I am in Lumut! But let's start from the beginning, or at least from last Tuesday, when I woke up at Paradiso in Nelson.
31 March
I started off pretty early in my rented Corolla, after rinsing my beer-soaked camera in the bathroom sink. But before even leaving the place, I picked up a hitch-hiker. I really like the way this kind of traveling life brings people from different backgrounds together. Joya was a So Cal girl who had missed her bus to Abel Tasman national park, just the place where I was going. It turned out to be a really great day. I was planning to go on a seal swimming tour in Abel Tasman (yes, they actually do that!), but when we arrived the seal tour was canceled. So instead I joined Joya on her itinerary for the day, which included hiking and some sea kayaking. Abel Tasman really deserves a couple of days of exploring, not the less than a full day I gave it. It covers about 20 - 30 kilometers of coastline and stretches far inland too. The lush green mountain sides look a little like the beautiful Bay of Islands up north, where we spent some time with Søren Larsen. The kayaking took us to Adele Island, where we watched seals and paddled into a small cave. Our guide was Tom, born in Germany but very Kiwi. He told us about New Zealand birds and eco systems. I stayed that night in Backpackers Beach Camp, a nice and quiet hostel in Marahau. Here I met a bunch of other travelers, including a retired English couple who were exploring the hostel dorms of the Kiwi outback in a rental car.
Abel Tasman National Park. Anchorage Bay, this is where the water taxi dropped us off and the hiking started.
Watery Cove, gathering around the kayaks
Starting off from Watery Cove
Joya, my travel companion for the day, enjoying the kayak tour
Seal lazying on the rocks of Adele Island. Can't you see it? Hey, it's right there, the dark spot under the seagull.
1 April
I woke up early again on Wednesday morning. The goal for the day was to reach Arthur's Pass, a little village in the middle of the Southern Alps. I drove along small countryside roads across from Abel Tasman on the north coast, to Westport on the west coast. From there I continued south to Greymouth, passing some of the most fantastic beach sceneries I have ever seen. The blowholes and pancake rocks of Punakaiki were totally gnarly dude... The landscape is wild, untamed, and unpopulated.
A rear mirror view, driving along the beaches of the west coast of the South Island
A small rocky beach somewhere between Westport and Greymouth
Me on above mentioned beach
Sunlight on the coast of the Tasman sea
Pancake rocks in Punakaiki. These rocks are the result of alternating layers of soft and hard marine sediments. Thousands of years of erosion from the swell of the sea have shaped the rocks as they were pushed up by seismic movement.
Punakaiki blowhole starting to spew out a mist of water drops. At high tide, the ocean swell pushes water up into cavities in the pancake rocks. Pressure is built up and water mist and water jets are pushed out through holes high above sea level. I swear, it sounds like a dragon from a tacky New Zealand fantasy movie!
Another set of pancake rocks
And here she blows! Can you see the rainbow?
Surfers on a beach south of Punakaiki. Big swell.
Yes, it is a penguin warning sign
From Greymouth I headed inland again, across the plains, with the Southern Alps in the background
Reaching the mountains...
Just after sunset, I passed a roof that sheltered the road from a little stream coming down from the mountains
It was already pitch dark when I reached Arthur's Pass, the highest part of the crossing of the mountains. The place is so small, I more or less drove through it before I realized that I was there. Just a railway station and a couple of houses along the road. I found a vacant bunk in a dorm at the Mountain Guesthouse. A clean and well kept little place, inhabited by the type of people who prefer single handed hiking in the serenity of the mountains, rather than the adrenaline rushes of the usual New Zealand backpacker playgrounds. The late hours of the night was spent in front of my computer, editing pictures and updating my blog.
2 April
I had a morning flight to catch from Christchurch, so again it had to be an early breakfast. The morning was crisp and clear when I left the guesthouse, with frost on the windows of the car. It felt like a nostalgic little reminder of home, a slight touch of winter before the tropics.
The South Alps are crossed by a very scenic railway with a station in Arthur's Pass. On the morning when I left, the valleys were covered by a thick mist.
Further down the mountain, the mist got thicker and thicker. I was driving through a wide valley. I guess.
Eventually the fog disappeared. Could this be the region from which the footage for the plains of Rohan was taken?
I arrived in Christchurch with perfect timing to return the car, check in at the airport and without hurry get on my plane, just before it took off. Arriving in Auckland I rented another Corolla. How can two cars so dissimilar bear the same name? This new car was small and brightly red, with six manual gears and exact and distinct properties. It totally lacked the charm and personality of the old wreck I left behind in Christchurch. I used it to pick up a hotknife for my new ship from a local company, and to get to Steve and Rosie in Titirangi where I had left my baggage. Public transport in Auckland is... less developed. I just couldn't be bothered to spend hours and hours on buses and stations to do something that could be fixed in a fraction of the time with a car. Later that afternoon, when I checked in to the YMCA in Auckland, I bumped into Ai Sumihara, who I met during my week surfing on Ninety Mile Beach up in Northland. She is a photographer-dive instructor-surfer-student from Japan who has lived a large part of her life in other places: Canada, Thailand, New Zealand, Britain, etc. We decided to go out for a beer, but ended up having quite a few of them at the Crib on Ponsonby Road, to the tunes of a live rock cover band.
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