There had been a couple of news reports about recent earthquake aftershocks, so we only stayed one night in Christ Church near the airport,. The following day we hired a car for a month in order to tour around South Island.
As we travelled South the Canterbury Plain, it reminded us more of Norfolk, very flat, lots of farmland. We headed towards the foothills of the southern Alps in Geraldine where we stayed a couple of nights in a a self contained cabin which was quite near a town centre. It was the first time for days we found a town with pub/bars, a hotel and all the necessary amenities.
The following day we did a 48km bike ride to Peel Forest, which is the biggest bike ride we have ever done. We know all about bike bums now. The journey was good except until we got to a road which we now call MAGPIE LANE, our favourite birds were there and plenty of them. The magpies were back in force and on quite a few occassions were diving down towards us, we were now paranoid after the walk.
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| Still smiling we had only done 24k by this time |
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| Peel Forest campsite |
We stayed at Peel forest the following night, a really nice camp site DOC ( Department of conservation) these are good sites to look out for as they are a reasonable price. We decided to camp as the weather had been fairly good, but we were caught out again as during the night it gets really cold this time of year so we were absolutley freezing and had no sleep. We slept in skiing clothes, a cotton sleeper and sleeping bag and loads of clothes on top of the sleeping bag to try and warm up, however this was still not warm enough.
Our next destination was Mount John, which ws next to a lake called Takopo. This lake was turquoise lake, without any exageration we have never seen anything like it.It was absolutley breathtaking. The holiday park we stayed at was called Takapo. The weather was pretty hot during the day when we arrived, so we decided to stop in a tent again. It was still very cold, but we didnt care this particular night as the stars were absolutley amazing. We now know why they build an observorty on the top of Mount John.
We climbed up to Mount John which was quite an exhausting climb, it was about 3000 feet above sea level, it took us about 4 hours in total to do the walk, however it was well worth as the views were something else, definatley like a post card..
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| Lake near Mount John |
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| View from the top of Mount John |
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| View from the top of Mount John |
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| Chinese style photograph pose |
Our next destination was Twizel , as this was a great destination to visit Mount Cook, the biggest mountain in New Zealand. It was also a very impressive area, we managed to pick quite a good day to go as there was some visability, this time of year there is a risk of it being under the clouds. The holiday park we stayed at was called the Parklands Motor camp.
We left Twizel, and travelled for approximatley 6 hours further south through Alexandre, Lawrence Highway 8 and then joined the southern scenic route. We found a fantastic campsite on the beach called Pounawea. Our accomodation was situated on the waters edge, in fact if we got any closer we would have needed a boat.
This area was within the Catlyn Mountain range, very scenic and plenty of magnifacant walks,such as Picnic Point , Matai Falls, Papatowai beach, Puraqaumui Falls, Jacks Blow Hole. They were all fairly short walks so we did all of them within an afternoon.
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| Jacks Blow hole |
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| View when walking to Jacks Blow hole near Puraqaumui |
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| Purakauni Falls |
The following day we did a walk along a beach between Surat Bay and Canibal bay, which is famous for finding sea lions or fur seals. We were lucky and came across a couple of the fur seals, sun bathing on the beach.
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| Fur seal on Surat Bay |
The following day we did the Catlyn river walk this was about 3 hours in total. The day we did this walk, Steve had a bit of time to fish at the end and managed to catch a Brown Trout, so guess what he had for tea that night? We stayed in this area for about 4 nights and found it really difficult to leave, as it was a very special place.
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| Steve caught his tea |
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| Steve's fish Brown Trout prepared for the Barbeque |
Our next target was Fjord land, which is famous for mountains,scenery, and lake, Te Anu the second biggest lake in New Zealand. We decided to stay at Te anu which is also the walking capital of the world. We did a great walk, near Manapouri, the only way of getting to the walk was to row a boat across to the island. Steve showed his seaman ship skills and got me there saftley, this was a failry challenging walk as it was up hill for about one hour and half, but once again it was worth it, as the views were stunning once you got to the top.
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| Manapouri walk |
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| Steve showing off his seaman ship skills |
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| Stunning and dramatic views from the circular walk near Manapouri |
Hopefully we have lost a few pounds after all this walking, but it is a great way of getting the feel of New Zealand. Our next destination we plan to go across to the Milford Sounds, famous for its fjords and spectacular mountains.
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