South Island here we come - Golden Bay until Westcoast

Before we actually reached Picton harbour on the South Island we cruised through some amazing fjords. There are just occasional huts and houses on the shore right and left of the ship, but there are people living out on the remote fjord islands, which are connected by a postal boat, which takes a tour every other day. Picton itself was tiny so we didn’t stop but drove off on the highway in the direction of the Abel Tasman National Park and the Golden Bay in the far left corner of the island. Our first stop was in Nelson where we took a look into a small crammed Indian shop, then had a döner kebab at a Turkish place. Its owner was absolutely polite and very interested in where we came from and what we were up to. He bowed a lot and liked to talk us, but the thing was that no matter what you told or asked him, there came a totally mismatching answer. For example we asked him for the way to the church, which was in fact very interesting because it was Art Deco style (which you don’t come by very often in Europe as our churches are hundreds of years old) but his answer was how we would get further to the town where we wanted to sleep… I had a lot of trouble coping with digesting the heavy döner for the next couple of hours. The other thing that comes to my mind which I also had to fight with was the heavy intensity of the sun. I had driven for several hours and the sun was simply burning down on my right side and onto my head, which exhausted me a lot. This region is supposed to be very sunny and a perfect location for wineries, but as I am no wine it doesn’t do me much good. When finally reaching the Laughing Kiwi hostel at Motueka I just laid down on the bunk bed and fell asleep. Of course we cooked dinner later that night and had a long discussion about how to approach the Abel Tasman N.P., because there were so many options and so many expensive ones for that matter. In the end we settled for taking a day to think about it and first doing the Golden Bay and decide later. The drive to the bay was quite exhausting as we first took a turn to take a look at Marahau from where you can start walking into the A.T.N.P., but the first bit of coastal walk looked very unspectacular and takes already 2 hours. Hmmm. So we turned back and had to drive across a mountain range to reach a somewhat forgotten valley. Crossing it took a long time and when we finally got to Takaka we decided to get some information at the i-site. They proposed to do a walk to the Wanui Waterfall on the very upper edge of the national park. But first: a late lunch at Dangerous Kitchen. They had the most formidable pizza I had ever seen in my life: cashews, spinach, pesto on a layer of tomato and goat cheese and parmesan sprinkles on top. Mmmmmmmh! Wow. By the way, it was called Popeye’s Pizza. And their coconut, banana, blueberry smoothie was a legend as well! Now we had to take a walk to the waterfall to help the digestion a little. The walk lead us through fields, along a very rocky river bed, across a one-person hanging bridge and through bits of jungle and it was about 4km there and back. We were rewarded with a spectacular little waterfall crashing down through a washed-out hole in the mountain. A hundred meters down the river we had a try to swim. The water was quite cold and the rocks a bit slippery but still we had some fun. As it was already quite late we didn’t drive all the way to the northern tip of the bay which would have taken us another 2 hours back to Takaka and 2 more back across the mountains, so we just drove to Collingwood, still making it 2.5 hours back. That evening there wasn’t much happening (again) in the hostel, just some quiet time and no meal – we just had some grapes for a late snack. The next morning we had to check out and were in time trouble once more but luckily the hosts didn’t even notice us leaving a little bit later. Because we had finally decided what to do in the national park we had some time left, because we would be going on a boat trip to the see the full coast instead of walking hours through the bush. Then on the way back we would be dropped at a sandy golden beach at Anchorage Bay and be picked up 2 hours later. Perfect. And now what to do in our ‘leisure time’? We went to the hairdressers (actually a barber shop!) in town and got ourselves a haircut. My hair is a lot shorter now which I love as I got more wind in my hair and it is not as heavy hanging down anymore. Yeees! At 1 pm we were at Kaiteriteri nearby to catch our boat. We hardly understood any info the skipper gave over loudspeaker due to heavy Kiwi accent and a hard blowing wind on deck. But it didn’t matter. We saw everything and that was what important: the split apple rock (named as it looked) and then several bays and islands up the whole coast until Totaranui. There was a lot of green jungle and a lot of golden sandy beaches visible. We were even lucky to see a few seals on an island and a little penguin swimming around our boat. Us being very exited the little guy decided to head off further down the coast. By the way if one wanted to cross the national park using this coastal route it would take 3 days and there was hardly any civilization around, just a few huts, but no food. I was really glad I was just sitting on the boat, be dropped off at Anchorage (absolutely gorgeous golden beach!) and later in the afternoon driving onwards to our next hostel, which was situated at Renwick (nearby Picton again), which meant another 2 hours cruising through the mountains at night after having another mango chicken at an Indian restaurant in Motueka. It is amazing to be in a mountainous area with no civilization around for the next 40 km and the stars shining above you (unspoiled of city lights). We had spoken to the Renwick-hosts earlier on the phone that we would arrive late and so they left us an envelope with the keys on the door. It was addressed to Caniela, but I assumed that they meant me. We even received a twin room for the price of a shared one so we were of course very thrilled – and tired, so we made a quick retreat to our beds and snoozed off. I had some weird dolphin-related dreams that night which might had to do with our plans to do the “swim with dolphins”-thing the next day. So we drove off and 2 hours again to Kaikoura on the Eastern coast. The coast was not very spectacular apart from sunburned hills, some sheep and a grey rocky beach. But suddenly we noticed dark spots on the rocks. There were many seals sunbathing directly next to the road. We stopped and got our cameras ready. There were so many seals all around. Most were not moving but some hopped around and I even caught one flying from one rock to the other. After finally reaching Kaikoura we went to the i-site to get some info on bbh-hostels and whale watching or dolphin swimming. It was all so expensive and also booked out for several days that we decided not to stay and maybe try at the end of our trip as this town is only 2.5 hours from Christchurch, from where I will fly back home. We took a short walk on the cliffs, collected some shells (again – oh no – we still haven’t sorted out the rest of our shells!) and spotted one single seal hanging around on a rock that was being flooded until he had enough of the waves hitting his head and he swam off. We took the road along the sea and then into the mountains (in the direction of Waiau, where we put gas up our tank in a very old-fashioned gas station) towards Hanmer Springs, where we had booked another bbh-hostel called ‘Jack in the Green’. The surroundings are lovely, lots of mountains, some of them over 2.000 meters, tall dark green trees, but this is mountain scenery and it is not my favourite thing. I always prefer the sea as there is nothing blocking your view and you can into the water if you want to. The hostel makes the impression of a typical mountain hut, which is very charming and again we have a twin room to ourselves. And ginger beer! We met a slightly weird guy, having dinner, who insisted on talking English to us when at the same time he told us he was from Düsseldorf. But well, if he needs to brush up his English, fine by me. The next morning was used to take a little walk in the woods around town, just 2 hours of light walking along the local ‘dog stream’. I wonder why it is called like that. Then we drove further through the central mountain range and surprisingly this was the most straight road we had ever used in the whole of New Zealand (which is very hilly). Left and right of the plateau on which we were driving stood high mountains, next to the road was a broad river bed with only a tiny river flowing through it. It must have been a hot summer so far. 3 hours of driving with a tiny break in between where we had a cake (bought on the coast) and coffee from our therm. Unfortunately there were several guests at our table who wanted to join us. Some bumblebees found Tina very attractive – literally her and not the cake. We figured that was because she had used tiger balm to lighten her mosquito bite itches. I had even used insect repellent on myself but attracted the local gang of sand flies who were swarming around my ankles, biting and eating happily away on my blood (at least it looks like it afterwards). They bite a tiny piece out of you and keep staying until either you leave quickly enough or kill them. We didn’t even know how sand flies looked like but had heard of their reputation, so taking the combined efforts of both sorts of insects we made a quick retreat and drove off. Finally we reached the end of the mountain range and the town of Greymouth on the Westcoast. As we had not decided were to stay again we asked at the local i-site which predicted lots of rain for the next day, so no camping. We finally ended up in a lilac and green painted hostel. It was very old fashioned, but the low price and the free wifi were an argument. There was free soup in the evening and we had our favourite Greek salad and some pasta and quickly climbed into our top bunks. In the night a heavy rain started and we both had problems to sleep, so we’ll see how productive the next day will be.