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December 16th, 2002
We made it all the way up to the North Coast of the
South Island yesterday. High mountain passes with spectacular
views of the mountains and the ocean in the distance.
We stopped at a little roadside café and had ice
cream and fed the eels. Yes, that's right, fed the eels.
They were huge and they slithered up out of the water
like a nest of snakes snapping and darting their heads
at anything that looked like food. We picked up a little
"eel food" from the café and fed them from the
end of a popsicle stick. They had pretty strong bites
and more than once dragged the stick out of my hand and
had a little fight over it.
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Fortunately they never got more than a foot out of the water,
so I was never completely surrounded and never in any real danger
as far as I could tell. It was a good thing I was wearing shoes
instead of sandals though because toes look an awful lot like
"eel food."
Next we went out to find some beaches and did locate the legendary
TaTa beach. Golden sand, big limestone rock formations, and
long views across to the mountains on the peninsula. The name
is deceptive, however, because all the naked women I saw were
busy tanning their backsides so it was really more like "Booty
Beach." We spent the night in a nice little cabin where we could
wander the beaches and had a good fish dinner at the local pub
along with plenty of good dark beer. Now we're off down the
coast to Westport and possibly meeting with Bruce and Laura
the day after near the Franz Josef glacier.
TaTa Beach
December 14th, 2002
So yesterday we drove up the coast north of Kaikoura, and ended
up in Nelson for the night. The mountains up here are very cool
and the road is winding but it in very good shape. Very fun
to drive. You can see lots of old growth forest on the mountains
but it's clear that up until maybe 30 years ago the Logging
Industry was just freaking off the leash around here and a lot
of clear-cutting went on. There are high mountain passes that
are sheep pastures now, and what growth there is in many places
looks like it was planted. Still, most places you get some spectacular
views of snow covered mountains all the way to the ocean. The
vegetation is also a wild mix with palm trees standing next
to big spruce and evergreens.
Nelson is a cool town and one of the oldest English settlements
on the island. Lots of Victorian architecture, pubs, cricket
fields, botanical gardens, very British. Today we're heading
up to Abel Tasman peninsula to see some of the park and coastline.
Maybe get out on the water a bit. There's a place called TaTa
Beach that sounds very interesting.
All for now,
Andy
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