South Island Road Trip
Travel Location: Invercargill,New-Zealand
As some of you already know, I spent the last 2 weeks on a road trip in the South Island. The whole trip, while exhausting, was a total blast and absolutely chalked full of incredible scenery. Here’s a rundown of the trips events:
I flew from Auckland into Christchurch on Feb 7th, met up with some friends and we hit the road early on the morning of the 8th. I drove the whole day (so weird driving on the wrong side of the road at first, but I adapted to the change rather quickly much to the relief of my travel buddies) We headed south to Dunedin, where we crashed at a friends place and then the 5 of us took off the next morning after exploring Dunedin’s botanical gardens. We made a quick stop at Caroline Bay for lunch, picked up our last travel companion at Lake Waihola and then we headed out to the Catlands. They were beautiful. TONS of sheep and green hills everywhere you look. We even encountered some minor cattle confusion when we came speeding around a turn and right there in the middle of the road was a herd of stray cows running toward us. Sooo funny.
Anyway, we visited Nugget Point and Nugget Point lighthouse, (the southern most lighthouse in the WORLD!) and went on several short hikes out to Purakaunui Falls, McLean Falls, and Florence Hill – all so cool. I took 100’s of pics! By this time it was late afternoon (good thing it is summer here and does not get dark until 9) and we made one last stop at Porpoise Bay campground out in the middle of nowhere. It lived up to it’s name. We saw a huge pod of dolphins surfing the waves and leaping out of the water. There were a few people there who were swimming with them and I wished I had my wetsuit so I could have gone out. Unfortunately, the water is too cold at the southern most tip of NZ (it is only a 4 hour charter plane ride to Antarctica from there…burr!) so I was confined to the shore.
That night I stayed in my first hostile in Invercargil and after exploring the town, we retired to bed and got up at the crack of dawn to hit the road to Milford Sound. Milford Sound was incredible. It is known as the 8th wonder of the world and for good reasons. We took a sail boat ride throughout the sound through the towering cliffs and observed the many waterfalls and rugged mountains. We cruised through the sound out into the Tasman sea for a while and then returned to land. If you ever decide to travel to NZ, this is a MUST DO! Don’t miss Milford Sound! You’ll be sorry!
When the day was done, we drove back to Te Anau for the night and stayed at another hostile right on the lake. The next day we drove non stop to Queenstown, which is the adventure capitol of NZ. We rode up the gondola as soon as we arrived and took in the unreal views of Lake Wakatipu and the Remarkable Mountains. At the top of the gondola is a lugeing track (a cement track you race little cars on wheels down – sooooo much fun). I had a great time with that. The next morning we went on this crazy hike in the Ben Lomond forest and a couple of us drove out to the Shotover river and went on the worlds most exciting jetboat ride. The boat weighs 3 tons, operates in 3 inches of water, has an incredible turning radius so you rip into 360’s constantly at no warning, and zooms through the river canyons getting you inches away from the gorge walls. Some people were screaming because it was scary at times, but I thought it was a blast. Overpriced, though. Not a must do, but a good time.
After leaving Queenstown on the 13th we headed to Wanaka and visited Puzzle Place, this trippy little place famous for the illusion rooms and great maze. Then we drove to Haast, stopping for a day hike and rock climbing at Fantail Falls on the way. From Haast we set out for Fow Glacier, one of 3 glaciers in the world surrounded by tropical forrest. When we got into town, we had time before our glacier hike, so we walked the trail around Lake Matheson (one of NZ’s most photographed places). We were blessed enough to make it to the viewing deck where the famous shots of Mount Cook and Mount Tasman are taken for the 5 minutes that the clouds cleared enough to see them. They view was reflected like a perfect mirror in the lake (I’ll put up a photo). It was truly PERFECT timing.
Then it was time to set off on the glacier hike! Fox Glacier was soooo cool. It is huge, and we only got to see a miniscule part of it, but it was great. Tons of fun hiking in those big spiky boots with crampons. I felt like a real explorer. Haha! One of the coolest parts about the glacier is the color of the ice. It is such a weird shade of blue. Very exciting, climbing on a glacier, especially because it is active and you can hear it moving underneath you!
We stayed that night in Greymouth and visited the Pancake rocks in Punakauki the next day, then headed to Kaikoura for whale watching. However, I got sick with the stomach flu and oddly enough (lucky for me, unlucky for my travel mates) the weather was bad so they canceled all whale watching trips for the day. So we all missed out! They opted to go wine tasting while I slept in the car, so not all was lost for them. They had a pretty good time and I ended up having to drive while sick for the rest of the day, seeing as to the ramifications of their fun. But it was still a good time.
We ended up back in Christchurch that day (the 16th, and spent all the next day at Christchurch’s famous flower festival, which was beautiful. Then the morning of the 18th came around and we got back on our plane and headed for Auckland! Fun times though, and I’ll never forget all the incredible sights! Really, I wont because I took 1200 pictures in the 11 days I was down there! But it is good to be back and settled in. I have some much needed catching up on sleep to do, so more later. I’ll have another entry up by the end of the week about international orientation (starts tomorrow) so hopefully I’ll have some stories to tell!
