Day 19 Last Day, Christchurch

3,100 kilometres (and probably just as many shutter presses) after leaving Christchurch on the first day of spring. It’s probably a good time to reflect on the journey.

But first there was the International Antarctic Centre to visit.

It was opened by New Zealand’s Bradman, Sir Edmund Hillary.
In addition to “conquering Everest”, Hillary drove to the South Pole in the late 1950’s in Hegglunds – which the adventurous can take a ride on at the Antarctic Centre.

The highlight for me were the penguins.

They go by a different name here, blue penguins, but they are 20 or so rescued fairy penguins from sub-antarctic islands.

And you can get to see them underwater at feeding time.

On the way to drop off the rental car, I came across a striking church. It’s the oldest all timber church in New Zealand, St. Paul’s in Papanui.

JOURNEY REVIEW

The Highlights:

1. The flights into and from Milford Sound. (Unplanned)

2. Parasailing at Queenstown. (Sort of planned)

3. The Albatross Encounter at Kaikoura. (Unplanned)

4. The Glacier Walk at Fox Glacier. (Sort of Planned)

5. Maruia Falls near Murchison. (Totally accidental)

6. Kaikoura.

7. Snow at Lake Tekapo. (Can’t be planned)

8. Photo Safari. (Totally spontaneous)

9. Puzzling World at Wanaka. (Accidental)

10. The great drives – each equal to the Great Ocean Road:

- Queenstown to the West Coast via Haast Pass

- West Coast to Murchison via the Upper Buller Gorge(unplanned)

- Blenheim to Kaikoura (unplanned)

The Lowlights:

Nil – it’s all worked out better than expected – even the photo’s without a tripod or polarizing filter!

Day 18 Christchurch

The easiest parking in Christchurch is near the Botanic Gardens, and the day had a floral theme.
The gardeners even turned on a rainbow for me.

Throughout Christchurch many of the parks have large patches of daffodils flowering. Nowhere more so than in Hagley Park adjacent to the Gardens.

Yet another striking floral display was around the Scott of the Antarctic statue.

The statue has an interesting story.

Scott spent 3 weeks in Christchurch before his final expedition to reach the South Pole in 1911 (don’t quote me on the dates).
News of his death on the return journey reached New Zealand in 1912.
His wife Lady Scott was a sculptor and did a bronze for London.
The citizens of Christchurch initially commissioned her to do another bronze. By the time it came to be done every bit of metal was dedicated to the First World War, so she sculpted it in marble.
Due to the delicacy of the marble, the fine detail of hands and around his ankle were to be completed after it was installed in Christchurch.
Lady Scott never made it, so it is still unfinished.

Day 17 Kaikoura to Christchurch

An amazing sunrise at Kaikoura …

was followed by a leisurely 2-hour drive to Christchurch that took me 4 hours. The scenery, the seals, the birds, the cliffs, the single lane bridges on the main highways, and the interminable bends are all the same but still compelling.

Christchurch hasn’t changed a lot. Although the Cathedral has some competition in Cathedral Square.

The big vase is officially called “The Chalice”, and was a Millenium Project.

And there is still punting (straw boaters and all) on the River Avon

Day 16 Hanmer Springs

My original itinerary had planned to drive from the glaciers to Kaikoura via the Lewis Pass with a stop at Hanmer Springs.
As it was dull early in Kaikoura, a day trip sounded like a good idea.

Hanmer Springs is to Christchurch as Daylesford is to Melbourne, only the hills are bigger and iced with snow.
There’s a very large heated pools and spa complex.
Very much a B&B weekend getaway type of town.

It’s a good drive and a stop at the Bridge on the River Waiau (pronounced like wire) provided the photos.

“Thrillseeker Canyon” gives you the choice of bungy jumping from the bridge, white-water rafting or jet-boating on the river.
I took photos.

In Hanmer Springs itself the 500 metre high Conical Hill asks to be climbed.

  
So I climbed it  in 30 minutes, had an hour’s R&R at the top, and strolled down in 10 minutes.

The view was worth the effort, although the noon-time sun didn’t help the photos.

After a 2 hour drive back to Kaikoura the day was finished off with a Roast Dinner – my first in months.

Day 15 Kaikoura II

Clouds and fog hid the scenery for most of the day, but there was still plenty of opportunities to try to fulfil The Quest.

Having given up on the YHA Backpacker hostels after Queenstown, (there’s nothing wrong with them but they are not really conducive to privacy), my Kaikoura accommodation does not have an Internet hot spot.
Yesterday, after publishing the blog post from the Kaikoura YHA car park, a local on the rocks across the road put on a little show.

This NZ fur seal climbed up the rocks …

… and promptly went to sleep …

… right in front of my car!

After the “Albatross Encounter” of yesterday I took the chance of a great deal to join the “Dolphin Encounter” this morning.
This involved another boat trip out to “The Trench”.
A pod of 50 or more Dusky Dolphins (not the more common Bottlenose) were “encountered” 15 miles south of Kaikoura.

Those who had paid extra for the privilege were able to join in with the dolphins.

Almost as good was the show the dolphins put on for the watchers on the boat, although trying to take a clear photo at the right instant from a rocking boat was a challenge.

The afternoon was spent on the 3km Clifftop  scenic walk around the Kaikoura peninsula.
The dark slugs in this photo (from 250 yards away on the cliff) are all locals at rest:

The highlight? The proverbial “Shag on a Rock” !

Day 14 Kaikoura

A clear sunny day in a magical place.

The only incongruity of Kaikoura is that there is no sand on the beaches – they are all the same pebbles found in the alpine lakes.

It’s apparently due to Kaikoura’s unique location.
The continental shelf is less than 2 kilometres from the shoreline where the ocean depth drops to more than 2 kilometres.
Combined with being where Antarctic currents meet the Pacific currents Kaikoura a great variety of ocean wildlife gather in the area year round.
I opted for an Albatross Encounter Tour – I think I remember our father having an Albatross beak and skull from childhood.

Within seconds of the skipper tossing a basket of “chum” over board,a hundred seabirds of all shapes and sizes appeared from nowhere. And the albatross started circling.

All the smaller birds made way.

Ultimately about 15 albatrosses (if that’s their plural noun) of 3 different varieties joined us, helped themselves, and then just floated around like big ducks on a pond.

 

12 different varieties of seabirds were identified within the hour spent above the trench.

The return trip in the grand scenery encountered other wildlife – eg. seals and Canadians in sea kayaks.

Day 13 Murchison to Kaikoura

My original planned route (see Map) had been to go over the Southern Alps direct to Kaikoura. The revised rain-dodging route was intended to allow me to spend a couple of days on the north coast, avoiding crossing the freezing and wet snow-covered mountains again.
It didn’t quite turn out that way.

Leaving Murchison in rain and fog I saw little through the wipers as the road wound its way up and down mountains without snow until  Nelson was reached. It was also miserable so I decided to forget the north coast and headed for Kaikoura after all.

A stop at Blenheim introduced some colour that had been lacking in the past few days of grey.

The drive from Blenheim to Kaikoura was a bit like the Great Ocean Road between Lorne and Apollo Bay – up and down and round and round with some good views as the rain disappeared.

And then Kaikoura was reached.

It’s a challenge to describe the place.
Imagine Apollo Bay with, instead of green hills rolling down to the sea, mountains all higher than Mt.Kosciusko surrounding it in all directions.
The photos, again, can’t do it justice but the locals on the peninsular that divides two bays provided a couple of opportunities.

And there’s a lookout to practice sunset shots :

Day 12 Fox Glacier to Murchison

The rain continued from Fox Glacier all the way to Greymouth, where I left the west coast and headed northwest, completely unplanned and un researched.
The initial intention was to head for Nelson on the north coast.The drive took me along the Buller River and through the Upper Buller Gorge.

Things began to get interesting when I stopped at “The Southern Hemisphere’s Longest Swing Bridge” near Lyall.

The Swingbridge takes daredevils across the river to a walk that highlights the fault line of a disastrous earthquake in 1929.
A dormant fascination with geology had been aroused the previous day on the glacier, and was fully awakened by seeing the evidence of recent events (in geological terms).

While stopping at the TIC at nearby Murchison the rain finally stopped and I realised I had been driving for 7 hours.
So I decided to stay for the night.

Further evidence of the 1929 earthquake are the Maruia Falls.

Until 1929 the above scene would have been of a “flat” river.
The quake caused a 9 metre drop, obvious to the right of the falls.

 

The weeks’ rain ensured plenty of water was pouring over the falls:

Now I’m not so sure I need to visit Niagara after all.

Day 11 Fox Glacier

There are 2 things to do in the village of Fox Glacier:

1. Take a photo of the reflection of Mt.Cook in Lake Matheson (the image behind the blog’s title).

2. Take a guided walk on the Fox Glacier itself (about 5km from the village).

What is never mentioned is that all that moisture laden air from the Indian Ocean that passes “under” Australia tries to go over NZ’s Southern Alps. The moisture that doesn’t go over falls as snow on the Alps or rain on the 25km wide strip of land between the Tasman Sea and the Alps. Right where the village of Fox Glacier sits. It has an annual rainfall of 200 inches! Most of it has fallen since I arrived.

After a 40 minute hike at sunrise around Lake Matheson to get to the vantage point, it was very dark and dull with Mt Cook hidden behind clouds. This is the best shot I could get :

The clouds in front of Mt Cook reflected in Lake Matheson. 

But the glacier hike more than justified a visit to the West Coast and accepting the shitty weather.

There’s no photo’s but there will be a video when I stop long enough to sort it out.

The Glacier is over 50 metres high and accessing it takes a 2.5 hour climb, up steps and a track along the valley that has to be rebuilt every day due to rock falls.
It’s a tough hike and a bit scary in places. 2 of the initial 9 in our group had to be escorted back after an hour.
We probably spent  30-40 minutes actually on the ice wearing crampons on our hobnail boots, before returning the way we came.
It was another sensational experience – both the awesome magnitude of the glacier and the sense of achievement of completing the challenging hike in the conditions.

As I’m now a couple of days ahead of schedule I’ll be heading up to the north coast of the South Island in search of some sunshine and to, hopefully, get warm and dry.

Day 9 “Middle Earth”

As I’ve not seen the “Lord of the Rings” or “Narnia” movies, much of Tuesday’s activity was lost on me. Queenstown frequently hosts  Hollywood  movie crews, and the “Photo Safari” I took went to many of the locations.

 Forest at Paradise, near Glenorchy.

I was more interested in seeing a dense, moss covered forest than the fact several movies were shot there.

Another unintentional side benefit was to add to my collection of photos of WW1 War Memorials. The one at Glenorchy is similar to the ones in most Aussie towns, save for the hat being worn like a scout’s.

The Photo part of the Safari was a bit overwhelming. The revelations of what happens when you set your digital camera to Manual instead of Auto, and have an expert show you how to use it, open up a whole new world.

Consequently, the next few days photo’s may be different as I force
myself to only use the Manual mode.
This was the last shot of the day:

Creek near Paradise

Day 10 Queenstown to the West Coast

Happy to escape Queenstown, a 5 hour trip over the Southern Alps to the west coast at Haast and up to Fox Glacier took me 9 hours.
All because of the attractions and distractions along the way.

The first section of the journey was up over the Crown Range Pass, a series of 20 or so 15 kph switchbacks up to Cardrona.

The scenery was stunning, none more so than the “speckled” fields as the snow melts:

An hour or more was spent at Wanaka at an incredible attraction called Puzzling World.


This has a maze and amazing rooms full of incredible illusions optical and gravity distorting effects.
This simple puzzle conveys the spirit of the place:

How many animals do you see?

From Wanaka to Haast was more incredible alpine scenery, rivers, waterfalls and bends until, finally, you come around a bend and there are no mountains ahead of you.
This shot was taken at Erewhon, looking back at the area I had come through, 100 metres from the beach.

 

The celtic font used on this sign gives a clue that it was probably a dyslexic Irish man who came up with the Maori looking name.

Is it meant to be nowhere sdrawkcab?

After a further 120km Fox Glacier was reached around 4pm.
The forecast is for 3 days of rain.

[There’s 6 animals in the picture]