Kaiteriteri & Surrounds

Kaiteriteri is a tiny seaside resort tucked into a beautiful little sheltered bay right on the edge of the Abel Tasman National Park. In fact our camp ground is the largest thing in Kaiteriteri, it looks out over the beach & bay with a large shallow estuary along one side and bush covered hills at the back and on the other side.

The camp ground stretches quite a way back tucked into the hillside and even though it doesn’t look like it in the photo there are over 400 powered camping sites along with 15 cabins. The camp ground can hold over 2000 people during the height of the season and if you add residents & day visitors to the mix, I bet the beach is wall to wall people then. A bit like Mount Maunganui at Christmas but on a smaller scale.

There are quite a number of unoccupied caravans & motorhomes in the park, they are being stored for winter. In the photo below only six of the vans you can see at the front of the park are occupied so we pretty much have the place to ourselves. Coincidentally one of the occupied vans is another Ultima (middle right edge) just like ours that arrived the day after us. More Ultima owners we haven’t met. We have now though and will likely see Sandy & Julie on the road again as they also live in their van full time but have now moved onto Golden Bay, where we’ll be heading in due course.

The weekends bring a few more people (& seagulls) to Kaiteriteri; Sunday drivers, families out for a walk or a fish ‘n chip lunch, kayakers paddling, cyclists on the cycle way or visiting the local mountainbike track.

Across the bay at the southern end is Little Kaiteriteri which can be reached by a walking track over a small bluff at the end of our beach. A lookout platform gives a great view back down the beach and out to sea. This photo (bottom right) is of Little Kaiteriteri bathed in the golden glow of sunrise.

Abel Tasman tour boats and water taxis leave from Kaiteriteri, the larger boats are moored in the bay, others are launched from the boat ramp just down the road from us. Each morning, the skipper rows out to his boat (above, bottom left) and then brings the boat into the beach where the ladder is extended from the bow and the guests board from the beach, this is how they dis-embark at the various beaches along the Abel Tasman Park too. None of the tour boats have been too busy, with just a handful of people a day catching the boats. A perfect time to do a tour without the crowds. There are dozens of tour options available from the various operators; day cruise, walk/cruise, kayak/cruise, swim with seals/cruise etc. Most include visiting the seal colonies that inhabit the off shore islands along the way. If you do a walk you can choose to do any of about 4 different sections of the Abel Tasman Great Walk.

Our first eight days at Kaiteriteri were fabulous although with a chilly start; crisp heavy frosts followed by cloudless sunny blue skies and not a drop of wind. Just what the doctor ordered, winter at it’s best. And it hasn’t been so bad since either, a couple of days of showers and a couple when a thick sea fog rolled in for an afternoon.

At the northern end of the bay is Kaka Pah Point and another short walkway and lookout with views looking north over tiny Breaker Bay and on to Marahau where the Able Tasman Walk starts. Ngaio Island is near where the iconic Split Apple Rock is located. And look at that bach (holiday home) tucked into a little alcove in the bay and only accessible by boat or maybe by clambering over rocks at low tide. I don’t think it would see very much sun in winter or even in  the summer. It’s a rather unusual place to build a house especially at what looks like sea level on sand.

At the lookout there’s also a destination sign post similar to the one in Bluff, another rather unusual spot to place one.

From Kaka Pah Point Lookout looking back over Kaiteriteri with Little Kaiteriteri to the left.

We drove around to Marahau one evening, a small settlement that marks the start of the Able Tasman Walk where there are holiday homes, farms, a couple of camping grounds, a few arts & craft galleries & a cafe. It’s Kaiteriteri without the tinsel, a more laidback rustic village and I would imagine a village without the crowds in the summer. It was deserted when we were there.

 

We haven’t actually been doing too much exploring while we’ve been in Kaiteriteri although on the day we had to go into Motueka to get our groceries we took a drive along the coast to Mapua Wharf which was once a busy coastal wharf servicing the regions orchards. It is now a boutique bar, cafe & arts & craft precinct that is very popular on the weekends but was virtually deserted on the week day that we visited. We sat outside The Smokehouse in the sun & had fish & chips for lunch.

I also bought a nice bag of tasty pears for $4 from a cart outside one of the shops. They were so tasty that when we found another stall on our travels selling the same pears we purchased more. I think the variety is Taylors Gold, smallish, rotund, brown and with a distinct “perfume” taste.

Mapua Wharf is located on the Waimea Estuary and across the channel from the large Rabbit Island. Rabbit Island reminded me of Matakana Island in the Bay of Plenty, covered with pine forest and protecting a large estuary.

Heading home after collecting the groceries we took a short detour to the Riwaka Wharf, a lovely sleepy settlement with quite a number of houses and well manicured gardens lining both sides of a tidal stream that emptied onto a very large mud flat (which I believe joins Outer Island, a sand bank further out in Tasman Bay).

Boatsheds & boats also lined both sides of the stream, the boats laying on their bottoms in the mud waiting for the tide to turn.

Around the Bays- Pigeon Bay

Banks Peninsula comprises of two extinct volcanoes which were active less than half a million years ago. The two craters have since enlarged many times their original size due to erosion and water flow, then around 15,000 years ago when the sea level rose dramatically, the craters were flooded, these now form the two main harbours of Akaroa & Lyttelton. Many smaller bays & coves indent the remainder of the coastline.

The Summit Road, a very popular “Tourist Drive” runs around the Akaroa crater rim affording spectacular views of the harbour and surrounding valleys and ridges. There is also a Summit Road around the Lyttleton Harbour; we are leaving that side of the peninsula for another time.

Two days after the snow fall we thought it would be safe enough to travel the summit road and visit some of the bays on the northern side of the peninsula. We stopped at The Hilltop, a hotel & cafe at the top of the long climb (from both directions; Christchurch & Akaroa) A light covering of snow still lay on the ground and the surrounding peaks. We started along Summit Road and straight away became concerned at the possibility of black ice. In fact this wasn’t black it was just plain old ice (bottom left), sheltered from the elements it had started to melt and then refroze. We eased our way through it carefully and were then relived to see that most of the snow had melted further on.

There were many vantage points along the road to check out the spectacular views of the harbour and bays down below, including Duvauchelle Bay and our camp ground.

Our first port of call was Pigeon Bay, the road dropping sharply down to the bay from the Summit Road. The roads down to the bays may only be 6-8kms long but they take a while to navigate. Steep, narrow & with dozens of hairpin bends you have to take your time & hope that you don’t meet anybody coming up.

Pigeon Bay is a small settlement, just a few baches & farm buildings at the head of the bay. Oh and a church. We drove around to the end of the road where we could see a jetty & some boat sheds, coming across this deserted camping ground on the way. It was like stepping back into the 1970s with these closed up old retro caravans, an overgrown tennis court complete with rusty fence, an old wash tub set up with wringer in the centre, concrete table & chairs arranged to watch the sunset and a notice board informing us we could stay for $10 a night. I’m sure in the summer time this place would be pumping but today it was deserted, it was quite eerie wandering about. Like everybody had been nuked! 

At least the boat club had a decent building but still nobody about, the holiday home right on the side of the road looking straight down the bay was closed up, we were tempted to sit and have our lunch in their Cape Cod chairs but thought better of it.

Instead of heading back up the road out of Pigeon Bay, David drove around to the otherside of the bay, the camp caretaker, Glen, had told him about a road that would take us out to the head of the bay on the west side. The road we were on continued on all the way through to Port Levy, it was another narrow, steep & winding road and not recommended for motorhomes or towing.

After a few kilometres we turned off onto a gravel road, actually more of a gravel track. It climbed steeply up the side of ridge, with a sheer drop on the drivers side down into the valley below. This is at the top looking back towards Pigeon Bay settlement at the end of the bay, the jetty and boat sheds are across the water.  I spied this house out on the point, what a fabulous place to live, looking straight down the bay.

Once on the top we weaved our way back & forward across farm land crossing many cattle stops heading for the small point we could see ahead of us.

As we got nearer we realised that there was a tiny sheltered cove with farm buildings on the left of the point. This bay is called Little Pigeon Bay. We stopped at the top of the road just through the gates. Even though it was a public road we didn’t want to disturb the people we could see down at a house near the beach getting ready to go sailing.

The view over Pigeon Bay to Wakaroa Point was breathtaking. Right along the otherside we could see the tiny track of the Pigeon Bay Walkway which is a five hour return walk through farmland out to the point.

Looking back towards Pigeon Bay settlement, with mussel floats from a mussel farm in the waters below.

After a short while we headed back up the road passing the young farmer & his wife driving in. Luckily they were at the top of the steep road otherwise that would have been fun. No passing, a 100 metre drop & him with a trailer on the back. He told us the house at the beach was a bach & was rented out for holidays. We passed a large homestead along the way, all closed up and overgrown but not that old, well probably 1950ish but still in good condition. We’ve seen a few like this on our travels, obviously just too far away from civilization.

This sheep must have one of the best views in New Zealand. In the background you can see the walkway track cutting through the slope just up from the water.

After safely negotiating the steep road again, this time with me on the scary side, we stopped in the valley to watch dozens of wood pigeons (kereru) in a feeding frenzy amongst the flowering tree lucerne. Great big bumble footed clumsy birds jumping from bush to bush bending the tiny supple branches over under their weight. Pigeon Bay of course!

Bird on a Wire

Waikawa, Curio Bay & the Petrified Forest, Catlins

Just a note before this blog post goes live; Just after I posted the previous blog when I said we looked like we'd be staying on at Weir Beach Reserve forever, we decided it was time to move & within the hour we were packed and on the road. We are now just down the road from the Cathedral Caves & I'm working off a dodgy free one hour internet connection and I'm not sure if the photos will show ok. I do know that the font size varies from paragraph to paragraph which I will try to fix next time I have a good connection. So please excuse any mistakes...

In the last couple of days we've done a couple of tiki-touring trips over to Waikawa & Curio Bay which are about 16kms north of us on the main winding shingle road through this part of Catlins and another popular area of interest. Waikawa is located on the edge of one of the huge tidal estuaries that frequent this coastline and was once a bustling port town.

Waikawa Boat Shed

It's now a sleepy little village with about half a dozen houses & cribs, a hall, a lovely church and a fabulous old museum that must contain every old knick knack, antique this & that, settlers photos, clothes, medals, newspaper cuttings and pieces of ship wreck that exist in the area.  Much of it has been donated by the local families and many of the names are now very familiar to us as many roads, settlements & points of interest are named after them.  

The museum is well worth a visit, just a donation entry fee requested and you could lose yourself in there for a good few hours especially if the weather isn't great outdoors. But it was a glorious sunny day so we didn't linger long. Alongside the museum is the "famous in Southland" blue cod fish 'n chip caravan which is said to sell the best tasting fish & chips in NZ. It was lunchtime so of course we had to see if this was true and yes, we can report back that they were indeed great fish 'n chips but on a par with the ones we had at Waihola! 

Just down the road from Waikawa are the Niagara Falls. New Zealand's Niagara Falls. The falls were named by a surveyor with an obvious sense of humour. We gave these falls a 2/10; one above "not worth the walk" because in fact you only had to take 10 or so steps from the side of the road to see them! The falls are also just across the road from the NZMCA Park which we looked at on the way down to Invercargill.

Back on the main road & just around the corner from the falls is the Waikawa Holiday Resort which I'm sure every day has plenty of vacancies, and look, the caravans come fully air conditioned.....

Along side the road just north of Waikawa is an old concrete horse trough that was built around 1890, it gave passing horse teams a welcome drink after they had completed the climb up Cemetery Hill- which actually wasn't that bad a climb compared with others in the area.

While we were in the museum (which is also an i-site) a foreign couple came in to ask "where were the dolphins?" David & I smiled at each other; like you can just walk in and expect to be told where the dolphins are going to be waiting for you. David wanted to say "Just a minute I have one under the counter".

They're not quite like sealions or seals which are sprawled out on the beach in well-known places. They're out there in the ocean, swimming around wherever they please. But in fact the lady behind the counter told them that there had been reports of dolphins in Porpoise Bay just that morning. Porpoise Bay is the summer home of the Hectors Dolphin, a tiny & very cute endangered dolphin with distinctive black & white markings that is only found off the southern coast of NZ. With a total population of around 3-4000, Hectors dolphins are one of the rarest dolphins in the world, so to see one (or more) is very lucky indeed.

And especially if you are just passing through. As luck would have it, our next stop was at the lookout at the Heads which is the prominent point between  Porpoise Bay & Curio Bay and as we passed the camp ground we spotted a few people pointing out to the waves & saw others in the water. We pulled in and there in the shallows were half a dozen Hectors dolphins swimming around and along the wave line. They weren't doing too much wave riding or leaping about but looked to be feeding as they made their way back & forward in the one area for quite some time. Most of the time you could see only their rounded dorsal fin but I managed to catch one tail walking.

I wonder if there's something like the "Big Four" that people have on their must see list when visiting the Catlins; the four being sealions, yellow eyed penguins, hectors dolphin & the elephant seal. If there is we can now tick off the first three & I'm hoping we may see an elephant seal at Nugget Point where they breed. What a thrill for us to see all of these wonderful animals in such close quarters & all within a few kilometres of each other. We were in for another delightful surprise when we visited the Petrified Forest in Curio Bay.

We had a look at the campground located at the Heads thinking we might have come through there for a couple of nights but we decided it wasn't that good for us. The sites were quite small and tucked into thick flax alcoves. All I could think of were the rats that must live in the flax and David was thinking about how claustrophobic each site was with a wall of tall flax on all three sides: though it would have provided great protection from the gale force winds that frequent the area. Some of the smaller sites were out on the edge of the cliff with fabulous views over the rocky platforms below.

Porpoise Bay & the Curio Bay Campground

Curio Bay

Curio Bay & the Petrified Forest- stairway down to the rock flats can be see top right

Our next stop was the Petrified Forest at Curio Bay. This is one of the world's finest fossil forests & is easily accessible at low tide down a purpose built ramp & stairway. Embedded into the bedrock the petrified stumps, fallen trees & fern imprints are from the Jurassic period and are over 180 million years old. It was quite fascinating searching out the various markings & patterns of the trees. The stumps used to be a lot taller but over time storm borne driftwood & logs have battered the height of them down.

Very soon after arriving onto the rocky platform the Petrified Forest took second place because out of the flax (& it's nest) came a yellow eyed penguin, waddling down to the water for a wash & a swim. That's him (or her), up above on the header, making his way back to the nest afterwards.

And then once we had had our fill of him David found a very special little guy, a part downy yellow eyed penguin chick, standing on a rocky ledge waiting for his parents to return from the sea with dinner. But you'll have to wait a little longer for those photos.....

Taieri Mouth

We left Moeraki with no particular plan in mind although we knew we didn’t want to travel too far south. It would seem about 100kms, give or take, a day is doing us just fine. We decided we didn’t need to stop in Dunedin either, big cities have no appeal at the moment & that's probably because we know we’ll be back to explore the city & Otago Peninsula at some time during our travels down here. It's also the wrong time of the year to catch up with my nephew Zak who is at Otago University, his exams are long finished & he’s gone home to Whangarei for the long summer break. We followed SH1 through town and out the other end. Dundein looks like a lovely city & I’ll definitely have to go back to take a photo of that magnificent railway station building.

We then took the scenic detour through Brighton and along the coast road stopping at a reserve for lunch in the quaint & sleepy little fishing village of Tairei Mouth on the banks of the Tairei River.

Other than a couple of fishermen on the edge of the river fishing for salmon & sea run trout & a family having fun on their sea biscuit there wasn't a soul in sight. A very peaceful spot.

After lunch we headed off to Waihola Lake about 12kms inland & a campground there that had been recommended to us by someone we’d met at Moeraki. When we got there we didn’t feel totally happy with the campground or the lake (although it looked great for bird watching). Maybe it had to do with it being a dull and overcast day but we just didn’t get a good vibe about the area, we also had a look at a NZMCA POP(Park over Property) which was in a good spot but would not have had enough room for our rig. So we made an executive decision to return to Taieri Mouth & the camp ground we knew was there but hadn’t seen on our earlier stop. There was a POP just beside the reserve where we’d had lunch but it too was a little small & compact for our liking.

So that's where we have been for the last 3 nights, parked up at the Taieri Mouth Motor Camp, a delightful old school campground. Pretty rustic with clean but basic facilities & we’re loving it. There are a few semi-permanents on the top level including the owner’s van & her henhouse with a brood of Chinese Silkies chooks, and us on the lower level along with a few vans parked up for the winter. Every night 3 or 4 travelling hire motorhomes pull in for the night but are gone early in the morning. We are enjoying the slower pace.

 Down a track from the top level this beautiful white sand beach and Moturata Island which can be walked to at low tide.

David went fishing Sunday afternoon, he caught a couple of small fish but nothing to write home about. While he fished I went for a wander up the beach around the point & down the river to where we’d had lunch at the reserve. I then walked back to the campground via the road taking a few photos along the way.

The bull kelp arrives on the white sand in huge clumps looking like a large bunch of hair. This little dog & his black & white mate were having a ball racing along the beach all by themselves. David said they’d been around all afternoon so we guessed they must live nearby. And in fact we saw them both again today, way, way down the beach having fun by themselves in the waves. The dune scrub had yellow lupins & these very tall flower spikes.

Some quaint & quirky shots around the village. My first real life crib (well with the name crib on it anyway) A crib is was Southerners call their baches, a bach is what most of New Zealand call their holiday homes. Not your fancy pants, flash holiday homes with all the mod-cons, a bach is a small rustic holiday home filled with left over, old, worn & "tossed out of the big house" furniture, 1960s kitchen kitsch, old magazines from decades ago, blackened & wonky BBQs, striped canvas deckchairs & sand, lots of sand! It's where you go to relax and enjoy the summer.

The wharf had an assortment of boats and stacks of crab & crayfish pots. I love Kiwi ingenuity, when you need a cab on your tractor to keep out the winter chills, you build it! And that hedge looks like it's been cut to within a inch of it's life!

Yes, life at Taieri Mouth runs at a much slower pace than elsewhere. Just the place to come back to & stop awhile longer.

 

The Best Laid Schemes o' Mice an' Men

It's been awhile & I know some of you have been regularly checking in to see what we're up to, or not as the case maybe. As mentioned a couple of blogs ago after getting home from the Coromandel & tying up a few lose ends we were hoping to head up north for winter. But 'life' has a way of getting in the way & foiling the best laid plans.

A couple of things have happened that have changed our direction for a few months. Firstly, my Dad had quite an stay in hospital, in Hastings for three weeks & then in Wellington where he was flown to have a double by-pass heart operation. All in all 27 days in hospital while he waited for an infection to clear, then waiting for a place in theatre & on the plane to get him there. Much to the family's relief he has come through the whole ordeal with flying colours and is well on the way to being back to his normal self.



During this time I drove to Napier to support Mum & also to drive her down to Wellington so we could be there for Dad during and after the op. And while most of our time was spent at the hospital Mum & I managed to do a little "tiki-touring" of our own driving around the Wellington harbour. We had lunch at the very popular & quirky Chocolate Fish Café in Shelly Bay before we continued around to the harbour entrance and onto the south facing bays of Wellington.

Chocolate Fish Café

Evans Bay Boat Shed

Scorch-O-Rama Café Paua Wall, Scorching Bay

After just five days & very good care in Wellington, Dad discharged back to home in Napier. I stayed on for a couple of weeks to help out with the patient. Dad was a model patient although we had to lay down the law a couple of times! :)



Autumn in Maize Field- Wairarapa

In amongst travelling to Napier & then onto Wellington I did manage to take a good number of photos including many beautiful churches through Southern Hawkes Bay & the Wairarapa. Mum was quite happy for me to stop every few miles to shoot another church & in fact a journey that should have taken us about four hours in the end took seven! We were in no hurry as Dad was meant to be under the knife but when we finally got to the hospital we found him sitting up in bed wondering where we were. His operation had been delayed by 24hrs.

Hawkes Bay Churches

In the meantime I have also decided to have a foot operation I was putting off hoping it wouldn't get any worse. Without going into the gory details I need to have a foot/toe realignment due to hereditary arthritis in my right foot which makes it very painful to do any type of walking or exercise & wear any shoes with a heel. I had a cortisone injection to help out while we travelled the Coromandel & it worked wonders but as it started to wear off the pain slowly returned.

We plan on doing lots of tramping & bush walks once we are on the road full time & especially in the South Island and as there is only a three month window of opportunity before we leave for the South I decided to have it done now. The worst part is that its also three months recuperation with no weight bearing for six weeks & my lower leg in a plaster cast. I know how inconvenient that is as I broke my ankle six or so years ago & it had the same repair time.

So it's now or never & luckily I managed to get got one of the best surgeons in our area and with a little bit of arm twisting of his senior nurse she manage to allocate me a surgery time that suited and one of the last he had available until October!

And because we'll be waiting out this time here in Tauranga we've also finally come to the conclusion that we really need to sell this house (you will remember that this is the one that came as part trade when we sold our original home) rather than keep it as a base or rent it out while we're away. So it will go on the market two weeks after my operation & hopefully not sell too soon otherwise I'll be laid up in the fifth-wheeler over at the Mount beach again.........hmmm.......actually that doesn't sound too bad. David has promised he'll do all the house work before each Open Home, I like that! :)

So there you are, that is now the plan. Just a small hiccup or two in the scheme of things but we will be on the road soon enough. We're just going to miss out on seeing some of the North Island, that will have to wait until we return in a year or two from down South.

Maraekakaho Woolshed, SH50, Hastings, Hawkes Bay