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New Zealand |
| New Zealand was voted top adventure travel destination by Wanderlust magazine last year. In this section, we travel down the beautiful West Coast from Greymouth to the gold panning town of Hokitika, on to Fox's Glacier to do a spot of heli-hiking and to visit the remote seal colony at Gillespie's beach. Further south, we came to the pleasant lakeside town of Wanaka to try our hand at kayaking, then on to Queenstown, adrenaline capital of the world for some bungy jumping. |
| Hokitika From Greymouth, we drove 60km south to Hokitika, a mining settlement on the coast. At Hokitika, the cliffs give way to a sweep of grey sand dunes. The sands are rich in gold and jade. Given enough patience or a large mechanical excavator and suitable equipment, you can find both on the beach. We got into a pleasant hostel called the Beachside Backpackers, which distinguishes itself by possessing a large outdoor hot-tub. It's run by the amiable and rather garrulous Tracey. We grilled Tracey on the best spots to go panning for gold in the local area. She gave us some advice and lent us a couple of gold pans and a pill bottle to store our gold in. She actually emptied all her medication out in order to give us the bottle, and I had visions of her frothing at the mouth when we returned. |
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 Katie seeks her fortune gold panning |
Following Tracey's directions, we headed inland down a narrow lane looking for a bridge and a secret spot by the river (I can't tell you where exactly!). Having parked up, we sneaked down to the river, and started panning. We weren't really sure of the correct technique to use, so we tried everything, from sifting up huge wads of gravel and swishing it violently, to delicate swirling. Katie was more successful than I was, and between us we pulled out quite a few small flakes. You have to be careful though, there's quite a bit of 'fools gold' around too, a worthless iron ore. Needless to say, our findings hardly amounted to much. "I guess we will be returning to the UK then after all" I commented glumly after a couple of hours. The sand flies were beginning to bite, so we headed home rubbing aching backs. | |
| We
left Hokitika just after lunch, since we had quite a few miles to cover
down the coast to the Southern Alps, where we hoped to spend some time
amongst the glaciers. On the southern fringe of the town, we stopped and
picked up a couple of hitch-hikers. It was only after we picked them up
that we discovered quite what a pair of wierdos they were. Darren was
dressed like a 1970s disco fiend in flared trousers and a lary
waist-hugging shirt. Laura had a big floppy hat on and a save the forest
T-shirt in. She had a pet rat, which she kept up her sleeve. Needless to
say, I didn't notice the rat before we stopped to pick them up. They
were quite good company, two art students, living rough sleeping in
hedges and travelling the country together. |
 Three hitchhikers, two human and one rat! |
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| We arrived at Franz Joseph Glacier at about four, and whilst it was too late to go up onto the glacier, we parked up and went with our two flower power friends to the foot, walking across the broad U-shaped valley, across the moraines. At one point, Laura disappeared into a bush for a pee, only to be stared at by two American tourists. She told them to eff off looking at her. The glacier was very impressive, a long white tongue of ice winding down the valley. Climbers were filing down the ice face like ants. It was very cold at the face, particularly since all I was wearing was a vest and shorts. We went back to the hoary old Honda and drove on to Fox's Glacier. We dropped the hippy kids off in the centre of the village. "Where will you sleep tonight?" I enquired. "Oh I dunno, maybe in that field over there" said Darren. Feeling sorry for them we bought them a drink at the hotel bade them farewell and headed off to look for a hotel, the Backpacker's Inn. | ||
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| Fox's
Glacier |
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| The village at the foot of Fox's glacier probably didn't exist in the years pre-tourism. It's all hotels, restaurants, tour agencies and overpriced convenience stores. It's also pretty overpriced. We decided we couldn't afford to eat out, so we bought in some tinned ravioli from the local shop. After dinner, we hit the hostel's bar, which is by far its most attractive feature, and played pool with a couple of bored Dutch lesbians. | ||
| Where to Stay at Fox's
Glacier The Backpacker's Inn. Very small rooms, faced with hardboard. In the words of a fellow guest "it's like living inside a wardrobe". Good kitchen area with ample cooking facilities and a TV. A pleasant bar with pool table and TV. Quite cheap. |
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| Heli-hiking
the glacier On our first full day in Fox's we decided to put the "bugger it, it's our last month lets flash the visa card" policy into force, and booked ourselves onto a heli-hiking tour up the glacier. |
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| The poor old visa
card groaned under the heavy hit for $340 NZ for this extravagance. We
found ourselves being kitted up for the hike courtesy of Alpine
Guides Ltd. I swapped my comfy karrimor hiking boots for a pair of shoddy old hobnailed boots and we joined 8 other fearless adventurers for the first leg of this adventure - an 8 minute bus ride to the heli-pad. We were taking the easy way up, no ice axes for us, just a smart new helicopter for the 15minute ride up to 1200m followed by a 2 1/2 hour trek up exploring the glacial features around 'Victoria Flats'. The helicopter ride was what costs the money, but it was worth it. The pilot wowed us with some stunts, like flying the aircraft on its side, and swooping down a side valley at great speed in for the landing. We spent our time on the face exploring ice caves, crevasses and gurgling merlin-holes. "If you were to slip down that one, you'd probably go down a couple a hundred metres. It's like Swiss cheese in there." explained Lee, our guide. It sent shivers down your spine to think about it. |
 Katie explores an ice cave |
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| People can and do hike around up here for days at a time, but we found two and a half hours to be quite adequate. The helicopter whisked us back down in time for a late lunch at the pleasant Hobnail Cafe. The afternoon was spent lazing on the verandah of the hotel. |  |
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| Waitinigi There are many other worthwhile things to do in and around Fox's Glacier. Well worth the walk is Lake Mattheson, otherwise known as Waitinigi, which is renowned for its reflective properties. Set amidst a dark dank fern forest, it is eerily still and quite sinister. Sounds can be heard from miles around, and yes, the reflections of the mountains in the dark waters are quite stunning. Seal Spotting Gillespie's beach is also worth a visit, and only a short detour at 20kms down a narrow gravel lane. from Fox's glacier. This is a good spot to come seal spotting, since there are a couple of colonies about an hours' walk down the beach. |
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| The
beach walk is made interesting for two reasons. 1. There is a seal
colony at the end of it. 2. You have to be careful when you walk it to
avoid being cut off and dashed to pieces by incoming tides. The first challenge is that you need to ford a fairly fast flowing river. Katie got freaked out at this stage and returned to the car. She didn't really want to do the walk in the first place anyway. |
 Kea |
Close
encounter with a Kea The trip started eventfully, since we almost killed a couple of Kea that were skulking on the track. We'd heard about these odd little birds, similar to a parrot, but with a long thin beak. They have a reputation for mischievousness, such as dismantling bits of your car whilst you go for a walk along the beach! They flew up into the refuge of a nearby tree, and eyed us warily, no doubt deliberating upon which bits of the car they were going to steal. |
| I navigated my way around the boulders on the beach. The tide was coming in, though I calculated that I had at least an hour and a half before it got really dodgy. Things started to get really hairy when I was attacked by man-eating seagulls. I must have been close to a nest site or something, because a pair of them started divebombing me from a great height, screeching. They started to hit my head, and I had to hurl a few pebbles in their general direction to avoid becoming lunch. Soon after this Hitchcockian nightmare, I came across my first seal. I didn't see it until I'd actually passed it, and I don't know who was more shocked him or me, as I heard him shuffling off down the beach as fast as he could, which isn't really very fast. Then I saw around twenty more, lazing on some rocks just out to sea. |  |
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| They're great
fun to watch, quite anthropomorphic, lazy old lumps, occasionally
raising a flipper to waft away a fly. Some were wallowing in the sea,
like old men doing the backstroke. It was very exciting. I was concerned
not to disturb them, but they usually spotted me coming, and slid off
their ledges into the sea. There were no other people about. I headed back an hour before high tide, and encountered two mad people on their way in. Katie was asleep on the back seat of the car, histrionics a distant memory, and we headed back to the town for lunch. After lunch, we packed up the car and headed off South to the lakeside town of Wanaka. It's a long drive south from Fox's glacier, so we broke the journey up by stopping at a couple of beauty spots along the way and by picking up a couple of hitchhikers again. These two were a bit more normal than the flower kids. They were Americans, Brett and Louise, on a short vacation. I nearly killed them, and us, by almost driving into the lake at Wanaka - caused by a sudden onset of fatigue. Katie took over the driving for the final 30kms. |
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| Wanaka | ||
| Wanaka is a delightful little town set in the heart of the New Zealand Alps, at the foot of a large lake of the same name. Wanaka is a paradise for lovers of the great outdoors, not as brash as nearby Queenstown, it offers all manner of healthy diversions from horse riding to white water sledging. In the winter it is a busy ski resort. | ||
| Hiking
up Mount Roy Wanaka is encircled by mountains, and there are plenty of great walks on offer. Katie picked out Mount Roy on the west side of the lake, and after stocking up with food, we set off for the summit. Its 1587m high, and we started at 250m, so it was quite a climb. It was a fiercely hot day, and we were woefully understocked with water. It all ran out well before we got to the top, and that was with rationing. The compensation for this torture was the view, which was superb. The final 200m to the top follows a spine-chilling knife-edge ridge. From the top, we had a full panorama of surrounding peaks set against a bright blue cloudless sky. We ate our sandwiches on the top, and fantasized about ice cold drinks. It had taken us just over three hours to reach the summit, but we got down in less than an hour, running like wildmen in anticipation of the drinks we would guzzle at the bottom, sliding on our bums over the grass. When we got down, we drove at breakneck speed for the nearest bar, and drank and drank. |
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| The
Paradiso - A Cinema with a Difference We went to the local cinema, the Paradiso to watch 'Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels' which had just been released. This cinema shows all the top films, but it's basically a private affair run by a mad Scotsman, who's kitted it out with old armchairs and sofas from junk shops. The mad Scotsman does everything - he sells the tickets, serves ice creams in the interval, mans the projector and shows you out at the end. It was great - like having a cinema screen in your living room. |
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| Kayaking
on the Hawaea Katie managed to twist her back somehow, and spent a couple of days convalescing. I therefore went kayaking on my own. Oddly, this was almost the first time we'd been apart from each other for months! What a thought! There were 11 people on the trip, of mixed abilities. We headed out for the Hawea river, led by our guide and owner of the company Alan, a fortysomething stockily built chap with a very loud voice and a bawdy sense of humour. He was excellent. The first thing they get you to do is learn all the main strokes on dry land. Then its into some 'safe' water to put it into practice, including the essential 'escape' from an upturned kayak. All this took no more than half an hour or so, after which we were in at the deep-end, literally. Andrew the other guide gave us a quick chat about hydrography. "What?". "It's the use of eddies and stuff to get where you want to on the river" he explained. "Oh!". Then we were off, and Alan was shouting advice incoherent to us. Three people went under straight away - a chaotic start. We regrouped in a calm spot and were taught how to use the eddies to 'break in' safely. Before too long they had us surfing the river waves and tanking along like pros. It was brilliant. Just dangerous enough to get the adrenaline really pumping, but not too lethal. We finished at 5pm and to my amazement they produced a picnic table some tea and huge tupperware containers of cakes! What a great way to end they day. Remember the name - Alpine River Guides - I can't recommend them enough. |
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| Queenstown | ||
| Queenstown is world renowned as an adventure sports mecca. It's a crazy commercialised place chock full of adrenaline junkie teenagers. "It's my fourteenth bungy jump in as many days, I can't get enough of it." Our first encounter with Queenstown's madcap adrenaline culture was actually a few miles out of town on the way in. We detoured off the main road up the Shotover canyon. This is where they do Jet Boating. Jet boats drive at 50kts in little more than 6" of water through canyons, inches from the walls. It's crazy! | ||
| Where not to stay
in Queenstown Scallywag's Hostel. The scallywag is Evan, the owner, a balding 50 year old bloke. The hostel is very clearly also his house, and sadly you do feel like an intruder as he fusses about the place tutting at you. I went to hang my fleece in the wardrobe of our room to find it stuffed full of Evan's own clothes! It was creepy. There are many other options, but it gets very busy here, so this is one place where you really should try to book ahead. |
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| Bungy
Jumping The choice of adventure sports on offer in Queenstown is quite bewildering. Take a walk down Shotover St, known locally as 'Adrenaline Alley', and you'll come across dozens of agencies offering some of the most bizarre activities. But the one thing you really should do here is go Bungy Jumping. Queentstown is the spiritual home of the bungy jump, having been invented by local lad, A J Hackett. When we were there, Hackett's were doing a two jumps for the price of one deal, where if you did the Skipper's Canyon - a 70m 'hoon' off a rickety old bridge in a gold mining valley, you get to jump free from 'The Ledge', Hacketts newest creation overlooking the town itself. Foolishly, I took them on. Katie had more sense, and booked on to a day's 'Fun Yakking' instead. Fun Yaks are large inflatable kayaks for wusses basically. (ouch) |
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 Adrian's
first Bungy Jump in Skipper's Canyon |
I
left Katie in bed, and stumbled into town at an early hour for my
weigh-in at Hacketts. Getting the right bungy cord for your weight is
quite important if you want to avoid a nasty headache from bashing your
bonce on the bottom. Despite having already 'had a motion' that morning,
I felt a primal stirring in my bowels as my imagination started to work
overtime, especially when they weighed me and stencilled my weight on my
hand 81lbs. What if they read it upside down and got put me on a rope
for 18lb people. What if they mixed up their kilos and their lbs? Worse,
they sent me away for an hour before the jeep left, giving me way too
much time to think. I chose to do my thinking on the porcelain throne in
a nearby cafe. 'How high is 70m?' I wondered, translating it into
numbers of houses - about 12! 'Does anyone die of fright on the way
down?' Skippers Canyon is good hours drive up an old gold mining dirt track, a precarious crumbling cliff edge journey - just to get the juices flowing. The Skippers Canyon Bridge is a rickety old wooden structure, improbably suspended above the deep ravine. There was a trickle of blue water far below, about two ft deep. "Who's Adrian" asked one of the bungy rope men?" This was one time to rue having a name that was near the top of the alphabet. "You're first". At least it meant less time for thinking. |
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| I was ordered
to "just climb out here!" I gingerly ducked through the wooden
fence to a narrow platform, hands sweating as I gripped like a lunatic
to the pole. In a trice, I found myself perched on the edge with my
ankles wrapped in an old hotel towel about to jump into oblivion. "Right.
Let's Go!". "Er - what now?" my hand just would not let
go of the pole. "Let go of that you can't take it with you!"
barked the man. I needed a count down to summon the courage to go....
then I was off the edge, accelerating fast, too gripped with fear to
even cry out, thinking "what the f**k have I just done?" Then
at last the rope began to bight, and I bounced crazily back up. That was
it $120 in less than a minute. It was quite the most horrible thing I
had done on this trip - worse even than encountering a king cobra in the
wild in Vietnam, worse than being robbed in Ecuador, worse than the
frantic crush of the religious festival in Varanassi. Would I ever do it
again? Yes - unfortunately I had booked on a two for the price of one
special deal. Did I want to do it again - No way! Back in town, I had lunch in the sun, and watch the world go by in a new more appreciative light. I wondered how Katie was doing on her Yak trip and wished I was with her. I scheduled my number two jump for 6.15 - hoping she would be back for some moral support. She wasn't back by 6pm, and I had to leave. I left a note! |
 Adrian's second bungy jump "The Ledge" above Queenstown |
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| The second
bungy jump was The Ledge a 35m dive from a platform that hangs
away from the rockface overlooking Queenstown. Whilst the jump isn't so
dramatic, the backdrop certainly is. This one really does feel like
you're leaping out into space. This time, I decided that I would go for
a waist harness so that I could use my feet. My plan was to run out off
the edge of the Ledge at full pelt - far preferable to hanging around
and thinking about it. It was just as scary as the first time though. I thought my jump was the last of the day, but two mystery daredevils had appeared behind me. As I climbed back up from the bottom, I saw them taking their clothes off. This was after all valentines day, and these two jokers planned to do a naked tandem bungy jump! This caused great titillation atop, (excuse the pun), with little boys running off to tell their mum what was going on. Before long there was quite a crowd. The pair were on the infamous Kiwi Experience bus tour - renowned for its heavy partying. The pair had their pubes dyed green (the colour of the bus), and had written "Kiwi Experience" on their bum cheeks in big green marker pen". It was quite a spectacle. |
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| A Night on the Queenstown | ||
| Queenstown is also famous for its raving nightlife. It's a very young scene. We started off in a bar called 'Cretins' or something like that. They were playing 1980's music for the second time round. It was bad enough the first time, and I wasn't in the mood for jigging around with hormonal 18 year olds. Neither was Katie, apparently. She became quite weepy, hankering after those lost teenage years. Lord above - if she feels old at 25, how does she think I feel at 33! Better was a plastic paddy bar called 'Plastic Paddy's' or something like that - much more my scene. Then we went to a night club called 'Connedyer' or something like that. It was a bit expensive for us, but the age group was a bit closer to our mark. | ||
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| Te Anau | ||
| Te
Anau is a small town in the middle of absolutely nowhere. It's main
attraction is as the jumping off point for major multi-day hikes on some
of New Zealand's fines trails, and as such it describes itself as the
'walking capital of the world'. We didn't have the time or inclination
for a four day trek, and besides, it's necessary to book ahead -
something we're not used to. We stayed in Grumpy's Hostel -
which despite it's name is reasonably pleasant. Its main drawback is
that it's about 20km away from the town, even more in the middle of
absolutely nowhere on the shores of a pretty lake. We did some short
walks around the lake and onto the first mile or so of one of the major
tracks, the Kepler Trail. |
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| Undoubtedly
the highlight in Te Anau was the annual sheep shearing competition which
by chance happened to be taking place in the front yard of a local pub
whilst we were there. All of the local heroes were present, wearing
T-shirts boasting of previous sheep shearing victories 'Te Anau Quik
Shears 95 etc. It was great fun to watch these guys at their craft,
especially since the whole event was accompanied by copious beer
drinking. Some of the poor sheep came out looking a bit bloody, but all
survived the ordeal, consigned shivering in their nakedness to an exit
pen.
From Te Anau it's only a few hours drive to
Milford Haven, the heart of New Zealand's Fjordland national park. |
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You are
reading the story of Adrian and Katie's travels through the Far East and
Australasia between August 1998 and March 1999.
Adrian and Katie put the rat race on hold for a year to travel the world
and loved every minute of it.
| Adrian & Katie's World Tour News - New Zealand - 2 of 4 | Last Updated: 14 November 2000 |
| Web Page by Adrian Ball (email: adrian.ball@virgin.net) |