Touring New Zealand - The South Island

South Island

Nelson, Marlborough, West Coast

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Christmas 2000 South Island Tour

Is there any mode of transportation less glamorous than the overnight passenger ferry?  Slow, grubby, dull and painful.  There's nothing to see, and  you're packed in like sardines.  Luckily the trip is fairly short, and I arrived in Picton at about 4:30 AM.  Of course nothing is open in Picton at this time, so I pointed the DR southward and headed towards my first day's destination, Kaikoura.

I stopped on the way down as the sun came up to look at a fairly smelly seal colony along the beach, then arrived in Kaikoura around 7:30 AM.  I then retired to the beach that borders the town for a little snooze.

At 12:30 I had a reservation at Dolphin Encounter ($95). This is a company that takes tourists out in boats to frolic and fondle Dusky dolphins.  You don wet suits, fins and masks and thrash about in very cold water badgering dolphins.  It's not as bad as it sounds... the dolphins enjoy the interaction, and when they get bored of you, they swim away.  To attract the dolphins, you have to make yourself interesting.  This means, bopping and diving, (not easy in a wetsuit), and making weird, dolphiny noises.   If you are entertaining enough, they will play with you by circling around you and generally eyeballing you.  When they get bored and go away, we hop back in the boat and chase them down again until they get bored again.  We frolicked with literally hundreds of them.... it's a breathtaking site to see them leaping and flipping out of the water all around you, and even better to be swimming with them.

After my Dolphin experience, I headed for my B&B, The Old Convent, (Ph (03) 319-6603, hosts Wendy and Mark).    A reasonable $75 in a beautiful setting, a former convent, (hence the name!).  I didn't eat dinner there, but it appeared to be wonderful.  (A great way to book B&Bs in NZ is through Bookin.  You tell them where you are going, and they find you a suitable B&B, commission-free:  Call 03-568-2628.)

27 December 2000
The day starts out auspiciously.  Nice brekkie at the B&B and weather perfect.  A high of 29C predicted.  I head out at 9:00 towards the west coast on route 70, then to route 7 (Lewis Pass).  Route 70 is a pleasant, high-speed winding road with little traffic.  Route 7 turns out to be higher speed but a lot of wind.  The little DR could still do 120 fairly easily, but it still required a lot of concentration.  The fairing works very well, and cross-winds give me no problem.

As the day progressed and I got further west, the sky darkened and the temperature dropped.  I stopped at a ghost town called Waiuta (near Hukarere on route 7 between Greymouth and Reefton), that was not even shown on my map.  It's mentioned in my guidebook, The Rough Guide to New Zealand.  A very interesting place.... a former mining town that lost its reason for being in the 50s when the main mine shaft collapsed and now is home to about 10 people.  Not too much left of it except some foundations, a concrete swimming pool, and a ghostly rugby field, the uprights still awaiting one more game.  This would be a cool place to camp.

I leave Waiuta for my final destination, the Blur Spur Lodge in Hokitika on the west coast south of Greymouth.   It begins to rain, so I pull on my rain pants.  Soon it is raining buckets, and my brand-new Joe Rocket "waterproof" gear turns out to be as waterproof as a screen door in a submarine.  Misery ensues.

The Blue Spur turns out to be a hostel about 4kms out of town, and I don't have any food!  The rain finally breaks, and I sneak into town for a quick meal at Trapaz.  Excellent food.  I zip back to the lodge and the sky opens up again just after my arrival.  Phew!

28 December 2000
Wake to the sound of a veritable typhoon.  The owner of the hostel says this is typical west coast weather.  Now this is info I could have used before planning to spend my whole holiday on the west coast!  I decide to radically alter my plans and head back east, destination Christchurch.

The rain lets up and there is only light drizzle on the way out to route 73, Arthur's Pass, an alternate, and more southerly route to Lewis Pass.  A little windier, a bit more dramatic, and not quite as windy.  Soon it gets cold, then rain.  The rain suit hasn't gotten any better and I am soon wet again.

View near the summit of Arthur's Pass

As I continue on, the rain lets up and the air warms.  I approach Christchurch at about 2:00 P.M., and the sun comes out.  Christchurch is a very pleasant city.  I get a shabby but quiet and comfortable motel (Akron Motel, 03-366-1633) close to downtown, the head into the city to buy a new fairing mounting bolt which has shaken loose somewhere.  Plenty of good bike shops here, much better than Wellington.

For dinner I stop at a Japanese restaurant, Sushi Train.  The staff are, to be charitable, totally incompetent, and the so-called sushi train the most pathetic milk-run of a sushi train imaginable.  Imagine a chunky toy train set lamely pulling five flatcars at a snail-like pace around a oval track/table surrounded by grumpy and hungry customers waiting in vain for service.  The one morsel of sushi is soon snapped up and no more is forthcoming in the more than an hour I was there.  After waiting what seems like a month, I inquire about my meal.  I'm told it will be another ten minutes.  Suspicious, I inquire as to whether or not it has even been started yet.  The waitress confesses that, no, it hasn't.  I leave and go to the nearby Sala Sala Japanese restaurant.  Fantastic sushi and good service, although pricey.

29 December 2000
I wake to sunshine and have a nice bagel for breakfast.  I call around and find that Kaiteriteri Kayaks in the Abel Tasman park have space for me tomorrow.  That means back over the Lewis Pass again to Springs Junction, then north to Kaiteriteri, near Motueka. Hopefully I'll turn north before I hit any rain.

The road, route 65 north from Springs Junction to Ariki, Murchison and Kaiteriteri is quite nice, windy and in pretty good shape, but with too much holiday traffic.

I find a great B&B (Bracken Hill B&B, hosts Grace and Tom Turner, phone 03-528-9629, single $70, double $95) near Kaiteriteri, with stunning views of the coast.  I take the host's dog, Jake, for a walk on the beach.  The poor ol' guy is a real trooper, but crashes and burns on the beach with some kind of minor seizure.  He was running around quite happily, then suddenly did a total face plant in front of me.  He got up shakily, terrified, not knowing what happened, cowering between my legs, then takes off like a shot as fast as he can.  Not quite all together yet, he crashes again, burrowing a sickening trench in the sand with his head.  I thought he was a goner, but luckily the plucky little guy pulled it together after a short, albeit harrowing rest.  Readers will be happy to know that Jake is on a half-aspirin a day treatment plan now.

30 December 2000
I arrive at Kaiteriteri Kayaks at 8:45 AM and we are in the water by about 9:30.  Our guide is Adrian, the very friendly brother of Jackie Pryor, someone I used to work with at Weta.  I think kayaks were not designed for guys as tall as me as it's a bit cramped.  The sea is rough as we head for Split Apple Rock, and then to the nearby beach for tea.  Because of the rough sea, Adrian figures we would be better off making the trip a half day instead of a full day.

We begin to head back to the beach, and on the way we decide to explore some caves.  We get to one, and Adrian scoots through it with little drama.  You enter the cave, which is very narrow, using your hands along the walls to propel you along, and about half way through you get "shot" out of the cave as the waves cause the water to swell, then exit the confines of the cave.  The next pair went through, and it looked a bit funky to me.  I followed in my one-man kayak and made it to the halfway point where I waited to get shot out.  Then A ROGUE WAVE struck!!  The cave filled rapidly and I thought I was going to hit my head on the ceiling of it!  It drained quickly and suddenly, but failed to shoot me out to safety.  I nearly overturned, flailing at the wall trying to keep from capsizing and hitting my head on the rough surface of the cave wall.  Another wave entered, I rose, fell, and finally capsized, once again barely missing the wall of the cave with my head.    The kayak and my paddle shot out, and I followed, slightly scraped and scratched, minus my brand-new Ray Bans.  Luckily my camera was safely ensconced in a waterproof bag and wasn't lost.  Leave it to me to get injured on a open-sea kayak trip.  That was exciting!

31 December 2000
I have decided to chance the trip from Kaiteriteri to Collingwood.  A open-air concert/festival called The Gathering is being held over the hill near Takaka, and traffic is reputed to be horrible.  However, my trip over the hill on route 60 is great.  Very little traffic, and a great, twisty road with wonderful views.  I have booked a trip out on Farewell Spit with Farewell Spit Nature Tours at 2:30 ($65 includes snack and picnic dinner, about 6 hours). Farewell Spit is a unique protected area, some 40 kms of sand dunes that extends northward from the south island in a long, slender finger.  Only two companies have permission to explore the area.

This is about as close you can get to a seemingly inert seal.  Note disgruntled appearance, (left).  In picture on right, note same seal, but now in aggresive defending-my-turf pose.  Note also tracks made by wimpy photographer backpeddalling at a furious pace as said seal eased into aforementioned pose.

The Spit turns out to be very interesting.  Home to birds and seals and a unique eco-system.  I have an encounter with a seal who objects to my approach to photograph him.  Good to know I can still outrun a charging seal, albeit barely.

I stayed in a small hostel in Pupongo at the foot of Farewell Spit called The End of the World Hostel, (only $15).   It does have that kind of feeling, and at midnight I head out with a few of the other guests to greet the new millennium at the top of a nearby hill with a bottle of champagne.

1 January 2001
Final day of my holiday and first day of the new millennium.  Woo-hoo!!  But it's sunny and bright, and eerily, windless.  I ride almost continuously from Pupongo to Nelson, stopping only for gas.

Route 60 between Nelson and Havelock is very nice with some good winding sections and good pavement.  The Queen Charlotte scenic route to Picton is one of the best roads I've ridden yet.  Very twisty and tons of fun but at this time of year a bit too much holiday traffic.

In Picton I visited the Edwin Fox museum.  The teak hulk of a ship built in Calcutta in1853, it is the oldest one of its kind in the world.  It was refloated in 1986 after being grounded in 1967 in Shakespeare Bay, and is being preserved by  the Edwin Fox Society.

I was back on the ferry for Wellington at 6:30 for a fine sailing back home (return trip from Wellington including bike and passenger $98 -- book in advance for these rates).  Daylight sailings are much better than night ones -- nice views of the Marlborough Sounds.