Due South

After Franz Josef Glacier, we had a race against time. May sound mad with 2 months in NZ, but Rhys had a couple of requests for his birthday that could only be met at the coast. To avoid sandflies, back tracking (and hopefully even the rain) that meant east coast. We still had much to see in the centre and the west however, so we embarked on a lightning tour with some long, long driving days.

Queenstown, set against an amazing backdrop of snowy peaks called the Remarkables and stunning lakes, is the adventure capital of NZ. You can jump off, fly over, speed down or swing through almost anything. It’s the original home of bungey. Our only concession to adrenaline was that the boys went up the mountain by gondola, down by luge thing, up again (and again … and again …) by chair lift. Most of our time however was spent in birthday retail therapy and enjoying the views over meals and coffees. It’s a great little town, and nowhere near as crowded as the guidebooks had led us to expect. The scenery all over this part of the country is spectacular, as often the only road available winds down lake sides and through snow capped ranges. We wont bore you with tons of pictures, honest!

The expression that closest matches our own ‘Lands End to John O’Groats’ here is ‘Cape Reinga to Bluff’. Though Bluff isn’t exactly the southernmost point, it’s as good as, and its where Highway 1 begins or ends, depending on your viewpoint. We had to do it, really, to say we’d been all the way from top to bottom. So we whizzed through Invercargill, stopping to get utterly drenched for lunch (at the aptly named Rain Café) and had the obligatory photo shoot. Nearly 20,000 kilometres away from Llandovery, this is the furthest we will be away from home on the whole trip, and from here we can truly say we’re wending our way back. It is also almost the half way point of the year, so it all has nice symmetry! The weather was sadly all too reminiscent of Wales, with far too much precipitation for our liking. Still, it averages about 20 degrees rather than the –7 you’ve been having at home, so it would be churlish to moan TOO much! Bluff is rather more prepossessing than everything north of Inverness, but only just …

We pressed on up the scenic route along the Caitlins and the coast. The scenery here is great, with rolling hills, wild empty beaches, forests, streams and hills. And there is simply no-one here! 4 million people live in New Zealand though its bigger than the entirety of the UK, and ¾ of them are on North Island. So, down here, you tend to find just the one road and thousands of acres of space with nobody in it. We set up home at a site in the middle of nowhere, next to the Caitlin River, which rushed scenicly behind the van as the kids ran riot in a couple of fields, deserted but for two other families. We much prefer these places to the facility-laden Top 10 Holiday Parks, but the kids would choose the latter (with trampolines, swimming pools, go-karts and jumping pillows) any day.

Now, anyone coming to New Zealand for a bit of winter sun needs a warning – it is most certainly not wall-to-wall sunshine! Whereas Oz apparently bakes, New Zealand with its blessed maritime climate is, ahem, variable. This year they’ve had a washout of a summer; where normally they’d be expecting temperatures in the thirties, the mercury has struggled to get above twenty. A lot of the tourist dependent operations have been grumbling somewhat! We learnt fairly early on in North Island not to plan on endless days on the beach. Luckily, the Kiwis do like their activities and attractions, so there are plenty of ways to spend your days (and money) without relying on the sun. But when it does shine, it cooks.

Dunedin was where we were to spend Rhys’ birthday, and we arrived, relieved and exhausted, on the 1st of February. Joe decided Dunedin is his favourite city, and we had a great few days hanging out and doing birthday things (which we will leave Rhys to blog about, naturally!). It has a very nice vibe, and in case you haven’t picked it up, a distinctly Scottish thing going on. Dunedin is Celtic for Edinburgh, and we reckon only the Scots were hardy – or foolhardy – enough to settle way down here at the bottom of South Island and in this weather. We indulged ourselves in the delicious smells and tastes of Cadbury World, from whence we left with enough sample chocolate to cater for a years’ worth of sweetie days, and we tried to work off the calories with a trip up Baldwin Street. This is in the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s steepest street – a fact we found hard to believe having been to San Fran – but it is! Do you think the fact we took a cab up it may have reduced its impact on the choco calories? Nah, surely not.
We loved being in a friendly southern city and doing all the birthday stuff, with great little internet cafés and decent restaurants. But Dunedin has another trick up its sleeve, and that is the Otago Peninsula, right on its doorstep!