Category: Travel tips

Morning in Wanaka:

We looked into the sky in the morning – it was windy and some clouds, but the forecast wasn’t good, so after reasoning: the clouds usually stay on the Western part of the island, lets go to the Eastern, we changed our plans and drove towards the sea on the east.But before leaving Wanaka -we played a little in the Puzzle World:

The drive East was beautiful:

Stopped at a little town named Ranfurly for lunch. Everything there in that town was art Deco:

Their museum was full of Art Deco things , even swim suits, not speaking about furniture and dishes. But also their shops were full of that stuff which is funny to me…Sorry, I have no feelings for that epoch:

And then we got some heavy rain…But managed to reach the shore and one of its attractions – Moreaki Bolders:

Those boulders are known for their mysteriously round shape. Some of them are cracked, revealing their colorfully almost amber like insides.

And then we reached Oamaru. the looks of the town were very unexpected – they were about some previous glory – very fundamental buildings in the center, like banks, opera, or community center:

The town is known as a Blue penguin colony – yes, they live in the town at night, and swim in the seas during the day. In fact they live in the most exotic parts of the town in the cellars, especially under the Whisky plant . You can see them if you go out late at night, by late I mean around 10pm, which we did – in a terrible rain and wind, wasn’t much fun, but we had no choice. Those little guys come out from the waves, climb the stones of the wharf and walk in the streets, they are so cute:

This is the street they like to wander:

Another way of seeing them is by paying $20 and going into their viewing center, sitting on the chairs built around the beach and watching the process of them coming from the waters under the roof.

One wharf in town is literally occupied by shags:

The search fro a lodge was also very interesting, for it took us three stops to find availability. One of the choices;

But finally – the Shaggers was the place we liked a lot – a Latvian woman met us wearing two strands of amber beads! What a pleasant shock to me! Her mom left them to her. She was extremel;y pleasant and helpful, to the extreme. We had good internet there and a pleasant atmosphere- she tried to get her guests to ineract, and we felt like a big family trhere, went to see penguins together, etc. Just there was not enough time…A Hungarian gal from Colorado was just going home from three months work as a hairdresser in Antarctica! So it was exciting to see her pics and listen to stories.It is a pity I didn’t take their pics myself, was too excited…I got Ildico’s pics of a penguin she took here – so to be fair – I have to say that the brighter picof the two is hers. This is how Shaggers looks like:

In the morning I went to say good bye to the Tasman Sea, it was rough!

Then we drove to the center and I took the very center of Hokitika:

And its Catholic church, sticking out for the very small and low building town of 3000 pop.:

Hokitika beach has its specifics:

I wish I had such a resource for doing crafts, garden furniture, etc…

And off South towards the Glaciers. it wasn’t raining all the time, but the clouds were so low, that we couldn’t admire the mountains on our left side…those Glaciers are the only ones on our Planet so close to rain forest, solow and so close to the sea… So we reached Franz Joseph Glasier, walked towards it until it is permitted:

Had to cross a river, very refreshing water, wasn’t too cold at all:

And enjoying the Glasier:

Then half an hour drive – and we are by the Fox Glacier. The highest New Zealand mountain Mt. Cook is behind thisg lacier, in the same mountain range, but how could we ever dream of seeing it…:

Pieces of ice were floating far away from their source…And the mountains around were so steep:

The water in the pools from glasiers has this perfect color:

Then by Haast we saw some coastline, similar to what we had seen before:

And then the rain got very strong, so we just drove East, through the mountains by a wide Haast river, through a pass and with waterfalls surrounding us. Until we reached Wanaka lake, the skies starting to clear up:

And finally lake Hawea. The views here became fantastic, but after driving 430 km today, we wanted to finalize it by finding a place to stay and writing the Blog :-):

We were rewarded again – found a room with this view towards Lake Wanaka in a mountain resort Wanaka. Everything is fine, ate and will rest, but the internet is very very weak…I can’t manage to post my Blog today, sorry.

But this is the view from our room window:

We decided to stay one more night in this quiet place by the sea. On a long trip you need a place to rest a little. Plus – a big storm came both islands and we had strong winds and rains throughout the night. But the day was warm and not rainy at all. We even saw some sun. So after working with computers for a while in the morning we drove to Hokitika Gorge and its Swingbridge (the charge for the previous bridge by Murchison was $5 NZ, this one was free):

After the night’s rain the river was very lightly grey. And very strong:

The path to it was through the rainforest:

Then we returned a little and drove around lake Kaniere. On the way by the lake there were Dorothy Falls. The water falling from them was amazingly orange:

Ant the stream afterwards was unusually orange:

There was dense rainforest around the lake. And the lake looked pretty:

I tried to swim there, but it was too cold for me…

But by the shores I saw the same plants I admired in Marahau by Tasman Park. they look super exotic to me, and in Lithuanian I call them “stipenos” which would be some kind of analog of “anorexic” in English:

They have very hard leaves and don’t remind wetland dwellers…They look more fit for a desert. But they don’t care and grow here where it is really wet.

We also stopped at Rimu Lookout and the views were stunning! it doesn’t get into one pic, it is so panoramic. The river with islands opens in all its glory:

And that is it, after that we had Fish and chips with beer and Anrei had some good time with his PC, while I ran to the shops, admired the beauty of their creations in Green stone and then tried with no luck to find some green stone by the stormy sea:

One wave even caught me, I tried to run out of the wet, but like in a horror movie – fell down and felt helpless, shouted into the sky and then figured out that everything wasn’t so bad as I expected.

The other thing I have to mention – yes, the sand flies here are terrible. We brought two types of repellents from US, bought one here, bought some antihistamine, we are all bitten, scratching like crazy at times…But that is no news, because all the books write about it . Except you always expect that bad things are for others, they won’t bother you as much :-)…

Some pics of Hokitika:

The Lodge where we stayed was impressive, but unluckily – there were two buses of young tourists staying the same night as us and that was not so pleasant. It would be no problem, we could stay in our rooms, but computers…We need to work with them every evening, and so we have to sit in common areas where those kids interact. The internet was bad, someone was endlessly speaking in Dutch by Skype – so that everybody could hear every word…No, very unpleasant. My advice for myself and others – ask when you check in – is it very full, then don’t stop if it is.

A Catholic in front of our Lodge:

But today we have a reward – we are staying in Hokitika by the sea in a small house with only two French couples and can work with our PCs alone in the dining room, comfortably, quietly, fun! I don’t want to sleep tonight, such a nice environment not to be fully enjoyed:

There were dahlias on the dining table and in our room. Lots of gardens in those areas here have dahlias, it makes me happy! I used to have dahlias and I always enjoyed looking into other gardens and admiring their dahlias…

From the beginning. We stopped at the end of the main street in Westport and here is what we saw:

Those are tunas that they just unloaded from a boat…

Drove down Rt 6 south by the coast:

The coast on the way was impressive, too. very dramatic, very much like Oregon coast, only warm, no wind, just waves. Not much sun, just exactly the weather for traveling, also exactly before the rains start (which they did late tonight).

towards Punakaiki Pancake Rocks and Blowholes:

Impressive…

There we saw some dolphins swimming up to grasp for air. but they were so far away, that it was not worth straining your eyes…

After the Pancakes we drove to Greymouth – another bigger city on the shore. Walked a little in the center and here is what I liked:

We also stopped at the beach past the city, which was a little different:

It was so peaceful and quiet before tomorrows storm that we had some really good rest on those stones.

And here is the Hokitika beach where we decided to stay two nights:

Our little lodge is seen in between trees:

There were lots of driftwood and green colored stones on the coast, I couldn’t help not picking them. For obvious reasons I can’t pick driftwood which I would really want to. So at least stones…Those stones I found are not pure , my guess some droplets of jade are mixed with quartz or something else. I didn’t find pure jade which has a distinct feel. But some people do. But some other stones on the coast were so pretty, that I don’t know how I am gona carry my bags. I also picked big ones and left in our hosts’ garden. What the heck – the sea is a couple of steps away from the house, so I ran back and forth today in the evening several times.

Didn’t dare to go into the waves – they seemed too dangerous, the open sea gets deep at once and also – I bet the waves are dragging into the sea…But there were some lucky surfers. Hokitika coast has some specifics:

And that is about it, the town itself is worth not only visiting but staying – cozy, small, lots of Green jade outlets, some restaurants, just right for vacationing. Oh, and when in got dark we drove to the Glow worm cave just in the north part of town by the road – yes, they are glowing those criters, very cute! Different than stars. On both sides of the cave which has no roof . Looks romantic! And spooky. But I can only describe it , no pics…:-)

Drove to the seashore of Motueka. Saw a ship not in use any more…

And this is the most common flower here now. it is growing like weed by property boundaries, by roads, close to beaches but not in the wild – in towns, surrounding properties like fences:

One of the houses we see by the shoreline:

Then again figured out that they are not tending to show road signs, it is your business to figure out which road to take by the direction, ranges of mountains or simply by intuition, which we lack, so we had to drive back and forth in Motueka and out of it until we found the right road. The road was beautiful, followed one river, than the other, based on pictures of some roads by rivers on North island – they are twin alike…maybe the surrounding mountains are an inch higher here.

When we gladly reached Murchison – a sign waited for us – they are repairing the road further and will do that for the next 4 hours…And Murchison is a tiny miners town. At least they had Info center where the lady already managed to figure out where the repair was going on and how we could spend those hours in a useful way. So we followed her advice, but first lifted our moods by consuming some local beer (from the West coast) and then drove where we were directed – to a hanging bridge:

Was it scary? – no. I was so busy taking pictures, I forgot to be scared. I think Andrei was a little bit more scared :-).

I also bought a ticket for gold panning (as an advice – not worth at all). They showed me how to do it in a basin by their office and then sent me to the river which was supposedly full of gold nuggets. The very first time I tried in that basin – I found a tiny gold flake in my pan. It was so exciting that I literally flew to the river with Andrei not catching up with me. All those sand flies biting like crazy, I dug sand from here and there and washed and washed it and zero result. It was so disappointing! At first I felt like in a movie where they show gold paners, and then I felt like I didn’t get the role…

So it goes, we left it in time, got to Westport and still there were some sunny hours left for enjoyment – so we got the last room in a very exotic old lodge with the walls of the corridor made of Kauri wood :

(:-) -our room…)

and drove to the Seal colony, some 17 km away. On the way stopped to see some views:

The beach by seal colony was very inviting , lots of warmth, very flat waves spreading so far, some rocks sticking from the sea close by.

So we immersed into the salty water, a little on the cold side for us, but my parents would have enjoyed it. And went an a very comfy board walk up and arpound the rocks to see the seals. As usuall – we don’t get much luck. In addition to the very bright sun shining straight to our eyes, there were very few seals down there among the rocks:

But we took pics, etc. and then returned home.
It was not a big luck our Lodge got overfilled so there is much noise where we a re desperately trying to get into the internet…I remember those times when we were almost alone in such lodges. Here – buses came and brought happy Kiwis and Europeans and their loud talks…

We planned to drive more and walk less today. So from Motueka we drove to a source of Riwaka river called insurgence. It is several km to the left of the main road #60 leading to Tanaka, before you start climbing the mountain. A group of ducks met us and begged for food. Which we had – we just bought a bag of Nashi pears from a garden:

Then walked a little walk up a very clean and buoyant river to the hole where it comes from under the mountain:

The mushrooms I saw under a pine tree by parking lot were exactly what we pick in Lithuania and we call them “lepshiai” :

A drive up the mountain to the height of 791m was very windy as can be expected. The views…well, the views are wonderful here everywhere. I just started getting a feeling that very special hobbits should really live here – you have to be special and kindhearted if you are surrounded with such landscapes…

So we reached the mountain and then started descending. Evidently there is no pass here, by which I mean – some lower part of the mountain so that cars wouldn’t need to climb so high…

And then we saw the other side – another green valley, a long one. Tanaka was there, a rather long way towards the sea. But you could not see the sea from town. Instead we stopped at a museum and gallery where I found the needed souvenirs. And also noticed a very interesting shop where they knit alpaca wool sweaters and boil them to make it look like a harder fabric. And then sow really fashionable sweaters – in such a corner of the earth… Such a fashion…Such good taste…Unbelievable. The sweaters were the most beautiful I managed to see here in NZ while running through stores (always no time…). But the price looked rather steep. I think they are for movie stars and by that I guess they get them here :-).

Passing Tanaka we turned immediately to the left after the bridge – to Pupu Springs – another source of another river…This was even more impressive.

It is a Tapu – a sacred place for Maori and I felt why. They are so pure and clean – that you can look at them for hours. By “they” I mean several bigger and smaller rivers which make an island and join together. Because that place has several holes in the ground and from some of them the water is coming with such a speed that the pool on top looks like it boils!

The water there is considered the cleanest in the world. Not too cold. But again – no time to immerse in it…Which can be done a little down the river.

We needed some rest to cool down and had it in the Mussel Inn by the road further.The beer there is out of this world…At least for my taste buds. Nothing can beet their beer. They produce it there because they grow hops there all around. The ones we drank were Red Deer Draught and Captain Cooker Manuka Beer -the latter is flavored with freshly picked tips of Manuka tree. It is even medicinal! I will miss it…And the food was good as always. Mussel chowder had a lot of veggies, healthy for me.

On the way from there we noticed a lot of black big birds and couldn’t believe our eyes – they were black swans with red beaks in such numbers that it leads to thinking that all the Northern hemisphere’s swans have been gathered here for wintering…It is a pity they were swimming further from the beach and we had no binoculars to get more pleasure in watching them.

After some rest we reached the visitors center of Farewell Spit. They are deceiving there :-)…there is usually nobody in those visitor centers here to answer questions or give advices. There is only some map on the board and some explanations. They mention about 20 min walk to the beach and I took it as a truth…We walked and we walked through the pastures, and I got a little mad to tell the truth, because today our legs and backs are tired enough from yesterday’s 14 km walks. Yes, the scenery is beautiful, but it seemed that they made the path almost parallel to the beach instead of going straight to the other end of the Spit to the Tasman sea.

I wanted to see it because I read it has a lot of sand. But as you can see from the picture – that spit is really far away, by the horizon…Yes, we reached the dunes, then walked by the sea, did a loop, but it was a little too long for today…the wind was very strong, so no enthusiasm was left to play in the waves which would have refreshed us.

Coming back to Motueka took us 1h 40 mins. We are sleeping in the same motel, and tomorrow heading south-west

towards Westport on the west coast.

10th day was spent well. The morning was lazy. Only then I realized that our motel is surrounded with kiwi
orchards. Kiwi are hanging from the wines that resemble grape wines. There are some citrus trees by our road, too. They get slightly freezing nights in their winters which is our summers, but evidently – not too bad. So we drove from Motueka to Kaikerikeri beach, where the sand was so gold and bright yellow! the tide was coming up, you can literally see it. You cross a stream on a shallow place, then come back in a couple of minutes – and get your lower parts of pants wet…

Again we missed the road to Split apple Rock the first time. They didn’t even bother writing it on the main road. Later, when you are on the way to it – so that you won’t drive into private properties, they start showing signs -turn here, turn there. And I have to say – those roads here are super winding and narrow. Kiwis have a sens of humor – the speed limit on them is 100km/h. Well,as much as we tried – we couldn’t get faster than 20-40 km/h.
And here is what we saw after we descended from a bush path to that Split Apple:

Luckily the tide was not completely up, so we went into the caves, they had glow worms but it was daytime and worms don’t shine in the day. Andrei swam to the rock and around. I did some yoga and Tai-Ji on the beach, which was yellow but not that bright as the previous one.

A break in between beaches – we had locally brewed Sassy Red beer in a cafe by the sea and lunch and a triple chocolate muffin, so big and so tasty that it filled us fro a 12 km trip! In Kiwi it is called – tramping. So we tramped in Abel Tasman National park – on a coastal trail. It started with bridge type walks on wetlands – by the time we entered the lands were being filled with water – the tide was going up, so evidently, that the streams of water rushing were seen everywhere.

Then the trail was was cut on a shelf of very dense bushy mountains with views and walks to the beaches.

So we walked and swam in beaches and it was fantastic! The jungle or bush as they call it looked the same as on North island. Dense, lots of different trees with the tree-ferns dominating. And lots of bushes. Also – there were dark bright blue berries of unseen origin to me hanging on the sides. The path was well maintained. It had some bridges, some waterfalls.

It also had strange places where the trees and even their leaves were turned black and the area smelled unpleasant but distinctive – never smelled it ever. I thought it was some king of local fire and didn’t even question that thing. The only questions were in my head – why then anything didn’t burn or how did they extinguish it. On the way back I dared to ask a Canadian couple about it – and they pointed that it was some kind of fungus or mold. It was just a pest. And then I looked closely – of course it was a mold. Even green leaves had black spots, looked as if they were dirty. Luckily, those things were not all over, just in spots.

We reached the Apple Bay (somehow a lot about apples today :-))and turned back. And on the way back the water started to subside – also very fast, so fast that the bay I swam and was afraid not to stand on some log – it was completely barren from water, we walked there and found other caves and found a picture perfect view:

And here are pics of the same place during tide and then after it is gone:

The tide is gone:…

Then on the way back we drank another beer in the same cafe, and later in Motueka found an internet place, (I can’t call it cafe – there is no coffee there), but they are open till 6-7pm, so luckily we managed to use their service.

We are sleeping in the same motel, I don’t even remember the name…Because they don’t have and use internet, so what is the difference. But everything else is very good here. The view from our doors, kiwi gardens in the background:

Oh, and there are so many orchards here! the apple trees look young and they are all tied with ropes on frames above. Many frames, some fields of apples are literally covered with white nets, some grapes and kiwis are also covered with white small eyed nets, row by row – so much investment in their orchards! And I figured out who is working in them – the young people from all over the world who are smart enough to want to see NZealand! They come for a season and work and get acquainted and travel. Wonderful life!

Also, by the Park we found an impressive gallery/hippie workshop garden. It reminded me the “Orvidu Sodyba”in Lithuania. Or a Stone Garden in SLC, UT. Except – no words from Testaments or Book of Mormon…No sacred words, period. More naked ladies done in wood. It was impressive, and all those sculptures intermingled with neat vegetable gardens. The soil so rich…Susan would have liked it soooo much !

We got up at 7am, ate and rushed to the ferry terminal. Andrei is following American logic which doesn’t work here on the roads…they write directions on different places and angles, so that you get so confused and almost certainly find yourself on a wrong road. This is especially unpleasant when it happens on motorways, it takes a while to find a place to turn around. Wellington, the capital, is one of those confusing places, and having in mind how small it is – it drives you crazy…Taking a motorway was our mistake and it took us several turns, several wrong turns and a talk with a very pleasant and helpful guy in a gas station until we found ourselves standing in a line for the ferry. The ferry was good, comfy seats, some with tables, a very good canteen – we got such a big breakfast meal that even sharing it were filled for the day. OK, I will describe it, for it is kind of my specialty :-). One big plate was piled with 4 sausages, 3 potato pancakes, several pieces of ham and a huge scoop of scrambled eggs. It all costed 12.50, but coffee and ketchup were extras. The trip lasted 3 hours, and all the way you could see shores – either of one island or the other. it was beautiful to see how the boat left Wellington:

and how it sailed through Marlborough sounds towards Picton:

Picton is nothing to get us interested, but there again wasn’t easy to turn to the right road. We took the coastal road – very windy, narrow, but beautiful, with the views of green mountains sinking and dripping into the green waters.

There was a Pelorus River on the way and had we more time – we could have done a walk to its waterfalls.But

no time…There was also the world capital of green mussels, but we didn’t stop there either. Until we reached

Nelson -and there in the center there was a wow! All the streets were decorated with hanging begonias, so many and so colorful and so alive, that I was standing and looking and there could have been nothing else…

But there were cafes, pubs, shops. They are making their own ales, so it was a pleasure to try some. I am not a specialist, but they were good to me! Interesting point – pubs don’t have toilets…In the main street the only toilet we found was only “one hole” as I call in Starbucks. After getting a little merrier we climbed a small hill covered with beautiful trees, resembling to me a Capitol Hill in D.C. -just a smaller version, and we reached a Cathedral.

The hill and the streets around and also the main street are called Trafalgar. The cathedral is an Anglican church. She was the reason Nelson was the second town in NZ to get its township.

Then we drove a little to the side to see the NZ geographical center -it is on a small but steep hill and we ran out of our intangible resources to climb it. So it goes…

But on the way we found Queens gardens, with a Chinese garden in the corner:

Passing Nelson immediately we stopped at a very wide beach-so wide, it was hard to reach the waters and when we reached them – we decided not to get into the waves, for they didn’t feel like welcoming. I can’t even explain. Some beaches are very cozy, some are not. here I noticed – the beaches and lowlands are so flat that when the tide of 4 meters goes down – super duper wide areas besides the sea become like marsh lands, half wet, half dry, dark grey, and very wide and flat, no plants… To make them not so boring, enthusiasts even make words and signs of stones(they have to bring those stones from somewhere) on those wastelands that you can see from the road while driving.

(This pic I borrowed from tomorrow’s day, because while driving we do not stop much, so this one was taken from a board walk to Abel Tasman Park.)

It is like in Hawaii they make words out of white shells and stones on the black lava fields, or by Salt Lake city they make those same things from black stones on the white salt fields. It is good people use their overflow of energy and their time not in vain but in good use!

They say that the difference between tides here is 4-5 meters! Oho! In Maine it was 2 meters and still looked impressive.

This is still a beach by Nelson.

And here we are – in Motueka, 20 min from Abel Tasman national park entrance. Lots of choices what we can do tomorrow. Tired of reading about those places. Somehow I think that it is really not so easy to travel without any guidance and also with that big ambition to see so much…It seems simple later, but in the beginning you have to plan your time best and think of various ways of taking this road or that, sleeping here or there. So we both agree that we couldn’t travel with reservations – we always would like to change them.

This time we found a very nice motel – and right at the moment we felt like stopping for the night. Very private, quiet, with a garden in the middle. With a kitchen, and everything else, except for internet, that is why my Blog is late. Catching the internet was tricky. We always buy it with cc, there is no unprotected internet in NZ, but we have to find a signal and the right one. So driving around motels, lodges and checking is a way of spending some evenings. If we have it in the motel itself – then it is even more boring – we sit by our PC’s and type…

It was a rainy day – exactly as the weather forecast predicted. So it was good to spend it in the city. We drove there in the morning and as it was Saturday, thanks God we started looking for a room from the very start. And we found, on a slope – with the view towards “The Hong Kong” of New Zealand. Then we rushed to Kuba street,

lots of shops restaurants and then dived among several skyscrapers and found ourselves by the harbors. The decors and sculptures over there are impressive even in the rain. I like their sense of modernism, it makes me happy. After a good curry at an Indian restaurant we found ourselves heading towards Te Papa museum.

That museum is …marvelous, nobody doubts about that. Architecture alone is worth spending time and looking at it. Then the contemporary paintings are pretty good, the Maori artifacts and stories about their life, etc. showed in movies are pleasant. the other exhibits, as a giant squid caught in Feb. of 2007, the Earthquake exhibit, the fashion-color show – everything was impressive. But to me – nothing beats the exterior and the interior.

This is a Chinese device to measure the direction of a coming earthquake. Each dragon has a ball in his mouth. If the pendulum inside hits it – the ball falls into the open mouth of a frog sitting under and in front of it. Those Chinese, they made everything beautifully…

Museums make us tired. So after that we found something to eat and called it a day. Here in the Lodge we met three young Latvians, traveling for 2.5 months! Not bad, hm… If a person from an Eastern European country can work for a year there and save enough money for such a long trip – lets move back to Lithuania… I think I have made a mistake, being form the US I can travel here no longer than for a month :-).

We are heading towards the South Island tomorrow! taking a ferry.