Wheki Tree Palm

Fuschia Tree Bark

Hot and sunny weather is what we aimed at for this Southernmost Island of New Zealand, and it's exactly what we got! The 1.5 hrs crossing for passengers is easy in smooth seas, less pleasant when the Foveaux strait is suffering storm conditions, which it often is!

We were able to rent a 3 bedroomed house overlooking Oban Bay for just $100. Below is Mithrandir, a friend's boat that just happened to be there at the same time as us.

The local Kaka parrots come on the deck in the mornings and evening for their daily rations! Surprisingly they didn't like nuts or apples! Only bacon rind!

Maori Bay's clear water

Fiordland National Park is one of the best preserved areas of New Zealand, the area takes up the South West corner of South Island and remains untouched by road. Main access is by boat. Doubtful Sound however feeds a power station for providing electricity to an Australian owned Aluminium smelting plant based in Bluff. Access is permitted to tourists, who can wonder at the achievement of cutting a road through this hard rocked terrain.

Doubtful Sounds

We crossed through the Homer Tunnel to Milford Sound in our own car before undertaking the journey by foot across the Mackinnon Pass on the Milford Track.

It was a four day walk with three other friends, Rory McDonald and Margaret and Tony Beckett, all from Auckland. The oldest couple walking happened to be World Health Organisation Research scientists on Asian Bird flu, normally residing in Hong Kong.

Rory McDonald, V, Tony Beckett, D and Margaret Horsburgh

Great views and drying room from the Quintin lodge was as welcome as the good food and private bedrooms!

The tree roots have so little ground to hold on to, they tenaciously hang onto the mountain side until they have to let go and take the side of the mountain with them!

The final lunch break at Giant's gate waterfall tells us that we've managed four days without suffering any blisters, sore feet or legs!

The Japanese members on our trek were the most colourfully dressed! The boat ride to Milford Sound was the last leg of the trip.

A 4 hour bus journey returned us to Queenstown , on Lake Wakatipu , where David did a tandem Sky dive for the first time in his life.

The Glenorchy road took us to the Lord of the Rings sites used for shooting Isengard, Lothlorien and Amon Hen.

The historic Cardrona hotel offered a welcome log fire to warm ourselves up during the only rainy day we had on our way to Lake Wanaka.

The Mount Cook Daisy is among the many plants that survive the harsh climate. There were three other swing bridges on this walk, fabulous facilities for the trekkers to enjoy such magnificent scenery.

The Tasman valley here is nearly all gravel bed now, even the glacier is embedded with the gravel from Mount Tasman.

We climbed to the top of the Glentanner hill farm where we were staying to get this magnificent view at sunset. We ran down in the last of the light, using our sticks so as not to fall over on the gravel tracks. That morning we had climbed up this Tasman valley with its gravel laden glacier in wind and rain, it was the coldest we'd been during the whole trip, and decided to turn back early deciding that we're out here for fun, not miserable conditions!

Mount cook looking resplendent at sunrise next morning. It used to be 100 metres higher, but the top collapsed and carved away this steep right hand side about 10 years ago. The Mountain is still rising, but due to the loose construction of the rock is constantly lowering itself again!

We stopped on our way to Christchurch to view more lakes in the middle of sheep farm country. Ricky Dillon now lives in Christchurch, she was just celebrating her Birthday. Ricky used to be our friend and neighbour in Hertford, England for 30 years. It was great to catch up on her news and have her show us around this wonderful City, with all its historical features.

There was a flower show happening in Christchurch Cathedral . A most spectacular show of hand made costumes depicting almost 50 different flowers were paraded in front of the audience.

Even the trams were bedecked in flowers . Ricky took us around the Botanical garden, which backs onto Christchurch College , the main university of the town, where many of Ricky's family had been educated. Her family had been running a sheep farm for five generations in the Northern part of South Island, near Blenheim.

Our friend Jim Wallace had also been to this college. We met him with his Australian wife Jo at their home in Sumner, which is Christchurch by the sea. We had originally met Jim and Jo 4 years ago in Tahiti on their motor cruiser, Atlas, together with their friends Penny and David . It was a great opportunity to meet up with them all again in their home town.

Jo took us along to Akaroa, on the Banks Peninsula. The port of Akaroa is nestled inside the volcanic crater, a wonderful site, thought the French who settled there before New Zealand was negotiated as belonging to the English Crown with the Maoris! It still retains a good deal of French style and has good restaurants to prove it.

A good deal of creative power is capture in this area, and Josie Martin is no exception. Her sculptures and mosaic garden is extraordinary, after the style of Gaudy and other surreal artists. She runs a bed and breakfast at her house, called Linton . I was so taken with Josie's captivating enthusiasm for her work, that she persuaded me with David's encouragement to go along to her painting class due to take place at the beginning of April.

Ricky came along with me, she's almost as mad as Josie in her manner of dressing ! We had a great time learning more about making colours, trying to capture shapes and poses with the life model she used and letting our imagination take a hold, letting go of conventional ideas.

Part of Ricky's huge family live in Blenheim, Richard and Liz Dillon , where they own vineyards for supplying grapes to Villa Maria, one of the top New Zealand wineries. They arranged to meet us for a picnic up at Lake Rotoiti, in the Nelson lakes area for a vintage small boat show. A very good showing of older cars on display such as the Delage were of particular interest to David.

A perfect Summer's day made a good family day out for 'kiwis' mucking about on the water, and socialising with friends who'd come from all over South Island, and some even from North Island.

Whilst in Blenheim Richard Dillon's son, Nick is a superb bird artist , and allowed us to visit him at home and enjoy looking at some of his wonderful work, such as the pied stilts and the NZ Hawk below.

Nick Dillon

Ped Stilts

Blenheim

A close neighbour of the Dillon's in Blenheim are Isabelle Estate Winery owners Robyn and Mike . The quality of their Pinot Noir is outstanding, and they excel in Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay and Pinot Gris also. We met them on their boat 2 years ago whilst we were in Musket Cove. Robyn treated us to a wonderful meal with the help of her daughter, whilst they were both so busy giving customer tastings. Their main business is export to the USA and Europe, only selling 5% of their produce within New Zealand.

David Mitchell , a friend whom we'd met 4 years ago in Tahiti invited Richard and us to join him on his boat, Ondarina, which he'd just sailed down to Picton from Opua in North Island.

Picton

It gave us an opportunity to enjoy sailing the delights of the Marlborough Sounds for the day, as well experience the fickle winds screaming down from the mountain tops into the deep sounds.

We walked the length of the Queen Charlotte track, about 90 kilometres over a period of 4 days in fine weather, staying in resorts and lodges along the way, great views and hill climbing!

Captain Cooks memorial in Ships Cove , where his boat Endeavour stopped on three occasions to revictualise from plants left in 1770 This Weka is a tame flightless bird, a relative of the Kiwi. There are many of them in the bush, they are so tame thy might get inside our rucksack and get taken away by surprise!

It is having sand deposited on its far end at the rate of 1 metre per year, and some yachts are not aware of how easy it is to be grounded on it when trying to round it before turning South. The bird life in the early morning is prolific, feeding on the shellfish as the tide retreats. We had to catch this tide at 5 a.m - just before dawn. To see the shifting sands, this desolate place had many surprises, such as extraordinary sand patterns.

As the tide came in, the colours of the sands were a pallet of shifting colours, a delight to the eye.

We arranged for a water taxi to collect us from Bark Bay. The taxi rides onto the tractor trailor and we are all driven back to the Marahau Village! This is also the preferred method for the fishing boats where there are no protected harbours, both in North and South Island.

The Maori carvings in that village are on display in a museum cum souvenir shop. Splendid examples of their skilled craftsmen.

The Maori population of this Golden Bay wa estimated at up to several hundred. This was after the conquest by Te Rauparaha and his sub tribes from North Island in 1827. European settlement and the Treaty of Waitangi brought a cessation of these traditional inter-tribal hostilities

This area between Nelson and Motueka had plenty of tractors bringing in the hop harvest. It's used for fermenting into beer.

NORTH ISLAND

We returned to North Island six weeks later, driving up the Eastern side, to visit our friend Bob Bell whom we had not seen for two years. He owns Condor or Bermuda, which was a winner of the second Round The World Whitbread race back in the 1970's. He and his wife Heather own a 7,500 acre sheep farm at Akitio, about 1 hours drive towards the East coast from Danniverk.

Whilst he had all his UK family staying with him in November to celebrate his 60 th Birthday, he turned over his enormous Caterpillar bulldozer, with him underneath it! He was lucky to get away alive. There had been so much subsidence of the dirt road alongside the river that he was driving on, that it gave way. The bulldozer slowly slipped towards the river, then turned over, with just a small tree preventing it from tipping straight into the river! It was his lucky day, he could have been thrown out, and taken away into the river and out to sea. The debris along the shore shows how much gets washed down by the river.

This whole central area of NZ is devoted to sheep and cattle. Bob's hill farmland hardly has any flat areas, the quad bikes are an essential tool on these tracks.

From Gisborne eastwards is a huge landmass that most New Zealanders hardly ever visit. This is true Maori land - the coastal area has been claimed purely by Maori tribes in exchange for the inland area which is now mainly National Park. The Maoris have taken the lead of the 'Pakeha' (white man) here, using the land for grazing sheep, cattle and forestry. They have no good harbours, but as they used to use only the large canoes for warring purposes, these are brought up on the beach.

The film called 'Whalerider' was made two years ago in the first settlement after Gisborne. It was nominated for Oscars at the same time as Lord of the Rings, so didn't quite make it. The story is about a Chief's daughter, who was not allowed to lead her tribe. She proved herself worthy of the title, by having a great rapport with the whales. She got the whale to bring in her father's 'whaka' (canoe) when it was foundering in heavy seas. The canoe and whale have been depicted at the Marae.

Cattle grazing on the shore, fruit growing in everybody's gardens. The Maoris here are very self sufficient, and hardly need to go to the big towns, which are 6 hours drive away for many of them.

The Maoris use these Presbyterian churches in each village as well as their meeting houses.

This Maori invited us inside the meeting house, where his family photos are prominently on display. The floor was covered with mattresses for the visitors who were due to stay that night after a Church gathering. His mattress was beneath his parents photographs.

Friends, Geoff and Penny and their two girls, Hailey and Astral had just moved to this lovely colonial house in Whitiangi to run a High Zone business, where you are held by a rope and harness as you walk on the tight ropes on the top of the tall poles. Astral, just 7 demonstrated!

They have exchanged their life afloat for the good life, with a few cattle, sheep, pigs and a goat as well as a few ducks, cat and a dog!

Kanaloa has been using Gulf Harbour Marina for the last 3 years. We shared our pontoon with Alan and Driek Lockie , who had this house built on the cliff,

Great views over the Hauraki gulf, including Rangitoto , the Volcano that erupted 200 years ago, and a feature of the Gulf now.

over to Rangitoto, (above) and Auckland.

The bird life is around us on the pontoons and the parkland all the time, and it's a great place for walking.

Concie and Rolly Lennox-King, here at their batch in Te Unga Bay in the Bay of Islands, and their daughter, Olivia plus her boyfriend Reagan and doggy Caesar .

This wonderful family have been great friends to us whilst in NZ for the last 4 years, and introduced us to many of their friends and family. They are now living aboard their own boat, Restless in the Caribbean, and will be living our life-style only in the Northern Hemisphere for the next 5 years or so.

The best encounter was here at Tryphena Harbour on Great Barrier, where we met Eddie Anker, an old friend from 1959! Neither David nor he recognised each other, but deducted by talking to each other that he used to be David's brother's best friend, and they used to take Eddie on family picnics together! He is currently living in his house nr Hastings, North Island and sailing the boat he built himself around New Zealand.

Kanaloa anchored in Mansion House Bay, Kawau. One our favourite anchorages in the Hauraki Gulf. The historic house was built in 1870's and has a well planted botanical garden, together with peacocks and wallabies in the woods.