Sea, Sun, Sand, Six Weeks

Catch-up

We've just spent the last six weeks 'wintering' over at a South Pacific tropical island paradise. Well... that's not quite right. This stunning beach is in the South Pacific and it is on an island (the South Island) and it is paradise but it's most definitely not tropical! 

It's hard to believe that this is a winter scene from New Zealand isn't it?  This is Kaiteriteri, a small seaside resort in the Tasman region at the top of the South Island. 

Kaiteriteri is just a short winding road from Motueka, just under an hour from Nelson and just a few golden sand bays from the stunning Abel Tasman National Park.

For some it will also be hard to believe that this is the same Kaiteriteri that they visit over the summer months. 

In summer Kaiteriteri heaves with activity; the campground holds over 2000 people and this perfect little crescent of golden sand is wall to wall people; people sunbathing, swimming, walking, boating, fishing or just relaxing and enjoying their summer holidays. 

We've stayed at Kaiteriteri before, back in 2014 for four weeks, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. And as we'd done most of the walks in the area, including part of the Abel Tasman Great Walk and visited many of the attractions we were looking forward to just relaxing in the warm winter sun and recharging our batteries.

Back in 2014, we had a front row seat to the ever changing scenery, and very few neighbours- in fact some nights we were the only ones there. 

2014, Kaiteriteri

The Kaiteriteri Camp did have a cheaper rate for long term stays but most vans were heading to the Bethany Camp at the back of the estuary, where the rates were cheaper still.

Things were changing though, a new office building with caretaker accommodation above was in the process of being built and a new shop and holiday accommodation block across the driveway were in the wings. Now all completed, it was a big surprise when we came around the corner to see this huge building on the beachfront. Huge for little old Kaiteri, that is. 

And with the new changes, came new parking restrictions- no long term vans on the front two rows, these were kept for casual visitors. Which is fair enough, but it would have been nice to have had the front row again. Although that probably wouldn't have happened because with the new changes came new cheaper winter rates and many more vans wintering over in the front camp. 

We were happy enough though, we found ourselves a quiet spot in the sun towards the middle of the camp and settled in. 

It still took a couple of weeks for the itchy feet to settle though and we paid week by week...just in case we got the sudden urge to get out of there. This wasn't helped by the weather and while most of the photos show lovely blue sky that's because I made sure to take them on sunny blue sky days only.

I was listening to a farming programme the other week and they were reporting on the weather for the Nelson/Tasman area during the month of August. Apparently it had rained on 28 of the 31 days and we arrived on the 2nd! It is hard to believe though, but then again it often rained during the night while the day was fine. From all accounts it's been a bad winter in many places.

We weren't the only ones who were fed up with the constant rain- this little guy with his waterlogged tail feathers sat on our post to dry out numerous times. He's also sit under the van with his friends waiting for the rain to stop.

We thoroughly enjoyed watching the abundant bird life at Kaiteriteri, a flock of over 35 California Quail roamed through the camp on a regular basis, calling and chuffing to each other as they sprinted through the grass and across the roads.

California Quail- Male (L), Female(R) 

They are such characters to watch, one pair in particular became very friendly. I enticed birds over to the van by throwing out wild bird seed- sparrows, chaffinches, greenfinches, goldfinches came to feed. Some of the quail came too, just a few during the first few days and then more and more. My pair would come running as soon as I called to them (chook-chook-chook) and once the sparrows and finches had finished all the good seed, they'd search out seed left behind and then move in closer for a secret handful or two. Early in the morning I'd hear them chatting to each other under the van.

We put a metal spike in the tree just outside our dining window and I added citrus halves to it for the Silvereyes/Tauhou. It was lovely to watch them at such close quarters- of course they couldn't see us through the dark tint. Mr Jack Sparrow thinks he's missing out on something here. Sparrows can't hover or hang upside down like silvereyes so the orange is relatively safe from them facing this way.

Kereru/NZ Wood Pigeons were regular visitors to the camp, bumbling, flapping and balancing their way through trees on the thinest of branches looking for the freshest of leaf bud. This one makes a raid on the new leaves of a kowhai sapling.

Tui sung, cackled and squawked as they raced back and forward through the camp chasing each other out of the flowering cherry trees. 

Some found an even sweeter source of nectar; tiny droplets of honeydew which are excreted by the beech scale insect and found on the blackened trunks of the beech trees (it looks very similar to sooty mould). Honeydew plays a vital role in the food supply for a range of native bird and insect species. The honeydew droplets have a high sugar content and are an important energy source for birds over winter. This tui is balancing with his tail while sucking up the tiny droplets.

And last but not least, the Western Weka, a number of them live the bush surrounding the camp, we'd hear them calling often but I only spotted them a few times out in the open. They'd come out from the bush checking for grubs in the leaf litter along the edge. We also heard Morepork/Ruru, our native owl, calling to each other every night and all through the night. And we were lucky enough to see a NZ Falcon/Karearea several times.

But sadly I missed the most elusive and secretive bird of all; the Banded Rail. A pair live in the salt plants on the edge of the estuary just beside the boat trailer park. I visited the area dozens of times; sunrise, sunset,  low tide, high tide, half tide, wet weather, sunny weather, walking, stalking and in the ute through the window, all with no luck. 

But I did see Mother Duck and her nine ducklings...

In the end we had a lovely six weeks at Kaiteriteri, as each week rolled around we'd comment that we'd be off at the end of the following week. Then that week would arrive and we'd stay another until finally, it really was time to move on. We made new friends and caught up with old ones, we had a lot of laughs and a few dinners at the pub. We caught up on chores and computer work and we relaxed and enjoyed our own company. We didn't leave the camp much at all but we did do a couple of very interesting walks; blogs on those to follow.

Kaiteri Snapshots

Kaiteri is what the locals call Kaiteriteri & I figured after 4 weeks we can just about be classed as locals. We talk over the fence to the regulars out walking for exercise, walking their dogs or just on their daily stroll along the waterfront to the shop. We know most of the camp ground regulars both employees & long term residents and can wave an acknowledgement to the water taxi & tour boat skippers as they pass by. Even the local birds know where they can get a daily hello (& a feed).

But the time has come for us to move on over the “hill” to Golden Bay for a few weeks so before we go I thought you might like to see some random snapshots from this wonderful little place called Kaiteri, a place that delivered exactly what we were looking for over winter; golden sand, calm waters, sunny days, rest & relaxation.

A bush walk behind the camp leads up to a lookout over Kaiteriteri estuary & bay. A massive amount of water funnels in and out under the bridge each tide movement, so much so that there are signs along the edge of the outlet stream warning of the sudden changes in depth & swift current.

And here’s a close-up of “Out There” parked on the front row at the Kaiteriteri Motor Camp.

This gentleman made regular visits to the beach, mostly after the weekend. The first time I saw him approaching from the far end of the bay I though there was a blind man coming as he swept his metal detector back & forward. And just to prove that we’re both silly as each other, David thought so too. And while he hasn’t found too much in his quest for fortune he told us he'd found a few rings & coins. I liked his nifty “flour sifter”.

Another day in paradise.

Birds around camp- In the afternoons, the big fat wood pigeons (kereru) flew out to sun themselves in the camp trees. Gulls & sparrows cruised up and down the beach looking for easy handouts. A Little Shag dries out on a post in the estuary.

And then there were the cheeky birds. This thrush is a camp favourite, like a little shadow it followed us about as we moved around the vehicles, darting out from underneath as soon as we stepped outdoors. No matter where you were it would suddenly appear right beside your feet. Many times it waited at the bottom of the stairs giving a short peep for a bit of food.  If it was off digging for worms and a motorhome arrived it rushed over to make friends.

Then along came the ducks, just two, this female & her mate who most of the time waited for her on the road. They wandered up from the beach late in the afternoon (or were waiting first thing in the morning), luckily she only realised there was food to be had in the last few days otherwise I’d have had to ignore her. Because as soon as I fed her the sparrows arrived and after the sparrows came the gulls, dozens of them!

I know, I know, feeding the birds is a bad habit because they reward your generosity with poop! All over the step & the mat much to David’s annoyance. I know this but I can’t help myself and other than the thrush I only started to feed the others in the last few days & we’ll be gone soon. Who could say no to this cute little fellow? “Please sir, I want some more?”

 

In a small grove of beech trees on the way to one of the lookouts there were many birds in a feeding frenzy, including this tui. They were flitting about all through the trees, running up & down the trunks and chasing others away. They were feeding on the tiny droplets of honeydew produced by the beech scale insect which have blackened the trunks of the trees, it's similar to sooty mould. Honeydew plays a vital role in the food supply for a range of native bird and insect species. The honeydew drops have a high sugar content and are an important energy source for birds over winter.

 

 

And if I could take one thing with me when we leave Kaiteriteri it would be the pink phone booth on the left! I’d stick it upright on the storage box at the back or squeeze it through the door and make it into the shower box. A two in one; a shower on the inside, communication on the outside. This my friends was our number one best gadget while parked up here at Kaiteri, a free wifi zone, delivering one whole gigabyte each per day for our phones & computers. Considering I use approximately 5GBs a month costing around $75, having a free zone so close was a very big deal.

But best of all it was delivered to the inside of our parked up van without us having to sit outside the booth as we would usually have to do. The only problem was that we were on the outer edge of it’s range and as motorhomes came & went and parked up on the front row between us & the phone booths the strength came & went. We had to move about the van holding the computer up in the air or work off the kitchen bench to pick it up sometimes.

Frosty feet- Winter lesson #1; make sure you put your crocs in the shoe box otherwise come morning, you’ll have a very cold (& slippery) walk to the showers. Lesson #2 stand your crocs up when you get back, to drain the water, otherwise you’ll have wet socks the next time you step back into them.

Our neighbours had a frosty start to their kayak tour, they were heading up to Abel Tasman Park for three days but had to wait for things to thaw before stowing away their food & sleeping bags.

And this would have to have been the heaviest frost we experienced while at Kaiteri, the same day as we headed to Flora Carpark & the snow.

And finally a photo for Dad. Hop frames near the turnoff to Kaiteri. When I was a child Mum & Dad did a tour of the South Island with some friends (and without us). Whenever we watched the home movie of their trip dad would say as they drove past the hops in Motueka “There’s my favourite plant”. It was much later on in life before I realised why!

Abel Tasman Walk- Part 2: The Walk

Once off the boat (Part 1) we had a short climb out of the Medlands Bay to the main track junction. We would be meeting the boat again at Anchorage at 3:30pm, it was now 11:30am and 11.5km seemed a very long way after watching the contours of the hills from the boat as we travelled up the coastline.

Taking the amount of time we had available and the distance we had to cover on board, David was off at full stride ahead of me. I lingered to take a photo of Medlands Bay, the walkers that had raced off the boat to paddle in the water, still exploring by the rocks. It was a steady climb for the first kilometre or so and then the track levelled out and wound it’s way in and out of numerous narrow gullies.

We passed a couple of side tracks along the way, one down to Sandfly Bay where the Falls River snakes around the dunes to the sea. The golden sand, clear blue water and deep green of the bush made for some beautiful vistas. As wonderful as the boat trip along the coast is, you really don't get an idea of how stunning this coast is until you’re walking alongside it. The section of the walk that we are covering is also the most varied.

The 47m long Falls River swing bridge is one of the interest (highlight) points along this section of the track. It was also the area where we met 3 or 4 groups of trampers coming from the other direction. A lot of walkers have probably never encountered a swing bridge before and we could hear quite a bit of hilarity going on as we approached, shouts and laughter filled the air as some rocked the bridge as others crossed.

It was a bit like Piccadilly Station with all the comings and goings. We passed, & were passed by, quite a number of people walking the track in both directions. For us this was a small negative point; we have been too spoilt by having many of our walks to ourselves. I’m not sure I’d like to walk the track in the height of summer when there would be dozens of people walking the track from both directions. And having now seen dozens of swing bridges the Falls River Bridge failed to impress although the river looked interesting with it’s large piles of flood strewn logs and emerald green still waters.

Stunning Frenchman’s Bay lagoon was next to come into view. Unfortunately we couldn’t have the best of both worlds on this walk; we wanted it to be low tide so we could cross Torrent Bay estuary further on but it would have been great to have viewed this lagoon at high tide. When the tide is in, the lagoon is a very beautiful clear mint green colour. Nearly all promotional & a lot of advertising material for the Abel Tasman National Park feature people kayaking on this lagoon.

Half Way Pool would look very inviting if it was the middle of a hot summer but today it was an ice cold deep green pool tucked into the shade under the ferns. I’m assuming that the pool is roughly half way if you’re walking the whole 55km track.

Finally after three hours we found ourselves at the top of a bluff overlooking Torrent Bay & the estuary with our destination Anchorage in the top left of the photo. In the previous post I mentioned the 5 metre tide range along this coast, our skipper told us to take note of where the water level was as we motored along just off the beach. At the time the estuary was full of water too.

As you can see there’s quite a large holiday settlement at Torrent Bay and the track runs through the village with plenty of “keep out”  & “private” signs to make you feel welcome. I suppose I shouldn’t be so cynical, all of these holiday homes (that can only be accessed by boat) are closed up for winter & I’m sure there are plenty of trampers who may try to take advantage of the decks & BBQ tables available in the yards to take a rest or in fact they may even have more sinister intentions in mind.....comfy beds?

The two young ladies in the photo were from South America and had caught up to and passed us on the track. I’m not too sure whether they saw much of the track though, as they were talking non-stop the whole way. We could hear them approaching us from a good distance & once they passed we could hear them for a long time afterwards. We were stopped searching for a bird when they passed us. I couldn’t help myself and asked if they had seen any birds. “No, no we haven’t” one of them answered. I wonder why!

Much later these two decided they’d walk the remainder of the track back to Marahau, the southern start point of the walk and another 4hrs further on, after finding out when they boarded our boat in Anchorage that is was returning to Kaiteriteri. Other water taxis had already left Anchorage. This would have been fine, earlier in the day but it was 3:30pm & getting very cold. It also gets dark around 6pm so they would have been walking the track in the dark without torches. The skipper was concerned, he radioed up other boats but they were already full or not in the area, but the girls insisted and off they went.

As we took in the views we spotted our boat making it’s way into Anchorage, where it anchored waiting there until we all arrived at the beach. The buildings in the trees behind are the new DOC hut and the staff quarters (with the solar panels).

In the estuary photo below, top right, you may just be able to see a tiny dot crossing the sand flats. That’s where we were headed, taking the short cut across the sand to re-join the track on the other side. Before then though, we made our way down the track and out onto the beach before walking through the village and finding a picnic table beside the empty estuary to have a leisurely lunch at. Because we were going to take the short cut across the estuary, we had about an hour and half up our sleeve before we were to meet the boat.

High & dry in Torrent Bay estuary.

After lunch we headed off down the village “road” to locate the track that branched off the main route for the estuary crossing. I must say that there is plenty of informative signage all the way along the track with good indications of how far and how long you have to walk to get to various points.

I had chosen the Medlands Bay to Anchorage section of the Able Tasman Great Walk because I wanted to walk across the estuary and luckily the tides were in sync with the day we did it, you can cross the estuary two hours either side of low tide. Many walkers don’t have a choice and have to walk the high tide route adding another 3.7kms to the walk. The extra distance wasn’t the reason I wanted to do the estuary, I just thought it was a chance to do something a little different on a walk.

Even though the tide was out, the estuary would still involve crossing two shallow streams. We rolled our pant legs up and crossed in our water proof boots but the woman ahead of us had the right idea. After finding out that my boots weren’t waterproof afterall, I suggested that David might like to do the same for me for the next stream. I can’t repeat what he said! I’m not sure these two had the right footwear on, we caught them up as she doubled her distance walked by trying to dodge all the muddy & wet patches on the way to the hard ground.

Finally 3.5 hours (including stops along the way) & 7.8km later we made it to the beach at Anchorage. We saved ourselves 3.7km by crossing the estuary and had about 30 minutes to wait before our boat picked us up. Of course if we had to have walked the high tide route we would not have stopped so long for lunch.

There were quite a few small few groups of people dotted along the beach, resting up & waiting for their water taxis, including the group that had been on our boat with the kayaks this morning. We’d dropped them at Apple Tree Bay earlier and after they had done their kayak tour around Adele & Fisherman Islands they had walked over to Anchorage.

While we were waiting I walked around the bay to check out the new (Oct 2013) 34-bunk DOC hut that replaced an older 24-bunk version. It’s located in a fabulous spot, north facing, tucked into the lush bush, a few steps from a beautiful golden sand beach and surrounded by native landscaping & grassed areas with plenty of deck space and picnic tables in the grounds, it has many more features than all of the huts we’ve seen put together! What more could you want……for us, private ensuite rooms. We just don’t fancy bunking down with dozens of unknown people for the night, hence the reason we do day walks only.

The Abel Tasman Walk is one of the country’s most popular Great Walks (there are 9 in total), last year it was walked by 29,000 people and Anchorage Hut is the first and busiest of the four huts on the 54.4 kilometre track. Of course not all 29,000 people stay at the hut but many visit it on their way past or while waiting for water taxis.

One of the smaller water taxis collecting walkers from Anchorage. No wet feet today but I wonder how they would fare boarding in a rough sea.

Not long after, our boat pulled in and we boarded along with about 15 others all heading back to Kaiteriteri. With the sun gone it was a cold wait for these two kayakers who we stopped to pick up in Apple Tree Bay, they had stayed out longer than the others who had walked over to Anchorage.

I’m pleased I’ve now walked a section of the Abel Tasman Track. I can see why it is so popular, it has beautiful golden beaches, stunning coastal scenery, lush fern laden native bush & thick manuka forests along with many tidal estuaries & coves and while we both thoroughly enjoyed the day, it would have been even nicer to have not shared it with so many people. Selfish aren’t we?