Hello!
This is part two of our Canterbury adventures. För svensk Google översättning, klicka här:
http://goo.gl/yPAJJo
After some days of working for food and accomodation in
Darfield did we get visitors, our German friends Sarah and David! They left
Kaka Point in
The Catlins on the same day as we did, boxing day, but arrived in Darfield about a week later than us. This shows quite clearly how fast we Finns are in comparison to Germans!!
Sarah & David's visit was supposed to be a planning session, but spontaneous things seem to happen more than often here in NZ. They ended up staying for a day and worked together with us. Thomas & David spent the day splitting gumtree to firewood with a log splitter. Gumtree is very dense, a dry log was about same weight as a wet pine tree log back in Finland. Frida and Sarah organized and cleaned a storage area.
In the evening we played some table tennis and enjoyed a lovely dinner together with our host family.
A couple of days later our "planning session" materialized. The weather forecast turned favourable and on 8th January a rental car was packed with two Germans, two Finns and a good amount of camping gear. The Fellowship of the Experienced Mountaineers started their journey towards Arthur's Pass.
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| Snow capped peaks at Arthur's Pass |
Castle Hill was the first place to be conquered by The Fellowship. Castle Hill is an area of oddly shaped rocks making it an excellent climbing venue. There is a saying in Finland that military service is the place where boys become men. Castle Hill was the place where men became boys. The enviroment made us about 20 years younger and you would have needed a lead to keep us controlled.
We continued our quest and arrived at Arthur's Pass Village in the afternoon. Arthur's Pass (920 meters above sea level) is the route through the mountain ranges along the highway between Christchurch on the east coast and Greymouth on the west coast.
After a lunch break we decided to do a short walk up to the Devil's Punchbowl Falls which, according to our guidebook, is the best waterfall on South Island! (small print: Outside Fiordland national park). Our sincere apologies for the inside jokes... :) The falls were of course beautiful, but perhaps we've all gotten too used to all the waterfalls around NZ and it wasn't exactly a jaw-drop-experience.
Next in line, pool time! We spent a couple of hours at a local pub potting some balls, or at least trying to... :)
We parked our "Mitzu" at a free campground along the road, put up our tents and made some dinner. There was a fireplace at the campground so we could grill some sausages, yey! Before bedtime we played a cardgame that the Germanos introduced to us. It was almost like "Plump" we play at home. We also told them about "Sakan kurssn i Såka". For those of you who haven't heard about it, it's a card scrambling course in the Finnish village of Såka which lasts for a year (52 weeks). You start with one card and each week you'll get an additional card to your deck. It sounded as they will both sign up for the course after they get back to Europe! Ida Dahl, if you are reading, perhaps you could help to find them some accomodation?
The next day was dedicated for hiking up to Avalance Peak. The track up to the peak was "only" 5 km long, but it included a vertical climb from about 740m to 1840 m = 1100 meters. A picture says more than thousand words, this was our reward for all the climbing:
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| The Devil's Punchbowl Falls seen from above |
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| Mt Rolleston (2275 m) in the background. |
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| Kea parrot at Avalanche Peak - King of the hill |
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| Arthur's Pass from up above |
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| View from Avalanche Peak |
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| Skål! We did it! |
We left Arthurs Pass with a smile on our face, definately one of our top 3 experiences on NZ! We were blessed with excellent weather when taking the mountaineous landscape into consideration.
On our way back to Darfield we stopped at Cave Stream. Cave Stream is a long underground stream but unfortunately we were not properly equipped to overtake the cold water in the cave. We were instead pleased with a picture at the outlet and a pair of dry feet each to take us back to the carpark. :)
When we arrived back in Darfield our host Kathy had made us a delicious dinner!
Next morning our Finnish and German paths parted and we continued our journey towards Kaikoura on the east coast. Kaikoura offered a beautiful coastal drive along steep cliffs cutting into the ocean.
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| The coastline north of Kaikoura |
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| Camping at Kaikoura, our tent is so comfy that Frida fell a sleep before we MANAGED to take the photo! :) |
We spent the next morning on the
Kaikoura Peninsula and found a nice breakfast spot.
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| Kaikoura Ranges seen from the Peninsula, Manukau 2610 meters |
We chose to drive the alternative inland route back via Hanmer Springs, where Frida took the opportunity to have some relaxing spa treatment. The route was better than expected and offered some nice scenery.
Overall our two day trip to Kaikoura was a come-si come-ca experience. Don't get us wrong, it was very beautiful in places, but the scenery-to-kms ratio wasn't that high when taking the 600 km round trip into consideration. In a non-sunshine forecast we wouldn't recommend it.
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We spent the last two days on South Island in Darfield, before flying back to the North Island.
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| Picking up the last bag of firewood |
We would like to thank our hosts for all their hospitality and the fantastic and rewarding time we had in Darfield!
We also want to thank Sarah & David for all the lovely days together in New Zealand! It has been great to have you around, hope we'll see you soon!
Here is a picture dediated for all of you, Frida's gem collection from all around New Zealand.
Our South Island adventure has now come to an end. Here is an approx. travel route 03.11.2013-14.01.2014
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| 5 650 km own car + 900 km rental car = 6 550 km on South Island! If we add the ˜3 400 km done earlier on North Island we end up with 10 000 km, and counting! :) |
By now we believe we're fairly entitled to say:
South Island, Check!
Frida & Thomas
