We set up camp about 20kms outside Te Anau “The Gateway to Fjordland” and realised with some disappointment that if we wanted to be in Christchurch for New Year’s Eve we weren’t going to be able to get Milford Sound. We’d seen so much beauty that we weren’t as disappointed as we might be in a few years’ time, but such is life.
From Te Anau, we drove round the bottom of the South Island, through Invercargill, Dunedin, via Riverton where we stopped for some authentic fish and chips wrapped in newspaper, and saw some beautiful beaches and coastal scenery, including the delightfully named Shag Point.
After seeing that beach from the road we were hoping the coastal campsite we were heading for in the dying sunlight would offer us something similar and it didn’t disappoint. Nestled between the mountains of the Catlins and the Pacific it was pretty spectacular.
Sometimes camping has its plus points and you can forget the lack of showers, crap food and sand flies. This place made it all worth it.
On the way to the next campsite we stopped to have a look at some waterfalls the guidebook mentioned almost in passing. They were nowhere near as spectacular as Huka in North Island, but you had to walk down a jungle trail to get to these ones and as is typical that far south there were very few people around.
However, when we got there we found it was just us and a busload of Japanese tourists who decided that all 12 of them needed two pictures each in front of the falls in various different positions - and all on all of their cameras. Despite some very British huffing, tutting and dirty looks they didn’t get the message so I had to take this pic around them. Not quite as beautiful as they were in the flesh, but you get the idea.
By now the temperature was rising steadily in the middle of what we were told was a very unseasonal heat wave for this part of the world.
As lovely as the sunshine was, particularly given the weather reports we were hearing from the UK, when it is shining on your campervan for a couple of hours in the morning it can make them pretty hot places to wake up in. Sometimes I felt like a cruel dog owner those TV adverts warned us against for locking their dogs up in their cars on hot summer days. Except I was the dog too. Oh never mind, it made sense when I began typing it. You know what I mean.
Anyway, the point is it was bloody hot, so we threw ourselves in the water at the next beach we found, which happened to be in Timaru. The setting wasn’t exactly as picturesque as some of the places we’d stopped at, but the water was lovely and the waves perfect for a bit of body surfing.
From Timaru it was just a quick blast up the highway to our New Year’s destination, Christchurch.
My guidebook describes the two and a half hour trip across the Canterbury plains as the “most boring drive in New Zealand”. And I can’t disagree. So there’s no pics, sorry.
We parked up in a site on the outskirts of Christchurch and got ourselves ready for New Years. There are some lovely bars and lovely people in Christchurch, but we managed to find the one bar and the one crowd of people who decided the best way to celebrate New Years was with a ruck. They say that Christchurch is the most English of New Zealand’s cities, but the number of fights and aggro we saw put a Saturday night in Croydon to shame.
Which is very weird because Christchurch, or the Garden City as it refers to itself, really is a beautiful place. The river running through the middle is called the Avon. My hostel is on Gloucester Street. They punt down the river. The older buildings look like facsimiles of Oxbridge colleges. There’s a botanical gardens. A museum. A cable car. It’s really a charming place. Frightfully twee.
Frances did find time to get her boobs painted by a strange man in the pub on New Years though who then took her picture and wrote his name in a little book. Weirdo.
After dodging the flying fists (and one VERY smelly man) we did see the New Year in in the dodgy bar,
Before we eventually finding a nice little Irish pub called the Bog where we wiled away the rest of the night, eventually turning in at about five in the morning.
Which was probably for the best in the end.
In a land that prides itself on its agriculture the Kiwis don’t seem to have got their heads round pork. Their sausages are just dreadful - think banger-size Saveloys - and bacon as we know it is nigh on impossible to find. Fortunately though, Suzy had found some in a supermarket and we saved a couple of packets for New Year’s Day morning (or afternoon I should say).
Well we thought we had a couple of packets. Some Germans nicked our other packet. Well, we don’t know it was them, but we know how partial they can be to a bit of larceny. If you can steal Poland, why not a pack of bacon?!
To add to the slightly downbeat, post-party mood we knew we had to return the vans on the second. As cramped, hot and generally badly kempt as they were, they had been our home for nearly three weeks. Through torrential rain, blistering heat, petrol crises, some tears, a lot of laughter, fags and cheap wine, they’d kept us going and it was very sad to have to give them back.
And of course, returning the vans meant we’d be going our separate ways soon afterwards - Frances and Carly to Sydney, me back up to Auckland and Suzy staying in Christchurch. We’d had a pretty wild and intense whirlwind tour of NZ and I couldn’t have done it with three kinder, more generous, good-hearted, lovely girls. Thank you very much, I’ll never forget our trip or you guys.
In an effort to cheer everyone up I suggested we go and watch some cricket. I was actually the only one who really wanted to watch New Zealand against the West Indies, but the girls gamely agreed to come along as long as there was sunshine, wine and I explained the rules.
There was wine, I did explain the rules, but the sunshine lasted about 30 minutes before a monumental summer storm broke over the stadium and ended play.
Can there be a sadder sight than a discarded rain-sodden foam finger?
After a break of four hours (and the departure of 50% of our number) the sun came back out and we were treated to a genuinely exciting finish to the game under gorgeous Christchurch skies.
Frances and Carly have now gone, Suzy’s working down the road at another hostel and I’m sitting suffering on the hostel deck as the sun goes down. It’s a tough life, but it’s time to get back on the road on my own again. And I actually can’t wait for what's next.
