Namaste Travelling!: New Zealand (South Is) - Queenstown to Christchurch

We stayed a second night in that caravan park to allow Mike and Hersh to fully recover and then the next day set off for Queenstown. We arrived mid afternoon and straight away had a good feeling about the place. It was like a little ski town, buzzing with activity. After sorting our admin bits (hiring sleeping bags) and finding somewhere to stay, we headed out for a night on the town. Having been rejected by
several places because Mike didn't have any ID, our first destination was an irish bar with a live band. We waited for about 5 minutes and then migrated to the dance floor to join the sixty something man who after a couple of beers I think probably thought he was Michael Jackson! After an hour of dancing we later moved on to sample a few of the other bars Queenstown has to offer before heading back home, via the late night bakery.

Moss covered forests

The following day we started our second 'Great Walk', a three day/two night trek on the Routeburn track in the Fiordlands. We started in Glenorchy and having arranged for someone to come and pick up the van and drive it to our finishing point we parked up and set off. Unfortunately I had a bit of a dodgy stomach and spent the first few hours feeling pretty sick. The first part of the walk was all in the
woods, lucky I thought, if my stomach decides to evacuate! My stomach did decide to evacuate and it wasn't coming out the way it had gone in. Unfortunately just as we had found an adequate spot for me to make a bee line for the undergrowth we were greeted by a slightly awkward german guy whose social skills did not pick up on the fact that we wanted him to keep walking. Instead he decided to stop and chat to us...without wanting to explain the embarrassing and increasingly urgent situation that I was in I was quite short with him. Realising that he wasn't getting the numerous hints and then feeling bad that I wasn't being very friendly I invited him to walk with us and urged him and Mike to keep walking saying we'd catch them up. I was soon feeling much better but i'm afraid Hersha and I found him a bit creepy so poor Mike ended up having to walk with him all the way to the hut whilst we hung back, close enough to make sure he wasn't going to murder Mike but far enough that he couldn't try and engage us in conversation!

Luckily he was staying at a different hut so we didn't have to spend the whole evening with him! Our hut was really nice – there were two large dormitories of 40 beds split into smaller sections of two

bunkbeds. Although arriving quite late we were all together in one bay which was nice. The Routeburn huts also had gas so we were able to have a hot meal of pasta and pesto whilst Mike discussed at length his Arnold Schwarzenegger autobiography with the hut warden (an avid Arnie fan!). The next morning we set off early and climbed for most of the day. Ascending above the tree line the scenery started to change and become much more mountainous and sparse. Unfortunately there was a thick fog

that hid the beautiful views of the valleys and it was too cold to stop and wait for it to clear. Our hut for the second night was beside a mountain lake and after coming down the side of the mountain we had to walk through a mossy undergrowth that looked like it was straight from the set of the 'Lord of the Rings' before emerging beside the lake. We arrived early afternoon and it was really rather cold! In an
attempt to get warm...and perhaps because we were feeling quite fatigued after the walk we all got into our sleeping bags and ended up sleeping for a couple of hours! Like the first, this hut also had gas
so we once again enjoyed a dinner of pasta and pesto before retiring back to bed.

In the morning we took a slight detour to go and see 'Split Rock' which is as the name suggests a huge rock that has been split completely down the middle. We all climbed through the split and then headed off on our way for the final leg of our trek. Unfortunately just as we were leaving it started to rain and it pretty much rained for the whole day. Most of the trek was down hill and after a brief stop for lunch, and to warm up in one of the little huts, we speeded our way to the finishing point. Luckily our van was waiting for us and it wasn't long before we'd dried off and were huddled in the back drinking cups of tea and eating Tim tams :)

We had decided to go to the famous Milford Sounds and as we'd heard that the road had been closing overnight for the past few days, once the tea was down we set straight off. Apparently the road to the
Milford Sounds is meant to be rather treacherous and at times it was pretty steep and windy but we arrived safely without too much drama. We stayed in the only caravan park in the Sounds and treating

The Milford Sound

ourselves to a powered site we enjoyed a bottle of wine and some baked (in the microwave) sweet potatoes :) We also made full use of the hot showers and got all our laundry done...I don't think any of us fully appreciated luxuries such as being clean and having clean clothes before New Zealand! After we'd got everything sorted we settled down to all watch 'The Hangover'. Now I can't remember whether it was the Milford Sounds that we first encountered the 'Sand Fly' or whether it was just that there were so many of them here that it sticks out in my memory but either way they were horrendous, they were everywhere and they were biting! We had to develop a strict, fully risk assessed procedure for entering and exiting the van, involving all three of us plus a can of insecticide.

Enjoying the sunshine in Queenstown

The next morning we drove down to the port to board the boat for our Milford Sounds cruise. With a very knowledgeable guy commentating over the tannoy our boat made it's way up the Sound towards the open sea. The views were spectacular and it was luckily a really nice clear day, I say luckily because the Milford Sounds region is notorious for raining for the majority of the year! Unfortunately we were there at the wrong time of the year to see the penguins but we did see some seals lolloping on the rocks and to be honest the scenery alone made it an awesome trip. When the trip was over we headed back to Queenstown where we sampled the famous 'Ferg Burgers' which were huge and really tasty. We also enjoyed gin and tonics beside the beach and mooched around the town tasting fudge. The next day was quite chilled out, Hersh and I spent the morning sorting out the van whilst Mike went and did a sky dive!! He came back beaming, having absolutely loved it. Seeing how enthusiastic Mike was about it made Hersh want to do one, so the next day Hersh went off to do a sky dive and Mike and I went off to New Zealand's highest bungy jump for Mike to tick yet another extreme activity off his list. I (obviously not jumping!) went along with him to take photos and film his jump which was really fun and actually quite nerve racking too! In classic Mike style though, once was not enough so when he came up from his first jump he signed straight up to do it again :) The videos of Mike doing his sky dive and the bungy are both absolutely hilarious and they pretty much speak for themselves so I won't go into details...you can see for yourselves!

After a hard morning of extreme sports Hersh and Mike treated themselves to another Ferg Burger and we headed off on our way to Duneden. In the notes I made for this blog Mike has written next to
Ferg Burger - 'Big Al' which I imagine means he wants me to tell you that he ordered the biggest burger on the menu and I can confirm that yes the 'Big Al' was huge and yes Mike finished it with no
problems...in fact he may even have popped into the bakery afterwards

Me and 'Big Al'

We arrived in Dunedun just in time...well a little late(!) to drop Hersha off for dinner with a friend whilst Mike and I went off in search of a campsite. The next day we attempted to do some surfing but
unfortunately the weather was not on our side and as a 'southerly' was brewing we didn't get very far! The waves were ridiculously choppy and we ended up just being slammed onto the beach. Disappointed not to be able to surf we went off in search of penguins instead. We drove to the furthest tip of the peninsular and waited in the howling wind until 9pm when the penguin tour began. The wind was ridiculous and we soon found out the meaning of a 'southerly'... basically a freezing cold wind that blows up straight from the Antarctic! After a brief introduction we all trooped down to the beach to a little viewing platform to wait for the penguins. Luckily we didn't have to wait too long and it was only about half an hour before we saw our first flock of penguins come scurrying onto the beach from the sea. There were maybe about 20 in the first group and they were tiny! The tiniest in the world in fact and they all waddled up the beach and then started scrambling over the rocks in front of us making their way to the nesting areas. They were so cute but also looked really funny like tiny old men. Apparently they swim in little armys so that if a seal approaches they can all dart off in different directions, reducing their chances of being eaten. Luckily we didn't see any seals waiting in the shallows to catch them just as they thought they were almost home!!

The penguin watching was absolutely freezing but truly amazing and once again Hersha, Mike and I were the last to retreat back to our van having stood there for several hours watching what I think was
probably the majority of the penguins make a safe return home. That night we freedom camped in a 'sailing club' car park to avoid any prolonged driving in the horrific winds and in the morning headed
north to Christchurch. Without a Sat nav we had planned our route using a tourist map and were

making our way to a little surfing beach. Unfortunately since the map had been made there had obviously been the huge Christchurch earthquake and the route we had chosen was completely blocked. In fact it was crazy driving through Christchurch, the centre of which is now basically a derelict ghost town. We found an alternative route but all the way we could see evidence of the devastating aftermath of the earthquake – I don't think any of us had ever seen anything like it. We camped down by the beach and managed to get two days of surfing in, which was a fantastic way to top off New Zealand. When the time came for us to hand back our camper van after 5500 km together, we were relieved that we had paid the extra to have zero excess. With memories of going through a Mcdonalds drive through (the wrong way), too fast and in a van too high for the 'entrance' barrier...we watched as the mechanic inspected the huge dent in the side where (*ahem* Hersha) had scraped past an unsuspecting bollard :) That wasn't the only mishap we had and actually 'zero excess' became a bit of a catch phrase throughout the trip. Although sad to say goodbye we soon forgot about the 'luxury' of having a camper van when we checked ourselves into a nice hotel with a spa and gym, fresh white linen on the beds and in the bathroom, and a huge TV. Partly thanks to being given 3 free drinks vouchers, we even treated ourselves to dinner at the hotel for our final night together!

The next day we flew to Auckland where we said our goodbyes to Hersha who was flying on to Sydney. After the high of the hotel in Christchurch we came plummeting back down to earth with our hostel in Auckland. We had two days to kill before our flight out to LA and we spent them mostly doing admin bits and sleeping, though we did meet up with London friend Paz and his parents which was very nice! Just before we were due to fly to Los Angeles there was a cyclone that hit Fiji causing a lot of damage and a lot of delays. We were scheduled to fly via Fiji so were relieved to be given the option of being rerouted via Sydney. No sooner had the carrot been dangled however than it was taken away and we were once again flying via Fiji....