Wednesday 23 January 2008 Day 155 Taupo Top 10

Left Taupo Top 10 and stopped at the supermarket and internet place on the way out of town. Had a quick look from the hilltop lookout before driving on towards Rotorua. Stopped halfway there at the Wai-O-Tapu “Thermal Wonderland” and we were fleeced of our $50 entrance fee before wandering around the smelly, stinking craters and pools. Some were more impressive than others and had some vivid colours produced by the metals in the earth below. We passed bubbling mud pools, yellow, blue and green lakes and pools, geysers and waterfalls. The weather is really hot again and combined with the hot smelly steam from the thermal activity it feels like we are on a tropical rotten egg farm.

We leave there and push on to Rotorua stopping for some lunch at a roadside rest stop littered with rubbish and old broken deck chairs, very picturesque! Arrive at Rotorua and find our campsite, and chill out in the nice weather for a bit. Cook chicken curry for tea.

Tuesday 22 January 2008 Day 154 Taupo Top 10

We get up late and find it raining, great! It soon stops and the sun comes out so we head up to the nearby Huka falls. However, on arriving, we realise that the dam nearby, which opens its gates every 2 hours, will be opening its gates shortly, so we head up there first. We watch the dam gates open and the empty river bed fills up in minutes turning into a raging white water torrent, swelling in size and covering rocks and land that were previously dry. Half an hour later, the dam gates are shut again and the flow begins to visibly recede, and the pools at the foot of the dam gates empty out.

We stop at the volcanic discovery centre and peruse the shop, then go to the “craters of the moon” thermal park, which has lots of open craters belching out hot steam and evil smells.
We go back via Huka falls and actually manage to see the falls this time, despite the fact that it starts hammering down with rain as soon as we arrive. We go and look at the falls anyway, along with lots of inappropriately dressed tourists, and they are pretty impressive as huge amount of water from the 100m wide 5m deep river is channelled through an area just 4m wide and 15m deep.

We go into Taupo town centre for a look round then head back to the campsite. We spot some people we met in Christchurch, who were racing sidecars at the motorbike racing circuit there, and Ieuan goes to say hello.

Monday 21 January 2008 Day 153 Napier Top 10

We leave the nasty Napier site and drive in to town for a look at the famous Art Deco buildings (the city was mostly destroyed by and earthquake in the 1930s, so everything was rebuilt in the style of the time). Some are quite impressive, but we found it amusing that the women in the Art Deco shop/info centre were dressed up in 1930s outfits, probably for the benefit of American tourists.

From there we head out to some of the Hawke’s Bay wineries, starting off near Cape Kidnappers, we stop firstly at Clearview, then move on to Craggy Range (a beautiful setting and absolutely superb wines), finally stopping at Te Mata (Ieuan almost finds himself tasting cheese instead of wine as we accidentally go to the cheese centre with the same name). The morning’s haul of 4 bottles should last us for the rest of our time here.

In the afternoon we leave the Napier area and head to Taupo, about 135kms away via winding forest roads, where we see and pass lots of logging trucks. Arrive in Taupo and set up camp next to the camp kitchen, where we find lazy campers are driving from other parts of the site to the kitchen and then parking on our neighbour’s site. Cook tea and use internet.

Sunday 20 January 2008 Day 152 Hutt Park Top 10, Wellington

We leave the camp site at midday after using up a few more hours of our 24hr internet access, heading off on the long drive (345km) to Napier, which seems to take forever. We stop for lunch at a rest stop, eventually arriving in Napier in late afternoon, having passed the southern hemisphere’s largest wind farm on the way, with some 100 turbines.

We pull up to the camp site and check in, only to find the site is the size of a small town and crammed full of children and hoons. We manoeuvre into our site, handily positioned in the middle of a grass section, with vans and caravans each side, and sit in the van being miserable whilst it rained. Wi-Fi was ridiculously expensive so we had no internet to distract us.

Made our tea, ate it indoors, washed up in the camp kitchen and go to bed early, planning on an early escape.

Saturday 19 January 2008 Day 151 Hutt Park Top 10, Wellington

We catch the bus into Wellington and have a look around the shops, eat lunch in a food court and then do a bit more shopping. Lou tries to take a Vaude rucksack which she bought from a shop here back for an exchange as it has a strap coming off it, only to be told to go and get it fixed at a shoe repairer, as they couldn’t fix it before we leave the country and wouldn’t send it back to the UK for us. Instead they gave us $25 towards the cost of sending it to Vaude when we get back.

Caught the bus home and chilled out at the site, did the laundry and Lou worked on updating her CV so she can start looking for a job.

Friday 18 January 2008 Day 150 Nelson City Holiday Park

Left Nelson and drove the 2 hours to Picton, passing a raging forest fire on the way, which had several helicopters dropping water on it in attempt to stop it spreading. On the ferry we stood outside for a while, looking at the cattle and sheep being transported in open top articulated trucks. It was a beautiful clear day going through The Sounds, but soon got pretty windy, so we went inside and watched some car racing on the big tv in the bar. When that finished we moved to the cafe and spent the time getting up to date with our postcard writing, which took some time!

Arriving in Wellington, we headed straight to the campsite and settled in for the night, buying a 24hr internet ticket for US$10.

Thursday 17 January 2008 Day 149 Kaikoura Top 10

Left Kaikoura campsite and went into town to post a mega heavy parcel home (20kg), which cost us a small fortune, but we had no choice, we can’t take it with us on the plane. Lou insisted that we go back to the seal colony, where we saw a handful of seals lounging nearby on the rocks and frolicking in the sea.

Leaving there we set off for Nelson along the coastal road, where we pass more seals, in places several hundred are lazing on rocks and playing in the sea. The sea is a really beautiful blue, and it is a very hot day again. En route we get held up by some tree felling on the slopes above the road, but make it to Nelson at around 3pm.

We register at the campsite, then walk into town for a mooch, Lou buys several pairs of handmade lamb skin gloves, while Ieuan’s purchases amount to 200g of nice coffee. Stop at supermarket on the way home.

Change our ferry crossing to the North Island to tomorrow instead of 20th.

Wednesday 16 January 2008 Day 148 Kaikoura Top 10

Get up late and lounge around reading and using the computer. It’s a really hot day and after lunch, we head out on a 3 hour walk around the peninsular and past a seal colony, which is disappointing inhabited by only one lone seal, which we can barely see as he is so far away out on the rocks!

It takes us about an hour to reach the seal colony, and being lazy, we decide to head back the way we came rather than take the 2 hours walk up and over the cliffs.

We stop at the supermarket on the way home to buy jacket potatoes for tea.

Tuesday 15 January 2008 Day 147 Kaikoura Top 10

The alarm goes off at 4.30am and we drag ourselves out of bed in the dark, and trundle round to the dolphin place. Lou manages to don her wetsuit with ease this time, which is good news and we watch a video briefing of what we might see and how to swim with the dolphins, should we be lucky enough to find some. We catch a coach to the boat, which is nice and new, and Ieuan (the only non swimmer) promptly head upstairs and befriend the friendly skipper, Pete.

After about half an hour in the boat, we reach some dolphins and the swimmers are released into the water! There are hundreds of dolphins – about 700/800 we are told, and they seem to be everywhere in the water. They are all around you, darting past and coming up for a closer look. Some of them stop and circle around you playfully, and if you make loud crazy squeaking noises they are even more attracted to you! The water doesn’t feel that cold, and we have about half an hour in the water before we are called back, and the boat goes down to the beginning of the huge pod, and we get in the water again. We swim 3 times, each time with lots of dolphins around, plus loads of baby dolphins with their mothers.

After a while, we get back on board and change out of our wetsuits so that we can take some pictures of the dolphins all round us, doing somersaults, back flips and some riding in the bow wave from the front of the boat.

Back on dry land, we head back to the campsite and chill out for the rest of the day, just popping in to town to collect Lou’s underwater camera pictures, which were pretty crap!

Monday 14 January 2008 Day 146 Christchurch Top 10

Left the campsite and stopped at a couple of motorbike shops in Christchurch so that Ieuan could get some books / DVDs that had been advertised at the racing yesterday.

Then we leave Christchurch for the last time and head up the coast towards Kaikoura. We drive round some steep windy roads until we hit the coast about 40km outside Kaikoura when the road goes flat alongside the beautiful blue sea.

We arrive at the campsite early afternoon, and walk into town to have a look round. There’s not much to see and Ieuan declares the whole place “very downmarket”! We bought a few souvenirs then walked up to the dolphin swimming shop to find out what time we need to arrived tomorrow for our dolphin swim. We are delighted to hear that check in time is 5.20am!

We get some groceries at the mini market then head back to the van. We do some research and get some hotels booked for the USA part of our trip. Lou emails a recruitment consultant re jobs on our return to get the ball rolling.

Cook spag bol for tea and try not to go to bed too late as we have an early start tomorrow!

Sunday 13 January 2008 Day 145 Christchurch Top 10

We leave at 9am for the Ruapuna Circuit to watch the New Zealand superbikes on that day, and arrive at 9.40am in time for the first race. We parked right near the track as there we hardly any people there, there only seemed to be about 50 so far and wandered in past all the makeshift pits set up round the circuit. We saw the people from the campsite and wished them luck for the race with the 2 sidecars they were entering.

The weather was really hot and sunny and we settled down on a grassy bank overlooking the track to watch the racing. There were quite a few incidents and accidents, late starts and dodgy overtakes, which holds things up a bit. At lunchtime, we get some food then wander back to the van for a bit before going back out for the afternoon racing.

It got a bit busier in the afternoon – we could see at least a couple of hundred spectators! We left by about 4pm as things were quite delayed, we had watched the sidecars, and had just about had enough by then.

Went to the supermarket on the way home, then washed the van, dramatically increasing the size of the crack in the windscreen to about half the width of the windscreen, then cooked tea and chilled out.

Saturday 12 January 2008 Day 144 Christchurch Top 10

We walk up to the shopping centre nearby on the morning to get some bits and bobs, and then come back to the campsite to find the van sweltering as it’s another boiling hot day. We catch the bus into town to post a parcel, and get some lunch in the main square.

We have a look in some of the souvenir shops and wander round a craft market, stopping for a vigorous 10 minute deep tissue massage each on the way! We pay $10 for the privilege, which is nice, if a little firm, before catching the bus home.

We spend some time doing research for the next part of our trip, partly to keep out of the van as it is so hot and directly in the sun.

Ieuan befriends a couple who are staying at the site with their motorbike sidecar (a racing outfit), and finds out they are racing at the nearby motorbike circuit, Ruapuna, which we plan to go to tomorrow.

Later, we cook chicken curry for tea.

Friday 11 January 2008 Day 143 Christchurch Top 10

Lou gets up to do some work on the computer, which takes ages. At 11.30am, we leave for the Christchurch suburb of Lyttleton where Ieuan has arranged for us to go out on a boat that was build for his Great Granddad, called the Oyster. We arrive at the port and find the boat, a small sailing boat, and jump aboard to go for an afternoon’s sailing with Mike, who it transpired, had met various relatives of Ieuan’s.

We settle down on the back of the small boat minding our heads out of the way of the swinging boom. We leave the port and go out into the harbour and sail back and forth across the harbour in the pleasant weather, with Ieuan occasionally taking the helm whilst Jack sorts out the sails. As we move away from the shelter of the port, the wind and waves start to pick up to about 15 knots with lots of waves breaking across the water.

We spot some rare and small hectors dolphins from the boat a couple of times, which was funny as they were being hotly pursued by the local dolphin watching boat, keen to get a glimpse of them.

By the time a couple of decent sized waves have broken over the side of the low boat, and onto us, Ieuan decided he has had enough for one day and soaking wet, we start to head back to shore.

Back at the van, we put some dry clothes on and head back to the campsite.The next day, Mike sends Ieuan some promised pictures and articles about the boat, which is nice.

Thursday 10 January 2008 Day 142 Greymouth Seaside Top 10

We leave Greymouth and head back to Christchurch, via Arthurs pass. The road isn’t very busy but as it’s so windy and steep, we tend to get stuck behind caravans and buses chugging slowly up the hills.

We pass some interesting stretches of road including the Otira viaduct which was built some years ago after numerous rock falls on the old road, and we can still see parts of the old road that aren’t buried under rubble from a lookout point.

We arrived in Christchurch in the afternoon and headed straight to a shopping mall outside town, where there was a Borders bookshop, so we could use up some money off vouchers we had been given before Christmas.

After some much needed shopping, we drove on to the campsite to check in and set up for 4 days there. Lou does some washing and we make jacket potatoes for tea.

Wednesday 9 January 2008 Day 141 Greymouth Seaside Top 10

Spend the day at Greymouth campsite using the laptop and chilling out. We catch up with some admin, getting the diary up to date and working out some financial stuff, like how much we have spent so far on our grand trip!

We go for a wander on the beach, but as the tide is quite far in, it is mostly stones and shingle left.

It’s another beautiful day so we sit in the sun outside the van and decide on our plans for when we leave NZ and what we can actually afford to do!

Tuesday 8 January 2008 Day 140 Franz Joseph Top 10

We woke up to find the rain had stopped and it was actually quite a nice day. We went to get the bus at 9.20am which was picking us up to do the glacier walk, and discovered that another couple had got on the bus saying they were booked on the trip and it was just pulling away! We flagged it down and confirmed it was us that had booked the trip and the other couple were ejected from the bus to wait in reception for the correct bus!

We got to the glacier and did a 3 hour walk over shingle, rocks and boulders and through small rivers, and up the side of the mountain when we couldn’t cross the big glacial river, using ropes and ladders to get up the steep rock faces. It was quite hard work and some of the less well prepared people seem to struggle with some of the climbs (well it had been billed as an easy stroll up to the glacier!)

We made it up to the huge glacier face, where a river ran out from, made up of glacier melt water and sediment, with huge chunks of ice the size of fridges and small cars floating in it and looked extremely cold!

Back at the campsite, we packed up and headed into town for some lunch, then left for Greymouth. We stopped on the way at the Puke Pub in Pukekura which is a "wildfoods" (roadkill!) restaurant and pub and also has a visitor centre across the road, which is adorned by a giant sandfly! It contained a very unusual assortment of items – pigs, possums, stuffed animals, practical jokes, and we watched a video about the creation of the deer industry in NZ.

We carried onward to Greymouth and set up camp at the Top 10 site right next to the beach.

Monday 7 January 2008 Day 139 Wanaka Top 10

Left Wanaka in the blazing sun and headed towards Franz Joseph, home to the Franz Joseph glacier. By the time we hit the steep and windy Haast pass, the cloud had come down and the rain had started, which created huge waterfalls in the mountains all around us, many of which poured out of the trees and cliffs at the roadside and straight down on to the road. We stopped a couple of times to look at some of the waterfalls and at the raging river at the side of the road. Also stopped for lunch overlooking a huge bridge on a very wide river, where Lou made the mistake of opening her window to take a photo, whereupon hundreds of hungry mozzies swarmed in heading for unprotected flesh, and leaving Lou with bites on both ankles and both elbows by the time she got the window shut and the van sprayed with mozzie killer! (Lou later discovers that this was the site where the body of murdered backpacker Jennifer Beard was found, in what is still an unsolved case.)

We arrived in Franz Joseph about 5pm and heard that some trips up to the glacier had been cancelled, due to the volume of rain, which had flooded the path to the glacier. We booked on a glacier trip for the morning anyway, which would take us up to the glacier face with a guide.

We sat in the campervan for the evening, watching the rain and cooking tea!

Sunday 6 January 2008. Day 138 Queenstown Top 10

Got up, sorted out the van and stocked up on provisions at the supermarket, then parked the van and walked into town. Visited a couple of souvenir shops and posted our postcards, going to the same cafe (Vudu) as yesterday for lunch. Heading out of town we arrive at Arrowtown, a historic gold mining town 30kms away, where we walked through the old fashioned main street and watched tourists panning for (guaranteed) gold. Leaving via the high road we arrived at Cardrona, after passing along some really steep and narrow mountainous roads, site of the Cardrona Hotel where we stopped for a drink. The hotel had been refurbished in 2002 and so is now quite upmarket and nothing like what we expected.

Continuing down the mountain we arrived at Wanaka, where we found our campsite about 3km from the town, and not the greatest site we have been to so far. No wireless internet. We sit out in the sun and relax, then Lou gives Ieuan a foot treatment (part of his Christmas present, which Ieuan had been grumbling about as it hadn’t been done a whole 12 days after the event!) Cooked tea and caught up with the washing.