A few weeks ago, the German
efficiency machine that is my fellow internship workmate came across the
opportunity to relocate (meaning that the car company needs to move the cars/vans from one city to another so anyone willing to do it doesn't have to pay anything) a campervan from Christchurch to Queenstown.
Giving that convincing me to travel, especially if it is virtually for
free, never takes more than 3.5 seconds, soon enough everything was booked and
one week later we were hitting the road down south. Let me now take all of
those km’s and putting them into words.
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| the sweet ride! |
Day 1: Christchurch – Timaru – Oamaru
Calling any allocation of people
in New Zealand, with the exception of Auckland, Wellington and Chirstchurch, a
city it’s an over stretch. There are, at the very most, towns. Ask any New
Zealander what you should do in their country and the first thing they will say
is ‘skip the towns’. Even the activities proposed by Lonely Planet for the towns themselves were certainly written just to fill what would otherwise be awkwardly blank pages. But
I’ll be damn if I leave this country without a
list of towns crossed off my to-do list! And so the first day was dedicated to
two of the three main ones along the east coast south of Christchurch:
Timaru and
Oamaru. The third,
Dunedin, will be targeted later this month on a weekend trip.
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| Timaru |
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| Timaru |
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| Oamaru |
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| Oamaru |
So, the towns. The formula seems to be the same
anywhere: there’s an architectural mixture of pretty colonial British buildings
with a central commercial street evoking the likes of small American towns. There’s maybe
a beach, maybe some
penguins and that is that. If you want to avoid death by
boredom in a New Zealand town you need to a) go into the wild by yourself, b) pay a lot to
enter the wild (tours, boat trips, skydiving, even hiking). But then again,
it’s the country of Lord of the Rings, not the Matrix so it’s a known (and
appreciated) fact that Nature rules over humans here.
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| Sensitive Dunes in Timaru |
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| Peguins have feelings too in Oamaru |
In the evening, we drove to the free
campsite located in
Kakanui, a tiny town by the sea, south of Oamaru. It was a very pleasant small camping spot on a cliff of a beautiful beach,
which made for an amazing waking-up in morning experience made of bright warm sun, the sound of waves
and surfers hitting the water in the early hours of the day. One of those
surfers was a Belgium young guy travelling by himself who played the guitar in our van the night before while it was pitch black and ruthlessly cold outside.
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| Neighbours | |
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| Morning View |
Day 2: Danseys Pass – Omarama – Lindis
Pass
The day looked promising with such
a good start and, indeed, it was. With no “big” towns on the schedule, the plan
was to drive through valleys and mountains and stop wherever Nature offered
something cool to see or do. As a movie addict, the best way to describe this day for me is: something straight out of
Hollywood blockbusters set in mystical lands. Morning session:
The Chronicles of Narnia. As
we drove into mainland near
Duntroon, a sign pointing to a secondary
road caught our attention – The
Elephant Rocks.
As we turned to check it out, I
opened Lonely Planet to see if there was any mention of it and there
was! The rocks, resembling elephants and lost in the middle of nowhere with
just a sign indicating the way to find them, were feature in the Narnia movies. My travel partner couldn’t care less about this fact but
I felt myself having a little geeky orgasm for being there. After leaving
the Rocks, we stopped at
Danseys Pass, by a river running through two mountains, where the weekend hobby for local men is to find
gold (and they do!).
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| Narnia to the right |
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| The Elephant Rocks |
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| Danseys Pass |
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| Part-Time Gold Digger |
Next stop on the road was
Kurow, a
little town (population: 300) which made
for the second movie location of the day: it seems like it was a recently built
movie set of a tiny town of the American Midwest. Following Kurow, we headed to the
water along the
Waitaki River, Lake Waitaki, Lake Aviemore
and Lake Benmore. The most incredible thing
was seeing up-close the incredible Waitaki Hydro Dam. Oh, and just FYI, I was prohibited to publicly
say that we stopped for a hike in one of the mountains next to the dam (“it is
a WALK so don’t go say on your blog this is a HIKE”)
but as any step I take into nature seems very
radical to me, I’ll call it just that, a hike.
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| Kurow - just like a movie set |
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| Waitaki Dam |
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| Lake Waitaki |
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Walking Hiking! | |
Through the mentioned lakes and rivers, we
finally arrived in
Omarama (population: 230) where we were supposed to spend the night. However,
after discovering that the free camping spot we were planning to stay in was
beyond horrific, we only stayed there long enough to take a
very cold bath in
the near river (shampoo included) and to leave for the second option of free accommodation
in Nature. With this decision we manage to change the plans of two german and
two dutch girls who also didn’t want to stay in the place that Gandalf
obviously destroyed in anger.
(sorry, no picture of me taking a shower will ever be available for public display)
Finding the second camping spot
was, by itself, a whole adventure that led us to the third movie session of the
day: Jurassic Park meets Lord of the Rings. While driving through
cinematographic mountains, my mind kept wondering if I would be lucky enough to see Frodo
being chased by a T-Rex. When we finally found the camping site, it was completely
worth the time and fuel we spent on the search – a beautiful green grass place in a valley, surrounded by tall trees in the mist of the ruins of a
hotel built during the gold rush era of the XIX century to serve miners,
abandoned for many decades now. To end the journey, the theme of the day was kept and while the night fall outside, three germans and me set inside our campervan watching The Little Shop of Horrors (which reassured my deep hatred towards musicals and the whole 80's decade).
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| Where's Frodo? |
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| Finding the camping site |
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| Lindis Pass Hotel at the Nine Mile Historic Reserve |
Day 3: Wanaka – Queenstown
Day three was occupied with the
main resort towns on the south island –
Wanaka and
Queenstown. We were
welcomed by a sunny day in Wanaka, a town located at the southern end of a Lake with the same name. For most people that come here, New Zealand is about hiking
and exploring nature to the fullest but, for me, the simple act of taking a
swim in a lake of crystal clear water with mountain tops full of snow in the
horizon is enough to have one of those moments that
remind me why I came. To reach our finally destination, we drove by the breathtaking
scenic
Cardrona Valley Road, with those views where postcard pictures are born.
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| Lake Wanaka |
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| Cardrona Valley Road |
And now a question to the audience: what’s the most stylish way to
arrive in Queenstown? Walk the 10 km between the airport and the city
center, of course. After dropping off the van at the airport we decided that the
best use of our money would be to spend it in a well-deserved cappuccino and
muffin and afterwards walk the trail by the river between Frankton and
Queenstown. A decision not regretted. After slightly losing our sense of
direction of how to get to town, we accidentally bumped into a jaw dropping view from the shore of Lake Wakatipu and we were lost no more.
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| 4km done, 6km to go! |
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| First sight of Queenstown |
After letting our
eyes contemplate the views and our legs enjoy their accomplishment, we headed to the Hostel (chain hostel but very nice and very central:
Base Queenstown),
followed by watching the sunset at the beach (it's utter romantic if you do it with your better half, it's awesome if you do it with friends so win-win anyway), while holding what might just be
the best burger I ever had –
Fergburguer. After
our cholesterol was fully satisfied, we 'hit the night scene' (whatever can be hit on a sunday night) in a very cool bar with good music just
in time to catch the Australia Open final match (sorry Nadal).
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| View from the Hostel room window |
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| In the evening |
Day 4: Queenstown – Lake Tekapo – Christchurch
There’s not much to this day
besides reporting that we caught a bus at 8 a.m. in Queenstown, stopped
for lunch at
Lake Tekapo and arrived back in Christchurch in late afternoon.
Just a note of advise for those planning to travel with
NakedBus – you can
get very good deals with them (trips for 10$ or even 1$ and normal prices
around 35$) but the buses are old with no suspension (prepare yourself to feel
every bump in the road for 8 hours).
(Damn, it was more exhausting to write this post than the trip itself!)
