Advertisement
Published: November 23rd 2005
I left Wellington and got the ferry to Picton on the South Island.
I traveled on the "Interislander" ferry: Kaitaki. This particular ferry only started this year and Kiwis are very proud of it as it's the biggest yet in the country. It seems to have been bought from P&O but I couldn't work out whether it used to be the "Pride of Cherbourg" of "Pride of Inisfree". Hope it's not a "cut-and-shut" job!
The journey was beautiful: out through Wellington Harbour and in through long inlets in the Marlborough Sounds.
At Picton, I took the much-recommended train down to Christchurch. Train travel in New Zealand has fallen on hard times. Many lines are closed: either totally or carry only freight. So those lines that do exist are branded "TransScenic" and are geared towards the tourists.
Our two guides on the "TransCoastal" were called Lee and Kylie. I think it must have been the most delightful (and quaintest) rail journeys I’ve ever been on!
They had a tannoy and were reading tourist information at the various points we passed. However, they went much further than that and described in detail about the door handle between two
of the carriages that had broken and how they were trying to fix it with duct tape. And as it was a single-track line, we had to stop periodically for other trains to pass on the few passing places where they had two tracks. They explained in more detail than I needed to know about “Tracking Warrants”.
The scenery was amazing. We passed through Marlborough’s Wine Country and they pointed out a bay called
“Cloudy Bay”, which rang a bell! There were some quite loud, but friendly drunk tourists for half the journey. We also had a cattle carriage “viewing platform” where we could stand outside and get clear photos without glass. This was rather fun!
Christchurch
I got to Christchurch and was met by Ted, a friend of my father who lives in Christchurch (or ChCh as it’s often abbreviated). He lives in an amazing house with a sea view in an area called Mount Pleasant.
The following day, Ted took me on a tour of the Banks Peninsular. Christchurch is in a very large (for NZ) flat region called the Canterbury Plains and the Banks Peninsular is a couple of old volcanoes that stick out very
prominently. It’s a very pretty region with windy roads that put me in mind of Northland. Unfortunately, it was raining that day. I realised how incredibly lucky I’ve been in the last few weeks as the weather can be a little variable here but for me has been generally fine. Still, it was still a beautiful location.
The next day, I took the train again. This was on what has been dubbed one of the world’s great train journeys: from Christchurch on the east coast to Greymouth on the west via Arthur’s Pass. I did a day trip and returned the same way. The railway station in Christchurch used to be in the centre of town. However, now that it’s only tourists and freight who use it, the old one has been sold off and a new one built in an out-of-town retail park. It’s not well signposted and is rather small. Must be unusual for a big city. Ted says he’s rather ashamed of it.
There are a lot fewer Maori place names on the South Island and I have seen very few Maori. There were actually very few Maori living here when the Pakeha (white settlers)
"Cloudy Bay"
"Blurry Bay" more like...arrived. It gives the place a very different feel from the North. I didn’t knowingly see any Maori in Christchurch.
After my train trip, I went to stay with my cousin, Clare, who also lives in Christchurch. She lives in the north west of town in an area rejoicing in the Welsh name “Bryndwr” (which locals don’t know how to pronounce) with her partner Matt. I’m the first of the cousins to meet him and I can report that he’s a good lad! :-) Also, he brings the second PhD to the family (the other one was also “married in” - we’re not that clever)!
By this point, I was feeling rather tired from all the traveling and sightseeing so spent a couple of days in ChCh chilling out and catching up with stuff (including the blogs I’ve been trying to write for the last few weeks!). On Saturday, we went up to a place called Hanmer Springs, two hours north. In winter, it’s a ski resort, but when we were there it was a bright summer day and we went for a walk in the woods.
Christchurch is a funny place, and quite a nice city.
It was founded in a slightly crackpot grand scheme in Christchurch College Oxford as a kind of Anglican Utopia. Like most slightly crackpot grand schemes, it didn’t quite work out like that. However, the city’s fathers have left a legacy of a very pleasant place to live with lots of cultural pursuits and large park (complete with botanical gardens) right in the city centre. Willows grow along a meandering “River Avon” and the streets are spacious. Kiwis think that the place is very English. Certainly, all the main streets are named after British cathedral cities and the cathedral looks like a Victorian cathedral in a UK provincial town, but this has the feel of a New Zealand city first and foremost. It’s also quite sprawling and low density. Clare lives in a bungalow with a front and back garden, which in the UK would be considered large. However, here it’s considered rather small. I traveled into the city on the bus during rush hour and Clare was commenting on how slow the bus was due to the busy traffic. I could appreciate it was slower than free flowing, but it was really nothing compared with what I’ve been used to!
Coastline north of Kaikora
Could see seals at some points. This coastline is also popular for Whale Watching as there is a massive trench (which they like). Depends on your perspective I suppose.
Queenstown
The next day, I took a bus to Queenstown. It was a standard service bus, but again, the driver provided an extensive guided commentary of what we were passing. I guess most people on the bus were tourists. As there are no service stations, we stop in little villages and towns in quaint cafés. Wonder what it would be like to have drivers giving tourist information on a normal service bus from London to Portsmouth down the A3, with the bus stopping at the
Devil’s Punchbowl café for comfort breaks instead of some awful service station?
The scenery was fantastic and we passed some very varied scenery. We stopped for lunch at beautiful Lake Tekapo and I had time to pop into the “Church of the Good Shepherd”. This is a wonderfully understated stone building with a big glass window overlooking the amazing scene of the bright blue lake. Then we passed the extensive Hydroelectric power schemes that provide so much of NZ’s electricity.
As we got into Queenstown, the heavens opened. It was the biggest amount of rain I’ve seen since I got here. Queenstown is beside a big lake
View of Christchurch
From the "Sign of the Takahe" (Wakitipu) which reminded me very much of the Scottish Highlands. They have even named two hills here “Ben Nevis” and “Ben Lomond”. With the weather, I felt very much at home!
I signed up for bungy jumping. It was invented here and it didn’t seem right to leave Queenstown without doing one. Also, it seems everyone else I know has done one before! As I hadn’t, I thought I’d better do one. What better place to do it than the Kawaru river gorge, the world’s first commercial site?
I was only the second person of the day to jump. This was probably for the best as to watch loads of people jumping beforehand would have made me more nervous. I hadn’t really though much about it before going too, which was also for the best.
They strapped me up, wrapping a towel around my ankles and attaching the bungy at two points (for safety they said). I had to waddle to the end of the “plank”. I was advised to look forward to the other bridge (i.e. not down!). They counted me down “5, 4, 3, 2, 1, Bungy!” and I was surprised just how easy it
was to jump.
The next few seconds were filled with extreme terror as I realised that I was hurtling towards the ground! Then, thankfully, the bungy kicked in and I bounced up again. The second fall was almost as scary, but eventually I stopped bouncing so much and was collected by the boat. I had been asked if I wanted to dunk in the water but declined as it was a bit of a cold day and I was nervous enough about my first time. Many years ago, I went parachuting, so maybe that helped. But they are so professional and experienced here that bungy seems so normal it’s almost dull!
Well, that was pretty exhilarating and it was only 9:30 in the morning.
That afternoon, I did yet another of the activities Queenstown is famed for: Jet Boating.
This was really good fun! The jet boat needs only 3cm of water when at speed and can move laterally almost as easily as forward. Our driver was rather good and drove us in really near to the sides. We covered a lot of water very quickly and the shotover river was really attractive to look at.
I was possibly the third youngest person on the boat (a rarer experience for me these days, having just turned 31) as most of the people on my boat were elderly and late middle-aged. I guess it’s a very safe way of getting thrills. I was sitting in the middle of the boat and secretly hoping we’d clip the sides!
During our 25 min run, there was some light rain. At speed the raindrops felt like grains of sand. It hurt my face and I had to shield my eyes.
I later discovered that my uncle used to own a Jet Boat, but later sold it! Doh!
The jet boating finished at the point on the river where the rafting stops and I decided to do that the following morning.
We got into wetsuits and were driven along the “Skippers Road”: really narrow, even for one vehicle in places. I was minded how unstable the schist rock is here. There are frequent landslides which block of parts of the river, creating new rapids. Later on, floods remove rapids and the river is in a constant state of change.
We were given all the instructions
and safety briefing of what to do if we fell in. The river had 21 cubic metres of water every second and was quite vigorous.
I was in a boat of six people. I was worried because one of the guys in my boat (who I’d also seen at my hostel) looked like
Private Pyle from “Full Metal Jacket” (towards the end of the first half of the film which I’d watched (in Spanish) on my long journey through Chile). He wore the bovver boots and camouflage trousers and strange expression to prove it. He turned out to be a very vigorous paddler...
Our guide (yet another Quebecker) knew what he was doing and gave us all the right instructions (forward, back, left back, hold on, get down, etc) at the right times to get us down without flipping.
On the way down, we saw the remains of the gold mining operations that once bought people to these parts.
We had a quite a few grade 3 rapids and at the end went through the 200m “Oxenbridge” tunnel. This was followed by a grade 4+ drop. It was brilliant fun!
At the end, they laid on
Christchurch
The Cathedral and new artwork. showers, sauna and sausage rolls.
Then I went back to Queenstown for a nap as the early mornings were catching up on me!
Queenstown is a funny place. I’ve seen very few kiwis here. It’s a kind of grown-up playground where you can do almost any kind of adventure sport your wallet can handle. As well as bungy, jet and rafting; I could have gone: “swinging”, “river surfing”, “whitewater sledging”, canyoning, canoeing, paragliding, hang-gliding, skydiving, fly-by-wire, horse riding, off-road driving, mountain biking (I can see where
Gravity Bolivia got their idea from), on a 4x4 tour, scenic flight or wine tour. Or even gone hillwalking.
Needed to be up early this morning for my trip back to Christchurch the next day but it ended up being a late one due to the hilarious antics of some Dutch girls in my dorm.
This morning, I took the bus back to Christchurch and met Penny. Penny is Ted’s wife who was out of town when I was last here. We visited ChCh’s spanking new Art Gallery which just today has been panned by critics in the local paper (
"The Press"). This is big news round these parts! I looked round
Christchurch
Recently resurrected tram service for tourists. and found it a perfectly good provincial art gallery. When I came out, a reporter from Radio New Zealand was asking my opinions. May get my 15 minutes of fame tomorrow morning?
Thoughts on New Zealand
I guess my thoughts on New Zealand have been coloured by my being Scottish and for having just come from South America.
Firstly, compared to South America, there are way more tourists here! It is such an easy country to travel around in. It’s stable, there’s no corruption, everyone speaks English, stuff works. I see loads of elderly and middle aged people and under-21s traveling here. In South America, it was mainly 22-35 year olds and I now realize how few tourists there really were. I had had the impression there were loads! I think it would be great to hire a camper van as loads of people do and explore the countryside of New Zealand for a couple of months.
I’ve been very impressed with the architecture in New Zealand. They don't have any buildings older than 150 years (the Maori didn't use stone for building, so their wooden buildings have not survived) and Kiwis are really down on themselves for lack of heritage. But I think the modern buildings are really interesting. They use a lot of wood, glass, metal and concrete and many buildings are prefab. Prefab buildings don't have to be rubbish and over here, they have a lot of expertise. I think the UK could learn a lot from New Zealand on this.
Other notable architectural features here are how the "ancient buildings" like Stone Store in Kerikeri (built 1832) are revered and preserved. Brilliant, understated buildings like the Church of the Good Shepherd in Lake Tekapo; Napier and Hasting's Art Deco; Wellington's mix of buildings and Stone/Glass/Wood structures like Auckland Botanical Gardens.
As you enter otherwise “anonymous” small towns, there’s always some giant sculpture of a cow, or apple, or Viking or something random. It’s a good attempt to give some local character and I’m all for it!
No kiwi tour guide has passed up an opportunity to make jokes about Australia (or “West Island” as they like to call it). Guess it’s the inferiority you get from having a larger neighbour. It’s a bit like Scottish people’s relation to the English but is entirely good-natured and not tainted by historical chips on shoulders.
There is extremely low unemployment here. I see that there are campaigns by the New Zealand government to
attract skilled workers to live in the country and
woo expat kiwis home. This would be a great country to live in, but low unemployment doesn’t translate into high wages. It seems that kiwis who haven’t come back see better opportunities elsewhere and outsiders who have come here see it more as a lifestyle decision for a more relaxed way of life.
It does seem strange to come half way round the world and find somewhere so like Britain that it has the Union Jack in its flag. Also, the flag is very similar to the Australian one and is often confused with it. I had heard that there was current debate on whether to change the flag as happened in Canada in the 1960s (they used to have a Union Jack based one but now have a very striking maple leaf design). There have been
quite a number of alternative designs proposed (typically featuring Silver Fern, Koru or Southern Cross features). However it seems most kiwis are happy with the one they’ve got and I saw lots of “Keep it this way” car stickers and none for changing. I did see the original Koru flag design on the back of a camper van (very faded) but didn’t see any other designs in shops or used anywhere else. Certainly, the current flag is quite aesthetically pleasing. I’ve heard people feel differently in Oz though.
If New Zealand is not going to change its flag, what about the name of its currency? Many countries like to have a currency name that reflects something about the country and makes it unique (e.g. Peru’s Sol or Bolivia’s Boliviano). What name did New Zealand choose? The “Dollar”: hence lots of confusion with the dozens of other countries with currencies of that name. Incidentally, they used to call it the “Pound”. So they changed it from a slightly ambiguous name to a really ambiguous one! How about the “Pounamou” or “Paua”? Or even the “Kiwi”? Or something beginning with “D”, so that “NZD” still makes sense? Anyway, I trust my thoughts will be completely ignored on this issue!
There is a very bizarre road rule in New Zealand. If you want to turn left and there is another car coming the other way that wants to turn right, you have to give way to it. If you are just traveling straight on, you ignore it. This takes a lot of getting used to and many tourists don’t know what to do. It is especially confusing in dual carriageways where you want to turn left but someone else wants to go forward. I’m sure it causes a lot of accidents in rental cars.
There are some quite graphic and direct road safety signs on the roads. They are being more direct than I think we would in the UK. NZ is such a similar country that I think it may just work there too.
Most washing machines here are top-loaders. They seem to clean better than front-loaders.
There are loads of Christian bookshops. Almost every town and city suburb has one! What’s that all about? There are even Christian radio stations.
With there not being much land further south than New Zealand (before Antarctica) you’re led to think that you’re further south than you actually are. This is helped by the similarity in size and culture to the UK and the supposed Scottish influence in the South. In fact, the most northerly part of New Zealand is at a similar latitude to Marrakech in Morocco and the most southerly to Lyon in France! They even grow grapes in Queenstown. That would explain why the weather is better!
I’ve been on the road 10 weeks now. I’m more than half way through the “fun” part of my traveling. I’m feeling a bit out of touch with the news. At home, I managed to keep well informed as to what was going on in the news. Out here, it’s difficult and I manage to get the main headlines only. Still, I think I’m learning so much from my experiences, that it’s worthwhile.
In the last few days, New Zealand has been awarded the rights to host the Rugby World Cup in 2011. This is tremendous for a small country of 4 million people! I don’t think Scotland with 5 million could have done it. And this was the day after Ted and I were driving past Christchurch’s stadium and thinking that NZ would never get it as the stadium was too small and how it was bound to go to Japan as they have so many huge, unused stadia from the Football World Cup! And need I mention the current All Black’s tour of the British Isles where they are whipping every team they play? Anyway, I’ll be safely out the country before they play Scotland. :-)
P.S.
This is the most up-to-date blog I will ever post! Possibly the only time the date of the blog is the date I publish it. It’s often hard to find the time or net access to write this thing, and I certainly don’t want writing it to get in the way of doing stuff! However, I was determined to get it up to date before I left New Zealand. I’m currently in Christchurch. Tomorrow, I fly to Auckland and on Friday to Sydney (where I plan to meet up with
ItchyAdventurer. I’ll be there till Monday and then I’m back to the Northern Hemisphere winter (or what passes for winter in Thailand).
Also. I'm sorry but I can't post any pictures from Queenstown from this PC.
Don’t know when I’ll next update this blog. It won’t be for a while though.
Nick
Advertisement
Tot: 0.196s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 18; qc: 88; dbt: 0.0959s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.4mb
Michelle
non-member comment
Hilarious Dutch Girls????
Dutch girls?? Where??? Hahaha.. it was nice meeting you Nick!!! Have fun where ever you go!! Cheers, Michelle (one of the Dutch girls in your dorm in Queenstown!!)