South Island in Review
Greetings from Beijing with new matching couple shirts 🤮
We are almost done with our round of family visits, then we'll be off to explore on our own again.
This will be our final newsletter on New Zealand, we promise. For this final edition, we made a short video showing what a typical day in the van life was like:
https://youtu.be/M_Fyn3b62uU
And we wrap up with a review / highlight of South Island.
Week 1: Nelson (Jan 25 - Feb 3)
After we crossed the ferry we went to the Marlborough Sounds and stayed at a beautiful campsite. We hear that you can take a mail boat to the islands and there are several workaways, salmon farms and sheep farms in these sounds. We then went off to Nelson where we experienced ZD and that horrible workaway. The volunteers teamed up together after the incident and we have gotten his listing on workaway taken down! Since we left early, we also stopped by Nelson Lakes National Park and Blenheim Marlborough Wineries
Our favorite spots:
Framingham Winery - so good we went back twice. Both of us were not white wine people until New Zealand. Framingham's rieslings changed our minds!
Tahunanui Beach - the beach of Nelson with super warm waters and a beautiful sunset
Cocktails at Kismet Cocktail & Whisky Bar in Nelson
Week 2: Golden Bay and Abel Tasman (Feb 4 - Feb 12)
After Nelson, we spent two days along the Golden Bay coast with the highlight being Wharariki Beach (previously shared as our favorite beach that had gorgeous white sand). We then did a 2 day 2 night hike in the North, less touched, areas of Abel Tasman National Park to Mutton Cove and took a 2 day 1 night kayak trip with Abel Tasman Kayaks. Something we forgot to mention in that newsletter edition is the crazy weka (flightless little birds the size of a chicken) that creep the bushes and beach lines in the park looking for food to steal from backpackers. Any time you aren't watching, they come close to snatch some food, packaged or not, from your bag, tent, or belongings pile. It's a uniquely New Zealand experience to guard your belongings from these little guys.
Our favorite spots:
Wharariki Beach! We can't stop talking about it :)
Abel Tasman National Park - spend half the time walking and the other half kayaking. We recommend Abel Tasman Kayaks for the kayaking tour!
Week 3: Christchurch (Feb 13-19)
After four days in the wild, we headed south towards Kaikoura, where a lot of asian tourists can be found whale, dolphin, and seal watching. It didn't captivate us as we'd hoped so we headed down to Christchurch early and spent a bit longer soaking in city life again.
Our favorite spots:
Ohau Point - a seal colony right off the highway - hundreds and hundreds of seals!
Turanga - epic library mentioned in previous newsletter in the center of Christchurch
Shanghai Restaurant in Riccarton - basically the only really authentic Chinese food we've had in New Zealand. You have to order the sheng jian bao 2 hours in advance but it's absolutely worth it
Week 4: Wanaka (Feb 20 - March 1)
It's a long drive from Christchurch to Wanaka, but there's many amazing sights along the way. Tekapo and Pukaki are both gorgeous bright blue lakes (we liked Pukaki better), and Mt Cook's also really nice. If we had more time, we'd have done the Mueller Hut, which we'd heard was gorgeous. Once we got to Wanaka, we ended up staying a whole week. So many great day hikes in the vicinity.
Our favorite spots:
Hooker Valley Track near Mt Cook
Lake Pukaki
Wanaka everywhere! The Wanaka tree is neat, the lake is gorgeous from every angle, the town is quaint. Roy's Peak is a must do
Rob Roy's Glacier. The drive there is a bit rough, but the view at the very top is worth it
Week 5: Great Walks and Milford Sound (March 2 - March 14)
Before our Great Walks, we stopped for a quick day in Queenstown (where we filmed the above video), the Central Otago wine region, and Glenorchy. Glenorchy's a tiny town we stayed in for the convenience of being right outside our hike, but we were surprised by the eco resort we stayed at, Camp Glenorchy, and would go again just to stay there. They're Net Zero certified, which means they use composting toilets and a meet bunch of other crazy sustainability metrics, yet the place was so homey and comfortable. It really opened our eyes to what sustainability can be like. You can see and read more about it here.
Routeburn Track we ended up getting zero views. It was still a nice trek through the fog. After, our friends Alice and Lori-Ann came to join us the rest of the week!
Milford Sound we found to be overrated, at least from the views on a boat in the sound. The epic views we think are from above, so that's probably why Milford Track is the most hyped track, and you have to book it right when it becomes available for the next year.
Kepler Track was absolutely stunning, we couldn't be happier with the views we got. After we needed a few days to recover our legs.
Our favorite spots:
Ferg Burger in Queenstown. Some on the internet claim it's the best burger in the world. It's quite good
Mt Difficulty winery - our favorite red
Kepler Track - you have to book it months in advance / be very prepared!
Camp Glenorchy
Week 6: Christchurch again (March 15 - 22)
We came back to Christchurch again to sell our car. We ended up being a few blocks away from one of the shootings when it happened, and drove to our campsite for safety... which ended up being a few blocks from the other shooting. But luckily we were safe and didn't encounter any danger. The atmosphere was morose around town the days following, and it was all people talked about. Despite not being locals, we were very proud of the government's swift action and hopefully nothing like this can happen again there!
We revisited our favorites from the previous visit (the Shanghai restaurant x 2, the library x 3) but also explored some new stuff, and best of all we found a loving new home for our Red Rover!
Our favorite spots:
Little High Eatery - food court with great restaurants and vibes. We particularly liked Eightgrains there
Steampunk Laboratory - very hip and casual Korean restaurant owned by a cute couple. The little alcove it's situated has other cool restaurants and art
Willowbank Wildlife Reserve - went for the kiwis, came out wonderfully surprised by everything else we saw as well. Keas (pictured left) are frightening. Our friend described them as "parrots that drank too much whisky"
And that's it for New Zealand! Stay tuned, we're excited to share all our learnings about China after this.
Onwards,
Ivy & Owen