Pix & Travels » Ingrid's Blog

Up early to board the Interisland Ferry – “Kaitaki” to head across Cook Strait to Picton.  What an exciting adventure that was.  Boarding with your vehicle was great and we did pay the extra to be in the lounge.  Had breakfast on board, met some great people.  The crossing was ultra-smooth 92kms, and the sea was like a millpond.

Arrived in Picton at lunchtime and decided to take the very windy Queen Charlotte Road to Nelson.  Could not believe how many campervans were on this road and all were in such a hurry.  It was a glorious sunny day and every corner had a new scenery to be enjoyed.  Stupid people!

Nelson is one incredible beautiful town.  So clean, so well layed out and definitely a place to enjoy.

Our accommodation is to die for.  The place is just beautiful, the garden are WOW! We have a beautiful one bedroom Monaco Apartment- Grand Mercure – http://www.monacoresort.co.nz/ and it is such a shame we are only here for the one night.  Not going out tonight, just have a snack in our lovely cosy lounge, snuggled in 2 very large soft comfy lounge chairs.  And tonight I think I might just take a bubble bath and shampoo.  Besides my feet are freezing!

Tomorrow will be a fairly long drive with much to see and enjoy.  Also we simply must arise early to photograph some more of these incredible roses and flowers in this place.

More later….

It was another early rise this morning and took another walk around the gardens before our departure from our lovely abode.  Nelson was incredibly windy not to mention bitterly cold.  So we left the beach walk and made our way out of town.  This is one beautiful area and the drive was promising to be another delight to the eyes.

Had quite a few heavy showers and of course our mountainous windy roads.  We are totally used to these by now.  Much of the photography is taken through the windows as there are still few places to pull over.  Besides, are we not supposed to take it all in, rather than have my eye stuck to a camera all the way? 😉  Oh but I just cannot help myself.  Why wouldn’t you – NZ is one heck of an amazing place.

The views to the Richmond Range on the left and further on, the Arthur Range were tantalising and spectacular.  We caught many glimpses of snow clad mountains throughout the day.  The Victoria Range was with us for most of the day on our right as we drove to Murchison.  We decided to take a different route to all the campervans and other travellers, though it was longer, it sure was spectacular.

Turned left onto Highway 65, this took us on a fabulous mountain road to Springs Junction.  There we turned right on Highway 7 to head to Reefton.  Just amazing forest mountain travel, quite windy, but Terry is such a great driver.  Mind you it is not us we need to worry about, rather everyone else on the road.

From Reefton we headed directly to Greymouth.  There are many tiny places with equally tiny houses for all the people working in the gold mines.  Terry did find a real treasure of old British Cars, dating back to late 1940s & 50s.  Naturally he had to stop and photograph these treasures.  So that made his day.

We finally made it to Hokitika late afternoon.  A lovely homestay and an evening meal pre-ordered. Yeh! We had a great chat with Grace & Brent.  Of course another late evening and hit the bed.  Snuggled under blankets and doonas until we snored the night away.

Starting to lose days and dates.  It is Saturday 19^th November and that must mean we are well and truly in holiday mode.

After a little sleep in we had a wonderful ‘normal’ breakfast.  Departed late for our day’s adventure.  When I say late, it was about 9.30am!

Today’s adventure we made our way to Arthur’s Pass.  Now that is one drive not to be missed.  What scenery…wow!  I could just imagine what it would look like with a lot of snow.  God’s country!

Each turn promised to be special and I actually filled one flash card today.  We thought we would only go sofar and then return to our B&B.  But the urge to just go around one more corner was incredible.  We finally landed up at Flock Hill and I think that is only about 120kms or so from Christchurch!  Had a great coffee there, chatted with a not so friendly bar person.  No matter, we are on holidays!  Photographed some of the interesting bits at this place and made our return journey.  This time we took a deviation to Lake Brunner and took a gravel dirt road.  Very different and managed to find, of course, much to photograph.  Headed back to our B&B for a bit of a chill out at 4pm.  Had arranged to have another evening meal in-house.  It was lovely.  Early to bed tonight….ie for Terry.  I am trying to catch up on the blog that I could not upload last night and quickly find some teasing images for you.

Tomorrow we are heading down to Franz Josef and the Fox Glacier.  Yes and the adventure continues.

After a hearty breakfast and conversation it was time to say goodbye to Grace and Brent Trolle. We had struck up a lovely friendship.  Brent is an amazing artist and world renowned.

The day did not look promising and yes, it has and is still raining now.  So for all of you that wanted to see more misty moody photographs, today will fit the bill.  Just such a pity that we could not see the start of the  Southern Alps (Ka Tiritiri O Te Moana)  But we did stop a several lakes and managed to do some photography.  Thankfully we managed to see Arthur’s Pass yesterday in bright hot sunshine.

Of course we had the never ending, sometimes hideous windy dangerous bends.  And I must say, I was thankful that today was a short run.  Might even have time for a little lie down.

Tomorrow we will head through the Haast Pass to our destination at Lake Hawea – at a Highland Sheep Station.  It is so exciting to have such a variety of accommodations and people we have met throughout this incredible journey sofar.

Thanks to our Warehouse bright umbrellas, we have a great prop to brighten any photograph!