Lean, mean, driving machines

We've covered an awful lot of ground since my last post, and there's a good reason for it.  I don't want to spoil the punch, but a small hint is that it has really changed our perspective on NZ.  Nuff said.  On to the nitty gritty.

From Marahau, on Sunday we decided to go and explore the west coast of the South Island.  Quite a big drive as we needed to be in Christchurch, mid-way down on the east coast, on Tuesday. It was another gorgeous day (we seem to have hit a bit of heat wave) and the route took us through very rustic farmed valleys, slowly narrowing as we headed towards the pass between the Matiri and Victoria ranges of the Southern Alps. By the time we reached the Butler Gorge, the Butler river was huge, flowing below us as we rattled around the cliff road (albeit a major NZ highway), in The Beast.  As an aside, a couple of things we've found with driving the motorhome around:  1) it makes such a noise that it's like traveling around with a one-man-tin-pot-band in the back seat, 2) if you don't put everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, in a drawer, it will fall off its surface and roll around on the floor.  (Bottles of wine will smash - we know from experience), 3) even if you close the fridge, it may open and you'll get a repeat of #2, 4) a mobile leaking bottle of sweet chili sauce makes a massive mess.

OK, back to the route.  After a few hours driving we took an unscheduled break in Westport, and the delightfully named Cape Foulwind.  I had given Duncan a big plate of fried cabbage for dinner the previous evening but that wasn't anything to do with why we stopped there. I'm pretty sure Captain

Cook was involved in the naming... The coastline is beautiful and we took off on a walk along the cliff, but randomly detoured down to the beach.  Turned out to be a good random, as just as we got down to the rocks, a large male seal pulled himself out of the water, looked at us, and settled himself on a large boulder nearby.  We must have been within 10 meters. We sat and watched him for ages - so much so that his coat dried and his sleek black wet-look morphed into fluffy brown fur.  We spent a good hour walking along the beach and back, encountering more seals, mostly males and one smaller female.  No-one else was there (they were all at the seal colony viewing platform a kilometer down the coast), just us and the seals.  Amazing.

Punakaiki romance...

Sadly we couldn't stay too long as we needed to get down to Punakaiki by evening, so back into The Beast we hopped.  The coast road scenery is stunning; most of the west cost of the South Island is so beautiful, but this part was just one incredible sandy bay after another.  Very few houses or developments, just empty beach after empty beach.  We reached Punakaiki just before dinner time and parked up in a camping ground on the beach.  Couple of beers in the local, counting up how many sandfly bites we now had, a romantic sunset walk on the beach (with 10 other couples) and it was time for bed.

Monday had us up early and off to head back across the South Island to Christchurch.  It's a fair drive

Otira viaduct

and we wanted to break the journey into a couple of days and do some hiking in the Arthur's Pass National Park.  Arthur's Pass runs along the ancient Maori track from West to East coast, and cuts through a particularly tricky section at a saddle between the Otira and Bealey rivers (in Maori, "o" (place of), "tira" (the travelers)).  History of how the road was made, destroyed by landslides and earthquakes and finally the extraordinary
Otira Viaduct, spanning 440m, constructed in 1999 is fascinating.  Soon after we arrived at Arthur's Pass, a small town centered on the wide number of tracks and tramps (trails) in the area.  It was lunchtime already, so we took the DOC warden's advice and headed up Scott's Trail for a 2-3 hour hike, to get a good view above the tree line.  It seemed to me that Scott liked to walk directly straight up a mountain.  No zig-zaggin or easing of the gradient.  If we thought Kinabalu was steep, this

Scott's views

was worse. Same gradient, no steps!  On I schelpped, wheezing and wishing I was a) younger and b) fitter.  We passed lots of people, coming down from the summit, obviously wondering why we were heading up so late in the day.  We did make it up to the tree line and a bit

Duncan with the lupins, but no sandflies

beyond, but the summit was way out of reach at this point in the afternoon. Back we came, sweaty, dusty and pretty tired, but we HAD to do the short walk up to Devil's Punchbowl, one of the biggest waterfalls in NZ, before calling it a day.  We camped up at the wonderfully named Klondyke River DOC camping ground, surrounded by sandflies and a field of purple wild lupins.  Sometimes you just have to take the bad with the good.

Bealey Spur views and hut

We left the campsite before anyone else on Tuesday morning, with a mission.  Today we were handing back The Beast (Maui motorhome, if you haven't read the previous posts) and picking up a new vehicle.  But first we had another big hike to do:  Bealey's Spur. We knew it was around 2 1/2 hours to get to the summit and needed to be back on the road by midday, so off we tramped (NZ for hiking) through alternating alpine beech forest and peat bog.  Very Middle Earth.  And a much more forgiving incline than the day before.  It was another gorgeous day, and as we climbed we had views of the Bealey River below and the dramatic snow capped mountains of the Southern Alps all around us.  Literally a 270 degree panorama of snowy mountaintops. Just stunning.  We stopped about half way down on way back at the Bealey Hut, which was constructed in 1928.  4 basic bunks, a table and a fireplace.  You could imagine people holed up here in the middle of winter all those years ago...

One more stop off at Kura Tawhiti, or Castle Hill, spectacular natural limestone rock battlements, nestled in grassy paddocks, which were formed 30-40 million years ago and used by Maori for shelter and is of special cultural, spiritual and historical significance to Ngai Tahu.  Kura Tawhiti literally means “the treasure from a distant land”.  It's now a popular climbing spot as well as a tourist one.

Boy and his toy :)

Back in the van, we hot-tailed it to Christchurch, arriving at our airbnb to find no-one home. Turned out our host had popped out to buy a new mattress and arrived 5 minutes later with it strapped to the roof of her car. Brilliant. It certainly gave us a funny break from packing all our gear up and lugging it indoors.  Dinner with our lovely hosts, the best WiFi we've experienced the entire time in NZ and we were excited for tomorrow. For we are to be set free from the chains of motor-homing. The following morning, we quickly dropped off the Maui, and literally ran to the car rental counter to take possession of our new vehicle.  A brand new Toyota Hilux pickup truck.  Duncan was the happiest I think I've ever seen him, and even I am jealous that I can't drive it (my license was stolen back in November and while the replacement should be in Putney by now, NZ cops are not to be messed with).  She (he?) is a beautiful motor.  Big.  Brassy.  And we are going to LOVE driving her around for the next 3 weeks.  WooHoo!

One last look at inside The Beast