With the weather taking a turn for the worse, David Coxon and friends are faced with a classic quandary on their return to their ‘Different Christmas Trip base at Collingwood: do they stay? Or do they go?
aving a good solid camp kitchen where we could cook and eat, and being confident of our equipment, we decided to hunker down for the night.
This, as it turned out, proved to be the right decision, as it was only blustery by Wellington standards and the rain didn’t hit until after we had packed up in the morning. After quite a few long days travelling, the plan was to have an easy day driving back to Nelson, then spend a day exploring the city and just relaxing.
En route we stopped at Milnthorpe Quay, just to see what was there, and at Pupu Springs where we did a slightly damp loop walk down to the spring and back to the cars. By the time we reached Motueka the weather was improving, and after a short break in a quirky and very busy café we crossed the Takaka Hills and visited the beach at Kaiteriteri in glorious hot sunshine, although the water was freezing cold.
Our final stop was Ruby Bay for lunch in the park and a wander around the art shops before hitting Nelson and looking for a campground. Gillian’s memory finally led us to Matai Valley campground, a very pleasant and scenic venue only about ten minutes from Nelson.
Glad of an early night
By the time we had settled in, the clouds had rolled in and we were glad of an early night. It poured down that night, but the tent was waterproof, and with the tent entrance under the awning on the side of the car our entire living area was still dry in the morning. With dry and improving weather we spent the day chilling out and exploring Nelson, and planning out last adventure of the trip – the French Pass area.
The next morning, refreshed after an easy day, we were packed up early for the run up to Okiwi Bay in preparation for our trip to French Pass. The run to Okiwi Bay turned out to be a lot quicker that we expected, and we were there before lunch giving us plenty of time to set up our camp then do the run up to French Pass.
The initial run from Okiwi Bay was more of the very scenic coastal drive we had experienced from Mistletoe Bay at the start of our trip but then we got onto unsealed roads running over unfenced sheep grazing land. With the road often being over a hundred metres above the sea, the views were spectacular, but with a very steep bare drop all the way down to the water on the left hand side I had very little opportunity to enjoy them unless we stopped.
Internet connection!
We finally reached the small settlement of French Pass about mid-afternoon. This was an important destination for Gillian since she is very keen to reach d’Urville Island (Rangitoto kit e Tonga) as part of exploring her family history, and while she had found from internet research that there is a ferry from French Pass to d’Urville Island, there was no contact details or timetable information online. Luckily there was an information sign on the wharf at French Pass, and even a contact phone number.
Amazingly for such a remote area there was good cell phone coverage and Ashley was able to talk to the ferry operator and find out all the things they needed to get lined up to get over to d’Urville Island and even onto Stephens Island (Takapourewa). The run back to Okiwi Bay was a little more relaxing since we were now in the inland side of the road, and it also seemed a lot shorter. To May’s pleasure we were even able to stop on the way back to camp for her to collect some watercress for dinner.
Since we had already done French Pass, our final day of exploring was to take the main turnoff from the French Pass road and visit Port Ligar and Bulwar. Leaving the French Pass road, the road soon started to deteriorate and was, at times, narrow with tight corners and even more severe drop-offs than the French Pass road. When we dropped down to sea level and found a pleasant picnic area it was definitely time for morning tea and a calming coffee.
Continuing on we finally reached the turnoff for Port Ligar, only to find that the road was gated with ‘Keep Out’ and ‘Private Property’ signs. I couldn’t help wondering why they bothered having all the signposts for a destination the average visitor couldn’t get to. Happily, the road continued to Bulwar, although deteriorating towards the end into the standard of a private driveway on the final decent to the coast, where we stopped for a well-earned lunch.
Nature’s bounty
This was a highly memorable destination, starting with a friendly greeting by the local pig – almost the size of a small pony. Then Gillian went for a paddle along the beach, without realising that she was being followed by an inquisitive stingray.
Watching the two resident stingrays patrolling up and down the beach only a metre or two from the shore was one of the most memorable parts of the whole holiday for me. I also found it interesting that while Bulwar seemed incredibly remote to me, having come by road, six boats arrived at the wharf while we were having lunch – maybe I only considered Bulwar remote because I couldn’t access it by sea.
Eventually, and reluctantly, we had to leave for the return trip to Okiwi Bay, which once again seemed quicker and easier than the trip out. After our final night of camping all we had left was the relatively short trip on sealed roads to Picton and the ferry crossing to complete a highly memorable and relatively inexpensive holiday.
More please!
In terms of the experience of our first camping holiday, the main learnings we took away were that to avoid spending so much time looking for things we needed to have a place for everything, and everything in its place, and we needed more coins for camp showers.
We also decided that for us, we should ideally stay in each place for three nights to reduce the effort of unpacking and packing up, and should have two days of exploring and one chill-out day to give us enough rest time.
Overall our first longer camping holiday had been a very successful adventure and we are all looking forward to more in the future.
