New Zealand: West Coast Southern Island

So my trip across New Zealand has continued onto the South Island for the past week. An 8am Ferry from Wellington to Picton on the south island meant a rather uncomfortable 5.30am wake up call. That said it was nowhere near as bad as it was for some of the others. A bit of a night out had gone on the previous evening and whilst I headed back around 11pm, others stayed out for much longer! So much that when they racked up at the ferry terminal they’d had about an hours sleep and were now very much tired and still very drunk! As we had to get there so early to check in breakfast was forsaken and I ended up grabbing a McDonalds for breakfast instead. I’m not much of a fan of them, but it was required really!


The ferry was quite a dull affair, a slow 3 hour crossing to the south island and the weather was overcast and quite foggy making the scenery uninteresting. I hope we have better weather when I head back over the crossing in a few weeks time. After arriving we made our way towards the Abel Tasman national park, which was our next point of call. We did manage to make time on the way to stop for a little Wine tasting, not that I particularly liked any of the wines on offer. They mostly had quite an odd taste to them, but then they were mostly white wine which isn’t exactly my cup of tea. We rolled into Abel Tasman NP late that afternoon. We were staying on Old McDonald’s Farm, which was basically a camp ground with a few dorm room huts which we stayed in. We had a group BBQ that evening and a campfire. It made for a good atmosphere and with an influx of new people on the bus it was good to talk to some new people. That said I had the familiar problem in the morning of not being sure which story matched which person!


Our stay in Abel Tasman was actually the first time since leaving Auckland I had 2 nights in the same place, and it was really relaxing not to have to rush around packing everything first thing in the morning. That said there was still an early morning rush to get ready for our chosen activity for the day. Stefan, Toby, Kristina and I had booked ourselves onto the 9am AquaTaxi upto Bark Beach with the intention of walking back to the campsite, which we thought was maybe 20km, it turned out to be 28km! The water was really rough with a swell out at sea, and it made us really glad that we didn’t choose one of the more expensive options such as sailing or maybe even kayaking! The boat which was driven into the water off the back of a tractor, took us out to see Split Apple rock which is basically what the name says… a rock that looks like a split apple! Then we headed back the opposite way to the beach where we were getting dropped off. The journey was quite fun with the little boat getting quite a bit of air over some of the waves. We went past some people sea kayaking, and the water looked really rough with waves so high that it looked really uncomfortable. I later spoke to one of the girls who’d done it and said she didn’t really enjoy it because it was so rough and more concerned about being okay than enjoying the experience. We arrived at Bark Bay quicker than I expected, well I think the time just flew by really. Whilst trying to winch into the beach so people could get off the boat a rather big wave came in just as the boat got pushed around to one side, and after spending the entire journey in pretty much the driest spot I suddenly had this wave coming in over the side of the boat and making me rather wet! That said not half as wet as Stefan was, he was sat on the water side of the bench and he was absolutely drenched through!


After getting off the boat and doing our best to dry ourselves down at the campsite just behind the beach we headed off on the walk. Abel Tasman is around 60km of coastline on the north west of the South Island in New Zealand. It was the place where the first European (Dutch) explorers tried to land back in the 1600s. We were walking from the second possible stop back to the campsite, when we looked at it on the map it looked a little shorter than it turned out. As we started walking and a lot of it on rather hilly terrain we quickly realised that it was taking longer than expected and that initial plans we’d made to try and meet up with other people in Anchorage wouldn’t happen, the first stop on the taxi a few hours later. (Kayaker and Sailors would be there at a late lunchtime).


The walk definitely had its most interesting parts on the first half, which none of the other people on our trip got to see. There were many little short detours which lead to quite beautiful viewpoints, and also a pretty cool swing bridge, which only 5 people were meant to go on at a time! Then we stopped for lunch, or what I had left of it having broken into it about half an hour into the walk, at Cleopatras Pool which was a pretty nice area with crystal clear water and a bunch of smoothed out rocks where you could sit and chill out for a while. The second half of the walk as I said earlier wasn’t quite as interesting and by the end feeling very hungry and was quite eager to get back to camp so I could cook my “roast dinner”. This turned out to be pretty awesome, except for the precooked roast beef which was pretty crap! The mash, carrot and gravy had many people looking on enviously though! That evening we found out we’d be getting a new driver tomorrow. This pleased quite a few people who didn’t particularly like Chase (our previous driver). Chase had injured her back whilst trying to load the bus the previous day and snapped a bit when that happened. Somehow this had got back to the office and with her struggling with her back, she was given an extra day off to recuperate.


We headed down the coast the next day on a rather hot day to the small isolated “Barrytown”. This is basically a small overnight stop in the middle of nowhere which they seem to do every now and then on Stray. Along the way we stopped at a few places for pictures, including a few nice viewpoints and at the pancake rocks, where we saw some dolphins swimming near them and also at a seal colony. Our evening stop at Barrytown was basically a get drunk in a bar at a tiny town stop. There was also a theme, ‘Toga’. This meant everyone used the white sheets on their bed to dress up in. A few others did dress up with the various fancy dress options that were available at the place. Favourites included as dressing up as grannies or the usual favourite of cross dressing. I just stuck to the usual standard Toga. The night pretty decent really for the most part, except I spent a lot of money. Then at around 1am I went to chill outside for a while, when I went back into the bar the music had been turned off and everyone had disappeared. A little confused I wandered through the bar into the area where all our bunks were. Someone told me one of the Dutch girls had some things stolen. She was broken up in tears and confused about what had just happened, and the people at the place we were staying weren’t being particularly helpful. None of the rooms had locks or lockers, I’d raised this a few nights earlier that it’s completely unacceptable that Stray stays at places where we can’t secure our valuables. I decided to call it a night after that.


The next morning the story changed a little as to how much had been lost or exactly what had happened. It seems that one of the 6 or so girls had been in her room, and some guy, probably local had been watching her from a far. She went to the toilet and came back and there was a chap in her room who ran of with a bunch of things including some bags. It seems he dropped the bags in the end and only took some money and her blackberry. The police were called and a report filed but nothing particularly was done. She hasn’t got her stuff back either. That said, the dutchies conduct after this was horrible. They pretty much trashed their room and then left the kitchen a complete state too ensuring that we left Barrytown about 40 minutes later than planned.


That day we basically drove to Franz Joseph, where there’s a glacier and we’d do a full day hike the next day. We stopped off at a few places on the bus, but none of them where majorly worth nothing. A mixture of glacier rivers and lakes would be the best way to sum them up.


It was an early start the next day though and we met at the tour’s hq at 8am for a full day of hiking up the glacier. I’ve done a hike up a glacier previously, at the Columbia Icefields in Alberta, Canada. But that was a much shorter affair at 2 hours or so. So I was sure this must have much more to offer. Unfortunately whilst I stayed at Barrytown the previous night I’d been slightly attacked by sandflies, and my ankles had completely swollen up! They were really huge! But it didn’t hurt at all, just somewhat itchy. Eitherway I was a little unsure about taking an 8 hour hike with them in this state, and having to use their hiking boots they were rubbing a little as we completed a short bush walk to find our way onto the open area where the glacier had once crawled down the valley. At this stage there was about 50 of us, we would here split up into smaller groups of about 10 who’d go up the glacier with short intervals between us. The first ground would have less steps and less of a path cut into the ice for them than the ones at the back. I decided to hang back in the middle group being a little unsure of my ankle. As it turned out there was only one other person from the Stray Bus in my group so we ended up chatting loads. The glacier itself when we were at the bottom of the valley looked small and insignificant. There was just no way to judge the size of the thing, no perspective. As we walked upto the foot of the ice it we could start to see these tiny stick figures of guides who were preparing and maintaining the walk ways for people like myself and the scale seemed to snap a little more into view.


Along the way the tour leader hacked away at the ice maintaining and adding steps as well as cutting off ice to ensure it was safe to walk. There were several narrow areas that we had to squeeze through and steep areas to climb up or down, but they were always stepped. The pace was quite slow due to having to do all this work. It wasn’t really cold either, it was a glorious sunny day and the base of the glacier is only some 250m above sea elevation. All that was really needed above a T-Shirt was a rain jacket, and no one who was wearing shorts complained it was cold. But you never can tell in these places, I’m sure if the weather came in it’d get really uncomfortable very quickly. We went reasonably high up the glacier, and past the point the half day hikes go with in about half an hour on the ice. On our way back down the glacier we covered the bulk of the ground in a crevice in the ice which was about 200m long and some 50m deep. Well somewhere in that ballpark anyway. I can’t remember exactly. In here we got really wet and it was really narrow. In order to fill in the gap they had to move a lot of ice into the base of it to make it possible for us to walk through and took about two weeks to do so. As made our way out of it and back onto the open surface, we saw the previous version caved in. These things need constant maintaining and I’d guess they don’t last too long either before they have to start filling in the next one. As we made our way off the glacier it was a stark contrast the amount of ice that we could see melted around. When we arrive first thing in the morning the ice was crisp under foot, now there was clearly a lot melted and quite slushy. The glacier melts at a rate of 12cm a day. I wonder how much of that in certain areas is due to a 100 or so people walking through every day and the constant hacking of paths into it.


That evening was killer pool back at the hostel we were staying at. For those who don’t know, that’s where a lot of people sign up to play pool and each person gets one shot at a time. You have to pot any ball to not lose a life. You have 3 lives. Last one standing wins. I signed myself up. I managed to pot my first two balls, the second one somewhat of a fluke I must admit just hitting hard into the pack because nothing was on. Then the girl infront kept leaving me lousy positions and I lost two lives. Only one left. At this stage I had only potted one simple shot, and had a kinda tough shot to stay in the game. I managed to sink it, and I think two more, before all of a sudden there was only four of us left from the original 30 or so. I had good position on one shot, but the was a ball right behind the cue ball meaning I’d have to cue over it, I just can never do those shots, so take a longer and harder shot, which I duly miss. For my misfortunes though I win a free night out on the pub crawl in Queenstown which pretty much suits me rather well considering the top two prizes involved a rather uncomfortable amount of water for me!


As it seems to be going on the Stray Bus on the South Island we get a day in a place followed by a day basically travelling. This was once again the case as we headed on to the isolated little town of Makarora for the next night. Along the way we took stops at Mirror Lake and Fox Glacier. Both times we had too little time to go to the best viewpoints which was kinda annoying me. On the way back to the bus from the Fox Glacier I was some 5 or so minutes late as the first half decent viewpoint was a good 10 minute walk away and we’d only been given 15 minutes here. The bus driver, Bubbles has gotten into the habit of saying 10 press ups for people who are late and when I got back he told me to do 10. I had a bit of an argument saying if you’d given us a reasonable amount of time here then I wouldn’t have been late and refused to do the press ups. A little petulant perhaps but I was annoyed that we were going to these places, there’s a reasonable chance I’ll never be here again and I’d like enough time to at least go and get a half decent picture. In the heat of the moment he said maybe I should take a campervan… We cleared it up a bit later and were fine with each other though. I think he understood my concerns in the end. We made our way over to Makarora stopping off at a few quite meagre waterfalls, having seen so many big ones before they weren’t so impressive. But at one stop we had a tower building contest from the stones near the river, then at another stop it seems we’d been beaten to the punch with about a million little towers around!


Makarora was another tiny little town in the middle of nowhere we kick back for a night and fund the towns bar. This time it was karaoke rather than fancy dress. The rooms didn’t have locks or lockers again. I put my laptop in the bus and kept my valuables on me just in case. The night was pretty cool, there was a bunch of girls itching to get up and sing at the start, it took me quite a few JDs & Cokes to gain enough courage. I ‘sang’ Can’t get no (Satisfaction) by the Rolling Stones, and then a little later Twist & Shake with a girl, Robin who was having her birthday today. It’s amazing how quick the songs go and you spend more time just trying to blurt out the words in time. I called it a night having racked up a $60 bar tab. The tab was necessary as I’d run out of cash after 3 or so days without ATM access.
The next morning was fun, there were far too many people who couldn’t handle their booze and we had to make a few stops for them! We were making our way through the Southern Alps and there was quite a few cool looking viewpoints, but unfortunately the weather made the pictures not so great! We rolled into Wanaka after a short drive and the place is really really picturesque! Unfortunately the weather was only getting worse and with only one night booked my thoughts drifted to extending my stay so I could see more. It wasn’t exactly easy to do that though as the next bus in 3 days time was full. The hostel we stayed in was really cool, such a nice place to kick back and chill out for a few days. The room I had was a 6 bed dorm, but it had its own en-suite kitchen and bathroom. Small luxuries perhaps but when you’re travelling they mean a lot!


That first day I didn’t really do much in Wanaka other than wait for the weather to clear. There was 5 of us jumping off the bus, and 3 others were staying for 3 nights and then I extended to 3 nights too. That said it wasn’t quite so simple to extend and for a while I was unsure if I’d have to take a normal bus to Queenstown. The bus I wanted to take 2 days later was full and I had to be placed on a wait list. Fortunately when I checked again online early on Friday I’d been placed and that was a weight of my mind.


On Wednesday I hired a bike with two of the girls staying and we went for a cycle around the surrounding area following the shore of the lake for a while. The view was really impressive along the way and the ride for quite a while was rather sedate, at least for the first half then there was some quite steep hills which we started to struggle on! That said we got a nice little rest half way through as I had to repair one of the other bikes as the chain kept coming off. We completed our ride with a few long downhill sections which were pretty cool. That evening we headed off to the Paradiso Cinema in Wanaka. This is an independent cinema which as a really cool vibe. It has sofas for seats and even a car a couple can sit in and watch the movie and then at the half time break you can get freshly baked cookies. We saw Due Date which is in the same vein as The Hangover. It was a pretty fun movie. On my final day in Wanaka the only major thing of note I did was check out Puzzle World. This has a huge maze you can try to get yourself out of. This took me 45 minutes with the recommended time at one hour, and then there was an indoor exhibition with a bunch of displays which trick you such as holograms and face models that appear to watch you walk across the room and also a room which has been rotated at an angle upwards and as such gives you a headache as you can’t figure out which way is down! Oh and I also got a much needed haircut!


I really enjoyed my time in Wanaka. It was a beautiful place and a really good place to kick back and chill out away from all the hustle and bustle of the bus with restricted timetables. I’ve been pondering just how much I enjoy the bus over the past few weeks. Sure from a social viewpoint it is pretty great for meeting people, but many times whilst I’m in the bus I see all these interesting looking places and find myself yearning for a quick stop to go and see things a little more and at my own pace. Guess it’s a case of wanting what you haven’t got as usual.


Well that’s about all so far, I guess my next article will cover the deep south including Queenstown, Milford Sound and Stewart Island, I’m just finishing this article off whilst I’m just outside Milford Sound and will probably actually post this tomorrow from Stewart Island! Till next time, ciao.