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The Adventure Continues to the South Island of New Zealand! (If you haven't read about the North Island, you can do so here.)
The ferry landed in Picton at midnight, there isn't much to say about the ride since it was pitch dark and the winds were howling. We took a second to go up on deck just to see the sunset and nearly got blown overboard.
Travel tip: To be honest, the price of a ferry is a little silly, $300-350 one way. If you are planning a camper trip we would recommend either flying between the islands or doing one of them at a time to avoid this.
New Zealand, South Island
We unloaded and zipped over to a nearby park to sleep for the night. In the morning we headed to Rarangi beach for breakfast. Rarangi is a cool spot because it is (apparently) the first place in the world to see the sun each morning, Nick and Andi looked dubious at this claim but we saw it on a sign so it must be true.
We had a leisurely brekky and soaked up some lovely rays before heading into a monsoon. We joked throughout the trip that we headed south a day early for the weather. Always waking up to sunshine and warmth before heading further south into the cool and wet, our drive to Kaikoura was no exception. The road along the sea is beautiful. You come around bends in the road to the most beautiful backdrops of craggy rocks, green mountain slopes, and turquoise blue water. Some of this was lost on Alex, who was concentrating on getting us through another torrential downpour and yet more wind.
Seals live on the rocks, literally just beside you on the highway and can be viewed from several lookouts along the way. We stopped off for a couple of hours for lunch (Alex needed a nap) and to watch the seals be merry.
This next chunk is in Alex’s words, as he wasn’t happy..
The people of Kaikoura have crabs….in and around their pants….I’m being bitter but it’s still a good paragraph intro. Up to now freedom camping had been a bit of a challenge on the north island, but this was nothing compared to the complete faffery of Kaikoura. You see there are new regulations that have gone into effect as of December 8 this last year, in regard to the self-containment of camper vans. Kaikoura however, with their infinitely crabby undies had decided that they were “special from the rest of New Zealand” and wanted the new regulations to be in effect early. Not only that but you were required to have a special waiver as well, signed and sealed to camp in their “freedom” camp spots. They are a bunch of prissy wankers in my opinion. After our trials to date, I was thoroughly annoyed at this development. So we went ahead and found the best camp spot to date. A little south of the town we found a beachside pullout with no camping or parking restrictions. A little hop over the hedge and we were out of site from the road and completely private from the world, it was some proper freedom camping and a beautiful spot to spend the evening. For the first time in a while we left the window covers open for the night and enjoyed the sound of waves lapping at the shore. Finally, the morning saw some nicer weather and we spent the day with the seals. You can walk along the beach at Kaikoura right up with them. A few had escaped the rocky shores and were basking in the short grass, even as we stepped within inches of them they couldn't be fussed to move. They are kind of like adorable, fat, lazy, water dogs. This made for some fun picture opportunities for Krystal. We finished off the afternoon with a massive seafood lunch!
There is a tiny lobster shack on the way back into town that was practically throwing lobsters out the window for the amount of customers they had. We bowed out of paying $100 for a lobster tail and instead opted for the seafood platter (worth it). A monstrous plate of scallops, prawns, white bait fritter, and a crayfish fryup. Alex managed to offend an elderly couple when they commented that we wouldn't need dinner and replied “you haven't seen her eat” while gesturing to me. To which I received the most British “oh what a thing to say”, complete with the hand over mouth gesture. We had a good laugh at this before proceeding to demolish our food. But the truth is, for anyone who knows me, you know this girl can eat.
From there we were off to Christchurch before the final leg of our journey south towards Milford Sound. We spent an afternoon in Christchurch, we toured the botanical gardens and the old college district. If you have any interest in architecture then the old college grounds are worth a look. Walking in and around the old stone buildings feels like being at your very own Hogwarts, the way the grounds connect through the buildings gives a very old timey feel and you can imagine young lawyers or doctors of the old generation dodging cranky teachers through the corridors. The botanical gardens are worth the visit as well, it's a lovely (free) walk that is connected to the Christchurch equivalent of Central Park. We learned about the world's smallest moth here, which was discovered in NZ and is not much bigger than a mosquito. Not much time was spent in Christchurch, we had more important places to adventure.
This leads us to our next spot and one of my absolute favorites.
Lake Tekapo
Where Lupins grow and bloom, the beauty of the vast fields of these purple flowers growing around a turquoise lake. For all of our off timings and challenges with this trip, we nailed this one on the head for our resident plant lover. (Hiii, it's me) The flowers were in full bloom, which of course meant an afternoon photo shoot with them. Gosh do they ever smell amazing, my goal is to plant some in my yard when I'm back home.
Fun Fact: Lake Tekapo (yes it's beautiful) is not unique in its beauty. The waters in most lakes and rivers that we encountered were a shocking shade of bright blue. (Think Moraine lake) This is due in part to the mineral content from glacial runoff as well as their pristine cleanliness.
We stopped off at a couple of different spots on our way west to lunch and swim. The water is cold don't get me wrong, but after a couple of dives it starts to feel reasonable. I personally love dips in glacier lakes or waterfalls, Alex on the other hand with his slow daffy duck waddle in was met with my “just go for it”. Low and slow works for cooking but he agreed for cold water dips my way way better, just jump and tank the minor heart attack. Took him a bit to get use to it, but by the end, he was loving it.
Milford Sound
The penultimate location of our travels! This marked the end goal before we headed north and back to Auckland. A cool sleep was had at the Possum Lodge before we headed out and drove north. The arrival into Milford is a process that builds up to the ultimate payoff.
We started driving through open plains, vast flat expanses backdropped with jagged peaks on both sides. As we moved north the mountains pinched in closer until trees sprouted up in front of us and we were funneled into green forest again. The winding road through the trees is beautiful and only matched by one other location we visited (more on that later).
Our first day in Milford was interesting, to say the least, more for my body than anything else but we'll get to that. Our morning started simply enough, a quick 15 minute walk to see a waterfall would set the stage, easy right? As we approached the waterfall I took a tumble on a slick spot and got stuck, literally stuck in the ground butt first. I had banged my knee and was told I was not allowed to shimmy down the steep, wet, mossy fallen tree to get pictures at the base of the falls. So Alex shimmied instead, he had fun playing Tarzan but admitted it was one of the sketchier climbs he'd done. All good though he got some photos and we were off to the real hike of the day, Lake Marian!
Lake Marian New Zealand
If you enjoy hiking, spectacular views, and lakes then this hike is a must if you are in NZ. We stopped off for lunch and a lovely chat with some fellow Canadians before we embarked. This hike is not for beginners, there are steep winding paths and a decent amount of scramble points. If you make it past the tourist pathway and are not prepared, you're going to have a bad time. The hike itself took us a little over 2 hours to get up, I honestly had twisted my ankle pretty badly and my knee was purple… But if there was one hike I was set on doing, it was this one!
We reached the lake with the sun shining bright and hot. The lake, much like most in NZ was a beautiful shade of blue which reflected the mountains around it with stunning clarity. Time for sandwiches and a dip! Like most alpine lakes Marian is chilly, to say the least, but after a couple of dips we were able to swim around for a bit and found a diving rock that was brilliant!
A large boulder sticks out of the lake and is easily walkable on the shore side, the water then drops depth significantly on the lakeside. This made it perfect for diving in, getting back up and then sunning like a big ole lazy lizard. We spent a couple of hours enjoying the good life before we headed back down, slowly. Turns out that up is easy on a bum leg but down is much slower. We took our time to get back safe and even adopted a pack of German girls on the way. They insisted on sticking with us so as not to lose their way down. Seemed silly to me but we listened to them chatter away in German for an hour nonetheless. Success! Touch grass! We made it!
Fun fact: Kias are an endangered parrot species that we encountered in Milford. They are unique to New Zealand and only about 5000 are thought to exist. Despite this, they like to visit tourists at stop off points and surf on windshields.
Entering the Sound
Entering into Milford is a feast for your eyeballs and sets a new bar for beautiful landscapes. We drove up the rocky hills towards the tunnel entrance of the mountain (very Tolkien). The tunnel is one-way and once the light goes green you descend through the mountain towards the most beautiful geography in the world. The light at the end of the tunnel grows and you exit the tunnel into a vast mountain bowl, carved straight toward the ocean.
Waterfalls ring the bowl like silvery threads down into the green forest below. We have been told that this view is even more spectacular in the rain as there are even more waterfalls! What follows is a downhill drive track that really shouldn’t be done in a camper van, the steep slope combined with 15km/h hairpins put your driving skills to the test…as well as the brakes, which we may have cooked a little bit.
We arrived this particular morning for our boat tour. If you go to the Sound and don’t do a tour we’re of the opinion that you’ve slightly wasted your time. Do the boat tour. For an hour you sit up top in the sun (hopefully) watching the landscape around you being its best self. On a good day you can catch dolphins and even tiny penguins out and about. The kiwi commentary from the captain also adds a lively shot of humor to an already informative ride around the bay. Words don’t really do it justice, neither do my photos, to be honest!
From here we were on our way home. We had taken 3 weeks to get down to Milford and we had just over a week to get back north. Considering most of the trip was done we didn't think that NZ could keep throwing haymakers at us like it did. Some of our best and most memorable spots were in this last week!
Mt Cook, the mountain named for the good captain himself was a sight to behold. We woke up early to make this one, and you need to. It’s a popular tourist spot with a large hotel nearby. Even with our bright eyes and bushy tails parking was still a bit tight to get in. There are several walking trails in the area but with my leg still being a bit off we elected for the easy elevation gain to go to the lake. Another alpine lake to dip in!
If by alpine you mean arctic. Icebergs were floating in the water, that's all I'm saying… it's flipping cold. The water was also unlike anything we had seen, no clear blue here. It was the color of milky tea, which had something to do with sediment from the glacier melting into it.
Less fun fact: Sand fleas (Noseeums) are the result of satan getting bored of mosquitos and tinkering in the workshop too long. These tiny buggers will bite you in ways that make mossies seem cute, and they always go for the ankles for some reason. Maori lore says that the goddess of death created them when she saw how beautiful the landscape was and wanted something to remind mortals that they were on earth. They are exclusively on the south island though, so if you are headed down there bring bug spray.
Tip of the South Island, New Zealand
Our next stop was Nelson, which didn’t hold much of anything remarkable unless you happen to be Smeagol. The One Ring! Turns out that the jeweler who made the movie Rings is in Nelson. If you pop into the shop and ask about it they are more than happy to talk; the gentleman at the counter gave us a good half hour lecture on how and why they made the ring(s) and the different sizes that were used for filming. He also put us on to our next best meal, very hobbitish of him indeed. Krystal did a fair bit of LOTR location scouting for me while we were traveling and this place was cool!
Cable Bay and Havelock were next on the road. We stopped off in Cable Bay for dinner, a beach swim and accidentally one of the best sunsets we have ever seen. The water was warm so we spent the afternoon bobbing around like corks in the waves. Naturally, I wanted to hang out for sunset after dinner. We won't go into all of her criteria for sunsets or we'd need another 5 pages but needless to say the bay wasn't cutting it that evening. Not enough clouds. So we packed up and drove a bit down the road at which point we found really good clouds. We'll let the pictures do the talking but it was like watching the sky set on fire. The deep orange and yellows against the shape of the clouds was spectacular. We have come to believe that the best parts of travel are not planned. They are the one-off, couldn’t have guessed this would happen type things that we remember the most.
Havelock was the spot that our ring-making friend had mentioned to us for food. Both of us love food, perhaps we are secretly hobbits in tall elf bodies…probably shouldn’t ruminate on that for too long. Havelock is the green lipped mussel capital of the world! We hopped into town on a beautiful sunny morning and hiked up Mt Takorika for, as you might guess at this point, a waterfall! (Shock, gasp, clutch your chest) It’s a lovely local spot and the shade in the trees kept the bulk of sun from cooking our heads. The map of the trail is not exactly to scale, so we walked a bit, and then climbed a bit more. The 20 minute waterfall route turned into a 2 hour tramp around the hills. Well worth it then when I decided to take a bath in the falls to cool off. Hunger was on the rise and the promise of a bowl of steamed mussels and fresh bread sounded heavenly. We headed over to the Mussel Pot and we really wish we could say we recommend this spot but sadly can’t. Nothing to do with their food quality but that they were closed, silly tourists forgetting to check the day of the week (Wednesday) I tell ya. Fortunately, there was a spot down the road that was open and ohhh boy let me tell you about them green mussels. They make Canadian ones look like nothing at all. When the lady at the stall guessed “about 12-15 per bowl” we were a bit disappointed, but not realizing that the shells were the size of my hand! They are delicious, and also pretty cheap considering we paid to eat out. You can get them much cheaper from the markets when they are in season and if you have the chance we recommend you take it.
The ferry trip north was much nicer, funny what a month will do for the weather. This time it was sunny and warm, albeit a bit of a wind was up but it was nice to be out in the morning air with the sun on our faces for a bit. We had taken an early ferry ticket to try and get a jump on the day and the driving. Unfortunately, the ferry was then delayed an hour and a bit leaving. We had been warned about this, if you book with the blue line it’s apparently not a problem but booking with Interislander can be subject to delays and even cancellations without notice. Travel planners take note.
Now back in the north island, it was time to get driving. We had a couple of days to get back but not without another epic moment. Camping under a volcano! I (Krystal) kept this one tight to the vest but as we drove along the road I couldn't help pointing out a cloud wrapped mountain, “That's our spot”. Egmont National Park was the coolest drive we had experienced. It's the standard tight and winding roads we were used to at this point but the trees make it special. The foliage has grown over the road in such a way that it has become a living tunnel of green. Travelling through it feels like you are in a portal to another world and that Narnia must surely be at the end. We emerged at the top to another welcome surprise. The parking lot was a completely open freedom camp spot! Double win! After all our time in NZ, I don't think we saw another national park that had this. The triple win here was seeing the peak, yes there was also an epic waterfall, but more on that in another email. We were told that you rarely see the peaks of volcanos due to cloud coverage, later in the evening our co-campers started rushing out of their vans in a proper tizzy of excitement and cameras. The clouds had dispersed and you could see the peak of the volcano clear as day!
And now to wind it down. It was time to let lucy go and start the next adventure. We headed up to Auckland and camped out on Muriwai beach for a couple of nights. After all the drive time it was nice to chill for a couple of days. We walked the beach and watched the kids learning to surf. Muriwai is a famous surf beach so we’re told. A trip to the carwash later and we met up with Nick. We really can't thank Nick and his wife Andi enough for their help. Having a base to start and finish our trip was worth its weight in gold. We are off to Australia now for the Christmas season! See you soon.
Here ends our adventures in New Zealand. In order to do it proper justice we did it as a 2-part novel, If you haven't read about the North Island, you can do so here.
We hope you enjoyed our time in New Zealand, I will at some point write one just about the waterfalls cause that country had blown my mind in the best of ways!
Thanks for being here friend, till next time.
Xo Krystal