New Zealand: Mount Cook, Rangitata & Kaikoura 8-11Feb12

Mount cook 8-9 Feb 12

We drove through the Omarama region on the way to Mount Cook. Flat plains surrounded by high, jagged mountain ranges, many over 3000m high. Snowflake told that these were some of the biggest and oldest sheep farms in the country with some of the farms at 20,000 acres or more. It is also seriously remote, not a soul for miles. This is one of the most famous places for gliding (engine-less gliders) in the world, with the world record flight of 15 hours done here. The land and grass was still brownish and flat with grey stony river beds with turquoise rivers, some of which had been diverted from bigger lakes to feed the farms in the area.

Mount Cook / Aoraki is the highest peak in the Southern Alps of NZ, at 3700m. The national park is 40% covered in glaciers which feed the lakes and rivers in the area with a certain ground up compound scraped from the mountains that makes the water murky white near the glacier and then bright turquoise running into the rivers far beyond it. 

Driving up to the peak was quite eerie and spectacular, very Lord of the Rings-esque. Still all the grey stoney pebbles everywhere instead of normal sand or mud which I really love. It feels like such a different land, volcanic and ancient and glacial. Still wasn’t speaking to anyone much or feeling sociable but at least we left the German under 18 hockey team in Queenstown to drink and fornicate to their hearts content!

Mount Cook National Park has one long road to get there it seems and as you come up to it the mountain and glacier glare down at you with its huge presence.

We drove up to a hostel right up against a mountain. There didn't seem to be much there at all, other than small chalets, a hostel, a hotel and some campervans. Not really a place you could spend days in, unless you were a mountaineer. They offered trips out on a boat to the glacier’s edge, or as an alternative Snowflake told us he was taking a walk up the mountain to one of the glaciers. Free, so we all jumped at it.

The walk was up the mountain through the grey stones and there were plenty of walkers but it was still eerie with a sharp, harsh light and brisk wind, and the sun singeing you every time it burst its erratic lazer through the clouds. We walked for ages and finally got to the glacier itself, and here the water was grey white with big blocks of 300 year old ice floating around in it. Pretty awesome.

The hostel was really nice, 4 bed dorms with super clean bedding and our own en suite bathroom with bath, woohoo! You don’t see a bath much in hostels, so as soon as I got back from the long tiring walk I had one.

Dinner was the corn I bought at the shop, some microwave pasta and some Otago Pinot Noir (what the region is famous for). I had a chat to some of the travellers in the kitchen, this bus was a more friendly bunch so we had some nice conversation around the kitchen table. It was early to bed being achy and knackered from long walk and no sleep in Queenstown. Tomorrow, Rangitata.

Rangitata 9-10 Feb 12

We had to drive back down the same road to Mount Cook for about half an hour to get on another route to Rangitata. This is called Mackenzie country. The story goes that an Australian named Mackenzie in the 1800’s (no doubt of the criminal variety, Prisoner Of Mother England) came to live in the area to be a sheep farmer. He began a sophisticated method of stealing sheep from afar, and everyone knew he was doing it but could not for the life of them figure out how. It turns out he was using a collie dog to round up the sheep, a brand new method not yet known. This is how sheep dogs were born, and there is a statue dedicated to these clever doggies on the shores of Lake Tekapo.

 This area around Lake Tekapo has some of the clearest skies in the world. They have an observatory on a hill where astronomers from all over the world come to study the skies, and they have even set in motion turning the skies above the observatory and Lake Tekapo into a national park to make sure there is not light or air pollution, and a no fly zone. Very unfortunately the skies were grey that day, and a full moon so no stars to be seen that night.

The landscape started changing as we got to Rangitata, becoming more green and lush and quite hilly. It was also humid and rainy, ‘The land of the long white cloud’ is so true.  There were tons of fields with very fat, happy looking sheep and cows. Mass meat farming has not yet taken NZ as far as I know, and meat in the supermarket like bacon is very expensive which is very good to see. I also think they export a lot of meat and it seems the NZ lamb you can by in the UK is cheaper than if you buy it here. Along with wine and other food, very bizarre.

We were driving in the middle of nowhere amongst the sheep fields and lushness and found our hostel for the night, Rangitata Rafts. It was a big cabin like house with a wooden porch with garden tables and through some sliding doors was big open living room / kitchen area. There was an old wood burner and a some comfy sofas, definitely the most welcoming and homely of the backpackers so far. Everyone was so happy  be staying there as it was so quirky and rustic. The owners were a kiwi couple in their forties and were so laid back and down to earth, with the guy cracking jokes and taking his time checking all 30 of us in. ‘Don’t rush me, make yourself at home’.

The dorms had chunky wooden bunk beds three beds high, so the person at the top almost touched noses with the ceiling. They had obviously been custom made and they were really big and comfortable, like a big old tree house. There was only one shower room though, with a communal shower so we all just had to pile in (the girls that is) European style.

In Rangitata you can go white water rafting which looks very awesome, and horse riding off road. I was going to do rafting but decided to keep my dollars for Kaikoura. Instead we went for a walk in the forest area around the cabin, through some very lush forest. There was a big tree and a small waterfall...

In the evening the backpackers put on a barbecue for everyone for $10. There were some fat dodgy sausages (the sausages here are pretty bad, grey with no texture and tasteless, absolutely miles from British sausages or South African boerewors, absolutely miles). Some potatoes, white slices of buttered bread and coleslaw. We all gathered in the living room after the food and put on a movie, and I got out my little white typewriter and settled down to an evening of travel planning and writing.

Internet here is so ridiculously expensive. You get charged per megabyte, and its $5 per 50mb. I think I’ve spent around £50 on internet in total for my NZ stay.

Kaikoura 10-11 Feb 12

The next morning we got up early to drive to Kaikoura. As different people got on and off the bus the crowd starting getting more friendly, so I managed to have some good chats with a couple of people. 

The roads turned into more lush, hilly territory and you could start feeling the closeness of the sea by the air and smells. I was happy because the mountains in Mackenzie country are beautiful but the light very stark and the air very bracing and eerie.

I was excited for Kaikoura because I had heard it’s incredible for its sealife. Dolphins, seals, penguins, delicious sea food and all in totally unspoilt and beautifully clean South Pacific sea. I had also signed up for dolphin swimming (!) and fishing. Someone had told me about the fishing, it was only $80 / £40 and apparently involved eating as much crayfish fresh from the ocean as you could fit in your tum.

We were taken to The Adelphi hostel on the high street. It’s a mad old place with crazy wallpaper and really shabby rooms, quite like an old English sea side hotel. It had a huge collection of video tapes (all the hostels here still have video tapes and old video players, retro as heck) and one of those huge box TV’s that were the latest thing in the 90’s. It only cost $24 / £12 a night and you got free soup between 6pm-9pm.

We arrived at 1.30pm and after checking in the three of us who were going fishing got picked up. It was quite cold and rainy but I didn’t mind as I was pretty sure I’d get wet fishing anyway. At least I was able to use the expensive rain proof jacket I bought for the first time and maybe the last.

We got picked up in an old combi by a grisly looking fisherman called Nick. He drove us to the water’s edge where our small fishing boat and Gerry our captain was waiting. Nick had one prosthetic leg that looked utterly gnarly with a chewed wooden foot, and a few of his fingers were missing from the second joint. Along with his tattoos he was the closest thing I’ve ever seen to a real live pirate.

We set off for the now quite cold and wet horizon and I think this was the first time I’ve been out in a boat to open sea. I had no idea if I would be horrendously sea sick or not. The boat was bobbing up and down like a cork and flying up and down and hitting the water on each downward sway so hard that it felt like my stomach was going to drop right out, but I was okay to start. They drove to the first crayfish basket and hoisted it up.

Each fishermen is restricted to only 6 crayfish each a day and maybe that’s why they cost so much in restaurants. We were allowed to take 12, 6 for Gerry and 6 for Nick. We pulled up 3 baskets, and once all the crayfish were in the box – man they are crazy mad alien sea creatures kicking about – Nick got out his ruler and measured them to make sure he only took adults. The rest he just tossed back into the sea.

They then rode even further out to sea and got the fishing rods out for us. They literally dumped the rod in my hand although I had no clue how to use it, and let the line loose in the water. The line just wheeled off like crazy, into the depths, and I’m serious that 30 seconds later I felt the first tug. I was leaning against the boat to steady myself, with the thing tipping and diving like a rollercoaster still, and wheeled in my first fish.

I was staring right into the water (even writing this is making me feel sea sick!) and I felt a wall of dizziness hit me over the head. If you’ve ever been sea sick you know how horrendous it can be, argh it’s so horrible and there is nothing you can do about it. I put my line back out and about a minute later wheeled in another fish, and then had to sit down and turn green with my head spinning out of control and my fingers going numb. Look to the horizon if you’re ever sea sick! You need something to steady your eyes.

The others were pulling them fast too. This area of New Zealand is known for its amazing ocean basket of bountiful fish, and thank goodness it is heavily monitored and conserved. The wildlife in Kaikoura alone is like being in a David Attenborough documentary about sealife. There are seals lazing on the rocks, penguins dipping in and out of the water and sea birds everywhere you look. Everything is crystal clean and feels almost utterly untouched, a place where people and tourism haven’t even dented the natural habitat of the sealife and is sadly probably one of the only places I’ve seen that has been so accessible to tourists, yet so pristine and perfect as if people were the minority species. How grateful I am to be here and accepting gifts as wonderful as this from the ocean.

I was an impressive shade of green at this point and the other two with us were heading the same way, so Gerry took us back to his place where the feast was to begin. All included in the £40 was a cook up of crayfish and some wine at Gerry’s. Being a Friday he invited his neighbours round, brought out copious amounts of local white wine, and put all 12 crayfish in a steam pot in his garden. He showed us how to do it... first you drown the crayfish in fresh water, and then put them in a pot and steam for 15 minutes only.

In the meantime, he prepared our fish and put it out for us with wasabi, lemon juice and soya sauce so we can try some of it raw. Now, I don’t know how many of you have gone fishing in the pristine open sea and then eaten your catch less than an hour later, but let me tell you it’s up there as an experience of happiness. After showing us how to properly eat the entire crayfish to the shell and sharing them amongst his friends and our driver Snowflake (only 3 of us went fishing from the bus but he invited Snowflake round for laughs) he poured tons of wine and we had a proper New Zealand fishermen’s piss up in his garden. He then wrapped up the rest of our fish, put 3 crayfish in a box along with 2 bottles of wine and got a huge pile of assorted veg that had grown in his massive veggie garden and sent us on our way. A crayfish when bought in a restaurant is $100 or more, and we got all of this and an afternoon of fishing for $80!

We stumbled back to our hostel, and the girl fishing with me went off to buy some chips. When she got back I had fried up all the rest of our catch in butter, steamed the veggies and we had another of the best meals of our life.

The next morning I had to get up at 4am to go... SWIMMING WITH DOLPHINS. I know right? Luckiest girl on earth and with the grumps well and truly left behind I shot up and walked down in the dark to the dolphin encounter office with another Dutch girl in the drizzle. We were 40 minutes early at 4.40am which is how excited we were. We got all our wetsuit gear and watched a safety video which was probably made in 2010 but looked like it was made in 1988. Every Kiwi person I’ve come into contact with working has been so helpful and friendly, and proud and happy to do their jobs like our two guides were so excited for us yet they do it every day.

I knew I’d be seasick again but I didn’t care. It was a bigger boat this time and much less gnarly than pirate Gerry and Nick’s boat. We set off into the open sea around 6am, this is the time that the dolphins have finished feeding in the deeper waters and are coming into the shore to hang out and socialise with their buddies. We headed out to the open sea, and only had to wait 30 minutes to find the first set leaping and somersaulting into the air but our guide and skipper knew that the dolphins were gathering all together and that those were just small pods. There were around 13 people on the boat, all girls again from the Stray Bus except for one token dude but they were nice ones this time, so happy and excited. We were all nervous about being dropped into the deep sea (800m deep) but the adventure overtook all that.

The signal sounded and we had all our wetsuit and snorkel gear in place ready to drop into the water. I was the first one in, it cold so it made you gasp but my head was straight down looking in the deep. And there were the dusky dolphins swimming and playing and headed straight for me!

To say this was an amazing experience just doesn’t quite explain how humbling, exhilarating, utterly thrilling and wonderful it was to be surrounded and circled by these animals. They are the only wild animals that like to socialise with humans – they are completely and utterly wild. No enticing is done by the boats, no feeding or anything of the like (unlike shark diving in SA). The conservation in this area is extremely strict. There are 3 thousand of them living in that area in New Zealand and they thrive on playing and being social with each other, and being entertained by humans. We were dropped into a pod of 200-300 dolphins, and at one stage I had five or so circling me, below and all around. One of them bumped me playfully. They also like to look you in the eye as that is a way of communication. There were even babies! They taught us to make funny high pitched noises to entertain them, and everyone was at it like a crazy snorkel choir. I had an underwater camera and I’m dying to get the pics developed, will upload them once I do.

We were allowed to be in the water for about 30 minutes in short bursts, and then had an opportunity to take pics of them from the boat. It was crazy to see hundreds of fins coming out the water as far as the eye could see, and them diving and dipping and somersaulting in the air going nuts. Unfortunately I was really sea sick at this stage and was wrapped in a blanket clutching a hard ginger biscuit, but I was watching them come right to the side of the boat and look at me peering down into their faces.

New Zealand you are a special, special place.

As soon as we got off the boat we were on the bus, no shower or anything. It was time to head to Abel Tasman. Happy girl J