Wellington-Hanmer

Wellington.

Auckland reminded me some of San Franscisco, Wellington does much more.  The weather, the terrain, even a lot of the architecture.  For a small country, New Zealand puts out a large number of professional triathletes.  The love for triathlon was readily evident in Wellington.  I woke early from our hostel the second day, and walked down to the bay, where our car was parked.  Bouys were set out on the bay and several triathletes in wetsuits were out swimming lap, runners and cyclists were everywhere.  Wellington is obviously a very active city.  I’ve seen a lot of race flyers for local races, a bit upset I did not check these out before I came and trained for them.  There seems to be an open water swimming series also, the swim across Auckland bay will be occurring about the time we leave.

Our first day in Wellington, we did not arrive until 3pm or so and parking in the city was a hassle (had to park probably a mile away).  We decided to just cook dinner and relax for the afternoon.  We booked our ferry trip to the south island, and decided what we would do until then.  After dinner we went out on the town to sample Wellington’s night life.

Kiwi Hipsters

Wellington

Second day in Wellington we spent most of the morning at the Te Papa, a huge museum whose goal is to represent the history of New Zealand, especially the Maori people and native animals.  Most interesting was learning about all the species European colonist introduced to breed so that they could hunt, trap animals for fur, etc.  New Zealand had no native land mammals before Europeans arrived, they probably had no idea what to do with out them.  Usually these species would end up becoming pests, which they would introduce a new species to try to destroy the first.  This caused an overwhelming number of invasive species from all over the world that have decimated populations of native animals, especially the kiwi.

Later that afternoon we took the Wellington cable car to the top of one of the many tall hills in the area to see the botanical gardens.  At the gardens we spotted a bird (don’t remember the name) that has two voice boxes.  Its name means “duet” in Maori.  The 2nd voice box is the white pouch on its neck.

From Botanical Gardens

 Bird with 2 voice boxes

By that time it was time catch the ferry to the south.  We road with the Interislander cruise line.  The cruise vessels are huge boats, transporting passenger and commercial vehicles.  We waited in line for nearly an hour before driving our car aboard.  The ship had a lot of amenities, a movie theater, 2 restaurants, a lounge, a playground for children…seemed a bit excessive for the relatively short trip.  The cruise was to take 3 hours total, ending the Marlborough Sounds.  The Marlborough sounds were formed by the land mass that is the north island slowly sliding out from underneath the land mass of the northern south island.  The northern part of the south island then sank, drowning the valleys, leaving only the mountain peaks dry.  The result is hundreds of small mountainous islands and a maze of narrow ocean bays in between.  Amber began to feel queasy during the ride, and stayed at the lower deck, while I spent most of my time outside watching us leave the north.  The cruise was fairly late in the day, so we arrive at Picton after dark.  I took some pictures of the sounds on the cruise in, but would not really be able to appreciate it until morning.

Leaving Wellington

last views of the North Island

First views of the Marlborough Sounds

We had planned on camping in the Marlborough Sounds for the night.  The New Zealand Department of conversation has hundreds of “conservation campgrounds” dotted around the country.  There are 56 of these just in the sounds!  They range from no-accommodation backcountry campsites to serviced campsites with hot showers.  We are trying to camp much more to save money for other things.  Camping at these sites are not free, but quite cheap.  The site we chose was not far from Picton, on a Whatamongo Bay.  It was a very windy night, I set up camp while Amber sat in the car.

Not sure what kind of ducks these are, but they hung out with us at camp

The next morning I woke up to get the first view of our surroundings.  The Marlborough Sounds are incredibly beautiful.  The small bay we were on was mostly empty, a few sailboats moored a few hundred meters off shore were our only company (that did not move the entire time were our only company).  I took a walk out to the edge of the beach, it was low tide and I noticed several hundred mussels attached to various rocks and driftwood that were exposed by low tide.  I had read that the near by city, Havelock, was the green-lipped mussel capital of the world.  I later asked the camp host (lives in a house near by) if we could collect them to eat.  He said yes, they are quite good, NZ law allows you to collect 50 per person, per day!  He recommended we go for the green-lipped over the blue-lipped mussel, as the green are a bit meatier. Amber and I were very excited, Amber loves mussels, usually I am okay with them.  We decided to go into town to buy items for a broth to boil them in.  We needed to get cooking supplies, as I had only brought a small tea kettle for boiling water while backpacking.  Amber spotted a local second-hand shop, we got a nice cooking pot, knife, cutting board, spatula, and cooking spoon for a mere 19 nzd.  Pretty Awesome.  Amber stopped by some local bead shops to get more inspiration for jewelry she makes.

Whatamongo Bay

Sounds from Picton harbor

Picton Harbor

We returned to our campsite around noon to collect mussels and start cooking.  We wanted to leave the mussels until we were ready to cook, so that they would be super fresh.  Unfortunately, be landlocked all of our lives we did not consider the effect of the tides.  All the mussels were again submerged.  Eventually I donned my chacos and shorts and waded into the knee deep freezing water (for a half hour) collecting mussels.  I unfortunately found few of the green variety, but lots and lots of blues.  The restaurant Amber works at serves a mussel pot that she loves, and we attempted to imitate the recipe.  It turned out pretty awesome. Something like this:

Saute 3 garlic gloves and 3 shallots in plenty of butter, add 2-3 cups of dry white wine slowly
Once simmered down, add approximately 500 ml of fish stock and 2/3 a cup chopped parsley
Add mussels, simmer until open

While I am not usually a mussel-lover, these were incredible, and they don’t get much fresher.  I could not tell any difference in the green and blue lipped mussels, the green may have been slightly meatier.  In all, we probably ate 60 mussels.  I could have collected more, but it took a long time to clean all the barnacles off, and scrub all 60, and we did not have anymore room in the pot as it was.  Most definitely one of our favorite experiences so far.  We cleaned up camp and headed slightly south to the beach at Rarangi, to camp there before we headed to Blenheim to tour wineries.  The weather was still a bit cloudy and windy, so we decided to wait a day before starting wine tours (we were planning on doing these by bike).

The beach at Ranangi was just a beautiful (we camped in Whites Bay) as the one near Picton.  This campsite, however, was packed.  Beaches near by are popular surf beaches, most campers were surfers or kayakers.  I woke very early the next morning to an incredible symphony of birds singing.  It was 5 or so, and I woke Amber up to here it.  It must have been good, as she was not pissed off at me for waking here up.  We camped right by the Pukakkoe Bush Track, which I decided to trail run that morning.  There is a pretty extensive trail system there, weaving through native jungles and climbing the mountains of the Marlborough sounds.  I finally learned the names of many of these native trees, the ones in this area were rimi, rata, rewarewa, rimu, tawa and kowhai.  The tree ferns are a mix of mamaku, ponga and wheki.  After my run we quickly drove to Blenheim to find a hostel for the night, and get going on wine tours.

Sounds on the drive to Rarangi

Vineyards near out Whites Bay camp

Whites Bay

Perfect trail

View from trail

On a side note, I brought a Steripen to New Zealand to purify water.  I love my steripen, very light (pun intended?), super convenient and fast to use.  It, however, is not working.  I brought new batteries, with them installed it still flashes red, and the bulb never comes on.  I have used it ~50 times and never had a problem.  This is what is frustrating about integrating technology into camping.  Electronic devices can quit working, and you have no idea why, and there is no way to fix it in the field.  Purifying tablets never quit working, filter problems can usually be fixed in the field.  I love the steripen, but relying on it solely is scary.  I have to boil water while camping now, not a problem since we’re car camping mostly, but had it been a long backpacking trip with limited gas, I might be in trouble.

After visiting a couple of very sketchy looking hostels, we found one that would work.  The host was able to book the bike tours for us, Nigel came to pick us up shortly to take us to get bikes.  Nigel is a Brit who moved to the area and bought the Wine Tours By Bike business.  A fairly small affair, he took us to his homestead where he had probably 60-70 bikes set up to tour the wine country.  The bikes were pretty old (deore friction thumb shifters era), but decently maintained.  Nigel gave us a brief run down on all the wineries he suggested visiting (there were probably 25 in that valley), what good wines each has, good places to eat, and a proposed riding route.  We spent the day riding from winery to winery, sampling wines and enjoying the beautiful scenery.  It was especially fun to visit the Wither Hills and Cloudy Bay wineries, as we had been enjoying their wine from time to time through the trip.  The area is known especially for it Sauvignon Blanc, every winery had at least one (one winery had 3 varieties).  At Nigels suggestion we stopped for lunch at the Highfield winery, and had incredible food.  The winery and restaurant is a Spanish-style villa (I think) over looking hundreds of acres of vineyards.  We had Wild rabbit croquettes for an entrée, Amber had a seafood chowder for main, and I had the Estate Tart (some quiche-like concoction).  In New Zealand entrée is the same as our appetizer, main is the same as our entrée.  This was quite confusing to me at first.  Luckily, Amber was familiar with this since she has served Kiwi’s at the restaurant in Winter Park, and witnessed their confusion over our wording.  The food was extremely good, and decently priced.  The service in New Zealand is terrible.  Tipping is not a common custom here, and it shows.  Waitresses do not have to keep you happy to make money, so they are less concerned.  We ended our wine tours at the River Farms winery, which included olive oil grown on site.  In total we bike around 25 km and visited 7 wineries (supposed to visit 9, but couldn’t find 2) each winery was very close to the next, making it a very enjoyable ride (except that the bike was way to small).

First winery

Our trusty(?) steads

Wild rabbit croquettes

Estate Tart with Apple Walnut Salad

Seafood Chowder

Highfield Estates

The next morning we packed up, visited the local Katmandu to stock up on gas, went to one more winery and got out of town.  I had been toying with the idea of doing 4 days of backpacking, while Amber would amuse herself in Christchurch.  I decided this was not feasible with the deadline for our next Great Walk, and planned a few day hikes/summits in the Southern Alps instead.  We drove south to Kaikoura, meaning “meal of crayfish” in Maori.  The area is known for its abundance of sea life, whales, dolphins, seals, etc.  Along the drive we stopped and observed many fur seal colonies, hanging out on the rocks just off the highway.  There are 2 snow capped mountain ranges near by, the Inland Kaikoura and the Seaward Kaikoura ranges.  These make for beautiful scenery, rough rocky beaches with snow capped mountains behind.  Whale watching was the only thing we were interested in Kaikoura, and it was quite expensive.  We continued southwest to the town of Hanmer Springs.  The drive (as all have been) was incredibly beautiful.  I am constantly amazed at how green everything is.  The mountains are covered in lush green forests, the valleys are carpeted in thick green grass, covered in grazing sheep, cows and deer.  Yes, deer, deer are farmed just like sheep and cows here, except the fences are much higher.  These appear to be a different species of deer than I have seen.  I think they may be red deer from England, I know from the Te Papa museum that these were imported for sport hunting many years ago.  Hanmer Springs is the largest hot springs resort in the south island.  It is set up in the mountains next to a ski resort.  There are many pools, varying by temperature.  We went to the local YHA hostel (quite nice), and will go relax in the springs before heading down to Christchurch.