We said goodbye to all of our Wellington friends, packed up our life in our backpacks and took off to the South Island on February 23, 2010. It was quite the feat to pack everything into our packs and as per usual, we were amazed at the stuff we had accumulated over the last 3.5 months. We got almost all the way to the airport by taxi when I asked Clement where the camera was…it wasn’t with us. It was back in Mt. Victoria at our friends’ flat! So we rushed back and thankfully still made our flight to Christchurch on time. Speaking of our flight, we had an interesting experience at the Wellington airport. We checked in at the counter and got our passports out. When we handed them to the JetStar staff, he said “I don’t need those mate, I trust yas”. We didn’t think much of it, because we were just happy our bags were accepted and underweight (you have to pay to have your luggage with you and they charge you through the roof if they are even the slightest bit over). So, we continued on to the gate and kept wondering where security was. Finally, just as we see our gate we notice a small x-ray machine. Knowing that we’d have to put them all in a clear plastic airport bag, I had all of our “liquids, gels, and aerosols” packed into the front of one kitbag. When we got to the machine, I asked the woman for one of the famous clear bags. She just shook her head and told me it was only necessary on International flights. So, once again we pull out our boarding passes and our passports, only for them to wave us on through and not look at them. We thought surely at this point, they would be checking everything when we boarded the plane…nope! Not one person throughout the whole check-in and security process asked for identification! We were stunned. It was quite refreshing for a change…or was it? Either way, we had a quick flight to Christchurch where we arrived to 30 degree sunny weather!
We stayed at our friend Alan’s father’s house in Christchurch for the night. He had offered us to stay there and when you are travelling, you quickly learn to take anyone up on their offer for a bed! They lived a short ten minute walk to the city centre so we spent the morning walking around the city before picking up our “Wicked” campervan and heading out of town. We had somewhat of an itinerary for this 10 day trip, but the weather wasn’t cooperating the way we would have liked. We spent our first night in Hokitika (Jade or “Greenstone” as Kiwis call it capital of NZ). We pulled down this long gravel road and settled in for the night….in a van, down by the river. There wasn’t much to see or do in Hokitika so we took off early the next morning to head to the Glaciers (Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers) on the west coast of the South Island. When we arrived, you couldn’t see anything! We were fairly high up and in the clouds, so there wasn’t much to see, not to mention the heavy rains. We quickly decided that because we have been to the Columbian Icefields in Alberta and had walked on a glacier before, we would continue on down the coast to Wanaka. We probably wouldn’t have stopped in Wanaka, except for the fact that this small ski town (similar to Jasper) was getting so much press from the skiers and snowboarders at the Olympics that we decided it was worth our while. All of the North American athletes come to NZ to train in the summer (which is in the heat of the ski season here). It was certainly worth our while. We were also pretty excited about being able to shower (no water, electricity or showers when you are freedom camping!). We spent the evening with a really nice couple from Washington, DC and watched the sunset from one of the mountains. We continued on to the talked about Queenstown. It is a nice little ski town that is very similar to Banff. We weren’t blown away by it, but it was certainly beautiful. It may have been because of all the hype that we expected more. Having said that, we spent one of our best nights yet just outside of Queenstown at a place called Moke Lake. We drove down this long dirt road (about 15km) where sheep were roaming freely to come to this small lake in the middle of amazing mountains. We pulled up and decided we would spend the night there. We were virtually all by ourselves surrounded by pure beauty. We cracked a beer, read our books and of course, boiled some Mr. Noodles for supper. We soaked it all in and had a great sleep with nothing much but the sounds of small fish jumping in the lake and the odd Baaaaaa in the distance.
On our way into town at about 0800 hrs (trying to avoid the wardens, ha), we noticed this person walking down the long dirt road with no shirt on (remember, there was nobody and nothing around with the exception of thousands of sheep). As we approached him, he turned to us and stuck his thumb out. Clement slowed down and was tempted to continue on until I said we should pick him up. We rolled down the window as asked what he needed. After lying and saying that we weren’t going into Queenstown (Clement told him we were going to some random place that we had seen on a sign), we finally decided to let him hop in. It turns out this guy (about 25 years old) was from BC and had lived in Wellington for the last three months! He and his friends were out at the lake fishing (and drinking whisky) the night before and they left him there! He wasn’t sure if he had pissed them off or if it was just a mean joke (the whisky did its job), but he woke up in a ditch with a car driving right past his head!! He had already been walking for two hours and was shivering. He was a heli-logger back in BC and was heading back to Canada the following day, so this was his last night out partying with his friends in Queenstown. It was really cold that night too, as we were high in altitude where they get frost. He was a really friendly guy so we told him that we lied and weren’t really going to “Glenorchy” and that we’d take him to where he was staying. He said he was going in to “punch some sleeping faces” (which I would have done myself if my friends did that to me). He was so grateful that we stopped to pick him up and it certainly spiced up our morning as we laughed with him the whole way back to town.
It was a beautiful sunny day so we spent the day outside cruising around, sitting by the lake and then checked into a campground to have a warm shower. In case you didn’t know, Queenstown is the “adventure capital of NZ” (and NZ is the adventure capital of the world). Seeing as Clement had gone skydiving in Taupo, I had planned on doing “something” I wasn’t quite sure what that “something” would be though. I thought about paragliding, but we took off early the next morning as it was once again, raining! Our destination was to Te Anau and Milford Sound in the Fiordland National Park. We arrived in Te Anau and booked a boat cruise through the Milford Sound for the next morning. We set up camp in a small area called Lake Gunn. It was raining so we tucked in under a tree and called it a night (not without a couple of hours of Crazy Eights first though...our new addiction and favorite pastime). It rained harder than we had ever seen it rain all night and when we woke up in the morning there was a rapidly flowing river next to our van! It’s a good job we didn’t park a couple of meters to the left, because we would have had a rude awakening and probably ended up in the lake! We drove up, over and even through a couple of mountains with hundred of huge waterfalls and rapids all around us. It was still raining extremely hard, so the water was rising quickly. We took a 3 hour boat cruise through the Fiord which was nice. We couldn’t see very much because of the heavy rains and high wind, but we could certainly see how spectacular it would be on a nice day. We were also told that going to the Fiordland National Park expecting to see a sunny day was like going to the desert and expecting it to rain. The guide on the boat with us explained how there are only 4 permanent waterfalls in that area and when we were there, there were thousands! Some of these waterfalls originated over a mile and half high. He explained that within 20 minutes of the rain stopping, the waterfalls also stop. It was an interesting and beautiful day, although we were a little disappointed that we didn’t stay another night in Queenstown to watch the Canada-US gold medal game…ok, A LOT disappointed. We’ve always said we were proud to be Canadian, but as we sit half way around the world we find ourselves more and more patriotic. A very proud couple of weeks these have been.
We did a couple of more night of freedom camping on a beautiful lake that was aqua blue with Mt. Cook in view. It reminded us a lot of Lake Louise and was amazing to watch the sunset and to wake up to such beauty in the morning. At one point in the night I had to wake Clement up because the van was shaking so hard from the wind that I kept having visions of us starting to coast down the hill and into the lake. He got up and pulled the parking break, which actually helped to steady the van. I didn’t get much sleep, but the views were well worth a sleepless night. We played many more hours of crazy eights and Clement finally finished his first book ever!! 800 pages on Neil Young…not exactly what I would choose, but he was pretty proud to finish it after lugging the 6 pounder around for 4 months. We are currently sitting in a campground in Fairlie (2 hours outside of Christchurch) and they have free wireless!! I almost couldn’t contain myself when I heard this news because it is simply unheard of in NZ. And the best part is that the connection actually works! So, we are no longer in a van, down by the river but enjoying the sun and preparing to head back to Christchurch tomorrow to drop off Popeye (our van’s name) and fly out to Melbourne! More to come from Aussie in the next week or two. Until then, stay fit and have fun.
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