Ferry Crossing and Wiggly Tin

18th November A lot has happened in the last few days, (I am writing this on the 20th Nov.) We had travelled to the beautiful seaside resort of Keteriteri with the plan of staying there for a couple of nights and doing some walking in Abel Tasman Park. However with internet access for the first time in a few days we first thought that we should book the ferry crossing from South to North Island. We had heard that there had been a problem with one of the Interislander Ferries but now we learned that it was out of action for six months reducing their payload by one third and creating a lot of disruption with crossings. Our only possiblility was using a different company, the Blue Bridge, and crossing on the Monday morning at 8am. Bang went our hopes of staying in one place for more than one night. However we decided to make the most of what time we had left in South Island and went for a walk around Keiteriteri. That is definitely a place that I would like to visit again. A shallow bay with little coves, caramel coloured sand and little islands dotted here and there. Behind the camp site was a solitary hill that we climbed, seeing a very pretty fantailed bird, and hearing another one with an amazing trill of song. Back at the campsite we spied a pair of birds about the size of partridges but the male had an interesting head crest that fluttered in front of his eyes, a bit like a delicate carrot on a stick.

Our now tight schedule meant that we had to head straight for Picton, unfortunately missing out on visiting the interesting sounding Nelson. Picton was an interesting harbour and we had a bit of a wander around there before heading back for a fairly early night. We had a rather nosy Weka on the campsight who seemed intent on clearing any possible crumbs from the campervan steps. Next morning we caught the ferry out of Queen Charlotte Sound. That was beautiful country much like a Fjord according to Dave and would certainly warrant several days exploring in its own right. Four hours later we landed at Wellington where there was far too many cars so we headed North immediately, pausing only to ring River Valley rafting company near Taihape and book a rafting trip for the following afternoon. Slightly bizarrely Taihape is the Welly Wanging capital of the Southern Hemisphere and has a wiggly tin boot to prove it.

Talking of wiggly tin, there is a very strong presence of this in the whole of NZ although possibly more in the South Island than the North. Certainly most roofs are made from it and in a lot cases the walls are too. I suspect there is a huge factory making it somewhere. We even saw one place where old rusty wiggly tin had been used as a canvas for art! We reached Taihape and I was definitely wilting as we set off down the tract to nowhere having been offered a night's camping at River Valley. After half an hour of very twisty roads with no real sign that we were any closer and the last of the chocolate gone, I was suffering with a sense of humour failure, when we reached the top of a very steep gravel track into a green river valley. At the bottom was the wooden lodge of the River Valley Rafting Company.