South Island, New Zealand
On our first morning in the South Island, we woke up bright and early in order to catch a cab to Picton to retrieve our rental car from the ferry terminal. To make a long story short, the cab ride lasted about 30 minutes and cost us $105NZD. Our cab driver also took us to the wrong rental car location, so we had to walk quite a bit with our luggage to find the correct pick-up spot; when we finally did, we grabbed the keys to another Toyota Corolla and zoomed out of town as quickly as possible. Picton is a small fishing village on the northern tip of the South Island. Its primary point of interest for us was its convenience to the ferry and rental car drop-off, as well as its proximity to the Marlborough Sounds.
The Sounds are a collection of inlets, bays, and isles that were formed by ancient sunken river valleys that later filled with the waters of the Pacific Ocean. My original goal had been to see the Sounds from our SoundsAir flight from Wellington to Picton; however, due to bad weather, our flight was rerouted to Blenheim, and so we didn’t get a good view of the Sounds on that trip. As a result, after grabbing a baguette from a local bakery in Picton, Matt and I drove down Queen Elizabeth Drive, which weaves in and out of the Sounds, providing picturesque views of the forested hills rising from the waters.
That day, our plan was simple: to drive. We had a five hour drive in store, as we were travelling from Blenheim in the northeast to Greymouth, which sits further south on the west coast. Greymouth had no special sight for us to see, nor is it a magical tourist destination like Wellington or the Bay of Plenty. Its main draw for us was that it was only two hours away from Franz Josef Glacier, which was the activity we had planned for the following day.
(Our biggest problem we encountered was that there was nowhere to stay in the South Island. The South Island is huge and not as widely populated as the North Island. Add to that the Christmas holiday and summer break for New Zealand school kids, and we were totally out of luck. It took me several days to find hotels even within 100 miles of where we needed to be each day. At one point I just thought we’d have to sleep in the car one night. So Greymouth it was).
The drive through the Sounds took us about an hour out of the way from our route to Greymouth, but we didn’t mind since we really had no plans for that day apart from driving and seeing the scenery. Driving in New Zealand is magical in and of itself. There is so much to see—from green, spacious, rolling farmland, to animals of all sorts and varieties, to thick, tangled, forested jungles, to azure blue seascapes, to trickling and towering and toppling waterfalls, to craggy mountain ranges covered with snow, to precious town squares with cafes and bakeries, to old and ancient mining towns, to sheep crossings and cattle crossings, to hydrangeas and lupins and roses, to tree farms filled with perfect rows of tall, green pine trees, and every now and then, to suburbs and cities. We knew that the drive would be an adventure all by itself, so we made it that way.
New Zealand is special because the government makes a huge effort to conserve and protect the land. An hour’s drive through the South Island led us through vineyards and wineries, to sweeping farmland thick with wheat, corn, and sheep, to purple mountains towering over icy blue lakes. At every turn there was a sign reading “Lookout, 5km,” and we tried to stop at as many lookout points as possible. Some lookouts were simple and pretty, and you’d just exit the car and glance down at rolling hills or streambeds below. Some were stunning, requiring a 10 or 15 minute walk to a vista unlike anything you’ve seen before: mountains rising out of the ocean, or waterfalls pouring down into gorges the color of a robin’s egg. Each lookout was a mini-adventure, and Matt probably got sick of me screeching “pull over!!” every time we passed this sign.
There’s a saying in New Zealand that you can experience four seasons in one day due to its Pacific climate. Our drive that day proved this to be quite true: as we drove through the mountains and lakes, the air was freezing cold, and yet, some people were out swimming. As we drove along the coast, the sun beat down on us and the open windows let in that salty, briny ocean air that always reminds a person of summer.
Due to our love of lookout points, the drive to Greymouth took about six or seven hours instead of four. We also stopped for lunch in the tiniest of towns ever—I think the only buildings were a café, a museum about the history of an earthquake that happened in 1965, and an old mill on the river. Lunch was surprisingly delicious for the remoteness of the location: veggie burgers, bananas, and Coke.
About an hour before Greymouth, as we sailed down the West Coast, we reached a little town called Punakaiki, whose road signs advertised the Punakaiki Pancake Rocks just a few kilometers down the road. Intrigued, we parked the car on the roadside and took a twenty-minute walk down to the seashore, where we spotted these mysterious rocks. The Pancake Rocks are a series of limestone formations formed millions of years ago by seismic activity, water pressure, wind, and seawater. The Pancake Rocks really do look like a stack of pancakes, but we were also excited to see an amazing blowhole in the rocks. A blowhole a sea cave that grows upwards until finally it becomes exposed on the surface so that seawater blasts through the top of the cave.
We spent quite a while exploring the rocks and watching the water flush in and out of the blowholes, although the formations are quite famous and so the spot was very crowded.
After grabbing coffee at the Pancake Rocks Café nearby, we then finished driving an hour further south to Greymouth, where we checked into our first and only hostel of the trip (remember, I told you how hard it was to find accommodations)!
To be honest, I was dreading the hostel. I don’t like noise when I’m trying to sleep, and hostels are notorious for being party houses. This hostel, however, completely changed my viewpoint. It was beautiful—full of Maori decorations, carvings, jade gemstones, and furniture. There was a huge, clean kitchen, immaculate bathrooms with showers, a warm and comfortable living space, kayaks and bikes for rent, and plenty of outdoor seating areas. Our host was extremely happy to meet us and gave us tons of good advice about Greymouth, even telling us the exact time of day we were likely to spot dolphins (9:04pm, if you’re curious).
But we were on a mission to see one more final, famous lookout before we explored Greymouth, so we threw our bags into our room and headed out around 6pm to our final adventure for the day—Hokitika Gorge. You can read about it here!
