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Published: October 9th 2006
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Abel Tasman
Oh no, we are cloning South island
After our lovely Nelson weekend in its gorgeous microclimate, we headed up to the Abel Tasman national park where with our german friends and took a water taxi up the coast to walk one day of the three day coastal walk. We were blessed with glorious sunshine to enjoy the crystal water, golden beaches and lush forest. We even crossed squishy mudflats at low tide with bare feet crushing shells as we went, the winter water was very cold. My boots,giving up due to getting frozen in the mountains pinched blisters into my little toes, ouch,(wuss!) but we ate whittakers chocolate to numb the pain. I have developed some twitcher tendancies and love seeing pokekoes (a large moorhen like bird) and Tui birds who have amazingly varied call and little white wobbly bits under their chin.
Rich thinks they'd be a nice starter with some other cannapes!
We loved our campsite which was also a backpackers, a wee house with a homely kitchen and a roaring fire, great to get back to after a long walk.
(Richard had fallen in love with his new pair of gumboots, wellies to you and I, bought to get from Van to amenities,
Abel Tasman
A beautiful day for a walk rain or snow or dew. He even wanted to bring them home - fine use of limited rucksack space!)
We parted again from the german ladies and drove down and accross the country through snowcapped mountains, running gorges, forest and farmland laden with cows, sheep or deer & roadkill to Christchurch (v.british). From here we took a day trip on the Transalpine train to the west coast and back, ooh we like a good train trip we do & there were some right characters on board. We packed a wine laced picnic and enjoyed the views. Meanwhile, the van went on a day trip to the mechanic so that his windscreen jets could be sorted out. We arrived back and the van was nowhere to be seen, but a phone call reminder got the ball rolling and we were back on the road within an hour - both jets a spurting, i'm sure you can imagine.
Inland we went to camp at Lake Tekapo at the foot of the impressive set of mountains that included Mt Aspiring and it was just round the corner from Ausrtalasias largest Mt Aoraki(Mt cook to the settlers). Lovely milky turquoise water due
Train
Couldn't they have called it CHUFFA ? to glacier ground silt in suspension.
We were blessed again with a clear day to take a walk to the Hooker glacier and its friends that nestle next in these stunning mountains. On towards wanaka and found a campsite that had a jacuzzi, underfloor heating in the showers and a large kitchen lounge area, it felt like the Ritz. Rich had been following the rugby between Oz, NZ and South Africa, so he had lots to talk about with the sport crazed Australian family that were also there, odd to talk to people whose lives revolve around sport, but it did highlight the difference between healthy life and lard.
More beautiful days and lovely walks left us believing that New Zealand in late winter early spring was the best time to visit especially as there were far fewer tourists - bonus.
Off towards Dunedin through Central Otago where we kept seeing signs for the 'Southern Man' who rode the plains and enjoyed the local beer, very reminiscent of the marlborough man and their advertising campaigns.
There was a lovely cycle route along a disused train line that would take a few days to complete, it got us thinking about
Train Trip
Odd houses at Arthur's Pass going back at some stage to do that, but whether we will...who knows. At the campsite we met a young American man whose family had always taken him on long cycle & camping holidays, so he was taking out some time from his physics degree to do the same. He had a very open and refreshing view of the world and came from Seattle where he claimed the populus were more open in their views compared to many americans in other states. He was a lovely chap who we saw a few days later nearing the end of his route.
Richard's excitement was rising as he hadn't had chocolate in NZ because he'd heard somewhere that there was good chocolate to have in Dunedin. We found a chocolatier and bought a piece of our chosen cakes which surprisingly, neither of us were able to finish because of their richness. A quick tour of some jewellers left Annabet with some fond memories and some insight into some NZ styles. We went out to the Peninsula for some yellow eyed penguin spotting and danced around the large sea lions as they came in to sleep for the evening, boy did they
Mount Cook
A lovely range of little hills ;-) smell of fish! No surprises there, but god, they could have washed their mouths out first!
Our route back to Queenstown took us through a windy Alexandra Gorge & when i say windy, it blew some of the trim off the roof of the van & the windscreen rubber out of it's moulding, so maybe i should call it a gale. We had to tuck the excess in the side window - full on wind would be an understatement.
That eve we met up with the german ladies and headed out towards the routeburn track on the next day for another delightful walk in between the mountains and their gorgeous rivers.
Over to the west coast was the route and after a lovely little stop at Jackson bay we headed north and into the renowned west coast rain. The franz joseph and fox glaciers were icy and we got our tongue stuck on them when we licked them, but it had to be done - just haven't seen such a big ice pop before.
It wasn't difficult to notice how our enjoyment got slightly dented by the incessant & torrential rain but we plodded on up the
Mount Cook
The walk up to Hooker Glacier coast. Our clouds were lifted by a number of places like Hokitika and westport. Examples being things like ... we would find a lovely bar that looked like a dive and turned out to serve the most delightful meal - Annabet having succulant Vennison as i plumped for the lamb in bacon & mushroom sauce wrapped in a light pastry, both with crisp veggies; Finding a small micro-brewery that did a wonderful fruity beer called Miners dark, quaffing it and going back for more the next day because it was so scrumptious.
We met a lovely Dutch family whose father had had a stroke that brought all plans into perspective for him, he no longer put off plans to go away with the ones he loved and cared for most. We acted sober & listened with enthusiasm.
We wended our way over to the marlborough region of wineries where Annabet sampled a few too many vinos which made for a jolly day with many meetings of interesting english,canadian & NZ people with a bucket of stories in relation to wine to match, plus a couple about steve urwin!
Unfortunately we had booked the ferry for the next day and
Mount Cook
Lucky with the winter weather again said goodbye to so many great times in the south island.
An early start to get to the ferry for 8, then we carried on up the north island till we reached the Waitomo region by dusk; funny how we've got used to driving 6-8 hours as a matter of course to get somewhere & Rich realised it would be like driving up to the lake district each day - A testimony to how much we loved our splendid buzzy bee van. The next day involved a 27m abseil with a geologist guide and another lovely couple whose yelps of delight as we sunk waist deep in to another mud hole only added to our own happy squeels. The glow worms did us proud as we sat in rubber rings eating chocolate and sipping hot juice with our big gollum eyes taking in the hundreds of worms that shook their tushes for fun and food - we just shook our booooties in the dark and left them to it.
Arriving back in Auckland, we found it hard to be seperated from our van and felt like charging them rent to look after it till we come back - it
Towards Dunedin
I think they landed on the beach last night, but i could be wrong had become our family member.
The last night was spent with delightful Annie again before we set off toward Australia and the warmth of Queensland.
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