Category Archives: New Zealand

The Drive-In

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I’ve long thought that one of my favourite, if not overall favourite, drives that I’ve ever done is the hour long journey from Calgary to Banff. You start in the rolling foothills outside Calgary with snowy mountain peaks in the distance, and within an hour’s time you have travelled in through mountain passes to stand amongst towering peaks of tree and snow. It’s a wonderful, scenic drive. I think I may have found it’s equal, in the drive from Lake Tekapo to Mt. Cook.

Lake Tekapo itself is very scenic. It’s most notable for two things that you can get in the same picture – it has a historic church, which rests on a rise above the shores of Lake Tekapo, which itself is startling in colour and scenery.

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A Mountain in Name Only

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Mt. Sunday isn’t a mountain that will instantly pop into many people’s minds as a famous mountain in New Zealand. And it isn’t much of a mountain anyways, it’s more of a hill. But it became a very identifiable spot due to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and one that, with some effort and driving, can be appreciated without a tour. That’s where I found myself one spending mid-day in January. The drive itself was worth the effort.

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Glacial Carvings

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When comparing landscapes between the North and South Islands, there really isn’t much in common. Where the North Island is dominated by lovely rolling hills, small mountains and the stark contrast of volcanos in the middle, the South Island has severe, sharp, granite coloured mountain peaks and massive, flat, glacier carved valleys. I found myself on a hike at one such gorge, called the Rakaia Gorge.

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A Dusky Swim

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Swimming with dolphins was something high on my list of things to do down here in New Zealand. I had no interest in the dolphin encounters that had you in with a captive/penned dolphin. After swimming with wild sea lions of the Galapagos, I wanted to try the same with wild dolphins. New Zealand gives you that opportunity, in spades.

Resident year round to Kaikoura, the Dusky Dolphin is one of the smaller types of dolphin, but also very acrobatic and is well know for it’s jumping from the water. In addition, they tend to be more curious than other types, routinely investigating people in the water. Which makes them great for swimming with. On an early Monday morning I found myself, with 11 other eager swimmers, waiting in a boat in our wetsuits. After a 45 minute boat ride, the guides gave us the signal and we were in the water with 3-4 Dusky Dolphins. They came and swam around the group for a few minutes, to the joy of everyone.

Then it was back in the boat, and off to another small group of dolphins. Everyone hopped back in the water for round 2!

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The Halfway Mark

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It really doesn’t seems like I have been 6 months here in New Zealand already. I feel both like it was yesterday that I was arriving in Auckland and limping around town on an injured hip, and yet at the same time as if that happened AGES ago. It really is hard to believe now.

I’ve covered a lot of ground – 12,000km of adventuring around this country so far. Actually compared to what I’d do in Sarnia, that mileage is about the same on a per year basis. The difference here was next to none of that mileage was done for work, all for exploring/travel. 🙂

Some highlights of my time here, just going to do the North Island since I’ll consider the South as the 2nd half of my time here.

The Tongariro Crossing

The Tongariro Circuit

My WWOOF/HelpX hosts in Kerikeri, Helensville and Opotiki

Cape Reinga and 90 Mile Beach

Canyoning

White Island

Skydiving

Budget wise, I’ve chewed through just over $9,000NZD (roughly $7,200 CAD) so far. Still ahead of my goal (I’d be at $6,000NZD if I was), but I’m not overly concerned at this point. I’ve done the majority of the expensive activities that I’d like to do at this point. There are still some more to come – Ice climbing on a glacier, glacier lake kayaking surrounded by ice bergs, probably a few other activities I don’t even know exist yet… but most things I’ve wanted to do, besides hikes (which are mostly free) are finished. The south island is all about the Great Walks for me. I believe I’ll try and pick up paid work come May or so to try and regain a little bit of money before heading to Australia, but I’ll see how things go closer to that point. By then, I should be finished with the South Island and have an idea where I’d like to settle down for my final months here. Right now Taupo is still my #1 choice for a place to spend a few months, but Rotorua, Tauranga or even Queenstown might be viable options. Queenstown in the winter might really be something to see. I just don’t want to drive much in that kind of weather…:)

I hope everyone still reading has enjoyed the journey so far – I certainly have!

The Ruins of Christchurch

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Continuing North after the successful visit with the penguins of Oamaru and Dunedin, Hung, Markus and I reached our final destination on their tour of New Zealand – Christchurch. The drive from Te Anau to Dunedin, then northward through Oamaru to Christchurch was the most dreadfully boring stretch of driving I’ve done in all of New Zealand. Much of it is done across plains, not coast line, and not mountains. BORING. Based on that drive alone, I actually altered my plans for once Hung and Markus left – I wasn’t about to willingly drive that stretch again if I could avoid it. There just wasn’t much of interest beyond the penguins and boulders, and this was over hundreds of kilometers of driving. The exception was Dunedin. The city looked wonderful and I liked that area. I’ll be returning there at some point, hopefully.

Anyways, we had made it to Christchurch. Time for more babbling on my part! This probably takes the cake as ‘worst NZ city to drive in’. Numerous one-way roads are part of the problem, but the largest was the NAMING of the roads – they would change the name of the bloody road you were driving on every 4-5 blocks it seemed. This made finding streets, destinations, etc. a downright nightmare. And all of this isn’t even considering the roads closures due to earthquake damage.

There were two major earthquakes in Christchurch – the first, in September of 2010, caused damage but amazingly didn’t result in any fatalities. The second, in February of 2011, the city wasn’t so lucky. Claiming 181 lives, it was a disaster on the scale New Zealand had never seen before. And after seeing the city, is still very much coping with.

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Of Penguins and Boulders

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After leaving Te Anau, the next destination with Hung and Markus was the East Coast of the South Island. There was one very specific reason for this part of the trip – Penguins. Near Dunedin, we found a refuge that works to help preserve the rarest of all penguins (about the same rarity as the Galapagos Penguin), the Yellow Eyed Penguin.

To get to see the penguins, they reserve has designed trenches to take you close to the penguins. The penguins are wild, the reserve just provides a safe environment for them to come home to and breed, if the penguins so choose. The reserve has been successful and has quite a few families now. Well, quite a few for Yellow-eyed. Unlike other penguins, the yellow-eyed is decidedly an anti-social penguin, and dislikes living in large groups. They pair up and that’s it, no big groups of them here. Into the tunnels we went.

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