It's quite curious how NZ's road laws go - I only have a probationary Malaysian drivers' licence, yet I can apply for an international drivers' licence, and upon arrival in NZ I 'redeem' a 12-month period of driving, and so am exempt from having any qualifications whatsoever on NZ roads. I wonder why are kiwis so trusting of overseas drivers - it's kinda sweet and shocking at the same time.
Nevertheless I wasn't going to skip such an opportunity. I did a bit of due diligence regarding road rules and planned my first ever road trip! It feels mighty strange having my first road trip here. It also felt great - it makes me feel pretty ...independent.
The plan was a bit of a stupid one - three days, down the west coast, to Queenstown and back. I figured the South Island looked like perhaps half of the Malaysian Peninsula so yep that's doable. I got Derek (redacted) to join me - we rented a sedan. They got me to check it out and note any dinks and scratches, and asked if I wanted to get snow chains. I learned that people actually put these chain nets on wheels to drive in icy conditions, and yeah it's actually drivable. I passed on that since it's just early autumn.
We headed through Arthur's pass way - it felt absolutely brilliant driving for the first time in NZ. On the highway anyway. The weather complemented the drive through the alps and it was bliss as heck. We didn't stop much, because we realised how short 3 days were and how big the south island was haha.
The rain came suddenly after Arthurs' pass. I guess the alpine spine is a gateway keeping the crappy weather out of Canterbury. Derek and I stopped at some unknown beach near Hokitika, savouring the snacks while watching the waves. Which were pretty mild really. It's just nice having heavy rain fall everywhere and being dry inside while the water rolling down warped the view from the windscreen. It absolutely fitted my imagination of the part in Dear Mr Henshaw (great book) when Leigh and his Mom were eating fried chicken from a family bucket, in a car, watching the ocean, and how warm that felt despite the sadness at that part of the story. But we weren't sad, we were just eating stuff.
The pouring rain rather abruptly stopped when we got onto a straight part of the highway. There was a kind of fog between us and the ocean, and quite magically, it lifted just enough to allow us a peep of the ocean. Oh, the hazy fog blurred the horizon of the ocean and it was super ataahua (beautiful). It looked clear in the distance, and the colour gradient was not blotched by scraggly cloud.
The weather only got nicer and by the time we reached Harihari the sun was out. We stopped in this puny township and stretched our legs around a little park with some sculptures and broken tile art. We soaked up the sun - it was so good after the rather intense yet short lived downpour. That field had nice grass. New Zealand has such nice grass.
We carried on, and came to this beautiful bit of highway in the plains, with the magnificent mountain range just blasting off into the sky. It was just really good, meraviglioso! We also saw Mt Aoraki, even from just after Hokitika. We saw a sign for an art gallery along the highway, in the middle of nowhere! I can't remember the name of it though. I stopped despite Derek's disapproval and we nosed around the unoccupied place for a bit. There was no one there, yet the lights on the artworks were on, and doors unlocked. There were some nice photographs, but nothing too captivating really. We also wanted to explore Franz Josef a bit before the day ran out so we left.
Franz Josef was a small town that felt pretty touristy - a lot of food places, and rental shops. I think I spotted a library but it was closed. We put our stuff into our booked YHA (youth hostel association) hostel and walked up and down the place. We considered going to the Franz Josef hot pools but decided the hassle of getting wet and changing and getting swimming stuff is too great. Instead we got dinner at King Tiger, which was a Thai restaurant and the curry was nice.
The next morning we went to see the Franz Josef glacier. We parked by the river and walked toward the glacier. It was a biting cold, crispy morning, and there were chunks of ice in the river! The river looked like greywater - cloudy and whitish. We saw some bees looking extremely unmotivated and out of place by the banks. I splashed some ice cold water on my face and I felt so fresh and alive. Derek just took the boring track and looked on as I ran around the riverbanks. It is such an amazing place! God is so good to us!
The glacier was quite a bit further in than I imagined it to be. Apparently it is receding at an alarming rate and has retreated many kilometers inland over the years. It was kind of sad, but we came to this humoungous bit of ice which had a cave in it - as it fades into the dark I could see the hole surrounded by ice with a bluish tinge, and trickles of water streaming down the lips of the cave. Franz Josef, it sounds like some guy from the Swiss alps, and makes me think that glaciers have a more frosty, chalky texture. There was a long swingbridge overhead, and we just walked on until we finally saw the glacier - it was very beautiful, but a bit saddening to see. It looked shrunken, and retreating. It also looked close but far at the same time. The mountain really looked quite a bit more On the path leading to the glacier there were plaques every now and then to mark where the glacier was at so and so year. There were also signs telling visitors to stay within the fences and warning that tourists had indeed died falling over in the past.
We left before noon, heading for Fox Glacier next. Along the way we came to a sign for Lake Matheson and Darrell wanted to go there. So we turned off there, and stopped by the cafe there. It was a fancy posh cafe, with quite a few families enjoying the sunny morning. We walked about the lake, which had quite a few dragonflies! It was known for its stillness, which would mirror the Fox glacier at places around the lake. There were some high flax (or Harakeke) bushes. Some parts of the walk kinda reminded me of some walks in Cameron Highlands, but I don't know if it was just the type of fern or soil that looked a bit like yellow-tan clay. Or both. At that moment I wished Dad, Mum and Valerie (redacted) were here.
As we reached the caf Derek wanted to splurge on a coffee and some food so I went for a quick jog along part of the lake. After that we went on to Fox Glacier.
Interestingly Fox Glacier is also the name of the township. The glacier walk itself was similarish to the last - plaques marking where the glacier used to be, info boards sighing about how many kilometers of glacier had receded in so and so years. There were some people who were doing a survey on "How annoying are the helicopters?". I did notice a couple of them flying in, but didn't think much of it. What I did care about was a small waterfall pouring off the side of the rocky bed leading up to the glacier - the sun shone through the falling flecks of water and it cast a beautiful rainbow. It was so cool in the heat of noon and so AWESOME.
There were quite a few tourists on these walks we were on. As we left Fox Glacier and emerged at the junction to Haast, we saw a couple of guys indicating to hitch hike and bunch of girls doing the same a few meters over. The car in front of us indicated to stop, and as we drove on we saw that the car drove past the guys and stopped to pick the girls up! We felt sorry for the two dudes so we did a U-turn and picked them up. Dmitri and Luca (redacted) were a couple of German tourists who were hitchhiking to Wanaka. They were just having an adventure, touring around New Zealand. They were younger than us, at 18 and 20! We had a good chat, talking about our day, Uni, and Germany. One of the guys was from Dusseldorf and he was surprised that I have heard of it. Both of them have driven on the Autobahn, and they say they get pretty stressed driving the fast sections of the Autobahn. They also clarified that not all sections of the Autobahn had speed limits over 200kph as I once imagined. Apparently they salt their roads to get rid of frost! They said it was just scattered on by these trucks with them, and that it could cause a significant speed up in rusting to a vehicle. They also confirmed with a laugh that snow chains are not used to have better grip in frostier weather on the Autobahn.
We drove into Haast and again we had a wonderful view of the ocean as we cruised along the highway - the ocean mist threw a hazy veil between the road and the beach. Haast felt really remote now. We then turned inland towards the mountains - where the roads just snaked on for ages, and climbed quite a bit. There were some grooves on this curvy section of highway, which is presumably cattlestop. Seems a bit odd to be up on a road that high.
Dmitri and Luca were not with the group of girls before but they were foreign tourists as well whom they have acquainted with. We laughed about how they were not chosen, and then stopped by a lookout spot for a photo and a stretch. The spot however, must have been a sandfly ambush - no sooner than a minute after stopping, a multitude of sandflies hustled us as we scrambled for a nice photo. It was a very brief stop.
I began to feel quite tired, as Derek did not sign up on the rental agreement as a driver. I just told the others and we all took a half hour nap by the road, in the middle of nowhere by some empty paddock. The cars were scarce as we snoozed by the highway, and the peace around was soothing - in some weird way I felt like we were a bunch of young lads in some lush green wild wild west where gunslingers would shoot us and no one would ever know - and it was so nice.
After a good while driving we finally came to Lake Wanaka - beautiful, calm, a stretch of inverted mountain and sky. The water looked very cold. It looked very, very cold, but it also demanded a dip to remember it by. We agreed to stop by to check it out, and soon all of us but Derek were in the water. I dipped my face until my eyes were level with the flat surface, watching the ripples creep toward where the water meets the far mountains. It wasn't really very HD without my glasses, and my skin felt ablaze with icy fire but it was a commendable venture. We also stopped by Lake Hawea, after crossing a narrow strip of land between the two lakes, but only to look towards whatever-township-that-was-on-the-other-side.
We cruised into Wanaka and stopped at a supermarket there to get some food, and drop Dmitri and Luca off. As we pulled into the parking lot, who else do we see but the group of hitchhiking ladies pouring out of the big car across the carpark from us?!
Night was soon falling and we bade Dmitri and Luca farewell. We began our ambitious drive towards Lake Tekapo, where we hoped we might see a clear, clear night sky, and just maybe find some backpackers' hostel, as we didn't book any beforehand. Somehow we managed to misread the map and head out some other road towards Queenstown. Looking back we now know it was Cardrona Valley road, but we drove quite a while on there, at first thinking that we'd come to a junction between north and south eventually, and then thinking we must have begun going north. It wasn't until we saw signs suggesting strange places like Arrowtown and Cardrona that we stopped to look at the map. Under the car's lights we found that we must be near the Cardrona alpine resort, a detour that added some 24km to our night.
Turning around we drove on the right road for what felt like a very, very long time. I was beginning to feel exhausted and Derek had already passed out before we reached Wanaka again. I had to stop for a brief power nap somewhere just past Lindis pass. The road was unlit and the inky darkness consumed all else outside the immediate cone of light. After another short drive I decided to put the night in some rest stop place in the middle of nowhere. I could see a number of stars, might have been billions, had I cared to look properly. Instead, I put on my thickest jacket and we lowered our seats to try to sleep well.
We didn't really. It was cold and uncomfortable, but it'll do.
We awoke to another brilliant and crisp morning the next day, and continued our alpine scenic drive.The cars were going really fast here, most of them must have been going at least 120kph, and a couple must surely have been doing 180kph the way they shot past us.
We came to Lake Pukaki, my favourite lake, cold water lapping at some rocks on the banks, with Mt Aoraki in the distance. There was a Salmon shop there. We then stopped by Lake Tekapo and walked up Mt John, to the observatory that Derek visited with his family. there was a cafe up there, too. Derek said he was considering joining the Astronomy club at Uni just because they did annual visits to the observatory and he liked the cafe here. I thought Derek was a wombat.
Anyway the walk, the iced coffee, and the view were marvellous! We sidled up the hill to the observatory and found a lot of hares hopping about amongst the long grass (called tussock). When we arrived at the observatory we were met with a pleasant surprise! It was some kind of open day, and there were a couple of telescopes set up, and a dome telescope was open, just so we can see what it looks like inside. The two telescopes outside were setup for viewing though - one towards some mountain (maybe Mt Aoraki? I can't remember), and another at the sun, with a good deal of filtering on of course. Mt Aoraki looked super close! It is difficult to tell what the scale of things were though. The sun one looked like a fuzzy ball - I cannot make out ripples or flares, just a couple of larger blurry sunspots.
We visited the little old church as well, which had a sheep dog statue nearby. I was a little bit disappointed that we couldn't make it here the night before, although we would not have had any energy to care for night skies really. There were heaps of tourists milling around here.
Lastly we dropped by Geraldine, and sat for awhile at a skate park while schoolkids trooped to lunch or home or something.