New Zealand Travelog

27-March-2002

The first day of kayaking. We set the alarm for another early morning and hit the road by 7:30 for the half hour drive to Marahau, where we would start our sea kayaking. We had made reservations with Ocean River Adventure Company, who seemed to really have their act together. Rolling into their base a little early - around 8:05, we had arrived before most of the staff. By 8:30, the place was buzzing. They dragged out a bunch of boats, among which were 4 single boats; two for us, and two for a couple of guys from California who were also starting out that day. We rented some camping equipment from them, since we did not want to lug around a tent for a month, to use it only for two nights. They supplied us with a tent (dome, 3 person, roomy, waterproof), sleeping pads (closed cell foam, uncomfortable), a stove (trangi type, slooooow but foolproof), and two waterproof camera boxes (Pelican Mini-D, worked great). The guide watched us pack our boats, and we were on the water by 10:30. We nearly forgot all of our cold food and utensils (just like on the Milford Track). Steve was the one who remembered, as he was running through the list of things we'd forgotten before in his head when the guide was blabbing on about some safety topics. The guide paddled with us for a short while, and then left us at Coquille Bay around 11:15.

We made quick time on the water, paddling the "mad mile" by noon, and getting to an unnamed beach just south of Fisherman Bay for lunch around 1:00. We had heard of the mad mile, which is an unprotected headland where the waves just seem bigger, and the winds are much stronger. In the beautiful calm weather we had, it was a walk in the park. By 2:30, we had paddled to the northern limit of where we were supposed to go (limited by the rental company), and decided to spend the night at Mosquito Bay. Beaching just south of the campsite, we had a 600m walk up the low tidal flats to the campsite. Most of the sites had been taken by earlier arrivals from nearby campsites, so we took a not-so-comfortable site in the middle of a guided group. The DOC states that there are 20 sites available. We could only see reasonable space for possibly a dozen, no more. Theh only way you could fit 20 tents would be to place them nearly touching each other, and on uneven ground. We rteturned to our distant kayaks, dragged them about 20meters up the beach, unpacked our tent, and made our way back to the campsite to wait for the tide to come in so we could float our boats up to the campsite. You see this time was near the full moon, and the tidal range was over 4.5 meters. The low tides were really low, and the high tides really high. High tide occurred around 9-10 in the morning, and low around 2-3 in the afternoon. When the tide had come in enough, we returned to our boats to bring them up a small creek that had formed on the north side of the beach. Patience paid off, as we had a much easier time than the folks who used brute strength to drag their boats up the beach.

After retrieving our food from the boats, we started to cook dinner (around 7pm). Chicken curry with rice - yummy. To make a long story short, the stove was terribly slow, and it took nearly 15 minutes to boil 1 liter of water. This made for a long evening of literally watching a pot boil (or try to). We also tried these new rice things from Uncle Bens - rice in a boil-in-bag. Well, we thought they might take 10-12 minutes or so - hmm, we opened the bag to find crunchy rice. Oh well, we were tired, hungry, and the curry tasted good, even though it crunched.

Moments after finishing the last few bites of dinner, a possum came out of the woods and attempted to steal our food bag. Steve saw him right away and scared him up a tree. With the exception of the long tail, these possums do not look anything like the North American version. In New Zealand, the possum have dark fur, pointy ears and beady red eyes. After seeing our possum friend, we decided it would be prudent to store our food in the kayak compartments, rather than in our tent or hanging from a tree. The possum continued to watch us for the rest of the evening. Given the possum's proximity, the guide for the group offered to demonstrate "possum whomping" to us, but the possum wouldn't come down from his perch up in a tree..

28-March-2002

After a horrible night's sleep on perhaps the most uncomfortable campsite we've ever been in, we awoke to the clanging of pots and as the neighboring group made breakfast. We ignored them for a while, but finally gave in around 8 a.m. and got up. They were on the water by 9:30, so we had the place to ourselves for a while.

Once breakfast was finally finished, we packed the boats for the day and headed north. We had decided to stay at Mosquito Bay for two nights (no sense packing up the tents and gear if we didn't have too), but once the campground had cleared out we did move our belongings to a more comfortable campsite. Our new campsite looked right out over the water (or mud flats, depending on the time of day), and had a lovely driftwood table and bench at it.

Out on the water, we paddled north to Tonga Island. The island is home to one of the South Island's breeding fur seal colonies. Because it is a marine reserve we were not allowed to land on the island, but we could paddle along its shores and peek at the seals. The seals didn't seem affected by our presence, continuing to either bask in the sun or swim playfully through the water. One seal was especially curious, and swam in and around our boats for several minutes.

After seeing the seals, we headed towards shore for lunch at Onetahuti Bay. Unfortunately, our peaceful lunch was distrupted by two DOC employees who showed up soon after we landed to mow the grass with a weedwhacker and cut up driftwood with a chainsaw.

We enjoyed a lazy paddle back to our campsite, checking out the coastline as we went along. The water was very clear, and we saw a manta ray swimming in one of the bays, as well as numerous starfish and sea urchins clinging to the rocks.

We cooked an early dinner of mac and cheese (yay - we only had to use the stove to boil water!) and watched the tide come in and the sun set. The sunset was gorgeous, with a trail of pink clouds all over the sky. It was very dark by 8 p.m., so we retired to the tent. The intention was to play a hand or two of cards, but we were both so tired we fell asleep almost immediately.

29-March-2002

Our morning was graced with a stunning sunrise over the water. The lack of any neighbors made the morning particularly nice, as we relaxed and enjoyed a properly (albeit slowly) cooked bowl of oatmeal. We packed up all of our gear and stuffed it into the kayak compartments. As we left the campshite, our neighbors kindly asked if they could move over and take it for their second night at the site. From Mosquito Bay, we started to head back south along the coast, taking our time and paddling close to shore to view wildlife. We stopped at a number of beautiful beaches on the southward paddle, including Observation Beach and some-other-name-that-we-can't-remember Beach.

Arriving back at Marahau at low tide, we dragged our kayaks up onto the beach near the kayak rental marker. We spotted a tractor with the Ocean*River logo, and dragged our kayaks about 200' up the beach to the kayak trailer. Wondering what to do next, we saw an Ocean*River employee running up the beach towards us. He said "let's get these up top - I've got a guided group with double kayaks out there I need to pickup. We hoisted the boats up, then rode out to pick up the other group. As we headed back to base, we noticed that a couple of guys who rented at the same time as us had just landed. Unfortunately their boats wouldn't fit, and they waited nearly an hour for the next tractor/trailer to convey them back to shore. We counted ourselves lucky to have landed when we did. The ride back to base covered over 1 km of tidal flats, during which we appreciated that our kayak company could transport us as well as our boats.

We quickly unpacked the boats, and repacked our food and (wet) clothing into the laundry bag before heading down the road for the evening. Because it was nearly 4:00, we debated where to go, and finally decided to attempt to get to Golden Bay for the evening - a 2-3 hour drive over a high mountain pass. The road to Golden Bay was crazy - similar to the Queen Charlotte Drive on the eastern side of the pass. The western side into Golden Bay was steep, but not nearly as curvy. We browsed the camping book, and decided to stay at the Pukawea Beach holiday park. The campsite was nice, with a beach view, and wonderful sea breezes - though at times the campervan shook a little at the wind's mercy.

Hearing wonderful things about the School House Cafe, we decided to check it out for dinner. It is located within walking distance across the street from the campsite. While the fish and chips was good, the Salmon was a little overcooked and could've been better. The atmosphere was really unique - it appeared as if one family runs the place. One woman was hustling the bar, waiting tables, taking orders, and hostessing. A young boy bussed tables and appeared to be very helpful. We're not sure who was in the kitchen... The cafe is located in a renovated one-room schoolhouse, with a cozy woodstove in one corner with comfortable chairs and c ouches around it. The place seemed to be somewhat of a local hangout, but was very friendly. A highly unique dining experience.

30-March-2002

Morning shook us awake early with a brisk cold wind from the ocean. We decided to get an early start on the day, and packed up the vehicle before heading north to Farewell Spit. Farewell Spit is the crook of land at the very northern tip of the South Island. Given that it is a destination on the Asian-Arctic bird migration path, there were alot of birds there! While we were there we only saw lots of black swans, but each year millions of birds visit the Spit. We then headed over to Wharariki Beach, on the other side of the spit. A 20 minute hike brought us across several rolling pastures, though a series of dunes to the ocean. We didn't stay too long on the beach, as it was quite windy and the sand-blasting on our legs wasn't fun.

The Golden Bay and Nelson areas are known for their arts and crafts community. We stopped at several of the studios that were mentioned in the guidebooks, but realized that we must have different tastes than the authors! We did see some neat stuff later that afternoon at Craft Habitat in Richmond.

As we headed south, we stopped at Pupu springs. These are the largest freshwater springs in New Zealand, and the water is incredibly clear. One cool feature of the loop trail was the underwater viewing scope, which allowed you to see the magnificant colors of the plants in the spring.

In order to get back to the Nelson area, we had to go over the Takaka Hill. This seemed to be one of the tallest, steepest, craziest roads we were on the entire trip. At the top there was a neat view down over the Abel Tasman National Park. We were quite impressed with the people we saw biking up and down the road - we guessed the downhillers were going at least 40-50 kmh. Traveling was smoother once we were on the other side of the hill, and we made good time towards Richmond. We had heard good things about the Seifried Winery, so we stopped by for a tour. Turns out they only offer wine tastings, not tours. The restaurant was about to close for the afternoon, so we made a reservation for the first spot for dinner. That meant we had an hour or so to kill, so we headed to Craft Habitat down the road. Craft Habitat is a collection of artists working with a range of mediums - wool, pottery, metal, wood, etc. Steve thought the religious theme was a little too strong., Nevertheless, we didn't buy anything.

We still had about an hour to kill, so we headed back up towards the winery and checked out Rabbit Island, a nearby beach. It looked like a neat place for a picnic - lots of picnic tables and BBQs spread out under beautiful tall trees. The gate closed at the sunset, so we made sure we were out of the park before then.

As we were heading into the Winery, a couple who'd just gotten married were coming in to the winery for their reception. We tried to stay out of the way of their pictures, and wished them good luck as we passed by. The restaurant was very busy with the wedding, and we were the only people who were eating dinner in the restaurant. Dinner wasn't as good as we expected, but we got to see a pretty sunset.

We stayed in Richmond that night, at the holiday park in the center of town. It was close quarters (lots of campervans, and the campground was surrounded by houses), but it had been a long day and we fell asleep pretty quickly.

31-March-2002

Happy Easter! Leaving the campground, we attempted to find an open grocery store. After located 2 closed stores, we headed out of town and thought we might find an open store down the road. Of course, we got so turned around finding the stores, that we headed off in the wrong direction. 10 minutes away, we realized that something was wrong, and did a 180 at the next rotary. Oops.

Reaching the western coast around noon, we stopped at Westport for lunch. Luckily Baillie's Bar was open, though only the bartender and cook were working. The town was fairly deserted, as we guessed many people were sharing the holidays with family. South of town is a particularly beautiful stretch of coastline, similar to the northern coast of California. We walked up a short path to the lighthouse at Cape Foulwind. This day it was a particularly foul and windy, but the coastline was still gorgeous. A thunderstorm was building off over the water, and we watched it steadily marching towards us.

South of Cape Foulwind, we walked to a seal colony out on the rocky coast. The walkway edged along the cliffs, with about 40 seals basking on the rocks far below. Huge waves were crashing over the rocks below and made for an exciting scene.

After we stopped about 6 times to admire the gorgeous coastline, we happened to pull off across from an artist's studio. Climbing up their steep driveway behind the beach, we discovered a wonderful array of hand blown recycled glass. We spent a good hour debating what we liked, and what we should purchase. In the end, we bought two flower vases, and one very cleverly designed serving tray. The tray is a flattened wine bottle made out of recycled blue glass. We had all the items carefully wrapped and shipped (posted in kiwi-speak) back to the U.S.

We arrived at Pancake rocks just in time to watch the sun set behind storm clouds off the west coast. The visitor's center had some excellent arts and crafts, some of which were familiar from the various studios we had already visited. One interesting thing we noticed was that the omnipresent Craig Potton posters of various NZ scenery ranged in price from 11 to 25 $NZ.

We pulled into the Punakaiki Beach Campground, though we never saw a beach anywhere... and walked to the local tavern for dinner. The place was packed with folks, seemingly both campers and locals. We shared a table with a couple from Santa Cruz, CA, who own and operate a health food restaurant called Dharma's. The food was great - and we finally got to partake of the famous NZ dessert delight - Pavlova. It's a meringue pie kind of thing, with whipped & ice cream.

1-April-2002

Sarah awoke early for some reason. Being a nice person, she finished her book and let Steve sleep until 7:30 am. We returned to Pancake rocks, which were brilliantly illuminated in the early morning light. Sunrise was an ideal time to visit, as the light from that angle highlighted the rock structures much better than sunset the night before.

Back at the visitors center, we saw three woodblock prints that we really liked. They depict the different trees that grow on the south island, and capture their essence quite nicely. The three prints are tall and narrow and would go very nicely in a picture frame together.

Continuing south along the spectacular coastline, we stopped several times for pictures and to admire the gorgeous scenery. Arriving at Greymouth, we drove south along one of the few roads that we had actually driven a week before. We were surprised when things started looking familiar. We had driven this road on the way from Hokitika to Hanmer Springs. Turning inland, we headed for Arthur's Pass. This is one of only a few mountain passes that connect the east and west coasts of the south island. We had previously traversed Haast, and Milford Passes, and this was our last transit.

The road up to Arthur's pass was unremarkable until we came to an extremely steep section which was impressively constructed. The road was carved into the edge of a scree slope, with overpasses to direct rockfalls and waterfalls OVER the highway. We thought this was very cool, and we didn't know it only got better. Just around the corner, the road diverged from the scree slope and rose gently, unsupported except for two pillars anchored to the valley bottom. The engineering required for an unsupported section that large must have been extensive. At the top of the pass, we read a sign that the viaduct was only installed in 1999; less than three years before our current visit. High above, the old road was barely visible; having already been partially erased by the continuous rockfalls. We noticed one fellow who was in for a surprise down the road. He emerged from around a corner with both of his front tires engulfed in smoke from his brakes. We're not kidding - you could barely see his tires through all the smoke. Contributing to the problem was the boat trailer (and boat) that he was towing downhill. We didn't want to be at the bottom when his brakes faded or failed.

The high plateau on the east side of the pass welcomed us with beautiful vistas of snow capped mountains and braided stream river valleys, complete with aggressive sandflies. We considered staying here for the night, but would have to remain cooped up in our campervan. We decided instead to press on to Christchurch and spend the night there. The east side roads were much gentler to drive than the west side, though a howling wind made the tall campervan a little shaky. Arriving in Christchurch, we made camp at Spencer Beach Park on the coast just north of town.

The campsite was quite nice, with large open areas and lots of play toys for kids. We were only one of a small handful of people who camped there for the night. It would have been nicer except for the gentle rain which blew in that afternoon. As we camped, the rain intensified, turning to hail for a while. Let's just say that hail on a thin plastic campervan roof is unbelievably loud.

2-April-2002

Our final day in New Zealand started with a quick trip down to the beach at the campsite. We walked up to a lookout platform at the top of the dunes while being blasted by the cold wind. After about 1 minute, we said OK, seen this - let's go. It was cold. We guess this was the sign that fall (and winter) were coming.

We drove into Christchurch around 9 for one last day of city tourism before the flight to Nadi and Rarotonga. We were staying at the YMCA again - the same place as the first night - and we couldn't check in until 1 or 2 pm. They let us park the campervan out back, and we hot tailed it into town for some shopping.

We had heard of a good used bookstore mentioned in the Lonely Planet guide, but it was nowhere to be found on the street. Of course we could've been looking in the wrong place - but we didn't think so. We finally located Whitcomb's, which is a fairly large bookstore. Eack of us bought two books for the long plane rides home and the hours on the beach soon to come.

As we mentioned earlier, the Arts Centre is a great collection of artists and galleries - however, there is also a nice Cafe in the middle of one of the courtyards, where we dashed inside to avoid a noon shower. Returning to the YMCA a little after 12 noon, we found that our room had been cleaned and we moved our bags inside.

We took our last drive in the campervan back to the rental center near the airport. Driving up to the main door, it was slightly surreal, having seen very few places twice on our trip - and this was one of them. We remembered the guy who checked us out nearly a month ago. By chance, he also checked us back in. Walking out to the campervan, he asked us if everything went fine - we said "sure did." He took one look at the van, and decided it was still fine. We had rented their absolute bottom of the line van, and it had seen 240,000 km in its lifetime. He said "looks good" and we went back inside to settle the paperwork. We did overhear that two other couples had problems with their rental vans. We're not sure exactly what went wrong,but they were given some part of their rental fee back in exchange for their troubles. We were happy we had a good van. We think that the more complicated vand have more things that can go wrong (especially bathrooms - yuck!). We got our deposit back, and since the exchange rate hadn't moved much, we got nearly the same amount credited back to our account. (Actually we made US$4.)

We took a shuper shuttle back to town, and driver dropped us off on the southeast side of the city center. We stopped by a couple of tourist shops that cater to the Japanese tourists. We noted that the T-shirts were generally only available in small, medium, and perhaps one or two larges, and no XLs.

On the way through town, we climbed the cathedral tower for spectacular views of the surrounding town. The spiral staircase is a little dizzying and slightly confining, but the view is worth the climb.

That evening, we walked to Azure for dinner. We were nearly the only people in the restaurant - as was the case throughout town. We're not sure why, because they all received rave reviews and look like they do a brisk business. Maybe we'd really hit the off-season. They had a huge sign above the bar that advertised Mojitos, a nice tropical drink. We ordered one, and there was a slight commotion at the bar. It turns out that nobody knew how to make one, and they didn't have any fresh mint (a key ingredient). They walked to the restaurant next door, and got both the recipe and fresh mint. We did finally get one, and it was quite good.

Returning to the YMCA, we had a lot of packing to do. We had brought our backpacks collapsed into one of the duffel bags, so we had a little expansion possibility. We definitely had to use one of the bags for all the fun stuff we bought. We finally squeezed everything into the four bags and two carryons. In our carryons we had trimmed down to the bare minimums - camera, film, laptop, book, and a pair of shorts to change into. Lining the bags up at the door, we were ready to go the next morning.

Steve set his internal alarm clock and woke up bright and early at 6am. We grabbed a quick breakfast at the Y, which was very convenientand reasonable (NZ$7 pp). We had a few minutes, so we grabbed our cameras and wandered back across the street to the botanical gardens to where we spent so much time on the first day. Finding a nice comforable bench, we relaxed for a few moments in the quiet still morning air, and took a couple of pictures.

We brought our bags down from the room and felt very encumbered. A super shuttle which we had scheduled the night before was already waiting outside. Loading our bags, we headed to the airport. We'd been in the country long enough that the fares went up from NZ$14 to NZ$16. At the airport, we had to pay a departure tax of NZ$25 each.

Boarding a 747 continuing on from Tokyo - Christchurch - Auckland, we joined hundreds of Japanese, in what looked to be several groups of guided tours. We guessed that the flight was boarding when we heard an announcement in Japanese, and nearly everyone in the terminal stood up and started moving towards the gate.

Our flight routing took us through Fiji (Nadi Airport) where the terminal promptly dumps you into the center of an enormous duty-free zone. Much of the liquor was dirt cheap (the Large Bombay Sapphire bottle was ~$15 US, though it wasn't really worth the hassle of transporting back to the states. We considered bringing some of it to Rarotonga, but didn';t think we could finish it in time, nor did we want to bring home a heavy glass bottle partially filled with air. The air temperature was refreshing after the last few cold days in NZ, but after 10 minutes, we were both sweating in our long pants - and our change of clothes (shorts!) was still on board the plane. After reboarding the aircraft after about a 30 minute wait, Steve quickly changed into shorts for the rest of the journey. Fiji looked like a nice place to visit, though we couldn't see much from the airport.

We landed in Rarotonga, and walked down the stairs to the tarmac to walk into the terminal. Rarotonga evidently gets very few flights, because there is one terminal, and it serves as customs, immigration, inspection etc. There was a nice gentleman playing tropical music live in the terminal. It was nice to hear, though a little strange to hear in the middle of the night.

Henry, our taxi driver, met us outside baggage claim, and gave us each a sweet smelling flower lei. He gave us a very nice tour of the island enroute to the villas. We had reserved this small villa right on Muri Beach called Taakoka villa. The unit is a duplex, located less than 5 meters from the high tide line.

It is really hot here. Quickly becoming overheated, we changed into shorts and t-shirts to cool down. We took a quick picture of our surreal mood before hitting the bed for the night.