A tale of two towns

After our heroic morning scaling small gravelly paths near glaciers, we drove to Wanaka, where we stayed for two nights, mainly just chilling out. It’s a nice place to do so, with plenty of cool bars, cafés and restaurants, a relaxed vibe, and of course, a pretty lake ringed with mountains. I also came across Glowing Sky, a clothing company that actually makes their clothes in NZ (a rarity these days). Their main product line is merino wool, but I was drawn in by the brightly-coloured dresses they had in the window. I ended up buying four in the same "Marilyn" cut, but with different colours and patterns. Very pleased with my purchase, look out for them on the blog soon and keep an eye out for the brand if you're in NZ!

We had an annoying group of 20-somethings across from us on the campsite, who basically seemed to sit there drinking all day and swearing every second word. On day two, I actually went and asked to change campsites to get away from them. I realise this makes me sound like a grumpy 80 year-old woman, but seriously, I think we all had enough of 20-something young men when we were 20-somethings ourselves. Their dulcet tones are not exactly what I want to listen to on a relaxing holiday.

The Haast River

Lake Hawea, next door to Lake Wanaka

Wanaka's lake and mountains

Lake Wanaka

We actually went to Manapouri/Doubtful Sound before coming back up to Queenstown, but because of the million photos of Doubtful Sound I have to upload, and because Wanaka and Queenstown are pretty much linked in people's minds, I'll do them both here.

A fantastic view of Queenstown from the Wanaka road

We were first going to spend two nights in Queenstown, and then mostly for time reasons, adjusted that to one night, arriving in the evening and leaving at lunchtime. And once we got there and looked around in the evening, we decided one evening/night was enough. As I said, Wanaka and Queenstown kind of go together. They're not far apart, they're both on the shores of a lake, they are both ski towns in winter, and they both pride themselves on adventure tourism. Queenstown is the bigger and probably more well-known of the two, and it had a correspondingly busier, brasher vibe.

Fluffy hills en route to Queenstown from the Te Anau side

Driving along Lake Wakatipu

Lake Wakatipu from Queenstown

Me and the founder of Queenstown or whatever, plus sheep wife

It's a bit unfair really, since we did actually have annoying drunken youths bothering us in Wanaka, but the entire population of Queenstown seemed pretty much made up of irritating gap year types, so we cooled to it immediately (can you say that?) There were also a tentful of young women next to our van getting ready for a night on the town saying things like "that's hot" in faux American accents as though this was 2004 and they were an entire gang of Paris Hiltons. But they left reasonably early and didn't wake us up coming home, so I can't hold it against them too much.

Our one must-do in Queenstown was to try Fergburger, an apparently legendary local institution. Once we saw the queue stretching out the door, we followed the pro tip I had seen on the internet and phoned in our order, ready for us in 15 minutes after a pleasant stroll around the town. I've got to say, pretty tasty. Jules went for a classic, if jumbo-sized burger, and I got a pork belly and hash brown extravaganza. Yum!

Mmm, pork belly

Chilling out

After Abel Tasman, we were originally going to stop in Greymouth, mostly to break up the drive, not because I’ve heard anything good about Greymouth. In fact, everything I’ve ever heard or seen of Greymouth in books and travel shows and so on seems to suggest it’s a rainy dump. So when Jules suggested we just drive straight through to the glaciers, I was up for that. We did actually stop in Greymouth for lunch, and it was a perfect blue-sky, sunny day, so although we didn’t hang around long enough to see the town proper, we didn’t leave with such a bad impression of it.

A one-way bridge... shared with a train. Eek!

Another of our plans had been to stop in Okarito and do a night kiwi spotting walk. But when we rang up the day before, he was all booked out. We haven’t been booking anything more than a couple of days in advance, and just turning up to campsites without bookings, and this was the only time it hasn’t worked out. Unfortunately, Jules was super disappointed he wouldn’t get to see kiwis. While it would have been awesome if we had managed to see a kiwi in the wild, we were still excited when we drove through Hokitika and spotted a sign for the National Kiwi Centre. We knew we definitely had to stop in.

It turns out there’s only two kiwi in the National Kiwi Centre, which makes me a bit dubious that they should be calling themselves that, but the quantity of kiwis is made up for by the quality of kiwis. I’ve seen kiwis before on school trips and so on, and I think also as an adult, but I don’t have much memory of seeing more than a blurry blob hiding in some bushes in the dark. (Kiwis are nocturnal, so if you go see them in a kiwi house or zoo, they will always be kept in a dark enclosure.) These kiwis, on the other hand, were running around, coming right up to the glass, and there was even a bit where you could go round the side and watch them over a railing, with no glass. On the part with no glass, we could even hear the kiwi snuffling loudly and moving through the undergrowth. It heard us too, when we were standing above it, only about a foot away, and it put its beak up and looked at us. (Or listened at us, apparently its eyes are very weak.) 

Instead of using their eyes, they used their long beaks for everything, probing in the ground with the full length of the beak, tapping quite hard on the glass and sides of the enclosure, turning over and breaking apart rotting logs looking for insects. Maybe this isn’t PC, but they really looked like a blind person with a cane, using the beak to probe their surroundings. It looked like it would hurt, the way they were tapping on the glass and twisting the beak underneath logs, but obviously not! It was super cool to see them so well and to see them being so active. One even did a poo!

The kiwis were definitely the main draw, but there were various other native and non-native fish, lizards etc. in the place. There was a wall of glowworms that really looked just like LED lights on the wall, they were so evenly spaced and artificial-looking. And there was a tank of absolutely massive scary eels. It was kind of cool watching them swim and also stay floating, perfectly still, even in upright positions.

No cute kiwi photos due to their delicate eyes. So here's some eels

We stayed the night in Franz Josef, and in the clear night sky we could see the stars incredibly well. I don’t remember seeing the Milky Way so clearly, or seeing so many different stars. I just wish I knew more constellations (Orion is the only one I can ever identify). Of course, not helped by the fact that “the stars are very different tonight” in the Southern Hemisphere vs. the Northern. And the moon is upside down!

In the morning, it was foggy, and the forecast was for cloudy weather. However, it lifted as we walked to Franz Josef glacier, and we got some pretty nice views. We got up and out nice and early, and thus it was nice and quiet. On the way back, there were plenty more people walking in, so we were quite pleased with ourselves. It took about an hour to walk to the glacier, stopping for many photos, and half an hour on the way back. Mostly because I really needed the loo by that stage!

Franz Josef glacier

The terminal face

Waterfall with mini rainbow

The next stop was Fox Glacier. Being later on in the day, it was busier, although I have the general feeling FJ is more popular. FJ was certainly our favourite of the two. Because of the angles, you couldn’t really get a good view of how Fox comes down the mountain, although the face of the glacier was maybe prettier than Franz Josef once you get up close to it. But talking of getting up close, I think when I was a kid, you could go right up to them and walk on them. These days the walk ends quite far away from the glaciers, due partly to dangers of rock falls and so forth, rivers changing course and the ground becoming unstable, and because the glaciers have retreated so much. Now, if you want to climb on them, you have to take a helicopter there. There were signs on the way to Fox showing where the glacier came to in 1750, and it was way, way further than these days. Photos even from a few years ago show a huge change. The walk to Fox was shorter, about an hour round trip, but also a bit steeper and rougher. Probably a contributing factor to preferring Franz Josef!

The evil "no stopping" signs on the way up to Fox Glacier

The terminal face of Fox

Abel seamen

Originally, the plan after the Marlborough Sounds was to stop in Nelson, do something in the Abel Tasman National Park, and then go further around the coast towards Golden Bay. But we realised the need for early starts and full-day excursions on the Queen Charlotte Track and in the Abel Tasman National Park meant that we had to rejig the schedule a bit. We could probably have driven a couple of hours before or afterwards, but we are not too keen on driving in the dark, and it does take it out of you. Okay, it’s hardly working in a coal mine, but at the end of the day we tend to be pretty happy to stay around the camper van and relax. 

No time to visit the vineyards

So the day after the Queen Charlotte Track, we drove to Kaiteriteri, picked because it was one of the pickup points for the Abel Tasman trip we wanted to do. Seeing it on the map, we were expecting there to be basically nothing there. And it wasn’t exactly a bustling metropolis, but it had a really big campsite which was still pretty full, and a lovely beach right across the road. So we had a bit of a swim and a sunbathe that afternoon before the clouds rolled in, and got ready for our trip to Abel Tasman the next morning.

Kaiteriteri Beach

Fresh from the trials of the Queen Charlotte Track, we were keen for a bit of a gentler excursion this time. So we picked a trip that only had about a 1 1/2 hour walk, from Onetahuti Beach to Awaroa Beach, around 5.5 km. Both were beautiful beaches, and the walk between was pretty gentle. There wasn’t so much scenery to see on this walk, but it was a nice, relaxed stroll between two lovely places, so that was okay. Jules put our newly-acquired bird-watching skills to good use when he spotted a fantail. Unfortunately, he told me to come look quickly and I abandoned my usual caution and consequently ended up sitting on the ground in an abrupt fashion. The brand new camera I was holding also took a trip to the ground, luckily sustaining only a few cosmetic scratches on the back.

Onetahuti Beach. I guess all beaches look much the same in a panorama

Estuary on Onetahuti Beach #nofilter

We didn’t have as much time on Awaroa Beach as we would have liked, just time for a swim, to read a little bit and then a dip to get the sand off. Whereas in Matarangi we were endlessly pummelled by the waves of the Pacific, here the sea was super calm and gentle. Not without risk, however. A couple told us that they had been walking along the beach watching a stingray swimming parallel to them - just before it got to where we were swimming, it changed course and swam out to sea. A narrow escape!

Awaroa Beach

The skipper takes some time out. Not the worst job in the world

The boat trip there and back was also much longer than in the Marlborough Sounds, taking over an hour each way, and it called in at several places to pick up and drop off passengers, as well as to see the sights, such as the Split Apple Rock and fur seals on Tonga Island (although only a couple of them were hanging out when we went past. I thought the boat to Onetahuti was a bit rough, but it was nothing compared to the trip back. We started our return trip with what the skipper described as a “hoon in the lagoon”, and hoon we did, circling around the lagoon and then enjoying an extremely bumpy high-speed trip back, skipping over the waves and bumping back down really quite hard. I got a bit wet sitting in the back and also hurt my neck a bit, although that’s quite easily done. 

Split Apple Rock

Waiting in Anchorage Bay

Kayakers off Tonga Island

Spray from our bumpy ride

Boat selfie. Belfie!

With hindsight, we would probably have gone on the 9 am boat, rather than the 10:30, and had longer to spend on the beach in between. Still, the boat was fun, the beaches were beautiful, and it was a nice contrast to the Queen Charlotte Track.

Picture perfect

The day after our arrival in Picton, we were blessed (#blessed!) with the most beautiful weather for our day walking the Queen Charlotte Track in the Marlborough Sounds. The day began with a short 20-minute water taxi ride to Torea Bay, where we were to begin our walk to Mistletoe Bay, just under 8 kilometres away.

Reflections on the water on the boat trip

This sounded like an easy enough walk, but I forgot to take into account the elevation changes, from sea level up to 407 metres on the track itself, back down and up a bit again, and then we were foolhardy enough to add in an extra trek 130 metres up to a peak of 416 metres, because someone had etched "worth it" on the sign.

We went from Torea Bay on the right to the YOU ARE HERE

Raring to go at Torea Bay

This probably sounds like nothing to many of you, and there were definitely times on the walk that I was cursing letting the gym slip over the past months (um, years, to be honest). But it was a challenge for us, and one that had ample instantaneous rewards, in the form of breathtaking views over the Kenepuru and Queen Charlotte Sounds, on both sides of the track, and in the form of personal satisfaction. You know when you see amazing views on postcards and websites and so on, and you eventually realise there's no way they were taken without the aid of some sort of flying machine? Well, trekking up those 416 metres gave us exactly those picture postcard views.

Jules the explorer

I was particularly proud of going up to the "hilltop lookout", just before we would start our descent to Mistletoe Bay. To be honest, if I had known how steep it was and how much I would feel like I was going to die, I might not have done it. But once we started, determination and basically a desire not to have put myself through half the painful ascent for nothing kicked in, and we triumphantly made it all the way to the top.

Unless I'm mistaken, the path we took basically runs up the middle of this land

Our reward was not only beautiful views of the sea and the track we had walked up, but also a close encounter with a family of weka, a flightless native New Zealand bird. I don't think I had ever seen weka before, certainly not in the wild, and we had no idea what they were until we looked them up later. They sort of waddled and sounded like ducks, but with completely different heads. And they were totally not afraid of us - something that we assumed was caused by visiting trampers feeding them, but when we looked it up online, the information said that all weka were generally curious and unafraid.

A weka family

For the last part of the trek, down to Mistletoe Bay itself, we turned off the main Queen Charlotte Track on to the James Vogel track. This in some ways seemed even harder than the hilltop detour. It was what I would think of as a classic bush track - that is, pretty rough and ready. We were having to watch our step over tangled tree roots, clamber down steep slopes holding on to trees or rocks with our hands, and duck under and over branches and fallen trees. It was only an extra 1.5 km or so, but it felt like forever. Especially with the tantalising thought of being so close to somewhere we could just plop down and rest and get a cold drink.

Jules and the evil tree roots

Somewhat less energy left at this stage of the walk

 In the end, we survived and were so pleased we did it. I forgot to turn on Map My Walk until we had already done the bulk of the initial steep ascent from Torea Bay, but with the hilltop detour and the James Vogel track, we did 12.36 km (plus however much the first bit was). Jules's step counter has us at 22,520 steps or over 17 km, although that includes walking to and from the boat as well. With breaks for lunch, photos, and dying, it took us about 6 1/2 hours, plus over an hour at the end waiting for the boat to come get us again. I've had more relaxing days, but this was definitely one of the more rewarding ones!