Gone walkabout

Wikipedia says that Franz Josef Glacier, together with the Fox Glacier 20 km to the south, is unique in descending from the Southern Alps to less than 300 metres above sea level amidst a lush green temperate rainforest. We had to take their word for it, because everything was wrapped in a thick blanket of grey clouds when we got there.

Well it was time to do some travel planning anyway and we decided to stay at the Top10 holiday park in ‘Franz’ until the clouds disappear. Time enough to get familiar with glacier country and learn that Franz Josef Glacier was named after Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria by German explorer Julius von Haast in 1865. A german explorer naming a cool place after an Austrian emperor?? How did that happen?? The Maori were definitely more creative and called the glacier ‘Ka Roimata o Hinehukatere’ (Tears of the Avalanche Girl). Legend tells of a girl losing her lover who fell from the local peaks, and her flood of tears freezing into the glacier.

At night we went on an expedition to visit the rarest of all Kiwis, the Rowi or Okarito Brown Kiwi, in his natural environment with nature guide Ian Cooper. Imagine 8 clumsy tourists stumbling along a dark forrest path and then waiting motionless for what felt like hours trying to catch a glimpse of a chicken sized bird while the mosquitoes were having a feast 🙂 But thanks to Ian and his telemetry equipment we finally did hear and see a pair of the elusive little birds in the wild and felt like proud explorers on the way home … nether the less we also went into the Kiwi wildlife centre at Franz Josef village the next day to get a real close up look of these funny little birds in a nocturnal bird house.

Sadly the Okarito Brown Kiwi (like many other indigenous bird species in New Zealand) is on the brink of extinction due to immigrated stouts, possums, cats and dogs wreaking havoc in the local bird population. Not even the millions of stout and possum traps you’ll find across New Zealand’s national parks or regular roadkill seem to significantly decrease their numbers. It’s only thanks to the relentless efforts of DOC and the Kiwi wildlife centre that the number of Rowi in the wild increased from 200 to 375 in recent years. Volunteers are hatching the eggs in the centre and rearing young ones on secluded and pest free offshore islands before releasing them back in the wild when they are big enough to defend themselves against most predators.

On our ‘lazy day’ we also did a short walk to the bottom of Franz Josef glacier and were surprised/disappointed/shocked by how far the glacier has retreated over the last few decades. And who would have thought that a glacier looks that … dirty … up close and personal with all that rock gravel covering the dirty thick ice? Not exactly what we thought a glacier would look like and certainly nothing like the pictures in brochures.

falling ice … falling rocks. Potato … potato.

glacier surfing in Franz Josef

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And then on our second day in ‘Franz’ we woke up to a bright blue sky and it was time for our heli-hike to Franz Josef glacier:

blue sky over Franz Josef

ready for takeoff

ready for takeoff

… walking on a glacier!

grampons … really helpful when walking on a glacier

Yumm – fresh glacier water

window to the sky

Bea jumping over the ice

ice sculpture

ice sculpture

After our glacier adventure we enjoyed the complimentary entrance to the Glacier Hot Pools before leaving Franz Josef village en route to Fox glacier.

Venturing further down the West Coast we decided on a detour to Arthur’s Pass, one of the three mountain passes crossing New Zealand’s Southern Alps (yes, someone was really creative with the name here 🙂 ).

The mountain scenery was just breathtaking and we spontaneously stayed the night at a DOC campsite right next to one of these massive scenic rocky riverbeds with ice cold water you find everywhere in New Zealand. Too bad sandflies also seem to love beautiful mountain panoramas and we had to flee into our car for dinner before locking ourselves away into our tent for the night! Brrrrrrr

Klondyke Corner campsite backyard views

I guess that’s the Klondyke river then?

crystal clear and freezing cold mountain water

this picture is still giving me the creeps just from looking at all the sandflies

Apart from nasty sandflies and immigrated Himalayan Bull Tahr and European Chamois (brought over from bored European hunters) the mountains of the Southern Alps are also home to one of the funniest birds of New Zealand: the Kea. These inquisitive and super smart mountain parrots can apparently become quite a pest when they curiously disassemble car fixings or shred whole tents searching for yummy snacks, but they are also the cutest little fellas when they check you out on a car park 🙂

“Good morning mate, I’m from the Kea car inspection squad. Registration and drivers license please!”

“WHAT! You’re still driving this crappy old car??”

“Let’s have a look at your tires, son.”

“See … right there … almost no profile left!”

“Could you maybe just look the other way this once? Please?”

“Oh well, just this once son. Off you go … but seriously! Get a decent car!”

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The next morning we did a short hike to Devil’s Punchbowl Waterfall before heading back down Arthur’s Pass to Blackball … world famous for it’s salami and the “formerly Hilton Blackball” which was renamed after a certain global hotel chain got a bit antsy about the name.

Devil’s Punchbowl Waterfall from afar

Devil’s Punchbowl Waterfall closer up

Devil’s Punchbowl Waterfall … really close

WHAT IS THAT? A mini helicopter????

This river looked really easy to cross from the distance … but we ended up taking the swing bridge after all.

Bea is leaving a small stone tower for future visitors

The road south was taking us right into these dark clouds

The “formerly” Hilton Blackball

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The next stop was Hokitika, with a beach covered in driftwood sculptures crafted by the wind and waves or other creative minds:

… lost between the driftwood …

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That night we put our tent up at the Goldfields DOC campground and were greeted by yet another Weka. I have a suspicion that these birds secretly work for the DOC making sure we’re all putting our overnight fees in the honesty boxes! Unfortunately we did not stumble across a huge gold nugget in the riverbed that all these gold diggers had missed in the last 100 years digging up the small river searching for the precious metal.

Luckily places like the magnificent Hokitika gorge have survived the gold rushes and were preserved for future generations in all their splendour:

It wasn’t easy for us to leave cute Takaka and the cozy Bed & Breakfast of Serge and Marie, but there was still so much of New Zealand left for us to explore! So after four blissfully lazy days we were thoroughly relaxed and turned south west to the rugged West Coast of South Island (with a glass of fresh home-made plum jam from Marie in our food basket 🙂 ).

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On the West Coast we met the most terrifying and blood thirsty of all creatures of New Zealand. Every New Zealand traveller will already know, who we’re talking about. The undisputed ruler of the West Coast. THE RUTHLESS AND EVER BLOOD HUNGRY SANDFLY! Millions and millions of them in fact.

“Maori legend imaginatively explains the presence of Fiordland’s famously large sand flies: The goddess Te Hine-nui-te-po released the sandfly to stop people from lingering too long in the beauty of the fiords.” (newzealand.com)

Back in Australia we had already heard stories about sandflies haunting pristine white beaches in Queensland, but we’ve never seen them in person. During our travel in New Zealand so far we had been fairly lucky as well and only encountered a few of them on the Abel Tasman Track. They actually don’t look too scary … rather smallish, slowish, not too different from an average fruit fly and just as easy so swat.

Well nothing had quite prepared us for what was awaiting us on the West Coast! Those monster just laugh about German Autan, NZ supermarket insect repellent brands like Off or Aerogard (why do they bother to sell that useless stuff at all?). Eating loads of Vegemite or the Kiwi equivalent Varmite supposedly helps, but we either didn’t eat enough or it is not working for German backpackers. The only thing that seems to help is covering every square millimetre of your body with Australian Bushman insect repellent with minimum 40% DEET! Even then you can be guaranteed that hordes of these (female) bloodsuckers will find the one microscopic spot you missed. And instead of sucking a little blood and leave, like civilized and merciful mosquito, they BITE you again and again and again to feast on the blood pouring out of the bite wounds leaving you with numerous red spots terribly itching for days and weeks.

On a more positive note, once you’ve accepted the rule of the sandflies, the West Coast is really stunning with quite a lot to do and see 😉

Deserted gold and coal mines are riddling the countryside:

Mitchells Gully gold mine in Charlestown with one of those old school West Coast gold diggers

chicken are guarding the entrance to the old mine

the whole mountain in riddled with tunnels and holes documenting the pursuit for gold

Is this gold dust?

After meeting some of the six and eight legged inhabitants of this abandoned mine tunnel we weren’t really that much interested where it will ultimately lead …

… Bea likes chicken a lot more than tunnel spiders 🙂

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Pancake rocks of Punakaiki:

Punakaiki pancake rocks … I don’t want to boast, but my pancakes look way more yummy than that!

Lazy seals lounging on the rocks of Cape Foulwind

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Fiery sunsets:

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Charming Creek Walkway following the derelict rail tracks of an old coal and timber enterprise:

“Can we take the train instead of walking the whole way?”

“Sorry honey. Seems like the train broke … like 100 years ago.”

remnants of the old coal mining and timber industry could be seen all along the 3 hour walk

“Let’s have a quick rest here”

The rail tracks were leading the way through tunnels …

… across bridges …

… and past beautiful waterfalls. I doubt the miners of old did much appreciate it on their daily 2 hour ride to and from work on top of coal filled rail wagons.

“Thirsty!”

Hey look! Another Weka.

“Cool! I found coal” 🙂

what a nice piece of coal

Time for some exercise

Wolfgang just hanging out 🙂

old locomotive

old sawmill steam engine

old boiler

A few hours drive from the Abel Tasman Track brought us to Golden Bay on the north west corner of South Island where we at last had a steak and beer in the Mussel Inn as reward for finishing the great walk.

Mussel Inn

Steak and beer … reward for five days of walking!

After dinner all we were looking forward to was a long hot shower and a nice warm bed … too bad the “hot tub near the creek” in our rather disappointing hostel turned out to be a rusty overgrown old bathtub 😦 Not exactly the kind of place we were hoping for and we left rather early next morning and drove to Collingwood for breakfast!

Collingwood beachfront

“When can we move in?”

Collingwood beachfront

Collingwood Courthouse Cafe

“Here kitty kitty kitty”

“Hmmmnnnnjaaaa”

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WOW, Golden Bay is really really beautiful! Totally laid back with a relaxed Hippie flair and far away from everywhere else. Even the people living there refer to a shopping trip in the next bigger city as “going over the hill” 🙂 So what do you do when your feet are sore and the weather is supposed to be rainy for the next few days? Well we found the cutest little Bed & Breakfast in Takaka and adjusted to hippie time. Initially we only planned to stay two nights at the Waitapu Springs B&B, but Serge and Marie were such great hosts that we extended our stay twice. The huge breakfast buffet, fresh plums straight from the tree, a Spa right outside the door and a beautifully lazy atmosphere for reading and doing nothing made it almost impossible to leave at all.

Oh what a rainy day …

Waitapu Springs B&B

lounge area and living room

our room at Waitapu Springs B&B

this is what a B&B bathroom should look like

Spa area with hot tubs and wood fired sauna

Spa area lounge room

Spa area neighbours 🙂

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Takaka Hippie Heaven

Takaka street art

Takaka street art

Takaka street art

Takaka street art

Raiders of the lost arc 🙂

Takaka church

Hippie kingdom

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Dangerous kitchen graffiti

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OK we did not just bum out completely in Takaka. A day tip brought us to Te Waikoropupu Springs – ‘Pupu Springs’ – where about 14,000 litres of water per second surges from underground vents dotted around the reserve. Looks beautiful, but swimming or even touching is a no-no! At least we could refill our water bottles there 😉

Ok here’s the thing: Bea loves horses … and I’ve never been a huge fan of these big animals. So this was only the second time since we know each other that she managed to get me onto one! Well and I have to admit that it was definitely more fun than our last experiment in Songpan, China 8 years ago 🙂

From the Picton ferry landing we went straight to Motueka at the southern tip of the Abel Tasman national park for some sunny days, getting ready for our next adventure:

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The Abel Tasman Coast Track is one of New Zealand’s 10 Great Walks and our biggest hiking challenge so far: 65km from Marahau in the south to Whariwharangi in the north.

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Day 1 (12.4km) Marahau to Anchorage

at the start of the track

still fresh and smiling

On Monday we left our car at the entrance of the Abel Tasman National Park to tackle the 65km long Abel Tasman Coast Track. Our backpacks were heavy with all the equipment and approx.  12kg food and drinks for the five day journey. Our first night we stayed quite luxuriously on board of the Aquapackers floating backpackers in Anchorage. What is normally an empty and quiet bay was teeming with boats thanks to the annual regatta of the Nelson yacht club. While scheming with the other people on board on how we could steal the flags of all the other boats during the cover of night, we enjoyed the evening BBQ (although it meant that we would have to continue carrying our full provisions the next day).

The Aquapacker. “Just wait on the beach and wave between 4pm and 6pm for us to pick you up”

Aquapacker mess area

Our ‘private cabin’ … good thing we did not have to sleep with the riffraff below deck 🙂

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Day 2 (13.5km) Anchorage to Bark Bay via Cleopatra pools
The next morning greeted us with grey rain and none of the people on board were particularly looking forward to leave the boat for a day of hiking in the rain.

BBQ deck

Leaving Anchorage in pouring rain

But since our skipper predicted the rain to continue all day there was no reason to put it off any longer than necessary and after a quick breakfast we put our rain jackets to good use on the way from Anchorage to Bark Bay … where we arrived four hours later in beautiful sunshine. You can’t even trust the weather forecast of a skipper in New Zealand any more!

Cleopatra Pools … funny that nobody wanted to take a swim on that day?

Yay! Another swing bridge!

Bark Bay Hut: pick your bunk bed for the night!

Bark Bay Hut

The sleeping room

Our two bunks

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Day 3 (11.4km) Bark Bay to Awaroa
The weather could not have been better for hiking and the coastal views were just mesmerising. The walk led us along the golden beach of Onetahuti Bay and high above turquoise blue coves. The last couple of hundred metres to Awaroa Hut held a surprise for us as we actually had to wade through the incoming tide to reach our destination. The little Weka (who is apparently rather shy and hard to find elsewhere in New Zealand) was quite curious about our stuff and not at all frightened. And guess what we had for dinner? No, not Weka! Pasta with tomato sauce 😉 (just as the night before) By now we also knew most of the other travellers who stayed at Awaroa hut from the night before in Bark Bay and it was a fun evening.

“My backpack is still sooo big!”

*g*

turquoise blue cove

view of Onetahuti bay

planked walkway in Onetahuti bay

the last few hundred metres had us wading through high tide

Awaroa Hut

Awaroa Inlet estuary at high tide … this is where we would have to walk across the next morning.

Mr. Weka inspecting my jandals: “not the right walking shoes!”

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Day 4 (16.6km) Awaroa to Whariwharangi via Totaranui and Gibbs Hill
Day 4 was by far the longest and toughest hike of our great walk and luckily the weather was really nice and our backpacks began to lighten with the food of the last few days gone. Early morning saw us wading through low tide at the Awaroa inlet estuary, which was fully flooded the day before at high tide.

Awaroa estuary at low tide

Awaroa estuary crossing

Afterwards the path went up steeply for about an hour on the way to Goat Bay and further on to Totaranui (where exhausted hikers pass through a huge campground with lazy people who got there by car – pah!).

Goat Bay beach

Totaranui campground

And because it was such a nice day we decided to take the path across Gibbs Hill instead of the easy coastal alternative … let’s just say we were REALLLY glad and REALLLY exhausted when we finally arrived at Whariwharangi Hut, where our fellow hikers and  another Weka greeted us. After three days of cold showers even a bath in the Tasman Sea was not that freezing any more – ok who are we kidding? It was still f…. cold 😉

Gibbs Hill … we finally made it

Gibbs Hill … resting our hurting feet

Gibbs Hill view

Gibbs Hill winding downhill

swamp crossing

Whariwharangi Hut

What luxury! We had our own bunk room 🙂

Sharing our dinner (yepp, pasta again) with Mr. Weka

There’s only one way into the cold sea … RUN!

“Cold, cold cold”

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Day 5 (10.9km) Whariwharangi to Totaranui via Separation Point
With the backpacks nearly empty the walk from Whariwharangi back to Totaranui along the coastal track almost felt like a stroll in the park and we had plenty of time for a detour to visit the lighthouse and the seals at Separation Point.

Separation Point lighthouse

Separation Point lighthouse

Bea resting with the seals

Wolfgang resting with the seals

“Where the heck are these seals?”

spot the seal 🙂

climb down to Separation Point

spotting Bea?

Mutton Cove

Mutton Cove

Aehm … well … yeah … (“NO we are not there yet!”)

Back in Totaranui there was just enough time left to join the lazy people sunbathing at the beach before our water taxi brought us back to the start of our walk in Marahau.

At the end of the ride the water taxi was pulled out of the water by this tractor for a short ride on land.

WOW! What a trip! Exhausted but really happy we joined civilisation and were looking forward to a nice hot bath, a big steak and a beer 🙂

After almost four weeks on the North Island we crossed the Cook Strait from Wellington to Picton on board of the Kaitaki interislander ferry. Luckily our ship stayed all in one piece unlike the Aratere which lost a propeller in November, midway through a crossing from Picton to Wellington … just on time for the Christmas peak travel season.

Interislander in Wellington

Interislander at sea

Interislander in Picton

The 3 1/2 hour boat trip was rather uneventful (apart from a surprisingly large number of people who disagreed quite badly with the rolling of the ship in the open ocean – *urgh*).

Bye bye Wellington …

… South Island here we come!

Queen Charlotte sound

mussel farm in Queen Charlotte sound

Queen Charlotte sound from Picton landing

Windy Wellington

From Waiohine gorge it was only a small hop to New Zealand’s capital Wellington on the southern end of North Island. And “Windy Wellington” did it’s best to earn it’s nickname during our four day visit and despite beautiful sunshine it never quite felt like real summer. Well our visit wasn’t really about the city anyway and more about an eight month old bundle of joy called Sophia … oh and a tiny little bit about visiting her parents Birgit and Cristian as well 😉

Sophia

Birgit, Sophia and Cristian

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Afternoon at the beach … and ‘yes’ it was windy 🙂

cool glasses … you want to have my cute hat instead?

Baby cool

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Originally I planned to spend a day at Te Papa, Wellington’s much praised national museum, while Bea found an excuse to babysit Sophia. However, the weather was way to nice for a day indoors and I decided to do some rogue sightseeing on my own instead:

“Schau mir in die Augen Kleine”

“the grass is tickling my toes”

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Akatarawa walk near Wellington with Sophia, Birgit and Cristian:

After all the volcanoes, bubbling mud pools and mountains in North Island’s central plateau we were really looking forward to some beach time again and our next destination was Hawke’s Bay. The region is quite famous for it’s wineries, endless orchards … and yummie strawberries 🙂

The Sunday farmers market in Hastings even had real German style bread and Bratwürste – imagine the feast we had that evening!

STRAWBERRIES! YUMM! (sorry to everybody who’s freezing in Germany right now)

I’m still trying to figure out how Bea managed to get up and take pictures of a sunRISE!

Hastings sunrise

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Sightseeing in Napier reminded us a lot of the movie “The Great Gatsby” since the city was completely rebuilt in art deco style after a devastating earthquake in 1931 and a lot of shops resembled small museums of that era. Only the music that some kids played in a park did not fit into the soundtrack … guess which 2013 mega-youtube-hit they were playing? Or even better … guess “what does the fox say?” 🙂

“Where to darling?”

art deco beauties

Find the duck …

Bea flower power

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And it was driving from Napier to our campground in Hastings that we met our first Kiwi police officer … including flashing headlights and all. After we had pulled over he asked us sternly whether we realised how fast we were driving, to which we truthfully replied that we were not going faster than 100 km/h … too bad it was an 80s zone *gulp*! When we showed him that our sat-nav still showed the 100 speed limit sign he recommended that in New Zealand we should read the little round red signs on the side of the road instead of trusting our GPS. Then he told us to pay better attention next time and sent us off. WOW – does anybody know how much this little episode would have cost in Oz?

Driving strictly within the speed limits on the little round red signs on the side of the road, we passed Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuakitanatahu. Yes, apparently this really is a Maori name of a place and they even put a sign there claiming the title of longest place name in the world! Funny enough the only five people interested in this fascinating fact on that day were all German … must be a genetic predisposition for ridiculously long words, like Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz (which was in fact recognised as longest German word in the Duden until this particular law was abolished by the Landtag in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in 2013 – www.tagesschau.de) or the fictional Donau­dampfschiffahrts­elektrizitäten­hauptbetriebswerk­bauunterbeamten­gesellschaft 😉

Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuakitanatahu

Very very VERY windy stretch of beach!

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The last night before reaching Wellington we spent in our first DOC campground in Waiohine gorge … imagine zigzagging on gravel roads through endless pastures and bushland (strictly within the displayed speed limits) until you reach a small campground in the middle of nowhere with an impressive swing bridge leading to the most amazing hiking trails. Too bad we had already made plans with friends in Wellington for the next day, but we’ll definitely come back to this place for some hiking on our way back to Auckland!

Waoihine gorge camp ground

“A swing bridge … cool”

“A swing bridge … I don’t like it”

the swing bridge