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Published: April 28th 2007
Nelson On the 9th April we headed up to the northern tip of the South Island to the town of Nelson, which is the exact middle point of New Zealand in terms of both length and width!
With only three weeks left in New Zealand our thoughts started turning towards our car and we seemed to spend a significant amount of time in the town trying to get rid of it. We thought that we had struck gold on the third day when the owner of one of the backpackers in town (not the one where we were staying) put in an offer and we agreed to give the car to him that following Sunday... Naively we then stopped looking for a buyer and were quite miffed when we phoned the guy on the Sunday to arrange the transfer and he told us then he was no longer interested - he could have phoned us!
Meanwhile, while we still had a car, we took advantage of it and drove out to the beautiful Nelson Lakes for a day to do a little walk there. This took us to a lake where we unexpectedly saw some eels swimming
around at the end of a jetty. There is plenty of opportunity for long overnight treks in this, the most northerly mountain range on the South Island which will sadly have to wait till our next visit!
Neudorf winery On one of the sunny autumn days we enjoyed while we were staying in Nelson we took a drive out of the town to go for a picnic and to do some wine tasting. We had heard positive things about the Neudorf winery and so we headed there.
This winery was the nicest we have visited. Situated in hilly countryside about half an hour by car out of Nelson, the building where we did our tasting was a large wooden cottage with a lovely surrounding garden which overlooked the vines out back. Beyond these vines and downhill a few hundred yards were some rows of poplar trees with their leaves turning autumnal yellow, then, beyond this, rolling hills before the mountains in the distance.
One of the nice points of the Neudorf winery was that it had a lovely old dog - some kind of long haired variety of medium to large proportions - whose work seemed
to principally involve guest relations. In fact, we subsequently found a book entitled “Wineries and their dogs” so I guess such fluffy personnel are not uncommon! We enjoyed our picnic in the garden with some wine to go with it - all of the wines we tasted were excellent!
Abel Tasman That weekend we embarked on the world famous 51km Abel Tasman Great Walk, which we had been looking forward to for quite some time. We certainly weren't disappointed! Very different from the other Great Walks, this one hugs the stunning coastline and includes numerous beach crossings (some of which can only be attempted in low tide unless you don't mind getting very wet).
Since we found the mountainous Great Walks quite easy going, we decided to do the whole of the Abel Tasman track in just two days (rather than the recommended 3-5 days) and found that due to the undulating coastline (and lots of walking on sand) it was indeed suitably tiring! Our walk took us passed hundreds of secluded sandy coves. However, despite being hot and sunny for most of the walk it wasn't quite warm enough to sunbathe and go swimming in the
azure water.
Having got used to the 'luxury' of the southern Great Walks' huts, we had forgotten that there wouldn't be any electricity in the huts on this walk. Luckily we had remembered to take a little torch but since it got dark before 6pm it was still quite a challenge cooking (and eating) with such minimal light. It even prompted James to go to bed at 7pm on the first night!
Our trip ended with a beautiful water taxi ride back to our start point. We thought we might see some dolphins on the way - and Vanessa had been desperate to see some dolphins ever since we had arrived in New Zealand - but unfortunately were disappointed yet again! We did see quite a few cute seals though.
Christchurch and Banks Peninsula From the Nelson and Abel Tasman region we drove south to Christchurch, which is where we would be flying out from in a couple of weeks time. One evening we went to our third Super 14 Rugby game to support the local team, the Crusaders, playing the visiting team from Wellington, the Hurricanes. It was by far the best game out of
the three - exciting game, great atmosphere, packed stadium, and they even had lots of crusaders on horse back parading before kick off!
We left Christchurch shortly after arriving in order to take an excursion out to the Banks Peninsula while we still had our car. Whilst there we stayed in a lovely rural hostel (Le Bons Bay Backpackers), which was run by a family who lived next door. This little trip was particularly memorable for three reasons...
On our second night the hostel owner prepared us an excellent dinner consisting of a number of dishes including fish pie, mussels, a very nice sweet potato based thing, a spinach and pastry based pie, and so on... This feast was truly yummy!
The second reason Le Bons Bay Backpackers will remain in our minds was the boat trip the owner took us on the following morning. He took us from Le Bons Bay along the coast a little way, where he pointed out both the wildlife we saw on route and the interesting geolographical features of the cliff faces (the whole of the Banks Peninsula was actually created from a couple of volcanoes). We then headed out into
the ocean far enough for us to see some “hector dolphins”. Vanessa was especially pleased at catching a glimpse at these creatures since it finally satisfied one of her most pressing New Zealand ambitions!
The last reason is that we finally managed to sell our car to one of the Christchurch locals who was working at Le Bons Bay!
The Transalpine train journey When we wre first planning our trip to New Zealand, one of the things we had been particularly looking forward to was taking the Transalpine train from Christchurch on the east coast to Greymouth on the west coast. Thus we were excited to start this journey on Monday 23rd, just a week before we were due to leave New Zealand, and it definitely turned out to be one of the highlights of our whole trip - it's easy to see why it has the reputation of being one of the most scenic train rides in the world!
The weather in Christchurch had recently been miserable - just like in England, their winter seems to consist of endless drizzle - and so we were delighted when the sun pierced through the clouds shortly after
our train set off. Indeed, the good weather actually stayed with us for the next few days.
We stopped off at Arthurs Pass in the mountains, the midpoint of the journey for a couple of nights, and did our best day walk of the whole trip! The walk was a tough and unrelentingly steep climb up to Avalanche Peak, some 1800m above sea level. The views all the way up had been pretty amazing but on reaching the summit they just took our breath away. We really felt on top of the world!
As we were having our most picturesque lunch ever at the summit we were joined by a group of Keas. These are the mountain parrots they have in New Zealand and we saw lots of them over our series of walks. They are not at all shy of humans and eat pretty much anything, from sandwiches out of your hands to other animals. We have a theory that they'll be chasing the seagulls out of the New Zealand towns in the near future to become the new pest!
It was on the second leg of the train journey, from Arthurs Pass to Greymouth, that
it started to sink in that we were going to be leaving pretty shortly... Before catching the train we had been getting quite fed up of the cold weather and looking forward to going back to the English heat (didn't think I'd ever say that!) and of course our friends and family. However, those few days changed everything and we realised just how much we were going to miss New Zealand and wished we had more time here!
Final comment! So now we are back in Christchurch with less than 48 hours till we leave. We've had an amazing time in New Zealand but four months has only just been long enough to scratch the surface. It is such a beautiful country, largely wild and untamed, but at the same time very reminiscent of England - you can definitely see why so many British people emigrate here. Well, it hasn't come to that yet for us but we can definitely say that we'll be back...
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