Road Trip Chapter 1

2016-07-19
We started our road trip on Sunday (17/07/16). Me, Ray and Jessica departed from Motueka at 11am after parting with my housemates there. Actually we departed at 10am, but at 10.30am my friend left his jacket at home so we had to drive all the way back to retrieve it. We had a stop at Country Kitchen Cafe in Tapawera and had some coffee there before we headed to Westport, our first destination. We had a stop at Tauranga Bay for the seal pups and we weren't disappointed. It's kinda far away from us though. We continued our journey to Punakaiki to see the Pancake Rock and blowhole. It was not high tide so the water blowed out from the hole wasn't that magnificent. We had our dinner in Fat Pipi Pizza Shop in Hokitika. Sun sets at 5.15pm as it was winter so we headed to our campsite in Lake Mahinapua after these destinations. We arrived when it was totally dark so we had some troubles setting up the tent haha. Everything was so messed up as it was our first day camping. We saw a German sleeping in a sleeping bag under the shelter, without blankets, without mattress. Just sleeping bag. Is he crazy? Jessica slept in a tent, Ray and I slept in the car after moving most of the luggage to the tent and driver seats. Wagon rocks.

On the next day 18/07/16, we departed around 10am, heading to Franz Josef for a walk to glacier lookout point after taking a stop at Lake Ianthe for some photos, The track is long and flat but the view were not bad. After that we went to Lake Matheson for the view of mirror lake, less tourists in winter which means it's not crowded! We arrived at Lake Paringa campsite before the sky became dark so that we can cook our dinner instead of dining out which could drain our money. Tonight we all slept in car at our seats, We did not set up tent as it will rain according to weather forecast. As expected it rained at 6am, big one.

Today we departed at 8.30am from the campsite heading to Wanaka. The whole journey took us until 4pm because we stopped a lot for short tracks along the highway. Thunder Creek Falls, Fantail Falls, Haast Pass, Cameron Flat (to cook some lunch), Blue Pools, and we stopped a lot when we drove by Lake Wanaka and Lake Hawea. We will stay at our friend's house for few nights, we will sleep at sofa so it didn't cost a lot and we could take hot shower, finally.

Last Few Days in Motueka

2016-07-13

It's raining today. It's been a long time since the last rain in Motueka. We were used to waking up at 7am so we decided to go to Nelson to start the morning. I tagged along with two of my friends to the city where I spent my night on the street almost four months ago. It was cloudy the whole day. We split up as soon as we arrived in Nelson, each of us has our own business to deal with. Ray went to do some shopping, Yee went to the post office. Me? Of course I went back to the church, to relive those memories of the night when I set up a tent here with Jeffrey.

I used the old photo to find the flat ground where we set up the tent. It took me quite some time but eventually I found it. The cloudy weather made me moody all the time I was there. Time flies, really. It's been 4 months already. It felt like it's not even two months. I've been working almost continuously for the past three months, I think that's why I felt like time flies. I also took some time to walk around the church as I never see it under daylight, and also spent some time walking on the street in front of the church, where I spent almost 3 hours on the bench of a restaurant talking with my friend on the phone, took me quite some time to find the bench though haha. Everything look different under daylight and when it's busy. 

I'm glad I finally came to these places, I've been to Nelson for a few times already but I never had the chance to do so. Captured some photos of those places I visited, nostalgic haha. 

We went home before 12pm as Yee had to start work in a general store. We then spent our afternoon driving around. We first went to Riwaka for beer tasting in Hop Federation. Tried some samples and in the end we bought a pack of 6 Hop Federation Session IPA beer. Not a very good beer. Well, it's $10 for the pack of 6 anyway. So I had no complaints. 

After that we went to buy some raw milk, with A2 proteins, as advertised. The name of the automated milk machine is Riverside Milk. It is better than the milk in the supermarkets, at least for me I feel that it's better. For $2 per litre, it's not expensive though, for the quality of the milk. 

The bench where me and Jeffrey chat for around 20 minutes.

I accidentally found this tree beside the church, I never knew it was in Nelson. I had seen some of my friends posted a photo of this tree but not particularly interested so I never asked them where is it.

The bench where I sat for hours talking with my friend on phone, in the middle of the night with my shirt and jeans soaked by the rain.

The flat ground where we set up our tent in the middle of the night for a nap for 2 hours. Woke up with our bodies wet as it was raining outside and we didn't realise that, the water flowed into the base of the tent.

Guess what we found on our way back to Motueka. Proton Saga! I never knew there are Proton cars in New Zealand. And this model is pretty old no doubt. We were so surprised that we all took out our cameras or phones to capture this picture. Amazed.

Interior of Hop Federation in Riwaka, where you can taste up to two types of beers free of charge. 

2016-07-14

Again, it's raining. Again. While we wait for confirmation whether are we working or not for the afternoon, we made banana cake and apple pie in the morning because we were too bored. It's my first time making dessert Lol, seriously haha. But at last, 3 of my pruner housemates went to work after 12pm, I'm the only pruner left in the house because my orchard is too wet to work in. 

Zeno and me decided to go Mapua for a short track and we arrived there at 2pm, for Dicker Ridge Track. The track was not bad, the track offers a walk through a lot of farms, where the goats stare at you whenever you walk by. And from the track we can also see the Mount Arthur Range, where most of the high mountain peaks were covered by snow. 

We paid a visit to Jester House at the one end of the track, a famous cafe there, named cafe of the year 2012/13. The environment is super creative well-themed and well-decorated. It's a place where you can easily spend your whole day in. We took more time than we estimated but still we enjoyed the track, it's better than sitting in the house doing nothing anyway. 

Above are the views from Dicker Ridge Track.

Entrance of Jester House.

Banana cake before going into the oven. 

Successful Apple Pie.

Not that successful banana cake. Lol. The inside weren't cooked enough.

2016-07-15
It's my last day pruning apple trees today. The company finally rose the contract pay but it was too late, I'm leaving. With that rate I can easily made more than minimum wage. And I mean real easily. But whatever. I bid farewell to some of my friends or my colleagues there, but not all of them. I started work today at 12.30pm as it was raining in the morning. Finished work at 5pm, pruned 114 trees, for $1 per tree. Gonna take my time tomorrow to make the last preparation for my road trip. And guess what we made Mexican Tortilla wrap for the dinner!

This is how apple trees look like after pruning.

This is my pouch for my pruning work. White bottle is the sanitizer and the blue bottle is the paint, to paint the cuts. Yes I know it is very dirty. 

Pruning apple trees with only the big lopper ain't easy thing! Hahaha. We were not provided with small lopper or saw but once you get used to the big lopper, you can just go as fast, especially when you are pruning smaller trees where you do not need to cut a thick branch out of the main stem. I was pruning Envy apple trees, it was easier to prune compared to Jazz apple trees, where they sometimes don't even look like an apple tree, it look like a freaking giant tree. And yes, I only had the chance to prune both of those two species. There are more species of apple trees but I think they will prune them in the future, probably in few more days or weeks. 

Harwoods Hole Track and Light Nelson

2016-07-10
It's Sunday again, but it's my last Sunday here in Motueka. Next Sunday I will depart from here for my round island road-trip. Probably for a month until my flight back to Auckland from Christchurch, before going back to Malaysia.

Today we went to Harwoods Hole Track. I had been wanting to go for a visit since last month. Originally I planned to go for a 8 hour track in Nelson Lakes National Park but I did not rest for a long time, waking up in the early morning for physical job whole day, for 6 days a week. So I decided to go for a short track in somewhere nearby.

This hole is said to be the deepest vertical shaft in New Zealand. But we did not go near enough to look down the hole, it's kind of dangerous. We also passed by two frozen lakes on the way back to the carpark. One of them is so frozen that it won't even crack when I threw a big stone with all my strength on the lake.

It's just a short track but we ended up taking 4 hours instead of 90 minutes, because we stopped a lot for photographs and slacking around haha.

Frozen lake.

2016-07-11
We went to Light Nelson today. We went to meet our friends but they already slept as they had to wake up early for their work the next day. It was so cold, around 2 degree Celsius. I took some photos but it's dark so not much of them are nice enough to be presented.

Solo Hike to Mt Arthur

Finally a Sunday with sunny weather. That means it's finally a chance to hike Mt Arthur! I've been wanting to hike since few weeks ago but it was always raining on Sunday for the past few weeks. I couldn't find any companions to go with me so I decided to go alone. Actually I do prefer hiking alone, you can stop any time you want to take some photos, decide your own pace, and do things on your own way. But the disadvantage is that you have to pay for the petrol by yourself. Lol.

So I woke up at 6.30am and arrived at Flora Car Park at 8.30am to start my hike. It was windy like the first time I went there but it wasn't raining. There was no problem at all from the car park to the Mt Arthur Hut, there shouldn't be any, that was a pretty easy track to be honest. We stopped at the hut when we first went up months ago because of the rain. But I proceeded anyway with this big wind, it was as big as the last time we went but I'm not gonna go back haha.

The track from the hut to the summit was in good condition even though there were few ice pieces on the track that caused me slipped for a few times when I paid too much attention on the scenery. And the wind was very very strong too. But the track was really interesting because you can see more frozen grass the further you walk, the ice on the grass near the summit was so thick it was few times thicker than the grass. I was really happy when I saw the big block of ice haha, it's my first time seeing that.

I had a lunch less than 100m from the summit, enjoying the ice rocks and ground and everything around me haha. In less than 50m before the summit, there is a huge block of ice so I had to do ice climbing to hike up there toward the summit. With no hiking poles, I used my mini tripod to hike up there, it's not that hard after all.

When I reached the summit, there were mist everywhere, and the wind up there was so strong it can actually move me if I didn't stand still. I dared not to go to the edge of the summit as I'm afraid the wind will push me down haha. It's one of the best experience I've ever had, everything I did that day is something I had never tried before, everything's for me, but I really love doing it haha.

I took a long time to walk back to the hut and the car park because I stopped a lot as the mist were gone on my way back. The scenery from the track was so good I couldn't stop myself.

By the time I went back to my car I realised I did something stupid. I didn't shut my car headlights off and the battery was dead. Luckily it was 3pm that time and there were still many cars in the car park. I found two helpful women to help me jump start the car but I still couldn't jump start my car. It was still a failure attempt when we asked another car for help. But as usual, I'm a lucky person. The two women, Rose and Rebecca drove me back to Motueka even though they wanted to head back to Nelson. People here are god damn nice.

Today my housemate, KK drove me back to the car park to jump start my car again. This time we allowed the battery to charge for longer time before I tried to start it up. Success. Thanks Google. My car must be feeling lonely there yesterday night argh.

First time stepping on a pile of snow.

Ice Saber.

All of the previous photos are taken on the way to the summit from the hut.

Chillin' at the summit.

Photos on the way down to the hut.

This weka bird keep annoying me for food, it found my sandwich on the table but luckily it wasn't fast enough to snatch it from me. Like monkeys.

The entrance from the carpark, taken when I came down from the summit.