Portage to Golden Bay

After the exciting night we woke up at 8 to a messy and smoky apartment after only having slept 5 hours. Although you would think we would take an easy day Martha and I decided to walk a leg of the famous Queen Charlotte track. One option was taking a sea kayak. Kayak to Te Mahia which would take 2 hours and than walk back. But seeing as we weren’t in to good a shape we decided to lift to Te Mahia and just walk back. Luckily we caught a ride after just 10 minutes because there aren't many people living further than Portage so we where a bit worried that it would take forever before we would see a car.

We caught a ride up to 5km before Te Mahia and started to walk to rest until another car stopped for us. We had just jumped into the car, and maybe driven 500 m, when we saw a sign for the track but because we hadn’t arrived in Te Mahia yet we decided to go further. And yes that meant that we had to walk back from Te Mahia up the hill for 10 minutes to the sign. We girls must learn to navigate better and be more assertive. Would save a lot of energy ;-)!

The track was truly amazing! It was a 3 hour walk back to Portage and we also took a side track to the lookout point. From up there we could see the all over the sounds (which are what we call fiords in Europe). I think this must be the most beautiful thing I've seen here in NZ.
After dinner we treated ourselves to another spa and turned in at 9. How sad is that. To girls in the prime of their lives can't even handle one night out!

After a full 12 hours sleep, we both woke up excited. The sun was shining and today was the day we were going to take out our free yacht! We put on our innocent smile again and even managed to get free fishing gear. The only small setback was that there wasn't any wind. Luckily our luxurious yacht was equipped with a motor so we were off. We both enjoy being on the water so much and with the sun on our faces we just relaxed. We came to a mussel farm a tied the boat to it. It was time to start our fishing adventure. We had taken some mussels from the wharf in Portage. Martha did the disgusting job of opening them, scraping out the mussel and cutting them up. We put them on the hook and cast out lines. Expecting to sit there waiting for hours we were shocked that the line started pulling after only 10 seconds. But when Martha started to pulling in the catch the realisation hit us. We would have to do something with this fish! We both freaked out but we're tough girls and we managed to hold the fish and get the hook out. I must admit we both needed a cigarette after al this excitement. We went trough this whole process another 4 times before we decided the last one was big enough to keep. There is a legal size the fish must have before you can take them. So basically you can kill the parents but not the kids! We where very disappointed to here from Michael that what we had caught was a spotty and wasn't eatable. So not only had we wounded 3 innocent fish we also killed one! Some people call fishing fun but its just cruel and we city girls felt guilty.

Full of anticipation we went in to the hostel. The whole week we had heard of "the 9". Murray, from the Mahana lodge, had mentioned them and when we booked into the shop at Portage they also told us that we would be sharing the hostel on Sunday. In the last days we had built al different kinds of theories around this mysterious group. We met them in the bar and they turned out to be a group of colleagues who tramp a lot together. They invited us to join for Christmas pudding! Yes you read it right, here in NZ they have midwinter Christmas and have a proper Christmas dinner. This was my first taste of the real English pudding and it was delicious! We sat around chatting to them for hours and at the end of the night Rose invited us to stay with her in Kaiteri on the Golden Bay! Off course we were happy to except.

Monday morning we left this idyllic, beautiful place. I'm definitely considering coming back in spring and learn wakeboarding, work in the hostel and just join into the low pace of life.

We arrived in Nelson in the afternoon and not having seen a shop for a full week we went into the warehouse and came out when it had already turned dark! We both bought some warm boots and made another step towards blending into the kiwi culture.

Our hostel was full of alternative people wearing rags and having Rasta’s. We city girls with our new boots just didn't seem to blend in here. After dinner we made muffins, double chocolate with banana! We had planed to share them and make friends because the next day was my birthday and it would be nice to go out with a big group. We canceled this plan and drew our conclusion as it didn't seem that these people were going to accept us. We decided to go out for drinks instead and for the first time I sat in a bar for 2 hours had a great time and didn't spent any money! Ok our plan to get drinks form guys didn't work out as there were only 2 couples in the bar but we managed to get a lemon, lime and bitter of the barman!

Tuesday, 27th of June, my birthday! Martha made me breakfast, we went into town to have a cappuccino and went on a shopping spree. Under the motto of "birthday presents" I bought myself some tight jeans and a nice shirt for the night.

Back at the hostel the owner was making a big roast dinner with chicken, sprouts and carrots. To our great surprise he invited to join and we did! Although it was a big group and they all had know each other for sometime, seeing as the all seemed to work there, there was a weird silence trough out the dinner. But that didn’t matter to us, we had a free birthday dinner! We felt a bit guilty for not sharing our muffins so decided to make coffee for everyone.

We went out to the same bar as the night before because we had found out that it was the barman’s birthday as well. This time we did bring money and ordered gin and tonics. We met up with some people from the hostel and it turned out to be a great birthday party. I went to bed feeling happy although I off course did miss my friends back home.

The next day we drove to Matueka and met up with Rose and her son Richard. After a short delay, because they had conveniently locked their keys in the car so we had to wait for the AA the open the door, we followed them to their house. They live 15 minutes north of Kaiteriteri and 5 minutes up a gravel driveway. When we arrived it was already dark and we couldn’t wait to see the view the next morning because we could hear the see front the deck in front of the house. As we assumed it was stunning. The house was right on the beach and looked out on the famous Split Apple rock. Unfortunately we couldn’t enjoy the view for too long because we had to rush out of the house to catch the water taxi into the Abel Tasman from Marahau. The Water taxi dropt us off at Bark Bay and the plan was to walk all the way back to Marahau which would take 6 hours.

The minute we hit the track I felt my body was so tired and my legs felt extremely heavy. But the views were so stunning that, although a walked at a slower pace as I normally would, I managed to walk to Anchourage via Torrent Bay in 3 hours. I decided to wait there for the water taxi pick-up as Martha went on. When I arrived back at Rose’s I crashed and just slept for 12 hours.

The next day when I woke up Richard had already made an appointment with the dentist for me as yet again my tooth was the problem. My third visit to the dentist in 2 months, you would almost think I’m doing a dentist tour! As the other dentist had also told me, this problem didn’t have a quick fix. I actually need surgery by a specialist who can drain the infection through the gum. The only other option he could offer me is to get the current perfectly fine looking root canal out and hope for a side canal through with the infection will drain. I decided to take the chance. He has made all the preparations and tomorrow, Monday, I have a follow up.

Seeing as I would have to stay over the weekend in Golden Bay, Richard, Martha and I planned a weekend trip further north to Farewell spit. We drove to Takaka where Martha introduced me to my next big adventure, knitting! We had bought some nice Marino wool in Nelson. I now know the basic stitches but, as Martha kindly pointed out to me, it will take some practice before I want to do this in public. Handling the needles is not as easy as it seems and at this point I look a bit retarded with this concentrated look on my face and my tong between my teeth.

The next day after coffee Martha left us to start her big 3 day walk trough the Abel Tasman. Richard and I drove to farewell spit, climbed a big hill and had the most amazing view of the west coast and the spit. We stayed in Collingwood in a hostel which, after Richard had just been telling me that there are hardly any Asian travelers in Golden Bay, was crowded with Japanese.

Today, after Richard made me a huge breakfast with bacon, sausages and eggs, we went to a Salmon farm were I could but my Portage fishing experience into practice. The motto here is what you catch, you eat. For $18,- they fillet you fish and for another $12,- you can get it smoked. With our thoughts on dinner we casted our lines out and 1 hours later we had both caught a beautiful big salmon. I was already familiar with the catching and getting the hook out but on the boat we just drowned the fish by putting it in a bucket. Richard showed me the proper way of killing a fish which is by putting a knife through his head right between the eyes. Yes, I screamed, but I pulled myself together and killed my own fish. 30 minutes later I was presented a perfectly smoked salmon in a pizza box and it tasted delicious!

I’m now back at Rose’s and have just enjoyed another lovely roast dinner. Rose invites a lot of travelers to stay with her and enjoys the company. Proof of all these visitors are the rocks around the wood burner with personal messages. So I’m going to quite writing now and be creative!