As we drove the van down the off-ramp into Picton from the Bluebridge ferry, the sun was already getting low in the sky. We'd arrived around three thirty, and so only had around two hours to find a place to park the van for the night before it became exponentially more complicated by the lack of natural light. We spent a few moments in Picton figuring out our general course through the south island - down the left side, through the centre and back up the right - before embarking west along some of the craziest winding roads that we had come to know and love, towards Abel Tasman national park.
New Zealand is a hiker's paradise, filled with a multitude of well-maintained, multi-day "great walks." As well, there are hundreds of smaller trekking trails, ranging from a few hundred metres to month-long, pack-in-pack-out odysseys. After having driven a rapid pace towards the south island, we realized we weren't really taking advantage of the fact that we had much more time to see the country than we had in previous countries. So, we decided we would walk the Abel Tasman "great walk," camping as we walked up the forty-kilometre distance up the northwestern coast of the south island. To that end, we had to drive towards Motueka, an access town to the park, where we would reserve our campsites and plan our walk with help from the Department of Conservation ("DoC") staff.
But we wouldn't make it there today, travelling along the spaghetti roadway that is the Queen Charlotte Drive. We passed very little that looked accomodating for a night's freedom camping. Finally we ended up pulling into a DoC campground, "Aussie Beach," where we watched the sun set, cooked some food and spent the night. It was around this night that I realized the construction of the bed wasn't going to be satisfactory; it was essentially a pallette, made from particle boards, so they had buckled into a curve in the middle. We would wake up in a pile in the morning, and the normally difficult process of putting one's trousers on lying down was made doubly hard by having to work up a hill.
We drifted through Nelson the next day, in what was supposed to be a short stop to see why the interior lights of the car and the CD player had stopped working. I tracked down the problem to the fuses - one of them had blown - but repeated attempts to replace the offending fuse resulted in more blown fuses. There was a short in the system somewhere that I wasn't going to find, or fix. This problem had been dogging us since before we got on the ferry, and we had met someone waiting in line who, when confronted with the problem, suggested we take it to an auto electrician. And when we saw a place advertising same in Nelson, we knew it was worth a stop.
When I walked in and greeted the guy, I asked him (in what I perceived to be typical Kiwi fashion), "How you going." He must have taken me for a native, because he completed the code phrase with the completely enigmatic, "Ah, box of fluffies." It was then that I had to break down and reveal I had absolutely no idea what he had just said, and could he explain it.
Box of Fluffies: Short form, "box of fluffy ducks."
Box of fluffy ducks: Can't complain.
We moved on to the problem at hand, and he said he'd take a look. He recommended some cafes and local stores, and we wandered around. What followed was a typical situation of car repair; getting your vehicle into the repair schedule. When we did come back to find the van under repair, we saw the dashboard torn apart, the roof ribs pulled down, wires strung, and the auto electrician on his back under the dash. It looked expensive. But when we strolled up, he nodded authoritatively and said he'd tracked down the problem; during a repair for rust, some steel plates had been welded over a rusted out hole, and an interior wire had been melted. It was just a matter of time. Fortunately, the repair was less expensive than it looked, but most of our day was gone.
We decided to press on to try and make some headway towards Motueka. Fortunately, one of the motorhome crowd we had met at Aussie Beach had tipped us off to a really nice place to freedom camp outside of Motueka: Kina Beach. Finding it prominently displayed on our map, we make tracks and get to the area just before sunset. We find one really promising spot seems to be taken by three vans and some guys doing some drinking; looking for a more secluded spot, we walk around a loop and find a nice spot looking up off the road towards the rocky beach. It all looked straightforward enough; a short hop onto the firmly-packed sand, a quick reverse and a perfect spot to spend the night.
Except, as it would happen, the sand wasn't as firmly-packed as I had thought. And here's the funny thing about vans; the weight isn't distributed well, so you don't get the power where you need it. And finally, rear-wheel drive works much differently than front-wheel drive.
In short, I got the van marvellously stuck in the sand.
After a brief panic, I tried what most completely inexperienced van drivers would do: rocking it back and forth by switching between first and reverse. This succeeded in a lot of encouraging motion, creating massive holes in the sand for the wheels to rest in, while not moving the van an inch back towards the road. Fortunately, we were next to a rocky beach, so there was no shortage of rocks to grab and bring over to try and create a more stable footprint for the van to attempt to drive on. And as we started to collect the rocks, I realized just how well dug-in the van was on the left side; the wheel was almost completely buried.
Two hours later, the wheels jacked up and rocks deposited, there was a bit more rocking, but no progress to be made. I admitted defeat and agreed with Amy's suggestion that we walk over to the party in progress and ask for help in dislodging the van.
In the end, they turned out to be really helpful and friendly guys; two Spaniards, a Briton, and another guy whose origin escapes me. We started out just pushing, with the van in neutral. Nothing. Then we tried rocking it, combined with the pushing; nothing. Finally we had to bring over one of the other vans, tie the two together with rope, and combine the pushing. To our great relief, the other van dragged our van out of the sand. Diagonally. A great cheer erupted when we put the van back on the road: three hours later in almost pitch black. We made some friends that night, shared our drinks, and went to sleep with aching, but relieved, muscles.
The next day we set off for Motueka, eager to leave the van for a few days and set off on a trek through the parkland. By the time we pulled into Motueka, we realized we weren't going to have time to set off today. We got ourselves sorted with the DoC, reserved some campsites along our planned route, and spent the remainder of the day outfitting ourselves for the trek to come. Originally we had decided to take the small camping stove with the rest of our kit - but when we saw how much stuff we were already going to be taking, we decided to leave it behind and stick to a basic regimen of cold meals.
The next morning we drove up a bit further north to the park entrance, leaving our van at the water taxi service that would pick us up a week later. As we set off on foot, a gentle drizzle began to fall, but we were well prepared with our MEC pack covers. I began to recall fondly our six-hour days of walking in Nepal, although in this case we were regularly passed on the road by boats, towed on trailers, taking people to the water and up the coast for a day's tour.
Even though we had slimmed down what we were carrying to the bare essentials, the packs were still quite heavy. In addition to our sleeping bags and tent, we were carrying plenty of extra clothing (it was starting to drop to around three degrees Celsius at night), and food enough for five days. While I knew that as the trek went on, we would gradually lighten our load as we ate through the food, it was no encouragement on the first leg of our hike. The rain didn't help. But as we passed into the main body of the park, crossing raised walking platforms of several hundred meters to keep human feet off of delicate marshland, I began to take in the truly wild nature of the park. The rain made it seem all the more lush, and soon we were walking through densely packed tropical forest. The everpresent symbol of New Zealand, the silver fern, shot up absolutely everywhere, while behind and above towered trees of all kinds. The forest path was quite popular, with hikers passing us in both directions, and every once and a while we would be rewarded by a view of the Cook Strait over our right shoulder.
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| Beautiful Abel Tasman beach. |
After returning to our campsite and having our first of many cold meals, we turned into our 2-man palace and, also reminiscent of Nepal, went to sleep shortly after the sun went down.
The next day was to be our most challenging. The hiking trail crosses three areas of water in total, and there are various windows for each in which the tide makes it possible to cross. If you miss a window, you have to wait for the next tide. Because of our campsite reservation (which were diligently checked each night by a DoC representative who dropped by to review our paperwork) we had to cross two in one day, which represented at least seven hours of walking.
After striking camp rather late (there wasn't much point in hurrying as we couldn't cross the first tidal area until the tide started to go out) we put everything back into our packs and set off. We ate our lunch in a lovely cove, and were just starting to relax when we could see nine kayaks in the distance, bearing down on our tropical turf for a place to beach. One of the attractions of Abel Tasman is a big trade in kayak tours, which we opted not to take. You can combine kayaking and hiking, leaving your kayak behind and having your packs delivered to you; seeing the park's coastline from the water is probably quite striking. But since you have to be part of a tour and really have no freedom to go off on your own, it didn't really appeal to us. As well, the kayaks have earned a nickname for the less-experienced as "divorce boats," as they can be challenging to operate as a team. Amy and I have canoed together, and it works, but that doesn't mean we wanted to spend a whole tour with people for whom it didn't.
After a few more hours of walking, we made the first tidal crossing, which involved taking off shoes and socks and crossing the frigid ankle-deep waters while trying not to step on too many pointy clamshells. The aches were already setting in, and we weren't even half-way to our next campsite. We pushed on towards the next tidal crossing, taking little delight in our surroundings and getting increasingly irritable as the day wore on. As we approached the second tidal crossing the sun was low in the sky, blazing directly into our eyes. I have distinct memories of feeling like we were walking through a desert, our destination constantly getting further and further away from us.
The tide was just beginning to come in as we approached the second crossing, a shallow river with a kilometre to be crossed to get to the other side. The signage was particularly obscure this time around, so we made our best guess as to where to begin our crossing and started over. Even more frustrating was it wasn't clear where we were supposed to continue our trek on the other side, and we certainly didn't want to end up walking along the shoreline looking for it, as the tide rolled in. We had to take off our shoes and socks twice as we encountered deeper stretches of water that were coming in, and by the time we encountered the third creek of water we just left them off, muttering curses against the pointy clamshells as we went. Finally we saw an inverted triangle in the distance on the other side, and made our way towards it; indeed, it was the other side of the crossing. As the sun set behind the treeline, we emerged. Now it was only another twenty minutes before we would arrive at our campsite. Dusk set in as we arrived to the sign welcoming us to the campsite - another 150 metres away to the actual campsites - and my arms were about to fall off as we deposited our packs in a pile.
We shared a picnic table for dinner with a German couple, who were hitching their way across the country. While I had my doubts of the safety and effectiveness of this strategy, they had apparently found it easier than expected to get rides to where they wanted to go. If our van had seats for passengers, room for their gear, and was in fact headed in the same direction as them (it wasn't) I'm sure we would have offered them a lift. It was interesting to talk to them, as they indicated it's very popular for Germans to travel (we had certainly noticed a great deal of them in New Zealand) as it represents a sense of adventure and wildness that is not available in Germany.
We lazed about the following day, giving our sore muscles a chance to recuperate, as our walk for the day was only to be about three hours to our next campsite, where we would spend two full days - meaning, one of those days there would be no dedicated hiking at all. Other hiking groups packed up and left as we read our books on the beach, strolled aimlessly and generally took our time over breakfast - until we decided we were ready to go and packed up. Our trek took us across no less than four beaches, the path opening up from forest to a sandy beach, with a sign instructing us to walk along the beach to the next opening back into the forest where the path would continue. Giant rock formations constituted book-ends to the beach, worn down by centuries of weather and wind.
As we passed Totranui, the furthest most point that water taxis will drop people, we found the amount of other foot traffic dropped significantly; it would seem that most people just take day trips through the park, and few of those go north. With only four hours to trek today, slightly-lighter packs and muscles that were slowly adjusting, the walk was much more manageable. We arrived at our campsite, finding it to be very deluxe - in addition to a formed concrete fire pit, axe and firewood, there was an installation containing not one but two sinks with both treated and untreated water. Luxury!
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| An Abel Tasman sunset. |
We thought we were the only ones hardy enough to brave camping in the cool temperatures, until we were joined by another another couple, Duncan and Michelle from Auckland. We ended up getting along very well, sharing our meals and company before heading to bed. The next morning was a treat - hot breakfast, coffee and tea - before we packed up our respective camps and parted company in the drizzly morning, them heading for a mountain hike to get a panoramic view of the park area, and us to head back to Totranui to connect with our water taxi back to civilization. The ride back is as good as a roller-coaster, and it's hard to believe that what took us five days to travel by foot takes us thirty minutes to travel by boat.
The showers we had back in town were some of the best ever, and when we spotted Duncan and Michelle being dropped off from their water taxi (in fact, the same company as ours) we hooked up and shared some well-deserved beers and pub grub. We arranged that we might meet again at their place in Auckland when we returned up that way.
After our hike through Abel Tasman, we thought we would try to drop into a farm nearby for a WWOOF. After they had helped us extract our van from the sand, the Spaniards we hung out with mentioned that they had volunteered on a commune on the other side of Abel Tasman park, called the Tui Farm. It had apparently been so popular through the WWOOF website that they had decided to de-list themselves and be referred solely by word of mouth. The farm was well-knwon in the area, so we decided it would be worth a shot just to swing by and see if they had any availability to WWOOFers. This entailed some more mountain driving through winding roads, but was worth it if just to visit the small town of Takaka. Takaka is the largest settlement to the other side of the Abel Tasman park (you can enter the park from two sides) but even then it's no bigger than a town. That said, it's a town which is clearly buzzing with activity, and no trace of a single franchise store. The town's probably not big enough to justify it. Instead, you had locally owned hardware stores, grocery stores, butchers, and restaurants with exceptional character (my favourite being called "The Dangerous Kitchen"). While we were essentially just passing through to resupply and head towards the Tui Farm, it would have been fun to stay for longer. We did find the Tui Farm after some doing, but unfortunately, they were already fully stocked with WWOOFers. Which was a shame, given the range of produce they farmed and products they fabricated on the farm. We pushed on.
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| The Franz Josef glacier. |
We also make a stop at a series of natural blow holes. They're quite impressive solely as geological formations, with a vast series of eroded trenches and mounds, seemingly towering stakes of pancakes. But as you pass by the larger pit formations, you are regularly rewarded by an almost volcanic jet of water blasting into the air from one of the aforementioned blow holes. As the larger waves come in from the ocean, the water is under pressure, and is careened down natural formations until it erupts through a hole in the ground. Unfortunately, as much as water is being ejected upwards from the ground, it was also falling quite substantially from the sky, so we decided that we had got a good idea of the blow holes, and made a bee line back to the van.
After a couple of days sleeping in the van and living on the road (or, at times, right beside it) we made it a policy to check into a motor park to have some showers and wash some clothes. Our next stop was Wanaka, a small picturesque town named for the lake which it sits adjacent to. In many ways it reminds me of Takaka, with its community buzz and small town feel; however, with its traffic in adventure sports and bus tours, there are far more up-market options available in Wanaka.
It was, however, very much worth the stop, and so highly recommended by my cousin Mary (who used to own a home there) that we ended up staying for three days. Mary used to work at the local cinema, Cinema Paradiso, a place of infinite character and classy selections. When we went to see a film there, the cinema was adorned with a giant sheep, advertising the new horror-comedy, Black Sheep. Our film wasn't as good as that would have been, but the whole experience was well worth it as we sat in comfortable couches and had freshly-baked cookies at intermission. Our stay in the Mount Aspiring Motor Park was as rewarding, if for two words: hot tub.
In Wanaka we fixed the woefully-warped bed in our van, with the friendly assistance of the kind folks at the local Mitre 10 (New Zealand's national big-box hardware store: North Americans should think Home Depot). When we went in to look for a replacement hose for our propane stove, I asked casually if there was a place we could rent tools so that I could fix up our van. When the guy asked me what I needed, I realized all I really needed was a power drill and perhaps a hammer: they were only too happy to loan us the tools we needed, and even a box of screws to use. They sold us the wood we needed, cut to size, and an hour later we were set up for full bed stability.
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| The infamous New Zealand Kea parrot. |
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| Amy's a hit with the Japanese tourists. |
After Wanaka, we hauled back into the van and drove further inland, towards the winegrowing heartland of the south island. We make a stop in Cromwell, a small regional town, with the intention of heading on towards Queenstown. Staying the night in the Cromwell Chalets motor camp, we notice a notice for seasonal grape pickers, which got us to thinking. We had struck out with grape picking in France, and none of our WWOOF visits had anything to do with grapes, so perhaps this could be our opportunity to get a closer look at the wine industry. This is of course complicated by the fact that we have no work permits for New Zealand, so we decide that we'll just ask at some of the places we expect to do tastings at, and see if something casual can be arranged.
We visit first Rockburn estate, where we sample their wines and decide to ask on our return where we pick up a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc to go with the night's meal. Our second stop is at Quartz Reef, where we meet an older couple who have been picking, and ask casually about doing some picking; we're directed to Dom, who's not actually connected with Quartz Reef, but is the manager at another vinyard, Gibbston Valley, as well as managing his own vineyard. We chat for a while and get along well, and in the end we decide to volunteer to do some picking, which works out well as we can park in the vineyard's extensive parking lot.
The next day (and the next, actually) are spent picking grapes. Our first day is spent picking Pinot Blanc and Pinot Gris, small green grapes with light brown shades. It's easy work and the time passes quickly in thankfully good weather. It's been getting nippy in the mornings, but nothing we can't handle with sweaters and jackets, and by mid-morning we're in short-sleeves. The picking crew is made up of the Gibbston valley staff, and a legion of contract workers made up mostly by international backpackers. We met Anika, a German girl travelling on her own who picked up a job working for the vineyard to make some money. At the end of the day we park next to her van at the Gibbston valley vineyard, and we make a feast of spanish omelettes and fried potatoes. I got a first-hand view of grape pressing, and the rapid pace they try to set; turns out they aren't pushed to turn grapes into wine for fear of losing the grapes to frost. In Gibbston valley's case, they actually only have so many grape containers and need to clear them for the next day's picking.
The next morning the van wouldn't start; it's just too cold. So we hitched a ride with one of the Gibbston valley staff, Nathan, in his truck. It's a good thing too, given the thin, bouncy gravel road we have to climb to get to the second vinyard. I'm glad someone else is driving. The night was so cold there was quite a substantial frost, which is the equivalent of an earthquake in this winegrowing region: quite a lot of money is spent on frost prevention. Every vineyard has a frost alarm, and if the temperature goes below a certain point they spend thousands of dollars hiring helicoptors to come and fly over the crops. The idea is that the updraft of air created by the helicoptor rotors will raise the temperature by a few degrees, and often, that's all you need to prevent frost from settling. In addition there are windmills and drums filled with burning diesel. With hundreds of thousands of dollars tied up in grapes, a frost can wipe out an entire plot: there's no insurance for this kind of event. So, when one of the frost alarms didn't go off last night, it's the talk of the harvest, and everyone is chatting about it all day.
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| Pinot noir grapes. |
After saying our farewells to Gibbston valley and Cromwell, we made our way towards Queenstown. It was probably a lovely little town until it became the unofficial epicentre of New Zealand's adrenaline sports, and now it is jammed packs with high-end restaurants, outdoor supply stores, and tour operators. There are now direct flights to Queenstown; you can make it your only New Zealand destination, if you wish. On the recommendation of some people we've chatted to, we decide we want to investigate going on a cruise through the Fjordlands, the southwest coast of New Zealand, made up of towering bluffs. There are two main cruises: a shorter day cruise through the Milford Sound, and a longer overnight cruise through Doubtful Sound. The latter was recommended as better value for slightly more money, so we sign up for that one but it doesn't leave for a few days. We go on hikes, hang out in the town, catch up on email, generally waste some time before driving towards Manapouri and the beginning of the Fjordlands cruise.
The cruise was wonderful. We meet some other tourists and revel in the fantastic scenery that is the Fjordlands. We don't have any rain, which is great, but on the other hand we don't see any of the fantastic waterfalls the area is known for. The transit to the Navigator, the main boat taking us out into the sounds, is a bit of a big deal; you take an hour-long boat ride to a stretch of intervening land, a bus across it, and then board the Navigator. There is only one road in this neck of the woods, which is used by to service the hydro dam - and that road is purpose-built, not connecting to any other road in New Zealand. Everything has to be shipped in, including petrol for the bus. According to our driver, it's the most expensive road ever built in New Zealand.
On board the Navigator, they stuff us mercilessly with great food. We have muffins when we board, soup a couple of hours later, a massive buffet dinner; the next morning, a cold/dry breakfast for the early risers and a full-on caloric fest an hour later. No one can complain we were left hungry. We ate like pigs. Speaking of pigs, the hunting and killing of them is actually big sport in New Zealand, and like all big sports, it has a dedicated fan base with its own magazine: "Pig Hunter." I'm actually not kidding about this. The magazine was shown to us by a woman we met on the cruise, who bought it as a gag; it's replete with stories and photos of pighunting exploits. The photos are mostly of men carting out dead boars on their backs, but there are also touching stories of women and kids getting in on the action, talking about their first kill. What seems to be absent (or taken for granted as known) in the stories and depictions of the pork stalking is that the kills are all made with a big bowie knife, which strikes me as particularly grisly.
We also meet Hugh and his wife Joan, Canadians from outside of Toronto. When we got to talking to them, they turned out to be some of the nicest, friendliest people we'd met, and by the kind of coincidence we have come to expect, they are actually grandparents to a child of the sister-in-law of a good friend of Amy's.
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| Sunset over Doubtful sound. |
At the mouth of the water body we were navigating, we stopped and saw the Tasman sea as the sun set. Several islands in the mouth were home to a seal colony, which barked and dove as they woke from the slumber of the day to go hunting for dinner. The boat turned a lazy circle around, and people descended for the night's feast as the boat lodged itself in a quiet bay to anchor for the night. We ate, drank and chatted until well past our regular bed times.
After dinner we attended a nature talk by Kimmy, the naturalist on the boat with a packed audience as she described the flora and fauna of the region, letting us know what animals we could feel free to run over on the highway (the possum, noteably) and which we should avoid.
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| Doubtful sound, completely still. |
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