NZ Road Trip #8: Glowworm Caves & Fiordland

After spending some time in Queenstown, we moved on to our last stop: Fiordland (we did go back to Queenstown, to party two more days, though).

Even though the Fiords and Queenstown seem to be next to each other in a map, there's no road that directly connects both locations: you have to go all the way through Te Anau (aprox. 2 and a half or 3 hours) and from there to the Fiords its another 2 hours drive.

We spent the night in Te Anau, which is the last little town you'll come across with when driving to the Fiords. Since we arrived in Te Anau quite early, we decided to visit the Glowworm caves that evening. The excursion beginns with a boat trip across the Lake Te Anau. Then, once you arrive to the other side of the lake, you are divided into smaller groups to start discovering the caves. Unfortunately, no pictures were allowed. But I managed to find some nice ones on the internet! (Thanks, google!).

Once deep inside the caves, you will be taken on a small boat into a hidden grotto where the only light you have is the one given by thousands of glowworms. The hungrier these little worms are, the more they glow! The glittering effect is memorable - you feel as if you were floating next to a thousand stars!

On the next day, we took the ride to the National Park. Since it was already May (that is, the beginning of the real winter was just around the corner), our boat trip around the Fiords is the coldest memory of our trip (you can see this from the pictures!). The boat takes you through the Fiords over until you reach the Tasman Sea, where the wind is the strongest - I don't remember the speed the captain mentioned on the microphone, but I do remember the feeling of having to hold myself to the cruise and sometimes letting it go to find out how it feels to lean against the wind (awesome!). This is what we got to see:

I can't believe this is the end of my posts about New Zealand... There are so many places I didn't manage to see - damn, 2 weeks - 1 country - two islands is really not enough! I'll find some other time to go, probably not far from now... since the whole asia-pacific region is the most attractive for me.

I remember that, when I was a kid, I used to have this huge map of the World hanging above my bed. I knew so many countries and capitals! Now I forgot most of them - I like to think that my brain is now full, and having pushed in all the finance stuff, there was no space left for countries and capitals (the unofficial version is that 3 years of live-fast, party-hard have their secondary brain effects). On that map, I had 2 needles (one on the Canary Islands and another one on Australia) and one red thread that connected these needles. I was 9 years old, and obsessed with visiting the other side of the World.

Getting to the point: I'm sure I'll go back soon. For a longer time. For whatever reason. And hopefully I'll come back with that beautiful english accent.

NZ Road Trip #7: Queenstown

Following the previous posts on my 3 weeks road trip from the north to the south of New Zealand, after leaving the awesome glaciers behind us, we moved on to the party town, Queenstown. We needed a break of so much nature and healthiness!

Queenstown is built on the Lake Wakatipu and is an ideal place to stay for adventure tourism as you can go skiing, jet boating, bungy jumping, mountain biking, skateboarding... which, by the way, we didn't do. I'm not a big adventurer, specially when it comes to cold climates. We were there for one main reason: partying (so what? we wanted to have a good healthy-unhealthy mix on our trip).

The town definitely the biggest party place I came across with in the country (although I was told that Dunedin is a strong competitor). Most of the people we knew were not locals, but it had a great ambience every night of the week - similar to a year-long Erasmus! During our stay (which was extended from 2 to 4 nights), the town was invaded with teens and twenty-ish people (mainly from the UK) on their working holiday (I guess that's why there so much nightlife). The famous place to go out is called World Bar, although we actually liked more the one next to it, which was a bit smaller and cozier (and had more people around the mid-late-twenties).

But young people and drinks is not everything this resort town in Otago offers to its not-so-adventurous visitors. When the weather is nice and the sky is clear, the Skyline Gondola is a great option. This lift is reputed to be the steepest in the Southern Hemisphere with an incline angle of 37.1º.

After rising 450m, you'll be rewarded with the best views in the region of Coronet Peak, The Remarkables mountain range and across Lake Wakatipu to Cecil and Walter Peaks.

After our (still-too-short) stay in Queenstown, we carried on to our last big stop of our trip: the Fiordland - the furthest south of the Globe I had ever been.

NZ Road Trip #6: Southern Island Glaciers

Franz Joseph Glacier from the Helicopter

It has been ages since I last wrote on the journal of the trip, but only because I was carefully searching the best way to describe the next chapter, which was definitely one of my favorites: the Glacier hike!

When we crossed over from Wellington to the Southern Island, we immediately noticed the cold breeze and you're imagination goes to fantasize about a totally different landscape from the one we had before: you substitute beaches for rocky cliffs and the volcanoes you once (tried) hiking for impressive high mountains covered by snow. Well yes, it's pretty much like that, but before we arrived the nearest of the heart of the island, we drove through quick changing landmarks that went from flat vineyards to rocky mountains through rivers and of course, miles and miles of deserted roads.

Vineyards in Marlborough region

On the road

It's a long way from Picton (where the ferry stopped to start our way to the south) to the glaciers, so we spent the night in Greymouth (not really worth mentioning - at least not in autumn/winter).

On the next day we finally arrived to Franz Joseph Glacier. Our initial thought was to take a helicopter ride for 45 minutes to overfly both glaciers and Mount Cook - we were short on time to drive up to Mount Cook and take a few days to hike and still wanted to get a glance of the highest mountain of the country! But once in the tour office, we saw a great offer: "10min heli-tour and glacier hiking for 3 hours" for only a fraction of the price we would pay for the heli-tour. That was our chance! We - the fittest people on NZ - were going to hike a glacier! We took a look at the people we were going to hike with and stood up with a self-convinced if-they-can-we-can attitude. Well this time we weren't wrong: we could! It was definitely worth every single NZD spent and every stiffness earned the next day.

At the beginning you start feeling insecure with the bulky hiking boots. In your mind you are standing on ice, which, you have learned, is slippery and should be avoided to stop on. And suddenly, wherever you're eyes reach: it's all ice. You get a stick - which, in my opinion, has as sole function to boost people's confidence. The walks start easy, for you to get used to your own steps and, specially, to learn to take decisive steps into the ice to get those nails deep in. We were a young group of people, which made the tour much more venturesome! We climbed up with cords, passed through ice caves, saw not-so-iced-lakes and could try glacier water from a small stream. The sensation is indescribable - you lose notion of time because every step is an adventure.

I would definitely do it again.

Franz Joseph Glacier

Franz Joseph Glacier

NZ Road Trip #1: The Journey...

New Zealand

In order to remember this journey with as many details as possible - and taking into account my lack of long-term memory - I aim to describe our 2 weeks along the north and south island of New Zealand.

Trying to make it as practical as possible - with impressions, pictures and suggestions for those who have thought about taking the step sometime soon - yes, I specially mean you two australians ;) - or for those who just feel curious about the country itself and want to see some pictures!

Ours was a quite tight schedule as you can certainly imagine, we drove a long way to make it from north to south - however, it was completely worth it and I would definitely do it again.

First stop........ AUCKLAND !