Nov 2008

Christchurch - Arrival

I set off from Dunedin at about 11am, once again with no idea of which way to go or indeed how long it would take; a sign saying that Christchurch was still 230km away, even after driving for quite a while, brought my spirits down a bit. I stopped for fuel in a city called Timaru, as always letting the assistant do all the work (they pretty much insist on it here, I don't know why), ate a crappy sausage roll and then began the final part of my journey. Well, I didn't make it very far - so close but no cigar, the van felt very sluggish and dark fumes were coming out of the exhaust. I decided to turn into the small town of Temuka and call the AA.

It didn't take long for him to arrive, and nor did it take him long to tell me there was petrol in the diesel tank. After towing me to a garage to get the tank drained he took his leave and I began the tricky process of working out who was going to pay for this. The garage in Timaru denied responsibility because I didn't tell the woman it needed diesel and I had parked with my cap next to the unleaded pump; my argument, which they weren't listening to, was that she didn't even ask and I couldn't have parked any further up as my van would have been blocking the exit. Well, after a lengthy moan to the rental company (Jucy - take note of that) I ended up not being refunded for the damage. So, another £100 down the drain (as if this trip hadn't been expensive enough).

To top it all off I then stayed the night in a campsite near Christchurch airport, which was by far the most expensive of the whole journey (including Australia), and had one final love-in with the van before dropping it off at the Jucy depot down the road. A quick spruce up after packing all my bits and bobs and then at the depot I anxiously waited for the guy to check the van and hoped that he wouldn't spot the dent on the driver's door that I noticed halfway through the trip and wasn't on the markings sheet. He didn't say anything about it, but in my panic I totally forgot to reclaim the £20 that I spent on the two fan heaters. Doh! And then, even more hilariously, when I arrived at my hostel I realised that I'd left my lavish £50 sleeping bag in the overhead compartment. What a plonker!

Well, all that's over now and after an insane but awesome six weeks I'm back to being a normal traveller again now, crappy hostels and public transport for me and hopefully I won't be spending quite as much money. On that note the first thing I did in my new hostel was book myself a trip to Kaikoura - whale watching, swimming with dolphins, one night's accomodation and a bus either way - which set me back another £140. The best things in life are free, eh?

I have a total of 7 nights in Christchurch, plus one in Kaikoura, so it needs to have lots to do in order to keep me entertained for all that time. Unfortunately that isn't the case and I realised before heading to Kaikoura that I'd pretty much already exhausted all that Christchurch has to offer; I was also going to miss Jamie, one of my old Oz buddies, by booking the trip when I did. On a plus note the girls from Orewa will be turning up before I fly out so they should keep me sane for a little while. Okay, roadtrip over, back to the wildlife.

Kaikoura

My bus, which was one of the least comfortable I've ever ridden on (lack of legroom isn't the word), left Christchurch at just after 7am and dropped me off in Kaikoura at 10am. After being sent in the wrong direction by the apparently friendly bus driver I eventually found my hostel - The Lazy Shag - and checked in. After a stroll through the little town and a low bite to eat at a cafe with just one member of staff doing everything it was already time for me to see some whales (fingers crossed).

Once again I'd failed to do any research and I didn't actually know what I'd be seeing, but I quickly found out that Kaikoura is home to lots of male giant sperm whales. A continental shelf has formed a very deep valley beneath the sea, creating an abundance of nutrients that rise to the surface and tempt in all manner of sea animals; the plankton and krill make it an ideal home for sperm whales.

Once again it was a choppy ride on the boat and several people were making use of the sick bags. After just five minutes of travelling out to sea one of the spotters on the top deck caught sight of something and less than a minute later we were parked up alongside our first sperm whale, admiring its...size. I was going to say beauty, but sperm whales aren't exactly the prettiest of things and are surely the ugliest of all the whales. They're the fourth largest in the whale family (the blue whale is the biggest) but are often depicted as the archetypal whale, as for example in Moby Dick, and as I'm sure you all know they have very big penises - up to an impressive 9 feet long.

We didn't get to see its member, nor its distinctively ugly head, but we did see it re-oxygenate for a few minutes (i.e. bob up and down in the water whilst periodically blowing air through its blowhole) before taking the final plunge into the sea for another hour or so. The record for these giants underwater is about two and a half hours in one breath; they are also the deepest known divers in the animal kingdom, reaching an incredible 2,500 metres below sea level. They can collapse their ribcages and their blubber keeps them warm even at those depths - apparently a human can't go any further than 150 metres without suffering massive & fatal internal injuries.

We had five whale viewings in total - three different whales as two of them resurfaced after an hour - which is a brucie bonus as most trips only get a couple of sightings, if that. But whales aren't the only creatures in the water; as well as lots of birds (seagulls, petrels and albatrosses) there are also quite a few fur seals and dolphins in the water at Kaikoura, the latter of which I'd be seeing close up in the morning (again, fingers crossed). So, fast-forward to the following day and by 9am I was sporting a fetchingly tight wet suit on a bus on the way to the boatyard. A few people at my backpackers had mentioned that there hadn't been any dolphins around for a while and that quite a few trips had been cancelled, but Encounter Kaikoura were hopeful enough to go ahead with the morning trip. It costs $130 (about £50) but you get $100 back if you don't swim with any dolphins, which seems reasonable to me.

The dolphins that you swim with are called dusky dolphins and are resident in the area all year around. It's worth remembering that these are wild animals that aren't fed or trained, hence you're in their habitat and you have to entertain them to get their attention, rather than the other way round that's usually the case when seeing dolphins. On that note we were given a briefing video before we left on how to entertain the dolphins - tricks include making noises and singing through your snorkel, swimming like a dolphin (i.e. with your arms by your side and feet together) and also diving down below the surface. The people on the demo video looked pretty stupid doing it but we were hoping to get a chance to do it anyway.

The trip started well - very well in fact, our first viewing (almost immediate) was of a shoal of Hector's dolphins, the rarest dolphin the world. Bingo! What a bonus that was, they swam about the boat for a little while and then someone realised that there were actually two shoals out there, one on either side of the boat. Apparently that's an extremely rare sighting in Kaikoura so I was happy already; we also saw several fur seals and wandering albatrosses scavenging for left-overs from the seals, and then after an hour's travelling around they announced that unless we spotted some on the way back, there'd be no dolphin swimming today. Booooo. And we didn't see any on the way back, although everyone else on the boat got a bonus by seeing a sperm whale (a bit old hat for this experienced whale watcher). So, I ended up paying $30 to cruise round on a boat for an hour and a half and see the rarest dolphins in the world, a sperm whale, fur seals and the biggest albatross of them all, the Wandering Albatross, swimming across the sea. Not bad at all when you think about it.

I still had a few hours to kill and in a small cafe I unexpectedly bumped into one of the Orewa/Whitsunday girls, Kerry, who had gone ahead of the pack with her boyfriend as he had an earlier flight than them. How random. And then on my bus back a guy to my right started talking to me and led the conversation into rugby; pretty soon I was being asked if I was an All Blacks fan, and then I realised who he was - this was the same guy who tried to sell me an All Blacks shirt way back in Auckland when I first arrived. How even more random. Remember the song 'How Bizarre' by OMC? They were from New Zealand, and of Maori descent, and the singer looked spookily similar to this guy. Crrraaaazy times.

Right, four days to waste in Christchurch before flying out - let's see if I can find anything to do.

Christchurch Reloaded

Well, I didn't find much to do in Christchurch (apart from a trip to the Banks Peninsula, above) when I got back so I'll just sum up my New Zealand experience here.

New Zealand is a country that has pretty much everything - amazing scenery, rare and accessible wildlife galore and all sorts of activities to keep everyone amused, from the most laid back of characters to extreme daredevils. If it wasn't for the harshness of the winter weather here I'd be looking to live here immediately; the standard of living here is much better than in the UK and some of the major cities have plenty going for them. It's a great place to be and well worth all the hype, whoever you are you'll love it here (if you like nice weather then you'd better come in the summertime).

I never finished my history lessons so allow me to summarise what's happened here over the centuries. Although not persecuted by Europeans in the way that Aborigines were in Australia, Maoris were generally ignored as the settlers came in and began to form townships and indeed governments. And the Maoris were happy with this until they realised that not only was their land being sucked away from them, but they as a people were also diminishing due to newfound diseases brought by the settlers. Eventually in the early 20th century a small group of Maoris started to do something about this; as more and more Maoris began to settle in the cities, away from their traditional secluded villages, they began to enter education and employment, and in some cases government. Better health awareness and cross-breeding with Europeans brought immunity to all those deadly diseases, and the Maori population finally started to rise again. And so began a new era in New Zealand with Europeans and Maori starting to form a collective society after over a century of avoiding and sometimes fighting each other - something that could never continue as Maoris owned most of the land and yet couldn't survive forever by their old methods with Pakeha dominating farming and fishing resources.

It's interesting to compare Australia and New Zealand today given the totally different methods used by the British Empire to colonise them. In Australia they sent the convicts over with some officials plus some sporadic settlers and in many cases simply murdered Aborigines on sight (and sometimes did even worse than that); in New Zealand the whole affair was, on the whole, diplomatic and land was bought from Maoris on a piece-by-piece basis. And yet the net result is two very similar nations, both now independent from Britain, speaking in similar accents with similar economies and playing pretty much the same sports. But the main difference is that Maoris are more prominent in New Zealand than Aborigines in Australia; perhaps this has something to do with the advancement of Maoris as a race at the time that colonisation occurred, or maybe it's just that they weren't victimised quite as much and were given a fairer (although not fair) crack of the whip in their own countries.

One thing that stood out for me was that in the late 19th century New Zealand sent troops for the first time to join the British Empire in the Boer War in Africa, and amazingly despite being totally ignored by the government on virtually all matters (and holding several grudges about dubiously sold land) a staggering number of Maoris volunteered for the war effort. They were rejected as apparently it would be 'unethical to pitch blacks against whites', but it says a lot about the Maoris as a race in those days - hence the justifiable name of the book and film 'Once Were Warriors'. Note that Maoris were involved in the subsequent world wars but were largely kept in their own Maori squadrons, and one Maori officer was given the Victoria Cross after standing alone with his Tommy Gun at his hip, firing at allcomers and killing many enemies, despite them hitting him with about twenty bullets, before eventually dying. Brave stuff indeed.

How about some famous New Zealanders? From the world of TV and film we have Russell Crowe, Lucy Lawless (Xena), Sam Neill and director Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings of course). From the world of music we have Daniel and Natasha Bedingfield (born there), Crowded House, Bic Runga, Holly Valance (born there) and Dame Kiri Te Kanawa. And finally from the world of sport and activities, non rugby playing sports people include Michael Campbell (golf), Sir Richard Hadlee (cricket, who I met in Sydney) and Sir Edmund Hillary of Everest fame (you could add lots of rugby players to this list of course). Not exactly a grand list is it - that has a lot to do with the relative age of the country and the opportunities for them to become rich or famous by staying in New Zealand (these days that's not quite so much of an issue).

And also a final word about sheep. It's not exactly a secret that New Zealand is full of them, but why? Well, the most obvious reason is that New Zealand lies on a massive fault line that pretty much runs straight up through the south and north islands - hence the southern alps, the mountainous landscapes that you see everywhere and also the amazing Taupo volcanic zone - and this renders much of the land unusable for farming and building, but ideal for grazing. But it's also got a lot to do with history; today sheep outnumber humans by a ratio of 10:1 but look back to the 19th century and you'll see that the same ratio existed (115,000 humans to 1.5 million sheep in 1858). When the settlers first came in there was no such thing as refridgeration so smaller animals were preferred for farming; wool was popular at the time and easy to export; and also cows eat about 10 times the amount of grass that sheep eat. So, a sheep culture was introduced and much of the native bush and forests were burnt down to make way for them (note that most of the grass was painstakingly hand-sewn from seed). So, that's why New Zealand has so many sheep.

And on that note, it's E Noho Ra from New Zealand...goodbye everyone.

The Catlins Forest Park

After faffing about in Invercargill for much longer than planned I eventually set off for the Catlins at about midday on Sunday and made my way along the highway, fairly uncertain of where I was actually going. You see, planning in advance hasn't been my greatest strength on this trip as I'm always either doing and seeing stuff, driving here and there or resting and sleeping. Well, a quick look at my Lonely Planet guide (whilst driving), followed by a look at the map (whilst driving), pointed me in the direction of two places - Slope Point and Curio Bay.

Slope Point is marked as the most southernly point on the south island of New Zealand - Stewart Island holds claim to the country's most southernly point - despite the intriguing shape of the map that suggests it isn't. It was a fairly long and very boggy walk through a sheep grazing field to get to it, and the little landmark lighthouse (and tacky signpost pointing to the Equator and South Pole) adds nicely to the remote feel of the place. Experience rating = adequate. Near to Slope Point is a lighthouse at Waipapa Point, built 3 years too late after New Zealand's second worst maritime disaster, the sinking of the SS Tararua in which 131 people died. Well, I was in the area so it would be rude not to have a look. But when I got there I was distracted by what I could see on the beach - closer inspection revealed three whacking great big Hooker's Sea Lions basking in the sun on the sandy beach. Jackpot!

These things are seriously impressive, no wonder they're called lions - big and intimidating with savage looking teeth. I'd read somewhere that you should keep your distance and never block their path to the sea, and standing in view of them I decided that was sage advice. I subsequently read on a sign that you should stay at least 30 metres away at all times - I was a lot closer than that but at least I tried to be careful. I moved round this way and that to get different angles of them on my camera, and then when I finally realised that they weren't about to move or do anything exciting I decided enough was enough and moved on to my next target - Curio Bay.

Curio Bay plays host to something very different - a 160 million year old fossil forest next to the sea that's only visible during low tide - and seemed well worth a visit. Some very clever people have worked out that the fossils of the logs, trees and plants date back to a time when most of the world, including New Zealand, was part of one big super continent called Gondwanaland. Amazing stuff, but as cool as that sounds it didn't really do it for me as an experience; I generally had no idea what I was standing on or looking at apart from a couple of obvious trees, the rest could have been a big pile of rocks for all I knew. I decided to take my leave, but then something unexpected happened. Again. I looked up to the top of the beach and there, staring back at me, was a penguin. And not just any penguin, as if that wouldn't be exciting enough - I could clearly make out a distinct, bright yellow band around its eyes and head. This, ladies and gentlemen, was a yellow-eyed penguin, the rarest and shyest penguin in the whole world, staring at me in the wild on a 160 million year old fossil forest with no-one else around. It's not every day that happens to you is it?

Apparently these penguins, of which just 3,000 exist, will do one of three things when faced with a perceived threat - run away or freeze on the spot. This one was obviously doing the latter so I grabbed my camera from my pocket, zoomed in as far as it would go (not very) and took a picture. I had a quick look and the picture looked okay on the screen, not blurred but pretty distant (it looks further away than it actually was), but when I looked up again I experienced the former too - it had scarpered. I've no idea where it went, presumably into the bushes at the top of the beach, but after a quick scout I decided I should leave it alone as these creatures can get very disturbed just from a long distance sighting of a living thing, let alone some nosey foreign tourist stumbling into its home.

Well, what a day it had been, I felt great and extremely smug - some great spots, lovely winter weather and then a free night's accomodation at the campsite as the office was closed when I got there. Honesty Boxes? Not in my dictionary I'm afraid. In the morning my luck didn't extend to seeing a rare Hector's Dolphin in nearby Porpoise Bay as they're only there in the summer, which is a shame; looks like dolphins will have to wait until Kaikoura. I also didn't get any luck at Cannibal Bay (no doubt named after Maoris) where I greedily went to see more sea lions, but my spirits were still high when I arrived a Nugget Point, home to all sorts of things.

At the end of Nugget Point sits a lighthouse and from there you can look down at the little nugget rocks on which many different animals live - fur seals, elephant seals and sea lions all co-exist here which is very rare; yellow-eyed and blue penguins, gannets and shags all breed there too, although I didn't see any of the aforementioned from my perch way up. Right, time to knuckle down and head off to Roaring Bay, a place dedicated to seeing wild yellow-eyed penguins.

I wanted more, more damn it, of these amazing little creatures than that one brief encounter and so I sat myself down in the lookout den - provided in an attempt to keep people hidden from the penguins so they'll actually stay in the area - and waited. And waited. I arrived at 3pm and after over an hour of excruciating boredom they began to arrive. They'd been out 'fishing' in the sea all day and seeing one finally arrive was a fantastic experience. A small black bird bodysurfing the waves straight into the centre of the beach; a bit of a delay and then up steps a beautiful little penguin. A quick shake of the body, legs and fins - and sometimes a repeat after being nailed by another wave - and then they make the long waddle up the sand to their little homes in the bushes of the hill.

I saw six in total, and they all walked back in pairs. The first one to arrive actually stood near the top of the beach waiting for the second one to arrive, and then after some comical hopping up some rocky steps they disappeared into the bush. When the next two arrived one went in the bush and the other waited outside, and a penguin log-jam began at the bush entrance. At this point I decided I'd probably seen enough - well not really but it was very cold and I'd been there for 2 hours - and so I went and stayed the night at Kaka Point, ready to move on to Dunedin the next day.

Dunedin

Much like Wellington, I really liked Dunedin due to its pleasing look and feel, laid back atmosphere and the compactness of its city centre. And there's lots to do here as well, which makes a change from most New Zealand cities - I ended up spending three nights there before heading up to Christchurch. But that's partly due to the fact that when I first arrived there in the afternoon I had a banging headache and felt terrible, totally exhausted, and ended up in a campsite having a nap. Well, that nap turned into a fairly solid sleep and I ended up very, very refreshed the next day and ready to have a really good explore.

Dunedin is gaelic for Edinburgh, so I couldn't resist checking out Lanarch Castle which was a pet hobby for one William Lanarch, a man of Scottish descent who spent most of his life in the British colonies of Australia and New Zealand in the late 19th century. He made his money through banking during the gold rush and, after checking out the views of Dunedin from the Otago Peninsula nearby, decided he wanted to live on the peninsula and build a castle to match his uncle's on the other side of the world. And so began a lavish and unnecessary project to build a castle, complete with a gun room and battlements at the top, in a quiet area of New Zealand in the peaceful year of 1871. Brilliant, I love it.

The castle was bought by the Barker family in 1967 for a low price - it was very run down by all accounts - and they set about restoring it whilst using it as their home (they're self made, they weren't rich when they bought it). And what a job they did, the gardens are spectacular and the inside is pretty much back to its original splendour. Marble sculptors from Italy, wood carvers from all over Europe and local Kauri tree carvers were all brought in by Lanarch to form the original interior, and most of it has been bought or loaned back. It really is a fascinating place, all done by a bank manager in an attempt to woo his wife-to-be and her family. Out of all the little facts about the place, I bring you this - all the family's and horse's excrement was piled up in a building at the back and converted into methane, which was then pumped through to the castle to light all the crystal chandeliers. Ingenious stuff, but I wonder what the castle smelled like inside?

In the city centre itself I went to the free art gallery, had a look at Cadbury World but didn't pay for the tour as it seems like a rip-off, and also took a look at Baldwin Street which is, according to the Guiness Book of Records, the steepest street in the world. I didn't walk up it, in fact the thought never even crossed my mind. Apparently the annual Gutbuster race sees the winner run up and down it in about 2 minutes - that's absolutely staggering, not because of the time but because there's actually people willing to do it.

Last on my list, but by no means least, was a trip to the very end of the Otago Peninsula to see a wildlife king - the Royal Albatross. Before I talk about that, allow me to point out that there are only 150 of these birds in New Zealand, it's the wrong time of the year to see them and also the wind needs to be very strong to actually see one of them in flight. So, my hopes weren't especially high, but I paid the 25 bucks for the tour anyway. Standing a metre tall with a wingspan of over 3 metres, these birds are the largest (but not heaviest) flighted birds in the animal kingdom. They can live their entire life at sea and only need land to lay their eggs, and as they're so large you tend to find their colonies on small oceanic islands such as the Falklands. And so it came to everyone's surpise when, in 1920, one of these birds flew to the Otago Peninsula and laid an egg at Tairoa Head, formerly home to a Maori village, and in the process created New Zealand's first Royal Albatross colony (and still the only accessible one on the planet). And it still baffles scientists today.

I find that fascinating - why on earth would it leave its colony and fly god knows how many miles to lay its egg somewhere completely new? Presumably its old home had been affected in some way but how would it know to come here? And that the land it chose was exposed to the 'Roaring Forties', a channel of high wind between 40 and 50 degrees south in latitude? Remarkable, they blatantly have some kind of inner GPS that we don't have. Speaking of GPS, all the albatrosses at the colony are tagged and monitored wherever they go. One was recently tracked all the way on an incredible journey to...Chile, over 6,000 miles away with nothing but water inbetween. And they've no idea why it went there. I never expected these birds to be so interesting - other facts include their triple-jointed wings (for easier folding up), their ability to dislocate their jaws like a snake and also their amazing weight - chicks weight more than adults and can reach the heady heights of almost 10 kilos, which is very heavy for a bird.

Most of the tour was spent at the top of the hill in the lookout room where they provide binoculars for everyone and also have live TV screens with those self-controlled cameras that are great fun to use. In view were two chicks that every now and again would flap their wings in an attempt to take off - as it happened, the wind was very strong that day. Once again my camera was utterly useless on the zoom front but fortunately some American guy had brought his own telescope and tripod and I didn't need a second invitation to take some pictures through it (it worked surprisingly well). He was hilarious, really getting into it and at one point I thought he was going to have an orgasm - 'Oh yeah...oh my god...oh, that's amazing' in a slow, whispered voice. I think he enjoyed the experience.

I enjoyed it too, another new thing ticked off the list (I don't actually have a list by the way) and some good luck in actually seeing the birds - an adult flew/glided into view at one point. My wildlife experience has certainly been much better than my weather experience here. Well, I'm pretty much done here but before I get to Christchurch I have to spruce up the van and give it back to Jucy. No rest for the wicked...

Invercargill

Okay, Fiordland is done with now and for those with no interest in that sort of thing I apologise and promise to tell a few smutty jokes later. But things aren't about to get any better for those people - the majority of the remainder of my trip is all about wildlife.

Although New Zealand has an incredible variety of animals to witness (kiwis, dolphins, seals, whales, sea lions, albatrosses, gannets, penguins and so on), it doesn't have that many indigenous species to boast of. Australia has all sorts of remarkable things like kangaroos, wombats and koalas, as well as all sorts of incredibly dangerous things, but New Zealand has...the kiwi, a virtually blind small chicken sized bird with a long beak that eats worms. For a national icon, it's a bit rubbish. But why?

Well, for once the Maoris are partly to blame for this. The Moa, at the time the biggest bird in the world (flightless of course), were hunted to extinction by Maoris, which isn't surprising seeing as they were usually about 3 metres high and would feed a small army. And seeing as Maoris didn't have the weapons to hunt quicker animals and birds that could fly, you can hardly blame them for going for the easy kill.

But the main problem for New Zealand's wildlife were of course the Pakeha when they started arriving. Not just Europeans though, Australians were guilty too. The introduction of new plants and animals such as rabbits, mice, rats, weasels, possums and stoats, as well as the destruction of habitat (such as burning down entire forests for sheep grazing) had a devastating effect. A classic example occurred on Stephens Island in 1894. The government built a lighthouse and employed a keeper; he in turn brought with him a cat to keep him company. In little more than a year that one cat single-handedly wiped out an entire species of bird called the Stephens Island Wren (this is disputed by some but it definitely killed most of them).

Stories like that can be found all over the country - not quite as good as some of the extraordinary tales from Australia, like the guy who bought the last two living specimens of a species (hamster or something like that) at an auction and then ate them when he got hungry later on - but damning all the same. Many of the animals in New Zealand now are good examples of two wrongs not making a right, such as possums and stoats being introduced to catch introduced rabbits and rats (swallowed a fly etc). But why would they bother hunting for fleet-footed animals like rabbits when they can just eat defenseless native animals with no natural predators? By the way I'm not ranting, just explaining.

Stewart Island is my next port of call - a spot of walking and bird-watching for this non-walker and non-bird-watcher. After that I'm going to check out the Catlins Forest Park to have a look at sea lions and rare yellow-eyed penguins (hopefully), then albatrosses near Dunedin and then with any luck whales and dolphins in Kaikoura.

Ah, but this entry is about Invercargill isn't it. Well, it's a nice place but really not worthy of more than a few sentences. It acts as a base for trips to Stewart Island, so let's get out of here and look at some birds.

Stewart Island

When Captain Cook found Stewart Island he sailed round most of it and somehow decided it was attached to the south island, naming it South Cape in the process. The fact that the ferry crossing takes an hour at a good pace tells you that it was a pretty big boo-boo for a great explorer; it was renamed when William Stewart, a fur sealer, sailed right round the island and mapped its coast and many small surrounding islands.

Stewart Island is well known, amongst New Zealanders anyway, as a bird sanctuary. An aggressive vermin control scheme is in place and on the small but beautiful Ulva Island nearby they've eradicated them completely. In fact, Ulva Island is one of the prime locations in the world for relocating endangered species of birds - they're introducing a rare type of parakeet there soon and people from the States and Japan have already booked themselves in a year in advance to go and have a look. The world of bird watching is very active it would seem. It's also reknowned as a walking and tramping haven, but don't worry I won't be doing much of that - I booked a ferry in the morning with one nights accomodation, followed by a ferry back the following afternoon. Just a whistle-stop visit.

My ferry was pretty much empty but naturally the only kid on it came and sat right behind me - they're drawn to me you see - and her mum played High School Musical 2 on a DVD player at an amazingly high volume, which annoyed me immensely. But it's for a kid so it's okay to irritate everyone on board, whereas if I had my iPod on, even at a quiet volume, I'd get warned and then thrown overboard. It was only for an hour though, a bit choppy in places even though it was a calm day. Stewart Island is quite large but the township in Halfmoon Bay is really quite small, so in no time at all I arrived at my backpackers to find my worst nightmare...a school trip from near Invercargill had come over and decided that out of all the accomodation options in Stewart Island, my backpackers was the best place for them to run amock. They were all in the kitchen - about 30 primary school kids and 10 adults. Give me a break! All the kitchen equipment was in use or piled up for washing up, and the kids were running around and screaming like mad while the adults just sat about and left them to it, all of which helped me make the decision to get out of there pronto and go and see some stuff. I quickly went down to the visitor information centre near the wharf and booked myself a water taxi to Ulva Island.

There are about 5 forest walking tracks on Ulva Island but they all join up and make a kind of figure of eight, so you can do them all without duplication in less than 3 hours. I randomly selected one to start with and in no time at all I found myself trying to tiptoe along the gravel track to get a decent picture of a rare bird - a South Island Saddleback according to my guide book - and quickly realised that this was going to be a frustrating day, for three reasons. Firstly, the birds in the forest can see you long before you see them and they'll fly away before you can get close. Secondly, the gravel track is very noisy to walk on so there's really no chance of sneaking up on one. And thirdly, my camera is in possession of surely the worst zoom in the digital camera world - it's fully encased (due to it being waterproof) and so the zoom can't come out of it, giving me a 3x optical zoom which is basically rubbish so I can't take pictures of things from a long way away.

As well as the Saddleback I also saw the following birds - Stewart Island Wekas, Tomtits, Oystercatchers, Kakas, New Zealand Parakeets and also a few New Zealand Wood Pigeons, the second largest pigeons in the world and boy are they noisy in flight, if one of them takes off nearby without you knowing they're there then you're in for a fright. I lost count of the number of times I'd hear a flapping noise behind me and turn round to see nothing there; despite having no predators and seeing human visitors regularly, these birds are extremely shy and retiring. Except for the singing of course, very soothing and according to my guide is mostly down to the Kakas and Parakeets.

The only bird that wasn't difficult to see was the Stewart Island Weka, which you can find in the forest and on the beaches. In fact I found one of them stalking me on one beach - I walked away from it, looked back and saw it running after me, but when it noticed me looking it stopped running and pretended that it wasn't following me by strolling off to the left. Then when I walked off again and looked back it was still running after me, and again it stopped when it saw me looking. Spooky.

Apparently there are roughly 40 Kiwis on Ulva Island (over 10,000 on Stewart Island as a whole) but these are rarely seen, and unsurprisingly me of little stealth when it comes to walking didn't spot one (I ended up on my backside quite a few times as parts of the track are very slippy). The Kiwis on Stewart Island are unusual in that they're often active in the day - usually they're purely nocturnal - which is why it's a good place to come to spot one. Despite being virtually blind they're masters at not being seen - they blend into the nearby shrubs quite nicely and also build their underground nests several weeks before entering them, to make sure they're camouflaged from day one. Apparently if you see a Kiwi scavenging for worms the best thing to do is stand completely still - it won't hear you and since it's eyesight is so bad it'll usually just walk straight into you.

I actually really enjoyed my time on Ulva Island, it was certainly something different and it's a shame that more people don't come here - the travel dude in Auckland didn't put it on his list (probably a standard backpacker's list). They're probably put off by the tag of 'bird-watching' which implies lots of anoraked people with binoculars, but you don't have to be into it to enjoy this place. To finish off my visit I took a stroll around Halfmoon Bay (after avoiding the school all night and watching South Park episodes with some very smelly Germans), and at 2pm jumped on my ferry. And guess who was on it? Yep, that's right, the school trip. No worries though, it was horribly rough and most of them were throwing up all over each other - true story - and I really enjoyed it. A word to people who don't like choppy boat journeys - don't go to Stewart Island, apparently it's like that most of the time.

I picked up my van from Bluff, which must be one of the windiest places on the planet (second only to the wind tunnel at the HBOS Aylesbury offices on the way into town), and headed back to Invercargill for the night, followed by a quiet day of strolling around in lovely blue skies (a bit cold though), window-shopping and some pretty lengthy internet time.

Te Anau

Sigh...more trials and tribulations.

I was heading for a little place called Te Anau, south west of Queenstown, known as a good base for Fiordland excursions (but nothing else). There's only one road to Te Anau from Queenstown...and it was closed off due to the snow. Marvellous. I had a trip to Milford Sound booked for the following morning, and one to Doubtful Sound booked for the day after - both already paid for - so as you can probably imagine I was pretty desperate to get there.

The road block was at a place called Milburn - I'd already travelled very slowly for 2 hours just to get there - and I really needed to get past it. My map showed a potential route around - south, then west, then north - which I worked out would probably take me about 7 hours to do. No thanks. I asked the policeman at the blockade what I could do, and he suggested that I could get some chains for my tyres and get across the road that way. And the nearest place to get chains is...Queenstown. No thanks. Well, I could stay in Milburn tonight. No thanks. I could go back to Queenstown and stay there. Again, not an option. Well okay, the other option was to wait around in Milburn and hope the track was cleared later in the afternoon.

And that's what I did - and cleared it was too, a grand total of 4 hours later. I spent my time waiting in the only pub in town, shamelessly perched in front of my fire thawing out my toes, reading my book, and not buying a single thing. Eventually, when I could feel my toes again, I remembered that life is good right now, and that it doesn't totally suck balls.

They did a great job clearing the road - not a trace of snow on it but enormous piles on the sides of the road. I got to Te Anau at 5pm, checked into the cheapest campsite in town and was told by the manager that the Milford road had been closed for three days due to snow avalanches near the entrance to Milford Sound, and that it probably wouldn't be open tomorrow either. It just gets better eh.

I decided to take a stroll through the town centre to check out the place - if the Milford road was still closed tomorrow then I'd probably be getting used to it. First impressions were good - a long street with a decent sized pub, lots of restaurants, two supermarkets, a garage, a big electrical store, a newsagents, a massive off license (bottle shop over here), lots of tourist type offices and all sorts of other shops and facilities. But get this - it was 8pm on a Saturday night and...there was nobody in sight, no cars were parked by the street and none of the shops were open. None of them. I glanced into the pub on the way back and there appeared to be just three people inside, by the look of them tourists, watching the olympic on TV. Some people pay good money to go to the old gold-rush places and look at the ghost towns, but I was getting this visit for free.

If I was going to Milford Sound in the morning then I had to be at the coach stop for 10am, so I rang the company beforehand in the morning - no signal on my mobile and no answer when I tried the nearest payphone. Grrrrr. I took the fairly long walk to their office and was told that all the phones and internet lines were down due to the snow, and that an avalanche on the Milford road was still blocking everyone off, therefore all trips were still off. So, my new plan was Doubtful Sound on Monday, followed by Milford Sound on Tuesday - which meant I had a whole day in Te Anau to waste.

I went up to the lookout point just out of town where I was kept company by a snowman (well, snowwoman judging by the boobs on it), then took a stroll around Lake Te Anau, and then to polish off my day I followed that up with a trip across the lake to see the glowworm caves, which were excellent. No pictures are allowed, which is a crying shame, but flashes (accidental or not) upset them and they dim if it happens. A brief word about glowworms - they are in fact the larvae of fungus knats that have been laid on cave walls. Not very glamorous creatures then, but they have a neat little mechanism where if they're hungry a pigment lights up inside them that attracts flies for them to eat. So, the hungrier a glowworm is the brighter it glows.

Right, now for something completely different...

Doubtful Sound

Before we start, we need to answer a few questions (and ask them too). What is a Sound? What is Fiordland? And what's so special about this place?

A Sound is a valley that has been sculpted and sunk by a body of water - that could be a river, severe flooding, tsunamis, you name it. A Fiord on the other hand is a valley that has been forged by glaciers. So, what's Fiordland? Well, most of the Sounds in this area are incorrectly named - they are in fact Fiords, not Sounds. The glaciers that created them were enormous and part of an ice age almost 10,000 years ago; they advanced and retreated to and from the sea over and over again, and the results were devastating (and spectacular). There are 14 Fiords and Sounds in Fiordland National Park, but only 2 are accessible to the public - Doubtful Sound (the second biggest valley in the park) and Milford Sound (the most popular with tourists). To give an idea of the size of this place, Fiordland National Park is roughly the same size as Wales. So, it's a pretty big park.

Fiordland is a tough, uncompromising place; its peacefulness and tranquility is virtually guaranteed with or without National Park status as it's virtually impossible to settle here. The weather is pretty horrible - on average it gets about 7 metres of rain per year (compare that with Manchester, known to be a rainy place, which gets just under a metre of rain per year), and it's bitterly cold too. Apparently out of 10 days in Fiordland it will rain for at least 7 - so, knowing my luck that makes it a guaranteed soaker.

Doubtful Sound is a good old Captain Cook name - he named it Doubtful Bay as he was 'doubtful there was enough wind inside the bay to get the ship back out'. He was probably right about that, but he was wrong about it being a bay and in fact mistook most of the Fiords and Sounds in the area as 'bluffs' - cliff faces that deceive the eye into thinking you can get through, when in fact you can't. But wrong he was, and eventually a few other European sailors would stumble across them and explore their many arms.

Getting to Doubtful Sound is a bit of a mission - unlike Milford Sound it's only accessible by boat across a lake - so here's a quick rundown of the journey. Walk to the coach, get on the coach and drive to the middle of nowhere to pick up some people from Queenstown (yes I could have come from there but it's a lot more expensive), change course and go to Lake Manapouri, get off and jump onto a boat for an hour, then jump on another coach, take the Wilmot Pass around the mountains to the entrance to the Fiord and then jump on a cruise boat. An then do it all again on the way back, but this time with a stop at the power plant on the Wilmot Pass thrown in for good measure. All in all the day takes over 10 hours and costs about £75, which seems pretty good value to me.

So, let's talk about the day. The coach driver was superb, very chirpy and full of interesting but utterly useless facts about everything and anything; for example, I now know what New Zealand sheep eat during the winter when the grass is taken out by the snow or flooded - swedes, turnips and grain. The first boat journey goes across Lake Manapouri, which itself was formed by a glacier but doesn't reach the sea, hence it's still just a lake. But what a lake - surrounded by amazing landscape, crystal clear on sunny days and in parts almost 450 metres deep. And what a glacier it must have been to carve out land that deep.

After that the coach goes across the Wilmot Pass, which was never intended to be used as an entrance to the Fiord - it was created to transport materials to the power plant when it was being built, and took twice as long to finish as anticipated due to the amount of rain that falls here. It's a spectacular road, quite thin and winding with beautiful views at times. And then you reach Doubtful Sound itself. The beginning is arguably the best view - you can see the long and winding valley from its shallowest point with clear water and the sun shining through the clouds. Once you get on the water the view behind the boat is a bit distorted due to the wake and fumes from the boat but can make for some interesting pictures all the same.

It's hard to imagine what this place must have looked like 10,000 years ago when the glaciers were rampaging and forming this amazing landscape. And the thing about Doubtful Sound is its tranquility - it's incredibly quiet, the boat's engines were switched off for a minute at one point to demonstrate it to everyone. Amazing. And finally a quick note about the power plant - it's located deep down in one of the mountains, hidden away from view, and is accessed by a 2.5km tunnel that has a gradient of 10:1; so it's actually located 250 metres below the entrance to the tunnel. I'll say this much about it - you wouldn't want to visit it if you were claustrophobic, and a few people jumped out and waited at the entrance. The plant was quite controversial when they were planning to build it as it's in the middle of a National Park, which goes against the idea of such a thing, but eventually people realised that the power of the water was a great way to generate energy and its creation inside the mountain gave it the go ahead.

Right, enough of that, onto Milford Sound.

Milford Sound

Fellow bargers, I have found a suitable venue for Team Pro Barge. It's called Milford Sound and it's perfect for a good old barge session; there might be a few problems getting a barge out here, and getting permission to use it, but it'll be worth the hassle, trust me. Rudyard Kipling described it as the eighth wonder of the world, so it must be good.

Unlike Doubtful Sound, Milford Sound is apparently correctly named - it is indeed a valley that has been sunk by water (although they're not sure). It was named by a Welshman, the first person to settle here, after his home town of Milford Haven. It's a lot easier to get to - a coach journey straight to the cruise terminal - and is extremely popular, especially in the summer. It's winter here and there's nowhere near as many people around, but three cruise ships took off in the 15 minutes I spent at the cruise terminal.

Apparently the best weather for visiting Milford Sound is heavy rain - allegedly it creates a great 'spooky' atmosphere and also revitalises the many waterfalls along the sides of the Sound, to an extent where the boats can't get close to them because they're too powerful. I, however, didn't get rain - instead, I got clear blue skies, not a cloud in sight. And I couldn't have been happier, I don't care THAT much for waterfalls and to be honest you can shove the rain up your a&£e, I've had enough of that to last me a lifetime. It's amazing really, nothing but rain on the supposedly mild north island and then no rain in two days in a place that rains over 70% of the time. But that's the way it goes sometimes.

You couldn't possibly have a place like Milford Sound in the vicinity of a film like the Lord Of The Rings and not use it so, of course, they used it. Remember the bit where they're in boats and they go past the two massive king statues with their arms held out? That's the entrance to Milford Sound. I won't whittle on about it as much as the last entry, but I'll say this - it might have been the sun distorting my view but I thought Milford Sound was the better of the two days. Mind you, don't let the sunshine confuse you - it was brass monkeys out on the top deck of the boat, my three layers, hat and gloves were barely enough.

Once again the coach driver was excellent, except this one was more interested in tales of wiping out possums and stoats and also explaining how to make beer out of the Manuka plant, and how he tried a remake of the Manuka beer created by Captain Cook all those years ago (and how disgusting it was). You go through the Homer Tunnel on the way to and the way back from the Sound, like the one that leads to the power station near Doubtful Sound. Near the end of the tunnel the driver asks you to shut your eyes, and when you open them again you're greeted by a great view of the valley below with the road winding down ahead, mountains everywhere and most of them white which no doubt enhances the experience.

My first impressions were that Milford looked better than Doubtful, there was something about that initial view that looked better. They're both really similar, Milford has more and bigger waterfalls but is a lot smaller and busier and not as quiet. If you only had the time or money to visit one of the places, you'd choose Milford Sound as it's cheaper and much easier to get to.

Haast & Wanaka

The following statement seems to surprise, shock and yes even offend some of the people I've spoken to recently. The statement is this - I'm not going to ski or snowboard in New Zealand. Yep, that's what I said. The usual reaction from people here is one of complete amazement; cue uncomfortable smiles and then people slowly backing away from me. Idiot. Weirdo. Freak.

Allow me to explain. Firstly, I only have a limited time here and I want to use it well and see as much as I can - spending 3 days on a ski field doesn't seem to fit with that. Secondly, it's expensive and I've already spent more than my fair share in this country. Thirdly, you can ski all over the world and there are far easier and cheaper places to get to from the UK, and hell from what I hear some of them are better anyway. And fourthly, and perhaps more importantly, I'm not even slightly interested in skiing or snowboarding. So, there you go, I'm just plain odd. The upshot of this is that I won't be spending a long time in Wanaka or Queenstown - in fact, they'll just be little visits like any other place, like Haast for example.

I'm not really sure why the travel bloke in Auckland suggested Haast as a place to see. It's on the road from the glaciers to Wanaka, so you go through it anyway, but it's amazingly tiny and there's nothing to do there. My guess is that it's probably quite scenic but I can't confirm that due to the low-hanging clouds and rain that rather spoilt my brief stay there. So, moving on I drove over the Haast Pass towards Wanaka and hit snow. Not proper snow, more like sleet; wet snow that doesn't seem to settle anywhere apart from in little patches on the grass on the side of the road. But combined with the permanently low temperatures in the alpine region and a biting wind it really was cold outside. Horribly cold. I stopped a few times to take some pictures and even though I was outside for no more than a few seconds each time I had to thaw out in the van afterwards with the heater cranked right up.

I hit Wanaka in the afternoon and immediately checked out the info centre. It's right next to Lake Wanaka, which I'd been driving round for the last 15 minutes on the way to Wanaka, and the very low clouds made for some unusual views of the lake. There was no way I was staying outside in that weather so I drove towards the airport and tried my hand at some rifle target shooting, which I wasn't terrible or awesome at, but it killed a bit of time which is all you can ask for when you're hiding from the weather. That done, I found myself a big and quiet campsite and locked myself in the van with the heater on.

I woke up in the morning and peered out through the window and was delighted to see some blue sky, so I got up and went about redoing the photos I'd taken on the previous day. Just take a look and you'll soon see why I get so annoyed by dreadful weather when I'm trying to travel around one of the most scenic countries in the world. Rainy, cold and indeed snowy days are acceptable - it is winter after all - but not if it's so bad that you can't see a thing. When I saw the view of Lake Wanaka on the second day I wondered exactly how much I'd missed on the north island during that storm.

Oh well, what's done is done and for now I need to hit Queenstown to set up base for a while. Lots to do there - Deer Park and Glenorchy are home to lots of scenic from the good old Lord Of The Rings films (although I don't yet know where they are or which scenes they were) and Arrowtown is apparently a must see place. I should certainly have lots of time to see all that while I'm not skiing.

Queenstown

As hard as other places in New Zealand try, Queenstown remains the number one alpine and activity resort in the country. Without a doubt. How do I know this? Because it's heaving, totally overcrowded and pretty hellish really. There are just 4 million people in the country, and I think most of them are here. Seriously though, most places I've been to would make Alton on a Sunday seem busy, so it came as a bit of a shock when I encountered endless traffic, no parking spaces, loads of people on the streets and lots of vans at my campsite.

But these people don't live in Queenstown. No, this is definitely a tourist resort and the only people who live here probably work in tourism. You can just tell - families walking in and out of expensive ski shops; bleached haired idiots carrying snowboards around; and what is it with these huge, multi-coloured ski jackets? Yep, I'm in a ski resort alright. And what a time they'll all be having right now - it's snowing massively here. I've never seen so much snow in my whole life - who knows how much there must be on the slopes - and it's great snow too, light and crispy and perfect for snowmen and snowball fights. And it doesn't go away, it just builds up, getting higher and higher on the grass while the cars turn the roads into a mess of grit, slush and ice. It's just a shame it's not Christmas.

So, what about the town itself? Well, it seems nice enough, very compact and offers everything you'd want from a place like this, although the prices are a tad steep. Unfortunately I'm here by myself, i.e. I've got no friends to go out with, so I can't really judge the nightlife at all (I'm not the sort of person to go and sit in a pub by myself and try and make new friends). So I'll just say that if you're a ski boff then you'll no doubt love it here, and I'm sure the nightlife would be great too (I've heard it is).

And now onto the boring bit - what I did here. Firstly I checked out the town centre, for a whole day in fact including a trek up a mountain for views of the valley and the town, and then went to nearby Arrowtown to see its famous cobbled streets, its top class but tiny cinema, and to see how it looks in the snow with its old-school phoneboxes and street lanterns. Well, to say it woas a disappointment would be an understatement. There are in fact no cobbled streets; the cinema was only showing chick flicks (no cinema in the world can make them worth watching); and for some geographical reason that totally escaped me there was no snow. I did however notice the lanterns and red phoneboxes, which entertained me for a few seconds, and I also checked out the nearby ruins of a Chinese village from the gold rush in the 19th century, which really was surprisingly enlightening. But all in all it was a bit pants really. Having said that, if my trip to Arrowtown was a letdown then my trip to Glenorchy was a spectacular misjudgement, in more ways than one.

I mentioned in my last update that the Queenstown area played host to many of the spectacular Lord Of The Rings sets, chosen for its breathtaking views and landmarks. Well, whilst glancing through a Glenorchy brochure I noticed that the following sets are all in the Glenorchy area - the Misty Mountains, the Ford of Brunien (where the horse-river-wave-thing comes along and sweepd the black riders away), Isengaard (Saruman's fortress by the lake) and Lothlorien (where they get captured by the elves, and the lake where they subsequently sail off). Unfortunately the brochure was for an expensive guided tour and didn't say where these places were exactly, so I got my van packed off and set off for the Glenorchy visitor information centre, knowing they'd be able to help me - who needs to pay to see nature when it's freely accessible?

There's probably an international standard for driving in the snow but I have my own method - stick the van in low gear, drive a bit slower than usual and just pretend it isn't there. It seems to work a treat; leaving the campsite was a bit ropey but great fun, the first road is massively downhill and covered in ice and snow and there really was nothing I could do - I just slid for a while, drifted to the left, smacked into the kerb and came to a standstill in the middle of the road, pointing to the right quite a bit. As anyone who's driven in the snow will know, the main roads are usually fine and in a place like this, where it's expected all the time, there's grit everywhere and all is good. I got to Glenorchy with it still snowing and approached the girl at the info centre/supermarket - it's a very small town - to find out where I needed to go.

What I'm about to tell you is a secret, and if it gets out then heads will roll, so don't tell anyone okay? Okay. Here's the secret - in the country of New Zealand...home to majestic scenery and famous for the Lord Of The Rings sets...in the town of Glenorchy...THE place to see the best of those sets...a town with nothing else to offer tourists...in the tourist information centre...which should be full of information on those sets...works a girl...WHO'S NEVER SEEN THE FILMS!!! AND HAS NO IDEA ABOUT ANY OF THE SETS!!! HAAAA HA HA HA HAAAA!!!!

You couldn't script it any better. Well, after looking at me as if I was the idiot for asking such a question...in an information centre...in Glenorchy...she pointed to a place called Paradise on the map and said that whatever it was I was looking for, it must be there. I swiftly pointed out that the road to Paradise was marked with a dotted line, meaning it wasn't a properly kept road, but she thought it would be fine for a campervan - 'but watch out for the stream crossing'. I decided that out of her two roles she was a better shop worker than information provider, but I took the road anyway under the knowledge that if it got a bit rough I could just turn back.

The main road was okayish, prett snowy but driveable, but when I turned off and took the track to Paradise it started getting pretty thick with snow and I swiftly decided that I shouldn't be there. I drove on for a bit and eventually spotted a part of the narrow track that looked just about wide enough to pull off a manouevre - steer to the left...reverse...drive forward...drive forward...drive forward...oh.

I was stuck. In the thick snow. In the middle of nowhere. In the middle of the road. Sideways on. Blocking the whole track. I had no phone signal. I was on my own. If someone came along to save me they would probably drive straight into me as I was sandwiched between two turns.

Oh. My. God.

After a quick panic attack the brain started to kick in and I got down on my hands and knees and dug some of the snow out from under the wheels and, cold and soaking wet, realised how I could get out of this. Since I was on my own I couldn't go to the back and push, but fortunately the van is an automatic so I opened the drivers door, stood outside by the steering wheel, released the handbrake and stuck it in low gear whilst pushing. And it moved - very nearly into the ditch off the road. I got it into reverse just in time, and nearly repeated the mistake on the other side of the road, but eventually and with a huge amount of luck I'd managed to slide the car into a position where it wasn't stuck and I was facing far enough to the left that I could drive back the way I came.

Wow, what a little adventure. And you know what? Had I found anything in Paradise, the clouds were so low and the snow was coming down so heavily that I probably wouldn't have been able to see anything anyway. The things you do...

I needed a breather so I went back to my campsite in Queenstown, did some washing including my newly filthy and wet clothes, and got ready to leave for Fiordland in the morning.