Howzit? Jump in the back of the van for another leg of our New Zealand road trip.
So we were now done in glacier country, it was time to get moving north and find some more awesomeness to look at with our jaws agape. The drive as usual was nothing short of stunning. The road followed the coast through dense native forest, twisting and turning as we made our way over the many inconsiderate hills that had placed themselves in our path. Despite the steep climbs the van was holding out well and still much to our surprise lugging our arses everywhere we wanted it to. I’d been pessimistically expecting something bad to have gone wrong with it by now but the trusty old Ford Econovan wasn’t going to let us down.
The last leg of the south island was going to be following a familiar theme you might have started to pick up from in our earlier posts, although cranking it up to 11! We were heading towards the craft beer capital of NZ, the holy land that is Nelson. We still had a few things to see first though so contain your thirst! We stopped off at Punakaiki, or pancake rocks, to see some crazy rock formations, the name gives a pretty big clue as to what they look like. Apparently geologists can’t even agree on how they are formed, we both agreed that they looked pretty amazing though and with some big waves crashing against them made for a spectacular sight. We stopped for lunch at the back of the van after this and out the corner of my eye several times thought I saw something by Emma’s leg, only to look and see nothing there. The next thing I knew a very bold little bird came walking over to us to see what we were up to. He was a Weka, a very rare little fella only found in very limited areas now in NZ. We couldn’t believe our luck in seeing him, he spent fifteen minutes working out what we were up to and seeing if we had anything interesting he could borrow. These little guys are famous in Māori stories for snatching things and running off into the bushes with their prize, even if it is something completely useless to the them! Eventually he lost interest in us and ran off to investigate some other unsuspecting tourists.
Over the next few days we worked our way on towards Nelson, stopping off in the middle of nowhere in a DOC campsite for the night on the grounds of an old gold mining site. Only a hundred years ago there had been a town with hotels and banks here, now all lost to time without a single sign it had ever existed. We walked down to Lyell creek that night and tried our luck at finding gold, it seems the miners had taken the lot as we all we found were sandflies!
Entering the Nelson/Abel Tasman region in the far north-west of the south island, immediately we were seeing fruit farms everywhere and something even cooler than that, hop farms! All of these green little wonders were destined for the many craft beer breweries in Nelson, NZ’s craft beer mecca. We weren’t heading that way yet though as we still had the Abel Tasman national park to take in and the remote far north-west. Here we visited Te Waikoropupu, the clearest freshwater springs in the world. The water was like nothing either of us had seen before, in the hot weather we just wanted to dive in and drink our fill of it, but the springs are tapu, or sacred to the Māori. That’s definitely a good thing too, as they’ll stay the clearest springs in the world that way. We stood and looked into the clear blue depths, envying the luckiest trout in the world that were cruising around in that paradise. The springs were surrounded by regenerating native forest with fragrant manuka bushes everywhere and mature totara and rimu trees standing tall, just how I like NZ.
For our first taste of the area’s beer, we stopped off in a remote and very laid back brew-pub called the Mussel Inn. We got to taste some of that manuka I just mentioned in one of their beers called Captain Cooker, check that link out. It’s made using manuka tips just like Captain Cook did when he stopped by in 1773, making him the first man to brew beer in NZ. Interestingly he was making beer for the health of his crew in an effort to combat scurvy, so proof that beer can be healthy, WAHOO! Aside from tasting divine, this beer is packed with antioxidants too. From following that link you’ll see people have had a shot at making the stuff in Belgium, the USA and even in England – Dad you know what you have to do! They made many other lovely beers here, all in an extremely environmentally responsible way, as far as I’m concerned anyone coming to the south island has to check this place out, we absolutely loved it. Grandad, this one was right up your street 🙂
Heading back on ourselves now, we passed through the Abel Tasman national park where we admired the shallow clear and calm waters of the area and made a visit to Split Apple Rock. From there we eventually reached the lovely city of Nelson where we stopped for a few nights. As I mentioned before, this is craft beer paradise, so aside from taking in the sights of the lovely town we took in the beers too. The Moutere Inn, The Sprig & Fern, The Freehouse (a church that’s been converted to a much more useful purpose;) ) and Founders, all of which made or sold incredible and great tasting pints. If you are still drinking from the same tap every time, you should seriously start branching out into the incredible world of flavour out there, as when you come to a place like this you really would miss out on something special. One beer that stood out for us was a coconut porter from the Geek brewery, imagine that, a thick black beer with a roasted flavour and the soft smoothness of the coconut coming through, divine! Aside from its awesome landscapes, beautiful culture and beautiful people, NZ makes and drinks great beer. I will really miss this place.
As we drove our final stretch of south island road on the beautiful Queen Charlotte drive, we felt very sad that we would be leaving this land the next day. The south island was everything that everybody had told us it would be, and more. We parked up in the lovely little town of Picton for the night and remembered that leaving the south island wasn’t all bad, we would be getting to see the equally beautiful north island again too, but I’ll leave Emma to tell you all about that one. Remember we had a van to sell still 😮
Kia ora, and thanks for reading guys,
Andy
- Trying my hand at gold panning.
- Emma was much better!
- Look at that technique.
- Things panned out well 🙂
- Emma getting her pan on.
- Me stopping for a bit of a dance.
- Emma hears reports of a thief in the area.
- The gold thief is quickly apprehended.
- A west coast delicacy, whitebait. Quite tasty, fried up in an omlette.
- We also tried a wild boar ‘hot dog’, really good too.
- This bridge had been closed for weeks due to flooding, luckily it was open again by the time we got here. Otherwise we’d have had to have driven hundreds of kilometres back on ourselves!
- The Monteith’s Brewery tour, wahay! A selection of the malts used in their beers.
- Heading into the working area.
- Our guide with the huge fermenting tanks behind her. The lovely smell of fermenting beer 🙂
- Me looking thirsty.
- When their bottler broke down the brewery threatened to close the plant.Instead a local guy chopped the back off of a bedford truck and built them a new one, that’s Kiwi ingenuity.
- The rest of the bottling unit. The same Kiwi had built them a beer keg cleaner/filling unit. The guy was an engineering genius. Apparently no other brewery has a device that can do both jobs in one and is mostly automated.
- Pouring a glass of the Apricot Wheat Beer, absolutely delicious.
- A summer’s day in liquid form.
- The Monteith’s range.
- One of the specials brewed onsite.
- Another special brewed onsite.
- Our favourite from their standard range, the excellent black beer. Really nicely balanced.
- A very happy Emmy.
- Taking the black just like Jon Snow.
- The brewery itself, unfortunately you can’t see the house with a goat tied up out the front over on the left. It’s the wild west round here.
- My new Monteith’s hat.
- Emma’s new polo shirt.
- Driving on along the winding roads.
- Following the coast as we go.
- Close up of the crazy rock formations.
- A big old pile of pancakes.
- A little Weka who came to check us out.
- He wanted a closer view of the camera.
- We stared one another out for a little while.
- The limited distribution of the Weka.
- I told you the Weka was crafty.
- You wouldn’t see this sign back home.
- Look at those lovely New Zealand hops growing there.
- A view out to the far north west.
- The clearest water in the worlds.
- The spings are tapu so no swimming here.
- Walking through the regenerating forest.
- Now this is a pub! They brew their own beer and it can be drunk with a clear conscious, they are environmentally friendly and their beer is also good for you. Everyone’s happy.
- Heading straight to the bar.
- The night’s sky in Onekaka.
- We couldn’t do the stars justice with our camera no matter how hard we tried.
- Native forest and beautiful calm seas.
- A local fisherman.
- Split Apple Rock, did it just fall from the sky?
- Home to some fine craft beers.
- Our taster tray. When you can’t decide which one you want this always a good bet.
- A chain of brew pubs in Nelson. They have 15 of their own range on tap – incredible!
- The 15 taps.
- Another taster tray.
- Come on in and worship at the altar of beer.
- Attending a sermon 🙂
- Their range.
- Hops growing in the beer garden.
- Emma’s coconut porter and my English style cask conditioned beer, wow did it pack some flavour!
- Some buskers in the town centre. They played Gangsters Paradise with guitar, drums and accordion complete with harmonies. Brilliant!
- Nelson now…
- …and Nelson back then.
- Keeping the town’s heritage alive.
- This guy completely ignored us.
- Kiwi polish.
- Another rude local.
- Getting my biannual checkup.
- Pukeko galore!
- Emma partaking in a photoshoot.
- Run by the Duncan family, 5th and 6th generation brewers!
- The range.
- A tasting of their lovely beers served by the head brewer.
- Emma partaking in a veggie burger tasting.
- Bacon and eggs on toast for me.
- This is the Duncan’s (the brewery owners) family house, moved here and open to the public.
- Beautiful New Zealand, can a view be any prettier?
- Logs getting shipped off around the world.
- Our view as we drove into Picton.
- South Island road trip complete 🙁