Wine Country

As you may or may not know, Lindsey and I celebrated our 4th anniversary in New Zealand. May 9th is our actual anniversary date, but since our plans dictated that we be travelling on May 9th in our preparation for Abel Tasman, we delayed our anniversary until May 14th this year. So to celebrate, Lindsey and I went to Blenheim, the wine capital of New Zealand, and had ourselves an awesome anniversary.

Basically the South Island has two wine regions- Central Otago and Malborough in the northeast corner of the South Island. We went to the latter. Bleheim is a fairly small town right in the heart of it and draws a lot of visitors for the sake of wine touring. We stayed at a very acclaimed Bed and Breakfast called the Olde Mill House for two nights. First I'll give a blurb about the hosts - they were AWESOME. This place has been a B&B for 10 years now, and they've got it down. It's a fantastic old home owned by a super nice couple. Our room had it's own bathroom (which is a huge deal for us on this trip, since none of the hostels do), a patio right outside of our room, a hot tub!, and a breakfast to die for. The breakfast was homeade muesli (a NZ type of granola cerealish thing), toast, fresh fruits, and a plethora of homeade and home grown jams to choose from. They have all kinds of fruit trees at their house and they make everything fresh. We ate fruit to our heart's content in the mornings and soaked in the hot tub with a bottle of wine at night. Couldn't ask for a better place!

The morning of the 14th, we got up, ate our breakfast, and decided to get a little exercise before we started on the win tour. The Olde Mill House has lots of bikes to rent (free if you're staying with them!), including some tandem bikes, so we decided to hop on one of those and go for a ride through the vineyards. It was a crisp,very sunny morning on the country vineyard roads.  In Lindsey's words:"This is paradise." It was so beautiful and fun and we were really pumped we got the chance to do that! We got back to the house, changed, and then it was time for our big anniversary plans: the full day wine tour of Malborough! Our guide Colleen picked us up and we joined 4 other people for the tour. It was such a cool experience. We started off getting some "bubbles" at the No. 1 Family Estate owned business who used to make champagne in France and then proceeded to tour 5 other wineries and a local chocolate shop. Each place had 4-6 wines to taste, each with whites and reds. We tried Chardonnays, Sauvignon Blancs, Pinot Grigios, Rieslings, Pinot Noirs, a Merlot, dessert wine and surely some other things I'm forgetting. Such a fun experience and such a fun day. We of course got ourselves a few bottles of our favorites to bring back home.  Several of the wineries have cafes which serve lunch, and we stopped at one with beautiful views from the outdoor seating area and had a scrumptious meal with our our group.  It was a really fun group, and we enjoyed their company a lot. Our last stop was the local chocolate factory where we got a few tastings as well.

Wineries Visited: 

No.1 Family Eastate

Hunter's

Framingham

Wairau River

Rock Ferry

St. Clair Family Estate

After the day was over, we went to a local place to grab some dinner and found our way back home! It was everything we could have asked for and more for an anniversary, and will definitely go down as the best single day in New Zealand.

Tandem Bike Riding through the vineyards. Not as hard as it looks, even when the backseat rider chooses to casually ride and not peddle...

Hunter's Vineyard

Framingham Vineyard

Saint Clair Vineyard

Happy Anniversary!

Kaikoura

We drove to Kaikoura after the Abel Tasman for one purpose... to see whales!  This is a town with nothing going on besides fishing and whale watching, and we couldn't leave NZ without seeing a whale.  This is a very well organized company who takes you by boat to see the whales, typically sperm whales.  There is a really cool explanation with cool images of why Kaikoura is such a whale haven, but I cannot do it justice.  Basically it has a really, really deep canyon not very far from the mainland which makes deep sea water fish available for the whales.  Apparently it is uncommon for deep water like this to be near the continental shelf.  Awesome.  The sperm whale that the company had tracked was really far off shore so it took us over 30 minutes to get to a point where they could listen for him underwater.  Once they listened, we took off in its direction and found him right away!  Lucky for us he had just come up from a deep dive, and we got to see him for about 7 minutes before he went on and did his next dive.  I even got the tail shot as we went to dive back into the canyon for abother hour or so.  Because these whales can dive for 45 minutes to almost 2 hours, they can be difficult to catch on the surface.  After the awesome dive we tried to find another sperm whale but were unsuccessful.  That was slightly disappointing, and we had to start heading back to dock because we had traveled so far from the coast.  BUT as we were getting really close to the dock, someone spotted something really rare for this time of year... a humpback whale, and not one but TWO!  Humpbacks do not usually come until July, but there were two adolescent males making the journey earlier than usual.  They were playing around dangerously with some of the fishing lines.  One actually came quite far out of the water and did kind of a splash dive for us.  At the time I was pulling out my camera and only caught a glimpse of this, but we did get to see both whales a couple times.  We were really excited to see humpbacks, and the sperm whale with it's neat tail dive would have been enough!

Sperm whale blowing through his blowhole

Getting really close to the sperm whale

Going for a deep dive

Hope you get some really good fish on your dive!

This doesn't do justice to the humpbacks, but there is one and the other's splash to the right.

Abel Tasman

After a few nights of rest, it was time to start the Abel Tasman Great Walk. If you remember from a previous post, we had already done one of NZ's Great Walks during our trip (the Milford Track). Each of the Great Walks is a different experience, and this one was chosen by Lindsey when she was trip planning because it afforded us an opportunity to do a Great Walk and see something completely different than we had seen on Milford. Milford was a structured 4 day hike through a glacial valley and over a mountain (Fiordland) in which each person (40 of us) had to hike the same distance to the same hut each day. There was no tent camping allowed, and you couldn't veer off and do your own thing. It needed to be booked well in advance because of how full it gets. The Abel Tasman is very different. It's a very loose hike that can be done in 1-5 days.  The tramp is basically along the beach on the north end of the South Island. There are hills, but it's mostly considered an easier hike, and there are both huts and campsites at many stops along the way which you can book based upon the pace you decide you want to go. It's flexibility and capacity allowed for us to make our decision about how we wanted to do the hike much closer to the actual start date.

Daniel and I opted to do the Abel Tasman in 3 days and 2 nights.  The weather forecast predicted possible rain on the morning of day 1 and sunshine thereafter - perfect!  The Abel Tasman is interesting in that on one of the days of the hike, you can only cross the trail during low tide. Otherwise, you would just have to swim across a bay (not safe, nobody does this especially with a pack)! The low tide schedule also worked well on our chosen days with low tide at 3:30pm on day 1 and 4pm on day 2.  It worked well with my plan to do all the tidal crossings in one day in order to avoid having to wait for low tide all morning and part of the afternoon of day 2 or 3.  If you get stuck between the two mandatory tidal crossings, you might have to wait most of the next day in order to go to your next stop which is possibly just an hour hike away.  We did not want to wait 24 hours just to hike for an hour.  I felt that we could see more if the tides didn't require us to stay in a certain place for a long time.  I also had hoped to take the water taxi to our start point and be able to walk back to the finish and get in our car on our own time.  I did not want us being rushed to get to a certain pick up point on the trail at a certain time for the water taxi to bring us back to our car at the end of the trip.  The weather and tide timing worked wonderfully with this plan.  

Day 1 

We drove to Marahau and hopped on the water taxi with about 8 other people. These other passengers were day hikers who didn't have enormous packs to lug onto our boat.  We definitely stuck out among them.  They had on their blue jeans and sneakers while we were decked out in our hiking gear.  First we visited by boat the Broken Rock, one of the famous landmarks (or seamarks?) in the Abel Tasman National Park.  It was just a round granite rock in the sea that split in two a long time ago, but it was a mandatory photo opportunity.  Then, we went north along the shores of the park dropping off day hikers here and there until it was just the boat driver and us.  At one point he started turning inland and weaved through some major rock formations to get to a place called Shag Point which he said was only accessible at a "bloody high tide."  He navigated us to this little spot with seals hanging around and said, "Alright let's see your seal charming skills."  We looked at him really confused until he pointed to some baby seal pups that were jumping in the water towards us. This was one of the best moments of the trip! We got on the back of the boat and gently swirled our hands in the water and the seals slowly swam over and started playing. Both of us even got to pet them when they swam up and rolled over to present their bellies! It was so cool and something completely unexpected.

We left that area and were dropped off at Totoranui, but we still had about an hour or so to kill, so we made a little loop north of the track we were about to do, had a picnic lunch, and then took off, backpacks full and loaded. The plan worked beautifully as we arrived at the first tidal crossing right at the point when we'd be able to cross. You always get a little wet going through the Awaroa Estuary, but that is all part of the fun.  Daniel and I both brought sandals for this part, but Daniel's broke not even halfway through the crossing, but we just laughed and he was barefoot through the sand, mud, and water which probably also made it more fun!  He probably finds it more fun now than at the time.  The track led us through some very beautiful woods and then back onto the beach several times.  We also made it to the next tidal crossing just at the right time.  I tried to keep my feet dry on this one without taking my boots off... and failed.  I wound up with a thorn or two or seven in my feet, and one didn't come out until the next morning!  No worries though!  We made it to our campsite with enough daylight to pitch the tent and start dinner.  We stayed at the Onetehuti campsite just steps from the beautiful Onetehuti Bay which had a very nice beach.  This campsite is big enough for 100 people, but we only saw about 2 or 3.  We had our little section all to ourselves.

Day 2

We woke up to a beautiful morning at Onetehuti.  We slept a little late (until 7:30) and took our time getting all packed up to go.  This was our longest day, but it was still only a 5 hour hike ahead of us.  We spent a while getting the tent dry since we were going to need it again on this trip and hit the trail around 10am which is a super late start for us.  This day was gorgeous all day long, and we got some amazing views!  One thing that I found very different about this hike is that you actually see some tiny towns of New Zealand holiday homes (called baches).  There are a few roads that connect through the park and occasionally some power lines.  In comparison, on some of the other hikes, running water is not even thought of.  Sometimes we felt so far from civilization and then  we would feel that we were almost in it.  Of course, these holiday homes were deserted because of the timing, but seeing them was really different from the Milford. On day 2 we passed another tidal crossing, but our timing wasn't excellent so we took the optional high tide track that took an extra hour.  This led us to Cleopatra's Pools which is a natural pool created by a large stream.  Had it been just a little bit warmer we would have been taking a refreshing swim.  The water looked incredibly tempting, but (seeing that it is their equivalent of our November) even on a warm sunny day at the northern end of the South Island, it could be pretty chilly in the shade and at night.  At the advise of some lady who works at the Motueke info center, we stayed at a place called Watering Cove.  It is a little campsite big enough for only 10 people, but we had it all to ourselves.  It had spots for only a few tents, one rudimentary toilet, and a faucet that spurted water which had to be boiled before being consumed.  From the beach we had a nice view of an island, and the stars at night were unbelievable.  The Milky Way was right above us and the southern cross just in front of us.  The longer we stared the more beautiful they glowed. 

Day 3

This was our very last day of backpacking and we had motivation to get up and get going because most importantly... our lunches were in the car.  This was an anticipated 3.5 hour day, but it only took us 2.5 hours.  It was another day of fabulous weather!  We were so lucky this whole time!  We saw a number of other awesome views, but as a whole, not quite as good as the first two days.  We just had fun cruising along this very easy track and were excited that we had accomplished another New Zealand Great Walk - our first one tent camping the whole way!  

After completing the tramp we walked (yes, another 20 minutes with our packs on) to the car and found a nice  picnic table in Marahau with views of the bay.  It was an awesome trip to end our backpacking in NZ.

The Broken Rock

Totaranui: returning from our little loop track north of this campsite- Just ahead of me is the beach where the water taxi dropped us off.  At this moment I was amazed that this place even has gravel roads.

Picnic by the Totaranui beach - a great way to stall starting the hike so that we hit the tidal crossings just right!

Arawoa Estuary - first tidal crossing 

Good Morning at Onetehuti Bay! Daniel is sipping his morning tea on the beach.

Onetehuti to Anchorage view

Our tent site at Onetehuti

Finished!

Punakaiki and Motueka

We drove from Copland Track to Punakaiki, a small town on the West Coast. There isn't much to do in Punakaiki besides see the famous Pancake Rocks, but it was a good stopping point for us between the Copland Track and our next hike, the Abel Tasman. We were really glad we stayed here because we loved the little lodge that we stayed in. The place was really quaint and cozy with a very well equipped kitchen, and we met some nice people there. We made a feast of soup, homemade pizzas (our favorite post hike meal), salad, and brownies for dessert! The next morning was our anniversary, although not officially celebrating for another 4 days, so I made us a big breakfast the next morning. I definitely took advantage of a nice kitchen where I didn't have to share it with 15 other people trying to cook at the same time! This lodge also makes homemade warm wheat bread and muffins every morning. Yum! We took our time lingering here in the morning because we didn't have too far of a drive or much of an agenda besides getting to Motueka and booking our Abel Tasman hike.

We made the 4 hour drive to Motueka easily and went directly to the information center to make our hiking trip arrangements. We wanted to book our trip no more than one day in advance to be sure about the weather because it could have easily changed our plans. Thankfully, the forecast was perfect, and we were able to book tent camping sites rather than stay in the huts. Daniel and I love the huts, but on Abel Tasman, the huts were not in ideal locations for where we wanted to go each day and in what direction. You can either take a boat to your starting point and hike back to your car, or hike from where you leave your car and then get picked up by boat at the end. Your choice depends on preference and the tidal pattern of the day. Yes, Abel Tasman requires you to pass through places only accessible during low tide. Low tide times change daily so it took careful planning for how far we wanted to hike each day and what times we crossed the tidal sections. After we made our final plans, we went to our hostel. Here we had a nice meal. We cooked lamb for the first time! Then, we packed our backpacks in preparation for our last backpacking trip in NZ!

Pancake Rocks

Westland, New Zealand at Sunset

The Three Point Roadtrip

After leaving Dunedin, Daniel and I cruised down the Southern Scenic Route which takes you through some of the highlights of the Southland. The focus of our southern trip was mainly site in the Catlins, a national park in the southeast corner of the island. Even during the busiest season, not many tourists make it all the way down to this part of the country, so at this time of year we were some of the only tourists around. Our weather was fairly rainy so we did not get to see as much as we wanted, but we did get to do a little bit. The drive was still pretty starting out before the heavy rains hit. Our first major stop (after having a nearly run out of gas - we didn't... just a scare) was Nugget Point. This is a famous lighthouse with (usually) a lot of wildlife visible from the cliffs as you walk along the edge to the lighthouse. We saw were some seals playing on a little pool of water, but that was all. Next, we took the long drive to Stirling Point in Bluff. State Highway 1 runs the entire length of both the North and South Islands, and its final southern end is at Stirling Point. It is mistakingly thought to be the most southern point of the South Island, but it's not. That fact belongs to Slope Point which was our last stop for the day. This is a much less celebrated point, and it is on somebody's farmland. However, they do allow the adventurous tourists to walk through their sheep fields to get a look at the most southern tip of the island. We took a picture in the freezing cold (it is the closest we will ever be to Antarctica) and then raced back to the car. On a clear day you can see Stewart Island from here, but not in this weather! We wanted to visit the Cathedral Caves at low tide, but they were closed because the sea was too high and rough. One of the coolest things we saw on our route was a sheep herding. As we were driving between the Catlins and Bluff, we were stopped by a herd of sheep in the middle of the road, not uncommon in NZ. We stood still and just watched the sheepdogs at works getting the herd from one pasture the to other. They looked like they were having so much fun doing their job, and it was well worth the delay! Despite the weather, it was a fun day, and we finished it by finding our cozy little cabin at a holiday park in the Catlins. We cooked some dinner and shared hot chocolate in the tiny cabin room.

View from Nugget Point - the waves were huge

Really strong wind and some sleet at Nugget Point

The Nugget Point Lighthouse

The Hike to Nugget Point

Stirling Point

Slope Point

Copland Track- Nature is Awesome

On Tuesday, we started the Copland Track. Copland is a 2 day, 1 night hike that is scouted at 7 hours each way. There is a hut called Welcome Flat Hut at the end of the trail that you have to book in advance, but at this time of year is generally available. Copland is a really desired track, but it's difficult to schedule because it requires two fairly rain-free days in a row to do. It runs alongside the Copland River, and there are numerous points throughout the track that become impassable when it rains. The reason it's so desired is because at the end of the journey, outside of Welcome Flat Hut, there are thermal pools that you're free to soak in.

Because it was only one night, we packed a fair amount of food so that we could eat a solid dinner (we didn't ration too much simply because it was only 1 day worth of carrying the food burden) and we also packed as if it was going to be very cold. We had no way of knowing how many people had booked to stay at the hut, which directly influences how warm the hut gets. More people = more heat. At the time of our booking (1 day before) only 4 others had signed up. Additionally, we had to tote our stove and fuel as these huts didn't come equipped with gas stoves. It wasn't too much but it was certainly more than would be expected for a 1 night hike.

The hike was much harder than Lindsey and I anticipated, but the thermal pools at the hut were unbelievable. The view from the pools was beautiful and very relaxing after a long day of hiking (6.5 hours)!

The next morning we woke up, cooked breakfast, and hit the trail again. This time it only took us 5 hours with lighter packs and motivation to get back to the car and drive up the West Coast. It wore us out a bit, but this was one of Lindsey's favorite hikes!

Copland Track Vegetation

Really High Swing Bridges

Daniel Narrowly Surviving Another Long Swing Bridge (He called them a brush with death)

Enjoying the Natural Thermal Pools

Signing the Hut Register - The part you can't see says Go Vols. I wonder what typical American wrote that?

Dunedin- the home of the Highlanders

After our Mt. Cook venture, our plan was to drive down to Dunedin for an overnight stay before taking off on the Southern Scenic Route. Dunedin is the second largest city on the South Island and is on the east coast of the island. When this was originally planned, we didn't have big plans for Dunedin other than to walk around the city and maybe get some dinner. However, Matt Barnes sparked the idea in my head that Lindsey and I should try to go to a rugby game while we here. On my flight to Queenstown, I discussed rugby with one of the kiwis I was sitting next to on the flight, and on the Milford Track, I talked with some other Kiwis about it even more. What I learned is that there is a league called the Super 15 composed of 5 teams from NZ, Australia, and South Africa who compete at this time of the year, and they usually play on Saturdays. Dunedin has a team. When we got off Milford, we did some research and sure enough, Dunedin had a home game on the day that we were in town.

So, knowing nothing about rugby other than the fact that it's a game that I don't understand, we bought tickets to sit in the student section.

It was awesome. What I learned about the rules of rugby is that you have to toss the ball backwards but you can punt it forwards, if you fall down you get to hand the ball off to a teammate, getting into the end zone gets you 5 points, sometimes scrums happen, and sometimes people get thrown up in the air on inbounds passes. Other than that, I've still got nothing... but that didn't stop us from cheering when everyone else cheered, booing when everyone else booed, and very much enjoying seeing the University of Otago students dressed up in animal costumes, giving rise to the name "The Zoo" for their student section. There were bagpippers, people in blue spandex, songs asking why the Highlanders suck, and at least one player who looked like a troll. We had so much fun, and we were clearly good luck - the Highlanders triumphed over the Durban Sharks 25-22. Thrilling victory, thrilling experience. Go Highlanders. Go rugby.

Daniel

Lake Tekapo and Mt. Cook

The next day, we departed from Queenstown and took the rainy drive up to Lake Tekapo. It was a pretty crummy day outside, but we totally prefer driving in it to hiking in it! On the way, we made a detour to follow a marking in our atlas that signified a LOTR filming site. Though we decided to not pay the extravagant sum to take the official tour of the site, we totally pulled our car over and took pictures of the site where the filmed the Battle of the Pelennor Fields. I was obviously nerding out. See picture 1 below. We got to Tekapo sometime around 2-3.

Lake Tekapo is a beautiful lake again surrounded by mountains and is a glacier fed lake. Basically, when we refer to glacier fed lakes, we bring up that point because glacier fed lakes are the most beautiful shade of blue you'll ever see. They are completely unspoiled and a real sight to see. Lindsey had been up here before with Whitney and fell in love it, and after I saw it, I understood why. Because it was so rainy when we arrived, we settled in and read a little bit. After a short time, the rain eased up enough for us to run outside to Lindsey's apple tree (see her previous blog in www.pharmingwithkiwis,blogspot.com) and gather a bag full! Apparently the tree had become a popular spot since she had been there three weeks prior because the apples were scarce. But like a total hoss, she climbed basically to the top of the tree and started chunking the remain apples at me. That night, we basically just cooked, trip planned, and enjoyed a warm hostel common room.

The next morning, we saw that the forecast was much better. It was supposed to be fairly cloudy, but no rain was expected, so we decided to start the morning off with the hike that we'd planned to do the day before. It was basically just a 2.5 hour tramp up to the top of the hill that overlooks Lake Tekapo and back down. At the top, there's an old observatory that was originally built by the US as a spy station but is now just an observatory. There's a cafe up at the top so we decided to stop for some coffee! We had to wait around for 20 minutes because New Zealand in general starts late (we got there at 940 and it wasn't open yet...), but it was worth it. Great coffee, and on the way down, the cloud cover was lifting a little bit and we got some great views. When we got to the bottom, we got in Mo! (our car) and headed to Mt. Cook, only a few hours away.

*Randomly, they have a statue that is a dedication to the sheepdog right in Tekapo. I took a picture in honor of my favorite sheepdog, Ted.

Mt. Cook is a spectacle to behold. It's something like 3700 meters tall and is just gorgeous. The mountain range around it was used to film the Misty Mountains in the LOTR movies. Below Mt. Cook is a glacier named Hooker glacier. Yes, it's ok to snicker. We did a small walk (only about 2ish hours) up to the glacier and back. After we got back, we set up camp. This was our first night of tent camping together in NZ (and coincidentally my first night of legit tent camping ever), and it was COLD. I mean, my goodness. We cooked our dinner on our little stove, immediately washed dishes, and trotted over to our tent. Before we got in, we took a good look at the Southern Sky and I was blown away. It was one of the more beautiful things I've gotten to witness. No lights anywhere near to disrupt the viewing, and the Milky Way could be seen very clearly. Had it not been close to freezing temperatures, I would have insisted on sleeping outside so that I could stare forever. However, it WAS close to freezing, so we got our butts in our tent and into our sleeping bags, It was an interesting night! Lindsey and I both slept plenty throughout the night, though often in spurts, and we woke up to the sound of rainfall at 630 the next morning. We made the very fast decision to get up, pack up, and get out before the rain got really going, and we were successful! Wake up to departure time in the car was about 15 minutes. I felt good about our speed. It was a really fun night and well worth the frigidness.

Cheers!!!!!!