Week 6 -- 1st - 2nd Nov

Monday Nov 2nd, 2009
We have slept in until 9. Breakfast is brief then we head off to discover what Nelson has to offer.
The city is very industrial on the outskirts with a modern port and all the support businesses that are situated around a port. Once inside the city proper that has both very quaint and modern buildings. It was almost as nice as New Plymouth! The down town has permanent awnings on every building. If it were to rain, you could still shop without much trouble. We found this mosaic whale on side street.

In the centre of town is a hill garden surrounding an Anglican Church at the top. There are paths crisscrossing the hill and also around the hill. Planted on the hill are trees from all over the world. The trees were planted around 1880 and are quite mature. The flowering shrubs have just started to flower. They are at least two weeks behind the North Island. It feels like we are still in May with both the constant spring flowers and weather. Actually, the weather has warmed up and we are no longer wearing sweaters and coats.

Along the city coastal road we can see that the tide is out. The sand stretches on forever. On the sea side are long gouges in the rock from weather or lava flows or both. We park and have to navigate the busy traffic to cross and take pictures. They are quite amazing.

Tomorrow we are off to the most northern point of the South Island!

Sunday Nov 1st, 2009

It’s the morning after Halloween and for New Zealand, Hallow's Eve was pretty quiet. We are up with the alarm and head off to breakfast. This morning we are having our regular peanut butter and honey toast with fresh coffee.

We are off to Nelson. It is known to be a lovely British style town and we are looking forward to visiting. The wind on the road to Nelson is incredible. Our morning coffee stop is in a town called Havelock. Just outside of Havelock we stopped at the Pelorus River. This is a beautiful rocky gorge. Crystal clear water flows from the mountains to the strait. As we climb the mountains the road begins to twist and turn up and over the other side.

Nelson is a much larger city than we first thought. We drove through the center of the city and quickly decided that this was going to be our destination to explore tomorrow.

The backpacker’s lodge is in a town just outside of Nelson, in Richmond. We meet up, once again, with our young Canadian friends, Christine and Scott. The rest of the day is laundry and relaxing. As the drier is unavailable, we had to hang out three loads of laundry. The wind was in our favour and quickly dried them.

Week 6 - 28th to 31st October

Saturday Oct 31st, 2009
This morning we are taking a walk past the harbour and up the coast. It is called Bob’s Bay Walk. We saw three different kinds of star fish in the harbour. This trek is supposed to be a 30 minute walk. It too is quite vertical in many ways with continuous views of the strait. The view is quite beautiful. My legs are aching from yesterday, and so are Alan’s. The walk winds its way down the east side of the Picton harbour. The walk is fairly easy at first with a few uphill climbs that bring back memories of our steep climb yesterday.

We finally get to Bob’s Bay. It is a small beach that would be a great place to have picnics and play at the shore. The water is clear with lots of wildlife in the water, sea birds, more star fish, mussels and sea cumbers are just along the water’s edge. There is a large sign posted at the bay indicating what you can and cannot do. You are not allowed is camp which is unfortunate as this would be a beautiful place to set up a tent site. Up in the trees a along the shore and just at the end of the bay we see a blue tent. Someone was enjoying the spot!

There are numerous trails that intersect Bob’s Bay trail. We take the trail to the Picton Harbour lookout on the way back. This trek climbs up a short way then heads along the side of the hill towards town. A fantail comes and chats at us for a few minutes. They are a pretty little bird that likes to talk to walkers. It is a nice return trip and we get some good pictures of the Interisland ferry coming in as well as some youth having their Saturday morning sailing lesson.

After lunch we head into town to catch the mail run. The boat leaves at 13:30 sharp and we are off on another adventure. On Saturday the mail boat goes out to the furthest reaches of the Queen Charlotte Strait. They take mail for free to local people, not holiday homes and pick up travelers along the way. Many of these people only receive their mail once a week on this Saturday run. They also drop off parcels and groceries. Locals can email the grocery store their order and they pay $3 for delivery on mail day.

On the boat provide free coffee and tea and once we hit the upper head of the Strait it turns quite cold. Water temperatures at this time of the year are around 9 deg C so between water temperature and air temperature the upper deck is cool and a hot cup of coffee warms the hands.

Our first stop is at a dock with no buildings; here we pick up a traveler, Joy a local who travelled overland for 45 minutes to catch a ride. Her sheep farm is on the other side of the hill. Joy has a large farm where they raise Merino sheep. I had such an interesting discussion with Joy.

The scenery is beautiful and we see seals, dolphins and lots of mountains along the way.
At one pier we see three pet pigs that follow the gentlemen out to pick up his mail. He prompts them a bit by feeding them a bit of bread, which they quickly devour on the pier in front of us.

At another stop in the journey we stop to see the Capt Cook monument. Cook came to New Zealand 5 times in the 1700’s and claimed this land for England. There is an amazing monument to his endeavors.

Further along we stop to pick up passengers who were dropped off in the morning and hiked through the Queen Charlotte Trails for the day. The boat is now filled and the tour back is packed with people. The boat docks at 18:00hrs back in Picton.

Tonight we are eating out. Most of the restaurants are closed on the main street. Alan had seen a sign at the local ROA, like the legion in Canada, and they were advertising a roast dinner. We head in that direction and end up meeting a couple from the boat trip. The four of us had a great dinner of roast potatoes, just like my Mum’s, roast chicken or pork, pumpkin (squash), peas and gravy for about $8 Canadian. The other couple is Australian and we have a great yarn. They often fly to NZ for holidays as it is a cheap flight. There was a live band that was quite good that played during dinner and into the evening. We had a very nice dinner.

Friday Oct 30th, 2009
Today we have our flat whites at the Dog and Frog Café. We spend the morning exploring the town. It is quite nice.

You can ride on the mail boat to the Queen Charlotte Islands and the coast and it is about a six hour ride on Saturday. We book it!

A local lady recommended the hikes around the harbour and above the town. The Tirohanga Track is quite close to our lodgings. It is quite an uphill treck for 45 minutes. Most of the trail is about a foot and a half wide with sheer drops. As we climb upwards the path forms switch backs to reach the summit. It was a grueling walk upwards…my muscles were complaining. I think Alan’s were too! After almost one hour we have reached the summit and it is worth it. The top was very cool and misty. It felt like rain was on its way. The surroundings were beautiful as you could look over the top in both directions.

Tonight we are eating pan browned kumera, a stir fry of onions and silverbeet – we call it swish chard and fresh New Zealand steaks. They call them Scotch Steaks and we call them rib eye. It was a great dinner. We met a young couple from Calgary, Scott and Christine. Scott works for the Calgary Stampede, and Christine is working as a technical writer. They are travelling from Christchurch to the North Island where they are going to retrace some or our steps.

Thursday 29th October 2009
We took the ferry from Wellington to Picton today. The ferry is a bit bigger than the Manotoulin Ferry. Our tickets were printed wrong, so we were there for the morning ferry but couldn’t get on until the afternoon. We had terrific southern winds that were almost at the force of Tuesday’s winds. I knew that I would not enjoy a three hour ferry ride in this weather. I purchased “sealegs” for motion sickness and they seemed to work. The ferry was going up and down with such ferocity waves of sea water were splashing the upper decks and windows. I was fine, until I stopped knitting, then I was not well. At least the feelings of sea sickness only lasted a short while. Since the weather was extreme, they asked all passengers to remain seated. Stewards came around with ice, bags and face cloths for the passengers. They had people with shop vacs cleaning promptly where needed. They also had people to help those in distress as many people were sick. Alan did not throw up…

The ferry was terribly late because of the weather. We decided to spend the night in Picton as we arrived after 7pm.

Wed. 28th, 2009
The warf in Wellington is beautiful. You are walking on the warf made of pilings in many places. There is poetry scattered around the warf for walkers to discover. Some is chiseled in rock and some is metal letters on the actual warf. It was really nice to come across a piece of interesting poetry. We found about seven of the twenty-two poems. Also there is another sculpture by lyle. We were not there in time to catch it in motion.

At Pier 11 there is a quilt show we stop in at. What a beautiful display. Maybe my ticket on the quilt will win!!

The Ta Papa Museum is magnificent.

Outside there is a bush walk which covers some of the local flora, fauna and rock formations observed in New Zealand. It leads to inside where we are viewing the display for the Colossal Squid. I had two favourite parts. Quite amazing. This is unlike anything we have seen before. It started back in 2007 when a fishing vessel in the Antarctic Ocean came across a Colossal Squid in one of its nets. As the squid was obviously not going to survive, it was donated to the Ta Papa museum. The next chore was to get it on ice before it would start to decay.

Once the ship returned to New Zealand, scientists from all over the world were invited to attend the unveiling of this amazing creature. It weights over 400 kgs and is almost 4 metres long. It has long tentacles and they not only wrap themselves around you, but they also have little swivel claws that can stick into its catch holding it tight, till the big beak, the size of a large parrot, chews it up. We can actually see the plasticized squid and watch a video of the catch. This was very worthwhile.

Other areas are: the Maori wing, looking at their culture and history, flora, fauna and forests of New Zealand, a section on Gold and Silver, an art wing where we saw a piece of art unlike none we have seen before.

My second favourite part was the art display. In one room was the White cloud. It is a huge room using three sides for the display is called the white cloud room. On the walls are small white blocks the size of a 2X4 X6 long. These blocks cover the walls from head height to the ceiling in waves. On every block is a different NZ word or phrase. It is absolutely amazing. Depending on where you stand you can see some of the words, but not all at once. Very inspiring art work.

At dinner we talk to our NZ friend, Clint, about New Zealand and Canada. He even wants to see some of our pictures, so we oblige him. In our case we have a bit of Maple syrup left so we pass one on to Clint for his children. I hope he enjoys it. He is very interested in construction in Canada and was pleased to see the pictures of our kitchen.

Week 6 - 27th October

Tuesday Oct 27th, 2009

We had a wicked rain storm last night and we thought the rain was coming inside the building. We slept in this morning. We try the new grapefruits, but are not too impressed and they are not quite as sweet as the ones from Annette’s tree.

The sun is trying to shine, but it is still raining slightly and we can see the remnants of the rain last night. The creeks and rivers are swollen with rain water and in one place the water was right up to the edge of the road.

Flat whites at the Mission Belle Cafe brought a pleasant surprise. It is owned by an ex school principal who retired and now runs the café. Her dining room is covered in quilts which were truly beautiful.

In Foxton, where it was extermely windy, there is a Dutch windmill in the centre of town.

We find the road into Wellington, the Hutt Valley actually, very blustery as we have a hard time keeping the car on the road. We are staying in a backpacker's lodge tonight, a cabin room with shared kitchen, bathrooms and tv room.

Tonight we had dinner with a New Zealander farmer, Clint Webber, from up Wanganui way...that was quite interesting ... will have dinner with him again tomorrow. He had lots of stories about farming sheep, herding sheep on horse back and breaking in horses for the back country.

Week 6 - 26th Oct

Monday Oct 26th, 2009

We are heading to Wanganui today.

The mountain is shrouded in cloud this morning so it’s difficult to believe that there is a giant lurking under that veiled cloak. The last time this giant erupted was 250 years ago and there is no sign of it stirring this morning, thank goodness! Despite the clouds around the mountain, the sun is shining. Behind us the clouds around the mountain move. Alan stops to catch a photo.

Our first stop is outside the town of Hawera, at the Tawhiti Museum. This heritage museum is owned by artists Nigel and Theresa Ogle. They bought the 70 yr old Tawhiti Cheese factory with the idea of turning it into a museum, to show history of South Taranaki. All the displays use both life size exhibits and scale models to capture the past in super-realistic settings. The life size figures are cast from molds of real people and are designed and built on the premises. The smaller figurines are painstakingly sculpted in wax before a mold is made. The displays are original, thought provoking and unlike anything we have seen before. This was certainly a worthwhile stop. They also have the largest collection of tractors I have ever seen. I can’t remember what kind of tractor we had as kids!

Our picnic place is Patea Beach and we take the road to the beach, not sure of what we are going to find. The road passes a golf course and there are lots of sheep on this course chasing those little white balls all over the grass. We find the road that says lookout and take it to the most beautiful bluff overlooking the Tasman Sea.

The shore line is riddled with coves each one worth exploring but the tide is in and we can’t afford the time to spend waiting for it to recede before wandering down the beach. Low tide is at 10:15 tonight!

We drove around to the shore. The beach is black iron oxide sand blown into dunes down the shore. It looks muddy at the shore as the sea churns up the sand as the wave’s crash on the beach. We watch a fellow land a nice sized fish off the pier. The water must be warmer as there is a crowd of children swimming.

Week 5 - 22nd to 25th Oct

Sunday Oct 25th, 2009
Puke Ariki museum is an artistic building close to the water, in the centre of New Plymouth. This museum begins with an award winning movie on its community, the bottom floor dedicated to photography, a second floor on the history of the community and finally a third floor on the historic perspective of the Maori people. They had Maori artifacts that farmers had dug up in their fields. It was hard to believe these wooden carvings survived.

Between the museum and the sea is an interesting feature, a kinetic sculpture, called the Wind Wand. Standing at 45 meters in height it sways with the wind. The artist, Len Lye, created this instillation for the millennium. At night it can be seen from quite a distance as it has over 1296 light bulbs in it.

Pukekura Park is the city’s premier park. It is situated nearly in the middle of town with a large pond at its centre and intersecting paths all through it. Alan and I enjoyed the azalea and rhododendron show.

This garden was packed with delightful mini-gardens in the trees and paths everywhere. The best part was the fern gardens, there were paths throughout the ferns and orchids with tunnels and stairways leading to other gardens. It was such fun!

This water sculpture is called Aoteoroa - The land of the long white cloud by artist MD Smither, 2007

We finished the day by taking an evening tramp across styles and through sheep meadows to a river bed leading to a small lake. From there we crossed another style and ran across a golf course. We weren’t sure if we were suppose to be there! But, there was a style. Crossing the final style we head onto the coastal walkway. It is over 7 km long running past the centre of town to the harbor on the other side. We don’t have to go that far. A trail leading to the sea was the best route to the shore. We scrambled over the dunes covered in grasses and through thorny gorse to the sand. It was getting quite dark and we stumbled along the shore as it was black sand with black round rocks on it. The town sparkled in the distance. What a great night for a walk along the shore.

It is a beautiful night to walk the shore.

We finally eat our cherimoya. This fruit is very good…we will have to buy another. The seeds are the size of almonds. (Thurs 22nd Oct)

Saturday Oct 24th, 2009
Today is the local farmers market. Thank goodness we decided to drive, it was such a long way from the camp, also hard to find. The market consisted of many small garage sales, like an English boot sale, plant sales and a few selling vegetables. The setting was beautiful, in a small ravine the market was on different levels of the road.

It is a small valley with a beautiful stream that flows through the middle. The buildings around the edges are built on piers right over the middle of the river and somehow they managed to stack a parking area in the same location.

We head towards the downtown core. The downtown of New Plymouth is a beautiful city with modern stores, a spectacular waterfront, and a boardwalk that runs from the port in the south to past Fitzroy in the North. Most of the board walk is at the edge of the sea with large stones protecting the shoreline. In the background is Mount Taranaki, providing a spectacular setting for a city.

The board walk begins at the harbor.

We start at Kawaroa Park where the actual walk begins. This seems to be a popular place as we meet joggers, bikers, skateboarders, strollers and roller-skates.

At Te Henui stream the fishermen fish for white bait using both

dip nets and set nets in the stream. They don’t appear to be having much luck as a dog is swimming in the steam chasing the ducks.

A little boy and his Mum show me a family of ducks with brand new goslings. They were protecting their babies from the swooping sea gulls.

These two children reminded me of Andrew and Lisa when they were little, at the lake shore in Kincardine. They ran in and out with each wave!

Alan found these little crabs on the rocks, sunning themselves!

In the evening we drive up to mount Egmont Mountain. We stop at the visitor’s centre at the base of the mountain. The mountain is almost out of the clouds as we wait for a while. It is quite cold here. Maybe tomorrow we will get a clear view of the mountain.

Friday Oct 23rd, 2009

Our next destination is New Plymouth. The traffic is heavier today as everyone is on vacation. It is the Labour Day weekend. We stop in Pirongia for a break of coffee. The land is quite flat here. Lots of small farms.

At Otorohanga, we stop here at Woolworths for groceries. We have our picnic in a park at Piopio. Today we have ham sandwiches for a change. Peanut butter and honey is our main lunch sandwich when we travel.

Further on the highway changes from rolling farm land to mountainous switch backs, ravines, gulleys and rock out croppings. It is quite beautiful here. This is a coastal road that provides glimpses of the Tasman sea with large cliffs.

As we arrive in New Plymouth, we can see Mount Taranaki in the distance. It is huge, majestic, mountain that stands out way above everything else on the horizon.

We settle into the backpackers lodge here in New Plymouth. Alan met a fella across the road from us, Joe Houston and his old Ford van, now converted into a diesel truck for pulling around his fifth wheel trailer. He started from scratch, modified the frame, motor, hydraulics, extra floating axle and all the bells and whistles. Then he picked up the fifth wheel trailer called Okanogan and it is made in Canada. He pulls it around NZ with his truck. He has real talent for fabrication.

Alan mashed two of the avocados and we ate them with salsa and nacho chips. It is very hard to find plain nacho chips here.

Close by is the beach. Alan and I walk down there after supper. There is a six km path along the shore that takes you into the downtown. The beach is fine, fine, fine black sand. It flows softly through your hands. This beach also has rocks strewn all over. They are rounded by the movement of the water and are also black. We met a couple who were just coming from their swim. They made a pact last year, to swim each day in the sea. They are eight months along in this and are glad the weather and sea are getting warmer.

Thursday Oct 22nd, 2009

This fruit, a cherimoya we bought in Kerikeri and is almost ready to eat. It is a type of custard apple with the flavor of pineapple and banana. I can’t wait to try it. Our avocados are almost ready too!!

Tomorrow we are heading south to New Plymouth. We have to book our ferry tickets here in Auckland as the car rental agency will pay half of the price. Our cost is $260 for a return trip with the discount.

For lunch today we went to Pinati’s Keke Pua ‘A in Otahuhu to try Moira and Davey’s steamed pork buns. Moira invited us into the back of the restaurant and she served us lunch of steamed pork buns, lamb buns, creamed coconut buns, German buns and banana buns. I ate them despite the gluten. Boy were they delicious! Actually, I tasted each type and Alan ate both his and finished mine.

Moira explained that many people come from far and wide to sample her steamed buns. This is authentic Samoan food and quite a busy spot as these buns are very popular.

Barbecued flavored ground pork and onion filling is surrounded by dough, and then steamed. They are served hot. These buns are not browned, but pure white. All the other buns are deep fried. I think Lamb is my favorite. Moira sent us off with a good supply of buns for later.