Two At Sea

April 11, 2016

We took a walk through town, which wasn’t much of a walk as it’s only a couple of blocks long. This place has the feeling of a somewhat dusty, quiet town on a highway, usually a terrible combination. But somehow Havelock manages to retain it’s low-key charm and appeal.

I think it helps that the main road is slightly hilly, and passing cars slow down enough not to be menacing. There aren’t many people around outside, but the business owners inside are folksy and nice. The locals choose to live here (as opposed stereotypical small towns where people feel stuck), and in fact seem proud and happy to be here. And there are enough tourists to keep the local economy thriving and justify having an i-Site, New Zealand’s tourist information center. (Below, a few photos from our walk around town; click to enlarge/scroll an any of the following galleries.)

Our final stop was the i-Site. We’d only gone in to find out about whether there’s a bus to Nelson and were surprised to find ourselves in a small nature museum. It seems the owner of this particular branch is also a taxidermist and has created this whole natural-history extravaganza representing the local wildlife. It’s something you have to see to believe; so we’ve put in some photos below. It’s well-worth visiting this i-Site just to see the displays!

For dinner we went to the local pub, the restaurant located at the Havelock Hotel that we wouldn’t even have known was there until someone recommended it. I guess anyone who’s local will know of it, and they don’t care to go after the tourist business. It’s like a secret pub, a low-key homey place where you can get a meal and a drink and, if you care to, watch whatever’s on one of the TVs. We had a pretty good Hawaiian pizza, and I had forgotten how addicting “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” can be. –Cyndi

April 11, 2016

Going into Havelock is a little bit tricky. It necessitates going down the Mahau Sound, which is subject to some pretty big tides. Deep-draft boats like ours need to carefully follow a marked route and arrive in the shallowest sections near high tide. It’s not that difficult, but it’s intimidating enough that many boaters won’t attempt to go there.

Below a map of the area around the Mahau Sound.  Click in the markers to see what’s what.

 

This sunny morning motoring down the Kenepuru Sound, we were impressed with how mountainous it was (parts of it were obscured by cloud cover when we arrived).

After a brief time in the Popoure Reach, we arrived at Mahau Sound, the innermost of all the sounds. With it’s changes in tide (resulting in muddy areas) and drier vegetation, Mahau Sound may be the least attractive sound. That said, it’s still quite lovely and is interesting to see.

We followed the marked route on a rising tide and at the shallowest point, we cleared the bottom by at least 3 feet. While we proceeded with care over the shallowest areas, we weren’t nervous until we came to the surprise blind corner near Havelock. The channel is narrow, shallow and hugs a headland as it rounds a corner. There’s no place to go if a boat suddenly appears going the other way! I don’t know how they avoid head-on collisions. Thankfully that part was over quickly, and now we were in view of Havelock Marina.

We motored to our reserved slip, got tied up and looked around. After visiting by car we didn’t think we wanted to bring our boat here. But now we both felt the same way: It felt great to be here! Somehow it seemed much more appealing than we remembered, maybe because we were seeing it from inside the marina, or from the viewpoint of staying here as opposed to a lunch stop on a long drive. Or maybe it was the beautiful day and getting out of the wind that had been picking up all morning.

We checked in with the office, then headed to a restaurant by the marina called the Slip Inn. We celebrated our arrival with those local green-lipped mussels we love (Havelock is the green-lipped mussel capital of New Zealand) and some fish and chips. For a few days, we could look forward to no weather worries, clean laundry, food re-provisioning, and trying local eateries. The old saying goes that the two happiest days in a boater’s life are the day they buy their boat and the day they sell it. My version is it’s the day you get away from a marina to “get out there,” and the day you come into a marina after “getting out there.” –Cyndi

April 10, 2016

This evening we took a few photos of a beautiful crescent moon over our bay (it’s always such pleasant surprise when these sorts of photo attempts actually work). The light at sunrise on the headlands around us was equally beautiful. Our time in the Kenepuru Sound would soon to come to an end, but we’d enjoyed the time we had. –Cyndi

Note from Rich: Not bad for a little point-and-shoot, I think. It’s a Canon G7X and we’re very happy with it. Sure, I’d like to have the quality of a full-size DSLR, but it’s like they say, the best camera is the one you have with you and we probably wouldn’t carry around a bigger camera.

(Below a gallery of moon and sunrise photos over Portage Bay. Click to enlarge and scroll.)

April 10, 2016

While the Portage Resort was a disappointment, it was still well worth coming to lovely Portage Bay. We had one more thing to do: a hike over the hill to Queen Charlotte Sound’s Torea Bay.

Torea was the bay we’d opted to pass on in the Queen Charlotte Sound, mostly because we knew we could eventually visit it from Portage Bay. There’s a small road that leads from the Portage Resort to Torea Bay. It goes over a low saddle in the hills so it’s not very steep, and the walk only takes about half an hour each way. Thus, people staying in Picton can be dropped off by a water taxi in Torea Bay and walk to the Portage Resort. The Queen Charlotte Track also connects to this road.

(Below, an interactive map shows the road from Portage Bay in Kenepuru Sound to Torea Bay in Queen Charlotte Sound.  Click on the markers to see what’s what.)

 

We headed up the road to the saddle. There’s a war memorial there, plus some nice views of Portage Bay (and Legacy). We then headed down to Torea Bay, walking out on its small pier. The bay was pretty, very green, but with a clear view down to Queen Charlotte Sound it lacked the cozy, enclosed feeling of other bays. Plus the pier gave the feeling that there’s a lot of water taxi traffic. Looking around now we felt we’d made a good decision passing on this bay.

After walking around, we headed back up the saddle. Pausing again by the monument, I was excited to hear the song of a bellbird coming from the bush right next to us. These are rare birds in New Zealand, and it’s always thrilling to get an close-up view of one. After taking a small detour down the Queen Charlotte Track to make sure we weren’t missing any incredible views (we weren’t), we headed back down to the hotel.

Back on our boat, we checked the weather. We knew winds were due to arrive the following afternoon and had thought we’d sit them out in the Kenepuru Sound. Now, it seemed they were going to be stronger than initially forecast. We made the decision to head to the little town of Havelock at the end of Mahau Sound the following morning. We could sit out the winds in comfort, plus rent a car to drive to the Nelson Marina to pick up a couple of packages we’d had delivered there. –Cyndi

Below, a gallery of photos from our walk to Torea Bay. Click to enlarge and scroll.

April 10, 2016

We pulled up to the resort’s dock and small marina and got our second clue that something was off. The dock looked fine, but the little marina was all torn up. At first we thought it was being refurbished, but looking again we saw no signs of anyone doing any work. There were no tools, no fresh pieces of wood, no personal belongings, nothing. Just scattered piles of the old wood left here and there. Very odd.

We walked up the ramp, and as we headed across the resort’s grounds we noticed something was very wrong here. Places like this need consistent upkeep, and when not cared for it becomes apparent fairly quickly: paint peels, plants become overgrown and scraggly, weeds pop up, and things in general start to decay. This seemed to be happening here; everything around us seemed to scream “bankruptcy!” We walked by their casual bar and restaurant (not the dinner one we’d booked) and saw it was closed. Permanently. At this point the place felt a little creepy; the sort of place where you wouldn’t be surprised to see a zombie suddenly lurch around the corner. The area felt like it had been abandoned very suddenly, never a good thing in the movies!

We walked by the pool, shocked at how small it looked compared to their website photo, but at least someone was keeping it clean. We walked to the main building and restaurant and onto their back deck. The doors were open, but there were no signs of human life. The place was bizarrely furnished: the 50’s meets bad 60’s garage-sale discards. The chairs in the separate main dining room looked like they’d been lifted from a doctor’s office waiting room. Rich announced, “It stinks in here!” I had to admit it smelled odd, that smell of too much history and two few deep cleanings. But I wasn’t giving up–after all, this was the famous Portage! We found a dinner menu and examined it. It was expensive, but it’s the Portage! Rich, not influenced by history, was not excited about the prospect of eating at the Portage. I suggested we’d do some research, including asking anyone we came across on the trail if they’d eaten here and liked it. We walked out the front door, still yet to see anyone working at the hotel.

We started up the little road that goes over the hill and ran across a local couple staying at the campground. When we asked about the restaurant, and they said the Portage had closed down. When we told them no, we’d called and made a reservation for dinner (and earlier talked to someone who’d booked a room), they were surprised. As far as they understood, the Portage had tried to go upscale but it didn’t work. They lost too much money and had gone out of business. While this is only hearsay, it explains a lot. My theory is that they thought they could do some redecorating, including something trendy like a “retro bar,” and up their prices. Someone, probably a family member, liked to decorate and would do it for free. The results were disastrous.

It seems now they’ve barely survived but are limping along on life support. What they need is a large influx of cash to do repairs, renovations, and professional interior design. What I fear is that they’ll try to stay in business and slowly make enough money to do the most basic repairs, thinking they can get back to where they were before the fiasco. (Doing a little research just now, I see it’s for sale and has been for quite a while. They must be asking for too much money.)

Sometimes it takes a long walk to help with making a decision. On our hike, I realized that the place I was so excited to visit only exists in the past. What remains now is not that place. When we came back, I told Rich I wanted to go look one more time to make sure of my decision. We went into the Retro Bar and looked around. My last worry was that the place might still have a great chef, and it would be a shame to miss a special meal. But I realized that even if it were a fantastic meal, it would be hard to enjoy it fully it in these strange surroundings, and impossible to enjoy with the (impossible to deny or ignore) bad smell. I told Rich to go ahead and cancel our dinner reservation.

Maybe someday the Portage Resort will be revived, and if so, maybe we’ll go back. But for now, it was time to let it go. –Cyndi

Below, a gallery of photos of the Portage Resort Hotel.  Click to enlarge and scroll.