South Island Vacation

Wow, what an island. We took a break for a week from boat projects to meet up with our visiting friends, Zac & Mark, to explore a new part of New Zealand. The South Island is a truly stunning place with towering mountaintops, silty blue-grey glacier fed rivers, shimmering lakes, and massive sandflies. It is reminiscent of the Alaskan interior with the addition of over half a million hectares of cropland and approximately 11.5 million sheep. We started the trip driving to Auckland and picking up Zac & Mark en route to the airport. This was our first flight in a long time. It’s pretty magical just how fast and far an airplane can take you. We spent our first few days in Queenstown where we happened to run into some cruising friends who were also on a South Island vacation while leaving their boat in Whangarei. During our few days’ stay in Queenstown we strolled around the very touristy lakefront of the town, took a gondola up the mountain to hike the Ben Lomond trail up to ~5,000 feet, and soaked in a private hot tub at a spa on a cliff. We spent a day on an adventurous bike trail winding along a gorge and over multiple suspension bridges from Arrowtown to Gibbton Valley to visit Otago Valley wineries (3rd largest wine region in New Zealand and southernmost wine region in the world).

Then we moved into a camper van. It’s one of the few places we’ve stayed that make our boat seem really spacious. Zac & Mark have visited and sailed with us before, so the four of us are used to being in close quarters together. New Zealand “Freedom Camping” has a big reputation for flexibility and freedom, though it turns out there are quite a few rules and you cannot just park where ever you like along a road with a beautiful view. The rules all make sense, especially given the vast fleet of vans and campers on the South Island, and we stayed in two campsites in Fjordland National Park (Cascade Creek and Tortara) and one official Freedom Camping area along Lake Wakatipu near Kingston. We really appreciated having the camper as a refuge from the sandflies. It was nice to cook meals and play cards in the evenings without constant attack – though we quickly learned which window screens in the camper were sealed and which ones were not. In the Park we enjoyed hikes to Key Summit and to Shallow Bay on Lake Manapouri. We also spent an afternoon on a boat tour of Milford Sound where we saw spectacular waterfalls, a pod of frolicking dolphins, southern fur seals sunning themselves, and the Tasman Sea. It was nice to see open ocean and made us look forward to getting back out there in our boat soon. We spotted fantastic birdlife throughout our visit including weka, tui, fantails, great crested grebes, and kea (the only alpine parrot in the world).

The weeklong vacation went by extremely fast. Before we knew it we were back at the airport for our quick flight up to Auckland. After running errands around the big city and then a 2+ hour drive to Whangarei, we were home by dinner time. We had so much fun catching up with Zac & Mark and exploring a small slice of the South Island together. We look forward to their next visit in some other pocket of the world.

Next Stop: Back to the yard in Whangarei