Exploring New Zealand's South Island

Little lambies in NZ!

My friend Olivier is visiting from France! We spend a glorious 10 days cruising around New Zealand in a rented campervan, covered in flowers and butterflies, and called "The Hippie Camper." And hippies we sure felt like! We slept overnight parked in forgotten fields, bathed in freezing cold glacier-fed rivers and sniffed out the cheapest eats (actually that's not true--we ate quite a lot of Ferg Burgers. Go to Queenstown and you'll understand why)

Our hippie campervan was simply delightful

From Christchurch, we bypassed the city and headed straight for Mount Cook in the center of the South Island. The landscape is gorgeous, with the Southern Alps in the distance and rolling hills covered in yellowish green grass. We stopped overnight at Lake Tekapo, a crystal clear lake with the outline of Mount Cook in the distance. In front of Mt Cook is yet another arrestingly blue lake (if there's one thing this tiny country has, it's fresh water! And sheep.) fed by a glacier. Steep, jagged mountains, green hills and the lake that is bleu pétant, water the color of the Caribbean!

We hiked around, a beautiful route that takes you over a few cable bridges over a pumping river. All around the valley you can see the destruction of the glacier as it tore away, leaving massive amounts of rocks, morènes and steep rockface. The wind was unbelievable strong, as was the sun! NZ's sun is underestimated how strong it is, within 2 hrs we were both sunburnt.
Next stop was Queenstown, and the drive from Mt Cook to Qt was a highlight of the trip. We were just in awe the whole time of how magnificient the landscape was, how untouched and unsettled. One thing I appreciate most about NZ is their biosecurity laws, and doing their best to keep the country clean. I noticed significantly less rubbish, even though there were very few bins around. Another aspect that I loved (as would my mom) is that there are public toilets everywhere, and I mean clean public loos practically every 10km on the road! I'm convinced that this aids significantly to keep the landscape clean because you don't have human waste everywhere, nor people leaving their loo paper in the grass.

Elles sont où les chiottes!?!?!

NZ's vigilance when it comes to the environment is apparent everywhere, and discourages you even further to litter. We were extra vigilant not to leave any waste, and try and find a public loo since they were much more accessible (as compared to China for instance!) This led to our constant giggle fits, and one of the few phrases Oli has perfected in the English language: "Where is the shitter??!!?" The joke stems from his plans to show up here in Australia, kicking down my door and using this incredibly useful phrase. It became our favourite inside joke all over NZ, with a photo op wherever we could of me kicking down the door.

In Queenstown, we stayed with our gracious host, the lively Perg, who Claire and I climbed with in Yangshuo, China last December. It was great to see him, have some laughs (Pergie has one of the most epics laughs I've ever heard, especially great when he loses it over his own joke!!)
We had one day of cold rain, but by Monday it cleared up and we even climbed a bit at a local crag in Qt. At the crag, I met a guy who lives in the Blueys and we have a mutual friend! Small world. We grabbed some locally brewed Speight's beer with some guys we met at the crag, and then hit the road for Wanaka. We climbed all day the following day with Perg and his two friends Amanda and Jocelyn, with perfect weather. Wanaka is renowned for its climbing scene, and known to generally be graded harder than other regions. I'm not the biggest fan of schist, I prefer limestone or sandstone in the Blueys, but it was a fabulous day regardless. I was still recovering from a sprained finger from a canyoning accident two weeks ago, so unfortunately I wasn't climbing my best!

Pergie!

Climbing = awesome in Wanaka

Bacon n eggs n sandflies

We said our goodbyes to Pergalicous and the girls, and hit the Haast Pass towards the South Island's West Coast. Rugged coastline, lots of forests and lakes and streams everywhere, more stunning scenery every kilometre we drove. The only downside was the pesky sandflies! These things must be little minions of the devil himself, because I have never experienced such a pernicious, indefatigable bug! Perg did well to tell us not to kill the sandfly but simply brush him off (which, obviously, he'll come back for more) If you smack them, they give off pheromones that only attract more sandflies to annoy you! They also refused to die-- we were wave them out the window, where they would only stick to the window despite the wind, with a determination surpassing anything I've ever seen. Needless to say, this created our own special hell in the van for most of the West Coast. By the time we reached Golden Bay, we were used to the little minions devishly biting away at our ankles and eyeballs. Poor Oli was absolutely covered in bites from these little suckers.
We stopped at the Fox Glacier, which flows down from the west side of the Mount Cook, towards the sea. We walked about 2km to the front of the Fox Glacier, and got within 100m of the serac. It was magnifient! We climbed up on the rocks and walked out about 10m on the glacier (to Oli's excitement, and my dismay) My first time on a glacier! Got me excited about the Mont Blanc in September.

Oli doing some real work, upside down on Rawhide Roof

Then a longggg drive to Golden Bay, the very tip of the South Island, where we headed since I had a climbing guide book lent by a friend. It was certainly my favourite part of the trip, since we had 3 days to relax at Takaka, right near the ocean. We had three perfect days of rockclimbing, on fun, slabby yet slopey limestone (more like dolomite). I accomplished a few lead climbs, and successfully did my first 6a climb. There were two main crags: Payne's Ford in Takaka, a long stretch of rock hidden behind a jungly forest. The birds there were fantastic, it sounded like we were in the rainforest as we climbed. There was a river nearby, where we did fun jumps and lay out on the rocks. We also spent a day in Pohara, right on the bay. It was idyllic with the waves gently lapping the rocks, and climbing at Cathedral Wall. There was a beautiful arête that we were looking forward to climbing, but for some reason wasn't equipped. Tant pis.

Paynes' Ford Crag, Golden Bay

Hangdog is the local camp for climbers, run by the friendly Butler family, and filled with chilled out climbers and friendly folk. We recognized a few people from the crag, and stopped by the camp to have a shower. But our favourite scene by far was in Takaka, at the burger shack and then next door to Roots Bar for a glass of pinot noir by the fire.

We tried our best to make our holiday last as long as possible, including stopping for a swim in a river halfway back to Christchurch. I'm already thinking of returning to NZ, this time to drive from Queenstown to Milford Sound and check out the fjordland national park.