New Zealand - Day 3 - Oamaru

We made the most of our first lie in for a while at Waitaki Waters and didn’t get up until mid-morning, which was a bit of a treat!

We’d discovered the night before that there was a place ‘nearby’ that had open air hot tubs in old oak barrels with views of the mountains. I don’t need to be told twice when there’s an open air hot tub on offer so I quickly booked us both in for the 6pm slot in the evening. Only when we decided to google the location that morning did we discover it was actually an hour and a half drive away! Ah well.

Steampunk HQ

With that in mind we thought we’d keep our daytime activities pretty simple and  decided to head into Oamaru town to have a wander around. As it was a Sunday we’d also decided we wanted to try and find somewhere for a roast! (All this cold weather is reminding us of home!)

We made the short drive into town which was fairly standard – lots of fields, hundreds of sheep and then a few houses here and there. Then about two minutes outside of town in one of the fields was a giant robot made out of metal parts, and an enormous rusty column that looked like it was off a steamship with ‘Oamaru – Steampunk capital of NZ’ emblazoned on the side. James and I both shot each other a quizzical look – not wanting to ask the other if they’d seen the same thing for fear that one of us was hallucinating.

Oamaru is not a particularly big town, and as we pulled into the centre all became clear, as the first thing you see on the horizon is the ‘Steampunk Museum’ – housed in an old Victorian-era railway station and complete with old steam train being ridden by skeletons (we discovered later you could pay $2 to set off a fireball from the chimney!)

Crazy Train

Right next to the museum is Oamaru’s ‘old quarter’ – an entire street of buildings left as they were in Victorian times, completely random but made for a very amusing hour of wandering around! The best part was that the locals took it so seriously, a couple of old boys were sat outside on the cobbled streets playing a banjo and one guy had the best white moustache and mutton chop combo I have ever seen – complete with full Victorian get-up.

We’d heard that there was an amazing restaurant at the end of the old quarter housed in an old whiskey store that served a Sunday carvery – words cannot describe our excitement…and then our disappointment as we turned the corner to discover that they were closed for renovations!

Determined to get our Sunday roast somewhere, we stopped by one of the shops and asked one of the locals if he knew of anywhere good. He briefly dropped the name of a pub that we barely caught and then proceeded to tell us for at least 15 minutes how fabulous the local Italian was…we literally could not get away from him without promising to go there and try the chili prawn salad!

Bemused

We were starting to lose faith as we clambered back into the wagon and decided to head out of town back to our campsite, but as we were departing we happened to notice a fairly small pub on the road out. Excited, we parked up and jumped out to read the menu – we got even more excited when we saw a blackboard for their roast of the day, and then I damn near punched James in the beard out of frustration when we realised they only served food until 2pm and it was 2.30!

Om nom nom

Never ones to let a good roast dinner get away from us, we decided to go in and plea with them instead. Fortunately it didn’t take much persuasion and they very friendly owners were more than happy to have us in. Not only did they have a log fire, but the roast dinner was bloody amazing!

With our bellies full we hit the road for our jaunt up to the hot tubs at Omarama. The drive was fairly spectacular across lakes and with snow-capped mountains visable in the distance for most of the way. There was meant to be a good Vineyard on the way that did wine tastings which we had already earmarked to break the journey up – but sadly they were closed as we pulled up, due to having no staff!

Fortunately, just around the corner there were some ancient Maori rock carvings which were part of many heritage sites around the area. We were the only people in the carpark as we pulled in, and it was a swift walk there. The paintings themselves were fairly worn after so many years, but unfortunately over time – and before they had been contained behind the ugly cage - they had been vandalized quite significantly. Names of people that had been there dating way back to the 50s and 60s dotted the entire walls, there were also huge chunks missing from a lot of it where people had taken souvenirs away with them (some of them are now in Museums around NZ, some just got destroyed in the process).

This is how we roll.

Omarama itself was a pretty small farming town – the oddest place for a fancy looking outdoor hot tub complex but who are we to complain?! We were also pleased on arrival to learn that hot tubs were BYO, and one of the great joys of travelling in a camper is that you always have everything you own with you! We nipped back and grabbed a fancy bottle of picnic wine we’d bought a couple of years ago and had been saving.

Toasty!

We were led to out hot tub by ‘Lance’, a very friendly kiwi chap. I think they had about 12 hot tubs but you would never have known it, each site is surrounded by bush and gravel meaning it feels like you’re the only people there! Lance showed us how to heat up or cool down our tub and then informed us that ‘nudie bathing’ was okay, which obviously made me giggle like a ten-year-old…

After a fair bit of driving and being battered by the southerly winds we were both rather happy to sit in a hot tub for an hour and a half sipping wine. After sunset it was also a fantastic spot for a bit of stargazing as there was obviously nothing around for miles kicking out a great deal of light, meaning you could see the whole night sky perfectly.

We left all warm and sleepy and then realised we still had an hour and a half drive back to our campsite! We both agreed the hot tubs were definitely worth the jaunt though. When we finally got back we were both too tired to bother cooking anything substantial, but after our stop off at Barry’s Bay the day before we were both craving a bit of cheese (nothing new!) and I mentioned to James how much I fancied cheese on toast…we pondered how we could achieve it for a minute having only the gas hob and microwave to work with…but then we spotted the toaster, and a bit of ingenious maneuvering meant our dreams soon became a reality!

Cheese!

New Zealand - Day 1 & 2 - Christchurch & Banks Peninsula

After a rather epic stretch in Hobart and Melbourne airport waiting around for delayed flight after delayed flight, we finally made it to Christchurch – at around 1am. By the time we’d cleared the unusually cheery border control and customs staff it was about 1:30am and we had thoroughly had enough, but still had to make it to our pre-booked guest house. Both in a bit of a daze, we wandered outside and were quickly ushered into a large van by a large (but friendly) man who insisted he’d take us there. Once again, I found myself wondering if we’d see our bags again as they were deposited into his shuttle trailer and we sped off into the chilly night.

Fortunately, everything seems to be nearby in Christchurch so even after dropping off a couple of old dears at their house we were there in about 15 minutes – even more fortunately, the Thistle Guest House was the warmest place in New Zealand at that point! All the corridor heaters, the bedroom heater and electric blanket were blazing away so we pretty much dove into bed and fell asleep as our weary heads hit the pillow.

Christchurch from on high

The next day, we got a cab to the Apollo office (back at the airport) driven by another really friendly lady – this time she was from Tassie and looked a bit like my mum so we instantly bonded. Upon arrival at the office, it was instantly obvious that the Christchurch operation is a tad busier than the Hobart depot. We walked in all cheery and excited and were ignored for a couple of minutes by the 4 or 5 staff beavering away. A rather stern South African lady then told us to fill out some forms and take a seat – it was like going for a flu shot.

Once she was ready, we were seen. We’d booked a ‘cheapa’ camper deal which apparently means that once you get to the office they are allowed to reveal just about as many hidden extra costs as they like so long as they began the sentence with “Now, because this is a cheapa booking….” And you don’t really have any option but to hand over the credit card. They also like to scare you with all the worst case scenarios which is always fun! As soon as we’d finished paying though she COMPLETELY changed and was nice as pie! We chatted about our trip as we looked the van over and she had a jokey bitch about the Hobart office we’d just been to and how quiet they were in comparison.

Soon we were on the road! This time, we decided to head straight to the supermarket to stock up on supplies whilst we were in a city and it was cheaper and more readily available. We loved the supermarket in New Zealand last time as it has wine and beer right with everything else, such a novelty compared to Queensland! Then, once we had bought food, an extra blanket (for Nana Cooksey) and some more clothes we were on the road, again!

For our first stop, we decided to check out Lyttleton via a scenic drive. Unfortunately, our copy of the Lonely Planet proved how out of date they can sometimes be as – firstly the scenic road we wanted to take was closed due to damage, and next – rather foolishly we didn’t realise that the last big quake to hit the area was epicentred right on Lyttleton. It was still like a disaster zone – what would’ve once been a fairly thriving little beachside town with lots of cafes, bars and places to stay was now a ghost town. 60-80% of the businesses were boarded up, some with collapsed walls and broken windows. There was a huge building which looked like 80s style flats right in the centre which looked ready to collapse at any minute and was still just taped off. It made us both quite sad to think about the damage it would’ve caused people around here – especially so soon after the big quake in the city which was still pretty fresh in the memory.

Campsite views of Akaroa

We regrouped and picked another destination to explore – the Banks Peninsula. It involved driving back through the mountain tunnel we’d come through (about 2-3km long) which we were now even more nervous about using, and through the city. We hadn’t noticed much damage coming through the first time, but on the way back we were on a different route and saw much more devastation. I think we went past the main Cathedral which was fairly iconic at the time, and loads of other demolition sites – the roads were also a maze of cones and detours, still a hangover from it all. There was a lot of fresh building work going on though (it looked like the main spire of the church was being raised back on top), so you’d hope some kind of partial recovery would be on the horizon for the city.

As we were leaving, listening to local radio it really hit home for us - we happened to catch the news and heard that during the afternoon there had been two separate aftershocks that hit fairly close to the city and had been felt, but done minimal damage. We’d been completely oblivious at the shops!

We decided to head to Akaroa and stay at the holiday park there – it had good reviews and was near to a few sightseeing spots, plus only about an hour away. The drive there was pretty amazing, coastal winding roads overlooking countless pristine bays – each with a small township at the bottom and surrounded by rolling green hills. We immediately felt like we were really on the South Island. As per usual, we arrived into Akaroa after dark (Lisa thought the view of the final drive down looked like the opening of the game Monkey Island), checked in and finally got to unpack our clothes from our backpacks – it was pretty satisfying, and also exciting rediscovering what we had packed!

We cooked up some tasty NZ salmon in the van and had an early one, still exhausted from only 6 hours sleep at the Guest House the night before.

The next morning we woke to a rather glorious day! The sun was shining, barely a cloud in the sky and we were feeling rather chipper about being back in New Zealand at the start of our adventure. The view from our campsite was pretty awesome, it was perched on a hillside overlooking the bay and Akaroa below – postcard stuff really and there were already scenic flights going around as we had our breakfast outside on a picnic table. 

We decided to head into Akaroa for a poke about in the shops. We’d read that it had originally been a French settlement and so many of the local businesses were named accordingly (our favourite being L’Op Shop) – but all of the streets were also named in French too! It was WEIRD, as were most of the shops themselves.

There was a cool looking pier that looked out into the bay that looked appealing in the sunshine so I dragged Lisa down it for a photo – and low and behold, we only went and found $40 blowing about on there! It actually made our morning as we weren’t all that impressed that the Top 10 site we’d just stayed at (Top 10 is a big chain of holiday parks in NZ – which from now on we’ll never be staying at again!) and it cost $42, so a free nights power!

Afterwards we headed to Barry’s Bay – and the cheese company of the same name to taste some of their products. We were looking forward to this waaaay too much… The cheeses were AMAZING, so we bought 3 or 4 of them plus some crackers. If there is one thing I think we’ll both crave most in Asia – it’s cheese!

Pier of good fortune!

After stocking up on cheese, trinkets and some shopping we’d forgotten in Christchurch, we planned our next move – heading south towards Dunedin. Unfortunately, we didn’t realise that Akaroa was a dead end on the Banks Peninsula so we had to double back for about 50km before turning inland and then south.

Bazza!

On the way we accidentally stumbled upon a huge local running race – it was a 6 person relay (I asked an old boy stewarding) being run between consecutive towns along the highway we were going along. The terrain was crazy – so many steep climbs, and a lot of the runners were well into their 60s, we were impressed to the point where I was beeping at them and shaking my fist out the window for encouragement but in retrospect it may have just looked like I was taking the piss!

We took a few scenic route options along the way, and stopped of at Salmon World (just for a picture of their giant salmon statue and a coffee as it was too much to actually see live salmon, plus we were running late) before arriving at Waitaki Waters, just outside Oamaru around 5pm.

The sun was still out, so we parked up and went for a stroll down to the beach – Derek, the owner even offered to lend me some fishing gear to throw a line in if I wanted (he was amazingly friendly and even gave us free wifi after we pre- booked in for the 2^nd night) – but I declined as it was still freezing and we were pretty tired. Down at the beach – about 800m away it was unlike any I’d been on before, no sand at all just GIANT grey pebbles everywhere, you could hardly walk on them. There were a few people down there fishing, and a family had lit a huge fire to keep warm, so we decided to head back and do the same for the night.

Ginger salmon

Tasmania - Day 3 & 4 - Bay of Fires to Cradle Mountain to Tarraleah

There was no way I was getting down to
my pants in that temperature!

We spent our third morning partaking in the not-so-glamourous side of campervaning washing and drying most of our warm clothes! But as that’s not particularly blog-worthy I’ll move swiftly on…

We travelled north from St Helens to the Bay of Fires – recently voted the second best beach in the world, although it’s not actually one beach but many strewn up the northeast coast of Tasmania.

Eddystone Point lighthouse

Our first stop (and largely because we took a wrong turn!) was Binalong Bay, probably one of the most famous of the Bay of Fires beaches. It certainly was rather picturesque and we got the obligatory photo of me posing next to the town’s ‘welcome’ statue before turning around and heading further into the depths of the rugged Tasmanian coastline.

We weren’t too confident of our choice of activities for the day when thesealed road ran out and the heavens opened on the drive and continued for at least an hour and a half. We stopped at a few bay’s on the way but admired them from the comfort of our heated van – except in Anderson’s Bay where James braved the pier for a photo opportunity!

We’d read in the Lonely Planet that there was a lighthouse worth a visit at Eddystone Point, as far north as you can go in the Bay of Fires so set our sat nav for there and ventured on in the rain.

Our own private beach for the afternoon

Fortunately, about 10 minutes before we arrived the sun broke through the clouds and the weather turned glorious! We parked up the wagon and took a short trek up to the Eddystone Point lighthouse that had awesome views down the whole northeast coast of Tassie.

On our stroll back to the carpark we noticed a little sign indicating that there was a beach down a small dirt track so we decided to give it a shot. 15 minutes later and feeling like we were in that scene from ‘The Beach’’ we were wondering whether we’d made a good decision, but then we were emerged from the bush we saw the most gorgeous little beach appear. All white sand and turquoise water, and not another soul in sight. We scrambled our way over a few hefty boulders and spent half an hour admiring the few and forgiving the state for the hideous weather it had subjected us to on the drive there.

Only seagull footprints in sight

We knew we had a pretty hefty four-hour drive in front of us so we didn’t linger too long before heading back to the camper and taking the road west and inland to Cradle Mountain.

We’d found a campsite in one of the brochures just outside the national park and apparently popular with bushwalkers – so we opted to stay there as it worked out a bit quicker and cheaper than staying on Cradle Mountain itself.

Scenic morning camper

We arrived at the site after dark (again!) but the owners were friendly and welcoming and directed us to our site. There was only one other camper owned by an old guy from Sydney who’d managed to get a huge log fire roaring the games room so we toasted up for a while before hitting the sack – probably at 9pm like the party kids we are… (it’s all the fresh air!)

When we woke up early the next morning we really got to appreciate exactly where we were staying we we hadn’t even noticed in the dark. The campsite was completely surrounded by mountains and watching the sun rise over them was quite a treat.

We made an early start and headed to the Cradle Mountain Lake St Clair National Park – we’d visited on our last trip to Tassie but only had time to take a short walk, and it was also the first place we saw our favourite Aussie creature – the wombat – in the wild, so we were hoping to spot one of the furry little critters again this time.

Back to Cradle Mountain

Being slightly more adventurous than the last time we were in Tassie, we opted for the Dove Lake to Ronnie’s Creek boardwalk, the guide on the wall in the visitors centre reckoned the walk was about 90 minutes and graded ‘easy’ so we knew we’d be fine. We discounted the walks that were two hours or more as we figured we had another long drive ahead of us in the afternoon.

Luckily the weather was holding off on the mountain and we set off on our walk from Dove Lake pretty chipper. We were a bit confused however as we were expecting a boardwalk (given the name of the destination) however after 10 minutes we soon found ourselves scamping over rocks and having to leap like gazelles over streams…

About to embark on our trek

Halfway in (and wondering if we’d taken a wrong turn) we saw a signpost for ‘Wombat Pool’ veering left into the wilderness. Convinced it would be a forest haven for hundreds of them we were quick to make the decision to take the detour.

We bounded into the undergrowth, giddy at the thought of frolicking through open fields surrounded by thousands upon thousands of wombats, however the track soon started ascending at a fairly rapid pace, then turned into particularly steep stairs. We battled up the first 80 or so telling ourselves that the fabled ‘Wombat Pool’ would be just around the next corner, but unfortunately every turn just held more steeper and steeper steps!

James does a wonderful job
of camouflaging himself in the
Tasmanian wilderness

By that point (even though the air was getting too thin to breathe) we knew we’d come too far to turn around without having set eyes on it so we battled on, even though I did mention to James that if we were struggling, I felt it unlikely that those stumpy little fellas would have made it up this far…

Finally we set eyes on it…it was a nice looking lake for sure, but I’m not sure I would have bothered climbing 40,000 stairs if I’d have known at the bottom what it looked like, and needless to say, not a wombat in sight! What was impressive however, was the view on the way back down – it was top of the world type stuff and I’m glad we made the trek up there just for that!

Bit of a trudge!

Back down at the bottom and already two hours into the trek that was only supposed to take 90 minutes we rejoined the trail we were supposed to be on and continued through the wilderness. Before long I was able to use my super-tracking skills to determine that there were wombats in the vicinity as the little blighters had been pooing everywhere!

From there on in, every rustle in the bushes we had to stop for 10 minutes just to wait and see if one of them was going to emerge (it was always birds) and every rocky outcrop James took the opportunity to climb and act as ‘wombat spotter’, but alas, not a wombat in sight.

Wombat spotter extraordinaire

Soon we hit the boardwalk part of the Ronnie’s Boardwalk track (and 3 hours later than planned) and even then it looked like it went on for infinity. I told James we needed to write a fairly harshly worded letter to the local council about their estimated walking times!

All along the boardwalk the wombats taunted us – literally every inch was covered in wombat poo! Then James cried out with glee and pointed to the horizon where sure enough, a particularly chubby one was wiggling his way out of his burrow for an afternoon snack.

Feeling rather pleased with ourselves for making the ridiculously long trek in order to see one we continued on down the boardwalk for another few minutes before James spotted another couple – a mother and baby – chilling out on the hillside in the distance! We continued on probably another ten metres before spotting another, and another – soon it became a competition of who could spot them first and who could spot the most!

Just as I was saying the James it was a shame they were all just a bit too far away to get a good photo of, and how good it would be to see one right next to the boardwalk – sure enough, as we turned the corner, one that had been munching out in Wombat Plains (as we were now referring to them) started sprinting (well, the wombat version of a sprint) towards us, on to settle in for a snack right next to the boardwalk!

The never-ending boardwalk

By this point we’d lost count of how many wombats we’d seen, and as we turned what turned out to be the final corner we spotted the carpark and realised that if we’d have just walked for ten minutes in the opposite direction rather than three hours into the wilderness we would’ve seen a lot of wombats a lot sooner!

Nevertheless, we consoled ourselves with the thought that we’d at least earned the Tassie cheeseboard that was awaiting us in our camper fridge – and, as chance would have it the minute we made it back to the van the heavens opened once again and unleashed an almighty storm which would have drowned us as we ignored the woman in the information office who said to pack raincoats!

Wombat!

We stopped for a spot of (late) lunch whilst it smashed it down with rain outside before hitting the road again – we were headed south, deep into the central highlands of Tassie and our jaunt around with the wombats meant we were going to be arriving A LOT later than planned.

We were glad there was still a bit of the daylight left as the road into the central highlands was spectacular – this is where most of Tassie’s lakes are and we soon found ourselves crisscrossing them as the sun set. Unfortunately as soon as that happened driving on the winding roads became a lot less fun and more like a computer game of trying to dodge countless possums, wallabies and multiple other furry creatures that decided to shoot out of the bushes and in front of our van at the last minute. What should have taken four hours actually ended up taking us five and a half just because we had to go so slowly to watch our for wildlife after the sun had set.

Not sure which one is furrier...

We literally saw no other sign of life on the journey there until we hit the tiny town of Derwent Bridge after about four and a half hours. The only thing visible in the town was the Derwent Bridge pub lit up as we emerged from the forest. It was at that point I heard the words I always dread hearing from James in the driver’s seat – ‘I think we’re going to need some petrol soon…’

Scenic bustop

Now, James doesn’t usually tell me if we need petrol soon, he just pulls into a servo and fills the car up without a word. For James to say that we need petrol soon means that we’ve probably been running on fumes for the past half an hour and he’s been too scared to mention it. He says that we should pull into the pub to ask where the nearest petrol station is.

From the outside, the Derwent Bridge pub doesn’t look like the kind of place that you should wander into unless you’re a local, but what choice do we have?! James tells me to wait in the car while he goes in, so I do, and he is gone for what seems like forever. I’m already wondering whether I could drive the camper should the owner of the pub come out brandishing his bearded head on a stick… but fortunately just as I’m getting to grips with the controls he appears in the doorway and tells me we’re sorted, but there’s a catch…

The local petrol station is just five minutes down the road but they’re closed (as it’s now about 8pm), fortunately the guy who owns the pub has called them and they’ve agreed to turn the pumps on just for us in return for two cans of Wild Turkey whiskey and coke!

We have to wait 15 minutes though as they’re in the middle of their dinner so we headed into the pub for a drink – fortunately once we passed the stony-faced locals playing pool in the entrance and entered the bar the owners were lovely and had a beautiful old fireplace that we could huddle in front of while we waited for our on-demand petrol station to open.

Lake country

15 minutes later we rolled down the road and into the servo to be met by ‘Greg’ and his wife, who informed us that they were fairly happy for our misfortune as they had a lot of washing to fold that night and two cans of whiskey would definitely help! 

We filled up and trundled on our way, and luckily it wasn’t too much further dodging wallabies until we found our campground in Tarraleah. Fortunately it was attached to a pub so the owners were still up and we were able to check-in without any dramas, and needless to say we both slept rather well that night!

A well-earned cheeseboard in the camper!