New Zealand – Mt Cook & Arrowtown

[Bass: Once again, hijacking our sailing blog to do some trip reports from our recent visit to the South Island of New Zealand. For those expecting Nimble 20 sailboat modification information, sorry to disappoint… Turnstone is in storage until the spring, at which point we will return you to your regularly scheduled programming! As in previous trip logs, the narrative is written by Brig, any of Bass’ commentary (such as it is) is inserted inside brackets and turned a different color.]

[Different this time around too is the images and video have been combined into one vid combining still images and motion video (and 80’s music… see below), let me know if you like the format or if I should go back to a list of images and then a separate video.]

Day 1 and 2- Christchurch to Mt. Cook Village- approximately 300 kms. After a morning of the cruising around Christchurch provisioning our campervan it was definitely time to hit the road! I had trouble adjusting to being a passenger on the opposite side of the vehicle driving on the opposite side of the road. I felt like I was riding in a side car and our van side mirrors were going to collide with the side mirrors of vehicles parked on the very narrow streets. I kept flinching and grabbing the “Oh Crap” handle above me. Bass made it clear that I was under no circumstances allowed to scream and grab the steering wheel again so I just tried to settle in to enjoy the scenery. It was not long before I felt grateful that I was not driving and was happy to be in the capable hands of Bass at the wheel.

It was our first taste of the very lovely, agrarian countryside. We noticed right away the efficiency in which the land is used, something we would see consistently regardless of where we were on the South Island. Sheep grazed in fenced fields next to land trellised with grape vines. Dairy cows had their own space next to large, fenced vegetable plots.

We drove through the touristy town of Lake Tekapo where every other shop was an outfit offering to heli you anywhere to do anything. Only in NZ does a person heli fly-fish. We continued on and soon Mt. Cook loomed in the distance. It was a clear beautiful and warm day. We checked into the Glentanner Holiday Park. This was our first experience with NZ “holiday parks”. What we dreaded at first as overly social KOA type camp grounds turned out to be well planned camping areas in great locations with beautiful views. In the States this land would not be used communal camping, it would be gated around one McMansion. We found most holiday parks well equipped with clean facilities and both “powered” and “non-powered” sites. We plugged in most nights to power our lights, tunes and the space heater. Later in our trip we discovered the joy of microwaving pies in the morning. More on pies later because we could talk about pies this entire trip log! The holiday parks also have ample shower facilities, communal kitchens and outdoor BBQs. Almost all parks have wi-fi access and we were able to send some pictures and emails while on the road. With ubiquitous wi-fi Bass was also able to deal with minor work problems for his clients back in Idaho as well as manage our football pool as the Commish.

This first night in our van we found a secluded camp site with views of Mt. Cook. We promptly set up our funny folding card table (circa 1950) and two camp chairs. We answered the call of the cold Steinies which had been rattling in the fridge all day.

The next day we planned to hike the Hooker Valley Track. At the trailhead, as we packed our cameras, sunscreen and lunch, we could hear rumblings of snow sliding. All around us, but a safe distance away, we saw avalanches sliding off rocks as the sun warmed the snow making it unstable.

The Hooker Track is a great tramp along a loud creek with swing bridges, rock scrambling and boardwalks over marshy areas. This was a moderate tramp which took two hours each way. Our reward was a glacial lake – azure blue – cupped in a ring of mountains dressed with glaciers. In the lake floated ice bergs, the largest being the size of a Mini Cooper. The views up and down the Hooker Valley were tremendous. Later we celebrated the day with a drink at the Hermitage Bar where the likes of Edmund Hilary, known around these parts as “Sir Eeed”, watched climbers in their summit attempts. No one was summiting the day we were in the Hermitage but we watched the clouds whip over the ridges leaving swirling spindrifts.

The next morning we were woken by what sounded like a cat fight. It turned out to be the call of a ring necked pheasant that was poking around the campground. We nicknamed the pheasant Wendell after our cat who liked to talk and who liked to bite. Bass was sitting outside the campervan enjoying the morning sun, drinking his coffee and minding his own business when Wendell the pheasant bit him in the arm!

At Mt. Cook Village we caught a 3D movie in a special theatre with incredible acoustics. We donned 3D glasses and experienced the mythic origin of the islands of New Zealand. Pretty trippy stuff. We also saw a documentary in Sir Eeed.

Day 3 Mt. Cook Village to Arrowtown approximately 250 kms. We had heard that driving on the So. Island was a lot like driving on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. Drive slowly because there is a beautiful view at every bend. We were advised to plan ahead and try not to “make time” on the roads of NZ. This could not be more true. The drive to Arrowtown, outside Queenstown, was spectacular as we followed the Kawarau River gorge [Bass: these are some seriously twisty roads… I felt fortunate to have already experienced twisty river roads in a top heavy van at home, leaving only the left side of the road angle to get used to]. We got good looks at the rapids on the river and drove by canyon vineyards and a local “cheesery”. The vineyards had wind turbines interspersed in the rows of vines. We thought these turbines generated power but really they are to keep the air moving so cold air does not settle on the vines and freeze the crop on colder nights. We were also told that sometimes helicopters hovered over the vineyards to keep air moving. I decided right then and there that I had indeed heard it all……..Heli-viticulture!! Seriously……….only in NZ!

Arrowtown reminds us of Ketchum, a small mountain resort town with a quaint Main Street, boutiques and bistros. We walked into town to a local pub where we sat outside and enjoyed the trees in bloom. We did not realize it was Halloween until kids started coming down the street dressed in costumes…skeletons, witches, princesses and baseball players……..some things are the same no matter what continent you are on!

[Before the video, a word on music in New Zealand… for whatever reason, and this is confirmed by our local friends, Kiwi’s love their 80’s music and have never really moved on… so consider the soundtrack to this first video a tribute to Kiwi music “taste”!]