Camper Van Travels!

I know it feels like I've been neglecting my blog but the problem has been finding free internet. None of the campsites have it free! It sucks but we've found a nice pub in Queenstown for lunch with free Wifi. I'm a little disgusted that we could get free wifi all over Asia and here they care $5 for an hour. Pfft not paying that thank you very much! Ahh well who would have thought we'd be less connected in a Western country.

The camper van has been going pretty well. We've been a little cooped up lately because the weather has been brutal. It's been rainy and cold. I'm a little upset thats I've had pants and polar fleece on. There was even snow in the mountains one day! We are going on a massive three day hike tomorrow so cross your fingers we have good weather :S

 

Jan 4 – The Beach

Today, after a very leisurely start to the day, we hoped on the bus and headed to an area called Sumner to go to the beach. It was lovely and sunny out but unfortunately windy as well. There are some houses built on cliffs above the beach but you can see where the cliff has fallen away due to the earthquakes and actually taken part of a house with it. We also saw some of the concrete pads overhanging the cliff too. At the bottom of the these cliffs there were big shipping containers, I think to hold back any falling rock and debris. We walked along the beach, the sand was very hot but the wind kept things quite cool. The water was pretty cold too. People were sun bathing and swimming despite the wind. I think our blood has thinned because it did not seem warm enough to go swimming. We had a nice walk along the beach and on the promenade. There was a beach side restaurant and Beau's and my eyes almost fell out of our heads at the prices and they weren't necessarily out of line. We just are used to $1 beer and $2 meals. We had a coffee and a mixed appy plate. After digesting we saw a sign with some walking trails near by so we headed off in that direction but the trail was fenced off most likely due to earthquake damage. We headed back into town and stopped in at a store called The Warehouse, it's like Zellers. We did some recon on soft sided coolers and portable BBQs for when Mom and Dad come down. The rest of our evening progressed the same as most nights with dinner, walking the dogs and watching whatever movie is on TV, tonight was the Green Mile.

At the Sumner Beach

Jan 6 – Hiking in Christchurch

Beau has been bugging me to go hiking so we finally figured out how to get to the mountains. The day started off not so nice but once the afternoon rolled around the skis cleared. We took the bus down to the Halswell Quarry to start our hike. We hiked the Quarry and then turned east towards the mountains and the ocean. We hiked through some sheep farms and cow pastures while also hiking upwards. It was quite a ways but we finally made it to the coast. It was beautiful and windy. There were clouds forming as they came up over the mountains and us. It was really cool. We hiked along the mountains towards where we were catching the bus. We hiked for a total of 4.5hrs and had about 1.5hrs transit time. It was really enjoyable but we've been so lazy lately that I felt out of shape.

The view from the top of our hike over a bay

Jan 8 – Mom and Dad Arrive

Today Mom, Dad, Elaine and Shane arrive this afternoon. Beau and I spent the morning organizing ourselves. Cleaning and getting things organized to get packed up. Everyone arrived around 1pm and were starving. They hadn't had a chance to eat anything between their flight and picking up the RV. We went out for lunch at a pub around the corner from the house. We then went grocery shopping and

picked up some things for camping. The rest of the day consisted of getting the camper organized. Beau and I made dinner and we watched some of Die Hard 3.

Jan 9 – Drive to Abel Tasmin

After a hearty breakfast we finished cleaning and packing we were ready to go. We left the house around 10am, we had been aiming for 9. We headed north through Christchurch towards the north coast. It was a very pretty albeit windy drive. Two of the seats in the camper face backwards so are condusive to car sickness. I had no problems with all those windy bus rides in Asia but this one made me a little green around the gills. We stopped in Kaikoura for lunch and to check out a supposed seal colony there. There weren't too many seals but we saw a few and the view was super nice. We continued on our way with more twists and turns. We stopped in a town called Havelock and had some amazing steamed green lipped muscle from the Muscle Pot. It was really good. We ended up in Marahau. We arrived at our campsite and just had some salad for a late dinner. The campsite had a nice location near the beach but was very full.

A seal in Kaikoura

Family Photo

Jan 10 – Kayaking in Tasman Bay

Today we are going kayaking in Tasman Bay. We were up pretty early and had cereal for breakfast. We were supposed to be at the kayaking place for 8:30 but as usual we were running late. We had tried to contact the company the day before but for some reason the call wasn't going through. They had started the safety demonstration without us but fortunately we have all kayaked before although never with skirts. We had to demonstrate that we knew how to recover from a capsized kayak. We got through the safety course and were fortunately on schedule. We loaded the kayaks onto a trailer and hopped in a van to be taken the short distance to the beach. We got out in the kayaks and had a little more instructions from the guide and then we were on our way. We kayaked along the coast and then headed towards Stuart Island. We were hoping to see some seals, penguins or other marine lift. We didn't see much around this island but it was pretty none the less. We went around the island and north towards Adele Island. We pulled up on a little bit of sand and eat our sandwiches standing. It was high tide so there wasn't any beach to speak of. It was also quite windy. We got back on the water and went around the top of Adele Island. We saw some seals and seal pups! They were very cute but we still didn't see any penguins. We headed back towards the mainland and took a little break on a beach there. We then followed the coastline back towards our kayak pick up spot. The pick up point was tricky since the tide goes out very far so essentially the area is a big sandbar. We ran ground and had to pull the kayak in part of the way. We kayaked for about 5hrs and were very sore in the shoulders by the end of it. We got the kayaks back and got showered and warm. Then we tackled the task of trying to cook dinner on our little BBQ. The charcoal briquettes were slow to get going and never really got going well. Dinner cooked up okay with the help of the microwave. Beau made marshmallows over the tail end of the coals. We enjoyed some nice coffee and Baileys before bed.

Elaine and Shane in their Kayak

Mom and Dad in their Kayak

Kayaking in Tasman Bay

Jan 11 – Drive to Greymouth and wine tasting

It looked like it would be a lovely day when we woke up this morning. We had breakfast then left the camp ground. We stopped to buy a few groceries and got some directions for wine tasting. We went to three very nice wineries. The first was Neudorf Vineyards which was a very nice old looking wooden building. They had some lovely grounds and tasty wines. Our next stop was Kahurangi Estate, they had a lovely Merlot which is actually made from grapes from the North Island. Apparently merlot grapes don't grow well down here. Our last winery Woollaston Estates, it was a very snazzy winery. There was a little art gallery and some interesting sculptures outside. They too had some very nice wines and we splurged and bought a more expensive Pinot Noir. We finished with wine tasting and headed towards Greymouth. It was a relatively uninteresting drive. The scenery was nice enough and fortunately it was too twisty turny. We arrived in Greymouth and found a motor park to stay at. Beau and I made skewers for dinner and mashed potatoes. Our motor park was right by the beach so we had a little walk along there before jumping in the hot tub. It was nice on our sore kayaking muscles. It had started to rain when we went to bed. Some very loud thunder woke us up in the middle of the night too.

Jan 12 – Franz Josef Glacier

The rain didn't stop from last night, it was pouring when we woke up. We had breakfast then packed up again to hit the road. We had to do a big grocery shop again, 6 people go through food very quickly. After groceries we were headed towards the Franz Josef Glacier. We arrived at the glacier and had some lunch in the RV. Then we set off to do the glacier walk. It was pretty nice out at this time, but we made sure to pack sweaters and rain coats. As we walked towards the glacier, the view was quite nice but there were some clouds closing in on the top. Pretty soon the glacier was obscured and it was pouring rain. We got soaked. Mom headed back to the RV but the rest of us ducked under the rope and continued closer to the glacier for a better view, we were also hopeful the rain would let up. It did stop a bit and we were able to get some good pictures although the clouds never fully lifted from the top of the glacier. We headed back to the RV and were almost dried out when it started to pour again. We were only 5 minutes from the RV but we were absolutely drenched. Once back in the RV we got into some drier clothes and struggled to find space to hang all of our wet things up. We headed into the Franz Josef Village and checked into a motor camp. It was Elaine and Shane's turn to cook and Beau and mine to do dishes. After dinner and dishes we went out to a pub for a little bit to us the internet. The internet was free but the drinks were kind of expensive. It had stopped raining for a little while but it started up again when we went to bed.

The Franz Josef Glacier

Elaine!

The top of the glacier