Aotearoa Bonus Features

I like New Zealand.

It's probably fairly obvious that I like the South Island. I think I can honestly say it is the most beautiful place I have ever visited. There are of course many beautiful places in the world but I have never been anywhere so consistently breath taking and magnificent.
 
The other thing I like about New Zealand is irrespective of your age or gender everyone calls you "mate". I was slightly taken aback initially as I associate the term "mate" with men. I then worried that perhaps my face had gone a bit Grizzly Adams given the rest of me had over 17 days of camping and thereby confused vendors as to my gender. 

As it turns out everybody is "mate" and I like that. It is friendly and genial. So officially New Zealanders are the nicest people on earth. Oh along with people from Norway. They are jolly good too.
 
The other interesting thing about some of the nice people of the South Island is most of them are British! I think we exported all our lovely young men and women to Queenstown to work in the outdoor pursuit racket while we imported the lovely young men and women of New Zealand to sit in Graham Nortons red chair to be humiliated and flipped by celebrities. An odd swap, indeed.
 
I was chatting to a nice English guy who worked at a cafe in Queenstown who said he had been in New Zealand six months and has not yet made any kiwi friends but instead, his social circle is full of Brits Americans and Swedes. It's such a buzzy young exciting place and I can see the draw for the bold and the beautiful.

Still it is a shining example of why an anti-immigration policy would be a good thing for New Zealand as who wants ghettos of young middle class Europeans stealing everyone's jobs!

I Hate New Zealand.

There surely cannot be anything one can hate about New Zealand. Well there is and it is very small and I touched on it in an earlier part to this blog. Sand flies. They really are monstrous. There are zillions of these minions of Satan in the South Island with their biggest hangout being Milford Sound.
 
Mosquitoes of course provide itchy bites but they are stealthy and you hardly know you have been their prey until the itching starts. They are sophisticated and sly so you hate them but admire the fact they got you unawares. Well played mosquito. Well played.  Of course here in Singapore some of them carry dengue just to add a bit of frisson to the relationship.
 
Sand flies on the other hand are slow floaty things that hover around you like flying gecko poo and are very easy and satisfying to kill. But while you think you have killed hundreds of them by clapping hands and smashing them on the campervan windows little do you know one has settled on your foot and you feel the sharp bite. Again you can kill them quick at that point but these creeps actually draw blood. And then the infernal itching. My god it wakes you up in the night. It is excruciating and there is nothing you can do as it's just too cold at 2am to be scrabbling around for your bite relief cream.

Lastly, I think it's a good thing when the sentence "look at that great view" comes out of your 5 year olds mouth. It means the holiday worked. He might get beaten up at school for saying something so fruity but it doesn't matter. He has developed an appreciation for the beauty that is nature and the true wonder that can be found in pockets of this glorious planet.

And so end's my Magnum Opus on the South Island.  Given we came back from New Zealand 6 weeks ago, even I am bored writing and reading this blog so you will be pleased to know that this is the last one.  Not forever I am afraid but certainly on Hobbiton.  Over and out.

Aotearoa Part VI

After our amazing four days in the Fiordland National Park we headed back to Queenstown to stay at a well-appointed campsite and shower away the festering mobile stink we as a family had become. 

There is peculiar smell one develops after four days that is well ... peculiar. Not the rancid toe curl of body odour but just something very rotten indeed.

Unfortunately for the population of Queenstown, prior to our settling in at camp and taking that very necessary shower we took the kids to the bird park as my daughter really wanted to see a kiwi up close. 

It's a lovely little place set up by a local man and his family and most of the birds are rescue birds. They do have a successful kiwi breeding program and release them back into the wild in areas with predator control systems in place. They are unusual birds. A lot bigger, than I imagined and their feathers don't look like feathers but more like hair and they scamper about in a funny way so basically look like a toupee grew legs and a beak and walked off. They were lovely to see up close as were all the native birds who are all under threat due to rats, weasels and possums being introduced to New Zealand many moons ago. Luckily these were the animals who were the fascinating road kill we enjoyed on our drives and not the rare and unusual native birds of the island.
 
Anyway after collectively honking out the kiwi house we had our showers and I started packing. It was our last night with our campervan and we had an early start as hubby had booked himself in for a sky dive so we all had to be up and out of the campsite at dawn.
 
The kids and I puttered around town while he did his sky dive and as it got closer to 12 pm and I had not heard from him my daughter was clearly getting worried. She had already asked me if we would cremate him (she needed an explanation as to why Hiccup set Stoic on fire. Sorry if I ruined that for anyone who hasn't seen the sequel) and I explained well Daddy did not make his wishes clear in his will so frankly we can do what we like with him. 

By 12.15 I was also getting a tad worried and walked past the sky dive centre office as I saw the vans were back however no punters. The staff were all smiling so clearly all was well. He turned up 30 minutes later alive so I didn't have to worry about cremations or how I would get the campervan out of those busy narrow roads in Queenstown. Phew.
 
We left Queenstown that evening for Christchurch. A short spectacular flight back over the southern Alps. If you like great views without having to jump out of the plane do that flight. It's stunning.
 
I actually felt really sad leaving behind our campervan. It was like saying goodbye to an old friend. We had a great time with it. Being self-sufficient on the open road was wonderful and I began to dread our last few nights in New Zealand staying in crummy motels. Let's face it no matter now nice the decor and the staff motels just smack of crummy.
 
Anyway as an antidote to the coming car and motel hell I had booked us into a hostel in Christchurch for our one night prior to heading up the north east coastal road to Kaikoura for we hope some great whale watching.
 
The hostel was a former prison and was operative as one as late as 1999. The year I got married, so how apt. It was in a fairly industrial area so not exactly picturesque but then most planners wouldn't build a prison down a nice cul de sac off the cobbled Victorian high street.
 
The hostel itself was called The Jailhouse and it really was fantastic. You stay in the prison rooms, bars on the windows et al and have your food in the communal long hall area outside the many heavy doors that slam shut for the night. The kids loved it. I picked up a pizza from Domino's just down the road where I sat with what seemed like some of the former inmates of the prison when it operated as such and we had a fab dinner at the hostel before using the industrial strength metal toilets and heading to our bunks for lights out.
 
Man criminals have it so flipping easy. Although in fairness they didn't have wifi in the rooms couldn't pop to Domino's and had to go to the toilet where they slept so actually not really that much fun but also not too different from Campervanning! 

Next Week:  Bonus Material

Aotearoa Part V - Fiordland

We began our journey onto the Milford Road at a place called Te Anau two and a half hours from Queenstown and I guess the last town to collect provisions before you enter the wilds of Fiordland where there are no facilities for 170km until you reach Milford Sound.
 
On arrival at our campsite I ditched my family and went to the cinema. This might strike you as odd however our guide book said don't leave Te Anau without seeing a 35 minute film called Shadowlands which is a commentary less movie shot by helicopter over the course of four seasons and provides a glorious view of the Fiordland National Park. All 1.2 million hectares of it. 

The cinema seats 56 in plush wide chairs and you can take booze in there too. It is all very civilized. A short introduction by the guy who sold me my apple cider at the bar mentioned that the cinema was built purely to show this particular movie which was shot by a local helicopter pilot and directed by the cinematographer who did the location scouting for Lord of the Rings. As they blew the budget on the cinema they have now had to extend their offering to a bar as well in order to get more income.
 
The film itself was dazzling and it is easy to believe that the folks who walk the famous Milford Track or head to Doubtful Sound are only covering 2% of the entire national park. 

I am telling you all these dull facts because I want you to know how pleased I am with myself for remembering all that considering I was drunk by the time I left the cinema. I don't drink much anymore and now that my lunches have gone from Singapore fat face stuffing of dim sum or noodles to our old camping and hiking fayre of a ham sandwich and a banana it was hardly surprising I was legless after one drink. Also because my small lunch was burned off on a three hour hike prior to my movie I basically drank wife beater on an empty stomach. Usually my bottle of cider will last two hours but I had to neck it in 30 minutes so I ended up staggering back to our campsite and then cooked dinner for all of us using boiling water, hot oil and knives.
 
We took our time on the morning of our departure from Te Anau as we had waste to empty, petrol to fill, groceries to buy prior to our four days in the basic camps off the Milford Road. Oh and we had to prise the kids off the jumping pillow at the campsite.
 
The earlier sections of the road itself is not the most special we have driven so far and I therefore feel slightly bad for those folks who bomb it in from Queenstown by bus on a seven hour journey just to do the boat cruise on Milford Sound. It just doesn't enable you to take in the majesty of this national park. Still they have their reasons. 

Despite my inebriation the night before I knew the real thrill prior to getting on a boat would be the walks off the Milford road. As we have the kids we couldn't do the epic walks such as Milford, Keppler, or Routeburn which take days but we found some good day hike options on a helpful map from the DOC office in Te Anau.
 
Unfortunately the lady who advised us on the best walks for families with young children assumed our kids were amputees as the first place we stopped on her recommendation was a 100m long boardwalk where you can see some mountains reflected in a very clear and still puddle. Note: don't bother with Mirror Lakes. It's crap and is purely designed to be a dull stop for the long haul bus folk to stretch their legs before they get deep vein thrombosis.
 
We were out of there in about five minutes and instead after a lovely picnic lunch in a beautiful peaceful spot we decided rather foolishly to take on a three hour return hike to a place called Lake Marian. 

All sounded lovely. Gentle ascent to a beautiful lake through alpine forest along a powerful rushing river. 

It took us 3 hours just to get to the sodding lake and admittedly the forest was absolutely beautiful but it was raining, muddy as hell, slippery and incredibly long and we had two young children in tow. 

However after all the struggling and complaining up to the top (and the kids really did do very well as it was not easy at all) we reached the lake. I think I expected just a lake and that was it but I forgot where we were and we had basically climbed up a mountain. Surrounding this beautiful glacial lake were the snow-capped peaks of Fiordland mountains and I mean the peaks. Not just the mountains but the peaks with snow at eye level and waterfalls spilling out of the sides. It was glorious. And even though it was 6pm and we had a three hour hike back we knew it was worth it.
 

What made me giggle most was my cocksure daughter adopting all the unworthy confidence of Sir Edmund Hillary at the start of his descent from Everest. While my youngest decided this beautiful quiet scenic spot required a poo and my husband was shooing sand flies and I was holding open the door so he had some light in his porta potty I heard and saw my seven year old talking to an older gentleman who looked like he has been hiking his whole life. That composed confident but humble manner of a proper walker. Not those people who wear all the top gear and carry two poles which they over use when walking. Oooh that drives me nuts. Bloody over pollers. 

Anyway, I heard her tell him "the view is fantastic. It's really worth it". Further down on our return she told a couple of ladies who were heading up late in the day that it was worth it too in her poshest voice while rolling her eyes. I decided her smugness needed a bit of a dressing down and told those ladies that she is being a smug bug now and wasn't so chuffed with herself when she was whinging the whole way up for three hours.
 
The whinging was one thing but the endless questions drove me crazy. I do like talking to my children and I find them mildly interesting and know full well in a few years they won't talk to me at all but believe me three hours of asking me who I liked best out of her, her brother and Daddy was enough to make me want to lock myself in the porta potty and let the sand flies take me down.  Furthermore, because she is a dipstick she cannot walk and talk at the same time so slowed down every time she tried to get me to answer this stupid question. Given it was 7pm I was in no mood for chit chat so told her I despise you all equally and I like myself the best.
 
Anyway we made camp around 8pm and the setting was exquisite. Heads hit pillows at 10.30pm and out like a light. Little do the kids know we have another three hour summit hike tomorrow planned. We will tell them the usual lie of it's just a short walk like we did today and see how they get on now that all their outer wear is soaking and their boots are sodden.


Next Week:  Queenstown to Christchurch to Kaikoura