The journey finally continued beyond the upper 1/8thof the south island on New Year’s Day. We stopped off Pelorus Bridge campground, about an hour east of Nelson, on our way to Blenhiem to look for vineyard work. Tony was hoping to do some fishing, of course, but the rivers were too high due to rain, naturally. After paying for a fancy $24 campsite that included use of the communal shower, we discovered several free ones, too little too late. But the night hike to the glow worms made it all worthwhile. It was great to not have a bear threatening to eat you out of the dark forest, but the glow worms were truly amazing. At the base of a wee waterfall (as the locals say) there were hundreds of little glowing worms that look like stars on a night sky, truly a magical New Zealand memory.
We had a nice couple about my age with two kids as our tent neighbors. He was from Seattle and lived in Christchurch, and was our second American encounter on this trip. Tony woke with a new thought that he wanted to go to Christchurch and check out the building and construction market, as they are rebuilding the city of 300,000 people that collapsed in a 2010 earthquake. As we packed up we exchanged numbers with our neighbors in case we meet down the road. People in New Zealand truly are some of the friendliest in the world, and although we both were American, neither of us would have probably done this in our home country. We found a free campground on a map and headed south. On our way I tried to stop along the scenic ocean route for some photos, but it was so windy that we could barely manage the car doors open. After 4 hours of driving we arrived at our flooded river campground in the pouring rain. We then received a text message from our new American friend inviting us to stay in the extra bedroom instead of weathering out the lightening storm. I am not really the type to decide to crash at a strangers house, but under the circumstances it really seemed the best option, so we did. It was a great evening and really a lot of fun to stay up and talk with someone who also could relate to some of our culture shock.
The next morning we scanned the town and it was actually a pretty neat place. The downtown is all under red tape and destroyed, but the outer suburbs are all pretty spread out and not too claustrophobic feeling like some other NZ cities we have been too. However we decided we would go camping for another week because everyone with a full time job is on “holiday” aka vacation, from Christmas until Jan. 7h (or even Jan. 14th). Since it was only Jan 3h, we had some more time to play before we could even consider looking for jobs. Due to all the flooding, we headed to Geraldine where many a fly fishing river can be found, and would be the fastest to recede from the flooding. We found some free camping spots off the shores of Lake Opuha, which included a beautiful view of the snow capped mountains in the background. After setting up camp and exploring the maze of dirt roads we headed back to camp for some good old canned dinner. Tony tried the ever popular Watttie’s canned spaghetti with meat balls, what we did not realize is the meatballs were lamb. The closest he could describe the taste was vomit, yum. I chose left over Chinese food from Christchurch. As many times before we struck up a conversation with our camping neighbors, they are Tony’s age and had two kids. They have been living in NZ for 8 years and were from South Africa. We had an evening latte in their sheltered awning, as the wind was brisk and one of the coldest nights we have experienced on our trip. We talked late into the night and finally made our way back to “home sweet home” of sleeping bags and fleece long johns, which was not enough since you could easily see your breath in our tent. Tony slept in two sleeping bags, wrapped in a micro fleece blanket, and tucked into the ever popular rip stop bag that was sewn by my mother as a pack cover.
We spent the rest of the weekend at this same campground and I read the second book of the Hunger Games as Tony tied some flies in hopes the rivers would soon go down. Luckily the weather went from freezing cold to blazing hot overnight. That evening we went to our new friends awning again for another round of latte’s and great conversation. The next day the rivers were finally fishable and Tony was able to walk away with at least one good 2 lb trout. Our new friends departed the campground, but not without swapping numbers in hopes of seeing one another down the road. We tried talking to our other neighbors and met the first unfriendly Kiwi’s on our trip, of course they were a retired couple both burned as lobsters and guzzling down at least their third bottle of wine. They started the conversation off with the fact they were from Auckland, “but everyone hates Aucklanders, so we lie and say we are from Nelson”. The conversation was only worse from there and only left us with some backing behind some people’s dislike of Aucklanders.
We packed up the next morning (Jan 6) and headed for some hiking at the Peel Forest, and of course the rain starts. I don’t mind hiking in the rain if I get caught in it, but I am not one to start off my journey in the rain. So we stopped off the store for some spinach, mushrooms, and blueberry scones. We made a lovely omelet in a covered picnic area and did a short walk to “Big Tree”, but couldn’t get motivated in the rain for a longer hike. So as usual we drove through a maze of dirt road looking for fishing spots that were not flooded, no luck there. That night we stayed at a Kiwi campground in Geraldine and spent some time online job hunting. The new year certainly started out with meeting some wonderful new people, which has truly made our travels worthwhile.
