Monday 26th September
When we awoke it was still raining, having done so for about 2 days straight. With a ferry crossing coming up, we were keeping our fingers crossed for a nice clear day and a calm sailing. We said our goodbyes to Linda and then packed our things back in to the car ready for the journey up to Picton. We did have one final thing to do before leaving Nelson though. By chance I'd overheard Linda and Ricardo talking about a peanut butter brand that was started locally and is now New Zealand’s favourite peanut butter. We had seen a stall at the market we'd visited on Saturday but it hadn't really clicked. I gave it a Google and found out that they did tours of the factory and there were 2 spaces left on the Midday slot, so I signed us up. It was a short drive out of town to the suburb of Stoke where the factory was located, we couldn't see any potteries though. We parked up and entered the reception area. The lady who checked us in was very nice and done the usual spiel of asking us where we were from. She vaguely knew Sussex, having lived down in Cornwall at some point. We showed our ignorance to our local area when she asked us if we'd ever visited Virginia Wolff’s house around Lewes. We just looked at each other, not knowing a thing about it. We'd encountered the problem before and it just shows at how bad we are for not knowing and exploring our home country (it applies to more than just me and Charlotte too!). She then said that when she arrived back in New Zealand from the UK she bought a Lonely Planet book about her home country and learned a great deal, which seemed like a great idea and we couldn't believe we'd never thought of it. Anyway, she had to check other people in, so we hovered around the reception admiring (for want of a better word) their display of peanut butter jars from around the world. There was also a wall of items they were selling which included a 5kg tub of Pic’s peanut butter (just realised I haven't mentioned the brand name yet, so there you go), as well as two unconventional flavours, Cashew butter and Almond butter. The 5kg tub was tempting, although we weren't sure we'd ever get through it in the 6 months we had left in New Zealand, particularly with Charlotte only just coming round to eating it. Whilst we were browsing we were greeted by the aforementioned Pic (I'm not sure what it's short for either!) who asked us where we were from and told us that they did sell Pic’s peanut butter in the UK at various markets. He disappeared and the tour began. It was conducted by a lady who neglected to tell us her name and the first part was just a basic what's what. To be fair, it was fairly interesting finding out where they got their peanuts from and that they crop twice a year. When we were asked how do peanuts grow, I didn't expect to end up red faced when I said “on trees?”. Charlotte and I have gone 23 and 26 years respectively not having a clue that peanuts grow underground, just like potatoes. In fact, I'm sort of hoping a couple of family members reading this didn't know that either, to make us feel a little less stupid. Anyway, the peanuts needed to be dug from a town in Queensland, Australia with far too many o’s and w’s in its name to remember what it was called. After the information session, we entered the factory and peered through windows to watch the process of roasting, blending, bottling and labelling the peanut butter. The only part of the process we could see in detail was the bottling, done by an incredibly enthusiastic man in white coat. He was obviously good at his job though, as he was so fast at filling the jars the labelling machine couldn't keep up. The tour lady somehow kept us peering through the windows for around 10 minutes, which was impressive in itself considering there wasn't all that much to see. After that it was the walk back to the reception, so the kids could make their own peanut butter “the old fashioned way” using a hand press. This brought it home for Charlotte and I, as we obviously weren't considered kids anymore. We had to make do with tasters of the Cashew and Almond butter. The former was thicker and had more taste than the latter, so Cashew butter won the taste test hands down. Always after a cheeky souvenir we picked up a box of what are called “peanut butter slugs” and a couple of tumblers with crunchy peanut butter inside, as Charlotte has never experienced crunchy before. We paid, dashed through the rain and started the drive to the town of Picton. Well, who'd have thought I could right so much about a peanut butter factory tour? The drive to Picton was only about an hour and a half and would have been much more scenic had it not been for the awful weather. We had a slight false start when we tried to check in to the wrong campsite but we didn't feel to silly seeing as there were 2 by the same company in town. With the ferry booked for early the following morning, we'd reserved a bargain cabin for the night, as we didn't fancy the rush of getting the tent away and driving to the ferry by 7:30. We had fancied going for a walk when we arrived but due to the terrible weather and not arriving until about 3pm, we thought we'd give it a miss, opting to stay in the cabin and watch ‘The Chase’ on the smallest tv in the world instead. We were back on to our sack of spuds for dinner and cooked up some jacket potatoes with vegetables and baked beans in an attempt to plough (good farming pun there) through them, before they turned green. When we arrived back at our room, there were hundreds of dead ants all over the bed that hadn't been there when we arrived. We considered what to do and thought it best to see if reception were still there and move rooms. Fortunately the receptionist was still there and was happy to shift us to a different cabin. Seeing as it was an issue we had expected a bit of an upgrade to at least an ensuite. The cabin was an ensuite but for whatever reason the bathroom door was padlocked shut. We couldn't be bothered to complain about it so went to bed just thankful to be away from the ants.
Tuesday 27th September
We got up bright and early to squeeze in breakfast and repack the car before leaving to catch our ferry which was due to depart at 9am. It was a packed ferry and it took a good while to get all the cargo and vehicles loaded on. When we went through the ticket booth it was slightly reassuring to see a sign that said it was calm on the Cook Straight and we were looking at an easy crossing. After boarding and hunting down one of the lounges, we tucked ourselves in some corner seats and read for the majority of the crossing. After a couple of hours we did get restless and stretched our legs on the outside decks just as the ferry was rounding the corner to Wellington harbour. Before arrival we squeezed a coffee and a couple more chapters in the onboard café. The tannoy blared in to life stating that we had arrived in Wellington, so we followed the hordes back to the car decks. We weren't planning on stopping in Wellington for very long but had found a highly rated fish and chip shop in the Lonely Planet book we had. Wellington was quite a complicated city to navigate but we found our way fairly easy using our road atlas. The only problem was finding a parking space that wasn't residential or coupon parking. Miraculously, on our second time around we found a space right outside the Mt Vic Chippery. The only drawback was the $2 charge for half an hour but we dropped in a coin and went for it. We'd had a browse of the menu online and were really impressed by the chippy’s selection of fish but maybe we shouldn't have been so hopeful. They had the big long list up in the wall but we could only pick the ones that had a tick by them. Out of about 20 selections, there were only 4 available. Snapper, Salmon, Warehou and Tarakihi. Salmon is available anywhere in the world and warehou seemed like the poor quality option due to it being cheap. Charlotte had been after monkfish and I'd heard good things about blue cod but we had to plump for the tarakihi and the snapper instead. To add insult to injury they even got my order wrong by giving me a small instead of a large portion of chips, but did only charge for a small. With Charlotte getting a large, she agreed to share her portion with me. When we received our boxes, we returned to the car and then escaped Wellington to find somewhere free to park and enjoy them. We pulled up in the suburb of Lower Hutt and tucked in. They may not have had a great selection and got the order wrong but the chips were the size of small potatoes, tasted great and the fish was a good size. We finished as big greasy messes but we throughly enjoyed it and could see why they were so highly recommended by our book. Slightly fatter than before, we rejoined the highway north and drove out to the town of Martinborough. The area is well known for its high quality wines but that wasn't why we were visiting for a couple of days. After 5 nights in real beds it was back to the tent, just as the North Island was getting an entire springs worth of rain. Fortunately,me found a gap in it to get the tent up nice and dry. With an outing planned for the following day, we walked in to Martinborough to have a look around and buy some dinner. Martinborough was a funny little town. It's only really selling point the large amount of vineyards in its vicinity, it seemed very well planned with a large open square right in the centre of town. With it seeming planned we also guessed it was rather new and the buildings all looked bright and well painted like they'd just been built. We walked through the park to the small supermarket and then headed back to the campsite for an evening in the kitchen. We were desperate for a break from potatoes for dinner, instead opting for a simple dinner of rice and veggies, with lashings of soy sauce for some flavour.
Wednesday 28th September
A few nights out the tent had seemed to make all the difference. It was a pleasantly warm night and when we woke up in the morning we just couldn't be bothered to get up. We had to though as we had places to see. Despite rising a little later than usual we were still ready to head out around 9. We took the road south out of Martinborough, following the signs pointing the way to Cape Palliser. We'd read about the cape in our book months before and had been really looking forward to visiting such a remote place. After Martinborough we didn't pass much life bar for the occasional farm with fields chocked full of sheeps and cows. Our first destination was a walk in the Putangirua Pinnacles Scenic Reserve. The walk was to the eponymous pinnacles and we had 2 different routes to choose from. We thought we'd leave the river bed for the walk back and took the ridge walk instead. It was up all the way through a thick forest but the pathway was pretty clear. The ridge led to a viewpoint that overlooked the Putangirua Pinnacles. It's safe to say we were pretty underwhelmed. They didn't really look at all as we had expected, so we started down towards the riverbed return fairly disappointed. When we found the riverbed, there was a sign on the opposite side to us that pointed up the stream and said access to the pinnacles. We thought we'd give it a whirl just to spend more time out and about. We were pleased we chose to as the riverbed plopped us in the perfect spot for really appreciating the pinnacles. Our road map suggested that the location was used in the filming of the Lord of the Rings films but I couldn't recall from what scene, a sign with some information would have been handy. We hung around for a little while and then scrambled down the riverbed, which was quite an effort. The loose gravel and large boulders made it really awkward and on top of that there was no defined pathway, so we just followed the water and eventually made it back to the car. We carried along the road towards Cape Palliser, passing through what really felt like the end of the line. We didn't stop in the town of Ngawi and from the looks of it, we wouldn't have lasted long. There was a long line of rusting bulldozers on the beach, which our book said were used to pull the fishing boats ashore. Not long after Ngawi the road went from sealed to unsealed to almost 4x4. We were stopped in our tracks by a river that was running straight across the road. Charlotte was about to plow through it before I stopped her with a shout. It was flowing very fast and it was dropping off the road straight into the sea. We reversed back up to a platform and decided to wait to see how other cars took it. The one that went straight through it made it look very easy, although one that drove up just before us backed away just as we had. With them out of the way, Charlotte went for it and we got through fine. With the ford dealt with, we just had to navigate round the road at the base of sheer cliffs that were preceded with signs stating there has been slips, avoid the numerous potholes and we'd made it to the car park. A steady drizzle had started by the time we got out the car, so Charlotte wanted to get up and down from the lighthouse and back across the ford before the river swelled too much and became impassable. The lighthouse was up 250 steep wooden steps that Charlotte and I shot up despite the weather and wind. The car who had backed off the ford just before us had clearly braved it after seeing our brave attempt and the occupants were making their way up the stairs. We took some snaps of the little we could see from the lighthouse, waited for the 2 girls to ascend the steps and then headed down ourselves. Going down was significantly harder than going up and wasn't helped by the winds howling around us. We drove back out under the cliffs and through the ford and parked up just beyond and ate our lunch looking out across the Cook Straight. Whilst driving back towards Martinborough we came across a huge herd of sheep on the road. We pulled up next to a man on a quad bike and he just told us to drive through them. There was hundreds of them and they bounced out the way as we approached. In our attempt not to get back to the campsite too early we followed our road map to where it said a walk should be but all we found was farms and gravel roads. In the end we gave up and accepted that we done everything we wanted to in the area and we could relax for the remainder of the day. We attempted potato fritters for dinner to go alongside our rice and veg. They were nice but we’d forgotten to put any salt and pepper in so the fritters were slightly bland. We knew for next time though.
James and Charlotte
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