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Chris and Charly Down Under

a travel blog by chrischarly

Bye bye tuk tuks
Bye bye negotiating
Bye bye, 'Hello Mister'
Bye bye long bus rides
Bye bye heavy backpacks
Bye bye savings...
And G'DAY 'down under'!

After plenty of time spent in South East Asia, we have just left Australia after having an amazing time driving around for almost 3 months in a camper and are now in New Zealand doing the same :)


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Franz Josef Glacier!!

Franz Josef Glacier, New Zealand

Today was certainly a memorable day for 2 reasons. 1 Franz Josef Glacier and 2 for mosquitoes…

We woke up this morning in our little campsite to see the sun trying its hardest to break through the clouds, so seeing this as a perfect opportunity to climb a glacier we drove straight to the booking

The glacier
office in Franz Josef to see if they could squeeze us in on a tour today. Unfortunately the 12pm slots were all

Chris getting emotional
taken so the 3pm time looked the best option, although we wouldn’t return until at least 8pm. But the lady behind the counter noticed that there were 2 places left on the 10:30am tour and being 10:15am already

The glacier before we went on it
we thought we would just book it and go straight away, less chance of backing out that way. So Chris ran off to find some parking

Walking through thin walls of ice
whilst I ran to the supermarket to grab us some quick breakfast/lunch to wolf down before collecting all of our gear and getting on the bus.
We chose to go on the ½ day tour which took about 5 ½ hours of walking both to the glacier and on it, with 2 hours on the ice itself. It was an

Blue ice
absolutely fantastic experience but one of the most tiring things I have ever done in my life but so worth it! I could write for ages about it, but just look at the photos and you will be able

Hot and tired
to see just how beautiful it was. When we got back it was about 4:30pm and as mentioned before we were knackered and went for a well-deserved drink

In a ice cave
with a friendly couple we went on the tour with before going and sitting in some hot pools to soothe our aching muscles.

Steep climb
Then thinking an early night was in order we drove to a DOC campsite and found a lovely spot underneath some trees at the far end of the site, made some dinner, chilled out for a while, jumped into bed,

Climbing down and down
watched a film and heard some buzzing… The west coast of New Zealand is mostly famous for 2 things, 1, its outstanding beauty and 2, sandflies.

Chris looking gorgeous
And although sandflies are a right pain and there are literally swarms of them, they are easily killed as they are just so stupid.

Miles and miles of pure ice
Mosquitoes however are far more difficult to control and I think we undermine them as the clever creatures they are.

Loads of ice
So anyway, we thought that the sand-flies would be the things that would break us here, but no, it was in fact the mozzies, that are in fact way worse than in the whole of Africa and SE Asia,

Franz Josef Glacier
which we never would’ve thought possible.

Climbing down
After over 2 hours with the light on and head torches we must’ve squatted over 100 of the buggers with no idea whatsoever where they were coming from.

The fantastic blue ice
I know it sounds unbelievable, but it isn’t.
We were exhausted and completely fed up, but by 1am we gave up, thinking we had killed the worst of them, wrapped up in covers,

Walking through a cave in the ice
sweated so much due to the humidity but determined to ignore the buzzing and get some sleep.
After over an hour of trying and failing to get some sleep,

Climbing up the glacier
Chris turned back on the lights to check just how many there were and we were shocked to see our beige carpeted ceiling the colour black with hundreds and hundreds of them just sitting waiting to attack.
It was now 2:30am and we just had enough and outside our windows we could see hundreds more just waiting to get in, so the only option left was to get dressed and get the hell out of this place and find the next open petrol station to buy some insect spray.
So we decided to drive north and drove and drove and drove through thick fog on windy roads for 3 hours before we got into Greymouth and finally found a petrol station at just gone 5:30am,

Didn't know ice could be this blue
bought some bug spray and then tried to work out somewhere we could finally sleep. Of course everywhere was closed so we drove in circles for almost another

Getting the ice ready for us to walk on
hour until we found a back street away from houses that we prayed we wouldn’t get a fine for parking up, sprayed the whole van, stood outside shivering until the smell disappeared and finally went to sleep!

permalink written by  chrischarly on February 1, 2012 from Franz Josef Glacier, New Zealand
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Relaxing day

Greymouth, New Zealand


Thick fog
At about 10:30am we reluctantly woke up sleeping a lot longer than intended and the only thing we could face doing was to drive and find a campsite with a TV room or something similar where we could just sit and relax on sofas all day. Luckily being in a town we easily found this, and that was precisely what we did all day, doing nothing but watching day time telly, a bit of laundry and cleaning up the dead mosquito carcasses from all over the van. Perfect day and just what we needed!

permalink written by  chrischarly on February 2, 2012 from Greymouth, New Zealand
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Rocks that look like pancakes

Punakaiki, New Zealand

We had a few things to do in Greymouth in the morning and early afternoon, and then headed up the coast and took a nice walk to see a seal colony.


How far we are from everywhere

A seal


Pancake rocks

Pancake rocks

After this we headed a bit further to Pancake rocks, which are a strange layered rock formation.


Pancake rocks

Pancake rocks


The sea

Coastline

We then headed inland to a DoC campsite by the Buller River, which is supposed to be good for fishing.


A weka

After getting to the campsite Chris went for a walk to find an access point but couldn’t, so no fishing, or “ing”, was done. We just chilled and had another yummy Chris creation for dinner, fought off the sandflies for as long as we could take it then retired to bed.

permalink written by  chrischarly on February 3, 2012 from Punakaiki, New Zealand
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In the back country

Hanmer Springs, New Zealand


High up

River by our camp

Once again, sick of the sandflies we headed off to cross the Southern Alps at the Lewis Pass, which was a really nice drive. We ended up in Hanmer Springs which was ultra-busy so after a refuel and a visit to the Doc Office we chose to take an adventurous route through Molesworth Station – the biggest farm in NZ. The road was rough, so slow going, but the views were great and we got to Accommodation House by mid-afternoon. This was another Doc campsite at an old cottage, used by trekkers. The site was really nice and near a River, so of course Chris went off “ing”, returning unsuccessful.


Chris cooking

Gorgeous countryside


Wild flowers

Walking through the Cobb Valley

After dinner we took a nice loop walk around the campsite to take in the amazing views and then Chris went for another “ing”, nearly fishing, as he did get a bite, but still no fish, very frustrating.


permalink written by  chrischarly on February 4, 2012 from Hanmer Springs, New Zealand
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Molesworth Station

Molesworth, New Zealand


Scary-looking cow

Waterfall

We headed off up the gravel road across the Molesworth Station, taking in the bumps and amazing views before coming to the further DoC campsite. It was quite early so we stopped for lunch then headed on, after being advised of a free camp just outside of the station.


Amazing view

It was a long, bumpy and slow drive but finally we found a really nice free campsite with very few sandflies. This was paradise! Chris went off for an “ing” and came back with a big smile on his face after fishing, yes he actually caught one. It wasn’t the biggest, but cooked up with some pasta in a carbonara style it was simply delicious.


Chris and his catch

Nice view

Well done Chris, keep it up!
Some other campers were off to try and catch eels, so Chris joined them and returned well after dark, as he didn’t have his torch and had to wait for them.


permalink written by  chrischarly on February 5, 2012 from Molesworth, New Zealand
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A load of seals

Kaikoura, New Zealand


Seal on the rocks

Seal pup feeding

We left our campsite this morning and headed south for a while to Kaikoura as we had read that you could go on a whale watching tour which you could see, well whales obviously, as well as dolphins and other animals as well. On the way we stopped briefly at a lookout point from where we saw many seals playing really close up this time which was fascinating to stand and watch for a while.


Seals playing on the rocks

Seals


A seal

Seal swimming


Seals on the rocks

A seal

We then drove a little further and stopped at a little shack called ‘Nin’s Bin’ which is famous for it’s crayfish/lobster, but at ranging at $45-$96 for just one crayfish tail that would never in a lifetime fill us up we ran away from the tourist trap and continued to Kaikoura.


Chris' tiny trout
As today was in fact a public holiday, but the reason for this we have no idea, the town was crazily busy jam-packed with other tourists, such as ourselves though I suppose we made a quick drive around and called into the booking office for the tours, but at $145pp and all we would be likely to see were sperm whales, and of course that is not guaranteed either we solemnly turned back around, did a little shopping and went back to the campsite we stayed at last night as it was so lovely, and of course free, and even more importantly, on the way back North. Oh yeah, and Chris successfully managed to catch another trout, albeit a small one!

permalink written by  chrischarly on February 6, 2012 from Kaikoura, New Zealand
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A nice shower...

Blenheim, New Zealand


Pigs getting friendly
Got up and left the campsite and headed straight for a much-needed shower at a campsite down the road in Seddon which they kindly let us use for $3pp. Then we headed North for a while into Blenheim and then headed west and stayed camped up for the afternoon and night especially enjoying Chris’ delicious trout he caught last night.

permalink written by  chrischarly on February 7, 2012 from Blenheim, New Zealand
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Peninsula Walk

Saint Arnaud, New Zealand


A very rare tree

The view from our walk

We headed to St Arnaud today, camped out in a café and caught up on the blog. We had a delicious lunch then went to the lake for a walk, only to find Charly only had one trainer. We drove back 25kms to last night’s campsite, to luckily find it sitting on the grass.


Nice view

View of the lake

Back on track we took a nice 1.5hour walk around the Peninsula of the lake spotting rare trees and wildlife, but unfortunately no Kiwis, even though this is a great place to spot them. We then went out of town to another free campsite and went for a nice walk to the River, did some fishing before returning back for dinner and bed.

permalink written by  chrischarly on February 8, 2012 from Saint Arnaud, New Zealand
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Thru the drive-thru

Motueka, New Zealand


Enjoying a nice ice cold pint
We headed North to Motueko stopping for a nice coffee enroute. The café owner told us that there was a cheap local campsite by the sea pool, however upon checking it we saw that it was only for self-contained vehicles. We had some breakfast there and then headed to the cheapest paid campsite in town at $20 per night, and it was really nice.

What NZ is famous for
We did all our washing before taking a nice stroll into town for a few beers. Chris had been told to go to the Sprig and Fern as they did all local beers. They did and Chris did his best to try as many as possible. Several pints later and a wee bit tipsy we staggered home via McDonalds (not our usual choice but nothing else was open), where we tried the door it appeared locked up so we assumed it was only drive thru. Chris thought it was hilarious to walk through and try and order at the drive thru, whilst I actually found a door that was open and saved him from his embarrassment.


permalink written by  chrischarly on February 9, 2012 from Motueka, New Zealand
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Cool caves and 2 fishies

Takaka, New Zealand

The weather was a little gloomy but we headed off towards Golden Bay regardless. As we climbed up a massive hill we met the clouds and it got very grim so we decided to pull in and have a coffee at a caves attraction. It actually looked a pretty nice cave trip so we decided to give it a go.


Chris excited

Ancient marble


Climbing down and down...

About to go in the cave


Chris getting friendly with the cave

Stalactites and Stalagmites


Moa remains (bird that's now extinct)

Scary ladder


Kiwi remains

Moa remains

It was pretty awesome and we found out that they filmed some of Lord of the Rings 2 here and also recently some of the Hobbitt. After leaving The Caves we decided to head to a free DoC site in the Cobb Valley.


So high up in the clouds!
We thought it would be a tough drive and we weren’t wrong, lot of twists and turns and rough gravel with sheer drops off the side. We went very slowly and carefully especially as we were in the clouds again.

Happy Chris!!!
We finally reached the Cobb Reservoir a decided to give it a fish before setting up camp. We found a nice spot at the end of the water by the River entrance. We tried a few different areas with no luck then we caught 1 and then a second. Officially Chris’s best fishing day in NZ. We headed to the camping area just in time to see two blokes stripping off and jumping in the River for a wash.


Dinner time

A nice big fire to keep the bugs away

Chris setup the van and collected some firewood whilst I watched the two naked men scrubbing their muscly bodies. Chris made a nice fire and this helped deter the sandflies. It was a clear night and it got pretty cold but I had Chris as my personal hot water bottle to snuggle up to all night.

permalink written by  chrischarly on February 10, 2012 from Takaka, New Zealand
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