Dunedin to Invercargill - The Catlins Forest Coastal Adventure

We took the coastal scenic route from Dunedin to Invercargill and stopped at any turning that caught our eye. We had no idea what to expect on this route. The sun shone but the roads were icy in the shadows, and though Joe drove carefully, we still had a few scary swerves in the ice!

Nugget point 

Our first stop was nugget point. Our reason for stopping here was 80% because of the name. We were expecting chicken nuggets, or even golden nuggets, but what we found was a beautiful morning walk up to a lighthouse overlooking "the nuggets" - which are a group of large rocks in the ocean just off the edge of the peninsular. The sea was so blue and the water swirled around these rocks with such power and force of the waves crashing on the cliffs.

Nugget Point

The nuggets at Nugget Point

Stop #2 - Cannibal Bay. Again, the name caught our eye first. But I'm glad we did, because what we found on this beautiful little beach was one of the highlights of my whole trip. We wanted to find out how Cannibal Bay got it's name, but instead of enlightenment, we found the most awesome majestic creature basking in the glorious sunshine. A flump! Or as most people call them, a sea lion. It was so amazing to see one so close in the wild, and we completely weren't expecting it!

Tired flump

Sandy flump

Sea lions are a much different species to seals - like we saw in Kaikoura, but are both part of a group called Pinnipeds. Differences can be seen in their size - as sea lions are much bigger and have larger flippers which they use for walking on land, where seals usually floop on their bellies.

Our third stop was Purakaurai Falls in the Catlins forest. It was a short walk from the car park to this picturesque and powerful waterfall in the forest. The flowing water made a change from all the frozen water we'd seen on this trip.

Purakaurai Falls

Beautiful view over a bay along the route

 In my next post, I'll tell you what happened when we reached Invercargill, and why we made a speedy exit from there to go to Queenstown!

Christchurch and Lake Tekapo

Christchurch is a new city, or rather most of what has been built was constructed after one of the two major earthquakes. It is clear that the city is still recovering, but also clear that they are quickly rebuilding better and stronger. 

Note the marking on this Christchurch street map, signifying where we ACTUALLY are. It seems nobody knows!

One of the main sights of the city is the Re:Start mall - a shopping centre that has been built out of shipping containers. Originally meant as a quick fix, I'm sure, but now is one of the reasons tourists stop in the city.

Joe and I, however, were bamboozled by two things:

1. Street space invaders - a giant joystick and buttons on the pavement control the action on the large screen on the other side of the road. Essentially playing a computer game right there in the street. You can try it on your own or team up with a mate. Unlike the popular arcade game, this version is completely free, and we thought it was amazing - I'm surprised there was no queue of people waiting to have a go (just us nerds).

2. C1 Espresso Cafe - curly fries and other side dishes are delivered to your table through pneumatic tubes that traveled from the kitchen, across the ceiling and down to your table! To reach the restrooms in this cafe you must walk through a sliding bookcase, and Star Wars figurines tell you which toilet to use. (It did take me a moment to figure out if I was Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, or even R2D2). You can help yourself to tap water in the restaurant by pumping the old traditional sewing machine. This cafe is a hipsters dream, but we loved it. 

Food delivery tubes in C1 Espresso Cafe

Lake Tekapo

From there, we met up with one of our PGL friends, Serin, and headed for a day out at Lake Tekapo, a small town in the mountains. It was good to see a familiar face on the other side of the world and hang out with someone we know after all this time! The lake surrounded by mountains was absolutely stunning, and was the first time on our journey that there was actual snow around us. 

Lake Tekapo

We spent the afternoon watching the sunset over the mountains from the warmth of the thermal hot pools. Much like those in Rotorua, but without the strong eggy smell. It was luxurious, and to continue this luxury, we treated ourselves to a nice private room at a hostel (because it was far too cold to sleep in the van, and all the dorm rooms were sold out!)

We took a chilly night time walk to the hills to stargaze, saw a shooting star and stood in awe at the view of the galaxy over the mountains. The moon was too bright for decent pictures but the sky was clear and it didn't stop us enjoying this moment. 

Stars over Lake Tekapo

The drive out of the mountains towards Dunedin was spectacular, with an ever changing landscape and crystal clear lakes mirroring the scenery surrounding them. Only disturbed by a single stone being thrown into it, and the ripples go on and on and on...

Crystal clear lake

New Zealand's South Island - Picton to Kaikoura

Only getting slightly lost on the way to Wellington Ferry Terminal, we made it in good time for the first morning ferry. Not bad considering we didn't have a satnav! (We originally planned to get one for this trip before deciding getting lost isn't always such a bad thing.)

The 3 hour crossing was smooth, and we spent most of it in the cinema room. Yes, these boats have a cinemas! The scenery ahead of us was amazing, as we went out on deck to view the blue skies and mountains that welcomed us to the south island.

View from the ferry

Eels!

 We reached the terminal in Picton, a picturesque seaside town, like a much smaller version of the UK's Torquay - and with an epic mountain backdrop.

From here, the highway south towards Christchurch is still closed following the earthquake last year, so we took the inland route. This took us through St Arnaud and past the stunningly beautiful lake Rotoiti, which was full of eels that could be easily seen through the crystal clear water whilst standing on the dock above it,

Lake Rotoiti

We stopped for the night in a town called Murchison, where for our first night on the south island we were unsure whether the night temperature would be too cold to sleep in the van. We chickened out and decided to pay the extra $30 to stay in The Lazy Cow backpackers. I'm glad we did, becuse this stop was particularly comfortable, like staying in a friend's home. The fire was roaring all evening, and the friendly owner made us banana and chocolate muffins and bought popcorn. We put a film on from the large collection of DVDs on the shelf. There were only 4 other guests staying at this hostel, and it was very homely.

The highway followed this scenic turquoise river

The next stop was Hamner Springs, the "adventure town" of the Canterbury region. Despite being July, this town to me felt Christmassy. There was a chill in the air, and wooden chalet like architecture made up the town's buildings. Much like Rotorua, they also had natural hot pools here, and other activities such as rafting, bungy jumping and quad biking. Joe and I considered some of these options, but as the river was only a grade 2, we decided we would wait for our adrenaline fix further along our journey.

For our next night, we braved the cold, cooked a delicious beef stew and stayed at a campsite just outside Christchurch. We were warm in our sleeping bags, but the air was cold even in the van. it was -2 degrees outside, and the tips of our noses were hard to warm up. We woke in the morning feeling surprisingly comfortable, but all the van windows had iced over - and I mean the inside!

We headed north to Kaikoura, as the route was blocked from the other direction. Kaikoura is a town on the east coast that is best for whale watching all year round, and also home to fur seals and the rare Hector's dolphins. We booked a whale watching boat tour at the information centre, and then took a walk round the coast to see the fur seals, or as we like to call them, "floops".

They were everywhere!

So many of them asleep on the rocks, and even in the car park. Joe almost stepped on one that had managed to fall asleep in a crack in the rocks.

Hmm... I wanted to walk there!

Sleepy floop

Wakey floop!

I'm not dead! Don't step on me!

Couple of floops

Our night here was a lot warmer, and it helped that the caravan park had a hot tub overlooking the snowy mountains.

The next morning, we awoke and headed to the "whaleway station" to board the boat for our tour. The tour duration was roughly 2 hours spent on the water, and during this time we saw fur seals, dusky dolphins, albatrosses and... a whale! A massive sperm whale! He appeared to be sleeping, and stayed on the surface for about 20 minutes, allowing the boat to get about 20 metres from it. Every couple of minutes it would blow air through it's blow hole. And eventually, after a nice snooze, it moved off, diving down and giving us a brief glimpse of that beautiful tail.

Whale spouting

The hump of it's back

Just a glimpse of tail before it goes back down (seal in the distance!)

Sperm whales grow on average to around 15 metres (50ft) and weigh 40,000kg. That's roughly the size of a double decker bus! And this one, as told by our knowledgeable crew, was a well known local male measuring roughly that size.

It was beyond awesome to see this amazing creature up close in the wild, and made the trip to Kaikoura well worthwhile.

Beautiful Kaikoura

Now we're heading back down towards Christchurch and look forward to our next adventure.

Rotorua to Wellington - a Joe's eye view

Joe here, taking over Beth's blog for this part of the journey, from Rotorua down to the bottom of the north island in Wellington.

Eerie mist

We left Rotorua and headed towards Gisborne via Whakatane. The journey there was breathtaking.

We passed the iconic Lake Rotorua, and the various other smaller lakes along the way. As the day was beginning to heat up, there was mist creeping across the top of the water on the lakes and streams. We went through an awesome mountain range, where the clouds cling to the tops despite it still being sunny. As the shadows move with the rising sun, the icy dew begins to melt into a misty vapour.

Beautiful turquoise river below misty hilltops

Plenty of low cloud!

It was several hours before we reached Whakatane (genuinely pronounced fuck-a-tony), skirting the coast and looking out to the beautiful pacific ocean. We eventually ended up at a camp ground - where I accidentally churned up all the waterlogged grass. The owner was not impressed!

We left the next morning for Gisborne. On the way through the ever-gorgeous landscape we saw a farmer fertilising his crops with a helicopter. That's certainly a new one to us, and we wondered just how much land he must have to have to use a helicopter!

We finally got to Gisbourne. A short drive from the town is the Rere Rockslide - famous waterfalls where the rock is so smoothly eroded that it is otherwise known as a natural waterslide, and it is a popular spot for people to take a body board and go crashing down them! This sounded like a lot of fun, however after discussing over breakfast in town we decided it was too cold for that, and we should head further south.

We travelled some more distance until we got to a farmhouse lodge near a town called Hastings. The lodge was extremely old (by New Zealand standards) but was big in character. But the biggest character was the caretaker, who remarkably resembled the Prospector from Toy Story 2, and had the sense of humour to put anyone at ease. There were also 12 dogs running around these grounds, which Beth enjoyed immensely.

In the morning we left early and travelled towards Wellington. We saw snowy mountains for the first time in the distance, as well as plenty of goats, sheep, cows and even falcons soaring above our car.

Our first view of snowy mountains - a change from the north's rolling green hills!

We eventually came upon a town called Dannevirke - originally settled by Scandinavians, where the most awesome chocolate cheesecake was to be found in a cafe called Yummy Mummys.

Onwards once more through various villages and scenery, we arrived at Porirua where we visited a police museum. It was all about police and criminal history in New Zealand, and you could also try on some of the uniforms!

Who do you think wears it better - Beth or Joe?

We also went bowling... but don't talk to Beth about who won...

The following day we finally arrived in Wellington and set our sights upon the Great War Museum with it's exhibition from Sir Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings & Hobbit fans) which was both extremely informative and moving. There was an insane amount of detail that had gone into the making of the sets and models, as well as the information about battles and individual soldiers. It was a great exhibition and I hope it continues to show other people the horrors and futility of war.

Afterwards, we had originally planned to go back to Porirua for lunch when suddenly Gimli's clutch blew leaving us stranded at the side of a busy motorway! There was smoke everywhere and the whole car stank! Luckily for us a very helpful stranger was just on his way back from work and towed us to a garage. After a few painstaking hours (and a lot of money spent) Gimli was back on the road - though still smelling like death.

Oh Gimli...

This time we stayed at a hostel in the city to recharge ourselves for the more challenging part of our journey - the south island!

Next stop: Hobbiton and Rotorua

After spending the night drinking overpriced Jagerbombs (fun fact: In New Zealand, it's cheaper to buy 2 dominoes pizzas than 1 Jagerbomb) in an Irish bar and camping out in their carpark, our next stop was Hobbiton.

Hobbit holes by the lake

Matamata: here sits a perfectly picturesque farm that took the eye of Peter Jackson 16 years ago for filming the home of Bilbo and Frodo in The Lord Of The Rings trilogy. This was quite possibly the place Joe and I were most excited about seeing, and it was just as magical as we expected. It was so amazing to see and learn about every tiny detail that went into making these particular scenes for the movies. Walking in the same tracks as some of our favourite characters, and having a ginger beer and beef stew in The Green Dragon.

Bilbo's house at Bag End

The Shire

Next along was Rotorua - the only place you can fart and blame it on the earth, as the whole city and surrounds is sitting on a volcano, and there is a strong smell of sulphur - like rotten eggs. In recent years it has become a tourist hotspot, with people flocking every year to experience the natural hot pools, mud pools and geysers.

Lake Rotorua

 It is also the birthplace of zorbing, so of course, we gave it a go. We went on one straight and one zigzag track down a hill in a massive inflatable ball with water inside it. The second time, Joe and I went in a ball together, and crashing into each other just made it even more fun!

The greeting of the Maori chiefs

In the evening we headed to Tamaki Maori village, where we learnt about the Maori tribes, their customs, history, even the games they used to play - and had a go ourselves. The whole evening was amazingly set out, and really makes you feel like you were there experiencing a real Maori village. The men learnt the traditional "Haka" battle dance, and the women learnt Poi. The evening ended with some performances, songs and dances, followed by a meal cooked traditional using the Maori method of hot stones in large holes underground. The food was to die for and there was plenty of it!

For our final day in Rotorua, we were supposed to be going white water rafting, but after being driven out into the starting point in the forest, the staff decided the river was too high following rain last week. It was definitely disappointing but I'd rather not die. Instead, we had a free lunch and were taken to a local hot stream. Sitting in our swimwear in the middle of winter in a stream that reaches temperatures of 40 degrees definitely felt a little more than strange. It was so hot that you could see the steam coming off the surface of the water. If it wasn't for the constant eggy smell it would be natural bliss!

Next time you'll find out all about our drive from Rotorua to Wellington, our last stop on the north island. The amazing views we saw, and how Gimli burst into smoke on the motorway! Until then...

New Zealand Roadtrip Day 1: Detour North

Friday 21st July was our first day of one month off from work to travel the whole of New Zealand. We packed up our stuff, left Sails Away Backpackers and got some breakfast in town.

The plan was to head south, first stop Hobbiton - but before that, we needed to get our van registered as "self contained". This would enable us to be able to stay at certain campsites that are cheap or free but only for self contained vehicles (have a sink and toilet). We rang up the dude and found out he couldn't actually do it for us so we got an appointment for Tuesday. Not ideal, but we decided instead of going south we would travel the very northern tip of the country and then go to our Tuesday appointment on the way back down.

So northward bound we were, feeling free and without direction, we zigzagged across the country from Warkworth, to Dargaville, to Whangarei, where we went to the cinema to see Dunkirk (great film!) before spending our first night sleeping in the van at a free campsite by Lake Waro. The weather wasn't great, but it was surprisingly warm and comfortable in the van. We enjoyed watching lightening storms in the distance, and then settled down to Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers before bed.

Joe and I loved how Whangerei was a city with a waterfall right in the middle of it.

These ducks obviously loved it too

Heading north gave us a good practice go in the van before embracing the bitter cold of the south.

The next morning I craved cheese and crusty bread for breakfast (after watching Gimli eat it in the film), so we stopped in Kawakawa on the way north to get some. This tiny town only had a small convenience store amongst it's other shops. To our disturbing surprise, our breakfast dreams were ruined upon opening the brie to find it mouldy and a week out of date! Top tip: do not eat the brown brie. We took it back and exchanged it and all was right with the world again!

The weather hadn't cleared up since we left Warkworth, and it was unfortunate that it wasn't really great conditions to get to see the beautiful beaches this region has. We will however head back up here in the summer as it's not too far from where we live. We continued north for a short while before U-turning as we decided "screw the plumber!" we can get self contained along the way if needed, so we headed back down south and I definitely got a bit more excited. Next stop, Hobbiton!

Sneak preview of whats coming in my next post...