We had 2 days set aside for Taupo. We were considering the Tongariro Crossing for one of those days so it was really a question of whether the rain would come or not.
The first day looked most likely to rain so we took off for Te Kuite for a much over due visit to my aunt and uncle. It was wonderful
Wonderful spot for lunch
Day 2 we decided not to try the crossing. Em wasn’t feeling 100% and I wasn’t comfortable doing that sort of distance. Maybe we’ll go back and do it another time.
We did a shorter walk to Golum’s pool in the same national park. Another LoTR filming location. We also found the most delightful looking drop toilet!
Napier is now known as the “Art Deco Capital of the World”. In 1931 it was hit by a 7.8 magnitude earthquake which devastated the town.
By 1933 the town was mostly rebuilt in a unified Art Deco style reflecting the global trends of the time. It’s an interesting town to walk around.
Visiting both Napier and Christchurch I see a clear difference in approach. Napier feels like a time capsule to the era, in contrast Christchurch 15 years after its earthquake is still under much construction, trying to preserve and return the town to its former glory yet stuck in a time capsule to the natural disaster.
Visit Napier for the Art Deco scene, Christchurch to see what an earthquake does to a community.
Castle Hill looks like it was used for Lord of the Rings…it wasn’t. It was used for the Narnia films though. It looked stunning in early morning light and being able to explore with no one else there…just beautiful.
With 5 days remaining in South Island we needed to consider how far north we wanted to go. Each mile felt like a step in the wrong direction and would need to be retraced back.
Kaikoura is about 3 hours north of Christchurch and home to a large seal colony. It seemed a reasonable distance without feeling just like putting miles on the road for the sake of it.
After completing Franz Josef and Mirror lake we moved up to a local camp with the view that we’d explore the local area a bit more.
We meandered from one place to the next to the next and realized we’d reached a junction in our travel plans. Do we take the left fork north to Greymouth or right fork to Arthur’s Pass and towards Christchurch.
Arthur’s Pass won. Primarily as I wanted to see the viaduct.
Just down the road from the campsite was mirror lake. Get there early on a nice day and it’s perfectly set up for a quick photo.
Also on the way are these wonderful red barns with both the Franz Josef and Fox glacier in the background. I think I spent more time trying to capture this scene than I did at Lake Matheson
We were supposed to drive through the pass in one day but we weren’t sure where we were staying that night. There was a Department of Conservation site about half way along Lake Hawea. Not quite far enough for a day but just right for a lunch time stop.
It was stunning so we stayed for the night!
Next morning we continued taking in Blue Pools, Thunder Creek falls and Roaring Billy falls all before the coaches arrived.
Still unsure of where to stay we booked ourselves into Fox Glacier site (great location but overcrowded)
We had 2 nights in Wanaka. The plan was to do Roy’s Peak, take a boat ride out to Mou Waho island and maybe grab a photo of the Wanaka tree.
The Wanaka tree is easy to access and easy to find. It’s on Google Maps as “That Wanaka Tree” and is surrounded by bus loads of tourists all taking the same photo. Of course I’m not adverse to taking the same photo, I just hate queues. We walked by the tree on the way back to the camp site after dinner. Ignoring as many people as I could I walked amongst the other folk grabbed a few shots and then a couple of the crowd for good measure.
Roy’s Peak is an 8km hike up to the top of a local hill. A total of 16km to get back to the van. It was 5 minutes from the campground we were staying at and the time was short and weather window limited.
We hadn’t considered the “Instagram “ crowd…ironic considering where we’d got the idea 🤦♂️. I’d heard of people walking up in the dark to get sunrise photos.. then I’d seen comments related to “waiting your turn”
We drove by the car park for the hike around 9am… it was rammed and some had resorted to unsafe parking on the road.
And much like the crowds queuing for a Fergburger in Queenstown we skipped it.
5 minutes around the corner we found Glendhu Bay lookout and walking track. There was also a really nice campground on the lake. It was amazingly scenic and the walk had no one else doing it! Most of the shots below are from that walk.
Mou Waho is a half day trip, leaving at 9am back around 12:30 ish. We just ran out of time in our schedule.
The one thing we realized over the course of this road trip is that we spend more time driving and although stop off points are plenty, the easiest to access are busy and time is short. We could easily go back and focus on Queenstown or Wanaka or Dunedin etc there are so many little coves to visit and places to explore that this kind of trip we’re only scratching the surface of what we can see.
Offinoz 