Day 14: Queenstown

It’s been an easy past few days here on the south island, though nonetheless enjoyable. We did some whale watching in Kaikoura and saw a sperm whale, which is the largest toothed whale. It’s quite lucky if you see one since they dive for 45 minutes at a time and only come up to the surface for about 5-10 minutes before diving again. We also saw albatross, dusky dolphins, and a fur seal. Andy got some good photos of the whale but I have no photos worth sharing :(

Hey, you broke one!

We drove further south to Hanmer Springs, which is a small town built around more thermal pools, but I opted for a pedicure at the spa instead since most of the cool pools were under construction. We then spent the night in Christchurch, which I would have liked to explore more than we did but we had a long drive ahead of us the next day to Dunedin. We stopped in Moeraki to see the famous Moeraki boulders, which are these almost spherical stones that roll slowly (geologically slow) down from the bluffs into the sea. We had a perfectly lovely lunch at Fleur’s in Moeraki, which is the first really nice meal we’ve had since we arrived. The restaurant was made out of reclaimed wood and was built to look like a French farmhouse. The food was unexpectedly beautiful, given the rather shabby town that the restaurant is in. On our way out we got stuck due to a house being moved in on the one narrow road that leads in and out of town. Housemoving seems to be much more common here than at home…it wasn’t even a very nice house.

Fleur's place - in Moeraki, not a village in France

A lovely lunch

We made our way through Dunedin to the Otago Peninsula, where we had been greatly looking forward to staying at the Kaimata Retreat. The property did not disappoint and exceeded our expectations. It’s situated in a pocket of bush that overlooks the Papanui inlet which, if it’s not already, seems to act as a preserve for various birds and marine life, including penguins. We didn’t get to see any, but the other guests said they were all over the coastline. We soaked in the scenery until it got dark, then spent the evening by the fire with a bottle of wine. The next morning Chef Pedro served us an amazing breakfast which we really appreciated after having alternated between toast and cereal almost every morning since we arrived. This place really is special. If we ever come back to New Zealand, and I hope we do, we will definitely be spending more time at the Kaimata Retreat.

A New Zealand fur seal

The next morning we took a nature tour on the Otago Peninsula which was also very special. The tour is operated by a family that owns a significant piece of land on the peninsula of which they use half to raise sheep, and the other half they treat as a nature preserve. The portion used for conservation has been virtually untouched by humans for decades since, before they owned it, it was a military base during WWII, which saw no action. Our guide drove us around in an Argo which is like a heavy-duty golf cart with eight wheels that can handle any terrain. It even floats on water. We got very close to a large group of fur seals, which dozens of cute pups learning to swim in the shallow pools. We saw cormorants, which were nesting with their chicks in the rocky cliff, and got to see the rarest penguin on earth, the yellow-eyed penguin. They’re super shy and nervous about everything, so we couldn’t take photos. Even the slightest click from the camera would send them into a frightened panic such that they may abandon their eggs, further contributing to their severely endangered status. Since they’re so shy, they don’t nest on beaches where humans go and only live in a single latitudinal position on the globe. Even in zoos, they hide from everything so most people will never get to see a yellow-eyed penguin, even if they try. We feel very lucky to have seen them at all.

The little vehicle that can do it all

We didn’t want to leave the Otago Peninsula but our itinerary led us back into Dunedin where we stopped at the Cadbury factory for a few minutes to try a few samples, then continued southwest to Queenstown. It was a long drive but we made it just in time (actually we were 5 minutes late but the people here are so nice they let us go anyway) to do the luge. We took the super steep gondola up to the top of the mountain and raced down the luge twice. It was a draw, with us each winning one race each. Unfortunately when we came back down the mountain we found out that our whitewater rafting trip had been cancelled since no one else had booked the tour. They offered to put us on another tour with higher level rapids but reason prevailed and we decided to find something else to do. We would have been bummed but the more we thought about it the less excited we were about possibly reliving the terror that we experienced on the Kauri Coast. As an alternative, I decided that I would go whole hog and try skydiving instead. The universe had other plans, though, and today it was so windy that the planes could not take off. Oh well….it seems there will be no adventure for us but at least we’re $400 richer. More to come!

 

At the top of the Skyline Gondola in Queenstown