South Island Exploits

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Hey everyone!

The main problem with writing a travelblog is keeping up to date with everything i've done. Over the last week we have covered a lot of ground and visited several different places. With our car it is easy to move from place to place, thus we have visited 4 major towns in the last week alone. When i last left off we were in Greymouth, you know your in trouble when the Lonely Planet guidebook says, 'Industrial town with not much going on'. But after a day spent driving up from Hokitika we needed a rest and Greymouth was the largest settlement on the West coast. So there we were at 4pm on a Sunday afternoon walking the deserted streets of Greymouth looking for something to do. That was how we found ourselves at the Monteiths Brewery tour. Monteiths beer is apparently exported all over the world the women guide was quick to point out, although i'd only had my first pint of the stuff the previous night in Franz Josef, got ever so slightly drunk and ended up walking into a plateglass window and falling over a table and chairs, but thats a different story altogether! After the tour the 6 of us on the tour ended up in the brewery bar where we were given free reign over the taps and allowed to pour our own pints. A German guy who was on the tour with us really didn't get the hang of how to pull a pint and ended up with several pints of foam.

During the tour we met up with Dave and Emma, another british couple whom were touring the south isle by campervan and we spent the evening with them in possibly the wierdest bar i've ever been in. Upon entering the bar seemed like any other redneck bar with surly old men and sport on the tv which suited us fine, however halfway through the night a coachload of germans turned up and before you could blink the bar owner had darkened all the windows, changed the music from rock to hip hop and turned on strobe lights. Suddenly this bar with old guys became a hip hop club (still with old guys who refused to move!)

The next morning we moved on up the coast. I wasn't feeling to good after coming down with a 24 hour bug. I was sure it was a bug although it could have been the all you can eat buffet from the night before which apparently is an offer not a challenge (yea, rite!)
Our first stop of the day was the Pancake rocks, a formation of rocks that have been eroded and shaped by the force of the sea to form a section of coastline that look like stack upon stack of pancakes. Further along the coast we visited a seal colony, spotting the newborn seal pups as they slept on the rocks.

We spent the next couple of days in Nelson staying at the Palace Backpackers hostel which was very comfortable and easy to see why most of the residents had been there for several months.
One of the main attractions in the Nelson area is the Abel Tasman National Park, The national park has no road going through so the only way to see the national park is by walking or Sea Kayaking. We took a water taxi up to Torrent bay and made our way back down the coast, taking in the views of the fantastic coastline. In the afternoon we had arranged to Kayak back down the coast to where we had started from. Setting off in two-man kayaks we quickly made our way back down the coastline past colonies of pygmy blue pengiuns that swam out to meet us, and nibble on our oars! The penguins passed within a very short distance from the kayaks and seemed completly unfazed by our being there.

The next day we moved on to Picton, where the north island ferry comes from. As we passed over the mountains the weather became quite threatening and by the time we reached Picton hurricane force winds were buffeting the town. The receptionist at the hostel said it was the windiest she'd experiances in 15 years, no sooner had we spoken than the air raid siren sounded (a sound to call all volunteer firefighters in the area) as the Picton christmas tree had been blown over by the force of the wind! We went out for a short walk in the evening and it was possible to jump in the air and be blown back a foot or two by the force of the wind which was cool!

The next day all signs of the storm had disappeared so we drove out to the Marlbourough sound area, an area of great natural beauty and walked on the 'Queen Charlotte Walkway', As we walked around the coastline we saw even more tame wildlife that would come over and i fed a weka (local wood hen) that had come over to investigate. As we entered our car to drive back we saw a school of dolphins that were making their way back out to sea after feeding in the sound.

We are currently in Blenheim, a major wine producing area of New Zealand and are hoping to drive down to Kaikora in the next day or so. We hope to get to swim with the Dolphins and seals that are abundant in the area. so we will have to see...

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