On the Thursday we got up and headed towards Hanmer, one of the sites in New Zealand with natural goethermic springs. I was feeling slightly miserable as I was still thinking about the incident in Wanaka, the subsequent phone call and I also discovered a weird lump in my mouth. I’m pretty sure that this […]
Read the rest of Thursday 2nd October – Dunedin to Hanmer Springs
The Otago peninsular is famous for its wildlife, notably yellow-eyed penguins and albatrosses. We drove out there and stopped at an albatross breeding grounds. Unfortunately they all appeared to have already bred, or were working up to it and hence weren’t in the area. There were, however hundreds of gulls and also a large group […]
Read the rest of Wednesday 1st October – the Otago peninsular (Dunedin)
On the Tuesday we checked out of the motel and headed towards Dunedin. The roads were amazing cutting in and out of the mountains. I say this as the passenger of course and may have looked upon them slightly less favourably had I been driving. This area (Central Otago) is known as fruit country and […]
Read the rest of Tuesday 30th September – Glenorchy to Dunedin
So, after the previous night’s ordeal we arrived in Glenorchy at a silly time in the morning and slept in the car. When it was a reasonable hour, seven or so, we checked into a motel and slept. We woke up at around lunch time and explored the tiny town, had a gorgeous pub lunch […]
Read the rest of Sunday 28th to Monday 29th September – Glenorchy
Okay, firstly apologies for the title, but all should become clear…….. …So, I spent the day in Wanaka, wandered around the town and went and got a rather good gourmet burger with Lance. We went back to the hostel and after a little while there was a knock at the window. Lance answered and I […]
Read the rest of Saturday 27th September – Wanaka Wank%r!
I got up and met the English girl, who was also going on the heli-hike, in the reception of my hostel. We headed down to the centre in the town where we paid and were given a disclaimer and brief information. Then we headed down to the briefing centre where we were given our gear. […]
Read the rest of Friday 26th September – Franz Josef glacier to Wanaka
On Thursday I woke up and wandered into the town. When I say town here, there was really only one road in Franz Josef with shops but it was enough. I sat and had lunch and drank lots of coke with ice whilst admiring the most amazing views up to the mountains. Franz Josef is […]
Read the rest of Thursday 25th September – Franz Josef
I dropped the relocation car off in the morning and pottered around the town. Amongst other places, I went into one of the jade workshops which had an exhibition on the history of jade with a big waterfall thing on a jade boulder. Okay, so I haven’t made it sound all that exciting but it […]
Read the rest of Wednesday 24th September – Greymouth to Franz Josef
In the morning I collected my next relocation from Europcar. It was actually rather nice as, for the first time, I was collected from my hostel by a member of staff from the car hire company. It was great but also slightly strange as the guy was just standing in reception when I checked out […]
Read the rest of Tuesday 23rd September – Christchurch to Greymouth
On the Sunday I got up and headed to the craft market at the Arts’ centre that my taxi driver had recommended to me the previous day. It was quite funky with the usual offerings of tarot readings and horrible, knitted woollen hats. There were some other more interesting additions like New Zealand jade and […]
Read the rest of Sunday 21st September to Monday 22nd September – Christchurch