Travelling around New Zealand
New Zealand has around 11,300 miles of coastline and there are some 3,820 lakes with a surface area larger than 2 acres. During my tiki tour I travelled to the Stewart Island / Rakiura, the third largest island of New Zealand lying 20 miles south off the South Island. Over the previous few weeks a number of locals had asked whether I suffered from sea sickness whenever I mentioned that I was going to the Stewart Island. So I was a bit nervous when I arrived in Bluff for the one hour crossing by catamaran, but the sea was perfectly calm and we even stopped part way across to watch an albatross sitting on the water. The return journey a few days later wasn’t as calm and at times it felt as if the sea was going over the top of the catamaran. About three quarters of the passengers were ill – thankfully I wasn’t one of them. On our arrival back in Bluff I asked one of the staff to rate the journey and she gave it a 5 out of 10 rating regarding the rough conditions. I was surprised by this until she explained her reasons why in that none of the staff were ill and they could still move around the boat to attend to the sick passengers – they were amazing at this and looked after everyone. Here are just a few of the transport and activities that take place on the water.
The following slide show contains images of various water activities on Lake Wakatipu at Queenstown, known as the adventure capital of the world.
One of the most amazing journeys I had was a flight out of the Milford Sound which takes around half an hour and covers 44 miles, an alternative to the 180 mile, 4 hour road journey. The views from the plane over the Fiordland national park are stunningly beautiful and really help to put Milford Sound into context. It is one of fourteen fiords and the only one accessible by road.
The roads in New Zealand can be narrow and windy, mostly single lane in each direction, sometimes gravel and sometimes on sand. The 90 mile beach at the top of the North Island is so hardened that you can drive on it (although most hire cars aren’t insured for this). I took the option of a coach tour to visit it – I never imagined I would be in a coach travelling on a beach and venturing into the Tasman Sea. Travelling on the amphibious Duck vehicle in Rotorua was another unusual experience. The duck takes you to three lakes in the Rotorua area.
During the course of my tiki tour, I travelled on the TranzAlpine train from Christchurch to Greymouth and back again. The journey runs through 140 miles of the South Island’s rugged scenery, taking almost 5 hours each way. I took the Coastal Pacific from Christchurch to Picton which is 216 miles long and takes just over 5 hours. The route had been damaged during the Kaikoura earthquake in 2016 and had only been reopened a couple of weeks before I travelled. This was a wonderful journey, the views along the coast were stunning and I even saw a pod of dolphins swimming along the coast. I also took the Northern Explorer from Wellington to Auckland, a journey that travels 423 miles and takes around 11 hours. On each of these three train journeys there is an open air viewing carriage and this is where I spent most of the journeys. Driving Creek Railway on the Coromandel Peninsula is a private railway built by a potter who used it to transport clay and pine wood fuel for his kiln in the 1970s. The narrow gauge 15 inch track, with tunnels, spirals and a double-deck viaduct, zig-zags uphill with inclines as steep as 1 in 14 to the Eyeful Tower, a wooden terminus and viewing platform with gorgeous views of the Firth of Thames.
