Christmas Break (Day 8)

Today (New Year's Eve), we drove from Hutt Valley (outside of Wellington) to Whakapapa Village near Tongariro National Park. It was about a 4.5 hour drive. Fairly uneventful day really. We got a bit of a late start since we got in on the ferry so late the night before. Once we made it to Whakapapa Village, we found a nice little DOC campsite called Mangahui where we set up the tent. This is a really nice isolated campground that cost only $4.00 per night for a tent site. The sites are great - separated nicely from each other and right near a hiking trail and stream.

After setting up camp, we headed in to Whakapapa Village to visit the DOC info center to try to plan our trip on the Tongariro Alpine Crossing for the following morning. The weather was not looking that great with high winds expected, but the day was supposed to improve towards the afternoon. We were a bit skeptical, especially after the first bus service we called said that they cancelled trips for the following day due to weather (it is recommended to take a bus to the start of the track then they will pick you up at the end of the track later in the day), but the next bus company we called said that the weather should be OK so we decided to do it. After visiting the info center, we headed further up Mount Ruapehu to check out the ski slopes and lifts. Since it's summer time, they do not have skiing at the moment, however, according to the DOC person, sometimes they do, but due to a lot of rain this December, there was not enough snow remaining. It looks pretty cool and I've heard that the skiing is great from some of my colleagues but sounds pretty busy in winter time as they get around 10,000 skiers many days. Maybe I'll give it a shot this winter.

After checking things out, we headed into town to get a few groceries then made some dinner - chili and kumara (like a cross between a potato and sweet potato). We had a couple beers in preparation for New Years, but then it started to rain. It was only around 9:00 but since we were camping and it was raining, there was not a whole lot to do. By about 10:00, we decided to head to bed - not much of a New Year's celebration but we knew we had a big day ahead of us. Due to the rain, Dan decided to sleep in the car. I chanced the tent and it turned out OK as the rain fly held the water out and I had a dry (although cold and noisy due to the rain) night's sleep.

View of Mt. Ruapehu from the road

Scenic view of Mt. Ruapehu

Kiwi on skis sign - we didn't see any kiwis, unfortunately

The lifts up Mt. Ruapehu - pretty busy in winter

Our campsite at Mangahui

Christmas Break (Day 7)

Today we woke up and took our time a bit around the campground. We had to pack up to leave the Pohara Beach Holiday park and eventually make it to the Interislander Ferry in Picton for the 10:10 PM crossing back to Wellington. The ferry terminal was only around 3 hours away so we had plenty of time to check some more things out around the area.

We started off by heading to Wainui Falls which was near Pohara Beach. This was a pretty quick hike back into the woods to see the waterfall. It was pretty cool - we got to cross another suspension bridge along the way. The falls were pretty, but the water nearby was pretty rough and freezing cold so we didn't go in.

After the falls, we gradually made our way back towards Picton. One highlight that we wanted to see was Harwood's Hole which is supposedly one of the deepest caves in the southern hemisphere. It was an 11 KM drive off of the main highway on a one-lane gravel road with a steep cliff drop-off on the other side. We made it about half way up the track when we saw some people standing around as if they were hosting some sort of event. Sure enough, it was apparently the first day of the Canaan Downs Music Festival. This was some sort of big hippy event held down by the cave each year that is pretty famous in the area I guess. The people wanted us to buy tickets for the event, but we just wanted to see the cave. They warned us that since so many people were coming in, it would be tough to get back out if we didn't turn back soon, so after a bit of thought, we decided to take their advice and head back. Sure enough, as soon as we started driving back, a big hippy bus was coming around the corner causing a road block. We had a bit of a standoff then more cars came in behind the bus. The only thing for me and a couple other cars going my way to do was to back up about a half mile until the road widened enough for the bus to pass. This was very stressful as there was a ditch on one side of the road and a cliff on the other. Eventually we made it far enough, but all these hippies got out of there cars and were trying to direct traffic. Some large sloppy hippy got out of her car and was trying to direct me around the bus - I had plenty of room if only she would get out of the way instead of telling me what to do. After me screaming at her and losing my mind, she finally moved and I was able to pass. We met a bunch more cars coming in as I was trying to get out that were a bit easier to navigate around but still caused a big delay getting out of there. Needless to say I was quite stressed out by the time we got back to the highway.

We still had a lot of time so we decided to take a three-hour walk on the Takaka Hill Walkway. This was supposed to be a three-hour hike with some great sea views and lots of marble rocks to see. It turned out to be pretty awful. The track was not used much so it was overgrown in a lot of areas. There wasn't much to see in the way of marble and not really any good sea views. There were all sorts of pricker bushes along the way that were driving Dan and I crazy. The only sort of cool thing was that there were a bunch of sink-holes along the way due to the number of caves underground in the area. We were bored pretty quickly so moved pretty fast when able and fortunately finished the track in about an hour and a half.

Then, we pushed on towards Picton. Since we finished the track ahead of schedule, we had time to stop along the way for dinner. We ended up going to a really nice place called The Clansman in Havelock where we got a big platter of their famous green-lipped mussels which are larger than mussels we have back home and are native to the area. These were actually really good -I didn't realize that I liked mussels.

After dinner, we traveled on to the ferry, caught a bit of sleep on the ride over, then went back to the Hutt Park Holiday Park. We arrived at 1:30 AM, and of course they messed up our reservations again. Oh well, they straightened it out quickly and we were off to bed in another bunk cabin immediately.

Me on a suspension bridge on the way to Wainui Falls.

Wainui Falls

Me and Dan at the falls

A close-up of an opening fern - symbol of New Zealand

A full fern which is also a symbol of New Zealand

Sign for Canaan Downs Music Festival and Harwoods Hole - would have been nice if they put people at the entrance to collect tickets rather than 5 KM in.

View from the Takaka Hill Hike

Black and White picture with only yellow visible

Dan struggling through the pricker bushes

One of the big sink-holes along the Takaka Hill walkway

Video of Dan struggling through the pricker bushes

Christmas Break (Day 6)

Today was a pretty busy day. We started the day off right with some eggs and bacon on the grill. Just as we were finishing breakfast a truck drove by handing out free samples of Sol Beer (kind of like Corona). It was still early in the morning but, oh well, we were on holiday and it was free so we obliged. Next, we headed out to a place recommended by some of the campers called Rawhiti Cave. We didn't really know what to expect. People warned us that the hike up is pretty steep, and they weren't kidding. It was a relatively short hike - only about 45 minutes but practically straight uphill. The hike was definitely worth it though. The cave was amazing. It had all sorts of stalactite formations hanging from the top of the cave. They grew is strange shapes as they shifted out towards the sun. We explored the cave for a bit and hiked down to the bottom of it over some pretty slippery rocks, but luckily didn't fall and impale ourselves.

After the cave, we headed on to the Pupu Springs (Te Waikoropupu) which are supposed to be the some of the clearest in the world. It was pretty cool, but since there was so much water bubbling up, it made it tough to see too clearly. There was an ex-hippy DOC guy there who told us that the water at the Info Center in town is pumped directly from the springs underground and is some of the best in the world. They sell the water in the info center for about $3 a bottle but the water coming from the spigot outside is the same source (apparently the locals go there to get water) so we filled our water jugs up for free. It was pretty good, but still just water. The hippy DOC guy also told us about a place nearby called Wharariki Beach. Note that it is pronounced "Firariki" - the "WH" sound in New Zealand is pronounced like an "F". He said to go at low tide in order to see all the caves and cool places on the beach. He mentioned that it is a great place to "play" and the caves are "magical" and he claimed to see faces in the rocks there. Although that was an odd description, we were an hour away from low tide so decided to go check it out.

Whararike beach did turn out to be an amazing place. The beach was huge and almost completely deserted. There were beautiful sand dunes, lots of caves, rock formations out in the water, and a bunch of seals around the area. We spent a good bit of time walking around, exploring the caves, and watching the seals. I didn't see any faces in the caves but it was still a pretty cool place, probably one of my favorites. I couldn't believe that such a beautiful place is not commercialized at all. There was hardly anyone there at all and we actually had to hike about 20 minutes across private farm land just to get there. This place would have certainly had a few resorts on it if it were in the U.S. It is located up near Farewell Cape (a skinny peninsula jutting out from the northwest corner of the south island) on the South Island. The map below shows approximately where we were at:



After spending a good bit of time at Wharariki beach, we gradually made our way back to the Holiday Park. At least this night, we were able to move out of the overflow camping area into our own site which was nicer. On the way back to Pohara Beach, we stopped in at a local bar/restaurant that had been recommended to us by a number of people called the Mussell Inn. It was quite an interesting place the brewed its own beer and had a large shaded outdoor eating/chilling out area. This place had some normal people but also was hippy heaven. There were a bunch of weirdos there and it felt like we stepped back in time to the 60s. There were young hippies but also a lot of older hippies that appeared not to have changed much from the 60s, including our DOC guy that we met at the Pupu springs - he showed up in a long flowing white robe-looking outfit. It was fun people-watching until the hippy band came on and everyone started dancing all strange so we decided to get out of there and head back to the campground. It was another busy but great day.

Dan posing with grilled bacon and eggs breakfast

Me with the free early morning beer

Dan posing at the penguin crossing sign - we didn't see any, unfortunately

Me with the entrance to Rawhiti cave in the background

Strange stalactites at Rawhiti Cave

Dan at the entrance of Rawhiti Cave

Another shot of the stalactites

Looking down into the cave

Me on the way down into the cave

Looking up at the entrance of the cave from the bottom

Pupu Springs

Pupu Springs (Video)

Wharariki Beach

Me on Wharariki Beach

Rock formations out in the water at Wharariki Beach

Dan in a cool little tide pool at Wharariki Beach

Dan out in the water (there are supposedly pretty strong rip tides so we didn't go out far)

Southern fur seal on the rocks at Wharariki Beach

A seal staring us down at the beach - supposedly it's dangerous to stand between a seal and the beach because they bite people so we moved out of its way

The seal pulling itself out of one of the tide pools

The seal when he got bored with us and didn't want to attack anymore

Dan in front of one of the many caves on Wharariki Beach - they go back in pretty far

One of the caves was dripping water into the sand causing these little pillars where rocks were blocking the drips - thought it looked pretty cool

Me on Wharariki Beach again

Me on one of the sand dunes at Wharariki Beach

The pretty landscape on the walk back from the beach

The walk to Wharariki beach across private farm land

Since we are in New Zealand, I figured we needed a picture of sheep

Here's a video of the seal swimming right near us in a tide pool

Christmas Break (Day 5)

Well, the tent held up last night. Today, we left Bark Bay fairly early as we had a lot of paddling to do. We continued along the coast for a bit to Tonga Island to check out some more seals. There were a lot more of them on this island compared to the Pinnacle Island colony. We even saw some of the seal pups. The water was a bit choppy out this way, but not too bad. After we checked out the seal colony, we headed straight back to Marahau stopping only once on a little unnamed beach near the Anchorage Bay area. We were gearing up here for the "Mad Mile" again, but it turned out to be very tame compared to the day before. With no problems there, we steadily made our way back taking the coastline along the way. It was another beautiful sunny day.

We were originally scheduled to take the evening ferry back up to the North Island and were going to go up the the Bay of Islands up north of Auckland, but the weather was so nice and we were enjoying ourselves so we decided to stay down south for a bit. Fortunately, I bought fully changeable ferry tickets, so we called them up and postponed it a couple of days. On the advice of one of the staff members of the Ocean River Kayak Company, we decided to drive an hour or so to nearby Golden Bay.

We didn't have any accommodation planned and didn't realize how busy it gets here over the summer time. It's not a ton of people, but since the towns in Golden Bay are pretty small, they fill up quickly. Fortunately, we found another Top 10 Holiday Park at Pohara Beach. This wasn't the best place for camping as it was pretty crowded. They did not have any available cabins and only overflow campsites for the evening so we had to suck it up and pitch the tent on a piece of grass out in the open. It didn't turn out to be too bad.

The things people have at the campsites are ridiculous. Apparently this is a pretty popular place for families to come to every year over the holidays. Most of them come for weeks at a time. I have never seen so many gigantic tents here. People put up big tents practically the size of houses. They have electric hookups and people bring refrigerators, flat screen TVs, and washers and dryers to hook up in their tents. Some of them also had real bunk beds in them. I guess people pack up their whole house in a trailer then pull everything back out at the campsite. I meant to get some pictures but unfortunately forgot. Oh well, the people were pretty interesting. Some of the older ladies came over and talked to Dan and me about my grill that I brought because they thought it was really cool and different than anything they had seen before. They explained that everyone in the campground tries to show each other up each year with new gadgets, bigger tents, etc. so they wanted to know where they could get a grill like mine. They were a bit disappointed when I told them I shipped it over from the U.S. but some of them had family over there so I can just imagine that the campground will be full of grills like mine next year.

After a long day of paddling and driving, we hung out for the evening, made some food, then cooked some make-shift s'mores over a little gas burner that I had. They do not have Grahm Crackers or the right kinds of marshmallows here, but we did OK.

View of Bark Bay from our Kayak as we headed out

Tonga Island fur seals on the rocks.

A little deserted beach near Anchorage where we stopped before the Mad Mile

Coming back to shore in Marahau

The Beast in its element on the way to Golden Bay

Make-shift s'mores at our campsite in Golden Bay

Christmas Break (Day 4)

Dan and I woke up at the crack of dawn today and luckily to another beautiful day. The water was completely calm which was much different from the previous afternoon. We cooked up some scrambled eggs on the grill then headed over to the kayak place to get started.

As there was no instruction necessary today, we were able to get right out on the water. I sat in the back of the kayak so I had the responsibility of steering us with the foot pedals for the rudder. The plan for the day was to kayak from Marahau to Bark Bay where we would spend the night at a DOC campground. The DOC is the New Zealand Department of Conservation. They run the national parks and have a bunch of campgrounds throughout the country. See the map below to get an idea of where we headed. For a larger image, click here.

The day was pretty hot and very sunny. The water was a beautiful deep blue. There were all sorts of beaches along the way - some only accessible by kayak while others were part of the Abel Tasman Coastal Track which is a multi-day hike that I will probably come back and do sometime. We stopped off to rest and relax at several beaches along the way. I can't remember exactly which ones they were, but I think it was at Stillwell Bay and an unnamed one near Boundary Bay. These beaches were deserted and beautiful. We brought a few beers along with us so had a beer and relaxed on the sand for a while. At the one beach, these old ladies came down from a house somewhere hidden up on the hill and proceeded to start sunbathing topless - not the prettiest of sites so that was when it was time to hit the water again.

For the most part, the seas were calm, however, when we got to the area known as the "Mad Mile" which stretches the length of Te Pukatea Bay where the land juts out until Anchorage, it got a bit rough. The wind picked up immediately and created some fairly large white-capped swells that we had to fight through. It was pretty tiring and a bit unnerving but we were able to get through.

We carried on to Pinnacle Island where there are colonies of Southern Fur Seals. It was cool to see them, but they smelled terrible. It is seal pup season so we were only allowed to get 20 meters away from them but still pretty cool to see. Then we fought on to Bark Bay where we would camp for the evening. For some reason, it was quite a struggle to get to the beach on Bark Bay - I think the tides and winds kept pushing us out so it was a bit demoralizing until we finally arrived. This place had another really nice beach area and the campsites were within 15 feet of the beach. It is one of the more popular camp sites so it got pretty full. Dan and I were there relatively early (4:00 PM) so we got a good site, but for some reason, people immediately started setting up camp right next to us - a bit annoying but not much we could do about it.

We explored the area for a while - there were starfish everywhere in the tide pools. We also took a hike along part of the Coastal Track to see some waterfalls which turned out not to be overly impressive, but it was still a nice hike.

While we were off exploring, the wind really picked up again. It got so windy that it actually snapped one of the fiberglass tent poles so our tent was leaning over lopsided when we returned. With a little ingenuity, we were able to rig the much shorter rain fly pole to the broken pole and brace it together with nylon straps to the good pole to keep it upright for the night. Fortunately, the wind died down later that evening - not sure what we would have done if it didn't hold as we were miles away from any roads, let alone camping stores.

We cooked up a great dinner of ramen noodles, tuna fish, and granola bars then hit the sack after an exhausting but fun day.

Setting off in the kayak from Marahau

Me in the kayak (had foot pedals to steer us with the rudder)

Dan in the front of the kayak

Time for a beer on our first stop (Stillwell Bay, I think)

Our kayak on Stillwell Bay

Dan exploring the caves on Stillwell Bay

View out over the water on our second pit stop near Boundary Bay

The Beach near Boundary Bay

Another shot of the beach

Playing around with the camera functions - Black and White photo with only the color blue showing up

Climbing up a the cliffs near Boundary Bay

A seal on Pinnacle Island (He's not looking at us, though)

Starfish in the tide pools at Bark Bay

View of the beach at Bark Bay

Entrance to the campsite at Bark Bay

View from the Coastal Track near Bark Bay

Another view from the Coastal Track near Bark Bay with New Zealand ferns

Exploring Bark Bay

The waterfall we hiked out to see - OK, but not overly impressive

Our campsite at Bark Bay

The following are a couple of videos from our kayak trip: