……Monday 26th – Thursday 29th October
Day 8
Picked up the car – a free upgrade on the basis that they didn’t have the manual gear budget car that I’d booked. A snazzy 2l Ford Focus with air con and cruise control! Huzzah. Rob was well chuffed. After a swift trip to Foodtown for essential supplies (diet coke and Cheezles, but couldn’t locate chillies) we checked out and headed over to Arrowtown for a last visit (for a while anyway). Had a cuppa and general nattering – Rob managed to get one photo of us all paying attention and looking in the right direction. After hugs and kisses (and snot) we said goodbye and headed off north towards Cromwell (home of the big fruit) and Highway 8. I love the countryside north of Cromwell, especially heading over the Lindis Pass. We just bimbled along, occasionally stopping. It peed with rain all the way to Lake Tekapo. We did a detour up to Mount Cook village, past the Hermitage to the visitor centre. They’ve got a new exhibit area there (or at least I don’t remember it last time) and it was really interesting, with lots of information about the geology and flora and fauna. They also had all the memorial books, with an entry for each person who’s died on the mountain. Sobering reading. Lots of people. The coffee shop here was the only place I had a horrid coffee on the entire trip (flat white mmmmm) Disappointingly, Aoraki declined to peek out from behind the curtain of rain AGAIN. Foiled. I am perhaps destined not to see it. Lake Pukaki was very blue (in the drizzle). We headed off as the weather was turning worse and the forecast was snow down to 500m.
Lake Tekapo was also a milky blue as we drove into the YHA carpark. Well, what we could see through the steady drizzle. This was Rob’s least favourite part of the holiday – I made him stay in a youth hostel. I quite liked it, and you always meet interesting people. It was basic, but fine, IMHO. We went for a wander along the lake shore (bloody freezing) and for a wander around the main village area (the dead zone). Following a delicious stir-fry, we and several other people settled down to watch a movie, but I bailed really early as I was knackered. Rob stayed up and drank gin with random strangers, including a German psychiatrist who looked far too young to have qualified as a psych (clearly I’m getting old). I’d have loved it to be a clear night, as Tekapo’s supposed to be the best place in NZ for spectacular stargazing, and you can do tours at the observatory on the hill outside town. But it was not to be.
Day 9
Up early, brekkie and a quick wander along the lake shore. Again, it was bloody freezing and it had snowed up at the observatory overnight. There were loads of lupins not quite yet in flower. It must be spectacular when they’re all out. We also found some pine trees with ginormous pine cones (like fat pint glass size) and lots of dog rose, yarrow and mullein. We headed off to Geraldine, which was quite a nice wee town with a reasonable assortment of shops and some nice (and not so nice) looking houses. It also had a drive-thru post box, which I thought was the height of idleness, but kinda cool. We had lunch sat on the riverbank below the Rakaia Gorge bridge – absolutely gorgeous views of the very blue river and cliffs. Most impressive.
And so to Christchurch and Hotel So. So small. So odd. So difficult to fit two people and two suitcases in the room (without one of us stepping into the bathroom). And what a bathroom. People, if you’re going to stay at Hotel So with your partner, let’s hope that you’re not shy about having a poo, cos the walls are frosted glass and the bathroom is IN the bedroom. To be fair, I did know this when I booked it – I just thought it might be novel for two nights. And the glass shower wall next to the bed means you can do Tales of the Unexpected intro dancing whilst your partner switches the in-shower “mood lighting” through a range of colours. Most entertaining. Rob hated it. He hated the sunrise lamp, which comes on at some point before your alarm time to mimic the sun rising (there’s no window) and then the TV comes on with a “natural landscapes” channel (DVD of a babbling brook or suchlike). I was dimly aware of the light level increasing, which was ok, but was then thoroughly awoken by Rob banging about trying to work out how to turn it off and turning everything else on in the process. Lots of electronic beeping. Noise. Lights. I’m glad I wear earplugs. We slept. Sort of. I think Rob’s dislike of Hotel So trumped his dislike of Lake Tekapo YHA. I was doing well in the hotel booking stakes.
Prior to this we did go out and wander around the city centre and botanic gardens. Loved the botanic gardens. Hated the city centre (the suburbs on the way in had looked much nicer).
Day 10
A full day in Christchurch. We decided to grab breakfast (flat white and raisin toast) and drive off to Sumner, Lyttleton, Governor’s Bay and across Bank’s Peninsula to Akaroa on the grounds that neither of us wanted to spend a day in Christchurch. We just tootled along, the road curving in and out of lovely wee bays, and occasionally diverting off up narrow roads to god knows where that had HUGE drop-offs into hell and no crash barriers. Darwinism is alive and well in NZ for the careless driver. Absolutely stunning drive, ending in Akaroa at about 2.30pm for fish and chips, which were also stunning. A grand day out, ending in a light dinner at Hotel So’s cafe bar, Cafe What and an early night, cos I had a sore throat and felt crap.
Day 11
Up early and out into the pissing rain heading north to Kaikoura. Stopped and Kaiapoi for brunch and food shopping at New World. More Cheezles were bought – they’re rather addictive. We like them. Noticed that New World supermarkets don’t have trolley parks, they have trundler parks. Trundlers. I decided that I quite liked that and that it amused me (I am easily amused). The search for chillies continued, including a search in a fruit and veg shop, but no success. We’d had problems finding them earlier in the trip, which was odd.
We took a detour off the coastal road on the Alpine Pacific Highway (?!) which meant that we bimbled along through countryside with beautiful scenery inland and the roads to progressively smaller and windier. The bit back down to the main coast highway was fantastic, and we stopped just before we got into Kaikoura to look at a fat seal lolling on a rock. Little did we know that this was the first of many seals, and that they were stinky.
Kaikoura is beautiful, with rather spectacular mountains lurking in the background. Sadly they were obscured (mostly) by thick cloud and heavy rain. Stayed in the Alpine Pacific Motel and I have to say, I thought it was lovely (so did Rob). Basic, modern, clean, everything you needed for a short stay and excellent mountain views to boot (apart from the thick rainclouds). And two hot tubs and a pool just outside our room!
We headed off for Whale Watch to book a trip – they were advising that the forecast was not good and that cancellations may occur, but we booked for the afternoon trip on Friday, and hoped that the weather gods would be kind, as we only had one full day in Kaikoura. However, all would not be lost if we couldn’t go, as one of the other premier touristy things to do in Kaikoura is llama trekking. The brochure promised me that I would fall in love with my new woolly friend and “Llamas – Dolphins of the Land” would be thrilling. Now I’ve got a sneaking fondness for llamas and alpacas but not even with the greatest stretch of the imagination could I liken the woolly grumps to the most intelligent mammal of the sea. How we laughed. I was still chuckling about it days later.
Drove out to Point Kean and had a gander at more seals. They reek, and not in a fishy way. The sea was being fairly spectacular and we couldn’t tell if the tide was coming in or out, so we didn’t go wandering too far round the rocky base of the cliffs, but poked about in rockpools and looked at the seal and bird life. Pied shags airing their wings like old rags, black oystercatchers guddling for food and petulant sounding gulls.
Kaikoura New World failed on the chillies score, but succeeded in having trundlers, so I could live with that. Trundlers and llamas. What more could I want? Relatively early night still feeling snotty and shivery.
