Scenic picture overdose - NZ South Island - Part 2 - Christchurch, New Zealand
Christchurch, New Zealand
Queenstown By this point we were well and truly into the South Island and the trusty Toyota Corolla was doing the Japanese proud and eating up the New Zealand Tarmac with ease. The next stop for us was Wanaka's big brother, Queenstown, the adventure sport capital of New Zealand and the place that everyone tells you is a must do when you visit this part of the world. For the adrenaline junky it has everything. It was the birth place of bungee jumping and has a to do list longer than the Clements brothers side profiles. If it's not available in Queenstown, then it's not worth doing so with a whole 5 days stay planned here (a long time for us) we were ready to get into it. However, the first day here was a massive let down. The weather wasn't great so we needed an all weather activity to kick us off. The trusty lonely planet suggested a 4WD off road excursion into the back country as a good option so after a bit of research we picked one with a bit of a Lord of the Rings theme to please the inner geeks in us once again. It promised extreme off wheel driving taking in some of the stunning landmarks in the area used to make the films. As it turned out we got neither. We did drive right through the middle of the Arrow river, and pan for gold randomly, which was ok I guess but the promise of stunning countryside was a huge overstatement. It was basically an A-Z (and we only got to about E) of filming locations and it was about as exciting as a night out with Chris Loose...(only joking Chris!). Having seen the films a few times you were expecting massive, stunning landscapes but in reality it was a local field or a stream which they had obviously applied some fancy special effects to. A complete waste of money only saved by the tour guide who was excellent but unfortunately going through a terrible time. We asked about her background and she opened up about her daughter's life who was really struggling. She was born very premature and was left with hardly any immune system meaning she had to be home schooled. Later in life she had a very bad accident when her dress caught fire leaving her with terrible burns meaning she had to be on extremely strong painkillers to cope. She then got addicted to these and when the doctors stopped her treatment she turned to alcohol to not only ease the pain but also to supplement the addiction. This has now led to her being caught multiple times for drink driving where she is now waiting for her court case to see if she's now going to prison. A tragic story and if you ever think you're having a bad day maybe think of this poor lady. How she is able to keep herself together whilst talking about Gandalf and Frodo twice a day to unappreciative tourists I do not know. The next day was when the fun really started and which Sam unaffectionately named "Dangerous Monday" due to what was in store. We had a double whammy, and first up was a ride on the Shotover Jet. I'm sure many would have seen this on tv or even done it yourselves but if not, it basically involves being hurtled down a river canyon at breakneck speeds with the driver purposely driving as close to the walls as possible, throwing in a few 360 spins along the way. Sam took some persuading on this and we got there but to be honest, I think she should have been more worried about me. Before hand I thought it would be a walk in the park but on the boat it's a different story. The driver is acting like he's out for Sunday morning drive and I can't tell you how close he gets to the canyon walls. At speeds of 80kph! From there we jumped straight out of one boat and into another for an afternoon of White water rafting. If some persuasion was needed on the Shotover boat with Sam, then this one was pretty much me begging. She wasn't having it at all but after multiple conversations with the company who run it then she eventually gave in. However what we hadn't considered was the drive to the starting point being part of Sam's dangerous Monday itinerary. The road is called "Skippers Pass" and is seen as one of the most dangerous roads in the world. Hire car company's won't insure you if you head down there and it's easy to see why. It's complete dirt track, only wide enough for one car, with sheer drops down to the river bed hundreds of feet below. I'm guessing Andy Martin did a different White water rafting when he did his residency here as there's not a chance he would have made it. After about 30 minutes of navigating this death trap (which had actually been closed the previous two days due to ice!) we eventually made it to the river and our starting point. There were two boats, ours had a mix of kiwis, Aussies and us and the others was a family of 8 from Singapore who couldn't speak a word of English. You could tell that the guide of that boat had taken one for the team and it proved just that when we saw him do countless hail Mary's over to our boat praying that he would get down in one piece. The river had a series of rapids all the way up to grade 5 and it was great fun. Lasting all of 90mins it was well worth the money with the big rapids at the end of a tunnel being the highlight (see video courtesy of the go-pro). A great day topped off with a great evening through having a few beers and food with some of the guys from our boat. To stop this turning into a Queenstown only blog (which in hindsight it probably should have been) I'll summarise the rest so we can move on to the rest of what we got up to: - to kill another rainy day we took a walk around a bird sanctuary which might sound pretty dull but it's actually one of the only ways you get to see wildlife over here (apart from roadkill possums). Before Europeans arrived there were no mammals at all on the islands so birds ruled the roost here. The kiwi being the most famous. Humans, being humans, inadvertently ruined all that through bringing the likes of cats, dogs, rats, possums, stoats etc with them and as a result they have decimated the bird life. You can hear it for yourself on the walks here as the birdsong is non-existent. Bird sanctuary's are critical to maintain / grow the domestic species, combined with a huge effort to cull the possums, stoats and rats, and educating the locals to keep close reigns on their pets etc. The sanctuary itself was pretty small and basic but it gave an opportunity to see these guys up close, including the elusive Kiwi. We also took in a spot of Crazy Golf which Sam in particular loved. The course was bloody brilliant (see video) and for those have seen me on a golf course won't be surprised to hear of a few nervy 2 footers slipping by. - On the advise of Andy M we also did a drive up to Glenorchy to take in the scenery on the way. I won't go on to much about this as you've already read me go on a lot about the amazing drives here and this is right up there. See the pictures. We also walked part of the Routeburn track whilst we were there, one of New Zealand's great walks. A good few hours which got slightly nervy as darkness was starting to set in causing me to frantically try and remember all the Bear Grylls survival skills i'd watched on the tv just in case they were needed - finally we headed up to the top of the nearby mountain for a spot of luging, kind of go-karting on plastic trays where you rely on nothing but gravity to get you down and a lever between your legs to slow yourself down / go faster. We bought a ticket for 7 runs but Sam lost interest / got cold after 3 so I also got her tickets and acted like a big kid for a couple of hours. As you can see from the video I took no prisoners and I'm expecting a call from McLaren any day now. Other than the above Queenstown in its own right is just a superb place to be. It's as idyllic as you can imagine and some excellent bars and restaurants on offer. It was pretty quiet when we were there so I dread to think what it's like in peak season. As for the famous Ferg Burger (a burger joint there which everyone raves about), the least said the better. 7/10 at best. I've easily had better burgers in London but I wouldn't mind being the owner there though I have to say. There's a queue leading outside every hour of the day so he must earn an absolute fortune. Milford Sound Post Queenstown it was time to slow the pace down a bit so we headed over to Milford Sounds in their Fjordland region. Yet again it was stunning scenery all the way there and the tour we were on provided multiple photo opportunity stops to take it all in. None of which we did justice as you can see from the photos though. Milford Sound when you arrive is nothing more than a port to allow you to take a boat up the river (or more accurately Fjord) to the Tasman Sea and back again. It's actually one of the few places you want it to rain as when it does, it creates thousand of spontaneous waterfalls from the cliffs surrounding you. It was dry for us so we didn't get any of these unfortunately apart from those which are permanent but what we did get was a pod of Bottlenose Dolphins coming to say hello which made everyone pretty happy. On the way back we also got to see New Zealand's 2nd most famous bird, the Kea. The only species of parrot tags lives in the mountains and believed to be the cleverest bird in the world. About the equivalent of a 4 year old apparently! This was only a day trip so we were soon on our way again, next stop Invercargil. Invercargil & the Catlins The most interesting thing about Invercargil is actually what we didn't do. The town itself is a bit of a non-event. Nothing going on, not much to look at, move on. We did go to New Zealand's most Southerly point (which factually actually isn't but they've seemed to have claimed it as such. It's actually a place called Slope Point further down the coast) but what we didn't do, which is going to make my brother very angry, is cage diving with Great White sharks. We had no idea this was even an option in New Zealand (which might have put a question mark on the dolphin swimming if we did!) but apparently Great Whites are pretty common here, particularly in the South. This is something I've always wanted to do but quite frankly, I bottled it. When we called the company it was touch and go whether they would run the tour anyway given a lack of numbers, and combined with the effing freezing waters of the southern ocean, these were my two excuses. It's still definitely on the to do list but one for another time when I've got about 3 months, not 3 hours to get my head round it. The Catlins is the national park half way between Invercargil and Dunedin on the south coast of the South Island, west to east. It was another of "those drives" so again I'll ease off there but the added extra this time was the opportunity to see wild Yellow-Eyed penguins, the rarest penguins in the world. We arrived there just before dusk and managed to get a glimpse of three coming back to shore after a day out fishing. Another very worthy call out in this neck of the woods is a place called Nugget Point. This almost didn't make our radar but we were glad it did as the coastline was unbelievable, again right up there, if not better, than what we saw on the Great Ocean Road. Dunedin / Omareau We had heard some good things about Dunedin but it was a bit of a disappointment if I'm honest. Unless we were going to the wrong areas there seemed to be very little happening. What it does provide though is a great gateway to the Otago Peninsula and more wildlife watching. We got lucky and had a brilliant encounter with a female seal lion and her pup. Normally all you see them do is sleep on the beach but these two were up and about and we also got to see Mum go out to sea and leave the pup free reign to lark about in the surf and waiting for her to return. We also provided a bit of luck for a dog that we came across on one of the beaches. She was very friendly and come up to the odd walker and us on the beach to say hello but it became clear that she seemed to be lost from her owner. We spoke to a couple of people on the beach and agreed that we should do something about it so we made a makeshift lead out of my belt (given the holiday excess, there's no concern with my jeans falling down at the moment...) and took her back to the car park to try and find her owner. With the help of a local lady and some knock on the doors and phone calls, we eventually found a very relieved owner. Good deed done for the day. After a couple of nights in "Dunny" we continued our drive up the east coast and popped into a town called Omareau. We were told it was a good place to "stop and have lunch" but it offered a bit more than that. During the day we went to a mental place called SteamPunk HQ, a sort of art gallery / museum with an array of whacky exhibits of all things related to the movement (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steamp unk). I've added a couple of pictures showing what I'm talking about, but the real highlight was an exhibit called the "The Portal". Check out the video for that. There was also another penguin experience and pretty much the towns star attraction. This time with the worlds smallest ones, Blue Penguins, which for obvious reasons, Sam was particularly enamoured with (only 30cms tall - the Penguins, not Sam). Each evening at dusk, these guys return back to shore for the night and to help maintain and grow their numbers they've created a sort of "Eco-colony" building small, stable hut like structures for them to sleep in and a series of pathways for them to navigate around. They've even built small stands for the public to sit back and watch them arrive on the beach as well as creating boardwalks in around the enclosure for you to get a closer look. Lake Tekapo & Mount Cook Even though we were coming to the end of our New Zealand travels there was still one last chance for a foray back into the mountains and Lake Tekapo. After navigating through a Twilight Zone fog cloud on the drive in (see video), we had 3 nights here which to be honest, was too much. The poor weather didn't help but you can easily do the greatest hits in a full day. However it is what it is and we still gave it a good go. Other than the Lake itself, which is almost a sky blue colour caused by the minerals from the glacier melt water, the big draw is that the area offers some of the best star gazing in the Southern Hemisphere. There's an actual observatory on the top of nearby Mount John where for a relatively small cost you can spend a couple of hours looking through their telescopes and even get a behind the scenes tour into what they do as a day job. Unfortunately for all 3 nights we were there it was cloud cover so that was one that got away. To try to compensate we headed up there during the day to just take in the 360 degree views of the surrounding areas which was pretty epic. Nothing else particularly note worthy to mention apart from a day trip to Mount Cook which initially looked to be a crackerjack given the weather until a cloud, which actually turned out to be a significant weather front, stole the party (see photos), as well as our lowest moment yet, a 3 hour return drive to a cinema in the nearest town just to fill a rainy afternoon (Money Monster - not bad actually) Christchurch Our final stop on our trip turned out to be one of the most disappointing. We had heard along the way that Christchurch was still suffering post the Earthquakes in 2011 & 2012 but until we got there we had no idea how bad. It's not a exaggeration to say it's a ghost town as its eerily quiet and in fact many of the suburban parts are derelict as the insurance companies are not willing to cover the repairs to the properties given the risk of future quakes there. The CBD was probably hit the hardest though. Around 70% of the buildings were either completely destroyed or suffered structural damage so severe that they have to be, or are waiting to be, demolished. There are signs of this everywhere and down every street there are buildings boarded up or destroyed, none more so than the Cathedral which used to be one of the shining lights of the city (see photos). They do have radical plans though and what we saw in the museum there looks mightily impressive but it will take years for them to get there. It was bit of a damp squib I have to admit and we used the few days mainly to do some admin and last minute shopping ahead of the South America trip. Oh, but we did get to watch the All Blacks beat the Welsh with the locals which was cool, but not so much watching the England v Russia game after a very early start. Decent performance though I thought. For those of you who haven't given up on this blog then you'll be relieved to hear that is it! I know, it was long even for me so I can only apologise. We've now arrived in Chile, and in fact Peru, where it feels brilliant to be back on the adventure trail again. New Zealand you were amazing. Comfortably the most beautiful country we've ever been to but it gets to a point where it's time to move on. You just became too easy in the end. Bring on the Latinos! In a bit Jon & Sam