Tekapo and Christchurch

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Well well well, who’d have thought it? I got on the bus to Tekapo in the early morning, with the knowledge that we had beaten the Aussies and won the T20 Cricket World Cup in the process. Even Laura was happy, or at least she was happy that I was happy. What with this and holding the Ashes, the level of ridicule I receive from work colleagues upon arrival in Melbourne should be slightly more manageable.

The drive to Tekapo from Queenstown was not as majestic as we had hoped, for no reason other than the weather. We had decided to add a couple of hours onto our journey (which was already an all-day affair) by travelling via Mt Cook, the highest peak in NZ. The mountain is somewhat unique in that you can pretty much stand at the base of it and look right up to the peak - such is the nature of the surrounding landscape. Unfortunately however, our 2 hour stop-off in Mt Cook Village (a tiny place consisting of just a few hotels) was rather pointless because of low cloud. We got enough of an impression of how stunning the scenery would be on a clear day, but that was all. A hint and a packed lunch - that was our Mt Cook experience.

Nevertheless, Tekapo more than made up for this disappointment. After the let-down that was Te Anau, we were a little anxious about Tekapo being a dull backwater town, as opposed to an idyllic village. To our unabashed joy, it was a small, quiet village in the company of rowdy, pugnacious scenery. The lake is vast and a miraculous turquoise colour (all because of the sun reacting with the so-called ‘rock flour’ in the lake, which is created by glaciers grounding rocks to dust), and this lake is then surrounded by snowcapped peaks (as is the norm in these parts).

The hostel was very quiet - perhaps not even a quarter full, but it was one of the nicer places we have stayed on the trip so far. We were in a dorm room without bunk beds - now that’s luxury.

One of the main attractions with Tekapo is something that isn’t in the town at all, instead it is something billions of miles away - the stars! Tekapo is the stargazing capital of the Southern Hemisphere, so it is claimed, and the observatory on top of the peak nearest the town runs stargazing tours. Due to the skies having cleared by early evening, we ended up being booked onto a tour on our first night there. Because this was somewhat unplanned, we needed food asap, and ended up treating ourselves to our first meal out together for a very long time. It came in the form of Thai food, and it went down an absolute treat! Sadly, after all this, the tour could not go ahead due to clouds creeping in at the last minute. Thus the justification for the meal treat was taken away, leaving me feeling guilty and Laura unrepentant.

The next day was rather exciting for one major reason - there was a planned power cut which lasted from 7am until 7pm. Exciting times in Tekapo!

We decided to walk up Mt John, which is also where the observatory can be found, to check out the daytime views from the top. The immediate surrounds and the vast, flat plains stretching out beyond the village were perfectly visible, but the peaks of the distant mountains were masked by low cloud again. The plains made us both think of the USA, particularly because of their dryness. This area of NZ sits in the rain shadow of the Southern Alps; they create all the wet weather on the west coast, but also the dry weather in the centre.

In the late afternoon, following this little trek, we did something rather risky - we played mini golf. This was a major risk considering Laura’s hatred of losing, combined with my competitiveness. Laura’s refusal to play me at magnetic chess ever again after Russia is a constant reminder of the risks of playing games… (Laura is now getting stroppy at the inclusion of this paragraph - do we need any more evidence???)

However, we did indeed have a round of mini golf, which went pretty much without incident, and Laura did win. I must qualify this statement though by mentioning the fact that her scoring was rather generous (she used her feet quite a lot, as well as the putter). Also, Laura’s putting technique was quite often more akin to hockey as opposed to golf. I’m not bitter…

The course itself was situated in a pretty glorious place - the mountains and lake provided a dramatic backdrop to the incompetent putting, and the holes were all themed around Tekapo ‘sights’. Therefore, we had the Mt John Observatory hole, a glacier themed hole, and best of all, a long drop toilet themed hole - you can imagine what the cup was like.

The novelty of the power cut had worn off by the time we were due to go on our re-arranged stargazing tour that evening, but it did get us a bit of money off because we wouldn’t be able to get any hot drinks.

So up we went in a van with about 20 other people. The latter half of the drive had to be done in complete darkness, using only the moonlight to guide the van - headlights could pollute the sky and cause real issues for the telescopes. So once we got to the top we were greeted by a madman with a small red light, and for the next 2 hours we had perhaps the best 2 hours of our entire trip in NZ. There were 5 or 6 telescopes set up outside, an enormous telescope inside a dome, and an astrophotographer assisting people to take fantastic photos. All this was taking place in absolute darkness - broken only by the odd little red light carrying astronomer pointing at the night sky with a green laser pen.

The altitude, latitude and remoteness of Tekapo meant that we could clearly see the Milky Way (mmmmm… you can’t get those here…) with the naked eye, and through the telescopes, oh my! Looking through a telescope at what is a bright blur in the night sky with the naked eye, you realise that this bright blur is actually a cluster of 200 stars, all several hundred thousand light-years away. For example, if you were able to see a man light a fag on a star 450,000 light-years away, he’d actually lit it 450,000 years ago. Bonkers!! So if you want to do some time travelling, you don’t need the Doc’, you don’t need a Delorion (spelling??), just look up.

I think the highlight had to be the view of Saturn through the large indoor telescope - it was perfect - a picture of absolute clarity. It looked like a slide on a projector in a science class, such was the perfection. Laura was a big fan of that old favourite - the Moon. We didn’t get a long look at it, which was good because it causes so much light pollution and impedes the view of the other stars, but it was stunning - such a familiar object, but viewed in a totally new way for us.

I couldn’t help but think about Alex James of Blur and his obsession with the stars (two of his children are called Geronimo and Galileo). I must confess that I can sympathise with his unhealthy fascination; ‘I spy in the night sky don’t I...’

After a night of crazy dreams (the stars did something to us), we spent our last full day in Tekapo on bicycles riding part way round the lake. We rode for 4 hours in total isolation, always amidst gorgeous scenery, and returned with sore backsides and tired calves. Such freedom and beauty was now becoming the absolute norm, and it was perhaps only right that our time on the South Island was coming to an end.

We left Tekapo for Christchurch the following day, which was approximately a 4 hour journey. We are now so accustomed to travelling for long periods that 4 hours was relatively short and passed very easily - particularly as we had the Gervais podcasts on Laura’s mp3 player, and thus the thoughts of Karl Pilkington to entertain us. We both managed to embarrass ourselves with our outrageous guffawing on a public bus.

Christchurch was a one night, catch-a-flight jobby, and the evening that we had in the city was enough. For the 20 minutes that we drove through the outskirts of the city there was a seemingly relentless stream of DIY stores, supermarkets, tyre replacement yards... They were so enthusing that I can’t even be bothered to recall the variety of businesses enclosed in drab, enormous corrugated steel buildings. It is something New Zealand keeps pretty quiet - they don’t reveal just how much these retail and industrial parks dominate their towns and cities - even the villages. It lends a certain American feel to the built up areas, and also hints at the domination of the motorcar in New Zealand.

Anyhow, Christchurch is often cited as being very British in feel. I must say that, if Christchurch is supposed to be the most British of the NZ cities, it cannot be compared to any of the more picturesque cities in Britain. Without wishing to offend, it’s more of a Coventry than a Nottingham... We popped our heads in the cathedral (Christchurch’s main draw), and wandered the streets for an hour or so, but having spent 5 months in the NZ city that is widely regarded as the most interesting, most beautiful and most cultural, exposure to city living in NZ is not something that we are seeking with too much fervour. Consequently, we were quite contented to watch a film in the hostel and get an early night prior to our 5.30am start the next day - for we had a long day of flights and buses ahead of us.

Unfortunately, our room’s location in the hostel was not favourable to obtaining some decent sleep, and thus we were absolutely cream crackered the next day. We weren’t helped by the fact that our shuttle to the airport turned up at 6am as opposed to 6.30am...

So anyway, we had a day of travelling, which on barely any sleep was not ideal. The results of our day of travelling would result in us arriving in the North Island.

The delights of this journey and our subsequent adventures will have to wait for another blog, for I have slaved away over minute details for long enough on this occasion.

Much love

Sam and Laura

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