Tag Archives: Scenery

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.

 

Hiking Kaikoura

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Wednesday 4 March 2026 – The Hapuku Lodge is such a wonderful environment that we both were powerfully tempted to spend the day relaxing. It would have been splendid had the weather been crap; then we wouldn’t have needed any further bidding to remain slothful. However, looking out of our bedroom window,

we could see it wasn’t. So we went for a walk. Obviously.

Kaikoura is set on a peninsula which juts out from the east coast just far enough to make walking round it a decent  distance for the sort of hike we thought we could cope with.

 

It’s about 20km south of the lodge, so we retrieved our car and set off. The plan was to park at the point of the peninsula and walk round it until we got back to the car. However, lots of other people had the same idea and the small car park actually at the far end of the peninsula was full. It wasn’t a problem; we were still going to walk the same distance irrespective of where we started, so we found a spot a kilometre or so back and started from there instead. The peninsula is clearly a holiday hotspot, and I had a chuckle at one place’s marketing of an attraction for passing punters.

The recent snow that had settled on the mountains provided a great backdrop for photos of the very rocky seashore.

At the point of the peninsula, one can opt to walk along the rocks or take the path to the top of the cliffs; we opted to do the latter. It’s a well-presented path to start with, up a reasonably stiff climb of about 50m vertical.

The path then wends its way along the cliff top, past a small and unusually-sited lighthouse

which can only work to the north, since vegetation has grown up to obscure any light it shows in any other direction. The peninsula walk is a popular one; there were plenty of other walkers along it,

all presumably taking advantage of today being the first day of good weather for a while. As you might expect, the views along the way are excellent.

There’s a seal colony on the rocks to the south of the peninsula.

Those brown specks are actually fur seals,

which, as any fule kno, are not actually seals, but sealions. Using the dodgy end of the video capabilities of the phone, one can take slightly ropey video of them doing their sealiony things.

We could see the people who had decided to walk the lower path as they passed a wooden teepee on the shore.

I’m not quite sure why it’s special – there are any number of these things set up in the woods around Surrey, but there it is. Had we wanted to explore further, we could at that point have taken a path down to the shore, but

steps? I don’t think so. We’ve only just recovered from Tongariro.

As we went along, it rather looked as if there was going to be another stiff climb

which looked rather daunting. There’s someone working their way up it in this photo.

Yes, there is.

It frankly looked like bloody hard work, so having climbed a stile to get to it,

we were rather glad to note that one could go round as well as over.

We’d psyched ourselves up for the steep bit, honest, guv; but going round was a much more attractive prospect. The going was a little muddy in places – not seriously, but enough to give evidence of the wet weather that had preceded today’s lovely sunshine. The scenery continued to be wonderful, both looking towards the mountains

and southwards over the cliffs.

Eventually, the path reaches a settlement called South Bay

(I’d call it a town, but there’s no cafe, so civilisation hasn’t quite reached it yet). On the rocks outside South Bay there were several seabirds, which we saw were mainly shags. One, though, we thought was an egret,

and we were wrong. It was actually a spoonbill. Yes, it was.

and it was doing its spoonbilly things, again, captured at the far end of what’s possible with today’s phones.

At South Bay, the path turns back to cross the peninsula from south to north. We passed a house where the post box almost had a turf roof (lichens in actual fact of course)

and another which gave evidence of how windy it normally is round here.

The path led past some splendid agapanthus,

still in flower (most of the North Island agapanthus was over, so it was lovely to see this).

Leaving South Bay, the surroundings change quite significantly

as the path goes through a small pine forest.

Beside the path was today’s Mystery Object;

ramps which we couldn’t believe were a construct of nature. There were actually two of these double ramps and I wondered whether at some stage they were part of a mountain bike trail, creating some jumps for the deluded fools who go in for screaming down steep hills on narrow muddy paths.

We’ll never know.

At the top of the wood, one emerges into the outskirts of Kaikoura, taking “Tom’s Track” to get back through to the north coast of the peninsula.

This led us to a view over the Kaikoura Esplanade

and, blessedly, past a coffee shop, the Bee Box, where we had a small rest and a large flat white.

We were then on the road that runs along the north coast of the peninsula and simply had to walk along to where we’d started.  The walk led past another tribute to Tom

and a striking wooden sculpture

back to the car.

So, that was the Kaikoura pensinsula

and a very pleasant 10km hike it was, too. We headed back to the Lodge and took it easy for the rest of the afternoon before another superb dinner in the restaurant there. The food really was extremely fine.

The original plan had been to take part in a star-gazing session as night fell. However, clear as the day had been, clouds came in to foil that plan. Nonetheless, the moon looked good as it rose in the evening.

That signalled the end of our time in Kaikoura and regretfully we have to leave the lovely Hapuku Lodge tomorrow, to head further south. Stay tuned to see where we go next, eh?

 

 

 

 

 

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…?