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Friday 6th September

By on Friday, September 6, 2019

Our juicy Lucy van is comfortable to sleep in, but also today she is giving us a juicy discount on a cruise.

The juicy company have a couple of catamarans operating tours in Milford sound. And as a juicy driver we can go on one half price. And as a extra brucie bonus the cruise that we had booked on (the cheapest one) got cancelled at the last minute we were upgraded to the premium cruise leaving 30 minutes later. A much nicer boat, unlimited hot drinks and longer all for the same price.

So a lovely morning spent on the water.

followed by the Milford road back in the afternoon. Tonight’s camp is in Te Anau a pretty town on the shore of the lake sharing it’s name. The lake is the largest on the South Island 38 miles long. 1,370 feet deep formed from glacier action. Popular for fishing and you can also catch the sea plane from here to explore the fiords by air.

At $500 each we decided that maybe we could live with out, maybe next time.

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Thursday 5th September

By on Friday, September 6, 2019

Today we drive the Milford road 75 miles of fiordlands spectacular landscapes. It has world heritage highway status. It has lush lake side forest, rugged mountains, alpine rivers and waterfalls. It takes 2.5 hours to drive if you don’t stop, but how could you not stop with the views it treats you to every second you just have to take a photo.

It has many stops along the way where you can go off on walks to stretch your legs from 5 minutes to 8 hours, some easy and others more challenging. The area is also rich in rare wild life, no dogs are aloud in the park and no wild camping either. So tonight we have to folk out for the most expensive campsite yet in New Zealand. it’s the only one in Milford so basically they can charge pretty much what they like. Saying that it is a well equipped site and clean. However the camp kitchen was small and to busy, no wi fi as it’s so remote and no t v. Mikes also run out of data not sure he will make it through the night.

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Wednesday 4th September

By on Friday, September 6, 2019

Today mike wanted to have a look around the motel cycle museum in Invercargill. It has over 300 bikes. Invercargill is the home town of Burt Monro and even though I’m not into bikes I’ve actually heard of Burt. I’ve watched the film staring Antony Hopkins that told the story of the fastest Indian, a motorcycle that Burt broke the land speed record on at bonneville salt flats. A good film and made the museum a little bit more interesting for me. https://jewellsontour.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/img_5436.mov

After spending a couple of hours looking around the museum we followed the coast around looking for a nice place to camp up. The road again was stunning and not much traffic. We have now gone as far south as we can unless we go to Stewart island so am now headed north up the west coast.

Tonight’s spot is monkey island. Named after the monkey winch that was used to haul ships up the slip way. It was a traditional lookout for whales. In the mid 19th century interest focused on the gold dust which lay on the beach. It made a very nice campsite for us. Treating us to the most spectacular sunset.

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Tuesday 3rd September

By on Tuesday, September 3, 2019

Mikes birthday. So instead of fruit and cereal for his breakfast he had bacon and eggs, he had to make it himself though.

A good start to the day.

Again today was a lot of sat in juicy Lucy as even though it’s beautiful here there’s not a lot to do. we entertained ourselves singing along to our Spotify playlist and watched the forever changing landscape out of the window.

We drove through forests, passed rugged coastlines and explored hidden waterfalls. All in the area called the catlins. Named after Edward Cattlin who brought a large chunk of land back in 1840.

Each waterfall had a walk to them from the car park on steep gravel paths, taking us through rain forest very cool. That’s our exercise done for the day my thighs still ache from yesterday’s hills.

We followed the southern scenic route down to the most southerly point on the island looking out over turquoise sea, stunning.

The evening was spent in the city of Invercargill where we had a meal out to celebrate mikes birthday in a pizza restaurant called hell.

The night was finished up with supermarket brought cake and beer for the birthday boy. Sat in the camp kitchen. We no how to live the high life.

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Monday 2nd September

By on Monday, September 2, 2019

The city of Dunedin its hay day was in the 1860’s when it was the country’s commercial centre in the gold rush.

Diverse architecture and lovely public parks. It also has a Cadbury’s chocolate factory, so it’s a winner for me.

The main reason for us to stop here was that it has the worlds steepest street. Baldwin street 36%. Well it did have but a road in Wales has just been awarded that title.

Anyway it’s steep and we walked up it.

At the top on a bench taking a well earned break we started talking to a guy who was also sat on the bench. Dave kernaham well known in the area as the Baldwin street king. He climbs this street every day and has done for the last 20ys some days he has climbed it 30 times a day. He told us that he started doing this when he got made redundant while of work sick after cutting off he’s index finger in a industrial accident. He said it was ether walk the hill or turn to drink. Such a character we were there sat on the bench for over a hour talking to him. He gave us pointers on where to visit.

After leaving Dave we headed to tunnel beach. Edward Cargill cut a tunnel through sandstone cliffs in the 1870’s so that he could get to a pretty beach below. It gave spectacular views of the cliffs sculpted by wind and sea.

Time to find a campsite for the night. It’s not a great location with views, but time to catch up on the internet and wash some clothes ready for tomorrow’s adventure.

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Sunday 1st September

By on Monday, September 2, 2019

Wow it’s September time really does fly when you’re having fun. It’s the 1st day off spring and it’s starting to bloom. Early spring flowers are out and trees are blossoming. Gorgeous.

Today we visited oamaru it claims to be the steampunk capital of the world. Steampunk is all about retro-futurism, fantasy, and how the victorians might imagined the future. And indeed people were dressed up in Victorian clothes and it had quirky little shops in its Victorian precinct.

It also has a blue penguin colony living in its harbour. Blue penguins are the worlds smallest penguin only 30cm tall and weigh 1kg they can live up to 10 years. Again we weren’t lucky enough to see them. We will keep looking.

Continuing south we stopped to take in the geological phenomenon of the huge,spherical Moeraki boulders on koekohe beach. Really fascinating.

A little souvenir shop on the beach was full of all the normal tourist tat but the lady working there was lovely, we spent ages talking to her and she told us of a great spot on the beach where we could camp the night and hopefully see the dolphins.

She was right, it was a great spot and we watched but like the penguins no luck.

Another night star watching the skies are amazing.

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Saturday 31st August

By on Saturday, August 31, 2019

Southward bound,still following the coast. Destination tonight Tamara. Tamara was a whaling station from 1838, but fortunately New Zealand ceased whaling in 1964. It is now a pretty tourist town. We walked around and found a well kept town park with public art and fountains. A good place to stretch our legs. We walked along the boardwalk to the beach where blue penguins are often spotted. We weren’t lucky this time.

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Friday 30th August

By on Saturday, August 31, 2019

Still heading south on the South Island taking in the stunning beauty of the place. Rows of grapevines, stunning mountains and sheep lots and lots of sheep.

New Zealand merino wool and possum fur is a big thing over here, one lady in a wool shop explained that possum is a introduced species with no natural predators and have threatened native bird life to the point of extinction. The New Zealand government has declared possums a serious threat to the country’s biodiversity and has begun measures to eradicate them. Possum fur is a by- product of the cull. Possum fur is warm it doesn’t freeze the only other fur that has this attribute is polar bear. So mixed with merino it makes excellent clothing.

Today’s stop is a seaside town called Kaikoura. It’s great for observing marine life. Sperm whales can be seen resting on the surface between dives. Dolphins are also regularly spotted. Seals relax on the shoreline.

We had lunch in a car park next to the shore before setting off for a walk to go marine spotting.

On our walk we were lucky enough to spot seals and dolphins, Mike also thinks that we were watching whales further out but we aren’t sure it was glimpses of fins in the distance. This is the life.our evening was spent sat on the beach watching the sun disappear behind the mountains.

Followed by star gazing, so many stars a clear night we even got treated to shooting stars and a exploding meteor.

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Thursday 29th August

By on Thursday, August 29, 2019

Alarm rudely awakened us from our slumber. Surprisingly enough we sleep well in public car parks. By now we probably qualify as tramps tonight we need a campsite site with showers!

The ferry is at 8am and we need to check in at 7am. The bed can be packed away in less than 10 minutes on the road by 6:30 am and around to the port. We have breakfast at the port in the que.

The ferry was delayed and they couldn’t tell us a time as it hadn’t arrived we just had to sit tight and be patient. Finally we boarded at 11 am.

We finally arrived at picton a small fishing port at 3pm. The journey was stunning following the cook straight.

We head to spring creek only 10 miles away from port and checked into a campsite on the river. Nice campsite with good facilities.

Once checked in we head to the nearest town Blenheim for a look around. We are surrounded by vineyards and there is wine shops everywhere they even have a annual wine festival.

Back to camp and I managed to cook up a mushroom curry in the camp kitchen and spent the evening relaxing in the T V room. Feels like I’m on holiday.

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Wednesday 28th August

By on Thursday, August 29, 2019

Lucy served us well last night, it was a rather windy night and you could feel her being pushed around but she stood her ground. New Zealand is in the path of the roaring forties, winds that circle the lower part of the globe.

Again today was mainly sat in juicy Lucy heading south to Wellington. Stunning views treated us as we traveled down.

We have named our camper juicy Lucy as the hire firm is called juicy and they have a pinup girl logo. Maybe the founder was Lucy.

Our highway took us through small towns, Turangi a small fishing town it had trout logos on pretty much every sign. It’s situated on the banks of the southeastern end of Lake taupo and has world famous trout fishing. The best time to fish is from May to October.

Once we got passed lake Taupo we started to climb. The mountains that looked so far away are now next to us, stunning snow peaks on both sides.

We pass through the Rangipo desert on the east side of the volcanoes a desolate gravel landscape used for military training and we were treated by planes practicing acrobatic flying above.

Finally we arrived at Wellington New Zealand’s capital city and where we are to catch the ferry to the South Island. Our ferry is booked for 8am tomorrow so time to explore. We park up for the night in a car park close to the ferry terminal and go for a walk.

The Harbour front has houses built into the hills with very steep steps leading up to them, beautiful views across oriental bay. They were built by early settlers as their was a lack of flat land. I’m not sure I could cope with the steps every day.

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