Returning to the South Island, New Zealand - part 2

 

The second part of our trip predominantly took us to Fiordland, a part of New Zealand I have always wanted to go to.  We wouldn't be able to do as much walking as I had originally planned as the storms at the start of the year had damaged quite a few of them.

Our first port of call was Te Anau, but not before we took a little detour up to Glenorchy to do a little Lord of the Rings site seeing.  Unfortunately, we didn't have time to get to the two locations we were really hoping for, which were Isengard lookout and Lothlorien forest, as these were much further up the valley past Glenorchy.  

However, we did stop at Twelve Mile Delta to take a little walk to Ithilien where Frodo, Sam, and Smeagol first see the Oliphants.  Even though we didn't get to see all the sites, driving to Glenorchy was worth the detour in its own right as the valley is really beautiful and we loved Glenorchy itself.  Definitely on the list of places to return to.

We reached Te Anau in the late afternoon where we intended to just stop to buy some bag straps for me and some food for the next couple of nights.  I like Te Anau, it's a small town with everything you need in it but nothing more.  Though admittedly we were seeing it offseason and it could have a very different feel during peak season.  The drive to it was also amazing and gave us our first views of the mountains that make up Fiordland.  

The plan that night was to drive further down the road to Milford Sounds and set up camp at one of the DOC sites where we would stay for the next two nights.  However, these sites seem to be mostly designed for caravans and campervans, and the few locations we found between the trees where you could put a tent was only really suitable for smaller trekking tents rather than our larger tent.  We did also wonder a little bit about how the local Kea would take to an unguarded tent during the day and whether we would come back to find it suitably dismantled.  The long and short of it is that we drove back to Te Anau and stayed in a lovely individual room at the Lakefront Backpackers.  It had everything we needed and was a very clean hostel.

The next day was the day I was looking forward to most of all, which was a Milford Sounds Cruise with Southern Discoveries.   They usually recommend giving yourself quite a bit longer than Google maps normally recommends, probably due to the sheer amount of traffic that is normally found on that road.  We reduced that time a little bit as we were definitely not in the busy season, but we were glad that we gave ourselves a little more leeway as damage done to the roads by the flooding earlier this year meant that there were road works everywhere.  It's also a very windy road, so if you're not used to that then extra time is definitely a must.

The additional time on the road wasn't a waste though as it was a pretty amazing drive with beautiful scenery and lots of signs telling you not to stop for fear of death.  Always good.

The cruise itself was amazing and completely worth facing the cold and getting a little wet at one of the waterfalls.  We didn't get to see as much wildlife as it is sometimes possible to see, but seeing the dramatic glacier-formed landscape with trees clinging to practically nothing on sheer rock faces made up for that.  

The skipper of the boat not only sailed us around the sound but gave a running commentary as he did so which was both informative and funny.

On the drive back to Te Anau we had planned to stop off at a number of viewpoints indicated on a map of the road we had gotten at an I-site.  However, it turned out that most of these were either closed due to roads works and damage done by the flooding or we didn't see any signage until it was too late to turn without causing an accident.  We did manage to get a stop at Mirror Lakes though for a two-minute walk.

The following day we had planned to walk a portion of the Kepler Trail starting just outside of Te Anau, hoping to get above the tree lines to get a view of the area, but by the time we had sorted out our gear and repacked the car (we were moving to different accommodation that night) it was much later than we had intended.  We carried out the walk as planned, but didn't get to go out of the bush.  

We were thinking that we might not have been able to get much of a view at all as the clouds were pretty low, but at one section there was an opening in the tree line and we could see above the low clouds.  It was a pretty muggy walk and, in this form, probably not worth the trip and we didn't see or even hear much wildlife in the forest, but apparently it's a pretty amazing walk one you're above the bush.

That night we carried out a large purge of all our items as were would only be able to take one bag each onto the TranzAlpine Train and needed to do some decent purging.  Unfortunately, we had to say goodbye to our trusty tent that had served us so well during our time in New Zealand, but hopefully, it can have a new life with someone else.

After dropping off some items at a charity shop we headed to Queenstown where we needed to drop off the car, but not before taking a quick detour to Arrowtown.  I would definitely recommend going to see this town if you're in the area as, the centre at least, is a little capsule of history with buildings from the 18th century gold rush.  

I had wanted to spend a little more time there if we could, but we had to be back in Queenstown for 2pm, so instead we had a little potter around the centre, some lunch, and then went to look at the Chinese settlement - which was the main reason we were there.  It's been pretty unusual to come across information about the non-European settlers in New Zealand, but this was a really good insight into the conditions that some Chinese settlers had to live in and the treatment that many of them received.

We had come to the realisation now that the chances of us seeing a Kiwi in the wild were basically non-existent, at least during this trip to New Zealand.  So, we took a trip to the Kiwi Birdlife Park in Queenstown that happened to also be having a deal on their ticket prices that day.  Not only did we finally get to see three Kiwis, with a hilarious moment were one of the females knew that the noise to her enclosure door meant that more food was coming in and rushed at an amazing speed across her enclosure to gobble it all up whilst the male remained in the back corner, but I also got to see the Tuatara lizard, had my clothes slightly manhandled by a Kea, and got a close up of our favourite bird, the Morepork.   There wasn't really much else we wanted to do in Queenstown, so we had a couple of drinks in town before heading to bed.

The next day was basically just a day driving to Greymouth in bad weather.  We had tentatively hoped to see the Fox and Franz Josef glaciers on the way up, though we knew we probably wouldn't have enough time and that turned out to be true (apart from a vague glimpse).  So they can be added to a time when we can do the trip a little more slowly next time.  Other than that, there isn't really too much more to write about when it comes to this journey.

Our last day of travel saw us spending the morning pottering around Greymouth where there doesn't seem to be too much to do except visit the museum (which was closed), sit in a cafe, and go to a gem of a secondhand book shop called Red Bookstore.  From a tourist point of view, it seems to mainly be about the TranzAlpine Train.  We quite liked it though as a possible place to reside.

When we first organised this trip we hadn't planned on going on the TranzAlpine Train due to the price, but they had put out a deal and, in probably consequence, the train was packed.  I hate to say it, but this trip wasn't as good as we were hoping.  We did get some pretty good views, but there didn't seem to be too many that you wouldn't have been able to get by driving along the road that snaked beside it for most of the journey.  

You are given headphones so that you can listen to the commentary they provide along the route and the sections about Maori inhabitants and early European settlers and explorers were interesting.  However, they did seem to be stretching it a bit to try and find information to provide and, at one point, the they were telling us about a modern building built for the dairy industry.  I guess what is interesting is a matter of opinion, but it seemed a little odd to me.

Our last couple of days were spent in Christchurch with my aunt and uncle and there isn't really anything extra to tell you about on that front.  If you want to find out what I did last time you can read it here in my previous blog.  And then, after a lot a faffing with airlines where I'm going to have a little fight on my hands to get my money back, we were off to the UK on Singapore Airlines and I have to admit they looked after us pretty well.

Paperless Productivity - Memorigi

This month's paperless productivity app testing has been with Memorigi and, with the luck I had with TickTick after a random search on Google Play Store, I was hoping that this was going to be just as good.  Unfortunately, that didn't turn out to be quite the case.  

I should probably start by saying I was only working with the free version (the paid version starts at £32.99 for the first year) and that did mean that I didn't get to use all the features that would normally be available on this app, like recurring tasks, location-aware reminders, and subtasks.  It also meant that there was only a certain number of tasks I could actually put on and I reached that limit before this trial month was out.  You can go back and delete tasks, which would then let you add more, but that does mean you can't look back on what you've done and see any habits that might be forming.

When you first open up the app you do need to log in before you can get started, either through your Google, Facebook, Twitter, or a generic email account.  But after that, you can just get going.

The main route to navigate around the app is through the Memorigi sign, located at the top of each page (you can also swipe the page down) which will take you to this apps version of the main menu.  From here you can look at all the separate projects/lists you have.  When you click on each one it'll show the tasks you have specifically put in each list.  You can also use the four circled symbols at the top to see the tasks you have for the day in My Day (the circle),.....

.....all the tasks you have coming up in general in Tasks (the horizontal blocks),

.....the tasks you have coming up for each day in Calendar (verticle blocks),

......and the progress you've been making so far, including incompleted tasks, in (not surprisingly) Progress (the one that looks like a bar graph).  This is the page you can use to see what tasks you've already completed and, perhaps more importantly, exactly which tasks you didn't complete to determine if there are any patterns forming here.

Putting in a task is pretty easy to do.  You just click on the red cross at the bottom of each page and type in the name of the tasks.

Clicking on the date allows you to add the date and time, but if you want it to be a reoccurring task you need to subscribe.

Clicking on 'Inbox' allows you to add the task to a specific project/list.

You can also click on the actual picture to change this to whatever you feel fits this task, and there are a lot to choose from here, which is nice.

Clicking on the three dots on the top right gives you a few other options, like changing the colour of the picture.  However, if you want to add a subtask, pin the task, share this with other people, etc you do need to go for the subscription version.

Finally clicking on the grey circle on the top left allows you to add this task directly to your Today list, even if the due date is for a later time.  This is a nice little feature to the app, but more on that later.  Once you've made all the changes you like just click on the circle at the bottom and you're done.

You can make changes to the tasks at any point by just clicking on it.  However, if you want to make a quick change, especially to multiple tasks in one go, there's a neat little trick.  In the Tasks page hold on one of the tasks you liked to select for a second (and then click on any other task you would like to add to the batch) and then select one of the options, such as delete, add to Today's page (the circle of Memorigi's three colours), change the colour, add to specific project/list and, if you have the subscription, make into a subtask or add a location reminder.  I liked this option to add tasks to my day that weren't actually due on that day specifically, but that I wanted to work on ahead of time.

Once you've completed a task you swipe right to mark it as complete.  If you haven't completed it, but want to reschedule the task, then you swipe left.  Any task you haven't completed or rescheduled by the end of the day will appear on the next day as overdue.

One thing I did like about this app was that at 8.00am every morning I heard a little beep on my phone and all the tasks selected for the day would appear on my screen saver.  Not everyone wants to start their day with a list of to-dos straight away, but I quite like it as it sets up my mind for what I'm going to need to get done.

The tasks then stay as notifications on your phone, unless you swiped them off, and from there you can mark them as done, reschedule to another date, or snooze to later on in the day without actually having to open the app.  However, if you swipe off the tasks and then don't actually complete or reschedule them that day you won't get them appearing again as an overdue task the next day, so it's best to just leave them sitting there.

This app is pretty self-explanatory and easy to use.  The customisable graphics also add a nice little personal touch, however, I have to admit this isn't something I'm that bothered about to it's not necessarily a draw for me.  I think if you were prepared to pay for the subscription you would probably get quite a functioning app, but as you can get a lot of these features on other free apps it doesn't seem worthwhile to me.  

For me, I wouldn't really use the features like sharing tasks with others, which does make the features defuncted in my application and, therefore, not cost-effective.  So, for my need of a pretty basic to-do app, this isn't going to be for me.  However, if you are someone who needs all the bells and whistles to your task management but finds the more business-like apps a little bit too intimidating (you know, the ones with multiple pages, options to subtask within a subtask, and which tally every aspect of your life) then this would probably be worth a try.

One other thing I'd also like to add here is that I realised, when using TickTick, that I actually like having my habits standing out as different from my general tasks, but that wasn't something I could do here.  This is definitely a feature I would like to have in any additional app I use.  So, right now TickTick is still my favourite app and it'll be interesting to see if the last few I test will beat it.  Well, interesting to me anyway. 😂

Next month I'm going to be testing Toodledo.  Heard some good things about this one.

Returning to the South Island, New Zealand - part 1

I am now finally back in the UK and the less I think about that 40 hour trip whilst wearing a face mask the better.  Instead, I'm going to think of something for more enjoyable, and that is the trip we took to the South Island just before we returned to the UK, this time to see more of the middle and the west side of the island.  Due to the time of year, the route we wanted to take, and the activities we were planning on doing (Covid-19 had also reduced some of the services) it made sense for us to hire a car rather than rely on public transport (unfortunately).  We managed to get a pretty good deal using a website called transfercar.co.nz.  What car is available is pretty pot luck but we were able to find a pretty small and efficient car which was able to take all our luggage, was insured, allowed two drivers, and was with us for 10 days of our trip for around $150.  Not bad at all.

The first part of the trip was pretty similar to the last time I travelled south, with driving through the centre of the North Island to Wellington (where we stayed with friends) and then catching Interislander to Picton so I won't go over that part again.  You can find it in my first blog about the South Island here.  We stopped off at Oxford to spend some time with my partner's family and then headed to our first actual tourist stop - Aoraki/ Mount Cook.

Stopping off at Lake Tekapo on the way, which was definitely worth that extra time.

We had managed to get a good price for staying at the Hermitage Hotel at Mount Cook, but even so, it was still quite a splurge on our part.  However, it totally worth it as it ended up being much too cold to actually stay in the tent at that time and I have to admit having that little bit of luxury was very welcome.  As we arrived mid-afternoon we decided to first walk up to the Red Tarn before checking in, giving us a pretty good view of Mount Cook and it's surrounding peaks, as well as the Mackenzie Basin.  It also gave us a really good view of the weather rolling in and we decided to head back down before that reached the valley.  We also didn't have the right equipment to carry on any further up the mountainside in winter conditions, and there was also the traumatising fact that lockdown has definitely helped reduce our fitness levels quite considerably.

Though we had initially planned to go there in March, when the weather would have been much milder, there was something very beautiful about seeing the landscape all covered in snow not to mention the extra cosy feel of getting to watch a snow blizzard through the window of your warm room.

We only really had one short day to spend at Mount Cook and, as the conditions didn't match our equipment we decided to take the safer lowland routes that day.  I say safe, there was literally ice the whole way along one of the tracks, including the bridges, but I guess you have to get your adventures where you can.  

Our first destination was the Hooker Glacier, which was absolutely stunning especially in the winter light we had and definitely worth the sort of ice skating we had to do to get there.  There were more people there then we were expecting, but the reduced numbers from what is probably normal in summer, and possibly a Covid free winter as well, was an added bonus to the winter visit.

Next was the Tasmin Glacier walk which passes the Blue Lakes (kinda more like ponds).  Aa much easier walk with no ice but straight up a steep hill.  The view might have been slightly less impressive, but it was still worth the visit and there were a lot fewer people than at the Hooker Glacier.  The Blue Lakes aren't actually blue anymore, more of a green colour, but apparently this is due to the fact that they were named during the 1800s when the Tasmin Glacier reached over the surrounding peaks and feed these lakes with its meltwater.  Now, this glacier doesn't even fill the valley it sits in and the lakes only receive water from rainfall.

After that, we drove to Omarama where we were staying the night in a very different type of accommodation, including only having 5 minutes of hot water for both of us to shower in.  However, I got a really yummy vegetarian meal and some good beer at the Boots and Jandals Hotel (not the place we were staying in).  There isn't a whole lot of things open at Omarama during this time of year, and also probably due to Covid-19, but we did manage to book a section at HOT Tubs Omarama from 8.00pm to 9.30pm, which meant soaking in what looks like a giant cauldron whilst getting a really clear view of the stars and listening to Pukekos.  You can also book these during the day, but I would definitely recommend going at night instead.  I would also recommend not eating as much as we did an hour before getting in, made it ever so slightly less comfortable then it should have been.

The following day saw us driving to Wanaka, mainly to visit more of my partner's family.  This time we decided to camp as we had already been pushing the budget just a little bit and needed to save some money.  We went for the campsite right beside the centre of town called the Wanaka Lakeview Holiday Park and it turned out to be a really good choice with great facilities.  It also helped that they gave us a good spot right beside those facilities ensuring we were only a hop, skip, and a jump from the loos and (more importantly) the warm lounge.  After initial hellos to the family, we headed off to set up camp and then visited the 'Wanaka tree' that you see on all those Instagram photos.  It is a beautiful tree in a great setting, but I'm not sure if I'd go as gaga about it as some people do.  

We were also lucky in that we had unintentionally arrived on Matariki, Maori New Year, where we were entertained to a couple of bonfires on the beach, a band, and some fireworks.  There was also hangi, which normally contains meat but they did a vegetarian option giving me the chance to get an idea of the flavours.

The following day we were meant to start with a walk, but the night before had been much colder than we had been expecting and ended up being pretty sleepless.  So instead, we enjoyed snoozing as the morning sun warmed up the tent.  Then it was a quick but wonderfully warm shower before we pottered around Wanaka town centre.  It's a very nice town with a good number of outdoor shops and cafes.  However, the type of shops and prices definitely shows the wealth of the area.  That afternoon we drove up to the Treble Cone ski centre for more family time, though we didn't do any skiing ourselves.  However, perhaps the highlight of the trip was getting to see a couple of Kea not exactly in the wild, but definitely not in captivity.  The orange of their underwing feathers is really striking and it's really enjoyable watching their mischievous behaviour.

And then we were off further to Southland for more site seeing and walking, but I will save that for the next blog.