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South Island Day 11: Making White Water Rafting Look Like A Pleasure Cruise

Queenstown, New Zealand

Middle of summer and this is the view this morning at the DoC site we stayed at;


View From 12 Mile Delta Campground

Snow On The Mountains

Yep, that's snow on them there hills.

...................................

Ah Friday the 13th, what a perfect day to throw yourself into fast moving water without a raft. Shane had decided to rent a mountain bike and cycle down an off road hill very very fast but last time I went cycling I felt like I'd been kicked in the cunt for three days so instead of that me and Nat went river boarding where I ACTUALLY got kicked in the cunt by flailing people wearing flippers.

Allow me to explain river boarding.

They deck you out in a wet suit, helmet, flippers and a bodyboard and are taught a few essentials such as the "rapids position" where you prop yourself up on your left arm, hold onto the board at the top with your left hand and hold the board into your hips with your right hand thus becoming "one unit with your board."

In theory anyway. After only the little practise runs my left arm was ready to give in. It fucking hurt.


Rapids Position

After they've had you swimming round in circles a couple of times, taught you how to get back on your board if you fall off in the rapids and they've rescued the ones that got swept away they show you how to relieve cramp as it can be a problem with all the kicking you have to do. The best way to stop it is to stretch it out but other ways to avoid it are apparently salt, pineapple, avoiding alcohol the night before or by simply not launching yourself into rapids clutching only a bodyboard. So basically, yeah. That's river boarding. Like white water rafting but without the raft. It's really really hard work but shit it's fun!

As I said, its hard on your left arm and its hard to maintain the rapids position. All you really have to do it point your board the way the guides point, kick when they tell you to kick and try and keep in the middle of the river. Easier said than done. Just as you think you've got the hang of it another panicked river boarder with lungs full of water bowls into you and throws you off course. There's always a guide to rescue you though, just as you think aw fuck it, I'll never get out of this one of them comes out of nowhere and tows you back into the middle of the river.
Going head first into the rapids at eye level is fantastic an all, you just look up and see this huge wall of water before it swallows you and forces you under, all you can do it hold onto your board, kick like your life depends on it and let the river take you where ever it wants you to go. There's no point in fighting it, its bigger than you are.

So much better than the white water rafting although I don't think my left arm will ever forgive me for it and I cant say as I'm particularly good at it. Mind you I'm not very good at bodyboarding either, it took me ages to work out I was meant to be on the board as opposed to stood with my back to the waves with my eyes closed waving the board in front of me.

Once you're through the rapids and into the calmer waters they bring a jetski over and tow you two by two to their water playground where you get to play on the slide, the swing or rock jumps but they make you do it in full gear which makes you feel like you're weighed down with lead. One of the lads was complaining of cramp all up his calf and thigh. Ha, yeah, now try that once a month every month for about 40 years mate, see how you cope then!


About To Take On Big Al

After we were changed and back in town we met Shane. Oh oh oh! And one more food recommendation; You have to get a Fergburger while you're in town, they're huge. Seriously. Fucking massive, you could feed a small African village or derail a train with one of these beasts. There's a whole lot of dead stuff on that there burger and you're partial to stuff that used to have a face then this is THE place to eat.

Aaaanyways, once I'd been defeated by my Fergburger we armed ourselves with several cans of DEET and headed towards Milford Sound located deep in the heart of sandfly country.

permalink written by  Koala Bear on February 13, 2009 from Queenstown, New Zealand
from the travel blog: Tiny Little NZ Road Trip
tagged RoadTrip, LovinIt and SouthIsland
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South Island Day 12: Milford Sound

Milford Sound, New Zealand

Valentine's Day. My favourite day of the whole year to be single because I'm not obliged to shower anyone with cards and gifts and meals with hiked up prices just so I can get laid this month. Nat and Shane forgot it was Valentine's Day until later in the day when we came back into phone range and I got a few messages off mates. Thus followed an evening of obligatory hand holding.

If we thought it was cold yesterday with the snow in the distance then today was bloody freezing. I woke to to a layer of frost on my car, it put me off going to the toilet for fear my arse cheeks would freeze together but then I guess that's the price of waking up to clear skies in the Fiordlands.
I'd love to spend more time here what with the awe inspiring scenery, the striking hills and mountains and the reminder of what my breath looks like but I don't think my extremities could take it.

So I headed up to Milford Sound on my own leaving Nat and Shane to their own devices as they'd decided not to bother with a tour of this particular sound, Nat figured if you'd seen one you'd seen them all and we were kayaking Doubtful Sound the next day and Shane only wanted to see Mitre Peak. Before you get to the Fiordlands you're told to expect rain as they measure their annual rainfall in metres here, usually 7 to 9 of them, and massive sandfly related blood loss. I emerged from my car brandishing my can of DEET and clutching my rain jacket before abandoning my rain jacket in favour of another can of DEET. Well you can't be too careful.


Mitre Peak

Milford Sound is basically a sod off big carpark with a wharf and an airport and a cafe in order to entertain the people that park there. I was lucky with the weather though, I don't mind kayaking in the rain but sitting on a cruise inside a boat just watching the weather through the windows would have done my head in. As it happened the weather was beautiful.
I went with Real Journeys for this nature cruise on account of the pretty boat they put you on and the fact we were going to see the glow worm cave later and it got me a discount on that. Yep, I'm a bargain whore.
They sail you up to the Tasman sea and back again with plenty of seal watching on the way and past the permanant waterfalls. The one nearest the wharf is called Bowen Falls and thats where they get all the water from for the tea and coffee for the cruise and there's another one called Stirling Falls and they get you right up to it. My love of waterfalls is well documented, it was all I could do to not jump overboard and go play in it.

And here's the thing about the sounds. They're not Sounds at all, they're Fiords. If you want to see sounds you have to go all the way up to the top of the south island to the Marlborough Sounds, they were cut by rivers and flooded with sea water whereas Doubtful and Dusky and Milford and the others at the bottom were carved out by glaciers and flooded with sea water and therein lies the difference. In fact if you look at them on a map you really can see how different they are.
But it was an awesome day on the water and I'm glad I did it.

Once I was safely back on dry land having consumed as much complimentary tea as my bladder could take I drove back towards the campsite we'd stayed at the previous night as that's where I'd be meeting Nat and Shane then we headed back down towards Te Anau for some glow worm cave action.
I'd already seen glow worms at Waitomo but they're shiny and I like them despite their appearance if you get them in the light. They're the lavae of the fungus gnat, once the glow worms have nommed enough insects they go into the pupa stage then emerge as a gnat with no mouth that spends the one day its alive shagging before it dies. Not such a hard life then ay.

Anyway, once we were back in Te Anau we headed down to Manapouri as we had a ridiculously early start there the next day. Our last booked adventure before we could chill out and lie in bed in the mornings.

We were gonna need another holiday just to get over this one.

permalink written by  Koala Bear on February 14, 2009 from Milford Sound, New Zealand
from the travel blog: Tiny Little NZ Road Trip
tagged RoadTrip, LovinIt and SouthIsland
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South Island Day 13: Kayaking Doubtful Sound

Doubtful Sound, New Zealand

Doubtful Sound is less accessible than Milford Sound and less accessible means less tourists. Whereas in Milford you can drive right up and board your boat, to get to Doubtful your tour will include a free scenic cruise over Lake Manapouri and a scenic bus ride through Wilmot Pass, also absolutely free of charge. It always amuses me when they do that to prmote a tour, its like saying "free scenic flight with every skydive." Great, I'll leave my magical teleportation device at home then and save on batteries.

Today we'd be kayaking Doubtful Sound which would be interesting given it still hurt to change into fifth gear on account of the fact I still ached like a bitch from the river boarding. We arrived at the kayak base in Manapouri at stupid o' clock in the morning and after everyone had arrived we were transported to the fiord itself and kitted out in wetsuits, splash jackets, splash skirts and life jackets. It was drizzly but not too cold. I can handle drizzly. It's my northern English upbringing.


Lake Manapouri

Doubtful Sound

It was an awesome day though, so much more peaceful than Milford Sound, no aircraft taking off every two minutes and we only saw like one other boat right at the end. The worst thing was the sandflies, they're vicious and it's illegal to kill them in the Fiordlands. With it being a national park everything within it is protected. Bugger that. I have issues with involuntary blood loss and I figured the DoC wouldn't miss a few of the evil little bastards as I smeared couple over the bus window.

The Maori legend behind the sandflies (Te Namu) is that once upon a time the Fiordlands were a solid mass of land and the demi god, Tuterakiwhanoa (don't ask me to say that out loud) was given the task of carving it out. He started at the bottom and made his way up to Piopiotahi (Milford Sound) and when he was finished he asked Hinenuitepo, goddess of the underworld, to have a quick butchers at what he'd done. Anyway she loved it. She loved it so much that she got worried that the humans would also love it too much and never want to leave so she unleashed millions of Te Namu to remind us of our frailty and death.
And then came Aeroguard to protect us from these winged spawn of the devil himself but even coating yourself with that every couple of hours isn't always enough.

After a full days paddle we headed back to the campsite to chill out and start relaxing. No more getting up early for the rest of the holiday, no more i-site vouchers proving we'd paid for activites to look after, just copious amounts drinking tea and generally not moving much at all on our meander back to Christchurch.

permalink written by  Koala Bear on February 15, 2009 from Doubtful Sound, New Zealand
from the travel blog: Tiny Little NZ Road Trip
tagged RoadTrip, LovinIt and SouthIsland
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Been There, Done That

Bluff, New Zealand


As Close To Antarctica As I Wanna Get

Yes, I'm aware it's possibly the least interesting part of New Zealand and yes, I'm aware of how much petrol we may have wasted getting there but I just wanted to say I'd been there ok?

permalink written by  Koala Bear on February 16, 2009 from Bluff, New Zealand
from the travel blog: Tiny Little NZ Road Trip
tagged RoadTrip and SouthIsland
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South Island Day 14: Taking It Easy

Catlins Conservation Park, New Zealand

We woke up late. We left late. We meandered along the Catlins Coast at 80kph and annoyed the shit out of everyone behind us and we stopped frequently for tea in random beautiful spots which we admired from the back of the Fun Bus on account of the fact it was freezing cold. It's a nice enough drive though but not something you'd want to go out of your way for unless you just wanted your photo taken at Bluff just to prove you'd been there. Invercargill isn't the most exciting place in the world, not even the Lonely Planet can think of anything interesting to say about it an someone forgot to tell them that Christmas finished nearly two months ago. They still have their decorations up but I guess if you don't take them down you don't have the hassle of having to put them back up again the following year and it gives visitors something to write about your city in their blogs.

Bluff is also amazingly dull but as you gaze over the ocean you can think to yourself, next stop, Antarctica. If you ignore Stewart Island anyway. Which generally everyone does.

There are heaps of things to see along the road to Dunedin if you don't mind pulling off the highway to have a look including NZ's answer to Niagara Falls which were named by a surveyer with "an obvious sense of humour." There's also the petrified forest which is visible four hours either side of low tide. It's a bit like the stromatolites in Western Australia, you know you should ooh and ahh as its something so rare and old but you just find yourself gazing over something not actually that impressive thinking, "Is that it?" before wandering off to photograph some sheep instead.


Petrified Forest; Ooooh And Stuff


Niagara Falls. No, Really.

So it was a pretty uneventful day, we rocked up to a DoC site next to the Catlins Conservation Park and just chilled there for the evening.

I could get used to all this relaxing shizzle ay.

permalink written by  Koala Bear on February 16, 2009 from Catlins Conservation Park, New Zealand
from the travel blog: Tiny Little NZ Road Trip
tagged RoadTrip and SouthIsland
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South Island Day 15: Waiting For Nature

Oamaru, New Zealand

If you go to Oamaru you can either pay $20 to go watch some blue penguins or rock up to a DoC hide at Bushy Beach to watch the rare yellow eyed penguins for free from a distance. I've paid to see penguins before and Nat and Shane didn't want to part with cash so we drove over to Bushy Beach to wait for them. We were told the best time was between 6pm and 9pm but here's the thing about penguins; they don't wear watches. Its not like they hang around in the shallows and as soon as 6 o' clock rolls around they start wandering up the beach, stopping to pose for photographs on the way.


Rather You Than Me, Mate
Eventually they did start coming out of the water but the hide really is quite a way from the penguins. What you want to happen is for them to come onto the piece of beach closest to you wearing a red and white pinstripe jacket, do a little penguin dance to a barbershop quartet song and exit stage left waving a top hat and cane. Cleary that's not going to happen unless you stocked up on the shrooms before you got to Oamaru, they come out of the water and make a break for the cliffs leaving you with some photos dots on a beach. Fortunately there was a guy hanging around called Colin who was a self proclaimed "penguin obsessive" and had brought some spare binoculars for everyone to use. He'd also brought an egg to show everyone the size of them, I'm several times the size of a yellow eyed penguin and I wouldn't wanna squeeze that out of any part of me.


And If You Look Closely You Can See A Dot...

We spent a couple of hours there staring at the beach before heading back to town. Apparently, somewhere near the expensive tourist shit you can watch the blue penguins cross the road for free but we'd gotten over sitting around waiting for penguins so we carried on heading north. We'd decided to take a small detour towards Lake Tekapo just to check it out the following day instead of just missioning it to Christchurch because lets face it, you really don't need more than a couple of nights in Christchurch unless you really really like art galleries and museums and catherdrals.

Which we don't. The heathens we are.

permalink written by  Koala Bear on February 17, 2009 from Oamaru, New Zealand
from the travel blog: Tiny Little NZ Road Trip
tagged RoadTrip, LovinIt and SouthIsland
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South Island Day 16: Slow Roasting Our Tender, English Flesh

Lake Tekapo, New Zealand


Blue Skies Ahead
True to New Zealand form the weather was shit again but we decided to go to Lake Tekapo anyway for a photo opportunity although we figured there wouldn't be much to do in the rain. We cruised along and as we passed the mountains the cloud suddenly cleared, it just stopped at the mountains and we drove into blue skies and sunshine, it was awesome and it was made even more stunning by the gorgeous turquoise colour of the lake. I left Nat and Shane in the township and head over to a Mt Cook lookout about 40kms away next to Lake Pukaki, it gives you this amazing view of Aoraki over the lake which is also turquoise.


The View Over Lake Pukaki

All the water in the area is turquoise on account of a sediment in the water called rock flour which was ground down by a glacier. Particles suspended in the glacial melt is what makes it the colour it is blah blah blah, whatever, its pretty. We settled down by the lake for an afternoon of premature aging. I'm not normally into deliberately slow roasting my flesh but the weather hadn't been on our side recently and we'd earnt it after a hectic couple of weeks, plus it was also nice to be able to sit outside and not get savaged by sandflies.


Lake Tekapo

So me and Nat fried ourselves to a crisp. We well and truly toasted ourselves and spent the evening wincing while Shane sat there smugly because he'd plastered himself with suncream.
Before we left we headed to Lake Tekapo Tavern to get a big feed where I was told I was hot by a very intoxicated bogan lady who, for a straight bird, cleary has excellent taste in lesbians. However she also thought me and Nat looked like twins. Hmm, maybe I shouldn't let the old ego go spiralling out of control just yet ay.


Crisping

Twins?!?

Driving out was depressing, we left the clear blue skies and sunshine and drove stright back into the rain, cloud and gloom which we came from.

Ah well, at least if was cold tonight me and Nat radiated enough heat to keep the whole campsite warm.

permalink written by  Koala Bear on February 18, 2009 from Lake Tekapo, New Zealand
from the travel blog: Tiny Little NZ Road Trip
tagged RoadTrip, LovinIt and SouthIsland
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South Island Day 17: Last. Hill. Ever.

Mt Hutt, New Zealand

Mt Hutt is a ski area on the way to Christchurch from where we'd camped so we'd decided to check it out to go for a walk just to get some exercise. There are a few walks you can do so we picked one we had time for paying attention only to how long the walk takes and no attention whatsoever to the pictures of the little men next to the name of the walk. It pays to take note of the little men. Here's a cut out and keep guide to what the little men mean so you don't find yourself trekking up a big hill that seemingly has no end wishing you'd brought a bottle of water and composing angry letters to the DoC in your head advising them that you'd be billing them for a new pair of lungs and could they please install cable cars in some of their walks with the larger inclines thankyouverymuch.


Suitable Only For People Wearing Backpacks With A Penchant For Hills Who Actually Consider Walking To Be An Enjoyable Pastime As Opposed To A Neccessary Evil In Order To Keep In Some Kind Of Shape And To Allow More Cake Consumption.


More Suited To Lazy Bastards With An Aversion To Inclines Unless There's A Promise Of A Licenced Premises At The Summit. No Backpack Required.


Suitable For Lazy Bastards, Midgets And Claire.

We did Scotts Saddle Track and by the time we got to the top I was puffing like a steam train, even Nat and Shane were looking forward to not having to walk up anymore hills and they could be considered part of the crazy group of people that like stuff like that.

Anyway, once we felt sufficiently exercised we made it to Christchurch and booked into a campsite next to the beach and made vague plans for the next couple of days that didn't involve jumping off or out of anything.

Or, for that matter, walking up any bloody hills.

permalink written by  Koala Bear on February 19, 2009 from Mt Hutt, New Zealand
from the travel blog: Tiny Little NZ Road Trip
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South Island, Saying Bye To Nat And Shane: Rained Off In Chch

Christchurch, New Zealand

The last couple of days in Christchurch were pretty uneventful because, you guessed it, it rained so we spent the Friday chilling in the van and listening to the radio. ZM said it was pretty shit weather everywhere apart from Invercargill but lets face it, it was still gonna be cold down there. It was still gonna be fucking Invercargill an all.

We'd planned to be ultimate Christchurch tourists but there's nothing to do here in the rain which resulted in an itinery of tea, tea, supermarket to get milk for tea, tea, beer, beer, tea. Me and Shane headed into town to check out the iSite to see if there was anything we could do to pass the time before heading back to drink more tea.


Killing Time

Iz Onna Bus Bein A Chav Init

Nat and Shane left on the Sunday after me and Shane had headed up the gondola to have a look at what Christchurch looked like from a distance. Much better way to see it if you ask me, I'm not a fan of the place at all, its full of idiots. I reckon it'd be what England would be like if all the chavs had money for pimped out cars and spent the nights tearing round and hurling abuse and beer bottles out of the windows. The only difference between Christchurch an Manchester is, in Chch they own the cars as opposed to nicking them.


Christchurch Gondola

I chilled here for a few nights while I got all my sensible laundry related shit done before I started the journey back up north to my beloved Auckland. Just in time for winter.

Meh.

permalink written by  Koala Bear on February 23, 2009 from Christchurch, New Zealand
from the travel blog: Tiny Little NZ Road Trip
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Well If All Ya Have Is The Rocks...

Punakaiki, New Zealand

Take a leaf out of Australia's book and milk the rocks for all they're worth.


Coz They're Layered. Like Pancakes. See?

Pancake Rocks

permalink written by  Koala Bear on February 24, 2009 from Punakaiki, New Zealand
from the travel blog: Tiny Little NZ Road Trip
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