Canterbury adventures - part 2

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.

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:

The Devil's Punchbowl Falls seen from above

Mt Rolleston (2275 m) in the background.

Kea parrot at Avalanche Peak - King of the hill

Arthur's Pass from up above

View from Avalanche Peak

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.

The coastline north of Kaikoura

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.

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.

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.

Picture collection from Arthurs Pass: http://goo.gl/qokLPb
Picture collection from Kaikoura: http://goo.gl/qtJz33

Our South Island adventure has now come to an end. Here is an approx. travel route 03.11.2013-14.01.2014

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 

Canterbury adventures - part 1

Hej! Inlägget är skrivet på engelska så att våra värdar också förstår innehållet. Om ni vill så kan ni läsa Googles översättning genom att klicka på följande länk (det är faktiskt ganska underhållande! ;) ) http://goo.gl/lY3GKR

A new chapter of our journey in New Zealand started when we arrived in Darfield, late afternoon on the 30th of December. Darfield is a small township approx. 40 km east of Christchurch, which was struck by the devastating earthquake in 2011. After several months of travelling and sightseeing in New Zealand was it time to go to work again! So this was the end of all the lazy days and pleasure of travelling? Well not exactly... We started our first wwoofing/helpx (work for food and accomodation) experience on New Zealand. The basic idea is that you provide your helping hand for a few hours per day for a bed and something to eat.

The family we stayed at lived on a dairyfarm with 1200 cows! Wow, these cows would need a rather huge shed if they would live in Finland. Luckily these cows have the pleasure to stay outside all year. Our hosts Kathy and Bruce welcomed us to their house, which was to be our home for the next couple of weeks.

We had an own room where we could unload all our belongings.

The next day was our first day at work. Frida helped out with various household tasks and was a caregiver for the youngest son in the family. Meanwhile Thomas filled a trailer with firewood.

We also did some weed-wacking and lawn mowing. Another day we had the opportunity to do some gardening and replant a couple of plants.

Widened parking area

Bruce got so impressed, well, at least inspired by our campervan so he also wanted one! Actually their plan was to buy a new car and sell their old Chrystler. 'Make your own campervan' became one of our projects and we spent some hours thinking about the layout and features and finally doing the conversion. The progress came in bits 'n pieces and one night Bruce and Thomas came inside just before midnight. Here is the end result, a very handy campervan looking for a new owner!

We went out to the farm and the shed every now and then. Isn't it great when you can have fresh milk straight from the tank!

The cows enter a rotating carousel where each one of them are milked for ˜6 minutes every morning and afternoon. In average the cows produce a bit over 20 liters of milk each day, adding up to a total of 26 000 liters per day on the farm! What a blast for Finnish milklovers!

A herd and the mountain ranges

A great thing with staying at Bruce and Kathy place was that we had the opportunity to take a few days of and do some sightseeing. On the 2nd of January we packed our car and headed towards Banks Peninsula, east of Christchurch. We did a beatiful drive along the winding Summit road which took us up to 600 meters above sealevel overlooking the peninsula and the inlet.

We stopped at Otepatotu to do a short walk up to a lookout point.

We also had to do a short pitstop at the roadside in order to prepare some coffee, before we headed back to Christchurch.

The next day was both a sad and happy day. This was the day when we had to say goodbye to Nissan, our beloved home and friend, which took us more or less around whole New Zealand. We decided to start the selling procedure well in advance. We had listed the car on the internet and stitched a note at a few Hostel dashboards in Christchurch. The whole selling procedure was a lot faster than we had expected. We had received a few enquiries on our Nissan and a young German couple, the first people we showed our car to, actually bought it. Of course, who wouldn't? This was the last picture before we said goodbye, luckily all the good memories remain!

There we were, on the road(side) again... Luckily our fantastic host Kathy saved us and brought us back to Darfield.

Thou Kathy is the perfect chef, we wanted to prepare a dinner for our host family to show gratitude. This evening we made some delicious (at least according to Frida) salmon in taco chipsauce with veggies (vege-tables, hehe).

During the upcoming weeks Frida also made some pancakes in Finnish style, fruit muffins, mocha squares, gingerloaf and "Karjala tarts" a.k.a. karelska piroger.

More about our stay in the Canterbury region in the next blogpost...

A sunset at the farm

Image collection from Darfield can be found here: http://goo.gl/dKIUrX

Banks Peninsula & Christchurch: http://goo.gl/OGgrQl

Thomas & Frida

Ett besök till Nya Zeelands högsta berg, Mount Cook

Hej, länge sen sist! Här kommer en liten sammanfattning på vad vi gjorde för ett par veckor sedan.

Den 27 december fortsatte vi vår färd mot Mount Cook området. Natten innan hade vi övernattat på en gratis camping i Omarama efter en 300 km lång bilfärd från Kaka Point och julfirandet. I närheten av camping platsen träffade vi denhär lilla rackaren, en Tamiller (engelska Ferret).

 

Längs vägen stannade vi för att köpa med oss lite lax från en laxodling som vi senare fick avnjuta vid ett par tillfällen. Vi passerade den lilla staden Twizel och fortsatte vidare längs den stora sjön Lake Pukaki. Det var en mycket vacker turkosfärgad sjö och den här gången hade vi vädret på vår sida! Den turkosa färgen orsakas av det finmalda stenpulvret i smältvattnet från glaciärernas. Fantastiskt!

Väl framme vid Mount Cook Village var vädret mulet (p.g.a. de höga bergen). Området består av två stora dalar mellan bergen, Hooker Valley och Tasman Valley. 

Vi körde först till Tasman Valley och gjorde en kort vandring upp till en utsiktsplats för att se Tasman Glacier och Tasman Glacier Lake. Glaciärsjöarna är gråa till färgen och ser ut som diskvatten där bäst före datumet gått ut. Yep, vi föredrar turkosa sjöar...

Från Tasman Glacier körde vi upp längs Hooker Valley till en stor DOC camping. Samma dag hann vi ännu ta en liten promenad upp till Kea Point varifrån man har en utsikt över Mount Sefton, Mueller Glaciären och Mueller glaciärsjön.

Frida tittar ut över Mueller glaciären, glaciär sjön samt Mount Wakefield längst till höger

Hooker Valley från Kea Point

Följande morgon hade vi turen att få se Mount Sefton (3151 m) blotta sig. Det var först då vi insåg hur höga bergstopparna är, dagen innan hade vi bara sett typ halva berget (jämför bilden nedan och bilden med den muskulösa mannen).

Vi packade väskan och gjorde en 3 timmars tur-retur vandring upp längs Hooker Valley Track. Vandringsleden bjöd på en hel del godis för ögat, här är lite smakprov:

Efter en dryg timme kom vi fram till Hooker Glacier Lake. Det var ganska häftigt att se de stora isblocken utspridda på sjön och omgivningen var också rätt imponerande. :)

Uppe i högra hörnet skymtar Mount Cook (Aoraki) - 3754 m

Nöjda och belåtna lämnade vi Mount Cook området och fortsatte vidare mot den andra stora glaciärsjön Lake Tekapo.

En nämnvärd sak är att trafiken på vägarna i NZ ökar betydligt efter julhelgen. Det är då som nya zeeländarna påbörjar sommarlovet. Det är inte trångt på vägarna om man jämför t.ex. med Frankrike / Schweiz / Italien som vi körde igenom före vi anlände till Nya Zeeland, kanske något i stil med den normala trafiken hemma i Finland. Vi spenderade först lite tid i Tekapo och fick konstatera att byns camping plats var fullbokad, vilket kanske ger en bild av hur det är på de mer turistorienterade orterna på NZ omkring nyår.

Hur som haver körde vi till en annan camping plats vid Lake Mcgregor, vägen bjöd på en underbar vy utöver Lake Tekapo (turkosfärgad liksom storebror Lake Pukaki).

Följande dag gjorde vi en vandring upp till toppen av Mount John strax intill byn Tekapo. Det var en trevlig vandringsled upp längs bergssluttningen men vi möttes av kallt och blåsigt väder uppe på toppen.

Mt John nere från Tekapo...

... och Lake Tekapo sett från toppen av Mt John.

Under vår färd vidare mot Christchurch stannade vi i Geraldine eftersom Thomas råkade få syn på "The Brewery Cafe" skylten ute vid vägen. Vi tog en paus i körandet och Thomas lyxade till vardagen med lite ölprovning.

Bad hair day?

 Följande dag stannade vid Rakaia Gorge och tog oss en liten promenad längs ån.

 

 

Nu börjar ett nytt kapitel av vårt liv här på Nya Zeeland. Mera om detta i nästa inlägg, stay tuned!
Bilder från tiden 27-30.12 finns här: http://goo.gl/PGf7ff

Frida & Thomas