Nelson - Queenstown - Milford - Bluff

Hello! 

How are you? We've travelled a lot since I last blogged! Here's what we've been up to - we're now in the south of the south island.

I mentioned that we were travelling around the Sounds. We loved it around there. The French Pass is memorable - the drive and the final point. We felt like we were away from everything. You can look over to D'urville Island from here, over a very rough patch of water. Nelson was next - a small town but we wanted to stop here because the local museum was showing the National Geographic Best 50 photos  - it was amazing to see them and read about how/why they were taken. 

From Nelson, you can travel up to Abel Tasman. There is so much to see here. There's a great free camp by the beach in Motueka. It's right by the Janie Seddon shipwreck. We used Motueka as a base for exploring. Around here there were great rivers to swim in, phytokarst caves to explore, waterfalls, good walks and the most amazing spot - Whararaki beach. Here we saw fur seals! We also found a great distillery in the very quaint town of Takaka - they produce different gins and a white and dark rum. We bought a bottle of the white rum and it's the perfect nightcap warmer.

Next was the Nelson lakes - Rotiti and Rotorua. These lakes are set amongst mountains and take for a very nice picture (if you can get one amongst all the jetty instagram photos - I actually ended up doing a photo shoot for a girl ha!). We drove past Westport and Greymouth pretty swiftly but from Greymouth you can start the Lewis Pass. We loved the journey through the mountains and especially loved Hanmer Springs where we spent a whole day exploring the different pools (we didn't spend too long in the sulphur pools). The Lewis Pass took us over to the East but we looped back to the west via the impressive Arthur Pass. The drive was just unreal - through snow covered mountains and deep valleys. A highlight was Castle Hill (huge clusters of limestone) which looks almost like remains of a fort. We enjoyed climbing up and around the rocks.

The temperature was dropping a fair bit now. The van was getting colder and we had to layer up at night. Frost on the inside of our van was a highlight though! 

Then we hit the glaciers. Wow. We climbed along a really good walk 'Robert Point' to see Franz Josef. It was amazing to see but it's so sad how quick the glacier is melting. You can also walk up to see Fox glacier. We enjoyed the walks, you can get a heli tour over both but they are pretty expensive. Around here is Lake Matheson where you can spot Mount Cook and Tasman in the distance. 

The Haast Pass was a great drive too, with lots of waterfalls to stop at, and this took us down to the places we've been longing to explore - Wanaka, Queenstown and Milford. Wanaka was very hard to leave. Such a beautiful town set around the lake (with the tree of course) with gorgeous snow topped mountains all around, great bars and amazing walks. Roy's Peak was a tough climb as it was very steep and very icy at the summit. In fact, the summit was like a ski field. Rob Roy glacier was a great walk too (but maybe not wise doing a 7 hour walk followed by a 4). There's a cute little cinema there too with warm cookies in the interval. So yeah, we didn't want to leave but Queenstown was calling. Queenstown was way busier and more touristy. We liked it, especially the happy hour $4 wine/beer. Here we attempted Ben Lomond - it was a great walk with amazing views but we would have needed ice gear to get to the summit. We stayed at a hostel style camp in Queenstown, only $15 a night and we could walk into town which was grand.

When you're around there, driving out to Glenorchy is a must. It's known as the most scenic drive in the country and there is a lovely book shop. We then made our way to Milford. If you think of NZ, you think of Milford. Oh my, it was unreal. We bought cheapish tickets online for a nature cruise as you just have to get out on the water. Sailing through the fiords was magical and we saw seals and dolphins! There's only one camp there (which is a bit more pricey) but we stayed there so we could see Milford at sunset, under the milky way (we saw the core rise) and sunrise. It was raining the next day which showed Milford off in a different light. We met two friends here from kumara picking so it was nice staying up chatting.

Again, we didn't want to leave but we travelled through the fiords and now we're down on the South coast. It's amazing here and it feels very Scottish. Finally, some decent free camps too! Sometimes there aren't any free camps so you just have to accept that you need to pay. Around Milford, there are DOC (department of conservation) camps but you have to pay $26 a night for a drop toilet. Don't get me started on drop toilets...I seem to have developed a fear. Some are clean and don't smell too much, but I still feel like something is going to come up and eat me (it's scary when it's pitch black). Some are veryyyy smelly and full of bugs. I know they are better for the environment so you just have to get on with it and be brave ha, but oh my, you appreciate a flush toilet even more! One free camp had a drop but it had a flush hooray! We stay at free camps when we can (there aren't as many as we'd hoped for in the south) and use a paid camp if we have laundry. In the summer a free shower was easy - jump in the sea/lake/river or use the beach cold showers and it's all good. In winter, it's been harder. We were still using free cold showers but it's so hard to warm up. We've still been trying to swim (even did yesterday) but sometimes you just need a warm shower. Luckily there are places you can pay like $3 for one yay! The van has been ok - just a bit cold at night/in the morning sometimes. We've got a lovely candle for warmth and ambience.

Anyway, we're down at the most southernly point (near Bluff) and looking forward to the east coast. We are going to head back to Wanaka/Queenstown again for some skiing hopefully - maybe Cardrona? It'll be weird skiing around my birthday. Hopefully we'll see penguins soon too and we would like to sea kayak around Kaikoura. We would like to find some short-term work soon too - either on the south or north Island. We'll see.

Thanks for reading!

X gf v x