Up to the Southern Alps

As Gareth said in the last blog we had a super big mountain to climb and climb it we did, it was our biggest mountain to date.  It was 1080m high which is higher than both Mt Snowdon and Scafell Pike so pretty hard core I think you’ll agree.  Anyway to see how we did you’ll have to read on as there are a few more days to cover first.

I’ll start by making a few small amendments to the entry for the 15^th that Gareth wrote at the end of the last blog.

15/18th January

Even though, as you read, we had made ourselves quite at home in The Kiwi camp in Te Anau (which we loved as it was clean and comfortable with nice showers), the time had come to move on.  We had our usual porridge and then packed up everything we needed to take to Milford Sound in the trailer bag and bundled the rest of our stuff into the little room made available for that purpose.

We had a little while to wait until the bus left so we popped to the library to check our e-mails etc, had some lunch then lugged the bag (which isn’t nearly as easy to move without the trailer itself) down to the Doc office by the lake.

The bus ride out to Milford took about 2 hours and we passed the time looking at the beautiful scenery, eating cheesy cheese balls and talking about how much Andrew likes cheesy cheese balls.  We were dropped off at Milford lodge and directed to a patch in the forest next to the lodge where we could pitch our tent.  It was then that we really began to appreciate the extra insect repellent we’d bought in Te Anau because the sandfies just kept coming!  There were hundreds of the little beggers and they’re pretty aggressive.

En route

We spent the next couple of days exploring Milford sound which is indeed beautiful but unfortunately, like so many other famous New Zealand tourist locations, isn’t really accessible to anyone without a car stuffed with money! We had thought we’d be able to do lots of walking tracks but the closest one’s were a 5km walk away and as they were at the bottom of the valley they were really muddy and wet.  The other, better walks were over 20km away back up the mountain.  Not to be put off though we did the Grave Talbot track which was a 5km walk away and it was nice but a bit of a challenge because it was very over grown.

Twig attack

On the way back though we did spot a Weka feeding off maggots on a dead possum!  Which may sound pretty disgusting and a bit weird to you but to me it was a very exciting photo opportunity that perked me up for the last 5km back to the lodge.

Weka

Another plus was that a place that attracts lots of wealthy people who don’t stay long means one awesome free food shelf! We ate pretty much for free for the whole weekend.  All in all it was a beautiful place to spend the weekend though, very wild!  At night it was pitch black and we kept forgetting the torch so when we left the lodge for the tent in the evening we often got very giggly stumbling about In the dark trying to find our tent again. Also, the tent next to us was exactly the same tent, so we could have accidentally got a bit too cosy with our neighbours.  The bird life was also very prolific which made it a bit difficult to sleep at night because of all the strange noises coming from the forest but it was great to get an idea of what New Zealand was once like before people came along and killed all the birds.

At the end of the weekend we caught the bus back to Te Anau and were re united with the bike.

19th – 26th January

We spent the day after our return from Milford chilling out and getting all our washing done in preparation for the next leg of the journey.  We wanted to get to Queenstown in two days but the campsites weren’t in the right places so we opted for three shorter days instead of one mega one!  We’ve learnt not to push ourselves too hard after burning ourselves out down the east coast.

So we packed up pretty slowly knowing we only had 60km to do and were pretty pleased that the rain that was forecast never really got going and gave way to sunshine.  Just before we left we got chatting to an Aussie couple called Ray and Emma who were also cycling, we ended up chatting to them for about an hour before pedalling off to Mossburn.  The road went gradually and then steeply up hill for the first 40km which did us in a bit then on the way down we got a puncture!  It was a very hot day so by the time we arrived in the Mossburn campsite we were ready to stop for the day.  The campsite was really nice and had freerange chickens which all ran up to us and clucked about the place while we unpacked.

Leaving Te Anau

First puncture of the South Island

The next day it was off to Kingston and, again, the rain that was forecast never showed up.  The scenery was lovely and we passed some really quaint little towns like Athol and Garston where we stopped for lunch.  Kingston is on the edge of Lake Wakatipu and was also very lovely.

G in Kingston

The next day was the first day in the week that rain hadn’t been forecast, so naturally, it rained all morning.  We had to pack up the tent all wet and set off to Queenstown anyway and luckily as we made our way round the lake the sun came out again.  We went the wrong way round to the campsite once we were in Queenstown and ended up having to go over some really steep hills unnecessarily but we got there in the end!  Queenstown is a hub of activity and a bit of a shock after our relative isolation of the last two nights but we soon got into the swing of things.  We pitched our tent in a mega campsite on the hill over looking Lake Wakatipu and the Remarkables which was beautiful but very very busy! 

We then walked back into town and treated ourselves to a few beers, fish and chips and a lovely Apple pie pudding.  The pub also gave out free hot dogs at hourly intervals which we eyed up a lot but the waitress who was handing them out had also served us dinner and assumed, wrongly, that we wouldn’t want a hot dog on top of fish and chips and a dessert.  Some people have no idea!  To console ourselves we wandered back to camp via the shop and bought a big bag of fudgy chocolates then scoffed the lot!  Tee hee hee.

The next day was a rest day in Queenstown so we generally took it easy, we had a wander round the place, ate an ice cream and had lunch at the campsite with the lovely view infront of us.  While we had enjoyed Queenstown we were looking forward to getting back to some peace and quiet! This is where we wrote our last blog and Gareth did karate and looked out for boz eyed dogs!

We woke up to a bit of rain so I gathered all the stuff up and packed up the tent while Gareth made porridge.  I got it all into the kitchen just as the downpour started which I was pretty pleased about but before we’d finished breakfast the sun came out and stayed out so there’d been no need to panick after all.  We’d planned on getting an early start as today was mountain day but we got chatting to another bike couple and generally faffed about until we eventually left at 11.30.  The sun was shining on us and we happily pedalled via Arrowtown to the base of the Crown Range then began our long ascent!  The first bit was really steep and consisted of about six switchbacks climbing to about 500m, we did it all in one go which made us feel pretty good about ourselves but that wasn’t all the mountain had to offer!

The next 5 1/2 km were gradually uphill which can be draining so we had a little break before we began the last bit.  The last 3 1/2 km were really tough, we had to have a few breaks but we didn’t push the bike, we kept pedalling! Eventually we made it up to the highest bit of sealed road in New Zealand at 1080m.  The views were absolutely stunning the whole way up and the feeling of achievement was really good.  We had lunch sitting on the top next to the cairn before starting the 40km of downhill all the way to Wanaka! Weeeeeee.

Third of the way up

Some of the switch-backs we had just climbed up

two thirds of the way up

At the top 1078m

Milk was a bad choice!

Luckily we had people to celebrate with on arrival as we’d arranged to meet up with Wouter, Vanessa and little Ella who we knew were staying in the town.  After getting settled we wandered down to their hostel, had fish and chip take away over looking Lake Wanaka and caught up on all the gossip since we last met in Wellington.

The next day the tiredness caught up with us and we were both pretty shattered so we just had a wander round Lake Wanaka, ate a hearty lunch and dinner and watched a film called ‘into the wild’ that we got off Wouter.  Wanaka is lovely and relaxed with beautiful scenery, a nice contrast to the hustle and bustle of Queenstown.

I'll leave you with this picture of Gareth after his nap.

We're not quite up to date but we will leave it here for now and hopefully get another blog on soon.

Missing you all.

Blog off.

No more South - we made it to Bluff!

Alice:

A hoy hoy big blog followers, hope you are all well today and ready for another blog-a-thon.  We haven’t up dated you in a while so it might be a long one.  We have been getting about as usual, like we do, seeing things, doing things (in Gareth’s case doing things he shouldn’t), talking to people, camping, eating and pedalling. 

We have realised on this trip that we have been thrown out of our comfort zone. Most people will be reading this from their cosy computer chair, wrapped up in their clean clothes, protected from the environment by brick and mortar. We have none of these things. We have now been living in a tent against the elements for nearly six months (apart from when those lovely people put us up for a couple of days). When weather strikes, it can upset the plans you see. It can throw us off balance, a bit like what happened in the UK when you all got a bit of snow. Well we got stuck too. Don’t get us wrong we weren’t huddled in our tent shivering. The campsites in New Zealand are very well equipped and have kitchen facilities for us to relax in, sometimes with T.V. and Internet. So we can make ourselves comfortable and sit out the bad weather. Because, if the weather isn’t right we isn’t moving anywhere, as you will read later on.

As we don’t have a permanent place to nest ourselves, we have discovered that routine is our home away from home, we like routine. It gives us a sense of control. It allows us to believe for just a short time that this is ours and we belong. For example, we recently spent a few days in a camp in Te Anau.  A lovely place it was, and on arrival we pitched the tent, put everything in it’s usual place, bagged up the food and headed to the kitchen to strategically investigate the area for the optimal place to position ourselves for access to electricity and TV. This area then becomes territorially recognised by the act of making a coffee and having a biscuit (In dog terms this would be represented by sniffing and leaking). We then take it in turns to have showers and, afterwards, think about dinner. At breakfast the next day we sit in the same place, read the paper that the reception provides, we are happy, we are home. This routine has been quickly and easily established, and duly noted by any other guest.

On this occasion it wasn’t to last, we had a little trip away to a place called Milford Sound, and on our return, everything had changed. On arrival back not only did we find that someone we didn’t recognise was on our table but the next day at breakfast someone beat us to the newspaper and in the evening someone had sat on our sofa!  This made Gareth nervous and slightly anxious, he nearly tried to re-establish our area by resorting to dog tactics. As there were no other plugs in the lounge, we circled round and round looking confused and mumbling until the family in our spot offered to move so we could use the plug. Luckily our mad people method acting got us out of another sticky situation. Once everything was back in place we could relax and the voices stopped. I write chuckling to myself to find that I am sat in exactly the same seat I was in last night, even though every other chair is empty, and do you know why? Cause I sat here last night, no other reason. What reason was there to sit in any other chair? and more importantly, who cares… Now on with the blog.

6^th – 10^th January

I think this is where we left you.  We had a bus to catch from Dunedin to Invercargill but it wasn’t until 3.15pm so we went down to the camp reception to ask if we could extend the check out time from 10.00am to 12.00.  They said no, so we stayed until 11.30.  This made me a bit nervous but Gareth was in his mis-behaving element so we saw it through.  After that we pedalled off into town and had a subway lunch before dismantling the bike to go on the bus.

Mr Bus driver was very nice and didn’t charge us extra for the bike.  We drove all the way to Invercargill in the rain and then Mr Bus driver excelled himself by driving us out of his way to the campsite which was pretty far away from where we were supposed to be dropped off so we were very grateful.

Little did we know that this was the first of four days in Invercargill trapped by rain, rain and a bit more rain!  The day after we arrived we cycled into town through two parks, it was a lovely route but we had to sit under a tree for a while to avoid a huge downpour. We explored Invercargill and inevitably ended up foraging in Pak’n save!  

When we emerged we noticed that the sky was black and very ominous looking so we hopped on the bike and pedalled off back to camp as fast as our little legs would carry us.  We made it just in time and dived into the camp kitchen and a good job we did too because it turned out to be a freak hail storm that blocked drains, damaged roofs and windows and generally gave the people of Invercargill something to talk about for the next year or so.

The next day we pedalled off to Bluff with the wind in our faces, had our pictures taken under the sign, had a coffee, had lunch then got blown all the way back again.

Gareth:

On the bike ride to Bluff we hit another hail storm, which hurts especially when the wind was blowing into our faces. The hail stones were quite big, but I just kept pedalling through it. My rain mac was very thin and I was getting the full force of the hail. Alice had a thicker coat and was sheltered behind me so she was safe. I didn’t want to stop, no way. We were on our way to Bluff and it was a prominent part of our journey that no man, God, or freak weather condition was going to stop. So while the hail pelted me like what can only be described as thousands of paint ball pellets. I just screamed at the weather “Is this the best you have got? You ain’t hail, your nothing but snow! You’re weak!” This was when it started hitting my ears (which obviously aren’t that streamlined). That really stung, and even though the icey tears rolled down my burning cheeks. I wouldn’t give up, all this was encouraged by Alice who was crying with laughter behind me. If my pain made Alice smile then I would literally cycle through a shower of bullets. I use the word literally not in the literal sense but in the way that annoying people use the word literally in situations that are ridiculous. However, just when I thought all hope was lost (maybe slightly dramatised) the weather cleared and we made it to Bluff. Took our pictures next to the famous sign at Stirling point and dove into a café for coffee just before another outbreak of rain! The journey back to Invercargill was a lot less spectacular as the wind was behind us and the ride was tolerable so this won’t get much of a mention.

Alice:

Woke up to rain and decided to stay put for the day and visit Henry, the 111 year old Tuatara (A dinosaur) at the museum.  He popped out to look at us and we had a little look at him and all parties were happy.  We were accosted by a ‘friendly racist Brit’ who trapped us for a while next to the section on ship wrecks.  Unfortunately we meet quite a few ex pats who start out ok then drop in a few racist comments on the state of the UK while expecting you to chuckle along, needles to say we don’t chuckle and say goodbye pretty soon after.

Henry

Our hopes that the weather would improve were dashed the next morning when we woke up to find the camp field had now become a camp pond!  We even had a little puddle in our porch but luckily no water had penetrated our awesome tent.  We paddled to the kitchen with all the stuff and packed up thinking we’d be better to set off and get wet than get flooded!  

We had hoped to take the coastal route to Tuatapere but once we set off we realised that the wind was too strong so we decided to go in-land via Otautau.  We arrived pretty soaked through and cold and our spirits were dashed further when we realised that the ‘campsite’ was a locked run down block on the edge of a sports field – things didn’t look good.  But a few minutes later the camp care taker turned up and opened up what turned out to be a cosy little kitchen with free washer and dryer and lovely clean toilets with boiling hot showers and what’s more, we had the place all to ourselves for $10, SWEET!

11^th January

Gareth:

Alice has just gone for a shower so I thought I would help her out and do the blog. I have no idea what we did on this day. It probably rained though

12^th January

Nope still no idea. I think we saw a big lake though. What day is it today?

13^th January

If I kept a diary I would be a lot better at writing a blog. Maybe this is the day I saw that dog with boz eyes? But that could be tomorrow, but it was a definite highlight

14^th January

The Dog with boz eyes could have been today instead of yesterday.

15^th January?

There is no reason for me to put any date if I’m not even sure what I was doing an hour ago. Hang on… There’s that dog again… Got to go.

Alice:

I’m back from the shower good to see Gareth has been helping me out with the blog, but might just try once more.

11/12^th January again

Because we hadn’t been able to do the coastal route we hadn’t got as far as we’d wanted to and had a big day today as a result to get the rest of the way to Manapouri. (Just to fill you in Gareth is still talking about boz eyed dogs as I continue to write this, I’m doing my best to look interested).  Anyhoo, we had 95km ahead of us and a fairly big hill and to top it all off we woke up to rain.  We took the tent down and re-assembled it in the kitchen to dry out.

Trying out a feet waterproofing technique

There was an icy south westerly wind blasting us from the side for the first 30km which was pretty tough. (Gareth as I write this is now doing what I think is a Karate Cata, not sure why, maybe because we’ve just eaten 2 chocolate mousse yoghurts each).  However once we turned north the wind was behind us and the rain stopped so it got easier.  We still had the mega Blackmount hill to go though which wasn’t that fun with cold wet feet and bodies but we made it to Manapouri and settled ourselves in there.  It was a lovely campsite, had a lot of character and was a lot like an Alpine lodge.  Lake Manapouri is beautiful and we were looking forward to exploring it the next day.

In the morning we got chatting to a really nice couple called Celine and Sebastian from Switzerland.  They were perhaps a little more insane than us as on top of cycling round New Zealand they had also cycled from Switzerland to Turkey and were planning on cycling up through Asia and back to Europe via the middle east!  We were in awe but it made me a little uneasy as I could see Gareth forming plans in his busy brain. His eyes shift back and forth and he seems to make a sound like Bertha lovely Bertha as it produces the latest contraption out of it’s mouth. (It’s an 80’s cartoon apparently, Gareth wrote that last bit.)

After they pedalled off we set off to see whether we could do a much advertised walk known as the circle track which had lovely views over the lake.  Unfortunately though, like many things in New Zealand, it required spending money!  You had to pay for a water taxi over to the start point, which cost $10 per person each way and we had both forgotten to get cash out while we were in Invercargill.  There wasn’t a cash point to be found and no one would give us cash back so we had to give up on that idea.  We consoled ourselves by buying a ridiculously large packed lunch from the local shop and walking along the lakefront which was just as good (probably).

Lake Manapouri

Had a very relaxing afternoon eating cake, drinking coffee and chatting to more people in the camp kitchen including an Aussie couple called Anne Marie and Ben who were very interesting, we ended up chatting to them late into the night over a few beers.  I got up to go to the loo and on the way there kicked a hedgehog that’d curled up in the path when it heard me coming!  I was very upset about this at first until I saw the little fella un roll and totter off down the lawn.

13/14^th January

We were a little fuzzy after our 3 bottles of beer last night, so ate breakfast and packed up very slowly.  Larked about for a bit with the tandem, Gareth seemed determined to prove he could do the whole thing without me!

It was only 20km to Te Anau so Gareth decided to give us a bit of a challenge and get there as fast as we could shouting ‘Cardiovascular’ at me all the way, it took about 45 mins.  We stopped briefly to take some pictures of Lord of the Rings film locations on the way, this is where they filmed bits of the Anduin river and the scenes at the dead marshes.  It was all beautiful scenery.

On arrival in Te Anau we did what every body has to do when they first arrive in Fiordland National park – we went to Subway, as they do free refills and we were dead thirsty after all the cardiovascular!  We had to find a campsite that would agree to store the bike for us as we had a bus trip booked out to Milford Sound at the weekend.  Luckily the first one we went to agreed to store it for us for $1 a day which was handy.

There are three famous walking tracks in Fiordland, Te Anau is at the start of one of them, the Kepler track.  They all take about 4 days and you stop in huts on the way, which we would’ve loved to do but we didn’t have enough time for that so the next day we just walked the first bit of the Kepler track along lake Te Anau which was lovely.

This made Gareth think he was in Grand theft auto (he wanted to nick it)

Lake Te Anau

Watched Castaway with Tom Hanks and went off to bed.

15^th January

Gareth:

I got the laptop again. Yay! Alice seems to have been typing for ages. Yet she has just passed me back the laptop, to get a drink or summert and I realised we are on the same date I left you on before.

What happened on the 15^th hmmm?

Ate breakfast. Well, I can’t remember a day when we didn’t have breakfast so I’m pretty sure that’s guaranteed.

Did some cycling or a walk or some similar activity.

Seems like we have been doing cycling forever, but, Alice assures me that we should have made it round by the end of Feb. So you have over a month left of seeing pictures of me in tight lycra cycle shorts, that are wearing a little thin I might add. We have to cycle over a mountain tomorrow, we are going up to 1100m. This is the big one. It’s going to be tough, so I think we’ll call it quits on writing the blog tonight and go to sleep.

Bye