Road trip - "tiki tour" - West coast , South Island
The number of times I hear people or customers say I went as far as Australia and didn’t get to New Zealand, astounds me. You need to go to New Zealand - it’s only a three-hour flight!
During my last visit in February, I was lucky enough to compete in the Coast to Coast. This is a crazy multi sports event across the width of the South Island. I ran the mountain stage with my nephew, Owen. We went on a bit of a road trip (or “Tiki tour” as Kiwis call it) from Queenstown to Arthur’s Pass on the west coast of the South Island. Normally a six-hour trip, this took us 10 hours to complete and left us struggling to put our tents up in the fading light. We took so long because there is so much to see and do along the journey.
One thing that blows me away is that you can drive for an hour or so with very little traffic and not seeing a living soul. You will then turn the corner and there will be 20 cars parked by the road, half the time you won’t know what they have stopped for. Maybe a scenic 20-minute walk to a beautiful river or waterfall? Or some Lord of the Ring’s vista or maybe a glow worm grotto!
Our tiki tour took us to Cadrona, a little skiing village just outside Queenstown. We came across a bra fence, an excellent way of promoting breast cancer awareness. There was a semi naked lady there at the time. We moved on swiftly up through Wanaka and into the Mt Aspiring National Park. If you want to come to New Zealand to walk there are great day walks, and longer multi day walks into the National Park. Absolutely stunning, I’d never been to this part of New Zealand before but would highly recommend it.
We stopped at various places on the way up the west coast to have coffee. New Zealand invented the flat white so it’s a must when you go there. Also stopping off at a couple of “dairies”, local corner shops and cafes in the middle of nowhere. The food is generally very fresh, tasty, unique and plentiful.
On the way back after our mountain traverse and two days of camping (amazing to hear the cries and shrieks of the Kea, mountain parrot, which kept me awake) we stopped off at Franz Joseph Glacier to soak our tired limbs in the hot pools. This time we didn’t have time to take a guided tour onto the glaciers, but this is an amazing thing to do. You can book onto these tours in both the townships of Fox and Franz Joseph. They supply you with boots and crampons for when you get to walk on the ice. For the more affluent you can take a heli tour to the top of the glaciers.
In this blog I’ve only touched on a very small part of the South Island of New Zealand. There is so much to do and explore in the various other regions.