Easter Break Beginning Adventures

Alright, so I will slowly get down all of the insanity of my Easter break traveling.  First off, we had a two week break from school: one week was for Easter, the other was a "study" break.  I took advantage of these two weeks by traveling through the south island of New Zealand.  Even though I had a whole two weeks, however, I didn't get through the whole island!  There's way too much to see and do in New Zealand for me to accomplish in one short trip.  On this trip I tried to stick with the free activities because-hey-I'm a poor uni student!  Most of my trip was tramping (what kiwis affectionately call hiking) which I love to do, and you can do for free, with amazing views, just about anywhere you want in New Zealand.

I started my trip on a Thursday night.  My flatmate Shannon lives in the north part of the south island in a town called Blenheim.  We took the Interislander Ferry, which takes you from Wellington to Picton on the south island (see map--->).  I've never been on a really ferry before, since the states mostly just consists of highways and no real mass transit system.  Geeze, I wish we had a better one, light-rail anyone? It was pretty cool because our ferry left at 8 so I got to see the city recede into darkness and then Picton appear from the black.  It also helped that the seas--the Cook Straight--were fairly calm.  Shannon told me that they're supposed to be some of the most dangerous waters, because the swells can get very large, but in our case it wasn't until about 20 minutes into the ride that I realized we were moving.  The ferry ride is about 3 hours so we got in to Picton around 11:30 then got out to Shannon's house around midnight.  Blenheim is part of wine country: the Marlborough district, so the entire ride there was passing vineyards in the dark.  Needless to say I was pretty out of it on the drive there so I didn't notice much besides the almost full moon rising above us.

TONS of them! 

Friday was pretty fun.  I hadn't planned much to do since Shannon had told me that she was going to show me around the area.  We met up with two of her friends and, oddly enough, drove back to Picton to go for a hike.  The Marlborough region is also along the coast so there's tons of outlets to the ocean called the Marlborough Sounds.  A sound is a link to the sea that's been carved out by a river (this will be important in a later post).  Anyway, so we hiked up a path and out to a point called Bob's Bay.  It was beautiful!  It was a bright and sunny the whole day with barely a breeze.  All along the water, on the rocks, were little mussels.  There were so many, in this really vibrant blue-ish/purple-ish color that it was hard not to step on them.  Emma, one of Shannon's mates, eased my mind a bit when she said that those were the dying mussels; you can't eat those ones, and they only turn that color when they start to die.  Which is a sad thought, but made me less guilty about stepping on them.

After that we went kind of on a throwback trip for them.  Shannon, Emma, and Sophie (they're other friend with us), had been friends for a long time.  We went mini-golfing at a place they used to go way back, and walked around Picton as they traded stories.  I was invited to go out with them and a whole bunch of Blenheim folks on Saturday night, which was fun, and I won't get into ;D.

Later in the evening, as often happens when you're aren't sticking to a strict schedule over the holidays, we were going to make an awesome barbecue but, defeated by the shops closed for Good Friday, we ended up whipping up whatever Shannon's family had in their fridge for a hodge-podge meal of excellence.  Our flat really likes to cook back in Wellie, and we're all fairly awesome at it if I do say so myself.  Shannon and I managed to whip up a peach/apple/plum crumble, bruschetta, breaded chicken, and roasted potatoes/carrots/onions with a cheese sauce.  Since it's wine country, her sister contributed some very tasty bottles of wine as well, and we feasted with her and her friends.




Saturday we'd planned to go for a bit of a bike ride, but changed our minds and Shannon took me out to a cool ocean beach instead.  This trip sure did test out the time honored debate: beach, or mountains.  Luckily enough for me, I didn't have to choose too often.  Every time you went to a beach on the ocean there were mountains, or super high cliffs not to far off.  We went to both a white sand and a black...well not sand, but more like tiny rock beach.  Both were beautiful.  We didn't go swimming because the ocean currents in that area are really strong.  You could feel it even when the waves caught your ankles as it came in.  We did a lot of wave jumping, and misjudging how far/fast the water was coming up the beach.  The waves were too beautiful, and the foam on the beach was a lot of fun to take pictures of.  I can't say this enough, but any pictures I take of wherever I go do absolutely no justice to the beauty of the landscapes in New Zealand.

All along the black rock beach were these really cool drift wood piles that had washed up.  A few of them had been built into things: campfire circles, chairs, and this cool one was made into a little tipi house.








The white sand beach was just around a sheltered point from the black rock one we'd been walking along, but there was an easier was to drive over to it so we took that route.  That was a fun drive.  The road was mostly just hairpin turns up this cliff barely large enough for one car to get by, but here were two here hurtling around the bend on the opposite side of the road going crazy!  I was at least mollified when Shannon told me that it used to be worse: it used to all be gravel.  I was thankful that I wasn't the one attempting to drive up this crazy road like a maniac.  I'm sure, if it was me, all the other drivers would've tried to run me off the road for going to slowly and cautiously around each blind corner.  The beach, when we got there, was beautiful though, and well worth the drive.  Lovely soft sand, even a small cave that you could tell would get filled with water at high tide.  There were a couple families that had their kids there, obviously camping at one of the sites we passed on the way in, and even some fisherman out on the point.  It's funny how often I saw that scene repeated the further along in my travels I went: kids on the beach screaming with joy at the cold water, their parents gazing on, and the old men with a couple of their grandchildren perhaps, out a little ways on a point casting their lines, with a bucket of tackle, their catches, and bait by their side.  I really love this laid-back country.

Sunday there isn't much to tell about.  It was Easter, nothing was really open, and our ideas to go bike to vineyards were foiled by a flat tire and an intense desire to not move the whole day.  There wasn't much of an Easter celebration either.  It seemed like everyone I met talked about doing a hunt for Easter candy out in their lawns, so that was different, but it wasn't a big deal.  Nobody seemed to have a big family gathering or celebration or anything.  In fact we went out to dinner with Shannon's friends because her dad was working at the vineyard at 3am the next morning, and her mom and younger sister wouldn't be back from her rowing competition until late.

Monday was a fun-day.  I had booked a bus from Nelson to Franz Josef for Tuesday that left at 7am (ish) so I had to get to Nelson the night before, so we decided to go to this beach that was nearby the bus stop to Nelson.  Funny thing, this beach, it's just down the river from where they filmed part of the Hobbit.  Me, being a nerd, couldn't stop taking pictures and recognized the spot from one of Peter Jackson's vlogs about The Hobbit.  It was really just a pile of rocks next to the river, no real sand beach, and the water was freeeeeezziiinnnngggg, but it was a good spot for a nap in the sun and a picnic lunch!

Later, when I got to Nelson, I mostly just wandered around.  It was Easter Monday so just about everything was closed, but I didn't mind since I mostly just wanted to hike around.  I walked up a steep hill to a church that had been there since the 1890s, and then down to the marina which housed a bajillion yatchs and sailboats.  Nelson was very lovely, and I wish I had had the time to walk the Abel Tasman, which is a national park with this gorgeous multi-day hiking trail right outside of Nelson.  Unfortunately, I didn't get the time I wanted in Nelson so that only means one thing: I'll have to go back and properly explore!

Next post: an epic speed-tourist round via ten hour bus ride.