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We decided to stay put one more day. A day off. The most exciting thing that happened were two tremors. The place is certainly geologically active. In the evening we shared a few bottles of wine with a nice old fellow called Malcolm. Now hung over. We’ve been pretty good about managing what we drink recently. Until last night. Moving off today. In the morning we were back in Christchurch to visit the Canterbury Museum. It was very well presented and had a number of very interesting sections. We were in the building for about 2 hours before returning to the car to eat our prepared lunch. We then moved the car to another car park to visit the Fudge Cottage which had a tour of the fudge kitchen at 2pm. While waiting for the tour to start we were able to nibble on free sampled of fudge. By 2pm we had just enough interested parties for the tour to commence. We were taken to the kitchen and showed some fudge already on the boil. As the fudge was taken through it’s various stages of preparation we were told about the history of the place and given more samples to try out. The best moment was when we were given a spoon of hot/cooling freshly made fudge to sample. My heart nearly gave out at that point. After the fudge factory it was back to the campsite for an hour or so before heading to the mall to meet up with Frank and Karen from Tahina. Having met up we had a simple but tasty dinner at the food court before heading in to watch “The King’s Speech” which was a truly excellent movie. After the movie we stopped for a couple of beers and more of a chat. This morning we have to decide what to do. We could stay. We could move on. Weather on the west coast remains poor to mediocre for the next 5 days but it’s better on the east coast. At this point we have not made up our minds. We spent a while exploring Christchurch. First stop was the city center and the cathedral there which we had to climb. We had a look around the square and then spent a while walking along the river. We moved the car to the city park and ate our lunch by the river in the company of many hopeful ducks before spending time in the horticulture gardens. These were vast and very well kept. Helen very much enjoyed the displays as this is more her thing than mine although I enjoyed the amble through the area. In the late afternoon/evening we relaxed the usual way (reading, etc.) During the day we’d been contacted by Frank from Tahina who is also in Christchurch and the upshot is we’ll be meeting up for dinner and movies this evening. We’re looking forward to their company. Plans have changed. We’re now in Christchurch. The journey over was pretty awesome. We took route 73 through the center of the island through Arthur’s Pass. On the way up we stopped at a couple of lookout points. Each one, it seemed, was set not so much to look at the scenery but at the more complex constructions relating to the highway; rock fall covers, waterfalls being diverted over the roadway and a viaduct. At each of these stops we were beset by friendly Kea, NZ mountain parrots, presumably eager to be fed. We visited the Information Center at Arthur’s pass and decided up hiking up to the Temple Basin Ski Area followed by the shorter trip to the waterfall called the Devil’s Punch Bowl. The first hike was quite tough with the trail being rubbly and steep all the way from the road to the ski lodge. The ascent took us just over an hour and provided us spectacular views of the pass. The skies up in the mountains were blue but the forecasts were predicting 120km/h winds sometime in the afternoon at these altitudes so we didn’t linger before returning to the car. The Devil’s Punch Bowl was an impressive waterfall reached by a well made forest trail with plenty of steps and staircases. From our final vantage point below the base of the falls we could see the falls from top to bottom, much turning to vapour. The falls did in fact plunge into a bowl which seemed to spray all the water back up into the air. In the small village at Arthur’s Pass we stopped for lunch before moving on. The valley on the east side was pretty impressive with a number of lakes and complex river basins. We arrived at the Christchurch Top 10 campsite in the afternoon and booked in for 3 nights, possibly more. Once the tent was set up Helen decided she’d prefer a site nearer the facilities so after checking to make sure we could move we pulled out all the pegs and in an alarmingly strong wind moved the tent without taking it town to the new site. The maneuver worked and saved us a lot of the time it would have taken to completely dismantle and reassemble the tent. So now we’re in Christchurch well ahead of when we planned to. We enjoyed the pass which was not on our itinerary. Now we have to work out what to do here as well as how we can ensure visiting the glaciers on a good day. In miserable weather we set off from Karamea and headed south. All the rivers which the previous day had been trickles running through stone beds were now raging torrents. In hindsight I wish we’d taken pics of some of these torrents but at the time we didn’t want to get soaked. By lunchtime we’d reached Punakaiki famous for it’s pancake rocks which are a section of layered limestones carved by the wind and sea into some very interesting features. The weather by now was easing and by the time we’d eaten lunch the rain was down to a fine albeit cold drizzle. We set off to see the rocks. The path that took us round the formations was very well laid out and informative and bar a voluntary donation at the end it was free. It even stopped raining during our hurried stay. We pushed on south. By the time we reached Greymouth the northerly moving front passed us by and suddenly we were in full sunshine. We soon reached Hoktika and we found a backpacker lodge called ‘Birdsong’ to stay for the night in a very nice double room overlooking the still raging sea. Having acquired the room we drove into town to take a look around. The town is famous for it’s jade shops which we took a brief look at. The big surprise was last week on the beach they’d had a driftwood art competition and all the ‘sculptures’ were still there. They were fascinating and a complete surprise. In the evening we had a takeaway and spent the time after in the communal lounge chatting with a couple of the other guests, both of whom were quite interesting. One was cycling round New Zealand and the other was the only female salvage team leader in a male dominated industry. Looking ahead the weather dominates the picture. On the west coast, today remains fine for most of the day but then turns foul for days on end. Over on the east coast it is forecast to be fine for many days. So we’re thinking about deferring on the glaciers until a later date as we really want to see them and hike amongst them in full sunshine. Christchurch is 3 hours away through a mountain pass. There could well be things to do along the route. We have some planning to do. |
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