Christmas on the boysenberry farm

We’ve been spending the festive period on a boysenberry farm in Upper Moutere, in the north of the South Island.

‘What exactly are boysenberries?’ we hear you ask! They’re a hybrid berry, a cross between a raspberry, a blackberry, American dewberry and a loganberry. They look like large black raspberries and have a sweet, rich berry flavour.

We’re helping with the harvest on a 16 acre farm. This involves standing on harvesters as they move along the rows of berries and ‘grading’ the berries by picking out leaves and unripe fruit then filling trays with the fresh berries ready to send all over the world. The work is very physically demanding, starts at 4am each morning 😴 and we’ve been working 8-10 hour days, so it’s safe to say we’re both thoroughly exhausted. But happy to be earning money which should hopefully fund our travels for the next few months.

We’ve parked our van up in one of the fields and have access to a small kitchen and bathroom. There are two other couples staying with us - Miri and Vali from Germany and Chloe and Tanguy from France. We’ve been enjoying getting to know them, so as well as the farm owners Jeremy and Alena.

Luckily we had Christmas Day off, so managed to have a bit of a lie in before making pancakes and opening the stockings we’d got each other. We had a very relaxing day and made a Christmas curry with all the trimmings. Nothing like a usual Christmas, but enjoyable for a Christmas away from home.

It’s Nathan’s birthday tomorrow, so we’re planning a birthday BBQ and campfire to bring in the new year and have New Year’s Day off work!

We hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and wishing you a Happy New Year!

Big walks and big wines

After our trip on the mail boat, we spent the next few days exploring what we could of the Marlborough Sounds. This included multiple walks to secluded coves with stunning views and a very rainy and blustery night spent at Elaine Bay, on the western side of the sounds. It was here that we started our first audiobook of the trip, The Thursday Murder Club, and have since spent many hours listening whilst driving or walking.

We then made our way around to Nelson, the site of the first ever rugby match in New Zealand and stocked up on supplies before the next week heading to the most northerly point of the big island. Our first port of call was the small town of Kaiteriteri where we thoroughly enjoyed a day in the sun: swimming, eating fish and chips and visiting a local geological attraction aptly named ‘Split Apple Rock’.

We decided that we would then stay at a large Department of Conservation campsite in the heart of the Abel Tasman National Park for a few nights and attempt our longest walk to date. The campsite was a one hour drive down a narrow mountain top gravel road but well worth the trip as it was one of the most scenic places we have stayed so far. 

The next morning we set off early on our tramp - a 26km loop, starting with a coastal section and returning inland via a hilltop ascent. We had a great day listening to our audiobook with gorgeous coastal views and even spotting a few fur-seals. Despite at one point having to backtrack 10 minutes to find Josie’s dropped AirPods, we made it back to camp in six and a half hours.

As we cooked up dinner to recuperate and refuel we were inundated with weka, a rare flightless bird, exuding confidence and pecking at anything and everything we put more than an arms length away. These cheeky weka were a theme of the next few days and we saw them stealing many other people’s lunches.

Our route then took us further north to Farewell Spit - the northernmost tip of the island. Here we walked to along the seemingly endless spit which disappeared far off over the horizon and out into the Tasman sea. We were the only people on the entire beach and apart from a flock of sheep we had a lovely undisturbed walk.

On the way back we called into the town of Collingwood, which any Durham alumni amongst you will understand the reasons for, but didn’t stay long as we had our sights set on the Nelson Lakes National Park and besides, Grey4life.

We enjoyed two serene night by Lakes Rotoiti and Rotoroa, only being slightly pestered by overly friendly mosquitoes, ducks and weka. The lakes are home to hundreds of eels which spend their lives living upstream in rivers and lakes before swimming off on a one way trip out to sea, all the way to Fiji, in order to breed. Incredibly the baby eels then drift on ocean currents back to New Zealand to begin the whole process again. Quite incredible creatures as they are, we were both unnerved by the sheer number under the lake’s jetty (see the photo below!).

From the Nelson Lakes we headed back up north into the Marlborough wine region and enjoyed our second day of vineyard hopping on the trip. We found a pub in the town of Renwick which allows visitors to stay overnight provided they buy a drink at their establishment. We rocked up at 11am and decided to wet the whistle with an incredibly generously poured glass of wine each - this set the tone for the day. We visited 4 vineyards and a brewery, all within stumbling distance - Te Whare Ra, Gibson Bridge, Forrest, Framingham and Boom Town - and managed to make it back to the pub in one piece. Of course, with our van so conveniently parked next to a pub, we couldn’t resist the opportunity to carry on the merriment and so topped off the day with a couple more (rather unnecessary) beers and rugger on the telly.

As you can imagine, the next day was hell. But since then we’ve been making the most of our relaxation time as later this week we will be starting our first stint of work! We’ve secured 3-5 weeks of work on a boysenberry farm which should not only top up our bank balances but also see us through the Christmas period where the roads and campsites will be at their busiest. We’re not too sure what to expect at this point, but we’ll update you next week on how the first few days have gone!

Windy Welly and the windy ferry

We finished our last blog post down at Cape Palliser, getting our first glimpse of the South Island. The next morning we headed over to the Cape Palliser Lighthouse, the southern-most tip of the North Island, and also home to the North Island’s only colony of New Zealand Fur Seals! We had a lovely morning watching the seals, and a few pups, as they lounged about on the beach and went swimming.

We then made our way into New Zealand’s capital, Wellington. We arrived on a Friday afternoon and decided to head out on the town for our first experience of clubbing down under. We have to admit that despite our relatively low expectations, it left a lot to be desired. Nevertheless, our years at Durham prepared us well for making the most of shit clubs and we managed to have a sufficiently good time that Josie has sworn off alcohol for the foreseeable future.

Partying out of our system (for now), we had 4 days here before catching our ferry and managed to explore a lot of the city in that time. One of the highlights was the Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa. Here we explored exhibits on the country’s wildlife, evolution and culture. We particularly enjoyed the nature exhibit, which featured an earthquake simulator and the preserved body of a giant squid. There was also a brilliant exhibition exploring the ANZAC’s WWI Gallipoli campaign, brought to life by sculptures made at Weta Workshop, the special effects and prop studio made famous by Lord of the Rings. We then took a trip up the famous Wellington Cable Car, and Mount Victoria which both gave us great views over the city and Josie even squeezed in a quick visit to the only Welsh pub in the southern hemisphere 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿.

The time had come to make the trip to the ‘big island’. We woke early to board our ferry and immediately made our way to the cafe for a full English. Full with the comforting taste of home, even the 40mph gusts couldn’t deter us from standing out on deck for the entire 3 and a half hour trip. We were well rewarded with multiple dolphin sightings and even saw some albatross dancing over the Cook Straight. As we wound our way through the more sheltered Marlborough Sounds on towards Picton we were treated to some breathtaking views and seemingly endless waterways to explore.

Picton itself was full of charm and we had a well earned bowl of soup in a local eatery once there. We spent a few nights driving along the Queen Charlotte Drive - a picturesque, if not a touch challenging, clifftop route between Picton and Havelock. Once in Havelock we booked a trip with the ‘sea postie’. The primary purpose of the trip is to transport people and post to isolated islands and stays between Havelock and the Cook Straight, but tourist can join for the ride to get an insight into the places and people that call the Marlborough Sounds home. Along the way we met some locals, along with dogs, pigs and sheep and saw many more dolphins and seals. On top of it all, the scenery was stunning and made it a contender for our best activity of the whole trip so far!