Tuesday March 28, 2023 - Christchurch to Bisbee

 

We set the alarm for 3 am so we had plenty of time to shower and pack and meet the taxi at 3:45. Our flight was at 6 am so we wanted to get there a couple of hours early. The rule is if you leave only an hour before your flight there is a 2 hour line when you walk into check in. And if you leave 2 hours before your flight, then there is no line. Another of life's lose-lose deals.

So we were both awake by 2 am in case the alarm did not work (it did). So we had a leisurely morning before the taxi got there. The nice hotel clerk set up the taxi for us last night and got an exact price ($16.50 NZD if we paid cash and an extra $2 if we used a card). Tips aren't expected here and bills usually round to the nearest dollar, so it's all very simple.

The taxi was a foot from our door sharply at 3:43 and we were at the airport by 3:57. The driver had a very thick Kiwi accent and was a wonderful guy (of course).

Like I said, there was almost no line at check-in and that went very smoothly. We went through 3 security stations today and we each had all kinds of extra inspections today so we felt really special. Deb got a random bomb check early on, wiping the inside of her backpack and ran it through a bomb-o-matic detector thingie. Then I had a comedy of errors where the first time through I forgot a USB cable in my pocket and had to start over, Then it picked up my shoes, so I had to start over, then it picked up my fake hip and I got pulled over and felt up. I also have some stainless parts which may have added to the problem. Then through again after having to wait for the machine to re-calibrate. I think the people behind me were convinced I really was a terrorist.

Next extra inspection was at the gate where a woman pulled me off to the side of the gate and used some space laser sticky fly paper gadget (SLSFPG) (I think that is not the technical name for it) to run over my hands, all around my pant cuffs and inside my shoes. The fly paper goes into a different bomb-o-matic and came up with a warning bell and a flashing orange light, which caught all my fellow passengers attention. Then she and two other women had to confer and once again they ran the SLSFPG (with fresh fly paper in it) and did an extra super duper job of rubbing me all over and removing my shoes and rubbing them all over and bending my shoe soles over and over to be sure I did not have and plutonium in them. There was a communal sigh of relief from my fellow passengers when the bomb-o-matic ingested the fly paper, cogitated a bit and let out a happy beep and a blinking green light. No idea what that was all about.

The last security stop was amazing (and creepy) since we have Global Entry cards. You basically just stand in front of a little machine which takes your picture and checks its database to see if it recognizes you, and then you pass. Wow, right out of a Mission Impossible movie.

Deb set up the transfers to leave plenty of time so we did not have any tight connections today. First flight was Christchurch to Sydney (3 hours) and no sleep. Second flight was from Sydney to Los Angeles (14 hours) and dozens of good movies to watch and an hour or two of sleep. Third flight was from Los Angeles to Phoenix (1 hour) and Milo slept the entire way.

We picked up our bags in Phoenix and called the shuttle service and Frank showed up 30 minutes later in the shuttle bus and took us right to the car. The car still ran after sitting for a month so off for a gigantic cup of coffee and head home to Bisbee (3.5 hours). We stopped at a Subway and split a foot long, then back on the road. We were both pretty wasted and stopped for gas and groceries (that left over quiche in the fridge is probably moldy by now) probably looking like zombies. We got home by 5:30 pm, unlocked everything and turned everything back on, unpacked everything and washed and put everything away, made a couple of calls, had soup and a grilled cheese and collapsed.

It was a fabulous 1 month tour of the south island of New Zealand and it will be nice to wake up in our own bed tomorrow.

Monday March 27, 2023 - Kaikoura to Christchurch

Who are these people?? Sorry, Iowa, but these people are downright pleasant. Stop for gas and you have the most pleasant conversation and well wishes. Check in at the motel tonight and they offer to pick us up or drop us off wherever we need. Return the rental car and, no problem, we will run you right over to the motel instead of the airport. Who would not want to be surrounded by these people?? So cut it out you grumpy ass people back in America. Lighten up and be kind! OK, I'm done...

We packed up from Fiona's place this morning and made one last drive down to the seal colony where there were three seals. One was new and the other two were in the same places as they were yesterday.

One moved so I knew it was alive and Deb refused to go poke the other two.

One last drive through downtown Kaikoura then onto RT 1 and south. Again this road, like pretty much all the roads, is twisty. RT 1 is a bit wider but we did see a few one way bridges. And more trucks (double trailers are pretty normal here) I assume delivering crisps and hand pies up and down the eastern side of the South Island. We made a few stops on the first part due to the nice ocean views and lots of pull offs. A few stops to let people go by since we were in no hurry to get to Christchurch. And it was a blue sky day so nice and sunny. 

We did a detour to Gore Bay which is a tiny but paved road, somewhat two lanes, and walked the beach and found lots of smooth rock that were full of holes. Every beach has something different going on. No trash on this beach (same with all the beaches here).

Next stop was for gas because we were cutting it close to get back to the car rental place. I pumped $20 NZD worth to get us to cheaper gas in the big city. Then we stopped at an I-Site info center so Deb could pick up some NZ gifts, but they only had pamphlets. 

We reached the hotel before check in but they said the room was ready, so we emptied the car of a month's worth of all kinds of stuff. The people here are amazingly nice and we had a great chat with most of the staff. And we were able to give away the chilly-bin. Then to the car rental place where we had to confess our sins about the missing hub cap we lost in Greymouth 3 weeks ago. They would charge us for 1 Toyota hub cap so stay tuned on how much that will be ($60 NZD was the estimate). The young guy behind the counter organized our paperwork and he offered to give us a ride to the motel. The motel clerk set up a taxi for us at 3:45 in the morning so we could get there early enough for our 6 am flight to Sydney.

Then we walked around the block to get our last chai latte and flat white (boo hoo). They may actually make them in Sydney, stay tuned.

So there is a place down the street recommended by the nice hotel clerk called Merrin Street Brewery Bar. Its a 20 minute walk through a nice park. A little busy with rush hour (5:30) but it turned out to be great. We got a pint and glass of wine and a couple big salads. And then a nice walk back as the sun dropped and people were walking dogs and jogging around the park.

So tonight we need to sort out what is going in what bag, identify what we can check (peanut butter?) and what we need to leave here hoping someone can take it home and feed it to their kids.

We will set the alarm for 3:15 so we are ready for the cab at 3:45 so we can get to the airport by 4am so we can catch the flight at 6am. The funny thing is we will fly out at 6am on Tuesday and arrive at 11:15am on Tuesday. Makes my head hurt...

Sunday March 26, 2023 - Day in Kaikoura

 

No map today since we stuck around Kaikoura. Last night we bought breakfast stuff so we had breakfast and lunch in. We realized we only have today and tomorrow to finish off any food we have left. The AirBnB is another small casita type arrangement owned by a woman named Fiona who moved here from Auckland several years ago because real estate is so high on the north island. It's very comfy and in good shape. The shower is a tankless on demand type so she came over and explained how it works. A bit tricky but we figured it out. Aside from the shower, there's no hot water or kitchen sink so she is set up for short stays. We just put dirty dishes in a container instead of washing them. But, as with all places in NZ, there is a kettle and a fridge so good to go on instant oatmeal, coffee and tea.

Today we walked the nice 2 mile path out to the seal colony. The path is part road walk, part boardwalk and part gravel path. It is great to walk all that way with the ocean by your side. It was not however sunny today, but it didn't rain either. Instead it was as if the clouds had just dropped down to just above the water so we could see out to sea, but we couldn't see the mountains beyond. We had good sun yesterday so fair enough. This last month I think we have done above average on the bad weather front given that we are not in Arizona. We ran into a man from Quebec (he could not hide the accent) and he had just finished the 4 mile round trip and he pointed out the only seal he had seen, which was right in front of us. He saw nothing at the sea colony. Now keep in mind that these seals don't move around a lot so if you see something on a rock that looks like a burlap bag filled with smelly fish carcasses, that is either a bag of smelly fish carcasses or a seal. So keep your eyes peeled.

There were not too many people walking and a few riding bikes but it felt like this is kind of the off season. There are a ton of camper vans parked all over and it seems there are limited stay free camping sites. We passed a $20 NZD site and several other paid camping sites, so there seem to be lots of places to sleep in your camper van. Lots of Jucy vans, which seem like the choice for young hip (or old hip I suppose) travelers. Then there are lots of other bigger, fancier vans. It's a big thing here.

When we got to the seal colony I walked right by two big seals on the beach, Deb had to point out how close I was to them, closer I suppose than the signs warning that they bite thought one should go (I must have mistook them for bags of smelly fish carcasses..). So we saw 3 seals today which felt like enough. The walk was the best part. So we walked back to the ranch and had a light lunch of the usual cheese, crackers, salami, yogurt, which put a small dent in our stocks. Then off to the city museum.

The museum is pretty nice with a sort of chronological run through prehistory, Maori history, whaling history, fishing history, and then the English invasion when the modern world showed up in the late 1800's. The crisp museum timeline kind of fell apart at this stage and they loaded up the other end of the museum with all the old junk that had accumulated in the last 100 years.

There was another whole section that had to do with the 2016 earthquake, with three short documentaries, art, diaries, etc about the 7.8 earthquake. What a mess. All the shops had everything knocked all over, some houses were reduced to piles of rubble, the roads down the coast was blown out by landslides (or slips as they're called here) and the train track was all torn up. One of the graphics shows why this area is in for more of this, since this is where a couple of plates are rubbing against each other. More is coming some day for sure.

After the museum Deb took me for our mid afternoon tea (chai latte & flat white) and then back to the ranch for an hour or two rest before we went to dinner at The Pier Restaurant, which was recommended by Fiona.

The Pier was hopping with what looked like local folks gathering on Sunday night for a pint and maybe supper. Deb scored us a window seat looking out on the ocean. A big bus pulled up but they went to a big back room somewhere so it was just us and the locals. A life well lived is getting together with friends for a pint and a few laughs. I have to start drinking more!!

Then we drove around to find a post office box to mail a post card and back to the cottage.

Saturday March 25, 2020 - Te Mahia to Kaikoura

 

It felt good to have a "goof off" couple of days, but now it's time to wrap this trip up. We return the car on Monday afternoon and fly out Tuesday morning bright and early from Christchurch. Deb found a place for two nights in Kaikoura, down the east coast. 

But first we have to get back to the car. We packed up and dropped our bag off with Trevor, the owner, by 9 am so they had plenty of time to drive it over the hill to the dock. They will carry bags but not you, a liability thing? But in this case it is a pleasant 50 minute walk with a last panoramic view of the bay and mountains where Te Mahia lives. We did find out that before last August, 90% of their visitors drove to Te Mahia but the storms washed out the road to the point where only the locals are allowed to wiggle in and out on what is left of the road. We had assumed it was the 2021 storms we had heard about over the last few days.

Checkout was at 10 and the boat was meeting us at 11:30 so no time pressure walking over. We met a walking group of women (it always seems to be women walking, note to you lonely single guys out there, get walking!) who were walking the entire Queen Charlotte track. We also ran into a batch of 40-50 year old men on mountain bikes who were biking the Queen Charlotte Track. We got to the dock plenty early and around 11:15 the Te Mahia summer helper, Frank, arrived with the old beat up diesel Toyota Tacoma with a flat bed (the official vehicle of all Kiwi men) and our bag.

The boat arrived a few minutes late but sitting on a dock with panoramic views on a nice day means, no worries on schedule. We were hoping for the comedy team to take us back but this is a smaller boat that only had the skipper and one other passenger. We got back to Picton in under an hour and put our gear in the car and then found a sandwich shop for lunch. Picton was a lot less busy than when we were here the other day, probably because there was no cruise ship at the dock.

There is only one road down the east coast, RT 1, which is a 2 laner with a few passing lanes or wide spots to pull off and let faster cars and trucks go by. Most of the 2-3 hours was spent right on the ocean with no development and part of it was driving through the Marlborough district vineyards. Lots of wine made here with these specialized machines to do whatever it is they have to do to grapes. The industry has standardized the shape of the vines so these machines do all the work. We saw very few people working so they seem to have automated everything.

We noticed that RT 1 had a lot of pretty new and fancy bridges and the train tracks, which run next to it, were pretty spit and polished as well. I read later that there was a huge earthquake in 2016 and the road and train was destroyed. It took them a year to rebuild and over $1 billion dollars. Thus the new roads.

We found the AirBnB easily and then took a drive through town to get a lay of the land. Kaikoura was a whaling station way back in the early 1800's until the whales were depleted, then was a fishing village until the lobsters and fish were depleted, then turned to tourism (until the tourists are depleted?). Now it has 2000 people or so and lots of tourists. But they have a huge long black sandy beach (very tiny black rocks) and are set up to cash in on their location. Tourism started with the Moari building a small boat and offering whale watching tours back in the 1960s. Now they have anything you want to do, kind of like the rest of New Zealand .

We went to The Whaler Bar and Restaurant where we split Green Lipped Mussels, a bowl of chowder and a salad. And a couple of pints of course. After dinner we found the New World grocery store and picked up a few things for our last few days. Then back to the ranch and bed.

Friday March 24, 2023 - Down Day at Te Mahia

Today we just chilled here at Te Mahia. We have been non stop moving this last month and it felt like we needed to not go anywhere and not do anything today. Milo finished a book and started another one sitting on the deck waiting for the clouds to break (they did) and Deb did an afternoon hike up to Onahau Lookout, which is on the Queen Charlotte Track just behind us. We had breakfast and lunch at our place and had fish and chips tonight overlooking the bay in front of us as the sun ducked behind the ridge to our west. Tomorrow morning we hike back over the hill to meet the boat that takes us back to Picton.

Thursday March 23, 2023 - Kaiteriter to Ta Mahia Bay Resort

Deb here. We had breakfast and said our goodbyes to our new friends from Houston and Quebec. Staying at this Air BnB in Kaiteriteri was a great move, convenient to water shuttle access, the beach, and a chance for some fun conversations. We headed out by 9 am, still not sure how we were supposed to reach our destination for the next 2 nights, Te Mahia Bay Resort.

When we had lunch with Sally and Eric a few days ago, Sally had recommended a stay at a lodge on the Marlborough Sounds. As she said, sometimes you just "need a day staring at the water", and after being on the go so much for the month we were both ready for some down time. She gave us the names of 3 different lodges, all accessible by water shuttle/taxi only, and I was able to find a spot at Te Mahia Bay Resort. Shortly after I booked the lodge, an email came through letting us know that we'd have to schedule water transport to get there. This started a chain of emails and calls with no results, so we took off not sure how we'd get to Te Mahia.

Anyway, after a stressful morning of trying to find a way to reach the lodge (I'll spare you the details!), we landed a spot on a 2:30 pm shuttle boat on Cougar Line out of Picton. It turned out to only be 4 of us on the boat, along with a bunch of luggage, and we had a delightful time on our 45 minute trip out through the sounds. We learned the Marlborough Sounds have the most coastline of anywhere in New Zealand, with over 3,000 km of coastline. It's hard to describe this area, with fingers of land jutting out into the water. Apparently there used to be a road to Te Mahia Bay Resort from Picton, but after some weather events a few years ago the road was knocked out and it's all boat access only now. And as a side note about the Marlborough region, this is where all of those delicious Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc wines come from, my personal favorite. On the way to Picton we passed vineyards as far as the eye could see.

We first dropped off the other couple on the boat, and then stopped at Lochmara Lodge to unload a heap of luggage and backpacks. The Queen Charlotte Track, a 60 km walking trail, travels throughout this area. One of the pluses about the trail is that one can stay in lodges along the way and have your bag moved for you. Pretty sweet.

After dropping off the other passengers and the stop for the luggage, we were the next drop off. The skipper and his assistant were a regular comedy duo. Both are probably in their late-50's and appeared to be best friends. Their comedy routine was just what we needed after our rough morning! They dropped us off, we left our bag in a shed nearby, and then we walked the 50 minute road to the lodge. 

We're in a beautiful location, overlooking the water. This is a self-contained unit, so we'd brought some groceries with us in our backpacks. After checking in, we spent the rest of the day checking out the property, cooking a pasta dinner, reading, and crashing early. So peaceful here, with complete darkness at night and no noise... ahhhh.

Wednesday March 22, 2023 - Hiking the Abel Tasman Trak

 

Today our plan was to take a water taxi up the coast, get dropped off on a beach, hike about 5 miles and get picked up by the water taxi on another beach. And it was a beautiful day weather wise. We are getting back into planning around weather, a problem we do not have back home in Arizona where it is sunny all the time.

We had breakfast at the AirBnB with our new friends and then four of us walked downtown to catch the water taxi. The taxi we took today holds about 100 people and it is basically a ferry boat with seats. The cool thing is when it approaches a beach, a praying mantis looking thing unfolds of the front of the boat to extend down onto the beach. The taxi driver just heads to the beach, unleashes the walkway and people get on or off. Very efficient.

We met some Kiwis on the boat and had a nice chat about NZ history. They were just taking the taxi up the coast, having lunch at Awaroa Lodge and then returning in the afternoon. We got dropped off at Torrent Bay along with a dozen other folks. The taxi leaves and you are just standing on this golden beach. We found the trail and climbed up a ways. The Abel Tasman Track is considered the easiest of the 10 New Zealand Great Walks (good for my knees) and once you climb it stays pretty level the rest of the day. We took what looked like a 5 minute track down to what we thought was a beach but since it was high tide, all we could see was a pile of rocks with breakers. We noticed when we climbed back up that someone had scratched "15 mins" on the sign instead of the "5 mins" the DOC said it was. For Milo it was a painful excursion. I'm thinking it might be time to talk about a knee replacement. 

Back on the track and it was a nice even trail. We arrived at Medlands Beach but since we had plenty of time, we continued on to Bark Bay where there is a hut that Deb wanted to check out. Again, the hut was spacious, clean, well

equipped, off grid of course, with a nice bathroom in the back and an outdoor kitchen and picnic tables scattered around. We picked a table overlooking the beach and had our lunch (cheese, crackers, salami, apples, carrots). We hiked back to Medlands and set up our towels on a log on the beach and had a nap and people watched. The combination of the turquoise water and golden sands is stunning! Since the water taxi picks up and drops off people here, and there are multiple companies, we got to see all the comings and goings for an hour or two. Our water taxi came at 3:30 and we got on board and snagged a cold beer and a cold diet coke to enjoy on our 50 minute ride back to Kaiteriteri. We had to stop at a couple of beaches on the

way back and since it was low tide by now, everyone had to experience a "wet foot landing". where the boat can only get so close to the shore, so the end of the ramp is in the water and you go barefoot.

We stopped at the grocery store down by the landing and picked up a chicken salad sub and a bottle of wine for dinner. Then walk back up the hill to the AirBnB, did some dishes, and ate our dinner.

Great day!!

Tuesday March 21, 2023 - Kateritera to Takaka

 

Good sleeping last night in our shared/private accommodations. The Englishman and Michiginian are leaving this morning and a new batch of folks will come in tonight. The owner stopped in to tell us that the weather changed, which we are learning is pretty common, so we decided to not do the boat shuttle up to Abel Tasman, but instead drive the wiggly back roads up to Split Apple Rock. We had breakfast here and left around 8:30.

Split Apple Rock is a big rock just off shore that looks like ti was cleaved apart at some point. At low tide you can walk over to it and when we got there after a short hike, we realized it was high tide so we could only get to the stairs down to what would have been the beach this afternoon at 4pm or so. OK, new plan. We decided to drive the twisty RT 60 up over Takaka

Hill to the town of Takaka. We realized that the gas tank was getting low so we needed to gas up before going the one way up to Takaka, which may or may not have gas.

We have a small problem with fuel here. They have a lot of self serve 24/7 fuel stations with no people around. You put in you credit or debit card and tell it how much you want on which pump and fill up. None of these have worked because the machine never asks for our pin number and then rejects the card because we did not enter a pin number. Some programmer needs to be taken out back and whacked with a 5-¼” floppy. So we had to go into Motueka just south of us and find a station with a real live person and a cash register. We filled up ($5.89 per gallon) so we were good to go. This Toyota Yaris is very miserly so we must be getting 50+ mpg so it’s not too painful. And guess why there are no Ford F-150’s here… And I am also guessing that the roads are so well kept here because a lot of this gas money goes into keeping them in good repair.

So back north toward Takaka. RT 60 is one windy little road. We found a farm stand before heading up the hill and bought fresh strawberries. The also had apples, blueberries, tomatoes, avocados, limes, and other assorted veggies. The strawberries were wonderful.

Up the hill with not too bad traffic but steep narrow windy roads. It started to rain off and on as the weather guys said it would and it sprinkled a bit the rest of the afternoon. When you hit the top and start down the other side, you are in the Golden Bay area. Golden because the sand is gold colored. This whole area is indeed at the end of the road but there seems to be more going on in this “end of the road” community than where we are staying. Takaka is a “hippie town” with lots of shops downtown, a decent grocery store, and we might have been able to get gas there (non self serve). There were a few places for lunch and we happened to pick the popular one, The Wholemeal Cafe, which Deb had been to 3 years ago when she was here. We had a couple of pies (one chicken and mushroom and one veggie) and Deb got a small salad, and coffee and chai latte of course.

We then drove to a cool place called The Grove which is another DOC (Department of Conservation) site. It has real weird/cool rocks mixed with a tropical forest undergrowth. I was waiting for Captain Kirk or a brontosaurus to jump out from the rocks. It felt like we were walking through a movie set.

Next stop the Fresh Choice grocery store in Takaka to get a bottle of wine and some food for dinner. Back over Takaka Hill on RT 60 and we stopped down the street from our AirBnB to check out the other beach south of us. It was around 4:30pm so the tide was low and we walked over to what was an island this morning. We could also see that at low tide you can walk all the way back to town on the other side of our AirBnB. Lots of expensive empty houses over here so they must be vacation homes. We have not run into a lot of fancy houses on the South Island but there is a small concentration of them here.

Back to the AirBnB and two other couples were checking in. One couple is from Quebec City and the other couple is from Houston, TX. We all cooked our own meals and we sat outside chatting until 8:30 or so. It is always a treat to meet and get to know new people.

Tomorrow we take a water taxi into Abel Tasman and do a little hiking. Stay tuned.

Monday March 20, 2023 - Westport to Kaiteritera

Deb here. We'd heard from our friend Sally Fri, who lives in Motueka Valley, and she invited us for a late lunch today, so we were eager to get on the road. After breakfast and checking out of our lovely Air BnB, our first stop was Coaltown Museum in Westport. We opened the place at 9 a.m. and spent the better part of an hour checking out the exhibits there. It was a great small museum, and it helped to further our education about coal mining and the mining history of the area. What a hard life those miners had, especially living miles from nowhere, in a remote area. No thank you!

We then set Google Maps for Sally's place, about a 3 hour drive away. It was a beautiful road, but like most New Zealand roads, super twisty. We passed through areas that reminded us of West Virginia, some areas with rivers and hills that looked like Vermont, and then through some green pastures with mountains surrounding them that reminded us of Switzerland. Mile for mile, the diverse landscape on the South Island is truly amazing. As we got closer to Sally's, we started to see huge hops farms, along with apple orchards.  

By 1:30 we were at Sally's home, which is situated on a lush green property with lots of fruits and vegetables, a real slice of paradise. She has been living there for a few years, and typically returns to the states for 3+ months each summer. Last December she married Peter, a lifelong Kiwi, and they're making it all work between Sally's country home in Motueka and Peter's large home in Nelson. Also at Sally's was her friend Eric, who's visiting for 2 weeks from New Hampshire. John and I had quite a list of questions for Sally, so we peppered her with our queries over a delicious lunch.

At about 4 we said our goodbyes and headed up the back roads (even more narrow and twisty) for Katieriteri, our home for the next 3 nights. We're staying at an Air BnB that has 3 private rooms with bathrooms, but a shared kitchen and living space. It's a nice setup, a bit like a hostel but with more privacy. We started a load of laundry and then walked down the hill to find some dinner. We ended up splitting salad and a flatbread veggie pizza at the Beached Whale. 

After dinner it was back up the hill, another load of laundry, and chatting with the 2 other folks here for the night.