Road Side Attractions

Let me begin this blog with an apology. As I was speeding my way through the descriptions of where I've travelled, I didn't think about the fact that no one back home had any idea WHERE Mapua was, or Hokitika, or maybe even Christchurch. So, as per the request of my loving family, I have included a rough map that I put together outlining where we're up to at this point in my South Island journey. Some of the names might be hard to read - if so, just check out New Zealand using Google Maps. The bottom right corner is Christchurch, our starting point.

So ... continuing with the journey. In the morning, Mal, Kelsey, and Drea took a helicopter ride to see some of the glaciers. We ended up skipping out on our glacier hike for the afternoon since we'd been told by friends that the half day wasn't worth it - you didn't get up high enough to really enjoy the ice fields. I'm a little bit disappointed that I didn't see any glaciers, but I ended up saving a LOT of money by not going ... the tourism industry in New Zealand is catering more and more to wealthier / older bus tours of people and not to backpackers like us!

After the heli ride was finished we drove south to Fox Glacier (only about 30 minutes) where we had lunch. The rest of the afternoon was spent stopping at pretty much every single road side attraction that NZ had to offer us for the day. It's amazing how many cool things you can see in this country by stopping your car and walking 10 minutes away from the road! Check out what we saw between the glaciers and Wanaka:

#1

Battling bugs to check out the dolphins

We stopped at a beach near Haast, where there was a boardwalk peruse to a Dune Lake. I have no idea who would be crazy enough to do the walk, because the sand flies at this beach were ferocious. The only thing that kept us at the beach were the beautiful jumping sea creatures we saw - Hector's dolphins! This endangered species of dolphin is only found in New Zealand, and can be identified by their rounded dorsal fin. They were so cool - I'd never seen dolphins jump like that other than at the Vancouver Aquarium.

Not my photo ... but easily could have been if I'd had a telephoto lens!

#2
We crossed a bridge that was infested with tourists, so we decided to hop out and check out what all the fuss was about ... turns out it was just a really gorgeous river with stunningly blue water flowing down it.


#3
A sign read "Blue Pools - 10 min walk" so once again we hopped out of the car, did the walk and ended up somewhere beautiful. We waded into freezing cold water that lovingly soothed all of our itchy sandfly bites from earlier that afternoon.



Our last couple stops of the day were to take photos of the incredible mountains we began driving past as we neared Wanaka (our destination for the night). It was such a gorgeous day and everything we passed seemed to become more and more unbelievable! 

Maybe we should find our campsites earlier ...

I was awoken on the morning of the 7th to the sounds of my travel buddies hastily packing up their tent, followed by the car starting. I thought that perhaps they were trying to prank Derek and I, but it turned out they had all frozen the night before and were trying to warm up! They were revived by coffee and breakfast in Murchison, after which we were able to continue our journey.

The first stop of the day was at a small but gorgeous beach near Greymouth where Derek attempted to surf but got a bit sketched out by being out alone in murky water ... there are Great White sightings in the area!




Our second stop was at the Pancake Rocks and Blowholes, a geologically exciting site. The rocks look like giant piles of pancakes, and at high tide certain areas allow the sea to come crashing upwards in big sprays.

Derek checks out the surf at lunchtime in Greymouth

Once we'd tired of the car again (it was a long day of driving!), we stopped at a random beach somewhere between Greymouth and Hokitika. We had it all to ourselves - a private oasis! So we sunbathed and re-gained our energy for an hour or so.

At about seven o' clock we arrived in Whataroa, a minuscule town that is close to Franz Josef. We booked a glacier hike for the next day, ate a delicious dinner at a place boasting "Meals, Beer and Beds" then continued on toward our campsite at around 9:00pm. It was completely dark and we drove too far past our campsite (about 30km too far) and had to drive back ... not so fun when you're tired!

Abel Tasman National Park

Waking up in Mapua meant we weren't too far from Abel Tasman; the drive was less than an hour. At the edge of the park we rented kayaks for the day from Marahau kayaks, where we received a lovely introductory lesson that kind of reminded me of Spring Camp.

Once we were on the water though, we were surrounded by beauty. We paddled to our very own private beach for lunch, then spent a few hours exploring the area. A storm brought us in a little earlier than we'd hoped, but our couple of hours of sunshine had been incredible.

Letting the kayaks have a break on the beach

After our kayaks had been loaded onto tractors and driven back to land across the 200m beach that had appeared during low tide, we packed back into the Dragon and drove south toward Murchison. We spent the night at the Kawatiri Historic Railway campsite which I thought was pretty cool. We even got to walk through an old train tunnel! The site's only downfall were the sand flies (which are similar to a black fly in Ontario - small, jumpy, and can inflict a painful and itchy bite!). At the time, we had no idea that we'd be seeing a lot more sand flies on our trip.

What's on the other side?

On the Road Again

After the madness of the North Island trip, I'd been hoping for a little bit of a break to get life back to normal. But normal life's unexciting, so instead, I was only back in Christchurch for two and a half days before getting back on the road. 

The day after we flew from Wellington, Derek arrived, having booked his flight two days earlier. We'd decided that since I'd be losing my April break (when he'd originally planned to visit), he might as well come early! So that was a happy change. Once the gang had all made it back to Chch, we booked a new car and headed out again. Sadly, Lee did not join us on the second trip, and we missed her lots.

Our first stop on departure day (Saturday, March 5th), was at a beach near Kaikoura. The weather was fantastic and the water was startlingly blue so we spent about half an hour just giddily running around.

We continued driving north and had dinner near Mapua. We set up camp at a nearby beach campsite, where we caught the end of the cloudy, but somehow still spectacular, sunset.