Category: South Island

Our plan was to drive our new little camper van up the remote west coast of the South Island, looping round and dropping it off again in Christchurch 12 days later. But first, we had a not-so-small diversion to make to Milford Sound, another item on our NZ bucket list and, according to Rudyard Kipling (but not officially), the eighth wonder of the world.

Although Milford Sound is also on the west coast, there’s only one road in and out, and it’s a very long way round. So, before we started our roadtrip proper, we headed to the small town of Te Anau for the night ready for a drive along the Milford Highway through Fiordland National Park the next day.

Having been advised that we needed to charge our camper’s house battery on the first night and wanting to ease ourselves in gently anyway, we spent the night plugged into 240v power (meaning we could use our fan heater and our electric kettle, woohoo!) in a holiday park with a lake view. The below picture is us trying to emulate some of my mum’s enviable #vanlife pictures she sends us, although her table is much nicer and always has a lovely vase of flowers in the middle. Still, ours had wine (if not wine glasses), and that’s the important bit, as she would agree!

The next morning, we set off as the sun rose to tackle the Milford Highway. Like many roads in NZ, this is a long, windy, remote and incredibly scenic two-lane highway, and we’d read a lot of warnings about the lack of services along the route, the state of people’s driving (because they are looking at the view), and it taking much longer than expected. In the end, it took us about two hours from end to end, so not bad at all, although obviously we also had to come back later in the day.

We stopped along the way at the Mirror Lakes, which gave us a beautiful reflection of the mountains looming on the other side of the valley. To be honest, while we thought they were pretty, the lakes were much smaller than we had expected. However, we’ve since visited quite a few mirror lakes (it turns out they are a bit of a thing in NZ), and none have been as perfectly still and given such a convincing reflection as this one.

One of the best ways to explore Milford Sound is (unsurprisingly) on the water, and we were lucky enough to be on a small boat (below) that would allow us to get closer to the towering cliffs and waterfalls. The view was already pretty unreal before we boarded the boat…

…but as we pulled away from the dock, the landscape really opened up. Our two-hour cruise took us right along the fiord to where it met the Tasman Sea, where we saw with our own eyes why Captain James Cook had missed it not once but twice when sailing around the coast of New Zealand. Once out at sea, there’s really not much sign of the entrance at all, just the appearance of unbroken mountains and a continuous coastline. I haven’t included a picture because there’s really not much to see! Of course, the Māori people knew it was here, and had been fishing, hunting and collecting pounamu (jade) in the area for hundreds of years by the time European settlers eventually came across it in 1823. They named it Milford Sound after Milford Haven in Wales. It’s actually not a sound at all though, but a fiord, since it was created by a glacier rather than a river.

Having had such beautiful weather recently, we were slightly disappointed to have cloudy and rainy weather for the day, although we did read that Milford Sound is one of the rainiest places on earth, so we weren’t exactly unlucky. We’ve also heard from multiple local people since that it’s much better in the rain – I think because it gives it such a moody atmosphere and increases the flow of the hundreds of temporary waterfalls.

On the subject of waterfalls, we heard from our skipper that it was time for a ‘Glacial Facial’, where he brought the boat very close to one of the more voluminous falls and we got a faceful of spray. It was very cold, very wet and strangely salty! I didn’t want to risk breaking my phone by taking a video out on deck, but the second photo below, taken from inside the cabin, shows just how wet it was!

On the way back, we sat for a while waiting to go through the single-lane Homer Tunnel, which runs for a steep 1.2 km through solid rock. There are waterfalls running down the mountain right next to where the road enters the tunnel, and the entrance has to have a roof because of the risk of rockfalls. Sitting here gave us some time to appreciate just how extreme this landscape is – no wonder the tunnel took nearly 20 years to build, interrupted repeatedly by avalanches, poor weather, and even World War II. It’s still the only way in and out (by road) so it must be a massive challenge to maintain it and it’s only a slightly nervewracking drive!

After a brilliant start to our roadtrip, we headed back to Queenstown for a brief pitstop and a few errands before continuing north towards the town of Wānaka.

Having left Stewart Island and bid a fond farewell to Mario, we took a shuttle north to Queenstown, New Zealand’s adventure capital.

Since the start our our trip, Sara had been excited to try out a via ferrata and we’d planned to do this here, but unfortunately it was mysteriously closed for bookings. Our other picks were paragliding or luge (think gravity-powered go-karts), but both relied on Queenstown’s gondola, which was undergoing maintenance during our visit. Not such an adventure capital while we were there! Instead, we used our time in Queenstown as a base for hiking and an opportunity to plan the rest of our time in New Zealand, as well as our upcoming trip across North America.

We were fortunate enough to have sunny and mild weather on our only full day in town, so we decided to take a hike up Te Tapu-nui (also known as Queenstown Hill) to a viewpoint overlooking the city and lake. The hike got off to a strong start when Sara noticed a beautiful cat in the bushes beside the trail, who was shortly joined by three other members of its family. Sadly, they didn’t all stick around long enough to take a photo once they’d seen us approaching. Still, we were delighted with the sighting, even if feral cats are pretty unpopular in NZ.

The route up to the summit involved over 500 m of elevation gain, mostly climbing gradually (and not so gradually) through pine forest. The forest was so dense that at times it felt more like dusk rather than midday on a sunny day.

As we approached the summit, we emerged above the tree line and were greeted with a stunning panoramic view over Queenstown, across Lake Wakatipu and to the mountain range beyond.

It made an excellent spot to enjoy a few of Fergbaker‘s famous pies, or at least two of the three pies that made it that far up the trail. The summit also had an awesome view of Queenstown airport, so we watched a couple of planes take off and land between the mountains.

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Despite appearing on most South Island itineraries, Queenstown isn’t a big city. In fact, with an urban population of just over 15,000 people, it doesn’t even make it into NZ’s top 20 largest cities, but it does occupy an enviable location beside Lake Wakatipu and surrounded by mountains on all sides. Besides adventure tourism, most of the city’s attraction is the lakefront promenade and park where we enjoyed an afternoon stroll to take in the views. That is, until we tried to pick up a coffee and were turned away by every cafe – apparently coffee simply isn’t available in Queenstown after 3pm 😱

Instead, we jumped at the chance to try some Bluff Oysters from Erik’s Fish and Chips van, having heard so much about them on our way to and from Stewart Island. While I’m not normally a huge seafood fan, I think I’d try just about anything if it was battered and fried with a squeeze of lemon on top. I enjoyed it way more than I’d expected – it was salty, meaty and, most of all, extremely fried!

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Leaving Queenstown, we took a ferry across the bay to the suburb of Frankton…

…to the airport, to begin the next leg of our journey. Not on a plane though, but via camper van! We’ve rented a converted Toyota HiAce, featuring a height extension for extra headroom and storage. Apparently it has space to sleep 3-4 people, although this would be quite a squeeze! And while it has a fairly impressive kitchen and fold-down table and bed, it doesn’t have much in the way of a bathroom, so our plan is to make the most of camp sites as we go.

A diesel-powered camper van isn’t exactly nearly neutral, but it does give us the opportunity to explore the wild west coast at our own pace. This has been on our bucket-list for a long time, so we couldn’t travel all the way to New Zealand without giving it ago. #vanlife awaits!

From Dunedin, we travelled by bus to NZ’s southernmost city of Invercargill, where we stayed the night before continuing our journey by shuttle and ferry to Stewart Island.

We stayed in the main town of Oban, which has just 300 permanent residents and is pretty much as far south as you can get in NZ while still sleeping in a comfy bed.

That afternoon, we headed out for a walk along the coast. Even though we were still near the biggest (and only) town on Stewart Island, it was immediately apparent just how unspoilt the surroundings are – there was so little development, and in fact 85% of the island is devoted to Rakiura National Park.

This was the reason we were here, as determined efforts to reduce the population of non-native predators have really paid off, giving us the opportunity to meet some wildlife that is all but extinct elsewhere in NZ. We’d already had a taster of just how seriously biosecurity is taken when we had our boots inspected on entering the country, but this was conservation on another level. Visitors were instructed to check carefully for rats and seeds, boats and fishing equipment needed to be scrubbed before moving to a new area and there were rat traps everywhere. Later on, we even saw a predator fence that runs across the island, theoretically splitting the landscape into where there are rats, possums, stoats, and the like, and where there are none. We never did quite work out which side was which…

Although we had mixed feelings about NZ’s vigour towards eradicating wild mammals (I think rats are pretty cool! 🐀), we had to admit we were quite excited to see some kiwi birds. That evening, we headed out to try our luck. Despite being the national symbol of NZ, these flightless, nocturnal birds are notoriously difficult to spot because of their declining numbers, and Stewart Island is one of the few places where we apparently stood a good chance of seeing them in the wild. Being nocturnal, we needed to go out at night armed with a red torch, as this would allow us to see the birds without disturbing them (they don’t see the red light).

As we headed to meet our guide, Dan, we were astonished to see someone pointing a beam of red light at a kiwi in town! Just as we were grumbling about how we’d just paid an extortionate amount of money for a guide to help us spot them, we realised that it was in fact Dan who had arrived early and knew exactly where to look for a town-dwelling kiwi who had been spotted in recent months. It was a great start, and we watched for a while as he (the kiwi, not Dan) shuffled around in someone’s front garden, using his long beak to dig for worms.

Next, we headed to Mamaku Point to see who else we could spot. It was absolutely pouring with rain, but Dan assured us that this was good for the kiwi as it softens the ground and helps them find food. In fact, he told us that they are often so intent on feeding that they will bump right into people without noticing. They have no natural predators here, and they really act like it! Dan spoke with great affection about them, telling lots of stories about how they are real characters and full of contradictions – fearful yet curious, strong yet clumsy. He was recently telling a group just how sturdy a kiwi’s legs are when the one just next to them tripped and fell flat on its face, apparently without noticing!

We spent the evening tramping up and down a steep hillside in long, soaking grass without having much luck. Just as we were leaving to try another site, a kiwi popped up right next to us, so close that we could hear him snuffling in the earth while feeding. He seemed to come out of nowhere and we only saw him as we turned to leave, but Dan thought he might actually have been following us around – apparently they sometimes do this. Maybe it’s not the usual response (I should probably say something about the amazing success of conservation efforts on Stewart Island), but my takeaway was that they are SO cute, with their comically long beaks, big round bottoms and clumsy demeanour.

The next day, we headed to another conservation success story: Ulva Island. This is home to a number of rare bird species, some of which are extinct elsewhere. To get there, we hopped on a small ferry, where to our amusement (and bemusement), our boarding passes were made out of leaves. Was this for real?!

Mario headed off on a specialist birdspotting tour, but our budget didn’t quite stretch to this so we opted for the self-guided approach. I don’t think either of us had high hopes that we’d see very much as we’re not exactly ornithologists in our usual lives, but it was a strangely magical experience. Before long, we’d seen rare South Island saddlebacks, red-crowned kākāriki, kākā (possibly…), fantails and, our favourites, lots of charming little South Island robins.

The island itself was beautiful too, with lush untouched forest and deserted beaches.

We actually spent most of our time on Ulva Island dodging the cheeky weka, flightless birds who were very persistent but very entertaining. Despite not being able to fly, they still managed to follow Oli out to a rock off one of the beaches, where he’d taken a flying leap in order to try and eat his lunch in peace. No such luck, the weka wanted to be friends!

To complete our successful day of birdspotting, the skipper on our return ferry pointed out a mollymawk albatross who had come to say hello.

Our time on Stewart Island also marked the end of a brilliant few weeks travelling with Mario, and after a ferry crossing that I’d rather forget (!), we said farewell in Invercargill. Mario was heading back to Auckland to begin a 31-hour journey back to Berlin, and we were headed to Queenstown. Mario – thanks so much for joining us for a month of cycling, hiking, wildlife, wine, trams and Tim Tam Slams. I guess it was alright if you like that kind of thing 😉