South Island Top Ten

Top 10 things we did/saw on the south island (not necessarily in that order) [Heather, you know where my brain goes when I write that!]
1. Doubtful Sound - spectacular scenery, luxury of our own bathroom, fantastic food, nice people, dolphins, kayaking, silence.
2. Mount Cook and the Edmund Hillary Museum - spectacular scenery, interesting and varied information about Hillary including a really good 1 hour documentary on his life. There was also a planetarium that was all part of the admission.
3. Sam and Eric - the two young guitar players that we happened upon in the Bog Bar in Christchurch. Sam looked just like Donovan (think back, people) with the round hat and huge side burns! Eric was Chinese and if you closed your eyes while he was playing, you’d swear it was Eric Clapton.
4. Fleur’s Place at Moeriki - probably the best meal we’ve ever had. Fresh, fresh, fresh, wonderful presentation and incredible atmosphere. Fleur’s “desk” was one of the tables in the dining room and she wandered around chatting to people.
5. Incredible coastal views everywhere with crashing waves on the rocks, ridiculous rock formations in the ocean.
6. THE WEATHER! Can’t believe how lucky we’ve been.
7. The albatross centre near Dunedin - amazing to see these huge birds soaring on the wind.
8. Old cars - lots and lots of old cars! As we were driving, we passed an old Bentley rally, an old Packard rally, and just a general vintage car rally. And all these old cars were coming towards us so John could take pictures of them as we passed (I was driving!) Sometimes one of them had stopped by the side of the road, so then of course we stopped too and had a chat, And of course the Classic Car Museum in Nelson which literally blew John away,.
9. New Zealand pies.
10. John’s knife making class. He needed a day hammering on something and produced a wonderful knife.

Custom Car Museum

Feb. 28 - On the road again on our way to Picton to catch the ferry to Wellington on the north island. We chose to drive the coast road from Havelock to Picton rather than stay on the main highway - a good decision but the road was REALLY windy (as in lots of twists and turns) and steep. It provided us with lots of “Let’s stop here for a bit” moments. The road follows the Queen Charlotte Sound which is very convoluted and full of islands and inlets, so there were lots of cliff top photos taken with mountains in the background. Most of the main roads in NZ have signs to tell you maximum speed on corners, but they had obviously run out of money by the time they got to this road as there were no signs on the corners. However, a real optimist had posted 50 k/hr signs all over the place, even on the windiest sections - it was all I could do to manage 25 k/hr in second gear most of the time! But well worth it. Picton is a tiny place - not sure what I was expecting but it really only exists to provide tourists with a base to jump on the ferry.
However, before we got to Havelock, we hit Nelson. A guy John talked to in a garage way back had mentioned a fantastic car museum to him, but John didn’t write down where it was. As we were driving through Nelson, I noticed a sign to the WOW Classic Car Museum, so off we went. It was a somewhat strange experience - the WOW didn’t refer to the amazing old cars, but stood for World of Wearable Art which was in the same space as the Classic Cars. I’m sure that made sense to someone. Anyway, we paid our money and John went one way and I went the other. The World of Wearable Art is a crazy and creative place - I can hardly even begin to describe the “dresses” which were made of just about everything and anything except normal dress fabric - bed springs, lengths of plastic, metal etc. etc. I looked, I was amazed, I didn’t understand. I wandered around the cars with John for a while and then he paid an extra $8 to be admitted to the inner sanctum (MORE old cars) and I chose to have a coffee and do the crossword in the café. He’ll write about the cars …..
John Writes … It wasn’t my idea to do the Blog, I’m semi literate, I can’t spell to save my life, why do I have to write? Nag. Nag. Nag.
If you are a car or bike fan, don’t come to New Zealand! It will drive you nuts. Where did they all come from?!! They are not only in the Museums, they are on the road in droves. We are not talking old vehicles in poor condition we are talking “Concours” level vehicles touring the winding country roads in groups of 30 or 50! In the course of our travels we saw groups of, Bentleys, 35 of them from old 1930’s lagondas to some more modern 1950 and 60s. They are not doing short trips either. One fellow I talked to briefly keeps an old classic Bentley here for just such occasions. He also has a couple back home in England. I talked to another, “bloke”, I guess I should use the local terms, who was in the Packard run of about 50, we only saw about 30 of these, many of them the old phaetons. We stopped where the was a small portion of a large BSA rally. There were about 20 of them and their vintage bikes, who were touring after the rally. In Christchurch after we had left there was a rally of 1000 Harley Davidsons. We also encountered a Classic Car group who were touring. There were about 30 in this group with all kinds of different cars from Austin Sevens with a top speed of 40 mph the owner told me to really exotic old MGs ,Rolls Royce, and Aston Martins. Who knows how many other groups we missed? One Caravan Park had a collection of 14 Morris Minors although no work had been done to them. When you go into a small town Museum you never know what you might see. One example was a small town, Timaru. It had a small Museum that had a Ford GT40 several Ferarris, an Austin Seven and some race cars all perfect condition as well as a tractor which made an, “around the world trip”. You never know what you will find!
When we were filling the Campervan I was talking to a bloke who had an MG B much like the one we used to have and he mentioned a Museum I should go to see in Nelson. By this time I had seen almost enough Museums so I didn’t mention it to Ginnie. It happened however that about a week later we were driving through Nelson and Ginnie spotted the sign on the highway. It happened to be just off the highway so we dropped in. WOW was the theme for the show they had on but WOW was what you had to say in viewing the cars and some bikes!! In the main show of the Museum there was everything from Ferarri 599 GTB Fiorano with a 6:1 pound/hp ratio, 0 to 60 at 3.7 sec and total comfort up to 200 mph to a 1913 Krit touring, 1936 Auburn 653 Sedan, 1937 BMW Type 328 race car, 1953 Lea Francis, Porsches, De Lorian, 2001 Plymouth Prowler, 2004 Maybach Type 62s 5980cc ultra luxury car built for the 1997 Tokyo Motor Show as a Mercedes-Benz Maybach later just called Maybach (this one had reclining seats for the passengers in the back!) . There were also many other cars of note. This was just in the main part of the museum. For $8 you could see many more they didn’t have room to display, (70 other cars), and also see inside the workshop where work was taking place on many more display cars. This was even better because you could walk around the cars, though they were crowded together, and see inside but don‘t touch.
Here was more of a WOW factor. How often do you get to see a 1 of 4 originally built1912 Mercedes (not Mercedes-Benz yet, until 1926), Stutz Bearcat, Alvis, Lola Concours car, Formula 3 race cars, Maseratis and Ferraris, as well as others too numerous to mention. We did mention earlier the display of bikes at Invercargill, which was totally amazing particularly being in a hardware store.
You just never know what you might see around here. I was talking to a fellow from Israel who said he always keeps his camera ready while he is on the street because he never knows what he will see.
How true.

Abel; Tasman National Park

Feb. 26 - We are now in the Abel Tasman National Park which is right up at the top of the south island. It’s an absolutely gorgeous area which is being kept as pristine as possible given the number of tourists here. They are trying to repopulate the forests with birds which have been decimated by imported guests such as ferrets and stoats. They are also trying to eliminate these pests but it’s quite a job. The sad thing is as you walk through the forest, there are hardly any birds singing. But at least they are trying. One good thing is that we seem to have left the sandflies behind. I don’t think I’ve mentioned them before, but they are ubiquitous on the west coast and we had been warned about them. They are tiny little flies which we actually didn’t have too much trouble with until the last few days and then they discovered our ankles and feet.
One completely unrelated point which keeps popping into the front of my head so I have to put it down - we recently stayed a night in Hokitika and as we left, it occurred to me that it would have made a good ABBA title (I then had “Chicitika” (sp?) going round in my head for about 3 days - have I planted it in your head too?!)
We went on a kayaking trip today with a lovely young guide called Dan. There were 3 other double kayaks so it was a nice small group. We weren’t sure whether to be concerned that Dan did a Maori prayer for safety before we left! (I am actually writing this on Feb. 28 and we have just heard about the earthquake in Chile with the possibility of a tsunami here, so maybe he had a point………) We kayaked down the coast to a landmark called the Split Apple which looks like (pause for effect) ….. a split apple! It’s a huge granite lump which has split nicely down the middle and one half has fallen to one side (see behind us in kayak picture). We had a lovely calm day which started out looking a bit iffy but then the sun came out and it was gorgeous. As you can see from the photo, we were all kitted out with kayak skirts which are a real fashion statement! But they kept you nice and dry. Dan was an excellent guide and told us all about the history of the area as we went. On the way back, we passed a little blue penguin fishing. He was just floating around on top of the water, peering down (looking much like a snorkeler) and he really couldn’t have cared less about us so we got quite close.
Feb. 27 - We went on an official “tramp” today! We took a boat down to Bark Bay and then walked back to Torrent Bay (about 10 km) along the Abel Tasman Track (one of the Great New Zealand Walks). Again, the weather gods have been incredibly kind and we had a glorious day - blue, blue sky, gentle breeze and of course we were walking through forest, so not too much sun. Every now and then, you would come to the top of a hill and the trees would drop away and there would be an amazing view (see picture). Of course, the photo doesn’t come close to doing the real thing justice. Hazy mountains in the background, blue lagoon with golden sand in the foreground and several yachts sailing on the azure (sorry, couldn’t help it!) sea in between! We actually got to our pick up point about an hour early, so we snoozed on the beach until rescue came. John was very good natured about the whole thing - he doesn’t really “get” why you would want to walk for the sake of walking, but I’m almost sure I heard him whistling snatches of “The Happy Wanderer” as we tramped along!
We are now off to Picton (provided we don’t get washed away by the tsunami) to get the ferry across to the north island. We are hoping to meet up with our Australian friends Reg and Ruby who are “doing” NZ from north to south and our common geographical point is Wellington. I’ve been trying to figure out the best way to attack the north island - the south island was reasonably easy as it’s long and thin, so we basically went around the edge except for a foray into the interior for Mount Cook. The north island has lots of bits sticking out of it and interesting stuff in the middle, so plans are fluid at the moment. However, I have seen that the Golden Shears tournament is on when we pass through Masterton (sheep shearing extravaganza!) which is probably not to be missed.

Jade and Blade

Feb. 20 - On our way north from the glaciers, we passed through a little town called Whataroa which was advertising, on big, home-made billboards, that the local A & P Fair was on today. So of course we had to find out what this was! Turned out to be an old-fashioned country fair (Agricultural and Pastoral Fair, we discovered) with all the wonderful side-shows like throw the ball into the moving clown head to win a doll. There was the smallest (and fastest) ferris wheel I’ve ever seen and an old guy with a guitar singing things like The House of the Rising Sun and other 3-chord favourites! And of course there were animals - cows, sheep and horses. I spent quite a lot of time watching one little boy who must have been about 10 with the calf that he was showing. It was obvious that he loved that calf from the way he handled it, but then he wasn’t going to put up with any nonsense from it either! I waited until he and 3 other kids had walked their calves around the ring to be judged and - hurray! he won!! We bought some fudge and home-made jam (rather a lot - we’ll have to eat a lot of toast in the next few weeks) and John talked to the tractor guys and then on we went.
We stopped at a place called Pukekura where there is a very unusual pub which used to serve possum pie until the government told them they couldn’t sell unregulated meat (the owners of the pub are hunters). So now you can donate $4 (the price of a pie) to the local ambulance fund and they will give you a free possum pie! Luckily they were all out of possum when we were there, so we had venison instead. Possums are a real pest here (imported for sport and then went crazy) and lots of the sweaters you can buy are a mixture of merino wool and possum which makes them very soft. We saw a whole bunch more vintage cars so John was happy!
Our next stop was Hokitika which is the jade capital of the south island. It’s a bit ridiculous actually, every other store in town sells jade. Necklaces make up the huge proportion of the things for sale and some of then were quite beautiful. There are about 4 main patterns which the carvers use, most of them involving intricate twists and twirls. There were also some amazing jade carvings, but it’s a very heavy stone so we were looking for something a little more manageable! I found a really pretty piece which looks just like the sail of a sailboat so we bought that as our New Zealand “thing” to bring home. John’s contribution to Hokitika’s economy was to buy a 2-CD set of old songs - things like How Much is that Doggie in the Window and Rose Marie - so we’ve been singing loudly ever since!
Feb. 21 - Drove on up the coast to Punakaiki where the pancake rocks are (weathered limestone stacks - more later). The coast road is amazing (Lonely Planet reckons it’s one of the 10 great drives in the world). There are long stretches of beach with crashing waves and huge outcrops of rock which reminded us very much of the 12 Apostles in Australia but without all the hype and tourists. Punakaiki is tiny and we decided to nest here for a couple of days. In fact, we did absolutely nothing on Feb 22 - just read, snoozed and ate! We sat on the beach to watch the sunset (see picture). We haven’t had a row - John was trying for effect - sun setting between us!
Feb. 23 - His ‘n’ hers day. John went off to make a knife. I think he was ready to do some serious metal bashing! I went for a walk along the Porarari Gorge which is just by our campsite. Again, huge walls of rock covered with trees and ferns which somehow manage to anchor themselves to sheer rock. I kept expecting hobbits to appear from behind the rocks. It reminded me of a large sinkhole in Florida where I used to take Andy and Zoe sometimes. It was very deep and you could go all the way to the bottom where it was cool and quiet and there were enormous butterflies (do you remember?) There aren’t the butterflies here, but certainly tons of insects which click and screech as background noise. There are some birds, but the foliage is so thick that it’s hard to see them. I wondered as I walked what the difference is between tramping, hiking and walking. “Tramping” is very big here and there are tons of sports stores that must make a killing selling all the gear. Somehow in my head, tramping involves very heavy boots, a huge backpack and mud! Also I think it is mandatory for trampers to carry stout staves, have beards and wear (preferably red) flannel plaid shirts. It just sounds very serious. Hiking sounds a little lighter in tone, but still involves some strenuous activity. Walking is what I do - water bottle stuck in my pocket along with my hat and rain jacket tied round my waist.
The pancake rocks are so-called because the limestone cliffs have been weathered into the most incredible shapes, mostly looking like huge stacks of pancakes (see picture). The experts aren’t able to explain why they have done that in just this one place. There are lots of blowholes in the area, but the tide wasn’t high enough and the wind not strong enough to make them blow with any enthusiasm when we were there.
This next part is John’s!! To say that Ginnie has done a lot of research over her 2 years of planning for our trip is a tremendous understatement. One of the things she came up with was Barrytown Knifemaking. The ad said “Forge your own unique knife”. It continued “A full day activity 9:30 start finish around 4pm”
As some of you may know I do a little Blacksmithing and have tried my hand at making a knife under the tutoring of Eldon Bakke. Eldon’s course takes 2 days. Eldon was invited to come to New Zealand on a paid trip by Blacksmiths to demonstrate here. I have also attended a class on knife making put on by Murray Cook who is a very well known Bladesmith. Anyone who has knives which are highly cherished posession all over North America and abroad is not just a knife maker,he is an Artist which he is very adverse to you calling him, although he is! If you ever had a look at his shop you would know. The course Murray did was at CanIron VII and covered about 3 days.
After almost 4 months on the road with no shop or tools and only reading or Ginnie’s insistence on “walks” as diversions, I finally succumbed to her suggestion, (make that nagging), that I do something. I thought I might just drop in and see what was happening. Finally I relented and signed up for the course.
Barrytown Knifemaking is actually the home of Steven and Robyn Martin. The setup they have has produced over 2000 student made knives. If you followed what I said above you might have noted a touch of skepticism in my approach to this, “one day quickie“. There is a lot to be done in one day!
Steven who describes himself as “an escapee from the corporate world”, went way beyond my expectations. He shattered my skepticism and more. The class, max of 12, is taken from a raw rough cut piece of mild steel, brass and wood (see photo) to a finished knife of your design by 4pm. I didn’t think this would be possible. This also included a lunch break and lots of amusing, “patter”, from the instructor. The patter is describing what happens when mild steel is taken through the process of being made into a knife and other aspects of knife making at a level almost everyone can understand.
Throughout a high level of safety is stressed and followed.
Everything is provided, golves, protective shirt, safety glasses, etc.

Robyn and Steven have teamed up to provide a well oiled experience anyone can share and enjoy. When I say this I am including husbands and wives! Women are very welcome in his class and enjoy it.
Perhaps what is most amazing is that Steven is able to accomplish this process while everyone feels totally within their comfort level. He is able to step in and redirect things in an easy manner which insures a completed knife the owner (maker) will be well pleased with.
All in all, well worth the time, effort and money.
You will end up with a finished product you can be proud of.
Thank you Steven and Robyn

Up the West Coast

Feb. 16 - We finished our Doubtful Sound trip around lunch time today and immediately went to the opposite end of the spectrum! We needed to sort out some telephone/internet troubles so we drove to the nearest big town which happened to be Queenstown. This is the hub of “ultimate” sports - if you want the adrenalin to flow, this is where you come. Bungy jumping, sky diving, white water rafting, caving - you name it and it’s here - and along with it, all the young people who want to do these things and then drink large amounts of booze in the evenings which makes them VERY LOUD! Remember the “sounds of silence” at Doubtful Sound? Unlikely Queenstown ever gets anywhere close. We couldn’t wait to get out, but we did have to spend a night there. One good thing - it is getting warmer as we go north! There were times when we were really cold on the south coast, but it is noticeably more temperate here.
Feb. 17 - we’re working our way up the west coast and to do that, you have to go inland and then head west again. We went through Arrowtown today - a very cute little town which caters largely to tourists who want to buy gold things. It used to be the centre of gold mining in the area and there is a historic Chinese settlement that we went through where the Chinese lived who came seeking their fortunes in NZ. We had a New Zealand specialty for lunch - pies. Everywhere you go, you can buy little individual pies filled with the most amazing things - chicken satay, chicken and apricots, steak and mushroom. We have become quite addicted. After lunch, we hit Wanaka which is quickly becoming Queenstown’s little sister. However, there was a very good museum there dedicated to the New Zealand Fighter Pilots of both world wars. There were lots of planes and guns and things to keep John happy, and I kept busy reading many of the individual stories that make these places so meaningful. Like the story of the Dutch girl who was riding her bike home when she saw a plane crash in the river near her. She jumped off her bike and into the river to try and save the pilot. She wasn’t able to rescue him and he had died on impact, but she did her very best to get him out of the water. When she at last gave up, she found that someone had stolen her bike. When the New Zealand command heard about her bravery, they shipped her a new bike over from New Zealand! All the original letters and photographs were there - very touching. And the story of the World War I airman whose plane was hit and was going to crash. Of course, there were no parachutes in those early days, so he hopped out onto the wing of his plane to balance it as it came down and just before it crashed, he threw himself off, landed with a somersault, got up and his first words were “That was lucky!”
I had read about a very interesting sounding cinema at Wanaka, so we decided to go and see “Sherlock Holmes” (the new version with Jude Law and Robert Downie Jr.). The Cinema Paradiso is somewhat unconventional and extremely unorganized! It’s partly an internet café, partly a restaurant and partly a movie theatre. The seats are all old sofas and recliners - and 3 seats in an old Morris Minor car! (Something of a pattern here - remember all the old Morrises at the campsite at Manapouri!) It was very nice to be able to get really comfortable while watching the movie, but I had to keep reminding myself that this wasn’t really my Sherlock Holmes and as long as I could distance the S.H. in my head from the Butch Cassidy and Sundance thing going on on the screen, I was OK!
We had met an English couple outside the war museum earlier - they had come to New Zealand for a BSA rally (motor bikes), so when John saw them, of course he went to have a chat! The chat turned into quite a long conversation - and later that day, we found the rest of the BSA crowd at our campsite! Lots of beards and tattoos! And John was in heaven!
Feb. 18 - Another pattern is forming. As we drove along today, we passed (going in the opposite direction) 5 old Austin Healeys! One couple had stopped to put up their soft top so we stopped and chatted and took photographs (when I say “we”, you will all know who I mean!) John also came to the rescue of 2 German girls in distress. They were standing by their car at the side of the road looking very woebegone. Ever the gallant knight, John stopped and it turned out that their rental car was constantly overheating and the company had just told them to keep adding water to the radiator. They thought that having to stop every 2 km was maybe a bit much! So we filled them up with water and followed them to the nearest service station where we left them, still looking woebegone, but at least they were safe. We were on our way to Franz Josef glacier - lots of stops on the way to take photos of water falls and high seas (we’re back on the coast again).
Feb. 19 - We walked to Peter’s Pool which has views of the glacier, but decided not to do a tour as the place is crawling with tourists and buses and noise and hubbub etc. We had a very nice, quiet little hike and got quite a good view of the glacier. It’s very steep and because of all the rainfall, it moves quickly (average 1 meter a year). The rain forest is incredible - our campsite is literally right in the middle of all these amazing trees which are covered with lichens, moss, vines and ferns. “Tree ferns” are not ferns that grow on trees, but actual trees (see picture) - I was quite fascinated with them!
Some of our neighbors are interesting folk - the young couple next door had the back of their van open this morning and they had 3 or 4 pots of some kind of plant growing in there……???!!! Most people in the camp sites fall into one of 3 categories - oldies like us (with bumper stickers like “B4ITS2L8”), young families and young singles who are probably the most diverse group, ranging from dreadlocks and plants in the back of the van to earnest travellers with dog-eared guide books.
My blogs seem to be expanding to cover all kinds of nonsense, but I guess since really it’s to remind us about our holiday, that’s OK! I just want to write a little bit about living in the van. It’s a bit like being on the boat in terms of size, and since we’re very used to working around each other in a very confined space, it hasn’t been too much of a problem for us living in a pretty small van. There’s actually lots of storage room - and we have a sink, 2-burner stove, microwave and tiny fridge. The living area is really like the boat - a bench seat on each side with a table in the middle which we take down at night to make up the bed. (Those of you who have heard John’s rant about our bed in the boat will smile here!) Cooking is quite exciting at times, and not only because of the limited space and utensils. I decided to make chili the other night (it was really cold and we wanted some comfort food). So I got all the makings at the grocery store and cooked up this amazing looking meal. However, I guess the chili powder here is a little stronger than I am used to because even John broke out in a sweat! It was so hot that we could hardly eat it and most of it got thrown out. We were staying in a little tiny camp ground and the office was closed (this was about 7:30 pm) but there was a buzzer you could push to have the office opened. We debated whether our burning mouths constituted enough of an emergency to push the buzzer, and bravely decided that it was. The lady who came to open up for us was very sweet and quite understood our desperate need for ice cream to negate the chili heat! In general, we have breakfast in the van and often have a picnic lunch. Supper depends on where we are, what is in the fridge and how much like cooking I feel. Mostly we eat in the van, but we have had some super meals out, sometimes in the most unlikely places. It will be very strange to go home to a kitchen where everything is easy to get at and I don’t have to unload the entire fridge contents every time I want something.

Doubtful Sound

Doubtful Sound was undoubtedly (sorry!) one of the highlights of our whole trip so far. A “sound” is a fjord, of which there are quite a few on the south west coast of the South Island, the two most famous being Doubtful and Milford. We chose to go to Doubtful as it is less touristy than Milford, and it really was an “away from it all” couple of days. It got its name from Captain Cook, who decided that it was doubtful that there would be good enough winds to blow his ship out of the sound once he got into it, so he never actually went down it. He was probably right as the prevailing wind blows into the sound. We did an over-night trip on a boat called the Fjordland Navigator which was a 3-deck affair which could carry about 50 passengers and 10 crew. There were some 4-bed rooms, but I had decided to spoil us, so we had a double room all to ourselves with our own shower and toilet (which was a HUGE luxury after having been in hostels and campgrounds for quite a long time!)
We started out in Manipouri where we were picked up at the gate of our campground and taken down to the dock where we got on a small boat to cross Lake Manipouri (about 1 hour). Then there was a coach which took us over the Wilmot Pass across to Doubtful Sound where the boat was waiting for us. (if you look on the map, you’ll get an idea about just how far away from anything it is). The only reason that Doubtful Sound is accessible at all is that a huge hydro-electric station was built on Lake Manipouri and there had to be a road built to get all the equipment in. If not for that, it would still be a wilderness. The weather was absolutely gorgeous - the day before when we drove to Milford Sound in the rain, I had told John that the next day was going to be lovely (the power of visualization once again!) - and it was - sunshine, not a cloud in the sky (although it was still cool - Mark will see that I‘m wearing the blue hoodie [ONLY to be worn on Doubtful Sound] that I bought in Edmonton at MEC with him and Zoe!) The boat crew were really good, mostly quite young (although isn’t everyone now?!) - very pleasant and helpful. We went out of the harbour and down one of the arms of the fjord where the boat stopped and you could decide whether you wanted to kayak or go out with a nature guide in a tender (took about 15 people). We took kayaks which was great fun, especially as the boat followed us so we didn’t have to turn round and go back the way we had come! Some people went swimming, but with water temperature of 11 C, I decided not to. (John says he was tempted, but didn’t …..) We then went right out of the fjord into the Tasman Sea (which was very windy and cold) to visit a sealion colony. We got quite close, but most of them just stayed on the rocks looking like brown lumps, so not too exciting. Then back into the calm waters for an absolutely amazing supper, and a wonderful show put on by the resident pod of dolphins! There are a couple of new babies, the latest one called Piglet! They were leaping out of the water and just looking as though they were having a wonderful time. After supper, the nature guide put on a slide show about the geography, animals and history of the area, obviously a passion for him - he was SO enthusiastic! He was very entertaining and knowledgeable, with a very New Zealand sense of humour which takes great delight in poking fun at Australians!
It’s really hard to describe the scenery - it’s so majestic. The sides of the sound are immense mountains which are mostly covered with trees, though it’s almost impossible to understand how they manage to hang on to such steep slopes which appear to have almost no soil on them. But the cliffs are thickly covered with the most amazing trees which in turn are covered with all kinds of lichens, mosses and ferns - no wonder they chose this area to film Lord of the Rings! Of course it’s all rain forest which is very lush and you can almost see things growing. In some places, there were great gashes of emptiness where you could see the rock face. That was where there had been slides caused either by earthquakes (there are a LOT here, most of which you don’t notice luckily!) or by dead trees which fall and start a domino fall down the mountain. Some of the time the mountains were covered with clouds which just added to the atmosphere. And when we got up (early!) in the morning, there were lots of ribbons of clouds just hanging around below the mountain tops with clear sky above them - really interesting to see. On the second day, there was no wind and again, it was a gorgeous clear day, so the captain took us very close to the edge of the sound and turned the engines and generator off so we could experience “the sound of silence”. He had asked everyone to keep really still and not take pictures so that there would be complete silence, and amazingly all 50 people did exactly that! John and I get that “sound of silence” at the lake in the summer, but I imagine for many people, they have never really had to listen to nothing for any length of time (about 5 minutes).
We met a really nice Australian/Canadian couple, Liz and Phil (which she carefully pointed out were easy names to remember if you are a monarchist!) So we had some good company (and of course, we swapped e-mail addresses so Phil and John can exchange the many photographs they both took!)
So the whole trip was a huge success.

Slowly through the Southland

Feb. 12 - We are still rambling our way along the south coast, trying to make sure that we don’t get to Manapouri too soon (that’s where we get the connection for our overnight trip on Doubtful Sound, one of the big fjords on the west coast). We stopped off today in a little village called Riverton which we would normally have driven right through, but when you’ve got time on your hands, why not? It turned out to be a little gem with the most amazing coffee shop, founded by Mrs. Clarke in 1894. The village is pretty small and not much goes on there, but this coffee shop would have been quite in place in one of the ritzier places we’ve been - really good coffee and amazing home-cooked goodies (we had the scone with jam and cream!) And then there was this fascinating museum called Te Hikoi which had a really good movie to introduce you to the history of the area and then lots of interesting mock-ups and paraphernalia - a really good way to spend an hour or two. Then we drove on to Curoc Bay which didn’t have a whole lot going for it except a large, life-size model of a surfer that greeted you as you entered the village (everyone needs a plastic surfer in their lives once in a while). We spent a pretty soggy night there (it rains quite a lot), but they did a really good lamb curry.
Feb. 13 - On again slowly, this time stopping in Tuatepere, apparently the sausage capital of New Zealand, if not the world. So of course we stopped at the butcher’s shop and bought some sausages for supper - lamb, mint and rosemary - really good. And here again, although the village was rather tired and run-down, there was an amazing coffee shop run in a kind of museum to kitchen-hood - all kinds of old kitchen stuff (some of which, I hate to admit, I remember from my childhood - like the carpet beater, kind of like a tennis racket which we used to get the dust out of our rugs - hang them on the washing line and beat the hell out of them, and the old hand-wound meat grinders.) We couldn’t resist buying some jam and pickles, obviously home made and again, the coffee was wonderful (and so was the apple strudel!) The highlight for me was that the background music was provided by a gramophone which was playing a Val Doonican LP when we arrived (older English readers will relate!) Tearing ourselves away from memory lane, we arrived in Manipouri which is on a huge lake surrounded by mountains. The campground is rather weird, with about 15 old Morris Minors (again, older English readers will understand) in various states of disrepair (mostly looking pretty sad, sadly) and very strange cabins, some mock-Tudor, some mock-Swiss - a bit like the Twilight Zone.
Feb. 14 - One more day to hang around as tomorrow we go off on our boat to Doubtful Sound. It was a grey, rainy day (see picture) so we decided to drive up to Milford Sound, about 100 km to the north. That’s the Sound that most tourists go to (which is why we chose Doubtful for our trip!) We stopped at Te Anau, just north of Manipouri, but our coffee shop charm had run out, so we kept going through the mist and had a picnic at a little place called Smithy Creek (appropriate for John, we thought, but we couldn’t find a creek). We stopped at a couple of places on our way to Milford, and the rain obligingly stopped for us each time. Mirror Lakes were pretty (they have the name board upside down so that it reflects correctly in the lake!). The Chasm was amazing - an inconspicuous little river, burbling along, suddenly gets deflected into a narrow neck and down a shute so that it turns into a raging torrent which has worn the rocks into the most amazing shapes. (see picture) Milford itself wasn’t very exciting, mainly a place where you go to get on a boat to go out on the lake, and the mountains around were hard to see because of the mist, but now we can say we’ve been there!
Two things we have noticed, both in Australia and New Zealand, which seem like really good ideas (are you listening, Canada?) There are no pennies or nickels - if you go into a store and spend $5.48, they round it up to $5.50 and likewise, if you spend $5.22, they round it down to $5.20. So you don’t go around with a heavy pocket full of small coins and it all evens out in the end. The other good idea is that most toilets have 2 buttons to push, one gives you a quick swish and the other gives you the old-fashioned, full-blooded swooooooooooosh - really good idea to save water.

Penguins and Bentleys

Feb. 10 - We had been told that Curio Bay was a lovely place so that’s where we ended up today. The campground is REALLY rustic, so we decided to pass on having showers (and only used the washrooms when absolutely necessary!) All the individual camp sites were surrounded on 3 sides by huge stands of flax bushes which looked very much like enormous aloe plants so maybe there’s another language issue there! Anyway, these huge bushes kept the wind off which was nice as it was freezing! The whole point of going to Curio Bay was to see the wildlife and the petrified forest. Curio Bay is actually just a small part of a larger bay called Porpoise Bay for obvious reasons. A pod of Hector’s dolphins (very small and very rare) live there as well as sea lions and rare yellow-eyed penguins - all of which we saw! The dolphins were playing as we left on the morning of Feb. 11 and a sea lion waddled down the beach just as we were about to leave. Such an expenditure of energy just to get a few yards! The evening before, we pulled on our long underwear (AGAIN!), our toques and gloves and went to the “hide” to watch the penguins come in from the sea after their day’s fishing. They all have chicks waiting for them at this time of year, but we were a bit late in the evening and the light was already fading by the time we got there. However, we did see one penguin come out of the sea and sit on the rocks preening him/herself. We could hear chicks crying piteously from the bushes where the nests are, but this particular penguin was a great deal more interested in his coiffure than his parental duties. We went for a walk around the headland in the afternoon and the waves on the rocks were quite spectacular - huge displays of spray. The petrified forest was in a little bay around the corner, 16.000.000 years old and the largest in the world. We were lucky to be there at low tide so we could see most of it and we sat on the beach and watched the waves for about ½ hour until a tour bus came along loaded with damn tourists …!!!
Feb. 11 - enough of this rustic stuff! We decided to drive to Invercargill today and set off quite early, me driving so John could take photos as we went. About 5 minutes out, a very old vintage car drove by the other way, causing John to almost tear his shorts off, trying to get his camera out. Just as he was grumbling that we’d never see anything like that again, along came another one - and another one - and on and on. We came across one that was parked so we stopped to talk to the people, a very nice English couple who spend their winters in New Zealand driving their vintage Bentley (must be nice). Anyway, they were part of the vintage Bentley association and 30 of them were driving round New Zealand, so we saw plenty more old cars. When we stopped in Invercargill for gas, he got talking to a guy with an old MGB and THEN we went to a hardware store that I had read about. It was in my guide book and I thought it would be worth a visit - and it really was. Not only is it the largest hardware store either of us have ever seen (probably covers at least ½ a city block), it probably has almost everything you could possibly want - cut glass crystal, camping equipment, saucepans, hammers, Wellington boots etc. etc. The draw card though was that it is the home of the World’s Fastest Indian. Burt Monro was born just outside Invercargill in 1899 and he was a motor bike aficionado. He raced some of the bikes that he tinkered with and in 1967 he claimed the world record for a 1000 cc bike with an average speed of 183 mph, a record which still stands. Zoe and Andy [and Mark, seeing that you had a bike!] (and anyone else interested) - there is a movie called “The World’s Fastest Indian” starring Anthony Hopkins which I think you would enjoy. I rented it for John and me a couple of years ago and didn’t tell John what it was about, so you can imagine his enthusiasm when I showed him the DVD cover! But of course he loved it! Anyway, this hardware store not only had that bike, but also lots of other old bikes, so John was in there for ages. We are staying at a civilized campground tonight and we both hit the showers almost as soon as we stopped the van! We’re off again into the wilderness tomorrow and again, not sure when we will have internet coverage. So keep checking the blog …..

Albatrosses and sheep

Feb. 7 - We drove from our unpronounceable campsite to the Otago Peninsula today, just east of Dunedin. It was NOT a nice day, lots of rain and high winds. But our objective was the Royal Albatross Colony right at the end of the peninsula, and of course that was perfect weather for the birds! Our guide told us that the day before had been hot and sunny with no wind, and most of the birds were grounded as they need a good wind to get off the ground (they are REALLY heavy with a 3 meter wing-span. They have mock ups of the chicks at various stages of their lives which they pass around for you to see how big they are - a full grown chick is about 15 kg!). When we got there, the electricity was out as a tree had fallen on the power line, so we had a cold lunch while waiting for our 1 pm guide. At 12:59, the power went back on so we were able to see the DVD on the wildlife around the peninsula. We had a lovely guide who was very knowledgeable. You go up to a “hide” overlooking some of the nesting grounds and there were 3 birds on the nest (chicks have hatched by now but the parents have a 1 year commitment after which they take a year off! Sounds like a good idea!) The only bird to get up and have a stretch was partly hidden by a ridge, so we couldn’t see her chick, but the high winds were a gift to the unmarried birds and the partners off duty, so we saw dozens of them flying. They really are huge and it was quite a thrill to see so many. It’s pretty tough to photograph them as obviously they swoop by pretty quickly, but John managed to get a few good shots. There is also an old fort at the point, Fort Taiaroa (more vowels) which has a disappearing gun so of course, we had to go and see that. It was actually really fascinating - it was put there in the early 20th century to guard the entrance to the harbour and the gun pops up out of the ground on a hydraulic system, shoots the enemy and then disappears! It was never actually used in combat but is the only complete gun of its kind still in existence.
The next day we stopped in at Dunedin to pick up money, food, gas and books. One of the top 10 second hand bookstores in the world is there, Octagon Books, and we managed to track it down. We have been doing LOTS of reading - there’s not a lot to do in the evenings in a campsite unless you meet some convivial neighbors, so we play cards and read. We are leaving a trail of finished books behind us but since our visit to Octagon, we are considering starting a mobile lending library!
We were headed for Pounawea, a little dot on the map in an area of the South Island called the Catlins which is renowned for its scenery. We stopped for a picnic lunch on the beach at Brighton - could not be less like its English counterpart (see picture)! There was one other couple on the beach which was gorgeous golden sand, huge breakers crashing on the rocks, blue sky and hot sun. However, there isn’t much between the south end of the south island and Antarctica, so the wind off the sea is always cold. The temperature really drops at night and we even slept with our toques (wooly hats) on last night (Mark and Zoe will understand!)
Feb. 9 - Pounawea was lovely if a little rustic from the camping point of view. We were right on the estuary which had lots of birds - tuis are like the Australian magpies with the most amazing range of calls, some burbling and some like a bell. Our neighbours were a delightful couple from the North Island, Zelma who was 80 and her husband Jack who was 78. They go camping at least once a month pulling their caravan and they very kindly offered to drive us round one afternoon to go exploring! The weather wasn’t great so it was nice to have something to do. We tootled around all kinds of back roads and found some interesting-sounding places - Cannibal Bay for one - and they were a lovely couple (we saw lots of sheep!).

Vowel towns

February 4 - We drove to Oamaru yesterday - gorgeous day with blue sky, not a cloud in sight and not a breath of wind. We drove past a beautiful lake which was absolutely flat, so there were some lovely reflections of the mountains to take photographs of! Oamaru is notable for its lovely old buildings and there is a thriving historic precinct where all the shop keepers dress in period costume as they demonstrate their trades e.g. book binding, weaving, stone carving. Our campground was within easy walking distance of the town through the botanic gardens - lots more photographic opportunities! John found a hardware store to buy some screen material and duct tape (hurray for duct tape!) so that he could manufacture screens for our van windows (part of our beef with the company was that there were screens on the little windows but not the big ones even though the fittings were there). We have now pretty much fixed up everything that was wrong with the van and have had some very frustrating phone calls and e-mails with the customer service person from the company who really doesn’t seem to give a damn. However, we won’t go there ………
February 5 - The only thing that we have booked in New Zealand is a night on a boat on Doubtful Sound on February 15, and I rather over-estimated the amount of time we would need to get there. I tried to change the day so that we could go earlier, but the cruises get booked up months in advance so we are stuck with the dates I originally booked. So we are dragging our heels a bit as we have 8 days to drive about 500 km. We left Oamaru this morning and drove to see the Moeraki Boulders - ancient concretions on one particular part of the beach. They look like huge marbles and are a tourist “must”. I had also read about (and been told about) a restaurant in Moeraki called Fleur’s Place, owned, mysteriously, by someone called Fleur. And the food really did live up to the reputation. We have been sharing meals almost from day 1 of our trip, but we let ourselves go here and although we shared the asparagus soup and fresh grouper, we splurged and had a whole dessert each. Absolutely amazing. We lumbered back to the van and drove a few more miles to a town called Waikouaiti (see why I called this entry “vowel towns”?) which is a blob on the map with nothing going on. The campsite is tiny and has some very interesting people in it (apart from us, of course!), the beach is gorgeous (but too cold to swim) and we are going to stay here for a couple of days and veg. John is actually threatening to look at some of his photos which now must number over 7,000 to start organizing them. I’m not sure that that is a reasonable expectation in this lifetime, but it would be good to start.
As we head off to the south coast we will be out of internet reach for a while so I’m not sure when the next blog will appear. But fear not, we haven’t dropped off the edge of the world and will be back …..

Mount Cook and Wrinkly Rams

February 1. So now we are at Mount Cook, the highest mountain in New Zealand. There is a National Park and a very interesting memorial to Edmund Hillary who started his climbing career here. The memorial consists of a museum with an excellent documentary of his life and all kinds of artifacts and information on other climbers e.g. the women who used to climb in knickerbockers in the 19th century! Neither John nor I knew much about Hillary, so it was very interesting - not only was he the first man to climb Everest, but he was also the first man to drive a motorized vehicle (a farm tractor) across the Antarctic! He developed a great love for India and Nepal and built many schools there (reminded me of “Three Cups of Tea”, Zoe!) There is also a planetarium and a 3D movie about Mount Cook which was really good. There is absolutely no need for us to get roped in to one of the MANY companies trying to get us to fly over the area in helicopters now that we have seen the 3D movie! The scenery here, of course, is amazing and THERE IS SNOW! (but not at the campground level, thank goodness!) I have been sleeping in my long underwear however - the temperature just drops as soon as the sun goes down. Our second day here, we walked out to Hooker Lake Glacier which was about a 3 hour hike, most of it over rocks and boulders it seemed. Both of our knees (all 4 actually) held up well, but it was very hot and we didn’t really have enough water. You would have thought we would have learned that particular lesson in spades in Australia. However we survived and the scenery along the way made it worthwhile. Although John did comment when we eventually got to the lake (full of ice chunks from the glacier) that he couldn’t quite see why we had gone to such lengths to avoid a Saskatchewan winter in order to go and see chunks of ice with snow covered mountains in the background! On the way out to the lake we passed the Alpine Memorial with the names of all those who had lost their lives on the mountain - quite a large number, mostly young men, obviously. They either fell or got caught in avalanches. Having seen in the Museum movie what is involved in climbing these huge peaks, it’s obvious that they have an amazing pull on some people - but not this one.
February 3. We drove to Omarama last night which is a small town between the mountains and the coast where we are headed next. I wanted to stay here because my trusty guide book had told me that there was a place called the Wrinkly Rams, and how could we not stop in to see what it was all about? It is in fact a really good restaurant (we had amazing lamb shanks for supper), a store where you can buy all kinds of woolen things (obviously we’re in sheep country) and they do sheep shearing demonstrations which of course we had to take in. James was a lovely man who explained about all the different breeds of sheep (I had no idea there were so many) and the different things their wool is used for (running from the very expensive Merino sheep to the run of the mill carpet sheep). Then he hauled out a most accommodating Merino ewe to shear for our benefit. We couldn’t believe how docile she was, although James did say that she was 5 years old and so had been through this a few times before. But she just sat on her bum and watched us while he whipped most of her wool off with electric clippers and then finished her off with old-fashioned hand clippers. so we could see both methods. It was fascinating to watch it fall - SO thick (and pretty grubby on the outside!) James also showed us a DVD on what happens from when the wool is on the sheep all the way through to finished woolen clothes - very interesting. (I’ve realized that I’ve used “interesting” a lot - but don’t have my thesaurus with me - and these things ARE interesting!) There was a newspaper article in the shop part of the Wrinkly Rams about a ram called Shrek who had evaded the muster for 6 years and had lived all on his own up in the high country until a shepherd happened to find him. When they brought him in to shear him, his fleece weighed over 25 kg because it keeps growing (some sheep lose their wool naturally, but Merino wool just keeps growing). James told us that when it rains, a Merino sheep can absorb up to 30% of wool weight in water - so poor old Shrek spent a lot of his time lying down because he was just too heavy to move! This is one thing that John DIDN’T take a photo of and he now cursing himself - Shrek really was a sight to behold - the wool on his chest was so thick you had to wonder how he had managed to get his head down to eat.
To get to Omarama, we had to drive through Twizel which is where some of the Lord of the Rings was shot. Not being Rings fans, we didn’t stop but you can’t avoid some of the publicity. I was amused to see that one tour offered the opportunity to use a “genuine replica” of the swords used in the movie - something of an oxymoron, methinks!
I’ve just sat John down and forced him to look at our itinerary with me! As most of you know, I’ve done a lot of research and reading over the past couple of years and have done nearly all the planning for this trip. But I’d spent most of my time before we left on thinking about Australia and had kind of left New Zealand to chance. Probably a good thing as I am finding that things are changing as we go more than they did in Australia. We’ve spent quite a lot of time in big cities and we about “big-citied” out. We are going to take the south coast road through Dunedin and Invercargill to get to Manipouri where we will pick up our Doubtful Sound trip, but neither of us are in much of a mood to deal with cities any more so we‘ll likely not spend much, if any, time in either place. Some of the little towns along the way look really interesting (there it is again!) so the plan at the moment is not to spend much time in the big places but take our time and putz around the coast. Our Australian friends, Reg and Ruby, are planning a trip to New Zealand in the next little while so we are hoping to meet up with them - maybe we can actually DO something with them rather than hang around and wait for John to get well!

Campervan saga

Make sure you speak the language - Lesson #2.
We picked up our campervan this morning (January 28) and found a hand-written note on the dash saying “No gas”. Being Canadian, we assumed that this meant there was no fuel in the van. When we asked about this, the girl said that it had all been checked and it was full. And indeed, when we drove away, the gas gauge registered “Full”. However, about 90 km out of Christchurch, my British brain dropped into gear and I realized that “gas” here means “cooking gas” not “petrol”. So we stopped, opened up the storage compartment where the liquid gas is kept and lo and behold, there was nothing there! Nothing - empty - zilch - nada. No tank at all! Not only no gas - but no tank. After our somewhat heated e-mails to the company after our first campervan experience (no linen and then REALLY bad information given to us about toll roads) you can imagine that we were certainly not happy campers! However, it’s not such a huge deal - we will have to buy a tank tomorrow and we will be OK but it’s a pain in the rear end as we will now have to drive around to find somewhere to buy it and then go through all the paperwork to be reimbursed. Oh well - all part of life’s rich tapestry …..
We have driven to a delightful, peaceful little place in the mountains, Mount Somers. We have opted to do nothing while we’re here - the weather is lovely, there are 2 alpacas munching away in the pasture behind our van, the birds are singing and John just went to buy some cider. So all is good. We are relaxing in the shade (the sun is BURNING hot here - you have to be really careful and slather on sun screen or you really regret it), reading and beating each other at cards. I guess the Australian Open will just have to go ahead without us now that we are on the road, but I can get the results on the internet. Sad to see that my boy Rafa had to pull out the other night to let Andy Murray through ……. On our way here, we had to stop every few miles for John to take pictures of the hedges. They really are quite something, often topping 25’ or more. And they are so beautifully kept! Lots of different shapes and SO BIG!! (see picture)
January 31 - not such smooth sailing as I had predicted with the elusive gas tank! I’ll cut a very long and frustrating story short, but after Mount Somers, we drove to a lovely little town called Geraldine where we asked a very helpful man in the hardware store to help us run down a gas tank. He had one couriered in from the nearest big town only to find that the fittings didn’t fit! So we called the camper company again and were told that we could pick up a new tank in a different town the next day which was not on our planned route at all. However, we went there and after several more bumps in the road, we eventually have a functioning liquid gas tank (I have since discovered that the ignition system is faulty! My first clue was when I was nearly blown out of the van when I tried to light one of the burners). I’m in the middle of composing an e-mail to the customer service manager of the company (whom I am on first name terms already following our history in Australia) so we’ll see what the outcome is. While we were in Geraldine, we decided to do some retail therapy and went to an outlet store in an old tin shed, appropriately called The Tin Shed, where we both bought a New Zealand wool sweater (Zoe - they are being shipped directly home, so don’t get excited when the parcel arrives!) ANYWAY, we are now underway, more or less completely fitted out and I am doing a lot of humming (my yoga buddies will understand!)
We are now at Lake Tekapo which is a gorgeous turquoise lake and we have a camp site right on the lake shore. We walked into the village this morning (our only form of exercise at the moment - we are doing rather a lot of sitting in the van so I’m trying to get us out and “tramping” as much as possible). There is a tiny church on the lake (the Church of the Good Shepherd) - as you sit in the pews, there is a huge window behind the altar so you see directly out over the lake. Obviously, there are a lot of sheep here (it looks incredibly like the Lake District in England) and the church was erected to pay tribute to the sheep men of the area. A bit further down the road is a beautiful statue of a collie dog, to pay tribute to the workers! The weather here is quite exciting - “4 seasons in one day” according to the locals. The clouds on the mountains are quite spectacular, especially when you watch them rolling down into the hollows - it looks like molten lava pouring down a volcano. In the evening, we went stargazing with 7 other intrepid tourists and an astronomer. The skies around Lake Tekapo have been designated as a World Heritage Site and no planes are allowed to fly over it at night. Unfortunately the moon was nearly full (it looked incredible but really messed up our ability to see much with the naked eye). The astronomer was great - really enthusiastic and knowledgeable and we were able to look through 2 different telescopes at various stars, nebulae etc. It was really cold (even for us!) - one of our purchases in Melbourne had been two extremely colorful toques (wooly hats) so we were able to christen them (looks even worse than the sun hat, Zoe!)