Christchurch to Slope Point

After a very cold night in the van and more rain, we woke to cloudy but clearing skies and so following our well rehearsed morning routine of breakfast and packing away the van, we headed along HW8 to Lake Tekapo.  Lake Tekapo was created by an ancient glacier that had originally filled the valley and ground away at the bedrock creating like a flour that now was mixed with the water in the lake giving it an amazing bright turquoise colour.  The lake was surrounded by high mountains still partly snow covered from the winter but the ski season here was well and truly over.  With the sun now choosing to come out we decided to do our first proper hike of the trip, a 3.5 hr round trip up to the summit of Mt John and back around the edge of the lake.  At the top of Mt John was an observatory with its dominating position taking advantage of the clear, non light polluted sky.  Kindly they had also built a small but lovely café which gave us a break from the howling winds that were battering the summit.  We raced down the other side and back to the van as the incoming weather system breached the mountain range to our west and began slowly making its way towards us obscuring everything in its path like something from a Hollywood disaster movie.

The stop for the night was high in the mountains at another DOC (Department of Conservation) site and was our coldest night so far with a night time low of 3degrees.  We wore everything we could and huddled in the centre of the duvet trying to seal out the cold.  As it had been 6 days since our last private campsite and proper shower (excluding our wash down in the Hot Springs) we were in need of a shower and a night out. 

So we headed for Dunedin and as we came over the hill towards the town the predicted heavy rain appeared throwing everything it could at us, even a little sleet!  We headed for the closest campsite to the centre of town, showered and took the bus into the centre.  Dunedin is nestled between grassy hills, watery inlets and with its old stone buildings and at the time the heavy rain, it gave the place a feel of a Scottish town.  It transpired that many of the original emigrants here were from Scotland further adding to it being a little piece of Scotland built on this part of the pretty NZ coast.  Dunedin is also a big university town with most of it seemingly taken over by campus buildings.  The town centre was large with copious numbers of bars with log fires, old stone buildings and a Cadbury’s factory to boot.  The place had a really nice feel about it, much nicer than Christchurch.

We wandered the streets for an hour then found a pub with the obligatory log fire and chilled our cold aching bones whilst partaking in some of the local wines and beers.  Dunedin was another of Emma’s stops on her trip here 8 years ago and she had always talked about a restaurant she had eaten in that had the best lamb she had ever had, so wanting to see if the rumours were true we booked ourselves a table at the Palms restaurant and indeed it had a fabulous lamb dish which we washed down with a cheeky little red from the region.  With the nights still cold and the first powered campsite we had had in a while, we plugged in the fan heater and huddled around it until it was warm enough to go sleep.

Next morning we headed out to a Sea Lion colony at Alan’s Bay on the Otago Peninsula.  On arrival we walked the short distance to the beach and stopped to read a sign about what to do and what not to do around these large creatures.  On looking up and not more than 10m away was a very large male Sea Lion sitting in the sand dunes, almost posing for the camera and seemingly placed there for the tourists!  He seemed unbothered by us and laid back down to get out of the strong coastal wind. 

We made our way carefully around him and continued up the beach to see if we could see any more.  Tracker Codd spotted some flipper prints in the sand and followed them carefully into the dunes.  These creatures are large and can move very quickly when attacking so a metered approach is required when trying to find them.  As I breached the first sand dune, I spotted some waste from one of the little buggers, so I peered around the vegetation and then quickly jumped backwards in fright as one was less than 2m away looking at me as if to say what do you want!  Emma just laughed seeming not to care about the mortal danger I had just been in.  

We then planned one of our now famous detours and instead of a two hour drive to Invercargill we headed 2 days into the Catlins which hugged the coast and offered a much more untouched perspective of New Zealand.  The area was chiefly farmland, but was trying desperately to draw in the tourists many of whom miss the area not even knowing its here.  Our first must see was a large blow hole 200m inland from the sea.  The approach to the blowhole was a 45 minute hike across farmland, and on reaching it there was a viewing platform which offered views of its bottom and the rushing sea water that came in via the ancient lava tube.  The blowhole was big, 50m across and nearly 60m deep so quite impressive and definitely worth the effort.

It was now getting late in the afternoon so with map in hand we made our way to a DOC campsite at Purakaunui Bay.  What all the information failed to tell us about this region was that most of the sights were long distances down gravel roads.  With few options left and experts at off road driving we ignored the advice of our rental representative “No gravel roads” and drove into the bay for the night.  The weather was now truly awful, the worst so far on this trip.  With the temperature down as low as 4d it did not know whether to rain, sleet or snow and at times tried all three on for size with the howling gale just adding to the medley.  To complete the picture the weather would come in bands of about 15 minutes apart that would hurtle up the valley and out to sea which did thankfully allow carefully timed toilet runs.  This was the hardest night in the campervan so far, with everything damp and no way to stay warm we went to bed even earlier than usual and with a hot cup of tea in hand watched the Killing Fields on the laptop (rubbish film by the way).

The next morning the weather had not improved throwing in some hale for good measure which was just as I was trying to take a picture for our loyal readers.  Running back to the van Emma drove up to meet me before the big hunks of ice started to pound the area.  We continued to make our way south but headed back onto the tarmac and stopped at a bible recommendation, the Lost Gypsy Gallery and its attached non child friendly sideshow of “The Winding Thoughts Theatre of Sorts”.  The art/tourist attraction was one mans work and contained all sorts of weird and wonderful machines made out of junk.  The displays were interactive encouraging the visitor to wind the handles or press the buttons of the displays.  The best and most fun was a bicycle powered TV which Emma enjoyed for far too long (its been a long time since she has watched any TV).

With no time to waste our final stop of the Catlins approached, Slope Point.  After our frankly lacklustre attempt to visit the most Northern point of New Zealand we felt we owed it to our legions of loyal readers to do the South properly.  The tourist books all quoted Bluff Point as being most southerly point but after not much research at all we found out that actually Slope Point was the most southerly point of the mainland.  The approach was a van breaking 20km of gravel road and a 30 minute walk from the car park to the point.  The weather was dry at least but was blowing one hell of a gale.  And so on the 20th October at 02:00 GMT we finally reached the southern most point of our journey.  It has taken more than 30,000km (final count still to be done) and some 7 months to complete this journey.  Slope Point was some 50m above the raging Antarctic sea however this did not stop the waves from breaching the top of the cliffs aided and abetted by the wind showering us both in sea water.  This was a proper ocean storm that had been battering New Zealand for nearly a week and we felt extremely fortunate to have seen this place at its best.  The signpost quoted only 4800km to Antarctica, the only place closer or further south (whichever works for you) is in Chile, South America.  After enjoying the complete exposure of this place for a little while longer, we eventually left and for the first time headed north and back towards home!