New Zealand Day 21, 22, 23 – Kaikoura to Malborough Sound & Abel Tasman National Park

Once we had recovered from the dolphin fiasco we hit the road and headed further north towards Marlborough Sound and the Abel Tasman National Park. We didn’t really have too much of a plan for what we might do there, but it is meant to be some of the prettiest scenery on the South Island – plus Nelson, the main City up there is famous for its food and wine.

Magical Marlborough Sound

It took about three hours to reach Picton, which is the spot where the inter-island ferry terminal is located, so it is understandably touristy and not all that interesting. By the time we’d got there it was getting fairly late, so we had a scout on the campground AtoZ and picked an area to aim for in Marlborough Sound about an hour away – there was a day spa there too which featured claw-foot baths overlooking the sea on an open deck which appealed but we weren’t sure if you could reach it from the road as there is a popular walking track (Queen Charlotte) which spans the area.

Driving from Picton the scenery quickly became amazing again, and reminded us of when we first arrived in Christchurch and the Banks Peninsular. Seemingly endless amounts dead calm bays with the hills plunging directly into them from above on all sides – each would have a small town or a campsite at the waters edge, it looked rather picturesque.

I risked it.

After some awful map reading from me – we realised the day spa was actually far to far away to make that night, so we settled on a campsite in Momorangi Bay run by the DOC. It was pretty cheap, but had powered sites right on the waters edge. It’d been a pretty long day as we were up at 6am for the dolphins, but we did manage to stay up long enough to stroll through the inland part of the site into the bush to see a glow worm dell which the owner had told me about when I booked us in.

It was incredible – it took a while for our eyes to adjust to the pitch blackness as we crept up the pathway, and initially we thought he was just having us on. But after a few minutes of scanning the bushes as we went further in, you suddenly saw one… then two… then 100,000 little glowing bugs twinkling away. They stretched way back into the bush, and further up the path for as far as we could see – they flickered like LED Christmas tree lights. We stood and watched them for a while, then realised we were exhausted from the early start so headed back for some much needed sleep.

In the morning we decided to head towards the Tasman National Park, again with no real plans – just to have a look. The route was about as windy and hard going as the day before and it took a few hours to get there, and we didn’t end up doing anything all day aside from drive about which wasn’t all that fun. We stopped briefly in Marlborough itself for some fuel and a coffee, but it looked like a bit of an industrial town where a lot of the regions factories and giant wine processing plants were located. To rescue the day, we sought out a Winery on the way to Takaka (where we were aiming for that night). It was a little off the beaten path, but the LP claimed they made “the best Chardonnay in New Zealand” so worth a shot.

Tough life on the road.

After getting lost briefly in amongst all the vines and back lanes we found the place – Neudorf wines. It was just before 4pm and it looked closed when we arrived so we thought we might’ve missed out as it was Friday afternoon. Fortunately, there was still one woman working and she let us taste whatever they had left open and were going to be throwing away over the weekend (as they aren’t open). They were all pretty nice wines, so we got ourselves a bottle of their Chardonnay (a cheapie – not the $100 prize winning one) – and were about to head on our way when she offered us a glass each to drink out in their courtyard overlooking the vineyard. Once we figured out she meant a free one – we pretty much bit her hand off and sat in the afternoon sun figuring out what we should do that night. Opposite us the owners, their family and the employees were all having Friday afternoon drinks – and at one point they came over with one of the bottles and topped up our glasses again! It was completely unexpected as they are usually keen to get rid of you once you’ve only bought one bottle – so we left with a rather warm glow and good impression of them.

The tasting lady recommended a couple of beachside places for us to try out for camping which were closer than Takaka so we went and checked them out after leaving, but didn’t like the look of either so opted for the Old McDonald farmstay which had llamas and alpachas on the property. Unfortunately word was that the weather was going to be closing in for the next two or three days that night, and sure enough just as we got to our site the heavens opened and it started bucketing down – which it continued to do so all evening. We were beginning to regret coming this far north as there  really isn’t much to do inside up there.

Much needed wines.

Next morning the weather was still awful – with the forecast for more of the same for the next two days. We decided to head for Takaka anyway as we had it on good information you could hand feed 100 year old eels Spam nearby, and that is the kind of weirdness we like! Rather annoyingly, to get to Takaka we had to double back on ourselves up a massive hill, continue 60km then climb over another massive hill, all in pretty treacherous driving conditions so it took forever and we weren’t having much fun.

We went into the i-site to see what we could do whilst it was raining and she was about the least helpful person on the planet. She was from Surrey or somewhere similar and just directed us to a bunch of dingy pubs that played drum and bass, despite me telling her when she mentioned it that I hated drum and bass. We left and headed for the eel feeding place – but they were closed due to the weather.

We drove through Takaka and it was a bit of a shit hole to say the very least (at least in the rain anyway), and anywhere to stay on the coast was another hour away. It was becoming clear we’d have to wait at least 2 days up here for the weather to clear, and we still wanted to drive down the West coast to see the glaciers, and do Arthur’s pass on the way back to Christchurch and only had a few days left.

We boldly decided to write off this part of the trip completely, turned the car around and set off for the north of the west coast, about 5 hours away. Rather the long drive than another wasted day – we’d just have to cross our fingers that the weather would clear faster down there.

It’s probably worth mentioning here that we did also go to Nelson at some point and spent a couple of hours sorting out some visa printing, getting fuel and food before heading back on the road. Unfortunately – Nelson was that dull I don’t even remember on which day that happened, or where it even is on the map, so if anyone is actually reading this for travel tips I’d say avoid the place like the plague.

They didn't spit.

We went down through a gorge at one point which was spectacular but had no time to stop and admire it in the rain as we were battling to get there before dark.

We researched en route where to stay and opted for Punakaki as there was a cool sounding natural attraction there called Pancake Rocks. As we eventually got onto the coastal road the scenery changed dramatically – it was such a huge contrast to the sheltered bays and beaches we’d seen down the east coast. The sea was absolutely pumping and ten feet waves were pounding into the seacliffs and beaches. The road hugged the coastline and was providing both spectacular views and heart stoppingly dangerous corners and one lane bridges where the cliffs had collapsed over one lane.

We arrived at around 8pm and managed to check in to the caravan park in time to head for a beer at the local pub in front of the fire – which I needed after driving for 8 hours that day. The weather was still bad, but with a better forecast for the morning and the tides were lined up nicely to see the rocks at 11am so we felt a tad more optimistic about the next few days, and glad we’d decided to have a long driving day.