nelson – Where is Phil now?

A walk up Ben Nevis. The New Zealand version.

Friday 25 November 2016 – Nelson, New Zealand.

I arrived back in New Zealand in the middle of the night on Monday. I spent Tuesday around Auckland with mum and family – and got to spend an afternoon with my grand son Mason. I will do an Auckland wrap up post when I leave and there will be some Mason in there! On Wednesday my youngest son, Aiden and I flew down to Nelson to see my sister, Alison and her family, and to catch up with some old friends of mine. The plans were changed just before I left the UK with my sister asking Aiden and I if we could stay with my friends due to my nephew being in the middle of very stressful exams. Exam stress not being helped by the recent earthquakes in the top of the South Island. While Nelson was not really impacted by the shakes that have destroyed Kaikoura, they were felt there and my sister’s family did evacuate the house in the middle of the night during the worst shakes. An experience I am glad to say I have not had.

Aiden and I arrived in Nelson and picked up a rental car from the airport. The flight down was really good – magnificent views out of the window over the North Island with Mt Tongariro poking its head out. A great day for flying!

My sister had arranged to meet us in town for lunch, so we parked up in central Nelson and spent a good five or ten minutes seeing all the sights…. Nelson cathedral. Not sure if there is much else to see in town:)

Fortunately, my old friends Paul and Jane joined us for lunch and as we were staying with them we went back to their place after. Where we drank very nice craft beer and chatted for the rest of the day. It was good to catch up. I don’t see them very often, even when I lived in NZ as we awere on different islands. Paul is my oldest friend, I met him soon after we moved to New Zealand in 1973, and Jane; well, she was my first girlfriend, way back in the very early 1980s. Lots of memories with those guys…

The following morning we were joined by Tom, another old old friend who lives not too far away and while Jane went to work, the four men went and walked up a big hill.

Nelson is surrounded by hills, it is an outdoor person’s paradise and both Paul and Tom have worked in the environment all their lives. Unlike Aiden and I they are fit, though we are all getting a bit older. I was a bit nervous about the walk, but in the end it was not the fitness that let me down…

We elected to walk Ben Nevis. At 1619 metres it is almost 300 metres taller than its more famous name sake, and the UK’s tallest peak, Ben Nevis in Scotland. This Ben Nevis is just another lump in the Richmond Range. Luckily we got to park the car at around 950 metres so it was not a massive slog up. Though it was very steep to start with.

As is very common in New Zealand forests that edge towns the foothills have been planted with pine trees, before giving away to native forest. The wind has caused a lot of damage through here in previous years, and the shallow rooted pines took the worst of it.

It was quite warm at the start, and we were all (most of us) puffing and sweating after only a few steep minutes. We cleared the first small peak before popping out onto a ridge line, and magnificent views up and down the range.

I suffer from mild vertigo, mostly it does not impact me, though you would not catch me working on a roof like Aiden does. I struggled on this ridge line, there were a couple of sections where I was really pensive, hold on to rocks when I was climbing up or down. In general it was ‘easy’ going, but some areas were tricky.

We couldn’t see the peak up ahead as the expected cloud rolled in about half way up.

We dropped back down again and back below the tree line. I love Southern Beech forests, the trees are fabulous and they leave small crunchy leaves littering the ground. The cloud just carried on rolling in and it started to cool off a bit, we were all glad to have prepared for this. Not that it got cold, but the difference between the bottom of the climb and the top was marked.

We stopped for a snack at the last tree, before heading off up into more alpine conditions, with grasses, small shrubs and lots of rock.

Soon after,and about 400 metres (about 100 meters vertical) from the top we hit a loose shale section of path and I had to stop, I had been finding the walking a bit nerve racking and am hopeless with loose shale. I had already slowed down significantly and didn’t want to stop the others from the reaching the summit. So I stopped and let them carry on without me. I thing that if it had been clear weather I may have continued to the top for the view, I am not sure though!

They were only half an hour away, made it up to the top far quicker without me, though of course they didn’t see anything, and I could barely see them as they came down.

The walk down from where I waited was a little slow, but at least it was semi-clear.

After a lunch stop, back in the beech trees we made pretty good progress back down through the easy walking alpine forest section.

With me slowing down to almost a crawl on the ridge line again, though we were briefly rewarded with a glimpse of the valley floor way down below.

The cloud had settled down a lot further, making the steep and wind devastated section almost spooky.

And that was pretty much the end of the walk. My knee started to play up at the end, but apart from that my legs felt fine – and surprisingly there were no aches the following day either. Though mountain biking in Auckland on Saturday was a nightmare! The walk was brilliant. I loved getting up in the hills, and walking with a group of mates was very different than my usual solo walking – and the craft beer and chat after was really good too! Thanks Paul and Jane and Tom.

On Friday morning, after bidding farewell to my wonderful friends and hosts, Aiden and I drove up the coast to the small town of Motueka. We are having lunch with my sister at her farm and the plan was for Aiden and I to see a bit of the coast before going to the farm. The weather decided that it was not going to play ball and it rained all morning. This pretty much put paid to all our plans so we went to a cafe in Motueka and then a cafe in Mapua to kill some time, stopping between cafes to stand in the rain and stare at the harbour.

On the way to my sister’s place we found this derelict house on the side of the road, I stopped to take some photos and was tempted to climb inside. If it hadn’t been raining and there was more time I probably would have.

We had a great lunch with my sister and three quarters of the family. Stupidly I was engrossed in chatting I did not take any photos of the family, though I did take an admiring cell phone photo of their amazing wall sized book shelf. Something I am very envious of!

And that was it, after lunch I drove us back to the airport and after a bit of a delay Aiden and I flew back to Auckland.

I really enjoyed Nelson, it was great seeing people I do not normally see when I come over to NZ, my sister included, and I really liked the walk in the hills, especially with Aiden along as well. Thanks Paul, Jane, Tom, Alison and family 🙂

Top O’ the South, South Island, NZ

Friday 14 February 2014 – Top o’ the South, New Zealand.

For a holiday we were up pretty damn early on Tuesday, we had to check in for the ferry that was taking us across the Cook Strait to Picton in the Marlborough Sounds at 7:00 AM. We were travelling on the Bluebridge ferry and good fortune rather than good planning saw us on a crossing where my brother in law John, was the captain. Good fortune also saw us on a quiet crossing, apparently the previous day there were five metre swells in the Strait, and vomit bags were well used :

We had a lovely, if cool, morning.

The crossing was delayed slightly as the competing ferry companies ferry broke down again and we had to wait for their passengers and freight to be loaded on our ferry, but after an hours delay we were under way – on the next leg of our wee NZ adventure.

The journey to Picton on a good day is one of NZ’s finest – yet relatively under-subscribed, experiences. The exit from Wellington harbour is lovely and crossing the Cook Strait gives the sharp eyed the opportunity to see all sorts of sea mammals. I was lucky enough to be able to be able to briefly catch up with John and as I asked him about seeing dolphins a school of them passed by the front of the ship, fabulous – though of course I did not have my camera on me at the time!

The real highlight of the three or so hour sailing is slowly cruising up through the Marlborough sounds, being on a large sea vessel as it negotiates these narrow channels is pretty damn amazing. It was very cold out on the deck, I was wrapped up more thoroughly than I was when I walked from my home to the station in wintery London and El was wrapped for the full Antarctic :)but it was worth the minor discomfort to experience the ride.

We arrived in Picton an hour late and by the time I had run around picking up the rental car we were well into the early afternoon. My daughter Mel and her friends had come over on an earlier ferry but had left by the time we arrived – though we would see them later on. (Yay). After some time spent in Blenheim we headed out to our hotel for the night, the Marlborough Vintners Hotel.

Maybe if you have been dead for the last twenty or so years then you would not know that the Marlborough district at the top of the south island is one of the premier wine growing regions in the world, so I am assuming that most people have at least heard of Marlborough sauvignon blancs ! Before we left London we had decided that a visit to Marlborough and a tasting or two was an essential part of our trip.

We were a bit late for tastings on the Tuesday but had a very nice meal and some lovely local wine in the hotel. The local rieslings and pinot gris were just stunning! The sunset was better than what I managed to capture on my camera.

Sadly, the following morning had to check out of the hotel, we had tried to get a second night but it was fully booked. It would have been a perfect place to just laze about for a day and enjoy the main reason for holidaying – relaxing (with awesome wine !). We stayed until kicking out time which happened to coincide with the opening for tasting a number of the major wineries in the area. Our first stop was the obligatory Cloudy Bay, where we shared a couple of tastings. I was driving so this was all very civilised – and it was only 10:00. The wine was fabulous as you would have expected!

Our next stop was Allan Scott, we were looking forward to this as we had a couple of Allan Scott pinot gris in Auckland and they were absolutely lovely. However, after hanging around in the shop for five minutes with no one coming down to see us we left. Pissed off.

Anyway, it was our good fortune as we decided to check out Hunters Vineyard as we had time and capacity for one more small tasting before hitting the road. Wow ! Hunters was great. The tasting was free and very informative, and the best thing was the wine was fabulous, especially the Riesling and gewurztraminer. We bought a couple of bottles and I was especially pleased to know that the London importer was Laithwaites, which is just down the road from where I live. Well done Hunters ! stupidly I did not take a photo 😦

Today was supposed to be a fairly chilled and relaxed drive over to my sister’s place outside of Nelson (I have two sisters for those who have read this blog for a while and may get confused, one in Auckland and one way the heck out in the country outside of Nelson). We decided to take the scenic route through the Marlborough Sounds Drive – oh so lovely. We stopped for photos on a couple of occasions on the way, first at the bay where my sister used to live in a tiny hamlet called “The Grove”.

And then at the top of a hill on Queen Charlotte Drive (I forgot to get its name) with views over Queen Charlotte Sound.

And our next stop, the small town of Havelock.

We stopped for coffee and lunch in Havelock, and as mentioned in my last post, the food and the coffee were great. This cafe had the added bonus of homemade fudge – I bought watermelon, passionfruit and Bounty as after dinner treats for my sisters family. Surprisingly they actually tasted as described, the watermelon was simply delightful!

Our next stop was at the aptly named Pelorus Bridge, over the Pelorus River. The Pelorus River was used for the scene in the Hobbit Part 2 where the hobbits were fleeing the orcs in barrels down the river – one of my favourite scenes in any of the Middle Earth movies. The river was not quite as exciting where we were. We took a short walk down to a swing bridge and back again to the car as out short driving day was slowly getting longer and longer.

We arrived at my sisters in the late afternoon, my bro-in-law was still working on the ferry so it was just my sister and their two sons who were there. They live way the heck out in the countryside and we had drive down two long unsealed roads to get there, El’s first time on metal roads – as we call them in NZ. I had to resist the teenage urge in me to go sideways round the corners…

It was great to see my sister and the boys, it has been a wee while since I last saw them and the boys had grown immeasurably since.

They live in a house on a small farm, and though there are only four of them living there there were EIGHTEEN gumboots !

They have sheep – it is NZ, of course they have sheep!

The following morning we set off towards the north-western corner of the south island and Farewell Spit, I have never been there before so was keen to check it out. The spit is twenty something kilometres long and is only accessible by a day tour, we didn’t have the time for that so just had to contend with a visit to the base. We started with a walk over to Wharariki Beach, on the Tasman Sea. It was howling with wind and once we had passed the farm land we were constantly being sand blasted in the gusts. But it was a beautiful and remote spot and on a fine day would be spectacular. There are baby fur seals in the area which was one of the attractions for me, but we did not see any.

We then headed up to Farewell Spit proper and found a a really nice cafe at the entrance to the park, the coffee was great and the food pretty damn fine, a very nice lunch was had – very much to my surprise. After lunch we walked down to the beach and strolled up for a while before turning back and heading back to the nearest point of civilisation – Takaka, where we spent some time on the internet and booked a bed for the night. This is the closest we got to Farewell Spit – though one day I will be back !

We found a very nice little hotel at Pohara Beach, just outside Takaka on Golden Bay. This whole area used to be very erm, rural and a wee bit hippy, especially towns like Takaka. The game has really been lifted and it is a charming country town. It is very tourist driven, something I am normally against, but it works here. I liked it. And I had the best damn coffee in NZ in Takaka.

We arranged to catch up with Mel and her BF, plus additional friend from the UK here. It was my final catch up with Mel before we left and it was very special to see them in such a cool place like Pohara Beach. So I did get a photo before we left.

The following day we caught up with Mel again for breakfast coffee before El and I drove back to Nelson city where we had lunch with some old friends of mine before flying back to Auckland, and there pretty much ended the holiday.