Party at Hamner Springs

cheers!!
(IB, Anna, Smiley, Debo, Becca [debo's partner in crime] and Anthony)

Anna and Smiley (more friends we met in Wanaka), asked if we all wanted to rent a house in Hamner Springs, before we all went our separate ways. Of course we all jumped at the chance.....a house, with a kitchen, a garden, double beds and a log fire OR stay in our wee camper .... no contest (although we still love you Darlene)

Yep....more booze - great day and night. In the morning, we all headed to Christchurch. The Murrays headed back to Oz, and Anna and Smiley showed us round the sights of Christchurch

Free camping at Ben More

View from our camp...not bad for free eh?

The following day we, and the Murrays (our freinds we met in Wanaka), decided to "free camp" in the wilderness (i.e. not at an official camp site). We found a nice spot, as you can see from above, lit a fire, drank lots of booze and had a great time. If you can find the spots and the weather is good.....it's well worth doing.

Note : the booze part was only to keep out the cold

Goodness gracious....Great balls of stone!!

These boulders are cracking !!

Jeni, Pee-sac and Beni clearly not that impressed with the stone baws

After Dunedin, (cheers again to Alison and Justin for letting us stay), we headed north to Moeraki to see the Moeraki Boulders. These are large rounded rocks were created many years ago and were trapped in the surrounding mudstone cliffs. Over the years the mudstone is eroded by the elements which deposits these spherical rocks onto the beach. Pretty weird

We enjoyed our visit, but it was spoiled by an extremely rude and grumpy guy who owned the restaurant at the entrance to the beach, who insits you pay $2 to go on a public beach ?!?........If you want to go, we suggest you go via the Dept. of Conservation entrance (which is free).

It's safe to say, we had words with him!!

When you're feeling a p p p peckish

Some yellow eyed penguins come ashore

a seal playing in the surf

....p p p pick up a penguin (sorry for anyone reading this outside the UK.....penguins are chocolate biscuits).

On Saturday Alison and Justin, took us out to Sandfly Bay on the Otago peninsula. It was a wee bit of a twisty drive to the place (which made Debo feel a bit sick), but we got to this beach, covered with sand dunes. There was a few people on the beach and also a seal diving about the water. We went along to the hide at the far end of the beach, and waited. There were a few up on the hill, but the penguins are meant to come back to the beach at dusk, so we waited .... and waited....and waited.

Eventually we decided that we weren't going to see any more, and decided to walk back. As we walked along the beach, these 3 cheeky chappies swam ashore and waddled to their nests.

That made the trip worthwhile.....ace

(Didn't see any chocolate biscuits though)

Queenstown

A bungee jumper over the Kawarau river

Queenstown, with The Remarkables in the background

After Wanaka, we continued on down to Queenstown (considered NZ extreme sports capital). We had heard there was a few avalanches in The Remarkables mountain range, before we arrived, but luckily never saw any!!

We stayed for a couple of nights and met up with the lovely Murray family from the Sunshine Coast in OZ again. We all went to watch the bungee jumpers at it was great fun. One guy had a kilt on and it was good to see that he was a true scotsman....enough said. Queenstown has so much to offer and you could easily spend several days there doing all the adventure sports, but you will need a big bank balance.

Puzzling World

Debo in the "spooky faces" room

Debo in the optical illusion room....weird
(click on the image to see it better)

On the way out of Wanaka is Puzzling World (see http://www.puzzlingworld.co.nz/ for more info), which is a collection of mazes, puzzles and optical illusions. We got lost in the maze for about 1/2 an hour and then took some photos in the other rooms. There was one room which is on a slant and made us feel sick (sorry no photos.....couldn't stay in there too long), another room where all these heads followed you around and another room that you looked small at one end, then huge at the other.... called the Ames room....weird but if your out Wanaka way, it's worth a visit.

Wanaka and the conquering of Mount Roy

The climb begins

Debo, with Wanaka in the background

Spectacular views over to Mt. Aspiring and surrounding mountains

Damn you summit.....stop getting further away!!!

Debo has a well earned rest near the top

The snow gets deeper

Hurray....the summit

(we got there, just as the cloud came down to spoil the view)

After a couple of days of rain, in Wanaka (we didn't really mind since the campsite had a nice wood burner, a free spa/sauna and we met lots of nice people), we thought we'd better go out and get some excercise. We saw there was a good trek up Mount Roy (1585m), so decided to give it a go.

Holey Moley !!! after a good 4 hours slog, we eventually got to the summit, for the clouds to come down and spoil the view. The snow was pretty deep at the top, but luckily most of it had frozen, which made walk (slightly) easier, but we still managed to sink in a few times. On the way down the cloud lifted and we got some amazing views. A helicopter also flew past us and landed at the top, let it's passengers out to take photos, then went on it's way.....CHEATS!!!

It took us another 2 hours to come down and at the bottom, we hobbled to the van (all our muscles were aching). When we got back to the campsite, we made good use of that free spa.

The next couple of days, we could hardly walk!!!!

More huge bits of ice

Beni, Pee-sac and Jeni at the Fox Glacier

Dangerous places, these glacial valleys

(luckily we didn't fall in, with the avalanches and tidal waves)

After Greymouth, we made our way down to the glacial areas, about halfway down the west coast of south island. The weather had taken a turn and it was very wet. We reckon we missed some great scenery, because of all the low cloud.....but hey, it's winter here, so I guess it can't be sunny all the time. We took a visit to see the glaciers....which were very impressive, but not as good as Patagonia (sorry NZ). After we had been to the Fox Glacier, the rain came back on (in buckets) so we decided to press on, further South, to Wanaka

Westport to Greymouth

Seal colony at Westport

(there are seals at the bottom....honest...you have to look carefully though)

Pancake rocks at Punakaiki

again.....it's a hard life !!!

After Nelson, we started to travel down the west coast of South Island. Our first stop was Westport and when we arrived it was chucking it down. Next day it cleared up though and we took a walk out to the seal colony. We met this (hyper) kiwi guy, who was running (of course) along the track. He told us that the journey from Westport to Greymouth was voted one of the top 10 coastal routes in the world. He also told us some points to stop off at before he ran off (he said he was going to do a bike ride and then go surfing!!!!).

Off we drove, in wee Darlene, and the sun came out again. The scenery was amazing. Between the incredible surf of the Tasman sea and the road, which carves its way in and out of the steep cliffs. On our way, we passed The Pancake Rocks, which are a collection of limestone layered towers, caves, tunnels and blowholes slowly being eroded into the sea. When you look at them, they do (kind of) look like piles of pancakes.....hence the name.

After we got to Greymouth, we parked up at the campsite, and took advantage of the free spa.

Nice !

We will probably head down to the glacier region over the next couple of days, and then take it from there.

Kaiteriteri

Split apple rock

The Bay at Kaiteriteri

The view from our van...we could get used to this !!

We travelled up the coast a bit, from Nelson (through some more vineyard country), to Kaiteriteri, which is on the edge of the Abel Tasman national park. Amazing beaches and luckily the weather was very nice. Our campsite was right on the beach, and because it's winter at the moment (although it's still pretty warm, by Scotland standards), it was nice and quite. We spent a couple of days around here because it was so nice, and did a couple of (small) treks, to explore the surrounding area.

We could definitely spent some more time here.....but we must press on

From North to South Island

Some dolphins showed up to greet us to South Island

We got the ferry on Tuesday from Wellington to Picton and then travelled on to Nelson. In Nelson we met up with Karen, a friend who used to stay in Glasgow. She introduced us to some of the local beers and also gave us a list of a few sights to see around the Nelson area.

Thanks Karen, and we're glad we didn't come last in the pub quiz