Southern North

We got up early and went on a beautiful ferry ride from Wellington over to Picton on the South Island. The skies were clear, the sea was smooth (something rarely seen in the Cook Strait) and the morning sun warmed our faces so we stayed outside on the observation deck for the whole 3.5 hour journey. The scenery was ranging from stunning at the southern tip of the North Island to simply breathtaking in the Marlborough Sounds at the northern tip of the South Island. We didn't stay in Picton after we arrived but went straight (NOT literally spoken - needed the motionsicknes meds from the ferry once we were back on NZ's windy roads...) to Motueka, a gateway to the famous Abel Tasman National Park. Abel Tasman is the smallest of NZ's national parks and boasts some scenery that you would rather expect on a lonely tropical island. It also hosts one of the Great Walks, a multi day coastal track. Due to a lack of time we couldn't tramp the whole way. So we based ourselves in Marahau at the southern end of the track and took a watertaxi up half way into the National Park to Bark Bay and took the one day hike back to Marahau from there. We walked along turquoise waters and outstretched white beaches, crossed bays through their tidal areas when the water had left and had lunch at a secluded lookout on the top of some cliffs. It was an amazing hike! The way was long though and after a couple of harder hikes during the last week we ended up being pretty tired and somewhat lame with numerous blisters and hurting knees. 
 

So we decided it was time for a couple of non-hiking days and went back to the eastern coast via an overnight stay at the little town of Havelock where a storm caught us and almost blew us away while we were asleep. We passed through Marlborough without stopping for a visit to one of the famous wineries because it was pouring down like crazy and we just wanted to escape the storm. From Blenheim down to our destination Kaikoura the skies sure cleared up and the winds eased down so we could stop for numerous pictures along the highly photogenic coast. In Kaikoura we ran some errands like getting haircuts and checked out the little township. 

Then we threw over board our non-hiking policy and went for a great hike around the beautiful Kaikoura Peninsula. The path went along the windy coast out to Point Keen and the old whaling station Fyffe House, we came across colonies of NZ Fur Seals, walked up the cliffs to see millions of seabirds from above and finished the walk back in town with a perfect coffee and cake combo. Kaikoura already left a good impression on us after this great day but it wasn't until the next morning that we saw what makes the small town such a visitors magnet: the whales. We went on a whale watching tour by boat and the fast catamaran took us away from the continental shelf out to the Kaikoura Canyon. The 1600 m deep drop in the sea is one of the reasons that many spermwhales can be found in the area. Their preferred food, giant squids, live in the deep waters of the canyon. The squids find enough food here themselves because cold streams from the Antarctic and warm streams from the tropical regions clash in the Kaikoura region and form a constant turbulence that swirls up nutrition for them. Young male spermwhales practice their hunting and communication skills in this region while it is too cold for female whales to stay here. We were lucky enough to see one of these amazing, huge creatures while it was surfacing for a break between two dives. The young whales dive for about 45 minutes and only surface for 10 minutes to catch their breath. They are amazingly efficient and to watch them and listen to their sounds makes you feel really small in so many ways. The whale we saw was named Tiaki and he was a huge old whale who became resident to the area (he's been living there for 23 years). When he dived back down into the deep blue he left us all awestruck. But the amazement wasn't over yet because we got really lucky and got to see a school of Short Finned Pilotwhales. These whales are not resident here and usually they rush through high speed so that the boat has to drive alongside them before they quickly dive down for hunting. The school we saw was very relaxed though, just swimming around a little, playing with their babies and seemingly enjoying the sun. We got to stop and just sit there with our boat right next to the whales and watch them for the longest time. Huge Albatrosses joined us and gave us even more to marvel at. We eventually had to leave and get back to the coast but we surely won't forget these encounters in a hurry! 

After having seen the whales we left Kaikoura to go back to the west coast that everyone is endlessly raving about. We stopped in the charming old town of Reefton where buildings from the Gold Rush times remain before we went to Westport and further up north to Karamea, the end of the road. After spending a rainy afternoon inventing new and exciting variations to Yatzy we went up into the Oparara Basin the next morning. The Oparara river runs through the Kahurangi National Park and has formed amazing limestone formations and cave systems on its way. On a beautiful walk through very pretty old rainforest we got to see the biggest limestone arch in NZ (the Oparara Arch is 42 m high and spans across the river for 219m ) and the equally impressive Moria Gate Arch. A little further up in the forest we explored the Boxing Cave and the Crazy Paving Cave – two dry caves that are home to massive cage spiders, cage weta and other bugs. It was a bring-you-own-torch exploration and a real adventure for us since we were alone in the unkown cold dark with these huge animals around us...the wonderous cave world we found down there was worth it. Still - what a great feeling to resurface back into the sunlight (or the rain in this case, but still...).  

We went back to the little town of Westport where we spent a great night out in the local mining pub (Denniston Dog) and got our private movie showing in the local theatre before we were off to Punakaiki the next morning. Punakaiki is a small settlement in the Paparoa National Park that is most famous for its stunning Pancake Rocks and Blowholes. The Pancake Rocks are limestone formations at the coast that have layers and therefore just look like giant stacks of pancakes. Geologists are still not sure how and why these layers actually formed but one thing is for sure – they are a visitor magnet and rightly so. The rocks form rounds with open tops and at high tide the ocean waves thunder in and blow out of the openings like giant geysirs – very cool blowholes indeed! 
The way to and from these rocks leads along the ocean and is rated by the Lonely Planet as one of the top 5 scenic drives in the world – which we wouldn’t know because the weather prevented us from seeing anything along the route. So we decided to take it slow and wait around the area for some sunshine. That’s how we ended up in Greymouth, the biggest city on the South Island’s westcoast. And here we wait while it is slowly clearing up.