New Plymouth

After a brief overnight stop in Wellington I headed to the west coast of north island to the city of new Plymouth. Quite few people said that it was a nice city to visit for a few days so I took their advice and spent 4 nights in the city. That was after I found the hostel after walking over 3km and thankfully being rescued by a man at the cricket ground who drove me to the door after much confusion as to where the hostel was actually located! With 2 great days of hot and sunny weather I walked along the coast to Paritutu Hill which was a quick, but steep scramble to the top. There were some fantastic views of the coast and the Sugar Loaf islands, the city and the neighbouring power station. Sadly there was no view of Mt Taranaki, the resident volcano due to lots of cloud inland. New Plymouth is also famous for its parks so I visited Pukekura which was huge and features some pretty lakes, a waterfall, open air stage, a mini zoo, bush walks and a lot of ducks! The weather wasn't great the final day so I had a lie in, went to the museum and did lots of boring stuff like laundry and trying to make my backpack lighter.

I'm currently in Auckland just for 1 night and had a lovely meal out with Katie and Taylor last night. This afternoon I fly to Sydney on the hunt for a job.

Kaikoura

A short drive north of Christchurch and you hit the small town of Kaikoura which was once a sleepy fishing village until someone discovered that the deep sea trench near the coast attracts a lot of sea mammals so tourism kicked off in the area. I'd heard form various people that swimming with dolphins is fantastic here so I booked my self into the 5.20am cruise which was far too early for my liking. The boat was small and just after sunrise we started seeing the dolphins heading toward shore. These Dusky dolphins feed alone over night and then head to shore at sunrise to form pods and have a bit of a social gathering. We were told to act dolphin like in the water and make lots of noise so the dolphins will be more interested in us. The whole experience was amazing (despite the freezing water) and about 400 dolphins where sighted and I reckon about 150 swam past me. The dolphins were pretty quick and came from all directions which made a few of us a little motion sick! It was definitely one of the best things I've done. Sea World, eat your heart out!

Christchurch

Christchurch is a really nice city and feels very English with its central cathedral square and gothic buildings, it even has punting on the River Avon which runs through the city. I've packed quite a lot in the 2 very sunny days here, having been to the gardens, museum and a trip to the cinema. I spent the day walking in the nearby harbour town of Lyttelton. Lyttelton was the location of European settlers before Christchurch and it's now a pretty busy port with lots of cargo ships loading and unloading and there was a huge cruise ship in. The harbour is actually a collapsed volcanic crater so is boarded by mega hills. I climbed on of them to get a view of Christchurch over the other side, huge beaches and the alps in the back ground. Next I'm headed up the coast to Kaikoura which is wildlife central in New Zealand.

Mt Cook

From Dunedin we headed up the coast stopping at the Moeraki boulders which are almost perfectly round and up to 2m in diameter. The boulders in geological terms are calcitic concretions which have been eroded out of the cliff face. In Maori terms they are food baskets which have washed ashore from a wrecked canoe. The weather got bad as we headed back west inland to Mt Cook which is very near the Franz Josef glacier we were at the other week. We were staying in a great hostel at the foot of the mountain with amazing views if it had stopped raining and the cloud cleared. Due to the weather I didn't do anything here but it was nice to enjoy the accommodation. As we were leaving the following morning the cloud start to clear and we were left with some spectacular mountain views across Lake Pukaki and onto the Tasman glacier. Mt Cook, also known as Aoraki is 3754m high and is the highest peak in New Zealand. The views were pretty spectacular and I think it was more impressive than Everest.

We headed back east across the MacKenzie plains which were named after the local sheep rustler, towards Christchurch. I'm staying 3 nights in Christchurch which in November was hit by a magnitude 7.1 earthquake. I was a bit worried that a lot of it may be not open due to earthquake damage but the city seems ok. Just a few cracks and a lot of scaffolding around!

Dunedin

Settled by Scottish, Dunedin feels pretty British. Dunedin is actually old Gaelic for Edinburgh and the street layout was copied from an Edinburgh map. There are lots of pretty buildings, especially the train station and there's also good museum which I've had a mooch around. Dunedin is also home to the steepest street in the world with a top gradient of 1 in 1.266 (not entirely sure what this means!). I walked up it but had to have a rest in the conveniently placed bench at the top before making my way back down again. I really feel sorry for the postman! A friend from uni, Lauren is doing her PhD in the university so it was great to catch up with her as well. I had 5 days in the city with the hope of walking along the Otago Peninsula to albatross colonies and beaches with Yellow Eyed penguins. Unfortunately, I didn't get to the Peninsula as there's no public transport out there so I made use of the hostel's free internet to plan and book my way back to Auckland.

Invercargill and the Catlins

Invercargill is a city right at the bottom of New Zealand and there is really nothing much there but I had an afternoon to kill so I walked around the botanic gardens. The main reason for coming to Invercargill is the proximity to the coastal town of Bluff which is the south island's most southern town and also has a ferry to Stewart Island. After a night in Invercargill we drove along the coast to Dunedin passing through the remote Catlins. On the drive we saw the rare Hector's dolphins in the bay. These dolphins are small and unique to the New Zealand coast line. There was also a huge sea lion just lounging on the beach.

Milford Sound

Milford Sound took about 7 hours to get to from Queenstown and it rained the majority of the way. Every photo that you see of Milford, the sun's shining and water is calm. We were greeted by a view of no cliffs and some very choppy water. Milford Sound is one of the wettest places in New Zealand with an average of 6m of rain a year so I guess we just got a typical day. It was hard to appreciate the size of the cliffs when you could barely see them but the waterfalls were fantastic. We saw hundreds of falls, when on a perfect day you can only see the 5 permanent ones. We headed back through Fiordland National Park to Te Anau for the night.

The 1st photo was taken from the side of the road!

Queenstown

From Franz Josef we had a long driving day to Makorora. We passed fox glacier and Lake Matheson on the morning but the cloud was so low and rain so hard that we could barely see out the bus windows. The afternoon brightened up as we visited Thunder Creek falls and walked over a couple of swing bridges. We are now in the amazing scenery in the southern Alps and Makorora was a great place in the middle of nowhere to stop over night.

We had another day's drive before Queenstown. We passed Lakes Wanaka and Hawea which were pretty massive. The good weather held out for a couple of hours so that I could do a sky dive over the lakes. 12,000 feet, 45 seconds free fall (mostly through cloud) at 200km/hr was amazing and not at all scary! The afternoon was very wet but we stopped at the famous AJ Hackett bungy at Kawarau bridge which was the first commercially jumped bungy in the world so some of the bus threw themselves off the bridge.

Queenstown is a bit of a party and adventure sport town but it's small and in very scenic setting on the shore of Lake Wakatipu. As I haven't won the lottery I'm taking advantage of the free things to do in the area so I've spent 2 days walking, seeing some amazing views. The jagged mountain range 'The Remarkables' overlooks the town so I set about to walk a sector of the lake to the nearby town of Frankton which has a primary school, the airport and nothing else to its name but some fantastic mountain and lake views. Another walk saw me scale Queenstown Hill which was very steep but had great views at the top. I'm hoping the good weather will continue as next we head to Milford Sound.