N Zed – The Beginning

Our plan was to spend five weeks circumnavigating the South Island of New Zealand in a campervan (known as a caravan in Australia and New Zealand). We’ve always gone camping, backpacking in our younger days and, more recently, out of the back of a four-wheel drive pickup on federal lands around the western U.S. New Zealand would be our first long trip in an RV as a test, not of our marriage, but of whether we’d like to own one ourselves. We arrived in Christchurch at midnight. Immigration was automated: scan your passport, answer a couple of questions, drop your incoming visitor card in a box welcome to New Zealand. Customs officers asked us questions about food and x-rayed our bags. A female officer asked if her beagle could sniff us and our luggage for fresh fruit; the dog tried to climb into Rande’s purse. She had an empty plastic bag that had carried apples and bananas, which we had eaten before we arrived. Outside the terminal, we caught the shuttle to the Sudima, a large, upscale hotel near the airport and fell into bed.

Mercedes caravan hooked up to electricity in a caravan park

The next morning, we picked up our caravan at the RV Super Centre (link), down the road from the hotel. We had reserved it in Australia, but there was more paperwork to fill out. I had to affirm that “I feel well prepared to drive on New Zealand roads” (true, more or less) and “I have driven a vehicle as large as this one” (I had). The woman who checked us in didn’t look at my answers; she took us to a lot with 40-50 caravans. Ours was a Mercedes Sprinter Van (link) with a four-cylinder diesel and 250,000 km (155,000 mi) on the odometer. She gave us a quick briefing and several pages of instructions. The caravan had a kitchen behind the driver’s seat, a bathroom behind the passenger’s seat, a table and two sofas in the rear that converted into a double bed. We couldn’t leave Christchurch without a working phone, so we drove to a telephone store to buy a SIM card. The caravan was 7.2 m (24 ft) long and 3 m (10 ft) high, so the last thing I wanted to do was learn to drive it in the city. We spent our first night in Spencerville, about 15 km (9 mi) north of Christchurch.

Sheep pasture on the road to Kaikoura

David, a New Zealander whom we had met a couple months earlier in Australia (link), told us to look at the weather forecast when we arrived; if it predicted good weather in the north, we should head north and go counterclockwise around South Island. The weather outlook was good, so we headed north to Kaikoura, about 200 km (125 mi) away. The two-lane road passed through small towns, by grassy pastures and vineyards, and wound through low hills populated by Cook pines and cedar-like wind breaks. The big Mercedes did fine on the flat lands – it could cruise at 90-100 km/hr (56-62 mph) – but it felt like driving a bus through the twisty bits, and took its time climbing the hills. All-in-all, it handled well and I quickly adapted to its shortcomings.

Coast road near Kaikoura

The road eventually reached the coast, a string of rocky headlands separated by sandy beaches. Large brown kelps floated on the surface close to shore and beaches were covered with brown, red and green algae torn from the rocks during storms. Kaikoura lies south of the snow-covered Seward Kaikoura Range [peaks to 2,600 m (8500 ft. The air temperature was in the 60s during the day and dropped into the 40s at night. The area reminded me of southeast Alaska. What a contrast to the heat and humidity of northern Queensland.

Slipway (boat launch ramp) in Kaikoura

Pied shag (cormorant)

Kaikoura stretches out around the Ingles Bay. The streets are narrow, the shops are colorful, but modest, and not more than two stories high. There was a festival in town and the streets were clogged with traffic and people in costumes. I drove out to the end of the road where it meets the Pacific Ocean. We passed six guys in blue bathrobes and slippers and women in clown costumes. Some of the revelers had drinking glasses on strings around their necks. The guys in the bathrobes were trying to hitchhike.

Caravan park in Kaikoura

Hauling a fishing boat out of the water with a tractor

We parked in a grass-covered lot next to the Pier Hotel not far from Kean Point and the walkway around the Kaikoura Peninsula. Our caravan needed to be “certified self-contained” to camp there. Before we left the RV Super Center in Christchurch, I made sure we had the proper stickers on the vehicle; violating the certified self-contained law is a $200 fine. We buttoned up the caravan and hiked around the peninsula. The scenery was spectacular – towering snow-capped mountains fell down to the sea; rocky reefs were covered with large, brown kelps being whipped back and forth by the swell; waves crashed on rocks offshore. Pied shags (cormorants) were chasing fish close to shore, variable oystercatchers searched for prey in the swash on the beach and hundreds of raucous red-billed gulls circled overhead.

Tourists photographing a fur seal along the road

New Zealand fur seal sleeping by the road

Male New Zealand fur seal letting me know I'm too close

A colony of New Zealand fur seals lives on the peninsula and the animals are used to seeing people. Males weigh up to 200 kg (440 lbs) and have a mouth full of teeth, which one showed me when I got too close. We climbed a hill to the top of the peninsula. An interpretive sign explained that millions of years ago, the peninsula was part of the seafloor. Fifteen million years ago, folding and faulting lifted the seafloor creating islands and mountain ranges. Hundreds of thousands of years ago, wave action cut platforms around the island that became the Kaikoura Peninsula and river gravels from the mountains filled the shallow sea behind it. Wave-cut platforms on top of the peninsula are over 100,000 years old; the present beach is 1,000 years old. Returning to the caravan, we walked along a dirt road bordered by old, funky beach cottages that were slowly being replaced by modern homes of wood and metal. Gentrification had arrived in Kaikoura.

Kaikoura Peninsula

Kean Point on the Kaikoura Peninsula

Cottage on the beach in Kaikoura

The next morning was gray and rainy; clouds hung over the mountains across the bay and rain falling offshore was headed our way. Nighttime temperatures were in the low 40s; without electrical power, the heater, microwave and electrical outlets don’t work. We made coffee on the gas stove, tidied up the caravan and got underway. Kaikoura was quiet on Sunday morning; people were having breakfast in the cafes and shopping in the grocery store. A month later, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake stuck the northeast coast of the South Island triggering tsunami waves 2-3 m (7-10 ft) high and run ups of 4-5 m (13-16 ft) (vertical height above sea level at the farthest point inland). The epicenter was 15 km (9 mi) deep between Christchurch and Kaikoura. Two people died and roads in and out of Kaikoura were closed for days to weeks; economic losses were estimated at US $3.5 billion. “Kaikoura moved to the northeast by nearly one metre [3 ft], and rose seventy centimetres [2.3 ft]” (link). 

Vineyard in the Marlborough district

We headed north to Blenheim. At Oahu Point, young fur seals were hunting in the surf around the rocks.  By the time we reached Blenheim, we had passed more than 20 vineyards. The Marlborough district is wine country and vineyards range from small plots in someone’s field with hand painted advertising signs, to large country estates with many hectares of vineyards and impressive estate buildings. From Blenheim we drove west on the narrow, windy Queen Charlotte Drive through the Marlborough Sounds, a series of drowned river valleys.

Havelock at the upper end of Pelorus Sound

Mahau Sound from Cullen Point lookout

We stopped at Cullen Point lookout and hiked 500 m (1,640 ft) up a muddy trail. To the west was Havelock, a small village at the upper end of Pelorus Sound, the largest of the Marlborough Sounds. It bills itself as the “greenshell mussel capital of the world.” To the east, we looked down Mahau Sound at houses tucked into coves on steep, tree-covered hillsides. Some of the houses are only accessible by boat. The main industries are marine aquaculture – 80% of New Zealand’s aquaculture exports come from Marlborough Sounds – forestry and tourism (link).

Mahau Sound

At the lookout, we met a couple that had recently moved from Christchurch to Pelorus Sound and climbed to the lookout for the first time. They retired early and bought a cabin on the sound, which the woman said will take them about a year to fix up. “He’s doing most of the work himself.” They didn’t have children and decided to “get off the merry-go-round” and become “semi-hermits.” They couldn’t see working for more money only to leave it behind after they were dead. Rande told them we’d been traveling in Mexico, which they believed was a dangerous place from news reports. Our conversation turned to the state of the world – wars, refugees, extreme weather linked to climate change – none of us was sanguine about the future for human beings. They wished us safe travels; we wished them well with their house. Farther down the road, we found a six-space Department of Conservation caravan park on Mahau Sound; four spaces were filled. It was freedom camping; no services except for a composting toilet.

Pelorus Bridge

We passed through Havelock early the next morning. The harbor was filled with pleasure and recreational fishing boats. Some of the private boats were old and scruffy; some were larger and more modern. It reminded me of harbors in southeast Alaska – functional boats for an unpredictable ocean. We didn’t stop for pictures – not enough character and no obvious commercial fishers; it’s 60 km (37 mi) to the Cook Strait and the open ocean, probably too far for commercial boats to commute to the fishing grounds.

Ferns in Pelorus Bridge Scenic Reserve

State Highway 6 (SH6) from Havelock to Nelson follows the Pelorus River west to the confluence with the Rai River at Pelorus Bridge. The one-lane bridge over the Pelorus River was undergoing maintenance. In the mid-1800s, this area was selected for a town site that was never built. The beech, broadleaf and podocarp (confier) forest around the town site was mostly logged off. The Pelorus Bridge Scenic Reserve is the last remaining native lowland rainforest in Marlborough (link) and a film location for scenes from The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (the dwarfs were filmed floating down the river in barrels) (link). 

Grove of fern trees in Pelorus Bridge Scenic Reserve

In the reserve, we saw groves of fern trees and ancient tatōras (podocarps), which are endemic to New Zealand and were prized by the Maori for their canoes (link). Pelorus River and Pelorus Sound were named by the commander of the HMS Pelorus of the British Royal Navy while conducting a survey of Marlborough Sounds in 1837 (link). In navigation, pelorus is a dummy compass (like a compass rose) that gives relative bearings when positioned correctly. The instrument was named for Pelorus, said to be Hannibal’s pilot ca. 203 BC (link).

Tatōra (l-trunk, r-canopy), an endemic conifer,in Pelorus Bridge Scenic Reserve

Most of the lowlands along Pelorus and Rai rivers were cleared long ago for pastures (sheep, dairy cattle, beef cattle). The native forests on the slopes of the hills along State Highway 6 have been replaced by a monoculture of neat rows of mostly radiata (Monterrey) pine introduced from the US in the 1850s. With a rotation of 30-40 years, the steep slopes have been planted, clearcut and replanted several times (link). It may be sustainable like the farms in the valleys, but the ancient lowland rainforest has almost disappeared.

Radiata pine plantation: trees and clearcut on far ridge; re-planted clearcut on yellow slope

We stopped in Nelson to buy food, a doormat for the caravan, a comforter for the colder nights on the west coast and cardboard boxes to organize the caravan. We visited several second-hand stores – Salvation Army, Red Cross, Vinnies – all within walking distance of the grocery store. We fit right in; after days of freedom camping (no electricity, shower or laundry), we looked (and smelled) like some of the people we saw on the street – down and out, staying in homeless shelters.

Marahau street on Sandy Bay

Kayakers in Sandy Bay

We drove around Tasman Bay and headed north through Motueka to Marahau on the southern edge of Abel Tasman National Park in the Tasman district. We stayed in a nice caravan park with electricity, water, showers and a dump station across the road from Sandy Bay. Groups of sea kayakers were landing on the beach; they’d been out for several days exploring the national park. A guy driving a tractor met them and hauled their kayaks and bodies up to the road. I walked down the sand spit to Otuwhero Inlet where all the boats were grounded on the low tide. Smoke was rising from a metal chimney of a houseboat with an aluminum skiff tied to its stern, and a small dog was running around the deck of a funkier houseboat.

Houseboats grounded on a low tide in Otuwhero Inlet

Sailboats on a low tide in Otuwhero Inlet

The next morning, we walked through Marahau to the entrance to Abel Tasman Natl Park, one of the smallest national parks in New Zealand [225 sq km; 55,700 acres (link)]. The trail crosses the Marahau River estuary winds around the headland with views to the south of Marahau and the coast to Nelson and to the east of the Fisherman and Adele islands. It was a beautiful, cool morning, but we carried rain jackets in case the towering clouds over the mountains let loose.

Estuary of the Marahau River

White-faced heron in the estuary of the Marahau River

Coast of Abel Tasman National Park

The trail is popular with day-hikers; small groups of school kids on holiday, families with youngsters in three-wheel strollers and couples of all ages plied the level, double-wide trail. A group of young women carrying large packs for a week-long “tramp” passed us. We followed single-track spurs down to sandy pocket beaches between rocky promontories and stopped for lunch in the shade of a large pine tree on a sand spit. The wind was cool and strong from the northeast, and we put on our rain jackets. Tree ferns were 7-8 m high and small ferns grew on the rock walls along the trail. Streams tumbled down the mountainside in a series of waterfalls crashing on moss-covered boulders. In nine hours, we had hiked 12 km (7.5 miles) roundtrip and I had taken over 200 pictures.

Fern trees in Abel Tasman National Park

Several species of ferns growing on a rock wall in Abel Tasman National Park

Water shuttle carries hikers into Abel Tasman National Park

Abel Tasman National Park is named for Abel Jans Tasman, a Dutch seafarer, explorer and merchant who worked for the Dutch East India Company in the 17th century. In 1642-43, Tasman and another Dutch seafarer led an exploratory voyage for the company sailing eastward south of Australia. Tasman mapped and explored the island now known as Tasmania, then sailed to the northwest coast of New Zealand’s South Island, becoming the first European to see it (link). Abel Tasman National Park was founded in December 1942 to commemorate the 300th anniversary of Abel Tasman's landing in Golden Bay on the north side of the park (link).

Looking back to Kaikoura from Abel Tasman National Park

One-lane bridge over the Moteuka River

Moteuka River and rainbow

We left Marahau the next morning driving south along the Moteuka River past vineyards, blueberry farms and kiwi orchards in bloom. We crossed the river on a one-lane, wooden bridge at Pokororo as a perfect rainbow spread across the Moteuka Valley. 

Kiwi orchard in the Moteuka Valley

Kiwi vine

We were going to Nelson Lakes National Park. Our plan was to spend the night at a caravan park on Lake Rotoiti and hike around the lake the following day. We talked to a park ranger in the visitor center. She was filling in for someone and couldn’t answer our questions about the campground, but we had an interesting conversation about the park. Her regular job was community relations, which included education, indigenous liaison and marketing. She’s from Wellington on the North Island and she and her partner were building a “pre-retirement house” in St. Arnaud, a small village outside the park. Then she found a job with the park, took a cut in salary and moved there. They drive about an hour to Nelson for groceries.

Kiwi warning sign along the road to Nelson Lakes

We asked her where we could see kiwis. “In a zoo” she said. We heard the same thing from other people. Sometimes campers hear them screeching to one another at night. Kiwi populations are declining because of introduced predators (dogs, cats, stoats, possums, ship rats) and loss of habitat. Kiwis are nocturnal; park rangers catch them during the day (“when they’re groggy”) by reaching down into their burrows and grabbing them by their feet. They’re fitted with radio transmitters and tracked by staff. She told us about the kiwi center in Hokitika on the West Coast of the South Island where they have kiwis in captivity.

Lake Rotoiti

Beech forest at Lake Rotoiti

The weather was cold, windy and rainy. We had lunch in the caravan by the lake, took a wet hike through the beech forest (silver, red and mountain beeches) and decided to continue west. We followed the Buller River along SH6 to a caravan park near Murchison. Several young men and women from a kayak club were staying in the park and partying after a day on the river. They had the only other vehicles in the park, which could hold over 100 people. We did our laundry (for the first time in New Zealand) and took hot showers. Rande used the communal kitchen (all caravan parks have one) to make lamb stew for dinner. We plugged into camp electricity so we’d have heat during the night.

Buller River near Murchison

The next morning was damp, cold and rainy. We put on our rain gear and took a walk along the Buller River. It’s a big river with strong currents; the swirls and disturbances on the surface are caused by submerged boulders and logs. On our way west, we took a 25-km (16-mi) detour south to Maruia Falls on a tributary of the Buller River. The falls were created during the magnitude 7.8 Murchison Earthquake in 1929, which killed 17 people, 14 by landslides, and destroyed the town. Centered on a fault west of Murchison, the land moved upward as much as 4.5 m (15 ft). 

Falls on the Maruia River

The falls were created by a landslide that displaced the Maruia River to the west forcing it to flow over an old river bank about 1 m (3 ft) high. The river proceeded to erode the gravels below the falls, which, by the next year, were 5 m (16 ft) high; by 1986, the falls were 10 m (33 ft) high (link). At the caravan park, we saw pictures of kayakers boating off the top of the falls, but no one was on the river when we were there.

Falls on the Maruia River

Buller River Gorge

We continued along the Buller River through Buller Gorge as it was joined by one river after another getting larger and larger. The forested walls of the gorge were steep, rocks along road cuts were covered with ferns and trees were hung with lichens. We stopped at O’Sullivans Bridge. We could hear the roar of water as it gushed down a narrow channel under the road before we could see the unnamed falls above it.

Waterfall on a tributary to the Buller River

Ferns in the Buller River Gorge

The Mercedes caravan handled rather well on the wet roads; it’s big and heavy and if I kept the speed down, it did fine. The locals want to drive at 100 km/hr (62 mph) regardless of the road conditions, so I pulled over to let them pass. Some honked their horns in appreciation. By this time, we had driven about 800 kms (500 mi) and I had figured out most of the symbols on signs along the roads. Like the roundabouts in Australia, the one-lane bridges in New Zealand, of which there are many, even on major highways, gave me pause. So here’s a primer: The white car on the bridge in the picture below has the right-of-way. How do I know?

One-lane bridge

The picture below shows the sign she passed approaching the bridge from the south. The yellow diamond at the top of the first sign warns the driver that a one-land bridge is ahead. The square blue sign with the white and red arrows (which represent vehicles) tells the driver who has right-of-way – larger white arrow on the left – and who has to yield – red arrow on the right. In the picture above, opposing traffic has to yield if the white car is closer to the bridge, or on the bridge. 

Approaching a one-lane bridge from the south

The picture below is what a driver sees coming from the north. Again, the yellow diamond warns that a one-land bridge is ahead. The round red and white sign shows that opposing traffic – larger black arrow – has the right-of-way and the car coming from the north – smaller red arrow – has to yield. This is fairly easy to decipher at a modest speed on a rural road, but in traffic at 100 km/hr (62 mph) on the "wrong" side of the road, interpreting and reacting to symbols on a series of signs as they whiz by takes concentration.

Approaching a one-lane bridge from the north

We bought groceries, diesel and propane in Westport, a small town with a good selection of shops and stores stretched out over several blocks along the main street. Leaving town, a sign read: “97 kms to Next Gas.” Our destination was Kahurangi National Park, 100 km (66 mi) north.