rotorua in the morning. A nice scenic drive through ‘Kings’ country, lots of greeness, arriving at Waitomo in time for lunch and ready for our caving tour!

Unfortunately we were not allowed to take any cameras down into the caves :( so apart from this gorgeous picture of the two of us, we are just going to have to tell you about it lol!

So the tour was meant to be Waitomo’s most concentrated action adventure. We only did it because we had a 2 4 1 voucher ;) we started off with a little taster on dry land just to accustom us with the ropes and clips etc then headed down into the caves. From the off, it was all pretty easy going. We had a couple of abseils to get us down deep into the caves. From there we headed in and around some very interesting and very different caves, from the tiny to the huge, with lots of glow worms too! There were a few educational bits and pieces on stalagmites/tites, glow worms (or phospherescent maggot poo according to our guides lol).

Then it was back up again. We had a couple of simple rock climbs and then one that looked small and easy, but actually turned out to be a massive pain with us having to squeeze ourselves through a tiny gap. Chris looked like a funny fish trying to get his legs through when watching it from the bottom.

All in all it was a fun afternoon. We would have been upset if it had cost us $430, but as it only cost half that, we were happy for what was more a taster at caving than anything serious!

Afterwards we had enough energy to drive for an hour to Hamilton and set up camp, ready for the drive to Tauranga the next morning to see Chris’s family friends.

Tauranga

We met the Warner’s for lunch in Mount Maungarui, a very nice suburb outside Tauranga (not expecting to see them until the early evening but with Jason’s parents insisting) and having a feeling we had interrupted an important lunch, we found out we were there to celebrate Jason and Sinead’s engagement. BIG CONGRATULATIONS :) which also meant there was going to be a lot of drinking involved. A lunch time drink progressed into afternoon drinks chatting, and then onto the social club in the evening for food, entertainment and you guessed it, drinking. We had great fun, and it felt like the NZ version of the Wythenshawe Cricket Club lol!

Karangahake Mines

We had arranged to meet Jason and Sinead in Auckland in the evening, so until then we had plenty of time to enjoy the drive to Auckland and stop off at the mining gorge on the way. The historic walkway at Karangahake Mines takes you through 1km of old gold mining tunnels, stunning gorge scenery and into the ruins of the old powerhouse. This place was up and running from 1889 to 1919. This was one place where Chris really didn’t mind walking lol!!

We did epically fail though on a rather large detail of visiting the mines. Chris had been told by Sinead the previous evening to remember to take a torch up to the mines as they are pitch black. Chris only remembered as we were about to enter them, so it was the blind leading the blind. The only source of light we had for the mines was from our flash on our camera lol! Made it more fun though!

Auckland

After the mines, we drove into Auckland and we had a little time to kill before we were due at Jason’s house. It was a nice day, so we headed up to Mt Eden to get the fantastic views over the Auckland Basin :) Mt Eden is the highest natural point in Auckland and it is a dormant volcano with a bowl-like crater 50 meters deep. You can not go into the crater as is a sacred site for the Maori.

That evening, Jason and Sinead had a small gathering of friends at their house, so a few wines and a chinese takeaway later and we were fast asleep in our campervan for the last time :(

Next day, we had to drop our things off at the hostel for the day and then go to the Spaceship depot and drop off Mulder in the morning. Depressing times! There had been talk over the weekend about Chris possibly doing a Sky Jump off the Auckland Skytower, but as we hadn’t heard anything, we didn’t think anything of it! But on our way over to the depot, we got a message from Jason to say the Jump was all go for midday! So we had a mad rush to get from the suburbs to the city centre in less than an hour. We grabbed a taxi and were on our way!

The Sky Tower is 362m tall but the actual height of the jump is 192m. It is the highest jump in NZ and also one of the fastest as you travel at 75kph.

Before doing the jump, we got to go up to the lookout deck and check out the scenery.

Then it was time for the big plunge!!!

As you step in the elevator , everyone that is going is the viewing deck wants to all of a sudden want to talk to you because you dressed like a lemming . as they step off to the viewing deck i continued up the skydeck , as you step of the elevator all of sudden you realise that you have willing decided to jump off 192m skyjump ….mint , As you walk though the glass doors to skydeck 2 lads are stood there waiting to hook you up to the safety line , just as the check everything is secure on you , the reason they do this ,is some people have an urge to throw them self’s off with any safety equipment , meaning certain death …. :0 So everything is checked over i headed the jump area and i can only describe this as walking the plank , you have to hold on to 2 poles with 2 stretched out poles in a cross like position and just wait for them to say ……. jump , now as you stood waiting for this moment , quite a lot goes through your mind , did he really attach me to the safety gear or did he have a heavy night last ??

3 2 1 GO , happily i threw my self off downwards to the target at the bottom within 11 seconds i was at the bottom , feeling a little wind swept but all good , as i hit the bottom , the young lad at the bottom asked if i wanted to go again , well why not .

I really enjoyed this part of Auckland , thank you Mr Warner

Chris getting ready and the landing spot below the towering drop!

Experiencing the adventure!

Here’s a link to the video of the jump:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1R0dDIfDwZo

After an exhilarating and exhausting morning and afternoon, we wandered around the city centre and eventually rested on a little Irish pub for a good feed! A kind of touch of home! The rest of the day we spent taking a look around town and enjoying our last day in NZ!

That evening and for the morning of our departure day, we sorted out our bags trying to get the weight down as much as poss! Local charity shops loved us!!!

Unfortunately our flight was delayed by 6 hours, so we had fun keeping ourselves entertained and awake for our now evening flight to Santiago, Chile!

Thank you to NZ, the wonderful friends we met and the new friends we became acquainted with! Had a wonderful time for our 5 weeks and look forward to going back to do all the things we couldn’t this time!

Hanmer/Kaikoura/Picton 16th-18th Sept

2010-10-10T08:07:00.001-07:00

Day 1

We got on the road early so that we could utilise most of the day, especially as we thought it was going to be all motorway driving that day. Chance would be a fine thing. The main motorway, SH1, was shut for the majority of our planned route, so we had to take the inland route, which fortunately was a lot more scenic but unfortunately a lot further!!!

As we were driving, something that is almost inevitable in NZ is animals on the road, we didn’t expect to be confronted with a full flock of sheep!!!

Just off this road was the thermal spring resort town of Hanmer Springs (as recommended to us by the immigration officer at the airport!). As we had had a pretty tough (and cold) few days on the slopes, we thought we could do with a chill out, so we soaked our cockles in the lovely pools there. Ranging from 28 to 40 degrees and from man made pool to authentic geothermal spa (which stank of sulphur and nearly made Naomi pass out!) it was a very nice couple of hours. We didn’t take any photographs though as the complex was going through a multi-million dollar upgrade and so looked like a building site. Not so relaxing!

So back on the road again, we passed through the town of Kaikoura. It was a lovely seaside resort renowned for its sea wildlife trips, but they were a bit expensive and the town was dead so we carried on through. By this point we were back on the SH1. Just outside of Kaikoura on the motorway, there was a sign warning us of seals possibly on the road verge for the next 4km. We thought this very strange, but kept a look out. At this point of the SH1, the motorway (single carriage) was right over the sea. As we rounded a corner, there were thousands of fur seals on the rocks just off from the motorway. We didn’t realise that this was one of the biggest seal colonies in NZ at a place called Chau Point. So of course we pulled over in the first layby and took pictures!

If you look closely, you can see hundreds of fur seals dotted on the rocks.

It was starting to get late, and we had a DOC campsite to get to just outside Blenheim. This campsite was one of our favourites. We pitched up so that our campervan looked out to the sea and we could hear the waves all night long. It was wonderful!

Day 2

We spent the morning in Blenheim but the weather was terrible so headed on to Picton, hoping the weather would improve. Which it didn’t! So we grabbed some late lunch from town and then headed to our DOC campsite for the rest of the day.

It was a long and winding coastal cliff road that was surrounded by tropical forest. There should have been views out over the sound, but the wind, rain and cloud were so bad that you couldn’t see a thing past the road edge!

We set up camp at a tiny site on the waters edge. After a shattering week, we decided to just sit out the rain and plan our North Island trip! Nothing exciting!

Day 3

Today was the day to catch the ferry to the North Island. And we were off to a good start, the weather was beautiful. So we headed out back on the road we had come the previous evening, but this time we were gifted with beautiful views, so it took us a lot longer to drive to town as we kept stopping to admire!

Off to the North Island :)

Aoraki/Mt Cook and Mt Dobson 12th-15th Sept

2010-10-01T17:09:00.001-07:00

Day 1

We had a bit of drive in the morning heading inland to get up to the mountains. The road to Mt Cook is a one road in/one road out road that is 60km long, with nothing off the main road until you get to Mt Cook village, so you only go there if you are going there!!!

For a lot of the road, you drive alongside the very turquoise Lake Pukaki. The lakes in this area are turquoise in colour due to fine, glacier-ground rock particles that are held in suspension in the lakes. We stopped at one of the lookouts to admire the turquoiseness and also to cook burgers :) unfortunately, because of the dark clouds in the sky, when the pictures were taken, the turquoise was nowhere to be seen :(

Anyways, so we carried on up the road to Aoraki/Mt Cook village and headed straight for the information centre. There were many mountains in the range in view when we got up there, but the biggie, Mt Cook was in a valley of mist and cloud, so we weren’t able to see it at all. Mt Wakefield gave us some views though.

Mt Wakefield at 2000+m

The (supposed to be) view of the Mt Cook range from inside the visitors centre. Looks very cool!

As the views at the village weren’t very good, and we were advised they still weren’t good when in Hooker Valley (the valley that leads to Mt Cook, see above) we drove round to the Tasman Glacier and Lake Tasman for a nice walk and some good sightseeing.

Tasman Glacier is the longest glacier in NZ at 27km. The waters pool at the end of the glacier to form Lake Tasman. Lake Tasman is the youngest lake in NZ at only 30 years old. In the 1970s, it used to be lots of small meltwater ponds and then the more water there was, the more ponds joined until now. It is one of the only lakes in the world to have icebergs in it!!!

It was a 25minute hike up to the Glacier viewpoint, but once we were up there, it was worth it. Not only did we get views of the glacier and lake, we also got views over the valley (which were used in the Lord of the Rings films for the Battle of Pellenor).

The glacier does not look very white but this is the glacier terminal face!

Just to show you the size of the glaciers, look at the boat that’s on the lake!

Naomi finally spotted Mt Cook poking through the clouds (Chris managed to catch the exact moment on camera!!)

The walk to the glacier view was very tiring, but Naomi wanted to go down to the lake too, so she wandered down there on her own (its was 40mins there and back) while Chris waited in the car. Naomi just wanted a closer look at the icebergs!

As it was starting to get late, and light was fading, Chris and I needed to get to our DOC campsite that was at the start of the Hooker Valley in the depths of the mountains. Very picturesque!

Camping and cooking alfresco :) Chris looks like he from some kind of cooking show!!!

Anyways, as we were in the middle of nowhere and it was pitch black at 6pm, we were in bed not to long after that. But not after doing some stargazing as the night sky was unbelievable! Soooooooo many stars!

Day 2

It poured with rain today. So we thought it best to do an indoor activity :) In Aoraki/Mt Cook village, a Sir Edmund Hillary Alpine Centre has been set up dedicated to local climbers and giving lots of local information about the mountain range. For those who don’t know, Sir Edmund Hillary is one of NZ’s biggest stars, being the first man ever to scale Mt Everest. He is seen as something of a god here! There was a planetarium and 3D cinema for the more high tech peeps to enjoy too.

We left Aoraki/Mt Cook in the early afternoon, still with no sighting of Mt Cook so a little disappointed.

But our destination was to our next snow field, so we weren’t disappointed for long :)

We were to be skiing a mountain called Mt Dobson, but the nearest town to it (23km away) was Fairlie. So we spent the rest of the afternoon making our way there, checking out the lay of the land for the next day, and then setting up camp for the night. We found out that Mt Dobson did 2 4 1 ski passes on Mondays, and we had a 2 4 1 pass from our campervan too, so we decided to stay there for a couple of nights. When we checked in to the campsite, they said they do a buy 2 nights get the 3rd free, so it was set, 3 nights in the tiny town of Fairlie to enjoy some sunny skiing :)

Day 3

We got up early to get to the ski rental shop in town and then to get up to the mountains for 9.30ish! Ever eager! What we didn’t realise at the time was that we had a 15 km road up the mountain that takes us up to NZ’s highest car park (the car park for the ski field) at 1700m!!!!

It was a long and windy road up, and at one stage we had to go through the cloud level so visibility was only about 20m!!! But once at the top, it was clear blue skies and sun :) perfect.

We spent the morning on the pomma lift for Chris to get his feet, then headed to the chairlifts for the afternoon. Chris was addicted. The chairlifts made it easy for his leg and the runs down from the chairlifts were brilliant. One big steep basin with lots of powder. Great for Chris on his board, but horrible for Naomi on her skis! She kept getting stuck in all the powder lol! Lots of pictures of beautiful mountains to follow!

The tiny ski resort huts!!!

So the drive back down, we realised again that we would have to go through the cloud cover, so this time we came prepared with a camera to show how bad it was! This time, we were metres from crashing into a giant JCB, just because we couldn’t see it lol!!!

Bearing in mind we had had amazing sunshine all day long, and had some great goggle marks to prove, underneath this cloud cover, apparently the had been terrible! Result!!!

So with very tired legs, we returned happy to our campsite and got fed, showered and chilled out in front of the TV for the evening!

Day 4

We woke up all excited as the weather was beautiful! Got ourselves ready to head up the mountain, drove all the way to the mountain road, only to find the gates locked and shut! We were gutted and couldn’t understand why. So we headed back to Fairlie and asked in town, apparently at the top of the mountain there was 120kph winds and it was way to dangerous to go up there! So we spent the day firstly wandering around Fairlie (which took no time whatsoever) and then played catch up on internet, blog etc killing time till the next day, which was supposed to be great weather for skiing!

Day 5

Once again the sun was shining when we woke, but this time there a little cloud cover. So we drove up to the mountain. There had been snow fall overnight, but the piste conditions were very icy in comparison to Monday. Heaven for Naomi, hell for Chris! Chris was getting a real education in snow conditions as one side of the mountain was icy, and the otherside was ice and powder and the middle was slush!!! But there were even better views today! You could see for miles, and see all the mountains ranges around! It was fantastic. Worthwhile going up the mountain just for the views :)

Chris off piste (by accident coz he couldn’t be bothered with the icy slope we were on! Only problem was, this was icier lol!)

Another fun and successful day on the slopes.

Afterwards, we needed to get ourselves on the road as we had missed out on skiing the day before, we had to get as close to Christchurch as possible. We managed one better and got just north of Christchurch and with the weekly shop done too :) successful evening. Only problem was we stayed in a shocking campsite, so shocking we didn’t dare do anything there lol! So ended up having cheapo dinner at a local pub :)

Dunedin and Otago Peninsula 9th-11th Sep 2010

2010-09-29T19:16:00.001-07:00

Day 1

We drove right across NZ today to the far south east, heading to our DOC bed for the evening. It had a few interesting spots around it so we thought we would head there early and have a look around.

First stop was a nice short walk from the road to Purakaunui Falls. Very pretty and very noisy.

Then onto Jacks Bay and Jacks Blowhole. We were hoping it was just going to be another short walk, but not so this time. It was a long and uphill struggle! But a weird and massive blowhole at the end of the walk. 55m deep, 144m long and 68m wide!

Jack’s blowhole was very hard to take pictures of as the sun was in the wrong place!

And then we got to our campsite for the night, and how happy were we. It was right on the beach and there was only us and another couple to share it with. Fortunately this other couple were english and up for some company and had set up a camp fire. So we sat round the fire till late, drinking tea and coffee and sharing stories :)

Day 2

We had a good drive to the Otago Peninsula today. It is renowned for its wildlife, in particular its rare Royal Albatross and yellow-eyed penguins amongst other things. We didn’t get there till mid afternoon and had a choice of either going to a beach on the other side for the penguins, or go to the peak of the peninsula for the albatross. We chose the former, and chose wrong :( no albatross, just a very informative DOC centre and a lot of shags (type of bird before anyone says anything lol!). There were only 15 mature chicks that couldn’t fly on the peninsula, so there was a very slim chance of seeing anything, and we didn’t unfortunately! So off to bed and try the next day.

Shags nesting in the cliffs

Day 3

We planned to go to Sandfly Bay in the morning which was one of the more natural spots that the public can access without tours to see the wildlife. It was a steep, sandy climb down to the bay and from what we saw initially, there was not a lot of life on the beach. But as we headed further along, everything started.

There was a big black lump on the sand which Naomi tried to tell Chris was a sea lion, but Chris thought it was dead until it started huffing and flapping around!

Lots more sea lions all along the beach, and continually coming in from the sea, getting ready to feed on penguins later in the day!

We tried to get up to the hide to watch out for penguins. The hide was up high in the sand dunes. Naomi was ahead of Chris by about 5m when all of sudden she came rushing back down the hill screaming! As she had got to the entrance of the hide, she had woken a sea lion that was asleep next to the entrance of it (cheeky bugger), it had jumped out at her and they were almost face to face and it was a biggun! Chris didn’t quite believe her so took another route up, and found a big guy waiting for his dins, and he was not happy!!!

Hiding in the bush

And not happy to see us!

From the sand dunes, we thought we saw movement on the rocks at the end of the beach and had heard rumours of a couple of penguins. At first it didn’t look like anything was there, then we started spotted dozens of seals, and then, from behind a rock in the distance, a little yellow head poked out! Amazing, we had managed to find 2 of the endangered yellow-eyed penguins without being on a tour :) we marvelled at all these creatures until they were gone, and we had taken a million pictures lol!

(You will need to open these pictures up to see the penguins as they are quite well camouflaged otherwise)

As we walked back up the beach an hour later, there were so many sea lions coming into shore that we were struggling as to where to walk on the beach without disturbing them!

Some mums were having a little fight off for beach space!

The uphill struggle back to the car!

After a fun filled morning, we headed off the peninsula not without stopping to admire some of the views of it, especially the ones looking over towards Dunedin.

Views of the peninsula.

We spent the rest of the day in Dunedin enjoying a nice eclectic city. We did want to go on the Cadbury’s tour, but they were all fully booked, so we just spent a good portion of the entry fee on chocolate instead! Reminded us of being home lol (that was our excuse anyway!).

Then to the immigrants museum which was actually fascinating. Especially the room with all the paintings and photos of the immigrants in the 1840s, 50s and 60s!

Chris in a Maori hut!

As it got dark, we headed on the road to a DOC campsite halfway between Dunedin and Mt Cook to give us some headway for the next day. We ended up spending most of the night drinking tea and coffee in a German couple’s campervan whilst putting the world to rights for hours!

Very very very fun day! Felt like we really had seen something truly touching today :)

Lake Wanaka, Queenstown and Te Anau 3rd to 8th Sep 2010

2010-09-14T01:14:00.001-07:00

It was a lovely drive from Haast to Wanaka. We drove along side the absolutely massive and very beautiful Lake Wanaka for what seemed like ages and then passed its sister lake, Lake Hawea before getting to the outskirts of Wanaka.

Lake Wanaka

Lake Hawea

Take a close up at Lopside Knob!!! Made us laugh!!!

We had plans to go to Puzzling World on the outskirts of town. Puzzling town is one of the world’s leading illusion attractions with an amazing Great Maze and the Illusions room and lots of little brain teasers to keep you occupied for hours! We had lots and lots of childish fun, it was awesome!

All concentrating hard on our puzzles lol!

Figure out how we’re actually standing upright but look like we’re on a tilt!?!?

Mystic Chris

The very cool entrance to the toilets

The maze that took half an hour to complete with running and a mad hunt to beat Chris and Scouse Steph, unfortunately Naomi and Manc Steph failed lol!!

There is a cinema in Wanaka that is a NZ treasure. We went along in the afternoon to book ourselves in for the evening showing of Inception, only to find it was fully booked and had a waiting list!!!! Intrigued by this, we put our names down on the waiting list (14th-18th!!!) and were told to come back just before the show started.

When we returned in the evening, there was a massive crowd waiting to get in. We thought our chances were pretty slim, but luckily some people didn’t show, so we got in. Whoop!

This cinema theatre was awesome. There were sofas, aeroplane seats, Morris Minor and everything you could think of that had seats, were there as cinema seats! Then they had an intermission halfway through the showing for hot cookies and ice cream. Cinema heaven :)

Next day, we drove to Queenstown and just pottered round the town centre for the day. It was full of ski shops and tourist centres for all the extreme activities in the local area and is based on what’s meant to be a beautiful lake scene, but the weather was too bad to be able to see it!

We stayed at another DOC campsite that night just north of Queenstown. It was next to a lake in the middle of nowhere, but we couldn’t see the lake as the field was so muddy, we had to camp on the gravel track so as not to get the camper stuck in the mud.

The weather was terrible that evening, and we just stayed in our respective campers. We tried to cook soup for dinner inside the camper and nearly blew the whole thing up. Chris lost a few arm hairs in that stunt lol!

We were tucked up in bed by 6.30pm as it was so dark lol!

Next day, we all moved on. We had to say a very sad goodbye to Steph and Steph who we had loved travelling with for this time. They were off to Dunedin on the east coast as they only had 3 weeks in NZ :( sad times!

But we had one last meal together and treated ourselves to a fish and chips restaurant lunch :)

We headed further south to the town of Te Anau in the afternoon and set up camp in a nice (but cold) campsite. Te Anau is the terminal for Milford Sounds. As we got into town, we noticed a road sign that said the road from Te Anau to Milford was shut. This was not a good sign. There had been avalanches in the bad weather over the last couple of days, so we had to wait until 7.30am the next morning when they update the sign to see if we could drive to Milford Sounds for a boat cruise.

Unfortunately for the next 2 days, the sign remained closed and as they didn’t know when it would open, we just had to bite the bullet and head onwards (much to Naomi’s disappointment!).

There was nothing else to do in Te Anau so we spent two days tucked away in our campsite watching films and updating the blog :)

So we decided to head back to the East Coast to continue our adventure.

Franz Josef Glacier and Gillespie Beach 1st-2nd Sep 2010

2010-09-13T04:08:00.001-07:00

Franz Josef Glacier

We were up early as our glacier tour departed at 8.45am. It was not a good start to the day though as it had poured with rain all night. However, we had discovered that Franz Josef has the highest annual rainfall a year in NZ, so we’ll let them off :)

And before you make any comments about our attire for the journey, yes we look like losers, but kept us dry and warm up the glacier :)

It was a 10 minute bus ride up to the glacier car park, then another 10 minute walk before we even caught sight of the glacier. From the point of where we first saw Franz Josef, it was a 40 minute walk before even setting foot on the terminal face (the actual face that is seen at the bottom of the glacier). Franz Josef is 12km and terminates only 19km from the west coast of NZ and it is still growing at a rate of 70cm a day.

So back to our walk….

The 40min walk to the glacier!

When we finally got to the glacier, the terminal face was mountainous, but had to be climbed and of course we got put in the fit group (cough cough lol) so off we trotted up the huge hill of rubble!

Crampons (ice climbing spikes) on and we will let the rest of the pictures do the talking. Absolutely amazing morning, and the weather even cleared up at the end of the climb :)

If you look closely, you can see people climbing on the glacier, this is the point we would get to after 2 hours climbing. To climb the whole glacier would be an overnight trip and would take 16hours!!!

Yes, it really was this wet!

The view of glacier valley, many years ago, the glacier expanded 12km further through this valley! The rocky formations on the top of the glacier in this picture are actually, incredibly 80metres high!!!

Steps carved into the glacier to make our life climbing easier!

As you can see, there was a lot of white and blue going on! Fortunately, the day cleared up for a bit so we got some stunning pictures, we were worried all the pictures were going to be covered in raindrops!

As we were all frozen to the bone, we went for a hot pool afternoon to help relax our tired muscles and warm up a bit. Only thing was we had to get over getting from the changing rooms to the outdoor hot pools! There were 3 pools: 36, 38 and 40 degrees. We all liked the 38 degree pool best :)

To end a great day, a full rainbow which we all definitely thought ended at our campervans in our campsite (looked like it anyways!).

Fox Glacier

Next day we drove to the next town which is Fox Glacier, but we only did the 10 min walk to the glacier view rather than the full shabang this time!

Gillespies Beach

We then headed down the coastal road from Fox Glacier to Gillespies Beach. It was a long and winding road, and when we finally got to the beach, it was sooooooooooooooooo windy! We had been told about this beach by another traveller we had met along the way. According to him, there were seals right on the beach next to the car park. So with this in mind, we headed onto the beach with no food, water, or decent shoes or anything really except our cameras! We couldn’t see any seals when we got onto the beach, so we started walking. 45 minutes of walking later, we still hadn’t seen a seal, but we were finally in sight of a bridge. Having gone this far, we thought we may as well continue!

About 20 minutes further on from the bridge, we came to a very disheartening sign that read “Seal Colony – 2 hour return from this point” :( we were not happy. But as we had got this far, and the weather was holding out, we continued on.

The path that was leading us to the seals was one of the worst paths ever, it was more like a waterfall, and in places, it was like a cross between the krypton factor and the crystal maze trying to figure out how to get across the water and the bridges!

FINALLY, we made it to the beach!!!! But we were in the middle of the beach and it was huge and we had no clue which way to go and were giving up hope at this point. We were all hungry, thirsty, tired and were not in the mood for a seal hunt. When Chris, out of the corner of his eye, saw a sign made out of pebbles! Seals –>!

So another 20 minutes of walking later, Naomi moaning like a teenager from Kevin and Perry and we caught sight of a singular seal. That was enough to keep us all happy :)

Then we saw more and more and more until we realised we were right in the centre of the colony. The walk had been well worth it and we were happy to just sit and marvel at the wondrous sight. A sight that was for us and no one else :) nature and wildlife at its best. There were moments where it felt like David Attenborough would cut in with some commentary!

So in high spirits we headed back along the long path home!

And past the signs that were very very very misleading!

All in all, the walk and staying with the seals for a while took us just over 5 hours! It was well worth it, but we were so unprepared! A great day off the guide book and into the wilderness! We drove 100km to the next major town, Haast, found a campsite and then all we did that night was rest our very very tired legs!

Porter Heights skiing/boarding and Arthurs Pass 29th-31st Aug 2010

2010-08-30T00:19:00.000-07:00

We got to our overnight stop, Springfield (for an idea of where it is, its 20km from the epicentre of the NZ earthquake at the weekend!), ready to put our skis and boards on the following day. Chris and Naomi chose to travel the 30km to the slopes to check it out for the next day. Its not like in the European alps where the resorts are connected to the slopes, here the slopes are completely on their own in the middle of nowhere. So the first 15km were on normal road, then we turned off onto a gravel road for the last 15km. This gravel road climbed and climbed and climbed to the point where it felt like we were the equivalent to Ben Nevis high, when finally, through the bends in the road, we caught sight of the slopes! Scary scary road! With shear drops on one side of us, if anything had come in the other direction on some parts of the road, we would have been stuffed. Sussed it all out and then headed back to our $3.50pp camp site for the evening! It was pouring with rain all night, so we cooked dinner and we all got an early night as we had to head to the slopes just after 8am.

So we all planned to do snowboard lessons the next day.

We did the main road to the gravel road again. Steph and Steph came in our car as the only person that felt confident driving the road to the slopes was Chris. But as it had rained all night, with the altitude of the slopes, it had snowed pretty heavily overnight and the track up the mountain was only passable with snow chains. So out we all got, put the chains on like novices as none of us had a clue how to, and got on the steep road up again. About 250m from the car park, the car started sliding around all over the place. We jumped out and found that one snow chain had completely disappeared, while the other was all caught up underneath it. To top things off, the snow bus was behind us! So while Naomi ran down the mountain to find the lost snow chain, the people on the bus helped to put the car as close to inside of the road as poss as we were right in the way. Naomi had to run halfway down the mountain to find the other snow chain. We were very lucky nothing more serious happened.

The road up the mountain!!!

View from the car park on the mountain road!!!

As it took so long to get the snow chains back on again, we sent Steph and Steph on ahead to get themselves sorted for the 10am class.

We finally got to the slopes at 9.55am but were told it was too late for the lesson, which actually worked to our advantage. It meant we could go onto the beginners slopes and practise our turns and see how far off being beginners we were.

Naomi was having no problems with her edges and getting her heel turns, but here problem was it took her 10 attempts to get up the Pomma drag lift lol! When she finally got up to the top, the cheeky lift attendant said to her “he was getting lonely at the bottom without her!!” Lol!

On one of the attempts up the draglift, Naomi fell off and badly tweaked her knee, there was a distinct pop and crack. She persevered till lunchtime, then exchanged her boards and bindings for good old trusted skis.

Chris on the other was like a fish to water with snowboarding. It only took him a couple of runs down the slopes before he was looking like he’d been doing it for years! As we had paid for afternoon lessons, Chris used his lesson to get tips from the instructor on fine tuning his turning and control. But by the end of the lesson, he was told to head up the mountain to some harder/steeper slopes :) whilst Chris had been having his lessons, Naomi headed up the mountain to let loose on her skis!

The end of the day was spent coming down from the midway point on the T bar drag lift, but as we were knackered, it was taking its toll on us all and so Chris only did a few runs.

The view (or lack of) from the midway station!

Manc Steph didn’t really enjoy being on the snow much so choose to sit out the afternoon session. To be honest, we didn’t blame her as the weather was terrible. We had been in a blizzard all morning! While scouse Steph was picking up snowboarding very quickly :) she was just having the same fun that Naomi had with the drag lifts lol!

The girls in their lesson and on the slopes!

Due to the bad weather, this is why we don’t have many photos and the ones we do have are a bit misty!!!

The weird parrots (Keas) at the top of the mountain!

Hot showers, chips at the local pub and early to bed after a good day on the slopes :) almost an apres ski evening in europe lol!

Arthurs Pass

We were going to do 2 days skiing, but as Naomi’s knee was suffering and Chris’s legs were very tired, we plodded on along the road hoping to get to see some of Arthurs Pass today. When we left the campsite in the morning, the weather was still terrible. Lots of rain and very very low cloud, so there was not a lot of confidence for Arthurs Pass which was about 100km away.

However, as we got through the eastern mountains and got closer to the west coast, the clouds lifted and the rain stopped and there were smiles all round!

We were on the road to the West Coast through Arthur’s Pass National Park which is a valley lined with mountains and beautiful scenery. Once we were in Arthurs Pass village, we went for a couple of walks into the hills. Our first walk was to the Devils Punch Bowl falls which is a huge 130m high and is a 30min walk from the car park :) we chose the easy walks today as everyone was shattered, this first walk was meant to be one of the easy ones, but was very up and downhill! Exhausting!

And our second walk was into a wood that reminded us of something from Alice in Wonderland, dark and yet beautiful at the same time.

The opening that the path lead out to reminded us of scenes from Japanese films, and proceeded to attend to imitate them :)

After another exhausting day of exercise but in beautiful scenery, we headed over to the west coast through the Pass and stayed in a nice DOC campsite that evening, with plans to do nothing active the next day :)

The next day was spent driving south to Glacier territory. It was a good 200km but as it was all windy and hilly roads, it took most of the day, which was a good thing as we didn’t fancy doing too much and it was pouring with rain too!

Banks Peninsula, New Zealand 28th-29th Aug 2010

2010-08-28T19:37:00.000-07:00

About 100km east of Christchurch is Banks Peninsula, which are beautiful hills formed by two giant volcanic eruptions. Captain James Cook sighted the peninsula in 1770 and thought it was an island.

So we left Christchurch early in the morning with the girls in tow, and headed out east. The weather was meant to be very nice, so we were all expecting some very good views. But nothing like what we got presented with. The views were just breath-taking, so much so that pictures just don’t do it justice.

We took the long scenic drive high up into the peninsula that followed Akaroa Harbour round to Akaroa town. Here are just some of the amazing views we had on the way:

Along the way, there were all sorts of friends on the road, had to be very careful coming round every corner!

By the time we got to Akaroa town, it was time for a nice picnic lunch on the picturesque harbour front :)

We were hoping to do some mountain-biking from the top of one of the craters, but unfortunately they don’t do it in winter due to the poor track conditions, so instead we settled for a wander around town! It became very apparent, very quickly, that there was something very French about Akaroa (meaning Long Harbour in Maori). We found out that Akaroa was the first French settlement back in 1840. There is lots of Rue this and Boulangerie that etc etc…. all added to the effect :)

But one thing that we still could not explain was, right in the centre of town, were North West English Morris Dancers!?!?!

We stayed that night on the peninsula in one of the easterly bays, Okains Bay. We got there early on so we could explore our surroundings. We were staying in a small forest campsite that was right on the beach :) and it was deserted :)

The best thing about the campsite was that it had an awesome play area with a zip wire, kept us happy for ages :) here are just a few of the many pictures we took having fun here lol, such big kids lol.

We had a fun night in our camp kitchen but we all forgot to bring a torch with us. We had about 300m from the kitchen to our vans in the pitch black (being guided by mobile phone light), it felt like something out of Blair Witch (scary film for those who don’t know!).

Just to show what a good day we had chosen to go to the Peninsula. Below is a picture of exactly the same area from the pictures above, but the day after! Quite a difference :)

So back to Christchurch for the girls to upgrade there van to a posh one (called Bender lol!) and onto the Arthur’s Pass road for our day of snowboarding the next day! Whoop!

Christchurch New Zealand 24th-27th Aug 2010

2010-08-26T19:09:00.000-07:00

Our first four days in New Zealand were spent in the very lovely and very English city of Christchurch. Our first 2 days were spent getting our bearings, the campervan and essential shopping so it wasn’t until the 26th that we got to properly look around the city.

The first thing that strikes you about Christchurch is how quiet it is! When on the aeroplane over to NZ, Naomi was reading the guidebook and read that NZ has a population of 43 million! So we thought it was going to be just like home. But on reading that Christchurch is the 2nd largest city in NZ with only 344,000 population, something didn’t add up. So Chris re-consulted the guidebook, and slight over exaggeration. Naomi had read the population for sheep in NZ!!!! Population for humans is only 4 million!!! Whoops lol!

Anyways, so we headed out to the city in the morning. The only way we can really describe Christchurch is almost like Oxford, just without the big posh university!

Our Lonely Planet guide had quite a good walking tour in it for the city, so we followed that for most of the day. We started off in the Lichfield ‘Lanes’ part of town, which was where all the old mills were that were now converted into cafes, bars and quirky shops!

We then went up the high street which is full of huge sculptures and of course shops but we weren’t really interested in that part of it!

And from there into Cathedral Square, which funnily enough is called this because this is where the cathedral is! There are also a few market stalls and some amazing musical buskers. We sat around here and enjoyed watching the world go by for it! Also the info centre is here, so naturally Naomi had to find out all the ski offers :)

We headed along the tram line (the tram here is only for tourist purposes and costs a fortune but is very pretty!) through the glass atrium of Cathedral Junction onto New Regent Street which is full of pastel-coloured Spanish architecture! Its also full of cafes and bakeries so we thought this would be a good place for lunch.

From here it was now the more natural scenic route, through Victoria Park and along the Avon River down to the Bridge of Remembrance. But we got stuck in the park for a while as Chris was happily watching and feeding some ducklings we happened across.

One thing for sure about Christchurch is that it is a very well kept, manicured city and they are very proud of it. And to be honest, walking around it, you could really feel the pride in all there work!

From the Avon River we went to the Botanical Gardens, pottered around there for a little bit just before it started to get a little cold. Then headed into the museum that is within the grounds of the gardens to learn a little more about NZ and maori culture. Very interesting indeed! We only managed to cover the ground floor before closing time though :(

That evening, we were picking some friends up from the airport (Steph and Steph that we had met in Fraser Island) but they weren’t flying in till 11pm, so we went to the cinema to kill some time :) one thing with a campervan, if you have nothing planned in the evenings, you can very easily be tucked up watching a movie in bed at 7pm!!! So we picked the girls up from the airport, they were starving so we went to a Macy D’s for food and to catch up and then we tucked up into our beds in the hostel around 1.30am! Very late night for us!

Next day we mosied around the city with the girls, we started off over at the Art Centre (next to the museum) and spent an hour or so in there, couldn’t take any pictures of the artwork though as it was all for sale! Did get some good pictures of the outside of the Art Centre which did remind us of Oxford Uni a little bit.

We then went to the museum and got to do the rest of the floors that we had missed out on the previous day :) lots about antarctic explorers, in particular about Robert Scott (he is a big hero here!).

We spent the rest of the day checking into our campsite and going to the supermarket :) best supermarket we had seen in a while, reminded us of a Macro back home :)

Us with Mulder and the Black Hole (our spaceships for the journey)