Rest of Canterbury

Day 211

"Then world behind and home ahead,
We'll wander back to home and bed."

Over 7 months now. I guess the length of this trip has just recently really struck me. 7 months behind and yet still over 3 remains...thats almost one third still remaining and I already feel like there is way too much to digest. It's funny how human memory work. I remember picture clearly my last evening in Finland like it was yesterday, sitting in Kaisla and having beer with my mates. In same time I try to remember 2 weeks in Darwin, it feels like it happened ages ago. And there is just so much after Darwin as well. That's also one of the reasons for this blog, its here not only to tell my mates what's going on and what am I doing, its also here to document this trip so I have this amazing travel story to read years and years forward. This blog is also for myself.

I told in couple of earlier entries how this is getting tougher...it is. But in same time I have to say that every single day I have enjoyed it, and life. I can say that I have enjoyed this experience every single day. 211 days so far and counting, how many days in a row I was(or will be) able to enjoy life back in home?

Ok, I'm getting all mental now, time to jump back to reality. I was ment to write entry 2 days ago when I last was in Christchurch but I ended up getting stuck in TV room watching Australian Open instead. So now I'm back in Christchurch and I have 1.5h before Nadal is playing :-)

After Mt Cook I spent 2 days in Lake Tekapo. I had heard how beautiful, calm and chill that place was so I decided to stop there for 2 nights. Oh my, it was pretty!

In Tekapo I was struck again by New Zealand's peculiar weather. First I am in Mt Cook freezing and having snowball war and after 1h drive, I am sunbathing in +32 weather! Overall Tekapo was maybe even too quiet for my taste...weird, few months ago I would have propably loved it more but now it's different. I guess these quiet, beautiful locations need good bunch of people around you, that is if you want to spend more than 2 days in one location. It seems it wasn't a problem in Australia to find such people, but it's almost impossible to do same in New Zealand. I'll get back to reasons little further...

After Tekapo I arrived to Christchurch for 2 days, what a dreadful and crappy city again! It's clear pattern now. New Zealand is very pretty on the outside, it has gorgeous landscapes and stunning scenery but every single city is just worse than previous. It really doesn't make it too appealing to move here permanently cause I couldn't imagine myself living in any of these ugly cities. It looks like none of the big cities in NZ have had any kind of design. So you have mixture of every single style built by the lowest bidder(clearly!). It looks like New Zealanders don't even care how their cities look, as long as buildings get the job done and are cost effective. That's also what is so different with Aussies and Kiwis. 2 days ago in news some officials in Australia announced that they are going to rebuild Melbourne Tennis Park into best Tennis Park in entire world! Knowing Aussies, they will do that. Kiwis...they just don't care or wouldn't have the will to do it. In short, I love Austalia :-)

Oh, no pictures from Christchurch so far...couldn't think of anything so far which was worth the space in my memory card :-D

From Christchurch I booked a trip to Banks Peninsula nearby. Now, this is sort of interesting peninsula and it looks weird as hell if you look at it with Google Earth. 9 million years ago Peninsula was big volcano, but these days it's crater looks like this:

I had booked 2 nights in a sheepfarm hostel right in middle of nowhere. I spent 2 days in authentic Australian farm back in September so I figured I should see what the farm life is like in NZ as well. Experience _almost_ turned out to be great, but just almost. Settings were amazing, just look at the view from farm's terrace:

...and views around Peninsula were amazing, again:

...but, hehe there always seem to be but when speaking about NZ. Place needed right bunch of people to stay longer than 2 days and there lies the problem here. People aren't staying anywhere long enough, everyone is just madly rushing from place to place and mostly spending 1 or 2 nights in one place, max. You don't get to know people because they are gone the next morning.

There are couple of reasons for this, but mostly it's logistics. Public bus network is very limited and cover's only major locations. Why? Because there are no travelers in public buses! Majority of travelers use either their own rented car(which btw is cheap) or take one of the 3 major backpacker buses(Kiwi Experience, Magic or Naked). Backpacker buses are in general cheaper than public buses, but they bind you to certain route and to certain timeframe which mostly is way too short. Travelers mostly take one of this backpacker bus passes which for example allow you to travel predetermined South Island circle in 2 weeks. After buing pass you are bound to that route, you can't retrace your steps and you have to finish the route within 2 weeks...which is why people just madly rush from place to place. New Zealand is not traveling mecca, this is holiday country...sadly.

Oh and these backpacker buses, they organize everything for you. Bus drivers hand out lists where people can check accomodation list where they want to stay in next destination and activity list where people can choose which activities they want to do in that destination. After everyone has checked those lists, bus driver makes phone calls and makes all bookings acting like any travel agent. So in essence, people on backpacker buses are on a package trip where every destination is told to them, where every booking and activity is made for them while they can just sit down, relax and get drunk. Sound like typical holiday? Yes, and typical holiday is exactly what I am NOT looking for. Having someone do all the work for you and telling you where to go next takes away all the fun. I enjoy the hassle of finding out destinations by myself, do all the bookings myself and having freedom to choose my next destination independently.

Jesus, I have been ranting a lot in this entry :-D Nah, it's just that I'm trying to explain what I feel is wrong with New Zealand and why traveling through this country seems like a struggle sometimes. Anyways, even with the rant, I have enjoyed New Zealand a lot. Fantastic scenery, but it's very unlikely that I will return here as a backpacker again, not alone at least.

Now I have another day to spend in Christchurch, was hoping to catch some movie while I'm in big city...and trying to find a shop that sells swimshorts. Some jerk decided to steal my swimmers in Mt Cook, go figure...

A Kick Ass Ride!

Day 204

"When I find out all the reasons
Maybe I'll find another way
Find another day
With all the changing seasons of my life"

Helicopter ride to top of Tasman Glacier and around Mt Cook(highest mountain in NZ), what a ride!

Today weather was so amazing, picture perfect blue sky which is not so common in these Southern Alps so I decided to skip future dive trip in Kaikoura and invest my money on this once in a lifetime(yet again) experience. It's not too many times one can ride with helicopter on top of mountain in middle of summer. Ride was rather shaky cause of wind but hugely enjoyable still. And scenery...it was nothing short of amazing.

We landed on top of Tasman Glacier at around 3000m for quick photoshoot and snowball war :)


Oh, and for peeps at office, you are welcome for this one :)

Ok, lets rewind the clock back a bit. Before arriving to Mt Cook I spent 2 days in Queenstown, again.

I have to say that my feelings for that town improved significantly now that I wasn't sick and had time. Queenstown is easily the most picturesque city in New Zealand, gorgeous town by lake surrounded by mountains. I had planned to do some sort of activity there on other day and after thinking through what I REALLY wanted...I chose wine tour around Central Otago wine area :)

Other option would have been bungy jump but...I have done it once before(granted, was very drunk that time) and after skydive it just didn't have that big appeal anymore. Here is pic of one of the bungy locations around Queenstown(there are 3 total). This location is actually officially the first bungy location in entire world, started by AJ Hackett on 80s.

...and here is another quite cinematic location above Queenstown and at the end of Gondola(=skyrail).

So, wine tour...I was hugely surprised. When speaking about NZ wines people usually always know 2 areas: Hawkes Bay and Marlborough(some might know Martinborough), but I had no clue about Otago area. This place was fantastic, easily best Pinot Noirs I have tasted in NZ(or even in Australia) so far. This is very small area but the quality of their Pinot Noirs was stunning. If anyone happens to run across Otago Pinots anywhere, grab a bottle. Overall it was yet another fun wine tour. Its funny, when wine tour usually starts, people are a bit shy, quiet and keep to themselfs...but after 2nd winery everyone is talking and having a laugh :-D

After revisit to Queenstown I headed to ultimate mountain destination in NZ, Mount Cook National Park. Now, if I said on my last entry how spark seems to be gone and how it's harder and harder to get impressed anymore, then Mt Cook turned new page. This place impressed and seriously wowed me.

During past 3 days I have walked about 50-55km around in this National Park seeing absolutely stunning views. I can safely say that spark has been lighted again, I hope it stays that way. But no matter what happens, I am NOT quiting this trip before it was ment to end.

Next stop is Lake Tekapo for 2 days and after that I won't be seeing anymore mountains during this trip. Then it's back towards ocean, warmth and beaches :)

Ok, I'm going to end this entry now. For some reason I don't have inspiration to write that much...and this internet hotspot is in TV room where people are quite loud so it makes focusing impossible...and air-conditioning doesn't really work here so it's getting quite uncomfortably hot.

Until next time...

Young perish and the old linger

Day 199

"I have to find the will to carry on
On with the -
On with the show -
The show must go on"

Topic describes how I feel now. All the people I have met so far in this trip have gone back to their respective homes, but I still linger here. I still have almost 4 months to go before heading back. As time goes by, social game becomes tougher and tougher. It's harder and harder to motivate yourself to show interest towards people's travel stories...because at this point you have heard them all. And as for me, I'm not nearly as eager to tell my stories for 1378th time. But...show must go on.

I did survive Shining hostel in Catlins without losing my mind. Place was so bizarre, it was in middle of nowhere in small country village(pop 200). I have no clue why anyone ever built such a big hospital into that place since closest big town, Dunedin, wasn't that far away(2h drive). Anyway, place was pretty cool with kickboards to drive around the complex :)

Catlins itself offered some nice scenery and wildlife. I don't know how numb I am getting, but I wasn't totally blown away by the scenery, it was just...ok.

Oh, and here is shot of Yellow-Eye Penguin. The most rare penguin in world. There are only 99 of them left at the moment so when this fella swam to shore it was quite a treat.

More interesting thing in Catlins was how nervous the sheeps there were :DD So far I haven't seen so spooked sheeps anywhere in New Zealand. I guess the remotness of Catlins makes farmers lonely and sheeps nervous :D

On 13th I arrived from remote farmlands to first real city for while, Dunedin, population 110 000. Place is modeled and streets are named based on Edinburgh in Scotland so no wonder Dunedin is said to be the most scotish town in New Zealand. City also boasts South Islands largest University which makes it big student town. Unfortunately(or fortunately) it's school holidays here atm so town is more or less ghost town cause all students are out in holiday destinations across country.

Dunedin itself is architecturally different than any other NZ town. It has lot of gothic look with its churches and european styled buildings. Here for example is church called "First Church"(because it was first church built in South Island).
\
...and here is town's railway station.

...and here is high school for boys.

I spent total of 3 days here which I found was quite quite enough. There was surprisingly lot to see in town. One of the highlights was of course the Speights Brewery where I was finally able to taste New Zealand beer that has more alcohol than 4.0%! Yea, apparently NZ has had such bad history with alcohol that all NZ beers have only 4.0% alcohol in them. And that 4%-rule is not only thing. Everywhere I go they have big signs "24h Liquor free zone", "All public drinking of alcohol is forbidden", etc. and to top this, they have campaign commercials in TV every 5mins about "proper use of alcohol". Weird, cause so far I have seen nothing in NZ that would suggest alcohol problem, no news in papers about drunken brawls or husbands offloading their families after heavy drinking(like in Finland every week).

So now I'm still in Dunedin, waiting to catch a bus to Queenstown. My plan is take to little side trek across inland towards Christchurch and see(and hike) mountains again. My current plan is to be in Christchurch around 28th, Wellington 8th, Auckland 12th and...lets see where plane takes from there.

Ok...this is first time that I admit it, but after almost 7 months on the road mostly alone, traveling is starting to get tough. It's getting harder and harder to get excited about new things. Everything around is starting to feel more and more boring. I wouldn't say that I have homesickness just yet, but spark is definetly gone and I need to relight it again somehow. I think part of the reason might be New Zealand and how depressing this country(and it's weather) is turning out to be.

NZ is definetly not modern country. This country is in many ways 4-5 years behind current modern world. This country is also quite poor, people can't really afford to travel so they are stuck in their own little islands and need to spend their holidays always within borders of NZ.

Now, I still have nearly 4 months to go and I'm not going to quit before May. I know that if I quit, I will never forgive it to myself. I just need to find the spark again for just few more months. I figured that one of the problems has to be weather atm. It's nice and warm but it's not what it was the first 6 months. So in essence I have to get back to Australia and hopefully find my spark there again.

...and it was suppose to be Summer here!

Day 194

"Bring me home or leave me be
My love in the dark heart of the night
I have lost the path before me
The one behind will lead me"

From here on trip literally changes into return trip. Slowly but surely I have to start retracing my steps towards Australia, Perth and then home. But still many many days till that.

First little time warp back to Fiordland with some pictures(which really aren't that great). First we have world famous Milford Sound

...then Doubtful Sound.

...and finally 2 pics of spectacular sunrise I witnessed on last day in Te Anau while waiting for my shuttle bus to Stewart Island ferry at 6am in morning.

Last 4 days went by slowly in Stewart Island, New Zealands southernmost point. Geologically talking, if someone would drill hole from Stewart Island they would end up somewhere in northern France so island is not that close to antarctic circle but because New Zealand lacks Gulf Stream, place was nothing like northern France in summer. Out of 3 full days I spent there, only one day was sunny and mostly without rain. Thats when I managed to grab picture of the place I stayed, South Sea hotel

...and of the Halfmoon Bay, center "hub" of Stewart Island :)

That was also the day I decided to head out to walks and to see bird sanctuary in Ulva Island.

Bird Sanctuary = Free open pvp zone for birds. I'll never set foot on these so called bird sanctuaries and neither will I ever become "lintubongari". Birds on Stewart Island were so dumb and insane. Let me try to make a comparison to put this into perspective:

Man and his wife are living on a house by a road with 2 small children. All the sudden Hell's Angels motorcycle gang drives slowly by armed to the teeth. Now, this dumbass man sees these passing motorists a threat to his offspring so he grabs a stick and runs to road and starts beating passing motorists with it causing no damage but definetly draws party's attention to himself, in worst case even angers them enough so he might get his brains blown off. Nice, so kids can grow without their father.

This is pretty much how birds acted on this "sanctuary". Because they are protected no one dares to harm them so they become stupid morons who attack anything on their sight. This happened to me several times. I was walking calmly and never even saw bird's nests much less baby birds but still from out of nowhere came berserking bird at me. Worst out of all were these Oystercatchers

...then there were also these duck-like birds which just came to scene while I was having lunch and started rummaging my bag for any goodies.

Overall nice place to chill, read and unwind but I think 4 nights was 2 nights too much :) I got my batteries charged again and was off to Invercargil for 1 night on 10th.

Invercargill...Oh my! Lonely Planet said that the place is "rough around the edges", but more accurate description would have been "shithole". Then again, its always an experience to spend a night in places like that. I arrived there quite late, around 17:00 and headed out to check town and buy some groceries from supermarket nearby. I haven't felt so unsecure in any place so far during this trip. Town was empty apart from gangs consisting of teens aged 12-20 riding around in their pimped 80's cars making as much noise as possible. After I got my shopping done I decided to walk into a pub 10m from hostel to grab beer and have a look at the atmosphere. Well, I opened pub door and all the sudden everyone in pub stopped what they were doing, all conversationes ceased and everyone started to stare me...feeling was more than uncomfortable so I just closed door and ran back into hostel and didn't go out anymore. Phew!

Next day I quickly walked to Infocenter and got into Catlins Coaster bus and away from Invercargil.

So right now I'm in Catlins countryside and in small village called Owaka southeast corner of South Island. Very charming place with great countrypub. Hostel I am staying at is also amazing! Place is basically huge abandoned countryside hospital which someone has turned into hostel. Halls are huge and very eerie since there is maybe 2-3 other people staying here and thats it. I so get Shining-vibes from this place atm hehe

Ok, but more about Catlins and Shining-hostel in next entry. Tomorrow I'm hopefully off to Dunedin which is more civilised locations and I would finally have some time to write proper entry instead of just quick rundown of last few days.

Wet, Wetter, Fjordland

Day 189

"In the rain,
The pavement shines like silver.
All the lights
Are misty in the river."

This will be a rare pictureless entry for long time so bare with me...those checking this blog for pictures only can wait for next entry *cough* Shadar *cough* ;-P Reason is simple, there are 2 computers in Stewart Island - my current location for next 4 days - and neither has usb ports. Otherwise I would have to wait another week or so before being able to write new entry, so I figured to update situation a bit now.

Last time I wrote Sami, Tuulia and I were suffering from weird virus, which has mostly passed now. At the moment Sami and Tuulia are already on their way back to Finland and I decided to take some time for myself at this very remote location of New Zealand, not too many tourists around here. But more about Stewart Island on next entry.

My purpose to visit Fjordland was 2 magnificient fjords there, Milford Sound and Doubtful Sound. Yea yea, they are named Sounds, but are in fact fjords. People who named them originally back in 18th century thought they were sounds. Now, according to quite popular travel website, TripAdvisor(Facebook users should know this), Milford Sound is voted as #1 travel destination in entire world so expectations were more than high for it.

As I got to Te Anau, I noticed there were 30 or so boats going to Milford Sound every day, nearly all were Samsonite pleasure cruises. Now, I figured I wanted something different, so I booked place for only dive operator doing trips to Milford. Why enjoy this magnificient fjord from above water only when I was able to go underwater as well? Yea, price was lot bigger but then again, in how many places in world are you able to dive a fjord? I have to say that diving conditions were more unique than ever. I'm going to bore people now and explain them :)

Fjordland gets heavy rain all year round and is surrounded by mountain peaks which some even have snowcaps. As this rain falls down from mountains it is very very cold. It creates 5-7m freshwater layer into the fjord which is very cold, +9 at this time of the year. This cold freshwater is very dark, thus it blocks lot of the sunlight making conditions 10m below surface like it's 70m below. Because of this effect, there is lot of deep water marine life in Milford Sound just 10-15m below surface that you normally wouldn't able to see anywhere. Below freshwater is normal saltwater with pretty tolerable temperature, +16 on my dives.

Before trip I was little scared how my extremely sore and infected throat would cope the cold water and diving, but...I figured what doesn't kill me, simply makes me strang...stronger :) All in all, it went better than I expected. It was cold, but for some reason under the water I didn't feel any soreness. Other thing that puzzled me afterwards was that I was able to drop all the way to 20m without having the need to equalize even once...am I turning into fish?

Otherwise trip to Milford was okish, weather was horrible but as they told us, it has been horrible for past month or so. It just rained and rained and clouds were very low making it impossible to see the high peaks surrounding fjord. But even with the cloudcover, it was clear how massive and spectacular that fjord was. I definetly felt like I was in middle of a movie set.

After Milford I went to see Doubtful Sound the next day. To this I had to choose Samsonite cruise since it was pretty much the only option. Where as Milford is easily accessible, Doubtful isn't. Thats also why less tourists go there which is always nice. Difference between Milford and Doubful are pretty apparent from pictures(if I ever get them online). Doubtful is much more massive and peaks surrounding it are bigger, but Milford is more picturesque with beatiful waterfalls surrounding it all the time.

Ok, time is up soon. I wish I could write more about my current state of mind, how traveling gets tougher and tougher after 6 months, how it gets more and more difficult to get impressed or even excited about new things, how pathetic New Zealanders are behind wheel, how this country seems constantly to be under watchful eye of Big Brother, how accident prone all Kiwi's are, etc. ...but all this has to wait. I hope I find cheap enough internet on the road and write all this and more.

But for now it's bye bye. Next entry won't be sooner than 13th or 14th January...assuming I survive Stewart Island crazy wildlife(=local fishermen).