Final stops in New Zealand

We woke up to rain (again!). We left at check out and got on our way to Punakaiki. Before we got to where we were staying, we went to see the ‘pancake rocks’ and ‘blowholes’ that Punakaiki is famous for. It was pretty interesting, the rocks had all sorts of peculiar formations, some of it looked like the set off a pirate film or something. To see the blow holes in action, shooting water out like a whale’s blow hole, we had to be there at high tide, so we missed out on that. We got to our accommodation, which was a sweet little rustic retreat, sitting amongst the forest. We were staying in a ’stargazer’ which was a little wooden hut  in the thick of the rainforest, with a glass roof to look up through the trees and see the sky. I really loved it! They had a coal fire in the main building and they sold home baked bread and muffins, freshly baked every morning. I had to buy one, they looked so tasty and I had been craving something like that for weeks! Later in the afternoon we went for a little walk through the forest and came out to the beach the other side. Despite the rain that was really nice, it was a little private cove and it had big caved out rocks and a waterfall coming down off the cliff on to the beach. Quite strange. We were both still very tired, not having slept very well for ages, so we just relaxed for the evening, caught up on the internet, and then walked into the forest to our hut at about 9ish. It was quite complicated to find in the darkness, but we got there. We arrived to find a load of candles lit (which we immediately thought was a nice gesture) and then found a man laying in our bed!! It completely freaked us out. I went and double checked we were in the right place, we were, so Phil asked him if he’d booked it aswell, and he said ‘Well I work here and I was told I could come here tonight‘ .. Well we booked and paid for it and got shown to it earlier that day! Seeing as he worked there, we asked if we could speak to someone about it and he mumbled ‘not really’ and said ‘no worries, ay’ and then packed up his stuff and went off. No apology or anything! He made us feel bad for making him leave! It really unsettled us because it was pitch black and it was a really awkward situation. And I felt weird sleeping in a bed he’d arranged to make comfortable for himself and had been laying in for God knows how long. Anyway, we slept like babies through the night, so nice to be on a mattress again, able to stretch out. Phil woke me up at one point, apparently I was snoring, (I wasn’t!). When we woke up in the morning, one of the little doors on the hut was wide open. Creepy, because I’d pulled the rock up against one of the doors and that was the one that had opened. I checked to see if the possibility of a breeze could have blown it open, so with out moving the rock, I tried to pull the door back up, and sure enough it couldn’t get past the rock. So something or someone must have opened it in the night! And I don’t think even a possum would be clever enough to have moved the rock to open the door, but then move it back again.. Hmm!

The 'Stargazer'!

Anyway, we just got up and had our breakfast. When Phil saw the manager on her own, he went over just to quietly mention what had happened, not to complain, but just to make her aware. She was absolutely mortified that had happened, and could only think that her assistant had said he could go in there for the evening with out checking the book, and was very frustrated at the thought of it and said she‘d be having words. She was extremely thankful that we weren't angry about it and offered a refund, but instead, Phil just asked if we could have some of the freshly cooked muffins that had just been put out, for free!! That is how much are missing good food! She was very surprised that was all we wanted and just said ‘absolutely, just take the lot!’ and asked if we wanted to hang around until the bread was done so we could take that too, but we declined as we had bread that needed eating before the Friday! We just took 4 of the 6 muffins, they were pretty big anyway. Being paid in muffins for the blunder was brilliant. We ate them both that day and they were so delicious! Anyway, we got on our way to the final stop of this part of the trip, Motueka (Abel Tasman National Park). On the way, the road took us along the edge of Nelson Lakes National Park, so we stopped at Lake Rotoroa. It was really beautiful. Before long, hundreds of sandflies were bothering us, so we went back to the car and sat and had lunch while looking over the lake. Such a lovely place. We carried on and reached our campsite, I had planned to go for a scenic drive, but we figured we could probably do everything we had wanted to do the next day. Instead we scrapped Lonely Planet’s recommendations for Motueka, and decided to be massive kids and play on the huge ’jumping pillow’ (like a trampoline/bouncy castle) that the campsite had! Absolutely jumped ourselves silly on it, we must have looked ridiculous, but it was a lot of fun! Then we played big garden chess in the rain (which I won, twice), and settled into the TV room for the evening. We got stuck chatting to a guy from Birmingham who had lived in New Zealand for 30 years. He very much enjoyed letting us know how many flash experiences he’d had in his life, how clever his daughters were, and how we’d always ‘missed the best bit’ when talking about what we have done on our travels. Nice. Anyway it was a really decent campsite and had a nice swimming pool too. We had almost decided to put the tent up as there was a lot of shelter from trees, but it was hammering it down by the afternoon, so we were glad we didn't!

Nelson Lakes National Park: Lake Rotoroa

Back to sleeping in the car again, we had a nice lay in. It had been one night stops for a while by this point, it was nice not to have to be up and out by checkout. We really lounged around all morning and eventually got ready for the day. We decided to have lunch before venturing out, and also wait until we could check in online for our flight the following day. Just after 2ish, we headed out for our day’s doings. We took a drive up to Takaka Hill, along extremely bendy roads, good fun to drive, and stopped at Hawkes Bay lookout point once we got to the top, which had breath taking views over the national park and the Tasman Sea. We headed back down again and then went to the closest parking spot to the Abel Tasman National Park that we could. It is not accessible by car, only boat and foot. We weren’t planning on doing a lot there, but we just wandered to Sandy Bay and walked about on the beach. It was one of the hottest and nicest days of our whole time in New Zealand, shame it was our last day! It really was beautiful anyway, even though we didn’t really experience the most part of the national park. There were loads of shells, and we saw a crab moving about which ended up heading for my feet! Afterwards we just headed back towards town, topped up petrol so we didn’t have to the next morning, grabbed a milkshake, and went back to the camp site. It pretty much took us all evening to sort out the car, the suitcases, the tent, everything, so we didn’t have to do it in the morning. And we slept in the car for the final time, very ready for Australia by this point.

Us at the Hawkes Bay viewpoint

Abel Tasman National Park: Sandy Bay

We had about a total of 7 proper sunny days out of 40, and because of this I think unfortunately we found a little too much of New Zealand to be under whelming. We were on such a high on our first week there, and then our second week we hit such a low when I got ill and the weather changed for the worst, that I think it was hard to shake the negative feelings after that, especially when the weather continued to be bad. I’ve since seen other people’s photos from New Zealand who had good weather and saw it all as it should be, so now I feel like I need to go back and do it again because I don’t want to be left feeling at all negative about the place. Despite all that, we did have some incredible experiences that I will probably never experience again. And the South Island’s West coast and Southland really is spectacular and very worth seeing, even if it is grey and miserable!

On to part 3 we go…