Milford Sound

Having had fun in Queenstown, we heard reports that Milford Sound was expecting rain, so off we went. Going there basically involves driving about 120 km down a cul de sac, a New Zealand speciality. They have several very popular tourist destinations on cul de sacs.

True to the predictions it was quite a bad day when we drove into Milford Sound, resulting in us not being impressed with the scenery at all, though you do have to go through an impressive tunnel that I think is about 1km long and only wide enough for one lane between its quite rugged walls. There’s a 15 minute wait for the traffic lights at either end. Even with the bad weather there hadn’t actually been much rain and we arrived to find out they had been predicting rain for the last few weeks and nearly none had arrived. This is quite unusual for a place that boasts that its annual rainfall is 6 metres.

So, after getting quite annoyed at the number of sandflies (I’ll explain more later) around we drove part of the way back out the road and stopped at Gunns Camp, a lovely little campsite pretty much in the middle of nowhere. It is right beside the Hollyford River, where the others had an interesting day paddling the next day while Liz and I went back to Te Anau, the nearest town, to buy groceries as it turned out none of us were really prepared to stay a few days away from civilisation! It did give us a much better impression of Milford Sound though as it was a much nicer day and the views really were quite remarkable.

Meanwhile, the others did the Falls Creek section of the Hollyford twice, with the river gods claiming Aislings paddle on the first trip. Later that evening the boys did the Moraine Creek section further down. It’s a great river in that most of it is beside the road, a rare thing in this country, so it can be scouted and you can also get out easily if you want! Sean and I got the bikes out also and cycled further down the road to see the Humbolt Falls, a very impressive high waterfall.

The next day, after the boys ran the Moraine Creek section again, we headed back to Queenstown.

Paddling at last! Hokitika to Queenstown

We made our way to Hokitika to catch up with Alan, an Irish paddler we first met in Uganda (and then on the ferry to France last September when we told him we were going to NZ – some day we’ll meet up in Ireland!). While waiting for him to get back from a river we went mountain biking around the town. They were so late back from the river, they passed on paddling the next day, so Sean and I set off to do the Lower Kakapotiha with “Andy England”. The trip was pretty good but there was so little water it was quite scrapey. We spent most of the trip waiting for a gorge with a swingbridge at the start which was the signal for the hard part – turns out that the swingbridge has been gone for years! I managed to get my boat pinned on a drop but it came out easily enough in the end, basically by Sean walking across the river and pulling it out, despite Andy’s efforts at climbing the steep hill on the far side to set up complicated rope systems. T’was a fun day on the river none the less. The next day we joined Alan and the other Irish in having a lazy Sunday at the campsite.

On Monday we decided to move on, so drove down to the Waiho River, which flows directly out of the Fox Glacier. It was very very very cold and at the level it was at it was flowing really quickly down a channel with nearly no eddies along its entire length, complete with actual huge lumps of ice floating downstream! Just to make it more difficult the water is all grey too so stoppers are quite hard to see. Aisling and I both skirted one hole and then went straight into another one at one stage. The cold water got to us and it seems we both lost the ability to roll and swam. It turns out that the river was also quite shallow too so I banged my knee trying to get to the bank! My advice is as follows:

1: Don’t get on glacier rivers – they’re freezing!

2: If you are silly enough to get on, don’t capsize.

3: If you do capsize keep trying to roll up all the way down the river if you have to!

The next day we carried on down to Wanaka. On the way we stopped to ogle the Gates of Haast and the Blue Pools, both pretty crowded with tourists – so much for the south island feeling remote! We found a campsite with a swimming pool and slides, so livened the place up a bit with our shrieks when playing there before going to bed and again first thing in the morning! We finally dragged ourselves away from them and set off to Queenstown, stopping to paddle the Roaring Meg section of the Kawarau River along the way. It was fun, loads of whirlpools and boils all the way down. A company in Queenstown runs river sledging trips on that section of the river too and a group overtook us just above the main drop. It was funny to watch them just floating down through the middle of the hole, most without a clue what they were doing.

We followed that up by a day wandering around Queenstown. Queenstown is hailed as a party town and fantastic location for all outdoor activities. It's also known as beng very expensive - probably because all the outdoor activities are quite costly (which we avoided). We decided to give the party town a test run and got ourselves dolled up on Friday night. The pubs were busy but we found them and the town in general very lacking in atmosphere that night. The streets were nearly empty. So, to sum up Queenstown - lots of outdoor shops and plenty of people around during the day, lots to spend your money on, but not much going on.

The Karawau River just out the road from Queenstown is quite another matter though! I’ve already told you about the Roaring Meg Section, but there’s plenty more, including the Dog Leg Section, going underneath a bungy jump in one place, which the lads did before our big night out. I was taking a break from all this strenuous paddling (?) and decided to cycle the shuttle instead. At this stage there were 8 of us travelling around together, 6 Irish: Sean and I, Alan and three other outdoor instructors, Aisling, John and Liz, together with John from Alaska and another John from Sweden. As there were so many Johns they became known as JP, Alaska and Swede respectively. So, when they finished the Dog Leg section Swede and Alaska were going to carry on downstream to run the Nevis Bluff section, quite a gnarly bit of water. We busily set up rescue in various places, holding token ropes and paddles along with our cameras that were the only thing we were going to use in reality. Both boys made it through fine though showing us how it should be done, and both feeling quite happy before our big night out!

On the other side of Queenstown is the Shotover Gorge, a river that has a bungy jump and canyon swing on it and is rafted and jet boated! Despite all this activity the dirt road down to the get on is dreadful and rental cars are prohibited from going on it! So eventually we got down to the put in and were surrounded by rafters arriving by bus, mountain bike and helicopter. I kindly did the shuttle again and rattled my way back up to the main road. To collect the other cars Sean and Swede mountain biked down the dirt road, taking 21 minutes to bike down (Sean says he would have been much faster if he didn’t have to wait for the Swede, Swede says it was terrifying) and 22 minutes to drive back up again. It might be a good river but I don’t think we’ll be taking the van back down that road again!

Moving on...

We finally booked ourselves on a ferry to the South Island so drove from Taupo to Wellington one incredibly windy day. Thankfully Sean did all the driving but it wasn’t much fun with a loaded van. We spent a few days there and met up with Askea and Rea again. In Wellington we toured around a bit and saw the Botanic Gardens, had a spin on the cable car, saw the new and old St. Paul’s Cathedrals. We also took the mountain bikes out for a spin in Lower Hutt one morning. A free tour is run in the Parliament Buildings so we took that opportunity to see inside the “Beehive” and elsewhere. We learned something interesting on the tour too: when notices of pending legislation are put in the paper anyone, whether a national or just a tourist there for a couple of weeks, can write in and request an oral hearing where they can voice their concerns over the legislation. This cannot be denied, so when the cabinet are considering it the person can attend the entire meeting and has absolute freedom of speech while he/she is sitting in the meeting. Apparently it’s not abused, though I’m sure it might not run as smoothly at home!

And so, on Friday 25^th January, 3 ½ months after arriving in New Zealand, we finally boarded the ferry to the South Island.

On arrival, we slowly drove towards Nelson, stopping in Blenheim for breakfast and again in Pelorus Bridge for lunch at the side of the river. We couldn’t resist taking a dip too in the heat of the day. When we arrived in Nelson we went straight to Maree and Ross’ house as instructed! They are both Kiwi’s but Maree sometimes comes over to Ireland and works with Sean’s mum, so Sean met with her this summer in Ireland and she invited us to visit. They were great hosts as we stayed with them for a few days, doing more mountain biking and also going to the Da Vinci exhibibtion running in Nelson at the moment. It was really interesting as it had small models of his drawings together with computer graphics of how some of his machines worked.

We dragged ourselves away from Nelson and drove up to the base of the Abel Tasman National Park, another popular walking track. As we weren’t prepared for camping out overnight, we couldn’t do the 2/3 day walk all the way around the headland, so instead we arranged to get a boat to drop us about seven hours up the track at Bark Bay and we would walk out. The scenery was best from the water, but the walk was nice under the cover of the trees. We stopped for lunch at Stillwater Beach and had a swim before carrying on, the entire walk taking us about 4 ½ hours.

The next day we started heading further south to meet up with some other Irish paddlers. We stopped in Murchison, which is a busy centre for kayakers, but due to the lack of water there at the moment it was nearly deserted! Apparently it’s the best summer they’ve had for about 15 years, which is doing wonders for my tan, but not so good for the kayaking! As it was so quiet, we carried on to Greymouth that evening and met our friends in Hokitika the next day.

January 2008

Since New Years, and changing the van, we spent a while in Auckland doing up the interior, but we did manage to fit in a few fun things like going roller blading in Mission Bay – I didn’t fall! Once the Homy was ready to rock we went back down to Taupo.

One evening Sean, Jeanine and I walked up Mount Tauhara which is quite near Taupo and gave us great views of the lake and town. That was a warm up for the Tongariro Crossing, a popular walk through Tongariro National Park. The walk first climbs up to the base of Mount Ngaurahoe, which was Mount Doom in the Lord of the Rings films. We were tempted to go up Ngaurahoe until it got hidden in the clouds – as there is no track up it (and it’s quite a steep climb) people are advised not to do it unless there’s very good visibility. So we continued along the track through a remarkably flat basin before climbing again to the Red Crater. From there we decided to go up the side track to the top of Mount Tongariro, a round trip that is supposed to take a few hours but only took us one. Carrying on down the path we passed the Emerald lakes and some great scenery before arriving at the end just 6 hours 20 minutes after leaving the start. We only walked for about 5 hours 30 minutes in all on the track too, despite the guidelines suggesting what we walked should take over 10 hours! Sean was on a mission to complete the walk as soon as possible! It is a very good walk through some amazingly barren scenery.

Our new bikes arrived while we were in Taupo so we set off with Tim and some others one evening to go biking. With a little confusion about how far away the track was, we finally arrived at Ikawhenua Range two hours and 120 km later. It was getting dark but we hadn’t driven all that way to not go biking, so out came the bikes, and the two torches that we had between seven of us… It was good fun though, trying to keep on the track in the dark! Another day Sean and I took a spin in Taupo on the track between Spa Park and Huka Falls, which was a great easy run. Sean has to be patient with me, a beginner biker!

Changing our van

We started hunting for a new van – the Emina is getting a bit too cramped as we gather more and more toys! We took a look through Taupo, Rotorua, Hamilton and Auckland and vans were few and far between.

However, just after Christmas we got a call from Jason saying he had found us a van, so we drove down to Taupo to check it out. It was a lovely clean high roof Nissan Homy with a tow bar that is running well so we quickly shook on the deal and trotted off to the bank.

After spending an afternoon cleaning up the Emina we drove both vehicles up to Auckland and checked the Emina into the Backpackers Car Market. After just a few hours patiently waiting a very tired and jet lagged Austrian arrived in with his son looking for a van that he and his wife could sleep in at night, but that they could also transport their two children in with them by day. Our shiny van stood out and suited them perfectly and so, happy with the $200 profit we were making on the van, we waved goodbye to the Emina and happily went back to the bank. As a tip for you all – shine up your vehicle before you try to sell it! Well worth the effort.

Having sold the Emina we turned our attention to the new Homy. We got tinting for the windows in the 25% off sale in Supercheap Autos, saving a few more pennies, and spent a day putting it on. It’s hard work but well worth it. We discovered that putting sudsy water on the tint and the windows works really well – next boat I put contact on is going to be brilliant!

Before getting the van we’d spread the word that we were looking for one, so our friend Greg who is a builder thought of us when his company were about to throw out some lovely plywood. We used that wood to make our bed in the back of the van. Another friend who is building a house also had some off cuts of wood around and we used them to make a chest and shelving as well.

The next step was putting in curtains, so we bought some great material for $3 per metre and I got down to sewing.

After all that, we’re pretty happy with the new van and happier still that we were able to buy some bikes (nicely discounted due to being “earthquake damaged”) and fit all our clothes, boats and bikes in the van!

Christmas and New Years

Dave and co. kept us good and busy over the festive period. We didn’t even get much time to think of what we were missing at home and the hot weather put it further from our minds!

On Christmas Eve, 7 of us went tramping in Waitakere, where we walked along the tracks to a dam and back in about 3½ hours, having a bite of lunch along the way. On Christmas Day Sean, Paul and I went surfing at Murewai Beach for a couple of hours. It did start to feel a bit more like home when we were sitting on the water in the middle of a solid downpour of rain! One way to clear the beach in seconds! On Boxing Day (that’s what they call it here so I’m allowed call it that at last!) a group of us went mountain biking in Woodhill. This time I got away with going a little slower though due to having the convenient excuse of having a child along with us! I’m getting fond of mountain biking now… The day after that we went surfing at Murewai again with Fuzzy, a little less rain that time though!

We took a quick trip down to Taupo also (to do with van hunting – I’ll explain later) and went sailing on the lake. Of course, the wind seemed to die once we were out on the lake again! I’m thinking I might be a bit unlucky with this sailing thing… Sean got to have a spin on Jason’s new jet ski though. Jason has been racing them for years and this is the most powerful one he’s ever ridden, so given that he can hardly hold onto it, I figured I wouldn’t have much of a chance!

On Sunday 30^th we joined Dave, Nic, Paul and Stacey for our first river in New Zealand (at last!). We paddled the grade 3 section of the Wairoa River twice before heading back to Auckland. There, we packed up and all went up to Matapouri for New Years in Dave’s parents’ motor home. As it was so late when we left Auckland, we only drove as far as Whangarei that night. En route, Nic and I got the pleasure of cooking dinner… Apparently it’s legal here, but I advise you all to never even attempt to fry sausages and steak in the back of a moving motor home, especially on the windy roads of New Zealand!

Safely in Matapouri, we went surfing again at Sandy Beach on New Years Eve and then rang in the New Year on the beach watching fireworks!

On New Years Day we decided to try a little experiment towing kayaks behind the prototype jet boat! Sean and Paul got to be the crash test dummies but I stuck to being photographer! Dave and Steve’s son, Brad, also tried it on a surfboard!

The next day Steve brought us to Poor Knights Island in his bigger boat and we went snorkelling. It’s supposed to be one of the best diving destinations. This time I only swam away from jellyfish at speed! I also got to swim right up to a blue penguin – it was only about a foot long and sooo cute! That evening Sean tried out Steve’s surf-ski at Sandy Beach before we headed back to Auckland – Dave and Nic had to go back to work!

Mid-December

We got back to Taupo in time for another barbeque. We brought a sea-kayak down to the canoe shop there for Dave, which we delivered first thing Monday morning, and met some friends from home in the shop! Askea from UCCCC and her sister Rea have been here for months, and her boyfriend Liam, also a UCCCC member was over for December. The next day we joined them in Rotorua and had a great time racing each other on the luges. We also finally managed to buy a couple of paddles at last!

A week later we met up with them again when we went to the Waitomo Caves together. We took a great trip with one of the many companies that do tours there, Rap, Rock and Raft. Combined we spent about 6 hours abseiling into the cave, walking upstream and floating downstream on rubber inner tubes looking at the glowworms lining the ceiling and walls of the cave, squeezing our way through small gaps, and finally climbing back out again. Well worth the trip!

We made our way from there slowly up to Auckland again, arriving in time to join the polo club in playing a few demonstration games in a pool that was just opening in the city. We had a bit of fun getting the kids to try out the boats in the pool afterwards too.

Then it was time to get ready for Christmas!