Its a little cold here in Franz Josef as I decided to finally start
writing the blog for New Zealand. Nice place so far. Everyone had told
us that Christchurch was a shithole, but I dont agree. When we finally
completed the seemingly endless flight over from Sydney we touched down
at 12.40am. Wondeful. Just the 4km walk to the campsite, but first we
had to go through quarantine. We had a tent and hiking boots.
Seriously dangerous equipment so naturally we had to wait ages for the
immigration officials to check them. Wish I'd washed the tent now.
There was a girl complaining that she had to go all the way to the
bottom of the bag to get out the tent and was it really necessary.
Given that we had been waiting for 1 hour watching everyone else do this
process, it seemed like a rather stupid and redundant question. After
having our tent inspected we passed the screening and were off for a
nice night time stroll to the campsite. On the road we saw a giant dead
mammal. Looked beautiful apart from the dead part. What was it? I
thought Kiwiland didn't have any mammals. Weird. We would later
discover that this was a Possum and they were apparently a plague in New
Zealand with an estimated 80 million. That seems somewhat of an
exaggerated estimate to me. We made it to the campsite, found our key
pinned to the board and settled in.
In the morning we set off for Christchurch proper. It only took a good
5km walk and then a bus into the centre, but we got some great sushi in a
local mall. Looks very suburban here. We got to the centre and took a
walk around. It seemed quite cute to me. The earthquake damage was
not too noticeable though large sections of the centre were still
cordoned off. The collapsed cathedral is interesting to see and they
are putting up some nice displays around the city. It feels like
wandering around a very English city. The punting on the tiny river in
town looks like a complete waste of time though. The museum and the
surrounding area probably have the most impressive architecture given
its made from this black and white stone. Probably the coolest thing
though, is the shopping arcade made out of shipping containers. Cool,
colourful and funky. If this is how they plan to rejuvenate the city
then it bodes well for the future. We had some great Greek food and ice
cream down there and wandered round to the park. There is a cute cafe
there and we came across a free music festival. Nice to see some life
in the city. It was already better than the festivals we had seen in
Sydney. Always disappointing. We stayed there for a while and then
headed back to the campsite. Its not an amazing city but its worth a
day or so if you have the time. We decided against going to the Akaroa
Peninsula as we have decided that on this holiday we were only going to
do things if we really wanted to and not head to so many 50:50s as they
are almost always crappy. Lucky decision for us as Christchurch and
Akaroa got mullered by a heavy storm just after we left and there was
serious flooding and loss of power.
The next day we got a free ride back to the airport to pick up our bus
to Lake Tekapo. We were off and running. The scenery is pretty dull
around New Zealand if you aren't in the best places. That's probably
because it looks just like England. Lots of green farmland. Nothing
new there. We slept a bit and rocked up to Lake Tekapo in the middle of
a cold snap. We were unaware of that as we were forced to camp for 2
nights. The tent paid for itself with one night of camping. Saves you
money here, but as it was so cold we figured that it was best to stay in
dorms and save on food and also that it wasn't worth going to Stewart
Island (maybe we should have as we were unaware that this was just a
cold snap. Worst nights to camp). There is not a lot to do here but
the lake is beautiful and we wanted some days to chill out. We took the
time here to sort out the Great Walks we would do in the South.
Milford was fully booked, but we could get a hut on the Kepler as we
decided to just do the interesting part of it and on the Routeburn we
could only get a campsite for one night. Better than nothing. They
have an observatory here but we figured it was too expensive and just
saw the night sky for free. Beautiful stars.
The next day we sorted out transport to Mt Cook and climbed up Mt John
to the observatory. Its an easy walk and the views are really nice.
They also do a mean cheese toastie. We chilled out around the lake and
decided to book our whole route around the south of the island as we now
knew we had to be in certain towns on certain days for the walks. I
don't enjoy travelling that way, but it was necessary here and with one
bus a day on the South Island they tend to fill up fast (we had the
unlimited nakedbus pass for just $480 and it has got us everywhere we
want to go except Mt Cook and Rob Roy Glacier). We also needed the time
to relax after working in Oz. Can't complain too much though when you
work just 7 months in 3 years.
We got the Cook Connection bus to Mt Cook. The driver is really cool
(he even climbed Mt Cook) and gave some nice commentary on the way. The
weather was shitty and most people had come for the day with one girl
even coming just for the bus ride. Mental. You really have to stay in
places in New Zealand as you can never guarantee the weather. If its a
good day you really need to take advantage of it. Though we have had
limited rain with March/April seeing just rain every 3 days normally,
while January/February has rain every 2 days. We couldn't see much and
decided against doing anything the first day there so just chilled in
the hostel. Luckily the cold snap was coming to an end. You don't seem
to get free wi-fi anywhere in New Zealand with the damn YHA charging
you $7.50 a day. This is where I started to think that this country
operates with a lot of stealth fucking you in the arse. Always charges,
always extras for everything. I always thought wi-fi and breakfast
were almost minimum standards for hostels. We did the Kea Point walk
and got chatting with a German soldier who had been hiking for 3 months
around New Zealand. He told us Nelson Lakes and the Cascade Saddle were
the best walks he had done. He didn't like treks with lots of people
on them though. Having said that the Cascade Saddle looks really nice
and I would love to have hiked it if we had had the time. This walk is
very easy and takes you to overlook a glacial lake which has a weird
grey colour to it. We didn't see any keas though on the way back we
found about 10 of them in the car park of the hotel. It seems like car
parks are the best places to see keas, because all 4 times we have seen
them have been in car parks or at huts on trails. They were busy
fighting and breaking buses with their beaks.
The following morning we had our first purely blue sky clear day.
Awesome. We set off on the Hooker Valley track and its a beautiful
walk. One of our favourites so far and the first truly beautiful thing
we saw in New Zealand. You walk over swing bridges and through the
valley until you round the corner and walk towards the glacial lake with
Mt Cook and friends towering above you in the valley. Its a really
beautiful place and the Hooker Valley glacial lake was full of icebergs
which was the first time I had seen this. Its a must do if you have the
time and the weather here. Very satisfied we got even luckier when we
leaving as we caught a perfect mirror reflection of Mt Cook in Lake
Pukaki. Stunning. The lake itself is also very beautiful. Probably
even more so than Lake Tekapo, but both of them have an amazing
turquoise colour from the rocks that were ground down from the
glaciers. We got dropped off in Twizel. There is nothing to do here so
we just chilled out in the cute hotel and chatte with an English guy
(Steve) who had been travelling for a while. He went off hitchhiking to
see Lake Pukaki and then we just chatted in the evening until th next
day. That day we would take a bus back to Christchurch, where the
flooding had apparently stopped.
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