Trip to NEW ZEALAND
My trip began in Sydney. Together with a friend I met there a few weeks earlier I took on yet another adventure, as backpacking in Australia was already something huge for me to do. The minute I landed I knew it was going to be a trip I would never forget. Even though we had no idea of where to go and what to see, it would all turn out more than fine.
Where did I start? In Christchurch. First thing we did was checking in at our hotel, go shopping for camping equipment and get a cheap car. As I was backpacking I wanted to spend as little as possible. We spent a few more days in Christchurch, shopping and gathering information and then our journey started. We travelled north to Kaikoura and enjoyed the scenery. When in Kaikoura we wanted to book a whale tour, but we were advised to come back in a few weeks, when there would be more whales, thus more chances of spotting one. So, we did. We decided to travel further north and stopped in Picton, near the Marlborough Sounds. This is such a lovely village. It reminded me of some French seaside village, so lovely, but I just cannot figure out why. We drove up to the Marlborough Sounds, enjoyed a pick nick at one of the viewpoints and enjoyed the view, overlooking the sounds (fjords), the bay and the tourist-loaded ferries. After a day or so we drove on. Our goal was to get to Motueka, the heart of the fruit-picking business, because from Motueka it was easy to get to Abel Tasman National Park, where we wanted to go canoeing. Which we did. We started at Kaiteriteri, booked our canoe, and got on our way. First we passed ‘Split Apple Rock’, the weather was just fabulous and the sea was nice, quiet and blue.
We decided to pitch the tent, which we had with us in our canoe, at Torrent Bay, but it was a five hour ‘ride’ to get there. We took a break at Stillwater Cove, took some nice pictures and set out to Torrent Bay, a beautiful lagoon. We had not thought of the tides though, and as low tide had just set in, we had to carry our canoe to the camping spot. When darkness fell we discovered there is also a negative thing in NZ, namely sand flies. Tiny creatures that want your blood and make you itch like crazy and only come out during twilight. Even though we had our deet insect repellent they kept ‘attacking’ us. We covered our whole bodies, read: wore socks and flip-flops, hats and gloves, finished our meal and decided to go to bed early. The next morning the sun was shining, the tide was in, so we made our way back to Kaiteriteri, where we went snorkelling. We spent the night in Motueka and the next day we had set of for Pakawau. Super tiny and hardly to be called a village, but we had a camping spot right next to the beach. Made nice beach walks and found lots of starfish. While being in the area we visited the Abel Tasman Memorial and walked New Zealand’s Gobi Desert at Puponga Point/Farewell Spit. Such a perfect first week. I could not wait to see the rest of this country.
