New Zealand - Hello South Island

Day 105 - 19th March

We woke to a very grey and blustery day, but that wasn't a problem as our major aim for today was to get the ferry to the South Island. After a leisurely morning we drove back to Wellington to the Interislander Ferry terminal. We were able to get on the next sailing, at 2:00, had a coffee and even checked the internet at the terminal building. The 3-hour ferry crossing was quite rough due to the strong winds, but nothing compared to our ordeal on the Navimag ferry in Patagonia, so we didn't mind too much. Sadly visibility wasn't fantastic and the Marlborough Sounds were shrouded in low cloud, still as we approached Picton we were able to get close enough to land as we wound our way through the sounds to get a pretty good view. We even saw a pod of dolphins swimming alongside the boat for a while. Once safely off the ferry on the South Island, we drove to our campsite. Although fantastic in every other way, Wendy is not well equipped for wind, being quite high and light, and it was a pretty hairy journey at times. Jon did very well to get us there in one piece and we found a lovely, reasonably sheltered DOC campsite along the beach at Rarangi, where we were treated to a spectacular sunset.

Marlborough Sounds

Sunset at Rarangi Beach

Day 106 - 20th March

After a relatively restful night we woke to find that the weather hadn't improved and the wind was still blowing a gale. That rather scuppered our plans to hire some bikes and cycle round the Marlborough vineyards, lazily tasting wine, so we decided to do the abridged version in Wendy instead. We started at the interestingly named Spy Valley, named after a defence listening post a little way away from the vineyard. Their promises of an espionage-themed winery were sadly a little optimistic, but the wine more than made up for it. We spent a very happy hour or so tasting about 6 delicious white wines, whilst chatting to the very friendly woman serving us. I even found a Sauvignon Blanc I was prepared to give van room to and we gladly bought three bottles of wine from them. After a restorative lunch, it was on to our next vineyard, Highfield, which has a Tuscan inspired building complete with square viewing tower with great views of the Marlborough Valley. Here we tried 7 wines (8 if you count the fact that we tried the sparkling twice!), 5 whites, a sparkling and a pinot noir. We both liked the chardonnay and the pinot but they were quite pricey so we didn't buy anything here. After that much wine we decided it would be better to call it a day as Jon still had to drive Wendy to our overnight destination. We drove up the coast to the small town of Havelock, which claims to be the Greenshell Mussel capital of the world. The town itself was tiny and set in a small harbour, which I'm sure would be lovely in slightly better weather, but we found a great mussel restaurant and ordered their mussel sharing platter and a cool glass of white wine. We tried the huge Greenshell mussels in many forms – steamed, grilled with bacon and cheese or sweet chili, marinated, battered and smoked – and all were fantastic. The mussels are so much larger than the ones we get at home and they have a lovely meaty texture, it really was worth the stop off. After dinner we drove to yet another lovely DOC campsite, this one set in lush tropical forest near Pelorus Sound. We took a short evening stroll to a nearby waterfall (albeit a very tiny one) and had a relaxing night as the wind finally seemed to be dropping.

Highfield Vineyard

Enjoying Greenshell mussels

Spy Valley

Day 107 - 21st March

The weather had indeed improved when we woke up and as the morning went on the wind dropped to almost nothing and the sun came out in places. We drove to the city of Nelson and stopped to have a look around. Nelson is a bustling metropolis by NZ terms, with a fully stocked high street and tons of cafés and bars, still we had our usual difficulty in finding anywhere with wifi. Eventually we found an internet café and I was finally able to publish the blog from the rest of the North Island. We drove north through beautiful countryside until we reached Marahau, a small beach town right at the southern entrance to Abel Tasman National Park. We found a company to hire some kayaks tomorrow, but unfortunately the man there said the weather forecast wasn't looking great and they might not go out tomorrow. We'll have to check back with them in the morning and hope we can get out on the water. We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering along the beautiful beach, trying not to step on the starfish that lay everywhere, and found a campsite just outside of the town. Jon went for a nice run along the beach, so that's him happy for another few days! Fingers crossed for tomorrow's weather...

Happy Jon in Marahau

Marahau Beach

Starfish

Day 108 - 22nd March

It rained all night long and the morning was damp and misty, still we decided to get up and speak to the kayak company, and by the time we got down there the rain had stopped, the wind had died and the sun was shining. Hooray! We got our kayak and equipment and had a quick safety briefing from the guide and then we were off in the morning sunlight into the beauty of Marahau Bay. We quickly remembered our kayaking technique and headed off across the bay towards the headland, with the still water glistening in the sun. We spent the first part of our trip meandering around some of the 12 bays and coves we passed, although as the tide was in the beaches themselves were not visible. We spent some time paddling around the rock formations in Stilwell Bay, including venturing into two small caves, which were really cool. We headed over to Adel Island, just off the coast, in search of seals but they all seemed to be hiding from us. As the morning wore on the wind picked up and the sea got quite rough in places. Our plan was to paddle round the headland to Anchorage, where we would leave our kayaks, but as we rounded the headland the wind picked up and the waves became quite strong. Sadly we had to turn back not far from Anchorage as our little kayak was being swamped by the waves and we were no longer making progress because of the wind! We paddled safely into the beautiful sheltered Watering Cove, where we stopped for a bite to eat and to dry off in the sun. 

Abel Tasman in the morning sun

Stilwell Bay

Me in Stilwell Bay

Jon at Watering Cove

After lunch we had one more attempt to find the seals on Adel Island as some people we spoke to told us where they had seen them this morning. That turned out to be ill-judged – as we crossed the water the clouds descended and the rain began to fall, and when we reached the island the seals were sensibly hiding from the rain. By the time we got back to Watering Cove it was raining hard and we were soaked through. We left our kayak on the beach for the hire company to pick up later and made an attempt to get dry and change into our waking clothes, not an easy feat in the rain, even under some trees! Still quite soggy but safely wrapped up in our waterproofs, we started off on the 12km walk back to Marahau. Despite the weather the walk was easy and very scenic, and the rain quickly eased off to a light drizzle so walking wasn't too unpleasant. The path took us through woodland full of silver ferns, across streams and waterfalls and past the same coves we had kayaked past this morning, only this time, with the tide going out, the beaches were on display. The colours of Abel Tasman are magnificent – the sea is a brilliant turquoise, the trees seem to be greener than usual and the beaches are made of endless golden sand – all in all a truly spectacular place, even in the rain. We got back to Wendy, dried off and festooned the van with lots of wet clothes. We drove about 2 hours south to Kawitiri Junction, a free, basic DOC site that turned out to be a gravel carpark next to the road on the site of an old railway station, but it had a toilet and the road was quiet, so it suited us just fine.

Abel Tasman beach on our walk home

Day 109 - 23rd March

We slept well last night after our long active day and woke feeling refreshed and not too achy, which was just as well as today was a long driving day. We drove south along Highway 6 towards our destination of Franz Joseph Glacier. The rain had stopped again but the clouds were very low, meaning that our view of the mountains as we drove through the Southern Alps was severely truncated, and at times non-existent. Still, it was a pretty drive through farming country, forest and river valleys. We stopped for lunch at the coastal town of Punakaiki, famous for its limestone rock formations at nearby Dolomite Point. Known as pancake rocks as the limestone is formed in layers, like stacks of pancakes, they have been shaped by the sea into a network of stacks, gullies, surge pools and blowholes, through which the sea thunders in spectacular fashion. We spent half an hour or so just watching the sea rush through the cracks and crash up the rocks, once again wishing we lived by the sea. After lunch we drove on for another few hours to Franz Joseph. We made good time, the whole journey of more than 450kms took us less than 8 hours, including over an hour at Punakaiki. We stopped into the company that runs tours on the glacier and found out that the walks will be running tomorrow but the weather forecast for the next two days is for more wind and heavy rain. We settled ourselves into a campsite to deliberate as to whether we'll venture out onto the ice in such bad weather. The campsite is the swankiest we've stayed in so far, with a bar, restaurant and jacuzzi, which we enjoyed in the evening light after a glass of wine.

Punakaiki

Cormorant on Pancake Rocks

Day 110 - 24th March

We woke to rain, but not the heavy downpour predicted and optimistically booked ourselves on the 3:00pm glacier walk. Sadly, by the time we had had breakfast, the heavy rain arrived and proceeded to pour for the rest of the day. We had our only truly written-off day so far cooped up in Wendy with the rain beating down outside and strong winds making it far from ideal venturing-out weather. We decided that we really didn't want to be walking on a glacier in this weather, especially as we were rather spoilt with the incredible glaciers in Patagonia and the tours aren't exactly cheap, so Jon went down to the shop to cancel our booking. He got the distinct feeling that most of the other people there were contemplating doing the same and that the company was considering cancelling the walk anyway. Back at the campsite I met two girls in the toilets trying to dry off a mound of clothes and bags with the hairdryer – they had just got back from the full day walk, which had been cut short due to the weather, and said that it wasn't exactly the most enjoyable experience, so all in all we didn't feel too bad about cancelling. Late in the evening the rain eased a little and we ventured out to the hot tub, which had sadly malfunctioned, due to the huge amount of water it had had dumped in it today, and was not bubbling and slowly getting cold. Still it was warm enough for a short soak and we chatted to a Dutch family and a guy from Denmark, which was nice and felt a bit like being back in a hostel. As the rain started up again we went back to the van for dinner and a beer. When we went to sleep the rain was still hammering down and thunder and lightening had just started.

Day 111 - 25th March

Thanks to the wonder of ear plugs, we both slept through last night's thunder storm. This morning it was still raining, though not as consistently heavily as yesterday. We decided that as the weather hadn't improved that much we still weren't really up for several hours of soggy glacier walking and decided to see them by car instead on our way to Queenstown. First stop was Franz Joseph Glacier, where we managed to find a brief break in the rain. We walked up to the glacier from the carpark but where a little disappointed when we got there. Maybe we really were spoilt by the size and scale of the glaciers we saw in Patagonia, but it seemed quite small and very dirty, with the face nearly entirely covered in stones at the bottom – dare we say a little over-hyped? We were both quite glad we didn't spend lots of money to come walking here in the rain after all! Next stop was the lesser-visited Fox Glacier, which was a similar size to Franz Joseph but which we thought was better. You could get closer to the ice face here and the ice was much cleaner with less rubble, more visible ice and a beautiful ice cave at the face. Sadly we timed our walk here badly and got totally drenched and had to fill the van with soggy clothes again. 

Fox Glacier

Franz Joseph Glacier

Franz Joseph Glacier

The sun came out just as we were leaving Fox (typical!) and our drive south became much more pleasant, although we still drove through many short sharp showers along the way. The scenery along the drive to Haast was very pretty, taking us along a river valley with fleeting views of snow-capped mountains along the side of the road. We stopped for lunch in Haast and then continued our drive into the spectacular Mount Aspiring National Park. Here Jon and I found our happy place, with view after breathtaking view unfolding of deep forested gorges, waterfalls and snow-covered peaks all around. The road eventually brought us out to Lake Wanaka, with beautiful views of Mount Aspiring and yet more lovely scenery at Lake Hawea. The area really reminded us of the Highlands and we're looking forward to spending some more time here. We took the road through the Crown Mountain Range to Queenstown, which is much more picturesque than either of us imagined. Set on the shores of Lake Wakatipu, ringed on all sides but tall white mountains it really is an incredible spot. We're camping tonight at a DOC site at Lake Moke, just outside Queenstown, but a million miles away from the hustle and bustle of the town – there is nothing around except sheep and yet more stunning mountains. I think we're really starting to like the South Island!

Crown Range

Lake Hawea

Lake Wanaka and Mt Aspiring

Wendy at our campsite at Lake Moke