The South Island Manifesto

We gave into temptation and stayed in Nelson on that rainy night a week ago - and a good thing too. There was so much rain that we were looking for Noah's number to ask him about building some arks. A couple of the roads we had been planning on travelling upon were closed and it wouldn't have been much fun to turn a corner to find that the road or bridge had been washed away!

Instead of spending the evening driving, we spent it doing Susan's favourite thing - eating. We found a nice Malaysian restaurant pretty quickly and I was assigned the task of finding a hostel. I was very lucky that the first hostel offered us a double room, and also said that they had a spa we could use!! There was much rejoicing and I zoomed down in our funky RAV and checked in, then went back to finish my meal. When we arrived in the hostel, the first thing we did was get into the outdoor spa in an attempt to return our legs to normal service. It was great, but it started to rain - icy bolts of freezing rain. Contrary to what you'd expect, it is not cosy to be sitting in a hot spa with refreshing rain on your face, so we beat a hasty retreat to the relative safety of the hostel.

The following day we had decided to try and save a day from our schedule by driving the 7.5 hour journey between Nelson and Fox glacier. This seemed like a fine plan but since we turned our noses up at the free breakfast offered by the hostel and went elsewhere, we didn't leave Nelson until well after midday, so were still driving through driving rain in the dark at 7:30pm. Eventually, I called a halt to the proceedings 60kms short of Fox glacier and we stopped in some small town called Matapora or something like that and got a room in the first motel we saw. It was a big relief to get into somewhere warm and cosy and settle into bed to watch quality New Zealand TV, which gets most of it's programs from the UK. Thus, a welcome relief from Australia's habit of getting American programming, complete with the 10 minute ad breaks.

The following day, we had planned to walk Fox glacier, as I had previously walked Franz Josef glacier. Unfortunately, it was closed for walking due to rockfalls and so we had to go to Franz Josef instead. The day was forecast to be miserable rain, but dawned nice and blue, so we set off with high hopes of a lovely walk! Sadly, the rain didn't stay away and within two hours, we were very very wet. Luckily, they had given us lots of Gore-tex gear so we were pretty well protected from the elements. The walk wasn't as good as the last time I did it, three years ago. One of the reasons for this was that last time the weather was perfect, but perhaps the main reason was that someone had died on the glacier a week previously. I think this meant that they had changed the route to avoid the more dangerous bits - no bridges, ice caves or crevices. For a look at what it was like last time, look here:

http://www.skynet.ie/~martin/pictures/020821nz/

We had had more unrealistic driving expectations to follow the glacier walk, by planning on driving south to Haast. By the time we stumbled off the glacier and back to the car, cold, wet and exhausted, we decided that was folly and instead booked into the closest motel for the night. Should I mention that we happened to pick a motel with a spa and went for a quick half hour dip to fix up our legs? I probably shouldn't!

The following morning, we drove on to Queenstown where we had various adrenalin activities planned. The drive is a lovely one, and we had to stop often to take pictures. At various times during the drive, doing bungy jumps was discussed and Susan was firmly against it! We checked into our hostel and went for a bit of a wander around Queenstown, which is a really nice village with an alpine, ski-resort feel to it. For such a touristy place, it doesn't really feel like it - it feels cosy and friendly. We went for an indian, as it is traditional - Oisin, Marie and I had gone for an indian in the same place when we had arrived three years ago! While there, we both had momentary lapses of reason and ordered our food with the chilli dial set to 'Hot' rather than our more normal 'medium'. Mistake. Big mistake. Taking one mouthful of food then drinking two glasses of water doesn't make for a very comfortable meal! Afterwards, we went for a couple of drinks and then went back to the hostel.

The following day, we missed out on the alleged free breakfast, so ate out again (ahem). After that, we got the gondola up the mountain to go luging again. It was great fun, as the track is WAY faster than the track in Rotorua. We ended up having 7 goes again as it is just addictive, and then we watched some people doing the Sky Swing (http://www.ajhackett.com/index.php?page=swing). The first cracks in Susan's adamance about not bungying appeared then, when she saw how easy it looked, even going so far as to enquire about prices! After that, we went for food in an Irish pub (hearty toasted sandwiches in front of a log fire - just the thing to warm your cockles) and I finally got Susan to agree to do a tandem bungy on Kawarau Bridge. Agreement in place, I rang them and tried to book a jump for that evening, but they were just about to close so the time was set for 10:15am the following morning.

We had another beer next to the fire and came up with a plan for the evening - to go to the Ice bar in Queenstown, then out for dinner to a pizza place that Lorraine had reccomended. The ice bar is a really cool place where the temperature is kept at about minus 7 celsius (http://www.minus5.co.nz/) and everything is made of ice - the glasses, the couches, sculptures, the bar, everything! You get given a big duffel coat and gloves to keep you warm and a vodka based cocktail included in the entrance price. It was a very cool (literally!) and different experience, and lots of photos were taken!

After that, we went to Winnies to warm up next to their log fire with a beer while we waited for a table. The food was great, although it was a little hard to flag down one of the hordes of wait staff for service! Afterwards, we went for a beer and then back to the hostel.

Sue apparently didn't get much sleep that night as in her head she was jumping of the bridge 50 different ways...but eventually the next day came and we set off for Kawarau bridge. We checked in, and my feet started to get a bit chilly, so I resolved to tell Susan we could think twice about it. However, when I came back from getting a coffee, she already had her credit card out and was paying for the jump, so I had to revert back to being all gung ho about it. Unfortunately, they told us we couldn't do a tandem jump because of the vast difference in our weights, so we decided to do two individual jumps instead.

Out onto the bridge we went, and there was a big queue for the 'fat bastard' ledge were people over 65kg jump (thicker bungy cord I think?), and no queue at all for the 'petite' queue, where people under 65kg jump. That meant that in no time flat, Susan was tied up to some bungy rope and being led to the edge. There was a bit of wailing, and a long pause while the Jumpmaster, Tim, slowly coaxed her into letting go of the various handrails. And then! 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...GO. She tensed for the jump, but made the fatal mistake of looking down and froze with a wail instead. Much more coaxing ensued, with some good cop/bad cop stuff going on with the various people trying to talk her into the jump. Then...5, 4, 3, 2, 1 - GO! She tensed for the jump and may even have made a little hop towards the edge, but with another wail she proclaimed that it was impossible and she wasn't going to do it. I was next in the queue for the fat bastard ledge, so after some quick consultation we decided that I wouldn't jump either and we'd go get our $330 back to spend it on something else.

Ah well! At least she got up on the ledge and looked the jump in the eye! We had a coffee and then returned back to Queenstown for some breakfast before beginning the drive down to Te Anau, gateway to the Fiordland National Park. It was an uneventful drive and we booked into a Top 10 holiday park before going for a wander around the shops to figure out what we were going to do the following day. I bought Susan a book on chess (which came with a much better board then the one we were using) and we eventually decided on a cruise around Milford Sound and to do the first day of two of New Zealand's Great Walks - The Kepler track and the Routeburn track. From there, we went into our accomodation and had a few games of chess before an early night.

The following day, we were up and at 'em at 7am and on the road for 7:50 to drive up to Milford sound. It was a lovely drive through the Fiordland National Park, and we managed to overtake the couple of massive coaches in front of us quite quickly, allowing us to zoom along. That is, until we came up against Mr. AAS, the driver of a huge Britz camper van with registration AAS392 - this is emblazoned across my mind for reasons which will shortly become clear. He didn't have any regard for the queue of cars building up behind him, and continued to potter along at 70kph. When I finally had a stretch of open road in front of me, I indicated to over take and started to come up along side him when he veered three feet over the white line, reducing the amount of space available to me to about half the width of my RAV. I slammed on the brakes as there was a crash barrier on my right and a campervan getting closer and closer on my left and we screeched and skidded to a halt. I have no idea what was up with him, whether he was actually trying to kill us or whether he was just a total dickhead. In any case, it was a while before my heart rate got back to normal, I can tell you!

From there, we drove through the Homer Tunnel, which is a lovely little tunnel which was started back in the 30's by 5 men with a wheelbarrow. It shows the signs of it's origins, with rough stone walls and little streams running down through it! It's a one-way tunnel, like NZ's uncountable one-way bridges, with a 15 minute period on the traffic lights at both ends.

We eventually arrived safely into Milford Sound - there isn't much there, just a huge visitor centre where all the cruise companies have booking desks, and a cafe. We had a quick coffee and then got on the huge catamaran that was going to take us around the harbour. The temperature was around 10 degrees, but there were no clouds in the sky and it was a lovely day. The cruise was fantastic, with steeply rising cliffs on both sides and waterfalls cascading down and snow capped peaks all around. I had decided that we had to do the cruise which also visited the underwater observatory in the sound as it cost too much money to dive there, as I had originally planned. Also, I saw a picture of the dive boat and I didn't fancy spending 6 hours in a zodiac in 10 degrees with 40 knot winds and wearing a wet suit!

The reason that people dive the sound is that due to the unique conditions of it's location, there is a permanent layer of tannin stained freshwater floating on top of the saltwater in the fiord. This creates low light conditions lower down and allows deep water denizens to thrive in relatively shallow depths. It is one of the only places in the world where recreational divers (who have a maximum depth limit of 42m) can dive to see black coral - so called because when it dies it turns black, unlike most tropical coral which turns white - hence the term 'coral bleaching' to describe dead reef systems. The observatory was a great place, with an observation deck sitting at about 9m it's perfect for giving non-divers a glimpse at what 'the big deal is' . Black coral doesn't look particularly exciting as it looks almost exactly like a small shrub with white leaves. The visibility was about 9 meters, enough to make me wish for a moment that I had braved the elements to dive there...

After the cruise, we started the drive back to Te Anau, stopping at various waterfalls and other marvels to break the journey. We paid a visit to the Humboldt falls, which are part of the Milford Track (one of New Zealand's Great Walks), and then did a grueling 75 minute uphill hike to the Key Summit (which is the first day of the Routeburn Track) for a spectacular 360 view of the surrounding countryside. We stayed up there for a long time, just enjoying the view. In the distance, we could see the Routeburn track zig-zagging up a very prominent peak and congratulated ourselves once again on not undertaking it!

After that gorgeous walk, we drove back to Te Anau to find that we had our 3 bedroom house to ourselves so settled in for dinner and a game of chess. The following day, we were up late and headed to a place called 'Rainbow Reach' where we were going to do the first day of the Kepler Track to a place called the Moratau hut. It was another gorgeous walk through a moss-carpeted beech forest and ending up on the banks of Lake Manapouri, for a stunning view out of the lake and surrounding forests and mountains. The lake was very placid and in the photographs we took it is difficult to figure out whether the picture is upside down or not - the reflections are that perfect.

After returning to the car we started the next leg of the journey down to Invercargill, the southern most city in New Zealand. It was an uneventful drive, and we checked into our hostel with no difficulty. It was a YHA, and easily the nicest hostel we've stayed in on our whole holiday - excellent facilities, large, clean, spacious bedroom with en suite, etc. Susan cooked up a nice risotto and after that we headed out to 'Waxy O Neills' for a pint of Murphys.

In the morning, we did our usual trick of checking out then using the kitchen anyway to have breakfast - ahem! Fast broken, we decided to take the 'scenic' route to Dunedin, our next stop. It was supposed to take an extra two hours, but with spectacular views - and we weren't disappointed. Our first stop along the way was at Waipapa point where just after we parked, a mad swiss man reversed into us at high speed. Luckily, our RAV has rubber bumpers and there was no damage done! We got chatting with him as we headed down to the light house, and as we were standing there chatting, a local came up and told us that there were seals and sea lions on the beach below. We went down, and sure enough - there they were. Two New Zealand fur seals and the biggest sea lion I've ever seen in my life. He was HUGE, and barely deigned to open one eye to acknowledge our existence. He spent most of his time wriggling around making himself comfortable and then letting out big happy (but smelly! ew, fishy breath!) sighs.

Our next stop was at Slope Point, which is the southern most tip of the south island. It was quite amazing to stand there with the freezing wind blowing in your face and know that there is nothing between you and Antarctica. We had lunch there, and then continued on to Porpoise bay, so named due to the Hector's Dolphins which lived there. Apparently, they had had enough of humans and buggered off two years ago and haven't been seen since. Just next to Porpoise Bay was Curio Bay which has the petrified remains of a Jurassic era forest 160 million years old! If you use your imagination a bit you can see the petrified trees, but after the first one, it was hard to maintain any sense of awe, so I ran back to the car to escape the infernal thrice-damned sandflies.

We had one more stop on our way to Dunedin, at another set of waterfalls which were quite pleasant, but from there we made a bee line for Dunedin, which is where we are now! Along the way, our travel agent in Auckland rang to tell us that our standby flights had come through and that we have three extra days in New Zealand - hurray! All is not well however, as we've decided to move to Dublin instead of back to Sydney so Susan is going to go to Sydney early to pack up our stuff and send it on, while I stay behind and do some bonding with the rellies.

Hope everyone is well!

Marty