Me & My Friends

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So i hitched out of golden bay, which was my longest ever wait at 2.5 hours outside Nelson, then 1.25 hours a little way down the road shocking! But i eventually got there and met ben and sarah in Christchurch, not quite as planned but at least we got there. We had a couple drinks in town and then went back to our seperate hostels.
Saturday we met up and then tracked down some friends of mine who are living in town building new bikes out of broken ones. We rode around town for a little while on 'mutant bikes' in the beautiful sun and had a really nice day. In the evening a friend of my friends was having a going away party so my post-birthday bash was tagged on to this and great fun was had. We wandered around christchurch late at night talking to the huge number of boy racers who were in town for some kind of boy racer festival it was a night of craziness and confusion and a very strange night to welcome ben and sarah to NZ with.
The next day they picked up their car and we headed to the bank's peninsular and to the birdlands retreat i'd wwoofed at a couple months before. They were very pleased to see me and offered us a bed for the night for free which was very kind of them. Next day we drove around the penninsular a bit so Ben and Sarah could take a look around and get their first glimpse of what NZ was really like.
Then we drove north to the tourist resort of Kaikoura. We took a look around the seal colony there and got incredibly close. They were lounging across the path we were trying to take! So we were finally able to understand the sign which read 'PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH OR MOVE THE SEALS'.
We stayed the first (of many oncoming) nights in our tents and after a lot of uming and ahhing in the morning decided the whale watching was going to be out of our meager budgets.
We made our way north again to Picton and Blenheim, we did a bit of shopping there and struck out towards the Malborough sounds. Which is where i wil hand over to Sarah

Greetings loyal (or maybe not so loyal now after a whole blimming years worth of blogs???!!) fans (and welcome Chris fans) to our first new Zealand blog!!

Marlborough Sounds

Chris has filled you in on our first days in the Land of the Long White Cloud up to Picton. From here we drove on a very bendy road up to the Marlborough Sounds, our first real beautiful New Zealand place. First night we stayed in a great campsite on the lakeside, even Chris, who by now has chronic "view fatigue" was mightily impressed. It really was rather nice. We had a bit of a swim and enjoyed the solitude until we were joined by some Germans (nothing wrong with Germans!!). Next day we went for a big drive, stopped off at a beach with loads of jellyfish, the boys got stung, then the jellyfish, stinging complete, disapeared! Then we found our destination campsite, went for a walk then left - a creepy man had been watching us and stuck an envelope under the windscreen wiper to make sure we paid for our campsite- what did he think we were - rich?!!? We found another place, Ben drove for a long time to find a fish and chip shop that was closed and we had our first encounter with Wekas, a cross between a chicken and a pheasant. They ate food from our plates, just rude! Most of the birds in New Zealand are really brave and don't seem to be afraid of people at all.


Ben now...

Golden Bay and Abel Tasman National Park

After the beautiful Marlborough Sounds we headed West to Golden Bay, an area Chris was raving about, a land of barefoot hippies, self-brewing pubs and big beautiful bays. We stayed the first night in a freebie campsite by a river underneath a road bridge and spent the evening in the aforementioned pub, a brilliant place that brewed it's own stuff (that tasted amazing) and did vegan pies, which were very nice indeed. The next day we checked in to a hostel to have our first shower in 6/7 days and enjoy the atmosphere at this 'eco retreat'. That day we visited the Farewell Spit, a sand spit that houses lots of birds and a wetlands of international importance. Here we saw a dead shark and a dead moray eel, and then got lost in the bush. We did some 'bushwacking' and wandered around in circles in very dense vegetation, being turned back by thick gorse that we were ill equipped for (with sandals and shorts), but alas, getting lost on a spit is one of the more fortunate places to get lost thanks to it's shape, and soon we were back on the walking track. It was here also that Chris jumped down a sand dune and dislocated his knee, falling face first into the sand and getting covered in the stuff as he rolled down, clutching his knee. poor lad. he was alright soon after though.

That night we revisited the pub where a thigh slapping yee har american lady was doing some incredible guitar playing and another american, more our age, was the attention of Chris's charms.

The next day we visisted the Abel Tasman national park and did a big old walk along the extraordinarily beautiful coast. We camped there that night and were eaten by sandflies, which at the time we thought were in abundance. Little did we know what lay in store for us.

On our way out we went to a waterfall, a huge powerful torrent into deep dark and very cold water, and spent a while jumping off a very high and very very slippery rock (which Chris took a running jump off of and ended up belly flopping badly on one jump)

Nelson Lakes

We spent a couple of days at Lake Rotoiti and Lake Rotoroa, making up the majority of Nelson Lakes National Park. Here we did some walking (Chris to the top of a big hill/small mountain, Sarah and I partly around the lake, then to the nearby shop for an ice-cream), gawped at the kiwi-experience bus muppets who tried to catch ducks and said such awe-inspiring snippets as 'i hate wildlife', god knows what this young lady was doing here if she did indeed hate wildlife.

We camped that night at the second lake and the sand-flies darkened the air around us, they were thick and angry, chomping happily on us. The difference between sandflies and mosquitos is that you really feel these buggers as they rip open your flesh (a very small rip of course) and suck the blood out of you. But both lakes were absolutely stunning places.

Buller Gorge

Here we walked across a big rope-bridge that cost us $5, explored the area, not finding the faultline that apparently lay here, and gawped at a thundering waterfall. We also picked up a nice but very smelly hitcher here who entertained Chris on the way to...

The West Coast

Where the Sandflies Rule.....

Our first destination was the not so interesting town of Westport, then we drove up the coast to Karamea and the start of the Heaphy Track. Here we explored the Oparara basin, marvelling at huge limestone arches suspended over the rainforest, at exploring caves with glowworms and cave spiders. We camped that night at the start of the track, next to the ocean and with masses of sandflies, and the next day walked the first two hours of the track, over beaches and through rainforest, before turning back, and jumping off of the suspension bridge at the campsite into the orange and very cold river water below.

The next night was spent in Westport, with it's free campsite and a trip to the cinema to see 'Michael Clayton', which was very good indeed. Very tense.

The Creosus Track

Our next adventure was an undertaking of this track from the nowhereville of Barrytown to the sight of the miners strike one hundred years ago of Blackball. The first day was very hard, 3 hours up a very steep hill/mountain through incredible moss covered trees, with purple mushrooms growing in the complete silence. At the tree line there was a two hour walk across rock and mud to the hut we stayed the night in. The next day we walked down the other side in three hours, then had a 7.5km walk into Blackball, that was celebrating the centenary of the strike action. Then me and Sarah hitched back to the car, (taking 2 hours and four hitches, including one who stopped so suddenly he skidded and nearly hit us!) in pouring rain and biting sandflies. We then ventured on to Greymouth to have a cosy night in a hostel, but were unfortunately kept awake all night by horrendous guttural snores. oh well. and here we are, it is still raining and my legs ache, so we will see what is next!

xx

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