'Kia Ora' (hello, wassup in Kiwi) from week 2 on the road in New Zealand.
We're half-way around the South Island now - and still absolutely loving it. Having extended our time in NZ yet again (we're now staying 5 weeks) we've just over 1000 miles on the clock and are 12 days into our 32 days of camping. Yes, 32 days - of camping. Does this surprise anyone else as much as it does us?!
It's been van-tastic* being able to set our own itinerary and stop to gawp at the amazing scenery wherever and whenever we want. The driving is super-easy too, with great roads, no traffic whatsoever and only a junction every 100km or so... so you don't even really have to think - just point and click!
Except that is when parking in mud... those ditches can be a bit tricky to get out of - as we discovered after stopping to watch one glorious sunset the other day, and had to get pulled out in a rather undignified manner by some Aussie campers. Oops! The only other bad thing about all the driving is the squashed possums (squashums) which are a bit of a sad mess all over the road. But on the plus side, a good way of seeing big birds of prey who come down to feed on them. Sorry possums!
We're gradually getting used to our new living quarters too. We've only melted one plastic plate so far (we don't have a microwave at home - oops!) and we have some good housekeeping-type rules in place now - so that anyone not leaving wet boots in the driving cabin and changing into socks gets to do the next load of washing up. It's just a shame we didn't hang on to the three pairs of slippers we were given to use in our Tokyo accomodation - they would have come in handy!
The only slight down-side of camping is getting to the wash block in the middle of the night (yes, we have an emergency bottle to save our pyjamas in case the rain is terrible!!). And our bed is a bit of a worry too. It sits on folding boards over a gap in the middle of the van and is showing worrying signs of a crack down it's centre... watch this space to find out who ends up on the (nice clean) floor!
So, since we left you last we've been busy vannying* around more of the South Island, from Dunedin heading out to the Otago peninsular, the Catlins national park, and into Fjordland. We saw strange boulders at Moreaki - they are formed in perfect spherical shapes from lime crystals on the beach, and looked a bit like alien man-eating eggs to us...
Then in Otago we saw some giant fluffy albatross chicks...
(at 3 months old the chicks of the biggest sea bird in the world are about as big as a small seal!)
...and had a really amazing bit of luck when we drive out to a random isolated beach and came across a massive resting Sea Lion - and then two fur seals tumbling about playing on the beach. We even got chased by the Sea Lion - they move faster than you might think and had us packing up our picnic pretty rapidly!
Here's one of the seals coming out of the water to look for his playmate...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dvX8OA7Hrg
At Curio Bay we hit the most southerly part of the island and visited a fascinating petrified forest - a 180 million year old forest which turned to stone when a volcanic eruption submerged it.... it sure looked scared to us anyway (hahahahaha)
Next we drove up to the enormous Te Anau lake, from where you can organise trips to Milford Sound. We chose to visit yesterday - as the weather forecast was for rain - and as we'd heard that the Sound gets around 8 metres of rain each year it hardly seemed worth waiting for a dry day...
It was actually a brilliant way to see this part of the country - which is all rainforest, green moss-covered rocks, waterfalls and lakes - and is meant to be wet wet wet. We stopped at some pretty impressive falls on the way to the Sound itself and they were roaringly full and awesome. On the way into the Sound, you see rain tumbling from literally all directions from the surrounding mountains into the glacier-created fjord. Since some of the tops of the mountains are beneath the rain/snow, it is as though there are waterfalls literally coming straight out of the sky!
Most people take a boat trip into the Sound itself so following a tip off from Sarah's Mum and Dad we went for a trip on a small boat which takes you right up close to the bottom of the waterfalls (spot the pics of us getting soggy!) - and also out into the Tasman Sea - which got pretty rocky as a storm approached (luckily Sarah had a red coat on to disguise the complimetary soup spillages!). All excellent fun.
We've arrived in Queenstown tonight and have escaped the camper van for once to go into town to use the Internet and have a curry. All the civilisation is a bit of a shock to our systems after the past 13 nights driving, eating and sleeping in the van! Hopefully we can remember how to behave in a restaurant and Phil won't try to dismantle the table after we've finished...
Hope you're all well and enjoying yourselves. Lots of love,
Sarah and Phil x x
(*sorry. as we said, we've been in the van for a while now and it's not doing much for Sarah's punitis...)
p.s. that's not a mountain yeti you can see with Sarah in the photo gallery - Phil has now not had a haircut for the past 2 weeks!
