Wanaka, New Zealand
I expect many of you have suffered from several sleepless nights since I last wrote wondering what David and Rebecca did next. You're about to find out.
We're now in Wanaka, which is easily one of the most stunning places on Earth. As we drove over Haast Pass from the coast, the landscape suddenly transformed from the lush, verdant rainforest jungle simply known as "bush" that covers so much of the country we'd thus far seen, to an arid zone of amazing bare peaks, deep blue lakes and autumnal colours. It's harvest time, with roadside stalls everywhere selling apples, pears, feijoas and pumpkins, and the trees by the water and the vineyards are turning amazing shades of crimson and gold. We're staying here for four nights and hope to get a flight over to Milford Sound one day, but the weather in Fiordland isn't cooperating at the moment so it may turn out to be yet another place we've had to leave off our list this time. So much New Zealand, so few weeks to try and see it all in. Still, there's plenty to keep us busy here, and we'll definitely do a daytrip to Queenstown and Arrowtown as well before heading up to Mount Cook, Lake Tekapo and Christchurch. And Wanaka has the best cinema, where you sit on battered retired sofas (or even inside an old Morris Minor) and where there's an interval halfway through the film for people stock up on home-made cookies and ice cream. We saw The World's Fastest Indian, and it was nice to hear the Kiwis in the audience cheering on their man from Invercargill.
So I left you in Rotorua, where the basketball courts had recently erupted and the weather was keeping us indoors. We have seen the sun since then (and for long enough to realise it goes round the sky a different way down here) but also plenty more of the "long white cloud" that gives New Zealand its Maori name. However, there's only been one day when we got truly soaked, as we tramped along the Abel Tasman Coastal Track and a tropical monsoon unleashed itself on us, pouring torrentially for over ten hours. Abel Tasman National Park is supposed to be a landscape of golden beaches, turquoise sea, bush and perpetual sunbathing, but instead we nearly drowned in the most miserable deluge imaginable. It was so wet that even my GoreTex coat gave up, packed in and took itself off home. By the end of our hike our feet were in an inch of water inside our boots. Still, as that day marked the difficult first anniversary of my mum's death, it seemed somehow appropriate.
After Rotorua, we drove down past Lake Taupo to Napier, where the temperature was several degrees cooler than the Mediterranean/Californian climate our Rough Guide described. We did an Art Deco architectural walking tour before a man called Vince ("Vunce") bundled us into the back of his minivan and, in between talking about the upcoming Hurricanes vs Crusaders rugby game that he had tickets for the following weekend, gave us a personal trip round six wineries where we sampled a total of about 45 different wines in the space of three hours. By the end of the afternoon we were so drunk that we ended up buying a bottle that had the words "Chris de Burgh" on the label. The Hawkes Bay region is extraordinarily ambitious when it comes to winemaking and they'll try their hand at any grape - we sampled Tempranillo, Viognier and Montepulciano as well as the more traditional Sauvignons, Chardonnays, Merlots and Cab Savs.
From Napier we drove south to Wellington, stopping to see some kiwis at the Mount Bruce Wildlife Centre, kiwis as in the strange nocturnal bird that snuffles around in the undergrowth with a long beak, and not the fruits or the locals. Ben ("Bin" - sorry, these vowels are catching) and Amanda then showed us round Wellington for a couple of days - its bays, beaches, hills, botanical gardens, beehive shaped parliament and the Te Papa national museum. They also introduced us to the marvellous concept of going out for tea and cake at ten o'clock at night, something which there should be more of in the UK I feel.
Then it was over the ferry through the glorious Marlborough Sounds to Picton. A school of dolphins swam alongside the boat for a while and the views were incredible. Thankfully the wind and rain lulled for those couple of days so it made for a calm and peaceful crossing. We drove onwards, through vineyards where naughty lambs were nibbling on the Sauvignon grapes and the sun was setting, to Motueka, near Nelson. Here we stayed with Amanda's remarkably self-sufficient mum (known as Moo) for three nights before setting off on a long drive down the West Coast.
We passed some frighteningly rough seas and some spectacular blowholes at Pancake Rocks before staying at the glaciers (Franz Josef and Fox, as in the mints) for a couple of days. Some wonderful walks - and the cloud lifted for us to get the full effect of the mirror lake at Lake Matheson, which looks towards Mount Cook in its reflecting pools. We also went to the lagoon at Okarito, which forms the backdrop to one of my favourite books, The Bone People by Keri Hulme.
Talking of bones, we did have the slight problem that a bone from a roadkill possum corpse punctured one of the tyres on our hire car on the way into Franz Josef. We hadn't liked the hire car in the first place - on the North Island we had a nice, stable if slightly fuddy-duddy Astra. but in Picton we picked up a sporty Mitsubishi with a 2-litre engine that gobbles up petrol like nobody's business and makes us look a right pair of chavs. So a puncture and a lack of competent mechanics to repair the tyre put a bit of a downer on things, but we're back up and running now. It is great driving in New Zealand because outside of the cities the roads are empty. Not sure about their penchant for one-lane bridges though. Or their insistence that if you're turning left, someone coming towards you turning right into the same junction has priority over you.
Anyway, I'm sure there's a million things I've left out but soon it will be time for dinner and choosing a restaurant takes a great deal of decision making because there's an enormous choice. The food is really good everywhere - probably mostly because it's all grown/reared in the country rather than flown halfway round the world before ending up on a supermarket shelf. Tonight I think we'll have some fish ("fush").
We're now in Wanaka, which is easily one of the most stunning places on Earth. As we drove over Haast Pass from the coast, the landscape suddenly transformed from the lush, verdant rainforest jungle simply known as "bush" that covers so much of the country we'd thus far seen, to an arid zone of amazing bare peaks, deep blue lakes and autumnal colours. It's harvest time, with roadside stalls everywhere selling apples, pears, feijoas and pumpkins, and the trees by the water and the vineyards are turning amazing shades of crimson and gold. We're staying here for four nights and hope to get a flight over to Milford Sound one day, but the weather in Fiordland isn't cooperating at the moment so it may turn out to be yet another place we've had to leave off our list this time. So much New Zealand, so few weeks to try and see it all in. Still, there's plenty to keep us busy here, and we'll definitely do a daytrip to Queenstown and Arrowtown as well before heading up to Mount Cook, Lake Tekapo and Christchurch. And Wanaka has the best cinema, where you sit on battered retired sofas (or even inside an old Morris Minor) and where there's an interval halfway through the film for people stock up on home-made cookies and ice cream. We saw The World's Fastest Indian, and it was nice to hear the Kiwis in the audience cheering on their man from Invercargill.
So I left you in Rotorua, where the basketball courts had recently erupted and the weather was keeping us indoors. We have seen the sun since then (and for long enough to realise it goes round the sky a different way down here) but also plenty more of the "long white cloud" that gives New Zealand its Maori name. However, there's only been one day when we got truly soaked, as we tramped along the Abel Tasman Coastal Track and a tropical monsoon unleashed itself on us, pouring torrentially for over ten hours. Abel Tasman National Park is supposed to be a landscape of golden beaches, turquoise sea, bush and perpetual sunbathing, but instead we nearly drowned in the most miserable deluge imaginable. It was so wet that even my GoreTex coat gave up, packed in and took itself off home. By the end of our hike our feet were in an inch of water inside our boots. Still, as that day marked the difficult first anniversary of my mum's death, it seemed somehow appropriate.
After Rotorua, we drove down past Lake Taupo to Napier, where the temperature was several degrees cooler than the Mediterranean/Californian climate our Rough Guide described. We did an Art Deco architectural walking tour before a man called Vince ("Vunce") bundled us into the back of his minivan and, in between talking about the upcoming Hurricanes vs Crusaders rugby game that he had tickets for the following weekend, gave us a personal trip round six wineries where we sampled a total of about 45 different wines in the space of three hours. By the end of the afternoon we were so drunk that we ended up buying a bottle that had the words "Chris de Burgh" on the label. The Hawkes Bay region is extraordinarily ambitious when it comes to winemaking and they'll try their hand at any grape - we sampled Tempranillo, Viognier and Montepulciano as well as the more traditional Sauvignons, Chardonnays, Merlots and Cab Savs.
From Napier we drove south to Wellington, stopping to see some kiwis at the Mount Bruce Wildlife Centre, kiwis as in the strange nocturnal bird that snuffles around in the undergrowth with a long beak, and not the fruits or the locals. Ben ("Bin" - sorry, these vowels are catching) and Amanda then showed us round Wellington for a couple of days - its bays, beaches, hills, botanical gardens, beehive shaped parliament and the Te Papa national museum. They also introduced us to the marvellous concept of going out for tea and cake at ten o'clock at night, something which there should be more of in the UK I feel.
Then it was over the ferry through the glorious Marlborough Sounds to Picton. A school of dolphins swam alongside the boat for a while and the views were incredible. Thankfully the wind and rain lulled for those couple of days so it made for a calm and peaceful crossing. We drove onwards, through vineyards where naughty lambs were nibbling on the Sauvignon grapes and the sun was setting, to Motueka, near Nelson. Here we stayed with Amanda's remarkably self-sufficient mum (known as Moo) for three nights before setting off on a long drive down the West Coast.
We passed some frighteningly rough seas and some spectacular blowholes at Pancake Rocks before staying at the glaciers (Franz Josef and Fox, as in the mints) for a couple of days. Some wonderful walks - and the cloud lifted for us to get the full effect of the mirror lake at Lake Matheson, which looks towards Mount Cook in its reflecting pools. We also went to the lagoon at Okarito, which forms the backdrop to one of my favourite books, The Bone People by Keri Hulme.
Talking of bones, we did have the slight problem that a bone from a roadkill possum corpse punctured one of the tyres on our hire car on the way into Franz Josef. We hadn't liked the hire car in the first place - on the North Island we had a nice, stable if slightly fuddy-duddy Astra. but in Picton we picked up a sporty Mitsubishi with a 2-litre engine that gobbles up petrol like nobody's business and makes us look a right pair of chavs. So a puncture and a lack of competent mechanics to repair the tyre put a bit of a downer on things, but we're back up and running now. It is great driving in New Zealand because outside of the cities the roads are empty. Not sure about their penchant for one-lane bridges though. Or their insistence that if you're turning left, someone coming towards you turning right into the same junction has priority over you.
Anyway, I'm sure there's a million things I've left out but soon it will be time for dinner and choosing a restaurant takes a great deal of decision making because there's an enormous choice. The food is really good everywhere - probably mostly because it's all grown/reared in the country rather than flown halfway round the world before ending up on a supermarket shelf. Tonight I think we'll have some fish ("fush").
posted by Rebecca Dodgson | 4:13 pm
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