Thursday, March 22, 2007
ROADTRIP!
Wow, it seems like forever since I've updated this. Here are some new things:
I've got a few pics from the "Wings over Wairarapa" airshow. Its not the typical North American airshow with loads of high tech American hardware, quite the opposite. The coolest planes were probably from world war one, like an old Sopwirth Camel. The authentic world war two planes were also very cool, especially the mustangs and spitfires, very classic looks.
My brother came down in early February for a well deserved vacation. It took a while to get geared up and moving on our South Island roadtrip, but we got moving after a few days of logistics.
We were planning to do some pretty intense hikes (opps, tramps) in all kinds of South Island terrain. We were going to use my car as a portable base-camp, and carry our tents and sleeping bags on us. This would have worked out fine, but in the end we had to cut back the distance and intensity of the hikes because of a couple injuries.
As everyone does, we started in Picton after an overnight trip on the Interislander ferry. It was expensive, but unlike the ferry from Nova Scotia to Newfoundland - they let you curl up and sleep on the floor. We had just about every book we needed, apart from a good South Island roadmap. A road atlas just doesn't cut it for that kind of detail. We ended up touring the wine growing region of the Marlborough region in the early morning, trying to find a place to camp and get some rest.
At around 8:00 and after doing a ~80 km loop, we found a little DOC (department of Conservation) campsite, quickly pitched our tents and tried to get at least a little bit of sleep. Minutes after putting our heads down, the angry family camping beside us woke up and started swearing at each other. Shortly after that a couple of large lawn mowers arrived to trim the grass. Not getting any sleep, we ventures on somewhere further from the masses of "Britz" and "Maui" rental camper vans.
In our tired state, we checked out the Marlborough Sounds. Wow, what a place. We could have easily spent the entire vacation just exploring this place. The roads are small, twisty, steep, and totally fun to drive as long as you don't get into an accident with the fearless local drivers, or the questionable RV drivers! The next place we camped was the Kenepuru head campground, another DOC campsite. What an amazing place, at what seems to be a small estuary teeming with life. The local Wekas have a keen sense for scavanging after people, and were totally intrigued with my car's tailpipe. You could look our at the water and see fish jumping all the time.
Sleeping at this place was some of the best rest I've ever had, amazingly quiet and peaceful. I think the 1.5 hour drive through the tight twisty roads is enough to keep most people away. I can only imagine the camps further in the sounds were even better, but we had to keep moving on our roadtrip.
After checking out some of the local tracks (trails) in the sounds and a bit of free camping, we headed in a large counter-clockwise loop around the island. We stopped into a "Backpackers" (hostel) Havelock, tried to find a nice pub, and checked out Nelson the next day. Nelson is an excellent little town, it seems to have everything, nice weather, nice people, sandy beaches, excellent mountain biking, almost perfect! We stocked up on outdoor gear, and were glad to shop anywhere other than Kathmandu.
From there, we headed up to the Abel Tasman National Park, and headed for the Totoranui camp. Its hard to know what you're going to get before you get there, but I expected it to be pretty remote due to the long and windy gravel road. It turned out to be a meca, one of the busiest spots we could have chosen, but still a fun place to be. Very oriented to the family campsite with RV, jetski, and satellite TV dish ;) We slept at the campground for the night, relaxed at the beach the next day in an ideal beach setting, and went for a big hike up Gibbs hill later in the day, camping at a campground halfway through the trail. The sights we saw the next day were like something out of a travel brouchure, I didn't think these places existed. The cloudless sky, the white sand beaches, the unspolied scenery, and warm weather were like nothing I'd ever seen before. I really want to go back, what a place! We took our time hiking back, cause the place was perfect. While the scenery was amazing, there was a lot of red tape invloved to book a hike/camp spot, so we were looking for something a little less rigid and structured.
We continued on our trip, and decided not to go onto Golden Bay. We've heard amazing things about it, hopefully I'll be back there sometime! We headed towards the west coast, going through the Buller Gorge. We decided to stop at Lake Rotoroa for the night, and as usual we got there after dark. There were an absolute ton of sand flies out (nearly identical to a black fly), so we quickly put the tents up, jumped in and went to sleep. I thought it was raining in the morning, but it was just the sound of sand flies hitting the tent. There were so many, that wasps were coming into the tent and feeding on them! While the lake was beautiful with a large mountain in the background, the flies drove us away. This was the worst the flies were during the trip. I shouldn't complain too much, these flies are nothing compared to some of the swarms of mosquitoes and horseflies I've seen in Nova Scotia - I'll take sand flies anyday! The 'mossies' here are pretty wimpy, a small bit of clothing is enough to stop them, which is fine with me.
We had the need to get to the beach, so we headed for the Westport area, got some more food, and headed out to a nice little campsite down the coast. This place was absolutely magical, as good as some of them had been, this one was even better. It had soft grass perfect for camping all around, a nice little beach nestled between the rocks, no bugs at all, almost no one else around, and no camp fees! This place was the best so far, just amazing. Unfortunately, my crappy car alarm malfunctioned (no really it did, its a real POS!), and the alarm went off at around midnight. I'm sure the other people were pissed, but they didn't say anything.
We spent the next night in a pretty bad hostel in Greymouth (the nice one was full). Dorm rooms and squeakey beds are just not cool, none of us got much sleep - too much door slamming and bed squeaking. Oh well, the next beach we stayed at was a huge step up. It was a long way from the motorway, but totally worth it. We met some great locals, one guy had an incredibly cute puppy; Rufus.
Phew, I'm getting long winded here. So after another excellent beach campsite, we hit the Franz Joseph Glacier. Wow, again, this was quite the sight to see. It was an easy walk to get near it, and you could actually get as close as you want - I'm sure this would be behind large gates if it was in Canada. The glacier was huge, an amazing site. We saw a large piece break off of it, and didn't want to get too close to that. Shortly after that we saw a few guides leading people up the glacier, on steps carved into the ice. I'm not mountaineer, but some of these people didn't look like the had the gear or aptitude to be climbing it, its easy to trivialise the danger involved; it would be easy to get serious hurt or worse on that glacier.
After that we headed to Wanaka. This place reminded me of Canmore or Whistler, a serious adventure tourist town but far less trendy and artificial than parts of Whistler. We didn't have too much time there, but its another place I'd love to return to.
From there, we headed to the east coast through the Haast pass, and made good time through the very flat farmland. We checked out Kiakorua and a nice little campground, went for a bunch of good hikes, and general relaxation. We messed up the timings, and had another day before the ferry left, so we headed back to the Marlborough Sounds for another excellent night at Kenepuru head before taking the Bluebridge ferry back to Wellington (cheaper and slighlty better than the Interislander).
There it is, the roadtrip. Even with two weeks, we missed a ton of stuff. We didn't get to see Fjordland, Queenstown, or Dunedin, Invercargill, Stuart Island, or a whole bunch of other "todo's". I like the advice from one of my coworkers: "If you try to see everything, you'll end up seeing nothing at all", I'm glad we took in the good stuff. Oh well, I'm sure I'll be back, and this time I'll have the map before I get there!
Heres a link to some of the best pictures from the trip: Pictures.
I've got a few pics from the "Wings over Wairarapa" airshow. Its not the typical North American airshow with loads of high tech American hardware, quite the opposite. The coolest planes were probably from world war one, like an old Sopwirth Camel. The authentic world war two planes were also very cool, especially the mustangs and spitfires, very classic looks.
My brother came down in early February for a well deserved vacation. It took a while to get geared up and moving on our South Island roadtrip, but we got moving after a few days of logistics.
We were planning to do some pretty intense hikes (opps, tramps) in all kinds of South Island terrain. We were going to use my car as a portable base-camp, and carry our tents and sleeping bags on us. This would have worked out fine, but in the end we had to cut back the distance and intensity of the hikes because of a couple injuries.
As everyone does, we started in Picton after an overnight trip on the Interislander ferry. It was expensive, but unlike the ferry from Nova Scotia to Newfoundland - they let you curl up and sleep on the floor. We had just about every book we needed, apart from a good South Island roadmap. A road atlas just doesn't cut it for that kind of detail. We ended up touring the wine growing region of the Marlborough region in the early morning, trying to find a place to camp and get some rest.
At around 8:00 and after doing a ~80 km loop, we found a little DOC (department of Conservation) campsite, quickly pitched our tents and tried to get at least a little bit of sleep. Minutes after putting our heads down, the angry family camping beside us woke up and started swearing at each other. Shortly after that a couple of large lawn mowers arrived to trim the grass. Not getting any sleep, we ventures on somewhere further from the masses of "Britz" and "Maui" rental camper vans.
In our tired state, we checked out the Marlborough Sounds. Wow, what a place. We could have easily spent the entire vacation just exploring this place. The roads are small, twisty, steep, and totally fun to drive as long as you don't get into an accident with the fearless local drivers, or the questionable RV drivers! The next place we camped was the Kenepuru head campground, another DOC campsite. What an amazing place, at what seems to be a small estuary teeming with life. The local Wekas have a keen sense for scavanging after people, and were totally intrigued with my car's tailpipe. You could look our at the water and see fish jumping all the time.
Sleeping at this place was some of the best rest I've ever had, amazingly quiet and peaceful. I think the 1.5 hour drive through the tight twisty roads is enough to keep most people away. I can only imagine the camps further in the sounds were even better, but we had to keep moving on our roadtrip.
After checking out some of the local tracks (trails) in the sounds and a bit of free camping, we headed in a large counter-clockwise loop around the island. We stopped into a "Backpackers" (hostel) Havelock, tried to find a nice pub, and checked out Nelson the next day. Nelson is an excellent little town, it seems to have everything, nice weather, nice people, sandy beaches, excellent mountain biking, almost perfect! We stocked up on outdoor gear, and were glad to shop anywhere other than Kathmandu.
From there, we headed up to the Abel Tasman National Park, and headed for the Totoranui camp. Its hard to know what you're going to get before you get there, but I expected it to be pretty remote due to the long and windy gravel road. It turned out to be a meca, one of the busiest spots we could have chosen, but still a fun place to be. Very oriented to the family campsite with RV, jetski, and satellite TV dish ;) We slept at the campground for the night, relaxed at the beach the next day in an ideal beach setting, and went for a big hike up Gibbs hill later in the day, camping at a campground halfway through the trail. The sights we saw the next day were like something out of a travel brouchure, I didn't think these places existed. The cloudless sky, the white sand beaches, the unspolied scenery, and warm weather were like nothing I'd ever seen before. I really want to go back, what a place! We took our time hiking back, cause the place was perfect. While the scenery was amazing, there was a lot of red tape invloved to book a hike/camp spot, so we were looking for something a little less rigid and structured.
We continued on our trip, and decided not to go onto Golden Bay. We've heard amazing things about it, hopefully I'll be back there sometime! We headed towards the west coast, going through the Buller Gorge. We decided to stop at Lake Rotoroa for the night, and as usual we got there after dark. There were an absolute ton of sand flies out (nearly identical to a black fly), so we quickly put the tents up, jumped in and went to sleep. I thought it was raining in the morning, but it was just the sound of sand flies hitting the tent. There were so many, that wasps were coming into the tent and feeding on them! While the lake was beautiful with a large mountain in the background, the flies drove us away. This was the worst the flies were during the trip. I shouldn't complain too much, these flies are nothing compared to some of the swarms of mosquitoes and horseflies I've seen in Nova Scotia - I'll take sand flies anyday! The 'mossies' here are pretty wimpy, a small bit of clothing is enough to stop them, which is fine with me.
We had the need to get to the beach, so we headed for the Westport area, got some more food, and headed out to a nice little campsite down the coast. This place was absolutely magical, as good as some of them had been, this one was even better. It had soft grass perfect for camping all around, a nice little beach nestled between the rocks, no bugs at all, almost no one else around, and no camp fees! This place was the best so far, just amazing. Unfortunately, my crappy car alarm malfunctioned (no really it did, its a real POS!), and the alarm went off at around midnight. I'm sure the other people were pissed, but they didn't say anything.
We spent the next night in a pretty bad hostel in Greymouth (the nice one was full). Dorm rooms and squeakey beds are just not cool, none of us got much sleep - too much door slamming and bed squeaking. Oh well, the next beach we stayed at was a huge step up. It was a long way from the motorway, but totally worth it. We met some great locals, one guy had an incredibly cute puppy; Rufus.
Phew, I'm getting long winded here. So after another excellent beach campsite, we hit the Franz Joseph Glacier. Wow, again, this was quite the sight to see. It was an easy walk to get near it, and you could actually get as close as you want - I'm sure this would be behind large gates if it was in Canada. The glacier was huge, an amazing site. We saw a large piece break off of it, and didn't want to get too close to that. Shortly after that we saw a few guides leading people up the glacier, on steps carved into the ice. I'm not mountaineer, but some of these people didn't look like the had the gear or aptitude to be climbing it, its easy to trivialise the danger involved; it would be easy to get serious hurt or worse on that glacier.
After that we headed to Wanaka. This place reminded me of Canmore or Whistler, a serious adventure tourist town but far less trendy and artificial than parts of Whistler. We didn't have too much time there, but its another place I'd love to return to.
From there, we headed to the east coast through the Haast pass, and made good time through the very flat farmland. We checked out Kiakorua and a nice little campground, went for a bunch of good hikes, and general relaxation. We messed up the timings, and had another day before the ferry left, so we headed back to the Marlborough Sounds for another excellent night at Kenepuru head before taking the Bluebridge ferry back to Wellington (cheaper and slighlty better than the Interislander).
There it is, the roadtrip. Even with two weeks, we missed a ton of stuff. We didn't get to see Fjordland, Queenstown, or Dunedin, Invercargill, Stuart Island, or a whole bunch of other "todo's". I like the advice from one of my coworkers: "If you try to see everything, you'll end up seeing nothing at all", I'm glad we took in the good stuff. Oh well, I'm sure I'll be back, and this time I'll have the map before I get there!
Heres a link to some of the best pictures from the trip: Pictures.
# posted by Chris LeBlanc @ 1:44 AM 
