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New Zealand south island

February - March 2017
A 15-day adventure by Chad Read more
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  • Chad CarlsonNew Zealand south island

    Leaving SFO

    February 21, 2017 in the United States ⋅ 🌧 10 °C

    After a 4.5 hour layover, a couple drinks and changing into comfy pants were just about ready to board our Air New Zealand 777-300 and check out our "economy sky couch"!

  • Chad CarlsonNew Zealand south island
    Day 1

    Day 1 Christchurch

    February 22, 2017 in New Zealand ⋅ 🌙 16 °C

    After 12.5 hours on our "economy skycouch" which was more like 5 minutes of cuddling in a recliner; we figured out how to get some sleep. It wasn't a problem for heather after being mostly awake for the previous 24 hours, and Chad taking Benadryl and melatonin, we arrived in Auckland mostly rested.

    Word of advice for NZ customs, bring clean shoes, or don't declare that you've worn them outside. after an extra 10 minutes of NZ biosecurity cleaning our shoes we were rushing to the domestic terminal for our quick hour flight to Christchurch.

    Fortunately we made it, and our luggage nearly beat us to our carousel. Heather thought the taxi driver had an assistant as we were walking up as he got out of the right side of the car to help us with our things, however that is the side of the car you drive on in NZ.

    A few minutes later we arrive to pick up our spaceship beta 2s. After a quick check in and driving "test" (which was 4 left turns(the easy ones)), the guy told us to grab a couple camping chairs and table for no cost and be on our way.

    We made our way to the Christchurch botanical gardens with Heather navigating and clenching the door handle around corners. After a quick stop for tea and coffee, with angry seagulls, We found the heather garden among other interesting flowers,foliage and trees.

    After lunch we headed to "The Warehouse" (Walmart) for some towels and a SIM card for our phones. Then on to the grocery store to stock up our 10L fridge for a few days.

    We arrived at the North South Holiday Park before most other campers (and unscathed from Chad's first driving experience on the "other" side of the road) so we were able to get a fairly nice spot with a picnic table and not have to wait on taking a nice, hot, 6 minute shower.

    After cooking some makeshift fajitas for dinner on our van stove we are counting down the minutes for the sun to go down so we can finally get some great horizontal sleep.    Read more

  • Chad CarlsonNew Zealand south island
    Day 3

    Day 2 Abel Tasman

    February 24, 2017 in New Zealand ⋅ 🌙 18 °C

    We both slept soundly last night until about 530AM (going to sleep by 9PM might have had something to do with it!) and got up and had some yogurt, muesli and coffee, we were on the road by 730 for our supposed 5:45 drive Marahau.

    It is comforting to know that there is a road construction season in New Zealand as well. Traffic and two lane, twisty roads slow things down as well. Heather used the spaceship app to find a random waterfall hike, located by a spray painted blue arrow on a tree on the side of the road. It had a warning with cross bones and skull, with a warning for poison. We figured we wouldn't eat the poison pellets and proceeded on our way.A quick 15 minute hike up and we weren't disappointed. We finally arrived in Marahau around 230 in time for our afternoon horseback ride down the beach. Which may have been one of our strangest guides to date....

    We still don't know exactly how to describe this strange, weathered man. Upon arrival to his pasture, entrance marked by a Canadian flag (he was not Canadian, just liked the flag) we were greeted by an obviously unhappy man rolling a cigarette. He told us that we were early and not much else. We retreated to our van to change into more appropriate horseback riding gear. Another customer finally approached so we figured we could go back over.

    We don't know the name of this soft spoken, strange little man as he never actually introduced himself, but he was slightly happier to see us after his cigarette, and that it was now approaching the time that the tour was set to begin. A quick observation of our surroundings revealed a delapitated shack that housed the riding equipment, a run down trailer (which we assume he lived in) and an outhouse. Heather inquired about using the restroom before our 2 hour ride. He looked at her as if it were quite the inconvenience before he offered up his "long drop" (outhouse) for her to use. We got our helmets and assigned our horses. It was just us two, and a lady from Finland. Chad with little riding experience was last to mount his horse. The strange little man offered some advice, to paraphrase, "Don't hold onto the saddle horn, pull on the reigns the direction you want to go, and kick your heels to go, you'll figure out the rest"

    The strange little man got his horse out, and climbed onto him, bareback. We were on our way. This is about when the perplexing rambling began. Comments from the strange little man about "if this were free, it wouldn't be worth doing" and "I don't get paid to talk to you, I just get paid to keep you safe" started things off. As he became more comfortable with us his conversation got more animated.

    We both understand guides getting comfortable with clients, but it is usually after a couple of days. This guy, became comfortable enough within half an hour to completely remove what little filter he had. He let the true cowboy come out, swearing like a cowboy (or sailor?), and letting us know how he felt about lots of random things. The insight that he delivered was quite eccentric, and very abnormal for the typical tour guide. He had plenty of conspiracies that he felt the need to let us know about, rather than inform us of typical (actual)history and natural things that we were experiencing.

    Overall he kept us safe, which was his only job.....He let Heather and the Finn trot/gallop on the beach. He took our camera and took some good pictures, along with some very random pictures. On our way back to his "pasture" we had to ride our horses on the streets, by this point he must have been tired of riding bareback for 2 hours so he was walking alongside his horse, randomly stopping and looking into vehicles parked along the road. We got back to his pasture and proceeded to desaddle, rinse, and put away his horses for him.

    This being our second day in New Zealand we felt obligated to tip, so we did (even though it is not expected at all, which we figured out later). He was as grateful, in a strange way. Neither of us still know exactly what to think of him. Probably the worst guide ever, but I (Chad) would recommend going on a tour with him, just for the strange experience of riding a horse with this Kiwi Cowboy.

    Then we drove the 2 minute back to our Holiday Park for the night.

    "The Barn Backpacking Holiday Park" is a bit more rambunctious than the park in Christchurch. The holiday parks have so far been about like a KOA. We made spaghetti and meat sauce which was delicious, and got our lunches and everything ready for our boating/kayaking/hiking tomorrow.    Read more

  • Chad CarlsonNew Zealand south island
    Day 4

    Day 3 Abel Tasman

    February 25, 2017 in New Zealand ⋅ 🌙 16 °C

    We both had another good nights sleep and slept just about to our alarm going off. I bet in a couple days we will probably be ready to sleep in a bit.

    We arrived plenty early to Kahu Kayaks for our "Swingers Delight" tour, greeted by guides actually happy to be there! After everyone arrived and a quick van ride to the ocean we boarded the water taxi and got dropped off about 15 minutes later at Torrent Bay for our 4ish mile hike. We crossed a fairly long, somewhat unsturdy feeling swinging suspension bridge. It crossed a river that emptied into Sandfly Bay, we didn't go visit that beach, even though it looked amazing. The name was a great deterrent. Even with the ominous clouds most of the morning the weather held out for the duration of our hike and was starting to clear by the time we got to Bark Bay; where we had lunch (and Heather spent most of her time running away from curious bees)

    After lunch our same water taxi came to pick us up and bring us back towards town and drop us off at Watering Cove to fetch some kayaks and kayak around in the ocean for a few hours. Our cheerful Canadian guide, an older German couple, young Swiss couple and a young german girl joined us. Normally double kayaks can be a bit of a challenge for us, but these were true sit inside ocean kayaks with a rudder so steering was much easier. We paddled out to Adele island (not named after the singer we found out) to look at some New Zealand Fur Seals while our guide chastised seal gawkers for being closer than 20 meters of the seals.

    We were lucky that the tide and weather were perfect so we continued around Adele Island to a secluded cove which had a perfect sand beach. We beached there for a break as our guide made us mochas and hot chocolate. An hour or so paddle/float later we got back to the beach we started at, which now required an 800 meter walk to get back to the dock since it was low tide. They used old tractors to drive down onto the beach and into the ocean to retrieve the boats and kayaks and bring them back to the road. All of which were old Ford 7000s. They had to be pre 1980 because they drove them right into the ocean to get the boats loaded on them so anything electrical wouldn't survive.

    We then headed into town to get gas and some groceries for dinner. The Toyota van we have gets around 17mpg, which isn't bad, except that gas is around $nzd 8/gallon. It makes filling up a bit expensive each time. We got zucchini, packaged mushroom risotto and a white fish ????(starts with a T) ????for dinner. It all was delicious. We also noticed at the store that they have a ton of delicious sounding hard ciders here, we tried a passion fruit and strawberry lime cider. Both were quite tasty.

    As per our normal routine so far we were tucking ourselves into our cozy camper by 9PM.    Read more

  • Chad CarlsonNew Zealand south island
    Day 5

    Day 4 Charleston

    February 26, 2017 in New Zealand ⋅ 🌙 14 °C

    Another early start this morning to start our drive to Charleston for our Underworld Adventure. We had about an hour and a half of backtracking the route we took to Abel Tasman before we got on a new road to take us to the west coast. New Zealand speed limits are typically a limit, but a goal to try to get to for the most part. We did make good time, google maps said 3:30 and we were right close to that.

    Before getting to Charleston we stopped near Westport to go visit a fur seal colony. A short hike got us to the seal colony where Chad got to try out his dual purpose selfie stick/monopod for pictures of seals and seagulls. The hike also offered spectacular views even though we didn't quite have time to make it to the high point where a lighthouse was. We then finished our drive to charleston and had lunch near the beach at Constant Bay. This is a small bay where ships used to deliver goods to charleston when it was a gold mining town. They said it was ships up to 40 tons.

    The main event of our day was the Underworld Adventure. We showed up and were instructed in the application of our wet suits. Socks, boots, wet suit, wet suit jacket, life jacket, helmet. Chad looked quite fetching in his skin tight wet suit. We then boarded a bus and rode to the train. There was a neat train that took us through the forest to a path where we walked to a swing bridge. We picked up our tubes, which turned out to be child sized tubes (this comes into play later). We then met our guide, Tim. We climbed 130 stairs to the entrance of the cave. It was a hot climb up, but was a cool 11 degrees inside. There were really cool formations, and we hiked for about 1 hour in the cave, carrying our tubes. At one point we "stopped for a rest" and all sat down in our tubes, turned off our lights, and there were glowworms! They were so cool! We then proceeded on, over a small crevace, and then met a river. We formed a line in our tubes, and all linked up. Then we floated through the river, and at first we saw a small line of glowworms, but then it opened up, and the whole roof was covered in glowworms! It was surreal and so cool! The river was a little low, so when we got to the river (which was overwhelmingly green after the black and blue of the pure dark and glowworms), we had to wiggle and push our way through the rocks and rapids. The child sized tines meant that our backs and butts took the brunt of the bumping, as the tube opening was big, but the tube width itself was small. After our refreshing dip in the cool water we made it back to the bridge and boarded the train (run by our guide in his wetsuit) for the trip back to the bus, whilst waiting we were swarmed by the resident sand flies (i.e. Glowworm food), the local couple told us that the Maori believe that the gods put sandflies in the nicest places to keep people out. Lucky for us, this didn't work on us, as the glow worms were one of the closest things we've ever seen!

    We asked a local couple where the best place to watch the sunset would be and they directed us to fishermans rock. We had a quick dinner getting rid of all of our leftovers and took a quick shower before heading out to fishermans rock.

    Luckily we were able to decipher the kiwi's directions and eventually found the parking spot to the rock. (Not before multiple U turns and passing the same on the road at least 5 times) We grabbed our bottle of Chardonnay and quickly completed the short walk on the beach, scramble on the rocks, through the NZ flax forest and across the old concrete foot bridge to fishermans rock. The sunset and waves were quite spectacular, and we were the only people there which made it even better.

    We managed to stay up past 10 PM for the first time since we've been here.    Read more

  • Chad CarlsonNew Zealand south island
    Day 5

    Day 5 Franz Josef Glacier

    February 26, 2017 in New Zealand ⋅ 🌙 16 °C

    We managed to sleep in a bit this morning in hopes the cafe across the street would be open for breakfast. We didn't sleep long enough though, it wasn't open yet and no sign showing when it did. We continued south bound.

    Heather took her first try at driving, of course Chad was scared and tried, but didn't, keep his mouth shut. The west side of the island offers some amazing views of crashing waves and rocky coast line. We stopped Irimahuewhero viewpoint for some quick photos and then carried on to Punakaiki and had bacon (Canadian bacon) and eggs for breakfast. It was interesting to note how dead of a town Charleston was compared to just 45 minutes south where it has been just like your typical summer in southern Utah. We then did the Truman walk down to the beach, and a quick look into Punakaiki cavern while we waited for the tide to come in to see the Pancake Rocks and blow holes.

    Geologists still don't know exactly how the Pancake rocks were formed, many layers of ?limestone? And much more easily eroded material. With all the soft rock around, the ocean did a number on the coast line and created surge pools and "blow holes". The immense power of the ocean is best seen during high tide in a place like this, which we were lucky enough to be there for. It is quite hard to describe all that is going on, and equally difficult to capture on camera. Probably best described in person. We did capture a few videos though.

    We carried on to Greymouth where Siri knew where she was going, but had great difficulty getting us there (the grocery store) because she couldn't decide which road we were actually on. We got some groceries and drove south some more to the next roadside table and made a quick lunch. Further south we made another pitstop in Hokitika which apparently has the best Jade in NZ. We figured that it was just the typical tour bus stop for all the tourists to get their souvenirs so we got a couple. South bound again we suddenly came to a stop in the middle of nowhere. Apparently a large tree had fallen across the road so traffic was backed up for kilometers in either direction. The black signs you see along the road here saying "NZ roads are different, plan for more time" rings true again, even though these roads were straight enough you could get up to the speed limit most of the time.

    After our 30 minute delay we finally made it to Franz Josef with plenty of time to spare for our glacier hot pool experience. (Just chlorinated hot tubs the size of normal pools). After some time there and a refreshing shower we made our way a couple minutes up the road to the Rainforest Retreat Holiday Park. We got some laundry done and "made" some dinner while trying to plan what to do with our 4.5 open days coming up. We are trying to figure out how all the people here come and cook such elaborate looking dinners while we mainly open up packets of things to warm up.    Read more

  • Chad CarlsonNew Zealand south island
    Day 7

    Day 6 Fox Glacier

    February 28, 2017 in New Zealand ⋅ 🌙 16 °C

    It was a cold night in Franz Josef and a chilly morning which made it hard to emerge from the comforts of our humble abode. Our normal breakfast of yogurt and muesli was a bit different due to finding passion fruit yoplait. Chad might figure out how to use his personal French press by the end of this trip. This morning he could stand a fork up in it the coffee it was so thick.

    We were on the road by around 8 and one of the first at the Franz Josef glacier terminal face track parking lot. We hiked up the path with the views of the glacier and surroundings getting better around each corner as the sun started to light everything up. All the helicopters flying people to the glacier were quite obnoxious, but we would be flying on one later today. On the hike down we took a couple short spur trails, peters pool (great reflection pool) and sentinel rock.

    By the time we got back to the parking lot it was nearly full, and it was not a small lot, of camper vans. We drove back into town to try get some cell service or Wifi to try book a few reservations for the upcoming days. We made some lunch in front of the Indian food restaurant and proceeded to check in for our HeliHike of Franz Josef Glacier.

    After all the check in procedures we finally walked out to the helipad where we got our quick, to the point, briefing. Our helicopter landed and the pilot got out and fueled his helicopter by himself. (Chad obviously noticed this, and the fact that no one was standing by with fire extinguishers, no long sleeve shirt and all that other stuff we have to do in the US) We all crammed in and took our quick 5 minute flight to the bottom of the glacier. We were promptly off loaded as the others waiting to get their ride back patiently waited.

    The on ice briefing right next to the landing and taking off helicopters every 5 minutes was quite difficult to completely understand. The basics were something along the lines of; if you do things you're not supposed to, you'll slip and then die. We hiked up the glacier about 1/3 of the way. We hiked through some neat crevices, the blue ice was really cool. While we were on on the glacier small ice chunks kept breaking off, and were quite loud, however, then, a huge chunk broke off from the face and tumbled to the ground below, and it sounded like thunder as car sized chunks were pulverized into a muddy brown mess as it turned into what resembled an avalanche. We ended our helihike with another short ride down the valley in our helicopter and then made our way to the top10 fox glacier holiday park. Where we parked in a big gravel pit.

    We had dinner at the lake Matheson cafe, with beautiful views on mount cook. The food was really good, and we even got homemade ice cream with homemade cookies in it, yum!    Read more

  • Chad CarlsonNew Zealand south island
    Day 8

    Day 7 Somewhere near Wanaka

    March 1, 2017 in New Zealand ⋅ 🌙 16 °C

    Today we woke up in our fancy 'top 10' Holliday park in fox glacier. Heather coughed all night, but luckily Chad said he didn't notice. The weather app said it would be sunny from 8-10 am, but it lied. After walking back and forth through other people's campsite (no clear part to bathroom or kitchen) we got on the road to lake Matheson. Lake Matheson is supposed to be an amazing reflection lake, however secondary to the clouds, the mountains were completely covered :( we tried to walk slowly, but the mountains never came out. A note to ourselves, and whoever may read this, if it's clear go to Lake Matheson regardless of if it is a good time of day. If it's still clear that night or next morning, go again. It is where most of the typical "this is NZ photos/paintings" are done. After a conciliatory chai tea we headed to fox glacier.

    Upon arriving at fox glacier there were still lots of low lying clouds. The bonus was there were no helicopters. We hiked up a very steep hill (with no stops allowed secondary to potential rock fall) and at the top there was a foggy/cloudy view of the glacier. There were also two kea parrots. They had very hooked, sharp looking beaks, and apparently like to destroy parked cars. Chad could see why as many people tried to get as close as possible to them. Them destroying car antennas was probably some sort of pay back. We took a couple pics and headed back down the steep hill. At the bottom of the hill we turned around and the clouds had cleared right above the glacier. Mother Nature is a bitch! We got a couple nice pics of the cleared glacier and then got on the road.

    On the way to mount aspiring national park we tried to stop at an ocean overview, but the sand flies swarmed us as soon as we got out of the car, so we pushed onward. We had lunch at roaring billy falls walk. We met a funny Israeli guy we did the hike with. We didn't know if he saw us leave and chased after us because he needed a break from his family or he figured we were Americans and needed to find out what was on our minds. He asked us "what the fuck is with Donald trump" he proposed a "non religious, non gender, iq tested colony on NZ for people from the world, which we thought wasn't a terrible idea. We then went to Thundercreek falls and fantail falls, Chad liked thundercreek better. The water in the river and under the falls was a beautiful aquamarine blue color from the glacier flower. Next, we hiked a stiff 1/2 mile uphill to a lookout of both sides of haast pass. Once again the clouds covered our main view, but we were able to get a peak at mount Brewster before the clouds completely hid it.

    A quick trip to the Blue Pools where the water was completely clear and bright blue concluded our hiking adventures for today. Young foreign boys were jumping off the swing bridge into the pools until a film crew told everyone to vacate the bridge so they could have a clear shot. I asked what they were filming and the kiwi responded "an ad for tourism NZ, like we need more people coming to this place". Kiwis are pretty abrupt and sarcastic, we like it.

    We made our way a few KMs down a gravel road to Kidds Bush camp site. It is our first DOC (Department of Conservation) camp site that we have stayed at. It's about half the cost of the typical "Holiday Park" (KOA),but has unpotable running water and flushing toilets,but no shower. It is also a free for all. If your van or car/tent will fit, you're good to go. It still seems much more peaceful than a Holiday Park though. We are nestled on Lake Hawea, where the sunsets are great, although short, and the stars are amazing. This is one of our first adventures that we have been graced with this little light pollution, clear skies and no moon.    Read more

  • Chad CarlsonNew Zealand south island
    Day 9

    Day 8 Queenstown

    March 2, 2017 in New Zealand ⋅ 🌙 13 °C

    We got up this morning and found for the first time the inside windows of our van were not completely covered in condensation. We must finally be far enough away from the coast. Our only plans for today were to do a hike to Rob Roy Glacier and then head to Queenstown.

    We drove about 1.5 hours through Wanaka to the Raspberry Flat parking area, fording a handful of streams to get there. The parking area seemed busy, but it was also the start of a longer multi day trek. We began our hike along a bright blue river before crossing it via swing bridge. Then we started our ascent up a canyon which was quite steep. It seemed as if we were never going to get there but after 2 hours of straight up we were finally rewarded with great views of the glacier and so many waterfalls you couldn't count all of them. One was particularly spectacular, a very thin, 200-300 foot drop into a lush green delta. Overall the Rob Roy Glacier was the prettiest and least populated of Franz Josef or Fox, you just had to work a little more to see it. Hiking down was a bit easier, but as with all hikes with lots of vertical, the knees and toes took a beating on the way down while your lungs and heart rate took it on the way up. Overall we hiked nearly 8 miles and were pretty wore out by the time we got to our B&B in Queenstown which will be the first real bed we've slept in in over a week.

    The Embassy B&B sits atop a hill over looking the Frankton Arm of Lake Wakatipu. Our host recommended a tavern for dinner which we went to as traffic was terrible and Fergberger seemed like too much work at this point. Heather promised Chad we would get Fergberger later when we came through Queenstown again.

    It's going to be nice sleeping in a real bed, and not having to put shoes on and climb out of a minivan to go to the bathroom in the morning.    Read more

  • Chad CarlsonNew Zealand south island
    Day 9

    Day 9 Mt. Cook

    March 2, 2017 in New Zealand ⋅ 🌙 11 °C

    Last night we slept in a real bed! It was a much needed luxury, although heather was up hacking for most of the night. We woke up and were treated to a hot breakfast! It was nice to not have to cook or do dishes for 2 meals in a row. We then ventured into Queenstown, which was a shit show. We finally found parking spot on our second pass through town. We went to the isite to find an adventure activity, however, we just couldn't convince ourselves to spend 600$ for 5 seconds of exhilaration. Therefore, we decided to head to mount cook via a couple wineries. First we stopped at the best grocery store we've been to yet, and stocked up on supplies(that may have been the highlight of Qtown, after the real bed and hot breakfast of course)Heather bought some otc morphine for her cough, hopefully that helps tonight.

    We went to three wineries and at the second we did a tour of their manmade wine cave. The central otago region is famous for their Pinot noir grapes, also Pinot Gris are popular. Chad tried gerwisterminer wine for the first time and liked it. They have some dry reislings in this region, which were also tasty. We went and watched a couple people bungee jumping and then got on the road.

    The weather was a little yucky today, lots of wind and threatening to rain. We drove past lake Pukake, which was an amazing azure blue, with the mountains behind it. We arrived at our campground right when the rain was starting. It was blustery and rainy, so we created a couch on our bed and watched 1/2 a movie. There seemed to be a break in the weather, so we collected our cooking stuff and ran to the communal shelter. We made some yummy quesadillas and then quickly retreated to the shelter of the van. We finished watching our movie and then went to brush our teeth and it may have been snowing? We are going to bed and the campground appears to be tucked in at the base of a huge mountain, we can see the bottom of the glaciers. We are hoping to wake up and be amazed at the view!    Read more

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