Around the World and Back: Welcome to the South Island

Back to the usual no-free-internet-anywhere aspect of New Zealand, and my neglect of this blog... at this rate it's a miracle if I can do two posts a month. Time to catch up. It's pouring rain in Nelson, the "sunniest region" in the south island, and we're in the library, bumming around. We are going to try sleeping in our car on the side of the road for the first time tonight! We spent the last two nights in nice hostels and now we've got to save some $$. Let me start from the beginning...

We slept through most of the gorgeous, not-to-be-missed scenery of our inter-island ferry ride, unfortunately. Maybe next time. :) When we arrived here it was relatively overcast and we found a cheap (or free, since there were no envelopes for payment) DOC campsite in the Onamalutu valley, in the Marlborough region. We stayed there a night and then thought we'd try out another site that was maybe 20 minutes away. It ended up being a site we couldn't drive to because of a river ford our car wouldn't have survived, so we had to hike our stuff in. The campsite had a creepy vibe. There was some trash left around and in general, we decided, it had a murdery-type feel to it. We decided not to haul our stove/gas and food to the site so we cooked right next to the river where we were parked, and made dinner. We had already set up our tent and sleeping bags at the spot but after dinner while sitting in the car, sleeping in the car without our sleeping bags/pillows/etc was discussed... but we decided to brave the campsite since we were already set up. Back across the rickety old suspension bridge we went, and we made it through the night, feeling comforted by the knowledge that our cooking knife was safely stowed in Brian's toiletry bag.

The next morning we hiked back to the car, excited for our "easy 5 hour hike" into a hut for the night. Instead of bringing our stove and incredibly ridiculous huge thing of gas on the hike, we thought, "oh, let's just cook up some rice and we'll bring cans of beans and a couple sandwiches and that'll do it. The hike will be easy anyway." We brought the tent and sleeping pads in case the hut was full. Intended to be an "intro" hike for us, the test to see what it's like to haul overnight gear, we were sadly misinformed. In typical kiwi fashion, the signage to the hike was absurdly ambiguous/absent, and an hour drive after first sign to the trail we miraculously stumbled upon the trailhead. Along the way we found a pig graveyard full of carcasses, skulls, hooves, etc. Add the to the list of creepy things that happened to us in the first few days of our time on the south island.

The "halfway" point was meant to be 2.5 hours (on trail signs they like to put the amount of time it will take you to hike the distance, instead of the distance itself; big mistake), but it only took about an hour and 45 min, even though it was moderately uphill the whole way. That was a good sign, we felt, because that meant the hut was probably only 2 hours or so away (I'm out of shape, don't judge). The second "half" of the hike started downhill for maybe an hour and a half, which was nice, and then proceeded to become a steep incline for at least another hour and a half, during which time my boots TURNED AGAINST ME AGAIN!!!! The blisters were back. The incline was painful, but we finally reached the summit of a peak and though surely the hut was nearby. Instead, the trail became a steep decline for ANOTHER 2 HOURS. With lots of breaks, the tramp took us about 7.5 hours to the hut (aptly named "Devil's Hut", wah wah). Grossly underprepared (foodwise, of course we had more sleeping gear than we needed), we fell into our creepy cots in this haunted hut, exhausted. As I tried to fall asleep, I heard someone scraping along the side of the hut, trying to break in the window. Brian had brought the axe inside (for safety!) and he went out to investigate. He decided the sound was actually birds, living on the roof, or something, but I couldn't sleep that night. Ideas of being killed, starving to death, or dying by foot blisters haunted me all night.

The next morning we began our hike back, and after *several* emotional breakdowns on my end (sorry Brian, it was the blisters talking) and breaks, we made it back to our car, 7.5 hours later. I'm not kidding when I say I was filled with hatred towards Kiwis while I hiked that second day, with their ambiguous directions, empty promises, and misleading signage. Sorry Kiwis, I've calmed down now, and I really do like your mentality and easy-goingness (mostly...). Thanks for the amazing workout!

After the deadly Wakamarina track we stayed in a nice cozy hostel in Blenheim, and spent too much money treating ourselves to Thai food. The next morning we moved a few km down the road to the holiday park in Blenheim where we met up with Brian's cousins and two of their friends. It was so nice to stay at our beautiful stream-side camping spot, with friends, enjoying Christmas in the sun. We didn't really do too much over those few days but relax, play bananagrams, eat, and even go on some nice long runs. Blenheim was a small town but still had some nice spots and the holiday park was very comfortable. We're keeping it in mind as a prospective place to live for a month and work (hopefully on a vinyard) in February during the harvest.

We planned to go to the beach and spend the night at a free DOC site after leaving Blenheim, but got a better offer instead. Keeping with tradition of stumbling upon AWESOME connections, we were invited to a bbq in Nelson, in the Abel Tasman region, by an expat family who are friends of my friend Casey (Casey's connections are far-reaching). They lived in West Seattle but Sabien (the wife) was able to move with her family to Nelson and work because her job is on the list of job-shortages in New Zealand (one advantage to having a career...). They have been here a year and live in an amazing bungalow-y type house on the hill above Tarunanui beach. The bbq turned out to be a delicious sit-down dinner; a small gathering of friends, and we were so pleased to be a part of it. Thank you so much, Sabien and Jay, and Case for making this awesome connection!!

We spent yesterday driving around the area and playing on boogie boards in Kaiteriteri beach; trying to get the last bit of sun in before the rain came. Plans for New Years: sleep in the car, and try not to get too rained on. :) The next adventure is the Queen Charlotte Track, a 4-day hike which is one of New Zealand's Great Walks. We are really excited for this and it will be the first of the Great Walks we've done. The ferry service we booked picks up and drops off our hiking packs/sleeping gear at all the campsites along the way, so we only have to bring a day pack! I will pack LOTS of moleskin.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!