Monday 5th January
The warm and welcoming
morning sun woke me up early and I took advantage of the $6 (27kr) camping charge with a luxury shower in
a normal bathroom, but with cold water though. Erik did the same when he got
up. We were both pleased by a decent and normal shower, and took longer showers
than normal people would do in that kind of water temperature. The river
showers are great for a few days but then you kind of need to be washed
properly.
Our breakfast was enjoyed on the busy parking lot outside the
shopping centre
in Blenheim. We then cruised up and over to Nelson. The landscape reminded us a
lot about Austria, with narrow mountain roads filled with pine trees along side, followed by long stretches of flat fields
with countless cows and sheep’s taking up the view.
In Nelson we checked out
what the I-site (tourist information) had to offer us in the area. We were keen
for some trekking in the Abel Tasman National Park, and searched for
information about the different treks. The most popular one is around 50km long, and provides
camping on the way, but unfortunately all camp grounds were fully booked, so we only had two choices; to do the trek in one day or to do a part of it in one day. We didn’t wanna do all of it in one day, so we
considered how much of it, we wanted to do, while we drove the coastal way further north.
We stopped at Mapua, a
lovely little settlement, which houses some of the best restaurants in the
region. The Smokehouse Restaurant is well known for its fine smoked fish and
other seafood delicacies. Walking between the nice smelling cafés made us
really hungry, and soon we decided to splash out and get a seafood lunch. We
also collected some smoked fish for our dinner.
When we later reached Motueka
we had decided to do ta good part of the long trek, around 20 km’s in one day. So we found the I-site there and
got all the information we needed. The helpful lady also helped us with booking
accommodation for the night ($14 per nose = 65kr) plus she sorted out a water
taxi for us ($40 per nose = 184kr), so we could reach our starting point the
next morning.
After a bit of grocery shopping we drove up to Marahau, a town
located in a sunny valley, just 400m away from Abel Tasman National Parks southern entrance. The
community is focused and based on tourism and offers everything from tramping
(as they like to call it here), kayaking and swimming with seals to wine
tasting, horseback riding and golden beaches. We checked in at our pre-booked
campsite, the
Old MacDonalds Farm, and yes we did sing the song a few times while staying
there. In order to be in shade most of the day we pitched our tent underneath a
tree. At night I discovered it wasn’t the smartest idea, as there was a big
bird sleeping just over us and it pooped all over one corner of our tent. We
were also popular among the areas cicadas – a bunch of them had left their old
shells on our
tent and car wheels during the night, it was gross.
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| A weird animal called Alpaca, looks like a mix between a kangaroo, a lama and a sheep. |
Tuesday 6th
January
There’s undoubtedly a
rich animal life on Old MacDonalds Farm. The loud sound from cicadas, birds and
chickens woke us up early. We packed our daypack and were ready for some
outdoor adventures.
The water taxi company was very service-minded; they picked
us up in a bus, and transferred us to one of their boats on land and we were
provided with life jackets while a tractor pulled us, and the boat down to the
boat ramp. It was a different experience and a good different way to impress
people. We really got great value out of the $40 (184kr) we paid. Our skipper showed us
a famous rock formation, called the Split Apple Rock, and when Erik asked if we
could stop by one of the seal colonies on the way, the skipper was more than
happy to show us the wildlife. We saw a few seals hanging out on the rocks of
Pinnacle Island, and we were very satisfied with our so-called taxi boat.
We were dropped off at Bark Bay in the Abel Tasman National Park. It’s New Zealand’s smallest national park,
but the most famous. The track is a World famous coastal track renowned for its
cool native lush bush, the wide and golden beaches and sculptured granite cliffs.
The walk was far more beautiful than we had wished and hoped for, for some
reason we hadn’t expected anything spectacular but it was really unique and a
true paradise walk. We crossed Falls River by a lively hanging bridge,
something that I had been looking forward to, but when we were standing on the
swinging bridge I didn’t really enjoy the movement at all.
At Torrent Bay we
were about 1/3 of the way, at low tide it’s possible to pass the inlet of
Torrent Bay. Unfortunately we arrived there at high tide and had to walk the
detour around the inlet, which made the track 3,6km longer. We collected new
energy in the Cleopatra’s fresh water swimming hole, before we walked the last
bit to Anchorage, where we planned to have our lunch break. The pathways can
easily be walked by anyone; there are no tricky points or too steep hills that
are undoable. The landscape and surroundings is magnificent, it bothers me that
I couldn’t take a prober picture of it; it doesn’t look the same as in reality,
where it’s far more tremendous than what it looks like on the pictures.
At
Anchorage we were half way and it was hard to get started again after a long
break where our legs had gotten cold. It was a bit of a struggle really. We
gave Stillwell Bay and it’s golden sand beach at short visit on the way back to
Marahau, but only because I had to loo. My right knee wasn’t in the mood for
any more detours, I could only walk in a very slow pace, and it felt like I had
to crack the joint, but was unable to do so. The last 2km were quite painful
for me, but luckily it only happened in the end of our journey.
Erik struggled
with a blister between his toes. So the conclusion is that a distance on 26,9km
in one day, with the fitness level we’re on right now, is enogh for both of us.
It took us 6½ hour to walk it, and on top of that we had a 2h 15min break. It
adds up to 8h 45min in total. I was worried about how the night would turn out
with my knee pain, but as long as I didn’t walk it didn’t hurt, so it was all
right.
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| The Split Apple Rock |
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| Taxi boat |
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| Torrent Bay |
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| Anchorage Bay |
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| Heart-shaped bay (a name we came up with) |
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Stillwell Bay Odd post boxes |
New fashion
Abel Tasman Tramping
Wednesday 7th
January
We left Old MacDonalds
Farm and drove across Takaka hills (we would call them mountains) to Golden
Bay. It revealed fantastic views over Tasman and Golden Bay. Golden Bay is one
of the nation’s best kept secrets, because there’s only one way in, so no
matter what we decided to do we had to cross the same mountain again on our way
back. Near Takaka we visited Te Waikoropupu Springs. The spring water lake is
the clearest of any freshwater lakes outside Antarctica. It’s bubbling
underneath the surface of the lake, and to Maori people it is a sacred
treasure, and that explains why we couldn’t swim in it. We were only allowed to
watch it from a footpath.
Our main purpose for driving up to Golden Bay was
because we had heard about a famous horseback riding tour at Cape Farewell, the
most northern part of the South Island. It’s meant to be amazing. Erik had
promised himself to learn two things on this journey; Horseback riding being
one of them, and learning to speak Spanish being the other. So far he hasn’t
learned any of them so he figured it was about time to fulfil some of his
expectations and dreams. Unfortunately it didn’t work out as we hoped for, as
the company was fully booked the next two days, due to the peak season. It was
a shame, but we knew there was a risk, that they could be very busy at this
time of the year. We considered booking the tour a couple of days before, but
then again we didn’t know how we were gonna feel after the long trek we did.
So
instead of riding the horses to Wharariki Beach we did the 20min walk out
there. The beach is very special, it’s got golden sand dunes, caves, arches and
a seal colony, when you add those facts together it comes to perfection. It’s
so beautiful and unique that we almost felt guilty about leaving it again. A
little further south we pitched our tent on a campground in Collingwood. We
used the afternoon and night in the common area doing the only work we need to
do, write and make videos for our blog.
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| View from Takaka Hills |
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| Te Waikoropupu lake |
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Sheep Farm  |
This seal was so use to humans, and we got really close to it
Nature's Arch
Thursday 8th January
We drove back over
Takaka Hills, and the whole way back to Mutueka, before we could turn off
towards Murchison. We planned to drive across the country via Lewis Pass to the
east, and then down to Chritschurch and back to the west coast through Arthur’s
Pass. Erik have talked to several people who have mentioned Arthur’s Pass is
worth seeing, and we figured we had enough time to do it like that, as it would
only take us two days to do.
On our way to Lewis Pass we stopped at Maruia Falls,
where three crazy people were practising their kayaking skills by kayaking down
the falls. It didn’t succeed equally good for all of them. On the pictures you
can see how crazy it was. I wouldn’t dare to do it. We continued our roadtrip,
which by the way consisted of a lot of mountain views and beautiful rivers.
We
had a hard time finding the DOC camp we planned to sleep at. The brochure
misinformed us about the distance from the turn-off, so we made a u-turn in
order to find it, we thought we had missed a sign, but after a short period we
decided to turn back again and hoped to pass it later on, then 6km further away
than mentioned in the brochure we finally saw a a camping sign.
As soon as we
got out of the car we were hunted and attacked by sand flies. The same kind of
flies that I told Erik a few days earlier not to panic over, cause sand flies
are invisible and doesn’t get that big, but in NZ they apparently DO get that
big, like the same size as banana flies. We quickly got annoyed but tried to keep
the frustrating to a minimum as there was other people around us. We chatted to
a family from Wellington and they seemed to love Danish people, especially for
our humour and sarcasm, so we couldn’t loose faces to them because of some
stupid sand flies.
Our $47 (216kr) tent apparently isn’t made for more than two
weeks use, we had to fix one of the poles with tape as it broke during last
night. It was still not completely good after we fixed it, but it would get us
through the night. We could probably exchange it and get a new, if it wasn’t
because we bought it in an online store in Auckland. Well, it’s just a matter
of time before it falls apart completely, but we will see how we go. The night
was cold and wet, it didn’t rain but there was a lot of mist. The tent is only
one layer, so it’s not made for rain, that’s for sure.
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| There is plenty of people around crazier than us! Notice the kayak !! |
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| Maruia Falls |
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| A serious water irrigation system |
Friday 9th January
To no surprise the
tent had gotten worse during the night, it was still standing but broke another
place on the pole. We gently packed it together and was in a hurry to get away
from all the sand flies.
We drove to Hanmer Springs, where we enjoyed our
breakfast on a hilltop with view over the town. Erik got in contact with his
friend Ib, and most of the morning was spend catching up with him and his
family. Hanmer Springs is a ski destination during winter, at this time of year
the activity offers includes mountain biking and tramping. We didn’t intend to
do any of these, so we left the town again, and next stop was Christchurch
Airport. Not to catch a flight, but to see if we could get the so-called
”Arrival” brochure that you are offered when you first arrive in the country.
In that brochure is some important vouchers that gives discounts on activities
around the country. Sadly we received the old one in Auckland when we arrived,
so our vouchers expired 31-12-14, even sadder was it that we couldn’t get a new
one unless we passed the customer service. Mission failed!
Back on the road we
found the turn-off to Arthur’s Pass, and expected a whole lot of mountain
driving, but in fact there wasn’t much of that, most of the times we drove
between the mountains in valleys on flat roads. It’s indescribable how immense
it is, it seemed like the mountains around us continued to all eternity.
At
Castle Rock we pulled over and had a walk around the big limestones, it mostly
looked like someone had thrown them up in the air and let them fall down in one
big mess and left them there. We climbed them and was astonished by their size.
When we got in between the rocks, it was almost like a maze to find our way out
again. After the warm and sunny walk we were hunting for drinkable water, not
that it’s hard to find, but in the direction we were going there wasn’t a lot
of options. After a failed mission we decided to drive to Arthur’s Pass town,
to get the water we needed - all though that was further away than the place we
wanted to camp. After getting some water we started considering last night’s
cold temperatures, and that it probably would be just as cold if we decided to
stay in this altitude, none of us were interested in another night like that,
so we continued further on and down, closer to sea level. All though we hadn’t
felt that we were driving in mountains and up at all, we discovered that we
were actually about 900m above sea level. So there was a good point in
continuing.
We were blown away by the natural beauty of the entrance to Lake
Mahinapua campground. The green lush forest and its wilderness appeared in a
way that is hard to describe, even harder to get pictures of, because
unfortunately I’m not a pro yet. The camp ground was big and located next to
the nice lake. It’s incredible that a location like this only costed us $12
(55kr) together. As most nights we had our beloved wraps, filled with lettuce,
pineapple or corns, avocado, dressing and most of the time tuna, this day we
had splashed out and bought chicken for the special occasion. As always we feel
the same; none of us is tired of the same meal every day yet, so it’s perfect.
This night we switched the sand flies out with thirsty mosquitoes - god damn
those small animals can drive us crazy!
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| At Castle Rock... |
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| My monkey |
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| Find me! |
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| ....... |
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| A funny house we passed on our way. |
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| Lake Manihapua
Saturday 10th
January
It was cloudy when we
woke up, and perfect weather conditions for a morning jog. When we came back we
realized that the so-called shower building didn’t provide normal showers, only
self brought camp showers. It’s basically a big reusable water bag that you can
strap onto a rope in the room, and then shower underneath your self brought
water. We didn’t know about this before our jog, cause then we wouldn’t have done
it. Now we could smell for the rest of the day, until we found a proper shower,
but at least we smelled the same way. Our tent was still giving us a hard time,
but with a little bit of creative thinking we fixed it again.
At lunch time we
arrived in Franz Josef, a small settlement in the mountains on the west coast,
it’s known for it’s ice glacier with the same name, - the town adopted the name
from the glacier. It’s huge tourist drag is walking on the glacier, or flying
over it, in a scenic flight. We aimed to do the walk, as we thought we could do
it from the bottom. Sadly at this time of year it’s only possible to explore
the glacier by flying to the top, due to the melting ice in the bottom. We
changed our minds about the trip fast, when we heard the prices. It’s insane
what they charge people to walk on ice and fly in a helicopter for 6 min. Prices vary between $399-599 (1835-2755kr). Seriously it’s just ice, luckily we both agreed
that it was too expensive, and there’s a lot of other stuff we would prefer to
use our money on instead.
It did bother us a little that we wouldn’t get to see
the glacier, but only until we decided to do a skydive over one of the two
famous glaciers in the area. Then we would get to see the glacier from above,
plus skydive, for the same amount of money as a scenic flight and a walk on the
glacier. That was the right way to do it for us. We found out that the skydive
was cheaper , and more spectacular at the nearby glacier, called Fox.There we
could get a free night on a hostel if we booked the skydive through them. But
first of all we needed the weather to clear up, and it didn’t look like it was
gonna improve before Monday, so we were in no rush.
We located ourselves at
Montrose hostel in Franz Josef, and used the rest of the day online. Erik read
that the skydive at Fox is voted as the second best skydive in the world, in
terms of stunning views. We are not even sure we’re gonna be able to enjoy the
views after jumping out of that plane, but it sounded promising anyway.
|
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| Melting water directly from the glacier |
Sunday 11th January
We booked the skydive
for Monday afternoon, and crossed fingers for the weather to clear up soon.
This was our best day off in a long time, and we barely got out of the hostel.
The weather conditions didn’t change so we felt good about sitting inside and
updating our blog.
Monday 12th January
We checked out from
Montrose hostel and ventured 22km further south to Fox Glacier Town.
Surprisingly none of us were afraid or worried about our crazy plans about
jumping out from a flight. This is one of the activities that we have planned
to do in New Zealand, since we left home. We’re not hesitating to do it, even
though the thought about it is crazy.
At our arrival in Fox Glacier we already
knew that it would get postponed to later, as the clouds were still hanging low
and thick, the company obviously wouldn’t let us jump in bad weather
conditions. After a short stroll in the town we checked in at Fox Glacier Inn
hostel, where we got a night for free if we jumped. It didn’t seem like the
clouds around the mountains were moving anywhere, and the weather didn’t
improve during the day, so we prepared ourselves for another day of waiting. To
release the energy and annoying feelings about wasting another day on doing
nothing, we encouraged each other to a small jogging tour, which helped a bit.
Tuesday 13th
January
First thing we checked
immediately after opening our eyes was the weather outside. Sadly nothing had
changed. We got up anyway and when the hostel staff opened the reception they
called Fox Glacier Skydive and reported that it was postponed to later, as the
weather forecast again predicted a clear sky. We decided to wait and see what
would happen later.
As we hadn’t been out and exploring for a few days, we felt
restless. I personally find it hard to relax, I feel like I need to see
something new everyday, otherwise I’m bored or annoyed. I guess it’s a travel
disorder I have developed. So during our waiting time we did a few smaller
walks at the bottom of the glacier, but we only saw a small percentage of it,
but really got a feeling about how immense and incredible it is.
As the day
passed by we realized that today wasn’t our day either, and after walking
around lake Matheson in the early afternoon and seeing how the clouds didn’t
move at all, we decided to move on. We popped by the skydive shop to let them
know about our plans. The gentleman there offered to make a reservation for us
at Lake Wanaka for the next day at 2pm, and ensured us it would be better
weather down there, as we would be out of the mountains by the time we reached
it. So we were crossing everything we could for Wednesday to be our lucky day.
On our way down we had a quick stop at a salmon farm, here we were in for
another disappointment as the kitchen and café was closing just as we got
there, so no fresh salmon for us. Instead we ate our wraps with the last of our
pet food; some sandwich tuna that we bought by mistake. When we later passed by
Haast, we decided to get something to eat there... It turned into another big
mistake. The camp ground we stopped at near Haast River was overtaken by hungry
sand flies, so from the moment we got out of the car we were surrounded by
those small devils. In a hurry we pitched our tent, and had a quick look at the
river, and then escaped into our ram shackled tent.
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| Bottom of Fox Glacier |
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| Lake Matheson |
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| The forest is so green and lush |
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| Haast River |
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| Hawea Lake |
Wednesday 14th
January
A countless amount of
sand flies was waiting for us outside the tent. The small windows in the tent
was covered in small black dots, and getting outside wasn’t enjoyable. The
bastards are active in cloudy weather and this morning wasn’t an exception.
Today’s destination was Lake Wanaka, and it finally seemed like our lucky day.
As we were driving along lake Wanaka to the town itself we passed lake Hawea
and the clouds finally seemed to be moving away and slowly it cleared up. The
first thing to do in Wanaka was to get a new registration label on the car.
It’s very easy compared to the process in Denmark, the car don’t need to go
through a check, we just needed to find a post office and buy a new
registration valid for 3 months. It costed us $77 (354kr), even cheaper than we
thought. A stroll around the town showed us how pleasant it actually is. The
mountain backdrop and the lake is so picture perfect, the town is not to busy,
not to quiet, it’s developed but still unspoiled.
The sun were certainly coming out this day, and we realized that this was gonna be the day where we would
strap ourselves to a beautiful stranger and fall free in the sky. We started
driving towards the airport where the skydive company was located. The Skydive
Lake Wanaka is NZ’s most spectacular, multi award winning, high altitude tandem
skydive. When we arrived we started watching an introduction video where we got
all the information we needed to be able to do the tandem jump. We had several
movie and picture options, but we both choose a camera man to take pictures and
movies of us, he would jump at the same time as us and get all the funny shots.
After paying $1256 (6285kr) all together we went out to watch other people jump
and coming down in parachutes. We were deadly excited and a bit nervous.
Soon
it was our turn to put the one-piece suits on and get provided with a harness,
hat and glasses. Our instructor (the person we jumped with) came and picked us
up, my instructor Kim was Danish, but he pulled out a good English accent and
didn’t tell me his nationality before we sat on the plane. For some reason it
made me more calm to know that he was Danish. He had over 4500 jump and 6 years
experience with tandem jumps. Erik’s instructor was from South Africa and had
19 years experience, and Erik really felt comfortable on his stomach as well.
They were real professionals, and knew exactly how to handle our nervousness.
The scenic flight gave us brilliant views over the lakes, waterways, wilderness
and the Southern Alps chain (Mt. Aspiring National Park), which is a Worlds
Heritage Area. When reaching 12000 feet (3600 meter) we were provided with
oxygen masks, a few jumped in this height, but we continued up to 15000 feet
(4500 meter).
Our instructors started strapping us to them and our adrenaline
pump was working overtime at this time. ‘Whenever you’re ready’ the captain
said, and it all went so fast after that. Soon Erik was sitting in the door
opening and swinging back and forth two times before disappearing into the blue
sky. It was scary but there was no turning back now - it was the only right way
to get down. You don’t realize how fast you’re actually falling, the air feels
like a cushion on you and you don’t get that well known roller coaster feeling
in your stomach, but you’re falling with 200km/h. It’s unreal to fall towards
the earth with such a speed.
We had 1 minute free fall, and that was enough to
feel confident and to enjoy it. The rush was fantastic and much better than we
had imagined.
Erik was screaming the whole time, not because he was afraid but
because he was overwhelmed by the awesome free fall. Afterwards he told me that
he had thought if he would die, this would be in the happiest state of mind he
could think of. I was speechless on my free fall, but had the best time in my
life. It was so life-affirming when the parachute folded out and from that
point it was just a scenic paraglide tour back to solid ground. We couldn’t
wipe the big smiles of our faces again, it was such an incredible experience,
and very addictive. We both wanted to do it again straight away.
In the hours
after I continuously tried to recall the adrenaline filled moment in the plane,
just before we jumped - it was simply the most fantastic moment in my life. It
took us the rest of the day to get over our accomplishment. My instructor are
going back to Denmark in May and starting his own skydive company near Herning,
so we will most likely visit him in the nearest future.
We talked about getting a beer after this
amazing experience, but instead of ruining our “ alcohol free January” we went
to a restaurant and both had a nice fresh salmon dish.
Skydive Wanaka
Thursday 15th
January
It was delightful to
wake up and know that we could shower in the nearby river in Albert Town. We
didn’t have any plans for the day, so after our breakfast on the carpark
outside Countdown supermarket we walked to the beach beside the Wanaka lake and
recharged our batteries in the dazzling sun.
We also visited a knitwear shop,
cause ever since I borrowed Lisa’s wool poncho a night in Auckland I had
thought about getting one for myself. It was just so comfortable and warm, and
definitely a good purchase to bring home and wear during the danish winters.
The once I looked at in the shop was made of possum and merino, and even warmer
than wool. It would be special to buy one here, as there would be a story
attached to it, instead of buying one from home. We found out that they can
even send it home, and take the taxes of it, and in fact that way it ends out
being cheaper than buying it now and carrying it around. I wanted to have a
look around different shops though, but the ladies here gave me their business
card so I could call and order it any time I wanted.
We then left Wanaka - not
because we wanted to, but because we had to. It’s one of the most beautiful
places in New Zealand so far. I couldn’t stop thinking about yesterdays
adventure, and I tried in vain to recall the moment when time stood still. I
honestly feel the biggest desire for doing it again as soon as possible.
We visited Puzzling World outside of Wanaka, it's a place that messes with your head no matter what age you are, it's got bizarre buildings, puzzles for all ages and illusion rooms. To us it was a very interesting place to visit.
Before reaching Queenstown we passed by Kawarau bridge, the World’s first permanent
commercial bungy jump site, started by A.J Hackett. A.J Hackett’s company have
remained as the largest operators both in NZ and overseas. The bridge is 43m
above the river. It didn’t look scary to us at all, we stood on the bridge and
saw people jump, and I thought it was a piece of cake. We definitely had to try
the 134m bungy to get some value for our money. It was late afternoon when we
reached Queenstown. Our first impression was that it’s more alive and busy than
Wanaka, but they seem similar in terms of being located by a lake, surrounded
by scenic mountains, but Queenstown have a lot more activities on offer.
We
only saw the town quickly this afternoon, we didn’t want to explore it this
late, so we drove straight out to a camp 12km out of town called Twelve Mile
Delta camp. After searching for a spot to camp in every single corner of the
area, we finally decided where to stay. We met some Americans that taught us a
really interesting card game and the night went by in their company, without
alcohol... It’s important to mention as most of the times when we meet new
people there’s often alcohol involved. But we are keeping our promise to each
other, both because of the unhealthy part of alcohol and
the very expensive part of it.
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| It's all about illusion |
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| Same construction as below.. |
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| Two faces... Or a sculpture. |
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| Common toilet.. |
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| Illusion or...? |
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| Back in the real world |
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| Kawarau Bungy Bridge Natures stunning landscapes |
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