Our first days in the RV figuring out how it works and enjoying some beautiful sunny weather around the impressive Mount Cook, stunning Lake Pukaki, fossil filled limestone and the city of Dunedin with its wildlife rich peninsula. We saw Royal Albatrosses!
Day 39 continued – picking up the RV
It was pretty chaotic here, with lots of people milling around and not enough staff. After reading some documents and watching a how-to video online we were finally seen by someone about an hour after we arrived – so much for getting on the road to be at our campsite before dark! It took a while to go through everything, as you’d expect.
With the keys finally in our hands we loaded in the bags and got going. Our first mission was to pick up some food so we headed for the Pak n’ Save just down the road. Mission one – parking. How do you park an RV in a full supermarket car park? The whole place was a big shop complex so there were car parks everywhere. After driving around for about 20 minutes ‘debating’ what we should do we found a couple of spaces together next to some temporary fencing so we could leave it somewhere. Chris had wanted to leave it in another car park for a restaurant with lots of spaces, but there were signs about being fined for illegal parking. After the cucumber ‘incident’ I was not keen to risk any more fines…
With some gloves and hats secured in the sales and the RV fully loaded with food (and about an hour and a half of our lives lost to the supermarket), we hit the road. By now our arrival time at our first planned stop was about half 9 in the evening. Luckily we’d bought some bread and cheese which we ate whilst driving, but after driving for an hour or so it became apparent that we are travelling slower than the speed limit and therefore the time estimates are not accurate. New ETA 10pm… The joy of the RV is that we have no booked accommodation for the next two weeks, so we checked out what was available and planned to stop a little closer.
After travelling on busy roads in Christchurch, and then roads through flat farmland the sun set and we started to climb. We pitched up into one of the many free camping sites in the pitch black. A quick crash course on how to turn the tables into beds and we snuggled up for bed.
Day 40 – Mount Cook and the Tasman glacier
Sleep was pretty disturbed last night. Aiden was crying in his sleep twice, and then telling me it was about the monkeys. Couldn’t get to the bottom of that one, he went back to sleep and had no recollection this morning. Also, despite the layers we wore to bed, the temperature plummeted before dawn and we were up adding some extra ones. Given that we’re still sort of on Aussie time we all slept in till 8.30 so the plan to leave at 9 went out the window!
We’d arrived in the pitch black so the first thing to do when we woke up was see where we were. We weren’t disappointed – an unexpected lake and mountains. Coupled with clear skies and glorious sun. Not bad 😊
After making porridge on the stove, boiling water for the day and taking time to enjoy our setting it was gone 10 before we got on the road. The predicted time per Google was under two hours, but we can’t go at that speed, so we knew it would take longer. We made slow progress climbing up into the mountains initially (very limited power uphill ☹), but did better when we hit the flat plateau beyond. From here we could see the snow capped mountain ranges we were headed for.
The plateau spreads for miles, crossed by wide rocky streambeds, with crystal clear water rushing in multiple steams towards the sea. There are signs of farming here, with the massive watering rigs dotting the land, but I couldn’t see what they might be for, except the tussoky grass for the livestock.
We passed Lake Takepo, which was pleasant but didn’t tempt us to stop.
Another 45 minutes down the road we rounded a corner and I don’t exaggerate when I say that we both gasped. Beautiful azure blue water of the Pukaki Lake backed by snow topped mountains and fringed by deep green pine trees. We quickly pulled over to get a better look. A new contender for the most beautiful place we’ve ever been.
Our route to Mount Cook village took us up and along the length of this lake in a large glacial valley between steep sided mountain ranges.
We had no need to go into Mount Cook itself so we headed straight up to the Tasman Glacier lookout point car park, where we took advantage of our van and made lunch and a cup of tea before climbing up to the viewpoint. It’s not a long walk, but it sure was breezy at the top! We had considered doing the glacier tour, but given our short amount of time we thought we’d investigate after looking at the glacier in question. The Tasman Glacier is the biggest in New Zealand, but has retreated a lot recently. It was nice to see our first glacier, but not especially impressive. I knew that they are not sheets of white due to the moraine, but this one was totally grey on top – it took a while for the kids to be able to see which bit was the glacier. Having seen the lake, the end of the glacier and the few icebergs floating around we were glad we hadn’t paid £250 to be taken closer!
With some cloud coming over we hurried around to the White Hill Camping Ground, where the Hooker Track starts. A very engineered trail, with three bouncy suspension bridges, a wide gravelled path throughout and boardwalks wherever it might get a bit wet underfoot. This opens it up to a whole host of people, but does mean that you can walk and look around you at the same time, which it rather helpful given the scenery. About half way up you round a corner in the valley and Mount Cook comes into view at the valley’s head.
An excellent example of a mountain with it’s triangular shape and pointed top, ascending straight up from the glacier lake. Having just read ‘Into Thin Air’ (about the Everest disaster in 1996) I have no urges to climb it though! At this point it wasn’t in cloud, but the whole range to the left were and it was encroaching. We hurried on but didn’t make it in time before the cloud covered the top.
We made excellent time back down and headed back down the side of Lake Pukaki to a scenic stop to cook and eat dinner with a view 😊 #RVlife
A short final stint on to our next campsite, another free one alongside a small lake.
Day 41 – Duntroon and the Vanished World Centre
Not a good night. Our site was not at all sheltered and the wind really got up during the night. I was woken at about 1am by it roaring past the van and the whole thing was being rocked. For Chris up in the raised bed above the cab this was extra pronounced and he was soon awake too. It got so bad that at some point he went outside to see if there was a more sheltered spot, but after nearly being blown over a couple of times and no sign of anything to hide behind he came back in. It finally died down enough about 4am that we could get to sleep. The kids didn’t notice and slept straight through!
The next job was to have a shower in the tiny RV bathroom. We ran the heater to try to warm the thing up and I went for it. There was space, but the plug hole was clearly blocked as the water didn’t drain out well. After a couple of minutes it was overflowing into the toilet area. Excellent. Add that to the really dodgy gas ring that nearly burnt Chris’s eyebrows off the first night (Evie felt the heat on her face from the massive flame and she was standing next to the sink) and we’d got a bit of a bum RV.
Another fairly late start, but it’s not like there’s anyone at these free sites to get angry and kick us out. It turned out our campsite was next to another lovely blue lake – Lake Ruataniwha.
After our trip into the mountains we were heading back out to the coast at Omaru. A simple road led us there but we made a couple of stops along the way. The first was the Maori rock drawings just west of Duntroon. A nice little stop with some interesting cliffs, but most of the art was removed to try to preserve it in museums. Not much of it survived unfortunately.
Next on the road was the Vanished World Centre at Duntroon. Duntroon itself was super interesting. A tiny little town which looked like it had been preserved from the 1800’s! There were old buildings, the original gaol and the oldest hotel on the South Island.
After a quick lunch eaten outside the van on a picnic bench, we checked out the old sink hole, the gaol and the stocks and then wandered down to the wetland area that they are regenerating to see if there was anything interesting there = lots of swamp hens and not a lot else…
Then we thought it was only right that we give the hotel our patronage. Inside the lovely bar lady showed us the large collection of books which are free to take or swap and we had some cake and ice creams out the front in the sun. The kids got a couple of Point Horror books to read and Chris found ‘The Edge of the Rain’, one of our favourite books that we have at home, which we’ve both read multiple times, but didn’t want to bring as Beverley Harper books are so hard to get hold of in England. We’ll be able to swap it with someone in SE Asia and spread the Beverley Harper joy there 😊.
The main attraction in this village, and the reason we had stopped here, was for the Vanished World Centre, which is a small building with a collection of fossils collected from the limestone in the area. The extra draw here is that there is a ‘hands on’ room where you can sit and excavate your own real fossils from rocks recently collected. There’s no telling what could be in your rocks, most have some bits of shell, but there could be a complete fossil. Aiden found a small tooth, which is apparently a rare find. He was very pleased. Whilst they were digging the lovely lady there was chatting to Chris and I about the geographical history of the area, from Pangea splitting off to the way that the plates align under New Zealand. In the North Island the Pacific plate is moving under the Australasian, but in the seas below the South Island this is reversed, with the Australasian subducting under the Pacific! Then somewhere in the middle of this sits the South Island, which is where is converges. Land doesn’t subduct, only the basalt plate, it gets pushed up creating the mountains. Add to this that there’s some sideways movement too (which caused the Christchurch earthquakes) and you’ve got a whole lot going on here!
As a geography nerd I learnt a lot here – Antarctica was pretty much in the middle of Pangea. And at one point most of the New Zealand Islands were under the ocean, only a few bits stuck out.
There are lots of sites on the ‘Vanished World Trail’ and we had run out of time for them all, so we headed out to a couple of recommended ones on our way to Omaru; Elephant Rocks and Anatini valley.
Both are features of the limestone rocks which flow through here. The Elephant rocks is essentially a sheep field full of rounded rocks. Not sure which one is meant to be the Elephant, ot why they have the name, but the kids enjoyed climbing around on them.
The Anatini valley is where they filmed Aslan’s camp in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. A nice enough walk down and a site where there’s a whale skeleton still lying in the rocks.
We continued the drive east. As we neared the coast the land became grassy green hills, covered in sheep and dotted with limestone cliffs. Very picturesque but rather reminiscent of England…
We headed through Omaru and down to the harbour. Having seen Little Blue Penguins already, albeit from a distance, we didn’t want to pay to see them so gave the observation place at the end a miss and pulled up alongside the harbour instead. We cooked dinner here (as they only leave the ocean after sunset) and ate whilst we waited for the penguins to come out. We had read that part of the reason the observation centre was opened was to give people a place to watch the penguins without disturbing them. We planned to stay in the RV so that we were out of their way, but unfortunately there were lots of tourists who were wandering up and down the front. We didn’t see many penguins, but when one did emerge from the water 10-15 people would rush over to it and surround it or stand at the top of the bank in their way. Unsurprisingly the penguins progress was slow, some took nearly half an hour to climb the 5m bank. Not great to see. A couple emerged near us, including three which ran across the path in front of us after the people at the top of the bank finally moved away. Then one caused the car in front of us to stop as we headed out. Poor little things – it’s a bit of a gauntlet getting home after a hard day hunting for food in the ocean! Feeling a bit saddened we left to find a spot for the night.
After two free sites we were in need of some power, and to use dump stations and re-top up the water. We arrived in the dark at the Kapiora Holiday Park where we had our second crash course in RV life – hooking everything up. Not as easy in the dark as it would have been in the light – our main mission was to find a space which had water and electricity as our hose was not long.
With our mission accomplished it was time for bed again. It seems to be a habit that we get into these places in the dark. Maybe we’ll pull up in the light one day… It was cold so we took advantage of the electricity and plugged the fan heater in for a blast before bed. Lots of layers tonight!
Day 42 – Steepest street in the world and Albatross
We woke up to a frost and were glad of the heater again. It took us a while to get up and out as it was so cold, but we weren’t in too much of a rush so we stayed snuggled up.
We were a bit sad this morning when the kids both said that they would quite like to go home now. Neither are really enjoying the RV, which was initially a surprise as we thought they’d like it with a table for all the driving. It’s pretty bouncy back there though, and we have done quite a bit of driving for the last few days mixed with walking, so there’s not been much chance for them to mess about. Hmmm, might need some rethinking of the plans (although not today’s!)…
Stop one on the road southwards down the coast was the Moeraki Boulders. Strange, very rounded boulders on the beach. Loads of people had come to see them – it was packed! The kids weren’t impressed so stayed near the steps collecting shells whilst we wandered up and down.
The land continued to be rolling grassy hills, with rocky bays along the shoreline. If I was to live somewhere here, so far it would be this area between Omaru and Dunedin. Hills, mountain views in the distance, green with some patches of trees. Pretty good.
Our next point of interest was in the city of Dunedin. There’s a street which claimed to be the steepest in the world, although I believe a street in Wales has just stolen it’s crown. It’s VERY steep anyway. We had some fun trying some silly pictures…
One last planned excursion for the day, right at the top of the Otago Peninsula. Aiden really wanted to see an Albatross (as did I) so we headed for the Royal Albatross Centre on the tip of the peninsula. They weren’t the Wandering Albatrosses which Aiden wanted (because they have the biggest wingspan), but they are technically the biggest in terms of weight and height – the Royal Albatrosses. There is only one place in the world where they nest on the mainland and it’s here.
The drive up the peninsula was excellent, especially for me on the passenger side as the road winds around the coast just above sea level, so I got to do lots of bird spotting from the van in the various inlets and bays – lots of shags and herons.
One side of the headland is closed to the public to provide space for the birds. They have a hide which you can go up to but you pay. As we were very keen to see them we did pay, but we’re pretty much in the worst two weeks of the year for seeing them so they gave us a discount off the pretty steep entrance fee and said many times that we may see nothing. Chris had decided he’d rather have some peace and quiet with a book and save the entry fee so, after we looked around the information centre, he left for the RV and we followed our tour guide, Jay, with one other family.
The tour included a talk and video about the albatrosses so we learnt about their lifecycles and the history of the area. The birds only returned around 1920 when the military presence here was reduced. Since then they’ve been protected by various people, studied and assisted. Here they have fences around to reduce the land predators, do supplemental feeding and spray them with cool water in the summer during hot spells, anything to ensure that every chick fledges. With so few birds here every chick matters.
The chicks fledge in September and the last one had left about four days before we got there. All that years breeding parents also leave for another year at sea then (they breed in alternate years). In October the next years breeding birds start to arrive. Hence the dry spell we were in. About 15 birds had retuned so far, and with the hide only viewing one fifth of the hillside our chances were not great…
We headed up to the hide, trying to avoid being pooped on by a red billed gull, Jay got a direct hit. He says they always get him and he reckons it’s the same bird. Haha. In the hide we could see a pair of albatross on the hillside, which was lucky, but they were right at the bottom so you couldn’t get a sense of size. At over a metre tall though they are the same height as a crouching person, with feet bigger than your hands and a bill longer than your palm. The chicks can get up to around 15kg and have to get put on a diet and exercise program by their parents at the end of the summer so they can be light enough to fly!
After 10 minutes Evie was telling me she was bored when one stood up much closer to us on the right, he was mostly hidden by grass but much closer. Then the partner flew over and came in to land and we got some mating action and ‘sky-calling’.
Then followed about 10 minutes of crazy action, our guide was blown away as other groups had seen nothing that day. At one point we could see five birds on the ground and three in the air. Initially you get excited by the bigger gulls flying around, but once you’ve seen a proper albatross there’s no making the same mistake again. With a wingspan three times bigger than the larger gulls they’re hard to mistake for anything else!
The kids were gasping as they swooped over the hide and loving it. Then everything went quiet again, which was good as our time was up.
Chris had prepared dinner for us, but it wasn’t quite ready so the kids and I went to try the other lookouts to see if we could see any seals. There were some fur seals far off on one rock, but the wind was strong and they weren’t moving so we didn’t stay long. Aiden and I headed down to the other beach in case any were there. It was lovely and sheltered here so we sat for a bit and chatted about his desire to go home. He said he wasn’t unhappy, but would just not be sad if we said we were going home now as he wasn’t really enjoying the RV bit.
From here we drove back down to Dunedin, expecting to park in the car park in town where you can free camp but it was full! On to the next one about 15 minutes down the coast in Brighton.
Day 43 – Brighton and the Otago Peninsula
No wind or cold issues last night – our best sleep yet 😊.
The morning was bright and sunny and one of the warmest yet. There was a playground, a massive field and a beach here so we decided to spend the morning here and make the most of the lovely weather (the forecast for the next four to five days is grim ☹), and also to give the kids some downtime after the comments of the day before.
The kids played in the playground, we finally blew up the football for the field and then headed to the beach. The wind was still cold, but there were good waves, rockpools and a dead crab to play with. They played for hours whilst I went in to cook lunch. The camping area was set back from the sea so I moved the RV to the seafront for a better view whilst prepping the veg for lunch. At least I can say I drove it! Enjoyed a little alone time and the sound of the waves…
Once we’d got back into Dunedin we finally got around to calling the RV company to complain about the faulty shower and gas hob and arranged to take it to a repair man close by in the morning.
With the van parked in the Thomas Burns car park (which had been full the night before), and our spot for the night therefore secured, we walked over the railway bridge, past the rather attractive station, and into town.
I wanted to see some of the wildlife on the peninsula as the area has lot of seabirds as well as seals, sealions and very rare Yellow-eyed Penguins. Tours were not cheap though and involved a lot of driving around the peninsula so we decided that I’d go alone and Chris and the kids would go to the cinema and hang out, continuing their relaxing day. I was to be picked up from the visitor centre in the middle of town, right next to the cinema so that worked. We had a few spare minutes to have a quick look at St Paul’s Cathedral before my bus arrived.
My tour with Elm consisted of a Dutch couple and a Spanish lady as well as Shaun, our tour guide. We drove out onto the peninsula, taking a drive around one of the inlets where there were a large number of waders.
From here we were up to the Royal Albatross Centre again, this time to the observation deck to the right of the centre (by the car park) where we were rewarded with a number of albatross doing fly-bys just below the deck as they came back and forth to gain height. The albatross wing is built for gliding and are very thin for such a large bird, so when they flap they do not gain height, they have to rely purely on the wind for their lift.
As we drove across the peninsula Shaun was talking constantly, telling us bits of history from when the settlers arrived, and about the natural history of the various plants and animals we could see. The whole peninsula was once forested, like much of the country. Then the Polynesians arrived around 800 years ago and started burning and clearing, and hunting the many flightless animals like the Giant Moa. They also brought dogs and rats with them.
By the time the Western colonists arrived a few hundred years ago, many species, including the moa, were already extinct. The colonists wanted to make their new home look as much like England as they could, so they brought over tree and animal species such as Willow and Hawthorn, mallards, swans etc. They did a good job. Some of the trees are a bit wrong but otherwise it could have been parts of England.
After passing around another inlet we headed up again to the other side of the peninsula to a headland on some private farmland. Only scientists and Elm tours are allowed here. There’s a hide on the end of the point with great views over the fur seal colony. We could see loads of baby seals frolicking in the rockpools, learning to swim. So far they have never been in the sea as it’s too dangerous, proved by the sealion swimming just offshore. There were some females and a few big males keeping them company.
Shaun had saved the best till last, and also knows the right time to come. Our next stop was a walk round to the bay where the rare New Zealand or Hooker sealions were lazing on the beach. Behind the beach there’s an area of land which Shaun and his team at Elm have been working on for 20 years to return to the native bush which the Yellow-eyed Penguins (the rarest penguins in the world) need to breed amongst. Most of this has been cleared off the peninsula leaving these animals very vulnerable. Scientists predict that these penguins will be extinct in 10 years!
We could see a penguin making its way up the beach as we were walking down the hillside. Unfortunately for the penguin, there were a number of sealions napping high up the beach. Sealions will eat the penguin so they are understandably nervous! By the time we reached the beach, walking down through the vegetation that Elm have planted, it had taken an alternative route around the sealions and was sitting up on the grassy bank preening. We were able to get quite close to this very shy bird, approaching slowly to make sure it was not showing any signs of distress at our presence.
The sealions are a different matter. They have no fear of humans and we actually need to beware of them – the smaller ones can be quite playful and they have quite a bite! We approached the sleepy bunch cautiously, but they were too busy sleeping to do anything other than regard us with a single eye. The group look like a large male with some females, but they are actually all males. These sealions were totally wiped out on the mainland and have recolonised from the island populations further south. As males move further to find new territories, most the sealions are males. One young female made her way up, was a hit with the boys, and stayed to breed, which is lucky as they normally return to the same beach they were born on. Since then numbers are increasing, but there are significantly more males than females, so the larger males practice by dominating the smaller ones.
Further down the beach a couple of young male sealions were fighting so we moved that way towards the hide to watch.
More penguins were coming in so we moved to the hide on the hill to have a look at some of them heading home. We were rewarded with the sight of one penguin returning home to his new partner, getting busy (ahem), and then preening each other. These are very antisocial penguins and do not like their neighbours. Apparently, they will not mate if a neighbour can see them, they try to run them out of town and if that fails, they themselves move to a quieter nesting spot! Their nests are above ground though, which makes them very vulnerable to the many introduced predatory species which is why their outlook is so bad.
The sealions were all waking up now to go hunting (there’s a reason the penguins had largely emerged from the seas by now!). They wake up in seconds and can run faster than a man, which seems unlikely but Is true. As we headed back across the beach the sealions were messing about as they headed down to the sea.
On the way back up we were treated to an amazing sunset. An excellent ending to the tour 😊.
Elm even dropped me off at the RV in the car park to save me having to walk home from the centre – it was 9pm by this time! An epic 6 hour tour. I was torn between thinking that the kids would have absolutely loved moments of it, seeing the penguins, having albatrosses swoop past, being on the beach with the sealions and watching the fur seal pups play. But they would also have been super bored waiting at the hides and in the 3-4 hours spent in the car being driven around. All in all I think we made the right decision…
Day 44 – Dunedin Museums and The Nuggets
The kids were very excited to hear about my adventures from the afternoon before, and it was lovely to hear from the kids that they’d really enjoyed their day too.
As we knew it would be rainy we’d left the museum for today, and it timed well with Chris taking the van to be fixed. We walked the couple of km there in the rain, arriving before the museum opened so we sat in the cafe. Finally some power and internet for me so I hastily did a blog post.
Continuing the theme of making the kids happy I decided to pay for the science room and the film in the planetarium. It was busy as it’s the school holidays in NZ at the moment, but we got to have a go on most of the exhibits. Unfortunately for the kids I used the opportunity to give them a science lesson, getting to explain about teeth and eye locations in skulls of carnivores and herbivores, re-creating a skeleton and seeing a feather and stone fall at the same rate in a vacuum.
Chris arrived back at this point with the hob no longer a hazard and the shower draining water – excellent! We grabbed a quick lunch in the museum and watched the ‘Sea Monsters’ film on the ceiling of the Planetarium, all about prehistoric sea life. The kids loved it.
Then it was time to explore the rest, the Nature room with stuffed animals exhibited in scenes, the people room, maritime and the Animal Attic, which is set up like an old Victorian Gallery with lots of stuffed animals.
After grabbing some shopping on the way back to the van (in a lucky break in the rain), we got back on the road. Aiden was a bit upset to have missed out on the Yellow-eyed Penguins the day before, so we decided to detour to the Roaring Point Observation Area on The Nuggets where you can see them come ashore (for free).
We cooked dinner in the car park and, after speaking to some returning people who had seen no penguins, Aiden and I headed down to the hide in the rain feeling pretty unconfident. Evie was eating super slowly so we couldn’t be bothered to wait for her in case we missed them! Within two minutes of arriving at the hide we heard a shout and there was a penguin in the surf, making his way up the beach. At about 70cm tall they’re much bigger than the Little Blue Penguins and so pretty easy to see from our clifftop. He hopped over the rocks and then waddled over the beach to the base of the steep bush covered hillside where he disappeared. He’d been pretty speedy and only out for a couple of minutes. Chris and Evie had missed it! Aiden and I were debating whether or not to tell them that we’d seen one when they arrived. We couldn’t lie.
We looked out over the beach with the other six onlookers, hopefully scanning the surf for that little black movement, with false excitement over the seaweed floating on the waves. After perhaps ten minutes another one appeared, this time spotted by Aiden, much to his delight! This one took his time crossing the rocks so we all got a good look.
Feeling happy, we headed back up to the RV and moved onto our campsite for the night, this time with electricity! Ah the joy of being able to write without worrying about battery loss. It’s the simple things.
Next we’re into Southland proper with the Catlin Forest and Milford Sound area.
Or head back to our days in Christchurch.