NZ Travelogue Day 25 to 26

Havelock/Picton

 Havelock - the mussel capital is a small town with a marina, situated near the Marlborough Sounds.

It was a sunny day when we set off along the Kenepuru Road,  along the shore of Mahau and Kenepuru Sounds.

 We stopped at Te Mahia, with a beautiful view of the Kenepuru Sound. Time passed quickly as we sat enjoying the changing colours of the water and the moving clouds.

 

What a better place for a coffee and followed by a lunch. 

 Delicious seafood pizza for two.

Reluctantly we said goodbye to the beautiful view and zigzagged our way back to Havelock.

That evening, we had dinner at the Marina - the biggest bowl of tomato soup i ever had. And the side order of potato wedges turned out to be a meal itself. 

Next morning, we zigzagged along Queen Charlotte Drive for Picton,

and made a number of photo stops.

 Queen Charlotte Sound - isn't it beautiful?

  

Along the way, we watched a ferry cruising towards Picton Harbour.

It's the Interislander ferry Kaikati that we would be taking to Wellington a few days later. 

What a coincidence!

Why is this named Shakespeare's Bay? No idea. 

Picton Harbour and the palm trees lining along the harbour. We'll be back 2 days later when we crossed from South Island to North Island. 

Next stop: Blenheim half an hour drive from Picton - to visit the cousin of David's mother.

NZ Travelogue Day 22 to 24

Golden Bay

 It was nice to be driven after 3 weeks of driving. We went to Collingwood, which was targeted to the capital of NZ in the 19th century but never materialised.

It has a pretty estuary and

a chocolate shop. David couldn't resist the temptation to buy. 

Very yummy and expensive!!

 We visited a few art galleries - pottery, fabric art, quilts, jewelry, paintings.

I was attracted to these flowers, the 'naked lady'. Photos taken in the garden at Siena's bach where we had a lovely morning tea break and view of the bay with many black swans swimming.

Off we went to Farewell Spit, our next stop. It has the shape of the beak of the kiwi. 

Sorry, no time to take a walk on the sand dunes.

Catch up time with Morf. The last time we met was in Singapore when she went for holiday in 1997.

Golden Bay - we were taken by its beautiful sky and seascapes.

More beaches and galleries before we returned home to Bill.

 David had a final game of chess with Bill.

 And then enjoyed  the delicious dinner prepared by Morfydd.

Sad to leave on the 3rd day for our next destination: Havelock.

 Beautiful cloud formation as we travelled up and down the Takaka Hill and went through 

the S-bends and hairpins again.

Stopped briefly at Nelson where I got some fleece for felt making at a co-op shop.

NZ Travelogue Day 19 to 21

Christchurch to Murchison

5.00am Sent Jo to the airport for her return flight to Singapore, and then after a quick breakfast left Christchurch for Murchison.

The journey to Murchison was cold, windy and wet. We stopped briefly at Hanmer Springs - a vacation resort but it was so quiet on the Saturday because of the bad weather.  Can you see the freshly sprinkled snow icing on the mountains in this photo taken from within the car?  Somewhere near Lewis Pass. Temperature 5 deg C.

 Incredulously, the sky cleared when we reached Murchison. This photo was taken shortly after our arrival at the motel about 3 hours later.

 A very comfortable, cosy and clean motel. Enjoyed the two nights in a 2 bedroom unit.

Sunday morning. We took a walk from our motel to the village centre - absorbing the activities of the residents, and workers maintaining the roads. 

In the afternoon, it took us about 40 minutes to climb a hill to enjoy a bird eye's view of  Murchison.

These two photos do not give justice to the beautiful views we saw. We sat on the benches to enjoy the scenes before we reluctantly made our way down.

Murchison to Golden Bay

Leaving sunny Murchison for Golden Bay in the North. Stopped at Moteuka for lunch in a lovely museum cafe. Beautiful views at lookouts.

 

David captured the snow-capped mountain using his long lens - this was situated way back south of Murchison. 

Agricultural lands and vineyards, hops and orchards on the way to Golden Bay. And so many variety of fruits grown- apples,kiwis, avocados, berries. Rather dizzy to drive through hundreds of S  and hairpin bends to cross the Takaka Hill before arriving at Golden Bay.

Morfydd's house is about 25 km from Takaka. On arrival. got introductions to her husband, 2 dogs, 2 cats, sheeps, chooks and huge land area housing the orchard, vegetable gardens and a swimming pool.

NZ Travelogue Day 18

Christchurch Botanic Garden. There was a Festival of Flowers in the Gardens with many installations related to the recent earthquarkes in the city. Messages of wishes and hopes were hung around this tree.

There are over 100 species of roses in the Botanic Gardens.  This is ROSA NEW ZEALAND.

This hybrid has both yellow and spotten pink flowers on the same branch.

I was very fascinated by the various types of dahlias in the garden. How different they are!

The only place we visited in Christchurch was the Gardens. Didn't want to see the 'ruins' of the Cathedral. As we drove round the outskirts of city, (not even the centre which was greatly affected by the quakes),  quite a number of damaged buildings met our eyes. Very sad.

Motels around the city have no vacancies as they are occupied by residents whose houses were being rebuilt or repaired or Engineers and builders who are working on the restoration of the buildings.

NZ Travelogue Day 16 to 18

Arthur's Pass

 It was a wet day when we left the glaciers. Had to photograph the scenery from inside the car to stay dry.

 The landscape as we drove along the west coast towards Arthur's Pass.

 As we approached Arthur's Pass, we encountered more rocky mountains.

  We had to stay indoors most of the day in the motel as the bad weather persisted the next day.  But managed to squeeze in some photo shots in the late afternoon.

Kea - the noisy bird which like things made of rubber. And these birds are fearless.

 

 Glad to leave the bad weather behind in Arthurs' Pass.
We were on the way to close the loop which started from Christchurch 18 days ago.

Seems like that we driving towards the cloud. Looking forward to brighter weather beyond the cloud.

NZ travelogue Day 14 to 16

The West Coast and the Glaciers

With much of NZ lands being transformed for the purpose of agriculture, a few places are left in their original state or being conserved by the government. The West Coast of the Southern Alps is a heritage site  for its wondrous coastlines, national parks and glaciers. Early settlers came here for the coal and gold.

 Haast Beach and the Tasman Sea. Wild and windy.

Bruce Bay, the last bay we saw before the Glaciers and Hokitika.

Fox Glacier

 The ground we were standing was glacier 40-50 years ago.

 David going to cross the stream to have a closer look at the glacier while Jo and I preferred to stay on this side of the stream.

Franz Josef Glacier

 A fascinating reflection on Peter's Pool. The reflection is clearer than the real thing.

The shrinking glacier.

Sunset views from the Glacier Gateway Motel

 Magical!

Lake Matheson. This is the place where one can see a perfect reflection of Mt Cook and Mt Tasman. We were out of luck. Too cloudy. Well, we walked round part of the lake through rather dense forest, and had an encounter with these two curious animals.

Hokitika

Pounamou (Green Stone).  Bought these at the Jade Factory in Hokitika.

Also visited the Museum, the building which has been a library built by a donation from the Carnegie Foundation in America. This coach was used to travel between Christchurch and Greymouth on the West Coast, and the journey took 9 days. And now the same journey took only hours.