Stand up paddling with stingrays in New Zealand’s Murderer’s Bay

by Kyle Ellison on

Though Captain James Cook was the first European to set foot on the islands of New Zealand in 1769, he was not the first European to “discover it”. That honor would belong to Dutch explorer Abel Tasman who sailed past the country while navigating the Southern Ocean for the Dutch east India Company in 1642.

Blown off course by a strong easterly wind, Abel Tasman first sighted the northwest reaches of the South Island of New Zealand and thought he may have stumbled upon the bottom part of Argentina. Confused but intrigued, Tasman decided to make the most of the discovery and arranged an expedition party to be sent ashore to gather fresh water.

Unfortunately, the expedition was met by a band of native Maori people curious of the tall ships which had suddenly appeared off their coast, and after a hostile skirmish which historians have attributed to multiple cultural misunderstandings, Tasman sailed from the area with four fewer men than he had arrived with. As a result of the incident, Tasman saw it fitting to label the area as “Murderer’s Bay”.

360 years later, I ruminated on this violent turn of events while stand-up paddling above a gray stingray languishing in the tidal shallows of Murderer’s Bay.

On a brilliantly sunny and calm morning in which it was possible to stare straight through the turquoise waters, I found myself paddling in nearly the exact same spot where Tasman’s men had met their fate so many centuries ago. No longer referred to as Murderer’s Bay, with the discovery of gold in the region in the 1850’s it was prosperously renamed Golden Bay, and the name has stuck ever since.

Located in the sunniest region of New Zealand, Golden Bay is still somewhat of a secret when compared to neighboring Abel Tasman National Park. Although the Tata Islands–rocks that sit just offshore of Golden Bay and are covered in fur seals–are technically still part of Abel Tasman National Park, Golden Bay offers the same South Pacific setting as it’s crowded counterpart, yet for some reason there is hardly anybody here.

Except, of course, for me and the stingrays.

%Gallery-146107%With my wife and I swapping between a stand up board and one man kayak, the peaceful sound of waves lapping gently across the rocks is a stark contrast to the bloody encounter which once took place here. Completely alone as we paddle beneath rock archways and haul our water craft onto empty white sand beaches, the nearest we have been to violence all morning was a nesting shag bird dive bombing me when I paddled too close to his rock.

A fur seal here, a stingray or shearwater there, I realize there is nothing about this place that makes me think of death at all. Just like Kaikoura, Golden Bay is alive.

With the afternoon breezes introducing an audience of whitecaps to the bay, it was time to head ashore and point the caravan towards the far reaches of Farwell Spit. A 26km stretch of constantly shifting sand which is a favorite of the packaged eco-tourist trips, we instead hopped into a friend’s white ute (pickup truck) and bounced our way over the well-graded dirt track to Wharariki Beach, an expanse of sand dunes and rock formations which technically lies on the island’s wild west coast.

It is difficult to convey just how other worldy and exactly how empty Wharariki Beach really is.

Sure, there are a handful of tourists scattered here and there meandering amongst the dunes and the caves, but from a distance, the red sweater or purple tank top they may be sporting look no different than colorful scraps of paper blowing along the base of towering rock faces.

My local Kiwi friend who has brought me here, Nick, occasionally will surf down at Wharariki when the wind and waves are right.

“You ever get anyone else out in the water here?” I breathlessly ask, still utterly in awe of the place.

“Nah, never mate. Nobody wants to drive out this far. That, and nobody knows about it.”

As I watch a solitary fur seal exit a cave set in one of Wharariki’s massive boulders, and with the sun perfectly illuminating the stone archway pointing out towards the tempestuous Tasman Sea, I question out loud why more travelers to New Zealand don’t come here.

It’s no longer Murderer’s Bay, you won’t get killed by local Maori, but amazingly, 360 years after having been “discovered”, the place still feels like a wayward cove etched on an early explorer’s map, still waiting for someone else to find it.

For 2 months Gadling blogger Kyle Ellison will be embedded in a campervan touring the country of New Zealand. Follow the rest of the adventure by reading his series, Freedom to Roam: Touring New Zealand by Campervan.

Kaikoura, New Zealand: Surfing, seals, and seafood

by Kyle Ellison on

“The chowder isn’t the type you have back in the States” I am warned.

The brunette woman working the oceanfront seafood cart has detected my accent and is concerned I won’t like her steaming bowl of mollusks.

“There isn’t much cream, just freshly made broth mixed with massive chunks of crayfish and mussels.”

Facing the kelp strewn waters of the Kaikoura Peninsula, a popular hamlet on the eastern coast of New Zealand’s South Island, this is exactly what I was hoping for: Massive chunks of crayfish and mussels. After all, it’s only appropriate for a place whose name literally translates to “meal of crayfish”.

Regardless, eating anything else in Kaikoura would just feel wrong, because Kaikoura is not a processed, pre-packaged type of town. It’s a place where the smell of sea salt wafts on the breeze and surfers recount that morning’s early dawn session. Storefronts advertise seal swimming, whale watching, and guided eco-walks, while local scuba shops display the current water temperature and visibility on outdoor chalkboards adorned in smiling blue dolphins.

This, I realize, is what separates Kaikoura from all of the other adventure destinations and photo opportunities which lay scattered around the South Island of New Zealand. Kaikoura is different from the gorges of Franz Josef glacier or walks such as the Routeburn Track in that it has been a long time since I have traveled through a place that refreshingly feels so alive.

Sure, there are pubs with drink specials and tacky New Zealand souvenir stores like any other tourist haunt in the world, but in Kaikoura there seems to be an intrinsic harmony the town has with nature that gives it an energy not felt in other parts of the country.

Nowhere is this more apparent than ambling over limpet covered rocks beneath the peninsula walkway on Kean Point. Aside from the sandy strands of kelp which give the walk a malodorous yet authentic aroma, the shoreline teems with nesting red billed seagulls and dozens of southern fur seals lounging contentedly on the warm rocks.

%Gallery-145599%These same seals were once hunted voraciously by the native Maori people, and given the abundance of sea life in the region Kaikoura was once home to one of the largest Maori populations on the South Island. According to Maori legend, the Kaikoura peninsula was the spot where the Polynesian demigod Maui placed his foot while fishing up the North Island of New Zealand with his great fish hook, and the peninsula extends so far off of the main coastline that Captain Cook on his original voyage in 1770 actually mistook it for a separate island.

With the full-time arrival of the pakeha–Europeans–Kaikoura was transformed into a hub of whaling and trade led by Captain Robert Fyfe in 1843. To this day it’s still possible to visit the Fyffe House, one of the lone remnants of the first European settlement and a structure which still rests on whale bones used to create the original foundation.

Though the whaling trade has long ceased in Kaikoura, throngs of ocean goers have traded their harpoons for camera lenses and have turned Kaikoura into one of the South Pacific’s premier whale watching destination for the sperm, blue, and southern right whales.

It’s not just the abundance of marine life which breathes life into Kaikoura, however, as it’s also found in the people themselves. A rural community of only 2,100 permanent residents, the active, outdoorsy community which populates the Kaikoura peninsula is fortunate enough to be sandwiched between the biking and hiking tracks of the seaside Kaikoura range, and the diving surfing opportunities found where the Southern Ocean meets the rugged coast.

Nowhere is this froth for life felt more potently than down at “Meatworks” a local surf spot set just north of town. Though the clock has yet to strike 7am, a cadre of die-hard surfers has already colonized the heaving beach break and opted to start their day with an active session on the water.

“It’s stunning isn’t it mate?” offers a thinly bearded surfer sitting next to me in the Meatworks lineup.

The summer sun has just risen in the east, and the crisp dawn colors of morning are reflected off the empty Kaikoura mountains.

“Best way to start your day right here I reckon.”

Then, with a quick smile and nod to say goodbye, the affable local strokes into a meaty, overhead set wave and disappears towards the kelp laden shoreline.

So begins another day in Kaikoura, the living, pulsing, breathing speck of New Zealand shoreline that can be found when given the freedom to roam…

For 2 months Gadling blogger Kyle Ellison will be embedded in a campervan touring the country of New Zealand. Follow the rest of the adventure by reading his series, Freedom to Roam: Touring New Zealand by Campervan.

Franz Josef glacier: Big icy tongue of the rainforest

by Kyle Ellison on

“The Franz Josef Glacier is so singularly beautiful, so beautiful indeed, and centered amongst such vivid, exceptional, and picturesque surroundings that if it were situated in any other country than New Zealand it would have long ago been acclaimed ‘The Most Beautiful Thing in the World'”

–E.E. Muir (1929)

Don’t look now, but in New Zealand there are currently two icy tongues lapping their way through the jungle.

While we have previously reported on the unique experience of taking crampons and ice axe to New Zealand’s Fox Glacier, I’m here to illuminate the other shifting sea of ice that’s currently licking the forests of Aotearoa’s soggy West Coast.

At 7.5 miles long, Franz Josef Glacier–named in 1865 after the emperor of Austria-Hungary during a time when naming glaciers after nobility was apparently the thing to do–is perhaps one of the world’s most scenic crumbling blue spectacles.

While I’ve witnessed glaciers calving into the sea in Alaska and watched the sun rise over them in Nepal, what makes Franz Josef so unique is the ability to stand in front of a massive sea of ice whilst entrenched in a setting that is literally temperate rainforest.

At Fox and Franz the flora doesn’t consist of sub-alpine scrub brush or tundra, but rather, it consists of dense green ferns. The waterfalls that streak down the walls of the vertical canyons are raging in strength due to the 7000mm (273 inches) of rainfall the west coast of New Zealand annually receives, a sum that bests many parts of the Amazon rainforest. On various summer days it’s possible to be standing in front of Franz Josef glacier in nothing but shorts and t-shirt, a wardrobe better suited to watching the sunset on the beach that lies just 10 miles to the west.

So why are there glaciers tumbling their way through the jungle in the first place?Both glaciers have their névé, or snowfield, tucked nearly 8,300 ft up into the alpine terrain of the Southern Alps, an elevation high enough to receive copious amounts of snowfall. Seeing as the mountains explode out of the Tasman Sea at such a steep grade, however, the glacial tongue is allowed to plunge down to only 950 feet above sea level towards the coastal region below, hence, there now being glaciers in the rainforest.

In fact, it’s believed that at one point Franz Josef glacier extended all the way to the sea.

Though both Fox Glacier as well as Franz Josef are popular for glacial trekking and scenic flights, for the casual day tripper just wanting to get close to the ice Franz Josef is the undisputed winner. While those trekking the valley floor at Fox Glacier are currently required to maintain a distance of 600 meters from the melting blue ice, at Franz Josef it’s still possible to walk nearly up to the cusp of the beast–close enough to hear it crack and moan and melt into history.

Ambling amongst the valley floor, it’s difficult to convey the sheer magnitude of the valleys that have been bulldozed when the ice is advancing. To describe the trickle of human beings plodding their way up the canyon floor as a trail of ants would be horribly clichéd, yet it’s such an accurate representation of the size-scale that I’m going to say it anyway.

As one of those ants slowly plodding onward, the vertical stone walls on the right side of the canyon call to mind the limestone slabs of Thailand‘s Railay Beach, while the misty ridge lines on the left side of the canyon cast the same dramatic shadows of Oahu‘s Ko’olau mountains. More than humbling, it’s the type of place you come to feel small.

Of course, all of that rainfall means that catching Franz Josef on a clear, dry day can always be somewhat of a challenge, and many times, such as the afternoon in which I visited, the heavens unleash a torrent of rain incubated in storm cells rolling off the tempestuous Tasman Sea, a weather phenomenon which does little good for someone sleeping in their van.

Wet, muddy shoes and rain crashing on a metal roof are a poor epilogue to a story as grand as glacial viewing, which is why it’s time to turn the old Toyota Lucida northwards and eastwards to drier, more agreeable climes….

For 2 months Gadling blogger Kyle Ellison will be embedded in a campervan touring the country of New Zealand. Follow the rest of the adventure by reading his series, Freedom to Roam: Touring New Zealand by Campervan.

The best walk in the world? Tackling New Zealand’s Routeburn Track

by Kyle Ellison on

“I keep wondering whether I really like tramping…the cold and the loneliness and the fear–do they outweigh the magnificence, the terrible impersonal glory of the mountains?”

-Charles Brusch, Poet-

14 miles is too far to walk when you’re on vacation. And in the mountains. And carrying a pack. And with your wife, who, to be fair, is a trooper.

14 miles in a day is brutal, but to turn around the next day and repeat the same thing is just stupid.

This, however, was the only way I was going to hike New Zealand‘s ultra-popular Routeburn Track. This past year Lonely Planet listed the Routeburn Track as one of it’s top ten treks in the world, and the heavily trodden track has seen it’s annual numbers climb to over 13,000 walkers per year.

A sub-alpine pass which links the lush Hollyford Valley with Queenstown’s Lake Wakatipu, the Routeburn track was historically used as a trading route for native Maori moving precious pounamu–greenstone–from the quarries of Martin’s Bay to villages further inland. By the 1870’s European prospectors realized the strategic importance of the Routeburn Track as a way of crossing the Southern Alps en route to Fiordland, and the steady stream of visitors was on.

Now, as one of New Zealand‘s 9 “Great Walks“, the greenstone traders and early explorers have been replaced by Gore-Tex covered tourists carrying carbon fiber walking poles.

Nonetheless, like many uber-popular trails the world over, the Department of Conservation limits the number of people who can through-hike the 20-mile route by only providing 50 beds in each of the 4 backcountry huts scattered along the trail. During the summer months, the no-frills huts (mattresses and gas stoves are provided) run a pricey $40 US per person/night and reservations are absolutely crucial.

How crucial you may ask? Well, the Milford Track just down the road is already booked for the entire year, and the next available beds on the Routeburn Track weren’t for another month.

“Except”, chimed the ranger at the National Park office, “for a two-bed opening on Sunday which just opened up. I suggest you take it.”

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Which is how I ended up meandering through the Southern Alps at distances far too lengthy to be enjoyable.

But wait? The trail is only 20 miles. Why did you walk 28? Because one logistical dilemma involved with the Routeburn is that you finish the hike a full 225 miles away from your starting point and the parking lot where you left your car. Thoughtfully swooping in to solve this dilemma are companies who will gladly shuttle your car to the other side of the trail for a cool $200 US, or you can enjoy a five hour bus ride back to your car to the tune of around $100 US/person.

Or, as a third option, you can just save the money and turn your haggard butt around and walk in the way you came. When you are a budget-conscious travel writer who lives in your van, this is unfortunately the best choice.

So why then, if the trail is so fully-booked, expensive, and logistically unfriendly, would so many people choose to trek it?

Because, to put it simply, it might actually be one of the most beautiful landscapes in the entire world.

The trail begins by gently climbing through beech forest so thick it can still appear dark even at noon. Moss hangs off the tree branches like the beard of an old sea captain, the soggy green confines teeming with devilish sand flies Captain James Cook once described as “the most mischievous animal here.”

Even though the Fiordland region is in the midst of the one of the driest winters in recent memory, gently flowing streams cross the trail at regular intervals, with the highlight being 574 ft. Erland Falls which explodes down the mountain with such ferocity the force of its spray occasionally renders the main trail impassable.

Of the two lakes along the 20-mile route, Lake Mackenzie is rung by sun-heated boulders and begs the weary hiker to relax for a swim. Meanwhile, the elevated Lake Harris looms stoically in the shadow of 4,200 ft. Harris Saddle, which is the highest elevation achieved along the trip.

On the ridge line connecting the two sub-alpine lakes the Hollyford Valley opens up in a gaping cleft below, and the glacially carved peaks of the Southern Alps are bespeckled with so many waterfalls the mountains literally appear to weep.

In the distance it’s faintly possible to glimpse the Tasman Sea, the gaze cutting clear over the mountains which form the backdrop to the epically popular Milford Sound. If you’re lucky, you’ll catch a glimpse of a curious kea, the world’s only alpine parrot which numbers only around 5,000 left in the wild.

In other words, if ever you felt like Gandalf riding along a mountain crest, it’s from this very perch right here.

With weary legs, a full memory card, and a body odor sculpted by sweat, muscle cream, anti-itch ointment, and lemon-pepper tuna fish (you have to pack out your own trash), I crawled my way back in to the recesses of the campervan and wondered if hiking 28 miles of the Routeburn Trek was a good idea after all.

Scrolling through the camera and the images burned in my mind, it really wasn’t even a question.

It was.

So is it the best walk in the world? If you do the suggested 3 day/2 night route and the weather is nice…maybe. But really, there are too many trails to be trodden to make such a claim, although I’m more than game to chalk this up to research…

For 2 months Gadling blogger Kyle Ellison will be embedded in a campervan touring the country of New Zealand. Follow the rest of the adventure by reading his series, Freedom to Roam: Touring New Zealand by Campervan.

Growing on the edge: Wine tasting in the southernmost wine region of the world

by Kyle Ellison on

On a morning in which I had no intention of drinking alcohol (yes, morning) I somehow found myself having a glass of what has officially been called the best wine in the entire world.

This is what happens when you take road trips, you stumble upon things. In this particular instance I happened to stumble upon a region I originally had little intention of exploring, only to find out it’s one of the most notable up and coming wine regions according to those in the know.

At 45°S latitude, the Central Otago region of New Zealand is officially the southernmost wine region on planet Earth, geographically besting out the wine regions of Chile by a fairly healthy 8 degree margin. The only reason I happened to drive through Central Otago is because of a free campsite located by a nearby river, but after walking through the front door of Aurum Winery at a liver-shaking 10am, an unplanned afternoon of viticulture was suddenly thrust upon me.

Lucie, a French woman with a charming French/Kiwi command of the English accent and the principal winemaker for Aurum, informed me that although Otago receives a healthy dose of winter, during the colder months the grapes are still sleeping and won’t freeze until temperatures of -20°C (-4°F). Seeing as Otago will only reach around -10°C (14°F) during the winter, the grapes are able to continue their growth before budding sometime during the spring.

Frost, Lucie admits, is definitely a problem once the grapes have formed, and wineries in the Central Otago region employ frost-fighting wind machines to project warm air layers onto to the fragile crop. Seeing as Aurum was voted as the best winery in New Zealand by the Corporate Events Guide for the past 2 years running, an award that Lucie admits is a bit like David versus Goliath (Aurum only puts out a modest 4000 cases/year), it’s apparent they have a handle on what they’re doing down here in Otago.

%Gallery-144571%Though the wines at Aurum were a welcome surprise, it was not the spot where I partook in the alleged “best wine in the world”. That bold title would go to a 2006 Pinot Noir from nearby Wild Earth winery which was bestowed the moniker by besting out 10,000 other bottles at the 2008 International Wine Challenge in London.

Though the owner of Wild Earth, a former American abalone diver turned New Zealand vineyard operator named Quintin, acknowledges there are many such titles in the wine world he nonetheless is passionate about the fact Central Otago is producing some of the finest Pinot Noirs on the globe.

A poster hanging on the wall of the Wild Earth tasting room boldly states that “the best Pinot Noir in the world is also one of the world’s best kept secrets.” Anyone who keeps up with wine trends, however, knows that Otago won’t be a secret for long.

Though the peppery pinot is smoky and fabulous, Quintin admits he is more interested in cultivating scenarios where wine can be properly matched with food that is wild and fresh and taken straight from the Earth.

“There are a lot of wine experts out there” he chuckles, “and I’m not one of them. We like to be known for wine and food matching…it’s all chemistry really.”

Some of that matching involves smoking or steaming fresh fish and seafood on an innovative wine barrel BBQ that Quintin himself has engineered. Employing the same types of oak barrels used to age the fine vintages, Quintin has managed to fuse wine culture with a practical and effective way to deliver finely smoked meals to accompany the robust wines.

Making a final stop at the Gibbston Valley Winery on the road towards the South Island’s adventure capital of Queenstown, from the number of tour buses populating the gravel parking lot it’s apparent the secret is quickly getting out. In addition to being one of the more popular stops on the Central Otago wine trail, Gibbston Valley Winery is also renowned for having the largest wine cave in all of New Zealand, a chilly, climate-controlled sanctuary which can house over 400 oak barrels and is accessed by massive doors which each weigh nearly a ton.

While the wines were admittedly worthy of the hype, my attention was more so drawn to the Gibbston Valley cheesery which shares the same grounds as the popular vineyard. Over a fresh serving of peppered gouda, oven baked alpine flatbread, and a tall glass of crisp Chardonnay, it was all too easy to sit back and relish in the accidental afternoon found by giving yourself Freedom to Roam.

For the next 2 months Gadling blogger Kyle Ellison will be embedded in a campervan touring the country of New Zealand. Follow the rest of the adventure by reading his series, Freedom to Roam: Touring New Zealand by Campervan.