Blogs from Hanmer Springs, South Island, New Zealand, Oceania

"Into the fray" After Jordie's rather alarming words we had further anxious deliberations. There would be no one else on the very isolated river for three days at least and there was no road access for 5 days. We did have a satellite phone to summon a helicopter if we needed it but the thought of flipping the raft and losing contact with each other was a bit alarming. It occurred to me later that in all our joint 188 years we had never been as far away from another soul as we were on the 5 day journey. We had 2 barrels of food and 2 dry bags containing our clothes, tents and sleeping bags. We had a tool box, a pump and a satellite phone. And a shovel. For digging a toilet or possibly ... read more

I do not use the word ‘assault ‘in the meaning that suggests inflicting actual physical harm but rather the harm it might have done to us, the walkers, had we made it to the top. Our only neighbour at the motel moved on this morning leaving us the sole occupants. The owners had been away at the Women’s World Cricket in Wellington and one of their fathers’ had been looking after the place and watching over the renovations being done in three of the apartments. We had been a bit mystified that the ‘house full’ sign was up at the end of each day and we had decided that he was only down to look after the guests that had prior bookings and save him having to clean. The weather was a bit dodgy looking again ... read more

We are starting to think that the fine weather will follow us all the way on this trip. We weren’t going to hang around too long before getting on the road as we had read conflicting reports of the time it would likely take to get to the Molesworth Cob Hut and back to Hanmer Springs, a distance of about 170km for the round trip. The road out through the Awatere River Valley to SH1 is still closed from the Cob Hut due to very heavy rainfall events last year that washed out the original rain and then the one the council prepared along the riverbank. So our drive will be in and out on the same road. Before we left home I had read on the DOC website all about the road and things to ... read more

Friday we walked around Wellington until it was time to get on the ferry, we took the 5:00 pm sailing. BC Ferries could learn a thing or two from Interisland Ferries, nice lounges with comfy chairs. Spent the night in Picton and drove to Nelson Saturday. Beautiful beaches and perfect weather on Saturday. Sunday was partly cloudy and windy, so we drove to Richmond to grab some groceries, the car was hit in the car park while we were shopping, but thankfully a note was left. We continued along to the start of Abel Tasman National Park, you can only drive in a kilometre and the rest you see either on foot, or by water taxi. The fruit here is great, picked up some cherries from a stand that are so good. Got some golden kiwi, ... read more

Heading north west, our first pit stop was a town that reminded me of Gundagai. Reefton was very quiet but the fluttering flags of the competing nations in the rugby World Cup indicated that somebody lived there. The tourist info centre contained the usual gifts/souvenirs/pamphlets and stuff about the region. We learned that the only indigenous land mammal in NZ is a long tailed bat and native to the area. Which explains why we haven't seen anything else other than sheep, cows and roadkill (stoats and possums). Oh, and a few birds. I don't understand how people have seen kiwis in the wild whilst driving along - they're nocturnal! I don't think we are going to see any bats either. Anyway, back in the blue corolla, we made our way to Hamner Springs along another ridiculously ... read more