Day 7. September 21, 2010 Cromwell to old Queenstown

Today we swapped our trusty camper van for people mover. Our day started with “operation clean and repack” our van ready for a swap. Given the girls’ capacity for orderly storing of valuables, we spent some time checking all the hiding spots for clothes, personal items and assorted valuables. The girls helped at first, then found some New Zealand girls to play with, which suited us fine. Would we campervan again, yes, going in with the knowledge we have.

The cooking, laundry, shower and toilet facilities were fantastic, as we have found in all the top ten van parks. The managers were very helpful, ringing ahead to book our accommodation at Queenstown. At noon we met Lynda’s parents (of affordable motor-homes) in Cromwell’s town square to swap vehicles. Very friendly folks and the exchange went well with no apparent issues. Thoroughly recommend Top 10, we have had a great experience with them and intend to keep using the cabins/motel rooms when we can.

With the exchange completed, we visited Cromwell’s small but excellent museum that focused on the town’s gold mining history. After the museum we explored historic Old Cromwell Town, which was a series of mid 19^th Century stores and cottages laid out in period streets. We could imagine people of the time walking the streets and laneways. The town also has two of the largest trees we have ever seen inside a town near one of three churches in an area that would have been the outskirts of the original township .

The drive today was relatively short between Cromwell and Queenstown, roughly an hour. We made a few quick photo stops to take photos of the River that the road followed most of the trip. One stop was at Roaring Meg that is a hydroelectric power station. As per usual the scenery was breath taking with the snow capped mountains constantly in view. This landscape was a particularly rugged in this part of the trip with a few natural waterfalls falling down the nearby hills and valleys. The road as Per usual was wonderful and as per usual plenty of overtaking lanes. We noticed with the van that they do accommodate vans and slow vehicles well with very regular extra lanes.

When we arrived at Queenstown we were greeted with a completely different feel of town. Every town, including the larger Christchurch and Dunedin, had a laid back low key feel, Queenstown was much busier. We were greeted by plenty of multicultural eateries, snow hire and sale shops and travel/booking agents selling tickets to fun things like bungee jumping, jet boating and jumping off bridges strapped to plastic patio chairs. We can assure all we will be photographing and watching most of these and not participating. One thing that is both exciting to us and disappointing at the same time is the snowy weather. We are booked to do a Milford Sound bus and boat tour from Queenstown tomorrow but as the road has been blocked on and off over the last few days we are unsure if it will still go ahead. We find out bright and early in the morning around 6.30am. The Van Park manager thought we would have a less than 50% going on the fact that is was currently snowing lightly and they were predicting more during the night. So we will see. We have seen this as a great fact finding trip and will get a full refund, move on and do other things if we miss out.

Day 6 September 20, 2010 From Coastal land of the Scotts, to Mountain Cromwell

This morning was pack-up time for us, which was sad as we had much more to explore of Dunedin. Our first stop was the historic Dunedin Railway station to park the van cheaply. Parking is cheap at Dunedin, but finding a suitable space for 6+ metre van is difficult. We took an opportunity to look around the turn of 20^th Century railway station. Apparently it is the most photographed structure after the Sydney Opera house in the southern hemisphere.

The main purpose of our return trip to Dunedin city centre was to tour the Cadbury Chocolate Factory which was much to Charlotte and Jacqueline’s delight. The tour took 45 minutes, which was interesting and more importantly we got samples of the factory’s production by answering questions asked by our guide. The girls did very well leaving through the Factory’s gift shop (of course) loaded down with prizes.

We did a brief re-stock of our food at NZ’s version of woolies after the tour. NZ’s foods prices are a fraction of ours back in Australia. Their houses, food and cars are all much cheaper without factoring in the exchange. One wonders….

We began our 3 1/2 hour trip inland to Cromwell, first travelling south to Milton, then turning inland to Cromwell. NZ’s mountains and valleys are clustered with little hamlets and towns. It makes for eventful trip with snow covered peaks, deep valleys, lakes, and grazing sheep along a tree lined mountain road. Overall very pleasant to see, in fact one wonders why any New Zealander would ever want grace Australia’s shores with a visit.

Town of the Red Headed Kiwi Scotsmen

Day 5 Dunedin 19 September 19, 2010

(Town of the Red Headed Kiwi Scotsmen)

Today was a fairly low key day with no driving but catching up on washing and relaxing. Girls even had a swim in the heated pool at the van park. Our campervan experience has been OK certainly with its advantages and disadvantages. Advantages have been not actually living out of a suitcase as we could unpack a fair bit of our everyday clothes and put them into cupboards in the van. We have eaten fairly cheaply as we grocery shop buy easy cook meals, soups, have bread for toast, beans spaghetti, coffee etc. Generally one purchased meal a day either a brunch or a ‘lea’. Tonight we were craving for protein and found a pub/tavern and had ‘Stone Grill’ steak. As it turned out they brought the raw steak to your table on a hot volcanic rock and you cooked it your table.(see photo) We have started using Top Ten Van Parks and two out of two have been great. Wonderful facilities, clean, pretty setting usually edge of town, quiet and friendly helpful service.

Disadvantages we have found are maneuvering of a 6.5 metre monstrosity difficult and where ever possible we have parked and walked to where we want to go, very compact and hard to store luggage at night and there is only four belts two in front and two in the back so no easy options to separate the girls WHEN the niggle each other.

The morning was a restful start as we explored the Van Park. The Van Park has a “community park” level of gardens in it for all to enjoy it also doubles as privacy for the many van and camping options powered and unpowered. The girls discovered two of the Van Park’s six resident cats during “our explore” which were well received by both the girls and the cats. At noon we headed into the city by taxi, to explore the sights of Dunedin. The city was a gold mining town in the mid 19^th century, and much of the wealth reflects in the period buildings. The craftsmanship, decoration and stone durability of the old buildings illustrates the level of wealth that was found in the old city. The Scottish miners also built many grand mid to late Victorian era mansions, houses and cottages of which many remain today. The city is home to many period churches, built on street corners. The streets are built on a series of hills leading down into the coastal bay. The city did have a feel of the old world and east coast United States. We noticed that many of the Scotts remained, given the large number of strawberry blondes and red heads we saw in the streets. A very friendly city of 130000 people (including the 25000 uni students) who live in the city.

The girls have been tantalized by our poking our nose in the Cadbury Factory today while we checked out the tour information. That is our priority tomorrow.

By the sea with snow????

Day 4 18^th September Oamaru to Dunedin.

Today saw us firstly finding the Whitestone Cheese Factory where, unfortunately we couldn’t see the factory workers in action, we saw the factory floor and some blue vein cheese two months matured. We then entered the coffee shop and tasting a gorgeous creamy double brie, a tasty, a four year old tasty and a six month blue vein. All were yummy we bought a sample of cheese and complimentary paste. They also made some yummy savory scones (probably more similar to our muffin) that were a meal in themselves containing silver beet, onion, tomato, cheese, herbs etc. She wasn’t revealing the recipe but they were rich and yummy heated with brie melted in the middle. After we left we wandered back to our van through the main street poking our noses into the oldest hotel in Oamaru called the Kingsgate originally built in 1881. It has a parlour typical of the era; one could imagine well dressed gentlemen taking their ease by the fire, discussing the price of wool. It also had ornate Italian cornice work in the dining room, many period features and apparently a late in the night, piano playing lady ghost. We continued through the historic section of town admiring the old buildings which were wool stores, stables and liveries and are now artist’s studios, galleries and a historical bike shop and hire shop.

We left Oamaru early afternoon with only one stop at the Moeraki Boulders. The boulders are large spherical rocks close to the shore. Maori Legend tells that the larger ones are the remnants of parceled belongings and the smaller ones of sweet potato food supply from a ship wrecked in a storm sailing toward the land. Different costal features were created from other parts of the ship and chefs etc involved in the wreck. After walking the few 50 or so metres to the boulders we returned to the café and enjoyed a light lunch with a scrumptious Seafood Chowder highlight of our selection.

We left Moeraki and drove for about an hour and arrived in Dunedin. It was generally and uneventful leg except we once again drove in a light snow flurry which finished just before Dunedin. Once we had settled in the van park there was a fall ‘snowy/sleety/haily stuff’ for a few minutes which was followed later but a light snowy sleet. Dunedin is a hilly town perched on the coastwith high lands behind. Seems to be a quaint ‘old fashiony’ town although we only drove through it and found the van park easily. To those who know North and South Carolina it feels like a mix of the old towns of Ashville and parts of Savannah & Charleston. We are here for two night so look forward to seeing if our impressions are correct.

From Snow to the sea

Day 3
Lake Tekapo to Oamaru

Today saw us wake up to snow. The rain last night had turned into snow and apparently there was a light coating on the ground early in the morning. We had a walk around the lake and through a shopping area. Looking at the souvenirs and beautiful jewelry in some of the shops. It was quite cold and windy outside and there were flurries of snow, so in the shops was a wonderfully warm experience. We then stopped at a bakery and had brunch before setting off. First stop was actually the church by the lake. We couldn’t see inside but it was a beautiful site on the outside but bitterly cold so after some photos we were off. As we were driving out of town the snow became quite heavy and a little concerning to drive in as it was building up on the road very quickly in parts. We thought we were back in outback Australia for a few kilometres driving on two tyre tracks but in the snow on the road not in the dirt. The views of the fields and paddocks in the snow were beautiful. The snow continued in varying amounts for quite away. The sheep, even the shorn ones, didn’t seem perturbed by it. We made a stop at one stage to see some Maori rock painting unfortunately the cave they were in had collapsed and not viewable. This part of the road trip took us from Lake Tekapo to Lake Pukaki to Twizel to Lakes Ohau & Benmore than onto Otematata followed by Lakes Aviemore & Waitaki. Lake Waitaki was also damed with a hydroelectric scheme and a huge dam wall right next to the road. From here we passed through Kurow and Dutroon before getting into Oamaru early afternoon.

The afternoon in Oamaru was very interesting as there are many old amazing buildings. After a chat with a very friendly ‘isite’ assistant we found our accomodation and had directions to the two penguin colonies, Yellow and Blue. First stop was the Yellow Penguins. After an absolutely freezing walk along a track we arrived at a viewing station looking down on the beach were the penguins are supposed to be. No sign of any yellow penguins, well they are the rarest in the world apparently. Looking down we did see some seals sleeping on the beach. We walked back to the van and drove to the Blue Penguin Colony. Very different story here. We waited in a covered seated area for the raft of penguins to come to shore after swimming for 50km during the day for krill. We saw roughly 120 penguins come in in rafts of about 40-50 over about an hour. Many of them had mates on nests with chicks. It was amazing seeing them slowly come up a ramp stopping periodically to rest and cool off. They ten waddled to their nests. About three weeks ago they fenced of the nesting area with two little entries for the penguins. A couple of the penguins were still having trouble finding their way in as they had corralled the main entrance and have basically a barcode scanner to help count the penguins as they have recently started microchipping as well as tagging them. At the end of the majority of the penguins returning to the nesting area four penguins wandered through the fence to where the remaining few keen spectators watched in awe as they waddled within a metres passing us by on the scenic route to their nests. The girls have now officially adopted a penguin each using some birthday money. Thankyou Nanna and Poppy.

Depart Brisbane Airport Flight NZ206 1810
Arrive Christchurch 2315

Days 1 & 2
Day one saw us depart Brisbane relatively stress free process with not too much on our hands waiting. We arrived at Christchurch late on a chilly evening after an uneventful flight. Best part was we obviously scored premium economy seats as there was plenty of leg room. As it was a relatively new plane we thought they had actually thought of passenger comfort but on a trip to the loo we discovered a mere few rows back leg room was the usual bare minimum. In discussion with our lady from immigration on arrival, the girls had mentioned the earth quake and how bad it was to hear what had happed and was there still after shocks? She replied that actually there was one about 10.30pm. Charlotte’s eyes wide as saucers asked what it was like and she said like a large truck rumbling by. Jacq’s eyes lit up in awe. On discussion with Lynda our van lady we discovered that the 10.30 one had her a little concerned and was glad we were still in the air and there had been two others during the night. I was oblivious to them although I hadn’t slept well Cos thought he had felt one. So there is one for the books we have experienced earthquake aftershocks.

Once through customs we contacted the accommodation we were staying in to organize our pick up. We found where the pickup place was. The bus was full but returned in about 10 minutes to collect us and two other passengers. Great service at that time of night. Highly recommend the Airport Lodge Motel. 9.30 this morning saw Lynda pick us up at the motel and take us across to Affordable Motor Homes to pick up our van, finalize our contract and give us some great advice. Off we went to buy groceries and supplies. Food is cheap by Australian standards, and exchange rate helps as well.

Finally we hit the road, on our way, we decided on Lake Tekapo. After taking in wonderful views of the snow capped Southern Alps, glorious fields, valleys, quaint townships, sheep, alpacas, cows and deer we arrived at Lake Tekapo late in the afternoon. A glorious green lake greeted us through the trees. Unfortunately it was too late in the day to explore and although the day was not too cold once the sun began to set and the wind picked up it also grew cold quickly. The other thing with a campervan, it is much harder to drive around to do things. Also it was first in best dressed so once we were in our van site we couldn’t go back out.

So here we sit in the van while it rains outside writing this hearing the rain on the roof is wonderful. We look forward to exploring the Lake area in the morning. The girls are keen ice skate and bath in the hot springs. Cos is keen to check out the old church by the lake.

To contact us - email at cosmel@internode.on.net or leave comment on this blog. Mobile contact emergency only recieving messages fine outgoing painful.

Getting ready to head to NZ

Oh what a fun morning. Last minute packing, girls fighting and ....

So looking forward to do the journey after 18 months of planning.