A Journey the Length of New Zealand - The Begining

 

March and April were the end of summer and I had loved spending them up in the warm north. But I was about to make a pretty big change, and not one that a lot of New Zealanders would have done. I knew this from the strange looks I kept getting when I told people I was going to be spending May and June down in Invercargill. Really really strange looks… generally followed with questions like, “You do know that it is going to be winter while you are there right?” And “Did you look at a map before you agreed to that housesit?” Or “How much are they paying you?” I had to explain that before I had even arrived in New Zealand I for some reason had decided that Stewart Island was a place I had to visit. Invercargill was almost as close to the island as I could get and when I saw the housesit listed there I jumped at the chance. It didn’t hurt that it was a two month long housesit and that there were two cats to take care of.

 Now not only was this a crazy move because of the weather and climate change. But this was almost one end of the country to the other end. I realized just how long of a trip this was going to be when I started putting it together and realized that it was probably going to take at least four days to travel that far via bus and ferry! The only way that I could do it faster was to take two flights or rent my own car. Luckily I was able to put together a trip using a night bus, ferry, a train and another bus that would get me from Whangarei on Sunday afternoon to Invercargill on Thursday night with a little bit of sightseeing on the way.

 

The first part of the trip was a bus down to Whangarei and luckily there were no road closures to delay us like when I had arrived. The trip was made rather interesting by a note passing local I met and ended up having dinner with while waiting for my night bus. We left Auckland at 7:30 and arrived in Wellington at the Railway Station at 6:30 in the morning. I can’t say I got a great amount of sleep but it wasn’t a bad way to cover a lot of ground and most of it was road I had already covered in my trip from Auckland to Palmerston North.  As I was impatient for my morning coffee and my ferry ride over to the South Island I hauled my bags all the way over to the InterIslander  terminal. That was a really long k! But thankfully I was able to check my luggage all the way through from Wellington’s ferry terminal to the rail station in Kaikoura. All that was left to do was enjoy crossing over.

 The ferry ride takes about 3 hours but land is visible the entire time. The trip is 92 km by sea and starts in the Wellington Harbor. The trip then goes out into the Cook Strait.

 

The other company that provides ferry service across the Strait is Blue Bridge Ferries.

 

The second part of the trip was my favorite, the trip winds through the Tory Channel and into Queen Charlotte Sound.

 

Picton

 

 

Last Night in Whangarei

The time that I had spent in Whangarei was really amazing, and a large part of that was due to the great people I had met while I was there. It was hard to leave them but I knew that there was lots of New Zealand left to visit. And it was a lot easier knowing that they wanted me to come back. I even left my bottle of Karikari Estate Wine with them for safe keeping and a good reason to visit again before I left. The last day there we were able to have a wonderful dinner of such good New Zealand food. There is really no chance I am going to lose any weight while I am here, there is just too much to try. And desserts are quite a specialty, we had 4 I think just for this one night, including some fejoa ice cream which is amazing. For my final treat I got to take a ride in the Doretti that they had completely restored. March and April were really great months up north but I am off to spend May and June at the very bottom of the South Island.   

Mangawhai

  My last day in Whangarei I traveled down to Mangawhai to do the Mangawhai Heads walk with a couple friends. The walk can only been done at low tide if you do part of the walk on the beach and then come back along the top of the cliffs. We decided to do the beach first to enjoy the view from the top looking back while we were walking.

 

Along the way we got to check out some low tide sea creatures that had been left behind.

 

Parts of the walk were mostly over rocky parts under the cliffs that were covered in broken sea shells. I had never seen so many all in one place!

 

We could see the cliffs we would be on top for the second half of the walk and I really don't think you can have a bad view on this track no matter what direction you do it.

 

You know that you have reached the end and are ready to climb the cliffs when you get to walk through a sea arch! It was really an amazingly rough part of the coast.

 

It took awhile to get climbed up from the beach but this was the view you were rewarded with once you made it to the top. There were a LOT  of stairs to climb to get there though!

 

I found the way that trees grew sideways off cliffs a little bit fascinating.

We made it back just in time as the weather was starting to get a bit rough looking. Our reward for the walk was brunch at Bennett's Chocolates of Mangawhai. The food was amazing and they have some pretty great chocolates there as well. 

 

The chocolate shop portion is filled with things like this chocolate shell holding a variety of sea themed chocolates and a huge display case of pretty much every type of chocolate you could imagine all made right there in Mangawhai. I even picked up a few chocolates to send back home to my parents.