Road To Fjordland

Day 184

"Give me all the peace and joy in your mind
I want the peace and joy in your mind
Give me the peace and joy in your mind"

So last entry was written in Wellington with annoying flu. 7 days later I am in Te Anau, gateway town to magnificient Fjordland suffering some kind of nasty bacteria or virus. Tuulia and Sami are atm both sleeping in Motel with 38+ fever suffering from same thing. Typical that my immune system works so weirdly that I have no fever but extremely sore throat. Needless to say that this virus kinda ruined our New Year in Queenstown since everyone was more or less sick and out of strength to do anything.

After last entry in Wellington we wandered around in town for half a day during Christmas Day and ended up in local National Museum. I'm not a big museum fan but that place was fantastic. 6 floors of exhibitions and best of all it was FREE. Excellent place alltogether so we spent there most the day since everything in town was closed. We also stopped at hill to grab some city pictures.

Overall, Wellington didn't look that bad. It was quite decent city compared to horrible Auckland. But I wasn't weeping when we left there at 4:30 next morning on a ferry towards South Island. Sun came up just as we left Wellington and after 2h of sleepy ride we arrived to South Island and gorgeous Marlborough Sounds.

As the boat arrived to Picton in South Island we just hit the pedal and sped away, Picton was that ugly :) Our first destination in South Island was Abel Tasman National Park up in northwest corner. We were blessed with beautiful weather all day and managed to see most of the famous landmarks in clear blue sky. It was funny though, Abel Tasman Park is not even near tropical zone but place certainly looks like it could be there.

After day in tropical Abel Tasman park we started heading towards south and small place called St Arnaud, gateway to Nelson Lakes National Park. This is a relatively small place which I might have skipped, but because some of the pictures I had seen of that area were so gorgeous that we decided to do small sidetrack. It was definetly worth it.


Yet another beautiful location in New Zealand. At that point I had only about 4 weeks behind me and already I was constantly blown away by the scenery, again and again. Unfortunately we didn't have too much time there so we kept pushing on the next day towards south. But not before I got a physical memory from Lakes that I still carry, sandfly bites. Sandflies were insanely aggressive there and for some reason they targeted me all the time. I still carry nasty looking infected bites from them.

Our next target on trek towards south was small alpine village little out of the beaten track called Arthur's Pass. What a stunning location it was. Place was literally "a pass", a gorge in surrounded by high mountain lines.

On way there we had weird episode with a Kea. Kea is near flightless bird which is listed in New Zealand on endangered species list. What an annoying and stupid wanker that bird turned out to be. We stopped on a lookout 10km from Arthurs Pass and there we saw 2 Keas. One was chewing concrete asfalt and other iron fence(!).

Hmmm...ok, after minute other Kea jumped on our car, climbed to roof and started chewing on our roof!

We started to move the car a bit but still the bird wouldnt move...no wonder this dumbass was close to exctinction. Finally I stepped out of the car, roared like an ogre and the bird jumped away.

Arthur's Pass was fantastic location. It was clearly out of the beaten track and very very small. Yet it had nice amount of tourists and most were trampers and trekkers seeking to do various hikes in the wilderness. No partying 20-year old brits at all.

We had only one day there so I decided to do the most popular and hyped day walk called Arthur's Peak. Steady 1100m climb to Arthur's Peak(1800m above sea level). Oh...my...God...it was by far toughest and hardest walk I have done during this trip, tougher than Mount Sorrow in Cape Tribulation. Walk itself wasn't long, but it was constant uphill, not even 1 meter wasn't climb and most the time it was 30-45 degree angle. Afterwards I couldn't understand how I did it...especialy since climb was rated hard and was suppose to take 4h for average tramper...I did it in 1 hour and 45 minutes :) Was it worth it? Most certainly, since I have never been to Alps, I have never seen view like this

After I had finished walk in 3h40min that was suppose to take 6-10h we took off towards south and world famous glaciers, Franz Josef and Fox. Hehe, these pitiful little icefields were propably biggest disappointments in New Zealand so far, and in so many levels. No wonder there aren't any good areal pictures of them...because otherwise people would see how pathetic they really are. As we arrived to first glacier, Franz Josef we encountered first shock. Village was...literally a copy Las Palmas, Torremolinos, Rodos, etc. Stripped of originality and filled with partying teenagers and bars to fill their needs. At same time there were all the time atleast 3 helicopters flying around village taking people up to glacier every 5 minutes or so. Peace, chill, relax, enjoyment were definetly last words that came to mind as when thinking of Franz Josef. On top of that village was full, and I mean literally full. Every single hostel, hotel and motel was fully booked so we happily escaped Franz Josef and headed 20km south towards Fox Glacier.

Now, LP said that Fox is smaller and quieter of the 2 glaciers...what a load of bullshit. It was same tourist hellhole as Franz Josef. What couldn't stop to amaze me is why? Why would people fill these 2 villages so full. Its not like there is amazing beach or loads of activities to quench your adrenaline thirst. There is the glacier...and thats it. Only activity is to...walk on it, and thats it! Yet for some unknown reason tourists seemed to get stuck there for days if not even weeks.

Oh, needless to say that Fox was entirely booked as well so we decided to move on south. It was little disappointment to me that I couldnt get my single Kodak shots. 25km south from Fox Glacier, in middle of nowhere, we spotted a roadsign "Pine Grove Motel - Vacancy". It was starting to get late, almost 20:00 so we stopped. Place had one cottage available, 2 bedrooms and 1 lounge area with open kitchen for 85 dollars(=40 euros) a night. Not bad price for 3 people to split. We decided to stop there for 2 nights, make our way back to glaciers on next day, grab our Kodak shots and then head back for good nights sleep in same place. Here is picture of the road at the motel.

Next day we headed back to Glaciers and...just stopped at the lookouts to grab our shots. I had originally planned to do day ice walk there as well, but after seeing glaciers and the immature tourist flock there, I just didn't want to. I just wanted to get out of there as fast as possible. Here is Fox glacier.

...and here is Franz Josef.

After glaciers our plan was to head to Wanaka for 1 day and then to Queenstown for New Year. That plan was scrapped after we arrived to Wanaka and noticed that town was even more full of partying teenagers than glaciers! After little research, we found out that Wanaka is supposedly the big party place for New Year in South Island, fact that we didn't know but apparently 10000 young brits knew. So we pushed the pedal and headed towards Queenstown. We decided to spend 2 days in Queenstown and head towards Fjordland on January 1st.

Well, Queenstown as almost was full as Wanaka and glaciers but with much more mature folk. After 2h of searching place to stay for 2 nights we stumbled upon a holiday apartments by lakeside and managed to get 2 floor apartment. View from balcony was quite sweet.

Also in Queenstown it was time to visit Post Office and grab my only Christmas gift. Sweet! Even though I cried out in horror after pulling out that ugly...I mean pretty black FE cap, it really warmed my heart to see how people still remember me even after being gone from home for 6 months. Here I am wearing every piece I got :)

We had great evening on 30th but 31st was just horror. We all got some sort of virus(no, this virus wasn't called hangover). Sami and Tuulia developed 38+ degree fever, everyone of us had extremely sore throats and all of us were feeling very weak. Needless to say our New Year was kinda ruined. We were barely able to stay awake till midnight and witness surprisingly quiet New Year celebration in Queenstown.

So now we are in Te Anau, gateway to Fjordland which is advertised as the most beautiful area in New Zealand. Sami and Tuulia are still very sick and they are hoping to recover tomorrow so they could atleast see Milford Sound before they need to start their way back towards Auckland and home. I'm feeling quite good with the exception of sore throat so I'm not heading out to Sounds before 4th. In fact, Te Anau is such refreshing place after tourist infested Queenstown, Wanaka and Glaciers that I'm staying here for next 5 days.

Ok, thats most of the story in past week which has been little too hectic for my taste. But I knew it was going to be like this since Sami and Tuulia had only less than 3 weeks here compared to my limitless time. From now on its time to get back into backpacker life. Life without schedule, life without money and life without worries ;)

Happy New Year to all!