Travel Diary

Dunedin and Christchurch Again

I didn't really do too much in Dunedin this time (much like last). As there was a pretty big rugby match on I only managed to get one night in the hostel (same room with the balcony which was nice), so I spent the other night staying with some people we know, so I ended up going out drinking with them both nights. When I originally posted this I completely forgot that on my second day in Dunedin, Neal who I was staying with took me up to the highest point in Dunedin and then we headed to the steepest street in the world (Baldwin street). Whilst Neal was dropping some things off at his mother in laws (who lives at the bottom), he let me drive his 4x4 up the street. I almost managed it all the way in second but had to change down near the top. The streets 38 degrees which doesn't sound much (and I've probably skied down steeper ski slopes) but I wouldn't like to walk it. That said they do have a yearly race that serious athletes compete in (in addition to a downhill skateboard event). The amazing thing is there's houses all the way up the street, can't imagine that's an easy walk to the shops!

The drive back up to Christchurch was fun mainly due to the large amounts of fog that descended out of nowhere between each town. I stayed in a different hostel in Christchurch this time and it had a lot more character and was in a very nice bit of town (so there is despite what I said previously something to see in Christchurch). I was going to argue some money out of the hire car company regarding the windscreen when I took the car back, but seeing as I noticed the day before that one of the air scoops (not sure what they're technically called) was missing from below the front bumper, I thought I'd keep quiet on that (and they didn't notice it either). The flight over to Melbourne was good and I've now found the way to get through Australian immigration/customs very quickly. When you fill in the landing card there's two sections of items that you have to declare: firstly medicines, money etc, which if you're OK with they just cross off (at customs) and let you go through the green; secondly there's foods, wood items, etc which they can't cross off and you still have to go through the red. But if you go through the red there's barely anyone else there and they don't x-ray all your bags. So I'm quite glad I bought a small wooden item in NZ now!

Wanaka and Lack of Skiing

Well it's now my last day in Wanaka and I've had quite a relaxed week here, certainly is the place to do just that. Never managed to make it up to either of the nearby mountains, partly due to illness (my sinuses decided to play up), partly due to lack of snow (although there's some forecast for tonight, just about typical). Finally partly due to getting my windscreen replaced (due to a lovely big crack that appeared one morning in Queenstown whilst driving, pictures to follow) which somehow managed to take up three of my days (although that's exaggerating, it wasn't 3 whole days, just three lazy days). I've also been out for a couple of drives round and about the area, and was tempted to try out the local shooting range, still might tomorrow morning, depends on the cost (I do believe there is some form of YHA discount for extra rounds or something like that!)

Oh and I also added a load more photos to this site, click on any of the entries under the Photos!!! option on the left of the main page. Tomorrow I'm off to Dunedin for 2 nights, then up to Christchurch for a night and over to Melbourne (Oz) for a week. Then I should hopefully be doing a 5 day scuba course in Cairns as well, which'll be nice.

Last Day in Queenstown and Wanaka

My last day in Queenstown was quite a lazy one, I thought about doing a bungy jump, but after the Skydive I really can't bring myself to spending $125 minimum for something that'll last a couple of seconds. So I took a drive out to Glenorchy which was really not worth it as the road was along Lake Wakatipu (i.e. the Lake in Queenstown) and it was a very foggy day, still the road presented some driving challenges: in some places, sheer cliff face one side, drop to the Lake the other and down to a single lane with some sharp bends, bet there's been a few accidents along there. Glenorchy itself could best be described as a one horse town (except I saw two in a field as I entered the town) and there really was nothing there, so I took a couple of pictures of the foggy lake and headed back to Queenstown. I then went to the Chard Farm winery and tried a few of their wines, which were quite tasty it has to be said. I then spent most of the afternoon doing the thing you always seem to do when travelling, repacking your bag, amazing how much more space it creates every time! Went to watch Bulletproof Monk in the evening which wasn't bad.

The drive to Wanaka was pretty uneventful, decided to head to Cromwell first, but there was not much there so I headed straight back to take the Alpine Scenic Road route to Wanaka (i.e. very steep and windy). Got to the hostel about 1, but the office is only open between 5 and 8 in the evening, so I went into town for a couple of hours before checking in. The hostel is pretty nice as is the town, much how I expected most hostels in NZ to be, which is nice.

Today I got my (third) memory card from my camera transferred to CD so I could post some recent pictures (I may also post some older ones now I've found an internet cafe with CD-ROM drives!). I then headed up to Puzzling World which was quite cheap and worth a couple of hours. I decided to do the difficult course around the maze, which is supposed to take 1-1.5 hours, but without haring about the place I managed it in what I feel is a respectable 42 minutes. The rooms of illusion are pretty cool if a little shortlived, in particular the room of following faces is quite eerie, I doubt the pictures will do that justice (basically lots of faces of Einstein, Mother Teresa and four other famous people that follow you around as you walk). And amazingly there was some snow last night at Cardrona so I'll probably head up there tomorrow for some skiing.

More Skiing in Queenstown

Well it's now Tuesday and I finished my marathon 11 days of skiing yesterday, not really much to report on the latter end of last week, was quite tired on friday, saturday and sunday so didn't ski all day then.

On Friday, my friend Adam (off my course at Uni) got into Queenstown (and the same hostel), and him and his friend Ben came up the slopes with me yesterday. Adam was quite good at boarding despite only having a few lessons, and Ben's a very good skier so we managed to do pretty much every slope on offer, including a couple of blacks. It should also be noted that according to Ben (and he's made a 1000 pound bet on it) snowboarding will have died out in 10 years from now, for the simple reason that Adam took so long to put his bindings back on after getting off the lift. We went out for a few drinks last night at yet more bars. We were going to go to the Hard Rock Cafe for Karaoke, but decided to drink somewhere else cheaper and by the time we got there it was dead so we went elsewhere.

View of Queenstown and Lake Wakatipu from the Remarks

Another view from the Remarks

Adam on the road back down from the Remarks

Today I've been up the Gondola to the lookout above Queenstown which wasn't really that impressive seeing as it's only 2000ft up and yesterday Adam and I climbed up to a lookout point at the Remarkables which is over 5000ft up. Still the luge was fun up at the Gondola.

I think given that I've been skiing for the last 11 days I probably will only have a couple of days up at Cardrona and Treble Cone when I'm in Wanaka, but that'll probably depend on what else there is to do.

Christchurch, Dunedin and Queenstown

Well I've now been in NZ for a week and a half so I thought it about time for another update. The flight over from LA to Auckland was nice enough if a little cramped and painful due to my not putting sun tan lotion on my back in the morning on venice beach. On that matter Venice Beach was lovely on the Saturday morning/afternoon, I should also mention the waves were about 3 metres high and breaking very close to the shore which made for some swimming, although the chap (Christian) I'd gone to the beach with from my dorm returned to the hostel after me with a nasty looking injury where a wave had knocked him down into the seafloor.

Anyway the flight had some good films, namely Old School which could be in the running to be the next Road Trip, another great comic performance by Will Ferrell (Marshall Willenholly in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back) and a cracking cameo by Sean William Scott as a Redneck petting zoo owner. It also had the ability to play somewhat old computer games which was a bit fancy.

We arrived in Auckland at about 4:55 on the Monday morning (crossing the International Date Line meant missing out Sunday the 13th). Sailed through customs and past the sniffer dogs, checked my bags and headed to the other terminal to fly to Christchurch, and despite the flight only being an hour or so, they still gave out a breakfast which given they'd also served one on the LA->Auckland flight was nice. After I got into Christchurch I picked up my hire car (a Kia, lovely!) and headed to the hostel, after an hour or so I managed to find it and then after another half hour I managed to find somewhere to park so I could go and check in. Their car park was full so I had to park in the multi-storey over the road but fortunately they have an agreement with the hostel that meant my parking from 11am on monday until 9am on tuesday only cost $5NZ which is less than 2 pounds (and a lot cheaper than the $26 anyone else would have paid!) The YHA hostel in Christchurch is really nice with a great common room/kitchen and lots of showers which is always a good thing. I spent most of the afternoon/evening drinking tea and walking round the town (really not much to see at all).

The next day I headed down to Dunedin for a couple of nights, stopping in Timaru for lunch and to pick up an adapter so I could play my discman back through the car stereo. The hostel was again quite nice even though the area looked a little run down (appearances can be deceptive). My room even had a balcony, which didn't get much use as it's so cold down here at the moment. Didn't really do much the first night except sleep. On the wednesday I did the Speights brewery tour which wasn't bad (a lot better than the Granville Island one, although not as much free beer). Then in the evening headed out with some English lad whose name I forget and an Aussie lass to what was supposedly one of the better drinking establishments in town, except it was pretty dead and got raided by the police looking for under age drinkers. Then in true bolt the door after the horse has run fashion, the bar staff came round id-ing everyone (well except me) after the police left.

Then on Thursday I headed down to Queenstown, stopping in a little town called Alexandra for lunch, at a swiss cafe. What was swiss about it I don't know though. The Queenstown YHA is lovely although lacking in the open fire department which is what you want after a hard day skiing. After I checked in the lass behind the desk asked if I was planning to ski and sorted out all my rental gear and passes for the next 11 days which was a little handy. All I had to do was walk to the hire place and get a pair of fitting boots (they then delivered boots, skis and poles to the hostel for me, which was nice). I also got a new snowboard jacket and trousers (they look so much better than ski gear and are more comfortable) from a shop that carries last seasons gear (at a cheaper price). So I've now got a lovely Jack Burton jacket which still looks good off the slopes. I should also add that buying 11 days worth of hire, passes and clothing was actually quite cheap compared to daily hiring and pass purchase. Still this afternoon should be entitled how to very easily spend just short of 600 pounds in a couple of hours. Spent the evening drinking with an English lad from my dorm (Brian) and his mate Bob.

Friday was the first day of skiing and despite the fact that parts of the South Island are currently experiencing their coldest winter, there wasn't much snow up on my chosen field (the Remarkables) but I still had a pleasant time. Saturday was better as there was 5cm of fresh snow overnight but the weather was pretty awful (cold and gusty). I also learnt how not to put snow chains on:
As the instructions were in German I got some help off the staff who were renting out and generally fitting chains (the road to the remarkables is a 13km unsealed windy dust track). So this helpful (or so I thought) woman fitted one of the chains and left me to the second, I then received some more assistance with the second and headed off. After about 400 metres there was a bad clonking, the chain I'd fitted was all over the shop, so I drove back down to get it re-fitted by which point it had all but come completely off the wheel. So that was then re-done by someone who knew what they were doing and I headed back off. About 1km from the car park the first chain that had been put on started clonking and the bloke who patrols back and forth on such bad days pulled me over and sorted it out. Anyway the skiing was great despite getting a very bruised calf from where (the same woman who ill-fitted the first chain) didn't slow the chair lift down as I was getting on (they normally grab it just before it gets to you so it doesn't injure you). Bob and Brian were also up at the Remarks taking their first snowboard lessons, I tried to get them further up the mountain with no success.

Sunday was also spent at the Remarks (and I managed to fit the chains perfectly myself as there'd been more snow) and Bob and Brians morning lesson had them doing a green run (as opposed to playing around on the baby slope), so I managed to drag them up to the very top and down the other green runs.

Monday Bob and Brian took a day off boarding so I headed up to Coronet Peak (or Concrete Park as one receptionist at the hostel calls it). It was shockingly bad, although it did have a sealed (paved) road all the way up. However since there's been no snow at Concrete Park for a week (today 23rd), the runs are awful (covered in crusty powder or just plain ice) and not helped by the fact that fake snow blowers were going all day which didn't actually produce a decent powder at all. Still they did have a decent express chair lift and a pretty long run (1.8km) but I won't be going back unless they have about another 20cms of snow.

Tuesday was another day at the Remarks and it was absolutely perfect conditions, the sun was out all day and the powder was just right, so I managed to get around to doing all the blue runs (still haven't tried any blacks) and improved my technique a lot. Bob and Brian had their last lesson in the morning which had taken them down an easy blue, so in the afternoon I persuaded them to go down the other easy blue (in my book at least) which is just a very big drop (and below is a picture Brian took). In the evening we headed out with another English lad from my dorm (Dave) to a few bars, well about 5 in total.

I then spent today skiing at the Remarks again but suffered a little from last night so didn't ski as well, and also the snow just wasn't as good as yesterday given no fresh stuff (and the Remarks only make snow on the heavily used Alta Green run which is fed into by all the runs down the mountain).

I've got another 5 days skiing in Queenstown, so I'll probably spend them all at the Remarks. Then I'm up to Wanaka for a week and I'm going to ski 5 days up there (Cardrona and Treble Cone).