In search of sun in the Southland....

We have been having an interesting time since we left our beloved Wanaka. First, we went to Queenstown to check it out before meeting Philip’s parents there next week. We had a great time walking beside the lake, eating Fergburgers and enjoying the lively evening scene during our 2 days there. However, we didn’t visit any of the attractions or do any adrenaline-fuelled stuff as we will do that next week with the Brierley’s.

Our next stop was Te Anau, which is the gateway to Milford Sound. It is a really small and quiet town with not much going on, but the drive from there to Milford was absolutely stunning. We stopped off at many lakes, gorges, waterfalls and scenic reserves, making our journey a long but enjoyable one. It rains most of the time on the West coast but we were lucky and saw the sound whilst it was dry, although there wasn’t much sun! We didn’t do a boat trip on the water because I did one 4 years ago and they are very expensive, but other people we met told us that we didn’t miss much due to the rain. We had a fabulous day there and it was interesting to compare the area to the Marlborough sounds, where we spent our time with the Hague family. I’m still not sure which one I would give my vote to.

After Te Anau we sauntered slowly down the coast to Riverton, which was a sweet coastal village. We found a small campsite run by a lovely elderly lady and plonked ourselves there for 2 nights. The shared lounge had a large log fire which we had mainly to ourselves, and we were situated at the end of a scenic reserve that offered fantastic views over the sea. The only downside was that the rain began to chase us again, so that by the time we left Riverton, we nearly had to build ourselves an ark.

We drove (nearly sailed) to Invercargill which was a complete dive. It made Southampton look glorious by comparison! Seriously, there was nothing to do there and it poured  and poured, so the less said about that day, the better. Unfortunately the rain followed us from Invercargill through the Catlins, which we were told was an area that would impress us. It didn’t. I’m sure that it is pretty on a sunny day, but as we were nearly drowning in blanket rain, we continued driving until we found Dunedin. And there we had some luck...

According to my Mum, Dunedin is the Celtic word for Edinburgh, so we were delighted to find Princes Street and George Street in the large hilly town. The place was full of Scots, whisky bars, Scottish place names and galleries. We had a very enjoyable day visiting the public art gallery (one of the best I have been to), the central museum, the cathedral, watching a Labour protest and doing a brewery tour. Speight’s (NZ’s oldest brewing company) is based in Dunedin, so we did a guided tour around the factory with tastings at the end. It was fascinating, but I preferred the Montieths beer (which apparently can be bought in Waitrose so try it!). Dunedin was refreshing and cultured and gave us a deserved break from the rain.

On Sunday we looped around and headed north to Oamaru, which is another coastal town. We were surprised to find a historical precinct there, complete with its own Victorian settlement. We loved wandering around the old buildings which now house arts, crafts and second-hand bookshops. It is the first historical place we have seen for a long time! We also visited the cheese factory and later that evening, we were lucky enough to see yellow-eyed penguins arriving ‘home’ for the night whilst we walked along the cliffs. They are lovely animals and made us laugh with their funny antics. They take forever to come ashore, surfing the waves until they are able to stand and right themselves on the sand. They then waddle slowly across the beach and into the shrubbery protecting the cliff face. They come in one-by-one so we were watching them for nearly an hour. Fabulous!

We left Oamaru this morning and came inland to Mount Cook. We saw NZ’s biggest mountain from Fox Glacier a few weeks ago, but there is no road connecting the two, so we have finally made it to this side of the mountain range. The rain has eased off over the past few days, to be replaced with snow. Lots of it. We had to attach our snow chains for the last 50km of our journey, but Philip took it slowly and we arrived safe and sound. It is absolutely freezing! There is only an unpowered camping site in the village so we are in a YHA tonight, which is an amazing change. We love Darryl but it is becoming extremely cold and living in a van for 5 months has started to take its toll....

We will be in the Mt Cook national park until Thursday, when we will head to Lake Tekapo. This area is simply stunning with snowy fields hiding beneath enormous, white mountains that are reflected in turquoise lakes. The lakes around here have large amounts of rock sediment in them, giving them an amazing blue/green appearance. We feel extremely lucky to be snowed in here!

Although our experience of the southland was pretty murky and bleak, we have had a fun week and I still love NZ more than ever. Nothing can put me off!

Until next time...

Hana.

Wanna come to Wanaka?

We have enjoyed another fabulous week in the best country in the world. After seeing the Franz Josef glacier, we drove down the road (well, snailed along its twists and turns) to Fox glacier, which was equally impressive. The town itself was smaller than Franz but had a great laid-back feel to it, despite there being lots to do. We spent our first day walking around the beautiful Lake Matheson (2 hour return loop) which gave us reflective views of Mt Cook (highest mountain in NZ at 3754m) and Mt Tasman. The thing I really love about NZ is the diverse landscape on offer all the time; you can spend a morning viewing a glacier surrounded by a rainforest, then drive down the road to the beach and then turn around to see a lake with mountain vistas. It really does have it all.

Last Friday we made the epic journey from the glacier country down to Wanaka. It was the most stunning drive of my life, just beating the Coromandel drive. Although it took us nearly 5 hours, the scenery was breathtaking and we had to stop every 10 minutes to take another photograph. We encountered the region’s beautiful twin lakes (Wanaka and Hawea), Mt Aspiring National Park, dramatic valley views and rugged costal backdrops. By the time we reached Wanaka, we were seriously excited!

Wanaka is at the southern end of Lake Wanaka, 100km north of Queenstown. It is much quieter than Queenstown, but still has a lot to offer travellers, and I decided after 2 hours here that it is my favourite destination so far. There isn’t much in the way of history or culture and the bar-hopping party animal would be bored senseless, but for those who love the outdoors, great walking and cycling, scenery and adrenaline fuelled activities, you need to come to Wanaka.

We found a wonderful campsite by the lake and have parked ourselves here for the past week. The site (which I remember visiting 4 years ago), has a log fire, underfloor heating, free internet, a spa and sauna and sky TV. Luxury indeed! Whilst we have been here, we have made friends with some of the locals and become well acquainted with the hiking trails around the lake and in the mountains. We have spotted wild deer and moose (although Philip thinks they were elk) and some huge birds. We have been spending our days mainly cycling and walking which has been fantastic, especially as the weather has been glorious. We have had pure sunshine for a week! The days have been bitterly cold though, with frost on the ground for most of the day and snow in the mountains. Despite that, the ski fields still haven’t opened so we are crossing our fingers that it is going to dump soon so we can get some snowboarding in.

Last night we treated ourselves to an evening at the cinema, although this was no ordinary cinema. A national treasure, cinema Paradiso is a small place in town that puts on arty flicks as well as blockbusters, but the seating is in the form of sofas, beanbags and even a converted car! We were allowed to take drinks and delicious food in with us, and the film stopped at half time for pizza and warm cookies. It was amazing! It was even cheaper than most normal cinemas so the evening was a real bonus. We need things like that in the UK!

I will be leaving Wanaka with a very sad face tomorrow. I have loved our stay here and I kind of wish that I was staying here for the whole winter ski season. It is a truly fabulous place. However, we will be on our way to Queenstown tomorrow to experience the end of ‘winterfest’. Philip will be in his element as we will be going to watch a snowboarding competition on Sunday and the whole festival is dedicated to snow and winter activities. We won’t be spending long there though, as we will be returning there for a week at the end of our trip when we will be meeting up with Phil’s parents. So on Monday, we will be heading south towards Milford sound and then on to Dunedin.

Have I whet your appetite for a trip to New Zealand? We have heard from people that tourism is down 20% here at the moment due to the Christchuch earthquakes, and people are a little worried that it won’t pick up in time for the world cup. So if you were thinking about visiting NZ, please do come now!

That is all for now.

Over and out,

Hana

Towards the wild west...

Well, we have had yet another exciting week. We finished our WWOOFing stint at the Hague’s home last Monday, and were very sad to have to leave our en-suite and fabulous views of the sounds! Unfortunately everybody caught a stomach bug over the weekend and so we left feeling a bit dodgy. By the time we arrived in Nelson (2 hours later), I was very poorly so we had to hole up in a motel for the next 2 nights. Needless to say, Monday and Tuesday were slightly wasted as I was in bed, and Philip, my wonderful nurse, was waiting on me hand and foot. Luckily, by Wednesday morning I was much better and we were able to continue with our journey as planned.

Nelson was an attractive city with an art-deco, hippie feel. It has more sunny days than anywhere else in the country and is hailed as one of NZ’s most ‘liveable’ cities. It was a pleasant enough place, but other than a modern and architecturally fascinating cathedral, there wasn’t much in the town itself to keep us there for more than a few days, so on Wednesday afternoon, we drove to Moteuka.

Motueka is a fruit growing town lying in the heart of green-tea, hop, apple, grape and kiwifruit orchards. The area surrounding the town was beautiful, and we used the campsite there as our base for a few nights. On Thursday we were up early and picked up by a local tour company to have a day in the Abel Tasman National Park (NZ’s most visited park).  We took a water taxi up the east coast, spotting funny rock formations and seals en route. It was like a travel brochure come to life! We were dropped off halfway up the 51km track and instructed to walk back! We walked from 10am until 3pm with a young German girl called Lisa. The walk was stunning – the water was so clear and we had fantastic views of the limestone hills, caves and waterfalls. We enjoyed a picnic lunch in the only populated part of the park and were then picked up by our skipper at a beach further down the track. It was a great day out.

On Friday we had a slightly lazier day and drove up Takaka hill (where a lot of LOTR was filmed) and down into Golden Bay. Just below the summit was a dramatic lookout over Tasman Bay and Abel Tasman, so we could admire the route we walked the day before. The small town of Takaka is the only service town in the area, and there seemed to be a strong local community of artists, the dreadlocked types, crusty fishermen and hardened farmers. We really loved the main street, which served plenty of vegetarian food and had some appealing galleries.

We had a drearier day on Saturday as the rain came in and the whole of the South Island was issued with an extreme weather warning. We spent the day driving back across the hills and on to the West coast, which is where we will now be for a while. Over the weekend we passed through the rather depressing towns of Westport and Greymouth...New Zealand is beautiful but there are certainly some towns that I want to escape from quickly! I guess a lot of new development and building happened in a time when not much attention and/or money were paid to the appearance of these service hubs. Nonetheless, there was some exciting scenery to be explored around Westport, and we enjoyed a long stroll into the wind along the well-named ‘Cape Foulwind’. We also saw a large seal colony there and took photos of the remarkable ‘Pancake Rocks’ (they literally looked like piles of pancakes).

Philip decided that we have done enough wine tasting in New Zealand, so on Sunday night we did a brewery tour. Montieths brewery in Greymouth is one of NZ’s oldest and biggest makers and exporters of beer, so seeing as the HQ was down the road from our campsite, we indulged ourselves with an evening tour and meal. The tour itself was fascinating (I previously had no idea how beer was made being a wine drinker) and we were allowed to try as many varieties as we wished at the end. It is worth pointing out that on all of these alcohol tasting tours that we have done, the majority of other people also on the tour are English...a coincidence?! Maybe not.

And so we are now firmly on the West coast of the South Island. This area was my favourite part of the country when I visited 4 years ago, so I am glad to be back. This coastline has less than 1% of the population scattered amid 9% of the country’s area but they are a very friendly bunch! I think it is crammed with tourists during the summer months, but we seem to have the place to ourselves at the moment, which is the advantage of travelling in winter. Today we are in Franz Josef, 5km from the glacier (named after the Austrian emperor in 1865). This afternoon we walked to the terminal face for a great glacier view and tomorrow we intend to explore further walking tracks and routes around the glacier. This evening we have been chilling out in the hot pools (yes, more!) and watching the rain, which we are hoping will turn into snow overnight. It is now extremely cold at night time and there is more snow falling as we head towards July, so we are grateful for our little heater in the van!

Over the next week we will be stopping at Fox Glacier, driving the Haast pass and heading towards Wanaka. I will try to update you with more news at the beginning of next week. This blog is now on paperblog, so check it out: www.paperblog.com

Lots of love to all,

Hana and Phil 

Finishing the North Island and Marlborough

Hi everyone!

What's news? We haven't heard from quite a few people for a while, so do please keep in touch.

We have been having a great time in NZ. It is still my favourite country...despite the rain!! My last blog left off in Napier, where we thoroughly enjoyed the wine region in Hawkes Bay, but not the art-deco! From there, we drove South to a lovely little area called Martinborough. It is becoming very popular for it's Pinot Noir wines, so we had to check them out and see what all the fuss was about. Martinborough itself is only a small village but it is surrounded by boutique vineyards, so it was an idyllic place to wonder around and do some tasting. We also visited the first inland town to be built in NZ, and it was colonial. Greytown was also a fantastic place to buy chocolate as they had an incredible outlet called 'Schocolate' there...yummy!

Our final destination in the North Island was the capital, Wellington, which is windy and sophisticated. However, it is pretty small for a capital city so we enjoyed our two days there walking around and soaking in some culture. Obviously NZ doesn't have many cities, and it was rather nice to be back in civilization for a while! We managed to fit in a visit to the museum of NZ; Te Papa (our place), which was huge and took all day! Well worth it though.

Last Friday we took the ferry from Wellington to Picton, on NZ's South Island. It took 3.5 hours and was extremely expensive! Nonetheless, we arrived in a very cold Marlborough on Friday night and were excited to be on the South Island, as Phil has wanted to come here for ages. On Saturday we did a wine tour around the Marlborough region, which is famous for Sauvignon Blancs (which you must know if you have ever spent time with my Mum or I!) Because it is my top tipple, Phil drove me around hundreds of vineyards, which was wonderful!! Some of the wines I tasted which you may of heard of include Montanna, Villa Maria, Dry Hills, Wither Hills, Cloudy Bay. I tell you....I think we are going to be wine experts by the time we leave NZ!

On Sunday we arrived at our next WWOOFing stint. We are staying with the Hague family at their stunning home in the Marlborough sounds, between Havelock and Picton. They built the house themselves and it sits on the top of a hill overlooking the sounds and Queen Charlotte Drive. The family are great; Ian and Mandy run a boat-building business and their children, Sam, Ritchie and Becca are in their early twenties and live at home. There is also another English WWOOFer, called Zoe, here so there are heaps of people around! It has been wonderful to have so much company after it being just the 2 of us for so long. We also all have our own room (with an ensuite and dressing room) so that gives you an idea of how monstrous the house is!

During the past week we have helped to clean the warehouse where Ian works, we have pruned the vines they have growing, dismantled their swimming pool, fed the chickens and collected eggs daily, kept the fire going and done basic house-hold chores. They have been hugely generous with feeding us and providing wine and stimulating conversation on a daily basis. Also, the weather has been pretty awful during our stay so we have done lots of TV watching, reading and chatting with Zoe, who is lovely. We will be staying here until at least Monday, and we will see how it goes from there.

Our other news is that we will be cutting our world trip short. Unfortunately our funds are starting to dry up  pretty quickly, and we realised that our plans for seeing South America were completely unrealistic. We have bought our flights forward and will now be flying out of Rio de Janeiro on 19th August. The purpose of this trip was to see Aussie and NZ properly and we will definitely have achieved that! We will still have 3 weeks in Argentina and the South of Brazil on our way home, and we will then be moving to Edinburgh as soon as we return to the UK. I have been offered a place to study on the Creative Writing masters course at Edinburgh Uni, starting this September. Although we are sad that we have to cut the trip short, we are over the moon that I was accepted on to the course and will be living in a new country! Ha ha. And like Jess rightly said, South America and the world are not going anywhere (hopefully) so we have promised ourselves that we will be returning to Chile, Peru and Bolivia as soon as we are solvent again.

Well, that is all for now. Please please send us your news.

Loads of love,
Hana and Phil xxxxxxx

Rotorua and Taupo

Hello!

We have had a hugely enjoyable and action-packed week. We were very sad to leave the Coromandel and Jae last Monday, but we have had a pretty busy schedule this week. After leaving Ann and Brian’s we headed south to Rotorua, which lies on a large thermal area, meaning that it stinks of rotten eggs! The sulphur rich smell lingers everywhere and the town is quite weird to walk around as it has spurting geysers, steaming hot springs and exploding mud pools on every street. There is also a large Maori population in Rotorua (around 35%), so there was a lot to keep us busy for a few days!

We stayed in the sulphur city (also known as Rottenrua) for 3 nights. On our first full day there (Tuesday) we hired mountain bikes and went for a hell-bent ride through the Redwood forests. They have a great set-up for mountain biking with heaps of great tracks which are colour coded depending on distance, severity, their difficulty etc. We had the bikes for around 3 hours and it was real proof of how unfit we are! We were seriously exhausted by the time we handed them back. However, it was great fun and a wonderful first experience of proper mountain biking.

That evening (after resting our weary muscles in the hot pools) we went to a cultural Maori evening. There was a performance by the local people, which included dancing and singing in their traditional costume, and we also had a meal cooked in the hangi style (in the ground). The best part of the evening however, was when Phil was called on stage to perform the Haka! He did really well and provided me with a lot of laughs! (see facebook for the video)

On Wednesday we went Zorbing, which is essentially being pushed down a hill in a hamster ball full of water. AWESOME! It was sooo much fun and we couldn’t stop laughing. Afterwards we went to the wildlife centre as we had been given free tickets, so we walked around the park and saw lions and other cool animals. It was a bit tame, but pretty good for a freebie!

On Thursday we continued south to Taupo, which sits on the north-eastern shores of Lake Taupo, NZ’s biggest lake. The lake sits in the caldera of a volcano which began erupting about 300,000 years ago. Today it is a spectacular place to drive around! Unfortunately the weather was bad and it rained a lot on our first day there. We didn’t let it stop us though, and we visited many a waterfall, damn and even a ‘honey hive’ where we saw lots of bees and ate lots of honey! We did a ‘craters of the moon’ walk which was great as it really showed the effect of the thermal area bubbling beneath the ground. We were also highly cultured and went to the cinema to see the Hangover 2...great film!!

Yesterday morning we left Taupo and drove around the lake and into the Tongariro National Park (NZ’s first national park). It is high in the mountains and shadowed by active volcanoes and show covered peaks. It is probably best known for being ‘Mordor’ and other locations in Lord of the Rings. We stayed in the village of Whakapappa, which was near the ski-fields. It absolutely POURED when we arrived at lunchtime so we couldn’t see much of the surrounding area. Nonetheless, we put our waterproofs on and went for a 2 hour stomp through the forests to see a waterfall. Luckily, there was a large chateau in the village so there was a warm drinking waiting for us on our return!

This morning we woke up to a gloriously sunny day. We stepped out of our van and were met with the sight of a snow covered mountain and a large river tumbling its way through the forest beneath us. We couldn’t believe that we hadn’t seen it yesterday!

 We had a spectacular drive back towards Taupo this morning, and then we headed east towards Napier, which is on the east coast of the north island. I was interested to come here because it is the art-deco capital of the world. Following a devastating earthquake in 1931 the town had to be rebuilt and was done so in the art deco style. We were keen to do a tour around the place and check out some cool architecture but it became obvious after a while that art-deco really isn’t my thing. Oh well...you win some, you lose some! Anyway, we had a nice walk in the sun this afternoon and planned our day tomorrow- we are hiring bikes and cycling around the Hawkes Bay wine region (hopefully incorporating the vineyards and doing some tasting). I will let you know how we get on in due course.

So...that has been our exciting and busy week! We absolutely love NZ and are enjoying every second, despite the occasional downpour! It has now turned very cold, especially at night. We are making our way towards the depths of winter!

I hope everything at home is well. Please stay in touch.

Loads of love,

Hana and Phil xxx

"House Sitting"

Hello all,

I hope everybody is well and enjoying the weekend. We have had a fab two weeks on the Coromandel. Our humble abode (!) has served us well, and we shall be extremely sad to leave on Monday. Jae has been a delight to look after, amusing us everyday and keeping us fit! We haven't seen much of the cat, but she does like to join us in the evening when we light the fire.
There isn't much news to report in this blog really, as we have been mainly chilling out and enjoying having a house for the past two weeks. We have done plenty of reading, I have been writing and Phil has done more photo editing, we have walked 3 times a day and made daily trips to the beach. We went into the local town, Whitianga, a few times but didn't spend long there as we couldn't leave Jae for more than a few hours.
On Thursday we drove to Hot Water Beach....the name says it all! We took a spade and dug ourselves a hole in the sand, which provided us with a very warm bath! The water was BOILING! We had to dig a channel into the sea so that cold water filtered into our pool and cooled us down! It was an interesting and enjoyable experience. I think New Zealand is bubbling under the surface....any hole in the ground either smokes or boils!
Ann and Brian will return tomorrow to claim their house and dog back. We are cooking them dinner and then leaving on Monday morning. We will head to the middle of the North Island and spend around a week in Rotaroua and Taupo.

We hope to update you soon. We are still absolutely loving New Zealand. It is stunning.

Please keep in touch and send us your news.

Love Hana and Phil xxx