The South Island Road Trip: Part III: The Pickup of Destiny

Kia Ora,

05/12/2014 - 07/12/2014   Queenstown/ Arrowtown/ Lake Hawea
Guess who went back to Fergburger! Hell yeah, we did! :-D

After getting our fill again we visited an Ice Bar in Queenstown. It was brrrrriliant! Haha. I'm sorry...

Ice Age!

 

Our seats!

Perhaps just as importantly as revisiting FergBurger, on the morning of the 6th a new companion for the trip landed in Queenstown airport. Introducing Liam, fresh from Auckland and with his own set of unique skills at our disposal. Unfortunately this doesn't include the Maori pose... But his purposes will be realised! :-D

We stopped by Arrowtown, a quaint little town which really appealed to me. I wish I could have stayed longer.

A short walk away we came across a Lord of the Rings filming location, the River of Bruinen. Formly known as Arrow River, this is where the Ringwraiths were hit by water whilst chasing Frodo and Arwen. The river has changed a lot in the decade since the scene was shot, but you can kind of see it!

From Arrowtown we traveled to Lake Hawea via Lake Wanaka and Mount Iron. On Mount Iron the gauntlet was thrown down for the rest of the trip and challenges were coming, challenge 1: climb that pole! A very

And I think Liam knows it... Haha

It looks very unimpressive in photos

Although it looked unimpressive, the challenge definitely took it's toll on somebody...

Liam slept as the salad dinner was made, but when finished I came up with a nice way to wake him up. I hit him really hard with a pillow and sat down, acting nice and casual. After a few seconds we all realised that Liam hadn't even flinched and was still sleeping quite happily. That backfired haha. It took a bit more prodding to wake this guy up.

Then, whilst eating a couple of drunk guys entered the kitchen. They noticed we were eating salad and left the kitchen in singing and dancing to "You don't make friends with salad!". Classic Simpsons reference! Haha.

Good news, everybody! The South Island Road Trip has been given a contract to make another 3 posts! There's a lot of happenings still to report :-)

I leave you with this iconic photo overlooking Lake Hawea.

Kia Ora,

Ben

The South Island Road Trip: Part II: What's that Sound?

Kia Ora,

01/12/2014 - 04/12/2014   Te Anau
The drive to Te Anau was very nice, especially on the final approach as the mountain ranges of the Fiordland National Park came in to view. We shared this view with Gabriel, a German hitchhiker we picked up on the way.

On arrival it was hard to miss Lake Te Anau. It was on this lake me and Dannii took our second cruise. This time however, we got off on the other side of the lake and explored the glow worm caves. Glow worms are little larvae unique to NZ and live in very dark caves. They produce light to attract insects, which then get trapped in the glow worms sticky lines. But for us animals on the slightly larger side, they're not quite so dangerous and beautiful to look at.

Unfortunately, cameras weren't allowed in the cave, so here are some pictures we took on the way and a stolen image of the Te Anau glow worms to give you an idea of what they were like.

Picture of the glow worm cave network

Looking very photogenic on the ride out!

A stolen photo of the Te Anau glow worm caves

Roll on the second day of Te Anau, a big hitter for the best and most impressive day of the trip. The day began with a cruise over Lake Manapouri. This lake is second largest body of water in NZ and was amazing!

The calm Lake Manapouri

Tree's fossilised after being drowned in slow setting lava

But we weren't on another cruise just for Lake Manapouri. We were crossing to get to one of the most remote areas of NZ, Doubtful Sound. It was given its name by early explorers who determined that using the area as port would be (wait for it) "Doubtful". And a sound is essentially a fiord, just derived from a different word. Although the word comes from swim, as it is possible to swim from one side of the sound to the other. You see, this is fun and educational ;-)

Anyway, the positively reenforce any newly gained knowledge, enjoy some photos of the day!

We were all mesmorised by this trip. We were out for over seven hours and blessed with perfect weather, some seal spotting and a glimpse of one crested penguin. I think we all left inspired and in awe.

After the second sunrise in Te Anau the team assembled to tackle the Kepler track. Ideally we would have had three days free to conquer this and I'm a little sad we didn't, though I may end up revisiting the area. However, restricted to one day we just took a walk along Lake Manapouri through rainforest terrain.

The girls ;-)

04/12/2014 - 05/12/2014   Milford Sound
Our next destination was Milford Sound. We arrived in bad weather, which was a shame. So instead me, Pauline and Adele decided to walk a bit of the Routeburn track and turning off to Key Summit. The weather kindly cleared a bit so we got amazing views! We discovered that Key summit hosted a small nirvana. A lake on top the the mountain was watched over by other snow capped mountains.

And thankfully the weather continued to get better through the night. The next morning Milford treated us to to its beauty.

The route was littered with points of interest, far too many to keep stopping but all beautiful in their own way. Lake Gunn stood out on the return journey, the lake as still as someones career and the water as clear as the reflections were amazing. Observe:

The native Kea also blessed the route home. They were super curious about the cars traveling by them. I'm not sure, but I think I made a friend.

Lot's of photo's in this installment. We'll pick up the story again when we return to Queenstown.

And well done to the eagle eyed readers who noticed that my photo of the reflective lake (Lake Gunn) is actually upside down. Pretty cool, aye?

Kia Ora,

Ben

The South Island Road Trip: Part I: The Legend of Ferg

Kia Ora,

Life's been pretty adventurous since finishing University and I've been traveling since the day my exams finished. Now, nearly 7 weeks later I finally have another chance to update my blog. Welcome to the biggest trip of the break so far: the South Island Road Trip!

Dannii arrived in NZ less than a week before this trip. She struggled a little with the jet lag, but she was fighting fit in time for this adventure and ready to see NZ! Good on ya, Dannii ;-)

We traveled over 25 days, starting in Queenstown, traveling south to Te Anau and Milford Sound before backtracking on ourselves and firing up the west coast. After reaching Nelson we drove to Kaikoura. Finally we made our way back north to Picton and then took the ferry to Wellington.

27/11/2014 - 01/12/2014   Queenstown
Me and Dannii were up at 4am to catch our flight. It was two hours from Auckland to Queenstown and we were able to watch the sun rising up over the country. Better yet we flew with Air New Zealand and so we watched the new safety video made for the Hobbit film! I'm sure I don't need to say this but it was a highlight of the trip!

On the decent the plane navigated the many mountains surrounding Queenstown. Flying between the snowy path was stunning!

Coming in to land

The had the nicest pancakes for breakfast *drooling* and spent the day walking around the town and lake.

The next day we climbed Queenstown Hill to get an overview of the city. It was also a good training exercise for Dannii before the longer treks to come.

The Basket of Dreams on Queenstown Hill

Photobomb!

After this we met up with a fellow Tongariro survivor, Dave, and his English friend. We battled with the wind and played a bit of Frisbee Golf!

As you can see, I've got a few photo's already of Dannii looking like a gorm ;-)

On the 29th Nov we jumped in the Cable Cars (or Gondolas). It was really nice here with more stunning views of Queenstown. We also used it as a starting point for the Ben Lomond track, where we got even more spectacular views.

From near the top of Ben Lomond

The view looking away from Queenstown on Ben Lomond

Before descending via the cable cars we had a chance to ride the luges. It was basically felt like a downhill Mario Kart track- or a childhood dream realised! I would say I enjoyed it too much, but how could it be too much? :-D

Our last day in Queenstown was spent rounding up a crew for the trip. Each member of the team was selected for their specific set of skills which were required for the trip. Pauline and Adele both joined us on this day :-D. Pauline arrived in the morning and with her we took a gentle cruise on Lake Wakatipu. We followed this with round 2 of Frisbee golf before meeting Adele in the evening outside of Fergburger. Oh Fergburger, I could write pages and pages about this place. I could write poems and sonnets, tales and lyrics but I will only miss it too much. They are world famous for a reason and on our last day in Queenstown we found out why! *more drooling*

Heaven!

The next morning (1st Dec) we picked up the motor that would help us on our 2000km journey, a Ford Focus which later picked up the name "Flick". We began with a venture South-West to Te Anau. Will we be traveling alone? Will the weather show us NZ at it's best? Will we save the world from approaching danger?

Find out in "Part II: What's that Sound?"

Kia Ora

Ben