Day 18 - Sunday
Arriving at the the Inter Island ferry port - felt a little surreal as it was almost identical to every other ferry port I’ve been to. We could have been in Calais, Dover, Portsmouth or Bilbao except for one key difference:-
Every single person we encountered - even the people with the high vis jackets and walkie talkies who were guiding the cars into the right lanes and onto the boat, smiled, cracked jokes and were really friendly and helpful. The charming young man who took our ticket gave us a huge smile, told us the weather was beautiful today and that we should have a lovely crossing and gave us precise instructions about where we should go next (unlike the grunt and vague wave of the arm, that seems to be the norm at the ports listed above).
Now I’ve been through a lot of car ferry ports over the years and just assumed that for the people who work there, being grumpy, ratty and rude was an essential part of the job description.
I’ve had tickets snatched out of my hand, the window slammed down and been kept waiting for 15 minutes - Calais, I’ve been waved at in a most aggressive fashion because the lanes weren’t clearly marked and I was heading into the wrong one - Portsmouth and I’ve been yelled at because I couldn’t make the u turn in the tiny space allocated on the ferry and took a wider path (my Jeep has the turning circle of an ocean liner) - Bilbao.
These people seemed genuinely happy to be directing cars around at 7.30am on a Sunday morning and interestingly enough - their good humour was infectious.
No-one was getting their knickers in a twist because cars that had arrived later were being put on the ferry first. No-one was hooting their horns and no-one was getting out of their cars to moan about why it was all taking so long.
Happy ferry port staff = happy passengers. Very simple, so why can’t it always be like that?
The ferry itself was big and you roll on & roll off through the same doors at the back of the boat, so I know from experience (The Cap Finistaire Bilbao-Portsmouth) that these take a little longer to load and often involve whizzing around the car deck in a seemingly random fashion. Of course when you unload at the other end, the higgledy piggledy arrangement of cars and trucks makes perfect sense. We were lucky enough to be close to the ramp (and facing in the right direction) and near the stairs to the upper decks. So we grabbed the stuff we would need for the 3 hour trip - cameras, money (for coffee and the gift shop) cigarettes (just in case) and as the sun was actually shining, headed upstairs to the open deck at the very top.
Unfortunately, all those that had boarded before us, had had the same idea and nearly all the seats, set out in neat little rows, were taken. We spotted 2 together right at the back and made a dash to bag them before any of the other people, hot on our heels, beat us to it.
For the whole trip one of us guarded these seats as if our lives depended on it, so we took it in turns to explore. I went first and found the cafe - “1 flat White to take away please”, and then went to the tiny little space, outside on deck 7, designated as a smoking area.
It was actually quite funny because there were a few people standing by the rail all the way down the deck and then a clump of people all huddled together between 2 Yellow lines that had been marked out, to make sure we smokers know our place.
I joined the rest of the social pariahs, managed to grab a space that had just become free by the rail and lit my cigarette. Generally, I find smokers to be a cheerful bunch. We know it’s anti-social and that it’s not good for us, but we always seem to get chatting and never have a problem finding something to talk about - usually the outrageous cost of fags and how difficult it is to smoke anywhere nowadays.
So as we all stood there puffing away, I had a chat with a few people, mostly about where we all were when the earthquake struck and our change of plans.
The area cleared a little, as people finished their cigarettes and stepped over the Yellow lines, back into the “clean air”, but I decided to have one more while I finished my coffee.
So there I am, standing by the rail, minding my own business, when an elderly couple (probably about my age) came and stood right next to me. They were chatting and enjoying the scenery and clearly hadn’t noticed me or the fact that I was smoking.
As the woman turned her head towards me I smiled and took another puff of my cigarette. If looks could kill, I would have spontaneously combusted on the spot. She glared at me, whispered something to the man and they both shuffled along the rail a bit to get away from me. I couldn't hear what language they were speaking or their accents, but I would have bet serious money on the fact that they weren't New Zealanders - far too uptight!!!!
The woman kept giving me evil looks and I was tempted - so tempted, to point out that this tiny spot was the only place on this massive boat that allowed smoking, so if they didn’t like it, there were a million other places they could stand where they could breathe nice clean air.
In the end I didn’t say anything because a) it was unlikely, but possible, that they did in fact smoke and the woman was all grumpy about something else and b) I was rather enjoying the fact that on this rare occasion, I had every right to be there, puffing away and they were the ones that had chosen the wrong spot.
They kept giving me sideways glances and were clearly waiting for me to finish my cigarette so that they could relax and start to take nice deep breaths again.
So of course I did what anyone would do in the circumstances - lit another cigarette.
At this point they both stared at me - I stared right back (praying they would say something) - then they whispered to each other again and moved away down the deck.
As soon as they had gone, I put the cigarette out because I didn’t really want another one - just did it to annoy them and made my way back up to Lottie.
By now - the boat was under-way and all the people who had been preciously guarding their seats were now standing at the rail, waving smart phones and cameras about to capture shots of Wellington. Lottie was actually standing on the arms of her seat so she could take some photos over the sea of heads.
However we thought that the novelty of the boat moving would probably wear off sometime soon and there would be a mad dash to reclaim the seats, so we decided to hold on to ours.
So it was now Lottie’s turn to explore, which also included a trip to the cafe and a visit to the shop.
Now I had clearly missed the shop, focussed as I was on getting a coffee and a fag, so when she returned, I was up like a shot and down there with purse in hand - just in case!!
It was actually very small and didn’t really have anything I needed.
Please note the use of the word “needed”.
Virtually nothing I had bought so far could possibly be described as being needed but it’s how I justify buying useless, but very pretty things in gift shops to myself.
My little shopping devil whispers in my ear “ you need that because it’s going to make you very very happy”. “You need that teeshirt, because it will look great on you”. “You need that because if you don’t buy it, you are going to keep thinking about it and keep wishing you had bought it when you had the chance”. “You need that because this is a trip of a lifetime and souvenirs will remind you of all the good times you had”.
My little shopping devil can be a right pain in the arse at times.
If Lottie was dumbfounded at me coming back empty handed, she didn’t show it.
We continued to take it in turns to mind the seats while the other went:- to the loo, for more coffee, to double check there wasn’t something in the shop that had been missed, for a cigarette and to take photos from the other side of the boat. All told, we probably only spent 30 minutes actually sat together on our chairs and 20 of those was with Lottie sleeping with her head on my shoulder. In fairness it was a very early start.
As we approached the South Island, the scenery took a dramatic turn. Huge mountains rising out of the sea, forests and the occasional little house with no discernible means of getting to it other than by boat.
Everyone was back up at the rail again cameras and phones clicking in a frenzy to get the best shots. As you can see from the map - the dotted line represents the ferry route - the way into Picton is far from straight and I was reliably informed (by Mike our LOTR tour guide) that although the North & South Island are only 24 km apart, the ferry actually travels nearly 100 km.
I would dearly have loved to get a few more photos but rail space was at a premium and being only 5'3'', it's hard to take pictures over peoples heads.
If you have read some of my other posts, you will be well aware by now, that I'm shockingly anal about certain things. So when I've travelled alone on a car ferry in the past - the minute they tell car drivers to go down to their vehicles, I rush around like a headless chicken, grabbing my stuff and panicking that I will be the last one to get to my car. Lottie on the other hand is the complete opposite. Her attitude is, if everyone tries to get down there at the same time, there will be crowds of people on the stairs or trying to use the lifts, so we might as well sit in the sunshine for a little longer and wait for the rush to die down. She is quite right of course and I tried to relax and wait - I really tried. But when someone is sitting bolt upright on the edge of their seat, wearing their coat, clutching their bags, with their knees bouncing up and down, it doesn't really give the impression of a person that is calm and relaxed. After a few moments watching me twitching and fidgeting next to her, she gave in and we made our way (through the crowds) to Bertha who was patiently waiting for us on the car deck.
As we waited to drive off, we were a bit confused as to why all the foot passengers had been brought down to the car deck and were now weaving in and out of the cars and lorries to an exit point somewhere we couldn't see. It made no sense to us at the time because normally car and foot passengers are not allowed within miles of each other, but later I read that the foot passenger access at Picton had been damaged in the quake, so presumably that was their only option if they were to resume normal service.
Once off the ferry my phone picked up our route and started it's excellent instructions. It's funny because before the days of satellite navigation, I used to travel all over the UK and we did a few family road-trips across Europe using only a paper map. Even if I say so myself I was a shit hot navigator, but now, (like a lot of people I suspect) I rely so heavily on technology for everything, all my confidence in using the map to actually get us to our destination has evaporated. Still it was nice to be able to follow our route and check the phone mapping navigation was doing it's job correctly.
I needn't have worried - there are only two roads out of Picton. One follows the North coast across to Nelson and the other goes South.
As far as we could tell, virtually no-one was going across the North coast, so all the cars, lorries, campervans and motorbikes from the ferry joined State Highway 1. I felt quite sorry for the the people of Picton - it's tiny (like the majority of towns we've seen so far) and by all accounts there are 10 ferries a day, so it must be hard having all that traffic thundering through every hour.
We certainly noticed the difference as we drove down to Blenheim, the next town. As I think I've mentioned before, until now, some of the roads we had used had been completely devoid of traffic, so it felt a little weird to be driving in a line of other cars/lorries/campervans.
At Blenheim the road divides again. SH1 continues down the east coast to Christchurch and SH63 heads towards the West Coast via a little town called Murchison. Well that was the situation until just after midnight on Monday 14th November. The earthquake measuring 7.8 caused major rock falls along the East Coast, either side of the town of Kaikoura, completely blocking SH1.
The road also broke apart in several places and prime minister of New Zealand said "The mountain has moved over the road and we are not sure whether it can ever be repaired".
The effect of this on the traffic was dramatic. Now instead of a large majority of the traffic heading down SH1 - literally everything was going West on SH63. So we now found ourselves in a long line of traffic, which was the polar opposite of everything we had experienced so far.
In many countries, the principle roads may be dual carriageways or even have 3 or 4 lanes in each direction, so it's probably worth explaining what "State Highway" means in New Zealand. Apart from the roads going in and out of the major cities, everything else is single carriage way - so one lane in each direction and sometimes not even that! On some of the mountain roads they may have a passing lane on the uphill bit, but they are usually short and sweet with only enough time to overtake one or two vehicles. The locals, of course, know exactly where these are and position themselves ready to take full advantage. So by the time the poor old tourists realise there is an opportunity to overtake the lorry/campervan/motorhome crawling around the bends, the locals are flying past, leaving no space to pull out before the passing lane ends.
The open road speed limit is 100km, 50km in the towns and each bend in the road has it's own individual speed limit, which is incredibly useful if you want to avoid driving off the edge and plummeting into the valley below.
We had been warned that the police operate a zero tolerance policy towards speeding and so Lottie was careful to stick to the limits and if she had a car up her bum, pulled over where possible to allow them to pass. But at least she drove at the speed limit,.
An awful lot of vehicles we encountered, were going so slowly they were more dangerous than if they had been whizzing along.
A lot of single lane roads combined with a lot of slow moving vehicles equals a lot of overtaking, some of it so reckless, the reactions inside Bertha ranged from both of us holding our breath, to both screaming "WHAT THE F**K IS HE DOING".
As I mentioned above, there are lot's of occasions when the road narrows to one lane only - yes you have read that right - the State Highways, particularly in the South Island, have sections that are only wide enough for one car and it's all because of the rivers.
I suppose it's logical that where you have a lot of mountains and a lot of rain, you get a lot of rivers. The country is only 1600 km in length but has an astonishing 180,000 km of rivers (and those are just the ones that have been mapped) and all of those waterways adds up to a hell of a lot of bridges.
Maybe the decision to make the vast majority of them single lane, was made by the same people that decided to save a few bob by not putting barriers on all the high mountain roads, but with the small population, the low density of traffic and over 4000 bridges to build you can sort of see their point.
However, the fact that a major earthquake might completely close one of the two routes heading South, clearly wasn't factored into the equation.
These little bridges have their own set of rules. You watch for the signs showing a bridge with two arrows, a little Red one and a big Blue one, pointing in opposite directions. If the Blue one is pointing in the direction you are travelling, you have the right of way. So far so good - but the problem is that you can't always see if there is anything already on the bridge until you are right there, so you have to slow right down and in some cases stop completely to check the coast is clear.
If you have the right of way, but see that there is a little queue on the other side, you are supposed to play nice and stop to let them across, but of course, most of the tourists don't realise this and do what the sign says. So with all the extra traffic and the clueless tourists, bottlenecks were springing up all over the place.
Lottie and I like to see the positive in every situation and for us, it was the sight of all the cars that sailed by us on the passing lane, or thought it was a good idea to overtake on a bend, a brow of a hill or with something coming straight at them - now stuck in a queue at the bridge. Ha!!!
The journey was supposed to take 3 hours 40 minutes, but it became clear, pretty quickly, that it was going to take quite a bit longer. So to while away the time and keep Lottie motivated, I thought I would use to my map book to give her a little running commentary on what we were passing. However, there are very few towns or villages, but loads and loads of mountains and rivers, so it was almost impossible to work out exactly where we were. In the end I just embraced my inner child and called out the ones ending in Knob!!!
All the traffic that would have been on SH1 disappeared at Murchison and we were left with a pretty clear road for our last 100 km to Westport.
As I have mentioned in my earlier posts, the dolphins had been absent in the Bay of Islands and because of the earthquake, we were not able to do the East Coast trips, which included whales, seals, penguins and albatross - so I was determined to try to see some wildlife.
I chose Westport as our first stop because it has a seal colony nearby in an area attractively called Cape Foulwind.
Given that all of our accommodation for the next 4 nights was booked in a single afternoon (as opposed to 4 months of research) I was feeling a little apprehensive about our first stop on the new hastily thrown together itinerary.
I needn't have worried - the Omau Settlers Lodge was delightful.
Our lodge room was spacious, well equipped and beautifully decorated with home crafted beachy found objects.
Karen & Lee were charming, very helpful and clearly enthusiastic about their new venture.
Once we had checked in and unloaded Bertha again, we decided to go to find the seal colony and then have dinner at the pub over the road - the only place to eat that didn't involve getting in the car again.
We discovered that walking to Seal Point would take about an hour and a half or we could drive to a car park nearby and it was only 10 - 15 mins from there. We were hungry, tired from the early start and the day's driving, and it was raining again, so we went for the second option.
The car park was beside another beautiful beach and we made our way from there up the path to the Seal Colony vantage point. We looked down on the rocks below, looked at each other, looked back at the rocks and I could feel this awful sense of dread creeping up inside me. No seals!!! Maybe we were in the wrong spot, so we checked the signs - no, this was definitely the right place. Having failed to see Dolphins in Paihia, missed the Kiwi in Rotorua, had our whale watching cancelled due to unforeseen earthquake circumstances in Kaikoura and been unable to get to Dunedin for the seals, Albatross and Penguins, it now looked like we were going to miss out here as well
Maybe I've watched too many wildlife documentaries, but when I think of a Seal Colony, I picture a large beach covered in seals of all shapes and sizes and this certainly wasn't that.
Suddenly Lottie shouted, "Look Mum - there's one". I stared in the direction she was pointing, but all I could see were rocks - and then a "rock" moved. In my defence, we were a long way up and my glasses were all fogged up from the rain, but the realisation that the handful of seals that were down there, were very well camouflaged opened up a whole new perspective. Gradually we began to notice others and after a few minutes were even able to spot those that weren't moving.
I shed a little tear of relief, but Lottie didn't notice because it was raining so hard.
Having satisfied ourselves that we had finally encountered some wildlife (albeit from about 100 feet above), it was time for dinner.
The Star Tavern (the pub over the road), was surprisingly busy for a Monday night in the middle of no-where. The next morning at breakfast we realised why - everyone staying at our lodge had chosen the same dinner option.
We had a nice meal washed down with another outrageously priced bottle of wine and engaged in one of our favourite pastimes - people watching.
There was a teenage lad who looked like he'd been dragged screaming and kicking on this tour of NZ with his elderly parents and would rather have been anywhere but there.
Some biker blokes who either had no other clothes to change into or just wanted to flaunt their cool leathers to the world.
And finally a couple who were clearly terrified of cats. Lottie and I were fascinated and we had to keep telling each other to stop staring. So the pub had a friendly cat, who was "purrfectly" at home in the restaurant section. It had made it's way around the tables rubbing peoples legs, purring and jumping up onto the bench seats to say hello. Some people had made a fuss of the cat - the bikers and us, others had ignored it - the unhappy trio and some other couples who were clearly too loved up to notice anything, but the cat hating couple took "reaction to a domestic animal" to a whole new level. She screamed when it brushed her legs, he started flapping his arms wildly in the cat's general direction and then jumped up from the table and moved several feet away when it landed on the seat next to him. This extreme behaviour went on for a bit and the cat clearly thought it was some sort of new game, so the more they reacted, the more persistent it was.
Half way through their meal they both got up, called for the bill and left. Personally, if something bothered me that much, I would at least mention it to the staff, so Lottie and I were both quite shocked. Highly amused but shocked nevertheless.
Once we had finished our meal we wandered outside and discovered a little ring toss game on the lawn. We decided to have a go and were both pretty useless, so I thought I'd cheat a bit. I stacked all the rings over the post and posed for what I thought was a photo. Little did I know, my darling daughter filmed the whole thing instead.
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