Happy 2013.

Between Christmas and New Year I did next to nothing, on Boxing Day Jenny and I went into Wellington and went on a tourist trip one afternoon, and another day went into the fabulous museum Te Papa, which was brilliant but so huge we only touched the surface. Another day I went in, had an interesting tour of the Parliament and browsed the Sales. All but the last day of that week the weather was vile.

On 2nd January, I took the ferry to South Island. The night before had been blowing and raining like billio, but it had calmed down a little when I crossed. Everyone on the boat obviously had hangovers as they were clinging to rails or furniture when they stumbled about the boat, till I stood and tried walk too! then realised how choppy it was. I went out on deck, got soaked from the spray and had to hang onto the rail not to get blown away, but very exhilarating.

Only half the journey is through the Cook Straight, then into the Marlborough Sound where the water is sheltered. More stunning landscape, not unlike Scotland, with layer after layer of mountains in the near and far distance. Picton, where the ferry comes in, is much buzzier than anywhere else I’ve been, but maybe because it is now the summer holidays and it’s very dependant on tourists, doing sea activities, cycling and walking, which is why I’ve come here. That evening it bucketed down which didn’t auger well for a five day holiday.

The weather had blown itself out by morning and the day was clear. In fact we had five fine days, about as unusual as a glorious week in the Lake District. We walked through very varied terrain, mostly rain forrest, with different sorts of flora and fauna, lots of Punga trees (fern trees) . Sometimes you could have been walking in the Cotswolds or Devon, through beech woods (though a different sort of beech tree), then come out along a path looking out at crystal clear green sea below and have been in the Mediterranean, then up and down and up again along the ridge, similar but with bigger ups and downs ,to the Malvern Hills. Or looking down a valley with fields of sheep and another inlet, I thought I was looking down at the head of Derwent Water or Buttermere.

In New Zealand you tramp, not hike or walk. We were “glamping”, different from English glamping, glamorous/ camping. This was glamorous/tramping. There were ten of us and we all got on very well, on the fourth day, after a 24.5 km walk the previous day, six of us stayed at the resort and enjoyed sea kayaking and lounging around. Myself and Aussie room mate shared a kayak, neither of us having done it before. All well until the wind came up and it was suddenly not so easy, but a great sense of achievement when we got back to the beach.

The hotels were definitely on the luxurious side, and now I have to re-educate my tummy that eggs Benedict with smoked salmon, a good packed lunch with homemade cake then a three course dinner is not really my New Year’s resolution.