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Published: February 15th 2009
Underwater
It all looked pretty much like this...An old workmate & good friend of mine, Katrina, comes from the top of the South Island. For the last few years she's invited me to go stay with her parents, but I've never been able to due to work. Until now. Yay for choose-your-own-hours jobs.
On the 30th we drove from Christchurch to Kaiteriteri, via the Lewis Pass. It was a fairly uneventful drive, stopping for lunch at Springs Junction & a toilet break in good ol' Murchison.
Katrina's parents live in Tapu Bay, which is just before Kaiteriteri itself. The downstairs part of their house is a rental tourist flat, so after the first night we moved in there.
On the first full day, Katrina's Dad took us all out on his boat, to Fisherman's Island. There were quite a few families picnicking on the tiny beach and as the tide came in it became very cramped! Anyway, I did a bit of snorkelling there and must have looked like such a wuss donning a full, hooded wetsuit on a 30-something degree day. There wasn't really much to see underwater there unfortunately. That night we made use of the spa pool and then watched a DVD
of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.
On the second day, Katrina's parents drove us to Mapua, to take us out for lunch. We went to the Smokehouse Cafe, the fantastic fish restaurant that I also visited on my campervan trip. Once again, I had the seafood platter. Was delicious again. After lunch I couldn't pass by the aquarium, so I visited that and took lots of underwater photos again. After returning to Tapu Bay, we spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing and reading. And watched Terminator that night.
On the third day, we decided to go for a drive over the Takaha Hill. On top of the hill we stopped to check out the cave tour, but since it was $15 we decided to give it a miss unless we couldn't find anything else to do. Instead, we headed down the narrow, dusty, gravel road to Cannon Downs to check out Harwood Hole. It takes about half an hour each way to walk to the hole. It was definitely worth it. There were so many amazing rock formations along the walk and the hole itself was incredible. It's just under 200m deep and huge! The photos don't
Exciting!
Ohhh, I was surrounded by this school of little fish do justice. The walk also includes a detour up to a high spot where you can see down over the Takaha Valley. This was also an inspiring view, pity it was a cloudy day though.
By the time we'd finished at the hole, it was nearly 3pm and we were starving, so we headed down to Takaha for lunch. I also stopped by the salmon farm but didn't bother catching it myself this time and just bought a pre-packaged smoked salmon fillet. Nom nom. Our last stop for the day was Pupu Springs after which we headed back to Tapu Bay. I really wanted to watch Terminator 2 but the DVD was broken. The next choice was Jurassic Park - also broken. We finally got Ghost Busters to work. Yay.
On my final full day, Katrina slept til about noon so I wandered around on the mudflats for a while. When she woke, we took a drive to see the source of the Riwaka River. You can actually see the whole in the side of the mountain where the river emerges from the ground. Very cool. The river itself was a beautiful, clear turquoise colour. It looked so
Kaiteriteri itself
A lot more people here than in July! nice for swimming... But would have been freezing I imagine. We finished up the day by walking around Motueka, shopping. I didn't buy much, just admired all the expensive gift shop products, craft ware and other nice things that I can't afford. And that night I read my book in the spa until it got too hot then we watched Harry Potter 4, cos it was on TV.
On the Wednesday, it was a drizzly damp day. All the other days had been really sunny and hot. But it made for good driving weather and I drove myself back to Christchurch.
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