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A Quick Kiwi Conclusion (Dunedin and Christchurch)

Tuesday, October 12th, 2004

After my trip down southwards, I began to realize that I didn’t have all that much time in New Zealand. Indeed, as I woke up in Te Anau, I noticed that I actually had only four days left before I had to depart the country via Christchurch.

Fortunately I woke well rested, thanks to the wonderful place I was staying, Rosie’s Backpacker Homestay. Though they don’t have a website, I so enjoyed my stay there that I’m going to include their address and phone number: 23 Tom Plato Drive, Te Anau, New Zealand; +03 249 8341

Rosie and her family were super friendly and even put up with me sitting in the main bedroom typing my previous weblog entry until 23:00 (I actually hadn’t realized that anyone slept in the room where the computer was.) Furthermore, Rosie was quite happy to drive me out to a good hitching spot the following morning for my (300km) trip to Dunedin.
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Up (as in to the mountains) and Down (as in south)

Saturday, October 9th, 2004

Last you all heard, I was in Greymouth, near the north end of New Zealand’s west coast, preparing to head south.

Before departing Greymouth, I had some important business to take care of.

First, I had to re-write my ‘blog entry. This was due to the fact that after having spent over three hours on it the previous day, it somehow vanished. This had me in a rather irritable mood. Fortunately, my other business, a tour of the Monteith’s brewery cheered me up.

Monteith’s has a reputation for being “the beer of the West Coast,” though most of it is brewed in Timaru (south of Christchurch on the east coast and in Auckland, on the North Island.)

The Monteith’s brewery tour was pretty standard, but did have a couple of interesting features. The first of these was their open vat fermentation tanks. Most breweries keep their fermentation tanks sealed, but these had open tops so that you could see the process in action, and smell the powerful yeasty aroma throughout the building. The second interesting feature was the coal fired boilers. Coal mining has always been a major industry on the West Coast, and the plentiful supply made it a natural choice for warming up the brew kettles, heating the buildings and so forth.

Another part of the tour was the post tasting open bar. After trying a bit of each of their six regular-run beers, we were invited up to the taps for to serve ourselves our favourites for ten minutes. While ten minutes may not sound like a lot, I did manage to enjoy plenty of my favourite, Monteith’s Dark.

All of this left me ready to head south. My planned destination was the Fox Glacier, some 240km distant, but I feared that I wouldn’t be able to hitchhike my way there leaving at 15:00 as I was.
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Further Tramping Tales: The Heaphy Track

Sunday, October 3rd, 2004
Arriving in Takaka following my tramp on the Abel Tasman Coast Track, I figured I deserved a bit of rest before starting out on the Heaphy, a longer and (reputedly) slightly harder track. My rest took the form of two and ... [Continue reading this entry]

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Picton and Abel Tasman National Park

Monday, September 27th, 2004
I arrived at the Wellington train station nice and early for the 09:05 shuttle bus to the Interislander ferry docks for my trip to Picton on the South Island. It was around 09:15 that I started to get a ... [Continue reading this entry]

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Volcanism, Farmland, Forest and Coastaline: The South and East of NZ’s North Island

Monday, September 20th, 2004
Waking up in Auckland once again, I was well rested for the two or three hour drive down to Rotorua (and further on to points east and south.) Since New Zealand lies on border between the Australasian and Pacific ... [Continue reading this entry]

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The Northland: Touring New Zealand’s Top End

Sunday, September 12th, 2004
After taking my leave of the wonderful Darragh family (thanks to them yet again for their kind hospitality) I went to pick up my rental car, which turned out to be a 1995 Toyota Starlet. It isn't pretty, but it runs ... [Continue reading this entry]

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A Warm Welcome to Auckland (and New Zealand)

Tuesday, September 7th, 2004
Only one week in New Zealand, and already I’m wondering if 5.5 will be enough. I think that this time I can dispense with the location of and general information about my current location. I’m sure the basics about New ... [Continue reading this entry]

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