SOUTH ISLAND (other), NEW ZEALAND

I drove off the ferry and onto the South Island and into Picton’s port. Picton is a small town that no doubt exists mostly as support for the port itself. It was starting to get dark so I wanted to find a holiday park soon. I decided to go one town to the south to a place called Blenheim and straight to a Top Ten Holiday Park, which is a large chain of similar places all over both islands. Another car that drove off the ferry right in front of me went to the exact same place so I was behind him the whole 20 miles or so.

This holiday park was modern, but it was on the street that the highway turned into as it went through Blenheim so it didn’t feel as rustic as the previous two nights. It didn’t matter though as this day was all about getting to the South Island so I could begin exploring the following day. I had 4 more nights after this one so there was plenty of time to see the major sights.

The following day I got on the road early and the sun was shining bright for the first time in a few days. I drove south a bit and was soon on the east coast. Since I had so much time left I decided to make this day a short driving one. I headed to Kaikoura, which is only another hour or so down the coast. This part of New Zealand is gorgeous. It reminded me a lot of some of the nicer parts of the central coast of California, but there is so little development here that it’s far more serene.

One odd thing I discovered early in this part of the journey was a single-lane bridge over a river on a two-lane highway. I always get confused by terms like two-lane highway, but in this case the road is one lane in each direction until you reach the bridge, where it becomes one shared lane. I thought it was such a novelty when I saw the first one that I took a photo of it.

Little did I know that over the next 5 days virtually every bridge on the South Island would be the same set-up. Some of the bridges are very long, but obviously they all have stop lights or an unobstructed view of the highway on the other side. You have to approach these bridges very slowly, day or night, and only when you are sure you have the right of way you can drive over.

When I saw the first one I thought it was odd, but understandable since in some areas building a proper bridge might be very expensive, but most of them aren’t remote or dangerous. It’s like way back when they had a $50 million budget to build all the bridges on the South Island and some genius decided they could cut $10 million off the budget by making them all one lane. I don’t think they are too dangerous, but there are a lot of bridges on that island so sometimes you are slowing down quite often to cross, even when it feels like you are the only vehicle for miles.

It was really a lovely drive and soon I was pulling in to a holiday park in Kaikoura. It was not yet noon so this was the first day I actually got to explore a city where I slept rather than coming in after dark and leaving the next morning. The person at the holiday park recommended I avoid the grassy parking spots in the middle of the field as the recent rains might make tire traction impossible. I obliged and parked in a spot along one of the edges and as I straightened the vehicle out in the spot I realized that I was stuck with my tires spinning away on a mud slick anyway. It was sunny so I hoped that in the following 20 hours the ground would dry out enough so I could drive out the next morning.

I had some overdue writing work to do and fortunately I found an internet place in town just a couple hundred yards from the park. I downloaded some files to work on later and then put my computer away. The main goal was to go to one of the seal colonies on the coast just south of town. The visitor center said it was about 2.5 miles each way and that was fine since the weather was great and I was in the mood for a walk. Even if I hadn’t been in the mood my camper was stuck in the mud so I didn’t have much choice.

It was a pleasant walk along the rocky beach and around a few corners and coves and after 40 minutes or so I was there. The signs in the seal colony parking lot warn that visitors should stay a minimum of 100 feet from the seals at all times, but I guess the seals can’t read because most of them were sleeping in the sun about 15 feet from the parking lot. I joined other small groups of tourists and got a good look at the seals. They evidently expend a lot of energy catching fish when they are out in the water so when they are on the beach they just sprawl out and rest. These seals were unwilling or unable to do any tricks, but one of them lunged at me just after I snapped this photo below. I guess he wanted to make sure I realized this was his territory and not mine. I’m pretty sure I could have outrun him if I needed to.

It was a pleasant walk back but the 5 miles total was not insignificant after spending so much time behind the wheel. I made it back to the camper late in the afternoon so I could finish my writing work, cook up some dinner, and then keep watching the Lord Of The Rings trilogy.

The following morning I had to go back to the internet place to upload my files before I left town. As of 2005, New Zealand is not flooded with internet places, especially places where you can plug in a laptop in smaller towns. I got back to the camper and wondered if the mud beneath my wheels had dried any. I figured if the tires still just spun it would be a big ordeal of trying to find the park manager and then finding boards or gravel to use for traction so I was really hoping I wouldn’t have to worry about that. I disconnected the power supply and jumped in to start up the engine. I popped it in drive and the rear of the vehicle slowly moved sideways instead of forward. Damn. I tried for another few seconds and I started to lurch forward a bit as mud violently shot at the wooden fence behind me from beneath the tires. After about 15 seconds of weaving back and forth instead of forward I felt some traction and the next thing I knew I was out! I’m sure I did a real number on the grass I had parked on, but there was no real damage and the park operator deserves it anyway for telling me to park there.

(Now as I write this next part, many more months have passed. I just read the above section and had forgotten most of those details since I wrote them, so from here on out the details are likely to be lost forever.)

I set out driving that day with the goal of making it to a town called Hokitika on the west coast of the South Island. This was probably the first day that I actually began to understand the beauty of New Zealand. The topography and flora are both very unpredictable so you’ll have these gorgeous mountain peaks with lush valleys below and then turn a corner and you’ll see completely different kinds of mountains with a deep forest below. To make things even nicer, particularly in the off-season, there is no one around. Even the little towns that come along on the map are often little more than a gas station and a general store.

One of the things I noticed a lot of all over New Zealand were the herds of sheep. I think I read that there are like 10 sheep for every person in the country, and you really do notice them nearly everywhere. The other amazing thing is that they can and do live on steep, steep mountains. I would be driving though a little valley with steep and grassy hills on both sides and there would often be sheep grazing way up near the top. It didn’t even look possible! These were grades of maybe 30% or even 40%, and the sheep would just be chowing down on grass up there in a big group. I’m pretty sure that if one of them sneezed he would go tumbling down the mountain and probably take a few friends with him in the process, but maybe sheep don’t sneeze that much?

I was cruising along and really enjoying the scenery and serenity as lunchtime approached. There was a river running alongside the highway and occasionally I saw little picnic areas. The weather was nice and even though I’m not much of a picnicker I thought it might be fun to park alongside the river and make and then eat my lunch. This turned out to be a huge mistake.

The temperature was in the 60s and I’d been driving for a few hours so I rolled down both front windows and then pulled into a little picnic area off the road. The highway was almost empty so I knew I would be the only one there at around 2 p.m. I parked the campervan and then climbed into the back to prepare my chef’s salad from the ingredients I had stocked up on the day before. After only a few seconds I noticed some gnats (or other small insects) buzzing around my head. I quickly decided to go roll up the windows in the front, but by the time I was able to do that there were literally hundreds of these insects inside the camper!

This was a nightmare for a few reasons. If I had left the windows open the bugs would have had an escape route, but it was obvious that far more would actually be coming in than be going out. And, of course, rolling up with windows left me trapped inside with literally hundreds of gnat-like bugs. Yes, I had parked only 20 yards or so from a river, but what was the attraction for these bugs? It’s not like they exist in this forest only waiting to enter some hapless person’s camper to eat the tuna and lettuce I was preparing? I wouldn’t have even minded sacrificing some of my food, but most of them seemed to enjoy swarming within a few inches of my head for some reason.

I packed my lunch stuff back up and drove back to the highway to carry on going west. After reaching cruising speed I opened both front windows hoping these insects would realize their big mistake and choose freedom over the bondage and certain death of joining me on the remainder of my New Zealand trip. I noticed the bug population starting to slowly go down, but again, there were hundreds of them to begin with. It took at least two hours of driving and swatting and coaxing to get the insect population down into the dozens.

By this time I had reached the west coast and I turned onto the highway that headed south. It was getting dark, but I made it to Hokitika at a reasonable hour and found a pleasant holiday park in which to stay. This coastline reminded me a lot of the gorgeous Central Coast of California, or at least how that would look after a series of neutron bombs wiped out 95% of the population.

I watched more LOTR that night and went to sleep early. The Lord of the Rings movies are around 3 hours each, but they don’t seem like it. They seem like 5 hours each, except the last one, which feels like 7 hours or so.

The next morning I went into the lounge area of this holiday park to see if the European Cup championship game would be on. It was. It was the middle of the first half when I tuned in and AC Milan were about to go up 3-0 against the heavy underdogs from Liverpool. During halftime I packed everything up so I could drive away just as soon as I was sure the game was decided. Shortly into the second half it was 3-2 and regulation ended at a 3-3 tie, so I couldn’t go anywhere. Liverpool won in penalty kicks and it was a huge upset and collapse by AC Milan. I drove away listening to sports radio and the game was all they talked about.

Soon I was at the Franz Josef Glacier, at least I think that's where I went. There are two famous glaciers very near each other in that area and I’m pretty sure I went into the first one. I parked and walked to the trailhead and from there it was about another mile of hiking to get to the base of the glacier itself. The weather was mild and the walk was very nice and scenic. It was almost like a moonscape as I got close to the ice, but getting to the viewing area was a bit of a letdown. You can get within a few meters of the forward edge of the glacier, but the ice/snow are quite dirty so it’s not the pristine setting you might imagine.

I still had a long drive to get to Wanaka up in the mountains so I didn’t linger too long. The land is quite breath-taking as each corner turned would reveal something new. I would rather have gone to Queenstown for the night, since that’s the tourist center of these mountains, but I didn’t have time to get there without having to drive a couple hours after dark. Wanaka has some sights of its own, so I was happy enough to be heading there.

As I got close enough to get the Wanaka radio stations I soon learned that Shania Twain had recently bought a big lot in Wanaka, but the town council had refused her plans for the house she intended to build. A couple conservative DJs were having a field day criticizing the town council between songs. This was big news.

I made it to a holiday park in Wanaka around sundown and didn’t have many options so I stayed in and watched more LOTR. You might think this would be a very lonely and pitiful way to spend evenings in a semi-exotic country like this, but it was actually very relaxing and pleasant. As I mentioned before, most of these holiday parks are on the outskirts of towns that are already quite spread out. If I were close to a city center it might have been fun to go on a bit of a pub crawl, but I was always disoriented and on the outskirts.

The other thing that made it strangely pleasant was that I would be driving and sightseeing for like 8 straight hours each day, so soaking in all that gorgeous scenery and stopping for occasional hikes really fills up the adventure part of the brain. Also, driving on the left side of the road is still a bit stressful, so it was nice to just relax and eat dinner and read and watch LOTR in the evenings. I also wanted to get an early start each day to take advantage of the sunlight so calm and short evenings were perfect…this time.

The next day I packed up and drove a couple hours into Queenstown. Wow! This place is really incredible. I had to do some uploading and downloading on my laptop so my first stop had to be an internet place. Fortunately there was a huge one that I quickly found in the middle of town. After an hour or so of that I was able to walk around a bit, but I had to make it a few hours out of town that day so my time was sadly limited.

I drove over to the base of the aerial tram and decided to give it a whirl. Fortunately the line was fairly short so I was packed into a small cabin with a Japanese family after only a few minutes and up we went. Rather than describe the beauty of the place I’ll just post a bunch of photos right here.

Up on top there are a few adventure options. I took a long hike to another vista point looking out in another direction, but I still wasn’t ready to leave so I actually sprung for a couple trips down this concrete luge course. I normally shy away from this sort of thing, but I decided to go for it and it was pretty tame. It was fun though and I’m glad I did it.

I had to get back in the tram soon and I was sad to be leaving already. New Zealand is such a beautiful place, but Auckland isn’t all that nice and most other small towns are just too small to imagine living there, but Queenstown seemed like a little paradise. Just outside of town are a bunch of the bungee jumping stations hanging over rivers and I stopped at one for a while to watch some people jump. These adventure activities (and probably skiing, I think?) attract loads of vacationers to Queenstown so there is a decent sized downtown area with all the amenities, but it’s in this gorgeous mountain setting. On more than one occasion I’ve daydreamed of one day moving to Queensland, and I’m sure that’s a common thing among its visitors.

I headed down the other side of the mountain as the sun was getting low in the sky. The landscape turned from mountainous to somewhat desert-like as I got close to the east coast again. I headed for a holiday park in the small town of Oamaru and after a little bit of searching I found the place. It was another lovely setting for camping, even in a van. My site was just a few meters from a bay so when the sun came up the next morning it was like a postcard. Since this was the day I had to return the van I spent a bit of time cleaning it out and organizing it for the return. The week was zooming by.

I climbed into the campervan and started barreling up the coast. My only tourist thing on the way to Christchurch was a stop at the Moeraki Boulders, not far from Oamaru. I parked and made my way down to the beach and only a few other people were around. These things really are unusual and worth seeing if you are in the neighborhood, but photos of them actually do them justice so when you see them in person they look exactly like you expect them to.