Emma & Ben… Far From Home

15th – 22nd February 2017

On the 15th February we caught a ferry to the South Island of New Zealand. We had planned to spend more time in the South than the North as everyone we had spoken to had said it was better (in the end, we came to the same conclusion). Our first stop was Blenheim. 

Blenheim is a small, nondescript town near the ferry port, but it was close to the heart of the Marlborough wine region, and so gave us the chance to do some more wine tasting! 

We decided on doing a bike tour rather than the usual bus tour as:

1. We thought it would be more fun 

2. We would be more independent as we could choose the vineyards we wanted to visit

3. It was cheaper

We ended up on a tandem bike, which I was worried might lead to Em and I falling out. I took the front seat, Em the back. With a bit of teamwork, we got the bike rolling and off we went! It wasn’t too tricky once you started moving. Em claimed she peddled the whole time… I wasn’t convinced. 

We visited about 6 vineyards during the day, some of which gave free tastings; in others you had to pay a small fee to try the wine. We took it fairly easy (we suspected that riding the tandem back hammered was probably asking for trouble). We liked a lot of the wines we tasted, and worked out NZ sauvignon blanc is our new favourite! 

We ended up buying a couple of bottles in total, one of which was a cider-wine mix, and was amazing. We really enjoyed our wine tour, and would definitely recommend the bikes as a way to do it.

From Blenheim, we headed down the coast to Kaikoura. When planning the trip, I’d worked out this would probably be a 2 hour drive. However, when chatting to a French guy in a hostel a few days earlier, he informed me the usual route was blocked after the recent earthquake, and the detour we would need to take to get there was actually about 7 hours long. We had no idea about this, but as we had already booked our accommodation, we decided to just head to Kaikoura anyway. In the end, it took us about 6 hours, and we arrived in Kaikoura in the early evening.
An upwelling off the coast of Kaikoura brings nutrient rich waters up from the deep, supporting an abundance of wildlife. There are several tours you can do in Kaikoura, including boat trips to see whales, dolphins, albatross and seals. We decided to do the dolphin cruise, mainly because we would actually be able to swim with them if we could find them!

The night before the trip, we checked in with the tour company, who confirmed it would be going ahead, but warned the seas would likely be quite choppy. We were advised to get some seasickness tablets, which we did. In the morning, dosed up on the seasickness tablets, we headed out the harbour in what was classed as ‘moderately’ choppy seas… I’d hate to see what they consider extreme. The boat was rising and falling on the swell, and soon enough several people on the boat were chucking up. Em and I maintained our gaze on the horizon in a bid to stave off the what seemed inevitable.

After about 45 minutes, Em and I were still feeling OK… and we spotted the dolphins! We quickly got our snorkelling gear on and got into the water. There were dozens of them swimming around us, below us, jumping out the water! The dolphins were very curious, and got within a metre of two of us before swimming away. When the pod left us, we climbed back aboard the boat, which went chasing after them so we could get another swim. 

By the end of the second swim, I was starting to feel quite rough. Face down in the water, I was unable to keep focused on the horizon…  
During the third swim I vomited before I could get back to the boat, much to the disgust of those snorkelling around me, who had to quickly swim away from the bits of muesli floating towards them.

Em, who is made of sterner stuff than myself, managed to go for another swim and was never sick (she was looking very green at the end though). Despite the seasickness, it really was an incredible experience and one of the highlights of our trip so far.

From Kaikoura, we headed to Christchurch. This was more out of a morbid curiosity to see the city after the 2011 earthquake, rather than any recommendation we had received. We stayed in an old converted jail, which was a fun if slightly spooky experience!

Christchurch itself is still struggling to recover from the earthquake. We did a walking tour of the city, where the guide explained how the city had changed since 2011. A lot of the buildings in the city had been abandoned or demolished, leaving large swathes of it looking like disused parking lots. To try and brighten the place up a bit, a variety of pieces of street art have been commissioned, some of which are really good. However, they doesn’t really distract too much from what had happened, and we found the city quite a sombre place to spend a couple of days.

After Christchurch, we headed across to the west coast. This would be another long drive, so we broke it up a bit with a few stop offs. The first two (Castle Hill and Cave Stream) were recommendations from Nico, who we had met in Fiji. Both turned out to be well worth a visit! Danke Nico!!!

The final stop off was an old ghost town. Originally a gold mining town, almost everyone there had left after the mining shaft had collapsed. Those that did stay were now long dead, but the buildings were still standing. It was quite creepy to walk round, (especially as we were the only tourists there) and reminded me of ‘The Walking Dead’. Em was quite glad to leave.

On the west coast, we stayed at Hokitika (not really worth bothering with) before heading down to see the Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers. We couldn’t afford the extortionate cost of a helicopter ride up onto the glaciers, so just walked up to them (or as close as we could get). They were both impressive to see (Franz Josef more so), but looking at photos from recent years, it’s scary how quickly they have receded. Global warming? It’s not a conspiracy theory Mr Trump!

(Posted by Ben)

*The answer to the movie question was ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’