Tide Hiker Adventures: March 2018

Melbourne to Auckland
March 15, 2018

Good flight to Auckland, we did not crash. Made it to our Airbnb at a decent hour. After some annoying messing around with airbnb we managed to find our apartment and gain entry. The apartment was small and a bit austere but had a great view of the harbor.

View from our Airbnb apartment

Auckland
March 16, 2018

Explored the city, got SIM cards for our phones, took a ferry to Davenport, dinner at a pub down by the waterfront. All good.

View of Auckland from the ferry

Sail boats in the Volvo adventure strutting their stuff

Pub food for dinner.

Auckland to Whakatane via Rotorua
March 17, 2018

David's birthday today (he is 40, OMG!) and St Patrick's Day. Picked up our rental car and headed south. Impressed with the intensive agriculture in NZ. Lunch along the foreshore at Whakatane. Then headed for Rotorua where we established that our Airbnb reservation had not worked, and there were no beds in Rotorua!

The agricultural wind breaks where quite amazing

Vines inside the windbreaks - probably Chinese Goosberries

But we were able to find a hotel room back in Whakatane and drove the hour back. The hotel was definitely prewar (not sure which one) and was charming. Breakfast was brilliant!

Whakatane to Gisborne via Rotorua
March 18, 2018

Up early and back to Rotorua for the obligatory Maori village tour and hot springs expose! Nothing like the size of Yellowstone but it was good! We also attended a Maori "ethnic performance" and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Soon after lunch headed south through Opotiki to Gisborne, and the drive was no less than spectacular. Plus we found a vacant hotel room in a 1950s motel down by the beach. So far we are really impressed with the NZ agriculture and the NZ wilderness, not so much the supply of hotels.

We found the vegetation in the gorges to be very jungle like

Many of the mountain sides have been cleared for sheep

Gisborne is a small prosperous agricultural town and port. The big export item is logs. This is the location where Captain Cook first stepped ashore, killed a few Maoris, and "discovered" New Zealand. The Maoris where not happy and so Cook called the place "Poverty Bay" and moved on.

Logs ready for export at Gisborne

We are also impressed with the price of gas - at $NZ2.00 per litre. So an American gallon is about $NZ7.60 or about $US5.70 a gallon! I am filling up the tank when its 1/2 empty and that costs about $NZ60.00!

Roads are well maintained, but "smallish".

Reasonable hotels seem to be costing about $NZ125.00. Pies are about $NZ5.00 so we will not starve. A "flat white" can cost up to $NZ7.00. Lots of sticker shock. Dinner at a local Thai place was $NZ40.00 - very reasonable.

Gisborne to Napier
March 19, 2018

Today our target is Napier, further south down the east coast.

We diverted to Mahia for a light lunch. As we sat in the car overlooking the beach with our sandwich we noticed a whale in distress in the shallow water. So we waded out with some locals to see if we could give it a push out to sea. It seemed like a "baby" Minke to me, about 10' long, and was well and truly "stuck" on the sandy bottom as the tide went out, and seemed exhausted. It also had a wound on its side. One fellow grabbed a towel and a tow strap from his car and we used it to lift and drag it out to deeper water where it just seemed "lost". Oh well, we tried.

Rescuing the whale

Arrived at our hotel in Napier at about 5:00PM. Its not really a hotel, more like a hostel. We can both fit in the room together if we stand sideways. But there is a washer and a dryer so we have been busy. People are friendly and they think people from Australia are strange.

Drove down town after dark and ordered soup in a fancy Italian restaurant.

Napier to Whitby
March 20, 2018

Beautiful sunny morning with a good forecast for the day to follow. Breakfast of a phylo (???) pastry egg and bacon pie and a large coffee - all for $NZ20 - a real deal. Had a look around Napier and the port. Seems like a nice clean and prosperous little town. Port was busy loading two ships with lumber.

Took off south on the "road least traveled", finding small towns and mostly grazing cattle and sheep. Sat in the car on top of a mountain somewhere and ate our own supplies for lunch - fresh fruit, a granola bar and old hot crossed buns. Stopped for a beer 50 kms north of Wellington and found a convenient B&B in Whitby for the night. Enjoyed "an Indian" for dinner.

Whitby to Wellington
March 21, 2018

We are fortunate to have some "old boating friends" living in Wellington and they offered us a bed, and we accepted. It was good fun to see them once again after 2 or maybe 3 years. They live in a house perched on a big hill overlooking the harbor - spectacular.

But before we landed on their doorstep we headed into Wellington to have a look around. Like most of the other NZ cities it is built around an impressive and naturally protected harbor. Captain Cook and the British Admiralty must have been pretty impressed with the natural harbors they found in NZ.

We wandered around the shops for a then visited the National Museum for a look at their WWI and Gallipoli display. Its seems hard to be an Australian or a New Zealander and not be touched and a bit emotional at such a display.

That night we went out to dinner along the waterfront with Shirley and Tony.

Simpson of "Simpson and his donkey" fame

Wellington to Picton
March 22, 2018

Shirley dropped us off at the ferry in plenty of time for the 9 AM crossing. It was quite a big ship - maybe 25,000 tons - and we were happy about its size because it was a pretty lousy day. (If we were on Tide Hiker we would have stayed at anchor!) We had packed a small bag for the south island, and left the car and the rest of our stuff at Tony and Shirley's place.

Busy aft deck on the ferry

No, that is not a life jacket!

Picton was located at the end of one of the fiords

Deidre was very kind and loaned me her umbrella.

The crossing took about 3 1/2 hours. There was a good crowd on board and wonderful eating and drinking facilities! We arrived Picton shortly after lunch and walked up main street to our little hotel.

That evening we hooked up with Robyn and Rick for her birthday dinner. Robyn was great fun as usual. They flew out next morning.

Picton to Westport
March 23, 2018

First stop was Nelson, 140 km to the west. We were expecting another rather sleepy small tourist town in the middle of nowhere, but were quite surprised by its size and bustle. It really surprises me that such a town could exist with just one little two lane road coming in one side and out the other! We stayed long enough to walk around the large shopping area and enjoy lunch.

Then on over the mountains again to Westport where we secured another BnB. The place was run by an 80 year old lady with her "quite restricted" husband who had just had a fall. We headed into town for dinner after being turned away from two places ate at the pub, and it was great! It was almost "normal food" and deserved a photo

The next morning the town was running an "iron man" competition for the local teenagers. Apparently over 100 would be competing in the swim, run, bike and abseil event. Our host (the 80 plus year old) was responsible for collecting and organizing the bikes that the kids drop and run from after the biking section, and her daughter was responsible blocking roads and making lanes with those orange colored "which hats" that they seem to love in NZ.

Westport to Amberly
March 24, 2018

First an aside: It is very noticeable to a visitor that "all" the towns on the North Island have Maoro names and all the names of the towns in the South Island are straight out of England. How did that happen?

We headed south and avoided the race. First stop was Cape Foulwind (named by captain Cook, no less!) where we gazed upon a seal colony, strange pancake rocks, rock arches and blowholes.

This little guy greeted us in the parking lot. But it turned out NOT to be a Kiwi but a distant relative. He/She was very friendly!

Then, after passing through the outskirts of Greymouth we headed inland again to cross the island thru the mountains to the east coast, just a little north of Christchurch. (We are "saving" Christchurch for our next visit.) We would be passing thru the famous (?) Arthur's Pass.

Typical NZ style one lane bridge

The weather looked ominous as we headed into Arthur's Pass

I must admit, the Kiwi's have some rugged country to develop! The enclosed parts of the road is to protect the cars from rock slides and waterfalls!

Cute casual coffee hut in the mountains.

The road followed a ravine and river up on side of the range and another ravine and river down the other. The rivers and their tributaries were quite fast and busy. The drive was really quite scenic and a little bit "white knuckled" and Deidre kept reminding me "I'm on the cliff side!"

Amberly to Anakiwa
March 25, 2018

The road and railway running along the North-East coast (through Kaikoura) is routinely damaged by earthquakes. The 2016 Kaikoura earthquake was a magnitude 7.8 that occurred two minutes after midnight on 14 November 2016. Ruptures occurred on multiple fault lines and the earthquake has been described as the "most complex earthquake ever studied". In places the seafloor was seen to have lifted by 8 feet! Trains have not been running on this 100 km stretch of track since then. The road is a shambles and is only open during daylight hours.

With these limitations on our minds, we were up early and on the road by 8 AM. Was not long before we hit the coast and the road works. The mountains run into the sea and the road and railway track are squeezed in between the cliffs and the ocean. Large avalanches of rock and mud had obliterated the tracks and roadway in many places. We were stopped by a "flag-person" at least a dozen times where the temporary road was only a lane wide. In several places we could see where the sea floor had risen to become dry or tidal land.

In some places shipping containers had been double stacked against the cliff face. No idea why.

In this spot a concrete roof was being constructed over the road.

Here, steel mesh had been rock bolted onto the cliff, I assume to protect cars and trains from falling rock

We ended up that night in a beautiful spot on the Grove Arm of the Sound about 20 KMs from Picton.

Even a nicer spot than half Moon Bay. Our hosts made us a cup of coffee and we drank it on the dock

This was the exact location where Robyn's hike ("tramp" in NZ) had ended. I walked along the trail for a while to get some steps. Very nice bush.

View up the sound.

Anakiwa to Wellington via Picton
March 26, 2018

We were on the 11 AM ferry so we enjoyed a relaxing morning then drove the short distance into Picton where we dropped off the car and boarded the waiting ferry. It was a very nice and sunny day, perfectly calm.

Our ferry waiting for us in Picton

Much nicer day than the trip over.

Wellington to Taupo
March 27, 2018

We had come south to Wellington along the east coast and we planned our trip north up the middle, focusing on the volcanic town of Taupo where we planned to do some "jet-boating". But a very typical NZ "thing" happened to us as we headed up the main north-south highway (Highway #1 no less) They closed it for a couple of days.

After a rather substantial detour we ended up in Taupo in time to find a nice BnB and have an Indian dinner. After dinner we made our jet-boat reservation for a couple of hundred $NZ.

Taupo to Hamilton
March 28, 2018

The Taupo river is the outlet from Lake Taupo, and is quite impressive when they open the control gates and its actually running. (Also, I am a bit surprised that it was not named the Thames.)

The jet boat excursion up the Taupo river was a bit tame. Mostly we posed for photos. Deidre and I had it rougher in our dinghy.