Island of the long white cloud

I was pretty excited when I got an email from Qantas about a New Zealand sale. Air New Zealand was too and we got two return tickets for $715. I'm sure we paid around that price 33 years ago when we went there on our honeymoon!

Lindsay & I back in 1986 - he's front right, I'm back left

New Zealand is a beautiful country and it doesn't take that long to drive anywhere. I had found a website called inafarawayland written by a Polish girl who worked in New Zealand. She has published a number of itineraries and photography spots to choose from, plus she takes stunning photographs.

Landscape photography is not Lindsay's passion, so two weeks would be enough he decided especially when fishing season starts again in December. I thought an RV would be a good mode of transport, so that if I was off photographing he could have a nap, cup of tea or watch a movie. For such a short period I concentrated on the South Island only.

I bought the Wikicamps app for NZ before I found out that most people use the Rankers app which is free and seems to have more places in it. You can download offline maps for both - which would have been a good idea to do before I left home. After a bit of research I decided that 2° mobile was the way to stay connected. They have a one our free data hour every day and if we ran out of our allocated data we could buy 15 minutes for just 40c. It turned out to be better than that as they had a special of two free hours per day which we could split up into two different sessions. We only needed a $19 plan which also included free calls to Australia. The only place we didn't have connection was Milford Sound which was pretty impressive. Even Aoraki (Mt Cook) had reception. I only booked Caravan parks for the really busy places in advance - Milford Sound, Queenstown and Wanaka to give us more flexibility and it turned out that all those places were booked out.

The itinerary was as follows: Moeraki Rocks, The Nuggets lighthouse, Catlins State Forest, Te Anau, Milford Sound, Queenstown, Wanaka, Aoraki and Tekapo.

Moeraki Boulders

The Moeraki boulders are a very popular tourist spot and the Asians love standing on them or in front of them, all for the perfect selfie, a phenomenon that would follow us pretty much everywhere we went. They mostly came in waves by the bus load which mostly gave me a few minutes to grab a few photos in between but not always. Ideally I should have checked out the tides to make sure it was low tide at sunrise or sunset. Unfortunately for me, sunrise and sunset were both at high tide which meant the boulders would be under water. You don't want them at low tide either otherwise there is no water around them at all. As we had the camper we were able to go back and have lunch while waiting just over an hour for the water to rise a bit more.

Shag Point

It was the wrong time of day to be finding penguins at Katakiti point but anytime is a good time for the seals at Shag Point.

Fur seal at Shag Point

There are some pylons left over from a pier in Dunedin on the St Claire beach that I was interested in photographing. The wind was so strong that it sandblasted my face when I got to the beach. Needless to say I didn't get any pictures. A few days later Christchurch was hit by a tornado.

Up near the lighthouse there were more seals. It's amazing how they can climb up the steep cliffs.

Sandfly Bay, Dunedin

It's a long walk down to the beach at Sandfly bay through the sand dunes and down the steep cliff. The clouds were quite grey above our heads before we started but decided to take the chance and go anyway. The Elephant seals are spread out from one end of the beach to the other and look like big blobs on the sand. The rain held off until we started walking back but we still had the cliff to climb up in the rain.

Elephant seal at Sandfly Bay

Time for a dip

Tunnel Beach, Dunedin

I stopped about three quarters of the way down the one kilometre track, it would have been nice to go all the way but I knew I didn't have much time before the next rainstorm. Not only was I thinking of the rain but also about having to walk back up with my heavy camera gear. Lindsay had sensibly stayed in the RV, so I was on my own. The track down was as steep as Sandfly Bay but a proper well maintained walking track. I knew it was going to rain so I kitted myself out in rain pants, rain jacket and a rain cover for my camera.  I took three bracketed sets of photos and hoped one was okay. After a hard slog back up the hill and getting very hot in my wet weather gear the heavens opened a few seconds after I got inside the RV.

Catlins State Forest

Nugget Point Lighthouse

The Catlins National Forest incorporates Nugget point and a number of waterfalls. We called into an information centre so that I could download some offline maps and fortunately I saw a sign on the wall just before I left saying that the Cathedral Caves were shut to visitors. That was very disappointing. There aren't many places to stay around here and I wanted to go back to the lighthouse for sunrise. You can't freedom camp anywhere around here but we passed a farm stay on the way back from the waterfalls that fit the bill. As we left the next morning people were getting bogged in the grass as it had rained overnight. Lindsay expertly took the right line and got out without any problems, while the others had to wait for the tractor to get them out.

The Nuggets

The Lighthouse at Nugget Point from the beach

Nugget Point Lighthouse

Purakaunui Falls

Photographing the waterfalls needed excellent timing to be able to walk in, take photos and walk out before the next hail storm hit.

Matai Falls

Horseshoe Falls near Matai Falls

McLean Falls

McLean Falls

Walking into McLean Falls

Waipapa Point Lighthouse

Seals at Waipapa Point

Jack's blowhole was a non event, we couldn't even find it and obviously the tides have to be right for the water to push out of the rocks.

30 Million sheep, less than 5 million people

Te Anau

Te Anau is a pretty little town surrounding a lake. They have had so much rain here that the jetty at the yacht club was under water. On the bright side I didn't have to get up early for sunrise or stay out late for sunset. On a whim, we decided to go into the information centre where she told us that the road to Milford Sound was closed. We had a booking for the following night and called up the lodge. Yes it was closed and we could call back at 5:30pm and again tomorrow at 7am to get an update.

Te Anau Jetty at the Yacht Club

Milford Sound

Mirror Lakes

We got up early enough to make it to Mirror Lakes before the tour buses with the selfie takers did. The overcast cloud didn't really do much for the photo though.

The reason the road to Milford Sound was shut was due to an avalanche warning. As it had rained so much the snow was unstable - there was a layer of ice, then one of snow and another of ice, this meant the snow could slide off the ice. They would check again at 2pm which gave us a few hours to fill in. Just before the avalanche gate is the road down to Lake Marian, we didn't go all the way to the lake but there are lots of rapids to see along the way.  Two pm came and went and then we were waiting on an update at 4:30pm, by 5pm they said it wasn't going to open and we had to find somewhere else to stay. You can't freedom camp anywhere around there so we headed back to the first National Parks campground called Cascades. We didn't have the correct cash but I managed to find another couple who had change. The rangers come around about 7pm to check that you've paid and again in the morning. I found out the following day that they do have change and you can wait until you catch them to pay. They aren't unreasonable the ranger told me - good to know.

Trail to Lake Marian

First up is this wobbly bridge

Beautiful cascades

Lovely rainforest trail

We didn't know if the road would open today but left the campsite just after we woke with the idea of having breakfast further down the road. The ranger was at the gate as we drove out and he said the road was due to open at 8:30am. Breakfast was postponed and we joined the already long queue at the avalanche holding gate.

Just about to go down the steep tunnel

This was one of the campsites that we had pre-booked, so we had missed one night. They were supposed to refund us the day we missed but I'm still waiting. Like every day before it, it rained the whole time. We did the cruise last time we were here so there wasn't any point going again in the rain.

Mitre Peak, I was hoping for a lovely sunrise. We got up early, but didn't even park the camper

Bridge to nowhere; it's just forest on the other side

Queenstown

Queenstown's Remarkables

This was as much of a sunrise as I was going to get from the Remarkables. I don't think it looks any good without snow on it either - you would have to be here in winter. We could walk into town from the caravan park, so didn't have to try and find parking in this very busy town. I had decided I wasn't going to get up for sunrise, but then changed my mind at the last minute, quite frankly I shouldn't have bothered. We drove up to the blue pools during the day which is on the road to the west coast. The trail in is about 30 minutes which goes through rainforest, when I came to the end I thought there must be more but there wasn't. Unfortunately the water level was too high which meant you couldn't see the underlying rocks which is what makes them impressive and the usually bright blue glacial water was cloudy.

The Shotover River is in shade in the morning

Wanaka

The Wanaka Tree at sunrise

I had booked a campsite at one of the town caravan parks as I didn't want to be too far out of town to photograph the tree at sunset and again at sunrise. Lindsay wasn't happy that the site they gave us wasn't level so he went and complained. The answer was "but you are only here for one night". So what, he said, we booked 6 months ago, we deserve a better site... and we got it.

A couple of weeks beforehand people could walk out to the tree as there was hardly any water in the lake. Now there was so much water even one of the branches was under the water. At sunset the wind was so strong the waves lapped the shoreline which made you think you were at a beach. The tree faces north, so the sun rises over the town to the right of the tree. When the light eventually hit the mountain tops, it wasn't golden and it just washed them out.

Peter's Lookout on Lake Pukaki with Aoraki in the background.

Aoraki (Mt Cook)

Hooker Lake

One of the three bridges

Hooker lake was going to be the highlight of the trip for me. A storm had washed away one of the three swing bridges a number of months before hand and I hoped they would have it fixed by November which they did. The hike takes about 90 minutes which meant we had to leave around 4am. It was dark but not cold, in fact it was so mild we didn't even wear our jackets. Only about five minutes into our walk Lindsay twisted his ankle, not the one that was reconstructed last year but the other one that needs doing also. I told him to go back, that I would go on alone but he wouldn't. We were both carrying a tripod and cameras but he didn't end up taking any photos so we could have saved ourselves some weight. It was so windy at the lake that he got blown over. I had to hold my tripod steady to take photos. The lake was murky, not the gorgeous blue I had seen in photos nor was there any colour in the sky. The sun rose behind me at the lake, so the most you can hope for in the morning is colour in the sky. The camping ground at White Horse Hill is just a car park. There is a designated area for the campers but the day trippers park anywhere so when we came back from Tasman Lake after lunchtime there wasn't anywhere to park. We decided that we didn't want to be sandwiched next to other RV's anyway so parked in the day area. I don't think the rangers cared as they put a little red sticker on our rego to show that we had paid and didn't ask us to move.

Tekapo

The Church of the Good Shepherd

This little church has stood here for 80 years undisturbed. Until Instagram. Now the tour buses have it on their itineraries and there are people taking selfies until the light goes. Only before sunrise could I get a photo without anyone in it. It was our only sunrise on the whole trip.

Lupins in Tekapo

The lupins are a weed and there is talk about poisoning them. I just love them. Finally, some blue glacial water!!

Don't complain about our fuel prices! Tax is included in the unleaded price but there is no tax payable on diesel at the pump, you pay a separate road user charge tax of $72 per thousand kilometres. If you hire a vehicle this will be payable when you return the vehicle.

I don't actually remember seeing a speed hump on the whole trip, they just narrow the road so that you have to slow down, especially if there is another car coming the other way. At bridges, just like 30 years ago, many are still single but now they have a sign and line on the road letting you know which side of the bridge has to give way to the other.

Lindsay is giving me lessons on the M2P

NZ Photo Album