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Published: November 19th 2006
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Sunday 12 November
After breakfast we made a reasonably early start on our walk up the Hooker Valley after getting well kitted out in coats, hats and gloves. It certainly isn't a wonder that a third of the Mount Cook N.P. is covered by permanent snow and ice! Our first stop was the Alpine Monument, which was dotted with numerous little plaques commemorating lives lost in the area and a testament to the awesome power of nature. Speaking of which, as we recommenced the walk, we were being buffeted about by near gale force winds, although after 12 hours of rain the previous night we weren't complaining. We got some great views of Mount Cook/Aoraki (meaning 'Cloud Piercer') and massive ice shelfs, as well as huge chunks of ice floating about in the Hooker Glacier terminal lake.
After a leisurely lunch we took another walk from the campsite up to Kea Point with views of the Moeller Glacier, which on our morning stroll we had wrongly assumed to have retreated out of view. In fact, it was just covered with a hefty amount of gravelly moraine, like most of the glaciers this side of the divide. Following this we
wandered back into the village for Simon to get a refillable hot chocolate at the historic hotel, The Hermitage, and a chance for me to catch up on my celebrity goss via OK. The evening was spent as most are at a DOC campsite - playing games and reading, with us both cracking through a fair number of books.
Monday
We woke early and took the opportunity to breakfast al fresco, with lots of birds well used to human presence trying to get in on the action. Leaving Mount Cook Village, we stopped in at the Tasman Glacier, which was impressive although in a different way from Fox as it too was covered in morraine. Although heavily retreating as evidenced by its terminal lake, the Tasman remains the longest in NZ at approximately 29km. Continuing on towards Lake Tekapo, we were treated to more impressive views of Mount Cook.
Lake Tekapo is a classic stop point for the many tour buses that patrol the country and complete with many a souvenir shop as well as the lovely Church of the Good Shepherd and Collie dog statue. After a brief stop, we had lunch at Burke's Pass, where
View of Tasman Glacier face
If you're wondering where the glacier is, it's that shelf of rubble behind us! At the face it's actually 200m deep of ice with only a couple of metres of gravel heaped on top. the famous Jock McKenzie of these parts was captured with his stolen sheep. We arrived in Geraldine, our stop for the night in some glorious sunshine and decided to bask in it for the rest of the afternoon.
Briefly checking our emails, we heard some horrible news about some Dutch honeymooners attacked up north in their campervan overnight, having parked up illicitly in a beauty spot carpark! NZ is certainly not the safe place it's cracked up to be and I was glad to have been advised by my friends at Buddle Findlay not to do the same thing.
Tuesday
Despite more wet conditions and realising that it did not bode well for our plans for the day, we drove out to Peel Forest where we were hoping to raft on the Rangitata River. Simon did the same on his previous time in NZ and was impressed with the place and its grade 5 conditions. Unfortunately however, the eight inches of rain overnight at Mount Cook meant that most of the rivers either side of the Alps were in flood and would be for the next couple of days. Deciding against doing more bush walks in the
rain, we continued to Christchurch, having been told that we could be shuttled back if conditions became more favourable.
Our luck certainly not being in, we got a tyre puncture not long afterwards and after getting some assistance from the AA, ended up shelling out $350 for three new tyres, rather than a mere $20 for a repair - a large bit of sharp rock having gone straight through. Despite a battering to our ANZ balance, we figured that you have to spend money to make money, and if we are hoping to sell Max on returning to Auckland we are going to need a WOF (NZ equivalent of MOT) - for this we needed tyres that were not practically bald!
On arriving into Christchurch we decided to catch a movie, not having been since Pirates back in Chile. There wasn't much on and we settled for Flags of our Fathers, not a bad film, but both of us agreed that we would have preferred something more uplifting (Borat perhaps??).
Wednesday
We bussed into the City for the day and set about exploring, checking out Cathedral Square, the CBD shopping (again mainly Japanese souvenir shops), the
botanic gardens, Avon River, museum and Arts Centre, which is based in the old university site. The museum and art gallery were particularly good, with the latter housed in a modern building designed to reflect the national fern leaf - a fact I devined on my own, despite it not being particularly obvious (Livi, you would be proud of my artistic interpretations!). Both of us had our hair trimmed for a bargain price of $30 (a tenner) and we grabbed fish and chips for tea before meeting up with our German friend Anja for drinks and a catch up on 'The Strip'.
Thursday
After being rudely awoken by our American neighbours discussing the virtues of Mills & Boon novels loudly at about ten to eight, we got ready for the day by digging out some summer gear. Yes, a warm and sunny day believe it or not! We headed out to Akaroa on the Banks Peninsula, which is made up of two extinct volcano cones, the town itself being a former French Settlement...yup the frogs were all set to make NZ Nouvelle Zeeland when the poms caught on, whipped up the Treaty of Waitangi and made sure the
Crown was in charge (not doing a very good job with their legal drafting as they managed to make the English and Maori versions rather different).
After a gorgeous drive with much apologising to Max for the hilly terrain, we whiled away the day enjoying the little shops and pier, although no dolphin swimming as hoped because funds are a bit tight.
Friday
We met up again with Anja in the morning and took a drive out to the other volcanic harbour on the Banks Peninsula, Lyttleton, via Sumner where we had a pleasant stroll on the beach, exploring some lava caves. Lyttleton itself was particularly quiet given that it was a Bank Holiday with most of the locals presumably out at the Canterbury Agricultural Show. After a wander we continued north up the coast to New Brighton, which was complete with a modern pier and library on the beach. We watched some people fishing for a bit while listening to Anja worry about cruelty to crabs/fish and then had lunch. Seeing as it started to drizzle we decided to head back to the campsite to chill out after dropping Anja back in town.
We rang
Ranitata Rafts for one last check whether it was on for the morrow, but with a negative reply booked ourselves onto another venture back up north near Tauranga. As this is a hydro-controlled river, we are hopeful that it will be less unpredictable weather-wise.
Saturday
We ventured back into Christchurch for some necessities and another wander around some markets/along the Avon, before heading north on SH1 towards Kaikoura. On the way we passed some extremely swollen rivers and returned to hill country after the flatness of the Canterbury Plains. We arrived in Kaikoura shortly after lunch and had a look around the town, which is mainly a mecca for whale watchers and was full of the usual backpacker crowd.
We relaxed for the evening in our busy campsite after I had a brief dip in the "heated pool", which at 24 degrees was too cold for Simon.
Sunday
Another relatively quiet day started with Simon in the TV room watching the All Blacks beat the French (again) while I continued to devour The Constant Gardener. We then drove out onto the Kaikoura Peninsula, where there is another seal colony and possibly some dolphins visible jumping in the waves. After a walk about we made our way north again, checking out Blenheim on the way back to the Grevens, who we are staying with again for a few days prior to catching our ferry back to Wellington.
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Jen & Steve, J,E & B
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Steve's a green eyed monster!!
Well we've been keeping track of your fantastic experiences and the kids now act as if it's the norm to be glasier walking and mountain climbing/hiking etc!! I showed Jaz the article in the NZ mail of the 'Max Robber' - her comments being 'Oh he's scarey - he's got a quiff!!' Mmmm - she's got a lot of learning to do yet! Steve silently reads your blog - with massive comments such as 'mmmmmm' and 'not bad' - well what else would we expect from him eh? Occasionaly, his top lip tightens and he gets figity, thats when I know he's really envious! Anyway - keep safe and enjoy - love from us all xxx