Week 3 & 4 – South Island Tour

Okay so this is going to be a long post, and I’ll try to make it as easy as possible to read without you falling asleep. For the last two weeks I have been on a south island tour with active planet and supported Nick and Duncan as a tour guide. I was happy to be able to combine working and travelling. 

There will be a video of this tour and as soon as Nick has finished it I will put a link in my blogpost, so keep yourself updated:)

Here is a map of the tour just as an overview, I put in as many of our stops as possible.

 

The last few days before the tour started there was more paperwork to do and also I was able to hang out with Peter and Niklas, as they came over and stayed here for two nights. Another cool thing that happened those days: My IRD number finally arrived! Yippie
On Friday 23^rd

6 students arrived here in Pukekohe and stayed the night, as we were about to leave on Saturday morning to drive to Wellington, where the tour officially starts.
On our way to Wellington we had lots of fun in the bus singing and dancing. At the YHA in Wellie we met up with the rest of the group.

Mt Ruapehu (seen from the highway on our way to Wellington)

on a dark desert highway..

 

Sunday 25th

The first day of the tour started early with taking to ferry to Picton on the South Island. After lunchtime in Picton we drove to Motueka. On the way we stopped at Pelorus river, which is a Lord of the rings – location and jumped off a rock into the river. The water was so freezing, I was happy to get out after I jumped in, even though I was wet! In addition, it had been raining all day long, so it wasn’t a typical day for a swim.

 

Monday 26th

On Monday we drove to Marahau into the Abel Tasman National Park and wanted to go for a walk. As it was raining, we first went to the pools in Nelson and came back to Abel Tasman afterwards and went on a watertaxi that showed us around the bays.

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Tuesday 27th

The weather didn’t seem to better the next day, which was a bit of a shame, as we wanted to take some students skydiving on Tuesday. But because this was cancelled, the students decided to wait a few days until we would be in Wanaka (near Queenstown) for their skydive. (Wait how this will turn out, I will tell you later in this blog post…)

The rest of the day was nice though: We went to see Cape Foulwind, the pancake rocks and stopped in Greymouth for the night and had our dinner cooked on a campfire we made at the beach. The sky was so beautiful that night! It was magical sitting on this beach with a really cool group, hearing the waves of the sea and listening to good music next to a fire and looking up to a sky full of stars.

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at a lookout:)

the pancake rocks .. didn’t make me hungry though

beautiful sunset at Greymouth

 

Wednesday 28^th

The tour went on to Hokitika, where we went to the gorge and jumped from a 6m high rock into cold, but beautiful turquoise water. Another stop on Wednesday was the bushman’s café where you can learn about the history of hunting in New Zealand, see a possum, and have a look at other cool stuff there. We also went to the Kiwi House and saw two kiwibirds!

Hokitika gorge with the rock we jumped off

drive into Hokitika

at the bushman’s café

seen at the bushman’s café

 

We stayed in Franz Josef for the next night and went to a bar for dinner and karaoke. The karaoke was so fun!
Before bedtime Nick took the group on a walk through the forest with many many glowworms. It was special because we did not take any torches but all lined up and trusted Nick to find the way along the track. (Of course he did)

 

Thursday 29th

wasn’t too exciting for me, as I took the students who booked the helicopter flight onto Franz Josef Glacier to their starting point and stayed there until each group was back.
On our way to Arrowtown, where we stayed the next two nights we stopped at Bruce Bay (you can find Greenstone Jade there, but the tide was too high at the time we went there), Haast, another waterfall and Lake Hawea.

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On our way to Queensown we saw many rabbits next to the road and this and the following days got many mosquito and sandfly bites.

 

Friday 30th

That Friday was the last day of the tour for about 10 students of the group, as they just booked the ‘Alpine’ tour, which ends in Queenstown. 10 students left, but another 4 joined the “PenguinArmy” (as you may have noticed: we are all wearing penguin hats, which is pretty awesome and creates a great group feeling) for the second half of the tour.

In Queenstown, which is smaller than most of the students expected, they got free time to explore the town and four students went bungy-jumping. I went to the cookie time shop and bought two big bags of cookies *-* and took the students jetboating on the river, which was quite fun.

Meeting up with the whole group we went up the mountain with the gondola and had 3 luge rides there. The view was beautiful and we even saw a lovely rainbow!

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After that we went to the ice bar BelowZero, in which everything is made out of ice!

And not to forget… the skydiving was cancelled another time, as the company in Wanaka had to repair their plane that afternoon…

 

Saturday 1^st October

All that was planned for this day was Milford Sound, which actually takes up almost a whole day. From Arrowtown it is a 3 hours drive through mountains with no town, village or cell phone connection.

Fjordland

Fjordland

the Mirrow Lakes

drive into Milford Sound. The flag is at the front of the boat

 

At this point halfway through the tour, a virus started infecting some students, and it wouldn’t stop until the end of the tour. So there was a lot of garlic eaten, which helped us not to get sick and the infected people to get better.

 

Sunday 2nd

On Sunday we drove to Bluff Point, through Invercargill and stayed at a farmstay backpackers at Slope Point. This backpackers was really nice, they had lambs and calves and I had an amazing view out of my window.

Bluff Point

this is a Tuatara, the only living animal which is closest to a dinosaur! (you can only see its head) (this was in Invercargill)

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the students drew on me, that’s why I have a beard in this picture

the view out of my room at the farmstay backpackers

Monday 3^rd

The highlight of this day was definitely surfing! I was so happy to be surfing again after 3 years! I catched some good waves and had a lot of fun. Mostly, there are dolphins at this part of the beach, but unfortunately there weren’t any.

We also went to McLeans waterfall and do the Florence hill lookout, as well as we wanted to visit a guy who lives in this area and does a lot of art with basically everything he can find, like wood, metal, glass, old bikes, … He wasn’t home, but we had a look at his house and some of his artwork.

MacLeans waterfall. the water was cold as

almost ready for surfing:)

 

Tuesday 4th

On Tuesday we got up very early to be at a beach where there are yellow eyed penguins and watch them get up at around sunrise and go into the water. We saw all three of them, and they are very cute.

yellow eyed penguins

Still half asleep we drove to Dunedin for lunch, I also bought a shaker egg for jamming sessions at night with the guitar. We ran up Baldwin Street, which is the world’s steepest street.

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On our way to Oamaru, where we stayed the night, we stopped at the Moeraki boulders. There was no day when we did not get wet on this tour. May it be a waterfall, jumping off a rock into a river or just a beach..

the Moeraki boulders

Late that night (remember that we got up early, so everybody was kind of tired) we went to see the little blue penguins in Oamaru. They are the smallest penguins on earth! Also called the ninja penguins 😉 (their black back makes them almost invisible in the dark)

 

 

Wednesday 5^th

Making our way further north again we stopped at the Antarctic Centre in Christchurch. It was a weird feeling to visit this place twice in such a short time (I’ve been there when I arrived in Christchurch and waited for my flight to Napier).

there were huskies at the Antarctic Centre!

We stayed the night in Hanmer Springs and went to the hot pools there. That was really relaxing!

 

Thursday 6th

The next day we did not have a long drive, as we just drove to Kaikoura. It was a lovely sunny day, I bought two pair of pants (similar to those I got in India) and a summer dress. In Kaikoura we saw heaps of seals, two even crossed the road right in front of our bus!

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The dolphin swimming and the whale watching, which were planned for the next morning, were cancelled… a storm warning was out for all over New Zealand..
That was a bit of a shame, as the dolphin swimming and the skydiving were the two activities most students were looking forward to the most. (Me as well;))

So after these activites were being cancelled, we had lots of time and went to see the seals again and then drove to Picton.
We stopped at Kekerengu and Nick taught us all how to do a backflip (and some did the frontflip as well) on a trampoline a café there has in their backyard.

Arriving quite early at the backpackers in Picton we went to the spa pool (yes, this backpackers has a spa pool.. and free breakfast with homemade scones!) and the students all wrote notes in each others books or on their flags. I got to write in them as well:)

 

Saturday 8^th

So that was almost the end of the tour. Our last day started with the free breakfast and a goodbye to a girl that stayed on the South Island.
The rest of the day was really tiring. We took the ferry to Wellington, dropped off another couple of students at the airport and then made our way up north to Pukekohe.

 

7 of the students stayed one more night here. Duncan took them into Auckland today (Sunday 9^th) and dropped them off at their homestays, bus stops or ferry terminals.

I got to take one of the students to the bus pick-up in Bombay, which is just 15mins from here. But the car didn’t start and I couldn’t fix the battery, so I was happy that the neighbour was at home and took us there.