When we got to the South Island we
were surprised that it wasn't as cold as we feared. First on the ferry, first off, so we split for Abel Tasman National Park on the north coast. Due to yet more windy roads, this drive turned out to be longer than we'd expected, so we got in pretty late. We decided to be honest and actually put money in the campground honesty box for once. Then we found a nice secluded campsite in which we could privately do bad things like kill about a zillion mosquitoes. Kiwi mosquitoes are slow and easy to kill but tend to come in droves! Anyway I amused myself in this fashion, trying to clear out the van, while Sam snored. The next morning we got up and went for a beautiful beach hike along the Abel Tasman coast. Secluded coves, crystal blue waters, deserted beaches, warm sun, green forest...then back to a campsite for a swim and a quick lunch. Man, this is the life! Unfortunately, so much to see, so little time! So we took off and headed south down the west coast of the South Island.The weather quickly got colder as we climbed into the mountains and headed further south. We stopped for the night at a deserted caravan park near a freezing cold river and an empty tavern. Then it was out to the West Coast, where there was a huge swell on but absolutely no surfers out. It was too big for me and too dangerous for Sam to go out by himself - plus we weren't entirely sure why nobody was out! Was it sharks, due to all the seals? Rip currents? Freezing cold water? Or was it just that any local who had ever attempted to learn on this crazy coast had been removed from the gene pool before they got could good enough to catch the giant waves? Anyway, we went for a hike instead. You can imagine how pleased Sam was. We walked up yet another crystal blue river with nice limestone rock formations and thick moss covered forest. Then we checked out the blowhole near Pancake rocks - yep more old rocks. These highly striated rocks formed sharp pinnacles out at sea and were apparently a mystery to science, yay!
The next day we drove further south, passing more beautiful rivers that were all the obligatory crystal blue, and all looked just like the fords in LOTR. By the way, if you are wondering why we didn't make more effort to see the real LOTR sites, it is because there are about a million Fords of Bruinen and a million Shires and a million Rohans and a million Fangorn Forests in NZ! That and most of the real sites were a bit further from major roads or charged $50 a person just to see a few fake hobbit holes that you couldn't even go inside! What? Bag End was a set?! Elijah Wood isn't really 3 feet tall? What disillusionment!
Anyway we soon made it down to the Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers. Here we were disappointed to learn that you couldn't walk all the way out to the glacier due to the fact that the glacier might jump out and smack you on the head. This had in fact happened to past tourists who had snuck past the barrier and been inju
red or killed, and then worse yet labeled "bloody stupid tourists" by the local press. However if you were willing to pay a little extra, you would be given, not a helmet, but a blue jacket (apparently magic protection from the glacier or maybe some kind of ice camouflage so the glacier wouldn't see you.) Then you would be guided out for a hike on the glacier along with a gazillion other blue jacketed tourists. We got stuck behind one of these groups approaching the glacier and thought about joining them but our jackets were the wrong color, oh well. So we booked it out to the next glacier which at least had somewhat fewer tourists. All in all the glaciers were pretty boring but one interesting fact was how many miles they had receded since the 18th century. No wonder the glaciers were viciously mad at humans! Anyway, to really appreciate the scenery, we probably should have done the helicopter tour, which looked fun. You could see all the mountains from the LOTR lighting of the beacons, but when we found out the beacons were just CGI, we decided to skip it. Darn it! Foiled by computers again!In keeping with our philosophy of both seeing all the sights and driving a million kilometers each day, we headed off towards Queenstown. We made it most of the way and stayed in a nice empty caravan park in a town nearby, with super friendly owners and free laundry! Though we quickly realized our mistake - nobody has dryers in NZ or Australia! Luckily our wash didn't turn into complete ice and we finished drying it in the car as we drove into Queenstown. Queenstown is next to a series of huge lakes - crystal blue, naturally. The landscape here was much drier and looked like California at the end of summer. The weather was winter-in-Tahoe cold though, and Queenstown was in fact a lot like Tahoe: basically a ski town, with mountain biking and lake and river activities in the summer. Except in Queenstown they take the adventure tourism a little further! We're not just talking whitewater rafting, we're talking crazy speedboats doing tricks through the rapids. Luckily we'd already witnessed some of the whiplash these jetboats cause in Sydney harbor, so we knew to avoid these! That and it looked really cold, and also we read in the newspaper about the conviction of some of the boat drivers for reckless driving resulting in lots of dead tourists! So we decided to try one of the "safer" activities, like bungy jumping.
On our way into Queenstown we stopped by one of the oldest commercial bungy jumping sites, a bridge over a river gorge. It was 45 meters high which seems higher once you are out there! Here we observed some poor Japanese lady crying and hollering before finally being convinced to hurl herself headlong off the bridge. Looks fun we thought, and before we knew it we were out there too! The bungy dudes were about to take their lunch break so we hurried out there and dove off one by one without too much thinking. There was a second or two of falling, and then the moment hit, where all of a sudden you realize you are falling fast, headfirst, and you didn't really see what they were doing with that thing on your feet, and oh crap! Then the bungy kicks in and you are ok. But we both agreed, that for a split second, bungy jumping is much scarier than skydiving! We were happy that we hadn't started off on the 145 meter jump from a gondola!
Queenstown was a little busy and touristy. We got some delicious Indian food and watched a movie before driving out of town a little bit to camp. It was a very cold night because I accidentally left my window down. So you can imagine Sam was overjoyed to wake up after not sleeping all night and go for another long hike! This time it was the start of the famous Routeburn track, which winds through more mossy forests and crystal blue rivers before climbing up into the mountains. We made it as far as Lake Harris before our blood sugar crashed and we started running back to the car to get our food! The overnight trekkers with big backpacks all watched us fly by in envy, though really we were the envious ones. Having seen how nice the overnight camping hut was, we wished we'd packed food and stayed the night!
That night we stayed in the same caravan park from a few nights ago, for more frozen laundry. One funny thing we noticed in this town: they actually obey an odd NZ traffic rule that is so odd it rates a mention in the Rough Guide. This rule stipulates that when turning right (they drive on the left) and an oncoming car is turning left, the oncoming car yields. This kept happening in this town and it freaked us out! At first we thought it was just tourists with Rough Guides following this rule, but eventually we had to concede that locals actually do it too! Weird. Anyway we decided to head back north because we were getting pretty cold and were pretty sure those evil glaciers would find us any day now. We drove right past Christchurch, and camped for the night on the roadside. Then we made it all the way up to the ferry the next morning, where we attempted to book the ride through Jucy again, and discovered they'd changed the price to be more expensive than booking from the ferry directly! Not only that but they wanted to charge us more for the ferry ride we'd already done! I'm still not sure if it was an honest mistake or some kind of scam. They wanted $508 dollars when the ferry only wanted $220 each way. They explained that no, it was $240 each way. That still doesn't add up! So we booked from the ferry directly on the way back. Jucy renters in NZ - avoid getting the Interislander ferry from Jucy! Just go direct with Bluebridge! Ok sorry for the rant. Anyway other than that, it was a smooth ride back to the North Island. We were sad to leave our whirlwind tour of the beautiful South Island, but also looking forward to slowing down a bit and enjoying the warmer scenery up north - or so we thought....
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