Heading South (Part 1)

Hi everyone. Sorry it’s been a while since our last post. Time seems to have flown by, so I here’s an update as to what we have been up to. As I write this I am sitting in a little cabin not far from the Southern most point of New Zealand looking out the window at the rain!

In the last post we had just completed a road trip with Vinnie and Judith and had put Vinnie back on a plane to the UK.

Judith stayed with us for another 2 weeks and we pottered about the Whangarei area. We also had a visit for a few days from Sally, another friend from the UK who was over in New Zealand visiting her family. It was great to see her and catch up!

it was another very sad farewell when we took Judith down to the airport. She and Sally took the same flight back to the UK which meant they could keep each other company on the long flight. Judith was inspired after her visit to New Zealand to watch the entire Lord of the Rings Trilogy on the plane!

On our return to the boat we got ready for the next road trip. We wanted to visit the South Island of New Zealand, so we got all our camping gear stacked in the car, bought a few extra bits, loaded up with supplies and headed off.

it’s a long way to Wellington from Whangarei where you catch the ferry South, so we decided to spend a few days on the way down to explore parts of the North Island that we hadn’t seen before, the Eastern Cape and the wine growing region around Napier.

A long drive took us to our first stop at the start of the East Cape highway to the little town of Matata. Nestled at the side of a huge beach, we pitched our tent for the first time in a DOC (government run Department of Conservation) campsite.

it was hot and we got the brand new tent unpacked. We went to setup the poles only to find that the shock cord had snapped on two of them and we didn’t know how to put then together. A couple of beers and some head scratching at the Chinese instructions for 30 minutes and we had the thing pitched. Camp bed and mattress was next and finally we had our luxurious camp setup. Tea was provided by the local chippy and we had our first introduction to the vicious sand flys that decided to target Ailsa for their tea!

The next day we packed everything away and took another long drive out in to the eastern cape region. It is a spectacular drive that hugs the coast and at times where that’s not accessible takes you deep in land over rugged hills and round tortuous hairpins. The route took us through many little townships each of which had a Māori meeting house. This is the area of sine if the first Māori settlements. Finally the drive took us out to the Eastern Caoe itself and we pitched the tent in a spectacular spot under rugged mountains after a drive down a gravel track.

we continued our drive around the cape the next day. The rugged landscape along the highway gave way eventually to long sandy beaches as we headed further south in to the Hawke Bay Area. At the end if the day we needed to find somewhere to stay and found ourselves in the non descript town of Wairoa. It had a little holiday park on its outskirts next to a wide river. So we pitched the tent and went for a look. It was a pretty grim place. Not much evidence if tourism, so we went to the supermarket and bought supplies for tea.

The holiday parks in New Zealand are great. They all have communal areas with a lounge and a kitchen area where you can cook and get to meet other people on the site, we were in the kitchen that evening with other people when we were asked by a guy doing his food prep where were we from in Nottingham?! He had overheard our conversation and recognised our accents. So we struck up a conversation. That’s when we got to meet Jeff and Steph and their lovely family. It turned out that both of them came from very nearby the same area in Nottingham as we did. Also, being about the same age the connection was even closer than that. Steph knew Ailsa’s brother, and had even been to a party at Ailsa’s family home. It was a surreal moment for all parties! Here we were in the back and beyond of New Zealand and we had happened to bump in to people that had mutual connections to our childhood home life, Jeff and Steph had moved to New Zealand 20 or more years ago and setup their lives in this wonderful country.

That was the start of a great and unexpected weekend. Jeff and family were staying on the site as their passion is to go waterskiing. The river at Wairoa is the perfect place. Jeff convinced us that we should stay and have a go at skiing the next day. It was a beautiful sunny day as we headed to the river. The only water skiing I have ever done was on a cable way in Nottingham at the national water sports centre. Jeff had a super fast speed boat called the Dominator! I thought, yeah I will have a go at that! It can’t be that hard? I was out on the boat watching the kids doing some amazing skiing. Then it was my turn to have a go. It did not go well! The first three attempts had me face planting in the water behind the boat, the fourth attempt and I pulled my hamstring! So I had to limp back to the shore in defeat!

still if was a fantastic day by the river. Later that evening it all got a bit silly. We went out for a meal at a local restaurant and drank far too much. My excuse was that it was medicine for my leg. It was a great evening and Jeff and Steph, friends and family were wonderful fun.

Feeling a little worse for the wear the next day we said our goodbyes and headed on the trip further south, and stopped the night in Napier. Although we were surrounded by vineyards we didn’t feel much like drinking wine!

The next day we drove down towards Wellington, passing lots of vineyards and eventually reaching the mountains to the North if Wellington where we stopped in another holiday park for the night. It turned out that a scene from Lord of the Rings where Gandalf walks through the gardens of Isenguard and consults with Sauron was filmed in the park right next to the holiday park. We searched everywhere for the tower of Isenguard but couldn’t find it?!

We had the ferry to Picton in the South Island booked for the next day at 7 30 in the evening so we headed down to Wellington and spent the day in the Te Papa museum. It was well worth the time and effort. It took us 2 hours just to do the amazing Gallipoli exhibition. Models had been made of the soldiers by Weta Studios that were three times life size. It was so well done and informative that we could have spent longer.

The other exhibits we saw that day were about nature in New Zealand and all the bird species that have been lost as well as interesting pieces about Māori culture and the history of colonialism.

We caught the ferry that night for a very smooth crossing

A quick stop in Picton and we found ourselves in a little town called Havelock. We were attracted by the sign that said Havelock was the mussel capital of New Zealand. We tested that with a bowl of delicious mussels at the local restaurant appropriately called the Mussel Pot. We took a side trip to Blenheim and the wine growing district of Marlborough where Ailsa got to sample some nice glasses of Sauvignon.

We have been making this trip up as we go, so we decided to head to Nelson, but on the way we were attracted to a sign that pointed to several campsites right on the North end of the island. it turned out to be a great decision and we took the gravel road out to a place called French Pass. It was a stunning drive along a headland with views out over the inlets and islands in the area.

French Pass was another DOC camping site where we camped right on the beach. We had stingrays swimming in the surf off the beach and we also spotted several sharks swimming in the bay too. I went for a swim, but compared to the seas we have been used to, this was COLD!

A short walk took us to a lookout over French Pass itself, a tidal race where the sea is forced through a narrow channel full of rocks.

After a few days we headed towards the Abel Tasman National Park which occupies the North West corner of the island. We avoided some rain with a stay in a cabin and then took a side trip to see our friends Donna and Mark in a beautiful place called St Arnaud

That trip ended up being expensive when I got pulled over for speeding! I hadn’t realised we were still in the town centre. 80 dollars later and we are in the way again. Ouch!

We took a drive up in to Abel Tasman. There’s only one road and you have to go over the top of a huge mountain with great views. Our destination was the great campsite at Totaranui which involved another long drive down a gravel road through steep and spectacular bush land. The campsite is situated on a fabulous beach and was very popular. The next day we took a walk down the coast path and ended up at several more fantastic beaches.

it was time to head down the west coast where the spectacular southern alps preside. But first we got side tracked by gold mining! We ended up staying a few days in a place called Reefton. A lovely little town with a strong history of gold mining going back to the mid 1860’s. The area was littered with old mines and we soon located a museum at a place called black point. We were the only people in there and ended up spending 3 hours talking to the curator John, himself a mining engineer who had lived and worked in the are for 35 years. He was a mine of information and showed us some of the extensive archives including old mine records. It was very interesting,

The next day at Johns suggestion we took a walk in to the country side around Black Point to visit the old mine sites where some of the machinery still exists at the locations of the old shafts. It was a long walk but we were rewarded with amazing views and lots of history.

We went to the local hardware store in Reefton to get gold pans and a shovel. We met quite a few local miners in the pub, but none of them would tell us the good places to go and pan for gold! In the end we went to a couple of places that are for recreational gold panning. Of course we didn’t find much but it was a lot of fun trying our hand at fossiking.

We headed a little further south to another gold mining area called Goldborough, the site of the 1875 gold rush and then sought shelter for a rainy night at the Empire hotel in the old gold town of Ross. A lovely traditional hotel with a roaring log fire and an excellent roast buffet for dinner. A definite bit I of luxury after many nights under canvas!

Another drive south and we passed the Franz Josef glacier where we stopped to have a look. If anyone wants to see real evidence of global warming they should visit here and see the photos of how far the glacier has retreated.

We stayed the night in Haast and then headed on another spectacular drive south to the lakeside town of Wanaka. Here we went for a long drive down a bone shaker of a gravel road and a 4 hour walk to go and see the Rob Roy Glacier. This walk was some of the best scenery we have seen in New Zealand and I would put it up there in my top 10 favourite walks of all time.

We camped in Wanaka for a few days until the threat of heavy rain made us decide to get under a fixed roof in a nice chalet in the ski resort of Cardrona right next to the old hotel.

We took a day trip to the popular and very touristy places of Queenstown and Arrowtown.

Ailsa felt closer to her Scottish roots when we were in Queenstown and we stumbled across a highland bagpipe competition being held in the local park. We have probably seen more bagpipes and players in New Zealand than we have ever seen in Scotland!

Walter keeping dry in our chalet and having the chance to do all our washing too after a month on the road, we headed down to the Fjordland National Park and the pretty lakeside town of Te Anau. This was our base for a few days to explore the area. Poor Ailsa was ill for one of those days and so I took a walk from the town to see the views of the lake. The next day we took the fabulous drive up to Milford Sound. The road takes a tortuous route through the steep sided mountains and I through a crazy tunnel to get to the sound. Milford sound was full of tourists but we couldn’t have chosen a better day to see this beautiful place with not a cloud in the sky.

On the way back we made sure to stop and see the Ailsa Mountains!

We are almost up to date. We left Te Anau a few days ago and since then we have been exploring the Catlins at the bottom of the South Island after a brief visit to the uninspiring town of Invercargill.

On the way to Inver we had to make a stop at a place called Clifden and pay a visit to their historical bridge … the aptly named Clifden suspension bridge. That bought a smile to our faces. It was in the middle off nowhere and looked rather like a smaller version of Brunels Clifton suspension bridge in Bristol, although none off the boards describing the bridges history made any mention of this fact!

We made it to a place called Bluff and Slope Point, I both of which seem to claim to be the southern most tip of New Zealand. We think slope point won it…

Our exploration of this coast bought us to see some amazing geology. At a place called curio bay there is a rock beach which is covered in 170 million year old petrified tree trunks and stumps. This is extremely rare to see and has to be some of the best preserved fossil trees in the world. The preservation occurred when the forest got covered with silica rich volcanic ash from a nearby eruption. Looking at the fossils you would swear they were real wood.

We have also trecked through mossy rainforest to visit the McClean falls and Cathedral sea cave.

So you are up to date!

Join us next time as we make our way back up to Whangarei on part 2 of the roadtrip. New Zealand continues to impress us with the variety of landscapes we have seen and all the incredibly genuine and friendly people we have met.

Dom and Ailsa on Azimuth.