On the road again

Hello from Lyell....

For those of you who haven't heard of Lyell, here's a brief description: It's a small grassy field, surrounded by rainforest covered mountains, by the side of highway SH7. It used to be a town in the gold rush days, but no town now, just field (and a DOC campground, that is also just a field and a few stone fireplaces). This is where tonight's long overdue blog entry comes from.

We've been on the move for the last week. after our two weeks in Fiordland, we decided it was time to cover some more ground. It's been fantastic. We've had mostly sunshine and warm days to make everything even better (although it's getting chilly at night...summer is definitely over here)!

Here's a brief outline of where we've been:

- Our summarized route: The catlins - dunedin - otago peninsula - otago central rail trail/Alexandra - Franz Joseph/ fox Glacier - Hokitika - Karamea/Heaphy Track - Lyell/Charming Creek, and we're headed up to Nelson / Golden Bay and Marlborough next!

Some highlights:

- the Catlins: Gorgeous rolling hills and deserted beaches. We found a perfect little campspot by the side of an inlet, walked along sandy bay and met about 10 sea lions, lazing around. One large male even blocked our path to the second beach where we could see seals playing in the waves...he refused to move (Gavin is not particularly adept at barganing with a large, male sea lion...he succeded in making it growl/bark at us and move more menacingly into the middle of the pathway. We then had to pick our way through the sand dunes around the sea lion, hoping to not run into any more dosing giants). Unfortunately, the seals we thought we say playing in the waves were actually surfers. Whooops.

- Dunedin and the Otago Peninsula: From the catlins, we drove up to Dunedin, where we found the MOST BEAUTIFUL campsite, on the top of a small hill, overlooking two bays, each with 200+ m long beaches populated with seals and sea lions (you'll see pictures)...it was a popular freedom camping spot, and we stayed two nights. at the end of the point was 'lover's leap', where Gavin tried to give me a 'love shove' over the edge :). Dunedin was a cool university town (byob or $5 pitchers and a free pizza at a bar?definitely sweet as), but otherwise doesn't make our top list of cities.

- Otago Central Rail Trail: from dunedin we dabbled with a day of biking on the Otago Central Rail Trail - an old rain line that was converted into a bike trail. The whole thing is about 180 km's - we chose a 30km section and did it there and back, which involved biking through farmland, across bridges, and through old railway tunnels. a very fun day.

- Glaciers: We booted our way from the rail trail to the glaciers, took a quick walk up to the fox glacier, and then scooted to a campsite not far from the franz joseph glacier...packed with people enjoying the ice. We decided to save our pennies for a kayak trip in Abel Tasman, and did not join a guided tour of the glaciers...

- Hokitika: We stopped in this cute little town by the sea - it's specialty is jade carvings and jewlery...I had intended on purchasing an item for my 'collection'...but they all looked the same (and not so much my style), so no dice there. Although I did have a VERY good latte purchased from a VERY hippy-dippity (as Gavin likes to call it) coffee shop!

- Karamea / heaphy track: After Hokitika, we went as far north along the west coast as we could. The drive between Greymouth and Westport was SPECTACULAR. Beaches, cliffs, mountains, beaches, cliffs, mountains...we then continued past westport to Karamea, and past Karamea (which is the end of the highway) about 40kms to a tiny DOC campsite. Picture jagged mountains covered in rainforest, and miles of deserted beaches, all coming together...and that was where we camped for the night. GORGEOUS. The BEST campsite EVER...except for the fact that we had to enjoy the view from inside the camper as the sandflies were horrendous. Seriously...we were supposed to bbq for dinner, and it was too painful to expose your hands / face outside for any period of time, so we made dinner inside (beans and toast...mmmm...). We tried to be outside at the beginning, but then when we got into the camper there were HUNDREDS of sandflies on the windows inside. so we had a sandfly hunt and killed a bagillion of them, so many that we had to wash the inside of the windows today at the gas station to get rid of the gross bugsmears all over them! But I digress - the best part of this campsite was that not only was it beautiful, it was also the start/end point for one of new zealand's Great Walks (the Heaphy track). We decided to hike in to the first hut and back for a day hike, 30kms total of wandering through rainforest to deserted beaches all along the coast. It was truly an AMAZING hike - we had each beach that we came across all to ourselves, and even the tramping through the rainforest was cool. The only issue (yet again) was the sandflies - so we ate lunch on the go (they're not bad while you're moving...when you stop, they SWARM you) - which meant 7 hours of non-stop walking...my legs were a bit tired by the end :)

- Charming creek: Today we went for a mountain bike ride up to and along Charming creek - another old rail line previously used for coal mining. This one was a little more intense than the meandering trail of the Otago central rail trail, so I found myself carrying my bike around some rock slips and along some tiny suspension bridges...but overall, a great bike ride...pretty amazing when you're in the trees, and then suddenly the trail seems to end at a gorge with a HUGE waterfall!! not only that, but more tunnels and bridges.

Well, those are the highlights of the last week and a bit - we'll try and post photos as soon as we can! We're happy to be in the North (it's a bit warmer than in the south!) We've booked into Abel Tasman for a two-day kayak for thursday / friday of this week, and will be relaxing / hiking / biking in golden bay until then :) yippee!

HUGE HUGS,

A (and G - he helped a bit on this one too)