A few days with a fair amount of travel on coaches and a boat to move between these two cities. We stopped at Kaikoura for a dose of whales, seals and beautiful coastlines though. Oh, and the beach of death…
Day 53 – Returning the RV and a coach to Kaikoura
Not a whole lot to report on today. We awoke in our rather lovely little campsite, had a hot shower with good water flow, which was a welcome change and packed up our assorted belongings from the various corners of the RV whilst the kids played in the playground.
At around 10am a whole load of fog rolled in, which was very backwards! After making good progress towards Christchurch the night before we only had 45 minutes left to Apollo where we returned the van.
We discussed tactics on the way, practicing the difficult conversation to come over a partial refund due to the state of the van. When we got there it was actually very simple, the man we spoke to was apologetic and called his head office team to get us a refund of around 10%. For us this wasn’t quite enough. When we said this (very politely) to him he waived our extra diesel tax payment of around £90 and let us off with not cleaning the van properly.
Bye bye RV, wish we could say that we will miss you, but we won’t!
A taxi to town was cheaper and a lot quicker than the shuttle to the airport and then the bus into town so we took it. Unfortunately, we were out of our good habits from our time on the road in Australia and forgot to count the bags as we got in the taxi. We counted them when we got out instead, which is when we realised that one was left at Apollo. Oh dear! Luckily it was the bag with only food, my old trainers and a couple of other things in it; nothing that we needed anytime soon. Apollo could post it to us, if we can get an address that works…
Our check in to the Intercity bus to Kaikoura went smoothly, we got the back seats on the bus and chilled out on the route (Chris enjoyed moving without having to have his eyes open so much he had a nap). Initially the land was flat, but after Cheviot it became rolling green hills, which grew as we got closer to Kaikoura. This looked like amazing walking country. Totally wasted on the kids though.
As we neared Kaikoura the road hit the coast and followed it. The going was a little slow as the 2016 earthquakes up here took a lot of the road out and so there is a lot of roadworks going on. I didn’t mind; having lucked out on the coastal side window seat I could see petrels and seals out of the window.
Kaikoura itself is a much more touristy area than any we have found so far, with backpackers lodges, cafés and activity centres lining the main road through. Being cheap, our lodge was almost a km up the road from the bus stop. After an initial mix up about the price, the very friendly guys welcomed us into their really clean hostel and gave us some suggestions for things to do here tomorrow when it’s forecast to be rainy ☹. Sun for Saturday though so we should get one day here where we can enjoy the whales etc. I have booked us in for a flight to see the whales from the air after finding a cheap deal on Bookme. Pretty excited about going up in the little plane actually – maybe more so than about seeing Sperm whales…
Dinner was cooked with mountain views in a spacious and well equipped kitchen – another welcome change!
There was time for a couple of games of scrabble from the cupboard before bed.
Day 54 – Kaikoura in the rain
As expected, the day dawned wet, with low cloud obscuring the mountains we’d been ogling at the night before.
I think we were all actually pretty relieved, as the fine drizzle and minimal visibility meant there was no point in trying to go on any of the boat trips or do a walk and we’d have to stay in the hostel. None of us were sad – a day of no travelling and no activities sounded perfect! And the hostel was clean and bright with board games we could play.
After a super lazy morning with the first shower I’ve had in weeks that was long AND warm (bliss!) we headed out during a dry spell to get some lunch. In the end we walked all the way back into the centre to find something that we all wanted to eat and that matched our price range. The food was excellent, and they also had board games, so we played cards and The Game of Life until after they closed! Walking back we checked out the laundrette before launching into a game of Monopoly whilst we prepped dinner.
Chris headed to the laundrette to clear our mounting pile of washing (after basically living in our one set of warm clothes for the two chilly weeks in the campervan it was getting pretty desperate!) and I stayed and chatted to randoms in the hostel. No offence to Chris, but it was nice to talk to someone other than him or the kids for a change!
Day 55 – Kaikoura in the sun
As forecast, the morning was bright and sunny. After squeezing a little run in, we packed up our things ready for a 9.15 pickup by Wings over Whales. Tiny plane time – exciting! We checked out of the backpackers, leaving our bags there until after the ride, planning to pick them up and repeat the 1km walk back into town with them. We planned to take them into town to the visitor centre where you can pay for lockers so we could walk around the headland before our bus to Picton in the evening. Our issue was that it closed at 4pm and we weren’t sure we’d be there in time. So the incredibly lovely owner offered to run them down to us at the bus stop later if we gave him a ring – how nice!
We were joined by another lovely couple, weighted and briefed. Possibly the funniest safety video we’ve ever seen (with jokes like leaving bags behind but not forgetting to take the important things with you – like the baby!).
Unfortunately we were pretty much in the one month of the year when Sperm Whale sightings are rare ☹. The resident male whales go off looking for some action near Tonga apparently. Plenty of other whales though, mainly humpbacks, but the possibility of Fin or Blue. Fingers crossed!
The take off was extremely smooth in our tiny 8 seater plane and within a couple of minutes of being in the air we were over a couple of humpbacks and a pod of dusky dolphin feeding on krill. We’d seen whales fairly recently from a boat, but it really is different from the air as you can see the whole length of the whales and really get their white bellies and long fins. With the whale watching boat close by you can finally get a sense of the size of them which is hard to grasp from the single parts at a time which are visible from the boat. Of course, you feel a bit disconnected from them as you can’t hear the blows or splashes, so it’s worth doing both I think.
The Dusky dolphins were hunting alongside the whales and we could see their hunting movements as they came in for the krill (pun not intended!).
After a few flybys we went off to look for anything else, and flew over the dolphin boat which lets you swim with the dolphins. Most the dolphins were heading away, but there were a few in swimming right next to the people – that must have been pretty cool!
Then our pilot, Emily, took us for a flight up the coast so we could see the headland we were planning to walk along later, and some more dolphins. We could also see clearly the point where the ocean drops down to 1000m depth in the canyon (which is where the fish concentrate and the Sperm Whales like to hunt).
All too soon we were heading back in, and realised that at some point the sun had gone in and it was actually now really cloudy – when did that happen? Emily brought us down for a smooth landing before the company took us back to town.
We started our walk around the peninsula pretty slowly, after getting distracted at the park by a Red Cross demonstration. The kids really wanted to know what the Red Cross do so we headed in to talk to them and were offered free sunglasses and a chance to learn CPR and the recovery position. We’ve not taught the kids this so it was pretty useful. #worldschooling!
It turns out Aiden was actually pretty good and depresses the chest enough to keep someone alive. How useful! They were also giving away free hotdogs and hot drinks, so we sampled these and let the kids play in the excellent playground which was behind the tents. Very happy kids.
We resumed our walk, stopping for sandwiches at the ‘New Wharf’, which is very un-new! It’s all closed down now, including an old aquarium which is not actually locked so you can open a door and look in. Presumably this was damaged in the massive quake that hit here in 2016 as it doesn’t look like they moved out – it looks abandoned.
The route around the peninsula is initially mainly along the road, which is not so great, so as soon as we could we started walking along the beach (once it wasn’t loose rocks). We’d hardly gone anywhere when we came across a load of whale bones, seemingly a skull, ribs and a vertebrae (?)…
Walking further along we also found a (cow??) femur, bird wing with a couple of feathers and most the ligaments, a dead fish with the bones still all held together, a few dead seals, dead crabs. I think that’s it! There were also tons of shells. The kids loved this beach – they called it the beach of death!
We arrived at the end of the road, where there’s a car park and a seal colony. We couldn’t see many seals here so we took the low level coast path (at beach level) on around, hoping to see some. We were in luck, a few hundred metres further on we came across a large Red-billed gull colony, and then just after that there were loads of seals on the rocks 😊
The coastline is beautiful up here, with lots of rocks arising from the sea. You can see in places where the movements of the earth have bent and buckled the limestone rocks.
We continued along the low path until we reached Whale View Point. This is a small hillock which people have eroded a path up to get some sort of view. I’m not really sure what the point was as the view from the cliff top behind would have been better and it was pretty steep – getting down was a bit perilous on the loose rock and dust!
Time was now looking a little desperate. We had to get back to Kaikoura and eat dinner before our bus at 5.25pm and it was now 3.30 and we had about 5km to go. So we changed to the top level path, taking the zig zag up the cliff, and then followed the most direct route to South Bay, through rolling green hills and down to the coast again.
Here I found the place where I could come to live. Hills, houses with ocean views, green hills and snow capped mountains in the background.
The path across the hills back to Kaikoura led through forests, over grassy hills and down into town. All with those lovely snow capped mountains in the background.
We’d made excellent progress so had plenty of time to sit in the Why Not Café for dinner, and call our friend at the Dusky Backpackers who ran our bags down the road for us. Super.
All that was left to do was take the two and a half hour coach to Picton. The journey was smooth, heading along the coastline for a way again. Looking at the cliffs on the side we could see many large scars where the numerous landslides had happened, and more evidence of the major rebuild that was going on. Wherever there are patches with no trees, just grass, was where the falls had happened. There were also plenty of areas of tree filled rubble and semi fallen trees which had taken a battering. It was easy to see why the road was out for so long in the end!
There were only us and one other person left by the time the coach reached Picton, so the driver asked us where we were going and agreed to drop us off outside our backpackers, rather than at the bus stop over a km away. Thanks driver 😊
We arrived at about 2 minutes to 8, which was pretty good timing as at 8 they serve up chocolate cake and ice cream for free here! Chris headed straight out for a bar down the road to watch the rugby as England were playing Australia (and then NZ were playing Wales at 11pm).
I stayed behind and chatted to some of the other residents, most of whom were heading South, so we traded advice and tips. It was quite a group, with people from Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium and England.
Chris was also making new friends in the pub and chatted to a man who was in Christchurch during the quakes. He was so fearful for his family on that day that he moved out of Christchurch and will not return.
Day 56 – Picton and crossing the Cook Strait
We were merrily taking advantage of the free breakfast, when I asked about the free shuttle down to the ferry terminal. Turns out they were only running the 9.30am or it would be gone 12 so we rushed around like maniacs trying to pack the bags up, clean teeth and get out of there in 10 minutes! Made it, just.
We were too early to check our bags in at the ferry, but they did offer to let us store them there until our boat which was helpful.
In my conversations with the lovely Belgian girl the night before she’d recommended the Edwin Fox as a good place to look around. It was about 40 metres from the ferry terminal so we wandered in. The Edwin Fox is a very old wooden ship and has been rescued from where it was rotting in a cove around the corner. It had a very hard, but varied life and the story of its use was actually quite sad, seeing pictures of it decaying over time.
The Edwin Fox has quite a few claims to fame. She is the 9th oldest ship in the world. She’s also the oldest merchant ship in the world, the last surviving East Indiaman and the oldest surviving ship to bring immigrants to NZ, soldiers to the Crimean War front and convicts to Australia. At times she was used to ship people, various cargoes including alcohol, store refrigerated meat and then finally as a coal store.
There’s a film here, and a little museum, then you can go see the boat in the dry dock. The hull has not really been restored, just preserved, so you can see the damage wrought by the sea over time. The copper-zine hull coating has been almost entirely eroded away, leaving the wooden planks to be eaten by worms.
It’s pretty incredible to think that they used to be able to make ships out of wood like this, they had to steam the planks and then shape them within minutes to the required curves of the hull. The joins and things that they needed were also pretty intricate. Later on they started using Iron ‘shoulders’ to help hold ships together and these were retrofitted into the Edwin Fox and can still be seen today.
What was great about this ship was that they are setting it up to look like it would have been in the past inside, and you can touch everything! Aiden climbed into one of the bunks which would have housed 3 people for their 3-4 month voyage…
And there were plenty of opportunities for silly pictures…
The views from the harbour at Picton were pretty good, at the start of the deep, water filled valleys which lead out to the Cook Straight.
As we walked past the aquarium we were umming and aahing about whether to grab a hot drink in the coffee shop and play in the rather windswept park or do something else, when someone from the aquarium came out and suggested we do a tour with them. We’d just missed the start of one but another would be on at 2pm. No good for us as our ferry was at 2.15, so he suggested we join the current one and he’d take us back to the Tuatara handling at the end for a private go so we didn’t miss out. We weren’t sure as it didn’t look like much, but you get it half price if you’re on the Interislander ferry and the kids liked the sound of it so we headed in. The lady running the tour had just finished the Tuatara so we tagged on and followed her round as she took us to various tanks of local sea creatures and fed them. It was pretty good actually, certainly not like any other aquarium we’ve ever been to. There were lots of crabs and starfish etc to hold and three Little Blue Penguins in a tank at the end which had been rescued from a storm drain a few weeks ago. They literally swam within half a metre of our faces so we got a really good view.
Then the man was true to his word and took us back around to see and handle a Tuatara. These guys are odd reptiles (but not lizards), who live for a long time but cannot be aged as they have a serrated jawbone rather than teeth and no ears. Like the turtles, global warming is hurting the populations as when it’s warm they get more males hatching out.
The highlight of the tour for the kids was getting to hold their two fancy rats at the end. Fern and Willow. Evie in particular has really missed her pets. They are very cute. We will definitely be getting more when we get home! They are here because the bedding is used in traps for males out in the bush.
With no home and a super speedy exit that morning lunch was inevitably out. We went to the recommended Seabreeze café, where we had some delicious panini’s and milkshake.
Checking in the bags for the ferry was easy, and boarding followed soon after. The ship could take hundreds of people; but wasn’t too busy and we managed to get a seat with a table by a window. Whilst the morning had been really calm the wind was picking up a lot by the time we boarded. Fingers crossed the Cook Straight wouldn’t get too rough!
Before we cast off, we were entertaining ourselves watching some trainee sailors batting the wind with their sails and capsizing regularly. It looked pretty hard work to turn them back around again!
The ship got underway bang on time. The first part of the three and a half hour journey is meant to be the most picturesque, so I watched out the window. It needed to be seen from up top though so I took Evie with me and we went for an exploration of the ship. The views from the top were good, but it was pretty breezy. Evie wasn’t impressed so we didn’t stay long.
We found the soft play on the lower deck levels. It was pretty much empty so the kids were keen to play in it. I suggested we do that during the Cook Straight when we’d be missing less of the views and quickly headed up to the top for the end of the fjord.
There were so many seabirds flying around, I saw a large albatross, a small prion and a flock of shearwaters, but with the wind and the spray it was hard to get a good fix and all could have been one of a number of species. Trying to get nearer to the large albatross, which looked like it had flown around the front of the ship, I headed to the western side of the ship where I was met with some serious cross winds. There were a couple of men here looking for something. I assumed it was my albatross, which was no where to be seen, but one had seen a pod of Hector’s dolphins! They had also disappeared. I tried to look some more, but the wind was making my eyes stream, which rather interferes with looking!
Defeated, I headed back over to the more sheltered eastern side and suddenly there were dolphins everywhere (not Hector’s this time), with a massive pod coming towards the boat. Then they were totally gone before they got close.
Aware that the others were waiting for me to come back down before they could go to the soft play I took advantage of the lull in activity and went back down. Did the family see the dolphins that were just outside the window? Nope, all were on electronic devices and missed it. Typical! I suggested they go up and have a look themselves as I’d enjoyed watching the waves up top.
The soft play won out and they disappeared for a while to play in the depths of the ship.
The arrival into Wellington was uneventful, we disembarked and headed to pick up the luggage and look for the free shuttle bus into the town centre. They were right next to each other which was rather handy 😊.
The free shuttle to the station shaved off a few km, but it was still 2km to the hostel. That’s a long way with all the bags! We made to our rather massive hostel pretty ok actually, which bodes well for SE Asia when we have no wheels and have to carry our bags everywhere…
There’s a lot of living space downstairs, but it’s all pretty grimy and really busy! We were pretty happy to find I’d booked us a room with 6 beds, its own bathroom and a kitchenette. Even if the paint was literally peeling off the walls and laying on the floor…
On the plus side, there was an HDMI cable into the TV so we could watch films from the laptop 😊. We were feeling lazy after our exertions so sent Chris out for a Subway before bed.
Check out our travels around the North Island from Wellington to Waitomo or recap our last sun filled days in the RV following the road from Queenstown to Christchurch over Arthur’s Pass.