Sorry, so keen to publish…… Forgot the picture again…….
Red on
Sea lion ……
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Monthly Archives: January 2013
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Sitting in the most Scottish of Scots towns under Robbie Burns’ statue on his birthday, I’m waiting for a travel agent to sort out some bookings for me in Fiji. I’m tired of studying Lonely Planet every day, and going for a package option. Not a true traveller any more.
Since arriving in December I have been from within 100km of the northernmost tip of the country, to the southernmost and have covered a fair few kilometres since Wanaka, including some double backing, owing to bad planning. Still it’s good to see the road from both directions!! The disadvantage about travelling alone, is that as perpetual driver, it’s hard to take in the landscape, which makes me sorry, as it always stunning, be it dramatic or gentle. From Doubtful Sound, one of the fiords, to a day’s cycling in Middle Earth. I nearly asked for my money back when the guide said we’d be covering about 150 km, but there was a support vehicle, which more importantly than carrying our picnic, was able to take the seven of us and the bikes.
The next day, an indirect route (to avoid driving the road already journeyed twice) down to the bottom right hand corner of South Island. Missed junctions added to the mileage (I blame the lack of signage , if you want to go off the main road you’re obviously presumed to be local). However the reward was seeing a yellow-eyed penguin coming home across beach and a sea lion coming out of the breakers onto the shore ( huge beasties….I certainly wouldn’t ignore the advice that you shouldn’t be within 10 metres of them, and that’ s just for their protection!)
The YHA that night had been an old people’s home …..it still smelt like it and was in a small remote town which gave me the creeps! so I set off very early next morning and pottered down to Canibal Bay, another drive on unsealed roads, very usual here. After taking a few photos, I thought I would just walk over the rocks to get a different view, when there was a little squeak…… I’d nearly trodden on a Blue penguin. These are the smallest penguin and live in burrows, most have chicks at the moment so I don’t know what this little chap was doing, apart from trying to avoid my feet. Possibly on his way back from catching breakfast for his offspring?
So from there to Dunedin, where I have had a great time, visits to museums, the art gallery, cinema, guided walking tour of the city, out to see more penguins, sea lions and albatrosses. A good way to end my trip here.
Well almost, tomorrow I will call on another ex Butchers Arms customer…… That’s all for now, folks!
Triathlons and cooking
In Wanaka, and had no idea that this weekend there is an International Triathlon Event. In fact everyone I speak to is surprised that I didn’t know. Just shows how parochial I am.
In Christchurch, I picked up a hire car, a great improvement to my travels. Firstly I went to stay with an old friend from Butchers Arms (Ampney Crucis) days who has been out here for about 22 years. He was a great source of knowledge both from the farming angle and the settlers’ histories, as he volunteers three days a week in the local, Timaru, museum. Also he is transcribing old diaries written by the people who settled his homestead originally.
From Timaru a beautiful drive to Mount Cook, passing Lake Pukaki, where the water is the most unbelievable pastel shade of turquoises, greens and blues and on up to the village below the mountain, (the highest in New Zealand, where both Mannering and Edmond Hillary cut their mountaineering teeth). By then everything was covered in cloud, but on the lower shoulders on the nearest mountain it was easy to see glaciers, both dirty and gritty as well as the beautiful blue green you expect. But no Mount Cook. The clouds were low through the night, and as predicted it snowed higher up, so by next morning everything was visible, clean and shiny white.
I went for a long tramp, and got incredibly cold and wet, but worth it, because I saw, albeit mini, icebergs on the lake I had reached, cast off by the glacier at the head of the valley. So cold, that when I stood under the shower on returning, I scalded myself, as I couldn’t feel how hot the water was. By the time I was ready for a restorative hot chocolate and cake at the cafe across the road, it was snowing!!! Still it made the mountains even more awesome.
So through more beautiful landscapes to Wanaka, where the YHA is excellent, but I got some odd looks from fellow hostellers as I finished cooking my beautiful organic salmon with a slosh of wine. Well it’s the first time I’ve cooked in over three months!!……..l
Another missing picture!!
Can’t deal with this technology!!
Vh
Missing pictures
The Western coastline
Vicky…..
Train, rubble and containers
As promised, once the train had gone over the highest point on its journey through the Southern Alps, (there are no Northern Alps here, they, of course are in Switzerland) the weather changed and the sky became bluer and bluer as we travelled east. The scenery was certainly stunning, and I am glad it was part of my travels.
Even though it was after 6.00 p.m. when we arrived in Christchurch it was in the 30s. It is not just a Kiwi myth that the sun is hotter here, it really is, it sears you, it’s like being under a grill. Something to do with a hole in the ozone layer….
The devastation caused by the earthquakes, 2 years ago and prior to that only 6 months before, is seen all over the City, not just around the Cathedral. One building may be fine, its neighbour empty as it’s not safe. The outer walls of a church or just a heap of rubble. I started taking pictures if these as I walked into the centre of the City, but felt more voyeuristic than when photographing snotty-nosed kids in Burma, living very poorly and in hand- me- down clothes. Perhaps because it’s easier to be sympathetic to a way of life one knows.
So I looked on the bright side and kept my eyes open for the new things. There are what are truly “pop-up” restaurants and bars, using brightly painted buses or an area built with wooden pallets that can be used for theatre and concerts, bar cafe, dinners and even banqueting events! These are Re:START, the biggest of which has, to quote the brochure, “quality retailers located in a cool funky city environment” shops, cafes and banks entirely created from brightly coloured shipping containers.” Kiwi ingenuity at its best”.
The City is not big, and many of the museums and galleries are shut, so still having half a day to fill I took a trip on a bus that goes into the ” red zone” . So much for looking for the new! It was very interesting, not just because of being closer than on foot to many buildings, but so much was explained.
I finished the day with a relaxing walk along the Avon, which meanders between Oxford and Cambridge Terraces, and enjoyed taking pics of the busy bees in the Botanic Gardens.
p.s. read on, I have posted three blogs at once. Soreee
Dow Nunder
Dow Nunder
Glad to know that the signs are written so the train drivers can read them … Down Under.
Greymouth
Greymouth
I don’t really need a great big glass of hot chocolate, but there’s nothing else to do in Greymouth (other than eat a breakfast fit for a King, which everyone else in this Cafe is doing on this wet, thundery Sunday morning). I think the only excitement here is the train from Christchurch coming in at 12.30 and departing at 1.30. The train is actually the reason I’m here at all, and had hoped to fill in my 24 hours and 30 minutes by visiting the museum and a few other places of interest, but that shut at 4.00 on Friday afternoon, and the shops all closed at noon yesterday.
Back in Picton, following my tramp, I had an excellent Wine Tour with gourmet lunch, extra, in the Marlborough Vineyards, then onto Nelson. You won’t be surprised to hear that the coach drivers here are better than in Vietnam. Not only do you know you’re not going to die imminently but the driver gives a very good commentary of the countryside, towns and history of settlements.
Nelson is a City with smart shops, good restaurants and cafes. The Cathedral was started as Gothic and was completed in the 60s, trying to be more modern. A grey marble mish-mash. There is a beautiful sheltered beach and the Abel Tasman National Park is on the doorstep. The first day I took a trip up the coast, with a 4 hour tramp back to the boat pick-up. It rained. The sea was rough. The second day I had designated for museums, it was scorching hot.
The coach drive to Greymouth was stunning. We drove down the Buller Gorge for an hour and a half, and later along the Coast road, listed by Lonely Planet as amongst one of the ten top coastal drives in the world.
The locals have kindly said that on a cloudy day like this, once you cross the mountains in the train, the weather changes. It’s certainly very dry over in Christchurch and they have had four days of bad fires.
I might see some mountains on one of “the world’s most scenic train routes”, but may not.
Happy New Year
Happy 2013.
Between Christmas and New Year I did next to nothing, on Boxing Day Jenny and I went into Wellington and went on a tourist trip one afternoon, and another day went into the fabulous museum Te Papa, which was brilliant but so huge we only touched the surface. Another day I went in, had an interesting tour of the Parliament and browsed the Sales. All but the last day of that week the weather was vile.
On 2nd January, I took the ferry to South Island. The night before had been blowing and raining like billio, but it had calmed down a little when I crossed. Everyone on the boat obviously had hangovers as they were clinging to rails or furniture when they stumbled about the boat, till I stood and tried walk too! then realised how choppy it was. I went out on deck, got soaked from the spray and had to hang onto the rail not to get blown away, but very exhilarating.
Only half the journey is through the Cook Straight, then into the Marlborough Sound where the water is sheltered. More stunning landscape, not unlike Scotland, with layer after layer of mountains in the near and far distance. Picton, where the ferry comes in, is much buzzier than anywhere else I’ve been, but maybe because it is now the summer holidays and it’s very dependant on tourists, doing sea activities, cycling and walking, which is why I’ve come here. That evening it bucketed down which didn’t auger well for a five day holiday.
The weather had blown itself out by morning and the day was clear. In fact we had five fine days, about as unusual as a glorious week in the Lake District. We walked through very varied terrain, mostly rain forrest, with different sorts of flora and fauna, lots of Punga trees (fern trees) . Sometimes you could have been walking in the Cotswolds or Devon, through beech woods (though a different sort of beech tree), then come out along a path looking out at crystal clear green sea below and have been in the Mediterranean, then up and down and up again along the ridge, similar but with bigger ups and downs ,to the Malvern Hills. Or looking down a valley with fields of sheep and another inlet, I thought I was looking down at the head of Derwent Water or Buttermere.
In New Zealand you tramp, not hike or walk. We were “glamping”, different from English glamping, glamorous/ camping. This was glamorous/tramping. There were ten of us and we all got on very well, on the fourth day, after a 24.5 km walk the previous day, six of us stayed at the resort and enjoyed sea kayaking and lounging around. Myself and Aussie room mate shared a kayak, neither of us having done it before. All well until the wind came up and it was suddenly not so easy, but a great sense of achievement when we got back to the beach.
The hotels were definitely on the luxurious side, and now I have to re-educate my tummy that eggs Benedict with smoked salmon, a good packed lunch with homemade cake then a three course dinner is not really my New Year’s resolution.
