Charis: Our first stop off the ferry was at the Alpine Lodge at St Arnaud in the Nelson Lakes National Park. A comfortable night’s sleep followed by coffee in the Austrian-feeling hotel restaurant and the first of several wonderful hikes around gorgeous lakes (yes, this will be a theme for this post). There had been heavy rains the past few days so the shore of Lake Rotoiti was a little flooded, but that didn’t stop a small car rally from forming, including one Glaswegian owner! Great to hear the accent on the other side of the world! I think we sufficiently confused her by Derek proudly declaring he was from Wales in his broad Californian accent!

The Lakehead Loop Track we took goes through a beech forest. Many of the trees were entirely covered in a black soot, but there was no sign of fire damage. Looking closer the trees were covered in little hairs with a drop of liquid on it. These turn out to be honeydew produced by little scale insects which are sucking on the sap of the trees. The sap has more sugar than the insects needs, and they appear to lack portion control, so the extra is secreted and ends up coating the trees. Sooty black mould fungi then grow using that as food.

Due to the heavy rain, we changed our plans a little to avoid a road closed due to landslip. Instead of staying more northerly and heading to Punakaiki, we angled southward and instead landed in Hokitika, a small coastal town at the mouth of the Hokitika river.

The timing worked out well, allowing us to find a fab Thai restaurant for the evening of Derek’s birthday! Alas, vegan bakeries were thin on the ground so I decided to combo a couple of different cake hacks and managed to make a ginger cake in the microwave! Can’t say it was my best work but cake was indeed eaten on his birthday so mission accomplished!

A little out of Hokitika was the Glow Worm Dell – we’d seen various tourist-y adverts for glow worm caves throughout both the north and south islands but thought we’d try checking out this weeny cove as it was just out of town and free! We waited until dark then got in the car for 5 minutes to take us out to a little track just beyond the streetlights. It took a while for our eyes to adjust, but it was pretty incredible when they finally did! We were surrounded by loads of patches of green glowing pinpricks, about a metre in size. Hard to photograph, but very cool to witness! There are a few other glowworm locations in the area if you’re ever there.

The following day we headed for the Franz Joseph Glacier, going on a short walk through more beautiful fern-trees to see the glacier at the head of the valley poking out of the clouds. The rest of the trail had washed out entirely and was closed.

Continuing down the coast we stopped a few times including at Bruce Bay, Knights Point, and the Tauparikākā Marine Reserve.

From there, it was over the mountains to Wānaka. An absolutely stunning little town which has a large park looking out over Wānaka lake with the mountains in the background. So beautiful you couldn’t help but comment on it several times a day, the kind of place you can’t quite imagine is real.

The first evening we found an outdoor street food court with lots of different vans serving very tasty food, and enjoyed burritos whilst the little songbirds tried to steal crumbs.

We stayed in a cabin and went for several gorgeous walks along the lakeside and, of course, to #thatwanakatree. There were several other beautiful little trees growing up out of the lake, but this was the only one with a queue for pictures haha.

My best friend from high school has a little sister who headed out to New Zealand a couple of years ago and has settled in Wānaka. It was so nice to catch up with her and meet her boyfriend over some Mexican food. We did a loop hike around Mount Iron, a large hill which rises inside of Wānaka, which gave us great views over the surrounding flatlands and mountains. Then had lunch at the Dripping Bowl Cafe which was very tasty.

We drove out of Wānaka and stopped briefly in Arrowtown, a small and very touristy old mining town. In 1862 gold was found in the river and 1000 miners moved into the area. The town now has a main street with expensive boutiques and luxury stores, I’d guess it’s a big day trip destination for people holidaying in Queenstown and Wānaka. We had (another) long drive ahead though so didn’t stay long. We did stop off on the side of the road to admire the mountains, which at points reminded us of Scotland and Wales.

We passed right through Queenstown and on to Te Anau. This town is the jumping off point for exploring the Fiordlands National Park which include the most popular Milford Sound Piopiotahi well as the only slightly less known Doubtful Sound Patea. We joined a guided tour from Te Anau in the morning that headed out to a boat tour of Milford Sound. This was where the full majesty of Fiordlands came into it’s own – I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves!

We had the full package – glorious sunshine, waterfalls from the cliffsides and dolphins chasing the boat. Unbelievable.

The tour made a few stops to walk through the woods and we saw several Kea parrots who were almost as curious about the tourists as we were about them.

We spent another night in Te Anau then drove north, past Queenstown and east of Wānaka and out onto the plains leading to Lake Pukaki. This very long lake is fed by snow and glacier melt coming off the mountains, pretty much from the opposite slopes of the Franz Josef Glacier. Following the lake up to the base of Mount Cook the clouds gathered and the wind became strong and gusty. The Hooker Valley Track had come up as a gorgeous alpine hike over hanging bridges, looking up and along to glaciers, and passing several lakes. The weather really wasn’t in our favor and we were leaning into the wind pushing forward until it started rain. Given the chill we turned about at the second hanging bridge and continued on.

Our last stop in the south-western mountains was at Lake Tekapo, another gorgeous lake with the mountains in the distance. Another lake-side walk was called for and as Derek and I sat on the pebbly beach on the way back to the car I had a bit of an epiphany.

We were over 5 months into our traveling at this point and as I gazed out over the water I realised that my mind was completely, blissfully empty. At this moment in time I had no responsibilities, no one to please or answer to, no real desires and nowhere I had to be. I just had my wonderful husband beside me, one of the best views I’d ever seen, the lapping of the water and a couple of cute ducks bobbing up and down on the shore.

Bliss. Almost feel like I need to get a tattoo to commemorate this moment. I wasn’t sure it was possible to get to this point, as I don’t think I ever have since being an adult but it’s pretty incredible to know it is possible and how good it feels.

Derek: Lake Tekopo is known for it’s dark skies and excellent star watching, but the clouds didn’t allow us to enjoy it. The entire area is the Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve and there is a planetarium and observatory which I hope we can go back to on some future trip. For now, we left the slopes of the mountains and crossed the plains to Christchurch on the east coast.

We stayed right in the city center on the edge of the botanical gardens and the River Avon. The city was substantially rebuilt after an earthquake in 2011 destroyed most of the city center. We saw very little damage remaining but there was a special feeling to the city as it was rebuilt quite intentionally.

Rarely does a city find the opportunity to comprehensively reinvent itself. … the city of Christchurch in New Zealand has been presented with just that. … Seeing the enormous opportunity, the local council quickly launched into a process of planning the shape of the new city. International experts were consulted, as were local residents and others. The Share an Idea campaign, an intensive public consultation, generated more than 100,000 ideas for how the city could be rebuilt better and these became the basis for the aspirational draft city plan. This plan was then taken by the government minister through a top-down refinement to create the Recovery Plan or Blueprint. – Building Back Better

The Riverside Market was a quick walk away and home to many food vendors and my top coffee find, Espresso Studio by Fushoken. They make their drinks with triple shots by default which certainly gets you going in the morning.

We had lunch at Ramen Ria and tromped around the city to see a bunch of sights. There were murals all over, reminding us a little of Cardiff’s river side graffiti walk. One of the more remarkable pieces is this section of the Berlin wall which the city commissions artists to repaint on a regular basis.

Soon after the earthquakes a new church was built, the Transitional Cathedral. The architect, Shigeru Ban, decided to use 90 giant cardboard tubes as a visible structure of the walls and ceiling, earning it the nickname of the Cardboard Cathedral. A full wall of colored glass triangles lit the interior giving it a very modern feel.

We hadn’t played a board game in months so went to Dice and Slice and played Boss Monster while enjoying their pizza selection.

Christchurch has a large art museum featuring many local artists. I particularly enjoyed this set of studies done playing with different styles. New Zealand has been so full of enormous, dramatic landscape it was fun to see the inspiration was this one small rock!

We had a good stroll through the Botanical Gardens. We did see some of the punting boats but didn’t get a good photo. I want to go to Oxford or Cambridge now and take a boat ride to see what inspired the boat houses and boats here.

After two days in Christchurch we continued north in one long day to the ferry to Wellington. Kaikoura is about two thirds of the way up the coast and had this outstanding view. Yet another place and time which made us stop to imagine living here.

But, now isn’t the time to settle down so we caught our ferry and watched the sun set as we sailed through the fjords.

We’re nearly done with our travels for now, all that’s left is to visit friends back in Auckland!