South Island Road Trip - Chapter Four

The last chapter:

We took the Interislander ferry across Cook Strait once again as we returned to the North island. The girls took advantage of the three hour passage to do some schoolwork (not much of which happened over the course of the two weeks we were away).

The drive between Wellington (where the ferry lands) and Whangarei (where Malachi is) takes about 12 hours, so we decided to come back a different route stopping in Hastings to visit friends from home, Paula and Kevin and their lively boys! Since Kevin was out with Caleb and Jake for an evening cricket match, I went by myself to have a visit with Paula and little Joe who is 2 1/2 years old (not quite at the age of appreciating a good cricket match). We had a great visit. It was really nice to catch up and to see the boys who are much bigger than the last time I saw them (almost three years ago) and to meet little Joe, what a character! He just loved showing off how he could hop on one foot and how he could run and dive into the couch, what a sweetie pie.

Kevin, Caleb, Jacob and Paula

Me, Paula and little Joe

One last little thing, something that made us laugh and hopefully will provide you with the same comic relief.

Public toilets are everywhere in NZ, it's wonderful, and mostly they are well attended and clean wish is extra wonderful. We've had public toilets that have been works of art and other that sing to you while you do your business, both of which we thought were pretty 'super' offerings. So when we were driving near Lake Taupo and came across this public facility, we just had to give it a go!

Now, wouldn't that lure you in? We were so excited to see what they had to offer but were shocked that this was a pay-per-poo facility!

But, of course, since the sign did say it was 'super' we thought it must be worth it. So $1.60 later and feeling very relieved, we were back on the road and on our way home. Our review? Not that super.

Anyway, we are back 'home' in Whangarei after our two week blitz through the South island. We drove almost 4000 km and saw alot and did alot and now we're exhausted! It's good to be back on the boat and into a more relaxed and normal schedule. But I must say, we did have a wonderful time.

South Island Road Trip - Chapter Three

Possums, Pampas grass and Penguins

Possum

Pampas grass

Penguin - gotta look closely to see this yellow eyed penguin in the grass

What do they have in common? They are all found in New Zealand and we’ve seen them all! OK, well, we’ve yet to see a live possum outside the zoo but we see them squashed on the road all the time, too numerous to count. Possums are a pest here in New Zealand as they steal the eggs of the kiwi bird; therefore, it is always open season on Possums and their fur is used in combination with the, very soft, merino wool to make luxuriously soft garment and scarves.

We only spent one afternoon and night in Dunnedin, New Zealand’s Scottish city, but we sure made the most of it. We went for an afternoon tour of the Cadbury Chocolate factory which was ‘sweet as..’ as they say in NZ. Unfortunately, we were unable to take our cameras inside the factory where Cadbury employs over 900 people, but we took some cute pics outside.

That's a huge pile of Crunchy bars behind the sign.

The girls with Cadbury's Model A Ford

Before we were permitted entry into the factory we were required to don hairnets, very sexy!

The Cadbury factory supplies most of the chocolate for New Zealand as well as some for export to Australia and some Asian countries as well.

In the evening, on the advise of our hotel manager, we took off to Sandfly Bay to see if we would be fortunate enough to catch a glimpse of the rare yellow eyed penguins that inhabit the South island of New Zealand. After a slippery walk down the soft warm sand on the sand dune surrounding the beach, we walked to the opposite end of the shore and climbed the berm to the official ‘hide’, a small shack where we would sit quietly, watch and wait. Jenny spotted a penguin right away who had climbed the hill to rest for the night and about 30 minutes later we saw one swim in from sea, after a day of fishing. In total, we spotted three yellow eyed penguins – awesome! Those of you who have seen Happy Feet will know these as Lovelace.

Beautiful sunset at Sandfly Bay after penguin watching

We had to be careful on our walk down the beach, as there were several sea lions trying to catch some beauty sleep. We almost tripped on this guy because he blended with the sand so well.

We just couldn’t leave Dunnedin without visiting Baldwin Street. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Baldwin St. in Dunnedin is the steepest in the world! At its maximum, the slope of Baldwin Street is approximately (19° or 35%) - that is, for every 2.86 metres travelled horizontally, the altitude rises by 1 metre. We were too pooped from climbing back up the sand dune the night before, to attempt to walk the hill, we we admired it from the bottom. Ooooh! Ahhhh!

Standing at the bottom of Baldwin Street

Then we were off! Just South of Omarau, we stopped to walk down to the Koekohe beach to see the Moeraki Boulders. These spherical stones are a great mystery. There are several spheres on the beach and some of them have cracked open revealing a hollow interior with a yellowish smooth stone inside. These septarian concretions, grey in colour have been revealed as the black mudstone forming the shoreline has been eroded. They are believed to have been originally formed in ancient sea floor sediments during the early Paleocene around 60 million years ago. Strange indeed! You can read more about them at http://www.newzealandnz.co.nz/destinations/moeraki.html

Us at Moeraki boulders

Alas, after a total of five and a half hours of driving, some of which Jocelyn did, of course, we arrived in Christchurch. Christchurch is a very big city and like Dunnedin has some beautiful architecture.

For the past 2 weeks, Christchurch has hosted the World Buskers Festival and we were lucky enough to take in some of the acts. One of the big venues was located just outside the beautiful Christchurch Cathedral. Our favorite was Cirque No Problem, a husband and wife team who do juggling and trapeze, they were very funny and excellent at what they do. We hope they win the competition!

The tram which you can ride around town

We’re staying in a beautiful beachside apartment while we enjoy this beautiful city. Today we did the Adrenalin Course, a multi level aerial obstacle course made up of rope bridges, Tarzan swings and zip lines built high in the forest. There are 100 challenges divided over six levels which take around four hours to complete. I did the first four levels while Jenny completed five and Jay and Jocelyn did all six. Level Six, the highest and most challenging is 20 meters above the ground. This activity was both physically and mentally challenging and we were exhausted when we were done.

Jenny & Jocelyn on level three

Jocelyn on level six

Jay on level six

Tonight we went out for dinner, for my birthday, to the Tap Room where we had a delicious stone grill dinner. This was kind of like fondue, but instead of a pot of oil, they bring you your meat on a hot stone and you finish cooking it at your table. It was fun and delicious. One of the menu choices was called 'The Wild Grill', which is an ever changing special of wild meat. As I found this quite intriguing, and I was wanting to have lamb for dinner, I enquired. To my astonishment, I was advised that this evenings wild grill was a combination of kangaroo and goat! I settled for the lamb, pork and beef combo.

South Island Road Trip - Chapter Two

The last shall be first......

I'll start this posting with the most recent event as it is undoubtedly the most exciting! Today, Jocelyn earned bragging rights by bungy jumping off the Kawarau Bridge just outside Queenstown, NZ! As we stood by and watched in awe as she leaped from the platform 143 feet above the river. The graceful swan dive was only slightly interrupted by her screaming. Way to go Jocelyn! (be sure to watch the video on youtube, just click the link on the right)


Waiting for her turn to jump


The final preparations


The Kawarau bridge

The Big Plunge!

Bungy bathrooms!

So, now back to the interesting, but less thrilling of our adventures.

We were very fortunate to reunite with O'vive and Orca III for two nights in Murchison where
got together for a BBQ and crossed the Buller Gorge for a hike to the waterfall. The girls rode the zip line back across the swing bridge.


BBQ in Murchison


All of us on the swing bridge across the Buller Gorge


Jocelyn & Jenny on the zip line swing

The drive along the West coast of the South island is quite remarkable. The mighty Tasman Sea roars to the right while the lush forest and steep rock faces threaten to knock you off the road. This treacherous stretch of highway is, undoubtedly, the most beautiful but the driver must be very alert as the highways often narrow to one lane. Most of the bridges are only one lane and we even crossed one that was shared with a train!


Hawkes Cragg - this one lane stretch of the highway was carved out by hand just high enough to allow a bus to clear.


Jay and Marg at the Tasman Sea

We stopped to visit the amazing Pancake Rocks in Punakaiki. This mysterious rock formation has geologists stumped. They do not know how they came to exist or why they are layered the way they are. This was a really cool stop that we all enjoyed.


Pancake Rocks - Punakaiki, NZ


Here are those beautiful girls again!

Following the Pancake Rocks, we drove on to a little town called Hokatika where we collected black sand from the Tasman Sea and visited a glow worm dell.


Town centre in Hokatika

The following morning it was an early start as we had many stops we wanted to make enroute to Lake Wanaka.

Our first stop was Franz Joseph Glacier, the largest in New Zealand! We walked the 45 minute trail/river bed to come face to face with terminal face. Ok, we were a few hundred metres away, but it was still awesome! Following is the Maori legend of the glacier.

Ka Roimata O Hine Hukatere (The Tears of Hine Hukatere) is the Maori name for Franz Joseph.
Hine Hukatere (meaning 'the avalanche girl') was an adventurous Maori woman who loved mountaineering above all other activities. Her lover, Tawe, was not as fond of climbing as his sweetheart but Hine's powers of persuasion were strong and Tawe often climbed with her in the mountains. On one such adventure Tawe slipped at the head of this valley and plunged to his death. Hine's tears were so many that they flooded the valley and were frozen by the Gods as a memorial to her grief.


A cloudy day, but you can still see the glacier in the background. Notice that we're all wearing shorts!


Feeling the icy water.

Now, just one 1 1/2 hour walk is not nearly enough for one day so we stopped at Lake Matheson to do another one hour walk before continuing our all day drive South.

Along the stretch of highway between Haast and Wanaka, there are many beautiful stops with nice short walks to incredible waterfalls and blue pools. We stopped for about half of them but we were getting very tired.


The skies cleared in the afternoon for this beautiful pic of Mt. Cook, the highest mountain in New Zealand. (I had to run half way back across a one way bridge to get this picture!)


Beautiful Blue Pools - these beautiful pools get their name from the lovely blue colour which is caused by light refracting through the icy water.

At last, we arrived in Wanaka tired and hungry! After a great dinner at the Speights Ale House and good sleep we were ready to go again. Our first afternoon in Wanaka we visited Puzzling World, a very interesting place filled with puzzles and illusions. Our favorite was the hall of faces. When you cover one eye and walk around the room, these concave portraits seem to follow you - eerie!


Hall of Faces - Puzzling World, Wanaka


Ames Forced Perspective Room - this technique was used in the Lord of the Rings to create large and small people.


Such a strong family!

Even the public toilets are interesting here!


When you gotta go, you gotta go!


Gotta post a toilet picture from time to time!

So this brings us back to the beginning which is actually the end. Today we took a little drive to Queenstown. This mountain/lake town is similar to Whistler and we enjoyed our walk around. Next, we made a little stop at charming Arrowtown. It was here that we mustered the courage to try white bait, a local delicacy. Current prices for white bait in town was $100 per kg! We all agree that we're glad we tried it, but we prefer kumara chips.


Cute restaurant in Albert Town

Now, along this driving trip we've encountered delays for many reasons: a wreck, road repairs and cows crossing, but today was the first time we were delayed by a house moving down the highway!


House on the highway just East of Queenstown

So, tomorrow we pack our bags and our little car once again as we begin chapter three of our South Island Road Trip with a drive to Dunedin.