Way down south

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We had a very simple outline for our assault on the south island. Start at the top, head down the west coast to the bottom and then drive back up the east coast to Christchurch where we would hand back our trusty wagon and fly on. This is largely what we did and is documented in this, our last New Zealand blog…
Our brief overnight stay courtesy of NCP car parks Wellington was over all too quickly as we had to board the ferry to the south island around 7am. Fortunately the car park was in the harbour so I only had to crawl from the bed to the driver’s seat for the 2 minute drive to the boat. We joked about whether Karen could remain in situ and sleep away the 3 hour journey through the Cook Straits. She changed her mind when she saw dogs being taken from other vehicles and placed in kennels as she feared a similar fate may await her. As we boarded, I couldn’t help notice that the ferry had a French name which had been Tipp-exed out and replaced with something more Antipodean. It had obviously been a Dover-Calais cross channel ferry in a previous life. I hoped that it had learnt in its new life not to stop and open its doors after 23 miles! After Karen had got through her morning snooze and torn the heads of a few distressed small children ( Note from KG - ‘it was one child, it he was very annoying and kicked my seat constantly – do you blame me??!!’ ), we adjourned to the top deck to take in the magnificent views of the most northerly tips of the south island.
The vast scale of everything was certainly a taste of things to come. We arrived in the picturesque and sunny town of Picton where we stopped for a spot of lunch and checked to make sure that the south island was on-line. I had obviously spent long enough in New Zealand that the rugged, outdoors culture was beginning to affect me. I found myself wandering into the compulsory local ‘Hunting & Fishing’ store intent on making a purchase. Luckily, I did not emerge with a rifle but with a telescopic fishing rod, numerous pieces of tackle and some local knowledge. This was obviously a sound investment as it would not only reward us with limitless quantities of fish dinners but would also ensure that our relationship would last longer than the hire period of the van! I can happily report that the latter objective has been achieved however the former has been sadly disappointing. I managed to fish on about 6-8 occasions throughout the south island (for a total of maybe 4 hours) but the only bites that I experienced were from the persistent sandfly! The rod has now been carefully packed away and I believe there are a lot of scared barracuda in Australia!
For those of you not familiar with New Zealand, the northern tip of south island is known as the Marlborough region and is world-famous for its white wines. What is less well known is Karen’s affinity for this product. I am sure you are all shocked by this fact but I have to tell you that she has been known to partake in a glass or two on special occasions. We headed quickly to Nelson, the largest town in the region, abandoned the van and headed out on a wine tour. We sampled about 5 wines in each of the 4 boutique vineyards that we visited with a local guide and a pleasant Norwegian couple. Our host regaled us with tales of a Russian tour group which had diverted their tour via a liquor store to supplement their wine tasting with a few crates of vodka. Karen obviously saw this as a challenge but was disappointed to find that the sample of each wine was not a full bottle. In some vineyards they even disallowed her use of her personal tankard and made her drink out of the “ridiculously small glasses”!! She did her best to buy most of the stock from each vineyard and some bottles even remained intact until we got home. We did taste some fantastic wines but sadly as they are were all small vineyards they are not available in the UK at present. We did learn that virtually any bottle that is from the Marlborough Region and is a sauvignon blanc will be beautiful.
We had carefully planned our trip to Nelson to coincide with the Rugby World Cup Final as the town was large enough to have a fanzone in the city centre. We had seen many of these areas with huge TV screens in the bigger towns and cities but hadn’t watched any of the games from them. By the day of the big game New Zealand was beyond fever pitch and was full of cautious optimism. We joined about 4,500 locals in the street for a few beers and soaked up the expectant atmosphere. The mildly rowdy crowd were jubilant as the All Blacks dived over for an early score but this quickly turned into astonishment and disbelief as kicks were missed and the French came more and more into the game. After a sombre, angst-ridden hour or so the crowd finally found its voice with about 30 seconds of the game remaining and then slowly wound it up thereafter. A prevailing sense of relief was most palpable with “let’s not wait another 24 years” being the most frequently heard comment. The cars tooted their horns and waved flags as they passed along the main street through most of the night. I expect that there will be similar scenes in Dunfermline when Scotland win the 2015 RWC.
From Nelson we headed up towards the Abel Tasman National Park in the north-west corner of south island. This is a 500 square kilometre area of uninhabited rugged, mountains and stunning long, deserted white beaches. There are no roads in the park so we had to live just outside it and accessed it by a water taxi. We then had a 4-hour, (12km) hike back to our starting point through the most spectacular, unspoilt rainforest imaginable. This has certainly been one of the highlights of all our travels to date and a must-do for anyone coming to NZ. For those who are particularly hardy, we met various people who were ‘tramping (trekking) and camping’ for several days through the wilderness and would be awesome. Well, apart from having to live without a hairdryer!
As we proceeded down the west coast we found huge expanses of farmland with very little population. We spent some great nights in small sites and some in the absolute middle of nowhere. We visited several stinky seal colonies, spending nights by the beach and on other we slept completely unaccompanied along the banks of beautiful lakes which apparently had no fish in them. Slightly further down the coast we hit the little pockets of tourism based around the glaciers at Franz Josef and Fox (yes, Fox’s glacier- but apparently not very minty!!).These were our first tastes of the resorts which have sprung up around skiing and adrenaline sports, filled with trendy bars and opportunities to see everything by helicopter or hurl yourselves off or at something. We did neither but did walk up to the glaciers and appreciate the colossal scale and beauty of the snow-dusted mountains.
Finally, we arrived in the adrenaline capital of New Zealand, Queenstown. We had heard great things about Queenstown and were certainly impressed by the surrounding scenery and bars, restaurants and amenities of the town. It was as if we had discovered civilisation again! We found a campsite bang in the centre of town, right under the cable car which ran up a cliff-like slope to a hub which glowed like a UFO in the sky above us at night. Karen was all geared up to test her body’s ability to produce adrenaline in Queenstown by bungying and skydiving. Unfortunately, prior to her completing these activities, she found that the 2” height of a kerb in the street was too great a height for her to jump from as she went over on her ankle while out running. Much swelling, bruising, cursing and hobbling followed but sadly the plans for the adrenaline sports were temporarily shelved and shall hopefully now be done in Australia when she is 100% again. I am pleased to report that she is walking and cursing normally again. I managed to rig up some immediate first aid with cling film and frozen prawns which obviously reduced her recovery time. I also learnt that ladies like sympathy rather than practical, pragmatic advise at time like these. I intended to go on a white-knuckle jet boat ride down a tight canyon but the weather was rotten one day and we took the wrong road out of town the next so I missed out. Again, I may get the opportunity to do similar in Australia somewhere. After the severe anxiety and vertigo experienced in the cable car of Singapore, I plucked up courage to ride in the one in Queenstown. This turned out to be much lower to the ground so wasn’t too difficult. All the ‘dudes’ there were coming back down the mountain on by bike but as we had forgotten all our body armour we came down more gently, in the luge. These glorified go-karts were a little tame but fun nevertheless. The other notable thing we did in Queenstown was see some kiwis. No, not the locals (as the majority in Queenstown are British!), but the rare birds. In darkened houses, illuminated by infra-red lamps we watched these strange creatures scrape around in the dirt. Well worth seeing though. It is notable that they are roughly the size and shape of a brown, hairy football. So if you are in NZ and see a shape resembling this, please do not kick it. Apparently they pack quite a kick back and are fiercely territorial so may even get the better of you!!
A mere 300km west of Queenstown is the world heritage site of Milford Sound, located within a vast region known as Fiordland. As the name suggests, these huge U-shaped valleys were carved out by glaciers, leaving magnificent scenery behind. The long drive through the deep canyons made Glencoe look like a pothole. Karen was more interested in viewing the insides of her eyelids and was rudely awakened by a member of the local constabulary who noted that we had crept slightly over the speed limit. In usual traffic cop style I was made to feel very irresponsible when he clocked me doing a crazy 72mph in a 60mph limit! I felt more than a little aggrieved as I was in the middle a line of traffic all doing the same speed but was the only one stopped. When questioned, the cop told me that he didn’t know what speed the car in front of me had been doing and told me that many tourists had been the cause of RTAs. I was given a £60 fine but no points and, as I am leaving the country this week, the police are unlikely to receive any of my bank details in the near future! Just a few miles down the road I had to flash my headlights at an on-coming campervan who was driving on the right-hand side of the road. Bloody tourists, I hear that they cause accidents!!! Due to the remoteness, Milford Sound itself had very little buildings within it. Apart from a small tourist centre/ferry terminal there was only a large car park filled by tourist buses. I travelled on one of the 2-hour ferry rides to take in the majestic sights. Karen was still too tired from the gruelling drive to venture out so had a wee nap instead. We spent a night by ‘Cascading Creek’ (in the middle of nowhere) with just the sound of the water for company and headed for Dunedin in the morning.
In stark contrast to Fiordland, the countryside of Otago (where Dunedin is located) was rolling and relatively flat, leading me to pine for Fife. You don’t hear that expression every day!! Sadly the weather in Dunedin was similar to Fife as well. We found a campsite down by the beach and wandered around the town looking for places to shelter from the rain. We walked down Princes Street, along Cumberland Street, into Manor place, up George Street, Queen Street and down to the Water of Leith. Was it just me who had a certain sense of De ja vu?? Other than the street names, Dunedin really doesn’t resemble Edinburgh and actually felt more like Dundee. Just without the neds. We visited a very nice art gallery as it was warm and dry and Karen found her heaven- a tour around the Cadbury’s chocolate factory! Like a small child in the Willie Wonka films, Karen was wide-eyed and transfixed as we were herded by our guide who fed us chocolates like eager puppies at training classes. With blood-sugar levels brimming we headed for the sanctuary of the pub where I just happened to meet an old friend from med school who works as a GP in Dunedin. Karen smelt trouble so made a break for the door as we put the world to rights. He works 3.5 days a week, lives in many acres of land, has 8 sheep (he self-butchered number 9), hunts deer, catches huge fish and grows all his own vegetables. He must wake every morning to wonder where his life went so wrong!
We had a night’s stopover on the way up to Christchurch from Dunedin and then spent a couple of nights in Christchurch. We were keen to see the English-university-town side of Christchurch but also to see the damage that the terrible earthquakes of September 2010 and February 2011 had caused. We were a bit self-conscious about being tourists coming to view a macabre sight but were pleasantly impressed by the locals’ positive and pragmatic attitude to their awful situation. Virtually the whole city centre was cordoned off to the public, leaving only views along the once bustling main streets which were now eerily silent. Most buildings looked largely intact on first inspection but had large cracks up their walls and almost all central buildings were condemned. Many of the beautiful old buildings were devastated and appeared little more than rubble and now had gap sites as neighbours where obviously other buildings once stood. Even when just walking around the streets one was conscious of large cracks in the pavements. The focal point of the town, Christchurch Cathedral, wasn’t even visible as all its surrounding streets were closed. I can definitely say that I have never experienced anything like what I saw that day. The wide-ranging scale of the damage, focussed on the city centre was striking. In the suburbs a few buildings were obviously damaged but appeared to be functioning relatively normally. The resilience of the locals was palpable. There was real excitement and debate over what plans should be made to construct a new CBD from scratch and democracy seemed to be in action as the citizens were consulted on what they wanted from their new city centre. A new, temporary shopping centre had just opened with retail units working out of corrugated transport containers that you see on ships. This place had a real buzz and the locals were fascinated with the radical changes that they were seeing every day, both in the building and demolition of structures.
Throughout our travels in New Zealand we met Christchurch residents who had lost their homes, jobs and often everything else. Many had left the area to live in other cities and many were scraping an existence by living in caravans on campsites. Fun for a few weeks but not long term. It will be interesting to see how the city changes over the next few years. Away from the centre, life seemed to function well. We attended a lovely jazz festival in the sunny Hagley Park and a wonderful firework display down on New Brighton beach. Although this was a somewhat sombre note to end our New Zealand travels on, we have loved the people, the food, the drinks, the countryside and, of course, the rugby. It’s everywhere and permeates everything in NZ. And I love it!

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Photos

All aboard the tractor to the beach
Abel Tasmin Water Taxi

Comments

[Michelle]

Another great tale...
Ha ha love this one. My favourite wine of the moment is actually a Malborough - Milford Point - well when Sainsburys have it on half price it is. Just got back from our trip Karen - loved Jamaica. I'm sure you'll be in need of a holiday when you get back and I can recommend you go there! Yeah mon! Lots of love to you both xxxxx