This is an enormous post. Our official semester break was the week of the 27th through the 31st of August. Rob, Xander, Heather, and I traveled up the west coast of the south island, stopped over in Nelson at the top of the island, explored Abel Tasman National Park, and booked it down the east coast back home to Dunedin (although this didn’t exactly go according to plan). We left early- Thursday, the 24th and got back late- Monday the 3rd. It was an epic week and a half adventure that left me and my traveling companions with lots of pictures, memories, windy mountain driving skills, and one broke down car.
Thursday (August 23) I got up early and packed for the journey I was about to embark on. After getting on the road around 2:30pm we drove straight to Wanaka in search of food and lodging for the night. We were hoping that we could stay at Heathers flatmate Scott’s vacation house there, but unfortunately he was not going to be there that weekend, lamely staying back in Dunedin. Upon arriving we found nowhere to stay in Wanaka due to mass amounts of skiers and snowboarders in the area. We ate at the Speights Ale House and then drove to Makarora, further towards the west coast. We called ahead to reserve a cabin and eventually got there and stayed at this campground in an A-frame cabin. There we saw a dead possum.
Then on Friday we got up early, had some breakfast and checked out. We drove to Haast, on the west coast, and booked our hut passes to the Welcome Hut on the Copland track at the Department of Conservation office there. We drove about another hour to Jacob’s creek and the trail head of the Copland track. We parked the car and started the hike, which took pretty much the rest of the day- about a 6 hour tramp along a river and through some high hills around it. Eventually we got to the hut and almost immediately went over to the hot pools nearby- natural hot springs that felt real, real good after the long hike. After it got dark we cooked dinner (rice and beans), testing out our propane camp stove which worked out very well. We sat around a while playing cards and talking to another backpacker until we eventually went to bed.
Saturday we got up early again and had some breakfast. We packed up, cleaned, and then got back on the track heading back to the car park. We had lunch by the river near a little spot of beach. It was pretty, but the sand flies were critically uncool. We finished the hike and packed our stuff into Pam (our car) only to find that she wouldn’t start- apparently a dead battery. We pushed the car out to the road to flag someone down to give us a jump start. A nice family from Australia stopped but didn’t have jumper cables, so they were kind enough to take Xander ahead to the next town to get some. After he left, however, we realized he had the keys with him so we couldn’t work on getting a jump from our end. This was brought to our attention when a guy stopped to give us a jump and the keys were nowhere to be found. Luckily, the family that took Xander ahead to the town brought him back after he’d picked up some jumper cables and they gave us a jump. Eventually we all got to Fox Glacier, only about a half hour ride from the Copland track car park. We booked a glacier walk tour for the next day, got a room at a hostel, and cooked dinner. After a while, we went to one of the local pubs and had a beer. Again, we ended up going to bed relatively early.
On Sunday we got up and cleaned up, packed and checked out of the hostel and got a little food. We went on the Fox Glacier half day tour. They bussed a bunch of us out to the national park where the glacier is and then we hiked up to the entrance point of the glacier. It was a great time and our guide knew a lot about the glacier and glaciers in general. The Fox Glacier and the Franz Josef Glacier (only about 20 min away) are 2 of only 3 glaciers in the world to be located in/near a temperate rainforest. Wacky. We saw crevices and got to slide down an ice flow tube. We had to wear crampons (spikes) on our boots while on the glacier. It was real neat. I got some junk at the gift shop and then we went back to the car. Again, it wouldn’t start, leading us to believe that our battery was pretty much old and dead. We drove to Greymouth, further up the west coast and first thing we did was to get a new battery. We checked into a hostel and booked a Monteith’s Brewery tour. They picked us up from our hostel at 6pm and took us to the brewery. It was just one lady showing us around the actual brewery. It wasn’t very flash, but it was really interesting and felt pretty authentic. At the end she took us to their sampling bar. We tried each of their 6 current brews with a quick explanation and history about each one. Then we got around 20 minutes to drink as much as we wanted from the tap. That was pretty great. Afterwards they drove us to the Railway Hotel where we got another Monteith’s pint and an all-you-can-eat meal. We hung out there a while talking with other people from our tour and after a bit more drinking made it back to our hostel room and got some long awaited sleep.
Monday we decided was to be a day of rest since we’d kind of been overloading ourselves with activity for the last few days. We all slept in and eventually went out for lunch and checked out the town. We went to a few shops and a sweet jade store/museum. After getting groceries, and then going for a walk along the river, we made burgers in the hostel kitchen, which were delicious. Heather ate a half of one and Rob, Xander, and I ate three each. That night we hung out in the common room and played cards.
Tuesday we got up early and checked of our wonderful Greymouth hostel. We went over to the “Wild West Tours” place to start our cave rafting adventure that we booked the day before. They put us into thermals and wet suits with big gum boots to keep us warm and quasi-dry during our time in the caves. We got taken out to a section of forest outside town with a few other people who were on the tour. Our guide led us through the temperate rainforest to the cave mouth. Two people in our group got to repel down a hole into cave since they paid extra, but the rest of us just walked in through another entrance. It was a pretty cool experience- we walked through about half of the tunnel and then got to float down the underground river on big tubes for the other half. As we were floating in the dark we saw all the glow worms living in the cave, which was really interesting. The caving took about 4 hours and once we were back at the “Wild West” office they put us all in hot tub and gave us muffins and beer. I love this country. We eventually dried off, got some legitimate lunch, and headed back on the road- we only went a short drive further on up the coast to Punakaiki. We checked into a nice little beach-side hostel and did some laundry (increasing amount of sweaty, nasty clothes not smelling good). Heather wasn’t feeling particularly well so while she took a nap, Rob, Xander, and I walked up the beach and up a hill to see the Pancake rocks. It’s a really interesting geological formation on the coast- tons of layers of rock arranged on top of each other, kind of resembling stacked pancakes. We thought it would be fairly neat to see, but the pancake rocks park turned out to be one of the coolest things we did on the trip. The view of the coastline and the surf crashing on the crazy looking rocks was really spectacular. Back at the hostel we sat around a while and then got Heather up and sat on the beach and watched the sunset. I made quesadillas and rice for dinner and after cleaning and such we played cards again. That night, as it turned out, was a lunar eclipse so we got to look at that for a while as well. It was a good day.
On Wednesday after we checked out of the hostel we went up to the pancake rocks again with Heather so she could see them. It was at high tide this time and we got to see better waves and a rainbow forming from some of the blowholes (where surf sprays up through big holes in the ground). After leaving Punakaiki we had about a 3 hour drive through some crazy mountain roads to Nelson, situated in a bay at the top of the south island. We checked into a really nice hostel- pool, hot tub, sauna, outdoor pool table, two kitchens, etc. We walked around downtown Nelson a while- it’s definitely the biggest city we’ve been in since leaving Dunedin so that was nice. We went to the grocery store and then cooked ourselves dinner and drank some of our Speights beer and boxed wine that we bought in Greymouth. We played some pool and then hung out in the hot tub. The weather is amazing in Nelson, it supposedly has the best weather in New Zealand- almost always sunny and warm.
Thursday we got up and had complimentary breakfast at the hostel. We walked around Nelson a little more and then got back to the hostel around noon in time to get picked up by our guide for the wine tour we booked. No one else was on the tour today so we got our own private experience. We were taken to 4 wineries and a brewery. The guy knew a whole lot about wine and I felt like I learned a decent amount. We did lots of tasting and I think by the end we were all a little sloppy. Interestingly, Harrington’s brewery which we toured was the brewery that made the beer used in Lord of the Rings in the scene at the Prancing Pony pub in the first movie. They used their stout mixed with water basically to make a 1% alcohol by volume brew so that the actors wouldn’t get drunk after doing all the different takes for the scene. We had some of the stout- sans the water. After the tour we ate at a Thai place and eventually ended up back in the hot tub at the hostel. We all crashed rather early that night.
On Friday morning Rob and Xander left really early with the car to get started on their ridiculously long hike through both tracks of the Abel Tasman National Park. Heather and I got up a little later and checked out and took our stuff in just a couple backpacks with us. We went into town and ended up meeting up with some people we knew from Otago- other American students. We ate at a café and looked at one of Nelsons art museums. Then we went to the jeweler that made the rings for the Lord of The Rings movies. After all touching the one ring of power, Heather and I met up with our Arcadia program group for the activity weekend at the Abel Tasman park. We headed in a van up to Marahau, at the edge of the park. We stayed at a hostel there that night. Our program directors Jane and Kate worked on dinner while most of us checked out the beach at low tide. After dinner we hung out by the fire for a while before going to bed.
Saturday we got up early and had breakfast and packed lunches. We got picked up from the hostel and were brought to the waterfront where we took a water taxi up the coast to the point where they had chosen for us to get onto the Abel Tasman coastal track. We hiked for about an hour and a half before we stopped at a beach for lunch. The sand flies were out but not too bad. We continued on hiking for the rest of the afternoon. Heather, Chad, and I did the low tide short cut and had to take our boots off and wade through some water, but it was fun albeit, hard on the feet. Eventually we all got to the beach at Anchorage Bay where our accommodation for the night was anchored. We got taken by little boats over to the Aquapacker, a hostel on a boat, where we started drinking and had dinner. To the dismay of our program directors we drank out the entire bar stock of the hostel (sounds impressive but there were lots of us and not too much of a bar stock). We were all pretty tired so no one really stayed up too late. It was also real interesting to sleep on a boat. Even for a couple days afterwards I still felt like I was rocking back and forth a little bit.
Sunday we got up early, again, and packed up and were taken back to shore. Our kayaks arrived via another boat and after some brief instructions we experienced the joy of sea kayaking. We were two to a kayak- I rode in back and go to steer, which was enjoyable. We had lunch at yet another beautiful beach and eventually kayaked back to Marahau at almost the same point that we were first picked up by the water taxi. After landing and packing everything up Heather and I got taken to the parking lot near the end of the coastal track where we’d seen Pam parked the day before. Luckily, Xander and Rob were there packing back up and changing clothes, having just finished their hiking. We headed home to Dunedin right around 2pm and had a long day of driving. After getting dinner in Christchurch some bad indicator lights came on the dash and the car eventually died about 30km south of Christchurch just after we’d turned around to pull into the last gas station we’d seen. We had to get Pam towed back to the city and get a taxi to take us to a hostel. We got checked in and set it up so the car would get into a mechanic in the morning. It was a stressful/expensive end, or rather extension to our long trip.
So Monday instead of being back in Dunedin and at class, we were in Christchurch. Heather took the early bus back to Dunedin so she wouldn’t miss her afternoon lab. Rob, Xander, and I stayed to deal with the car. We checked out of the hostel and were able to store most of our bags there for the day. The car didn’t get to the mechanic until noon so we went to an internet café a while. We hung out in the city pretty much all day- eating, going to shops, etc. and talking to the mechanic on the phone. Turns out that the alternator died so he was trying to get another one from a junkyard. Apparently since it’s an uncommon model, it would take a while to find the right replacement and do the repair. So we got a 5:30pm shuttle back to Dunedin with all our stuff. We got in a little before midnight, after stopping at KFC in Omaru. We basically just immediately went to bed.
That concludes the epic journey and experience that was the semester break. Sorry it took so long to get this up on the blog, but I had some papers to do. I ended up taking a bus back up to Christchurch to pick up the car and drove it back to Dunedin last week. This weekend wasn’t too exciting- we needed a low key few days after the semester break adventure and then all the homework of the following weeks. I went golfing twice, celebrated Heathers birthday on Saturday with a bunch of people, and did an essay on Sunday. Now we’re starting to plan our next weekend trips and other longer trips for when the term is over.
End post. Finally.
