New Zealand South Island 2017
A NEW ZEALAND JOURNEY 2.
In autumn 2017 Jenni and I enjoyed a very special holiday. On the second of these two pages we have reproduced the text and images from that blog on our time on the South Island.
1. “This is a little bit of paradise” November 6, 2017
That was what Pete and Jenny, the owners of this great campervan and the caretakers of our Sunday night site, wrote on their welcome board.
I hope my dear non-Christian friends will forgive me, but it set me thinking about heaven! I am totally turned off by some of the traditional abstract ideas… floating in clouds, constant singing, gold paved city streets……. if you really believe in God then it follows that he is the ultimate artist, the creator of the most amazing, vital and dynamic life forms.
2. A bit more paradise
The approach to Picton on the Ferry was awesome. Then we drove for about three hours from Picton to the Nelson area. This too was amazing. I could have stopped dozens of times to try capture image after image.
It’s hard to describe this three hour evening drive. Normally driving is a tedious affair but this was emotional: like a sustained euphoria, a visual binge. To return to the muse: if this is what earth can be like, then I’m absolutely up for it as far as heaven is concerned!
3. Even more paradise
Yesterday was another experience to dream about for those back in the UK about to start work in an increasingly cold autumn (Thanks for sharing this record of our ‘sabbatical’ …we will be back sharing the ordinary with you next month!)
Coming across a school of dolphins was icing on the cake!
We were ferried up the coast of the Abel Tasman National Park, dropped off for an hour and a half’s walk and picked up again. As you can see this was fabulous.
No need for more words. We go on today to the harsher West coast and the forecast is not so good. Could paradise to be re-defined?!
4. The Flow Illustrated: Part One November 9, 2017
The naming of this web site was intentional: an exploration of ideas, events and life using the allegory of water. The last 72 hours …and I can’t resist a suitable word…… have provided a torrent of things connected with water.
The weather began to change as we travelled down the west coast. This marked change in fact intensified our experiences. The high tides and a storm which cancelled the ferry crossings from Wellington gave us two memorable days.
5.1 The Flow illustrated: Experience One
On Tuesday evening the weather turned wet as travelled south on the West Coast road. We chose a camp site by a river, about a hundred yards before it reached the sea. Jenni asked whether the river was tidal because we were quite close. I checked that we were on solid ground above the high water mark. We were within a few inches of the level of most of the campsite.
It blew a gale and rained hard. Overnight the van shook in the wind. Heavy rain must have raised the river level. This had combined with the wind and a very high tide.
When we got up there was small drift wood around the wheels of the Van and two larger bits quite close- as shown in the pictures.
I woke Jenni with the news she had been right….. yet again! I reckon most of the site had been under an inch or so of water. We learned later that the storm had knocked the power out all over the area.
The path to the beach I had walked down in the evening was spectacularly blocked with driftwood with some stones, bigger than a hand, on top.
5.2 The Flow illustrated: Experience Two
I used to take Quinta boys caving. Definitely not Jenni’s cup of tea: she read a book in the van.
I jumped at the chance of a four-hour caving trip that finished by drifting underground in tyre inner tubes down streams in caves only lit by glow worms and then out onto the river.
It was simply amazing. I would have gone on down the river to the sea if they would have let me and done the longer more challenging expedition if I was younger.
They claim to be one of the best public caving experiences in NZ because the tourist footfall is substantially lower and the small groups are allowed right up to the formations – but strictly no touching! The storm water had been so high the night before that it was touch and go whether we would go -but it dropped just enough. Easily one of the top ten ways of enjoying the physical expressions of water whilst marvelling at its power to transform.
5.3 The Flow illustrated: Experience Three
Just off the coastal highway is a remarkable example of limestone coastal erosion where there are caves, chimneys and blow holes.
We saw it in a rough sea at high tide with a strong wind: absolutely ideal conditions. The waves crashed against the cliffs.
It’s called Pancake Rocks because of the layers in the limestone. They thundered through arches and caves; sometimes with huge thuds and columns of spray blowing out through large and small holes.
Such power, such fury, such force: magnificent. Once again the pictures simply don’t communicate the scale.
5.4 The Flow illustrated: Experience Four
We called in briefly on the Hokitiki Gorge. In wet weather the water is this turgid grey, full of fine alluvial material. Under blue skies it turns turquoise. In dry periods it becomes a crystal clear blue
5.5 The Flow illustrated: Experience Five
However, the Hokitiki Gorge is of a similar geological family to that of today’s destination: The Fox Glacier. The pictures are of our evening walk up the short valley to view the end of the glacier. The pictures speak for themselves of the naked power of water / ice. Jenni provides an idea of scale in the last two of these three pictures – yes, that pink dot! …. hopefully we will actually be on the glacier the next day with better weather?!
In three to four days we have travelled a few hundred miles south from the idyllic beaches of Abel Tasman to the raw power of active glaciers – stunning. For those also reflecting on the philosophical and spiritual undercurrents, there is a lifetime set of allegories packed in the detail……. immensely powerful.
5.6 The Flow illustrated: our encounter with ‘solid water’ November 11, 2017
On Friday, we woke up to a gloriously sunny day. Brilliant for the high point of our trip … in all senses of the word. Yet it is very misleading to pick out just one of so many things from our five-week tour: this glazier flight was more comparable to a crescendo in a great orchestral performance.
The wet days just before had created a backlog of flights. So, we had to wait several hours for our flight up the Franz Joseph glacier. Then there was a 20-minute landing near the top in the immediate shadow of Mount Cook before a return flight down the Fox Glacier. All breathtaking and fantastic!
We saw the heads of glaciers, including ones we would later visit from the east side of the mountain range.
Understandably, this was a huge tick-box tourist attraction. And of course, the views were amazing. We were joined by two other helicopters at this more up-market tourist ‘hot’ spot.
The summit of Mount Cook was quite close to the landing place. It is just the highest point on the range. Glaciers fan out on all sides.
It was very special to be able to fly down the Fox Glacier and see exactly where we where we had walked the evening before. The walking / flying combination made a big impact.
6. Days less intense November 12, 2017
The downside of many of these idyllic camp sites is the native Sand Flies and their voracious appetite for our bodies. Despite a campfire and insect repellent, we are both itching. The river view was adjacent. The site was just before the Haast Pass, one of the few routes that allows east/west travel in the South Island.
In this area, the mountains, rivers and hills provide one postcard vista after another ….. “KEEP-Your-Eyes-On-The-Road!” …. or the equivalent communication from Jenni was not infrequent!
Wanaka was a delightful stop-off after the Haast Pass. It’s lakeside setting with the backdrop of snow-capped hills is beautiful.
Queenstown rates itself as the outdoor activity centre of South Island, if not New Zealand. You can do all sorts if you want to splash the cash. It’s a wealthy adrenaline junky’s paradise.
However, we were the ultimate in stingy / boring …. after all it is not quite the done thing to blow all the inheritance in one go. But we enjoyed the views, especially on the spectacular descent on the Crown Range Road down to Queenstown.
We have travelled on this afternoon and are set up for the drive over to Milford Sound and the two hour fijord cruise that almost each one of the millions of other tourist do. Tour buses everywhere.
Broom grows everywhere. This captures Jenni in Broom! (Trivia: somewhat appropriately in this instance, broom is scientifically known as ‘Genisteae’)
7.1 Tick Box Tourism? November 15, 2017
In my ignorance, I had not realised the extent to which New Zealand had been part of the worldwide ‘gold rush’ phenomenon of the nineteenth century. For example, Charlestown, the place where I enjoyed the caving, now boasts a population of 57. For a few brief gold rush years, it reached 11,000.
Without doubt, the new gold rush is tourism. Great tracts of the country are extremely beautiful. In all this, there are a dozen or more hot spots connected by a similar number of tourist highways.
Milford Sound is perhaps the hottest of the lot.
It is stunning and not to be missed. Like everyone else, we were enchanted. I have dozen or more images, but it is hard to get anything that is out of the ordinary.
There must be thousands of pictures taken there every day. There was an army of very sophisticated cameras and lenses on display!
7.2 Travel Boxes?
Those who have gone beyond this travel blog and explored the rest of Livetheflowwill understand the reason for the picture of a queue of coaches waiting to enter the Homer Tunnel on the way to Milford Sound.
‘Travel Thoughts’ explores our tendency to live life in a series of disconnected boxes: to concentrate on the destination to the exclusion of the journey. There, this ‘Milford Sound experience’ is used as a discussion point.
Milford Sound is at the end of a 73-mile road from Te Anau. Many even catch a coach from Queenstown, making it a 362-mile round journey in a box on wheels for a two-hour trip in a floating box on Milford Sound…and although some of that is on good, relatively fast roads, some is on bendy, steep and slow roads.
At the top of the Sound there are 35 parking spaces for coaches and minibuses and a fleet of about twelve boats doing up to four trips a day each.
There are, of course, multiple brief stops for the unmissable selfie!
7.3 Half in and Half out of the Box?
Of course, we are also ticking the New Zealand tourist boxes but we made a deliberate effort to step outside the boxes: to live in the journey as well as see the destination.
So, like quite a number of others, Jenni and I took a day and a half for the magnificent drive to Milford Sound. If you really pushed me to choose, I’d take the experiences and discoveries of the journey. The real way to do the trip is a 4+ day hike on the Milford Track!
In simplistic terms, going to Milford Sound consists of driving up one glaciated valley and down another: the two being connected by the memorable, somewhat crude, downhill Homer Tunnel. Once again, it is difficult to convey scale. Continue to spot the coaches and the van in three of the pictures of these huge, glaciated valleys.
We camped on the way on one of several freedom camp sites. We stopped many times just to drink in the overwhelming scenery.
We took a detour up the Hollyford Valley. On this we found this great riverside picnic spot. Whilst hundreds passed by a few miles away we had this all to ourselves for an hour: bar one other couple who had the temerity to pass by!
Once again water vies for top of the spectacular.
The image below was looking down on the Chasm: a medium sized fall where the water had apparently gauged out large round holes in the rock…. the clear blue water in the fall is so dynamic, so beautiful and so full of energy and life.
8. Sea, Sand, Sun, Seals. November 19, 2017
……. a collection of inspirational vistas for a November Monday morning in UK?
We have spent the last few days travelling the South Scenic Route. It’s a world away from the dramatic glaciers and mountains.
The route crosses an area known as The Catlins: it is like the best of Pembroke, Devon, Dorset, Cornwall and Northwest Wales all rolled into one. The only downside is that there is nothing but sea between this beautiful area and Antarctica. The shape of these trees testifies to severe, cold, salty, winds.
We saw many dream beaches and estuaries and walked some.
We walked out to various headlands including Nugget Point.
We gazed down from great viewpoints …..seeing seals swimming in the sea and lazing on rocks.
We turned up at exactly the right time to get up as close as allowed (10m) to a sea lion couple.
We marvelled at the Cathedral Caves: enhanced by being almost the first there that day with the fresh sand newly uncovered by the retreating tide.
We examined the fossilised forest .
We stopped and walked to a number of falls. My favourite was the McLean Falls.
The Catlins provided a leisurely few days with far less tourists per square inch! But the sum of its parts gave a high score.
It was easier to get right off the beaten track and just absorb the area.
Time just to be. What a privilege.
9. A SHIP IS IN November 23, 2017
From the Catlins we followed the Coast Road to Dunedin. Dunedin is at the end of a huge natural inlet. One of the cruise ships was in town providing a huge tourism boost.
Our camp site was a long drive round the water’s edge. Although we camped under the shadow of Harington Point, we spurned the chance to see the albatross colony. When you eventually get there you find the whole area is fenced off and the only way to see the colony is to pay $50 each for an hour’s tour … we don’t twitch quite that much. Instead, on Monday, we paid $4.5 less each for a four hour trip on the Taieri Gorge Railway.
Initially financed by the gold ‘gold rush’, then by the government backed land ‘gold rush’ and now kept going by the tourist ‘gold rush’, The Taieri Gorge Railway is an amazing achievement: one of sheer determination.
The track is just blasted up the sides of this long spectacular Gorge. Viaducts abound. They are reminiscent of Telford’s Pontycysllte Aqueduct, with a path and rail on one side and nothing on the other. But, unlike the Aqueduct, there is no side to hold the water in.
So you look straight down through the sleepers. It is billed as one of the world’s great train trips. It certainly was breath-taking. Jenni held hers more than once!
We spent another day moving North up the coast seeing many more seals and some other things like these unusual rocks, the Moeraki Boulders, created by a specific geological process …..those interested can google!
Then, as the irresistible image below shows, we left the coast and headed inland for our last few days in the van.
We ended up by the mountains just a few miles from where we were a week or two ago: exactly on the other side of Mount Cook.
10. The Other Side November 23, 2017
For our final week it was great to revisit the mountains and the glaciers: to see the other side of Mount Cook. On the west, Mount Cook sits right up against the coast. On the East, the glacial / alpine landscape dominates for miles inland. Crystal blue lakes and reservoirs provide for endless photo ops. I did not seize the chance to get up with the sun. Better images avoid the day-time haze, capture the more subtle lights and use the early morning calm before the wind blurs the mountain reflections.
We walked several miles to see the Hooker Glacier.
It was a surprisingly demanding three hour walk. Despite constantly seeing snow close by, it was so hot that not to have any head covering was asking for trouble.
A guy even swum out to one of the mini-icebergs. One girl was doing this mountain walk in her miniscule bikini! Sorry guys, I missed that photo op … you will have to be content with the wonderful iceberg shapes floating in the lake at the end of the glacier! We have now seen four of The Cook glaciers…. how much longer any will be there is an open question. The Tasman Glacier is now down to 24km and is retreating around 0.5km pa.
Jenni is becoming more casual about suspension bridges … she now only grabs the handrail a few times.
11. The final day in the van: November 24th 2017
We are now on our way to the coast south of Christchurch for the last night on the van and then a few final nights in ‘earthquake city’.
We have chosen a fleeting visit to the Banks Peninsular with dramatic volcanic scenery: steep roads down to a dazzling array of bays and great vistas from the Summit Road.
One final night spent at a beach side camp site before dropping off the van, that served us well as a home for five weeks. Then three days in Christchurch: ‘Earthquake City’ before flying home.
12. The Power Of The Earth: November 27, 2017
This morning, we received a lovely, concerned family message from Sam… ‘Were we OK?’ There had been a significant earth tremor near Wellington. It had made the news in the UK.
The Wellington tremor happened in the middle of the night here. Apparently it was felt by some here in Christchurch.
We are in one of the new buildings subject to stringent earthquake protection measures, so I doubt we would even feel a very minor tremor. Just to the right, behind the glass above the tram on the second floor! Most new commercial buildings sit on a piled concrete plate with laminate steel / rubber pads between that and the main structures above – rather like car shock absorbers.
We had already visited the striking ‘Chairs Memorial’ to the 185 people who died in the Christchurch earthquake of February 2011. So, it was completely fitting that first on our list this morning was Quake City: the museum devoted to the earthquake of February 2011. This helped us understand what we were seeing and get into the psyche of Christchurch and transformed our experience of the city.
Our apartment is very close to the ruined Cathedral that was deliberately placed by the Victorian Settlers at the centre of the city.
Over ¾ of the commercial properties in central Christchurch were destroyed or made too unsafe to use.
Gradually new buildings are coming into use but the whole central part of the city is largely a building site.
Many roads and new concourses are complete but there are many car parks where one day buildings will be – it reminds me of Birmingham in the late ‘60’s – but this is of course considerably more extensive.
Restoration after massive damage from natural disaster does not happen quickly: it is the task of a whole generation.
We visited the interesting temporary ‘Cardboard’ Cathedral. No, it is not all cardboard: far from it but those roofing tubes are.
We also saw the newly opened memorial wall beautifully set by the River Avon that snakes its way through Christchurch in a manner remarkably like the Severn in Shrewsbury.
The Botanical Gardens immediately to the north of the centre of the city sustained less damage. They are beautiful and very much reflect our colonial legacy: a home from home. The fountain was of course made in Shropshire at Coalbrookdale!
Getting in touch with ‘The Power of the Earth’ somehow sums up a significant element of our stay in this very beautiful country.
13. Forty Days and Forty Nights November 29, 2017
Some numbers resonate. Others have developed their own cultural significance. So, it was with some amusement that I realised that we spent 40 days and 40 nights in New Zealand.
In round figures, we also spent an additional 4 days getting there and back. That includes all the interminable hours waiting in terminals, etc …. every aspect of the journey. This time also included all the time zone peculiarities.
Yesterday, Wednesday, was immense for us. We spent 5 hours waiting around, flew 12,000 miles; travelled almost another 100 miles by road; completed a major food shop; worked through a huge pile of post; began loads of washing; lit the fires to warm the house, called in on Jenni’s Mum ……. and more.
After all this we went to bed early, before 9.0 pm!
We have covered close to 40,000 miles. Fractionally over 36,000 flying, about 3,500 in the camper van, plus around 500 in buses, trains, cars and on foot!
PS For the benefit of others who might follow in our footsteps I should explain There is a website where they sell off last minute spare capacity on all sorts of activities: www.bookme.co.nz With our built in freedom to plan ahead for the next few days according to weather or any other factor, like the need for an OAP quiet day, we have been able to usethis to great advantage and save anything from 10 – 50% on most of the activities we enjoyed. Going on these excursions was an exceedingly important part of our trip. They need to be part of your budget, but last-minute booking in a holiday shoulder season saved us a lot of money.
THANKS TO YOU …. for following and sharing our journey
Our special thanks to a number of people whom I will not name online but they know who they are. People also stepped up to cover things we would have done.
Many have also held us in their prayers. Apart from the flights, accommodation for the first / last few days, the van and one activity, absolutely nothing was booked before we left the UK.
Most of the time we did not know where we would finish up each day till we got there. There were one or two little incidents, including stupidities which naturally I won’t confess to ….. but everything has gone remarkably smoothly. Should we try praying more often?!
Jenni kept a diary. Doing this blog has added another dimension to this fantastic experience. It has created an ordered memory out of hundreds of images in the camera and the mind: a framework of memory, emotion and thought. This enjoyable, creative discipline has helped me process the journey. It has rescued it from becoming just a surreal blur in a set of decaying brain cells!
I joked about this holiday being a retirement sabbatical. There is a substantial element of truth to that.
xx
Goodbye New Zealand!
