Hard to believe it's been almost five months since I arrived in this amazing country. New Zealand has been good to me; from hiking to surfing to fishing to wwoofing to eating (lots of) pies to sightseeing to meeting heaps of lovely kiwis and fellow travelers, and driving thousands of kilometres, I think I've had a pretty delicious taste of what NZ has to offer. But enough mushy stuff, I'll save that for the end of this post.
I left off in Wanaka, about to embark on the Gillespie Pass Circuit hike in Mount Aspiring National Park. This was a gruelling four days, the last three for which my legs felt like jello from trekking 20km on day one. But the scenery was stunning, and while the huts were quite full in the evenings, we found we had the track mostly to ourselves during the day. And nice weather to boot, just a wee bit of sprinkling on days three and four.
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| Hitchhiking (somehow my first time!?!?!) to the start of the track.. had to get a pic! |
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| More than a couple river crossings on this track, even one right at the start. Didn't drop my phone in it this time thankfully! |
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| Walking along the Young Valley. It definitely wasn't this flat the whole time... |
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| Hard to beat this kind of scenery! |
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| Conquered the pass on day two! This was a brutal grunt of a climb, over 1000m of elevation gain in just over an hour. |
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| Looking south over the other side of the pass. |
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| Mount Awful on the left (I kid you not, that's the name of the mountain. Mount Dreadful was nearby, too) |
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| Summit (of the pass) selfie |
We stayed an extra night at the lovely Siberia Hut in order to check out Crucible Lake, a day trip from the hut. The weather was a little iffy but didn't stop us from venturing the two hours to this basin lake beneath Mount Alba, which was unfortunately hidden behind clouds. A few icebergs greeted us as we clamoured to the lip of the 'crucible'.
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| Lovely spot for lunch I'd say. |
Day four would have been a 22km slog, but the more common route out is a 7km walk followed by a 30 minute jet boat ride along the Wilkin River. Quite an exhilarating way to end a hike! And I don't think my legs would have survived another 15km anyways..
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| These boats only need 3-4 inches of water to run; it's quite impressive what they can do. |
The weather was pretty awful for the next 5 days or so, but after a recovery day or two in Wanaka (catching a screening of
Fifty, an inspiring film about a regular NZ guy who decided to run 50 marathons on 50 peaks in 50 days), we made our way to the west coast. Hokitika is a cute little seaside town, self-proclaimed as the greenstone (=jade) capital of NZ and the artsy driftwood capital too. We hung out in the area for a couple nights, exploring the countryside and nearby lakes and the handmade crafts on sale in the town. I was unfortunately a little under the weather, having picked up some water poisoning somewhere along the way, but luckily it was over and done with in four days or so, and didn't stop us from exploring.
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| In case you didn't know what town you're in, just look to the sea! |
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| High five, gigantic driftwood hand |
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| Hokitika Gorge, the colour of which varies between vivid turquoise and cloudy grey, depending on rainfall. We hit it on a grey day, evidently. Still a beautiful spot! |
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| Lake Kaniere from our secret hideaway camping spot along the shore. |
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| A weka coming to check out what we're having for dinner. Curious little critters these guys, and the closest-looking thing to a kiwi that we saw. |
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| One last west coast sunset |
We headed east towards Christchurch across Arthur's Pass on the 24th in order to give ourselves a week to get sorted before our flight to Bali.
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| The clouds were much higher than they were last time I crossed this pass, so we could actually see down the valley. This is the Otira Viaduct that I have a foggy picture of from January. |
With some fine weather upon us, we headed up to Bealey Spur hut, just east of Arthur's Pass Village. This hike is normally a day trip but we opted to spend the night in the basic, 6-bunk hut up in the mountains.
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| I don't mind the ocean but mountains are definitely my favourite. The view enroute to the hut. |
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| I was at the tail end of my stomach troubles and the hiking unfortunately was brutal on my tender tummy, but thankfully this wonderguy carried my pack for a bit. Such a champ! |
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| Pack back on and feeling better! Some fresh mountain air is a great cure :) |
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| I'll miss this country and its stunning scenery. |
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| Our home for the night. |
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| This hut was built in 1925 for sheep herders to use as a muster point. Not the fanciest of places but it was great for a night! |
Once we returned to the van the next day, we continued eastward, stopping next at Cave Stream. This is an underground track created by a stream, which eroded the limestone rock through the cliff until the stream began to pass fully through the cave. The water was waist-high at the start (a little deeper than we bargained for actually...) but most of the 600-meter-long cave was in ankle- to knee-deep water. Such a cool (and free!) experience, and conveniently right beside the highway.
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| The cave entrance |
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| The passageway got quite narrow and sketchy in places.. |
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| Soaked but smiling :) |
A little further down the road was Castle Hill, which we wandered around a bit.
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| I love the colours on the mountains here, they look almost painted. |
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| Weird-shaped rocks galore. |
We spent four nights with a wonderful family friend, Keira, whom Kim and I stayed with for a night in January. She's a vet in Culverden, a sleepy 400-person town in farm country on the east side of Lewis Pass, and welcomed us in graciously. We spent most of our days there relaxing and enjoying having an actual home to hang out in, but also explored to nearby Hanmer Springs, an alpine spa town with delicious pies, hot pools and great hiking and biking trails.
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| Keira and her great goofy hound Mowgli. Couldn't have asked for a better host! |
This past Saturday we made a day trip to Kaikoura on the east coast, and this time we were successful at going out to sea with
Kaikoura Fishing Tours. Kim and I had booked this in January but ugly weather kept us on shore. Second time's the charm, right?
This was a really cool experience, and packed a lot into two hours. First of all, we encountered some seals and dolphins, and they were swimming right alongside the boat. So cool!
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| Hey there friend! |
Then we stopped at a crayfish trap and had to sort through the haul to get rid of the ones that were too small. You have to watch the tails on these guys... one scared the daylights out of me when I went to grab it and it flipped its tail up and almost jumped out of my grasp!
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| Snagged one, finally! |
We then headed further out to sea and spent an hour or so fishing for sea perch, blue cod and red cod. An albatross came to visit, and was well rewarded with fish scraps from the boat. There were eight of us fishing on rods fixed to the outsides of the boat, and there must have been heaps of fish hanging out on the ocean floor 100 meters down because everyone was hauling in a fish or two every time the lines were dropped down. The tour leader and his assistant filleted the ones that were big enough to keep and divided them up for us to take home at the end of the tour, along with a crayfish or two. Oh, and we spotted some orcas on the boat ride back to shore, score!
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| Intimidating-looking birds, those albatross. |
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| First catch of the day! |
We brought our goods back to Keira's and cooked up a seafood feast that night. We needed a little help from our friend Google to deal with the crayfish, but everything turned out delicious!
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| Keira trying to cut through the tough shell. |
Then on Sunday we finally headed to Christchurch for one last bittersweet night sleeping in Lola before handing her over to her new owner (who is, coincidentally, someone from my hometown whom I worked with on a fire last summer). Last night we stayed in a hostel and tonight, the airport! Today we wandered around Christchuch, taking in the CBD (central business district) that was all but destroyed by a devastating earthquake five years ago. There was construction happening everywhere you turned. Very sad to see, but good to witness the rebuilding of the city.
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| One last picture with our valiant steed of the last five months. We'll miss ya Lola! |
Our flight to Brisbane then on to Bali departs at 6 am tomorrow morning, so we're gearing up for a night of movies and maybe some shut-eye in the airport. New Zealand, this isn't the last you've seen of me! I'll be back someday for sure, there's too many more mountains to climb and beaches to explore and pies to eat. So long for now, though. Onwards to new adventures in Bali!
Cheers,
Sonja
