Tag Archives: Landscape

Cross Training

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Saturday March 7 2026 – Back to normal travelling routine with a bump this morning as the alarm was set for 0530; we only ever get up early when we’re travelling. The reason for this upheaval was that we had to join the TranzAlpine train, which crosses New Zealand from east to west (or vice versa), in our case starting from Christchurch and chuffing its way across the spiny middle of the country to Greymouth on the other coast. Departure time was 0815, for which we had to check in at least 30 minutes early. So we hit the hotel breakfast as soon as it opened, and grabbed a cab to the station soon after 0700. Check-in was crowded but we were in Scenic Plus class, dahling, so there was less of a queue before we got our boarding passes and handed our bags to chaps who put them on a long conveyor belt on the platform to take them down to the luggage car at the rear of the train.

We then stood around on the platform by our allotted carriage, together with our fellow travellers, waiting for someone to tell us what to do, until Jane had the bright idea of pressing the green button on the carriage door which opened it so we could all stream on board.

The carriages are comfortable and have large windows so that passengers are able to see the passing countryside,

though for photography enthusiasts there are a couple of open-sided carriages.

Astonishingly, the couple who were seated across the aisle from us were two of the Americans who had been on our Christchurch tour the previous afternoon. They were nice people, though I found the volume of his joviality a bit overwhelming at times. Fortunately, the open-sided carriage was the next one along so I had an escape route if I needed it. The couple opposite us, being Canadian, were much quieter and more gemütlich. For us posh people in Scenic Plus, meals and drinks were served at our seats, and the food was pretty decent; wine and beer were served at no extra charge.

To start with, the surroundings were quite unremarkable and not worthy of my photographic skills.  Before too long, though, the mountains that we were going to have to cross started to come closer

and the train made its first stop, at Springfield.

After the journey resumed, we were enjoined by the crew to remain seated and the open-sided carriage was closed as the train was due to go through some tunnels. Any photography would have to be done from one’s seat; and all the decent views were on the other side of the train, which was a little frustrating. But soon enough we were through the tunnels and free to use the open-sided car once again, and the scenery started to become more interesting,

and, in one place, slightly bizarre.

The train carried on up towards the mountains

and when the scenery started to get dramatic, the open-side carriage suddenly got really quite popular,

to the point where it was occasionally quite frustrating to be able to aim a camera as one would like. But with a bit of patience it was possible to get some lovely images of the passing countryside.

For a long time, the rail line ran alongside the Waimakariri and Bealey rivers, which, like many rivers at this time of year, were ribbons of water running through gravel.

We caught sight of our first snow-capped mountain

just before the train stopped at Arthur’s Pass, which is pretty much the highest point of the journey;

many passengers disembarked at that point – I think the idea was to spend some time there before catching the return train back to Christchurch in the afternoon.

There was a little more interesting scenery beyond Arthur’s Pass

but the variety in the landscape diminished as we descended towards Greymouth, which left us free to concentrate on the tasty dessert served up as the last course of three along the route. We also lost the sunshine which had marked the first half of the journey.

Shortly after 1pm, we arrived in Greymouth and everyone streamed off the train to get their luggage. I had been expecting to walk up the road from the station to a car hire office, but Jane cottoned on very quickly that there was a Budget desk among those on the platform and she bade me get in the queue whilst she got the luggage.  This was a very wise move. I was first to the Budget desk, and minutes after I got there, this was the scene among the car hire desks,

with the queue even stretching out of the door.

So we got our car very quickly and were able to head out with little bother. We are now driving a nice Kia Sportage, which is posher than the Mitsubishi, but with more knobs, dials and bongs to confuse the uninitiated.

Our ultimate destination was a town called Hokitika, which lies a little south of Greymouth; but first Jane wanted us to go north, to a place called Punakaiki. The road is by the coast, and it was at times difficult to know whether we were driving through spray, low cloud or rain.

Just south of Punakaiki village is a track which leads to a site called the “Pancake Rocks”, which Jane very much wanted to see. There’s a cafe there, which I was quite interested in, too.

Joking aside, the rocks are spectacular. There’s a trail which leads visitors on a loop around various viewpoints

and it’s a popular place.

There’s good reason for this; the rock formations at the cliff edge are really unusual.

You can see why they’re called the Pancake Rocks. (The similarity between the English and the  Māori names is entirely coincidental.) They are made up of sedimentary limestone, which has been compressed into rock by the weight of continuing sedimentation over the ages; the sedimented layers of limestone are interspersed with mudstone, which erodes more easily than the limestone, so action by seawater etches these layered patterns in the rock; it’s a startling sight. I had seen a photo of these rocks so I was pleased to be able to photograph them myself, but what I hadn’t expected was what the seas were up to around there. The track leads visitors cunningly through ever more dramatic landscapes

and what I wasn’t prepared for was the effect of the surging of the waves, which was very dramatic indeed. At one point they drive a blowhole (“The Chimney Pot”) right the way through the cliffs.

Jane got a much better picture from a different angle.

Each stopping point has more dramatic wave action than the last and the final surge pool is occasionally very action-packed.

Still photography can’t really do it justice. Here’s a video of some of what we saw, which I hope gives you a better idea.

Having spent quite some time there, and had that coffee, we headed back south to Hokitika, through more of the oddly misty weather.

We stayed at the Beachfront hotel, which is perfectly comfortable and well-organised without being noteworthy in any other respect, and rested up for the night before continuing our journey south the next day.  To find out how all of that went, please come back to these pages soon.

 

Back to Picton, then to Kaikoura

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Tuesday 3 March 2026 – All we had to do today was to get from the Abel Tasman Lodge down to our next accommodation, which was near Kaikoura. We had a choice – take the quick route to Blenheim and thence south towards Kaikoura, or add extra time and scenery by taking the Queen Charlotte Drive, a “scenic route” which led to Picton, where we had arrived on the South Island three days ago. Our itinerary’s description of the Queen Charlotte Drive as “one of the most scenic drives you’re likely to encounter” sealed the deal, despite that it made the already quite substantial journey an hour longer.

As we left Mārahau we saw a series of the trailers that the water taxi folk, Aquataxi, use to haul their boats around;

the water taxi custom in that part of the world obviously drives a substantial business. Our route took us on roads that had become almost familiar – back through Motueka, Nelson and Richmond before taking a sudden left on the Queen Charlotte drive. In Motueka, we spotted an office of the Kiwi Growers of New Zealand, which sported an interesting poster;

not just normal or golden kiwis, but red ones, too. John, of Kiwi Dundee, back at Coromandel, had told us about them, but this poster was the first time we’d seen any further evidence of them. We haven’t spotted them in any shops, that’s for sure.

The route through Nelson and Richmond led us back near Pic’s Peanut Butter World and past the Nelson Classic Car Museum; since we knew there was a good coffee shop there, we stopped to make sure their quality hadn’t lapsed. It was very busy; it’s clearly a popular breakfast spot.

The route passes Port Nelson and immediately after that Jane had spotted something she wanted to explore – the Boulder Bank Scenic Reserve.  As you drive along the highway, you can see a narrow bank of land out to sea; it’s a long thin spit.

I initially thought it was an artificial construct, but actually it’s a natural spit of boulders, formed of the debris of land slips from the Mackay Bluffs, swept southwards by sea currents over 10,000 years. The spit is 8 km long and it is open as a hiking path.

What they don’t tell you about in the guide books is that there’s a waste treatment plant just a few metres from the spit, with, beside it

a substantial effluent pond. The smell was pretty familiar to us as something that we get in our garden when something has gone wrong with our septic treatment plant. There was a suspicious flurry of greenish water visible

but the various water birds didn’t seem to mind at all

and the general miasma seemed to attract quite a lot of insects, as evidenced by the number of swifts (or swallows or martins, they didn’t stop to let us work this out) flitting about in the bushes nearby.

There’s a swamp beside the track that leads to the spit, called the Whakapuaka Raupo Swamp, which provides a nice foreground to the backdrop of the hills thereabouts.

Undeterred*, we carried on towards Havelock, past some excellent views as the road occasionally led up into the hills.

It was clear that this area has a very significant logging industry.

We stopped for more coffee at Havelock. Jane had spotted a coffee cart in what looked like an attractive area, and she was rigfht.

The coffee was good, served by a very, very cheerful chap, whose laugh was akin to an offensive weapon. Shortly after Havelock one reaches the decision point: straight on for the quick route, or turn left for the scenic one. So we turned left, heading on the 34km, very twisty road to Picton,

which would have taken us just under an hour, except we kept stopping to check out the scenery and take photos. As promised, it’s very scenic.

Havelock as seen from the Queen Charlotte Drive

Pleasant to look at, and typical of the general scenery to be seen from Queen Charlotte Drive

A flat part linking the two bodies of water on the drive (called Linkwater, unsurprisingly)

Prehistoric Tree Ferns

I had been expecting some kind of wilderness route, but actually there were habitations and side roads all the way along, and, every so often, a pretty bay.

Eventually, we got to the official Picton Scenic Overview lookout, where we could see Picton nestling in the hills.

I was a bit cross with what I thought was an eyesore in the foreground here, which included a big ugly commercial ship which I hid behind the ferns. It actually turned out to be a rather interesting site and sight as we turned the corner. It’s Waimahara Wharf, in Shakespeare Bay, and

it’s a vast logging operation, which was fascinating to watch, with some clearly specialised machinery at work shifting the logs around.

Picton itself has, as we knew, a major port facility as well – big enough to receive the InterIslander ferries – and the route gave us a good look over it.

In reaching Picton we’d come full circle – out to Abel Tasman and back; but now it was time to head south to our destination for the day. As we went, the countryside changed remarkably, from heavy logging which, we supposed, sustains Picton’s role as a major port facility, to wine country with surprisingly bare hillsides.

There were some pine plantations on the hills, but they didn’t seem to be managed in any way (e.g. having the lower branches trimmed off as they grew); and there didn’t appear to be any attempt at planting more pines on these bare hillsides. Some places were very bare indeed.

We passed a salt works

and some more striking scenery

before heading down to a coast road and some cloudy and rainy weather.

This grey and windy weather lasted us until we reached our destination – the rather splendid Hapuku Lodge, a slice of luxury where we would be spending a couple of nights. We were welcomed by Lisa, who showed us around the place whilst our luggage was unloaded from our car for us and then led us to our accommodation – a tree house.

We have a great view of the hills,

and, remarkably, the snow on top of them arrived just a day ago.

Now, I don’t like to brag (oh, yes you bloody well do! – Ed) but this is a very luxurious place we shall enjoy for two nights. The accommodation is sufficiently nicely done that I’m going to have my work cut out just trying to understand, for example, the Japanese toilet that will cosset our nether regions whilst we’re here.

By the time we got here it was almost time for dinner, and we had a splendid meal. The portions were not excessive, but after dinner we still needed to go for a walk. Obviously. By this time the weather had cleared (good omens for the morrow)

and we took a brisk walk down to the “beach”, where Jane took this great photo,

and we admired the evening view back over the mountains, which we could now see very clearly.

So ended the day. Tomorrow, if the weather is good we shall go for another walk. Obviously. And maybe there will be some star gazing….you never know….

 

 

 

 

 

 

*  or should that be under turd…?

The Full Nelson

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Monday 2 March 2026 – Most tourists travellers arriving on the South Island at Picton* and looking to explore it tend to choose between two common itinerary options: head south to Kaikoura and Christchurch, then down the east coast; or head west to Nelson, Abel Tasman and then down the west coast. We are doing neither of these; or possibly both, depending on how you look at these things. We certainly wanted to visit Kaikoura and Christchurch, but equally we didn’t want to miss out on the opportunity to meet Eve and Bill again. That’s why we included Mārahau. Our day with Eve and Bill was lovely, but we had one more day before we had to move on, so Jane did her usual traveller incantations, seeking to magic up something interesting for us to do. As ever, she did an outstanding job and we ended up spending the day around the city of Nelson, about an hour’s drive away, doing a couple of things that would be considered standard for us, but also a couple that wouldn’t.

As a great example of a non-standard activity for seasoned travellers such as Jane and me (modestly polishes nails on Rohan fleece), this does not immediately come to mind.

“Yes!” I never thought we’d cry, “let’s visit a peanut butter factory!”

But we did. And it was splendid fun.

Pic’s Peanut Butter is named after the founder Bruce “Pic” Picot. You can read why he got into Peanut Butter here, but rest assured that he is a Peanut Butter nut. He reckons his product is the best in the world; in New Zealand, the company’s market share is 41%, so there’s credibility in what he says, though Manilife might have a word or two to say on the matter. Whatever, he has created a factory which is also a retail and education centre, which offers tours, so Jane snagged a couple of tickets for us and we set off with plenty of time to get there for an 1130 tour. (Courtesy of a hallucination on the part of our TomTom satnav, we arrived just in time and panting only slightly.)

The tour is hosted by a very lively lady called Tania,

who spent about 20 minutes explaining all things peanut butter. She started with talking about where in the world Pic’s does business, and then invited the guests on the tour to place a red star where they were from. It was quite the international audience.

She then explained about the peanuts (not a nut, but a legume, as any fule kno). They use only hi-oleic nuts, a special variety only grown in a few places round the world; theirs come from South America. Hi-oleic nuts contain a higher percentage of oleic acid, a monounsaturated fat, than regular peanuts and have lower saturated and polyunsaturated fat levels; this means they are healthier, and no additional oils are added during the production. The nuts arrive naked, having been shelled and stripped when picked, and then go into a roaster

before heading to the grinder.  Crunchy peanut butter is ground once, smooth twice, and a little salt is added before the butter heads to the various bottling lines. They also make a consistency between the two, which they call “smoochy”.

We were lucky to see the lines in action, as at midday the factory floor emptied – lunch break, presumably. Tania gave us 15 or so minutes to wander the upper floor, where we could, for example, see the original roaster that Pic used when he started as a cottage industry – a stainless steel concrete mixer, with a gas burner underneath!

There are plenty of info boards about the company and the products (natch) but also some with some very left-field assertions.

  • Peanut butter is useful in removing obstinately sticky labels
  • Frying a blob of peanut butter removes fried fish smells from your kitchen
  • Pic’s peanut butter catches 20% more pests than any other brand, so it’s popular for trapping and removing invasive creatures

There’s also an opportunity for people to make their own peanut butter – on the Peanut Butter Bicycle! Your intrepid reporter had a go.

Then it was time for a tasting session

and the group got samples of normal and chocolate peanut butter to taste – and also a combination we’d never come across before and which intrigued Jane greatly: salt and pepper peanut butter.

Tania made sure our tour was fun and engaging, and we left with two free jars of the product. Since we were down to our last few dozen teabags of Twinings Finest Earl Grey (uh-oh!), we called in at a passing Woolworth’s to restock, and look what else we found!

A peanut butter factory is deffo a left-field activity, and Jane had found something else somewhat unusual and maybe unexpected in a New Zealand provincial city:

The Nelson Classic Car Museum. This was amazing – the museum has over 150 classic cars on display and wandering among them is a wonderful experience. If you like that sort of thing, of course. There are various halls and sections within halls:

Vintage and veteran cars by the entrance

The Jaguar display…

…including the Mark 10, a favourite of mine

Classic American cars…

In a classic American setting

English classics in an English setting

Classic sports cars

There are some unusual cars among them

A rear-engined Chevrolet

The DeLorean

Not just any old Reliant Regal

and one that had a special nostalgia for me: a Wolseley 6/110. Dad had one of them, back in the 1960s.

I’m also taken by bonnet ornaments:

Packard
Cadillac
Cadillac
Pontiac Chieftain
Swallow
Excalibur
Stearns Knight

Such fun!

Also: photographic nerdery alert! Here’s a great example of how phones can be better than dedicated cameras. Between two of the halls were some display cases with model cars – Dinky, Corgi, Matchbox, that sort of thing. Photographing the cases with a normal camera was basically impossible because of the reflections. However, I knew of a mobile phone trick, so I took a picture with my phone.

The Special Power that I knew about was that there’s a facility within the phone’s own Gallery app called “remove reflections”. The power of this is quite remarkable, achievable with a single edit.

(I have used photo processing software as well, but that is to present correct horizontals and verticals (thank you DxO for PhotoLab with Viewpoint), something my phone can’t match.)

After these two activities, it was time to do some more conventional things.  So we went for a walk. Obviously.

We didn’t have a huge amount of time, but there was a handy hike up a hill just outside Nelson, with the prospect of a decent view over the city, so we headed to the start. It has an unusual destination,

and is a short but steep hike up a decent path.

In the interests of providing data (and, at the same time, demonstrating how I suffer for you), I measured the slope at 15° at its steepest point. That’s one in six by one way of looking at it, or 1 in 4 if you’re a mathematician and understand trig. In practical terms, we ascended 127 metres vertical in one kilometre, in a place called the Botanical Reserve. On the way up we could see that the view was likely to be rather good

and indeed it was.

 

There’s a monument there

with a needle pointing at a plaque.

It’s not really the Centre of New Zealand – that actually lies about 50km south west, on a golf course – but it was used as the central point for surveys in the 1800s.

The final visit of the day was to the cathedral; we’re not religious but we do like churches.

It has an impressive frontage

and a calm interior

distinguished by some spectacular modern stained glass.

We noticed, on exiting the cathedral, a plaque whose longevity might be cut severely short in the coming days or weeks….

One thing that is (literally and figuratively) striking about the cathedral is its spire, which we didn’t get a good view of. Since I didn’t bring my drone, I borrowed footage from a screen that was on display inside.

Many thanks to Make The Grade for the image. Lovely video, guys.

So that was our day in Nelson – a very unusual and very good one it was, too. The only thing for it then was to head back to our accommodation and test out that salt and pepper peanut butter. It’s very peppery; in our view it needs a bit more salt. It goes very well with jam or with tomatoes, which is apparently Pic’s favourite.

Tomorrow we leave Abel Tasman and head over the hills and, well, not very far away; we’ll get back to Picton and then head south to Kaikoura, thus getting on to the usual eastern route southwards. We have some interesting accommodation booked in Kaikoura…

 

*  Jane has just read that severe winds have resulted in the cancellation of InterIslander ferries today and probably tomorrow as well. My heart goes out to those people affected by this, as the ferries are fully booked and it’s difficult to know what the travel options would be under these circumstances. Gosh, we were lucky.

*  And let’s hope our luck continues to hold. We’re due to fly back via Dubai in three weeks’ time….