The Last Days of the South Island and the Race North

Still in the Catlins!  After seeing the Penguins during the day, we still went back in the evening to see if they really do come back to feed the little ones.  Yup three of the babies were still waiting for their delivery of mushed/wet fish (you get the picture) from mom or dad.  Then a delivery immerged from the sea, a parent was on it’s way to waiting mouths. For a bird nearing extinction we certainly saw a few! Way cool.

The next day it rained, and it rained and it rained!  We stayed in!  So what do you do when it rains CARDS of course.  Every second hand we would look up and watch the Hector dolphins play in the waves, then back to playing cards.  We played cards and Farkle with a couple who were there until the end of the day and they even taught us a new game called ‘Screw your neighbour’.  A good game, now added to Interlude’s list of games.

The next day on the road again and off to Dunedin but of course as soon as we saw a sign for a waterfalls we had to stop, the Purakaunui Falls.  The rain had mostly abated and the falls was pretty, but muddy due to the rain we had!

As we approached Dunedin we called Spruce, they happened to be passing our parking lot, so we met up for a tour of the train station (complete with Royal Doulton tiles in the main hall) and had lunch at a local restaurant, upscale, but nice any way!

At Dunedin we stayed at a BBH place called the Manor House.  This was our first real miss, it was awful.

We started the next day in Dunedin at the organic famer’s market.  So nothing was cheap, but it is NZ after all, so we didn’t expect it to be.  But we did go home with sausage, peas, beets and blue cheese, what more could you ask for?!  Next we went to the Cadbury factory for a tour.  We were given chocolate on the tour, but only milk chocolate.  However the tour was fun and interesting, highlighted by the chocolate waterfall!  The waterfall has been built in an old silo, it drops 5 stories and something like a tone of molten chocolate at a time.  And why, “because they can”!  Then we went to Baldwin Street, the steepest street in the world, with a gradient of 1:2.86, or 19 degrees.  It was something to walk up it.  Even in a town the view from the hill was worth it. 

A  great ski hill but where is the snow???

On the way ‘home’ we stopped at the museum, but it was supposed to be free and they wanted to charge, being museumed out we opted to walk the university grounds instead.  Some beautiful buildings and interesting to watch as Uni was about to start and you saw many kids being dropped off, Mom’s and Dad’s buying last minute essentials (essentials to parents, as what child really needs a cloths drying rack).

Up on Signal Hill looking at Dunedin

We trekked (by car) to Signal Hill.  Poorly marked, but we found it and were rewarded with a great view.  

Then we were on our way to the art gallery, where Spruce had told us to look at some sketches.  We park and walk into the Octagonal.  There is a bags and pipes tournament going on.  Pipers and drummers starting at 8/9 years old playing with people ranging into their seventies after all we are in Scottish Land or is it New Zealand????.  So we had to sit and a coffee and got serenaded, it was lovely!! 

The art gallery was a disappointment, maybe we are not into that type of art, who knows.

Now onto the peninsula, the Otago Peninsula.  We had gone to see the Royal Albatross in the morning.  The ‘proper’ viewing place was closed until noon, but we took the path beside it to the look-out over the sea.  While we were standing, freezing our butts off we see this really large bird flies by, the Albatross!  We also saw several rare varieties of gulls (like the black backed gull).  We walked down to the water of the bay and walked past several not too smelly fur seals.  Then we spotted the sign for the coffee shop, which as we were freezing, was very appealing!  Then after a few trips across the peninsula, to see what else we could see we went to check into our Hostel.  We were staying at McFarmers, one of our few one night stands!  While fully booked, we were the only ones there; we played games and generally had no issues spending the rest of the day at a place over-looking the bay.

The next day we headed for Cromwell, to meet up with Dancing Walrus and to tour some wineries!  We checked into Pinot Lodge, yes you guessed it a BBH Hostel.  It seemed to have many issues!  But Karen went and spoke to the manager, a few things were changed and it then seemed fine.  When Joni and Ken arrived off we went to check out a few of the wineries!  The next day we walked to the former gold mines around Mount Difficullty.  We lost the trail back several times, but made it out, with Karen having scavenged thyme and pears!  We went to the winery for a tasting and lunch.  Ken only drinks reds, but now reds and Pinot Gris.  Our next stop was “The Nose” this is a place that has a scent room and wine tasting.  Ken had a nap while the girls did the scent room, movie and tasting.  Now Joni, who is really only a beer drinker at least the day before she was, is now a slightly convert to wine drinker!

We moved onto Lake Tekapo.  We stopped at Omarama, to book an hour of gliding.  And we stopped at Poppies for a light lunch.  We split a Vension pie, which was to die for!  At Lake Tekapo we had booked into Taylor Made, a lovely place, although it did not have a view of the Lake but we were only a block away from the lake.  Joni and Ken booked the same place so while Ken had a nap, the girls walked the shore and to the old church, the Church of the Good Sheppard built in 1935.  We took a VERY indirect path back to the hostel, which gave us a good idea of the area and which restaurants we wanted to try.  That night is was sausage and grilled veggies on a real wood BBQ with Cheryl practiced her Boy scout techniques for lighting a fire and Karen turned the veggies into a wonderful salad…. yummy. A few games of cards and some star gazing and we called it a day.

The next day we headed off to Mount Cook in our car. 

Can you you see the moon???

 As we got there, the moon was in the perfect picture taking position and the weather was also co-operating! .  We got to the blue pools, now green!  (The pools were originally blue as the water was glacier fed, now it is rain fed and gets algae, so is green)  We hiked to the glaciers, Mueller and Hooker, which was lovely, ate cherries at the glacier lake and then headed to the car.  The girls walked to some blue pools and the Tasman glacier.  A job well done, we headed back to the hostel for dinner, green thai curry and more cards.  

The next day we were off to Mount John, walking distance from the hostel.  We thought that it would be an easy walk, but “not so much”!  It as a very steep trail.  And to add insult to injury, there is a road that we could have taken to the top.  Oh well, now we had an excuse to eat lamb shanks, lovely!

View from Mount John looking over Lake Tekapo

The next day Joni and Ken head off to Dunedin and house/dog sitting and we head to Omarama and gliding.  Karen got to go up in the owners, Gavin’s new toy (a very modern glider).  It was awesome.  The views, and Mike (Karen’s pilot) was a great tour guide and teacher.  After about half an hour we had enough height and little enough turbulence that Karen got the ‘helm’.  Your feet work the rudder, OK, I get what that does, and the stick does the up and down of the nose and turns the plane.  To say the least the first turn I did was NOT stellar.  But Mike said, ‘that was good’… now….  He took over for a few minutes, then Karen is back at them helm!  A turn to the left, good job, then a turn to the right, again good job, now maybe deserved.  And piloting a straight line, not too bad.  So Mike takes over again, before we land he asked if I wanted to do a ‘wing over’ or a Chandrelle.  Sure why not, so we pick up speed, by dropping, and turn over the wing, scary the first time, graceful the second!  Would you like to do a loop the loop, OK, why not, do I look crazy.  So we drop the nose to 120kn and then go up and do a 360 turn, apparently we felt about 3.5 gs!  Glad Mike was driving!  We levelled out and took pictures of Cheryl landing, then landed ourselves!  What an experience.

12,250 feet, on air, oh what a feeling

Nice view from the office

Cheryl here, well we started after Karen and then discovered that I didn't weight enough for this glider so they had to send someone off to get some weight.   I did say I had a big breakfast but not enough I guess.  So after being all strapped in I had to unstrap and sit on a few extra pound of gun shot…yup gun shot hummmmm.  Off we finally went,  the takeoff was great after they told me how to fall out of the glider and pull the parachute should we need too……hummmmm.  My pilot Martin was a seat of the pants type pilot, he read the clouds not the instruments way cool so after we took off and finally released from the tow-plane  (that thing with a motor) we went hunting for a cloud.  Yup we found one and started our up ward climb…really you just go around in tight circles on an up draft and then you are gliding.  Well we were having a great time checking out the mountains and the clouds, what a day at the office!  Then we saw Karen’s glider off in the distance so we went for a closer look as Karen was going up we unfortunately we found the down draft.  So our 9500 feet turned very quickly into 6000 feet so we decided, or  Martin did, that we should go find our own air.  As we cruised around we saw some the lakes and snow cover mountains but we could not find the up draft, so we were slowly losing altitude.  We tried another area which usually has an up draft, but no luck, Martin tried hard to find an up draft, but no luck and without an engine the time had come to say goodbye to the sky and head to the landing strip.  It was still an awesome experience and yup it was on my bucket list but I think I need to try it again and hopefully next time I get to fly too.

Going up.....pull baby pull

What goes up must come down

A last night at Taylor Made and then onto Christchurch, or what was left of it.  The downtown really is not there.  Or rather there are a lot of parking lots!  They are looking at rebuilding some places, like the cathedral, but money is an issue.  They have 47 million, but need another 27!  So right now services are being held in a paper cathedral, which apparently has a 10 year life span.  Container, shipping containers are being used a store fronts and restaurants, kind of neat. 

Christchurch's New Regent Street

 Then we went to Akaora, a French settlement on the Banks Peninsula.  We stayed in a lovely place, Chez la Mer.  We got hit by hail storm half an hour before we finished our drive, the second time since we arrived in New Zealand!  Then the challenge was to picked moments when it was not raining to walk a bit of town.  The next day was a perfect day, so we drove to the moari settlement in the next bay, then back and parked to walk out to the light house, as we couldn’t seem to find it by road!  We had a nice seafood lunch, then back to the hostel.

We are now on our run north.  We went from the Bank’s peninsula to Blenheim, via Kaikoura. After a disappointing lunch we carried up the coast to Blenheim, to the Grapevine, where we had stayed before.  We got a great welcome from the owner and one of the young fellows we had met 6 weeks earlier who was still there.  A good nights sleep and off to the ferry and the north island.

Another picture perfect passage across the Cook Straight!  Once we clear the ferry we are on our way to Taupo, to stay with Harry and Karen again.  Very good to see them again.  Karen, again, made an amazing meal, this time lamb!  A good nights sleep and we are off to hike up the ‘hill’ behind their house, Mont Tauhara some 1100 meters with an awesome view, not just of Lake Taupo, which we were expecting, but also to the east.  

Lake Taupo

The next day we did nothing!  OK, we walked into town as we needed a cucumber to go with the smoked salmon and bought T Shirts!  But that was it.  A well deserved break.

The next day sees us on our way to Jacqueline’s in South Auckland.  We had cheese and cheese, corn and then we tried to see how many ways you can do mussels for dinner, what an awesome dinner.  Next day Jacqueline made breakfast, a new type of fish, cooked tomatoes with basil from the garden and fresh corn on the cob!!  It is sad to say good bye to friends like Jacqueline, Harry and Karen, but both groups have said that they might make it too Fiji, so it is so long for now and not good bye!

Another long day of driving, south Auckland to Paihia.  We check into Seabeds, our last BBH Hostel, and another truly lovely one.  We had dinner with Enchantment, Corn Beef and Cabbage, a favorite of Karen’s and now of Cheryl’s!  We repacked, Cheryl to head back to the boat, Karen to Canada!  Thankfully, Enchantment is heading to Fiji and is taking our extra ‘stuff’.

We turned in our car on Monday.  Sad as she was so much a part of our trip.  A great steed!  After a cheese and pate lunch, final laundry and blog writing with a rose in hand.  And a quick drink with John a guy we meet on our travel our last dinner in the Paihia was special.  We were off early the next day to Auckland by bus and stayed at Airport Hotel.  Ready to fly out and say goodbye to New Zealand.

We have done New Zealand proud.  Highlights?  The people and the sights we have seen, everything except the Kiwi be that the bird or the fruit on a tree! But Cheryl did buy a T-shirt with the bird on it.

Thank you New Zealand