The drive down from Nelson through Marlbourough is a long line of wine country. We spent the first bit in Blenheim. The city itself is nothing much to look at but the surrounding area is full of great wine, an area most known for its Sav. Blanc. Either way they all had huge ranges all open for tasting for frizzle! Grove Mill and Highfield estates both had art galleries in their tasting areas and were part of water conservation projects; grove mill through their protected marshlands on property and Highfield with their special lable fundraiser. We spent luch walking through the area at grove mill looking for the frogs their logo was designed after but had no luck. My favorite of the day, and the only good reds along with great guwutztraminer and Riesling, not to mention another great gallery space and beautiful views. We also got much better at the whole tasting thing sharing glasses and pouring out the stuff we knew right away wasn't worth buying. Turns out you can taste a lot more that way, go figure.
From their we went to Kaikoura for whale watching and kayaking but the weather turned south so we tried our luck west into the mountains up in Hanmer Springs, said to be some of the best springs in NZ or at least most fancy. It was nice after a couple days of hiking and awkward sleeping arrangements.
of course the next day, when we were planning on some great hikes in the area the weather got nasty again so naturally we headed to Waipara for more wine. His was supposed to be some of the best wine in the country, and they were nice, but our love of red kept us thinking Wairarapa was better. Still they had some great whites and huge selections, the largest being Mud House where they had at least 4 different tastings for each category from sav. blanc to Merlot, ridiculous.
At the end of all the tasting, en route to Christchurch we found a reserve near a river to car camp at. We finally re-organized the car and found we had 13 bottle of wine we'd bought on these excusions and thats just what we hadn't drank since, so we decided it was time for a break from our expensive little habbit until we can at least drink some of it and create more storage...
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Nelson and the Abel Tasman Coastal Track
Our first week on the south island and despite nasty forecasts we ended up with sunny yet delightfully cool weather.
We spent our first day driving from Picton to Nelson. Nelson is a lovely town but we decided we really wanted to be "out in the bush" so we took the long windy mountainous dirt road up to French Pass. French Pass is up in the sounds right up at the north peak of the south island. The views are amazing stretching far out across the ocean over forest, then grazing land and forest again until you turn the corner at the far end. All of a sudden the ocean in front of you is studded with islands and sailboats and at the very end of the road a tiny settlement and a Department of Conservation camp site on the beach in a small cove. We were greeted by the husband of the sites keeper and his surprisingly familiar accent. He was a cute old ex-pat from Sunnyvail CA who after 20 years in Australia moved to this small "town" in New Ze
aland where he could sail his boat and his wife had a simple job that provided them with all the basic necessaties. Our site neighbors were living at the DOC camping grounds in a trailer and caught and gutted their own fish every evening, just in time for us to watch while we set up our tent. About half way int o cooking dinner we realized the whole area was filled with all these brown flightless birds with quite a curiosity for our stuff. It turns out that they were weka and if your not careful they get into your car, your tent, your food, anything, and that they will steal anything tasty or shiny. Cute.
The next night we headed up to the Abel Tasman. We spent the night at a campground at the end of the road by the trailhead and took a water taxi up to the top of the track in the morning. We started the day by hiking to mutton cove. It was one of the most amazing beach areas i have ever seen and far enough away from civilazation that no one was there except 3 other hikers taking a lunch break. As beautiful as cathedral cove but without all the people. From there we hiked down to Waiharekeke where we spent the night. We didnt have much of a choice really because the next portion of the trail was under water, a quarter of a mile of beach you can only cross at low tide and you can never cross without getting wet.
The campsite on a beach but so full of sandflies we had to stay practically in the smoke of the fire to avoid getting eaten alive. We shared the site with two groups of three Israelis, two Germans and a girl from New Jersey. Everyone went to bed ealry except us and three of the Israeli boys who also had no where to be until low tide the next day.
We got to the crossing two hours early, which really turned out to be more like three hours early because im too short to cross before the tide is almost all the way out. lame. The sun came out though and we spent most of that time in the water with a fun woman on holiday from London. When we finally decided to cross we spent half the distance waist deep in water an inch or so from soaking our packs before finaly making it to the other side and all but collapsing o
n the beach. Lucky for us someone bought an unprotected little parcel of land srrounded by the park and its own beach and turned it into a self sufficient cafe, hotel with great coffee and fresh baked goods. A dissapointing run in with the modern world in what was supposed to be the wilderness, but in the end a welcome one if only for the coffee and beer. The next two days of the hike were up and down through the hills and across beautiful beaches and coves until we made it back to where we camped at the trailhead. It was unbelievably georgious and unforgettable, no wonder some 30,000 people do it every year.
After getting cleaned up we decided to go back to the other side of the sounds and drive up the Queen Charlotte road to the peak of Queen Charllote sound. Another amazing drive and like most it was the most beautiful at the end where we camped in a family owned sheep grazing field lined with the beach of their private cove. It rained all the next day so we decided to avoid the ocean - sadly missing out on the easy picking of mussels at low tide- and watched the family sheer their sheep instead. Cool. They fill this big old barn - same one from the early 1900's with tags from the sheerers as far back as 1921- with sheep, keeping the lambs seperate from the ewes. The sheeres each have a station with electice sheers and one of the sons of the owners would fetch them a lamb. The sheerer then puts it on its but with its arm pinned behind its head and begins sheering in a very specific pattern; belly hair first, butt last and everthing else in between. The belly hair is kept seperate because its too fine and can only be used for things like socks, and the but hair is done last so they can throw it out while the rest gets swept into a pile and shoved into a machine to be packing into bags that can then be shipped off to the wool broker. Ok well its more interesting than it sounds, and we got to join a family at work on their ranch.
We spent our first day driving from Picton to Nelson. Nelson is a lovely town but we decided we really wanted to be "out in the bush" so we took the long windy mountainous dirt road up to French Pass. French Pass is up in the sounds right up at the north peak of the south island. The views are amazing stretching far out across the ocean over forest, then grazing land and forest again until you turn the corner at the far end. All of a sudden the ocean in front of you is studded with islands and sailboats and at the very end of the road a tiny settlement and a Department of Conservation camp site on the beach in a small cove. We were greeted by the husband of the sites keeper and his surprisingly familiar accent. He was a cute old ex-pat from Sunnyvail CA who after 20 years in Australia moved to this small "town" in New Ze
aland where he could sail his boat and his wife had a simple job that provided them with all the basic necessaties. Our site neighbors were living at the DOC camping grounds in a trailer and caught and gutted their own fish every evening, just in time for us to watch while we set up our tent. About half way int o cooking dinner we realized the whole area was filled with all these brown flightless birds with quite a curiosity for our stuff. It turns out that they were weka and if your not careful they get into your car, your tent, your food, anything, and that they will steal anything tasty or shiny. Cute.The next night we headed up to the Abel Tasman. We spent the night at a campground at the end of the road by the trailhead and took a water taxi up to the top of the track in the morning. We started the day by hiking to mutton cove. It was one of the most amazing beach areas i have ever seen and far enough away from civilazation that no one was there except 3 other hikers taking a lunch break. As beautiful as cathedral cove but without all the people. From there we hiked down to Waiharekeke where we spent the night. We didnt have much of a choice really because the next portion of the trail was under water, a quarter of a mile of beach you can only cross at low tide and you can never cross without getting wet.
The campsite on a beach but so full of sandflies we had to stay practically in the smoke of the fire to avoid getting eaten alive. We shared the site with two groups of three Israelis, two Germans and a girl from New Jersey. Everyone went to bed ealry except us and three of the Israeli boys who also had no where to be until low tide the next day.
We got to the crossing two hours early, which really turned out to be more like three hours early because im too short to cross before the tide is almost all the way out. lame. The sun came out though and we spent most of that time in the water with a fun woman on holiday from London. When we finally decided to cross we spent half the distance waist deep in water an inch or so from soaking our packs before finaly making it to the other side and all but collapsing o
n the beach. Lucky for us someone bought an unprotected little parcel of land srrounded by the park and its own beach and turned it into a self sufficient cafe, hotel with great coffee and fresh baked goods. A dissapointing run in with the modern world in what was supposed to be the wilderness, but in the end a welcome one if only for the coffee and beer. The next two days of the hike were up and down through the hills and across beautiful beaches and coves until we made it back to where we camped at the trailhead. It was unbelievably georgious and unforgettable, no wonder some 30,000 people do it every year.After getting cleaned up we decided to go back to the other side of the sounds and drive up the Queen Charlotte road to the peak of Queen Charllote sound. Another amazing drive and like most it was the most beautiful at the end where we camped in a family owned sheep grazing field lined with the beach of their private cove. It rained all the next day so we decided to avoid the ocean - sadly missing out on the easy picking of mussels at low tide- and watched the family sheer their sheep instead. Cool. They fill this big old barn - same one from the early 1900's with tags from the sheerers as far back as 1921- with sheep, keeping the lambs seperate from the ewes. The sheeres each have a station with electice sheers and one of the sons of the owners would fetch them a lamb. The sheerer then puts it on its but with its arm pinned behind its head and begins sheering in a very specific pattern; belly hair first, butt last and everthing else in between. The belly hair is kept seperate because its too fine and can only be used for things like socks, and the but hair is done last so they can throw it out while the rest gets swept into a pile and shoved into a machine to be packing into bags that can then be shipped off to the wool broker. Ok well its more interesting than it sounds, and we got to join a family at work on their ranch.
Wellington and the Martinborough region
From Wanganui we made our way down south. We had organized a little couch surfing in Lower Hutt near Wellington but we had a couple days to kill in between and what better way than with beach camping and wine tasting?
We headed out to a reserve of a cape in the south, east of Wellington. The campsite was in a canyon next to a dry lake bed across the road from a beautiful black beach. The next morning we got up and prepared ourselves for a long day of drinking in New Zealands only red wine area and there fore our favorite!
We made it through three wineries before we had to take a break for lunch to avoid aaron buying ridiculous amounts of wine, and to avoid me well just falling over.
In the afternoon we headed down to Wellington and spent the first of several days downtown. Cuba street mall is their version of pearl street and its full of really artsy stores all very indy with local screen printing and stuff like that so of course we spent a while wondering down there before making our way to Lower Hutt to meet our second round of Couch surfing hosts. We stayed with two brothers, Li and Rumi and Li's girlfriend Michelle. The boys are both in forestry management and they also do a lot of wood work so their house had lots of cool in progress pieces around and their garden was beautiful.
Their backyard connected with a path through the woods that meets up with a small town across the bay from wellington. it was really steep but only took about an hour and we used it to get into town. While we were waiting for the ferry we even got to see a family of Orca's in the bay!
We spent mos of the second day wondering downtown upset at how everything was closed on sunday's and the streets were empty. It made a nice day for exploring the waterfront area though and going to Te Papa, their national museum.
The waterfront is a really awesome area with functional art all along the way serving as a diving board into the water, a crazy bridge and a kayak practice area of sorts where we got to see a sting ray. Te Papa is some six levels and we spent almost the entire day in there and it wasn't enough to see everything. We got stuck in this crazy interactive center where you could take movies and pictures of yourself or off the internet and post them on these big walls in the museum with these funny little wands. Aaron was giggling for like an hour.
Our last day in the city before boarding the ferry to the south island was spent on the trolley and in the botanical garden. We nerded out and spent a good bit of time in the cable car museum reading about the history of cable cars and their influence on public transport in wellington...
anyway.
The ferry over was uneventful but it delivered us into Picton around 11pm and we spent the night in the car in a park parkinglot...
We headed out to a reserve of a cape in the south, east of Wellington. The campsite was in a canyon next to a dry lake bed across the road from a beautiful black beach. The next morning we got up and prepared ourselves for a long day of drinking in New Zealands only red wine area and there fore our favorite!
We made it through three wineries before we had to take a break for lunch to avoid aaron buying ridiculous amounts of wine, and to avoid me well just falling over.
In the afternoon we headed down to Wellington and spent the first of several days downtown. Cuba street mall is their version of pearl street and its full of really artsy stores all very indy with local screen printing and stuff like that so of course we spent a while wondering down there before making our way to Lower Hutt to meet our second round of Couch surfing hosts. We stayed with two brothers, Li and Rumi and Li's girlfriend Michelle. The boys are both in forestry management and they also do a lot of wood work so their house had lots of cool in progress pieces around and their garden was beautiful.
Their backyard connected with a path through the woods that meets up with a small town across the bay from wellington. it was really steep but only took about an hour and we used it to get into town. While we were waiting for the ferry we even got to see a family of Orca's in the bay!
We spent mos of the second day wondering downtown upset at how everything was closed on sunday's and the streets were empty. It made a nice day for exploring the waterfront area though and going to Te Papa, their national museum.
The waterfront is a really awesome area with functional art all along the way serving as a diving board into the water, a crazy bridge and a kayak practice area of sorts where we got to see a sting ray. Te Papa is some six levels and we spent almost the entire day in there and it wasn't enough to see everything. We got stuck in this crazy interactive center where you could take movies and pictures of yourself or off the internet and post them on these big walls in the museum with these funny little wands. Aaron was giggling for like an hour.
Our last day in the city before boarding the ferry to the south island was spent on the trolley and in the botanical garden. We nerded out and spent a good bit of time in the cable car museum reading about the history of cable cars and their influence on public transport in wellington...
anyway.
The ferry over was uneventful but it delivered us into Picton around 11pm and we spent the night in the car in a park parkinglot...
Monday, December 1, 2008
New Plymouth and Taranaki
WE HAVE PICTURES! check the old posts to see some highlights.
New city and new batch of stories and adventures to relay. We are in Wanganui at the moment staying at some friend's house that we found on a whim. I guess with only 4.5 million people, you're bound to run in to someone that knows how to get a hold of someone you are looking for.
New Plymouth was nice. The second day of couch surfing took us on another early morning wake-up-walk, this time through Pukekura park. Neat park with a lake and big grass amphitheater on which we lazed away a late morning. The park had a great view of the real highlight of the trip to the region, Mt. Taranaki / Egmont.
We spent 2 days wondering how in the hell a 9000 foot cone came to pop itself straight out of the ocean (anyone who has the privi
lege of seeing our slide show will be able to tell as we have about 50 shots staring straight up at it). Once we wrapped our minds around it a bit, we were left to wonder at the rest of the mountain's impressive traits. Without really any time to realize it, as you ascend, you go from jungle to forest to alpine tundra in less than an hour, and in some spots you can hit all three as you wind around crossing from ridge to gully.
We camped at a picnic area the first night, however we made the mistake of pitching the tent almost directly under a tree that was dinner for a possum for a couple of hours, so I sat awake just waiting for him to get curious and drop onto the tent, which thankfully never happened. Strange little creatures they are. Their calls sound like a mix between a pig and someone trying to start a motorcycle.
The next day (after sleeping in) we hiked up as far as we could without crampons and ice axes on a nice 3 hour loop. Then drove down and around the base of the mountain and back up a different side and hiked over to Dawson falls. The falls were neat, but on the way we stumble
d onto Wilkie's pools, which were a series of smaller falls with neat little pools and slides. We dipped our sore toes and cooled off, which was definately a nice change of pace considering what we have been doing.
Back in the car and on to Wanganui. We stayed last night at a little family run KOA-style campsite. Nothing special except the lady that ran the place might be the most helpful person in New Zealand. Lieschen went in to get a tent spot, but the lady was afraid it might rain so she gave us a cabin for the tent price. Then when she came to check on how we were doing I mentioned rowing and trying to find the boathouse (I figured I would try to find Bob and Jenny from there for those that know what I'm talking about). Turns out her daughter rows, not for Bob, but she called someone she knows who happened to be talking to Bob at the time, got his number, let me use her phone, and made sure I had gotten a hold of him. So here we are, out of the rain staying with Bob and Jenny. Luck is awesome.
New city and new batch of stories and adventures to relay. We are in Wanganui at the moment staying at some friend's house that we found on a whim. I guess with only 4.5 million people, you're bound to run in to someone that knows how to get a hold of someone you are looking for.New Plymouth was nice. The second day of couch surfing took us on another early morning wake-up-walk, this time through Pukekura park. Neat park with a lake and big grass amphitheater on which we lazed away a late morning. The park had a great view of the real highlight of the trip to the region, Mt. Taranaki / Egmont.
We spent 2 days wondering how in the hell a 9000 foot cone came to pop itself straight out of the ocean (anyone who has the privi
lege of seeing our slide show will be able to tell as we have about 50 shots staring straight up at it). Once we wrapped our minds around it a bit, we were left to wonder at the rest of the mountain's impressive traits. Without really any time to realize it, as you ascend, you go from jungle to forest to alpine tundra in less than an hour, and in some spots you can hit all three as you wind around crossing from ridge to gully.We camped at a picnic area the first night, however we made the mistake of pitching the tent almost directly under a tree that was dinner for a possum for a couple of hours, so I sat awake just waiting for him to get curious and drop onto the tent, which thankfully never happened. Strange little creatures they are. Their calls sound like a mix between a pig and someone trying to start a motorcycle.
The next day (after sleeping in) we hiked up as far as we could without crampons and ice axes on a nice 3 hour loop. Then drove down and around the base of the mountain and back up a different side and hiked over to Dawson falls. The falls were neat, but on the way we stumble
d onto Wilkie's pools, which were a series of smaller falls with neat little pools and slides. We dipped our sore toes and cooled off, which was definately a nice change of pace considering what we have been doing.Back in the car and on to Wanganui. We stayed last night at a little family run KOA-style campsite. Nothing special except the lady that ran the place might be the most helpful person in New Zealand. Lieschen went in to get a tent spot, but the lady was afraid it might rain so she gave us a cabin for the tent price. Then when she came to check on how we were doing I mentioned rowing and trying to find the boathouse (I figured I would try to find Bob and Jenny from there for those that know what I'm talking about). Turns out her daughter rows, not for Bob, but she called someone she knows who happened to be talking to Bob at the time, got his number, let me use her phone, and made sure I had gotten a hold of him. So here we are, out of the rain staying with Bob and Jenny. Luck is awesome.
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