Running On Fumes Down The West Coast (Plus Other Exciting Things I Have No Room For In The Title) (Sep. 28 – Oct. 2)

Leaving Golden Bay, we proceeded toward the West Coast for a quick jaunt down the coast before heading back east to Chch through Arthur’s Pass. Friday brought our longest driving day of 5 hours or so, as the driving distance to the West Coast is substantial and because it takes awhile to traverse the many switchbacks up and then down Takaka Hil in GB. To break up the drive we stopped in Buller Gorge, home of the “longest swingbridge in New Zealand”, which is a bit touristy, but what the heck. Don especially enjoyed the gorge because as a civil engineer he appreciates a good bridge and also because he opted to spend the extra bob and take the Superman zip-line back across the river.

The longest swing bridge in New Zealand

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a civil engineer!

Once on the West Coast we took L&D to perhaps our favorite hostel, The Old Slaughterhouse, in Hector. TOS, of course, requires a 10 minute bushwalk up a hill to reach the hostel, but with such good accommodations even L&D didn’t mind a little hike. With our second day of good weather in a row we were able to see the sun set over the Tasman Sea, quite possibly the strongest of TOS’s many selling points. L&D had been asking about a sunset for days, so it was good, as professional tour guides, to be able to deliver. It’s tough to beat eating freshly collected and cooked mussels while watching the sun set over the sea from a deck perched about 100m above the beach. We realize we have it tough here, but we persist.

Mom and Don enjoy the sunset from the porch at the Old Slaughterhouse

On the next day we drove south to Punakaiki, for what became our third trip to the Pancake Rocks. Once again we didn’t see any blowhole action there (Becky claims she saw a blowhole when we were there with Marie and Alex, but we’re all skeptical, frankly). Linda was a diehard, camping out for about an hour at the notorious spot where Becky saw the Loch Ness Monster…er fantastic blowhole action last time, but alas, no joy for her on this particular day.

Beyond being the scenic drive it always is, our brief tour down the West Coast was pretty uneventful except for the fact that we failed to fill up with gas before we left Westport. This became an issue because we had less than a quarter tank as we left Westport, and there’s no petrol for about 100km between there and Greymouth – I must have been wearing my Bad Idea Jeans. However, miracle of miracles, we somehow coaxed more than 580km out of one tank of gas, which is a certainly a record for Ron Burgundy in 2007. Our previous high mileage total had been in the low 500’s, so you can imagine it was quite a white-knuckled drive for us that day.

Always read the road signs - they're not fooling!

The worst part of the drive was that it had to last so long, since I was driving a bit slowly and coasting downhill whenever possible to conserve petrol. We can say in all honesty that we’ve never been so excited to see Greymouth. I’ve never run out of gas before, and wasn’t keen to do it along an isolated road on the NZ’s west coast, so the success of this trip represented a huge victory for the forces of good. I don’t want to read too much into this particular episode, but I think you can safely say that the universe thinks we’re living right.

Karmic deliverance notwithstanding, when we hit Greymouth we made a left turn directly east, heading back towards Chch, and promptly rejoined the poor weather that has been tormenting the South Island the past few weeks. That evening, staying in Arthur’s Pass, we were pounded all night by a ridiculously windy rainstorm. The next day we took L&D into Chch, which was surprisingly warm and sunny, for a little sight-seeing and souvenir shopping. You can’t go wrong with a hike at the Sign of the Kiwi or Chch’s botanic gardens, but Cathedral Square, as always, leaves a bit to be desired. Which is a shame really, since it’s the focal point of the city and should be a happening location.

Punting down the Avon through a sea of daffodils

That evening we stopped in with our good friends Kieran and Belinda in Amberley, where they offered to put us all up for the night. Belinda made a roast, and there was plenty of good beer and wine to go around. However, the highlight of the evening was probably Don donning cricket gear and facing a few pitches from Oscar in the middle of the dining room. He’d been asking Kieran heaps of cricket questions, so they thought an object lesson was probably the most appropriate way to show him. Maybe you had to be there, but it was pretty hilarious. After a good day of driving and sight-seeing and an evening of good food and wine, not to mention cricket, we were set to crash.

Cricket, anyone?

The next morning, with just two more days left in L&D’s New Zealand experience, we took them out to Akaroa on the Banks Peninsula, another of our favorite spots on the South Island. Since Don is a really avid golfer, he was keen to golf in NZ, where owing to the small population it has some ridiculous number of golf courses per capita. We promised to get him on a course at some point, and after driving by countless courses over the past two weeks, finally got him to the Akaroa Golf Club on his penultimate day in NZ. Akaroa, as you might expect, has a nice, hilly course, though a number of the fairways would be best described as claustrophobic. They certainly don’t have a surplus of real estate there. Don’s quite good and easily beat my over-100 round, though for not getting out on the course in the past year I felt like I swung the sticks pretty well.

Don feels more at ease with a golf club than a cricket bat

For L&D’s last blast on Tuesday we ran them back into Chch, where they saw kiwis at the Cathedral Square aquarium, bought more souvenirs (including some cool maps), and went to the Chch Casino. Our advice would be to skip the Casino, unless you’re a slot machine or roulette nut. The Casino doesn’t seem to offer much else, much to Linda’s disappointment, as she was hoping for some good video poker action. I would’ve liked to play some craps for my dad, but no dice (literally or figuratively) there either. After seeing their requisite Maori cultural performance, it was time to put them on a plane home. Overall, a very good two weeks with Linda and Don, thanks for visiting, you two! Now…who’s next?

Marie Et Alex Sont Arriveé! (June 20 - 22)

On Monday we handed in our secateurs and ended our (bad pun alert) budding pruning and wrapping careers. The people at Montana seemed genuinely sad to see us go – they were appreciative of any warm bodies they could get to do the necessary work in their vast vineyards. We also bid a somewhat-sad farewell to Chris and Martin; their hospitality made it easy to want to stay even longer.

Leaving Blenheim, we again made the drive south along the eastern coast towards Christchurch, into which Marie and Alex were flying. We had earlier arranged to stash our extra gear with Kieran and Belinda, our Wwoofing hosts in March, which gave us a great excuse to catch up with them again. They kindly agreed to store our stuff and offered us a bed for the night (and a bed for Marie and Alexis if they would also like to stay). We enjoyed a great evening catching up and look forward to a return visit when we retrieve our stuff.

The next morning, we headed to the airport in Christchurch to collect Becky’s sister Marie and her Belgian boyfriend, Alex. They’ve just finished up their PhD’s in environmental engineering at Yale, and are slated to move to Barcelona later this summer for work, so I guess you could consider the trip a bit of a graduation present to themselves. Maybe it’s because we’re used to being so far away from home, but it seemed a bit surreal to have guests arriving from the States, as home sometimes seems like a world away. But here they were in the flesh, and they had no problem getting through customs, so we were quickly on our way and out of Chch.

The mountain view at Hanmer Springs

Reviewing the weather forecast, we saw that the South Island wasn’t looking particularly good anywhere, so we rolled the dice and headed a short ways away to Hanmer Springs in the mountains north of Chch (as it’s home to a natural hot pool resort, Becky was behind this plan of action all the way). Hanmer Springs was really enjoyable – we went on a good short hike and spent the evening lounging in the hot pools. It was pretty cold running from one pool to the next, but the time in the hot water was really enjoyable. Fortunately, Marie and Alexis arrived without much jetlag, so they didn’t seem to mind us running them around that first day.

Becky looking incredulously (or adoringly?) at Andrew at the top of Conical Hill

Andrew, Becky, and Marie make their way down a muddy trail in Hanmer Springs

From Hanmer we headed west through the Lewis Pass and on to Westport. Heading to the west coast is always a risk as the weather there is notoriously bad, and our first few days there was no exception. We don’t mind cloud cover, but were hoping that it wouldn’t be raining full-on all day. Fortunately, we got a few dry moments for picture-taking at the Cape Foulwind seal colony and the Punakaiki pancake rocks, though our pictures may suggest otherwise. By the end of the night we were totally drenched and happy to make our way to our backpackers for the evening.

Alex and Marie enjoy a brief respite from the rain at Cape Foulwind

Marie, Becky, and Andrew unsuccessfully wait for the blowhole to blow at Pancake Rocks (Becky had seen it blow only moments before. Of course, no one believed her...)

We dry out and warm up with a cuppa at Te Nikau Retreat at Punakaiki

The next day the rains continued unabated as we drove south through Greymouth and on to the Fox Glacier. In Greymouth we stopped and took the brewery tour at Monteith’s, the famous west coast brewer, and had a good time. Unfortunately the tour was better than the tasting as their black beer was the only one of seven on hand that we enjoyed. By the time we made it to Franz Josef Glacier in the late afternoon, the temperatures had dropped even farther and we found the glacier park covered in snow. We had the place to ourselves, which was a nice change from Becky’s and my previous visit where we had to contend with busloads of elderly tourists.

We wander through the winter wonderland at Franz Joseph Glacier and marvel at the complete absence of other tourists.

To get to our hostel we then had to drive in dusk to Fox Glacier, which is only 24k away, but which took a ridiculously long time to get to. The roads were slick and barely plowed, which made for really slow going through the torturously windy mountain pass, and when we made it through unscathed we all breathed a sigh of relief. When we arrived at our hostel for the night the owner was surprised to see we’d gotten through, as the road had apparently been closed for the past few hours, but we must’ve missed the signs as the park was beyond the town by a few kms. We were actually lucky as the southern half of the South Island was in the midst of a great icy and cold winter front, dumping heaps of snow and covering roadways with ice throughout the Southern Alps, Otago, and Southland areas. There were tons of accidents throughout the island, and Queenstown had most of its winter festival shut down. Jokingly, we like to blame Marie and Alex for bringing an Antarctic blast with them to NZ.

Marie, Becky, and Andrew pose safely next to the beware of avalanche, tidal wave, and drowning sign.

Driving through the country over the past few days, we have to say it’s great to have Marie and Alex here. They provide a good injection of enthusiasm to our travels, which truth be told has been quite nice to have. If we can just convince them to do some reading in their travel guides (or provide us with more direction on what they’d like to see), we’re sure that we’ll have a great couple of weeks. We’ve also been enjoying sharing meals (and especially cooking duties), and just hanging out with them. We’ve met some great folks here in NZ, but it’s always nice to see a familiar face from home. It also makes you appreciate the NZ landscape anew when you get to see it through fresh eyes. It really is beautiful here, but sometimes you start to take it for granted once it starts to become familiar. Good on ya, Marie and Alex!

Wild Western Shores, Part Three (Mar. 4-6)

Once we left Karamea, we figured we’d take our time cruising down the west coast, enjoying the fine weather and the drive (one of the many to claim to be the best in NZ, but definitely a contender in our minds). Our first stop was Punakaiki, home to a cool geological formation, Pancake Rocks (mmm pancakes), where if you’ve arrived at high tide and have a favourable wind you can see some awesome sea spray displays. Unfortunately we got there a little past high tide (blame staying up ‘til 3 AM on the beach the night before), and there was no wind, but we still found the rocks to be rather impressive.

Pancake Rocks formations

We crashed at a backpackers in the area that night, which was pretty cool since it was located in a rainforest, and our dorm was in its own building, complete with kitchen and bathroom. The kitchen was a bit odd since it was basically a greenhouse, a cool novelty even for us jaded veteran backpackers. We tried to check out the beach there, but had to leave after about 15 minutes as the sandflies were eating us alive again; I think we’ll make like everyone else here and give up on trying to sit on the beaches on the west coast at this point.

On the next day, we headed further south through Greymouth to The Old Church in Ross, basically in the middle of nowhere on the west coast. We had to make a stop in Hokitika to pick up a case of beer from Renaissance, and it was amazing to see the difference a week made in Hoki. The week before, there was literally one or two people on the street, but on this day there were at least a couple dozen, most of whom were probably there to catch the Hokitika Wildfoods Fair at the end of the week. Good to see there’s occasionally life in Hoki. As Brendon was telling us, it’s sure to get crazy this coming weekend at the Fair, with visitors more than quadrupling the town’s usual population.

The Old Church in Ross

After Hoki we continued down to Franz Josef, home to the famous glacier of the same name. Since the mountains here are tall and are so close to the sea, they trap rain clouds at high altitude, dumping heaps of snow into the incredibly fast-moving glaciers (1m/day usually). Unfortunately, we found bad weather, driving rain and fog, as we drove into town, which severely limited any views of the glacier and made driving pretty miserable. We did see heaps of senior citizens there, most of whom were dismayed at the weather and the brief hikes to the viewpoints. At some point we’d like to check out the glaciers, and will probably have to do guided glacier hike when Becky’s mom comes to NZ. The bad weather continued the next day as we made our way to Wanaka.

A view of the glacier... but just barely

When we got to Wanaka, we figured we’d be able to get a room somewhere, as we haven’t been shut out in other town previously. I mention that because of course, we got shut out in Wanaka, no room in the inn for Andrew and Becky. It seems that just about everyone staying at a backpackers in town had decided to stay in town and not go anywhere due to the weather. Not that we necessarily blamed them, but c’mon, we drove 4-5 hrs from the west coast, it couldn’t be that hard. Although when it was raining sideways on the coast in Haast, we wondered for a few fleeting moments if we shouldn’t have just hung out at the glacier for another day.

A rainy day at the Glaciers

I suppose we could’ve snagged a hotel room in Wanaka, but that goes against our backpackers’ ethics, as it would’ve run us at least NZ$80 for a night, so no thanks, and we drove on to the next town, Omarama. We did get a chance to check out Wanaka though, and based on our brief recon, we think we’ll try and do the winter there, getting jobs, a place to stay, and all the acoutrements. Methven was also a consideration, but the size and speed of Wanaka appeal to us, as it’s not a big and crazy resort town like Queenstown, and isn’t as small and quiet as Methven. Not to mention that Wanaka’s setting amidst the mountains and lakes is absolutely killer. Hopefully it’ll work out for us to winter in Wanaka, stay tuned…

They remove their own labels at Wanaka Beerworks. Just like Andrew does at home!