Hello New Zealand!

Dave and I arrived in Christchurch on January 1, 2014 - new year, new country! Our main goal for the first few days in Christchurch was to set up a cell phone, internet and buy a camper van. Of course we did some sightseeing also, but we had our priorities. We were a little worried about finding a camper van to purchase. The Backpackers Car Market didn't have any for sale and there were only 5-6 online that we were interested in also. So, we started phoning around and setting up times to view vans. We saw 5 in total - some were a bit dirty, some were a little scary looking and one was just right. On our 3rd day in Christchurch we were the proud owners of a 1994 Mitsubishi L300 - we named her Wanda! It is such a small world. We bought her from a Canadian. His name is Toby, he is from Vancouver, and (get this) he is a Queen's grad from 2006! So crazy when we put that together! He majored in Psych...can any Queen's people place him??

Wanda the great!

We were also very successful in setting up our phone and internet quickly, so after 3 full days in Christchurch we were ready for our adventures. We did see some pretty interesting stuff around Christchurch though. It is amazing how much devastation from the 2 most recent earthquakes is still obvious in the city. There are buildings still falling down, abandoned buildings, one's being held up by scaffolding and cranes everywhere! I'm sure the city would have been amazing a few years ago, but now, it is sad to see. One of the worst sights was the state of the Christchurch Cathedral. It was a beautiful, iconic church in the middle of the city. Unfortunately the 2011 earthquake caused a significant amount of damage to it. The main spire was reduced to rubble and so was a majority of the cathedral itself. The city hasn't decided what they are going to do with it yet, but they do know that they want to keep the square that the cathedral is part of as a main gathering space in the downtown. Along with that, there seems to be tons of plans on how to rebuild the downtown core, but so many people are worried if it's worth it. In the meantime, they have set up a ton of business in make-shift locations. We spent an afternoon at something called the "Restart Mall", which is an outdoor shopping mall made entirely of stores in shipping containers. It is pretty ingenious how they've set it all up! We also went to Quake City, which was a museum set up to honour the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes that devastated the city. It was very interesting to learn all about it - and they even had video of some first hand accounts, which were just heartbreaking!

Christchurch Cathedral :(

After our 3 days in Christchurch we were on our way. We had decided on driving south first and circling the south island clockwise. Our first stop was Banks Peninsula. It was a beautiful, sunny day and we got to see some lovely sights. Our first plan was to drive along the summit road for a more scenic route, however, we never managed to find the beginning of the road. We did dip onto it later in the day for a short while, but the start was impossible to find! We drove into a little town called Akaroa and spent the day there. It was a cute little town right on the water with lots of shops, great fudge, a few walks around the town, a lighthouse and lots of restaurants. We really enjoyed our time there and did a little window shopping and some walks to the lighthouse, etc. We spent our first night in Wanda on the north side of the peninsula in Okains Bay. It was a large and busy campsite, but it was right on the water with a beach. We even did a little swimming!

From Banks Peninsula we drove further down the east coast through a few other towns stopping at nice sights and cute towns along the way. We spent that evening in Oamaru. It was a very cute little town with a maintained old Victorian downtown. There were some hilarious little shops there - lots of pottery, costume shops, soap shops and old book stores. We also went to the beach that night to see some yellow-eyed penguins. We weren't able to get too close to the beach because if the penguins see you they get scared and they won't come on shore to feed their chicks. We saw about 4-5 in the distance, as well as some sea lions lounging on the beach. The best part of Oamaru was actually just south of the town - the Moeraki boulders. These are large limestone boulders formed in the cliff side. As the land has eroded the boulders have been exposed and they are pretty cool!

Moeraki Boulders

South of Oamaru we spent some time in and around Dunedin. It was here that we got our best glimpse of the yellow-eyed penguin. We went to the Speight's brewery tour in the city one night. It was a very thorough tour into the history of beer, as well as the history of Dunedin. But the best part was that at the end of the tour, you had about 30-45 mins in the tasting room with 5 different beers on tap and you got to work the taps yourself - as much as you wanted!. While we were there we met an American who lived in Dunedin for a semester in University. He was on his honeymoon with his new wife, so we picked his brain about good places to see while we were in Dunedin. He recommended a few sights to see, especially Sandfly Beach and Tunnel Beach. We spent the next day exploring both those spots, as well as the Otago Peninsula. It was on Sandfly Beach that we got up close and personal with a single yellow-eyed penguin. We had just arrived on the beach, it was a cold and rainy day so it wasn't too busy, and we saw a single penguin in the middle of the beach cleaning itself. We watched it for a while and then saw it make it's way to the nest - up a huge, steep sand dune. It was so cute to watch it struggle up the sand dune and then slide down a little when the sand gave way. We also saw tons of fur seals hanging out on the rocks at the other end of the beach. Tunnel beach was also pretty spectacular, as was the Otago peninsula. Beautiful scenery, but a cold and rainy day so we weren't able to enjoy it too much. We did try to go see some albatross at Taiaros Head, but we were out of luck.

Tunnel Beach

 

We spent the next few days exploring the Catlins Coast. We went to Nugget Point, Roaring Bay, Curio Bay, Purakaunui Falls, Maclean Falls, Porpoise and Slope Point. There were so many gorgeous sights of rugged coastline, and beautiful farmland. We were also able to see more yellow-eyed penguins, sea lions, fur seals and tons of bird life. It was a nice few days with not a ton of other tourists around!

Slope Point (most southern point on the South Island... very windy)

From the Catlins we made our way up to Milford Sound and Te Anau, but we had to make a stop in Invercargil. Wanda needed a new tire and the window on the drivers side didn't roll down anymore, so we figured we better stop in a large-ish city to see if we could get her fixed. Within 2 hours we were the proud owners of a new tire and a fixed window. It was so cheap also, which was the best part!

Let me tell you, the drive from Te Anau to Milford Sound is maybe one of the most beautiful in the world! You are surrounded by big green rolling hills and tons of large snow covered mountains in the background, with clear blue lakes, rivers and waterfalls all around. It was amazing. We must have stopped about 10 times in the 2 hour drive to check out the scenery. While we were in Milford we did a few days hikes - one to Lake Marian and another to Key Summit at the Divide. The day we did the hike to Lake Marian was beautiful and warm. We even took a very brief dip in Lake Marian, which is a glacial lake nestled in a bunch of mountains. It was freezing but the scenery was just amazing and it was totally worth it. We did the Key Summit the next day and unfortunately the weather wasn't very good - foggy and cloudy - so we didn't get to see the (apparently) amazing panoramic views from the top.

Lake Marian

 

From Te Anau we are making our way to Queenstown and we are really excited to see what it has to offer. From what we hear, it's a pretty exciting and beautiful place and we are ready to spend a few days there before we head off to do the Routeburn track.

Happy January every one!

xoxo