Ups and Downs...

Last time we spoke we were going to Arrowtown, so I'll start from there.

After a nice drive from Queenstown around Lake Hayes we arrived at Arrowtown and after dodging the throngs of Japanese tourist groups we got into the heart of the small town. The town retains much of its appearance from the late 19th century, the wooden buildings adorned with decorative awnings and shuttered windows. We wandered the high street going in souvenir and jewellery shops as Lauren looked for the perfect necklace, which she eventually found. After sampling the shopping and having a huge ice cream we went for a walk along the nearby river which used to be panned for gold, and is still done to a smaller extent.

After our trip to Arrowtown it was back to Cromwell and work in the Orchard for another five days. We must have impressed the family that own the orchard as they asked us to stay until the end of the stone fruit season towards the end of February, we agreed to do so as the extra money would allow us to experience so much more. In return however we asked for a long weekend off so we have had from the 4th to the 6th off work. On the Thursday after a particularly hot day at work the boss brought a few cases of Speights into the packing shed and all the staff, probably around 15 in all, gathered around and relaxed with some cold beers. It was well needed.

We planned a trip to Wanaka and to climb Roy's Peak. On the friday after work we drove 50km to Wanaka and stayed in a DOC (Department of Conservation) campsite right on the banks of the Clutha river. As nice as the orchard is it was nice to spend some time away from there. We had a bit of a lie in, waking up at 7:30, and after breakfast and bag packing and a short drive along the shore of Lake Wanaka came to the car park for the track leading up to Roy's Peak. The track was relentless and didn't ease up in any place, we pushed on and reached the 1578 metre summit after 8 km of walking and some 3 and a half hours. The one thing that kept us going was the view which kept getting better and better until we reached the summit and had a full 360 degree view which took in Lake Wanaka, the town, and spectacular views across Mt Aspiring national park including Mt Aspiring, the only 3000 metre peak south of those near Mt Cook. We were knackered, but very proud of the fact that this was the highest mountain we had ever climbed.

On the way back down, which took half the time it did on the way up, we were looking forward to going back to the campsite and watching a film on the laptop and having a glass of wine. Only to find that when we got to the van the lock on the drivers side door was hanging out and after a quick search of the van we found no Laptop and our Ipods were missing.
We had been Robbed!
We were gutted. How quickly happiness and pride can be turned into sadness and anger. In hindsight there were probably some things we could have done to prevent this but none of that matters now, lessons have been learnt and we realise that we are probably lucky that the thieves didn't completely wipe us out or worse yet take the van altogether. So instead of relaxing to a film and glass of wine we spent Saturday afternoon in the police station giving descriptions of our stolen property. We went back to the campsite and decided that on Sunday night we would stay in a hotel, so we booked one that night and made sure it had a spa. On Sunday we checked into the hotel as early as possible. We made full use of the jacuzzi and sauna, ate our fill in the restaurant and watched movies on Sky all night. Isn't it great how simple things can make your problems disappear.

So after a spot of shopping and a rather intense game of mini golf I am sat a few kilometres out of Queenstown on the shores of Lake Wakatipu under the shade of a pine tree typing on my brand new Acer Netbook while Lauren sunbathes in the heat.

Nothing is going to ruin this trip for us :)

Speak to you soon
x x x x x x x x x x

Arrowtown

Roys Peak (Almost there!)

Almost at the summit of Roys Peak..

What a view...(Roys Peak)

The Earnslaw, Queenstown

Mini Golf, Queenstown..What a shot!!

Wakatipu Lake, Queenstown

Me and Sarah rescuing a baby bird in the orchard

One of the Dam's in the Orchard

Mmm Peaches..Yum!

Fast Cars and Fruit

So we've been working in the orchard for 3 weeks now and eating just as much fruit as the first day. Thankfully we have learnt our lessons and had no more close calls on the ladders. We have heard that the weather in the UK is miserable at the moment so we are sending warm thoughts your way, sorry to rub it in.

Last Sunday we visited Queenstown, and had a bit more fun now we have some extra spending money. It was a bit rainy so we did what any sensible person does and went to the cinema to see Sherlock Holmes, some things never change. One of the best things about going to Queenstown is the drive, it follows the Kawarau River which sits in a steep gorge. The edge of the river is dotted with doorways built into the stone walls, these tiny rooms were used by the gold prospectors who panned the river in the mid 19th century. The only thing that has changed in the gorge since then is that people now use the old iron bridges to jump off.

One thing we have learned about the Central Otago district is the weather can change in a flash. Some days, like today, the weather will be clear and still in the mid twenties, but tomorrow we might wake up to snow and it won't get above 12 or 13 all day. This happened a few days ago and let me tell you, it isn't fun climbing an aluminium ladder at 7:30 in the morning with bare hands.

Last night to kick off our weekend we went to the local raceway in Cromwell known as The Central Speedway, this makes it sound glamorous and modern. It was neither. We had to drive across a recently corrugated gravel road to what is essentially just a dirt oval. We were expecting a stadium of sorts, but the stadium is made up by the spectators cars parked around the track facing inwards and the stadium seats are the front seats of your vehicle. We sat on the roof of the van for a better view. The setting was nice, nestled in the valley surrounded by mountains, and the racing (and crashes) were equally spectacular.  We munched on chips and bacon sandwiches as we watched the NZ Sprint Car Grand Prix of which there were 6 races as well as other support races including saloon cars and mini stock cars. All in all it was a great night that went on well past dark under enormous floodlights.

Today we are heading to Arrowtown which is an old gold mining town so we will let you know what its like next time we speak to you.

Bye x x x

Week 1 of Fruit Picking

Time flies when you're working hard!

Our first week of fruit picking has begun and ended, it's twice as hard as we anticipated but also twice as fun. I have eaten my body weight in apricots and nectarines with the odd plum thrown in just for kicks. Up and down ladders with up to 20kg of fruit hanging in a bag from your shoulders from 7:30 til 5:00 isn't the easiest way to make a living, but the pay is good and the fruit is delicious. Not to mention a nice long lunch break and 2 tea breaks a day, where tea and biscuits are personally delivered by Simon the owner. Everyone at the orchard is really friendly, Lauren and I have been enjoying getting to know some of the regular workers including a few Vanuatans who come to New Zealand for half the year, earning in a week what would take them a year to earn at home.

We have both had a few near misses up the ladders, both nearly falling from over 10 feet up, admittedly mine was slightly more spectacular than Laurens as all of a sudden I was dangling from one hand with an apricot in the other and no ladder to be seen. I climbed down the tree hoping no-one had seen my misfortune but the laughter made it clear that wasn't the case. Lauren luckily managed to keep control of her ladder thus avoiding embarrassment. We learnt from our mistakes very quickly.

We went to the racecourse a few kilometres down the road to watch some racing, it was different to the racing we get in the UK. The jockeys were in chariots behind the horses, it's probably just as well as a few of them looked a little out of shape. The weather was hot and has been hot and without rain for some time with temperatures all week around the low 30's, to cool down we took a dip in Lake Dunstan five minutes drive from the orchard, the first time we have swum in NZ without a wetsuit. On Wednesday night however the heaven's opened and it rained for 18 hours solid dropping over 2 inches of rain, needless to say that work on Thursday was rained off, we took the opportunity to do a bit of shopping in the nearby town of Alexandra. Back to work for another hot Friday and Saturday.

In all it seems that fruit picking agrees with us, working outside in nice weather, days off when it rains, and a private reservoir on site, to do a few lengths after work to cool down (which is a hell of a lot warmer than the sea). Much too Laurens delight there is a resident Basset Hound called NATO who seems too like her very much, I think it's the biscuits she sneaks him during tea breaks!

This morning we awoke to snow capped peaks all around, yes snow in the middle of summer! It didn't reach us down in the valley but makes for quite a spectacular view. Today is Sunday and we are in Queenstown for, you guessed it, more shopping, a movie, and who knows maybe even a spot of bungee jumping. Then it's back to work for another week.

We'll try not to enjoy ourselves too much!

Speak to you soon!
x x x

More Pictures

These are pictures from a day trip to Moeraki.
I think they're all of animals...sorry!

Happy New Year!

Christmas and New Year have been and gone. We hope you are all enjoying the holiday season.

I can't believe we've been away for 2 months!

The last few weeks have flown by! Most of it has been spent in a at a small beach town called Kakanui on the east coast between Christchurch and Dunedin. We stayed in a beach house with Lauren's Auntie, Uncle and two cousins with great views of a long sandy beach. We had good weather for the most part which allowed us to make the most of the sea. Surfing, snorkelling and sunbathing were on the agenda for most days, with a few hours fishing in the evening off the rocks just outside the front of the house. To begin with Lauren led the pace with 4 fish to my 0 (even though I set up her lines!) but I soon caught up with 5 fish in one day [Lauren: even though they were much smaller than mine ;)].

Between Christmas and New Year Lauren's uncle and cousins were kind enough to invite me on a 3 day hunting trip in Waimate, while the girls stayed home and shopped. The setting for the hunt was fantastic, rugged hills, steep valleys and winding rivers made it enjoyable enough before we even got to the hunting. We were after wallabies, a huge pest to sheep farmers in New Zealand. I was given a rifle and two boxes of ammunition and told to shoot stuff. Each day we would slog up steep hills and sit for hours at a time on ridge lines hoping to pick up a hint of movement. Then after dark we would jump in the back of a pick-up truck and endure a dusty, bumpy ride back to the hut we were staying in for a cold beer. The hut itself was more of a shed, and the tone for the weekend was set by the fact that I found a small owl under my bed. There were 7 of us altogether in the hut and by the end of the hunt we had killed 46 wallabies (only 3 by yours truly). This was all of course much to Lauren's disapproval.

Lauren: Whilst Robin was away slaughtering innocent, cute, fluffy, hoppy animals, me and my auntie Hilary enjoyed a relaxing few days at the beach house, with the occasional shopping trip in between to break up the sunbathing. The day the boys left we were sat on the decking enjoying a nice glass of Baileys when Hilary spotted what looked like a shark swimming in the Bay, on closer inspection with the binoculars we realised that right in front of us in the bay was a pod of 8 Orca. We couldn't believe our luck, we knew the boys would be jealous missing out on this experience so just to rub it in we grabbed the video camera for evidence:)  We couldn't wait to show them...

We left the beach house on the 2nd day of the New Year to head for Central Otago in an attempt to find an orchard in need of two pasty English fruit pickers. After lots of ringing around and a few days in various towns around the area, we eventually got a result. A family run orchard called Webb's Fruit in Cromwell was after a few pickers for their maze of peach, plum, apple and cherry orchard. Much to our delight it came with accommodation and permission from the owners to pick as much fruit as you can eat! We start on the 9th and will keep you updated on this next step in our travels.

Speak to you soon.

x x x

More Pictures Coming!!!

1000 Miles Later...

So it's been about two weeks since we last blogged and we have a lot to tell you.

Firstly the yellow-eyed penguin we saw near Oamaru did not quite quench our thirst for penguin spotting so when we got to the Otago Peninsula outside Dunedin we decided to head up the road to Penguin Place for a guided tour of one of the larger penguin colonies on mainland New Zealand.We got the chance to see quite a few adults feeding their chicks which was very special, as well as a few fighting fur seals and a lonely looking sea lion. The following day we drove to the far point of the peninsula where we had lunch in a cafe and watched royal albatross gliding in the breeze.

We gradually drifted south, stopping here and there, until we entered a beautiful part of New Zealand known as the Catlins Coast. This dramatic area of coastline is made up of huge cliffs that are broken up by long sandy beaches. The dirt track down to one of these beaches gave us our first taste of distress (it certainly won't be the last) as when we prepared to drive back up the track, having slept the night on the beach, we discovered one of our tyres was completely flat. After a bit of grumbling we changed the tyre and off we went to find a garage to buy a new one. After an hour waiting outside the garage and a pleasant chat with a German guy, who was also having car trouble, we continued on our way along the coast. One place that we found especially nice was Nugget Point, a band of rock that juts out into the ocean with steep sides 100 feet high. When you walk to the lighthouse at the end and look down at the rocks below they are littered with Fur Seals and their pups.

A few days later and after a little more driving we arrived at Curio Bay, a cluster of pretty holiday homes and a campsite near the sea. All around the campsite were boards with information on them about dolphins, penguins and what to do when faced with a sea lion, needless to say we were excited. We picked a spot for the van nearest the beach and checked out the area, while doing so we bumped into Mike and Hattie, a couple from Yorkshire who we first met a few days earlier during the flat tyre fiasco, we spent the next few days with them chatting and relaxing in the sun. What was supposed to be merely a one night stay turned into four. On day one we saw dolphins, and by the second day we had seen sea lions and penguins too. On day three we swam out to sea past the breaking waves and were greeted by a pod of Hector Dolphins, the smallest and rarest dolphins, which swam with us, under and around us for over half an hour, sometimes within arms reach. It was a wonderful moment that was brought to a crashing end when both Lauren and I were plunged under water by a set of huge thundering waves. Even the swallowed sea water and the salt in our eyes couldn't keep us from smiling for the rest of the day (Best of all it didn't cost a penny!). Our smiles were widened further that day when we watched two women get chased off their towels whilst sunbathing by a boisterous sea lion!

We were sad to leave the Catlins area however the journey had to continue and we had other places to explore, Mike and Hattie were heading in the same direction so we decided to spend the next few days together. After leaving Curio Bay we travelled to Invercargill to stock up on some much needed supplies (mostly beer and suncream) and do a spot of sight-seeing. We visited the Queen's Park botanical gardens home to an impressive aviary full of native birds. Then to the museum which housed some great artefacts from the early settlers, as well as a natural history section and a homage to Bert Munro (and his "Fastest Indian"). With the sight-seeing done we drove south to Bluff, one of the southern most points of the country, we had a nice walk and did a spot of fishing to christen the rod I had recently acquired. After staying the night in Bluff we drove on towards the town of Riverton and Colac Bay however a strong southerly wind had begun to blow. Wind, rain and cold was the order of the next two days, we would come back another day to see the area. It was here we parted ways with our new companions Mike and Hattie, we exchanged details and said we would meet up further down the road.

Our first checkpoint is Laurens Auntie and Uncle who live about 40k north of Invercargill in a beautiful home on a nice plot of land with panoramic views of  farmland, forest and mountains. We arrived on the 15th of December with 1700k on the odometer. In the short time we have been here we have already done so much, a return visit to Riverton to do some fishing (which turned into dolphin watching as an enormous pod of Dusky Dolphins jumped and flipped their way into the harbour), we have seen Clifden suspension bridge, been caving in a labyrinth of limestone caves, been shooting with one of Laurens cousins (couldn't find anything to shoot so shot a bucket!) and are going floundering and fishing with the cousins, George and Peter, tomorrow. We finally have a proper bed in the van, Laurens Uncle Brian gathered up some materials and set to work (I think he did it for his own enjoyment as much as our benefit). It was great fun drilling holes and screwing panels of wood into the van, and in the end we have a great looking bed with heaps of storage underneath ("Thanks Brian!").

Having been on the road for nearly a month it is a really welcome change of pace to be in a fixed location for an indefinite amount of time, and the home-cooked food and warm beds are going to make it very hard when it comes time to leave. For Christmas we are spending it with our wonderful hosts at their beach house, so when we next blog we should have some interesting stories of learning to surf, snorkeling and hopefully more dolphins!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!

x x x x x x x x

Penguin on the Otago Peninsula

One of the Beaches in the Catlins

That Blob is a Hector Dolphin Fin

Haha!

Drying Clothes Shipwrecked Style





Curio Bay

Building a Bed with Brian, George and Gunner (the dog)

Caving

Lauren Dolphin Spotting

Fishing at Riverton

Dusky Dolphins

Dusky Dolphins



Bluff



Beach, Beach, Penguin, Beach!

Hello

We have travelled quite a distance since we last spoke to you, about 700 km to be precise, and we have seen lots of things along the way.

Maggi is now a fully fledged camper van, complete with bed, curtains, cooking facilities and carpet and provides a very cosy nights sleep. She does however have a few flaws, she rattles like mad when you go above 80kmph, and when you go up hill the fuel gauge reads full and when you go down reads empty. 

So far we have camped on beaches and nature reserves, as well as a nice holiday park here and there (Lauren needs her nice warm showers). A few days ago we parked up by a beach south of Oamaru and sat on the beach for hours soaking up the sun, all of a sudden fifty feet away a little penguin popped out of the sea and marched up the beach beside us, this was very exciting especially as the beach down the road was charging $25 each to see them. We lay there for several more hours hoping to see more  penguins, but a sea lion cruising the coastline kept the rest of the colony away. Lauren spent the rest of that day roaming the beach collecting all manner of shells while I relaxed in the sun. We now have an impressive collection of Paua Shells which shimmer a fantastic green and purple and (Lauren hopes) will one day make some great jewellery.

The last few days we have been driving down the east coast taking in the views of the Pacific and enjoying the beautiful long beaches, along with the great weather, on our way towards the very south of the country. Yesterday we visited the famous Moeraki Boulders which are every bit as strange and fascinating as they look in photos. Tomorrow we head off towards the city of Dunedin to treat ourselves to some civilisation as well as some food that isn't fish and chips. Along with a drive around the scenic Otago Peninsula with another chance to see a some marine wildlife and a spot of snorkelling.

Having a really great time and wish you could all be here to enjoy it with us. Speak to you again soon.

Moeraki Boulders

Campbells Bay, Kakanui

Penguin at Oamaru

Collecting Paua Shells