A ferry ride of about 3 ½ hours takes you from Wellington on the North Island to Picton on the South Island. Picton is small. It’s there mostly as a ferry terminal and we didn’t see much else to recommend it as a destination.
Within half an hour of Picton, we were in vineyard central. Field after field of grapes and wineries. So far, in a day and a half, we’ve made it from Picton to Abel Tasman National Park, which is about an hour past Nelson.
On the way to Nelson, we did a hike from Cable Bay to Glenduan, which climbed up steep open hills littered with sheep and sheep by-products and through some forest. It’s called Cable Bay because marine telecommunications cables connect to the North Island from here.
Further west of Nelson lies Abel Tasman National Park. We wanted to try at least some of the Abel Tasman Coastal Track, one of NZ’s “Great Walks”. In 4 hours before lunch the other day, we hiked up the trail a bit over 7 km and then back. This track was easy, with a trail about the width and smoothness of a sidewalk. Access here and there to really nice beaches and pretty good views. However, nice as it was, it wasn’t “spectacular”, so we moved on.
Our first real rain (intermittent showers, really), on the way to Westport, located on the South Island’s West Coast. Westport is a small town, but it had free Internet, courtesy of the APN. Also close to Cape Foulwind (so named by Capt Cook, so you can see what “his” view of the place was…), a seal colony and the beginning of some really spectacular coastline, right up there with the Oregon coast for spectacularity. Pounding surf, offshore and coastal rock pinnacles, short trails down to interesting bits on the shore and even some blue skies.
Our views of the Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers were somewhat impeded by clouds obscuring the mountains, but the glaciers themselves were visible. I’m going to be a bit of a snob here and say that I was underwhelmed. As glaciers go, and I’ve seen a few, these were kind of narrow and unimpressive. The most interesting thing about them was the near-tropical rainforest that you walk in, almost up to the toe of the glacier. Just a bit incongruous. One annoyance was the constant buzz of helicopters. Many commercial operations run flights to the glacier and over the surrounding peaks. Consequently there was a constant stream of choppers flying up and down. Kind of affected the pristine wilderness image. Anyway, we’re hanging around here for the night to see if views improve in the morning. Given the nearness of the Tasman Sea, I’m not holding out much hope.
Nov 18th/09 – woke to clear skies!! Hiked around Lake Matheson and took pictures of Mt Tasman and Mt Cook, hiked back up to the Fox Glacier and then headed down the coast. Clear skies, warm temperatures and little wind; a perfect day for hiking and traveling around. After Haast, the last place on the coast, the road headed inland up the Haast Valley. Quite spectacular scenery with the river valley, the blue water and the Southern Alps poking up all over. We found a DOC campground where we could be right on the beach of a large lake with views of the “hills”.
Our next morning wasn’t completely clear, but there was great sunlight on the peaks and the drive down to Queenstown was scenic and easy, including a recommended shortcut that ended with a very steep hill and multiple hairpin turns.
Queenstown is in a very scenic location but it was bustling, crowded and busy. Kind of reminded me of a cross between Banff and Canmore during their busy seasons. I tend to get turned off when I can’t even find a place to have lunch. We spent the next couple of hours driving towards the entrance to Fiordland National Park. That will be in the next post.
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