26 February – 5 March
Saturday:
Leaving Greymouth we start cutting inland, following the scenic Buller Gorge. The winding road reaches a climax where it narrows to a single lane hacked out of the rock.
Another delightful picnic spot turns out to be a sandfly haven, but we get our sandwiches gobbled down. It’s about 4pm by the time we get to our campsite in Motueka on the north west coast. Nick settles in with a beer and some internet while I take myself out for a run (the first in over a week, eek!).
Sunday:
We’d planned on doing a ‘swimming with seals’ trip in Abel Tasman park today, but the tides aren’t playing along and the trip isn’t running this week. Instead we’ve booked a kayak trip.
It’s a fairly early start for the short drive to Marahau where we’re meeting up with our group. We’re getting a lift further up the coast on a water taxi and a tractor delivers our boat to us. We jump into the boat and then get towed through town to the wharf. I think it’s almost the highlight of the day. When we get to the water’s edge the tractor drives straight in. The water is too shallow here to launch the boats, so we’ve got to get driven out to deeper water by the tractors. It’s an interesting way of doing things.
Once we’re finally afloat we’ve got a 45 minute cruise past some stunning coastline. We’re really lucky today: the sun is out and the water is flat and glassy. Our guide claims he hasn’t seen it this good in 2 years. We pull into a bay where we’re unloaded onto the beach for a switch into kayaks.
A quick paddle out and we’re at Tonga island – a seal sanctuary. The seals are a bit lazy today, but a couple of the more curious ones swim over for a closer look. It’s brilliant to get this close to them in the water.
Even better is watching an over-ambitious gull attempting to eat a big starfish in one go.
We paddle back to the shoreline to check out some natural arches, and then keep paddling to Bark Bay. The bay is calm and the beach would be perfect if it weren’t for the glut of sandflies that swarm around you looking for the tiniest gap in your insect repellent (and they always find one). Sandflies aside, we have a lovely picnic on the beach before getting our water taxi back (complete with tractor docking).
It’s a near perfect day and we’re still back early enough to get some washing done and have a splash in the pool.
Monday:
It’s another bright, sunny day today. The weather isn’t meant to last so we want to make the most of it. I manage another little run and then we get ourselves packed up for the day. It takes an hour or so to drive over the mountains to Golden Bay.
We find ourselves a suitably golden beach and after braving the slightly chilly water for a swim we have a picnic on the relatively sandfly-free beach. Not wanting to waste the sunny after noon we drive back to Kaiteriteri – voted by some people somewhere to be one of the top 5 beaches in the world.
It is beautiful with golden sand and clear green waters. I head out for a little snorkel, but there’s not much to see. A swim and a lie on the beach later we’re ready to call it a day.
Tuesday:
It’s a bit of a weird day today. As expected, the weather has turned cloudy with on/off rain. We’d planned to head to Farewell Spit (the most northern point of the south island) for a few walks. First though we spend an hour or so chatting to Ali, Andrew and little Dusty (not much to say for herself yet, but still stole the show) on skype.
Somehow after that one thing leads to another and at 4pm we find ourselves still glued to the computer doing some forward planning. It’s probably not a bad thing. We’ve been struggling to finalise what happens when we leave New Zealand and we manage to get quite a bit sorted.
Janet adds: I’ve impressed myself by clocking up 20.7km running in 4 days. That said, I’m exhausted and everything hurts. I’ve yet to work out this moderation thing.
Wednesday:
It’s chucking it down this morning as we leave Motueka and head to Nelson. We’re there almost before we know it and brave the grey skies for a look round town. Nelson is meant to be one of the sunniest spots in New Zealand and it lives up to its reputation: within an hour or so there’s not a cloud to be seen and the mercury has climbed to 27C. We look a tad overdressed in our jeans and waterproofs. It’s a lovely town and the biggest we’ve been in for a while.
After checking into our hostel we find a nice pub for a glass or two of Macs. We found out a while ago that there’s a Little India (our favourite from Dunedin) in town and we’ve been psyching ourselves for curry ever since. It doesn’t disappoint J
Thursday:
It’s a lovely day today and we take a trip out to Nelson Lakes National Park. The drive takes about an hour and a half and with our late start we don’t arrive till close on lunchtime. The lake is big, beautiful, clear and full of ducks.
We decide to take a walk up Mt Robert. It’s a little bit hard going but the views are amazing.
Two and a half hours later and back at the car we’ve worked up enough of a sweat to put the lake waters on the pleasant side of bearable. Then it’s back to Nelson for a quiet night at the hostel.
Friday:
It’s a miserable, rainy day when we wake up, so we decide on a typical rainy day activity: the cinema. We get soaking wet on the walk to town but both thoroughly enjoy the King’s Speech. Even better, by the time we come out so has the sun.
We take a stroll back to the hostel to get some washing done and then spend the afternoon enjoying the sun in the garden.
Saturday:
It’s another rainy morning, but trusting that it’ll clear up later we take a drive over to the Marlborough wine reason. Nick has somehow found himself volunteering to drive me around while I get more and more tipsy and rapidly collect bottles of wine. Our first stop is Nautilus where we’re assisted by a South African ex-pat. Next is St Clair’s for a few more tastes and a lovely lunch in the garden. We stop briefly at Wither Hills then head back to Nelson for a ‘ahem’ well-deserved afternoon nap. Tomorrow we’re off to the north island.
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