On the road in New Zealand pt. II: Christchurch-Lake Tekapo-Oamaru-Dunedin-Queenstown-Wanaka-Bluff

I'm relatively new to hosteling, backpackers and the like. Before traveling to New Zealand I had stayed in a handful of backpacker places in India and before that literally two hostels in my whole life. Two. 
Increasingly on this journey I'm waking up in crowded dorm rooms filled with sweating, snoring bodies stacked two high, stale smelling socks and damp towels. The YHA backpackers in Christchurch is an old building with perhaps 50 guests staying at once and two toilets and two showers for the whole bunch of us. One sight I will never forget as long as I live occurred late one night when I went downstairs to use the toilet, opened the bathroom door and discovered a good dozen moist young men standing around in the steamy shower area either toweling off their Chinese bodies frantically or waiting their turn glancing about as if there was the possibility of something nasty coming to eat them whole, including their only clothing. Yes, to a man they were dressed entirely and solely in tight white panties.
I swear they were all flexing too.

Leaving the reconstruction in Christchurch Kira and I decided to travel the inland route south and head to Lake Tekapo. The landscape was completely flat at first and we drove through cute little farming towns with single shops/cafes-cum garages and agricultural supplies stores. Soon the mountain ranges that sat on the horizon like a family of spectating giants loomed closer and the landscape took on that epic travel brochure quality with wide-wide valleys that parted mountain ranges filled with intricate ultramarine braided river systems. 

Lake Tekapo shore

Lake Tekapo is stunning, in the day there is walking to be done on the hills that surround the turquoise and misleadingly large body of water, there are also some hot pools, not as authentically volcanic (no detectable sulphur in the air) as those at Hamner Springs but just as hot an pool-y. We visited the pools in the morning and they were pretty much deserted. I loved sitting back and becoming completely relaxed over the course of an hour with the hot mineral water supporting and softening my body, the cool breeze from the woods behind on my face and shoulders and a fantastic view along the lake to the mountains. It's a shame we can't all do that every week. I think it was also the first time I have able to meditate properly.

Lake Tekapo

The town as seen from Mt. John

After we tore ourselves away from Lake Tekapo we headed south along the coast towards Oamaru, there would be penguins there, and perhaps some seals. Maybe a penguin would eat a seal, most probably a seal would eat a penguin, hopefully not right in front of us. Instead we got to Oamaru just at sunset and headed straight for where we were told the penguins were going to come in to nest. We stood waiting until well after dark, until the cold began to creep like death itself into my joints and made moving around uncomfortable. I thought I saw something. I actually saw nothing. We both saw some shady-looking cats hanging around the nest site and heard some weird noises in the bushes, but no penguins.

'Victorian' Oamaru

After a night in a scuzzy but friendly hostel where we both tried to produce some art in under two hours (it was one of those places, yes), then the next day we checked out the town. Oamaru has positioned itself as 'steampunk HQ' for the world, or at least the southern hemisphere. Now I know what steampunk is; it's dressing up. Dressing up with ridiculously impractical old-timey accessories and yet another chance for fat girls (and some boys too) to wear corsets. "Nothing's good enough for you" exclaimed Kira when I told her this. She's right. Nothing is.

Oamaru

Steampunk HQ, or a gallery of old stuff welded onto other old stuff. Cynical? Me?

The Historic Quarter of Oamaru, there's a good microbrewery just to the left of this picture, Scott's I think...

 Much more impressive to my jaded disposition were the Moeraki boulders which were formed on an ancient sea bed, were buried in soft rock only to be revealed again millions of years later by the action of the action of the waves upon the raised sea bed. They look weird too. Maybe that's the appeal?

Inside a boulder

Dunedin likes to think it's Scottish. For that matter Scotland likes to think it's Scottish too but that's irrelevant right now. Dunedin is more British than anywhere else in New Zealand I'd been to up until that point: The people look very British indeed, I'm not sure how to explain this politely so I'll just be honest anyway, they are pale, somewhat overweight, scraggly looking and have that same thin-lipped gnash that so many of my countrymen (and especially women) display. In spite of the fact that the city has a tiny core (called the octagon) that is a kind of nod towards organic town planning, the rest of the city is in the wide grid-spaced planned style that so many towns in New Zealand have. Great open roads stretch into infinity in all four directions from a crossroads with wide lanes and a decent camber making crossing on foot without a green man a little more risky than you'd think. In that way Dunedin is not a British city. It's like if somebody took central Glasgow and cut it into cubes.

The Cadbury factory, the purple silo had an attraction where a couple of tons of molten chocolate are dropped along it's length into a vat at the bottom, for no apparent reason, of course. 

Dunedin municipal buildings and high church.

Kira's host in Dunedin kindly gave us a book of vouchers for money off various attractions, on the first day in Dunedin we had a pretty good burger out of it. Later that week we took an albatross spotting boat trip (bogof!) out to the headland at the entrance to Otago harbour. The weather out to sea was clearly rough, large waves were visible in the ocean that in spite of the distance between us were clearly taller than the boat we were on. For that reason the captain decided to stay within the harbour (the cowardly pom) and so stuck inshore of the headland. We saw some albatross flying around the harbour as well as the huge chicks that stood out well against the cliff-top grass with their stunning white plumage.

The headland that is home to the albatross colony and also a colony of shags.

See those white dots? Albatross chicks!

An albatross followed the boat back into Dunedin

I really need some photo editing freeware, everything you see is straight from the camera and lacking in colour, can you recommend some please?

On our way back in a huge squall appeared from the north, at first we thought it was stunning, the tourists photographed the contrast of the rainbows against the dark clouds. It was spectacular. 
Then the rain and hail hit us. We all took refuge under cover at the stern as gale force winds beat up the small boat and tossed it about. I can imagine that this type of squall could well have been a killer more often than not in the age of sail, fortunately the captain guided us back to the pier under power safely. I'm glad in retrospect that he knew how to handle his boat. there were several occasions when the sea was washing over our feet from waves breaking over the deck.
The weather was poor for a few days, fields filled up with water at their lowest points which reminded me of home somewhat. Kira had found another host near Owaka in the Catlins, so we headed down the coast from Dunedin in the typical meandering fashion which meant we arrived long after dark and had trouble finding the house in the dark. To be honest I would have trouble in the daytime- Kiwi house numbers are based on their distance to the start of the road divided by ten, also they are very small on the side of the post boxes. We stayed there for just a couple of nights but got to see a bit of how the farm worked. I realised just how tightened up Alex's farm is compared to the one we stayed on which is run as part of a larger business. We had a good time hanging out with Kerry and I played table tennis for the first time there. We didn't see too much of the Catlins (that's how you know you're having fun) except some waterfalls.

Weird Owaka

I don't know either Kira

Queenstown is a resort town on a lake with beautiful views surrounded by mountains. The town looks toward lake Wakatipu as if it expects something to happen, except nothing does. It's just really good to look at. The real action is gong on in the town itself and on the slopes overlooking it. I have the feeling that Queenstown becomes something akin to Faliraki in the snow. There are a lot of bars, far more than could be explained by anything other than a thriving party scene when the winter sports people arrive in force. There are clubs and fast food places with lots of accommodation nearby, all of which points to a busy little town. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, I've arrived weeks before the first big snows in the mountains surrounding the town.

Queenstown lakefront

More of the same, except stormier.

Ice bar? Ice bar! Another voucher 'too expensive otherwise' activity

Frank?

A bar made of ice? How novel. Oh, look a polar bear made of ice. I cannot believe the cocktail waitress left us all alone and unsupervised in here...

Wanaka is not far at all from Queenstown, it's just a short drive through the mountain pass and down into the valley where Lake Wanaka lies still in the deepest recesses of the mountain range, Wanaka is another resort town but one which has not quite taken off in the way Queenstown has, instead being smaller and more about the snow than the partying. Not that partying doesn't go on, there's just less infrastructure.
It does have a good cinema though, with three OK beers on tap and great staff, have you seen 'A Million Ways to Die in the West'? Have you seen it drunk? Have you sneaked booze into it? Have you concealed your growing intoxication from the counter staff with your natural charm? And the consumption of said booze from a member of the staff watching the movie just feet away? I bet you haven't.
Wanaka was also the place where I said goodbye to my traveling companion, she aimed to find work in the town and a place to live. We discovered along the way that although it would be weeks until the ski fields opened the town was filled with young people looking for the same things. I heard today that Kira has found a place to live and I hope she finds a well-paid job soon so she can buy the clothing and equipment that she needs to ride.

Puzzling worlds clock tower possibly holds the record for the most photgraphed mimed phallic object on earth.

One morning we went to Puzzling world, a local attraction built to confuse it's visitors and remove a little of the money from their wallets. It's quite a cute little attraction in itself with quite a nauseating section where things seem to roll uphill.

The maze, we finished it in a respectable hour.

Lake Wanaka

Kira goes shopping for a snowboard.

It's always sad saying goodbye to the new friends you make when traveling, especially when you spend a good deal of time together. I find it's the uncertainty of saying goodbye that is the most unsettling subconsciously. What does goodbye mean? Have a good life? Don't die too soon? Maybe that's one of the motivators for religious faith; that there is some place where we will all meet in communal happiness again, finally safe from the world, from pain, harm and from ourselves.

I drove alone to Invercargill on the Queen's birthday which is a holiday weekend in New Zealand, as a result the city was deserted and that combined with the poor grey weather did not exactly give me the best first impression of the city. 

A Boer war memorial

I spent one night in the city, the other travelers in the hostel (yes, another one) were all going in the opposite direction or to Stewart Island to do some trekking. I decided to pop down to Bluff and then go north to Fiordland.

Bluff is as far south in the country as I planned to go. I would prefer good weather to trek on Stewart Island and wasn't prepared to hang around for a week in Invercargill for it to clear up. In a way going to Bluff even if it was just to take a few photos was important for me on this trip as it marked the furthest my trajectory would take me; wherever I go from here within the country it will be on a return course, wherever I go from New Zealand will be in the direction of home. This is as far as I go. 
Strange feeling.

Antarctica is this way.

Why is it I always end up in a sad, sad zoo?

The drive into Fiordland.