7th October 2003. If you read our earlier journal about our flight into Auckland you'll remember how excited we both were about the scenery below us on the way in to land. Well, all I can say about the flight down to Queenstown is that it made everything we'd seen before (anywhere) pale into insignificance. The final approach has to rate as one of the most scenic in the world, at times we felt like we could literally reach out and touch the snow capped mountains we were that low. As we stepped off the aircraft we were greeted by the Remarkables towering over the airfield, a truly amazing sight. After jumping on the big yellow local bus we made our way in to Queenstown and soon found pretty reasonable digs in a 4 share dorm at McFees for $19 per night. The kitchen area at McFees is great, glass fronted down its entire length with superb views out over the lake and mountains - not a bad spot to eat your toast and Marmite!
After a pretty early night to catch up on some sleep we headed into town and booked ourselves on the famous 'Shotover Jet'. The Jet is basically a lightweight twin V6 engined jet boat, producing around 600bhp, (if you imagine that a Ferrari produces around 400bhp, that gives you some idea of the speed these boats can go!) also being a jet-boat rather than a propeller diven boat they only 4 inches of water to operate; which means they can get pretty close into the rocks and banks as they blast up the Shotover Canyon (an old Gold mining stretch of river). The actual ride only lasts about 20 mins but is well worth the $89 we paid, you can ride other boats for less, but none of them go through the Shotover Canyon which is what gives the ride it's thrill factor. How the hell the pilot misses the rocks and overhangs we'll never know, especially being as most of the time you're skating around in tight rockpools doing 360 degree spins - pretty awesome! After the ride we chilled-out in the sunshine back in Queenstown watching the beautiful historic steamship TSS Earnslaw glide in an out of her berth all afternoon to cross lake Wakatipu. We had toyed with the idea of doing the Nevis bungy jump but due to bad weather it was closed, in fact the only bungy available was the skyline jump over Queenstown - but to be fair it looked about as scary as a cheese and tomato sandwich so we decided to save our cash.
Over the next few days we spent time exploring the Queenstown area. We walked up to Bob's peak, which turned into a major hike as the track was out and we had to take the much longer logging road. We also hired a car and drove around the lake to Glenorchy (near Ithilien) and also Paradise (Isengard) where much of the Lord of the rings (LOTR) filming was done. While we had the car we also cut back across the Shotover Canyon and visited Arrowtown a mid 1800's Gold mining town and also the scene location of 'The Ford of Bruinen' from LOTR, we visited the spot where the Ring Wraiths charged across the river - didn't see any though! Before we handed the car back we also drove up the track to the Remarkables ski field. Sarah nearly had a heart attack, as you literally feel as though you're driving into the heavens along the tightest of gravel tracks winding it's way up the mountainside. It's well worth scaring yourself silly though as the view from the top looking down onto the clouds is awesome.
We had planned to visit Milford Sound the day we had the car but due to some pretty heavy avalanches the road was out and it took most of that day to blast it clear. We opted for the easier method of taking a bus the following day once the road was clear which was an amazing stroke of luck, as if we'd driven we'd have missed all the unbelievable scenery along the way including Te Anau, the Hollyford River lookout, the Claddau River Chasm, also the spectacular approaches to and from the 1207m Homer tunnel including a glimpse of Mt Tutoko (2746m). Milford Sound itself is simply breath-taking. Home to the Milford track, decribed as possibly the world's finest hike, the shere scale of the scenery is difficult to comprehend. We took a cruise along the 22km fiord dominated by the 1695m Mitre Peak, it rained most of the way, but when you consider the average rainfall here is 5.5m (up to 9m in a bad year!) that's hardly surprising eh! Along with the world's highest sea cliff, rising a vertical mile out of the water, we saw seals and the extremely rare Golden Browed Penguins, a great trip. We also met Dimphy a really nice girl from Holland on the trip who offered to give us a lift up North - if you read our journal Dimphy, thanks for the offer, we just need to get our connections right!
From our base in Queenstown we continued North up the West coast towards Franz Joseph. Our route took us over the Haast Pass one of the highest roads in NZ, and also through Wanaka, a beautiful lake town backed by the Southern Alps where we had a bit of a walk round. We were traveling with 'Atomic Shuttles' a small company who run mimibuses all over South Island, we used them the whole way because they were so cheap, plus the drivers would stop to let you take photos etc. The downside was that Atomic also deliver the mail and papers along their route so the journeys take forever! We eventually reached Franz Joseph and booked into a cool backpackers called 'Glow-worm' cottages, $18 a night and it even it had an outdoor spa pool. We shared a four dorm with Amy from Canada and also Kenji from Japan who was touring NZ in an immaculate sky blue 73' Triumph 2000. He thought it was hilarious that my name means vinegar in Japanese an insisted on calling me Vinegar boy! Safe travels guys - we'll be in touch. The Glacier is the reason people come here, and it is fantastic. We hired a guide and using crampons and ice axes walked about 6km up onto the glacier itself, passing through ice tunnels, flooded gullies and around huge ice boulders. We both managed to fall down several holes in the ice and got soaked, which meant we were freezing for the remainder of the hike! We were both buggered by the time we got back to Franz Joseph, we hit the hot spa pool and just chilled out until late evening when we headed off into the nearby woods to see glow worms, we expected one or two but literaly saw hundreds of them glowing away merrily on tree stumps, they weren't quite as bright as the fireflies we saw in Vietnam but still quite incredible none-the-less. We finished the evening in the local bar watching England demolish Georgia 84 - 6 in the Rugby world cup - GO whites!
The following morning we hit the road once again bound for Christchurch which lies on the opposite coast to Franz. Our route took us through Greymouth before turning right and heading back into the Southern Alps via Arthurs Pass. The road over the pass is another of New Zealands incredible drives, more mind-blowing scenery at every corner as we roughly followed the path of the Trans Alpine express. We even spotted Kenji's blue Triumph along the way and left him a note under his windscreen! We spent a couple of days in Christchurch which is a pretty nice city, very English to the point you'd find it hard to distinguish the riverside from that of Stratford upon Avon. Whilst in Christchurch we found out about a small company who run a 'swim with dolphins' tour. Unlike most other big operators who run out of Kaikoura, this company sail out of Akaroa a small early French settlement situated in a bay a small way along the coast. They also run the tours on a fully environmental basis, if the dolphins are calving or don't want to interact they don't sail and won't put people in the water. They also don't supply you with fins so you can't chase the dolphins and they operate a strictly 'hands off' experience. We've refused to take a dolphin tour for years mainly due to the effects most commercial operations are having on the dolphin populations worldwide, but these guys seemed the exception to the rule, so we thought maybe we'd give it a try. We were also swung by the fact we'd be swimming with Hectors Dolphins, the worlds rarest and smallest dolphin - a unique opportunity. I'm so glad we took the chance, we had an amazing experience. The crew spent a long time explaining the dolphins breeding and feeding patterns before briefing us on how to enter the water quietly and manouver ourselves to give the best chance of sighting them. There is no guarantee you'll see any, but we were lucky, a huge pod approached us through the freezing water and stayed with us for around 50 mins. They came within inches of us rolling around in the water as they checked us out before speeding off. I'd gotten a pair of small stones which I gently tapped together underwater, they seemed to be incredibly curious as to what it was, coming right up to my hands to check out the source of the noise. The only reason we had to leave the water was because we were so cold after nearly and hour! I'd recommend the experience to anybody, it's amazing, as long as you can find an operator like the one we had - they were superb and held the safety and interest of the dolphins as paramount.
Our tour of South Island after Akaroa was virtually over, we made our way a little further north to Picton to catch the Inter-Islander ferry across to Wellington. We both had an amazing time down South and both agreed that our only regret was that we should have given ourselves more time there, maybe even at the expense of cutting our time shorter in Australia. But I guess you don't know these things until you travel, as they say "you go you know - you don't go you don't know"! One the one thing we are both certain of though is that we'll be back.
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