Heading for the hills

Thursday March 10th

So we're getting to the part of the holiday when being back in the UK is in sight, but we've plenty of great things still planned.

Today we got up early and drove back south to see the Moeraki Boulders, which featured on my work calendar so I felt I had to check them out. We got there before the café opened at 08:30 so had a decent amount of time with not too many people around to get nice photos while there was a bit of sunrise colour left in the sky. Dave used the tripod, so will doubtless have some amazing stuff.

There are more boulders than I expected, probably 20-odd altogether, spread over a good 100m stretch of beach and some had split open to reveal gorgeous seams of quartz.The brochure says they are 60 million years old and presumably someone's checked, and we assume they are volcanic in origin though further details would require wild speculation.

After a quick breakfast (beating the rush of arriving coachloads of Chinese and American tourists) in the café, we headed back to Oamaru and had a lovely wander through the harbour area where the elegant Victorian buildings had been filled with artsy and second-hand shops, including book and clothes stores, and the SteamPunk museum which had a fantastical Mad Max-style steam engine outside.

Oamaru

We spent a good hour wandering round and snapping the various bits sculpted from old cars and machinery and the elegantly put together mechanical nonsense and creatures. There was a fancy old pipe organ connected to weird noises, and The Portal, which is a room you go into and mirrors and streams of coloured lights take you to another world....lol

The Matri... I mean, The Portal

Outside was an over-sized motorbike, railway carriage and other items. It was generally very cool, and should make for some cool pictures. Ben and Jackie had told us they'd preferred the Time-Travellers exhibition to the Steam Punk HQ. This was someone's Dr Who memorabilia opened up; we looked for it, but it seemed to have closed down, which was a shame. I bought a second-hand cricket book signed by the Crowe brothers which was marked as $30 but was $3 in the closing down sale.Quite a bargain, with the recent death of Martin Crowe. 

From Oamaru, we figured we could reach Twizel for lunch and then work out where to head next. Who wouldn't want to go to a place called Twizel?! On the way we stopped at two brown-signed spots; firstly some Maori rock paintings just outside Duntroon (one of many Scottish sounding place names in the area) which were pretty good but appear to be from the 19th century and many had been removed to museums. 

We then stooped off to look at the Waikati River dam and hydro-electric station which was impressive - the next one up the river was called the Aviemore Dam but we didn't go that way. The river water colour was stunning, a really vivid pale turquoise that has to be seen to be believed.

We reached Twizel at about 2.15 and chose The Musterer's Cafe for lunch - we both had crispy chicken wraps and enjoyed the eclectic decor.

From the local iSite, we picked up some brochures and decided to make our way to the White Horse Hill DOC campsite, which is very near Mount Cook (or Mount Aoraki as it's now known). At the petrol station, we were advised to take care as the high winds we'd run into around Oamaru were still bad and had caused two accidents nearby.

Despite the strong gusts and our high-sided van, the road we took was fabulous, flat and winding and alongside the stunning blue of Lake Pukaki and with great view over to Mount Aoraki along great stretches. Dave managed to find the right place to replicate his Facebook cover photo and we found our way to the campsite. 

There were lots of cars, campervans and people but its also the base for several walks up and around the National Park and we managed to find ourselves a camping space and paid over our $20 fee.

We took a walk towards the mountain and the lake, although it would have taken too long to complete the route to a really nice view, so we turned back and then found some really fabulous views from the Alpine Memorial Stone pinnacle which was about five minutes from the campsite. On the walk we crossed an amazing rushing river on a suspension bridge and scrambled amongst the rocks and alpine plants. We checked the maps and thought we might try and do the walk to Kea Point the following day. 

With no power, we were careful with our electric use, but had plenty of gas to cook and wash-up. One of the main reasons to come here, other than the chance to see a proper snow-capped mountain, is that the whole area is part of the Dark Sky Reserve, so Dave took his tripod and camera out and waited for the nearby van lights to be out and took some amazing photos of the stars.

Friday March 11th

The plan for the morning was to head to the Hermitage Hotel, where we'd been advised there was a marvellous view and an excellent breakfast to be had. I slept well, not even waking when Dave finally finished his star-gazing, but woke up cold and to mountains no longer visible due to low cloud. We waited a while to see if the cloud lifted and the sun appeared but no. We thought we'd head up to the Hermitage, have breakfast and then come back for our walk if it had cleared up at all, but between finding that the hotel café didn't serve breakfast, the Mountaineer's café didn't open until 10am, and the Sir Edmund Hillary museum wasn't open to pass the time, we struggled. In the end we just waited and had a lovely cooked breakfast in the Mountaineers café (deciding this may have been were our advisor - the guy who sold us our NZ phone back in Auckland - meant). The place was decorated with old climbing gear and skis as well as old maps and photos, and weirdly you had to ask the staff for a code to the toilets!

We drove off towards Lake Tekapo, the next big blue lake along, stopping for a few photos from a good hill alongside Lake Pukaki first and, as a brilliant first move, decided to go up to the Observatory on Mount John. In the relative warm of the Earth and Sky café, on top of the mountain, we had a quick snack while enjoying the amazing scenery and wide views from 1061 metres above sea level. We declined the chance of a day tour of the workings of the observatory but the drive back down the hill was like a fun-park ride and we took a great video. There is a $5 charge to use the road, which helps with its upkeep and security, and at six minutes to drive down (and more to go up) it was worth every cent.

Lake Pukaki

We drove into the village, though there wasn't much to see, and then down to the lakeside where, a few weeks earlier there would have been acres of glorious lupins as seen in all the publicity pictures of this area. We found about 4 odd stems which retained their pink or purple flowers, but at least the shoreline had cool rocks aplenty and was gorgeous in itself. Of course a little snow on the mountains in the background would have been the (literal) icing on the photographic cake.

This  was definitely one of my trip tick boxes ticked, but it didn't take long, so we opted to head to the campsite in Christchurch this evening, having managed to phone head and book ourselves a Jetboat ride for the morning. We almost forgot to take a picture of the "most photographed church in the world" the Church of the Good Shepherd on the Lake Tekapi shoreline (in fact Dave declined*), before getting back on the road.

*(I can neither confirm or deny the rumour that I feel a burning sensation in my feet when I approach holy buildings - Dave)

The drive to Christchurch was quick and easy and we settled in for the evening; had long luxurious showers, gorgeous chicken curry and a couple of beers, and then visited reception to book our final organised adventure. We thought it was time to try again to swim with dolphins, as time was running out, but they had already cancelled everything for the following day due to the high swell from the storm earlier in the week. We booked anyway, and kept our fingers firmly crossed. We were due to hand the van back on Monday by 4pm so settled on an 8:30 boat from Akaroa on the Banks' Peninsula, where we will camp tomorrow.

Before it got dark we ventured out and I managed to get photographic evidence of the existence of the Bouncy pillows which Ben and Jackie doubted.

Saturday March 12th

With only two days of living in the campervan left, we got up early on saturday, even though our Jetboating wasn't due to start until 10 o'clock. We drove around like idiots for an hour trying to find somewhere for a nice breakfast or at least a coffee, but everywhere we found was shut. We reached Hamilton Quay in Clarkville (which was literally 15 minute from the campsite) and waited for our ride. It turned out there were just the two of us booked on, so we got dressed up in windproof coats, life jackets, woolly hats and big thick gloves and clambered aboard - in the front row.

Our Jet Thrills driver was Paul and we set off for our 30 minute Braided Blast trip up the Waimakariri River, which has water and rocks brought all the way from the Southern Alps. Apparently the water only takes about 14 hours to reach here, while the stones take a year before they get dumped on the riverbed here, near the sea. They get scooped up regularly by various companies for construction uses including being smashed up to make concrete locally.

The river, like most of those we've seen, is channels of water among the banks of rocks and bits of trees dragged down from upstream. The ride up the river was amazing. The manoeuvrability of the boat and the fact that it could travel in incredibly shallow waters, along with Paul's obvious skills throwing it around corners, finding the channels and adding 360 degree spins for fun (about 7 or 8 in total), made it a great trip.

The rush and the spray were exciting - though I could probably have done without banging my arm onto the boat's edge at every left turn.

The way back down river was something else; we doubled the previous speed we'd done and got up to 55mph which was exhilarating. I kept thinking my hat was going to fly off during the twists and turns to get round the narrow corners and obstacles. Brilliant. Apparently when they race these beasts, they get up to 100mph - blimey!

Our driver and Dave had a lovely bloke-chat about loud engines, fast cars, and Guy Martin, and some girl who raced round the Nurburgring in a transit van.

('some girl' being Sabine Schmitz, and possibly one of the greatest demonstrations of controlled speed driving you'll see - but I digress, back to New Zealand). 

He also suggested a few places we should visit, so we headed off to Hanmer Springs. The original suggestion was Reefton, but as that is almost on the West Coast, we thought the shorter drive (at this late stage of the holiday) was preferable.

We reached Hanmer Springs (which has thermal pools and spa, hence the name) at about lunchtime, parked up and had a lovely and rather grand lunch at Fire and Ice  (seafood chowder for me and a beast of a burger for Dave). It had warmed up considerably from the morning, when the van registered 2 degrees and the Hanmer Springs holiday park manager said they'd had frost overnight. As it has become a tradition on our holidays, we finally had our first New Zealand game of crazy golf nearby the holiday park. They had a goldmine theme and it was a warm and sunny afternoon so we had fun. Dave won, as usual, based on holes won; this has a technical name among golfers I believe (I don't even....   - Dave).

Good fun, but over too quickly as always. We took a wander through the town which was nice, with plenty of interesting shops, cafés, bars, two hand-made fudge shops, a Clydesdale horse & carriage and you could hire a 4-wheel big bike-thing to ride round town on. They also had a second crazy golf course at the other end of the main street, so we decided on a re-match (a less energetic alternative to walking up Conical Hill). This place had much more fun and challenging holes and took quite a bit longer. Although it seemed busy when we started, there was no waiting or groups at our backs. We both managed some great hole-in-ones, and some crazy high scores where balls just kept heading back to the start, but I must be getting better with practice because I seemed to win by about 3 shots (Dave 54, Jude 51).

That meant that I'd earned some hand-made fudge for later, and that we felt we deserved a gelato and a sit in the sun before heading back. After our massive lunch, neither of us could face tea out, so we got the van chairs out (for the first time), and relaxed in the late afternoon warmth, reading and browsing the web.

Dave thought it would be nice to post the picture he took of me doing my impression of Chris Catalyst's guitar-wielding stage jump on the Bouncy Pillow (no beers required) - I looked forward to getting grief for that in the morning, but fortunately he seems to have since mislaid it. I took the chance to check that the lab is in one piece, by emailing Carina before her trip to Mexico - hopefully it'll stay that way until my return.

Link to Dave's New Zealand photo galleries (work in progress)