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Published: December 19th 2009
Cathedral Square
They love their ice creams over here...Leaving Lake Tekapo, we journeyed up through Mackenzie country which is a large area of flat scrub land surrounded by mountains. It was named after James Mackenzie who first discovered the area and decided it was a great place to raise sheep. A lot of other things are named after this chap, roads, dams, towns and the pass through which he entered the area. All this isn’t that unusual until you hear that the chap was a criminal, he was found to be farming sheep that he had ‘acquired’ (with the help of his trusty sidekick, his dog Friday) rather than purchased, a pretty serious crime back then. After his capture in 1855, a long time in prison and a number of escapes he was pardoned on condition that he left the country and sure enough was never heard of again. People assume that he simply crossed the Tasman Sea to join all the other criminals, which our Kiwi driver delighted in informing us. So it isn’t just Australia that celebrate their criminals.
Our destination for today was the city of Christchurch, known as the Garden City, which is the largest city in the South Island and is located in
Having a punt
Didn't expect this over here the Canterbury region. New Zealanders refer to Christchurch as their “English City” and it is easy to see why. On arrival the layout of the city and the style of the houses, complete with gardens, is reminiscent of many an English town and on further inspection street names such as Salisbury Street, Gloucester Street and Victoria Street made us feel completely at home. Not surprising, therefore, that we immediately liked the place. On our first evening we had arranged to meet up with Sonia and Yukari, who were flying out of NZ to continue their travels in different parts of the world, and we had a lovely evening putting the world to rights. It was a shame to say goodbye as we had enjoyed bumping into them periodically along the magic trail and had enjoyed some memorable, and scary, experiences with them.
The following day we walked around the city and took in the sites starting with the main focal point, Cathedral Square. The Cathedral was built from 1864-1904 and is only one of the structures which dominates the square. Facing the cathedral entrance is a statue of John Robert Godley, who was the founder of Canterbury, and on
It's Christmas
Even the trams are feeling festive the other side of the entrance is a sculpture called the ‘Chalice’, which was erected as a celebration of the new millennium and the 150th anniversary of the founding of Christchurch and Canterbury. The square is obviously a popular meeting place for, as well as a great little market, there were people playing chess, buskers, a small group of climate change protestors saving the world, and people just milling around or sitting have a cup of coffee and people watching. Our wanderings led us to Victoria Square, named after Queen Victoria, which contains not only a statue of the good lady herself, but also a statue of Captain Cook and a special poupou (an upright carving) which commemorates the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. Here we also glimpsed the Avon River - could it get any more English. Well as it turned out yes, because just round the corner was a couple enjoying a punt on the river. We had been punting in Cambridge, with Matthew doing all the hard work, and it didn’t look quite the same but not a bad way to spend a lazy afternoon. The city also has a tram system which you can take
Kaikoura
Great Crayfish to view the sites of the city, along with an informative talk, however we decided to walk the city this time as it was relatively compact. These trams were gaily decorated for Christmas, a lovely little touch. Continuing with our walk we went into Hagley Park and were really taken back by how well it was utilised by the locals, who were delighting on a lovely afternoon in games of cricket, football, baseball and golf or just enjoying walking round its perimeter (which is quite some walk). The city’s Botanical Gardens are here as well and apparently well worth a look - although we didn’t. The city never felt overly busy and this seems to be the recurring theme throughout New Zealand, both North and South Island, but when the country’s total population is less than London’s that is not surprising. This quintessential English City was a definite hit with us, even though many of the shops didn’t seem to open on a Saturday and was almost deserted in the evenings. It had a nice friendly feel and it just needed for the weather to be consistently sunny for it to be a winner - just like an English town
Snoozing
Not in the slightest bit bothered by the happy snappers then!
We were really looking forward to the following day as this would take us along some lovely rugged coastline to the small town of Kaikoura for a little bit of whale watching. Apparently the name Kaikoura in Maori means “meal of crayfish” which is plentiful in the waters around the town (and which we sampled one evening - delicious). En route we stopped off at the seal colony on the outskirts of Kaikoura itself and were absolutely amazed as we walked over a little footbridge to find NZ Fur Seals just basking on the grass and rocks. They didn’t seem to be at all perturbed by a load of excitable, camera wielding humans snapping photos of them and they graciously lay there as we disturbed their obvious enjoyment of the sun. After our check-in at the hostel (great location in the middle of town) we headed off for the main entertainment here. Our whale trackers, we had been reliably informed, were the best at locating our quarry. Some of their success is down to the fact that just off the coast of Kaikoura there is a deep trench, known appropriately as the Kaikoura Canyon, which has been created
Think you've got an issue
This sperm whale has the ultimate cellulite problem by the subduction and collision of oceanic and continental plates. It is here that sperm whales come to feed in its deep waters on giant squid and then come to surface and spout very close to the shore. We were told that if we were lucky we would be seeing male sperm whales as the females prefer warmer water (how sensible). Obviously we didn’t care what sex they were as long as we saw some. A few minutes on the boat speeding out to sea and the crew opened the doors for our first sighting. We all scrambled out like mad things with our cameras ready not really knowing what to expect or how near to the boat it would be and how much we would see. We were not disappointed. There, not far in front of the boat just basking in the cold dark ocean was a gigantic male sperm whale - astoundingly beautiful and majestic as it ignored our intrusion into its blissful existence and gracious enough to enable us to view it for a while. Total silence descended on the boat as we were all totally awe struck by the beautiful creature and then slowly it took
Tail Time
These magnificent creatures wave goodbye then dive to the depths for the next meal. its last breath, spouted, arched its back and with a last flick of its tail descended to the depths where we could not follow. The exclamations of “wow” that came from every spectator on the boat were about as articulate as we could manage and as a form of expression it seemed inadequate. We all would have been happy with one sighting, but no sooner had he plunged to the depths than we were off speeding towards a second whale. Again we all felt honoured and humbled by the experience and this feeling didn’t diminish even though in total we managed to see 4 of these magnificent creatures. Apparently this was a good day, they normally only see 1 or 2 - how lucky were we. All too soon we had to change locations in search of the Dusky Dolphins, known as the ‘acrobats of the sea’. We were quite disappointed, we wanted to stay searching for more whales as we were totally enraptured with them, but this soon changed as we saw in the distance a pod of dolphins jumping and cavorting. Apparently this was a breeding group and those performing the stunning aerial acrobatics were the males showing
Dancing Dolphins
Magnificent. The dusky males strutting their stuff. Impressed us anyway. off to the females (need I say more). They were absolutely delightful and enchanting as they sped at full pelt towards the boat, swerving to avoid each other and us and then leaping out of the water, spinning and turning somersaults. You could clearly hear them clicking and blowing as they passed close by and our presence didn’t seem to disturb them at all, in fact they seemed to enjoy playing with the boat. They must have been having a great time and just watching them could lift anyone’s spirits - not that ours needed lifting of course. They were at once entertaining, charming and comical and whilst the majestic sperm whales totally held us spellbound by their sheer size and gracefulness these funny little dolphins kept us spellbound by their comical antics. Both were totally beautiful in their separate ways and we felt grateful that they let us intrude for a short while. On the way back to shore we passed another seal colony and saw mores NZ Fur Seals basking in the sun - which is what they seem to like doing best. We also went in search of the elusive Albatross, finally after a few false alarms
Furry
Yep still more snoozing managing to see one paddling along quite merrily on the sea. It’s size only becoming apparent as it spread it’s huge wings and flew off into the distance. Yep, sorry this might be getting boring, but this was yet another stunning day, with dreams coming true for both of us.
The evening was topped off by a drink down the pub to say goodbye to Julia who we had been travelling with on Magic. We met a couple of nice blokes also from England and started to put the worlds to right with a Kiwi farmer. After declining his offer to go to his place for a few drinks (as we all had early buses to catch the next day) and to sample some of his local home grown tobacco(!), he eventually declared that he had had enough of us “bloody poms” and headed off home. Julia is also travelling to Oz and Asia, so we arranged to meet up New Year’s Eve in Sydney. Great end to the day.
Our final day in the South Island came early and we headed off to Picton and the ferry crossing to Wellington. This part of the journey took us
through the wine country of Marlborough and its pleasant hilly pastures - tempting, but we had decided to leave our wine tasting until later in the trip. Unlike the ferry journey down south, we had great weather and, as we had been told, the scenery turned out to be absolutely stunning. We both felt a bit sad to be leaving the South Island as it had provided us with so many memories, but it also left us with the determination to come back some day and experience more of what it has to offer. The trip was lovely in the sun and all too soon we arrived in windy Wellington.
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