|
Our journey around the South Island firstly
took us to the north-west corner, to a place called Motuaka and the Abel
Tasman National Reserve.
On the way, however, we managed to find our way
into the world-renowned "Cloudy Bay" Winery where we sampled their finest
wines (as I was driving I had to spit, but Angela swallowed!) before
buying a bottle of their Pinot and Sauvignon Blanc for a mere $65.
Anyway, back to Abel Tasman and the boat we
took around the coast to the Tonga Island Marine Reserve. We passed some
spectacular scenery along the way such as Split Apple Rock and Boulder
Point, which are two impressive rock formations that happen to be 135
million years old! Split Apple Rock is so called because "it does exactly
what is says on the tin!" Boulder Point is just a massive rock that has
fallen onto the shoreline, although it's not that big compared to Ayers
Rock by any means!
After a couple of nights around the Abel Tasman
I had just about got my voice back after the rugby and we headed down to
Fox Glacier, where we had an impressive view of Mount Tasman and Mount
Cook from our motel room.
The following day was our long awaited Heli-hike
on Franz Josef Glacier. Franz Josef Glacier is one of the steepest and
fastest flowing glaciers in the world, due to its unique shape and the
huge amount of snow that falls at the head of the glacier each year.
Firstly you are flown around the eleven
kilometre, 1,500 feet high Glacier before descending to 1,000 feet and
landing on the ice. You then hike around the glacier for a couple of
hours before being flown off the glacier, again by Helicopter. When you
first step out of the helicopter, you only have walking boots on and
funnily enough it's just like walking on ice! However, once you have
managed to put your crampons on and grabbed an ice pick it is fairly
simple, as long as you listen to the guide and only walk where they tell
you!
We walked around the glacier, climbing ice
walls and seracs and gingerly peering into ice caves with huge crevasses.
You had to wonder how the roofs of these formations stays up on what looks
like such thin ice! However, one bloke who knew better and ignored the
guide's advice, went further than we were told to and fell through an ice
"bridge." Extremely fortunately for him, there was thick ice underneath,
as all around you can hear water running down "Moulins" (holes) that can
be anywhere up to 300 metres deep! God bless America!
From Fox glacier, which wasn't anywhere nearly
as impressive as the Franz Josef Glacier, we headed to Queenstown. Along
the way we stopped in more "Lord of The Rings" territory around Wanaka,
which had an awesome view of the mountains for a backdrop across the
lake. We also stopped in Arrowtown, which is a very picturesque, quaint,
old, gold mining town, where apparently there is still a lot of gold to be
found and many people still "pan" for gold.
When we arrived in Queenstown we stopped at
Shotover Canyon and went on the "Shotover Jets." These are $250,000
jetboats with twin V6 Buick engines that thrust 800 litres of water a
second. Most "jet" boats that do these sort of rides are only powerful
enough to do 270 degree turns, these boats easily do full 360 degrees
spins. They also swerve and skid you precariously close to the canyon
walls at eighty kilometres per hour. All you can do is admire the power
of the machine and the skill of the driver, oh and hold on for dear life!
We then had an incredibly steep drive up to
Coronet Peak, a ski resort that, during summer, people launch Para Gliders
and Hang Gliders from. It is very strange to see a ski resort without any
snow! You could clearly see the ski runs cut into the hill-side and yet
wonder how on earth they get enough snow to cover such a vast area!
Apparently they get between twenty to thirty metres each winter.
After a night in a local pub watching the
opening game of the Super 14s we headed further south to Te Anau.
Te Anau was our base to go Sea Kayaking on
Milford Sound and then on Valentine's Day a cruise on Doubtful Sound.
However, the first thing we did in Te Anau was go to "The Moose" which is
a locals pub that always shows the rugby and has a live bad on afterwards
during the Super 14s. We had a great night and got chatting to the band
who we also saw the following Friday in the "NK" Bar in Dunedin after the
Highlanders/Blues game at the "House Of Pain" a.k.a. Carisbrook Stadium.
Getting to Milford Sound was an adventure in
itself! Our first minibus broke down and we had to race through some
narrow, steep roads in half the time we should have! The journey there
took you through some amazing scenery and the 1,270 metre long Homer
Tunnel. It is carved out of granite rock with a 1:10 gradient that took
17 years to quarry out by hand! When we arrived we were told to undress
and put on the poly-something-or-other clothing that looked like lycra for
clowns! We were then instructed on how to use our kayaks, after which we
then proceeded to squeeze into them. They are much tighter than they
look, especially for your legs! The next four hours were amazing,
kayaking around a glacial fiord and witnessing the "dwarfing" effect was
incredible. The Stirling and Bowen Waterfalls that looked like they were
only a few metres high, but were actually twice the size of Niagara
Falls. It was the fact that they were running off mountains like Mitre
Peak and the Pembroke Glacier that made them look small! Mitre Peak is
over a mile high!
The following day we had a much more leisurely
adventure, travelling by a series of buses and boats to get to Doubtful
Sound. You are taken by bus to "Pearl Harbour" at Lake Manapouri, where
you jump on board a boat to get to the other side of the lake. You then
board another bus, which takes you on an incredible journey to Doubtful
Sound along the Wilmot Pass. This road is twenty-two kilometres long and
is only accessible by boat from both ends!
Our bus firstly took us two-hundred metres
below the ground winding along a two kilometres road to visit the working
end of the Manapouri Hydro Power Station. You then pass the 365 metre
high Cleve Garth Falls before arriving at Doubtful Sound. The day we went
out on the boat it was pouring and this happens on average two out of
every three days! What you do get with all the rain is loads of
waterfalls that only appear when it is raining. Milford Sound was
beautiful, but Doubtful Sound was stunning. The sheer size of the fiord
and the waterfalls running off it, as well as the total lack of "sound"
when the Captain cut the engines made for a truly memorable day.
Dunedin! Carisbrook "The House of Pain"
Stadium! Super 14s! Highlanders versus Blues!
We briefly stopped in Gore to visit the
Champions of The World rugby store and pick up the seventh sock of my
eleven sock challenge by Trish, the manager at the Auckland store. The
challenge in case, I haven't mentioned it, involves me going to all the
chains stores and waving a rugby sock above my head at which point we are
furnished with another one! There are eleven outlets all together and we
will manage to get to all of them and then, as we fly to Singapore from
there, return to Auckland to prove we have completed the challenge. What
we get for doing it we have no idea, probably nothing, but if you don't
ask!
We arrived in Dunedin and headed straight to
the rugby stadium to pick up our tickets for the game. It is called the
"House of Pain" because the visiting team hardly ever wins there! New
Zealand's record at Carisbrook is awesome having only ever lost twice and
drawn once in all the games they have played there. The Lions drew
in 1950 and won in 1971 whilst Australia won there in 2001.
Dunedin also claims, by way of the Guinness
Book of Records, to have the world's steepest street, called Baldwin
Street! We, having walked up about half of it and then resorted to using
the car to get to the top, believe them! It is only two hundred metres
long at its steepest, but has a gradient of 1:2.86 which means for every
2.86 metres you go forward you go up one metre! This is a twenty degree
incline, whereas Filbert Street and 22nd Street in San Francisco are only
a mere seventeen degrees! It was that steep that we actually reversed up
the street just to make sure the car made it!
We also went to Dunedin Peninsula to see the
Giant Albatrosses and Seals. I was very quietly taking photos of some
Seals about twenty metres away when Angela discreetly got my attention.
There was a Sea-lion about ten feet behind me that we had not noticed as
he was perfectly camouflaged, but as he woke up and moved became very
visible! Fortunately we were the only ones there for about quarter of an
hour or so and as we sat quietly he just ignored us, had a good old
scratch and then dozed back to sleep.
The Friday afternoon, before we went to the
rugby, we went on a "Speights" brewery tour. Speights sponsor the
Highlanders and so we felt it only right that we went on this tour. We
weren't influenced at all by the half hour after the tour where you can
try all six of their beers for free!
The game itself was terrific and yet again
the visiting team, the Auckland Blues, against the odds, lost! This meant
of course that we had to go out for a beer in Dunedin after the game.
Whilst we were walking back into town we bumped into a British couple we
previously met in Rotorua and had mentioned to them that we were going to
this game! As you do, we said at the time, "Oh we might see you there
then!"
We headed to the "NK" Bar to see the band we
watched in Te Anau the previous week. At the end of the song they were
playing when we walked in we were welcomed as their "English friends, Nik
& Angela" which I'm not sure was a good thing in a bar full of rugby mad
Kiwis, still we had a few beers with them between sets. |