Goodbye South Island

June 22 –

We woke up in a cozy campervan in the middle of glacier country in Franz Josef and headed southeast.

 We stopped by some beautiful lakes on our way to Wanaka, the first being mirror lake. The minerals in the lake helped reflect the beautiful mountains in the distance onto the water. We were there on a clear day but only went to the first lookout. We were on a  tight time frame (driving about 6 hours today) so we just wanted to get out of the car for a quick walk.

We drove through Mt. Aspiring National Park and it was such a beautiful drive! A lot of the Lord of the Rings movies were filmed in this part of the country. Jeff and I stopped at Thunder Creek – a huge waterfall in the park. 

After leaving the falls we started driving in SNOW again!! We had to drive through Haast Pass to get into Wanaka and the pass has been closed the past week but thankfully it was open the day we needed it to be! I felt like we were driving through a winter wonderland with the snow-capped mountains, beautiful trees, and snow lining the roads.

We then drove around Lake Hawea and stopped a couple times. This lake is awesome (and it stopped snowing) with all the majestic mountain around it makes it the best drive yet.

Last and final stop of the day was Lake Wanaka – probably one of my favorite spots in NZ. The town is a little ski town, the lake is very blue and has a great mountain backdrop. This town sprouted up after Queenstown became really popular – so more locals go there instead of the tourist and overprices town near by.

Jeff and I walked around, did some shopping of course, and went to Speight’s Ale House to watch  the final All Blacks game. It was a good one even though it was a wee bit close at times.

We then free camped on the side of the road outside of town. It was freezing! We woke up to a thick layer of frost on the windows the following morning!

what i slept in!

June 23 –Queenstown

We woke up way to early because our roadside campsite was a calling card for passing motorists. Apparently, when there is a camper on the side of the road, the kiwi thing to do is honk your horn at them. After 5 honks from separate cars, we were up and headed back into Wanaka. 

where we camped!

When we got into town, we were lucky enough to see the sun rise over the mountains that surround Lake Wanaka. The sky was pink and blue, which was gorgeous despite the frigid temperatures.

After sitting and watching the sunrise, we stopped by a little café for some hot chocolate, and got on the road to Queenstown, which was only about an hour drive. The coolest thing about Queenstown right now is that it is having a Winter Festival to celebrate the beginning of their winter months and ski season. The city was crawling with ski bunnies and snowboarders. People just carry their snowboards around town, even though there is no snow on the ground. It’s pretty funny to see.

We didn’t get to participate in all of the festivities of the winter fest because we had something a little different planned.

 At noon, we met 3 guys outside of a Subway shop, hopped in their van, and started driving to Coronet Peak, the local ski field. As sketchy as this might sound, we knew who the guys were, and they were taking us to the top of the ski field so that we could go PARAGLIDING! (Jeff and I didn’t tell anyone back home about it because we didn’t want you guys to worry.) 

SO we drove up the ski field in preparation for our flights, but the wind conditions were not conducive to flying, so we had to move to another site. After about an hour and a half of checking the wind conditions and relocating, we finally suited up. The flights were tandem, so Jeff and I each had an instructor attached to our back. When the wind got into our sails properly, they just had us run off the hill and off we went! The feeling was like none other. I screamed really loud when we took off, but after getting settled it was really cool to float through the mountain air and look out over the beautiful scenery. They also threw in some twists towards the end of our runs, which freaked me out. After we landed, they told us we could take another run because the new location was much shorter than any other site they launched from. So we said yes! And we did it again, and it was so much cooler the second time because we actually knew what we were doing.

More pictures to come!

After we were done, they dropped us off back in town and we set up Britzy for the night at our campground. Then we headed into town for some shopping and looking around, which didn’t take very long. Before long it was about 4:30 so we headed up the gondola to the highest point in town, so we could see the sun set over the mountains. Up top, they have a restaurant and bar, so Jeff and I got a bottle of wine and enjoyed each other’s company as we watched the sun paint the mountains every color imaginable. It was a very clear night, so it was stunning to see.

After the sun went down, we went back down into Queenstown for some delicious pizza at Winnies. It is my favorite restaurant here by far, and I am going to have to come back just to have their pizza. When dinner was over, very quickly because Jeff was hungry, we went to Cowboy’s. It is a ridiculously tacky bar that stereotypes everything about the American West, so it was funny to see what Kiwi’s think about people from Texas. We met up with a friend of mine, Lars, who happened to be in town as well. It was nice to catch up and have a few drinks before we turned in for the night. 

We fly to Auckland tomorrow, and then on the 25th, we will be back on our way to the States. 

From Wine to Glaciers

Read about my baby seal adventure here to catch up! 

June 18 - Blenheim

We woke up late, took showers, cleaned up the camper, and drove into downtown Blenheim to see what the town had to offer. Jeff and I walked around the shops that were downtown and bought some sweaters and shirts at a few different stores. I finally bought a merino sweater in my time over here, it only took 4 months, but I love it. Merino is a special type of wool produced from rare sheep in New Zealand. We stopped at grocery store after our shopping spree to load up on food for the rest of our trip, and had some lunch before our 1 o’clock wine tour with Highlight Wine Tours.

typical NZ terrain

Our tour guide, Colleen, was awesome. We expected to be on a group tour, but because it is winter here, it’s not busy in wine country, so we were the only people on the tour and had her expertise all to ourselves. The Marlborough region is known for its sauvignon blancs (my favorite wine), but it also produces other great wines as well. 

Jeff waiting for the tour!

We started our tour at Drylands winery. They produce a lot of wine that is exported to the US like Nobilo and Monkey Bay. Next, we went to Hunter’s vineyard, which had 6 wines for us to taste including their own “bubbles” which is champagne, but because it’s not made in the Champagne regions in France, they can’t call it that. Their oak-aged sauvignon blanc was really different and interesting. I enjoyed it, but Jeff was not a fan. 

After Hunter’s we got to go to a special winery that only does bubbles, called No. 1 Family Estate. We got to taste 3 different varieties of their bubbles, which were all fun to try in the middle of a Wednesday! Framingham’s winery was next. They make 14 different wines, 5 of which we got to try. Their sauvignon blanc is exported to the states and is delicious. The cool thing about this winery, was that it opened our eyes to reisling. Aparrently, the reisling that we get in the states is “sweet reisling” from German wineries, so we weren’t expecting to like the Framingham variety. However, their classic reisling was delicious and we are bringing a bottle home, but no, I won’t share. 

We ended our tour at Baldevines Winery, which was kinda of a let down, but wine always makes me happy. After finishing our vineyards portion of the tour, we went to Makana Convections, a chocolate factory that had the most delicious toffee that we bought and proceded to eat that night. To keep Jeff happy, Colleen took us to a microbrewery on our way back to town, which he really enjoyed. We really enjoyed the day and were so happy we did the tour. Afterwards, we were tired (and kinda tipsy) from the tour, so we went to bed early at the holiday park again.

what we are taking home with us (minus the chocolate)

post wine tour :) 

June 20 – Westport/Pancake Rocks/Hokitika

This was our travel day. We left Blenheim early around 8:30 and I drove. We headed towards the west coast, right through the heart of the country, which is beautiful. 

bye wine!

watch for kiwis!!

hi!

bye wine country!

one lane bridges are common around here - this one had train tracks going through it!

me drivin!

It took us 4 hours to get to Westport, which is on the northwest corner of the south island. 

west coast!

Cape Foulwind

Other than a pretty peninsula called Cape Fowlwind, there is nothing to do in Westport, so we kept driving south down the coast towards the Pancake Rocks. The rocks are split into layers by the ocean water pounding against them, so it looks like a ton of pancakes stacked on top of one another.

After another 2 hours of driving, we stopped in Greymouth, another coastal town with hardworking people, but not many tourist attractions. However, they had a bar, and that was good enough for us. We stopped for a drink. I opted for Hot Chocolate, which I remembered being awesome from my previous trip with Stray, and Jeff had a beer. 

We weighed our options about the day, whether we wanted to stay there for the night, or keep driving south. We chose the second option and drove to Hokitika, along the coastal highway which is rated as one of the top 5 most beautiful drives in the world. 

jeff threw the keys so he had to get them with the broom!

The town itself is a coastal town whose claim to fame is the numerous outlets for Pounamu, the green stone that is found in the area and made into every form of jewelry imaginable. We didn’t want to plug in, so we drove south of town about 5 minutes to Lake Manipuha, I came here with Stray, so you can check out that post here. 

where we camped

mountians and tasman sea!

We free camped at the lake, made dinner, and watched some TV on my computer before settling in for the night.

morning!

June 21 – Franz Josef

We woke up to gorgeous south island winter weather. Blue skies and cold crispy air. Over the past week there have been horrible storms with heaps of rain, snow, and ice to the south of us. We have actually been running away from it ever since Lake Tekapo, so it was nice to see that the skies were finally clearing up.  The lake we stayed on was beautiful. It had the southern alps in the distance and the sunrise came right over the top of the them. Jeff and I headed out to explore downtown Hokitika. We went to a jade factory, that carves and produces the green stone jewelry, and had some breakie at the local café. Then we headed to Franz Josef.

The ride to Franz Josef was really pretty with us driving into the Southern Alps, but their was a lot of road construction from the downed trees due to the storms that came through the region. We finally made it to Franz Josef in early afternoon. Franz Josef is a town based around a glacier that sits in the mountains high above the town and the entire city is kept alive by tourism around trips that go up to and around the glacier.

 One of the things Jeff and I originally wanted to do was go on a trip that requires a helicopter ride up to the glacier and then we could hike around on top of it. Unfortunately, all of the spots on the following days trip were booked, so we were unable to go on the trip. L It’s okay though, because the tour costs a lot of money, so we could spend that money on beer and wine instead. We checked into a holiday park in the early afternoon, bought some internet access, and relaxed for the rest of the day. The holiday park is called the Rainforest park because it is situated in a pocket of thick native bush, which makes it look like a rainforest, even though it is freezing outside.

britzy and a glacier behind her!

There isn’t much to do in FJ at night so Jeff and I tried to clean out our fridge and cook some stuff, then we went to Monsoons bar (motto: when it rains – we pour). Now we are just waking up and heading to one of my all time favorite places Wanaka! Hopefully the roads are safe, open, and clear for us! 4 days till I am stateside! 

Miss you all!