Taupo to Christchurch

After all the adrenalin excitement of the last few days, it was back to more sedate experiences. A long drive from Taupo to Wellington via a detour to Huka falls. It was rather weird to be in a city again with lots of people rushing around. Had a great fish & chip supper (again!) before having an early night to catch the ferry.

Inter-Island Ferry - Driving on!

We arrived at the ferry after initially going in completely the wrong direction at 730 to catch the 830 sailing to Picton. A very scenic ferry journey to South Island. From there, it was another long drive to Marahau, the gateway to the Abel Tasman National Park. Our hostel was literally at the end of the road which we quite liked.

Marahua Beach

The weather was noticeably colder but Tim insisted that he would not wear jeans. We booked ourselves on a water taxi the following day which would tour around to Split Apple Rock and then drop as at Tonga Bay.

We awoke to torrential rain and thought this was not the best day for what we had planned. We arrived at the water taxi office and were shepherded into the boat on dry land - seemed weird. Then a tractor pulled us down the road, onto the beach and into the water and we were off!

Split Apple Rock

Abel Tasman Aqua Taxi

The boat trip reminded us of Ocean rafting in the Whitsundays, the sea was very rough and the boat was boucing around all over the place - luckily we don't suffer from sea sickness. By the time we were dropped at Tonga Bay, the weather had worsened and now included the odd bit of thunder and lightening.

We now had to hike from Tonga to Torrent Bay via Bark Bay (the lunch stop), roughly 14Kms before being picked up again by the water taxi. Due to the weather, we were dropped off an hour later than scheduled. The first bit of the walk was fine if a little wet but by the time we got to Bark Bay, the weather had cleared a little.

As we finished lunch we realised the time and that we only had an hour and a half before we were to be picked up. We almost route marched the second half of the walk and we both had visions of being stranded and spending a night in a hut. Fortunately, we made it with about 5 minutes to spare - it was the last boat of the day.

Very wobbly bridge

We only took a few pictures on the walk as we didn't really have time to stop. There was a very wobbly suspension bridge at one point which was pretty high up and was so narrow two people could not pass at the same time. We both wondered how much we would ache the following day.

Christchurch - night in a cell

Luckily we didn't feel too bad (quite impressive) and the next day we had a huge drive to Christchurch. After getting lost several times around the one way system, we found our hostel, which was a converted jail, dumped our stuff and then went to see Jo and Kane for dinner, along with Cooper and Jo's Mum and Dad, which was lovely. After spending the night in our cell - which was very cool, we were up early to drop the car off, meet Karen and Phil and pick the camper van up. We will be seeing Jo and Kane when we drop the van off again in Christchurch after our South Island Tour!

Taupo to Christchurch

Christchurch, New Zealand