Live the van life while you have it – no regrets
This was day 8 of our 2-week trip around New Zealand, and we were about half-way down the South Island and heading into mountain country. The weather was a little wet and windy overnight, and although it was warm in the van, we could hear every raindrop being thrown at the windows and the wind whistling around. We slept ok, and we got up early, but not to any sunnier weather – it was still grey and cloudy, and some more rain was definitely on the cards today. This was a shame, as not only was Mt Cook now hidden by clouds, but walking isn’t much fun in the rain. We drove out from our campsite, heading down along Mount Cook Road through the valley, heading towards the Mt Cook visitor centre. Normally the views would be amazing, and I would be stopping every 2 minutes for more photos, but today it was very overcast, with low hanging clouds. Although still very dramatic, it wasn’t very good for photos or walking. We stopped at the hotel behind the visitor centre, grabbed a couple of coffees and made our own breakfast at a table. We sat and chilled out, getting warmed up, charging phone and camera batteries, and thinking about if we should face the weather or not. Just outside of the building was a statue of the man himself, Sir Edmund Hillary, looking all weather worn in his expression (as hikers should). A little bit of rain wouldn’t have stopped this man, in fact the biggest mountain in the world didn’t stop him, so why would a little rain stop us? There are a couple of accessible walks from here, one being the Hooker Valley Trail, a 5km walk that has ‘sweeping views’ of the area, which I knew we weren’t going to get today. However, we’d come all this way, and who knows if we’d ever come back to New Zealand again, so we decided to do the walk, come rain or more rain. There were plenty of people out and about here, all rugged up in North Face and Kathmandu gear, as well as selfies sticks, all walking the same path as we were. Despite the weather, the views were still impressive, with fog hanging around the peaks, and the water running under the bridges appearing a slate grey-greenish colour. We walked the trail, enjoying the views, and also enjoyed crossing the suspension bridges that went over rushing glacial water. There is a sign on each of these bridges, warning of 20 people maximum, which some people didn’t seem bothered about, but something that I kept in mind. Although I doubt they’d break with a few more bodies on them, as they looked quite sturdy and strong, you never know, and with the way they moved around, the signs are likely there for a reason!
There were 3 swing bridges on the Hooker Valley Trail, and each with a stunning backdrop of pure New Zealand mountain views. A lot of the trail was rough gravel paths, but in some places there was a nice, level wooden walkway, covered in chicken wire to help grip, which made my wet boots squeak a little. The landscape was yellow tuffs of grass, swaying in the icy winds, with big, dark mountains reaching up into the mist. Although the weather wasn't great, there was beauty everywhere along the trail, with small birds flitting around, and delicate white flowers littering the shrubbery. We reached the end of the walk, or at least the furthest that we wanted to go today, and had a short break. Overlooking Hooker Lake, our lunch break was as nice a spot as we were going to get today, so we sat down and ate and drank, and enjoyed the view (it had even stopped raining!). I took a few photos from the lookout, not bothered to walk any further today apart from back to the van, with the main attraction being the glacier at the far end of the lake. You could just see the deep blues and lighter shades, but much of the glacier was hidden under a dirty covering of gravel.
As we walked back across the bridges and towards the van, the sun came out a little, the clouds parting, just enough for the view to change and brighten a little. Mount Cook was still hiding, but the surrounding mountains were streaked with rays of sun, highlighting the grasses, and bouncing back off the icy rivers. We got back to our van, got out of our wet clothes, and hit the road. Our next stop was Queenstown, the famous adventure capital of New Zealand. It doesn’t matter if it's Winter or Summer, this place has something for the adrenaline junkie in all of us – skydiving, jet skiing, hiking, skiing and everything in between. Before getting to this amazing place, we drove through the Lindis Pass, a stunning area of natural beauty. There wasn’t much to see in some ways, just a snaking road making its way through mountains on either side, and not much else. But, it is this stark contrast that made it beautiful, especially when driving past Omarama, which had strange rock formations jutting up from the green trees and scrubs, pinnacles of light-coloured stones sticking up like cathedral spires. Formed over 20 million years ago, these cliffs are made from layers of silt and gravel, and you can actually walk around and explore closely, and although the park is privately owned, you can pay a $5 entry fee and away you go. At the time I didn’t even realise this was a possibility, but thinking about it now, we didn’t even have the time. The thing is when you’re on holidays somewhere, there is never enough time (or money) to do everything. However, this can be a good thing, as you make a list of things to explore when you go back, and gives you that hunger to save money and travel more. Sometimes going back to the same place again makes you relive those first memories, while also making new ones. This is called being bitten by the ‘travel bug,’ something that happened to me a long time ago.
We drove south towards Queenstown, after a few stops for photos along the way (and some photos out the window while driving), and arrived just before 6 in the evening. The views were stunning; Queenstown is built on a huge lake called Lake Wakatipu, and surrounded by peaks David, Tooth, Jane and Centaur. The combination of lakes, mountains and the ski town style buildings in the centre make Queenstown a real highlight and treasure of New Zealand. The road into town slopped down, so you got the full view of the whole area before getting into the urban area. Unfortunately, there was a lot of traffic, backed up at least 5kms outside of town. It took us some time to pull off the main road and find a backpackers to ask about accommodation, as well as ask what was going on – was this normal tourist traffic nowadays, or was something special happening? It turned out that the annual Queenstown Marathon was happening the next day, and so everyone was piling into the town, taking up all the roads, and all the accommodation. We had no other choice than to drive back out, and keep heading south, and come back another day - that was a promise! A little saddened, but we grabbed a bottle of wine from a roadside bottle shop on the way out, as who knows where we’d be camping tonight, and we wanted to be prepared. We ended up driving another 40kms, after a long day of about 350kms already, but it was worth it. To our right was the lake, and to our left was the Remarkable Mountain Range, gorgeous snow-capped mountains where the skiers from Queenstown play on. We also found a great campsite for the night in Kingston, a town on the southern shore of the lake. Kingston Top 10 Holiday park was probably one of the best organised campsites we’d been to so far, and that’s saying a lot because New Zealand generally has great campsites (free and paid). For $20 per person, we got a nice grassy spot for the van, a cozy kitchen area with a fireplace, kitchen with real cookers, fridges, big sinks and a prep area, as well as a covered BBQ patio area - all very clean as well. While having dinner and a glass of wine, we tossed up whether or not we were going to drive down to Milford Sound, another 3 hours or so away via small and windy mountain roads. The weather had turned a little grey and overcast, with a few drops of rain. Was it worth driving all that way to possilby see nothing? We decided to do it, as how many times do you get to be in a van cruising around New Zealand? Live the van life while you have it – no regrets.
We got up and had a quick breakfast, but decided to grab a coffee on the way for the long drive to Te Anau, a stopping off point before Milford Sound. The countryside south of Queensland, as you move from Otago to Southland, is absolutely stunning! It reminds me of the highlands of Scotland, but even greener, and probably even more beautiful, as it seems softer and less harsh. We had sweeping views of the mountains, with green paddocks covering any flat ground in the middle, with our road snaking its way through between fields and mountain passes. The clouds were still hanging around, but they were the pretty kind, clinging to mountains and making nice patterns in the sky, rather than a blanket of gloom. The sun even came out and showed us some blue sky! We stopped off at a crossroads café called the Five Rivers Café, which was where you could turn right for Te Anau and Milford, or keep heading South for the Fiordlands and Invercargill.
The café was fairly quiet, a few customers, and a sheep or two wandering the fields outside. After getting the coffee, we jumped back in the van ready for the long drive. It wasn’t only the landscape that reminded me of Scotland, but the names were all from the Old Country as well – Invercargill, Oban, Fortrose, with a mix of local names like Waianiwa, Mokotua and Kapuka. The local names come from the Māori language, which is a Polynesian language, so very similar to many pacific islands, including Hawaii. In saying that, it almost looks like Japanese written in English characters, a combination of consonants and vowels sounds together with added single vowels (mo-ko-tu a). We arrived in Te Anau, a small town on a lake (like a lot of places in NZ and Scotland), with some adventure tours on offer like a plane ride over Milford Sound, but one we saw and liked was the glow worm tunnels. We asked about this, and it looked really cool – you get a boat into the caves, paddling along an underground body of water, with the bugs glowing above you on the cave ceiling. Unfortunately, there were no seat available for the next 3 days, due to the high number of tourists at the time, as well as a shortage of staff. This lack of workers was a story that I heard all over New Zealand – the post-pandemic workforce wanted to be casual only, to have more flexibility and work less, but there was also a severe lack of migration workers due to the complete closure of the country. Everyone said it would takes years to get back to normal. This was the point where we would decide if we were to go all the way to Milford Sound or continue back towards Queenstown and Wanaka. I figured that even if we didn’t get a boat ride for the day (as it was already midday), the view of Milford and the drive there would be worth it. We continued through Te Anau, which is a pretty place in its own right, and continued on to Milford Sound. Driving back up into the hills gave us a good view of Lake Te Anau, a long lake with an impressive backdrop of misty mountains, which gives you a little teaser of what it will be like at the Sound.
Along the way, there were plenty of places to stop and admire the view. We stopped at one particular place, Pop's View Lookout, just managing to get a spot to leave the car off the road as it was very busy, and get look at the mountains we were driving through. Extremely green forests, almost jungle-like, which grew all throughout the valleys and nearly all the way up the sides of the jutting mountains; it was a very dramatic landscape, valleys with glacial rivers, with mountains either side that looked like they’d been pinched up sharply. Words are hard to find to describe this kind of beauty, and photos also just don’t do it justice. Anywhere along this part of the road, you need to be cautious of Kias. No, not the Korean car, but clever green parrots that are incredibly smart, large, and destructive (all in equal parts) and just want food. They will grab things out of your hands, attempt to get into windows of cars, or rip at the door seals with their huge curved beak if you try and close the windows on them. These birds, which remind me a little of Australia Sulphur Crested Cockatoos, are native but have turned into a complete tourist menace, only because tourists have fed them in the past and now the birds know where they can get their next ‘meal on wheels.’
Keeping an eye on these green shimmering-feathered troublemakers, we took some photos and enjoyed the view, also making sure the van was securely closed at all times. It was quite interesting watching the interactions between bird and human, and I think it was also a very delicate dance of who was the boss – the birds would stand there getting photos taken of them, but at anytime they could turn from passive parrot to aggressive alpha bird, and humans beware! I did see the birds chasing people, plucking at their hands for food, as well as ripping at windows. The road to Milford was spectacular, with waterfalls and jungle-like forests, but always mountains. We stopped at a set of lights along the road, which was strange as there were no other lights here, no intersections, only a 2 way windy highway, but then realised it was for a tunnel. I’m glad we stopped though, as the view from the window was amazing – a soaring cliff face with cascading water running down to meet the rivers, and snow sitting on the peaks of the mountains. From jungle and forest to snow, sometimes there were just moments between the changes – the weather had also got quite chilly, and it felt that we were in winter rather than spring. We got our turn through the tunnel, which was very narrow and quite roughly hewn on the sides, and after about 1.5kms made it through to the Milford Sound side of the mountain. Just after coming out was the Hundred Falls, which is sheer rock with waterfalls streaming off the surface everywhere you look. The view was a whole different world from the other side of the tunnel, with the transition being instant because of the dark tunnel in the middle. It reminded me of a tunnel in northern Spain, driving towards the ski town of Baqueira, where before going in you were in the mountains and it was green, clear and sunny, then coming out of the 5km tunnel, it would be a wintery wonderland with white snow covering everything. It was always a surprise and a delight when driving that road.
We arrived at Milford Sound at 3pm, and the clouds had moved in, but it was still something to see. We enquired at the visitor centre for boat trips, but was told that everything was booked, and that there was also no accommodation available. The decision had been made for us, so we decided to walk around and enjoy the area before heading back. We found some free parking, not easy here, and went for a walk. The weather was cloudy, but when the clouds moved, the sun beat down with a lot of force. We stuck to the waterway path, looking at the Sound in amazement, watching the boats go out for the last cruise trips of the day. Milford Sound (Piopiotahi) Marine Reserve is part of the Te Wahipounamu World Heritage site, and was the world's top travel destination in an international survey in 2008. It remains NZ’s most famous tourist attraction, maybe even more than Lord of the Rings movie locations I guess. A sound is a body of water that is connected to the sea or ocean, but its inlet is usually hidden. This was the case when European explorers sailed right past this place without seeing, including Captain Cook. The Sound is home to soaring waterfalls, one being just over 150m tall, as well as Mitre Peak, which sits right in the middle of the water when looking out from the port. Bottlenose dolphins are known to swim here, but the area is also home to humpbacks and even penguins. A small side note, the second season of SBS’s TV show Alone was also filmed here, and as dramatic as the views were (including some snow!), I would not want to do that. We took some pictures, braved the strong winds, but were happy that we came here and had seen it. Now for the long drive back! We drove all the way back, past Te Anau, past the café where we’d stopped in the morning, and back to Lake Wakatipu. We were going to hit Queenstown the next day, hopefully the crowds had all moved out by then, but needed somewhere to sleep for the night. We checked out a free camp site just outside of Kingston that we’d driven past before, and decided that this was the place to stay. Free, nice grassy areas with shelter under trees, and toilets (drop, unfortunately, but netter than nothing), it had pretty much all you need for a night’s stop. The sun set over the lake, providing some truly magnificent views, which were only topped by the sunrise, which I managed to wake up and see. A lot of driving – 500kms in a day - but worth it!
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MyUncleTravellingMatt. November 2022.
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