23.12.18 The South Coast: Curio Bay-Bluff-Colac Bay

Sunday, 23.12.18

The neighbor's children have been arguing loudly and shrilly since 7am and I'm glad to get away from here. Very sad, because Curio Bay is otherwise a truly beautiful corner of New Zealand. I am sitting at the visitor center with a fluctuating Wi-Fi reception and now trying to find alternatives for the next few days, as I actually wanted to stay here over Christmas. Since the weather is supposed to deteriorate again in the Lindis Valley area from Wednesday, I have to move west quickly and then north just as quickly. This time I want to see Doubtful Sound in Fiordland National Park, and that is only possible with an organized boat tour. But you have to book in advance and it's Christmas holidays. I enter my data into an online form about 7 times, and every time the Wi-Fi crashes and I'm sitting there again, not knowing if the payment process is running right now or if I've already booked 3 tickets for $259 each. I am so annoyed with this campground that I leave this area around 1pm and drive west via Haldane. The weather is cloudless and sunny for the first time. For the first time today, I wear a short-sleeved shirt under (!) the fleece jacket. I drive through Fortrose, a collection of five houses, and follow Hwy 92 towards Invercargill. But before reaching the city, I turn left and follow a straight road through the marshland to an island. The water is incredibly green, but apparently there is only an aluminum factory and tall power poles here. With this aluminum factory, the largest power consumer in New Zealand is located here.

Back on the main road, I reach Bluff after another 25km. Not the southernmost point, that is Slope Point, where I was four years ago. From Bluff you can see all the way to Stewart Island. Bluff itself looks a bit like a western town. In any case, hardly anything has been changed in the building substance here since the town was founded about 150 years ago. At the end of the road is Stirling Point, a lookout point with the well-known signpost in all directions of the world. Bluff and Invercargill are the westernmost cities in New Zealand, which one only becomes aware of when looking at a map of the South Pacific and taking into account the curvature of the Earth. That's why Invercargill is also an important port, because it offers the shortest distance to Australia. You are quite far at the southern end of the southern hemisphere here.

In Invercargill I get traditional Christmas Eve dinner in the form of potato salad and cheesecake. It will be a feast! After a short refueling and a chat with the gas station women, who are completely surprised to see a woman alone in a camper, I drive towards Oreti Beach. A huge bay with a gigantic wide beach where you can drive around with your car. I refrain from doing so because I don't feel like getting stuck. Despite the sun, the wind here is so cold that I move back towards the car after a few minutes. There are also few people in the water. There is a sign with the water temperature at the lifeguard tower: 15°C. It's midsummer! But that's how it is here. The cold winds from Antarctica sweep unimpeded with the cold of the huge ice fields to the south coast of New Zealand, which is why it is always colder here than on the northern half and the North Island, and the water doesn't get warmer anyway. In the past, speed records have even been set here in Oreti Beach. Some vehicle reached 300 km/h on the beach.

In the west I can already see the snow-covered peaks of the Southern Alps shining and I am so happy again that I am in New Zealand. Such views of the ocean and snow-covered peaks are rare in the world and a real feast for the eyes.

I drive straight to Colac Bay, where there is a small campground in this sleepy town on the bay of the same name. The campground has a pub that fills up in the evening, while the campground itself is not very busy. That will change from tomorrow on. It takes me about 2 hours to find a campground over Christmas with my bad network, which I absolutely have to reserve now so I don't end up somewhere on the grass. But then the pub has Wi-Fi and in the end it goes quickly and I have found a campground in Manapouri that is only a 10-minute walk from the boat dock for the trip to Doubtful Sound. I also book myself on the Twizel campground for 2 nights, book the tour to Doubtful Sound for the first Christmas holiday, and can breathe a sigh of relief. Christmas is saved and on December 25th I will take my Christmas gift tour to Doubtful Sound, so to speak.

So I will have to drive in one go to Twizel on December 26th in a very long tour of over 400km, as - as I have now found out - all the campgrounds in between are fully booked. The only thing I could find was the site in Twizel, which is closed for the next 2 weeks, except for the 2 nights I still need, where there was only one site with electricity left. Twizel will be my starting point for the Hooker Valley Track. The campground is supposed to cost $44 per night and I will definitely ask about that again at check-in, as I couldn't book for just 1 person and this outrageous price might apply for 2 people. Since the weather is supposed to deteriorate again from December 26th with night temperatures in Twizel at 3°C, I don't want to use a free campground because I may need a heater, i.e. electricity, again. The powered site I just booked was the last one I could find.

In that respect, this day has helped to have the next 5 nights until December 28th sorted. From December 31st to January 2nd, I am already booked in Akaroa, and I will find something in between those days because I don't really care where I am. They won't be tourist hotspots.

For dinner tonight, I have a heated can and the last bit of wine. I have a picnic table next to my camper and sit in the sun for a short while before it no longer shines behind the tall hedge. So I take a walk through Colac Bay and along the huge bay of the same name and through the small town. Absolutely nothing is going on, there are no other shops except the pub that belongs to my campground, so I am back at the campground shortly after sunset and in bed by 11pm.