New Zealand - Around the South Island in 7 days

I have 3 weeks to explore New Zealand … it took just 3 hours to work out this was going to be nowhere near enough time!

I gained a travelling companion in the form of Sam for the first week of the trip; we had 7 days to tour the South Island and get as much of a feel for the place as possible! It was a challenge but one we were up to! From Melbourne we flew to Christchurch – the views as we came across the Island gave an amazing taste of what was to come!

Sand Art in New Brighton

Christchurch itself is a shell of its former self, coming in to the city is very strange. You travel along roads where everything looks fine and turn a corner and a whole street is rubble. You can see the beauty of the city but it is going to take a long time for it to get to its feet again. We stayed in New Brighton just outside of the centre of the City as most of the central hostels seemed to be closed still. The seaside suburb matches the rest of the area with a ghost town feeling, but we managed to find a sand artist working on the beach and a great café to sit outside and have homemade lasagne whilst listening to a local singer. The perfect place to 

plan our route!

On Sunday morning we were up at the crack of dawn and picked up by one the nicest taxi drivers I’ve met who filled us in on the rebuilding work going on in the city & pointed out the level of destruction which at first is often not that evident if you don’t know what the place looked like before.

At 8.15am we clambered aboard the Trans Alpine Express, several guidebooks have described New Zealand’s train network to be more about the journey than getting to your destination and with views like the one we had crossing Arthur’s Pass  a) you can see what they mean and b) it beats the District Line any day so stuff getting anywhere quickly! The train winds its way through the mountains with views that are a little overwhelming! We attempted to head out on to the open air viewing decks but since everyone else had had the same idea sitting in our carriage with breakfast and a coffee gave us a better view!

The train rolls in to Greymouth at lunch time, I’m not sure I’d do the return day trip, as a lot of people seemed to be, as it’s a pretty tight turnaround at both Arthurs Pass and Greymouth! Instead we set up camp in the sleepy YHA and had a quick look round the town centre. On a Sunday the attractions seemed to consist of a café, supermarket and a tour of the local brewery (although as it’s under redevelopment at the moment that’s just a DVD and you pour as much beer as you can in 5 mins) - not much use to a gin and lemonade girl! The journey was definitely better that the destination!

Helicopter nos 3

On Monday morning it was time for another early start and another mode of transport. This time the Atomic Shuttle bus took us down to Franz Josef Glacier.  Again the views as we travelled down were stunning! And the weather was on our side, the cloud that had settled in the evening on Sunday and disappeared replaced by brilliant sunshine showing off the mountains to their best. But no time for us to hang around so after to checking into our hostel and booking ourselves on an afternoon trip we headed to the Kiwi sanctuary! As kiwi’s are both rare and nocturnal it proves rather difficult to spot them in the wild so instead we had to make do with the conservation centre which is helping with the breeding programme. These small snuffly animals dig for food with their beaks and are one of the only birds to have nostrils in their beaks hence them sounding like they permanently need a dose of Vics.

The Sanctuary has a huge amount of work to do as the kiwi is yet another of New Zealand’s native animals being affected by the introduced predators. There seems to have been a bit of a “I swallowed a fly” mentality going on with early settlers who added a host of new mammals to deal with the problems of the last one they added all of which seem to have decided the kiwi is quite a tasty dinner option! Stoats, cats & hedgehogs have all had an effect of the population and the removal of these predators and the support given to breeding pairs is vital if numbers are going to increase.

Have crampons,
will ice climb

After some lunch we headed to our afternoon activity a heli-hike up the Franz Josef Glacier. There are a variety of options to see the glacier and our primary reason for taking a helicopter up to the higher end of the glacier was to see the lakes that form up there unfortunately it turns out they all dried up several years ago! But never fear we’d had yet another ride in a helicopter and had also got to the higher reaches where the more exciting stuff is! Armed with crampons and a very cheery guide we headed out across the ice! The Glacier is retreating at the moment and formations change on a regular basis. We managed to see two beautiful ice caves, the top layers of ice are white with lots of dirt mixed in but when you get into the cave the impurities have gone and you are left with brilliant blue ice. Depending on the stage it’s at you can also get purple ice! The scale of the glacier is pretty immense and trying to stay focused on where you were going proved difficult when there was so much to look at! Our journey back down was a little hair raising when I small avalanche occurred further up the ice flow near where another group had been. A few heat stopping moments were had until contact had been re-established! The helicopter flight back down to the bottom is a bit of a rollercoaster as you are swept along the mountain top! We ended the day with a well-deserved trip to the glacial hot pools set amongst rainforest the 3 pools are at 40C, 38C & 36C and are incredibly relaxing!  

Lord of the Rings Country

Tuesday was a travel day with us heading down the road to Queenstown the adrenaline capital of New Zealand, if not the world. You can throw yourself off of things, out of things, round and round in things and down things here and pretty much every combination of the above and more! The pretty lake front town is edged by the mountain ranges used throughout Lord of the Rings and has a bustling hub. Thankfully not entirely over run by the 18 year old numpty thrill seekers (technical term!!) it’s a great place to spend a few days and to base yourself if you want to head out to Milford Sound or Doubtful Sound. We managed to fit in a bit of exploring the local bars in to our schedule and ended up in the Boiler Room listening to some great music and confusing the locals by drinking copious amounts of Pimms!

Milford Sound

Wednesday was another early start when we jumped on the BBQ Bus (I highly recommend them!) out towards Fiordland. The small group meant that we didn’t feel as herded as you do on other tours. The area is spectacular & attracts busloads of tourists so it can feel a little crowded at times. Our lunch stop at Gunns Camp took us off the beaten track and away from the huge buses; this is the bit where the tour gets its name in the form of a BBQ lunch! In the afternoon we went through the frankly eerie Homer Tunnel (it only got lights in it in the last 10 years!) and on to Milford Sound to join up with the other tour groups on a boat tour. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t on our side so there was a misty cloud covering and drizzle throughout although that didn’t matter when we were taken into a couple of the Waterfalls that drop off the edge of the surrounding cliffs!

On Thursday we took a flight to Christchurch and picked up a car to head up the coast to Kaikoura. Driving a car in New Zealand is not the best idea, there’s too much to look at and on numerous occasions you end up veering off the road looking at yet another stunning view, let someone else do the driving whose been here before, it allows you to take photos and do the “oo’s and ahh’s” that should accompany any road trip round the islands.

Dolphins from a bucket

Kaikoura is the place to see Whales and Dolphins although be warned you will probably have to get up at the crack of dawn to catch them! We headed out with a moderate to high seas warning and a high chance of seasickness – “ha!” I thought “I’ve never been seasick before!” It turns out there really is a first time for everything and my first time seems to be just as I’m about to have the experience of a lifetime! I persevered and managed to sort of flail around with dolphins more than swim but it is quite a special moment. They seem totally unbothered by the large group of ungraceful swimmers that have joined them and as your guide says your job is to entertain the dolphins not the other way round! If you’re not feeling like you may lose what little breakfast you forced down at 5am the best way to attract the dolphins is to dive and circle in the water around them and make loud noises into your snorkel! It makes for good entertainment on the boat as well!

After a couple of hours we headed back to shore with me looking slightly green and recuperated outside one of the café’s on  the main street and then had a therapeutic walk round the few shops there. Be warned, if you are anything like me and like pretty shiny things you will end up spending a fortune here! We managed to fit in a couple of hours horse riding through the foothills to finish our time in Kaikoura. Its been a while since I rode & you forget the amount of muscles involved in sitting upright!

Getting up early has its benefits!

In the afternoon we started the journey back towards Christchurch to beat the worst of the weather coming in! Our finally early start saw us up for a flight to Wellington on the North Island, in the middle of the WEATHER BOMB (dun dun dun!!) News and weather reports seemed to be enjoying dramatically introducing the low pressure that caused winds to whip up and rain to come at you from pretty much every angle possible! It made our short flight across the Tasman a little hair raising (I think nervous flyer Sam would describe this slightly different and with a few more expletives!) It made to a dramatic end to our whistle stop tour of the South Island! 

So the moral of this story is that if you are short on time you can do the best of the South Island in a week! It’s great fun if you approach it in the right way and if the weather is on your side. If you have the time though, don’t rush it. The place is stunning and there is so much to do you could easily lose months to exploring the place!

One other tip - remind yourself of the Lord of the Rings score before you go for the perfect soundtrack in your head otherwise you’ll be frustratingly humming the first few bars over and over again! 

Next time – the North Island in 10 days!