April Adventures, Part One

As I've said, the first few posts will attempt to provide you, the intrepid reader, with a summary of what's been going on in the first few months of my New Zealand adventure. Next up, the first of a two-part look at April, the busiest month yet.

Coming off the back off a much more interesting March, I was really looking forward to April. After the first week, school was off for a two week break in which I would be packing in a whole lot of adventure/touring/driving/assorted other activities. It is the first week of April and the first week of break that I will be looking at in this post.

First up was an April Fool's Day adventure into the mouth of an active supervolcano. I rented gear from the local lava surfing shop, hopped on the bus and was off into a truly exhilarating experience...

Not really.

APRIL FOOLS! (retroactively applied, due to the fact I didn't prank anyone on the day itself :()

View of the cliffs on the way down. Not pictured: sheep
giving birth all over the place

What I ACTUALLY did on April 1st was head down to one of the most picturesque spots I'd been to yet: Tunnel Beach. Located on the outskirts of Dunedin on the Pacific Coast, Tunnel Beach is a private beach (shocker) created sometime before I was born (in the 1800's maybe? who knows) by James William Larnarch John Cargill, a local politician. The story goes that his daughters wanted a place to go swimming apart from all the 19th century peasants milling about, so Pops blasted a tunnel through a rock wall down to a secluded beach. The effect is simply stunning. To get to the beach you first walk down through farmers fields (the track is closed form August to October, due to baby lambs being born all over the place. Seriously) and down on to some seaside cliffs. From there, you can wander around the tops of the cliffs before heading down to the beach. The area is incredibly picturesque and it was well worth the trip to see it, and as an added bonus, I didn't fall off any cliffs to a watery/explodey death. 

As close to the edge as my mother can handle.

Tunnel to the beach. Bet Cargill would have been pissed
if he'd known a peasant like me was using it.

More rocks! From the beach this time though.

Our backpackers in Invercargill. Sadly, none of these
beasts were to be found inside.

Following that, I managed to muddle my way through a week of classes before it was time for the first big trip - off to Stewart Island! New Zealand's third largest island, it's located off the bottom of the South Island and is more or less a giant nature reserve (only 400 people live on the island, and it takes an hour ferry crossing to get there). A whole pile of us left Dunedin Sunday afternoon and spent the night in beautiful Invercargill. From there, we took a bus to the ferry Monday morning, and were on the island at about noon. I should mention at this point that the purpose of this trip was to walk the Rakiura (Maori name for Stewart Island meaning  "Land of the Glowing Skies") Track, one of NZ's 10 "Great Walks." 

Last look at the South Island on the way across the Foveaux
Strait to Stewart Island

Start of the Rakiura Track on Tuesday morning.

We began the track bright and early Tuesday morning, and walked a little over 25km along the beach, through lush rainforest and along ridges and hilltops up to 400 metres high. It was a tiring but amazing day, the scenery was like nothing I'd ever seen before, but I was glad to make it to the hut for a wee bit of a rest. Wednesday was a much shorter day in terms of walking distance (a little over 12km if I remember correctly), but no less impressive, as we walked along inland bays and more picturesque forest stuff. Wednesday night (and Monday night too I guess) were spent in Stewart Island's only town, Oban, a nice little community with all the amenities required for a comfortable stay (a pub. that's all that's required). We were up early on Thursday to catch the ferry back across the Foveaux Strait, and onto the next phase of the break's adventures: the South Island Road Trip, aka "the SIRT" (I'll work on a better name for it).

Under the chain linking Stewart to the South Island.
(Note: not a real chain.)

A SHRUBBERY!

View from the hut at the end of the first day.

Hammer Bro.

Finished! *puts on belt

Leaving Oban Thursday morning. Notice how the sun
still isn't up, but I'm still able to operate a camera.

Do check back at some point in the future for a recap of the SIRT, but I can tell you it will not be my next post. I'll be taking a brief break from the monotony of writing about what I've done to post the first in what will (hopefully) be a weekly series. Topic's a secret for now though, you'll have to check back for what it might be about...


Dave