New Zealand road diaries

4.10.2010 | Day 65 | 31 969 km | Auckland, New Zealand


Day 1: Auckland - Hamilton - New Plymouth
Road km’s: 0 - 427 km

Finally! Probably the most anticipated part of our journey for me, a proper road trip in New Zealand. After a sleepless night in Melbourne airport and after a sleepless flight to Auckland it might have not been the best idea to jump behind the wheel, but the arrangements were already done, so there was no getting out of this now. We picked our car keys from the airport and were greeted by a really fine lady dressed in black and wore nice 18-inch hi-heels, and the suspension felt pretty good too! In other words, we found that our car was a special version of Ford Falcon V6, which was a nice surprise.

After concentrating again to use the left lanes instead of right, we started driving south towards Hamilton. Since last three cities we have been in have had a F1 track and New Zealand doesn’t have one, we still wanted to keep the motorsport theme going, hit the right turn signal on and steered off the highway about 50 km after Auckland. This time, it was time to check out what Rally New Zealand looks like. We made our way to the special stage Franklin, used in this year’s event and found out that the roads are pretty much the same than in Rally Finland but just a little bit slower... And with a spectacular scenery! Even though our lady was not prepared for this kind of gravel action in those high heels, it was a thrill to drive those roads.

Rally New Zealand SS11 Franklin

At some point we found the main highway again and cruised to Hamilton to eat and find sleeping bags for the next night. We decided to head west to New Plymouth, from where it would be an easy drive in the morning to Wellington, most southern city in the northern island. At some point the sun set, Aleksi fell asleep and I was having a real tough time to keep concentrated after a sleepless night. But well before New Plymouth, the road started to cross a mountain and became really twisty. And here it happened; The driver and the car became one as I drove through the hairpins, ups and downs and tight chicanes. Our lady behaved like a dream through every corner and I was able to stay awake easily. Finally reaching the lights of New Plymouth, I stopped the car to a rest area and thought that I haven’t had this much fun driving a car in a long, long time…

Day 2: New Plymouth - Wellington - SOUTH ISLAND - Christchurch
Road km’s: 427 - 1293 km

A rooster. Again and again and again. That was what I heard 5 am, waking up in a really chilly car after another night I should have slept better. No farms nearby, just a rooster in the middle of the woods waking us up. After 6 am I decided that it’s enough, got out of the sleeping bag and behind the wheel again. It was time to catch our ferry to South Island from Wellington. We stuck strictly to the main roads to avoid any delays and the drive was pretty smooth, but tiring. In Wellington we were greeted by Mother Earth by heavy rain, but we managed to find the ferry terminal and said goodbye to our great lady Falcon, as in NZ you can’t drive a rental car across the islands.

I had a brilliant plan of sleeping through the three hour ferry ride, but my plans weren’t exactly the same as the ferry staff thought. As soon as the ferry left the terminal, they started playing movies with pretty much max volume, making sleeping impossible. So, instead of watching sweet dreams, I saw a Sandra Bullock movie. Oh well…

Arriving to Picton in the South Island, we got a shuttle to rental companies to pick up our next car. A slight disappointment, since this time we saw a girl pretty much dressed in a basic grey sweatpants and flat shoes; Our car turned from a special edition to the cheapest Falcon there is for sale. Still, a V6 engine made at least me happy.

Amazing scenery from a car or from a train

Another 400 km to go before a hostel this time in Christchurch. At first it was excellent fun to drive along the east coast roads with the Pacific Ocean and snow-topped mountains in the same view, with great slow turns hugging the coastline. But, now with one night totally without sleep and another in a cold car with rooster sounds included, after the sun set again it became really tough to drive. Lights of the oncoming traffic blinding me and constant 100 km/h was not good for general awareness, but I decided that if I really felt that I couldn’t drive properly, I would just stop. In the end it was not far away, but we finally arrived at 10 pm to Christchurch and found our place to stay. A quick shower and straight to sleep, that was not a hard task to do!

Day 3: Christchurch - Arthur’s Pass - Greymouth - Hokitika
Road km’s: 1293 - 1600 km

Alarm clock woke us up 11 hours later and finally we had the sleep we were looking for. This day would be so much easier. We also had no hurry, since we “only” had to cross the Southern Alps to the west coast and reach a city called Greymouth. But first, it was time to look what Christchurch looked like since the big earthquakes hit it just few weeks ago. I was surprised to find out that business was mostly as usual with no sign of the catastrophe happened earlier. But, as we drove around the city we found out that whole blocks had been closed from the traffic and demolition workers were tearing up the ruins of some buildings here and there. They have a long way to go before everything is like it was earlier…

We also drove the local Mulholland Drive, which had really narrow mountain roads with no railings separating our car and the huge drop down. That’s something what keeps your speed to minimum! If you ask me, this road beats the original Mulholland Drive with a long margin.

After a breakfast in town it was time to check out what Arthur’s Pass looked like. Only under 300 km drive, but crossing the Alps is not something you can do every day. Just as we started climbing uphill for the first time, it started raining. The weather looked really nice when we started from Christchurch, but obviously mountain weather is a completely different thing. It was not normal rain, but like if a kid was playing with shower controls; Sometimes it rained a lot, sometimes none and all the differences between. But who’d think about the rain, when you have such views in front of you. This is the motherland for road trips, these views will take your breath away.

Driving up to Arthur's Pass

Hi there!

While descending on the other side, we stopped to a scenic outlook to take photos of the road and scenery, when we saw three parrots just waiting in the parking lot. When we stopped our car, one of the parrots jumped to the roof and started eating window seals and looked inside like saying “wazaaaaa!” at the same time. Strange I thought, but later on I found out that these are Kea’s and it’s strictly forbidden to feed them, as they come more and more dependant of these tourist snacks. We’re glad we didn’t and I guess the window seals were not exactly what the bird was looking for.

We arrived Greymouth earlier than we thought, so we hit a local bar and played few rounds of pool and had half pint of beers. I was curious if it were legal to drink one beer and drive afterwards, so I asked the people in the bar: “Can I drive after drinking beer”? My wording was not quite what I tried to ask, so a helpful middle-aged guy answered: “Well, it all depends how much you have eaten. I’d say after three or four beers you’re still ok”. Eh… I got the feeling drunk driving is not that uncommon in the small cities of New Zealand.

We ended our day continuing just a little forward to Hokitika and found another place to park our car middle of nowhere and get in to our sleeping bags. At this point it felt like a moderately good idea.

Day 4: Hokitika - Franz Josef - Queenstown
Road km’s: 1600 - 2085 km

No roosters making sounds in the morning. That was a good thing. Unfortunately, that was the only good thing happening around that time. Temperature had decreased to freakin’ freezing number, only 4 degrees outside! And that was pretty much what it was inside the car as well and that was the point I realized that sleeping in a car during New Zealand springtime is doomed to fail.

Franz Josef Glacier

After a half hour of trying to get the moisture off the car windows inside, we started driving towards to Queenstown. Pretty soon we crossed a place called Franz Josef and just afterwards there was a sign of “Franz Josef Glacier”, so we decided to take a peek what’s there to see. We ended up doing an one hour walking trip to see a glacier, a frozen stream coming down from a snowy mountain. It was amazing sight to see, but also so freakishly cold… Until the sun started warming us up behind the mountains. Sun is not the same what it is during winters in Finland, here, you can actually end up being hot and cold at the same time. Being in the sun makes you almost sweat and going to the shadows makes you freeze totally. It’s a real weird feeling, as in our home the sun just isn’t that hot under same circumstances.

The rest of the trip was crossing the Alps once again. Well, again is not exactly the right word since at least I probably wouldn’t never get tired to see these sights and drive these twisty roads, there’s not anything that could make road tripping here dull, not even a really bad night of sleep or rainy days. After a thousand turns and a thousand sheep beside the roads we ended our day to Queenstown into a hostel and had a relaxing evening. After the first tough days of the trip, we’ve had some excellent itineraries and not drive too much in one day.

A turn after a turn... And lovin' every one of them

Day 5: Queenstown - Manapouri - Te Anau
Road km’s: 2085 - 2356 km

Really, really cold at the top of The Remarkables

This day was the shortest of the whole trip looking at kilometers to drive, so we thought in the morning why keep it that way? First stop we decided to do was to drive to a ski center up the mountains called The Remarkables. The name itself was enough to get me up there, but the drive was worth anyways. It was different this time though, since paved roads ended exactly when we turned off from the highway. The climb was only 10 km in length, but we ascended from 300 meters to 1 600 meters during the drive. At some point it started to look like a dumb plan with summer tires and a rear-wheel drive, while all other cars going up or down were AWD’s. Not to mention once again missing railings to keep us from tumbling 1 km downhill… But, the roads were in good enough condition and we made it all the way up to find out that it was the coldest place yet, a whopping zero degrees Celsius.

We made another stop that made our journey to Te Anau longer as we drove to Lake Manapouri to take some photos. At this point I have to mention how amazed we have been of the waters in New Zealand. It’s so clear absolutely everywhere that you feel that it’s almost drinkable. It’s truly fantastic to see all the river streams or lakes as you can see the bottom through the waters easily. This, I have never seen anywhere…

Te Anau itself doesn’t offer much, so we checked in to our hostel and again relaxed the evening and set our sights to the spectacle of this journey: Milford Sound.

Day 6: Te Anau - Milford Sound - Bluff - Invercargill
Road km’s: 2356 - 2855 km

We checked out from our hostel 8.30 am and set our sights for Milford Sound. All guides said the drive would be 2,5 hours, but thanks to my happy gas pedal feet, we actually did the trip in 1,5 hours… Road to the spectacular Milford was very cool to drive and offered some great photo stops along the way, but the jackpot was in the end of the road; We decided to take a 2,5 hour cruise through the fiord all the way to Tasman Sea and back. All I can say is that nature has some very, very nice things to offer when you decide to explore them! And at last we got real lucky with the weather, as it rains 200/365 days in Milford and today it was totally cloudless and beautiful day. We really enjoyed our cruise, as it brought some difference to the road trip and offered those beautiful mountains, waterfalls and couple of seals were also kind enough to pose for us.

After the cruise was over, it was time for our last journey, all the way south that is possible on the mainland. For a change, the landscape turned totally flat and we drove through a thousand lamb farms and finally reached the most south town, Bluff. I have never been this far away from home, it was exactly 17 103 kilometers from my home in Jyvaskyla, Finland. After trying to put these numbers into perspective, we drove a bit back to Invercargill, found a nice enough place to stay for a night and parked our car. The next day was only about driving 10 km’s to the local airport and catch a flight to Auckland via Christchurch.

This six day road trip was all that I hoped for. I set the bar high for New Zealand before the trip, but everything was even better. Pretty much every day was amazing with the landscape changing and being beautiful all the time. We had some trouble with coldness, but really… Who remembers it now? We don’t, since the drive was totally worth it. I guess the photos tell the story what kind of a traveller’s land New Zealand is. And here's few from the Milford Sound and it's surroundings, no captions necessary.