Dec 2005

Well I got somewhere with my pestering Rob! He took us to Slope Point which is the southernmost point in the South Island of NZ! Bluff is actually the southernmost town! It was a lovely walk over farm land to another lighthouse and a sign saying 'Slope Point, Southernmost Point of South Island, NZ' and then so many miles to the equator and so many to the South Pole!

Our time was affected by this so we raced to Invercargill where we were an hour late picking this bloke up and got 10 minutes in the museum to grab lunch and look around! They had a Tuatara lizard which is one of the only animals that still survives from the dinosaur age!

There were about a million sheep along the way, lambing season has just been so there were loads of lambs as well! It was us girls at the back of the bus going 'aww' everytime we saw lambs! So quite a lot then!

We drove to MacKenzies something then, it was something to do with a bum so some of the guys pulled their trousers down and had their photos taken! Weird!

It was to Manapouri then where we picked up a couple who had been to Doubtful Sound! We hung out on Lake Manapouri for a while getting attacked by sandflies!

We drove straight to Te Anau then and got ourselves checked in to the hostel, went and did some food shopping and we all hung out at the hostel for the rest of the night!

Oh my god it was soo hot today! A perfect day to do the Catlins which is on the south coast of the South Island!

I got picked up by my new driver Rob who had decided not to bring a trailer so there was a tiny luggage section at the back and I had to put some of my stuff in the seating section with me! Luckily I was able to put stuff under the seats!

The bus seemed really friendly and everyone was chatting away straight away!

We firstly stopped at Nugget Point where there is a lovely lighthouse and some rocks that jutt out in the sea. These are the nuggets and what the point is named after - surprisingly! A bit of history - Captain James Cook, explorer extroadinaire noticed these nuggets whilst they were sailing past at sunset and there was a goldish hue cast upon them from the sun and he thought that they looked like gold nuggets! Now you get it!
We saw some seals here as well!

The next stop was at a gorgeous place called Cannibal Bay! It was amazing one of the most beautiful places I've ever been to! It's a gorqeous inlet and bay that has golden sand and the clearest calmest water! The best thing was the sea lions! There were only 3 of them but they were fantastic to see! We had to be really careful as they chase after you if you get too near! They went after one girl but she escaped! The water was so clear as well that you could see the fish in them! Little pods of silver fish! Walking back to the bus one of the sea lions had moved so we had to walk over the dunes around it! I had to put my shoes back on so I got left behind and lost in the sand dunes! Rob had to come and shout directions from a high dune as there were lots of shrubs! He then tells me that the only poisonous spider in NZ lives in the dunes! Agh! I think he was winding me up as he had told us earlier that there was a dolphin in one of the lakes that we wnet past! Apparently (his story) a scientist wanted to see what happened if he took a dolphin out of the sea and put it into a lake! It shrunk and it still lives there! Not true obviously, but I believed it for 5 minutes until someone said he was winding us up!

Next stop (a lot today!) was Cathedral Caves. These caves are only possible to visit at low tide and we had timed it perfectly! It was a 20 minute walk to the beach and a further 10 minutes along the beach to the caves! The caves were amazing, they were about 6-7 stories high and went back for ever, we tried going back but only I had a torch and it was mini LED one so not really that great! We got to the lake in one of the caves though! The seaweed was also huge! These caves would have been perfect for pirates! Ar ar me hearties!

The walk back was knackering as it was all uphill! Also the sun was seriously hot!

Finally we reached Curio Bay where we stayed at Dolphin Lodge, very nice and yes there are dolphins here!

Myself, Rob and 4 others went for dinner and it was really nice! We had a good old chat and I've been trying to persuade Rob to take us to Bluff, the most southern town in NZ!

After dinner we drove back to the hostel got the others and walked to Curio Bay itself, we were going to watch the yellow eyed penguins come in but we missed them and saw only one from a distance! Curio Bay is also a fossilised forest! I'll explain because it's quite strange! Basically you know how you get fossils of dinosaurs and sealife etc! Well they have fossilised tree stumps and logs! They are rock but you can totally see that they were once trees! A volcano wiped this region out and the trees got covered and fossilised!

Back at the hostel we had a few beers and played cards most of the night!

Well having a room to myself was conducive to staying in bed! I got up really late, had a shower and headed out for lunch! Hehe!

I went to Subway for lunch - I'm becoming addicted! And then I just wandered about the shops I did consider going on a Speights brewery tour or cadburys tour but hey I was having a lazy day!

I pretty much ended the day on the internet and then in bed reading!

Wahey a slow day!

Today I checked into On Top Backpackers. It is a really nice new hostel and only 6 beds in a dorm. They told me that unless they get really busy they only tend to put 3 or 4 people in at a time though!

I had booked on the Taieri Gorge Railway for this afternoon so I had a few hours to kill before then. I went and explored the city, mainly the shopping centre! I bought a cheap book and went for lunch in a food court. One of the best things about eating in NZ or OZ is the asian influence! I can get such cheap asian food - chinese/japanese/thai in food courts and it is pretty much always really nice!

After this I headed down to the railway station. Only one section now houses the Taieri Gorge Railways offices, the rest is a NZ Sports Hall of Fame mueseum!

I was a bit worried as it started to spit again as I walked down to the station and as it had been sunny for a few hours I had left my jacket in the hostel!

Well on the train I had been allocated a seat in the heritage carriage which was cute! The seats could be swung to face back or forward!

We set off and in the buffet carriage a bloke was giving commentary, this was quite good, he's obviously a rail buff!

The first part of the journey was reasonably flat and a bit boring but then we headed across the Taieri Plains into the gorge. It was really nice although it was quite cloudy! The river is quite famous for fishing and there was so much yellow gorse all over the hill sides. Gorse was actually introduced from the UK and it has spread like a weed all over the NZ bush! Everything in NZ grows at amazing rates. They have miles upon miles of pine forest that they use for logging. The pines take 25 years to grow to maturity here compared to 35 years in other parts of the world. Other plants are the Russell Lupins, these are gorgeous flowering plants that come out in Spring mainly in the alpine regions. I have seen a fair few but apparently they are the best up at Milford Sound! These have alos coem from the UK but I've never seen them in the wild like they are here! The drawbacks from all of this introduced growth is that it pushes out native bush which is very rare. Many trees and plants just die out as these take hundreds of years to reach maturity, this includes the Kauri tree which grows in the North Island. The Kauri can live up to thousands of years and is the second largest tree in the world after the Californian Redwood. Unfortunatly they were logged so heavily in the 1800s that only a few hundred remain and they are very young! So in many parts of NZ now they are leaving native bush to grow freely and trying to curtail introduced plantlife!

We went over several viaducts whch are made of steel. Much of this steel is Scottish steel imported in the early 1900s. The railroad took an age to build and the workers had to live alongside the track as they worked! It was mainly built to service the gold rush and then it was used to transport materials to build the Clyde Dam which I had visited yesterday.

We reached our destination of Pukerangi where we picked up a coachload of people joing us from Queenstown on a special connection. On the way back it was seriously chucking it down and a wee bit chilly on the train!

We arrived back in Dunedin and I got soaked going to the Supermarket but managed to stay covered on the way back to the hostel!

I had a bit of toast for dinner and then headed out to the cinema! I was allocated seats and the cinema although not many seats had massive sofa like seats that you could just sink into! No surprises what I watched! Harry Potter! I thought it was really good, the films are defintely getting better each time! Although Hermione annoyed me quite a bit in this one!

It was around 11.30 when I came out so I headed back to the hostel where no one had checked into my room so I had the room to myself - Nice!

Well not such a good start this morning. The lady from Kiwi Experience said that my start time would be 0650 but it was actually was 0750! So the Info and Track centre where I was meeting the bus held my bags for me whilst I went for breakfast!

On the bus there were a few faces from my bus trip down the west coast. I am only staying on today as I plan to jump off in Dunedin.

Our first stop was at Cromwell where the bus that is going Queenstown to Christchurch also stopped, there were a fair few people that I knew off of that bus as well! I said goodbye to a few people as they were all heading up the country to fly away or to the North Island, I still have a while before that happens!

Back on the bus our first scenic stop was the Clyde dam - not very scenic just alot of concrete!

We were driving down whats called the Gold Rush highway! Basically alot of the towns along the way were set up for gold mining so they play a large part in New Zealands history.

We only stopped once for a toilet break and then we headed hrough Dunedin to Tunnel Beach. This was about a 20 minute walk down and then we had to go through a tunnel down to the beach. It was so beautiful, the sun had come out quite a bit by this point so were were really hot. Walking back up took twice as long because of the heat and the steepness of the track!

We then drove into Dunedin City and we went to Baldwin Street which is the World's steepest street! A few people walked up it and back again but I walked part of the way and took some photos!

In town we were dropped off at our hostels. I was at the YHA which was lovely but about a 15 minute walk out of town. I walked down into town and they had a santa parade happening! Really christmassy! The main street was closed off for the floats and bands etc!

Dunedin is gaelic for Edinburgh and all the street names are named after the original - Princes Street, George Street, Moray Place! They don't have a Royal Mile though and in fact it's nothing like Edinburgh at all!

I went to Starbucks and then visited the tourist information office. I found out about another backpackers hostel behind the octagon (the main square) that was brand new. I went and had a look - really nice! So I made arrangements to move there tomorrow!

I went to Subway for dinner and back to the hostel where I met some people in my dorm and chatted to them before I went to bed!

I got up and checked out of my room this morning as I hadn't been able to get a hostel room tonight because they were fully booked so I was splashing out on a double room!

I went and looked around the shops - I have to try very hard not to spend all my money in Queenstown! I have limited myself to one activity a day!

I ended up in Kathmandu which is an outdoor clothing shop (there's one in Covent Garden) and they had a massive sale on 50% off of everything! So I ended up buying a hiking stick with worked out about 17 pounds! I got a few other little things too!

I decided that I would spend too much money if I stayed and looked around the shops to I went up on the Gondola to the Luge track on the hillside above Queenstown.

This was excellent I had six luge rides and I met a girl as I was walking down to the chairlift who was supposed to be doing a skydive but the weather was pretty bad so the skydive company had given her gondola and luge tickets to use whilst they waited to see what the weather would do!

We went down the scenic route first after having our photos taken by the staff! This scenic ride was alot more difficult than the scenic one in Rotorua! So we graduated to the advanced track! Agh it was a bit too steep for me! There were little kids overtaking me all the time but I was like I don't wanna fall off the edge of the mountain! So I stuck to the scenic route after that! We had an excellent time and after the girl I had met (forgotten her name!) went back to see if the skydive was on and I had a panini in the Gondola cafe!

Back down in Queenstown I had to sort myself out as I was starting the bottom bus tomorrow and I needed to put some stuff in a locker until I came back through!

It was great having a double room to myself, I also got to choose the movie being shown on all the TV's that night. As I planned to go and see Harry Potter in Dunedin I watched Harry Potter and Azkaban in the room!

I managed to put a few things into a locker so I didn't have too many heavy bags!

Well I got picked up early this morning to go to Glenorchy and the River Dart (doesn't look like the one in Devon!) and have 'a journey that touches the soul' - their slogan not mine!

Stu was our driver and he later turned out to be my canoe guide and partner! We drove up the Glenorchy Road to Glenorchy! It was so gorgeous driving up along the lakeside, Stu gave us some commentary but I can't remember much!

At Glenorchy - which is tiny - we went to the Dart River Safaris office paid our money and got kitted up. This was awful! Luckily I had been told to bring a swimsuit but others hadn't so had to put these horrible wetsuits over their underwear! Even getting it on was a challenge! Then we had to wear horrible booties! I couldn't even zip mine up and they were awful to walk in! Luckily we were given fleeces and spray jackets to wear over the top!

We were then bused down to the river and got in our jet boats! This was awesome! We jet boated for about an hour and a half and did lots of spins! It wasn't as fast as the excitor in Paihia but it did wicked stunts!

The views were absolutely fantastic! The area we were in was used for the surroundings of Isengard and Sarumans Tower in LOTR! Our driver was lovely he stopped every now and then and explained the history of the area and also about Lord of the Rings! One of the mountains was also where Gandalf fought the Balrog at the end of the first movie! There were two jet boats out at the same time and it was his son driving the other one so there was lots of friendly banter and competition! Especially spraying each other when doing twists!

We then alighted at the river bank where another boat had dropped off the inflatable canoe/kayaks (known as funyaks!). We had to inflate these ourselves (with help of course) and there were hundreds of sandflies. Luckily I had applied liberal amounts of repellent and escaped major injury! They managed to get my knuckles though! Once the funyaks had been inflated we were split into four groups of four kayaks. Stu was my group leader and as I was all by myself I was in the boat with him! He said 'this'll be the easiest day of you holiday!' - No joke I didn't have to anything really. i paddled now and then but he did all the steering with his paddle. I suppose this was cool as I just sat back and enjoyed the views but I was looking forward to a bit of paddling action after my amazing kayaking in Abel Tasman!

We stopped after 45 minutes for lunch, only problem was that we had to walk about a kilometre to where we ate lunch. Normally no problem, but having a wetsuit on and wet uncomfortable shoes over rocks! So I could only take small steps and could feel my scab coming off from where I had blistered on the heli hike in Franz Josef - AGH!

When we got to the clearing we then went down to another river area where the guys had pulled some funyaks up river and we could paddle into the most amazing gorge! I couldn't believe how beautiful it was and how clear the water was! It was obviously formed by water eroding the rock and the water runs straight down from melting snow which was visible from the river! It was so magical, I felt that I had well and truly stepped into middle earth!

Lunch was a buffet affair with make your own sandwiches and then a fruit and cake platter for dinner!

As I had found it difficult to walk in my wetsuit and was therefore last coming up to lunch the Dart River people let me go back in the funyaks! This was way better than walking! It was also a bit rough - small rapids - great fun!

We then all regrouped and made our way in the funyaks down the river! We had to raft up with another funyak as they were finding it very difficult to row! It was interesting though to talk to them, they were a chinese-american couple from LA on their honeymoon! The lady is a news anchor in LA!

Going downstream was so easy we just stayed in the current and it took us all the way down. We had to watch out for jet boats though! We ended up at another bank where we deflated the funyaks and boarded minibuses to take us back to Glenorchy.

On the bus trip - with Stu driving we were shown some of the LOTR locations! Where the ents come out of the forest to attack Isengard, where Boromir was shot by Orcs, Lothlorien woods. It was unbelievable how obvious these sights are! Also this area (called Paradise!) was used for Walking with Dinosaurs and Narnia!

We went past Diamond Lake - those of you have been in my room will know this sight as it is the one on my bathroom door! It was so cool seeing it in real life! The scenery is so amazing with snowcapped peaks, ice blue water, lush green trees - horrid sandflies!

Back in Glenorchy I was so glad to get rid of the wetsuit! I went for a coffee and ice cream in the local cafe before we got back on the bus to Queenstown!

Back in Queenstown I went and had a Fergburger for dinner! Fergburger is the most amazing burgers ever! They have your normal beefburgers, lamb burgers (little bambis), Chicken burgers, etc! And they are massive!

I went back to the hostel room after this and chatted with the dorm mates and went to sleep - I was so tired after today! I am never going near wetsuits ever again!

Waking up this morning I had to get in the queue for the one bathroom/toilet shared between at least 14 people!

I had breakfast and checked out and got a taxi down to the YHA. I left my stuff in storage and went to explore Queenstown!

I visited the information centre and found out about some activities. There are so many, and so expensive! I really wanted to do a Lord of the Rings tour but they are really expensive and I couldn't justify the cost when there is so much else to do!

I found a really good tour with Dart River Safaris who take you jet boating, then on inflatable canoes and you have lunch as well. I also found out about para gliding.

Whilst deciding what to do I walked around the shops and bought an ice breaker jacket, this was really expensive but the clothes are amazing!

I then made my mind up to do the Dart River Safaris and went back to book it!

I then went and checked into the YHA and got my room sorted etc! I walked down to the beach for a wee while where I buped into a few people from yesterdays bus. We sat on the beach for a while it was really hot so I was trying to top up my tan! Some of the guys went for a dip but the lake was freezing!

I then went and got some dinner - I ended up getting chinese takeaway and eating down in the park next to the wharf. I ran into the Yorkshire lasses and we sat and chatted for a bit!

I was still feeling funny from being ill so I headed back to the hostel for yet another early night! Plus the fact I had to be up and at em for the safari tomorrow! I did get chatting to the girls in the dorm, one of whom had done a skydive today so we were looking at her photos and they show movies in the rooms at 9 - it was lord of the rings! So we watched some of that as well!