As we have a grand total of ten entire days off over the Easter period, James and I thought we’d get out and see a bit of the South Island. We though we’d squeeze a bit of sightseeing in, wedding venue sourcing, and of course, a LOT of driving.
Saturday: Wellington – Picton – Nelson
159.6 km driving & 97.6 km via Ferry
Our first day started late but was a long one. However, the ferry, which usually feels the longest, went fairly quickly with a good Agatha Christie. Upon our arrival into Picton, we drove straight to Nelson and checked into the YHA; we’d been invited for dinner by a friend, so were keen to not arrive overly late.
Dinner was amazing!
James’s workmate, Jonathan, invited us to spend dinner with him and his wife at his sisters house. Lasagna followed by pear tart went down incredibly well and the night was a success.
Easter Sunday: Nelson – Franz Josef
459 km
Day two consisted of a LOT of driving. The beautiful scenery very much outweighed the long, long drive. We left Nelson relatively early (around 9am), and arrived in Franz Josef just after 5:50pm. The journey was gorgeous. Both of us have traveled this area before, but either a long time ago or we didn’t stay very long. Therefore, we were wowed by the scenery.
We drove Nelson – Kohatu, where we stopped for a coffee, then continued on until Greymouth, where we stopped for fuel. Moving swiftly on to Hokitika, we stopped for some lunch rolls and then continued on down the South Island until finally reaching Franz Josef, just in time for tea 🙂
The YHA in Franz Josef is a social place, with a huge open common area. There’s a large, well kitted out kitchen, a spacious dining area. billiards table and even a movie room!
I have found recently that people in hostels tend to hand their noses in their cellphones (yes I know I have my nose in my laptop right now…) but tonight there were two or three groups of travelers that had just come from long bus journeys, all chatting, socializing and playing games together. It was actually really nice!
One group was playing some sort of guessing game where someone thinks of a thing (not sure what the parameters were) and then the others have to write on little whiteboards and guess their thing.
Another group was playing what can only be described as the most fun looking cellphone app game that I’ve ever seen. I think it’s called heads-up, and the main person has the cellphone held up so that they cannot see the screen, and the others have to tell that person clues to guess who they are without actually telling them…it was hilarious to watch, mostly because it was a large group of travelers, all from different countries, trying to play together using only English. There was a lot of laughing!
Monday: Glacier Country
Day three was a day of fun adventures…but not really those which we intended to be taking! Ha! We wanted to go up and see the Glaciers, but it was not to be: The Franz Josef Glacier hiking route has had a slip…as has the Fox Glacier hiking route.
Therefore, we took photos at Franz Josef and drove up to Fox and took a walk. A long walk! As we couldn’t get to the Glacier itself, we thought we’d try the lookout. There was a detour in place, but it seemed like a good walk to attempt. So, thinking it would be a nice short walk to get us outside, we started walking. It wasn’t short at all. And every time I thought we were nearly there, we just turned another corner and carried on! That’s not to say that I didn’t have a great time. I had a great time 🙂
The scenery in that part of New Zealand is just phenomenal. There are so many different shades of green that I’m not sure where I’d even begin to describe it all.
We began by walking up what would normally be the driving track up to the scenic lookout. However, after about 20 minutes we were sent on a detour through the bush. This did eventually bring us back out onto the driving track, just the other side of an area with a slip, thus rendering the track undrivable. We carried on walking. After about 45 minutes of walking we eventually made it to the scenic lookout point. I have to say, it was lovely, but we were both a little disappointed with the whole thing, it was a bit of an anti climax after all the walking. Hey ho. Never mind, we did our step count for the day!
After heading back to the hostel for some lunch, we ventured out again, this time to an abandoned coal mining tunnel. The Tatare Tunnels were created when the first gold miners there drove a 500m tunnel system through from the Tatare Gorge to pipe water to the Waiho terrace. While they never really recovered the cost to build the mines, Franz Josef was created on the operation site.
From 1911 the sluice pipes provided water supply for the old Graham Hotel. The high-pressure water drove a Pelton wheel in the town and generated electricity for a sawmill during the day and lights for the town at night. In 1938 water from the Tatare Tunnels powered a small hydro station in the Tatare Gorge until it was destroyed by a slip in 1982.
Department of Conservation
To be completely honest, I wasn’t very enthusiastic about walking through an old mining tunnel. I’m not very confident walking in spaces that aren’t that well lit. Also, earthquakes!
So, I did some research and located the DoC information page. It’s classified as an ‘Easy Walking Track’, which means it’s suitable for people of all abilities, even those with wheelchairs, buggies and strollers. This led me to believe that it’s probably a reasonably easy track and to just go and do it and get on with my life.
I swallowed my fear and walked it anyway.
Getting to the tunnels requires a relatively long slog of a walk. It starts off nice and easy, with a gentle incline up a wide 4×4 track, but then you meet the hillside and it winds upwards quite dramatically until you reach the entrance to the tunnels.
Obviously, being an old mining tunnel, the whole place feels quite ramshackle. Although, when we reached the tunnel entrance it was clear to see that lots of people were either in the tunnel, or had just finished walking through it, so it can’t be THAT bad.
We began. At first I was fine, I could still see the tunnel entrance and all was well. Once we were about 200m in, however, the entrance was gone and it’s pitch black. The walls are wet and it smells strange. This is when I began to feel a little unsure about the whole thing. I sped up and started to think about earthquakes a little bit, which is not ideal. I find, usually in a situation like that, the more I try NOT to think about something, the more I actually do think about it. The funny thing was, as soon as I was about to go into full-blown-panic-mode, I could see the end of the tunnel and it was over. Really, really quickly.
You have to walk back through the tunnel to get out again. Second time around it was fine. I knew that the tunnel was very short and that i’d just walked through it so it was nothing. But yeah, still the earthquakes!
We treated ourselves with a trip to the (really quite expensive) glacier hot pools. It was lovely to soothe our aching feet after all of the walking!
Tuesday: Franz Josef – Queenstown
350 km
A LONG day driving!
The last time that I visited Queenstown was with my parents in 2016 when they visited. I couldn’t actually remember much about the town other than the shops!
Upon arrival into Queenstown, we dumped our bags and set out for a wander into the town. It was pleasant. We walked from where we were staying (The Colonial Village Motel), along the lake and round the gardens and into town. We ended up drinking in a tiny little pub on the waterfront (it has only about ten seats) and then queuing for 40 minutes for Fergburger, a local – but very much a world famous – burger joint. We took this back with us to the motel.
Back at the Motel, we ate our burgers watching TV on a stolen table (stolen from the other side of the motel) and with cans of beer and wine. Classy. It was a lovely evening 🙂
Wednesday: Queenstown – Kinloch
71.3 km
Waking up in Queenstown, we noticed that the mountains were quite unnoticeable from the hotel room. The fog had set in and our view was obscured to only a small slither of lake.
James hoped that he could get a photo of the lack of view to send it to his sister. He wanted to comment that the view was ‘unremarkable’. Hahahaha.
For breakfast, we decided to eat in the pub we’d drank at the night before. The food had looked amazing. We both decided on large plates and weren’t disappointed.
Following breakfast with a little bit of shopping, we wandered round Queenstown and attempted to find me a coat…although, as Queenstown doesn’t have very many shops, I didn’t actually find much, and we drove on onwards Kinloch quite early.
In order to get to Kinloch, we had to drive through Glenorchy. When we arrived in Glenorchy, we stopped by the lakeside to watch the skydivers. It was a lovely sunny day, so it was quite easy to spot the bright pink planes flying above us. We kept watching as four people jumped out. I remember the feeling that I had doing my skydives and it made me a little jealous that I wasn’t up there doing another one!
After stopping for a while to watch the world go by, we continued on towards Kinloch. It’s quite deceptive; It doesn’t look like far between the two, but the road just kept going!
We drove past hills, through farmland and over gravel roads, finally coming in at Kinloch Lodge after quite a bumpy ride.
Kinloch Lodge is owned and run by a family who bought it in 2000 and carefully restored it. They have a lot of information about the history of Kinloch Lodge on their website.
We wanted to have a look here as a prospective wedding venue, but seeing how difficult is has been to get here, and the added costs involved for everyone to stay, we’re thinking it might be easier closer to home in Wellington! We spoke to the owner anyway, and he was very nice, but I think we both knew that we’d think about other places.
We stayed in one of their ‘Wilderness Rooms’, which basically means a glorified camping hut. I loved it! There are about 12 rooms, each with a simple setup of beds, heaters and lamps. They’re a budget option for backpackers, or people like us who don’t actually want to spend an arm and a leg to stay somewhere.
We had access to the shared kitchen and common living room space, where we made dinner but promptly got talking to people and ended up sharing theirs and ours together!
Thursday: Kinloch – Lake Tekapo
327 km
Breakfast was simple and quick and we soon left Kinloch, hitchhiker in tow!
As we left Queenstown, we stopped off at the Jack Hackett Bungee Station and watched a few poor people jumping off the bridge. Bungee jumping is something I’d love to do, but I know that I’d never actually bring myself to do it.
It’s fun to watch though 🙂
Lake Tekapo seems to be going through a large scale development at the moment. It was packed with people and the whole town is in varying stages of being a building-site.
Our YHA for the evening had only just opened, it was eight days new! As everything within the hostel was still so clean and shiny it didn’t have the traditional YHA feel that we know and love (old, musty, could pass for a Guide Hut…). The kitchen was shiny and had lots of space, lots of cubbyholes for food and lots of really nice appliances.
Although the ovens were over complicated and required the pressing and holding of two buttons in order to get them to work…it took about five people a good half hour to figure out how to get the oven to work.
James and I took a short walk outside to grab a bit of food shopping and then relaxed in the hostel for the evening. The sofas in the common area were particularly lovely.
Friday: Lake Tekapo – Hanmer Springs
375 km
When we arrived at the hostel we unpacked and decided to make the most of the gorgeous sunny afternoon. Hanmer is just lovely! Last time we were here we didn’t get much further than the springs. This time, however, we went for a walk, found an old hospital (as you do) and had a quick drink at the pub. All before dinner.
Hanmer Springs became popular in the late 1800’s.
A man named William Jones noticed a strange fog when he was out walking in the area and soon discovered that there were holes with water in them and that they were heated in the ground. Thus, the thermal pools at Hanmer Springs were officially opened as a government spa in 1883.
In 1897 a Sanitarium was built to house people who wanted to come and use the springs. In the same way as the thermal Springs at Rotorua and Te Aroha, the spa and the springs were promoted by the government as tourist attractions because of their scenic qualities as well as the medicinal benefits of bathing in, or ingesting the water. Sadly this building was destroyed as WW1 began.
A new hospital was built in its place though.
The Queen Mary Hospital was originally opened in 1916. It was built by the Department of Defense and it’s twin-octagonal shape was quite unique at that time. It housed 200 men suffering from shell shock in two large rooms connected by a corridor. The hospital was very effective at treating its patients and soon gained an excellent reputation as an effective treatment centre.
As the hospital expanded, so did its reputation, and people from all over New Zealand would come for treatment of nervous disorders.
In 1921, Queen Mary Hospital was handed over to the Health Department.
The Chisholm Ward, built in 1926 to accommodate women patients, shows a really interesting progression in hospital design. It was designed to provide a practical, functional facility that was attractive and homely in appearance as well as continuing the focus on access to fresh air and sunshine. It was designed to feel domestic rather than institutional, and the character of the building reflects the changing attitudes at the time.
I loved walking round the abandoned site and peeking into the windows. I could just imagine the women who would have been admitted there and am glad that they would have been treated with much more respect than at some of the other hospitals in the world at that time. It’s refreshing to see a hospital built at that time that focused on the positive benefits of the natural environment rather than shutting the patients away.
Saturday: Hanmer Springs – Picton – Wellington
286 km driving & 97.6 km via Ferry
Driving from Hanmer Springs to Picton was just amazing. It’s not the first time I’ve travelled that route, but every time I do I’m wowed by the sheer amazingness of the scenery, the wildlife and the weather. I’ve been very lucky and had sunshine pretty much every time I’ve been here.
The new road is mostly open now between Kaikoura and Picton, which does make it much easier. After the last big earthquake I was worried that we’d have to miss out on that particular route for a while, but it seems to be back up and running quite nicely.
The ferry took AGES to get going. But we did sit and watch two films: The Nutcracker, and the BFG. I loved the original version of the BFG. It was one of my favourite films as a child. The new version is different, the story has been slightly adapted, but it’s still a very good film.
By the time we were home, it was very late and the cats were very glad to see us. We got lots of hugs and face boofs!
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