All Good Things...

Our flight from Christchurch to Dubai was delayed by 2 hours due to a technical glitch, and persistent head winds (giggedy) on the way back only allowed for us to make 1 hour up during the journey.

We arrived in Dubai at 7am quite tired as sleep on the flight was at a premium, so it was clear as we sat in the reception of our hotel that we would not be doing an awful lot in our single day here.

The hotel was a short walk to the Mall of the Emirates, which is packed with designer shops as well as the most enormous supermarket that I've ever seen (30,000 sq ft) and a freaking great indoor ski centre in it... I've been to 'The Slug' in Milton Keynes and it had to be half as large again, if not the double the size.

We then got on the metro train and paid a visit to the Dubai marina, taking a walk along the restaurants by the waters edge and taking in some of the impressive sky scrapers.

After that, we hopped on the metro again and headed to the Burj al Khalifa, the tallest building in the world.  Unfortunately, trips to the top if the tower were all booked out, so we hung around the nearby Dubai Mall (which was even bigger and more opulent than the Mall of the Emirates!) before heading back to our hotel.

We were surprised to find a honeymoon present of some cake and a fruit basket, which we scoffed before getting a good night's rest for our journey back home.

And that's it for the Travelblog folks!  Thanks to all who have read it (I know it's not exactly been Hemingway!) and thanks once again to the contributors to our honeymoon fund, I can assure you we've made good use of it!

TTFN

Stop! Hanmer time

We had the luxury of taking our time getting ready to leave Kaikoura, as it was only a relatively short drive to our final NZ destination of Hanmer Springs.

The drive took us along the coast before sending us over the mountains once again and into the town, which is a ski resort in the winter and has popular natural geothermal pools that can be enjoyed all year round.

The shorter drive to Hanmer meant that we arrived early lunchtime, but we were lucky to find that our room at the motel we were staying in was ready for us, so we could unload the car and have a spot of lunch in our room.

After lunch, we took a short walk across the road to the geothermal pools.  There are a variety of pools at the complex, which vary in temperature from 30-42 degrees celcius.  We took a dip in each of the pools, some of which were very nice to aid a little snooze in the sun.  The hottest pools however were the sulphur pools, so in addition to being a little too hot to enjoy for a long period, the strong rotten-egg smell was a little too much to handle.

After a pleasant couple of hours in the pools, we dried off and took a walk through the town and had a quiet drink in one of the local bars.  We then headed back to our room to wash up before popping out to the nearby fish and chip shop to get dinner, which we enjoyed back at our motel room in the sun, with a bottle of wine.

And so ends our last full day in New Zealand.  It's been a great two weeks and we've been able to do pretty much a full lap of the south island.  It's been a pretty eye-opening trip, with the country's many different environments and levels of population.  My personal highlights have been the limitless beauty of Milford Sound and the incredible city of Queenstown, with eyeball-meltingly good views coupled with vibrant city life.  I hope one day we'll be back.

Tomorrow, we'll be driving back to Christchurch to catch our plane to Dubai and the last day of our honeymoon.

TTFN

Kaikoura

We left Nelson under clear blue skies and wound our way through the mountains for the last time; after today we would be back on the Canterbury plains and the mountains would recede to the horizon.

We were now in the region of Marlborough, the wine centre of the country that is particularly famed in wine circles for the quality of its Sauvignon Blanc.  Our drive through the lower mountain slopes took us through acre after acre of vineyard and into the town of Blenheim, which is the centre for many wine tours.

Sadly, we didn't have the time for a full-on wine tour, but we did stop at the local tourist information centre to get a recommendation for somewhere to stop to get a good bottle of wine for the evening.

We were pointed to the Brancott Estate, a large winery that produces many good wines.  After a brief tasting, we selected a bottle to take away with us.

We set off again towards Kaikoura, stopping along the way at the Ohau seal colony, which sits just off the highway and along with pleasant coastal views, boasts a colony of dozens, perhaps hundreds of seals basking on the rocks or playing in tidal pools.  Breeding season was back in November and as a result, there were many seal pups to be seen playing on the shore.

After taking a few photos, we continued on our way and eventually arrived in Kaikoura.  The town used to be a very small fishing village, but has grown in recent years as it is a popular stop for backpackers and also boasts a reputation for the finest crayfish in the country.  It also has stunning views of the mountains descending into the sea.

We checked into our accommodation and immediately asked where we could find the best crayfish in the town, and were pointed to a small group of food stalls on the beach just outside the town.  We grabbed some food and spirited it away in our motel fridge before heading out to explore the town and have a couple of drinks.

Come early evening, we returned to our accommodation and enjoyed our food and wine and also headed out to the beach to watch the sun set.

Tomorrow we set out for our last stop in New Zealand - the town of Hanmer.

TTFN

Nelson

Our 2 and a half hour drive to Nelson was almost a reverse of our drive from Queenstown to Franz-Josef, in that we started in the mountain wilderness and then gradually entered flatter farmland, then more vineyards and more populated towns.

Our drive took us past Buller Gorge an old mining site which is now home to a swing bridge across the Buller river.  The bridge itself was a narrow wire-strung structure, which wobbled alarmingly with the many people on it.  Selina was not massively keen on the experience and I admit I was keeping strictly to the rule 'don't look down', although I did managed to hang on long enough to take a couple of pictures.

After a spot of lunch, we continued on our drive to Nelson and arrived early afternoon.  We checked into our motel, which was in a good position just a short walk from the centre of the town.  It took us a couple of hours to explore the town centre, plus a bit of time to scope out a place to eat in the evening and also to sample a couple of the bars!

Later that evening, we went to a Asian restaurant called Harry's, which had looked the pick of the bunch on our earlier walking tour.  We had mussels to start and Selina had Pad Thai for main, whilst I had a laksa.

After filling up on dinner, we had a bottle of wine waiting for us at our motel room, so we consumed that whilst watching Paul on the movie channel.  Rock and Roll as always!

Tomorrow we head to our penultimate destination in NZ - Kaikora.

TTFN

Franz-Josef and Westport

We left Queenstown heading north towards Nelson, which is some 900km away, so we were going to stop at a couple of places along the west coast on the way.  This part of the trip - through vineyards, mountain and lake environments - was more about the journey than the destinations, as the west coast is very rural and remote.

Our first stop was the town of Franz-Josef, a base town for the Franz-Josef glacier, offering walking, bus and helicopter tours of the glacier and surrounding mountain ranges. 

Unfortunately, budget and time constraints set us against taking any such tours, but the town itself is a common stopping point for backpackers and other tourists of all kinds - so the place was very busy for its small size.  Our accommodation, like that in Milford Sound, had shared backpacker dorms and motel units, which gave it quite a good atmosphere.

We checked out the next morning and continued our drive stopping at Punakaiki, which with its pancake rocks and blow holes, was a spectacle of the forces of nature.  The pathways to the coast were carved out if the natural rainforest and sandstone terrain and the sea spray in the air tasted of that moment before you eat a mussel or oyster.

The remainder of our journey took us largely along the coast, alongside train tracks which often crossed our path, ran through roundabouts and at one point shared the same section of bridge!

We eventually arrived at the town of Westport, our stop for the night. There is not much for tourists in this town, but they do have a pretty fine microbrewery, which is open to the public to sample the ales which they brew.  We spent a pleasant afternoon tasting the ales and chatting to the brewery staff and other travellers that had found the place, before taking a 2 litre bottle of our favourite tipple back to our accommodation to have with dinner.

Tomorrow, we will strike out for Nelson and a return to civilisation.

TTFN

In and around Queenstown

We had a bit of a lie in this morning, thanks in part to the amount of alcohol consumed the night before.  However we still managed to set out by 10am to see a couple of places of interest around Queenstown.

Our first stop of the day took us to Arrowtown, an old goldmining settlement that survived after all of the profitable gold had gone.  The town still preserves a lot of its original shop frontages, giving the atmosphere of an American wild west frontier town.  Aside from the bank, grocery store and post office though, many of the old buildings now house a mix of designer, gift and art and craft shops.  These modern intrusions were not too offensive in the grand scheme of things - the town still had a good amount of charm.

We didn't linger, as we had other destinations to visit.  Next up on the list was AJ Hackett bungy at Kawarau river, the world home of bungy jumping.  The platform is suspended off an old bridge spanning the river, which has stunning turquoise waters within a mountain valley.  Jumpers can choose between a dry jump or a wet jump, the latter dipping you up to your midriff into the aforementioned river.

We watched a couple of brave souls make their jump, one tandem and a couple of singles, but none of it inspired either of us to make a jump ourselves!  After taking a few pictures of the action and the scenery, we headed off for our next destination.

Our final stop outside Queenstown was the handsomely-named Lake Hayes.  With a name of that quality, we felt obliged to have our picnic lunch by its shores.  The lake attractively mirrored the nearby hills and mountain terrain and made for a very picturesque setting for lunch.

After lunch, we drove back into Queenstown for a further investigation of the city's amenities, as our lengthy pub-stop the day before had curtailed our earlier attempt to do so.

We took a ride on the gondolas up the nearby hill, which lifted us 750 metres above sea level and afforded spectacular views of Queenstown and Lake Wakatipu.  After that, we took a walk through the streets, which uncommonly for New Zealand, were bustling even on a Sunday afternoon - plenty of shopping, live.music and pub going was available.

Come the evening, we returned back to our motel room for dinner and got ready to head out for a few drinks and a visit to the casino.  The evening was quite profitable, as we won NZ$135 on the fruit machines and roulette, which paid for one of our two nights accommodation here in Queenstown.

We have a couple of long drives ahead of us from tomorrow, starting with a 5 hour drive to the Franz Josef glacier, which will be our next stop.

TTFN

Milford Sound Cruise and Queenstown

After a surprisingly comfortable night in our 'compact and bijou' cabin, we set out early for a cruise of Milford Sound.

The weather gods had bestowed clear blue skies upon us, something which the locals remarked upon as something that only happened about 4 times a year, and it set the scene for an absolutely stunning trip.

Again, words will not adequately describe the beauty of the landscape amongst which we sailed, and the photos will be a poor recreation.  Suffice to say that the hour and a half we spent aboard the cruise ship has cemented my belief that Milford Sound should feature amongst the top 100 places to visit before you die.

Once we had returned to dry land, we had a 4 and a half hour drive to Queenstown awaiting us.  I drove the first leg of 2 hours back to Te Anau, whilst Selina took control of the last 2 and a half hours to Queenstown.

As we approached Queenstown, our route took us alongside the shores of Lake Wakatipu, which the city sits on under the shadow of the Remarkables mountain range.  Coupled with the blue skies which had followed us from Milford Sound, our arrival into Queenstown was indeed remarkable (see what I did there?).

Although late in the afternoon, there was still plenty of sun to enjoy, so we quickly dropped our cases off at our accommodation and headed into town for a few drinks.  The centre of Queenstown was heaving as there was a concert on, but we found ourselves a nice spot in the sun in a bar near the quayside.

We shared our table with a pleasant Kiwi couple, who lived in the north island but were on a cycling tour of the south island.  A few hours and more than a few pints slipped by very pleasantly as we chatted away, but as the sun set behind the hills our minds turned towards food.

Our friends recommended a popular burger bar just round the corner from where we were, which reinforced its popularity by sporting a queue out the door and requiring a 30 minute wait for food.

After our burger (which was worth the wait), it was getting late so we headed back to our room to turn in for the night.

After all our travelling on the road, we are treating ourselves to two nights in Queenstown, so tomorrow will be further exploration of the city and surrounding area.

TTFN