South Island Trip - October 2005

At the risk of boring the pants off you, here is a brief run down of our recent trip to the South Island.

The trip began on Saturday, October 15, our third wedding anniversary, with a 1:20 hour morning flight to Christchurch. Something must have known that it was a special day because we asked for seats with a bit more leg room and were placed in First Class. We arrived around noonish and checked into our suite at the Heritage Hotel in Cathedral Square courtesy Leonie’s work. The Heritage is renovating a 1908 government office building with loft one-bedroom suites while maintaining the historical feel of the place. We had a lovely walk around Christchurch and dinner in our room...how decadent!

Sunday morning, bright and early, we caught the Tranz Alpine train across the island. This trip is rated as one of the top 10 train trips in the world, going straight through the Southern Alps at Arthur’s Pass to Greymouth. It is about a 4.5 hour trip with only an hour stopover in Greymouth before returning. I must say that only the second hour of the trip, from Springfield to Arthur’s Pass, is really stunning. The rest is nice but not breathtaking. If I were to do it again, I would only go as far as Arthur’s Pass, get off the train for 5-6 hours and hike around in the area before boarding the return to Christchurch. That being said, the portion up the Alps (and back down) is just amazing. And you get to see sections that cannot be seen from the highway - particularly several views of the Waimakariki River Gorge. The train has an observation car in the middle that allows unobstructed views (if you get there before the thundering herds).

Monday morning we picked up our campervan and headed right back in the same direction, stopping along the way for photos, of course. We took approximately 2000 photos on the trip and it will be a while before we can wade through them all. I have included about a dozen or so of my quick picks for your enjoyment. We spent the first night at Rapahoe, about 11 km above Greymouth. Rapahoe is a very small village that is a bit off the beaten path. The holiday park where we stayed was a bit decrepit, but the van is self-contained. And it was only a 300 metre walk to the pub...also decrepit, but the pints of Monteith’s Original Ale were only $2.70 and the fish and chips were great!

Tuesday we headed up to Punakaiki, about 40 km north along some of the west coast’s most rugged territory. We spent a couple of hours walking along the Punakaiki walkway and taking photos - very unusual rock formations, blowholes and splash pools. There are more pictures of Punakaiki on the South Island - Upper West Coast section of this site. The return trip to Greymouth gave even better views on the coast - with bluffs named 17 Mile, 14 Mile, 12 Mile, 9 Mile - for their distance north of Greymouth. These names were (thankfully) not converted to the metric system. We went to the Monteith’s Brewery for a tour, but missed their last one of the day so we went to a local pub for a cold one before heading down the road. We got as far as Hari Hari, a sort of nowhere place, but there was only one other campervan in the park.

We hit the road fairly early on Wednesday morning and came into the mountains pretty quickly. The Southern Alps run pretty close to the west coast and in some places you can see the mountains from the beach. We stopped at Franz Josef Glacier and walked out to it (about a 30 minute walk through the rainforest). At the end of the walk you step out into an open space and...voila!, a 30 foot thick glacier. I think it is the only spot in the world where a glacier comes down to a rainforest. We then drove about 40 minutes further south to Fox Glacier, which is viewable from several places on the road. Here we encountered the only precipitation of the entire 11 day trip in the form of a 5 minute rain and hail shower. We decided to stay 2 nights in Fox Glacier township as we hoped to get a view of Mount Cook (New Zealand’s highest peak at almost 3800 metres). I had done some research and discovered a small lake about 6 km west of town where you can view the mountain across the lake. We drove out to Lake Matheson that afternoon and took a walk around the lake (about an hour and a half) despite the fact that it was a bit cloudy and the mountains were in hiding.

The next morning we were up and out early to Lake Matheson, as the info I had said that 8 am is the optimum time to photograph the mountain. It was still fairly cloudy (though quite stunning) and only the tip of Mount Cook was occasionally visible, though its companion, Mount Tasman, was pretty clear. We spent the rest of the day touring about the area including a trip to Gillespie Beach which is not worth repeating. Very few west coast beaches are all that attractive, usually rocky with a lot of driftwood. The sunset was spectacular and we camped that evening at the Lake Matheson carpark in order to be ready early on Friday. As we were preparing to embark on our third walk around Lake Matheson bus loads of thunder hordes descended upon us. Fortunately, their tour schedule did not permit enough time for them to walk all the way to the far side of the lake where the best viewing is. The day was clear...almost too clear, and we got a couple of fantastic shots. We stopped at the coffee shop at Lake Matheson before heading down the road. The coffee is superb, the muffins delicious and the view from the deck stunning...a highly recommended stop.

Our original intention was to stop at Haast for the night but the coast was either inaccessible or not as photogenic as expected so we arrived Haast mid afternoon and decided to head on to Wanaka through the Haast Pass. This drive is a neck strainer; the mountains rise straight up. It would be much better on a Gold Wing or in a convertible. We arrived Wanaka around dinner time, stopped at the supermarket for provisions and headed out to the most luxurious camping park I have ever seen...heated bathrooms, Sky TV (satellite), and view to die for from the community room (also from our camp site).

Saturday morning we drove up the west side of Lake Wanaka toward Mount Aspiring National Park. We stopped at a hiking trail to Diamond Lake and beyond to a view of Lake Wanaka. What they didn’t tell us is that it is straight UP. I don’t know for sure, but would guess that we climbed at least 300-500 metres in elevation. It was pretty challenging and took about an hour, but the views were worth it. After descending we drove on to the park. The road soon changed to gravel and after 20 km and many spectacular views, we arrived at a sign saying “Primitive Road - 9 fords next 5 km - vehicle damage possible”. There was a lovely tree-lined spot just off the road so we decided to stop for lunch and have a think about whether we should proceed or not. This spot is at a bend in the Matukituki River and has great views of Homestead Mountain and Avalanche Peak (a bit intimidating, I must say). We had a nice lunch and just decided to stay a while and enjoy the space and quiet. We enjoyed it so much we decided to spend the night despite the fact that we had already paid for a night at the holiday park and we were so glad we did.

We had a leisurely Sunday morning with bacon and eggs in the shadows of Avalanche Peak and headed back toward Wanaka with stops to attempt to photograph Mount Aspiring. A little fact - there are over 160 glaciers in Mt Aspiring National Park. We stocked up on groceries for the remaining couple of days and headed east to Omarama and north to Lake Tekapo. We stopped for lunch at Lake Ohau, a lovely surprise about 15 km off the main highway, and then headed on to Twizel. Just past Twizel I looked up the road and...lo and behold...Mount Cook. I didn’t even know we could see Mount Cook from the highway on this side of the mountains. But there it was, just pretty as you please so we stopped several places along the way for photos, the best being Lake Pukaki. We then continued on to Lake Tekapo for the night with the intention of returning early in the morning. Lake Tekapo is a pretty stunning place in and of itself. I had been there twice before and was looking for some more good photos. What I didn’t realize was that the mountains bordering Tekapo are low enough not to have snow this time of year...bugger!

We were up at he crack Monday morning and back tracked 50 km to Lake Pukaki. The mountain was clear, but we spent 30-40 minutes just trying to find the best place to photograph. We finally settled at a little pond up in the hills off the beaten track and spent an hour or so taking photos and having a lovely brekkie. It was now time to head back to Christchurch as we had a 6:50 pm flight to catch. We took the inland scenic route past Mount Hutt and through the Rakaia Gorge. Just out of Geraldine the van’s low fuel light came on. I figured we had about 100 km of fuel left and thought that we would find a petrol station along the line...so much for thinking! About 120 km later, still no petrol station, but we were approaching Darfield where I knew there would be fuel. Less than 2 km from Darfield the van coughed, sputtered and went dead. Thank goodness for AA and cell phones. We got refueled and were back on the road in 45 minutes. The time was well spent doing the last minute packing and tidy up of the van.

We arrived at the van rental place just in time to get transfers to the airport, had a bite of dinner at the airport and hopped on the 737 for Auckland (no first class this time). We arrived back at our flat in Auckland around 9:30 or so, exhausted but smiling. The trip was smashing! The weather was sunny and warm (for South Island spring weather) for 10 consecutive days (pretty unheard of, especially for the wet west coast) and everything was mucho copacetic. Thanks for sharing this trip with us. Hope you enjoy the photos.