What has Andy gone and done now…?

Well, I have now finished with the South Island and am back in Hamilton – last time I left you I had just jumped off a bridge in Queenstown (apart from the quick whale watching post!), so I will continue from there…

The next major stop after Queenstown was Franz Josef glacier…I was planning to go for a guided walk on the ice, but it transpired that it didn’t actually happen…Sal had already done the trip before with her dad anyway so she didn’t miss out…I still wasn’t feeling 100% anyway and for some reason I wasn’t as psyched about going onto the ice once I got there as I was on the way there…maybe it was the busloads of tourists all piling down to do it…I dunno…Sal tried to convince me that it was one of the best things I could do in New Zealand, but I wasn’t persuaded…I think I’ll save my first glacier hiking experience for a more unspoilt and less touristy location…like when I finally make it to Alaska or something sometime in the future…when I’m rich…hmmm…anyway, we still had a nice relaxing time in Franz Josef, including a really nice secluded hot pool in the middle of a forest…we have grown rather fond of lying in hot pools..!! )

From Franz Josef it was a long drive north to Abel Tasman national park – all forest and rugged coastline…we stayed at Kaiteriteri on a campsite and took a ‘AquaTaxi’ right up the coast to near the top of the national park.  We got dropped off on a remote beach, then walked a couple of hours along the beaches and through the forest back to another remote beach where we got picked up again by the AquaTaxi…the seas were pretty rough, but that just made it more fun..!!

This is just a ‘Department of Conservation’ campsite we stopped at on the way between Queenstown and Franz Josef.  DOC campsites are generally in beautiful, remote locations and rely on an honesty system to pay and display your fee.  There are generally no or just basic facilities (like a ‘bush toilet’…mmm) so the fees are only a couple of quid per person…we liked these sites..!!

On the way to Abel Tasman…you don’t get these signs at home…it’s just for the tourists mind – I reckon the chances of running over a penguin are practically zero!!

The AquaTaxi waiting on the beach at Kaiteriteri

Another AquaTaxi blasting along beside us…fun fun fun…

Typical scenery on the walk to our pickup point…alright I guess…not exactly Carrick seafront though…

Now, I have shown a lot of photos of spectacular scenery in New Zealand…and there is a lot of it…but I can’t pretend it is all natural beauty…we all know that New Zealand apparently has about 40 sheep to every person or something like that…a lot of farming…a lot of cows too…and a lot of forestry…below is a typical example of what you can be driving through when not in the spectacular natural beauty of untouched mountains and coastline…

The ‘other face’ of New Zealand – spectacular mountains and glaciers in the background, with rolling fields, planted pine trees and clear felled forest in the foreground…

After watching the Liverpool vs Real Madrid match in an internet cafe in Nelson at 9 in the morning, we headed south again towards Nelson Lakes national park…a beautiful area…we parked up in a campsite beside Lake Rotoiti which apparently has good trout fishing…I hired (and then bought) some gear…didn’t catch any…but I did see one..!!…but as I always like to say – there’s more to fishing than catching fish…especially when you’ve got scenery like this…

Driving towards the mountains of Nelson Lakes national park…watch out for those kiwis..!!

Lake Rotoiti…not a bad backdrop…

Me trying to catch a rainbow…

Turns out Sal is quite the fisherman, I mean woman…definitely woman…

From Nelson Lakes national park it was back towards Christchurch on our final leg of the trip…we did however detour north again to drive through Marlborough Sound – another nice coastal drive of fiords and nice views…

The ’sounds’ or fiords are really only accessible by boat…but the coastal drive still offers some nice views..!!

Another self portrait…I’m eating candy sticks…

Sal making our staple lunch of peanut butter sandwiches…well actually Sal added jam to hers…dirty dirty dirty…

From Marlborough Sounds we then headed south to Kaikoura where we went whale watching…did I mention we went WHALE WATCHING..??..ok ok so you already seen the photos in the last blog, but what the heck – here’s a whale’s tail..!!

Awesome…

I booked into a motel with SkySports in Kaikoura to watch the Liverpool Man Utd match…do we need to mention the score again..?..ok, maybe just for those who haven’t heard…Man Utd 1 – 4 Liverpool…!!..that is Man Utd scored one goal…Liverpool scored four goals…at Old Trafford…I believe the BBC website quoted it as a ‘humiliation’…anyway, we headed to a wee bar in the evening for food before the 1.45am(!?) kickoff, and I calmed the nerves a bit with some ‘Sheep Shaggers Lager’…

This was my general expression all the next day…

So anyway, after Kaikoura it was back to Christchurch to leave the campervan back…we detoured for one night in Hanmer Springs which is famous for, you guessed it, it’s hot pools..!!..then drove for one last day the 150km or so to Christchurch…

We passed this river on the way to Christchurch, but this is pretty typical of all the rivers in the summer…I’d love to come back in winter and see these at full flow..!!..

Driving into Christchurch I really felt like this part of my journey was coming to an end…though I’ll not be back in Belfast just yet..!?

So there it is…we left the campervan back in Christchurch, had one night there and then flew to Auckland the next day…we stayed in Auckland for one night in an airport hotel as sadly Sal had to leave at 4am to begin her long journey home…it’s been an amazing month and I’m so glad she was able to stay around for that bit longer, but unfortunately all good things must come to an end…she’s now in mid air on her way back to London as I sit typing this in Hamilton (Marty and Sean came and picked me up later that morning and I’m now staying with Sean) so it’ll be a while before we see each other again…I’ll give you a second to get a tissue before you read on…

I now have a month before the wedding…and then some time after to kill…I may start looking for that job again in earnest…I have been given a contact for the fisheries division in Environment Waikato, which is just down the road from where I’m staying…something might come off there…otherwise I could be playing a lot of golf for the next couple of months..!!..that would be a shame… ;o)