Days 35 - 40 of NZ 2022 Trip
DAY 35: I woke up this morning to a family of ducks pecking at our motel door. Georgie and Alex had had the same thing happen to them yesterday morning. Very cute.
Reluctantly, we farewelled all the children/grandchildren this morning as they were due to fly out of Christchurch this afternoon. It has been so nice to have them all here with us. We will miss them. At least they had a perfect day for travel - clear as a bell.
We hung around in our motel so we could watch the Australia vs Argentina football game. It was a good game to watch, even though we lost - boohoo! We were lucky that Alex had worked out how to purchase a week's subscription to Fox Sports as there was no other way of watching it. The TVs at Mt Cook weren't working and the Hermitage Hotel had nothing open at that hour that may have been able to access Fox Sports.
We then had morning tea at the cafe at the Hermitage so we could enjoy Aoraki for the last time. I am so glad we did our walk yesterday because although the mountains were super clear today, a very strong wind was blowing and it looked quite dusty down in the Hooker Valley.
The mountains and Lake Pukaki gave us a beautiful and clear farewell.
No regrets, but I think I overdid things a bit yesterday. Covid light-headedness came back a bit so it was lucky we had no need to do anything today other than reach a campsite for the night. We did go via the lovely Lake Tekapo which was looking stunning on this clear day. Lupins are out everywhere.
Our camp for the night is a free camp on the edge of Lake Opuha, about 45 mins drive from Lake Tekapo. Where there are mountains, I have been loving watching the clouds roll in at night. The bank of cloud you see in this photo just grew and grew until nothing of the mountains could be seen.
DAY 36: We had a lazy start to the day not getting on the road until about 9am, destination somewhere near Arthur's Pass as we head north again. It was overcast to begin with while we passed over the Canterbury Plain sheep and cattle country. We had travelled most of this road last year but in the opposite direction. Funny how things never seem the same when you pass them from a different angle.
A new road opened up when we got to Sheffield. As we were planning to free camp again we had to find water. We have found that difficult here in NZ. Many service stations do not have attendants and do not have water, not even to clean your windscreen. There are rarely taps in 'domains', the equivalent of our sports parks. We would not mind paying for water, but there are just not the facilities, except in caravan parks and even there, not all sites have taps.
An added complication is that the water pump on our camper seems to have given up the ghost so we can't use the water we have. Oh well.
With no real idea of where we were going to camp, we kept heading towards Arthur's Pass, passing through some pretty impressive mountain landscapes.
Sometime we reached a place called Castle Hill, another wonderful limestone rock playground. Such a photogenic spot!
I spent a long time strolling around here and found a few plants and insects among the rocks.
We then found a camp about 5km off the main road, a few campervan sites next to a tramper's hut near Mount White, about 20 mins before Arthur's Pass. A lovely spot for the evening, except for the midges - they were terrible! Before dinner, I managed to get a wander in and find a few more bits and pieces to photograph.
This is the babbling brook we camped by.
Today's was a long drive with few breaks. We did however, stop at Buller's Gorge where we paid to walk across NZ's longest swing bridge.
The area is interesting too because it was subject to a major earthquake in 1929. This property was right on the fault line and a rise of 4.5m was seen in parts.
Finally we reached the Motueka Valley where we discovered the centre of NZ's hops growing. I don't think I have ever seen how hops grow before.
I have been surprised at the lack of horticulture here in NZ. With such good volcanic soils I would have thought there would be more, but the Motueka Valley seems to be the horticulture heartland. Lots of fruit is grown here too. We bought a bag of apples at a farm gate, but unfortunately they were really disappointing - too floury for my taste.
Our final destination for the day was a free camp at Motueka. Here there is a seawater pool that almost looked inviting (3 young boys were enjoying it). Low tide is so low that boats are left high and dry.
North of the pool, the beach is sand and pebbles, south of the pool the mud/sandflat is awash with cockles and mussels.
DAY 38: I had been intrigued by the sound of Collingwood from the biography of Sonja Davies I am reading and that is where we were headed today.
As the distance from Motueka to Collingwood is not great, we decided to explore quite a bit of the coast in between the two places, wending our way slowly northwards.
As the distance from Motueka to Collingwood is not great, we decided to explore quite a bit of the coast in between the two places, wending our way slowly northwards.
First stop was what looks like the playground of Christchurch or maybe just Nelson retirees, Kaiteriteri. Huge homes with fantastic views.
From here there are all manner of tours you can take to explore Abel Tasman National Park that is just a little further north. Not for us today, but another idea for the future. We went a little further to try and find Split Apple Rock. We found the path, an easy 15 minute walk down to the beach, but when we got to the beach, the tide was up and there was no beach. The Rock itself was rather small.
Next we stopped off at the southern end of Abel Tasman National Park, where you can do another of NZ's Great Walks. Not too difficult, but a 3-5 day hike. We did the first 500m up to a little beach! Wandering around looking at all the different coastal vegetation and the shells and driftwood inhabitants was fun.
We then headed around the western border of the National Park, up and over the Takaka Hill, a stiff climb up to 791m and back down again. As the locals say, 'It's only a hill - get over it!' Near the top of the hill there is a lookout and walk that was worth the little time it took to do. From the lookout you get a good view down to the fertile Motueka Valley and you can see why the climb up the hill is necessary. The valley comes to an abrupt end. Along the walk to the lookout you pass more interesting rocks, some limestone, some marble, all weathered by water.
Next, we explored the coastal towns south of Takaka, to the north of Abel Tasman National Park, in particular Pohara, Tata Beach and Wainui Bay where the Abel Tasman Great Walk ends. Lovely landscapes but why you would live in some of these places where you could so easily be cut off for a long time by landslips, or where you could lose your house to the sea at any time, is beyond me. Some more rock formations, including an arch that the road passes under, along the coast at Tata Beach.
We reached the caravan park at Collingood in the very late afternoon/early evening. Collingwood is a small village with a very laid-back feel to it. I'm liking this part of NZ already.
I also saw flocks of two species of oystercatcher, the South Island Variable Oystercatcher and the Variable Oystercatcher, pictures of which are the first and second photos below respectively.
DAY 39: We began today by exploring Collingwood a bit and visitng two good little museums. One showed lots of paraphernalia from bygone days, the other more of the history of the town in photograph. Worth a visit.
Our next port of call was Puponga, still further north than Collingwood and smaller again, with no obvious shop.
We had chosen to visit Fossil Point for starters. The walk goes through sheep farming land first, then bush before arriving at the beach. We wandered up the beach for a bit, first finding some sand cliffs then lovely coastal flora, including a little valley of the local Nikau palms.
Next thing ready for exploration was a small collection of large 'pancake' rocks, which is where the fossils are. Not only were there lots of shell fossils but also one that appears very crablike.
I decided then that I would like to do the walk to Cape Farewell and Pete decided to head back to the car and drive there, then walk back the other way along the track until he found me.
I took the track very slowly, a little concerned about overdoing things since Covid, but I am so very glad I did this walk. It passed through a variety of terrain, had some wonderful views out to the Farewell Spit and plenty of interesting flora.
I found Pete not long after Pillar Point, where there is a small lighthouse. We walked together to Cape Farewell, so called because apparently this was the last bit of NZ land Captain Cook saw after his 1770 circumnavigation of the two islands.
The Cape itself is a giant sandstone cliff, beautifully stratified with pebbly layers and in gullies within farmland that you cross were windswept Kanuka trees. Note the fence in the 3rd photo. This is a predator fence to keep birds that nest on the cliffs safe from rats, possums, ferrets and stoats!
This part of NZ is my new favourite part. I could quite easily live here.
We hopped in the camper and turned towards Wharariki Beach, not far west of the Cape. Here we rested for a while before heading for what must be, in Pete's words, 'One of the best beaches in the world.' The weather was prefect and the tide low, so we explored for hours. So many caves, seals, and a couple of creeks.
After dinner I went back to the beach to see how different it was at sunset.
DAY 40: Woke up to a drizzly, grey morning. We had thought that seeing Wharariki Beach at high tide would be completely different but the weather put a dampener on our desire to do that. Instead we drove back out to Puponga Farm, where we had started our walk to Fossil Point yesterday. I wanted to walk the beach a bit as it was littered with driftwood and shells and there was a sign about not touching a dead whale. So, bedecked in all my best wet and cold weather gear, I left Pete in the car while I wandered the beach.
There is something I love about being out in wild and woolly weather like it was this morning. I couldn't believe how many shells were on the beach, most broken. No wonder NZ has so much limestone. I could almost see it being made underneath my feet.
There were of course the usual cockles in a wide range of colours and mussels as well as other shells and the occasional bluebottle.
After about 15 minutes walking up the beach, I came across the dead whale. I learned later that it had been dead for about 12 days and had been anchored out to sea but yesterday it mysteriously appeared on the shore. Dept. of Conservation workers had the unenviable task of trying to get it back out to sea.
An hour's beach stroll in the rain and wind was enough for me. Just as I was getting in the car, I noticed that the car next to me was from the Dept. of Conservation. I knocked on the door and asked if either of the occupants happened to know anything about plants. Dad had asked for photos of a particular little thorny plant, one of the Blue Devils or Eryngiums, but knew they would be hard to find. Apparently I had struck the one person who knew exactly what I was talking about. So, as I stood in the rain and he started getting wet in his seat, he gave me explicit instructions about where to find a nice little colony of the plants.
Well, I thought they were explicit until the only Sandy Hills I could find on Google Maps were in Ontario! It must be a local name for the place. Fortunately the rest of his instructions were clear, so we headed south-west of Puponga to an area south of Mangarakau. Even if we didn't find Dad's Eryngium, the drive was worth going on. It travelled along the Whanganui Inlet, a huge inlet with a very narrow opening to the Tasman Sea. Wild, natural forest borders much of it, although there are occasions houses built in impossible places. So picturesque.
Unbelievably, about ten minutes into the drive the rain stopped and we even saw the occasional glimpse of blue sky. Once near the west coast, cliffs and unusual rock formations were everywhere, although most were on private property.
We finally reached the spot along the coast where the DoC chap had told me to walk from, but we didn't realise that the walk was going to take us 2km up the beach. I had almost given up on finding the fence on a finger headland that he had spoken of, when Pete suggested just looking around the next bit of beach. There it was! We had to clamber up the side of the headland, walk through knee-deep scrub, cross a fence, then walk out onto this little bit of windy headland and look. It would have been easy to have overlooked the plant, but I have been taught well in the art of observation! Thanks Dad!
This little rosette is it!
The walk back along the beach was interesting now that the tide was lower. It revealed curvaceous rock formations that we hadn't realised were there on the way up and beautify speckled rocks. We even saw caves we hadn't noticed on the way up.
We had been so lucky with the weather. It wasn't until we hit the east side of the Tasman Peninsular that we got rain again. As we passed the Whanganui Inlet on the way back, we were stunned to see that it was no longer filled with water but was one huge mud-flat! We had been wondering why we had seen no boats! We wondered no longer.
Our final drive for the day was to go back over the Takaka Hill and get back to the free camp at Motueka, hoping that there would be space for us. There was.
DAY 40: Today was our final day on the South Island. Our ferry was delayed by some 4 hours so we had time to go and have a quick peek at Nelson. This was handy too since we had some documents that needed scanning and signing and emailing and we had been nowhere where this had been easily done for a while.
After doing our necessary tasks we visited the Nelson market where I replenished our larder with some lovely fresh local produce - strawberries, raspberries, cherry tomatoes and cheese. Yummo! As you can see from the photos, the weather wasn't great.
Because of a landslip on the main route between Nelson and Picton that has had the road closed since August, we had to use a detour that added an hour on to the trip so our time in Nelson was limited. Somewhere to visit and explore another time.
The trip out of Queen Charlotte Sound from Picton is beautiful. Another remote location where it is hard to believe people still farm.
My seasickness drug concoction worked again and on this ferry we were able to go out onto a deck at the front of the boat which also helped, even though it was freezing!
Here is a video of our exit from the Sound and into Cook Strait.
Because of the delay in the ferry, we didn't actually get off the ferry much before 9:30pm. The free camp where we had hoped to stay, 5km from the city centre, was full and we had to drive another 12km to the next place. We were exhausted and although the legal spaces were full, there was plenty of extra room and so we did our first ever illegal camp. I couldn't have cared less by that stage. Unfortunately, some local youths decided that the area was a good place to party and so we didn't actually sleep until well after midnight.
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