Funny Things we saw on our Travels

This is a mixture of photos we promised to put on the blog trudging back along highways to capture hysterically funny roadsigns, but then it grew into all kinds of things from the trip, that made us smile, really.

Wanaka 1st January 2009

Our arrival in Wanaka was a little damp, but we had a great time here later. There had been a dismal rainstormy drive through what was purported to be some of the most amazing scenery in the country. (The bottom quarter of the mountains was beautiful, all else was cloud!) When we finally arrived at Lake Wanaka in the early afternoon, we were confident of finding a good campsite or something as we had everywhere else. We needed cheering up, so we squandered our afternoon in "puzzling world" on the outskirts of town, where we lost ourselves, (quite literally) in mazes, optical illusions and puzzles for hours. It was great, but when we finally rolled into town around dusk, we were a little surprised to find that it was completely booked out. As a hiking resort town, there were only really the two extremes of accommodation and we couldn’t afford the luxury end, so it was the grand tour of Wanaka’s hostels for us. It is worth mentioning that hostels in New Zealand (and for that matter in Australia too) are fab. Absolutely head and shoulders above the European average. They normally are clean and businesslike, with laundry and cooking facilities, and most have some huge central common room for hanging out in. Oh and they are called „Backpackers” by the way. E.g. „I stayed in this great little backpackers in Melbourne.” Through some really world-class pleading, Dorka managed to convince a hostel/backpackers manager to bump a reservation (looked like they were never going to show anyhow) and give us a room. It was tiny, noisy, freezing but much more comfy than the car, which had seemed to be our most likely place to stay at that point. With the hostel as our base, we explored the lake, ate subway sandwiches by the shore (ate half, dropped half) and planned our hike for the next day. All our plans were cancelled when we realised the next day(after bumping down a rough track for 20 km of rough track) that the trailhead was still another 10 km away, but we would need a 4x4 to cross a river to continue. We sadly jolted our way back down the bumpy 20km, but soon afterwards, as it was actually sunny and dry for a change, we decided to stop and try a short hill walk. It turned out to be a heavy hike of around 4 hours that took us to the summit of Rocky Mountain, which had fantastic views over the lake, and featured lots of pretty hillside meadows a la „sound of Music”. Dorka provided the comic relief on the way down by falling over spectaularly three times in about 3 minutes, the last time she actually rolled right through a hedge (Thank goodness, no injuries were sustained, as Lara had just been moved and put on my back!)
All in all, this was one of our favourite walks, and perhaps one of our favourite days of the entire trip. It was bitterly cold at the top but there were great views. As we walked we told stories and messed around and generally enjoyed being together. Lara was in the Liliputi backpack carrier for several hours and loved it, Emma was collecting stones (shown, right, by order) and was full of fun, and Dorka was full of bruises, but triumphant, so we were all happy. I'm not sure how much of all that comes across in photos, but we took a million snapshots that day - here are some of the highlights.

Milford Sound

Milford Sound, the stunningly beautiful fjord down at the south end of the South Island, is a funny little place.

For one thing, it has some of the most awful weather in a land of already unpredictable weather. I think they average about 50 fine sunny days a year and the rest are less suitable for taking a boat trip to see the crashing waterfalls and the mountains rising straight up out of the sea.

For another thing, it seems impossibly low-key. There is a Milford sound town or village, but it doesn't really suport tourism. Harvesting something (lobsters, mussels perhaps? some sort of seafood anyhow,) is the real industry here. I think they have one (permanently-full) hotel and perhaps a dozen houses for ships' captains and hotel managers and cannery plant officials. I think I also heard that the local fish-canning factory manager was our boat captain, actually. Whether this is a drive to save on housing, I don't know...

For another point, it seems incredibly far away from everything else. To get to Milford Sound you have to drive for two hours from the nearest town, which is exactly what we did. I know this is the sort of drive some Americans make to pick up their newspaper in the mornings, but for me it seemed amazingly isolated. We stayed in Te Anau, in fasct we stayed for whole wet day, before attempting the drive down. It didn't help. We got one of the other 305 days, and couldn't really see the full splendour of Mitre peak (well, the bottom part of it was pretty splendid...)

but apart from that it was still a lovely trip. The 2 -hour drive down (2 hours!, that's like staying in cambridge or somewhere, to visit Big Ben!) was actually lovely, chock-full of glacial valleys and chuckling streams. In one place we even came across a vast meadow of wonderful, tall plants with bell-shaped flowers (sorry, botany never was my strong point) and had to stop for ages getting cute baby photos. It was also pretty easy to see the local wildlife - Keas are large mountain parrots and these guys were everywhere. very sweet, but I've heard their beaks are made for chomping though lamb-bones, so I suppose a scrawny finger like mine would offer no great resistance. This last came to mind when they landed on the car-roof demanding to be fed.

Finally down at the water's edge we entered the hangar-like ship terminal, and arranged a cruise. This was a a little dimal at first, but actually we got right up close to (NZ fur) seals and as for the watefalls, the captain actually nosed the boat underneath one or two until the water was thundering right onto the bow. It was all very dramatic. Due to the weather, the mountain peaks were lost to us, but the steep, smooth cliffs falling straight into the water are pretty impressive by themselves. After cruising for a while, enjoying never ending refills of hot chocolate (nice touch, that - the kiwis are so good at this sort of thing) our time was up, so we exchanged the boat for our car (we tried walking a little but found that apart from the famous Milford Track, there was really nowhere to go,) and headed home to Te Anau. This moment of turning North was the last turning point for us. From here onwards we were headed home (even if we still had a couple of weeks left.)

West Coast and Glaciers Dec 29th-31st

When we arrived on the south Island, we really didn't know which way to go. We were torn between exploring Nelson at the top of the island (supposedly a very easy-going place to enjoy beach life) or to head down the west coast while the weather was still good. In the end the choice was made for us, as I (Andy) missed a crucial turning for Nelson, so that was that. From that point on , every traveller we got talking to , asked us if we'd been to Nelson yet, as it was so great. But no we on a mission, and it was taking us South. After passing Westport, we stopped for the night in a little bed and breakfast place in the middle of nowhere, which happened to have a pub next door. It was the kind of place where the music shuts off as you enter, under the stern looks of the locals. Actually, at second glance, it turned out that everyone was really friendly, and we had a lovely evening. It was Lara's 1st birthday, so we celebrated that, and then had an early night (well all except me - I stayed up blogging) because we wanted to do some early morning seal-watching the next day, as it turned out we were 5 minutes away from Tauranga bay, one of the largest colonies of New Zealand Fur seals.



These are beautiful animals, and we all enjoyed watching little seal-groups (looked like families to us, but unlikely) do their stuff on the rocks far below, not knowing that just a week later, we'd be far far closer to the next seals we saw. Even Dorka (not normally terribly interested in things that can't talk), was transfixed and took millions of photos of them.



The afternoon's drive brought us further south, and on the way we stopped off to view the mysterious pancake rocks at Punakaiki. They're very beautiful, as the soft rock has been eroded into castle towers ot perhaps odd skyscrapers -but the photos don't really convey the full impression of coures. There was great little tourist centre (as they all are in NZ) with info about these odd flattened rock formations and the blow holes that spew huge amounts of water when the tide is right.


We stopped a little before the galciers at a place called Ocarito, a huge swamp that has amazing meandering waterways best explored by canoe. Dorka, being the experienced canoe-hero went off for a day's paddle, while Lara and Emma and I spent the day in a wonderful little summer cabin, (probably our best accommodation of the whole trip,) trying to get video of Lara learning to crawl. (she was fast) Outide it pored with rain all day, and I kept expecting to see Dorka squidging back to us. Meanwhile the canoe hire guys had decided to pick her up in a motor boat, but she impressed them with her stroke (or something like that) and they decided to let her keep on if she wanted to. She did, and returned hours later, totally soaked to the skin, but triumphant. There wasn't much to see, but we include a photo of it anyway....

After this the weather stayed awful for days, well most of the next 2 weeks actually. We had read and heard that it rains a lot in this part of the world - that's what makes glaciers, after all, and here there are 2 massive ones! But somehow, we hadn't really realised what a dampening effect it could have on our spirits, especially when 90% of the attractions are outdoors things.



Luckily, when we stopped in the little town of Franz Joszef, at the foot of the glacier of the same name, we picked a campsite that was starting to fill up with other families now, and that kept the little ones busy so Dorka and I could take it in turns to do the glacier walk. I got the morning when the sun poked out from behind the clouds, Dorka got the cloudy version (but at least it wasn't actually raining for those 3 hours!)

The glacier hikes here are, like all NZ activities, faultlessly organised. You are issued with everything from boots to jackets. As long as you turn up in underwear and a hat, you'll be ok, then your personable guide whisks you to the trailhead by bus, and then on up into the river valley and eventually up onto the ice itslef, literally hacking steps into steep ice-cliffs using a massive axe. Walking up a glacier is fun, you get to wear crampons (those steel spider things that fit around your boots) and kick your way up ravines and over humps and lumps until you reach your goal. Our goal was just to reach the older blue ice and take the obligatory blue ice photos (it IS very pretty) before turning back, which we did after about 2 hours.

Even though it was New Year's Eve, it was a hard job staying awake until midnight following all that climbing and trekking. Funnily enough, it wasn't worth it. There were a few cheers from the camp, as the clock struck midnight, and I think someone even let off a firework, but then by 12:03 it was silent again. This marked the beginning of 2009, which meant the beginning of the last month of our trip - the last 15 days actually, so now the race was on. We had places to get to...

Whanaganui and the ferry

Speeding down to reach our ferry to the South Island, we discovered some beautiful scenery in the Whanganui area, mostly by accident. One of the nice things about travelling without a fixed itinerary is that if something takes your fancy, you can stop and take a closer look. Dorka spotted a kayak rental place advertising trips along this river valley she remembered reading that it was something special, so we decided to have a go. We had to take an organised trip, as the river is quite fast and strong - the normal method is to take a ride on a jetboat upstream (with the kayak stuck on the back of the boat) and then paddle back down. It was our first time in one of these machines, and it was great fun and very fast, even though our guide Tom insisted this was the gentle version for our kids. While we waited for Dorka to catch us up, I listened to Tom's tale of how the Whanganui river had been a major trade route just a hunded years ago - it was funny to think of great big paddle steamers chugging along this narrow waterway, as we sped along.

We had a lovely afternoon, but we rather unbderestimated the time, and when we finally got though our compimentary hot chocolate (I love tour companies in New Zealand - they always know that the little things count) it was time to push on. trouble is, it was getting late, and the narrow winding road around the top of the valley ( and the heart-stopping views) caused us to go very slowly. We were hours away from Wellington, so we just started looking for a place to stay (another advantage of travelling with no fixed plan) We heard that there might be rooms at a local nunnery, and though it was really hard to find- (we almost gave up and drove on into the night!) we eventually found ourselves in the wonderful peaceful house - it really was run by nuns, though they lived next door. Our neughbours were new Zealanders from Auckland travelling to visit relatives, and they also had a little girl Emma's age, so all was well. We ate communal food, and our new friends made a huge list us in great details places we should visit in the south. We all slept in 2 huge dormitories, you know - the sort where you know you're disturbing 12 people when you creep out in the night to visit the loo, and every door creaks like a horror-film sound effect.

Looking back, I see that this was one of the loveliest places in our trip -We should have worked out a way to stay, but we had to get down to Wellington for the ferry, and we didn't want to miss it, so we dragged Emma away from yet another new mate, and trogged on to the big city.


Arriving quite late, we grabbed a quick evening stroll and a meal out in the heart of Wellington, a very hip town, and our jump off point for the South Island. We didn't realy give this town enough time, but we'd used up our extra night by stopping in Whanganui,a nd the ferry ticket was for the next day! It was late when we arrived back at the hostel, so we repacked quietly so we could make a smooth start in the morning. (How wrong we were!) Early in the morning. Dorka and I took turns nipping down to put things in the car, and finally the only thing left in the room was Emma, still fast asleep in the upper bunk of our small hostel room. We agreed that i should try to carry her out, hopefully stioll asleep. I should have got help, but I thought I could do this alone, I almost got Emma down safely, but then lost my balance and spun into the open door, which caught emma solidy on the top of her head, so she woke up screaming, which was bad enough, but whenI rwched Dorka, she noticed that Emma's hair was covered in blood. What a mess- of course Emma was scared at the sight of her own blood, but she was very quiet and very good, wheas Dorka and I became Mr and Mrs panic. We'd like to check out now, and could you please get us a band-aid, or perhaps an ambulance? The cut looked wose than it was, so we pressed on, with me carrying my child down the sreet in her blood-spattered pyjamas like something out of a war movie. In the car we changed her and then took her straight to the nurse on the ferry, who checked her out and reassured us it was nothing serious.


Panic over, we could head up on deck to wave goodbye to North Island. The first sight of the South Island is pretty amazing too, as you travel through the fjords of the marborogh sound - where huge mountains plune straight into the sea, and the ferry take a seeminly narrow path through the towering rocks into the port at picton. Hello South Island!


To see the whole Whanganui collection, click on Dorka and Lara!

Wanganui