Albatrosses and Blue Penguins

Today I'm going to finish telling you about our road trip together with Giigan's parents Eeva-Inkeri and Jaakko. Last time I left us in Queenstown, which was more or less only a eat-well-and-get-a-good-night's-sleep stop for us. The following morning we continued to Te Anau and Milford Sound, which we've already told you about. We were supposed to go on a cruise on Doubtful Sound the very next day (11th March), but a problem had occured with the operator's ship, so the cruise got cancelled. At first we were a bit annoyed by this unfortunate turn of events, but we quickly recovered and came up with alternative plans, mainly to the benefit of our distinguished guests.

While Giigan and I laboured in the kitchen of our hostel, earning remarks like "that's the best meal I've ever seen cooked at a backpackers'", Eeva-Inkeri and Jaakko went on a half-day tour to the Manapouri underground powerstation (more on it in a later blog post). In the evening, with only minutes to spare, we had time to drive them to the Te Anau cinema screening an exclusive 30 minute scenic film giving a unique bird's eye perspective of the Southwest corner of NZ, before rushing them to a tour of the glowworm caves in Te Anau. A few speed limits might have been broken that day, but I dare say a day can't be much more successful than that.

Ready for a day on the road.

Leaving Te Anau the next day, we drove to rainy Invercargill, where we quenched our thirst at the Invercargill Brewery and visited the Southland Museum. Most of the daylight left was spent driving to Dunedin, where we stayed the night. Fortunately the weather cleared up the next morning, and we had a great time showing the Otago Peninsula to Jaakko and Eeva-Inkeri. At the Albatross Centre on the tip of the peninsula, we even saw a couple of Royal Albatrosses lazily soar past. Mine and Giigan's highlight was visiting the Emerson's brewery, whose Pilsner was the first organic beer in NZ. Emerson's beers remain some of our absolute favourites over here.

Good times in Dunedin.

After a brief visit to Baldwin Street - allegedly the steepest street in the world - we left Dunedin and headed for Oamaru. We've written about Oamaru and Dunedin before, so I won't go into much detail again. Suffice it to say, that in Oamaru we visited the Blue Penguin colony. Blue Penguins are also called Little Penguins, because they don't grow taller than 25-40 cm. Their eyes and backsides are a beautiful blue color. They're quite charming creatures. For $20 you can watch them from a gallery as they come home just after sunset. Watching their arrival is very enchanting, partly because they behave so adorably.

In Oamaru the penguins have to climb a rocky ramp out of the water and cross a gravel walking track in order to reach their colony, comprising some 20 burrows on a green lawn. If this doesn't sound scary enough, most of the time there's a fur seal or two dozing not far away on the gravel track. Luckily for the blue penguins, NZ fur seals, contrary to leopard seals for instance, don't find the penguins to be any kind of culinary delight.

The penguins who are coming home for the night won't all arrive at the same time. Since they don't like moving alone over scary terrain on land, they'll wait for a few buddies to arrive before attempting to cross the gravel track. Even in numbers, scuttling the 3 or 4 metres from the edge of the ramp to the relative safety of the lawn, is no trivial undertaking. The group of four or so penguins will hesitate just on the edge of the gravel track, backtrack, inch a few feet forward, repeat, and wait for a leader that won't arrive, sometimes for a surprisingly long time. A serious attempt to cross is usually a result of the other penguins shoving one to the head of the pack, or everyone except one taking a step back. Once some penguins start crossing though, the whole business is over in just a few seconds, as no one wants to be left behind or be the last.

Something of a joke on the road to the penguin colony.

Watching this is very comical. Sorry to dissapoint you though: no pictures were allowed to be taken of the penguins, not even without a flash (thanks to all Asian tourists who can't operate their cameras properly). Here's an external picture of some blue penguins if you're curious as to their appearance.

Our last full day (14th March) in the company of Giigan's parents was spent walking along said gravel track that the penguins were afraid to cross, visiting the other attractions in Oamaru (Whitestone cheese factory, NZ Malt Whisky Company, Victorian-style buildings, etc.) and driving back to Christchurch. In the evening we celebrated the successful road trip at the Italian restaurant Cafe Valentino, eating and drinking like kings and queens one last time (kova paluu arkeen koitti meitä tämän jälkeen...).

The chefs at Cafe Valentino know how to put a smile on Giigan's face.

Many thanks to Eeva-Inkeri and Jaakko for visiting us here on the other side of the world. We enjoyed every second of your visit!

MORE PICTURES are available through this link.

Christchurch to Queenstown in a day

Today I'm going to try and keep the blog post fairly short, the topic being the road between Christchurch and Queenstown and the main attractions on the way. We've driven this road several times, in both directions, most recently with Giigan's parents in March. After the transalpine train journey to Greymouth on the West Coast, we traversed the 490 kms from Chch to Qtown in just one day together with them.

We left Christchurch early in the morning, just before 8 am, and arrived at our first stop at around 11 am. This was Lake Tekapo. Lake Tekapo is perhaps most well known for its small stone church, the Church of the Good Shepherd, overlooking a heavenly panorama of turqouise water and jagged mountainridges. On a clear day, with the mountaintops covered by shining snow, it's probably one of the most peaceful views on Earth. No wonder the church sports a 1,5 by 3 metre window towards the lake instead of an altar painting.

Lake Tekapo.

If Lake Tekapo is just a brief stop-over, a visit to the church and a coffee at one of the cafes in the village will suffice, but if you have a couple of hours, or a day, there are many walking tracks around the lake. A brand new spa has also been recently constructed on the outskirts of the village right next to the lake. It's actually very good. Giigan and I can totally recommend the sauna and the cold water pool.

20 kms after Lake Tekapo you'll drive past Lake Pukaki, from where you have a clear view across 50 kms of lake water towards the highest mountain in NZ: Aoraki/Mt Cook (3754 m). We had a pot of luck handed to us when driving past with Giigan's parents, as the weather was quite clear and we could see the top of the mountain. Aoraki was at its best; giving testimony to its Maori name, meaning "Cloud Piercer". It is possible to drive to the foot of the mountain and go hiking in the national park (which Giigan has done), but we didn't have time for that with Jaakko and Eeva-Inkeri. We had to be happy with just the mesmerizing view.

Aoraki/Mt Cook - "Cloud Piercer".

Wanaka is a largish town about an hour's drive before Queenstown. In many ways it resembles Queenstown - it also lies by a beautiful lake surrounded by high mountain peaks - but is a lot more tranquil than the never-sleeping party town. A must-visit is the Rippon vineyard, and it's not just for the free tastings. The vineyard not only produces some of the best wines in the country, it also occupies one of the most amazing spots overlooking Wanaka, the lake and the crown of mountains shredding the horizon. On a sunny day, it's the perfect spot to enjoy a bottle of wine and a platter of cheese - which we did!

The Rippon vineyard in Wanaka.

On a previous visit to Wanaka Giigan and I visited the Wanaka Beerworks brewery, which is located by the airstrip out of town. How we found out about this brewery is in fact a funny story. In short, it goes something like this: In February when we were still on the North Island driving from Taranaki to Wellington, we picked up a flyer in a town called Whanganui. We thought the brewery was located there and followed the instructions on the flyer to drive to "the airport 6 km out of town". Well, we found the airport next to Whanganui, but no brewery was in sight. Then we started looking at the road number on the flyer. It didn't match any around Whanganui. Then we looked up where a town called Wanaka is in our Lonely Planet. Imagine how stupid we felt when we realized Wanaka was on the South Island and we wouldn't get there until a month or two later!

Anyway, Beerworks produces some very good European style lagers. The brewery is very small, but the friendly staff will take you on a personal tour and let you sample the beers for a small fee.

From Wanaka you can drive to Queenstown either over the mountains or along a river. Over the mountains is a better drive, shorter, and a lot more exciting (go for the Cardrona ski field). It's also better for all trigger-happy cameramen and -women.

Jaakko and Eeva-Inkeri at a lookout crossing the mountains between Wanaka and Queenstown.

That's that for now! MORE PICTURES available in our picture gallery.

A legend rides into the sunset

Today we say goodbye to our faithful green Nissan Bluebird which allegedly has become something of a legend among our friends back home, and has taken us all over New Zealand since November.

Goodbye lass, hope you like your new home.

I put the car on sale on TradeMe, which is a NZ online auction/selling site, and 20 minutes later I got a phone call from a girl who wanted to come and have a look at it! She turns up 45 minutes later with her dad, we take the green beauty for a 10 minute spin, and a few minutes of negotiation later, we have a deal! Painless! And we thought it'd be a real ordeal to sell the car this time of the year. Just shows that we picked the right kind of car to buy seven months ago; one that we'd be able to sell without effort, and get our money back. In fact we did a little better than just getting our money back, but not much. The surplus won't cover the $750 we've spent on oil changes and repairs and registration renewals, but then it doesn't have to either.

We've driven 16,000 kms with the car since we bought it, which is bound to incur some maintenance costs. However, per 100 kms that doesn't surmount to more than $2,34 per person. Add fuel costs (which are pretty cheap over here) on top of that and you still can't find a cheaper way of travelling around the country and seeing as much as we have seen. All in all, our Nissan Bluebird was an excellent investment. We're sorry to see her go, but it's also a relief to not have to bother about the selling anymore. It's also nice to have some pocket money for our coming adventures within the next months :-) Sparkling wine for everyone!

Now all of you who are tuned in to this channel: say your farewells to our little green gremlin and give her a wave!

Giigan: haluatko kirjoittaa kommentin kohtaamisestasi pensa-asemalla tällä viikolla? Osaat varmaan kertoa tarinan parhaiten itse :-D

All hail the Queen!

I've just come back to Christchurch from having spent a long weekend with Giigan in Blenheim. Today is a public holiday in NZ: it's the Queen's Official Birthday (not the same as her real birthday though). Yesterday the two of us celebrated this very thoroughly with many toasts and good food while playing Scrabble and the legendary computer game Heroes of Might and Magic 2 (1996, yeah baby!). I think we should have a President's Official Birthday as a public holiday in Finland too, don't you?

Vicarage Lane.

I'm glad I had the opportunity to see how my travel companion is living in Blenheim. To most of you it might be a bit unclear what he's actually doing, so here's the slightly more elaborate version: he's working (doing various things) in exchange for accommodation on a vineyard in Blenheim (the famous Marlborough wine district) run in part by a Finnish lady. We visited the vineyard (Vicarage Lane) together with Sanna and Kaisa when we first came to the South Island in February. Giigan is staying in the owners' guest house, which comprises a kitchen-living room hybrid, a bedroom and a bathroom. It is modern, quite Finnish (properly insulated, double glasing, "kuivausteline") and in the heart of rows upon rows of vines. Sitting in the living room looking out, you see the beautiful mountains surrounding the sunny Marlborough valley. It was considerably warmer there than in Christchurch, and we had in fact terrific weather the whole long weekend.

The guest house at Vicarage Lane.

I took the bus from Christchurch to Blenheim early Saturday morning. We went for a swim in the Blenheim swimming hall (where Giigan's shoes got stolen), planned our trip to Tonga a little bit, and enjoyed a Finnish sauna at our hosts' in the evening. It was heavenly.

On Sunday we drove around in the area a little bit and played minigolf in Picton in a freezing wind (coming literrally straight from Antarctica). In the afternoon and evening we played the aforementioned games whilst eating and drinking (we had to get rid of our liquor cache since we're leaving NZ soon). We also watched a "Kummelit" movie with half an eye.

The living room / kitchen.

It's been a very good and relaxing three days, but at the same time a kind of prelude to our departure, since I took our green car back to Christchurch with me in order to sell it. I've got 5 more weeks left here, so there's plenty of time to find a buyer. Giigan and I will head up to the North Island at different times (Giigan will go earlier because of the U19 Basketball World Championship in Auckland), but we'll meet up in Taupo on July 13th.

The main house at Vicarage Lane.

I'll finish with a small piece of marketing, or you can call it a recommendation if you prefer. :-) The 2009 vintage of Vicarage Lane's Sauvignon Blanc wine will be available in Alko stores around August. It is very good (Giigan has sampled it thoroughly and compared it to many other Marlborough Sauvignon Blancs) and an excellent drink for a hot summer's day. I would suggest that all wine-lovers reading this pick up a bottle or two once it hits the shelves. Share it with friends and spread the word!