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Monthly Archives: February 2009
New Zealand South Island day 23 – Christchurch to Oamuru
The journey between Christchurch to Oamuru is flat and quite bland compared to the spectacular scenery we have become used to. We have decided to stay overnight in Oamuru for two reasons: there are colonies of the rare yellow-eyed penguins and the tiny blue penguins; and secondly the town has an historic centre containing a large number of 19th century limestone buildings
Penguins are nocturnally active on land. They leave the colongy before sunrise each morning and return at dusk each night and there are viewing areas for both the blue and yellow-eyed penguins on the edge of town. We decide to go to see the yellow eyed penguins which are supposed to come ashore around 7.30pm. But not tonight! We wait on the cliff top overlooking the beach where the colony resides in the wind and drizzle for almost an hour and not a single penguin comes ashore. Finally as we are leaving we spot the head of one penguin hiding in the bushes. Apparently, we later discover it is moulting season and the penguins stay ashore all day. Shy creatures they tend to stay hidden in the undergrowth particularly if they see or hear humans about.
We drive through part of the historic district which has a strangely incongruous feel; impressive and beautiful as they are, the buildings just don’t seem to belong.
New Zealand South Island day 22 – Christchurch
Today is a day for chilling and catching up with some administrative housekeeping. We have successfullys let one of our flats – quite a feat when we are on the other side of the world – and there is some paperwork to complete, sign and send off to our recently ensconced tenant. There are postcards to catch up on – ones we bought over a week ago when we were in Rotorua. It’s when we come to post them at the NZ PostShop we find out that there is more than one company provide postal services and the stamps we bought with the postcards are not NZ Postie Shop stamps and the cards have to be posted in a blue postbox a couple of streets away.
Another quirky thing about NZ is the provision of internet services. Download speeds are very slow and way behind anything available in the UK. Internet access is very expensive. Monthly subscriptions are over NZ$100 a month (£35) compared to around £18 in the UK and access at holiday parks (and internet cafes) can cost up to NZ$9 per hour compared to SE Asia where internet is widely available hostels, hotels and cafes free. Even more bizarrely internet services on the holiday parks (and possibly elsewhere) are provided by a number of third party companies who act as an middleman between the parks and the service providers – which must go some way to explaining the high charges. Using the internet at different parks can mean having several pre-paid accounts running simultaneously which can start to get complicated!
Phrase of the day: ‘Merge like a zip’ seen at the point where roads changes from two to one lane.
New Zealand South Island day 21 – Christchurch
Christchurch is known as the ‘garden city’ of New Zealand and for good reason; at its heart is the lovely Hagley Park and Botanical Gardens, a wonderful space full of majestic trees, lawns and flowers through which runs the small Avon River. The Christchurch Beautification Society (yes, really) works to enhance the attractiveness of the city including planting 1000s of bulbs in the park, regenerating an island that used to be the site of an old flour mill and sponsoring floating islands of flowers on the river amongst other not doubt equally worthy projects. There is a curously dated Englishness about Christchurch not least due to it’s Gothic stone buildings including the magnificent cathedral which dominates the city centre, historic weatherboard houses with their verandahs and delicate iron fretwork, the English-inspired street names, Cambridge punts complete with punters in straw boaters and blazers and old-fashioned trams providing tours of the city. This is a calm city – no hustle bustle here. As will the rest of New Zealand there is hardly any traffic giving it an eerily quiet almost deserted feel . We spend most of the day doing a walking tour courtesy of Lonely Planet taking in Cathedral Square, the river Avon which winds its way around the city centre, the high street and the fashionable drinking areas.
Thomas’ Hotel on Hereford is few minutes walk from Hagley Park in one direction and Remembrance Bridge and the centre of the city centre in the other. We are opposite the Arts Centre housed in a rather nice gothic stone building, which on further investigation turns out to been converted into an artsy-crafty shopping complex aimed at tourists, and a very popular micro-brewery. The location couldn’t be better.
Word of the day: trundler = supermarket trolley
New Zealand, South Island day 20 – Hamner Springs to Christchurch
Hamner Springs is the main thermal resort in the South Island. Small (population 750) and pretty with mature trees lining streets of weatherboard houses it has oodles more character than the average New Zealand village. It is a favourite weekend destination for people living in Christchurch 85km further south. The large thermal springs have nine outdoor pools, three of which are sulphur pools, with temperatures ranging from 38 to 44 degrees C, heated swimming pool with slides, sauna, steam room, health and beauty spa, cafe and shop. We content ourselves with an hour-and-half moving between the hot pools relaxing and chatting. A couple from Buckinghamshire arrived in Christchurch a few days ago have come with only summer clothes and, disappointed by the grey and chilly weather, have decided cut short their stay in the South Island and leave for the North Island tomorrow. We leave Hamner Springs after lunch and arrive in Christchurch the most British of New Zealand’s cities by late afternoon. We are staying at Thomas’ Hotel. It is in an old weatherboard house on Hereford Street just a stone’s throw from the town centre and provides a common room and guest kitchen. The weather is sunny and warm when we arrive and we take a early evening stroll in the glorious Hagley Park at the end of the road.
We are discovering that the South Island has a very different character to the North. It has a much more lived-in feel which gives it more character; no artificial film sets here, only the natural ones that provided the backdrop for the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The Maori influence too is much less noticeable in the South; place names generally have a British provenance. In contrast, most place names in the North are the names given by the original Maori settlers. Maori account for 15% (565,000) of the total population of New Zealand,b but only 5% in the South and are consequently much less visible here. Maori culture is widely celebrated in New Zealand and the indigenous culture has a special and separate status within the country’s ethnic mix. Maori is an official language and there is a resurgence of interest in speaking it. There is also a separate electoral role granting Maori guaranteed parliamentary seats. The cultural mix in the South Island is heavily skewed with around 80 percent of European descent compared to Auckland where the figure is slightly over half which goes some way to explain the South Island’s a distinctly British feel.
Posted in New Zealand, South Island
Tagged Christchurch, Hamner Springs, New Zealand, South Island
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New Zealand South Island day 19- Kaikoura
The weather is considerably cooler in the South Island and wet. But according to the weather reports all of New Zealand is in a band of low pressure so the weather is probably little better in North Island. Kaikoura, on the east coast of the South Island started out as a sleepy fishing village famed for crayfish but an abundance of whales, dolphins, seals, penguins, albatross as well as some stunning scenery has put it firmly on the tourist map. It retains the air of a fishing village, but with a proliferation of wildlife tour operators, motels, holiday parks and shops that are aimed more at the tourist than the locals, as well as numerous seafood cafes selling, amongst other things, crayfish at export prices – no local prices here. A charming place nonetheless. The view of what should be the snow-capped Seaward Kaikoura mountains, unfortunately shrouded in cloud today, greet us when we emerge from our tent. Despite forecasts of rain we set off in the sunshine to do the two-hour circular peninsular walk, part of which is along the cliff tops. We make our way along the dark grey pebble beach which is littered with driftwood but soon decide to revert to the pavement to make easier and quicker progress. We can see the rain coming across the hills on the far side of the bay and soon we are donning our capes. The rain combined with the blustery wind and the fact that we left the map behind, make a cliff -top walk less appealing and we retreat to the car. So changeable is the weather that by the time we reach the car the sun is out again and blue skies have made and appearance. So we decide to drive round to point on the peninsular where the walk ascends the cliff top. Here there is another seal colony and we brave the winds to walk out across the rocks exposed by the receding tide. We can make out a handful of seals through the binoculars but this is a poor show compared to colony we stumbled on yesterday.
We are making our way south ultimately aiming to get to Milford Sound on the west coast and our next stop is Hanmer Springs. We might have spent longer in Kaikoura had the weather been better but the forecast is more of the same and swimming with dolphins in the cold Pacific is not proving much of a draw. The scenery between Kaikoura and Hanmer Springs is majestic – huge swathes of countryside with no visible signs of habitation and empty roads. Deep ravines, massive dried up riverbeds carrying shrunken rivers, sheer escarpments, plateaus, towering hills, rising up in folds created in an earlier age, milky rivers, mountainous backdrops, the peaks lost in the clouds. Shades of greens, browns and gold. Welcome to Middle Earth!
The approach to Hanmer Springs is dramatic as we descend into the valley of the Clarence River. A enormously wide and meandering river bed with a much-reduced milky blue river occupying only a fraction of it’s grey stony bed We treat ourselves to a kitchen cabin. It’s chilly and for the first time in our trip we turn on the heater!.
New Zealand, North Island day 18 – Wellington
For a capital city, Wellington is tiny (population 164,000) and remarkably low rise. This windy city is perched on the west shore of a magnificent natural harbour, hemmed in by hillsides which dwarf the few high rise buildings that are concentrated in the city centre. Single storey detached, well-spaced homes cling to the the hillsides overlooking the bay. On the north shore the narrow coastal strip is only wide enough to accommodate the highway and railway line on a ledge conveniently created when an earthquake in the mid nineteenth century raised the shore by a several metres. We are at the ferry port by 7.15am. It is a gloriously sunny day with hardly a cloud in the sky and we have a wonderfully clear view of the whole of Wellington Harbour.
Approaching the South Island you could be forgiven for thinking that it is uninhabited; there is not a single building in sight on the wild and rugged shoreline and even as we turn into Marlborough Sounds only the odd isolated house comes into view. The hills drop down dramatically on both sides of the Sound to the oh so blue sea. The next hour of the journey is through dramatic and almost untouched scenery (there are signs of logging), bays and channels opening to left and right. The ferry journey from Wellington on North Island to Picton on South Island has taken around 3 and half hours – much longer than we anticipated – it hardly looks any distance on the map! Picton is a nestled at the head of Queen Charlotte Sound; it’s hard to conceive that in the height of the summer this small village with a population of 4000 is capable of handling 2000 ferries a day!
The landscape of the South Island is much wilder and more rugged than the North. As we drive south towards Kaikoura on the east coast the hills tower above the road. Rich green tree-covered hillsides soon give way to hills covered with little else but rough brown grass. Winding roads occasionally reveal an oasis of planted forests of pine or neat, vivid green vineyards standing out against their brown surroundings, many clothed in white netting. This is the famed Marlborough wine producing region of New Zealand. In the distance the dark mountains of the Inland Kaikouras range, their peaks shrouded in cloud, provide a menacing backdrop. Just outside Kaikoura we stop at a viewpoint which turns out to be a vantage point for a large colony of seals. Only a few yards away on the rocks huge seals are resting whilst 10 to 15 pups are frolicking in a rock pool! Amazing.
New Zealand, North Island day 17 – Wellington
An early morning dip in the spa pools starts the day nicely. But what was intended to be a quick half-an-hour turns into over an hour as we get chatting to two English couples. One couple from Enfield have left their children in charge at home and in an ironic twist on the usual gap-year syndrome have taken three months out to travel NZ and Australia. The other couple from Plymouth are doing a similar trip through NZ and Oz. So our intended early start to Wellington is delayed and we don’t get away until around10am. We take a break to view the stunning Huka Falls. It’s here that New Zealand’s longest river, the Waikato, is forced through a narrow gorge to produce a fearsome torrent of extraordinarily blue water and white foam surging at a rate of 60 litres a second over a 10 metre drop into a swirling pool below. It’s possible to see the falls from several vantage points on both sides of the river as well as walk along the edge of the unfenced gorge as the water rushes by a few feet below – something unimaginable in the UK!
From Huka Falls we make our way on Highway 1 to Wellington a journey of about 400km which is going to take us the rest of the day. This takes across the central plateau, which is far from flat – it is home to the three massive peaks of Tongariro, Ruapehu and Ngaurunhoe. The descent down to Taupo provides a spectacular view of this vast water-filled crater and New Zealand’s largest lake. The road runs along the edge of the east shore of the lake. We are seeing more sheep now and the number of butterflies flitting in the verges and across the road is quite amazing. South of Tongariro National Park the highway runs for 56km through the inappropriately named Rangipo Desert, which isn’t actually a desert, but a windswept and bleak brown grassland almost devoid of trees. Part of the road is subject to closure in bad weather which begs the question how traffic get down south when the main north/south highway is out of operation. At Wairouru we pass the perplexingly named Angkor Wat Bakery and Coffee Shop which seems to be a favourite with the biker community. We arrive in Wellington in the late afternoon. Tonight we ‘treat’ ourselves to a cabin – we have an early start tomorrow, the ferry leaves at 8.30am and Wellington is windy and damp.
New Zealand North Island day 16 – Waikite
Saturday,21st February, New Zealand North Island day 16 – Waikite
We move 38km south of Rotorua to a thermal spa and campsite at Waikite on the banks of the boiling Otamokokore River – the steam billowing from its surface is quite an extraordinary sight. The main attraction, though, is use of the five outdoor hot pools filled from the Te Manaroa Spring – the largest single source of 100% pure boiling water in New Zealand. The water is an amazing 98 degrees C when it emerges from below ground – and the spring itself is an awesome and fascinating sight furiously bubbling up to the surface creating a large pool and clouds of steam in the process. The spring produces 60 litres a minute which travels 3 km dropping to 50 degrees C before joining colder water. The spring water has to be cooled to between 35 and 38 degrees before it can be fed into the four spa pools for passive bathing and a large swimming pool. This achieved by running it across terracing, then pumping up the hillside and spraying it into the air. Each pool is a different temperature and we start off in the coolest and work our way to the hottest chatting with a New Zealand couple on the way. Very relaxing and refreshing.
We arrive at the Energy Events Centre still hardly able to believe that we managed to get tickets to see Billy Connolly. The centre is a modern, flexible performance space situated at the lake end of Government Gardens. There is ample parking in the adjacent car park and it’s free. Billy is on top form, much funnier than the ‘Too Old to Die Young’ gig at the Hammersmith Apollo. And unlike then, when we got returns in the back of the gods, we have prime seats three rows from the front. It’s two hours of non-stop laughter. So funny my eyes were streaming. Absolutely brilliant!
New Zealand North Island day 15 – Rotorua
Rain, more rain and pouring rain … all day. We decide to take the opportunity to do some shopping – shorts for Andy, replacement sandals and underwear for me. But despite our rain capes we still get wet. What a dreary day! We have discovered that Billy Connolly is on tour in New Zealand and is playing in Rotorua tomorrow. So we make our way to Energy Events Centre to find out whether there are any tickets to be had. A long shot, but still worth a try. Apparently the show has been booked out for weeks, but by an unbelievable stroke of luck there may be some promotional tickets released for sale today; we need to try the box office which is in another building. According to the Box Office the show is booked out, but mention of the possible release of some promo tickets and it turns out that there are eight tickets available. We get two seats three rows from the front in the centre! How lucky are we! And only NZ$199 (£66). A bargain.
While it continues to rain cats and dogs we spend the afternoon catching up on the blog. We have had to re-house hattie on blog.com as the server problem is proving intractable and we don’t know when, or if, hattieontour.eu will be up and running again. Fortunately most of our pictures and all the posts are backed up – so it could have been a lot worse.
The camp site is sodden and our little tent is standing on a small patch of slightly higher dry ground just on the edge of a very large puddle. The paths are turning into temporary streams and the rain clouds are so low over the lake that visibility is down to a few yards. On the bright side it is warm and we have set up our laptops on a picnic bench under the canopy outside the kitchen. From this vantage point we can watch the rain clouds lifting from the surface of the lake, only to return again a little later. Oh the fickleness of the New Zealand weather!
New Zealand, North Island day 14 – Rotorua
We wake to the most glorious view from our little tent – the sun rising over the lake just feet from our pitch, the waters lapping gently and the ducks waddling just outside the tent. Can it get better than this? A rowing team is out for an early morning training session and someone is paddling a kayak.
We have to be up and out early for our trip to Wai-o-Tapu Thermal Park. This park covers some 18 sq km and is the largest area of surface thermal activity in the Taupo volcanic region. The area is covered with collapsed craters up to 50 metres in diameter and up to 20 metres deep. Most have been formed over the last few hundred years by the action of acidic vapours rising from the below ground and dissolving the ground above. There are boiling pools of mud, water and steaming fumeroles. We arrive early for the eruption of the Lady Knox geyser which is primed to blow at 10.15am every day. The geyser is a short drive from the Visitors Centre and we overhear an American complaining – in all seriousness – that they should have built the geyser nearer the Visitors Centre! The geyser is induced to blow by using chemical blocks to break the tension of the surface cold water allowing the hot water beneath to shoot up several metres into the air. An impressive sight. The geyser was discovered by convicts whilst washing their clothes in the hot surface pool; soap breaking the surface tension and causing it to blow! There are 25 points of specific interest in the park and we spend about an hour-and-half fascinated by the effects of the thermal activity. Beneath the ground is a system of streams which are heated by magma left over from earlier eruptions. The water is so hot (temperatures of up to 300 degrees C have been recorded) that it absorbs minerals out of the rocks through which it passes and transports them to the surface as steam where they are absorbed into the ground. As a result there is a wide range of coloured deposits in the area adding to the dramatic effect – green, orange, purple, white, yellow, red-brown and black The most spectacular are the vivid lime green Devil’s bath, the pale green of Lake Ngakoro, and the multi-coloured Artist’s palette. There is a board walk across a huge sinter terrace which cover an area of 3 acres and has been created over the last 700 years as silica has been deposited from the water that trickles over it. www.waiotapu.co.nz
After lunch we visit the Te Puia Maori cultural centre. This is set in another geo-thermal park. Although not as varied as Wai-o-Taipu, the large and vigourously boiling mud pool, Nga Mokai a Koko, and the 30-metre Pohutu geyser which spontaneously erupts 20 times a day soaking bystanders with a fine, cold water spray, are dramatic. There are several traditional Maori buildings here, including Te Aroni a Rua Meeting House – decorated with intricate carvings, woven wall panels and patterned roof beams – as well as nationally re-knowned carving and weaving schools which teach traditional Maori skills. The highlight though is the cultural performance of action song and dance which starts with an elaborate Maori welcome haka led by a Maori warrior on the marae (the area in front of the meeting house). After the formal welcome ceremony we enter the meeting house for a performance of wonderfully uplifting, evocative and graceful action songs and very dexterous poi and stick dances. (Poi are balls on cord which are twirled whilst rhythmically hitting the back and front of the hands) and a powerful haka full of energetic movements and fearsome facial expressions including bulging eyes and the sticking out of tongues. The Polynesian roots of the Maori culture are very much in evidence in the traditional dress, the rhythms and the hand and body movements..