9. South Island - New Zealand

9. South Island – New Zealand

We took off from Wellington for the short ½ hour flight to Nelson.

The airport is so small that the luggage doesn’t even make it into the terminal.  They take it off the plane and you pick it up as you exit the terminal.

Nelson is a small town on the very north of the South Island. We had chosen a hotel close to the beach.

There is a museum in Nelson known as WOW – World of Wearable Art and Car Museum. 

Each year there is an International Design competition for weird and wonderful clothing.  The pieces that we saw on display were all from the latest competition.

  The finalists are all included in an exhibition which is held in a different country each year. It looked spectacular.

The second part of the museum is dedicated to the motor car.  Hundreds of cars dating back to the earliest built.

 

We spent a good few hours taking in the clothing and cars.

Nelson is very close to the Abel Tasman National Park.  We drove to the nearest small town - Kaiteriteri - and picked up a scenic cruise for the day.

  We were taken up the coast passed all the gorgeous beaches that are located in the park. 

We got off at one of the beaches and went for a walk along the shore and into the small caves. The weather was quite hot but the wind off the sea kept us cool.

Our next stop was Murchison. A small town about 2 hours south of Nelson. There is a gorge there called Buller Gorge. The longest swing bridge in New Zealand is located there. 

We decided to go for a visit and walk across it. I did think that I might chicken out as it was a bit shaky especially when there was someone coming across in the opposite direction and had to squeeze past. I couldn’t look down as I crossed because you could see the river flowing by far below your feet. Once we got to the other side we had a walk through the wilderness.

It was then a bit daunting when we had to cross the bridge again to get back.  It didn’t seem quite so scary second time round. 

The west coast was just over an hour’s drive from Murchison so we took a drive to Punakaiki. It is known as Pancake Rocks. 

The rocky terrain looks like pancakes piled one on top of the other. The rough seas have pounded holes in the rocks which become blow holes during high tide. It was great watching the waves pound onto the rock, pushing through the holes then blasting out of the top.

There is one blow hole that is like a chimney.  The water shoots in and is sprayed out of the top like smoke.   

It was time to move on again so we headed east taking in the scenery as we made our way to a small alpine like town called Hanmer Springs.  It is known for its Thermal Spas. The weather wasn’t great.  We had our first real rain of our trip, but it didn’t stop us from heading to the pools.

We’d booked a private thermal pool for a short while. You can then use all the other pools in the complex.  They were all full of different mineral and all between 36 and 41 degrees. The sulphur pools were the hottest but also the smelliest.

Our last stop in New Zealand was Christchurch.  We had booked a two bedroom house in a suburb on the outskirts of the city. It was a new house in an area that was created after the earthquake in 2011.

Christchurch itself is quite a small compact city. 

There is still a lot of construction going on and many buildings still to be demolished and many more requiring repair.  The town centre is gradually returning to shopping centres instead of the container malls that were in place after the quake.

  The final containers should be removed within the next few months.

We took the tram around the city centre so that we could see all the sites. 

The Art Gallery is a beautiful building with some nice sculptures outside. 

The actual exhibitions within the gallery were a bit disappointing.  


There is a large botanic garden in the city centre.

 

The river Avon runs through the city and park.  We visited on a Sunday. There were many people paddling canoes along the river.

 

You can also hire a boat and be punted along by a person dressed in Edwardian clothes. There are many beautiful old building in Christchurch. They are restoring as many as possible.  The Canterbury Museum is housed in one of them. The museum is a lot bigger than it looks from the outside. 

We thought we would see it all in a couple of hours but we were mistaken. We had to go back a second day. It covered everything from the early settlers, Antarctic exploration, dinosaurs, native wildlife, Egyptian and Asian culture to modern Canterbury. It was well worth the visit.

A couple of years ago we travelled to Elephant Hills in Thailand.  While we were there we met a couple who stay in Christchurch.  Syd has kept in touch with them so we met up with Clint and Nina again. 

We had a lovely evening with them. Hopefully they will manage to get to Scotland in the near future.

Our time in New Zealand has now come to an end.  We are now half way through our trip. Tonight we fly off to Australia.