I arrived in Picton and decided to stay the night having driven through the three-street town and seen a "summer festival" on the go. It was great. The small seaside-village sits on a scallop-shell shaped bay on Charlotte Sound with hills all around behind. It's very pretty and very friendly. The music festival was in full swing by the time I got down there with lots of small food stalls and, what seemed to be, every local from Picton enjoying an evening in the late sun with a band playing on the thin strip of beach. It looked like a movie set, in the sunshine, of a 'perfect party'.
Here's a photo of a truck for the two little boys I know that like cars & lorries... Tom and David.
I pulled into a small cafe for breakfast the next morning. Don't think I've ever had a bacon and egg pie before. Perfect!
I'm pretty sure that NZ has a pretty bad rep when it comes to food. In contrast I've found that even the smallest township has a great cafe/deli and many are really very good and reminiscent of "Megan's" in Fulham or those flash ones on the North Norfolk coast. They do take their coffee very seriously here and it's very good and, I've got to admit, I think they generally do Fish & Chips here better than in the UK!
I also have to admit to a few too many Mrs Mac's Pies and Sausage Rolls (If it's not Mrs Mac's... Take it back!) I must attend to my, currently, poor diet which is difficult to keep healthy when on the move all the time. I make myself feel better with large doses of blueberries which taste like nothing I've ever had back home.
I ended up staying in Picton for two night's and then headed west along the north coast of the South Island, along the famous Queen Charlotte Drive, to Nelson. Nelson is great... Relaxed, pretty, coastal and charming. It would lend itself to a very relaxed way of life.
I had to visit the GP in Nelson (only stocking up on drugs) and we quickly deduced that we were living on the same street in Fulham at the time Jill Dando was shot... Small world!
From Nelson I wanted to take a look up by Abel Tasman and Collingwood. It was a very beautiful area but, only for the second or third time, I arrived to find a place packed with tourists. Abel Tasman is on the tourist 'circuit' and was very busy. I took a short walk but decided to move on. I appreciate that I'm a tourist too but I just don't enjoy the 'theme park' feel created with loads of people jostling around somewhere of interest. I also, without fail, get asked to take people's pictures at tourist spots. It's very dull and being David Bailey to happy couple after happy couple through the viewfinder is not why I'm here.
Still, pretty nice 'round these parts...
Collingwood sits on Golden Bay, almost at the extreme north of the island, just below Cape Farewell which I thought aptly named for the last bit of land. It was a beautiful estuary for sitting, relaxing and doing nothing else!
From here I had to backtrack to Nelson before heading toward the west coast and Westport, via Murchison and the Buller Gorge. Now I knew that there were some mountains in NZ but I have to show my prior ignorance by not realising that the country is largely alpine! Day after day is spent driving through mountains, along passes and through gorges. All very spectacular.
I arrived in Westport and was slightly non-plussed so decided to take the 100km mountain road north to Karamea. The journey was amazing...
And as for Karamea... Well, Karamea, Karamea, Karamea!
It's nothing special and yet everything that is special! I know I'm going to find it hard to describe for those that haven't been but here goes...
It's a tiny rural township with a population of about 500-600. Predominantly it is a series of dairy farms on rich pastures along with a small village centre of A N Others. The place is a subtropical slither of land squished between the rainforest clad Kahurangi mountains and the Tasman Sea with Nikau Palms lining the roads. What makes it special is hard to pinpoint. For one, it is at the end of the road running north on the west coast... If you want to get here you need to make the, slow going, 100km journey across the mountains with nowhere to go onto, other than back.
Beyond that, it is marvellously isolated and cut off but with a very warm community... A lifetime of "peace and quiet" here if you want it with nothing more than beaches, mountains, rivers and rural pursuits. I met some interesting and friendly people from farmers to people that had arrived whilst travelling and never left... I stayed longer than I planned, almost without realising it! A very special place without being anything special!
I dragged myself away a couple of days ago and headed south. I'm currently in Fox Glacier. Amazing! But this blog is long enough so crampons and moraines can wait to the next one...
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Location:Kerr Rd,Fox Glacier,New Zealand
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