Beaches, hills, whales, caves and wine in the North of South, NZ

Then we arrived to South Island and Picton. Markus had checked that there should maybe be wind in Blenheim, a short drive from Picton so we went there to check. Unfortunately the wind wasn’t strong enough for kitesurfing. There was a short walk to Monkey Beach, so we went there. It was a small but nice beach with a cave, or actually a tunnel. The other end was already a bit under water so we couldn’t go through but a bit over half way though. When we returned to the car, Markus wanted to check where a small path in the forest next to a parking lot goes. There was a cave! Markus descended to the cave and it became really quiet there. With the light of the flashlight Markus walked along the bottom of the cave and looked if there would be some interesting stuff. There were few smaller paths in the cave that became a bit too narrow in the end. Markus saw interesting web hanging from the roof and wall and noticed that there is also something like larva hanging in many places. Hmmm… could it be?... Markus turned off his flashlight and yes, there were quite many glow worms! Markus found them also in other parts of the cave. Then it was time to go and ask if Edda wanted to come to see them. Edda took also her flashlight and we headed to the cave. After a while, Edda had seen enough so she left while Markus stayed for a while enjoying the view. After the cave, we had a small typical travel lunch, toast with peanut butter (as we usually have when we are driving) before we continued to Nelson.

 Monkey beach 😂

 The cave Markus found

 Glow worm web/strings

Glow worms 

 The cave with flashlight

When we arrived to Nelson, we found our hostel (Paradiso) quite easily. At a first glint it looked pretty nice. We got a noodle package and they offered veggie soup a bit later.  It was a quite big hostel and we were lucky that we had our room in a different building, because it turned out that this was “the” party hostel in Nelson… We could see it also in the kitchen. Almost nobody washed their dishes. They just left everything dirty on the tables so if one wanted to cook something, one had to wash first everything one needed. Not nice!

We had some small plans for Nelson. If there is wind, kitesurfing, if not, something else such as vineyards. Edda had read that there should be a local brewery, Sprig& Fern in Nelson, and when we drove to the hostel, we saw one nice looking pub with the brewery’s name on it so we decided to go and check it out in the evening. It was a really nice place, almost like a living room. Actually it looked like it had been a house before. They served many different beers from their own brewery, but also wines for those who do not want beer.

The next day we just wandered around Nelson, went to Church Hill 😜 and to the beach. We didn’t find the center of the town that interesting. In the afternoon, we went a bit outside Nelson to visit Waimea vineyard, because Edda had it the night before and she liked it. We had been more interested to visit the vineyard and hear about the process etc. but they offered only wine tasting. We noticed on Google maps that there is an organic vineyard, Richmond, just few kilometers away. Unfortunately, they had the same thing, just wine tasting. Well, when we were there so why not! We had four different wines and the man working there told quite a lot of how they make the wine and about their organic farming. He told us also that they have to have luck with the weather. If it’s too rainy, the grapes drink too much and they crack and often get fungus on them and the harvest is destroyed. The wines were quite ok, and few were really good. Surprisingly, Edda liked most one of the red wines we tasted. We decided to buy one bottle of that red wine so we could enjoy it with Markus’ parents when we would meet them again later on.

The Church on Church Hill

Nelson 

 Tasting some organic wines

Worlds biggest grapevine rugby ball😂

On our way back, Edda saw a place where they sold “real berry ice cream”. They have a machine that looked like a big drill. They put ice cream there, then frozen berries and more ice cream and “drilled” it to a cone. It was YAMMY! 😊 They sold also veggies, so we bought fresh corns. Then back to our lovely hostel. We had to cook some dinner for us, and yes, we had to wash the dishes we needed before cooking. After the dinner we went again to Sprig & Fern for a beer. It was just so relaxed and comfy place.

 Edda's favorite dish 😉

In the morning we drove from Nelson to Takaka, a small town next to Abel Tasman National Park. We had found a nice (actually the only place that had vacancy) hostel, Annie’s Nirvana Lodge where we took our luggage before we went to see the park. We had planned to do a 3d/2n treck on the coast, but all the huts were fully booked so we decided to do one day hikes instead. We had heard that the tip of Abel Tasman peninsula should be more beautiful than the “start” of the trecks and with less tourists so we decided to go there.

Annie's Nirvana Lodge

Yard/hang around area

 We found some weird looking stones on our way to Takaka

Well, it turned out to be a bit longer hike than we had planned. We walked totally for about 7 hours and 18km up and down in the forest, beaches and mountains. Edda’s friends, cicadas were also there. There were millions of them and they would definitely need flight lessons! They were hitting our heads all the time and Markus could easily hear when Edda was hit! 😂 A big scream every time! 😈 When we arrived to the first beach, we understood why people say it’s a beautiful place. Turquoise water, white sand, forest and green hills! Many guides say the several day’s hike can be made in sneakers, but we were happy we put our hiking boots on even for a one day hike. Yes, it can be done in sneakers because the terrain is easy, but every here and there it’s quite steep so walking many days with sneakers is not maybe that nice. It was nice to walk there and we had a lovely weather, sun and 24c with a nice breeze every now and then.

Views to the beach 😊

Edda's friends, cicadas with sound 😈

Somewhere there we walked on a path 😂

We saw few funny looking birds on our hike. They didn’t just look funny, they acted also funny. They were pecking on each other’s feet, neck and beak. It looked strange. 😉 They weren’t that shy either, because we could go quite close to them. The last part was the worst. It was a long steep uphill. We walked probably 4 km up to Gibbon’s Hill, but you should have seen the views! After the top, we had about 4 km downhill 😜

Funny looking birds doing funny things

View from Gibbson's hill

On our way back to Takaka we picked up few hitch hikers. We dropped them next to our hostel. We had planned to go to buy some food, but the grocery store had closed early, so we decided to cook the corn we bought the previous day, and rice and beans we always have 😉 Ooh, the corn was delicious!

Edda buying delicious corn

We had planned to go to Wharariki Beach and Cape Farewell, an hour drive from Takaka. We heard the day before on the radio something about whales somewhere in NZ but we couldn’t hear where. In the morning we heard that over 600 whales had stranded and over 300 had died. 😢 The stranding place was next to the places we had planned to visit so we decided that we would go and help the poor whales. We heard that if one goes to the water to help, it is mandatory to wear a wetsuit. Markus had bought a new wetsuit in Chile so we had at least one. When we arrived to the place, it was not possible to see it. They had volunteers guiding the traffic, and showing where to park. It was nice to see that there were a lot of people who wanted to help, so the fields were full of cars and more were coming all the time. We decided Markus would go first, so he put his wetsuit on and we started to walk where the whales were stranded, but luckily the tide had come and all the whales were back in the deeper waters again. Project Jonah, which organized and help to rescue whales in NZ had an information meeting at another place. We went there to hear what’s happening. They told us that for now, everything is ok but when the low tide comes, there might be again some stranded whales and volunteers are needed. The low tide was around 3pm so we had good time to explore the other sites around.

Volunteers helping the whales

Few seconds of rescued whales 

We went to Cove Farewell. We walked up to the top of the hills to discover that the views were also here amazing! We enjoyed the views and fresh sea breeze for a while before we went to Wharariki Beach. It was a 20 min walk to the beach through hills and forest. When we started to arrive there, we saw sand dunes so we took our shoes off. It was a big beach with big rocks with caves in the water. Even though there were quite many people besides us, it felt quite empty when it was so big and with sand banks etc. so we didn’t see them all the time. When we returned to the car, it felt like being again in Huacachina. We had sand everywhere and our shoes were full of it. 😂

Edda enjoying the fresh sea breeze

It was already 3pm so we started to drive to the meeting point to see if the whales needed help. When we were almost there, we saw on Project Jonah’s FB page that the whales didn’t strand during low tide, and that no more volunteers were needed. They asked that no more people would go there because they had already over 200 volunteers. It is nice to see that people like to help here in NZ. Well, then we headed towards Pupu Springs. It’s one of the clearest cold water springs in the world, and Markus read that one can see 63 meters deep in the spring. It was a short walk to the springs and yes, it was really clear water! It was quite cloudy, so the colors weren’t that bright, but it was beautiful anyway! We had few times a glint of sun and we saw that in sunshine the springs would be even more beautiful. We had been thinking of going to some cave later, but we were so hungry that we forgot it totally. We bought also some snacks for next day for our long drive to Christchurch through mountains, because the SH1 (coast and straight) road was still closed after Christchurch earthquake in September. That’s all for now and the North of South!

Pupu springs. Markus things the bigger light blue part is maybe 10 - 15 m deep