Grubs, Tramping, fush and chups... Sweet as!

Oceania » New Zealand » South Island » Christchurch
March 5th 2008

Published: April 14th 2008

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Roundyrhino

Christchurch

Nice old Spanish missionary style buildings

When the clouds parted to reveal snow topped peaks and large alpine mountain ranges out the window of the plane, I was smitten. I'll start at the beginning, when we land in Christchurch. My love affair with New Zealand is still in the early dizzy phase, so sorry if I get oogley-eyed or gush at points, I'll try to keep my emotions in check for all of our sakes.

We were zonked and our hostel was great so all we did on our first night was cook dinner in the cosy kitchen and walk about in our socks. The next morning we got up bright and early as Ali(son) was arriving from London and we hadn't seen her since September so were really excited. I was sitting in the kitchen excited chatting to some of the guests. When they left I started reading. A few minutes later one of the girls I was just talking to came back as she had forgotten to take her food with her when she was leaving and she had her backpack on. Immersed in the book I looked up and had this moment where I thought she was Ali so without thinking I said

Tree fairies

Aoife and Ali in the Christchurch Botanical Gardens

'hey! Howareya?!' so enthusiastically that she got a bit confused, and sortof mumbled 'hey!' (thinking ´freak!´) as I realised my mistake and blushed, looking down at my book. Silly me. Thankfully she left.

A few minutes later Ali came up the steps and this time I got it right, it was great, loads of hugs and general joy. Even though Ali had endured a long flight and was shattered she was up for exploring so we headed out for the day, although anyone who knows us will not be surprised to hear that the first stop was a café where we knocked back coffee and cake with gusto to make up for the past six months. Alan raised his eyes to heaven but I can report that he also tucked into the cake with equal enthusiasm.

There was loads of gossip to catch up on as we wandered down the streets of this town that feels strangely British and Irish - a bus to Belfast passed and I had to remind myself that I'm in New Zealand. The botanic gardens were beautiful and we sat on the grass by the river Avon looking at the ducks, and the

Christchurch

Were trammin'

tourists being punted by men in bowler hats while others kayaked. After a delicious Japanese and a beer Ali admitted defeat to jetlag and we had an early night. The next day we headed up to the 'gondala' or cable-car and caught views of the city from a height, and then from the other side which was more picturesque and you could see the sea and mountains, reminiscent of Ireland. Not sure where to head next, Sean our mate who is just after moving to NZ told us about the wildfoods festival and so we decided to head over to Hokitika and book onto the Trans-Alpine, one of the world's most famous train rides, for the next morning.

As many of you know, we (particularly Alan) like travelling by train and were keen to see what this would be like, and contrast it with the trains in China, Russia and Europe that we had been on. The train ride goes through some spectacular scenery and we had a lovely journey. For anyone thinking of doing it, I would recommend it. It is very much a tourist route, and I´m not sure how many people use it as a route,

Cathedral Square, Christchurch

Cones and spires - this is the city's millenium sculpture

it seemed to be all tourists on our train (it is quite expensive). One thing I wasn´t too happy about was the canteen situation which was very badly organised (basically there's no queueing system and a train full of hungry punters wedged in trying to order - it gets a bit crazy with kids and adults jostling for space, trying not to breathe - the two staff working there were lovely and did well under pressure but the train company should do something, it was pretty shoddy and detracted from the great work they were doing elsewhere). On the plus side though I did meet a lovely woman with two kids in the queue and it turns out she took the Trans-Siberian railway years ago so we chatted about that and the still hot scones smeared with fresh butter, jam and even cream were delicious and pretty decent for the prices, it´s just that I was fuming by the time I got back to our carriage almost fourty minutes after I was dispatched with Ali on scone duty.

We stopped at Arthur's Pass and were allowed disembark to take photos which was pretty cool. Getting off the train Alan

Big Knight to Bishop 4

The first of many enormous chess boards we encountered in NZ

had a big deja vu remembering the Trans-Siberian and our many platform stops across Russia. From the journey we got a sense of the beauty of this spectacular country with its mountains and forests, clear rivers and pebble shores. For some reason, even though it's as obvious as anything, I find myself surprised that the scenery in Australia and New Zealand differ so much - as we travel around this sentiment is echoed by many travellers we meet. Why it should be a surprise I have no idea, yet it does strike me repeatedly on my first few days in the country. Travelling by train is great, we really enjoyed snaking our way quietly through the empty countryside.

Arriving in Greymouth (what an attractive name for a town...) we made our way to our hostel, which we had booked along with the train in the information centre in Christchurch, we were all positive the hostel was called 'The Neptune' and sure enough there are directions in our guidebook so off we march with the bags on our backs. When we get there the office is closed so Alan waits to see if anyone comes while Ali and I venture

A bored gondolier

by the Avon

inside to see if anyone can help us. Turns out that the whole hostel has been booked out by the Hokitika Wildfoods festival for the police working on security. Ali and I get a bit steamed and indignant while a policeman tries to help us find someone working in the hostel and then we decide to ring them but I realise that my wallet is missing so I insist we go out to Alan and run out the door in a panic, while Alan is standing calmly and tells us that he read the booking sheet the woman in the information place we booked through gave us and we actually are staying in the 'Noah's Ark' backpackers and by the way I gave him my wallet in the train as I was too burdened with scones, jam, cream, coffee and righteous indignation after the canteen so spat the wallet out of my mouth into his hands and told him to mind it. Feeling like a right eeijit and leaving a load of confused policemen behind we made our way to the hostel, another ace hostel (this ended up being a bit of theme in NZ, excellent hostels).

For the

The wizard of Cathedral Square

A rare sighting of this odd local character... he harangues people from atop a ladder covered in lavender, and then comes down to sell maps of New Zealand...

next day or two we chilled, trying out the local 'Monteiths' beer, Ali liked 'Radler´(quite citrusy) , Alan the 'Dark' (spot the Guinness drinker´s Monteiths of choice, surprise surprise) and I the 'Summer Ale' (kind of gingery tasting) before heading to the Hokitika Wildfoods festival which was crazy - basically a celebration of weird foodstuffs including the HuHu Grub, Crocodile, Fish Eyes, Worms, Sharks, Magpie Pies, Snails (you get the picture) and all the festival goers get dressed up in wacky outfits (Ali spotted Hulk Hogan as we arrived and then I saw Hugh Hefner and Alan spotted Hugh's bunnies). My personal favourite was when we were going into the festival and a really nice woman on Security spoke into her walkey-talkey and then told her colleage, 'if you see Thomas the Tank engine, he's not allowed to come in, okay?' A few hours later we were wandering about and saw a few Thomas the Tank engines, so I guess someone mistook him for Gordon or something.

The first tent we entered had pickled Huhu grubs, so looking at one another we said 'when in Hokitika...' and got stuck in. All I'll say is that (a) their heads contain

Up we go

Ali and Alan on the 'Gondola'

crunchy things and (b) they do NOT taste like peanut butter, despite what everyone told us. Then Ali had a stag sammie (venison betwixt slices of fresh bread) we all nibbled a few snails and some strange ectoplasm like vegetable, strawberries and icecream in an edible potato bowl, washed down with the finest local Monteiths of course. Gnawing on some lamb shanks we sat down and listened to music before moving on to accost a local asking him to sing us the national anthem, which he didn´t know, but he was able to say ´conas ata tu´so fair play. We were lucky to chance upon one festival goer who demanded that the other do a Haka which he did there and then, pretty impressive sight. I chatted with a Swedish girl who was a vegetarian in the queue and commisserated with her that there weren´t many wild vegetarian options, although she was intrigued by the potato paper bowls we ate. It was around this time that we began to say ´choice´and ´sweet as´to describe various things, and ´aw yeah´when we couldn´t think of one of the former.

After Hokitika we went back to our hostel to plan going to

The view from the top of Mt Cavendish

Aprés Gondola

Abel Tasman, a spectacular national park at the tip top of the south island. Max and Julia, two Nurembergian´s overheard us and offered us a lift in the back of their campervan up to Nelson, the nearest big town to the park. They turned out to be very sound indeed and even stopped off at Pancake Rocks and for some Fush and Chups (NZ´s version of Burdock´s fish and chips). We chatted away and then later we stopped by a river where Max and myself rolled up our trousers and braved the dizzyingly glacial cold water. Once we were splishing about I spotted this huge submerged log and tried to release it. Seeing my difficulties, Max came to my assistance and released it, coining one of the catch-phrases of our NZ trip by saying ´live your life little log´in a thick German accent. A most useful phrase to use often we´ve all found. Max and Julia plan to live in Berlin, so who knows we might meet up again some day.

In Nelson we ended up staying in a cool hostel where they give you free chocolate pudding and icecream each night, Ali didn´t want to leave. We went

OLIVIA...

Aoife and Ali are scarred for life in the Gondola's 'time-tunnel'

tramping (NZ´s version of hiking or trekking) and sea-kayaking which was amazing, very peaceful and a beautiful way to explore the coast-line. Before all that we had to take a jet boat to the beach from which we tramped and as my mother would put it so eloquently ´Jame´s Street, but it was rough´ Somehow we kept our breakfast down, thankfully. The day was beautiful and we met people tramping in the opposite direction, some of them were doing multiple day tramps and an Irish couple we met had actually stayed in a boat the night before. Another item added to the ´to do´list for next time we´re in NZ.

The next day we rented Gertrude, our green old car, and made our way back to Greymouth taking many pitstops along the way. We ended up visiting this abandoned school and when we tried the door were amazed that it opened and that it has been pretty much preserved in its original state with school desks, copy books, wall roll lists all still in place. It was a little spooky and Alan didn´t help matters by doing impressions of dead children, cheery. We also visited an abandoned gold town

All aboard!

Off an another memorable train journey - this time the Tranzalpine.

and wandered about trying to imagine what it would have been like to live there. Numerous sheep were in surrounding fields and on our way back from the gold town we spotted one farmer´s home made post-box which was actually an old microwave on a stick. We began to get a feel for the fact that there are a lot of characters in New Zealand.

For lunch we stopped in Reefton, the ´city of light and hope´a tiny town which was quite quirky. In the local cafe, Alan chanced upon a substantial number of conspiracy theory magazines, videos and pamphlets all prophesing that the end is nigh and that we´re all doomed. Very strange, but the noodles I had for lunch filled a gap quite nicely, all conspiracies aside. We wandered around the town and spotted a robot on a porch, a park containing numerous gravestones and other interesting things. By the time we arrived in Greymouth where we were meeting up with Sean that night, we were full of beans and excitement about all our adventures and so when he arrived he was accosted by three raving loonies talking about ghosts, empty schools, abandoned towns, conspiracy theories and