New Zealand Part 3

Welcome Back.......

Thursday January 18th

Our worst wake up of the trip... 4:00am!! The goal was to get to Wellington (4.5 - 5 hours away) in time to drop the car off, find a new bag that would carry the extra goodies we picked up, and get to the 10am ferry. No problem! Our drive took us down the eastern coast for a stretch, but turned inland before the sun came up, so we couldn't tell you how it looked! I'm sure it was beautiful. When the sun finally did come up, it revealed low lying mist in the valleys between the hills and mountains we were driving through. As always, sheep abounded, and we could count on seeing a few hundred in at least one direction we turned! This drive took us down through the Wairarapa Wine Country which included the town of Masterton, the place where Vanessa's wedding was to be held at the end of our journey. We didn't stop for anything though because we were under a major time crunch! Just before Wellington, the road turned inland towards the mountain range that had been flanking us on the right. Wellington was on the other side of this range at the Southernmost aspect of the South Island. The pass was known as the Rimataka Hill, but I assure you it was anything but a hill. This bad Johnny was comfortably over a thousand feet, with hairpin turns and twists to make even the most daring driver white knuckle it! Oy! And this was the pass we were going to have to cross again and a again to get back to the wedding festivities later... hmmm.

The drive was beautiful though, and once on the other side we actually found ourselves in civilization again. There were a number of small towns on either side of the road as we neared Wellington. At one point, the river to our right crossed under the highway and followed us for a spell on the left before opening up into a large Harbor with views out into Cook Straight. It was fantastic. Straight ahead in the distance was Wellington, wrapping itself around the western shores of the harbor. Wellington is a beautiful city, reminiscent of San Francisco in some ways. Colorful homes were perched precariously up and down the surrounding hills and small sky scrapers rose out of the center of the stretch. I had printed out a dinky little map in order to try and find the rental car drop-off site, but didn't realize that the city was larger than the map lead me to believe. What is worse, said map did not tell me about all of the one way streets and bus lanes there, which made it really hard to navigate... I started to feel that burning in my stomach as the minutes clicked away on the clock and the rental car was nowhere to be found! Finally, a somewhat scared looking pedestrian helped point us in the right direction. I pulled in hurriedly and started the process of unloading the car. While I squared away the paper work, Phil made a mad dash around the neighboring streets in a desperate attempt to find a cheap bag to help us on our way. I rearranged what I could, had a taxi called to get us picked up, and waited for Phil to get back with a bag. It turns out he managed to find one from a ubiquitous Marshall's-esque store named Farmers... and oh what a bag he found! Let me break it down for you. Imagine the brightest blue you have ever seen, and then multiply that by 10. The electric blue number he brought back for us could be seen in a blizzard, in the dark, with your eyes closed!! Desperate times though called for desperate measures, and we stuffed it until we had to sit on it to close! At this point we had 3 large suitcases, 2 backpacks, a camera bag, and my hiking boots hanging from my shoulder because they still didn't fit anywhere! All of this was jammed into the cab and we headed back to the harbor to catch our Ferry. We made it with about 15 minutes to spare!

To our delight, the ferry was extremely well organized, and we were actually able to check our bags at the gait! So instead of having to guard our bags like two mama hens the whole time,we were free to relax and explore the boat. We were psyched! The Interislander is the main ferry that transports you from the North to the South Island. It is listed as one of the most beautiful ferry trips in the world, and there is no doubt in my mind it is true!! The trip is a 3-hour tour that takes you 92 km out of Wellington Harbor, across Cook Straight, and into the Marlborough Sounds Region of the South Island to a little town called Picton. I should mention this, all along the way so far, the North Islanders we met were telling us to get off the North Island and spend as much time on the South as we could. As beautiful as the North Island was to us, they said it paled in comparison to the South. We were so excited!

The ferry was kind of a cross between a true ferry and a small cruise ship. It was pretty damn comfortable. We camped out on one of the outside decks and enjoyed the sun and the spectacular views. The ride is split into 3 very distinct sections. The first part was great because it offered a spectacular view of downtown Wellington as we pulled out into the harbor. The channel out into the straight was wide and the entrance to the channel was flanked on our left (the east) by a large rocky bluff with a lighthouse on top and at the shoreline below. It was a nice send off. The second part of the trip took us out into the Straight. There the water got a little rough and the wind picked up, making us reach for a light sweater, despite the warm morning sunshine. When the South Island finally came into view, we knew were were in for a treat. Some of the mountains that would could make out along the shoreline already seemed grander, and in a few places there were still hints of snow! The coastline of the South Island is dramatic, with ragged golden brown rocks jutting out of the water transforming into softer greener mountains the higher they rise. The water of the Queen Charlotte Sound was amazing. It varied from deep blue to the classic Caribbean Turquoise. It felt like paradise. As we snaked our way deeper into the sound, we passed numerous private coves and beaches, gorgeous sail boats and speed boats, and at one thrilling moment, a pod of dolphins started jumping and playing along the starboard side of the ship! We were in heaven!! After about a 45 minutes in the sound, the port of Picton came into view. Picton is small, but it is truly a gorgeous little town. In fact, it that looks like it would fit comfortably along side any you might find in the Mediterranean. We couldn't wait to get on land and start our Southern Exploration. After a minor SNAFU, we managed to find our rental agency and picked up the sweet ride they had arranged for us! Zoom zoom... cough... sputter... zoo- ... cough. Okay, so our sweet ride turned out to be a 10+ year old P.O.S. Nissan Pulsar with 160,000km under her belt! Alas, beggar's can't be choosers, and we laughed it off and hit the open road.

Our goal was to get to the town of Greymouth which is about a 3rd of the way down the west coast, about 8+ hours from where we were now! We drove south to Blenheim, the heart of the Marlborough Wine Region and turned right towards the west coast. Our ride took us up along the northern coast and then back down towards Greymouth. The drive through the country beyond Blenheim was like something out of the Napa Valley. Dry arid mountains flanked us on either side and field after field of grape vines colored the valley floor. It was a brilliant contrast!! We didn't stop to visit any at this point though as the goal was to hit them up on the way back to the North Island after our week on the South. About an hour into the drive, the mountains started to get larger, and the predominant tree was a pine of some kind. It was great. I have never been to the Rockies, but this was starting to look like I imagined they might be!

We stopped to recharge in a very cute little town called Havelock. It was a charming little place with a number of cute restaurants right along the road. We decided to stop at a place called the Mussel Pot and had ourselves a tasty plate of grilled mussels. If you haven't had the pleasure of Grilled Green-Lipped New Zealand Mussels, it is a must for the seafood lover in you!! We got the sampler, which gave us a choice of the 4 most popular seasonings they had. YUM!!! Feeling revived, Phil decided that he would take a turn behind the wheel. He drove for a few hours over progressively windy roads towards the Northern Coastal town of Nelson. Nelson is a pretty lively city, and one that might have been fun to explore if we had a little more time. We did our usual town walkabout, but this time on a mission to find a Farmers so that we might exchange the BIG BRIGHT BLUE BAG for something larger and more subdued. Of course, right outside the store, we realized that somehow somewhere in our travels we lost the receipt. Phil was forward thinking enough to have left the tags on the bag thinking that our time with this Blue Beauty might be limited, but without a receipt I worried they might think we were a couple of lying thieving Americans! I left Phil at the top of the steps just outside holding the bag, in full view of the folks at the counter I was about to talk to. I came up with some cockamamie sob story , and they were kind enough to let us return it. We said our goodbyes and traded her in for a larger army green model. Very butch! We repacked the bag in the back seat of our P.O.S. and decided to press on as we still had a long way to go!!

The coastal drive out of Nelson was beautiful and we stopped a couple of times to simply enjoy the beautiful water views. About an hour down the road our stomachs started speaking out and demanded we stop for some nourishment, so we stopped at the first town we could find for some food. We landed in a little nameless town after six pm, which apparently is the witching hour for a lot of New Zealand towns, and as usual, found that everything was essentially closed. Thankfully, just as we were losing hope, we came upon a modest little restaurant named Poppycock Thai! How could we not?! Now of course it wasn't anything like our girl Pam's, but when you're starving, it's a home run! Phil calmed his stomach with some Hot and Sour Soup, and I decided to fight through the Nam Flashbacks I was having after my first New Zealand rib experience in Auckland, and braved the spare ribs again... I mean what were the odds they would be as nasty as the Auckland Chinese experience! I chose wisely, and the ribs hit the spot!

After Nelson, there was very little in the way of civilization, and we drove as quickly as we could to the coast. The sun sets late in the summer over there, but we still had only a few hours to go to get to the coast, as we wanted to try and catch the Sunset over the Tasman Sea. The road took us through beautiful Buller Gorge, with parts of the highway actually carved right out of the cliff walls in a little one lane stretches! SCARY!! As we got closer to the coast, we found ourselves in what felt like a cruel trick. You know how in some movies they create the illusion of the room stretching away from you even as you are running your fastest towards the other end... this was just that same experience. We'd be driving along happily with the Sea right there on the horizon, and then the road would dip down, dive through a series of hairpin turns, and wind in any number of ridiculous angles, only to have us emerge with the horizon looking just as far as it had before; it felt like we weren't gaining any ground on it at all. When you're overtired, the charm of these winding country roads is lost entirely!! Finally, just as the last of the color was leaving the sky, the road opened with a Sea view and we stopped to take it in.

Once at the Tasman Sea, we turned south and hugged the coast to Greymouth. This is listed as one of the most scenic drive in the country, but sadly our light didn't last long enough to see most of it! As the light was fading though, we managed to sneak one last spectacular view of Knight's Point , a beautiful cove and rock formation. We got out to take a look, as we heard there were seals resting on the shores below, and within seconds we were swarmed by small black sand flies. I had read about them in the tour guides, but we had not had the pleasure of meeting them before now! Thankfully, they didn't really bite us, they just swarmed every inch of our body, and the feeling was nasty enough to make us retreat to our car with our tails between our legs!! Unfortunately, the flies managed to fill our car too, and suddenly the magic was lost!!! After driving a little while with the windows open, we lost most of the unwanted passengers, and continued on our way.

The rest of the drive was dramatic, and would have been amazing if had any sun left, but sadly it faded in the next half our and left us in utter blackness with no street lights, house lights, and virtually no cars to help light our way. This was the scariest of the drives by far, and my hands broke into a sweat as I gripped the wheel and crawled up and around the many sharp mountain turns, knowing, but not seeing that the sea was to our right over the cliffs! It was unsettling to find ourselves so far removed from any civilization! The stress was broken a few times as we passed some cute Penguin crossing signs, but we did not have the pleasure of seeing any on this particular drive. That said, we did quite literally almost bump into a number of the local opossums. These are actually adorable little animals, but they are apparently hated by the locals because they are so destructive! Sadly we had some camera issues, and weren't able to capture any pictures of our own. After what seemed like an eternity, we finally saw the lights in the horizon that represented the town of Greymouth. We drove sluggishly to our Hostel ready for a good night's sleep only to find, to our dismay, that the doors were locked for the night, and we were S.O.L.!! We did the panicked drive around what was now the ghost town of Greymouth, and managed to find refuge at the Kingsgate Hotel. It all worked out for the best though, and it turned out to be a much better way to get refreshed for the big glacier hike the next day. And on the eave our anniversary, the idea of sharing a room with 2-3 other people just didn't sound particularly appealing anyway! We had a nice hot shower, some quality alone time, and a good night's rest. That was a long day!!