Blogs from Motueka, South Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 5

The South Island trip began as soon as we dropped our family off at the Airport on the afternoon of Dec 23. We briefly returned home for last minute checks and to load our bags into the rental van. A long drive took us to our stopover in Levin, known for being a stopover. A train runs through there too. We slept late and offended the hotel maid by being late for check out on Christmas Eve - fair enough. I had gone out to get ice for our chilly bins (ice chests). On return, my family and the bags were sitting on the sidewalk. The maid helped by carrying out the bags for our slow moving tribe. (Sarah - We had driven 7 hours the day before. Coming through the Tongariro Range just south of ... read more

Salut tout le monde! (on a rajoute des photos sur le dernier blog...) A part ca, on est alle faire notre aventure de kayak de mer comme prevu. La meteo a ete ce qui etait prevu: il a fait vraiment super beau les 2 premiers jours, il faut tout de meme dire que c'etait quand meme relativement froid... A 10am le 2eme matin on avait de la glace dans le fond de notre kayak quand on est venu pour partir... Le parc est vraiment tres beau. L'eau est vraiment tres claire. Les plages sont magnifiques. Notre aventure consistait en 3 jours de kayak de mer, sans guide juste moi et Marie. La premiere journee on s'est rendu jusqu'a une premiere hut ou on dormait. Rustique mais quand meme tres bien. 10$ pour un toit, lit avec ... read more

Sadly it was time to return from the bach. We ordered a water taxi. When it arrived because of low tide we had to wade out to it holding our rucksacks above the waves as they rolled in. We headed through choppy waves back to the Kxx and our hire car which we were relieved to find still there and untouched. The day was cloudy so we decided to do some car based sightseeing and headed up north to Golden Bay. The road is unrelentingly tortuous over the mountain to Tarkata?. The weather worsened the higher we got and the mountain views were non-existent. We stopped for coffee and cake at a lovely wholemeal cafe in Tarkata and then pressed on to Collingwood which amazingly considering its small size and rusticity was once considered as ... read more