Golden Bay and Nelson

We traveled on to Golden Bay on the top of the South Island.  We’ve been here other years, and had to go back.  We enjoy staying at the Innlet, an old farm-type house now set up as a backpackers’ hostel and lodge.  Owners Jonathan and Katie live next door up the hill, but share tea and stories every day with the visitors.  There are glowworms on their driveway and starry skies at night.

We walked Farewell Spit, going out on the Tasman Sea side and returning to the bay side – it was an adventure!  We were blown along by powerful winds.  And then… remember those old cowboy TV shows where some poor soul gets trapped in quicksand?  Well, this year Paul stepped into quicksand and sunk in above his knees.  Cindy offered a hand to pull him out but only after she snapped a couple photos.

High winds on Farewell Spit outer beach - hang onto your hat!

Difficult to tell what's firm sand and what's quicksand until you've stepped in it...

Paul: "Isn't the priority to help me out of the quicksand and then take photos?"

Cindy: "We'll take photos after you're out too"

We found our way over to the bay side of the spit around rain pools between the sand dunes.  We walked back along the beach, but the wind never died down, so we felt sandblasted by the end of the hike.

Dunes and water in the middle of Farewell Spit

Whale bone on beach

The next day we hiked through the Aorere gold fields area to two caves.  Stanton’s Cave was smaller and slanted downhill quickly, but was fun for Paul to explore.  Ballroom Cave (supposedly the site of dance events for the miners in the past) was quite large and open.  Both had many stalactites, though some had broken off and fallen to the floor.

Stalactites inside Ballroom Cave

Looking out from inside Stanton's Cave

Inquisitive locals on the hike out

 We celebrated the end of our hike by stopping at the Rosy Glow chocolate shop in Collingwood.

We planned to go to a concert on Saturday night at the Mussel Inn, a well-known microbrewery, bar and restaurant along the highway between Takaka and Collingwood, but the band cancelled because of earthquake-related road closures.  We were fortunate to buy the last available tickets to a Sunday concert by two Nova Scotia musicians at a venue called the Octagon, part of a private property near the beach town of Paton’s Rock.  Chris Norman on flute and David Greenberg on violin were joined by twenty-year old local musician Rennie Pearson, who has been studying with Chris Norman for ten years.  The Octagon property with house, two octagonal buildings and land is for sale for 2.25 million NZD if you know of anyone who might be interested.

Octagon ceiling

Chris Norman, David Greenberg, and Rennie Pearson performing at the Octagon

We returned to Nelson for a few days before ending our travels.  We walked to Brook Waimarama Sanctuary, where local volunteers and park staff have recently completed a predator-free fence.  We ate at East Street, one of our favorite vegetarian restaurants, and Paul got to play on a street piano outside the Nelson Provincial Museum.  We also visited the mid-week market in Nelson, where it was strange to see Santa Claus, fresh strawberries, and Christmas trees at the same time.

Fencing to ensure predator-free area at Brook Waimarama Sanctuary

Paul talking to one of the staff at the sanctuary

Kereru (New Zealand wood pigeons)

Good food at the East Street Vegetarian Cafe in Nelson

Paul playing the street piano in Nelson

We had tickets to return to Christchurch on the Coastal Pacific train from Picton, but that train can’t run now as the track and tunnels are closed for at least a year due to earthquake damage.  We booked a flight from Nelson to Christchurch instead, and enjoyed seeing the South Island from the air.

The Southern Alps from the air

We're flying home today - we'll have one more post with a few final thoughts on this trip to New Zealand.

Anakiwa, Takaka and Abel Tasman

The 7.8 earthquake in the middle of the night on Sunday, November 13th, was quite jarring, especially since it lasted almost 2 minutes.  We didn't hear of any damage in Christchurch, though we were concerned as we had tickets for the next morning to fly to Nelson, in the north of the South Island.  The first few flights were cancelled - it turned out this was a precautionary measure until the runways were checked for safety.  However, our flight was fine.  Unfortunately we later heard about other parts of the country that suffered severe damage.  Coastal Route 1 is closed for 1/3 of the South Island, all roads into Kaikoura are closed with 1000 tourists trapped there, 2 people died, numerous buildings in Wellington were damaged, and Kiwi rail tracks are destroyed on the coast with one freight train stranded.

We picked up our rental car in Nelson and drove to Anakiwa in the Marlborough region at the end of the Queen Charlotte Track.  And then the clouds gathered and the rains started, continuing overnight until mid-morning.  The next day roads were closed in all directions, either due to earthquake damage such as slips (landslides to those in North America) or flooding.  We weren't affected as we had planned to hike on the Queen Charlotte Track - which we did, crossing small slips and noticing a few cracks in the trail, until we encountered flooding with knee-deep water across the track. We still got a good half-day hike in this scenic area.

On the Queen Charlotte Track - not sure if this was from the earthquake or rain and slippage

The next day we drove back through Nelson and up toward Takaka.  On the way, we stopped at Moutere Inn, supposedly the oldest pub in New Zealand.  Good beer selection too!

 
Takaka has been described as an alternative lifestyle community - think lots of dreadlocks, tie-dyed clothing, 1960's style in a place like Madison, only with about 1150 permanent residents and a fair number of people traveling through.  There's a mostly vegetarian restaurant called the Wholemeal Cafe, a theater that shows independent and art films, an organic food store, and a number of "hippie" retail shops.  A group of 15 or so wanderers live in an encampment by the river.  Takaka also has ordinary people like the rest of New Zealand enjoying the beautiful surroundings near the mountains and the sea.  We love it!

We can't think of a better name for a bicycle shop

Wholemeal Cafe - our favorite restaurant in Takaka

Our neighbors at the Kiwiana backpackers lodge in Takaka town

Unfortunately we weren't able to see some of the natural sites in the Takaka area because of the earthquakes.  Both the Rawhiti Caves and Wainui Falls tracks were closed by the Department of Conservation, presumably to check the stability of the rock formations in the area.  We instead walked around a breakwater near Tarakohe, explored the Grove, a collection of limestone formations, and hiked the Pupu Hydro walkway, an interesting combination of rocky 4WD track, water raceway, and steep hiking track.

No hiking at Rawhiti Caves today...

...nor at Wainui Falls

The Espresso Ship - coffee shop on a ship at Tarakohe

The Grove - a maze of limestone rock and bush forest

 Pupu Hydro Walkway

We also did a 5-hour hike on a northern section of the Abel Tasman track, which is only about an hour's drive from Takaka.  We were supposed to be shuttled from one end of the section to the other, but missed a turnoff due to what even the shuttle company described as poor signage, and ended up driving all the way to our destination.  We still enjoyed an out and back walk on the track, seeing two beautiful bays, climbing over one slip, and marveling at the beauty of this national treasure.

Anapai beach on the Abel Tasman Track

Slip on the Abel Tasman Track

We ended our time in Takaka by going to the community theater for a showing of the documentary film "We the Uncivilised", chronicling the filmmakers' search for an alternative, sustainable lifestyle.  There was discussion afterward about the film and how local people could participate in building better lifestyles and communities.  The evening fit very well with our impressions of Takaka.

A Bit of Everything

Hello all!

We wrote this post last night and went to bed - but just after midnight were awakened by a 7.5 magnitude earthquake with rocking and rolling that lasted for a minute.  We are fine but there is damage and two deaths north of Christchurch.

This post contains just a variety of photos/notes we haven’t included earlier.  You know you are in New Zealand when you see a truck like this:

We haven’t shown a photo of one of our favorite New Zealand birds, the tui.  The tui is a mimic, having varied songs/clicks/sounds, even sometimes sounding like R2D2 from Star Wars.

And of course, another one of our favorite birds is the kiwi.  Cindy got to meet 39 day old Wisp, a Rowi Kiwi chick being raised at Willowbank Nature Reserve where Cindy volunteers.  Newborn kiwi in the wild are often killed by predators.  Wisp was taken from his nest on the west coast and brought to Willowbank to grow till he is large enough to defend himself, then he will be taken back to the coast and released.

Wisp being held by Kristina, Willowbank staff

Tuatara are another animal at Willowbank.  Tuatara are an endangered reptile found only in New Zealand.  They are the last survivors of an order of reptiles from the age of the dinosaurs. This 16 year old is named Hudson, and he is being held by Nick, one of the staff.

Cindy has been volunteering at Okeover Community Garden on campus.  Last week volunteers of all ages helped stake the broad bean plants.  Earlier this spring they harvested the last of the cabbage.

A photo we didn’t show from our travels is of a bike counter on the bike lane in central Auckland.  The counter is a great way to count how much bike travel is used, which helps show the effect this can have on reducing pollution and travel costs.

We enjoyed this beer ad poster at our bus stop.

Another travel photo we are sharing is of shells and rocks on a beach on the North Island.

Christchurch continues to work on rebuild after the earthquakes.  Through our apartment window we watched these men work as a team to move scaffolding as they repaired a parking ramp.

We saw this tiny car with a crowd of tourists around it.  It's smaller than a smart car and we don't know if it can be driven on a road.

We’ve joined a local tramping group on their tramps and this week shared a potluck lunch at Diamond Harbour, a Christchurch suburb accessed by a ferry ride.

Yesterday we attended the opening ceremony for a traveling exhibition of Xutong Tian’s paintings.  Tian is from Bejing, China and traveled to Christchurch for the exhibit opening.  He demonstrated how he uses ink and water to create his Zen-inspired paintings on rice paper.