Mount Fyffe and other stories

Just a few random things and thoughts I have done/have happened/have had over the past couple of weeks.

Mount Fyffe
It had been about 3 weeks since I had last gone out on my bike and in had not done much exploring around Kaikoura in the 10 days I had been here so I decided to get out on my bike and ride up to Mount Fyffe hut. I set off not really knowing what to expect, but I had been told the track as quite steep. The start of the track was a nice 17km mostly flat ride on quite country lanes and it was a nice warm day. A few kilometres before the track I came across a cow standing in the road, so I slowed down and started to cycle by it but when I got about 10m away it regard up like a horse and (luckily) galloped (if cows can gallop) away from me and stopped about 20 metres up the road. At this point a few of the cows friends in the field had seen what was going on and were staring at me. I got off my bike and started to walk along the road, thinking this would be less scary for the cow (and for me) but every time I took a step closer the cow let out a gutteral moo unlike any moo I had heard before and each time it mooed (spelling?) all of its friends moved a bit closer to the fence and continued to stare at me.

After a very tense 5 minute stare/stand off I backed down and hopped over the fence to the opposite field and walked around the cow, all the time maintaining eye contact and thinking if the cow got out of its own field it could easily get into the field I was in. Fortunately the cow didn't move and after what I thought was a safe distance I got back on the road and carried on to the track.  At the start the steepness of the climb is immediately noticeable and I was in my lowest gear straight away. After what felt like 1/2 an hour (actually only about 10 minutes) of grinding up the hill my legs started to hurt so I had to stop for a rest. This continued for the next hour or so (but with less and less time on the bike). I came across an eastern European man sitting on the side of the track having a rest and he offered me, without any hint of humor, a cigarette to help me get to the top which I politely declined. From this point on I was mostly pushing my bike up the hill and ater about 1 1/2 hours there was snow on the ground and I was having thoughts about turning back but carried on determined to get to the hut. 20 minutes later I was at about 900m altitude, with another 200m of climbing to the hut, and gradually getting colder as I was only wearing shorts and a long sleeved cycling top and despite having 3 pairs of socks on my feet were getting cold and wet due to me wearing cycling shoes which are not recommended for walking in snow. At this point I decided to turn back.

Needless to say the ride downhill was easier and only took about 15 minutes to get to the bottom. On the way back to the hostel I got chased by a dog and overtaken by a bee (Laurie:- it was almost a bee moment!) but I managed to catch the bee back up before it turned off to have a look at a flower.

Christmas
On 25th July we had a mid winter Christmas meal in the hostel. The log fire was burning, the Christmas tree and decorations were up and cliff Richard was playing on the stereo and the mulled wine was flowing (one of these things did not happen). The hostel was quite busy (for winter anyway) and we sat down to a traditional Christmas meal of some pasta and sauce (made by an Italian), potato salad (made by a German), roast vegetables (made by an English), and some potatoes (made by an Irish) (on of these stereotypes did not happen) and I baked a (very nice) loaf of olive and seseme bread (which was very nice). Altogether there was 5 Germans (goes without saying really), 2 English and 1 each of French, Australian, Dutch, Italian and Irish. Everybody contributed and helped and it was a really fun evening.

Observations of living in a hostel.

The vast majority of people who stay in the hostel are nice, the only people who I have not really liked or got on with have all been english (there was one guy who stayed for 4 days who i would describe as a 'twat' who one day spent the whole day sitting on the couch drinking water to 'stretch his stomach' in order to attempt to eat a 1.5kg burger in the evening, this was the highlight of his time here) and the nicest have probably been the Germans (although there are a lot of them). When people have stayed for a 3 or 4 days you get to know them a bit, but I am terrible at names - and quite often after somebody has been here for a few days I don't know there name and feel it is too late to ask for it.
I have spoken to a few Japanese people (in Japanese) that have stayed at the hostel and they are always really happy that someone else speaks their language and every time the first question I get asked is why I speak Japanese ( which I have to answer in English as my Japanese is very basic). They have all seemed to enjoy talking about the films of Studio Ghibli and Takeshi Kitano and the books of Haruki Murikami. One Japanese guy walked in the hostel carrying all his bags and a bucket with cleaning items in it. We asked when he was leaving if he always carried his cleaning bucket with him and he said yes and pulled out an A3 sketch pad with phrases such as 'will clean toilet for $5, Asian traveller good worker' written on with a few pictures. He had about 15 pages of these offering to do jobs such as chop wood, clean kitchen, now lawn etc. He said he had been quite successful with it earning enough to support himself in NZ for 8 months and some people had let him stay in their house or camp in their garden. It was quite impressive and inspiring that he had managed to travel around NZ with not much money and very basic English.

Having different people stay each day means you tend to have similar conversations every few days, normally about where you have been how long you have been here what you are doing next etc....  It sort of gets boring repeating yourself but it is a good topic to start a conversation with other people as they will have been asked and talked about it loads before.

Kaikoura nightlife
Kaikoura is a small town, with basically  one main street running through and as it is winter it is very quite. There are really only two decent places to go to in the evenings, The Groper Garage which has an huge open fire, but a grumpy barmaid (although I did get to watch some of the commonwealth games cycling on TV here) and the Strawberry Tree, which is an Irish pub and regularly puts on bands and has an open mic night each week. I went to the open mic night last Friday, and every week the same group of locals get onstage and play the same songs and occasionally there is somebody else who plays so everybody there is jot really interested and are talking and not paying attention. There was a Maouri guy who is a rugby player, really big and it looked he was going to break the guitar just by holding it but when he started singing the whole pub went silent and everybody was entranced by his amazing voice.

Clipsy Clipsy
As I am sure you all remember when I was on the road trip with Evelyne we met this weird Swiss guy who kept saying clipsy clipsy (a Swiss word meaning theif/stealing). A few days ago I was talking to an Australian girl who had met this 'really weird guy, who said he was from Sweden or something' in town and he told her that he was last in Kaikoura 20 years ago where he met a girl and lived with her for 3 months before she suddenly left him without saying anything. Since then he had been travelling for 20 years and was back in Kaikoura as he had found out where she was working and was going to surprise her. Later on that day the Australian girl walked into a shop and there was a man comforting his wife who was clearly upset told her that a man she knew 20 years ago had been in the shop and she was scared so she called her husband.  Later on in the evening I went out to the strawberry tree to watch a band play and the crazy Swiss guy was there and he recognised me and we talked for a few minutes (it would have been longer but I suddenly needed to go to the toilet). While we were talking I remembered when I met him before he said something along the lines of ' this is the worst hostel I have stayed in, and I have been travelling for 20 years (although to be fair it was a really bad hostel and somebody had been stealing his stuff (clipsy clipsy))' so I discreetly took a photo of him (it wasn't hard - he was really drunk) and showed it to the Australian girl the next day and sure enough it was the same guy!

That's about all that has happened in the last few weeks, I still have about a week left here in Kaikoura then it is a quick stop of in Nelson at Josh's before I fly to Kuala Lumpur.

Kaikoura and future plans

I have been woofing at The Albatross Hostel in Kaikoura for about 10 days now. The hostel is a small place run by Ben and Katie, who moved here from Australia about 6 years ago. For a bed in a dorm I work between 2-3 hours a day, normally cleaning the rooms and kitchen but I have also done some bike maintenance, sanding walls and chopping wood. The hostel is really cool, there is free fair trade organic tea, coffee and hot chocolate in the kitchen, along with a baking box full of ingredients to do some baking (which is encouraged). There are a range of musical instruments (3 guitars, 2 ukelele, a piano, a sitar and a range of bongos) and an art corner with a range of materials and no TV! The walls of the lounge are covered with paintings done by guests, some of them are really good. At the beginning there was just Me and a German (again) girl woofing, but now there is also another English guy and a guy from Belfast.


So far I have met lots of English people as well as lots of Germans, some French, chinese, 2 Japanese, a Taiwanese and a Spanish girl . I even managed to hold a basic conversation in Japanese with the Japanese girls. One of the English guys that stayed here was from Nottingham and It turns out I had talked to his Dad on a few occasions at work. It is quite interesting meeting people from all over the world and they all have different reasons for being here. While I have been here I have done the peninsular walk again (see previous Kaikoura entry) as well as going to watch the baby seals 3 times, a lot of travellers don't have cars so I offer to drive to the baby seals for some petrol money, as it is quite hard to get to otherwise. There have been people staying here who can play the guitar and sing, so quite often there are impromptu jams in the lounge and today there is a girl from Leeds who is an amazing pianist and played some nice Beethoven. We also have a weekly meal that Ben and Katie cook for everybody staying in the hostel, which is fun and yesterday Ruairi (the Irish guy) and me made pumpkin soup and bread for everybody.

On a clear night the sky in NZ is amazing, it is a lot better then the northern hemisphere. I think it is because NZ is closer to the stars than the UK. On the next clear night I plan to walk over to the peninsular to do some stargazing.

Being here and meeting different people and listening to their travel stories had made me think about what I was doing here in New Zealand and my time here so far has been (mostly) amazing, I have seen lots of things, met lots of people and had lots of new experiences and my original plan was to spend the whole year in NZ, but i feel like i need to have more of an experiance and put myself further out of my comfort zone so I have decided to spend 5 weeks travelling in Southeast Asia and have booked a return flight from Christchurch to Kuala Lumpur on 14th August with a 2 day stopover in Sydney. I already have 2 nights booked in Kuala Lumpur followed by a train to Singapore and after spending 2 nights in Singapore I will then travel up through Malaysia into Thailand and then maybe into Cambodia and Vietnam if time (and money) permit then a train from Bangkok to Kuala Lumpur to fly back on the 20th September. So I will be staying here in Kaikoura for the next few weeks until I fly out to KL.

Road Trip

For Evelynes last week in NZ we planned a week long road trip taking in as much of the south island as possible, and after a lovely Reclette (a traditional Swiss meal involving lots of melted cheese) put on by Nic and Manu, followed by lots of alcohol ( including a Swiss kirsch) and not much sleep we set off on the trip.  I was still a bit hung over but fortunately I had put Evelyne on the car insurance, so we shared the driving.

Our first stop was the small coastal town of Punakaiki and the Te Nikau Retreat.  The dorm room was full so we were offered a twin room for only a few dollars more (creak rating:0*).  The hostel is spread out over a few buildings dotted around the forest with little paths winding through the forest to each building and is only a 10 minute walk to the beach.  We arrived not long before dusk, so we unloaded our gear and headed towards the beach.  There was a storm coming in from the Tasman Sea and the sea was pretty rough.

The tide was coming in quite quickly so we did not have much time to spend on the beach, and by the time we got back to the hostel the storm had arrived and it started raining (which proved to be the only bad weather of the trip). After a simple meal of carrott and parsnip risotto and a customary bottle of beer we sat by the (not very warm) fire and talked to a (German....) girl called Cindy who was travelling around NZ sleeping in her car.  In the morning there was some freshly baked bread and muffins for sale, which i would have bought if Manu had not given us a loaf of Zopf (a Swiss 'sunday' bread) before we left (along with a couple of jars of her delicious Plum and Vanilla jam).  After breakfast we set off to look at the Pancake Rocks (looking at rocks soon became a theme of the trip), which is probably the main reason that Punakaiki exists.  The rocks were formed about 30 million years ago through some sort of geological process, which I am sure wikipedia will tell you about if you are interested.  Luckily for you I took some photos so you can see what they look like.

We were a few hours early for high tide, which is the best time to visit as there are some blow holes in the rocks but due to our tight schedule and 250km drive to the next stop (Fox Glacier) we set off after a (mediocre) coffee at the gift shop.  On the way we stopped off at Greymouth.  Greymouth is the largest town on the west coast and certainly lives up to the 'grey' part of the name, so after stopping at a supermarket and gas station we were soon back on the road.  Lunch stop was in a lovely town called Hokitika

After lunch, a (better) coffee and a photo of me standing on some rocks looking out to sea we were back on the road.  We stopped in Franz Josef to check if access to Fox Glacier was still open, as we had been told that the river at Fox had changed sides (not sure what this meant) and that access was only available by boat. (this information was from the same person who said, once finding out Evelyne is a primary school teacher, that between the ages of 5 and 12 is the most important time for children to develop their third, or solar plexus, chakra (chakras are metaphors as well as energy centers by the way)). so although it was easy to think she was talking bullshit about the river, we checked anyway, and it turned out she was right about needing a boat to cross the river, but wrong about the track being closed as the track did not cross the river.  Never trust a hippy.

we eventually arrived in Fox Glacier town and booked into the Fox Glacier Inn and got two beds in a 4 bed share room.  there was a bunk bed and two single beds, so we took the single beds and later a French guy and a Taiwanese guy took the bunk bed (creak rating:3).  this hostel was not as homely as the previous hostel, but the kitchen and bathrooms were pretty good.  After a walk around the town (it only has 1 street, so did not take long) we cooked a dinner (by we I mean Evelyne.  She cooked and i stood around pretending to help, after all she is a woman and I am right in thinking (if my mum brought me up correctly), she belongs in the kitchen**) of Spaghetti with Pumpkin, carrots and parsnip and a beer (of course).  It was really cold in the evening, and as with most buildings in New Zealand there was very little insulation, single glazed windows and no central heating, but there was a very small heater which took all night to get the room warm.  In the morning the car was frozen solid and after some scraping and hot water were set off to see Fox Glacier.

It was a short walk from the car park to the viewing point and there had recently been some rockfall onto the glacier, so it was looking a bit dirty.

It is hard to get a sense of scale from the photo, but to give you an idea of the size I would say it was 'quite big'.  You could pay about $50 and go on a guided tour which takes you to a similar point but on the other side of the river.
Next stop was Haast.  We were originally going to stay here the night but were advised to drive straight on to Wanaka, as the road was closed most of the day due to a landslide that was being cleared ( which turned out to be true ).  We were also told by someone in Hokitika that there had been a really big snowfall and that the road would be unpassable without snow chains (which turned out not to be true).

Haast Beach

We stopped at Haast beach for lunch and a walk on the beach and for a coffee, which was by far the best of the trip although we had to drink it quickly in order to get on to the road before a minibus, which took a long time to overtake before (due to the nature of the roads), got back on the road in front of us.  We stopped off a couple more times on the way to Wanaka, at a waterfall called Fantail Falls

Fantail Falls

And a bit further down the road was Blue Pools

..........the water was very blue, and i imagine in the summer quite nice to swim in and there was a big swing bridge over the water...........

Wanaka is a small town situated next to Lake Wanaka and is surrounded by mountains with quite a few ski fields.

We booked into Mountain View Hostel which, just like the rest of Wanaka, has a view of mountains.  We got the last two beds in the hostel, in a 4 bed share room with 2 bunks (creak rating:1).  The Hostel was full of French snowboarders as the season had just started.  After a wander around the town and a short walk along the lake front we cooked dinner (pumpkin and potato mash) and had a beer (obviously).

We left in the morning heading towards Oamaru with a stop off at Moeraki Boulders for lunch.

The Moeraki Boulders were formed 50 million years ago by  some sort of  geological process.  They are pretty cool, but there is not much to do other than stand on them and have your photo taken.

Next stop was the town of Oamaru and we checked into a hostel called chillawhile, which was a pretty cool hostel, although it had more kitchens than toilets.  we got two beds in a dorm (creak rating:2) and headed off to see the Yellow Eyed Penguins, an endangered species of penguin native to NZ and considered one of the rarest penguins in the world.  The view point was a few hundred meters away from where the penguins were nesting, and as there were only twelve nesting pairs on this beach we were lucky to see three of them waddling up the beach.

In the evening Evelyne tried her hand at painting in the art studio in the hostel, i didnt want to show off my incredible art skills so i read in the lounge.  After quite a few games of Uno, in which Evelyne beat me about 90% of the time, it was off to bed.  In the morning we set off towards Lake Tekapo.
On the way we stopped at Elephant rocks

These are some rocks in field, formed some time ago by a geological process.  If you have a really good imagination they look just like elephants.  Unfortunately they were too big to climb up on and have my photo taken standing on top of them.  We also stopped off at some Maori cave art, which was okay.  Most of the best bits had been taken to museums and there were only a few examples left which were very faint.

The views on the way to Tekapo were amazing

Lake Pukaki (with traffic cone)

After checking in at the Tailor Made Hostel in a 3 bed share room (creak rating:0) we headed up to Mount John Observatory

After a (really bad) coffee and a walk around the town and lake front Evelyne thought it would be a good idea to go swimming in the glacial waters of the lake so i drove her down to the lake and i opted out of this choosing instead to watch from the warmth of the car.

Evelyne swimming in the lake

The hostel was the best hostel of the trip, although it was spoiled by meeting a very creepy english guy who made me ashamed to be English and i had to tell Evelyne that he was not a good representation of my country. After dinner and a beer we played quite a few more games of Uno, and Evelyne still beat me most of the time.  In the morning we left for Christchurch and checked into Kiwi Basecamp hostel, which turned out to be the worst (and most expensive) hostel of the trip.  we got the last two beds in a four bed share room (creak rating:2) and walked into town.  we walked around some of the quake damaged buildings including the Catherdral which was being rebuilt

There was not much to do in the city centre, so after an (average) coffee we walked to Hagley Park and to the Botanical Gardens which were quite nice, and i can imagine in Spring and Summer would be very nice.

After a quick look around the museum (it closed not long after we entered) we headed back to the hostel to cook dinner and have a beer.  Unfortunately there was no pack of Uno cards at this hostel, we had arranged to play with the (German) guy who was in our room.  His name was Daniel, but everyone called him Napoleon as he looked just like Napoleon Dynamite, but with blond hair.  There was also a creepy Swiss guy here, which made Evelyne ashamed to be Swiss and she told me he was not a good representation of her country.

The next day we left towards Reefton, the last stop of the trip.  The route took us over Authurs Pass and we stopped off at a cave river, but we didnt really have any suitable equipment to go walk through the 900m long cave.

Reefton was the first town in the southern hemisphere to get electricity, in 1888 and still is a gold mining town.  We checked in to the Old Bread Shop Hostel and got a twin room (creak rating:0).  This was a very basic hostel, with a cosy lounge and a tiny kitchen.  We went for a walk around town and had a (really nice) coffee and drove out of town for a walk to an old gold mine, but we took the wrong path and by the time we realised it had started to get dark.  After dinner and a beer we sat in the lounge and talked to a couple of guys who were working in the gold mine, one of them was from Papa New Guinea and it was interesting to here about his country.  Trevor (the owner) came in later with some beer and we talked for a while with him, he really likes to talk about Trout Fishing and this is the reason he moved here from Australia a few years ago.  Josh has also spent some time in reefton, and this hostel and talking to Trevor about Trout Fishing when he was possum hunting here. 

In the morning we set of back to the Playhouse Cafe, we stopped of for a (nice) coffee in Murchison and were soon back home.

Things i have learnt:

There are huge variations in the quality and price of coffee around NZ

There are lots of rocks to look at

People are helpful, but sometimes dont have incorrect or not up do date information

i am not very good at Uno

no bonus photos this time, i dont have time to upload them.  I am off to Kaikoura to work in a hostel today so will try and do another update soon.

* I just came up with the creak rating, it is a rating of the creakiness of beds in hostels.  I dont know how high the scale goes or what it is based on, but i am yet to experience a creek rating higher than 4

** i obviously don't mean this but it is an example of the sarcasm and humour that, as the trip went on, I discovered Evelyne would never understand or find funny (because she is Swiss (or perhaps more accurately not English), not because she is a woman).  This did not deter me from continuing to be sarcastic, even though i had to explain when i was being sarcastic so she would not take offence.

Kaikoura

**Warning: this post contains pictures of seals, which some people might find cute.  There is also a couple of pictures of me, which some people may find offensive**

Evelyne and I had two days off work, so we drove over to Kaikoura for a couple of days. After spending most of Saturday and part of Sunday with Josh changing the timing belt on my car - it took a lot longer than was expected, but i trust josh knew what he was doing and it got finished on Sunday evening after 2 trips to supercheapauto to get tools, and a blown fuselink for the altenator which meant i could not start the car - josh lent me his car so i could go back to the Playhouse Cafe and on Monday morning i had to stop by supercheapauto again to pick up a fuselink, drive to Joshs house and fit the fuse so i could start my car and we were off to Kaikoura.

  Kaikoura is a small town on the East coast of the south island well known for its seal colony and crayfish, in Maori Kai means food and Koura means crayfish.  The drive took us through Malborough, where there are loads of vineyards and onto Highway 1 which connects Picton to Christchurch.  Once the road starts going along the coast, the views seaward Kaikoura Mountain range come into view

about 20kms before Kaikoura there is a Seal Colony which we stopped and had a look at

There is also a short river walk, which we nearly missed.  The seal pups swim up the river to a waterfall and they seem to just be playing, but i presume there is another reason they come here.

There were probably around 30-40 seals playing in this pool, it was really fun to watch them play and be so close to them.

After this we drove into Kaikoura and looked for a hostel to stay in.  We found one called Albatross Backpackers, which is a pretty cool hostel.  The hostel was pretty full and we got the last two beds in a dorm room.  We walked into town along the beach to have a look around

The first time i had been on the Pacific Ocean

I looked at the map on my phone and saw there was a supermarket a 10 minute walk away, and after 20 minutes of walking i realised it was a 10 minute drive away! We carried on anyway and eventually arrived and bought some food for dinner.  Back at the hostel we cooked (too much) dinner and offered some to a German girl (yet more germans......) called Steffi and she sat with us for dinner and we played some card games and discussed what we were going to do the next day.  We decided to do the coastal peninsular walk in the morning and then come back to the hostel and meet with Steffi and then go to a farm park.

After Evelyne toasted a mouse for breakfast (it got trapped between the bread and the heating filament, and died trying to climb out) we left early in the morning and started the coastal peninsular walk, which took us on a walk along the coast and around the peninsular.  There was a heavy storm during the night, but luckily it had cleared by the morning and the weather was really nice

walking along the beach i found some complete Paua shells, whilst not particularly rare they often dont survive being washed up ashore.

Further along the coast was another seal colony, and the seals were inconsiderately lying over the path that had been built for humans, so we were forced to walk along the road for a few meters

I think this seal was called George

After a short climb we were on the peninsular and the views were stunning

and of course there was another seal colony to look at

and also some more great views of the mountains

Evelyne thought she was back in Switzerland with this view

After walking beside a path infested with cow pats we were on the other side of the peninsular

When we got back to the hostel Steffi had left a note and a couple of chocolates to say she could not come with us to the farm park, so after lunch we left for the farm park which turned out to be shit.  I really like farm parks, and i think when i go to them with my nieces i secretly enjoy them more than they do so i was looking forward to this but it was a massive let down.  A lot of the animals looked ill, and if there was a visible problem with the animal the guide gave some biologically dubious reason.  The only good thing about this was getting to stroke and feed some alpaca and llamas.

After this we started the long drive home, stopping off for a coffee (and a quick nap for me) we did a quick walk along a beach and found a pile of stones and a marker pen and left our mark with the rest

Kaikoura is a really beautiful place, and i think i will go back there soon and stay a bit longer as there is a lot more to see (not just seals) and do.

 

I have been told i use too many exclamation marks, so i have not used any on this post.  for those of you who missed them, i will put some in the next post.

 

Most of the photos on this post were taken by Evelyne.

 

Bonus photos

Cable Bay, not Kaikoura.  I like photos of me standing on rocks near the sea.

Woofing, Abel Tasman and Golden Bay

At the end of May i moved out of Josh's house and to see more of NZ and meet people and do some traveling and i thought the best way to do this was woofing (which i found out, to my embarrassment, does not involve crawling on the floor and barking like a dog).  The term originally comes from Working On Organic Farms, but is generally used for anywhere that you work for accommodation and food.  I used a website called helpx.com where people advertise for woofers and found a place not to far away from Nelson called the playhouse cafe and theatre.  I contacted them and after visiting the cafe for them to check that i was human they said i could start on the 29th May.  The owners are Nic and Manu (short for Manuela, from Switzerland) and my first job was to drop the previous woofers off at the airport, go to the bank to get some change and then pick up Evelyne (Manu's brothers friend, from Switzerland) from the airport.  I had been here 5 minutes and they had given me the keys to their van and $500, and all they new about me was my name!  They are pretty trusting people.  The deal here is in exchange for 4 hours work a day i get accommodation and all my meals provided.

Inside the Playhouse

Cheeky Monkey, the house cat

So far i have done a variety of jobs, some fun to learn and do such as making pizza dough, serving behind the bar and spraying the trees in the orchard with a ghostbusters style backpack sprayer and some not so fun such as dishwashing and cleaning the toilets.  Overall it is a really cool venue and Manu cooks the most amazing food and sometimes we are allowed some drinks from behind the bar.

We normally get 1 day a week off and last week me and Evelyne went up to Abel Tasman for a walk along the World Famous* Abel Tasman Coastal Track.  We got up early and drove over to Kiateriteri where we took a water taxi up along the coast to start the walk.

Sunrise on Kiateriteri beach

The water taxi took us by split apple rock and a seal colony

 Not a very good photo of Split Apple Rock

Some seals on Adele island

After about 45 minutes we were dropped off at Anchorage to start the walk.

Anchorage Bay

View from Pitt Head

After walking the Pitt Head loop we headed inland towards Cleopatras pool, i didnt take any photos as we had to cross a river on some rocks and i didnt want to slip in (as i have been known to do in the past) and get my camera wet.  All i can say is that it doesnt look like what you think it would look  like, but is pretty cool anyway.  After that we walked back towards the coast and headed south towards the pick up point of Apple Tree Bay, on the way we stopped for some lunch at another bay and soon enough we were at Apple Tree Bay, although i didnt see any apple trees here.

Apple Tree Bay, with Adele Island in the background

The water taxi picked us up just as it was starting to get cold and we headed home.

This week Evelyne and I went up to Golden Bay for the night to have a look around, however the weather the past few days has been pretty bad so we were not expecting to see much.  We stayed at a hostel in Takaka and as it is winter it was really quite and we got our own room.  Manu had given us loads of food from the restaurant as we had worked for it, so we did not need to buy anything while we were there.  We got up in the morning and headed up the coast towards Farewell Spit and Wharariki Beach and as we were driving along the weather got progressively worse and by the time we got to Wharariki Beach car park it was very wet and windy, but we decided to brave the elements and walk the 1.5km to the beach.  By the time we got to the beach we were soaking, but you can see how nice the area is even in dismal weather.

 The rocks in the sea reminded me of the Goonies

We walked around the beach to a cave where there was a seal colony

After about 20 minutes on the beach we headed back to the car as it was too wet and windy to enjoy being there.  We^hen we got back to Takaka Evelyne suggested filling up the car with diesel, but i thought we would make it to Motueka (only about 35km away) so we started the trip over Takaka Hill, and sure enough before long the fuel light came on.  I thought this was just because we were going up hill and i did not want to run out of fuel on a windy (as in winding, although it was windy(i dont need to explain this one) as well), foggy hill.  The fuel light stayed on on the descent and i think we were running on fumes when i pulled into the gas station, and i will listen to my passenger the next time!

I will be staying at the Playhouse Cafe for the next few weeks and then moving on.

Bonus Photos

*In New Zealand