Tales from Te Wai Pounamu

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Crossing Cook Strait from Wellington to Picton by a gigantic ferry is by far a more civilized experience than taking a similar ferry from Helsinki either to Stockholm or Tallinn, namely due to the complete absence of legions of badly dressed Finns being either in process of getting obnoxiously drunk or hoarding tax-free booze behaving as if the Prohibition were abolished just yesterday, causing one to consider whether one is actually better off jumping off the board rather than being stuck in a confined space with the aforementioned fellow passengers for any meaningful period of time. Meanwhile on the other side of the world, we thoroughly enjoy the 3 hour crossing, spending most of the time on the outer deck absorbing the magnificent landscape of the rugged coastline displaying all the imaginable shades of green. Whosoever coined the phrase that Ireland is the Emerald Isle, had obviously not been to New Zealand, for that title belongs unreservedly to the South Island of New Zealand. The sea is calm, the sun is shining and the lush green coastline with vertical cliffs and a promise of adventure is steadily approaching. It appears our timing for the island hopping is propitious.

If you pardon me for the shamelessly circumlocutory introduction, rest assured, I will keep the rest of the blog, at least slightly, more concise. After a night in Picton, a main naval access point to the South Island, we begin exploring the surrounding sounds, a convoluted maze of inlets, bays, beaches and headlands. We do a couple of walks and find a perfect spot to stay overnight - Mistletoe Bay. We hire a kayak to get a better perspective of the bay, strangely enough though, instead of kayaking around the bay, we somehow end up collecting mussels for dinner. The dinner harvested, we discover by empirical methods that the temperature of seawater is much cooler on this side of Cook Strait. Our next destination is the famous Marlborough wine country, known especially for its exquisite Sauvignon Blancs. However, we begin the wine tour with a visit to a local chocolate factory, procuring some orgasmic lemon-chocolate truffles to accompany the forthcoming wine tastings. With my wife being on chocolate induced high, I sacrifice myself to be the designated drinker and embrace the Dionysian frenzy. The first tasting we do is at Alan Scott's estate and we are actually more fond of their Gewurtzaminer with aromas of rosa petal and gingery spices than their Sauvignon Blanc, which is bit too intense to our liking. The next tasting is across rhe road at Cloudy Bay, where we enjoy some well-balanced sweet late harvest Riesling with a plate of cheese and charcuterie. Then it's time for a history lesson, that is, a visit to the oldest winery of the valley - Auntsfield Estate. The estate is off the beaten track and requires a wee bit more effort to access than other vineyeards of the valley. That said, it is absolutely worthwhile, we are the only visitors and get a fascinating lecture on the history of winemaking in the region in general and Auntsfield estate in particular while enjoying the estate's divine rosé. We continue the libations at Villa Maria, where we finally find Sauvignon Blanc that agrees with our palates, acquiring couple of bottles. The lesson of the day - too much of good things is just wonderful, at least until tomorrow morning.

Leaving Marlborough behind, we follow the coastal highway to pictoresque Kaikoura. About 30 km before the town, there is a sign for a lookout, we pull over, get off the car, and notice all but immediately a peculiar stench. It takes us a while to locate the source of the odour, big fat furseals sunbathing on nearby rocks, looking happy as pigs in shit. We have come upon one of the few remaining furseal colonies left on the East Coast, that are slowly recovering after being hunted almost to a point of extinction by the first white settlers. Kaikoura is a gorgeous town surrounded by the mountains and the sea and one of the best places in New Zealand for whale spotting. It used to be a whaling station, where thousands of whales got butchered, a fact we are reminded of by a park wall made of massive sperm whale bones. Kaikoura is also an old battle site, where some fierce intra Maori tribe fighting took place in 1828. After two days in Kaikoura, we leave the East Coast and spend a day driving through the mountain passes to the West Coast, the most scarcely populated region of New Zealand. In this rough region of rugged mountains and hidden beaches, there's splendid ambiance of isolation and remoteness, reminiscent of some regions of Finland. We could easily spend a day or two in wilderness without meeting another living soul. However that's where the similarities end, as the few natives we meet here, might not be caffė latte slurping urban types, but they do still know, at least, the very basic social skills, such as saying hello, goodbye and thank you while maintaining an eye contact, something which regrettably cannot be said of an average Finn. Before leaving the West Coast, we go to say hello to Franz Josef and Fox glaciers. Franz Josef, sorry to hurt your feelings but we liked Fox better.

From the West Coast our journey continues via adrenaline laced Queenstown, the self acclaimed adventure capital of the world, to mystical Fjordland. Entering Queenstown feels like entering any Swiss ski resort - snow-capped mountains in background, lot of ski shops, trendy bars and cafes and a lively young crowd wearing the latest fashion. We are completely gobsmacked by a vivid deja-vu, only thing missing here is fondue. We hit a couple of bars enjoying some locally produced artisan beers and allegedly the best burgers in NZ, if the queue for burgers is anything to judge by, that might well be the case. Nastya's dream of seeing a Kiwi bird also comes true as she visits a Kiwi sanctuary. The birds with the prominent beaks finally seen, we carry on towards Fjordlands, a savage frontier of jagged mountains and pristine forests sliced by numeours deep fjords. The region is so remote and inaccessible that it has lead some dreamers to claim that Moa birds, that have been extinct for centuries, are still roaming out there. The main attraction of Fjordland is Milford Sound and one of the few places accessible by a car. Technically speaking, sound is a misnomer and more accurate name would be fjord, but since the original settlers were from England and Wales, they didn't have a clue about fjords, hence sounds. The two and half hour drive from Te Anau to Milford is simply stunning experience. Emerging from the Homer Tunnel and dropping into the Cleddau Valley's of ice and rock , one feels like an inconsequential smudge on the landscape. The sheer size of this icy amphitheater is astonishing. Arriving to Milford Sound, we cannot stop taking pictures. Without any exaggeration, Milford Sound is one of the most beautiful places we have seen, worth all the hyperbole. No wonder Rudyard Kipling called the place the eight wonder of the world. We take the nearly obligatory cruise and spend 90 minutes with a crowd going ooh and aah as we venture out and get greeted by dolphins. The cruise ship takes a dip under a huge waterfall and we get refreshingly wet. There are no creepy crawlies in NZ but we learn the hard way that the paradise has its shadows -the damned swarms of bloodsucking sandflies. The Maori legend has it that the Goddess of Death became envious after seeing Milford Sound and created sandflies so that the people wouldn't enjoy the place too much. Fittingly enough, it's only the females flies that are after your blood, the male ones are happy with flowers and such. Truly divine bitchiness.

The first of March is the launch of Bluff oyster season, the biggest commercial harvest of wild oysters in the world. The oyster fleet sets off from Bluff, hence the name, to Foveaux Strait, where the oysters get dredged. Those in the know share a well-kept secret, Bluff oysters are the finest in the world. Obviously we have to confirm this by our own mouths, and thus follow the State Highway 1 to its very end, which happens to be Bluff. We procure two dozens of fresh oysters and continue driving to Slope Point, the most southern point of the South Island. We enjoy a delicious lunch of oysters while getting entertained by glorious sea-lions basking in the afternoon sun on the beach. We both become new converts of Bluff oysters, the farmed oysters of Normandy have met their winner.

On a comparison to North Island, Maori presence is less visible, given that only about 5 per cent of Maoris live on the South Island, but it can still be felt, partly because the native culture is interwoven to the social fabric of the contemporary Kiwi nation. Then again, the Kiwis, unlike the Aussies, didn't subject their indigenous people to a policy of forced cultural assimilation, a policy that could have ben taken from the cookbook of the Third Reich, a policy that saw tens of thousands of Aboriginal children being literally snatched from the arms of their parents, given either to white foster parents (girls mostly) or placed in institutions, resulting in many occasions the children never seeing their real parents again. State-operated kidnapping of children and thus disconnecting their cultural heritage went on until late 1970s, resulting what is now known collectively as the stolen generations. Sorry about steering a bit off topic, but the cultural genocide of Aboriginals is something we feel stronly about.

Before escaping the imminent autumn, we spend the last weekend in Christchurch, the scarred city that has been shaken and stirred by more than 8000 earthquakes since 2010. The entire city centre has been cordoned off, waiting to be taken down. We have an eerie Sunday walk amidst the ruins thinking this is how a war zone would look like. Broken avenues with not asingle living soul walking upon them, this could be from some apocalyptic zombie movie, but unfortunately this is for real. However, it is inspriring to see a new shopping mall that has been built of shipping containers. Never underestimate the capitalism and the human spirit.

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