New Zealand Part 2

Heading south from Queenstown, the scenery was again awesome, however, it soon started to flatten out very quickly and turn into what New Zealand is famous for, sheep country.  They were everywhere I have never seen so many sheep in my life!  Well, maybe in Wales.  

So, like I said in the previous post we had decided to head to Milford Sound that night in order to do some Kayaking the next morning (Wednesday).  We had also booked a cave experience to see some gloworms at a cave near Te Anau, hence we had booked to stay in Te Anau on the Wednesday night.  To get to Milford Sound, you need to head through Te Anau, it’s about a 4 hour drive from Queenstown to Milford Sound, with Te Anau at the halfway point.  Once we got through Te Anau, we were about 25 minutes north and decided to stop as it was about 6pm and the sun was setting, as we were driving right along beside Lake Te Anau and a huge mountain.  So we pulled over into a camping park and drove down a dirt road to the edge of the lake, and stopped in the forest.  The sunset was immense, as you can see from the pictures, it was well worth pulling over for.  

Our makeshift dinner, and whisky!

Our rescues campervan!

After a couple of hours of sitting on the pebble beach we got up to leave. Anna had been driving, but I was going to take over for the rest of the journey, as we got up to leave she reached into her pocket to find the key and, you’ve probably guessed it by now, it was missing!  She had them in her pocket, but they must have fallen out in the pebbles somewhere.  By this time it was 8pm and considering we were 20 miles from the nearest town and surrounded by a lake and mountains, it was incredibly dark.  Luckily, Anna had a head torch, so we spent an hour looking and then asked a couple who were camping out near us for help, they had a couple of torches and offered to help us search.  After an additional 2 hours of searching, and digging, we came up with nothing.  It was late and we decided to give up for the night.  We had no phone service, and the torches were dying, it was too far to walk to anywhere, so we decided we would have to sleep in the car overnight and get back to Te Anau in the morning.  It would mean missing the kayaking the next morning, but we hoped we could put it back to the following day. The couple camping offered us a ride back to Te Anau in the morning and supplied us with a blanket and a spare sleeping bag that they had.  Luckily, we also had some food in the car and more importantly, half a bottle of whisky!  We ate some left over cheese and salami with crackers then headed back out to the beach with the bottle of whisky. After an incredible uncomfortable night sleeping in the car, which luckily we had left unlocked, we were awake really early, and the camping couple gave us a lift back into Te Anau.  Since we had a hostel booked in the town for that night we decided it would be easier to head straight there.  Once we got phone service, the first thing we did was phone the kayaking company to inform them of our situation, but by that time we were already an hour late.  They didn’t have much sympathy for us but did agree to move our time to the following afternoon.  Although, the woman on the phone was incredibly rude about the whole situation and to be honest I almost went Malcolm Tucker on the bitch.  

We dumped our stuff in our room and phoned the rental company and they just laughed at us, but did give us the number of the roadside repair branch of the company.  Once Anna phoned them we got through to the most helpful person so far, John. He told us we could get a new key made if we had the make and model of the car and key (which we did), however, the nearest locksmiths was 200 kilometres away in Invercargil.  Not ideal!  However, John organised for them to be made and told us that they would be delivered by 3:30pm that afternoon and a courier would drop them off at the hostel.  Since it was only 9:30am, we were pretty delighted by this, it would also give us time to go pick up the car before we did the cave tour.  So I had decided I needed to chill out for a while and have a shower and some sleep.  Come 3:30pm though, the keys had not arrived, and it was the same come 5:30pm.  But we had to head out on the caves tour anyway, so we informed reception that we were waiting on keys being delivered and they should be arriving shortly, and headed off not knowing if or when we would get the keys, but we did know that the car would remain, unlocked, in the middle of nowhere for another night.

The caves tour was great, and totally took our minds of the situation.  We boarded at the end of the main street in Te Anau onto the ferry that would take us directly to the caves.  The ferry trip lasted about half an hour and we arrived at a small dock.  After having a quick introductory talk we headed into the caves.  I had to get down on my hands on knees to get in as the gap was that small, but once in, it was fine.  The walk through the caves took about 20mins but then we got in a boat.  There was a river running throughout the cave but at this point, it was big enough to get in a boat, but it was for something a bit special.  We were in complete and total darkness, but above our heads the roof of the cave was blue.  Lots of tiny little Glow worms in the ceiling were lighting up the cave.  It’s hard to describe, so here is a picture: 

On the way into the caves the guide told us to take a drink from the water as it would bring us good luck, since we needed all the luck we could get I made sure I took a huge handful.  By the time we got back to the hostel reception was just closing, but they hadn’t received the keys, and by now it was too late to do anything about it that night.  So we had some dinner and hit the hay.  The next morning we got up and phoned our friend John first thing, he was perplexed as to why they weren’t there.  So he got onto the courier company and was told that they would be with us at 11:30am.  Maybe that water wasn’t bringing us much luck.  Since we had to be in Milford Sound by 2pm and it was a 2 hour drive and we still had to pick up the car in the forest, we were cutting it close to put it mildly!  But we decided to wait, hope and pray that the keys would be there by 11:30am.  So we organised for a bus to take us up to where we had left the car, as there are no taxis in Te Anau, so our only option was to charter a bus.  With the bus booked for 11:45pm, it would give us just enough time to make it up to the kayaking.  However, the bus just had to arrive before the keys!  At 11:40 the keys hadn’t arrived, but the bus had!  We phoned the courier company and were told the driver was 10 minutes away, so the lady driving the bus said she didn’t mind waiting.  Thankfully, the keys arrived 10 minutes later, and we jumped on the bus and we were away.  I was stressing out about the fact we had left the car unlocked for the last 30 hours, but when we arrived at the car, thankfully, it was fine.  And, thankfully the key worked, and we were off to Milford Sound for an afternoon of kayaking.  Maybe that cave water brought us some luck afterall.

Milford Sound  is a fjord in the south west of New Zealand's South Island within Fiordland National Park  and the Te Wahipounamu World Heritage site. It has been judged the world's top travel destination in an international survey (the 2008 Travelers' Choice Destinations Awards by TripAdvisor)  and is acclaimed as New Zealand's most famous tourist destination. Rudyard Kipling had previously called it the eigth wonder of the world. So all in all, not a bad place to go Kayaking!   

We had booked to go with Rosco’s Milford Kayaks and they picked us up at the local lodge.  We had our safety briefing and were given all of our equipment and then we jumped in the kayaks and off we went.  Three and a half hours out in the ocean, you would actually think it was a lake but it is indeed ocean and we had a high chance of seeing seals, penguins and dolphins apparently.  We were surrounded by huge waterfalls, steep cliff faces and huge mountains.  The views were fantastic and kayaking relaxing, it was the perfect way to chill after a stressful couple of days.  Unfortunately, we didn’t see any penguins or dolphins, but we were lucky enough to see some seals.  For me, and I think Anna too, this was the highlight of the week, it was just incredible.  

Lake Pukaki

We finally got back to Te Anau about 9pm that night and we were both fairly knackered, so headed to bed.  We had to be back in Christchurch with the car by Saturday lunchtime and since it was a days drive we decided to leave Te Anau early on the Friday and hoped to fit a morning fishing in up near Christchurch in on the Saturday morning.  It was a long day of driving on the Friday, but with some awesome mountains and lakes as blue as the sky, we arrived up near Timaru by mid afternoon, the home of my friend at Leith, Brie.  However, as nice as it is, everything was completely closed as it was good Friday.  So we decided to head north towards Christchurch, but when we got there we realised that we could go a bit further as it was only about 6pm.  So after a look on the map we decided that Akaroa, about 80km west of Christchurch, should be our destination for the night.  We had nowhere to stay, so as we were driving past a pub at the top of a mountain, about 20km outside of the town, we pulled in and went in for dinner.  The waiter was great and phoned a couple of hostels in Akaroa for us, unfortunately though they were booked up.  However, luck was on our side.  The waiter told us about this wagon at a b&b on a farm we could stay at, and the owners were sitting at the bar.  So after dinner we went over to them and they had availability, their farm was about a 10 minute drive away.  Trixie the woman told us to follow her, so we did, down a dark country road to the middle of nowhere, at this point I thought we were about to enter our own horror movie.  However, when we got there we were greeted by this:

It was amazing, and Bruce and Trixie were fantastic hosts and it only cost us $25 each for the night.  So this is a bit of a plug for them, for $50 a night you can stay on their farm in this wagon or in their house with the B&B option.  Check out their website here, www.puaha-valley-lodge.com If you are ever in this area I couldn’t recommend it highly enough, it was the best place we stayed at all week. 

When we got up the next morning, we headed into Akaroa.  We were in luck again(that water working its magic), as it was Easter Saturday the town was jumping with a market and a live auction going on.  We had some breakfast and bought some fudge (Akaroa is famous for it apparently, and it was very nice), and by then, it was time to head to the airport.  It brought the week to an end in a great way.  

New Zealand is a fantastic place and is one of the best holidays I have ever been on.  I can highly recommend it!  It was a week full of extreme highs and some amazing moments. Even losing the keys added to the adventure of it all.  I would go back in a shot and hopefully I will do someday soon. 

It is likely it will be the last trip I make on this side of the world before I head home, and if it is, what a great trip it was, with a great travel companion and some interesting people along the way .  I do need to thanks to the camping couple Thorston and, I think it was, Annabel for their help when we lost the keys, much appreciated.   We would have been lost without them.

One other thing, I found out the translation to the haka whilst I was there, here it is):

Ka mate Ka mate                              (It is death It is death)
Ka ora Ka ora                                   (It is life It is life)
Ka mate Ka mate                             (It is death It is death)
Ka ora Ka ora                                  (It is life It is life)
Tenei Te Tangata Puhuruhuru         (This is the hairy man )
Nana i tiki mai whakawhiti te ra    (Who caused the sun to shine again for me )
Upane Upane                                  (Up the ladder Up the ladder )
Upane Kaupane                              (Up to the top )
Whiti te ra                                      (The sun shines!)

And because is fun, and Anna had never heard of it, here is the haka in full glory:

And this, because it is funny:

So, The Sun Shines.  Doesn’t sound so tough or threatening now! I am sure Scotland will thump the All Blacks next time we meet! I wish.