New Zealand

Day 1 - 06 March 23 - Christchurch ↑ Back to top

After touching down in the middle of the night and finding our comfortable Airbnb, in the morning host Peter took us to the airport to get the hire car. Smooth operation.

Of course, Telstra has locked my phone, so the NZ SIM was not able to work. Poor lad on the end of the 'support' wilted under the full blast of Westerman invective. I never mean to be mean, but the absurd suggestions that Telstra might not be to blame for the ridiculous situation drew it out of me.

We drove into Christchurch to a carpark near the botanical gardens. We were intrigued that the car park seems so shabby, with only uneven gravel as a base. Later we were informed that every building that had suffered irreparable damage in the earthquake and was subsequently bulldozed was turned into a carpark.



On a recommendation from a helpful Kiwi concerned that we "looked lost", we took a short walk to a colourful and distinctly Californian-Latin Regent Street for lunch, sitting alfresco while chatting to a pleasant English couple who had lived the past 43 years in Michigan. Naturally, they had lost none of their accent nor their right to berate the US, which indulged my loathing of the Empire.




We got on to a tram for a leisurely trip around the centre of Christchurch for NZ$30 ea. The tram was a restored Sydney tram complete with wartime advertising. The comedic commentary from driver gave us a picture of the earthquake. Even nearly 12 years on, earthquake impact is visceral, but rejuvenation is vigorous and determined, though wildly expensive.



On to lookout at Port Hills. Breathtaking precipitous mountains rising out of a dead flat coastal plain makes for a contrast that is something to behold. We are amazed at the number of cyclists taking on slopes that must be at least 2-3° rise. A wiggling road takes us to Akaroa, set on the water among the remnants of a gigantic caldera, and reminiscent of Dr Martin Cornwall village.



There are many French, German, US and Swiss tourists. We have our 'fush and chups" to finish the day as the sun sets and then a leisurely return to Redwood via some late shopping takes us home. The broad sweep of coastal marshy plain is dotted with sheep and absurdly trimmed rectangular prism pines, presumably wind breaks in colder, more wintery seasons. Sea rises must surely impact this landscape.

Day 2 - 07 March 23 - Christchurch ↑ Back to top

Leaving Christchurch and heading south, with the snow-capped spine of the South Island looming to the west, the coastal plain seems to provide an almost infinite capacity for urban sprawl and absorption of the middle class. We are urged by our vehicle to "follow the one", invoking our relatives past and present on both sides of the family. The manicured pines persist, and Robyn is curious to see what monster is used to maintain them, as they stand 20m tall.

The lure of caffeine drives us to stop at a café in Rakaia with tempting sweets and pleasant service, seemingly a universal New Zealander attribute. The somewhat absurd constraint to 30kph through roadworks appears to be largely ignored, with most motorists averaging the limit with the open speed limit.

The parallel railway maybe holds hope for HSR, especially if it services the burgeoning suburbs. Having exported industries to low wage countries creating an offshore proletariat, the bourgeois west now competes for the emerging middle class of developing countries, while securely walling off the masses, and Christchurch and NZ seem quite competitive in this enterprise. We have a lot to learn from our Tasman neighbours.



A seemingly endless parade of rectangular pine hedges surrounding meadows of dairy cows leads us to converse about the oral methane emissions that must be dragging at New Zealand's ambition to be carbon neutral. This conversation is interrupted by errant anal emissions from within the car and a panicked opening of windows, followed by equally desperate action to close them again as well savour the dominant odour of anal emissions from the livestock. Obviously, this odour is insignificant to locals who might be just as indifferent to the belching emissions.

A man by the side of the road warns us to beware of misinformation from the UN and world government, demonstrating that fringe lunatic religion can be found even at the ends of the earth.

The flat land gives way quite suddenly to hills and dales reminiscent of Scotland as we turn west and, as if to punctuate this, as we stop at a lookout to admire the vista of snow-capped mountains behind rolling hills of green, Andrew gets talking to a Scottish couple on their second trip around New Zealand and the obligatory exchange of anecdotes from Australia and Scotland holds up the trip to our next featured destination - Fairleigh - boasting New Zealand's finest pies, a reputation quite secure as we witness in a lovely park free of emissions.



In what seems an extravagant display of sporting chauvinism, a roadside sign demands we "report a wallaby". Apparently, our prized marsupials, along with possums, are despised here - with good reason, as they destroy the local habitats for New Zealand's native wildlife and are hazardous on the roads. Clearly, New Zealanders have not learned the deep affection that we have for our primary roadkill. However, we share their contempt for possums who we unceremoniously evict from our property on an all too regular basis.



As we move on to a new biome, we pass the huge channels of the hydroelectric scheme here and note that the volume of water is immense, with these canals probably 50 metres wide and 20 deep and flowing at a rate faster than one could walk. This takes us to Lake Tekapo, one of the lakes in this area which are set against a backdrop of the mountains.

Here, the definition of "just a travel day" is disputed, as Robyn finds endless photo "opportunities". This is resolved at a thermos tea and bikky break when light rain threatens to make the biscuits damp and the dry of the awaiting accommodation beckons.



We arrive in Twizel, a town erected to service the building of the hydro scheme, replete with dongas and barracks, some attractively modified now for either family homes or tourist accommodation. For a small town it appears well serviced.

Our hut is a donga converted to a tiny house and, while small, has all that we need, affirming Andrew's notion that as we age, our need for living space shrinks. If only we had a means by which large houses could be bequeathed to families and young and old couples kept to tiny houses, we might solve the crisis element of the shelter crisis we have in Australia. Our evening stroll reminds us that the nights will be cold while here in the high country.

Calls to the children confirm that they are alive, and anxiety that Arien has over the disappearance of George (pronounced "Tschorj") is allayed when he appears out of the tree cubby. Clearly, his belly announced that it was time to resume human company.

Bed is most welcome but we are still on Australian time and what seems late locally seems fairly normal. We will see how we fare on returning to Australia.

Day 3 - 08 March 23 - Twizel ↑ Back to top

The steady beat of rain on the roof of our 'donga' heralded a day where we could be very relaxed about our starting time. The webcam at Mt Cook showed misty rain and folk in raincoats. We wondered whether this might be how the day would be until late afternoon. But, given we had followed "the one" for so long, maybe a minor miracle was in order and by 10 the rain had cleared and only a few clouds hung around the peak.

There are few superlatives that do justice to the landscape through which we drove to start our day's hiking. First, to do justice to the name "land of the long white cloud", a single cloud stretched as far as we could see in either direction against the range. The snow of the previous day had all but disappeared except on the tallest of peaks and we surmised that the temperature had risen at that altitude.

As we turned towards the road that would take us along the western border of Lake Pukaki, we once more encountered the reminder of the sheer volume of water this range could summon from those clouds - the canal for the hydro. Lake Pukaki has that characteristic aqua colour that signifies snow melt - apparently derived from material suspended in the water. The lake sits on a grand almost horizontal plain where the irregularly sized boulders to pebbles points to a glacier that must, at one time, been truly stupendous in scale.

Out of that plain, rising almost vertically, are the craggy mountains from which the boulders are torn. Many assume that the erosion of these mountains is just the work of water and glacier. Few realise that it is the action of ice trapped in the rock fissures, freezing from rainwater, only millimeters thick, but exerting an unimaginable pressure on the rock that splits the rock away from the side of the hill, gravity doing the rest. The alluvial flood plain the borders the range would be quite impossible without this momentous physical attribute of ice.

We began with a moderate walk to the Tasman River and Lake, where we hoped to see icebergs. Sure enough, the icebergs were there, but the immensity of all elements of the landscape made it impossible to judge size or distance. The icebergs seemed like small sponges bobbing on the water in front of large sculptures. Only later when we stood above and watched the power boat negotiate through them did we realise their massive size.

A small dispute over the meaning of "scrambling up that track" created some friction but this was soon forgotten once the right photo was taken. We sat in a small hut to eat our lunch that we had prepared and our cuppa from the thermos. We then commenced the 'easy' walk, which was 300+ steps up to the lookout. This reminded us of our age.

At the summit, the extent of the retreat of the glacier was clear and overwhelmed us. A clear line that showed the 1990 level and extent of the iceberg was clear indication that global warming had had serious impacts here in only a generation. Those ignorant fools who are skeptical of climate change should be frog-marched up to this lookout at gun point and be forced to acknowledge the truth, lest they be hurled down to the lake. It almost brought Andrew to tears of rage and he warned all and sundry on the way down, whether the were wont to listen or not, that the climb up was too depressing and that they should turn back.

A welcome distraction was young Charlie, missing school to be with grandad and grandma and mum on a trip to see the southern island. He will be able to boast to his grandchildren that he saw the Tasman Glacier and yes, young Johnny, it really existed and grandad is not just telling porkies. I teased Charlie relentlessly on the way down, much to the amusement of his folks, but he gave as good as he got. Sadly, the deliberate lies I told were not detected and I had to admonish him to never believe anything an adult said, advice his mother was sure to have thanked me for.

Day 4 - 09 March 23 Twizel ↑ Back to top

The tap tap of the rain lulled us into a late morning, but the promise of clearing in the afternoon gave us hope for completing the day's ambitions. In a casual stroll to the supermarket, we were able to secure some eggs, despite the nation-wide shortage. This gave us hope for a much desired big breakfast, which we eventually made at lunch time.

I encountered two inter-cultural complications before we left. One with our new German neighbours and the other with a kiwi. In my usual bombastic style, I joked with a couple of Berliners that they spoke German well for Berliners. This is my standard ice-breaking joke with Germans, who recognise only too well that the German they regularly speak is perhaps unintelligible to other Germans, let alone non-native speakers.

Sadly, the joke fell flat, probably because they were at the end of a long drive. My flippant explanation was that they were typical of Berliners, noted for their sour Prussian manners and obscure sense of humour.

The other somewhat awkward moment cam when we joined a queue at the local bakery behind a gaggle of bedraggled and thoroughly soaked kiwi riders. To brighten their day, I quipped that they were either brave or crazy or both. The kiwi dude agreed both. I further suggested that they should have slept in. of course, I should have said, "slapped in" using the native vernacular. Instead, the kiwi lady heard "slipped in" and indignantly protested that they were already in the queue and had not "slipped in".

Not to sure how to recover from this, I simply beat a retreat with "Oh, I'm not in the queue" which was true, since I had only moved to the queue to see if there was any croissants left, which there was not.

Moral of the story, choose any word without a vowel and you are safe.

On the way up to the observatory, the world seems populated only with Germans. I suggested to a young couple that they might be obliging and carry an old fellow to the top, which elicited a rare German chuckle and a polite decline, which, in turn, emboldened me to ask where they came from, in German. The momentary pause in conversation signaled that they were transitioning from English to German and then a rare conversation (Germans don't do 'small talk') ensued, after which Robyn asked whether my German was OK and they replied that it was very good.

Germans are so unused to foreigners being able to or bothering to speak German, that it comes as both a surprise and delight. They immediately engage in a most un-German way. Later, 4 delightful and attractive young German ladies were encountered at the summit and I asked how the coffee was, to which they replied in English that the cafe was closed. Never one to miss an opportunity to practice, I swore in fluent German, which then brought on a cavalcade of German from their leader that was too fast and too colloquial for me to absorb, to which I protested, in German, that I was but an Australian, not a German. I was totally flattered when she then explained that she thought I was German because I had spoken so well.

What she and most Germans are unaware of is that my vocabulary has large gaps, my grammar is almost entirely non-existent and I miss every 4th word they say. My native accent, derived from having learned German only in conversation, belies the fact that their is more bravado then competence in my spoken German.

Since the motive for speaking to this bevvy of beauties was sustained by the need to practice my German, the pleasant conversation continued all the way down the hill, by which time my ego was in peril of not fitting back into the car. They wished us a happy holiday and in return I wished them "gute Reise" and then we went our separate ways.

The restorative power of the hot water pools relieved some of the pain of the walk and was so relaxing that we turned into jellyfishes. Fortunately, we were able to prise ourselves away and search for an eating place, settling on a Japanese / Thai place which, unlike most of the pother restaurants, was not fully booked, but none the less, very busy.

Disappointingly, our ambition to star-gaze at the best location in the world for this activity was vetoed by the late setting sun and the rising moon.

Day 5 - 10 March 23 - Twizel ↑ Back to top

Twizel sits on a long 'tableland' plateau called the 'high country'. Our journey south-west takes us through some more of the rich alluvial plain, with farms on either side of the highway. Herds of perhaps 1000 head of dairy cows seem quite common and one can only imagine the process of milking these twice daily. Many years ago, I milked 100 head through herring-bone milking sheds and thought that was quite enough dodging of poo and wee for two workers. I did notice a station for disposal of cattle effluent, so I suppose some farms take it off-farm. This would be a bit of a waste, although using the effluent for energy may no longer be emissions-friendly.

The clay cliffs of Omarama seem quite anomalous in an area where the glacial boulders and there alluvial products dominate. By what geological process did they form, we wondered.

Finally, this plain ends and we are invited into a steep sided valley that advertises Lindis Pass. If we imagined something like Cunningham's Gap, we were to jolted into the realisation that the kiwi penchant for understatement was going to be demonstrated here. Driving along roads perched precariously on the edge of sheer drops, the 'pass' is barely lower than the peaks and the lookout at the pass affords brilliant views down the valley on which we have just gingerly driven. Some of our friends and colleagues have described this pass covered with snow and I can see no good reason to want to drive through it in those conditions.

On the other side, the valley takes on a new character, with an even sharper valley. We speculate as to how this would appear under a deluge, with water gushing down the river and landslides. We are happy that this is a relatively dry season. We are now in Otaga having left Canterbury on the other side of the pass.

We pass through a small village that gives us two insights. First, a very long but quite narrow pipe hugs the steep side of a ravine and we realise that hydro power is harvested wherever possible and the model here is a tall head and small volume, where the previous sites were low fall and large volume.

We also read on a placard of a program to address the feral pines that blanket so much of the landscape we have passed. These weeds may provide ready timber and firewood, but they sterilise the ground and the monocultures do not support any wildlife. We are struck with the singular lack of wildlife of any sort, even bugs or spiders.

A little later, we are surprised to encounter large stretches of vineyards on the slopes of the mountains and hills on either side of the plain. A vineyard tour was not on the agenda, so we pass these by.

A detour to Arrowtown before we arrive in Queenstown is an opportunity to sit and have a coffee shop - but, as numerous as the tourists are, at 2:00pm, it's closing time! The next few days are in and around Queenstown and our next stay is salubrious and comfortable.