New Zealand's south island revisited, part 2

Following on from the last post, we continued on our merry way round the south island. We start this part of the tour at a transport and toy museum in Wanaka.  Amazing place, with aircraft, cars, toys - you name it, they have it!  We saw this sign in the entrance and wisely kept our mouths closed.

Oh dear......

Dave always wanted a part in Star Wars!

Yours truly on an NSR 50 - a touch small

Martin contemplating faster transport - a MiG

Jennie and I did our courting in a car like this!
A British Wolseley 6/110

A restored Polikarpov at the Wanaka Warbirds base

The spectacular Glenorchy road

At Wanaka, we took a jet boat up the Matukituki River and were met by a helicopter which took us up to Mount Aspiring national park and landed us on a glacier.  The chopper pilot was a gorgeous 25 year old with sublime skills.  The scenery wasn't bad either! As you might expect, a lot of Lord of the Rings was shot in this area.

V8-powered jet boat

River valley from the air.  The water colour comes from
suspended glacial rock particles

Approaching a suspended glacier

The photo below is of a suspended glacier at several thousand feet altitude.  To give an idea of scale, the front glacier face is 75 ft high!

Glacier in Mt Aspiring National Park

Chopper on the edge of the glacier

The 2 photos below are a post-publishing addition. They're for fellow blogger Ken who was disappointed that I hadn't published a photo of Alex, the pilot.  It's a bit hard to tell with her headset and sunglasses still on but you'll have to take my word that she was drop-dead gorgeous!

Transferring from the jet boat to the chopper

Alex, our pilot, is to the right

This photo of Alex was a sort of surreptitious one on the pretext of photographing the scenery.  Better than nothing though Ken!

The lovely Alex

The Clyde Dam just outside Alexandra is a superb piece of engineering, built to withstand major earthquakes.  We were fortunate to be given a tour through it as one of my long distance event riding partners is the production controller there.  It was quite an experience.

The Clyde River

Jennie and me at the Clyde Dam tail race

From Clyde, it was off to Milford Sound, a magnificent road into the Sound, followed by the majesty of the sound itself.  It doesn't matter what the weather is like as the character of the place completely changes - sunny or raining are both superb.  Average annual rainfall at Milford Sound is a staggering 6.8 metres, or nearly 22 feet!!!  At the Sound itself, the scale is so vast that you feel like an ant.

The vast expanse of the Milford Road

Entrance to the Homer Tunnel with temporary waterfalls from the rain

Moody, overpowering Milford Sound

The cliff on the left (Mitre Peak) is a mile high!

Yet more Milford Sound

Minerals and mosses on the Sounds rocks

Heading up the west coast, we came to the Punakaiki Rocks.  These limestone deposits have holes to the sea at their base and at high tide, they blast great fountains of water into the air.  We saw a bus-load of elderly tourists soaked to the skin because they were so busy talking to each other, they weren't paying attention to what was going on.  Honestly, you'd think lots of water running down the path would be a slight clue, wouldn't you?

Punakaiki Rocks

Beautiful city of Nelson cathedral

All tied down on the ferry for the trip home

I hope you've enjoyed parts 1 & 2 of the tour of NZ's south island by bike!  Save your pennies.....

New Zealand's south island revisited, part 1

The next 2 posts are principally to irritate Sonja as she is always complaining that her boss won't send her back to NZ on business and seeing photos of NZ always stirs her up!

It's a crappy winter day and not that pleasant for riding so I've been flicking back through photos of sunny riding days to cheer myself up.  Back in 2009, I made a post about our last south island riding trip but didn't attach many photos. We called it the "Birds Galore" tour as 4 of us with identically-coloured Honda Blackbirds headed down south.  Jennie wanted to come too, but not spend days on the pillion of 4 lunatics who were down there to misbehave on some of the world's greatest riding roads.  Her dilemma was solved when the partner of one of the other riders wanted to come as well and offered to bring their people-mover.  A perfect arrangement as we could chuck our gear in the back and the girls could do their thing whilst we did ours, meeting up at lunchtimes and late afternoons en route.  Here's some more photos and scribblings from that tour. Click on the photos to enlarge.

Leaving home for the great adventure

From L: Martin (a cop!), Jennie and me in background, Dave

En route to the ferry

Big John, Martin, me, Dave

On the way to the ferry at Wellington, we passed through the small town of Taihape.  Every year, the town puts on a gumboot throwing contest (how far you can throw it) with great prizes and the whole town has  a carnival atmosphere.  Fittingly, at the entrance to town, there's a giant gumboot crafted from old corrugated roofing iron!

Taihape corrugated iron gumboot

 Tying down on the ferry

Picton in the south island where the ferry docks

Kekerengu - stopping for a cold drink

Synchronised parking! Off whale watching

The sperm whales at Kaikoura hunt giant squid in a deep trench just off the coast.  They re-surface every 30 minutes or so to re-oxygenate and stay on the surface for 10-15 minutes, so the chances of seeing several on the 2 hour trip are very good.  There are also hundreds of dolphins and seals in the area.

Sperm whale diving for giant squid

There must have been at least 200 dolphins round the boat

leaping out  of the water and splashing us with their tails!

The photo below is of the iconic hotel at the tiny community of Blackball, an ex-coalmining area.  It's a bit down at heel but is one of those places which is a "must" to stay at because of the magic hospitality.  Full of old mining memorabilia, food to die for and beer from a local micro-brewery.  Now here's the even better bit!  A good few years back, the owners called it the Blackball Hilton.  Eventually, the Hilton hotel chain heard about it and told them they'd have to change the name if they didn't want their arse sued off for damages. You can just see the name board nailed to the railings on the balcony.  In a gesture of defiance, the owners did change the name!  See a little board nailed on an angle just above the other sign?  It has the word "Formerly" painted on it!  The full name was changed to "Formerly the Blackball Hilton".  The Hilton hotel chain gave up for fear of becoming a laughing stock.  Yayyyy for the little guy!!!

The Blackball Hilton

The  south island has a number of mountain passes, all of which are a biker's wet dream!  They all run through different scenery so each one has a unique character.  The trick is not to crash whilst dribbling at the scenery. Fortunately, there's minimal traffic outside the main cities which is perfect for bikes.

 Porter's Pass

The birds below are Kea, a native parrot with beautiful plumage.  Most people just call them bastards.  They're really inquisitive and mischievous.  They'll pull the rubber out of a car wiper blade holder, peck holes in your saddle, get inside your pack to steal food - don't ever leave anything unattended!

The entertaining, but delinquent Keas

The photo below shows the longest straight in Arthur's Pass. Four Blackbirds had their throttles pinned to the stop down here. (No wives or partners around to wag their collective fingers)

The Majestic Arthur's Pass

Lindis Pass covered in red tussock grass

Lake Wakatipu and another fabulous bike road

John and Martin by the Kingston Flyer

Dave helping a lady at a gas station fix a puncture
- seems more interested in her butt!

The following photo was taken at Cardrona between Queenstown and Wanaka, a ski area in winter but devoid of snow in summer.  It used to be the venue for the Race to the Sky, the NZ equivalent of the Pike's Peak Hill climb.  There are some terrific videos on YouTube - you must see this one: Top Gear

Old meets new at Cardrona

Queenstown panoramic shot

 Part 2 of the south island trip to follow in a few minutes.......