New Zealand South Island Fishing / Camping Road Trip - November 2015. Pictures!!

My Good Friend Paul hilborn told me of this Thread.
As you can see I am in this lovely Country they Call Gods Zone.

You saw a beautiful part of New Zealand, theres probably a full time 6 month journey to see the real South Island, The North Island is spectacular as well as mentioned, a City id always a City, but our rugged beauty of this young Country is amazing, The Coromandel is absolutely stunning as is the more Northerly Regions of New Zealand like Pihia northward...

Thank you for sharing the photos, it was great!

I remember being at the fox Glacier and I picked up this huge block of ice - well it was huge to me as I was around 4 or 5 years old, I wanted Dad to put it in the Boot so I could take it home lol, not really properly understanding why I couldnt, at 52 at times I still dont :-)
 
Thanks for the kind words guys. Its nice to have someone else say that I didn't make a mess of the photography or the telling! Thanks for liking the Spyderco /BCUK knife, JV3, its great to hear that its working for people.:thumbup::D

There are certainly months' worth of adventures to be had in New Zealand. I met quite a few people doing just that, taking a year off from work, buying some sort of vehicle, and working-camping-wwoofing-tramping their way around the country. Think I may have missed my chance to do that kind of thing but I am still envious.

Who as a child hasn't tried to preserve some ice or snow for later fun? :cool::D I grew up in New York and remember wanting to save a 2-foot icicle and some snow balls in the fridge, think I was 9 at the time.

The DOC are a lot less keen on people getting close to the glaciers now, unless you are on a guided trip. On the way to the overlook where I photographed the glacier there were various torso sized rocks lying in such a way that it was clear they had fallen from high up on the walls, then at the overlook itself there was a billboard showing a news article about some people (I think from India) getting crushed by an ice fall when they ignored signs and went to pat the glacier face. All the safety stuff was kind of a shame, I would have been happy enough to worry about my own safety and have more of an illusion that the scenery was untouched by man, but there are high numbers of tourists that visit who aren't outdoor people at all and there's no accounting what they might think is a good idea. There were signs at the parking area about the dangers, but on my way back from the overlook I encountered an extended family of Indians, who would have looked more at home in a shopping mall, on their way up who asked me if they would be able to touch the ice. ho hum :rolleyes: lol
 
PHOTOBUCKET SUX!
Re-hosted all the pictures that PB were ransoming to Flikr. The forum software doesn't make this easy now, new limit of 10,000 characters per post, including spaces and all the IMG links, and a limit of 20 images per post. Managed to get everything into my existing posts, but had to break up the days, rather than have the posts neatly contain whole days.

Also found that I had produced some notes on BCUK. Maybe not much use for folk from the US, but re-posted here anyway.

New Zealand Notes
Bit of a brain dump coming up. Somewhat disorganised thoughts and lessons learned from my trip. Hope they help someone else heading in the same direction.

Packing:
I packed too much stuff! A lot too much. Luggage was more than maxed out. I wont incriminate myself too much, but I exceeded the combined allowance of 20kg checked and 7kg carry and it was a constant worry and irritation while travelling. I never want to do that again.

Stuff I took that I didn’t need:

  • Folding saw, - never used for anything
  • Sheath knife, - used once to cut up some sausage, easily could have done without it
  • Second cooking pot, - took a 1.1litre which I used for everything, and a 900ml that was never used. Based on previous car trips where having two pots was much nicer than one. Wish I had only taken the one.
  • Softy coat, - never stayed cold enough where I was to need it.
  • Too many socks - I only needed four pairs plus neoprenes for wet wading, but I had five or six plus liners. I had thought I might wet wade and need fresh sets more often than normal. Duh!
  • Hammock. Never used
  • Tarp- never needed it. Not a lot of tarp options, and when with guides, you don't stop enough to bother with making shelter!
  • Binoculars, - I had a nice pair of 8x24s which I don't think I ever had reason to take from my pack. I am not a bird watcher and simply didn't sit around glassing the scenery.
  • Gloves, - I had sun gloves which were great, finger-less wool ones that got used once, Macwet with fingers that were never used, and didn't bother to take the gardening gloves I usually use a lot, and didn't miss them at all.
  • Power pack to charge phone. I had a car charger and was never away from the car long enough to need the additional battery pack.
  • I also had more fishing tackle than I used, particularly with the guides.

Stuff that really worked well:

  • Nylon trousers- Didn't need to zip off, but poly-cotton would have been no substitute when wet-wading
  • Poly-pro base leggings- Didn't own any before getting ready for this trip, didn't want to buy them, but extensive reading said polyester just wasn't as good.
  • Aquapure Traveller bottle + bottle carrier for easy access while walking
  • Lundhag Syncro Mids- used as wading boots, poor things had a hard time, but they held up better than any other boot that I have would have done.
  • Buff with built in insect repellent- Kept the sandflies off my neck and was not too hot.
  • Autan repellent- a lot nicer than DEET, kept flies off my head
  • Rio In-Touch Gold floating line- Made me look a far better caster than I am.
  • Vistana OveRx glasses- Not cheap, but much cheaper than prescription sun glasses and cut side glare. Used for fishing and driving. A must for both.
  • Alpkit Koro stove- Fitted inside even the 900ml pot along with a bottle and foil wind shield. It was always windy, so having a low, stable stove that could be screened was great.
  • DIY hammock underquilt- On two nights I needed this in addition to my JRB Sierra Sniveler quilt. November nights can get cold even in NZ.

Hammocks:

There are very few places that I saw that can be hammock camped. I like hammocks and I really like my UKHammocks WoodsmanX, but it never came out of its sack in NZ. I could have used it in the beech forest along the Caples river, and probably around Sylvan Campsite had I stayed there, but I didn’t see any other places where a hammock would have been as good, let alone better than, a tent. Lack of suitable trees is the issue. Maybe other areas would be different, but this was my experience. The eastern side of the mountains was often too dry for there to be many trees and when there were some around camping areas, they were either too huge, too small, too dense or too far apart…the usual hammock challenges with designated camping areas. The western side would appear to have more options, but the forest is REALLY dense, and a lot of that seemed to be tree-ferns, which everyone agreed did not have root systems that would support a hammock safely. If I had been hiking the Greenstone Track, a hammock might have been a nice alternative to using the huts, but it would still be hard to justify it if you had a tent for use elsewhere.

Using a tipi

My main concern was the lack of floor and whether the notorious sand flies would get in. Well, I might have had one or two follow me in, but otherwise the factory made mesh doors kept them out and none figured out how to crawl under the pegged down edge. YMMV, but it didn't seem to be an issue. In contrast, they did get under the fly sheet of the MSR tent I used up the Caples river, so 2-3 inches gap will let them in. Despite their name, sand flies do not roost on the ground and hatch from running water, unlike Scottish midges which come out of the wet ground, so the floorless tipi did not trap a captive swarm when it was set up.

Size-wise the 6-man Kifaru was way bigger than I needed to the point it was almost absurd. The tent is on loan, and was meant to house three of us. When the others dropped out I had a choice of the Kifaru (3.2kg+ 0.89 nest) or a 2-man Vaude (2.9kg). The prospect of maybe 12 nights in the little Vaude was not appealing.

When we had strong wind the nest saved my sleeping gear getting "rained" on by condensation shaken loose from the walls.

I needed 16 pegs just to get the basic shape pegged out. More needed for the nest and extra guy out points. The ground was often hard or stony and getting that many pegs in just to achieve a stable structure was a pain, as was the weight of all the pegs.

Cutting tools:

Knife and saw were a waste of time. There are meant to be fire controls in NZ and they seem serious about preventing bush fires. Neither guide was keen about seeing any trees or wood cut for fun, or even when there was a purpose, like for a wading staff. When I was researching gear to take, I read that even wood burning hobo stoves and meths burners might be an issue, so making a camp fire is probably not a good idea in most places. Not something that you are likely to get a chance to do often enough for it to be worth taking tools.

If you aren't making fire or shelter from the bush, the last remaining reasons are for food prep, camp chores and whittling. I was able to do all my food prep and chores with a folder, and I didn't travel all the way to NZ to look at my lap while whittling sticks when there are views of mountains to be gazed upon ;)

Roads and driving.

Most of the web sites I found talked about the dangers of the NZ roads. I did see one bad crash of a Discovery and caravan, but that was all, and I found the roads to be really rather good. Maybe the people writing all those reviews of the roads are American or Canadian, who find themselves having to cope with “narrow” roads, corners, and driving on the left all together (no offence intended, I found some awesome, twisty, roads last year in CO/WY/UT, but only a couple were narrow). For those from the UK, there are some stretches of road that are very wiggly with hairpin bends the like of which we don’t see too often at home, but there are far more stretches of road that are wide open, die straight, and empty. Width is comparable to our standard A, B and C roads and was wider almost everywhere than I regularly encounter in the Chilterns, Wales, and Lake District. Drivers are usually far more conscious about not holding up others and make use of the passing lanes by pulling over and letting those behind go past. The locals though have very little patience left with visitors, so if you so much as see another car coming, and you pull out in front, even with 100m space, be sure to get moving quick, or expect to catch some road rage. Happened twice to me, and I cannot remember it ever happening in the UK.
 
Cont...


Water supplies.

I was told everywhere that the water was clean and that the locals drank direct from Wakatipu and the rivers running into it. I filtered all mine using my old Aquapure traveller, so can’t say whether the water was safe or not. I reckon that the thing to watch for is the places that use rain water collected from their roof, some places stated that this could be contaminated by birds and was not to be drunk, others didn’t bother and locals drank it without a thought. As a visitor, I didn’t want to risk even a couple of days’ off with a stomach bug. I drank the tap water in Christchurch without any problem, was told it was ground water, filtered everything else.

Security and safety.

I thought NZ was a safe place, and it may be, or not…according to a German I met who had been travelling there for eight months, North and South. He said South was safer, but that robberies from tourists camped in isolated locations on the North Island were fairly common. He had had people attempt to gain access to his vehicle at night while he was in it, including through deception, knowing he was in it. I had no problems, but the places I stayed were not isolated.

Re-supply.

Food is not as cheap as it is in the UK, but supermarkets in all the major towns will have everything a tripper could want in terms of food, toiletries, cleaning stuff, spare batteries (not sure about 123As) and the like. I stayed in a motel first and last night and left all my un-used stuff with them when I departed, they said they had a box of re-cycled supplies that they offered to people setting off in camper vans. I didn't know this and packed according to my experiences as part of a group travelling in Sweden, Norway and Canada, where to some extent, if you wanted it, you needed to bring it from home. Felt pretty stupid when I saw stuff I had given luggage allowance to sitting on NZ store shelves.



Fuel costs.

When I was there they were somewhere between comparable and cheaper than the UK. At the time, UK was £1.13 per litre ($2.42), while in Christchurch it was $1.92, in Greymouth $1.94 Hokitika $1.96 and Franz Josef $2.34. Auckland was $1.84

Navigation.

There is an excellent map shop in Christchurch. http://www.mapworld.co.nz/ Make time to go there, they have more than appears on the web site. The other source for maps is http://www.stanfords.co.uk/ in London, but be aware, the road atlases cost £24 in the UK, and $29 in NZ, making it worth while buying them once you are there, rather than paying double and then have them use luggage allowance on the way out.

I did toy around with my northern hemisphere compass, but it wasn’t reliable. I didn’t do anything that required a compass for navigation, but if you do, then look at buying a Southern Hemisphere adjusted one out there. Map World has them, and they are much more reasonable than buying one here.

After my locally purchased road maps, the best bit of navigational stuff I had was my smartphone loaded with View Ranger and City Maps 2 Go. Both of these allow you to load maps onto the device for use off-line, and are FAR easier to handle than messing with Google Maps off-line. View Ranger has 1:50,000 topos that show fence boundaries for all of NZ and you can get both regions and single tiles. Excellent tool. City Maps is good for marking locations of shops or camp sites. The built in index is a bit rubbish, but the maps are good. No turn-by-turn navigation on either, but honestly, in New Zealand, you don’t need it. Full satnav would have been good for me in in Auckland when I was running late for returning my rental car at 9:30pm and got lost, and maybe in Chirstchurch for about 10 minutes, but not worth paying extra for either on a phone or with a rental car. A passenger/navigator would have totally solved my brief problems. The other app worth having is the Rankers NZ Campsite app which can be downloaded for use without data coverage. Shows all the campsites, has reviews and ratings. https://www.rankers.co.nz/



Coms

As I got off the plane in Auckland there was someone from Virgin Mobile holding a sign offering SIM cards for tourists. Something like $30 for a 4-week active card with a given amount of minutes and data on it. Didn't use anything like all of the allowance travelling by myself. Was able to check weather and send messages from a lot of places. There are some pretty good maps showing coverage in NZ. If you have line of sight to a town, chances are you will be able to get data. The west coast was the best example of this as you drop in and out of service as you go along.

Fishing.

I had heard that I needed to practice casting, so I took three hours of tuition followed by probably a dozen evening sessions on the green outside my house, much to my neighbours’ amusement. I tried to learn roll casts and single handed Spey casts along with aerial mends and other slack line presentations methods. I did spend time on accuracy and casting methods for heavy flies on long leaders, but not enough (not sure if there is such a thing as enough!) In the end, I didn’t use rolls or Speys, the mends were something I could really have done with, but there is a limit to what you can learn without real moving water. I didn’t practice enough with actual heavy flies casting into strong winds. Hard to do when the wind doesn’t oblige, but that was pretty much all I did on my guided days; single and double tungsten bead nymphs, as droppers or with indicators, on leaders between 14 and 20 feet long. They were a challenge on 14 feet, and on 20 feet I spent more time in tangles than I did fishing. My line handling was pretty bad, at least I thought so. My guides were both encouraging, but my lack of practice showed.

Both guides said they had enough tackle that I could have come with nothing at all and it would not have been a problem. That many clients were fitting in a day fishing with other family activities and couldn't justify packing a lot of their own tackle. Guide-loan gear was all rather high end. Both would have had me using a Sage One if I had not brought my own rod.

All fishing was with floating lines. I packed a couple of sinkers, but would have been better not to bother. If you are taking flies...size 14-10, black tungsten bead hare's ear/pheasant tail type things tied sparse and 14-10 parachute Adams, black gnat and goddard caddis...that was was was on my line most of the time! I took a lot of flies that didn't get used. All my old UK still water flies stayed in the box and only the newest ties, put together after I started reading what is used in NZ, were used.

Gear disinfection (anti invasive algae measures).

Its not a problem to find soap in supermarkets that you can spray on gear, but it is a challenge to find or carry means to soak things like boots. Don’t do as I did and use a prized water bladder to apply strong disinfectant, I don’t think my Dromlite will ever be free of the taste of Detol! (actually, it is now, but it took over a year!)

Bio-security at point of entry.

Transferring through Auckland I was very nearly late for my plane. 1.5 hours was not enough time to run 10 minutes late on landing, get through immigration, have my gear inspected by Bio-security, drop my bag and walk the 10-15 minutes to the domestic terminal. I managed, but it was all but at a run and arrived just in time to join the end of the line boarding my onwards flight! Despite my nest ground sheet being new, my tent having no floor and my boots having been scrubbed to out-of-box cleanliness, all were unpacked, taken away and the boots sprayed by staff.

Hope some of that ramble is useful for someone else's planning! Happy Travels!!:cool:
 
Wonderful summary of your trip with very scenic pictures. Thought the bio-security thing interesting and I would have never thought of such a thing.

Nice shots of some really large trout. I'm envious.
 
Wow :)! Great trip report and amazing pics :thumbsup:. Missed this one. Thanks for re-posting it and for the interesting tips and infos. Australia and New Zealand are on my "dream travels book"... who knows, maybe I'll manage one day :)!
 
Excellent write up.:thumbsup: It would take me three days to type this up. Thank You for the time it took.:cool:

C_Claycomb said:
Cont...


Water supplies.

I was told everywhere that the water was clean and that the locals drank direct from Wakatipu and the rivers running into it. I filtered all mine using my old Aquapure traveller, so can’t say whether the water was safe or not. I reckon that the thing to watch for is the places that use rain water collected from their roof, some places stated that this could be contaminated by birds and was not to be drunk, others didn’t bother and locals drank it without a thought. As a visitor, I didn’t want to risk even a couple of days’ off with a stomach bug. I drank the tap water in Christchurch without any problem, was told it was ground water, filtered everything else.

Security and safety.

I thought NZ was a safe place, and it may be, or not…according to a German I met who had been travelling there for eight months, North and South. He said South was safer, but that robberies from tourists camped in isolated locations on the North Island were fairly common. He had had people attempt to gain access to his vehicle at night while he was in it, including through deception, knowing he was in it. I had no problems, but the places I stayed were not isolated.

Re-supply.

Food is not as cheap as it is in the UK, but supermarkets in all the major towns will have everything a tripper could want in terms of food, toiletries, cleaning stuff, spare batteries (not sure about 123As) and the like. I stayed in a motel first and last night and left all my un-used stuff with them when I departed, they said they had a box of re-cycled supplies that they offered to people setting off in camper vans. I didn't know this and packed according to my experiences as part of a group travelling in Sweden, Norway and Canada, where to some extent, if you wanted it, you needed to bring it from home. Felt pretty stupid when I saw stuff I had given luggage allowance to sitting on NZ store shelves.



Fuel costs.

When I was there they were somewhere between comparable and cheaper than the UK. At the time, UK was £1.13 per litre ($2.42), while in Christchurch it was $1.92, in Greymouth $1.94 Hokitika $1.96 and Franz Josef $2.34. Auckland was $1.84

Navigation.

There is an excellent map shop in Christchurch. http://www.mapworld.co.nz/ Make time to go there, they have more than appears on the web site. The other source for maps is http://www.stanfords.co.uk/ in London, but be aware, the road atlases cost £24 in the UK, and $29 in NZ, making it worth while buying them once you are there, rather than paying double and then have them use luggage allowance on the way out.

I did toy around with my northern hemisphere compass, but it wasn’t reliable. I didn’t do anything that required a compass for navigation, but if you do, then look at buying a Southern Hemisphere adjusted one out there. Map World has them, and they are much more reasonable than buying one here.

After my locally purchased road maps, the best bit of navigational stuff I had was my smartphone loaded with View Ranger and City Maps 2 Go. Both of these allow you to load maps onto the device for use off-line, and are FAR easier to handle than messing with Google Maps off-line. View Ranger has 1:50,000 topos that show fence boundaries for all of NZ and you can get both regions and single tiles. Excellent tool. City Maps is good for marking locations of shops or camp sites. The built in index is a bit rubbish, but the maps are good. No turn-by-turn navigation on either, but honestly, in New Zealand, you don’t need it. Full satnav would have been good for me in in Auckland when I was running late for returning my rental car at 9:30pm and got lost, and maybe in Chirstchurch for about 10 minutes, but not worth paying extra for either on a phone or with a rental car. A passenger/navigator would have totally solved my brief problems. The other app worth having is the Rankers NZ Campsite app which can be downloaded for use without data coverage. Shows all the campsites, has reviews and ratings. https://www.rankers.co.nz/



Coms

As I got off the plane in Auckland there was someone from Virgin Mobile holding a sign offering SIM cards for tourists. Something like $30 for a 4-week active card with a given amount of minutes and data on it. Didn't use anything like all of the allowance travelling by myself. Was able to check weather and send messages from a lot of places. There are some pretty good maps showing coverage in NZ. If you have line of sight to a town, chances are you will be able to get data. The west coast was the best example of this as you drop in and out of service as you go along.

Fishing.

I had heard that I needed to practice casting, so I took three hours of tuition followed by probably a dozen evening sessions on the green outside my house, much to my neighbours’ amusement. I tried to learn roll casts and single handed Spey casts along with aerial mends and other slack line presentations methods. I did spend time on accuracy and casting methods for heavy flies on long leaders, but not enough (not sure if there is such a thing as enough!) In the end, I didn’t use rolls or Speys, the mends were something I could really have done with, but there is a limit to what you can learn without real moving water. I didn’t practice enough with actual heavy flies casting into strong winds. Hard to do when the wind doesn’t oblige, but that was pretty much all I did on my guided days; single and double tungsten bead nymphs, as droppers or with indicators, on leaders between 14 and 20 feet long. They were a challenge on 14 feet, and on 20 feet I spent more time in tangles than I did fishing. My line handling was pretty bad, at least I thought so. My guides were both encouraging, but my lack of practice showed.

Both guides said they had enough tackle that I could have come with nothing at all and it would not have been a problem. That many clients were fitting in a day fishing with other family activities and couldn't justify packing a lot of their own tackle. Guide-loan gear was all rather high end. Both would have had me using a Sage One if I had not brought my own rod.

All fishing was with floating lines. I packed a couple of sinkers, but would have been better not to bother. If you are taking flies...size 14-10, black tungsten bead hare's ear/pheasant tail type things tied sparse and 14-10 parachute Adams, black gnat and goddard caddis...that was was was on my line most of the time! I took a lot of flies that didn't get used. All my old UK still water flies stayed in the box and only the newest ties, put together after I started reading what is used in NZ, were used.

Gear disinfection (anti invasive algae measures).

Its not a problem to find soap in supermarkets that you can spray on gear, but it is a challenge to find or carry means to soak things like boots. Don’t do as I did and use a prized water bladder to apply strong disinfectant, I don’t think my Dromlite will ever be free of the taste of Detol! (actually, it is now, but it took over a year!)

Bio-security at point of entry.

Transferring through Auckland I was very nearly late for my plane. 1.5 hours was not enough time to run 10 minutes late on landing, get through immigration, have my gear inspected by Bio-security, drop my bag and walk the 10-15 minutes to the domestic terminal. I managed, but it was all but at a run and arrived just in time to join the end of the line boarding my onwards flight! Despite my nest ground sheet being new, my tent having no floor and my boots having been scrubbed to out-of-box cleanliness, all were unpacked, taken away and the boots sprayed by staff.

Hope some of that ramble is useful for someone else's planning! Happy Travels!!:cool:
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