Queenstown and Wanaka

Well hello again. So what have we been up to?

After we last caught up we were at Franz Joseph and now we are meeting up with Flick and Jon again for a few days in Queenstown... this meant lots of drinking. We had this wonderful pass to a place called Buffalo Bar which gave us an amazing 2-4-1 on drinks. and even though we kept trying to leave this bar in search of other activities we just couldn't, it wouldn't have been fair to the offer. So we spent many days and nights playing 'shithead' and drinking lots of beer....or BARDS if you will.

Beer and Cards - BARDS

Our lovely bar staff stocking us up on 2-4-1's

For a couple of nights Flick's friend James (hello James if you are reading) joined us all the way from Sydney. James turned out to also be a fan of the Bards so again we had no reason to leave the Buffalo.... Unfortunately I decided it would be a good idea to start betting with James (on games of cards and pool) and as I don't carry money (which is probably a good thing) I decided to bet, and promptly lose 2 hair bobbles... OMG! So in a desperate attempt to win them back I up-ed the stakes to my shoes. Turns out I am bad at betting and almost lost them also. BUT I had a secret ace up my sleeve. My shoes STINK. I am not kidding, they are like sweaty football shoes and socks after a match - belonging to the whole team - in just my little pumps and I am counting on the fact that no-one in their right mind would want to keep such a thing close to them for long and I was right. They soon were placed firmly back on my feet where they could fester away some more. It took a little longer to get the hair bobbles but I assume by the next morning James decided his hair wasn't quite long enough to warrant keeping my hair bobbles and so they were returned. phew. But just you wait 'til I am in Sydney and we will be having a rematch...maybe for a holey odd sock.

James and Flick enjoying Bards

On the way to losing my shoes

So other than copious drinking we did a few times manage to get out of the hostel and do some other activities. We walked up a hill. We walked round a park. We posted some stuff home. Super.

The walk up the hill is where the gondola goes up to the top and most normal people would just get the gondola for about 11GBP each. However, we are travellers and explorers (different to 'tourists' see) so we thought we would walk and save the money. A 45minute walk slowly turned into a 2hr 15min walk. Jon has a love of rocks and nature and stuff so we got to stop and enjoy the nature a lot. By the time we got to the top it had turned a tad cold, the views had been just as spectacular from halfway up, Flicks knee hurt and my hips had gone so we got the gondola back down for about 7GBP each.

View from the top

The park is lovely. it is filled with huge tree's, a mini-lake with cute ducks and you can play Frisbee-golf (like golf but you throw a Frisbee around the course) Unfortunately when we got there there was nowhere to hire a Frisbee from and we couldn't be bothered to go back into town and buy one so we just went to the Buffalo.

Queenstown's lake

Beautiful lake in the park

I can see you!

We did break out of our hungover habit of sleep, wander, drink for a day and visited nearby Arrowtown. Arrowtown is another old gold mining town on the west coast and has been protected to stay the same as it was back in the gold-mining days but it still functions as a modern town with sweet shops, post offices, restaurants, a super cute Chinese-styled cinema and bars. Well it would be rude not to have one wouldn't it? Jon also took us for a walk to an area where they filmed a part of LOTR as they had been a few days before with a friend who was a tour guide... and get this..they got to hold swords and stuff from the film. Awesome. Back to the Buffalo then?

oooh and we saw Harry Potter 7:1. I loved it..what do you think? I think part of my love if it is that it's very English in it's setting and it was nice seeing a bit of London and the fashion the kids are wearing these days. ahhh, I miss London.

On our last day night we went WILD as it was full-moon and so the town was full of full-moon parties. This means drinking from buckets instead of glasses, painting yourself in illuminous colours and dancing with glowsticks. We decided to go all out and get dressed up for the night. I can't quite remember why but I decided to wear sunglasses to pretend to be a celebrity who wears sunglasses on a night out. Seriously I don't know why. But I did think that no-one would believe I was a real celebrity so we thought I should say I was from Hollyoaks. And this would then secure us our favourite table in Buffalo. Right.

'Get off my bucket'

Papa-paparazzi (maybe not)

Party

The following day the weather cheered up a bit and we got to go on our micro-flight to the Milford Sounds. We had been waiting for a few days to go as they can't fly when the weather is bad (obviously) and we had gotten a bit of a deal on the price of the flight so we thought we would save a 2-day drive and be flashpackers and fly there. Only when I got to the plane did I remember that I am afraid of flying. I am afraid of flying in great big planes with many engines and it hadn't occurred to me that I might be more afraid flying in a 4-seater plane (our car interior is bigger) with one desk fan to power the thing at the front. This is why I look ready to cry in most of the airplane photos!

Our deathplane

Scared-silly (haha)

Duncan says that outside the window it was beautiful! The view across the mountains which are just covered in snow still and down to the lakes and rivers on the ground are apparently awesome! When we got to the Milford Sound I was just about relaxed enough and enjoyed the view as we flew up the estuary over the beautiful blue sea and back to land ready for our boat trip... I am ALIVE! The boat trip was ok. Just ok. Everyone raves about the Milford Sound boat trip but I just don't get it. oh and our camera stopped working for about 45 minutes of the journey so Duncan spent most of the trip trying to fix it. Eventually we got the camera working just in time as we went right up close under this massive waterfall!

Milford Sound

Up close and wet (make up your own jokes)

Then it was back to the deathplane. This time I tried to enjoy the views some more and the view across the mountains truely was staggering! It just shows how big they are and how many! That sounds so dumb. We saw a beautiful lake nestled up in the mountains that had been frozen through winter and was now half-melted and creating a waterfall down the mountain. The views of Queenstwon as we came back into land were really nice too. I am glad we flew because this really was the best bit of the Milford Sound. and I survived with only a little nausea!

Ice-Lake

View of Milford Sound from the sky

We now say goodbye to Jon and Flick as we head up back to Wanaka for a week's holiday. Yes, we can have a holiday within a holiday!

On the way we stop in Arrowtown to have a go at goldpanning. There are loads of stories about backpackers who have found lumps of gold worth thousands of pounds and I thought maybe we could be that lucky? Well, the only thing I found were sandflys and consequently about a thousand bites all over my feet! And when we went to return the goldpanning kit we thought to ask what gold might look like when found in the river... d'oh.

So here we are in Wanaka. We are camping (for 7 nights!!!) at Top 10 Wanaka. The weather here is glorious luckily. We only have 2 very cold nights where despite wearing 2 jumpers I am still freezing. Unfortunately the clearer the sky the colder it is at night but the hotter it is during the day so despite being freezing at night the tent is boiling hot about 8am so I have to get the blanket set-up outside to go back to sleep for a couple of hours - It's just not fair sometimes is it?! We now decide to give our livers a rest, as well as our wallets, so we chill out here and read books for most of the time. Nice. One night though these people came to the campsite really late, followed by a pick-up with another group of young people. They turned up, obviously drunk, and started making loads of noise. Kids these days, no respect. And soon the radio was blasting away, grrrrr, now if there is something I find more annoying than people playing music really loud at night, it is people playing country and western really loud at night. Seriously. haha. They soon got kicked out. Shame I was just getting my do-se-do on.

Anyways, Wanaka is really beautiful. The lake is the most gorgeous lake so far and amazingly we are sunbathing on one side in 32degree heat, looking across the sparkly blue, towards mountains covered in snow. This has to be one of my favourite places in New Zealand so far. Happy times. :)

Lake Wanaka

Snow-capped mountains just in the background

Whilst here we also went to the local cinema which is totally awesome. It is filled with old comfy sofas and a mini, which you could sit in to watch the movie. And they have an interval which they make hot fresh cookies for...mmmm and they are huge and melty and soft...sorry what was I saying? We actually timed going back to the cinema a couple of days later so we would arrive during an interval so we could get more cookies...that's not wrong is it? We also spent a lovely day walking in various areas (where you can water the plants to help out - super) followed by an afternoon at a local winery which was having a weekend event showcasing it's 2010 wines. Sitting there under a shaded tree, looking down across the vineyards, lake and mountains in the background, with a lady playing acoustic guitar was absolute heaven!

We soon realised though that one of our memory cards for the camera had fallen out of the case so we had to get in the car and do a mad dash around all the places we had been that day to see if we could find it. Out last stop was a hill walk so I sent Duncan up alone and as the sun set he came back empty-handed. sad. Driving back in the dark we encountered a ridiculous amount of kamikaze rabbits. I think I killed or seriously maimed 3...1 of them just jumped straight out of the hedge into the car door. That 'thunk' was quite horrific. Sad for the bunnies and the memory card.

And last but by no means least, the final thing we did in Wanaka was visit the Puzzling World. This is a kind of topsy-turvy fun venue that plays with perspectives, has loads of concave pictures that follow you round and 3d pictures when you stand in the right place. It also has a crazy room. You walk into it up hill then everything inside is set-up so when you stand on steps it looks like you are leaning in a crazy magic fashion, snooker balls appear to roll uphill into a pocket and a chair slides upwards instead of down. We start to feel quite sick so head into the perspectiveve room where one person stands at one end and one at the other and one looks huge and the other small. It is the room that changes in height but it is designed to look like the room is just normal. And finally we enjoy the outdoor, 2-level maze. The aim is to get to every corner in order and then get out. it takes us about 2 hours to finally find the way out! I wanted to sneak out the 'cheat exits' but Duncan was insistent that we do it properly, otherwise we are only cheating ourselves.... sigh.

Get me outta here!

Heavy man!



and pushhhh


Time to sadly leave this gorgeous place and head to the East coast and nearly the end of our Middle Earth adventure. :(


Check out facebook for mre photos as usual!

And let's all sing goodbye, for now, to Jingle Bells...

The West Coast - Nelson Lakes to Franz Joseph

We are about to embark on one of the top 10 drives in the World - the West Coast of the NZ South Island - whoop! But first...

...we get a flat tyre. bollocks.

Driving from the Nelson Lakes which are gorgeous but sandfly hell and home to the world's cheekiest ducks ( they stole my lunch off my plate then sent the word out to all the other ducks that bread was on the menu for lunch creating a swarm of hungry ducks - mother duckers) we are driving relatively slowly over to Westport and enjoying the beautiful drive as tourists should.

Swarm of ducks

Soon I had a car or two stuck behind me, and despite this being the 'main road' it is only one lane and winding around a mountain so is impossible to pass on, so I pull over onto a 'mildly' rocky siding (at about 70kmph). The tyres clearly didn't like that. Now in my defence only the bottom of the tyre was flat.... Our first reaction was AA, then we remembered our phone had broken, so I did the first thing instinct told me. I flagged down a passing car in the hope there was a man in it who could fix my wheel...yeah yeah I know... So the nice lady that stopped helpfully pointed out that we were probably carrying a spare and should just change that over and drive to the nearest town. (I swear that would have been my second instinctive reaction!) I had a nice little chat to the lady whilst Duncan jacked up the car and changed the wheel - turns out I was carrying my own spare man too! Slowlyish we head to Westport for the evening...and what an evening!

Spare tyre in place, front left!

Having seen the sand dance on the beach (it was windy and like watching a ghost river flowing away) we thought the next best thing to do in a sleepy town is to find a bar. The local bar turns out to be a proper local bar and most of the punters look a little like hell's angels. Awesome. I position us with 2 handles close to the action and we soon get a steady stream of locals interested in the 'newbies' tellling us stories of the local area, the mines in which most of them work or the local farms, whitebait fishing, the local affliction to weed (this explains the guy walking around looking a lot like a stoned Jesus) and a fair few debates as most of them appear to be Chelsea or Liverpool fans...grrrr.

Awesome 'dancing sand' beach

So apart from a clear lack of taste in football we enjoy a bit of banter with the guys and before long we get asked if we would like to have a ride on the armchair… I don’t know what this is but I am sure this is something I want to do, as long as Duncan goes first! We head outside and it turns out one of the guys has turned a regular armchair into a go-kart. That’s right. It has wheels, an engine that does 40mph and a little wheel, and no brakes. Duncan heads off up the road first and then it is my turn… with a minor warning about going steady on the accelerator I head off up the footpath and onto the road at what I thought was a steady speed. Well the chain comes off the motor and the guy has to come rescue me halfway up the road and says I need to go a tad slower, which they all find hilarious! Girl Racer? Moi? Haha! A few beers later we are invited to spend the next morning with a farmer milking cows and a fisherman catching whitebait, all we have to do is be up at 6:30am… 

Getting ready to ride

No really - we were driving an armchair down the road

….6:30am we are picked up by the farmer guy from the campsite and taken to his dairy farm. He has about 200 dairy cows and they are about halfway through milking. And we are invited to help milk the rest. I am so sorry I haven’t got any pictures of this because it is brilliant! The cows line up on either side with a pit in the middle. This pit is where the ‘milkers’ stand, and the cows arses are facing inwards to the pit (so their udders are closer for milking)…get the picture? So down we go at which point the farmer warns us that we are new and cows can detect strangers and as a result can be scared and basically ‘sh*t themselves’ Now I have been on farms since I was born as my granddad was a dairy farmer and knew what would happen so got stuck in with helping. Duncan on the other hand hasn’t and told me to ‘be careful so I didn’t get cow crap on his arm’ to which I pointed out his back was already covered – hahahaha. We only had one very near miss though when Duncan put his hand under the cow to milk it and the cow started to raise it’s tail… Duncan got out just in time! Today all turned out to be ‘cow insemination day’ so we had a little talk on how they choose the bulls and the new breed of kiwi cows. We call them summer cows… ‘cause summer brown, summer white and summer black. They are just Jersey and Friesian crosses basically – to render could health and milk quantity see. Then it was the cows turn to look scared, the ‘inseminator’ arrived and I wonder how on earth anyone gets into that line of work! It was beautiful viewing though – the guy gets a tube, puts the frozen sperm in it, slicks his hand with lube and up it goes. The cows eyes went as wide as mine! The nice farmer then takes us to the river to meet the fishermen (The New Zealander’s are so super friendly) these guys told us ho Whitebait is hugely popular and expensive in NZ and about the competition in the area to get great spots to fish (they get there at 3:30am to secure a spot!). Mind you they can make between $1,000 and $2,000 a day in the best spots during the season! We didn’t get to catch anything sadly as the season is now kind of over but he caught a few tiddlers just to show us what they looked like – erm tiny see-through fish. Weird. Sadly we have to leave and head into town to find a new tyre.

With the car back on the road we drive over to Greymouth for another night’s camp. On the way we stop for an awesome walk up the Truman Track which leads to the sea which was pretty ferocious the day we visited. The waves were smashing up against the rocks and going meters up the beach before being dragged back down to the swirling white ocean. We managed to skirt just around the surf to see some of the cool caves and overhangs the sea has created from being so vicious. 

We also stopped at Pancake Rocks which is a huge stop off point for tourists. We weren’t really that impressed though – seems like a lot of hype. The rocks are layered on top of each other (like pancake stacks) due to the erosion of rocks and soil over the years. The blow holes that have been created by the sea are quite cool though but the pictures we took don’t really show that so I’ll just leave it for there for today! 


On the way out of Greymouth going towards Franz Joseph Glacier we stop at an attraction called ‘Shanty Town’. This area had a huge gold mining community back in the day and a few of the old buildings still remain. Others have bee reconstructed to create an old town, along with lots of antiques from around the time, some history as well as the opportunity to have photos taken in costume or with those board things (see below) and also gold panning to see if we can find any gold ourselves. Sadly all these extras actually cost more money after we have paid quite a bit to get into the attraction so we just do a few board photos, a walk up to the viewing point and a steam train ride to the old saw mill. The history on the area is really good to read about and the town is very pretty but I would have liked to have a chance to do the gold panning as part of the admission price. 

All aboard the traditional steamtrain

Shanty Town

close the door!

Oh well. Onto Franz Joseph and to see Jon and Flick again for a yummy dinner of half chicken, cranberry and brie and half cajun spicy chicken pizza and a huge plate of ribs for Duncan! Food makes us happy – what can I say! 

The next few nights we camp in the shadow of the mountains covered in snow, which is pretty amazing. We have to wait a day to do the Franz Joseph Glacier walk as it is fully-booked (the first time that has happened since we arrived – the cheek of it!) but it turns out for the best as the following day it is peeing it down all day! We take this opportunity to relax at the campsite, read, and wash our cow crap clothes. I have to admit that this day we did not leave the campsite once yet I still spent the day driving… I didn’t want to get wet so drove around the campsite!  Tent to bathroom, bathroom to laundry, laundry to internet, internet to kitchen, kitchen to lounge, lounge to tent. Little bit lazy?!

Camping under a snowy mountain - awesome (and cold)

The next day luckily shines bright and we are up bright and early to join our group for a day long walk on the Franz Joseph Glacier. I am a tad nervous as we get kitted up in fleeces, waterproofs, boots, socks, hats, gloves and crampons as I’m not a fast uphill walker but luckily the group splits into 3 – fast, medium and slow – erm SLOW please! The first groups heads off and mainly climbs the glacier using little toe-holds, speeding ahead, the second group then follows making steps in the ice, our group follows slowly behind climbing the pre-made steps. Sweet as! Before lunch we are mainly just walking up crushed ice, which looks like what I imagine a mountain of Mr. Frosty ice would look like if you were walking up it in a dream, suddenly I start to crave a cocktail served over crushed ice! After lunch we get into the really awesome ice – crevices, caves, valleys – and the ice is really beautifully blue – it really is striking. The pictures really show this more than anything I can say! And even better the walk wasn’t that difficult, Duncan’s fear of needing the loo halfway up didn’t occur and we had a really fabulous day. 

Amazing crevice

In an ice cave

Modeling the latest ice-walking fashions

 Loads more Glacier and New Zealand pictures on Facebook!

New Zealand's South Island - Abel Tasmin

I just found out that New Zealand has a lower population than Bristol alone. Wow! Which is why during rush hour traffic I might see one car, a lorry and a horse and cart. Dontcha just hate rush hour?!

After the most beautiful drive along the Queen Charlotte Drive we arrive in Motoeka and a cool hostel 'Eden's Lodge', which is set amongst orchards and vineyards...and we are camping again! J and F are here also but they have the luxury of walls and I have the fear of seeing a ghost as we walk in pitch black to our tent with nothing but a torch to guide the way. I think seeing Ghost Stories about 6 months ago seems to have had an effect on my mental well-being. Anyway, we will be here and in the Abel Tasmin region for the next 3 nights. This hostel has a homely lounge with DVD player. This hostel has DVDs we can borrow for free. This hostel has the Lord of the rings trilogy. 3 nights,3 movies... perfect! And it is really cool seeing the locations and landscapes we have been visiting in the last month. So excited!

But anyway apart from watching the trilogy we have actually been very active and exploratory! We found a gorgeous beach on our first day, way over the hills, and it's only accessible via a long farmland walk. Needless to say it was kind of deserted and beautifully natural, as was the amazing amount of sheep poo we had to navigate around to get there!

Cute Sheep - Lotsa Poo

Walk to Wharariki Beach

Wharariki Beach

We then 'discovered', ok then 'explored' the local breweries offerings. The Monkey Wizard brews a selection of ales, lagers and ciders which it then sells by the litre. Well, it would be rude not to try the local delicacies and litter their pockets with some tourism funding wouldn't it? The lady working in the brewery is also the best New Zealander we have met to date, and that title was only just previously won by the owner of Eden's Lodge.

Anne-Marie invites us to her coffee shop, where they roast their own coffee and make sweet treats, the next morning to get some caffeine energy and fresh croissants for our boat journey and walk in the Abel Tasmin park that day. We duly arrive at 8am to the 1950's - 1970's decorated coffee shop and vintage store, to enjoy the best coffee we have had in ages! Plus she has made us each 2 massive, buttery fresh croissants and a cake slice to take on our trip. AND not only that but she charges us each $5 for all of that! That is 2 and a half English pounds to you!

Anne-Marie and gang in AWESOME coffee shop/vintage store

Get in. After filling our boots we start our boat journey up the Abel Tasmin coast....

hmmm pleasant enough. It's kind of coast line-y. We see a massive rock that has cracked in two, some seals at a distance and finally we see some dolphins! HURRAH! They don't come too close to the boat though as they have babies at the moment and we could be big scary baby dolphin eaters for all they know, or that's what I think they might think if they do indeed think and think in English.... Anyway, so we jump off the boat at Bark Bay for a nice 3 hour walk through the forest to Torrent Bay to get collected again.

Torrent Bay

Lovely Blue Lagoon

I think my favourite part of the trip so far is now coming up...now remember we have just watched Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Rings the previous night... I decide I want a Gandalf magical stick to walk with and soon we have three fine specimen's to choose from so Duncan, Jon and myself are all walking along Gandalf style exploring beautiful, aquamarine lagoons when we come to an area of path where we remain just out of sight around a corner, and we can hear some fellow tourists coming up the path behind us....so there we stood all three of us in a row, blocking the path, Gandalf sticks in hand..anyone guess what happened next? As the three blonde German tourists rounded the corner we all simultaneously slam our sticks into the ground and yell in booming voices 'You Shall Not Pass'. Luckily the girls got our movie reference and peed themselves laughing! haha!

You Shall Not Pass!!!

Also on this journey I encounter what I think may be my first swing,suspension bridge - really scary - although the people lined on the bridge following my slow and cautious approach thought it was very funny. I thought they can't read as the sign said no more than 5 people on the bridge and I counted 6 - we could have all died people! Reckless behaviour I tells you.

Also, the boat couldn't get to the shore to collect us due to low tide and we had to walk knee-deep into the freezing sea to get on it. Not a happy Annie way to end the trip - don't they know who I am?! We console ourselves with a re-filling of our 2 litre beer bottle, recycling is good you see.

The next day the boys go into a cave and Flicity and I sunbathe and read books. Wet, cold cave or warm, grassy knoll....I think we win.

Something to do with a cave

We then go on to be the most awesome of survival experts in the world! This story has 2 versions. The one I choose to tell goes a little something like this... we go fishing for the first time in our lives and are brilliant at is as we skillfully catch a huge salmon. Ok, so in truth,we go fishing in a farmed lake and after 5 minutes of learning to cast this random woman throws some fish food in around our cast which causes the fish to go a bit crazy and get hooked onto the line within seconds...so J actually caught the fish and only because of some woman spoiling the game for us. However, it was quite big and we had to kill it ourselves and it tasted delicious! So there.

J with our Salmon

Enjoying our salmon - yum!

And we whiled the evening away with a game of cards...

which soon became a bit messy....

See you next time!