Me and Carole decided to take a rest day from snowboarding so we tried going down to Doubtful Sound, only to find that there's only one cruise a day and it leaves at sparrows!! Go have a look at Carole's site for the story
So now I'm in Wanaka for the snowboarding season, its pretty cool, I've met more Irish here than New Zealanders, Orla, Mel, Carole, Sean, Neal and then Kev and Micheal are coming too, should be tonnes of fun. I'll have to get some good pics up. I'm busy practicing riding switch and working on a 180 jump at the moment.
I have now officially been further south than I have ever been before. I went to slope point which is past 45 degrees south, so I was closer to the south pole than the equator. While I was there I met these 3 girls there, 2 New Zealanders taking their friend from Canada on a siteseeing trip. I took Froggit out to take a photo for the lads in Ireland and they thought he was pretty cool, I think Froggit got more attention than I did. The Canadian girl aked to get a photo with me, so we got one of me and her with Froggit sitting on her head, it was funny. I stopped off at the petrified forest at Curio Bay and Purakanui Falls before driving back to Wanaka. I couldn't wait any longer to go snowboarding.
Next journey for me and my rental was to head South and follow the coast past the southern most point of New Zealand. I found this cool place called Cosy Nook. One of the explorers Captain Goerge Thompson I think retired here about 100 years ago after his world exploration expeditions and named this place after his home in Scotland Cozy Nuek, its a tiny little rocky cove just big enough for 4 fishing boats and a handful of tiny cottages for the fishermen. While I was wondering around there exploring the beach and scrambling over the rockpools I wondered if anyone lived in those cottages and when I was back in the car looking for a hostel in Riverton I wondered what kind of stories they might have to tell. The backpackers in Riverton was cool and fitted in with the area with a kitchen filled with antiques and a wood burner stove. Sitting there trying to figure out how to get the oven working I felt like I had been driven back in time and the biggest thing going was the sheep farming. They put an oil heater in my room and it looked like I had the entire old house to my self, a little creepy. Later on I headed downstairs to the pub expecting to see a few locals sitting at the bar, but instead I found the 3 german guys who shared a dorm room with me the night before up in Te Anau who were supposed to be fishing up there. After finding the rental of the fishing gear too expensive for a backpackers budget they decided to head south and ended up in the same backpackers as me. How cool is that! The only other 2 people in the pub was the bar lady and Mark Young, who actually lives in one of those tiny cottages back in Cosy Nook, and he invited us to go visit him the next day for a cup of tea. So next day me, Florien, Simon and Sebastion met Mark at his cottage for tea, that he made in his 100 year old tea pot and told us stories. On the way there Simon told me about a Honda tv advert that he had worked on that started with a guy riding a classic honda motorbike and changes to more modern bike riding in a different country, but that classic bike was filmed riding along a dirt road in front of this tiny little Cove in the South of New Zealand somewhere and Mark had told him the night before that it was filmed in front of his house, but Simon couldn't believe it until we crossed the cattlegrid and went round the bend onto the dirt road with Cosy Nook popping up infront of us and it looked exactly like the spot where the ad was filmed. We had a pretty cool day, Gyro, as Mark is called by his mates, took us around to his local pub for fresh Blue Cod and chips for lunch. It was funny, when we walked into the pub everyone greeting him by name and he introduced us to the bar lady, while one of the locals was talking about a world record that he was part of when working on this sheep sheering farm. After lunch Mark offered me and Simon a job working for his company designing websites. Not what I was expecting at all, how cool is that. Pitty I'm not looking for work at the moment. We finished the day off by driving onto this beach near Monkey Island with the sun setting over the snowy mountains on the other side of the bay reflecting a rainbow of colours off of the wet sand with the waves crashing in front of us. Just an incredible day.
When I was staying at the hostel in Milford Sound I met Laura and Stuart from Eyr in Scotland who were also planning on doing some hiking around Te Anua, so I told them about the Keplar trail that Mel had told me about and we decided to do part of the hike. The full Keplar trail is about a 4 day hike with 3 mountain hut along the way that you can stay in, but this time of year it gets really icy past the first hut so after checking the weather forecast a few times in the DOC centre in Te Anau, we decided to hikeup to the first hut, spend the night and hike back down. I was really excited my first multi day hike and I've been wanting to do one scince I was 12! We packed our bags and set off on our adventure carrying all our gear. It was a really cool hike, but its hard work carrying those packs, I think I'm going to wait till the summer before doing my next one and hopefully I won't have to carry so much gear. The trail is really good, you start by going along the shore of Lake Te Anau before hiking up through a thick rainforest and then by the end of the afternoon you pop out through the top of the tree line and all the green ferns are replaced by white snow. I heard the sunrise from the top is meant to be spectacular so I got up early to watch, its was freezing cold and the old wood burner stove was tiny, but it was worth it and one of the best ways to start a day
Okay, this is going back a bit, but I thought it was worth putting up here. When I was in Melbourne staying on the docklands there was a Real Pirate ship docked there, with the Jolly Roger flying and everything. So of course I had to go find out what this was all about. Turns out its a real Jolly Roger, and they are real pirates and the big gash in the side of the Robert Hunter (their ship) is not for dramatic affect, but from ramming whaling ships. These guys are greenpeace with a vengance and have sunk a few illeagal whaling ships already, I saw the photos, but nobody will press charges against them cause they're doing something to stop the whaling and illegal fishing like pulling up illegal nets. They call their organisation Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, you can check out their website if you want to find out more www.seashepherd.org I can't remember the name of these fishing lines that they pull up, but they're kilometres long with a hook about every foot and they just float round the sea, and half of them are lost catching bigger fish and mamals and birds and just causing havock. One of the founders asked the government to charge him with something for publicity so they deported him. They asked me if wanted to join them, to be a pirate, but if figured I'd better know something about sailing on the sea before I join them, would definatly have been a cool adventure.
Imagine you're on a boat, in a massive inlet from the sea, and all the coast line is covered in thick rainforest. Now imagine those rainforests are practially growing on the side of cliffs. Now imagine those cliffs rising 1692m up to snow capped peaks, almost vertical the whole way!!
That's where I've been staying for the last 3 days, well not the boat bit, but 5 mins down the road. I'd post a photo, but this PC doesn't have USB. Brian you were right, I would love it here in Milford Sound. Its awesome. I'll try get some pics up for you guys. Think I'm going to spend the day exploring the rest of the Valley.