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Published: March 7th 2008
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Nelson Lakes
No sand flies in this picture - but they're there Welcome to this month's packed edition featuring Wine, Whales, Kayaking,Glaciers and hot tubs!
As you will have gathered, we are now in the South Island. It's the same country but feels subtlely different. It feels bigger, wilder and more un-tamed. Lots of big rivers, lakes, snow capped mountains and rugged coastlines.
Our first port of call once off the ferry was Blenheim which was our base for undertaking the Marlborough Wine Trail - a tough assignment but someone has to do it. Travelled from cellar door to cellar door sampling Sauvignon Blancs, Rieslings and Cabernet sauvignons. Invested in a few bottles and enjoyed giving them the attention that they deserved.
Decided to do some 'free camping' and headed out to the Nelson Lakes national park. Scenery was breathtaking but we had our first encounter with the infamous NZ sandflies. Mosquitoes use stealth and attack alone and under cover of dusk or dawn. Sandflies just use sheer weight of numbers and attack in thier hundreds at any time of day or night. We spent a rather surreal evening clothed head to foot, sitting by the lake side whilst wild ducklings crowded at our feet and gorged themselves on the
sandflies crawling over our trousers and shoes. Needless to say, we left early the next morning to escape the constant attacks.
By this time rain had started to fall and NZ rain is very wet ! Forecasts said to expect 3 full days of torrential downpour and I'm sorry to say that we surrendered to the elements and booked ourselves into a luxury hotel in Hanmer Springs for a couple of nights. Whilst the rain fell outside we watched DVD's from the comfort of a spa bath and sipped our wine. Very pleasant. We only ventured out of the room for 2 hours and that was to go to the Thermal Springs and sit in the naturally heated pools as the rain continued to fall.
Alas, our weekend of pampering was all too soon over. However, the sun was shining again as we made our way to Kaikoura. It's a beautifully picturesque town set on a pacific coast peninsula, hemmed in by snow capped mountains. The main purpose for visiting Kaikoura (Apart from eating Crayfish; Kai = food, Koura = crayfish) is to whale watch. I was a bit sceptical about going as I'd heard stories of people
Where's Tina #5
Marlborough Sounds going on whale watching cruises elsewher in the world and not spotting anything in 4-5 hours. However, our operator guaranteed an 80% refund if no whales were spotted. On the day of our trip, the rain caught up with us again and we arrived to be told to expect 6 metre swells and not to go if we were at all troubled by sea sickness. Fortunately, the crusie wasn't too bad and only 2 people threw up, neither of them us.
Within 10 minutes of leaving port we spotted the first sperm whale and spent a good ten minutes close up watching before he dived. Then straight on to another. Then the boat turned back to shore to sail amongst a school of at least 100 Dusky Dolphins. We've seen loads of dolphins before but never so many and none quite so playful. They seemed to be having great fun jumping from the water and doing 360 degree cartwheels. Not sure if they were showing off to each other or us. Finally we headed back out to sea for yet another whale. Tina managed to get a great photo of this one diving, which is no mean feat in
I am The Moon
Moon rise over Picnic Bay in Marlborough Sounds 6m swells.
After Kaikoura we headed north again and along the Queen Charlotte Highway for the Marlborough Sounds. Personally, I thought this was the most beautiful part of NZ. Jade Green inlets and golden sandy bays surrounded by steep pine- wooded hills. The roads were also interesting. very windy with huge climbs and descents through switchbacks and hairpins. Took a long time to get anywhere but the views were astounding.
From here we had a few days driving around Nelson visiting art galleries. Basically artists homes where you can drive up, walk around their home and discuss their art with them and obviously buy something if you want. Unfortunately everything we saw that we liked was either too expensive or too heavy to ship back to UK but maybe once back home we'll order some stuff to be shipped over.
Next stop was the Golden Bay area which is the very North of the South Island. This was Tina's favourite place as very scenic and as the name would imply, full of golden beaches.
After a few days in the Golden Bay area we headed back to the Abel Tasman National park to do some sea
West Coast Wildness
N.B. Black & White for extra 'atmosphere' kayaking. It's a beautiful marine park with turquoise waters, jagged rock stacks and craggy inlets best seen from a kayak. An enjoyable activity with Tina's highlight being when I fell into the water trying to get out of the Kayak (she should have been holding it still).
To relax after a hard days Kayaking we headed into town for a meal and a few drinks. I had been saying to Tina that you can learn a lot about a country culture from it's pub culture and we certainly had some experiences that night. My fondest memory was being approached by a blonde lady of a certain age, in full view of her 'partner for the evening' and also Tina who asked,
"Where are you from"
'London" I replied
"You naughty boy. Where are you staying? You could come to my place. I have a stereo and some Robbie Williams CD's"
It's a long time since anyone has called me a naughty boy but sadly this wasn't enough to tempt me to go back, not even for some Robbie Williams.
For the last week or so we have been making our way down the West Coast. This
Franz Josef Glacier
It looks terminal to me is charecterised by rainforest on one side of the road and crashing ocean waves, surf and jagged rocks on the other. (Apparently the rainforest was used in the BBC programme The Lost World). We stopped at Pancake Rocks, weird geological layered rocks with blow-holes and sea stacks. With the weather closing in on us once again it was very atmospheric !
Our final stops on this leg of our journey were Franz Josef and Fox Glacier. Everyone seems to do Franz Josef so we just walked to the Terminal face of the Glacier which was a pleasant walk. However we decided to base ourselves in Fox and do a heli-hike up that Glacier instead.
Neither of us have flown in a helicopter previously but following this experience it's definitely the way forward. We shall be purchasing one on our return to UK. Had a 2 1/2 hour hike on the glacier over crevasses andblue ice caves. Very awe inspiring and certainly a unique experience which we both really enjoyed.
So, that's pretty much what we've been up to. No major mishaps to report (a few falling down holes etc) and are both well. Only 3 1/2 weeks
Fox Glacier
View from the Helicopter left in NZ and we've still got a bit to do and this should all be contained in our next blog from Christchurch at the end of the month.
Hope you're all well
D&T
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Lara
non-member comment
Wow!
Hi guys, Just read your blog. Sounds as if New Zealand is beautiful and the pictures are testament to that. Tina you are so brown I am really scared about meeting up with you in Melbourne as I look so pale!!! Anyway just wanted to say hi and will email again next week. No baby news from Rach yet she is due 2 weeks today. Love La's x