Cross Country

The following day we passed though Hokitika and Greymouth before settling into Westport for the night. This drive took us past the Pancake Rocks and a fur seal colony, which once again, provided us an opportunity to stretch out legs and see some great New Zealand scenery.














The next morning it was pouring rain again, so we just hit the road. Not too far from Murchison was the Buller Gorge Swing Bridge. We all, except Natalie, walked crossed the bridge and back.
http://www.bullergorge.co.nz/














We then drove across the county from west to east, easily done in a few hours, stopping to take the waters at Hannmer Springs, a natural hot spring, developed into a series of small swimming and bathing pools. We were able to don our swim gear (it had warmed up considerably and the sun came out!) and lounge the various pools, ranging in temperatures from 35 to 41 degrees, for an hour.
http://www.hanmersprings.co.nz/


Our destination that night was Kaikoura, a very beautiful place, and with the best of New Zealand has to offer scenery- wise: the ocean and snow-capped mountains in view. Here we visited an historic house, called Fyffe House, which was one of the original settlements in the area, when whaling was the occupation of many. The foundation for the original part of the house, built in 1844, was whale vertebrae:

This house was really well set up, my hat went off to the curators, because nothing was off limits. The girls were curious about a little door in the upstairs bedroom, so we cautiously opened it, and there was a laminated piece of paper describing the roof tiles that could be seen from this little closet; the door was meant to be opened. There were other tags around the house directing us to open certain cupboards or look behind other doors. It was wonderful. We have also learned from past experiences at places like this, to take the tour. We have learned so much from the tours of these sorts of places, not just about the house itself, but of course about the history of the area, city, town, whatever. It is well worth the wait, the time, and the money spent to take the tour.

Wanaka to Westport

The drive from Queenstown to Wanaka took us through more "Lord of the Rings" territory, and was beautiful.

We arrived in Wanaka Saturday afternoon and headed directly for Puzzling World; home to a famous maze and other puzzles and optical illusions. Susan and Natalie managed to complete the maze in 30 minutes (they had to reach all for corners then find their way out), Rachel a bit longer, and I'd still be in there if I hadn't been rescued by my family. It was a lot of fun.















We arrived at our campsite Saturday evening to clear skies and a cool breeze. Sunday morning found us in the little church waiting for mass to begin. Susan said, "Why does the organist's song sound so familiar?" It was the theme to LOTR! As she played we looked out the windows upon the lake, snow-capped mountains, and rolling hills. We spent a short while in Wanaka and then headed up towards the Fox and Franz-Joseph Glaciers.

Both glaciers had hikes along gravelly riverbeds to reach the tip of the glacier. We hiked up to the glaciers but were cautious about walking on them (there were too many warnings not to be cautious). The hikes themselves were a good deal of fun and gave us much needed stretching of legs. The girls got to hold some chunks of ice that we found at the side of the rivers leading from the nose of the glacier - reminded them of home!

Milford Sound and Queenstown

The drive from Te Anau to Milford Sound took about two hours, on one of the most scenic drives in the world. We saw most of it, but it was a rainy, misty day. There was one tunnel, just carved out of the mountain, with barely room to pass an oncoming vehicle (we didn't meet one), and very dimly lit. From the other side looking back, there was just a wall of mountain and this road snaking up to the small opening that was the tunnel.


















We went on a three hour boat tour of the sound, and despite the weather, it was an amazing experience. We got wet (except for Natalie, who wisely stayed inside) when the captain took the ship's bow under a waterfall - I really didn't think he'd get that close, but when I realized what was happening, it was too late!

Because a fjord has nearly vertical sides, extending almost a km upwards, and often as far down, there is no risk of grounding the boat, so they can get very close to the edge (by the way, a sound is created by a river, a fjord is glacial, so Milford is really a fjord). We cruised the length of the sound, all the way to the open ocean, well, it's the Tasman Sea on that side of New Zealand. There were hundreds of waterfalls, most of them just temporary, so thanks to all the rain, we were able to see them. This, the west coast of New Zealand gets 7 to 8 metres of rain annually. The mate on the boat said that 200 days a year are rainy for the boat tours of the sound. Wow.



We headed back towards Te Anau, then up to Queenstown for the night. Queenstown is a very touristy place, geared towards outdoor activities. It reminded me a lot of Banff, Alberta, with outdoor stores and adventure organizers, and people wandering around with various sports equipment ready for the next day. This is where bungy jumping originated, and other crazy things like jet boating, where you go shooting down a canyon in a jet boat at I don't know what speeds! John had visions of doing a bungy jump, but in the end decided not to. Not sure why, maybe it was the disclaimer about the possibility of detatched retinas that did it...

By the time we reached Queens- town, the weather had cleared up consider- ably, and we were getting ideas for the next day, but woke up to pouring rain and decided to press on. We stopped at AJ Hackett Bungy, where it all began and watched a few people jump off the bridge to the water below, getting their heads dipped into the swirling currents before being hauled in by the awaiting boat.

Niagara Falls

Yes, there is another Niagara Falls in the world, also in New Zealand. We just happened to pass by the road sign for it on our way south from Dunedin, and had to stop for a look. Here's what it looks like:

Dunedin and beyond

We were on our way after visiting Akaroa, down the east coast of New Zealand and to the beautiful city of Dunedin. This is the second largest city on the south island, after Christchurch (itself with a population of less than a million people.) We had a tour of the Cadbury chocolate factory, learned lots about the production of chocolate, and got lots of samples. Yum.

We visited an historic home, called Olveston. It was really interesting, as it had all the original furnishings as when the family first lived there and acquired things during their travels (the house was built between 1904-06). The house was bequeathed to the citizens of Dunedin, in the trust of the municipality, by the lat surviving member of the family, a daughter who died in 1966.

We continued down the coast and went to the remote Nugget Point, via Roaring Bay, where we saw a few yellow-eared penguins down on the grassy area at the edge of the beach, from the special hut in the picture.























































We made our way down to Invercargill, which wasn't nearly as nice as Dunedin, and stopped for the night at Te Anau, the gateway to Milford Sound.

Banks Peninsula and Barrys Bay

I know I've already posted about Barry's Bay, New Zealand, but that was before we knew that we were going. So we got to see it for ourselves on our way out to Akaroa and the Banks Peninsula, east of Christchurch. It is a very small town, just about 11 houses and one cheese factory, located on the water (Barry's Bay) on Akaroa Harbour. Here's how it looks:


The bay itself is at the bottom of the photo separated from the harbour by the narrow spit of land and Onowe Peninsula. We did have a couple of contacts there, and visited a gentleman who runs a backpackers' accommodation and had a chat about the two Barry's Bays. We also went to the cheese factory, looked around, and sampled some of their delicious cheeses.


We went on to a bigger place called Duvauchelle for the night, and then to Akaroa the next morning. Akaroa is an old French fishing village and was really pretty. The sights around here are quite spectacular, with the steep, snow-capped mountains and all the water.

Christchurch, New Zealand

Hello, we're back. Thanks for hanging in there the last two weeks! We didn't manage to blog while we were away, so I'll now get going with what we were doing.
The flight across the the ditch to New Zealand was good after getting off to a late start. We had taxied all the way to the outermost runway at Sydney Airport, only to go all the way back to the gate because there was a noise coming from one of the back up systems on the plane and the pilot wasn't satisfied with it (thank you!) Now, this kind of delay I don't really mind, because I want to know that I have a competent pilot that is willing to go back for such a thing to be looked at and fixed. I hope all pilots would do the same. So we sat on the runway for almost an hour while it was sorted out and then, after taxiing all the way out the same runway again, we were off.

It is a 3 hour flight to Christ- church, and with the delay we arrived with 15 minutes to spare before the Britz campervan rental place closed, so I made a quick call, everything was fine for our arrival, and it turned out that the place was just hopping with people getting their campers, anyway. The one thing that was different renting a camper in New Zealand as opposed to Australia, as we did in July, was that we were shown how to put chains on the tyres, for if it snowed (snow? I thought, I brought shorts with me!) But, yes, and the forecast was for snow at high altitudes the next night, and it did snow! We actually never had to use the chains, but carried them throughout our travels. Here's our home for the holidays:














Christchurch is a beautiful little city, with the shallow, meadering Avon River flowing through it. We spent the morning of our second day just wandering in the downtown, and enjoyed a cuppa in Cathedral Square, before heading out to the Banks Peninsula and having a look at the 'other' Barry's Bay for ourselves!