Journeyman: New Zealand - Denniston to Makarora

The south island of New Zealand is 840 kilometers long with no physical point being more than 130 kilometers away from the sea. The landscape is filled with mountains, lakes, rivers, glaciers, and anything else possessing natural beauty. For all that landmass, there are only a little over a million people living on the south island, but they’re a hardy breed making lives for themselves in grassy plains as big as the sky in front of mountains carved by slow-moving rivers of ice.

Our host in the coal mining town of Denniston was Pauline who owns four acres of land just outside the city of Westport on the west coast of the island. She lives in a small house in the middle of the property at the fork of a gravel road about a kilometer off the main highway. The gravel road forms a loop at the back of the parcel with two squat little houses at the curve in each end of the loop with a sheer mountainside at the rear border. There are two grassy fence-lined paddocks along both sides of the gravel driveway where two black year-old steers, a sheep named Tina, and a goat named Alex (who thinks he’s a human) spend their days munching hay. Pauline rents the two houses to travelers and spends her time taking care of the animals and maintaining the property systems that provide electricity and water off the grid.

We had a four-hour drive from Picton to reach the west coast made longer by a stop for a picnic lunch and a few breaks to stretch our legs. The majority of the trip was along one two-lane highway that extended for long distances through huge valleys full of livestock and vineyards. Low hills splotched with gorse and scrub gave way to towering mountains covered in a tight tree canopy along rounded contours and ridges that looked like a giant fleece blanket left piled up on the floor. As we moved farther southwest down the island, we had to carefully plan grocery store and gas stops since most towns are far apart with sparse commerce in between, and it wasn’t uncommon to drive for two hours and see only one or two cars in passing. Thankfully, there was a New World grocery store in Westport, and we stopped and stocked up before making our way to Pauline’s house in Denniston out in the countryside.

The sound of the tires popping on the gravel road alerted Alex the goat to our arrival. With a well-practiced maneuver, he extricated himself from the paddock by slipping through the strands of wire and ran alongside the car until we reached the front porch of our home for the night. We got out and took turns scratching Alex’s head before unloading the car and settling in for the evening. We had just enough time left in the afternoon for a nap to recover from the road followed by a cup of coffee fresh from the hot pot powered by six solar panels mounted on the flat roof of the house. Deena and I took our steaming cups and walked down the driveway to meet Pauline and ask a few questions about the house, and we ended up talking for almost an hour at the paddock while the sheep and cows grazed and Alex looked on.

Pauline told us about living off the grid for sixteen years and making her houses completely self-sufficient while still paying the province a thousand dollars a year for the privilege of walking her trash down to the highway for pickup instead of being allowed to burn it. She also told us about her neighbor that bought ten acres of land beside her property, built his house right on the edge beside the animal paddock, then complained about the noise Alex and his buddies made while they grazed. Pauline said that she kept buying animals over the years for the purpose of raising them for meat, but she kept naming them and didn’t have the heart to send them to the slaughterhouse. “Besides," she said while casting a sideways glance at the two steers, “the grocer alway has a fair price on a porterhouse I reckon.”

We left Pauline to finish feeding the animals and walked back to the house where we discovered the kids in the middle of a DVD episode of Monk which eventually turned into a family binge-watching session for almost all of season two. Turns out that life off the grid wasn’t too much different from being on it. Deena and I cooked up a pot of chili on the propane stove, cleaned up with water pumped in by solar power, and heated the house with a fire in the wood stove that burned most of the night while we slept under heavy blankets. The clever Monk episodes kept us entertained to the point where we almost forgot there was no wifi, and even though they didn’t admit it, I think the kids forgave us for booking a night back in the stone age.

The next morning, we pulled back the curtain from the sliding glass doors in the living room, where Alex the goat fogged the glass as he snorted and stared at us in anticipation of a tasty handout while breakfast was prepared. We gave in and took turns feeding our bearded friend before setting our minds to packing and cleaning. By 10:00, we were loaded up and waving goodbye to Pauline and her four-footed friends, which now included a frantically barking shih-tzu. We had another four hour drive ahead that took us farther south along the winding coastal road deemed one of the top ten coastal roads in the world by the coastal-road-ranking people.

Anyone home?

On the front end, the drive looked like passage through a great green tunnel as the road wound through thick forests with the leaves of the silver ferns reaching out from steep banks covered with short trees. Eventually the right side of the woods gave way to wide views of a rocky coastline as the road hugged tight turns along the mountainside. As huge waves came crashing into the shore in an explosion of foam, we motored along with our mouths open in astonishment, and we silently agreed with the coastal-road-ranking people about the beauty of this particular drive.

At the two-hour mark, we reached the Punakaiki community, which is a small coastal village located near the famous pancake rocks and blowholes down by the shore. We parked in a lot full of campervans and larger RVs and made our way down a path to the cliffsides where interpretative signs explained how the huge rocks rising from the ocean came to look like stacked pancakes through a process called “stylobedding,” which I don’t think is a real word, kind of like “orienteering.” Over the centuries, the ocean has carved a labyrinth of tunnels under the pancake rocks which fill up during high tide and force torrents of blue green water several meters high through blowholes with a loud rumble from the depths. It’s an unforgettable sight, and after a while, the prospect of another two hours on the road forced us to turn away and walk back to the road. Of course, we had to stop long enough at the nearby cafe which cooked berry-compote-drizzled pancakes to commemorate the nearby geological pancakes—they were spectacular as well.

With all of our stops along the way to our next destination, the four-hour drive turned into a six-hour drive which I endured only through the aid of several longs blacks, New Zealand’s version of the double espresso. The folks in this country take their coffee seriously; so they use quality beans to make strong brew with consistent quality whether it’s purchased from a fancy restaurant or a seasoned fueling station in the middle of nowhere. Late afternoon we finally pulled into glacier country and entered the township of Franz Josef nestled in the valley below the glacier of the same name. We continued through town and crossed a single-lane bridge spanning the bright blue Waiho River coursing through a wide bed of rounded stones in a deluge of icy cold glacier melt. We continued to Fox Glacier road and found the farm where we had reserved a one-night stay in a cottage surrounded by green meadows in the shadow of the towering mountains.

Our host, Graham, met us in the driveway and welcomed us to his farm with a big smile and sweeping gestures as he told us all about the nearby glaciers. He said we were welcome to get up early the following morning to witness the cow-milking process, and I politely declined knowing that my professional sleepers would scoff at the mention of mucking around in a barn pre-sunrise. Graham also informed us that rain was on the way that night and we needed to get out while there was still daylight if we wanted to get good views of the mountain ranges. He gave us a tip that he shares with his guests and told us to go down the highway and make a right near the airfield and drive a little way up a gravel road. We asked him where to go after that, and he grinned and waved and started walking back to the house and said, “Just go about six kilometres and turn around.”

We made quick work of settling into the cottage which was spacious with a master bedroom, large hall bath, and a living room with two sleeper sofas on each side and a woodstove in the corner next to a stack of firewood. We loaded up the fridge and pantry with our groceries, grabbed the raincoats, and sped down the highway wondering what would happen when we traveled six kilometers and turned around. Our jaws hit the gravel road, and our heads almost exploded as we gasped collectively and took in a huge panoramic view of Mt. Tasman and Mt. Cook flanking Franz Josef glacier and Fox Glacier in a long range of mountains that dominated the darkening sky. With twilight approaching, we sped back down the road in a spray of gravel and made it to the Franz Josef car park where we had just enough time for a brisk hike to Sentinel Rock and a perfect view of the glacier and the path it carved through the valley as it retreated over the decades.

It was dark by the time we made it back to Graham’s cottage, and I lit a fire in the woodstove, and we spent the evening relaxing over a shepherd's pie supper and talked about the natural wonders we saw that day. We could hear the soft bleating of sheep and cattle lowing in the pasture behind the cottage and the wheezy muted screech of a hawk as it sat in a tree near the chicken coop hoping for a straggler late for roosting. The fire died down in the night, and under toasty thick down comforters, we enjoyed the deep sleep of the traveler flush with discovery and wonder. Morning came too quickly; we had a simple breakfast of cornflakes and bananas along with fresh eggs and milk from Graham’s farm before hurriedly packing and setting out by 10:00. There were some leftover clouds and rain from the night before as we drove again down narrow roads lined with thick bush and crossed numerous single-lane bridges over streams rushing with the swell of rainwater running off the steep mountainsides.

We had a three-hour drive south to reach an area about an hour north of the town of Wanaka in a remote area full of livestock farms and rugged mountains. The description of our lodging for the night advised bringing enough food for the duration of the stay since there were no stores anywhere near the property; so we had a car full of groceries purchased in Franz Josef and packed in amongst our luggage. For the last hour of the journey, we were mesmerized by one incredible view after another and had trouble resisting the temptation to pull over every five minutes and snap photos of the landscapes. As we got closer to our destination, we traveled through a wide valley with broad pastures on each side of the road full of sheep and cattle in the shadow of bulky mountains. We crossed bridges over a graphite-colored river flowing through the center of a bed made of smooth stones with tall grass blowing along the banks.

With that sight in our field of vision, we pulled into the Wild Earth Farm and drove around the back of the property to a small barn that had been converted to a guest cabin, our home for two nights. The view from our front porch stretches across extensive pastures to the base of two mountainsides that touch in the valley floor and frame a snowcapped peak in the center which commands long stares into the distance. We had read reviews of this place, many of which stated that the guests had plans for hiking and other forms of outdoor activity but ended up sitting by the fire and gazing out the glass door all day—now we understood why.

Our view from the cabin

Our host, Pete, met us at the door of the cabin looking like a friendly pirate with long grey shoulder-length hair, scruffy beard, and a sly smile that showed his pleasure at our discovery of the best view in the land that he just happens to own. He gave us a quick tour of the cabin, which had panelled walls and a gray tiled floor throughout the main room, kitchen, bathroom, and bunkroom. The walls, wood trim, and doors were left unfinished which gave the cabin a rustic, cozy feel, and we couldn’t wait to unload the car and enjoy the view. As we prepared supper, I lit a fire to knock off the late afternoon chill and watched as ranch hands drove huge herds of cattle and sheep across the pastures with slinky sheepdogs running alongside keeping the strays in check. We were booked for two nights at the cabin, and I already knew that our time would fly by much too quickly.

It was dark when I got up the next morning and showered, and I got into full Pioneer Man mode as I used my now unmatched, Jedi-level woodstove firemaking skills to start a roaring blaze as my bride emerged from the bedroom and wrapped up in a thick wool blanket on the sofa. I put the kettle on to boil and served her a cup of tea and then joined her with my coffee as we sat and watched the sun rise over the mountains while the children still slept. I looked over at her and could tell that my woman was most pleased. Pioneer Man strikes again.

After a quiet morning around the cabin staring out at the mountains, we had a late breakfast of scrambled eggs with melted cheddar cheese and toast with blackberry jam. Our host provided a big jar of ground organic coffee, which I used to make a weapons-grade brew in the French press. By 1:00, we were ready to explore; so we drove back into the Makarora National Park just fifteen kilometers down the road and hiked to the Blue Pools for a view of nature at its best. These wonders are large deep basins of glacier melt in the Young River which sunlight refracts into azure pools so clear that rainbow trout appear to be suspended in midair as they swim through.

The hike took us through a deep, damp forest in which tree trunks and stones were covered with heavy moss, and the silver ferns were so thick it was difficult to see the forest floor. From the two swinging bridges built over the Blue Pools, we had great views of the water, which I think we photographed a thousand times. We walked a bit farther down the trail and spent some time at the river’s edge before making our way back to the trailhead and driving to the welcome center where the small cafe there served up a moist piece of carrot cake to reward hungry hikers.

We weren’t finished with the outdoors yet as Pete offered to take us tramping through the meadows around his property upon our return; so off we went toward the mountains with his energetic farm dog, Cash. We spent a long time walking with Pete and got to know him much better as he shared details about his grown children and life in the “big country” as he called it. We walked all the way to the river near the base of the mountains at the back of the property through a maze of gates and fences, and it was almost dark when we returned to the cottage with muddy shoes and big appetites. After Pete set us up with another big box of firewood and bid us good evening, we settled in for supper at the end of a relaxing day that gave us a much needed break from the road. I lit one more fire in the stove after supper and thought about how we’re close to the end of our trip, but the good things keep coming—we head farther south tomorrow.