New Zealand Adventure: South Island Adventures

We've just returned from five days on the South Island. Since the appropriate adjectives all seem terribly cliched ("spectacular", "breathtaking", etc.), I'll let the photos generally do the talking and simply throw in some reference points along the way. Needless to say, we enjoyed the incomparable scenery, coupled with superb weather and lack of crowds (having come before the summer onslaught in January-February, when you apparently need to book your lodging a year in advance).

First, a word on the ferry crossing of Cook Strait. Fortunately, it was quite calm and smooth in both directions, which -- coupled with ample doses of Sea Legs pills-- prevented any seasickness during the 3.5 hour (one way) trip.

After arriving in Picton, we headed west on Queen Charlotte Drive, skirting the winding inlets of Marlborough Sounds, a tangle of bays and hidden coves with a few isolated enclaves of vacation homes.

The route takes you through the city of Nelson and then climbs up and over Takaka Hill, known as "the Marble Mountain", along the one paved road that provides access to the appropriately-named Golden Bay area.

Our destination was Pohara which, although it is one of the most popular vacation destinations for Kiwis, is pleasantly "sleepy" and offers little in the way of restaurants or accommodations (we had a cottage directly overlooking the beach; see below). There is, however, one surprisingly tidy camping ground for holiday vans, complete with Internet facilities.

The beach at Pohara was largely empty, and there is no commercial development of the area whatsoever. What a contrast to Ocean City!!

A visit to Farewell Spit (shown above) is a must. At the northern tip of the South Island, Farewell Spit is a 22-mile long sandspit that sweeps eastward into the Tasman Sea, providing a breakwater for safe anchorage. It is a nature reserve that attracts thousands of migratory birds; to protect the area, access to the spit itself is restricted to guided tours.

You feel compelled to go out of your way to visit a place called the Naked Possum, which offers venison burgers and Speckled Possum ale for lunch. ("Naked" refers to the method of treating the possum leather to turn it into clothing, as the possum is NZ's biggest pest, and the forests contain traps to catch the little varmints, whose only value is their delightfully soft fur, which is woven in with merino wool to make incredibly warm clothing.)

Thus fortified, we visited an unusual construction known as the Pupu Hydro Walkway, a path that has been ingeniously constructed along a water race, which a cross between a small canal and an aqueduct. Water flows at an even speed down the race until it vanishes into a pipe descends to a powerhouse. The race, about 2 miles long, was originally built in 1901-02 to give the gold sluicers sufficient working pressure in the water flow, which is now used as the energy source for a small hydro electric power station. The walkway follows the race on one side and a steep drop-off into the heavily forested valley on the other.