On to Nelson with a Short Detour via French Pass

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As we had hoped the weather has turned out fine this morning and this gave us confidence that a side trip to French Pass would be a worthwhile exercise as we drove to our next stop in Nelson.

With the aim of arriving in Nelson by around 4pm we needed to be on our way from TeMahia by around 9.30am and we managed this successfully.

It didn’t seem to take as long to cover the distance back to the highway as it did going in on Monday and perhaps that was down to our thought that there may be some more challenges on the French Pass that might eat up a bit of time and we wanted to keep the hammer down.

The town of Havelock was just a short distance further on and we decided to top up with petrol just in case there weren’t any more opportunities once we headed off the main highway to head north to French Pass.

Many years ago (more than I can just about remember – 54 years) I actually cycled the circuit from Picton to Havelock and then south towards Blenheim and back to Picton..These were the days of the big heavy frame bike (electric bikes hadn’t even been thought of !)with thick but reliable tyres from getting punctures.

I cannot recall the exact time it took to complete this epic journey of roughly 90km but I am pretty sure that I left Picton as the sun came up and didn’t get back there until it was starting to get dark. And in those days the road from Picton around the Queen Charlotte Drive was unsealed so the first 35km was completed on gravel.

Havelock seemed to have grown quite significantly over the past half century and was now a bustling small town with a busy main street and lots of small businesses there serving the district.

We had a brief stop at Pelorus Bridge which is a picturesque location with a sizeable river surrounded by thick native forest making the walk down to the river from the parking area a delight as the native birds above the track all tried to get our attention with their calls.

At Rai Valley we took the turnoff north towards French Pass 60km or 1hr 40mins away.

The first 10km was through farmland with mostly dairy farms and then as the valley narrowed the road started to climb into thick native bush and wound its way to the Rongo Saddle and then down to a beach location that surprised us.

We hadn’t expected any settlements as large as Okiwi Bay so hence our surprise. There seemed to be a lot of people on holiday here and with store selling petrol as well as grocery items the bay was well catered for permanents as well as holidaymakers.

Around the bay the road ventured and as it rose away from the water every so often there were glimpse’s of the considerable sized Croisillies Harbour so named by the French explorer D’Urville in 1827 and named after his mother’s home village in France.

There was still another 20km of road mainly through forest ahead of us and then soon after passing the road down to Tennyson Inlet we emerged out onto farmland with the road high above the ocean with no guard rails or vegetation of any strength to stop a vehicle from plummeting to the sea if there was any error by the driver. We quickly decided that you wouldn’t want to take this road on in low cloud even if only for the fact that there would be none of the grand scenery that was before us.

Ahead of us was the 8^th largest NZ island of 150 sq km, D’Urville Island which has a number of roads and a permanent population of around 50 people.

What wasn’t obvious to us as we drove north along the unsealed road was just where the French Pass settlement was as the road just seemed to carry on until it disappeared out of sight before the finger of land came to an end.

At one point we came across a large flock of sheep in a sheep pen who we thought were waiting for a truck to arrive to take them off the property. This raised a bit alarm in us as we wondered when the truck might be arriving and whether we would meet it on the narrow winding road back to the main highway.

Eventually the road descended as we drove past the swirling waters the very narrow French Pass which is between the mainland and D’Urville Island.

The pass is 500 metres wide but in reality there is only a gap of 100 metres that is navigatable with the tidal flow at 8 knots leaving little or no room for error for anyone willing to take the ‘short route’ from the east through to Tasman Bay.

Then the small settlement of French Pass came into view and we had a ‘relief’ stop although having to use a portaloo made sure our stop was as brief as we could make it. The local toilets in the community hall were out of action !

Armed with a drink from the small local store and our sandwiches we sat at a table adjacent to the concrete slipway and watched the small catamaran barge arrive from D’Urville Island with a vehicle and a couple of passengers. Meanwhile a couple had been unloading their r ute and trailer with an array of plants, boxes etc etc that they proceeded to load onto the barge once the vehicle was off. We are still not sure why they didn’t just drive their ute and trailer onto the barge and take everything over to the island without unloading everything.

It had been a worthwhile trip and another part of NZ we can tick off our bucket list as it had been a place we had always wanted to get out to and experience and we were so fortunate that the weather had been perfect as we can imagine what it would be like driving along the ridges especially out of the forest if there had been any wind to speak of.

On the return we noticed that the sheep in the pen were now being drenched and the prospect of meeting a truck coming towards us on the unsealed, narrow and winding road was gone or at least diminished because we suppose you never know what is around the next corner !

As with the road trip on Tuesday it didn’t seem to take nearly as long to get back to our starting point on Highway 6 and with a nice wide road with limited traffic we were soon approaching Nelson with just some major roadworks to negotiate to get to our destination.

The roadworks proved a bit of an obstacle and although we had Google maps to follow for the detour the audio giving the instructions wasn’t working making for a testing time getting the distance to the turns and then the direction of those turns a trial.

Once at the Air BnB we had booked we soon had our bearings better organised as the place was elevated giving a clearer impression of where we were. Then it was on down to Chris and Marilyn’s (Gretchen’s brother and sister in law) new home in Richmond and at dinner time off to McCashin’s Brewery for a relaxed dinner.

Tomorrow we plan another rest day with a wander around Nelson, a city we don’t really know despite having been here a few times many years ago either for sport or an overnight stay that meant we ended up sleeping in the car as all the accommodation we could find was booked out. The things you do as a young adult !

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