Week Three
Venturing further South this week, Isabel, Ally and I experienced some intensely variable New Zealand weather. From scalding hot dry summer days to flash hail storms, sheets of rain and tempests that overturned vans and trucks on the highway, a new day never fails to excite. Nor would a new day make it easy to sleepily pack up a soaking wet tent in the morning. Nonetheless, there have been enough calm moments for me to pull out the camera and record as much as possible (albeit biased towards clement times). Time now to venture into the blustery mountains of the West Coast and get some proper hiking underway...
The last of the North Island
Passing through the geothermal town of Rotorua, around lake Taupo, on to the forests east of Desert Road, followed by a 20k hike across Tongariro and a long drive to Wellington, we had an eventful few days in the North Island.
One morning in Manawatu, we woke to a man being rescued by a helicopter team after having fallen off a 100m cliff. The paramedic team made a bit of a spectacle for onlooking campers and the man survived with two broken legs. Moral of the story: don't get too drunk when you're close to a hillside.
The Ferry (who doesn't like ferries?)
In a shift from the densely-populated North Island to the South Island, we passed through some dark foreboding weather that could make one think that the South Island would be a dreary place. Thankfully, the wall of clouds opened up as we came to shore and we were met by glistening beaches, kayakers and friendly smiles.
The first of the South Island
Traveling west from Picton, we found some amazing beaches, paddocks, forests and camp sites in Nelson and the West Coast. Our past few days have been met with steady rain and a blustery tempest, so photos are meagre. Nonetheless, we had some fun travels in the area.
Notice the street sign in the last picture? The name Owen has appeared several times in our travels, including prevalent Owens Transport trucks on highways, the 1875m Mount Owen and the above pictured street in Punakaiki. This spiked some interest. Owen is a Welsh name that stands for anything between "young warrior" and "noble." Appropriately, Mount Owen stands tall and mighty among its mountain range, with many caves, peaks and hikers regularly covering its sprawl (also making it a great backdrop for a scene in the The Fellowship of the Ring). Upon a short internet search, there seem to be no notable Owens in Kiwi (New Zealand) history, but one could assume that these names came from European whalers, early Welsh ex-convicts fleeing the social ex-con stigma of their past in Australia, or from the many European settlers that came to the Southern Hemisphere by their own will during the immigration influx of 1840. There are presently close to 7000 Welsh-born New Zealand citizens in a total country-wide population of 4.7 million.