Life on the Road
It happened at last!! After clocking in over 740 hours of work at SPS and living in Snow Denn for the past few months I have finally left Methven and began my travels properly! As always it seems, I have been intending to write another blog post for a long time now and have kept either forgetting, putting it off or not having internet to do so and so I will try and be as concise as possible.
Leaving and Meeting with Will!
So starting from the beginning, I finished working at SPS on Friday 18th March and left the following Monday midday to travel over Arthurs Pass to the West Coast where I would meet up with my Uni mate Will and his travelling companion Erika. Arthurs Pass was a stunning drive through the mountains and past the most brilliant blue lakes and rivers and I would highl recommend it to anyone else in New Zealand before they leave. A mate of Will's then put us up that night while also kindly providing free pizza and beer vouchers for a local bar that he works at!
The Copeland Track.
The next morning the three of us packed up and popped to the shops to supply before driving to Fox Glacier and hiking up the Copeland Track to The Welcome Flat Hut. This was an 18km hike alongside a frosty blue glacial river up into the mountains of the Tai Poutini National Park. I have never been on a hike quite like this one as, in addition to the river, the trail took us through lush green and ancient New Zealand rainforest, over wire bridges across huge drops and right up into the heart of the mountains. Just to top it off, the Welcome Flat Hutt is situated right next to some natural thermal hotsprings where we were able to relax in the warmth under the stars until late into the night with the other hikers. I'd love to say that I was exaggerating how great this track was but in all honesty I do not have the words to adequately describe how fantastic this was.
The following day we followed the trail back down the mountains, stopping halfway to swim in the river and cool off. Cooling off is perhaps an understatement as the water was truly icy in colour and temperature but was certainly refreshing after the heat of the hot pools. We finally got back to the car about mid afternoon and drove straight on to the town of Haast where we found a hostel and a quiet bar named 'The Hard Antler' (I'd highly recommend to fellow travellers!). We had a great evening there just relaxing, eating and playing German Monopoly (my new favorite card game despite not being great at it).
Haast, Jackson Bay and Wanaka
We ended up leaving Haast later than planned as we tried and failed to book accommodation in Wanaka for that evening. In the end we gave up and had a gander up to explore the highly recommended Jackson Bay before backtracking through Haast to head down to Wanaka with a few diversions along the way including a bit of cross country driving for a photo and a stop at the Blue Pools. Lake Wanaka is truly breathtaking through its sheer size but also some of the views you get across it. The roads follow its banks all the way around to the town and some of the views (especially with the sun getting low) were absolutely stunning. Several times in New Zealand I have felt like I am driving in my own personal episode of Top Gear and wish I had a drone to do a panning shot of the car on some of these winding roads from above.
Upon arriving we headed straight for the Wanaka tree (a particular thrill of Will's who could not believe that we had never heard of it before). Sure enough it is pretty picturesque, however, unfortunately we came at the wrong time of year to see it fully submerged like some of the best photos on google show. After seeing the tree we resumed our desperate task of trying to find somewhere to sleep that night and had almost given up hope when we struck absolute gold and found a poorly advertised hostel in Albert town (10 minutes drive from Wanaka) which turned out to pretty much be a private house! It was absolutely lush to the point that we ended up staying for several days there as we got far too comfortable!
On our second day in Wanaka we set our alarms and got up to see the Wanaka tree at sunrise which was incredibly rewarding despite being an immense effort to get out of bed! One of our best days we spent climbing Roy's Peak (a grueling 16km hike ascending 1300m from the carpark to the peak overlooking Wanaka Lake) where we bonded with several others over our struggles. Two of these people, Demelsa and Ryan, we found out were cycling across New Zealand which we thought was pretty impressive until we met their friend Jacob later that evening after meeting up with them for a Pizza.
I appreciate that I am trying to be concise here but this guy is incredible. He didn't know what he wanted to do with his life when he finished studying and so he packed up his things and cycled to Dover from Manchester with his mate. Impressive in itself, but the thing is that he then didn't stop there and has now been cycling for 4 years across the world. He has just kept heading east, travelling through country after country and only getting a ferry when there is no option to cycle around a body of water (such as to get to Australia and then New Zealand). I still can't quite believe it but yeah - he's nuts.
Back on track now, later that evening we drove to an abandoned mining town named Bendigo and stayed out until the early hours of the morning taking long exposure shots of the stars and particularly the milkyway which was magnificent. We also booked a water Taxi to visit the island of Mou Tapu which is famous for having a lake itself making it a lake on an island on a lake on an island in the ocean (pretty cool once you get your head around it). Wanaka was great and I will definitely return again if I ever get the chance in the future.
Anyway, I'll call it a day there as I need to go and cook but I will post again some time soon with my travels from Wanaka to now. Hope you're all OK back in the UK! Speak to you soon!