Home on the Range

Howdy, folks.

After our mighty excitin' travels, we bin done settled back into the old routine here at Whittaker Ranch. Both of us are fair run off our feet with mighty big amounts of work right now, so we ain't got much time for gallivantin'. Consequently, I ain't got nothin' to write about. Be that as it may, that's never stopped me before, and I sure ain't gonna let it stop me now.

Now that I think on it, there was somethin' pretty durn exciting that happened today. Iain moseyed on into town and found out the local stationer's store is selling its merchandise at a discount, what with the schoolhouse opening its doors again real soon - most everythin' is goin' for a song. When he got back home he was staggerin' under the weight of three dozen lever arch files and several hundredweight of poly pockets - that's them thar A4 poly-something-lene filin' pockets, not them pocket-size dressin' up dollies little girls are so fond of. Obviously.

There goes another big ball of tumbleweed, blowin' down Mainstreet.
I like to sit here on the porch, rockin' back and forth in the rockin' chair, twiddlin' my thumbs and watchin' it tumble.

Cousin Helen

South Island Trip - The final chapter

Here, at last, is the final instalment of our trip account. I'm relieved about that, because writing in a time warp like this does my head in.

some of the Moeraki boulders

Day 11 – Dunedin to Christchurch
On day eleven we drove from Dunedin to Christchurch. En route we went to see the ‘world-famous-in-New Zealand’ Moeraki boulders on the Pacific coast, because everyone we know who’s been to South Island said they were worth a look. However, when I first caught sight of the boulders from the other end of the beach, looking like … well, any old ordinary boulders, and besieged by dozens of clambering tourists, my initial impulse was to turn around and get back in the car. I’m glad I didn’t, because when you get up close, the boulders are fascinating. Click here for information about the boulders and the story of their formation.

coastal erosion is revealing still more boulders

a close-up of a couple of the boulders - the one at the back resembles a turtle shell

the action of the sea is slowly breaking the boulders open...

...to reveal their inner structure

We arrived in Christchurch late in the afternoon and spent the evening chilling out. Really decent curry houses aren’t that easy to find in New Zealand, so we were delighted to find one with an excellent menu at a very reasonable price just two minutes’ walk from the motel.

Day 12 Christchurch to Nelson via the Lewis Pass and Murchison
Another day spent driving. Neither of us took a single shot with the camera. Photographic lethargy was beginning to set in.

Days 13, 14 & 15 – in Nelson and home again
Almost as soon as we arrived in Nelson I was struck down with a mystery bug, and spent most of the time sleeping. Because I felt so ill, we ended up doing very little in Nelson, although we did manage to get in a visit to the WOW museum. WOW stands for World Of Wearable Art, which is an annual event which now takes place in Wellington, but which originated in Nelson in the late 80s. To keep the blokes happy, the WOW complex also comprises a vintage car museum.

The WOW collections are well worth a look. Unfortunately, photography is not permitted in the wearable art gallery, so I couldn't take any piccies. Here’s a link to their website.

We had hoped to get some better shots of the Marlborough Sounds on the return ferry journey, but the weather was even greyer and murkier than the first time round, so we didn’t take any photos at all. We were more than ready to get home; in fact, the holiday could have done with being three or four days shorter. Our stamina level where travel is concerned is pretty pathetic. It does make me wonder how we're going to manage on the epic, several-months-long adventure trip Iain wants us to take in the next couple of years.

Helen

A new concept in male grooming

personal hygiene services from 'La Maison du Chat'

South Island Trip - Days 9 & 10 - around Dunedin

spotted in Dunedin - a jolly student wheeze, or the world's most expensive can of Pepsi?

Day 9 - Te Anau to Dunedin

We spent a very long day driving, and I'm ashamed to say we took no photos at all. I think our trip to Fiordland spoilt us, as far as appreciating attractive scenery's concerned. Our favourite part was the Clutha district of southern Otago between the towns of Gore and Clinton. The road is called 'The Presidential Highway', presumably a tongue-in-cheek reference to Bill Clinton and Al Gore. It was pleasant, rolling farmland - mainly given over to sheep of course, but there was also some cattle and arable farming. It reminded us of the Derbyshire Dales, although without the dry stone walls. One reason the landscape looked so familiar was because the first European settlers replaced the native trees with oaks, willows, ashes, poplars and even some hawthorn hedges – the first hedges we’ve seen in New Zealand.

Day 10 - Dunedin

Dunedin was planned by Scottish settlers, with the express intention of becoming 'the Edinburgh of the South'. The name of the city is an anglicisation of Dùn Èideann, the Gaelic name for Edinburgh. Not surprisingly, given its origins, the city's laid out on a rather grand street plan, and there are a lot of ornate late Victorian and Edwardian public buildings – although most of them are built in brick rather than in the granite of its namesake. Being a major student town, it manages to be both bustling and laid back, which is a pretty neat trick if you can pull it off.

In the morning we visited the Otago Settlers Museum, and saw some fascinating displays about the impact the European settlement had on the local Maori tribes, the sea voyages taken by the European migrants in the nineteenth century, and the history of Chinese migration to the area.

a mock-up of a typical cabin on a vessel that transported immigrants

A box this size was all a migrating British family was allowed to take with them to New Zealand in the 19th century. It makes our 14 teachests seem highly extravagant.

Hands up if you thought the world’s steepest street was in California. Me too, but all the guidebooks maintain that Baldwin Street in Dunedin is the record breaker, so we went to have a look. The road is so steep there are steps where the pavement would normally be, and on the way up we had to keep on stopping to take a breather.

Baldwin Street, Dunedin, the world's steepest street (allegedly)

Whenever I stopped I would hear faint rolling noises getting gradually louder and then fading away again. On closer inspection of the tarmac, I found the culprits hop-skip-jumping along in the gutter - dozens of jaffas, (little balls of orange flavoured chocolate covered in an orange sugar shell), which someone presumably had let go at the top of the street.

Look, no ropes!

One of the annual events held in Baldwin Street involves Jaffas. It's a Jaffa race, where competitors pay a couple of dollars to sponsor a jaffa. The winner gets a cash prize and the rest of the money raised goes to chairty. The event regularly attracts up to 10,000 entrants. Another yearly event is the Baldwin Street Gustbuster, in which athletes test their stamina and balance by racing up the street and back down again.

In the evening we went to visit a colony of yellow eyed penguins on the Otago Peninsula, at a privately-owned conservation project called Penguin Place. A series of tunnels and hides allowed us to view the penguins at close quarters, and our guide was very knowledgable.

an adult yellow-eyed penguin, showing the first signs of moulting

I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, taking about a hundred photos (although only two or three were any good). Even though the visit lasted an hour and a half, I could happily have stayed twice as long. Here's a link to the website of the NZ Yellow-Eyed Penguin Trust.

Helen

Say hello to Smudge!

Here are the first photos of our new kitten, Smudge.
First impressions of her character:

conclusion drawn _____supporting evidence

placid __________________Neither the car journey, the change of scene, nor the absence of her mother and siblings seem to have disturbed her equilibrium.

a keen climber____________She's been shinning up the back of the chair and has been looking for curtains to climb up so that she can see out of the window; fortunately, we've got a blind.

very vocal (oh dear!)________Smudge seems to have a meow for all occasions.

contented________________She purrs loudly and frequently.

a potential lap cat__________She keeps clambering up onto me and going to sleep. Of all the cats I've owned I've never had a lap cat before, and it would be very nice to share a home with one at last!

not overly intelligent________Smudge has a penchant for sleeping in her litter tray. I've had to remove her four times already.

Helen

South Island Trip - Day 8 - day trip to Milford Sound

The day of our Milford Sound trip dawned cloudy with only a few tiny chinks of blue, and it was difficult to judge which way the weather would go.

The two-hour drive from the town of Te Anau, where we were staying, to Milford Sound was one of the most scenic sections of the entire trip. First of all the road skirts the shores of Lake Te Anau – the largest lake in South Island - and then it enters the Fiordland National Park – the largest National Park in New Zealand. Fiordland is a fascinating vista of jagged mountain peaks, beech forest clinging to near-vertical cliff faces, and countless waterfalls, some of which are many hundreds of metres tall.

a view of Milford Sound from the shore

By the time we reached Milford Sound the cloud had cleared completely. The staff at the visitor centre said we were very lucky with the weather, as blue sky days are pretty rare. On average it rains heavily two days out of three, and most of the days when it doesn't rain, it's overcast. Milford Sound is one of the wettest spots in New Zealand, with an average of between 6 and 7 METRES of rain per year.

a couple of Milford Sound's many waterfalls
After rain, the volume of water increases enormously.

We took a boat trip around the sound, lasting 1 ¾ hours. When we got back we wanted to stay on the boat and do it again! There are overnight cruises available, which would be a wonderful thing to do if you had a little more time and money.

Harrison Cove

Milford Sound is absolutely stunning. We sailed beneath a cliff that's twice the height of the Empire State Building, and a waterfall that's three times the height of Niagara Falls, but the scale was far too big to be able to judge it without the help of our friendly cruise captain.

some tourist

Milford Sound does suffer a bit from being a 'honeypot' site. As the most accessible of Fiordland's many fiords, (being the only one with road access), it's by far the most visited, and there's a constant procession of cruise ships leaving every few minutes. There must have been at least ten of them on the water at the same time as us. But by far the most intrusive visitors are the dozens of light aircraft and helicopters, whose engines buzz loudly as they swing in low over the cliffs. However, all this hustle and bustle means that the other fiords remain relatively wild and untouched, and even the constant whining of the aircraft engines couldn't spoil the experience for us.

a group of fur seals taking a siesta

I know I'm fond of saying this, but you really must believe me this time when I say that our photos in no way do the place justice. The visit to Milford Sound was definitely the highlight of our South Island trip.

Helen

Real time interlude

I know we've only got as far as day 7 on the blog, but yesterday was day 15 of our South Island trip, and we arrived home last night.

Our first job this morning was to bail Pookie out of prison. We were delighted to find her not in the slightest bit stir crazy, and we got the impression she'd been very well looked after. Apparently it's traditional to treat the cats to a special meal to mark their final night at the cattery, and Pookie had been given red meat, eggs and vegetables, which she'd polished off with gusto. Tom, the owner of the cattery, and by far the most cat-dotty person I've ever met, said Pookie was delightful and had made it into his 'top five cats of all time' list. It was nice to hear, but the cynical side of me couldn't help thinking, 'I bet he says this to all the owners!' As a parting gift he gave us some photos of Pookie which his wife had taken. Despite howling all the way home in the car, (a journey that thankfully lasts only ten minutes) she soon settled down (after giving the house and garden an inspection first, of course.) Poor Pookie - she's in for a shock tomorrow when we go and collect Smudge!

We've spent most of the day today unpacking (having taken an uncharacteristically huge pile of stuff with us) and trying to wrestle the rampant garden back into shape. Always keen to enliven boring domestic chores through the use of power tools, Iain weeded the patio using our high pressure waterblaster, and ended up absolutely caked in mud. I really, really wish I'd taken a photo.

Helen

Day 7 - Haast to Te Anau

Lake Wanaka

After a very relaxing time strolling around Haast beach we set off on a pretty long drive today - passing through some of the best scenery NZ has to offer. Being New Year, the honey pot sites of Queenstown & Wanaka were overloaded with tourists and so we headed on through to the lakeside town of Te Anau - gateway to the northern part of Fijordland.

Lake Wanaka was utterly stunning, as were the surrounding mountains, but the towns of Wanaka & Queenstown were uber touristy and nothing special - we stopped for lunch at Arrowtown, an old goldmining town in the mountains - Old West style architecture on the Main Street – very trippery though.

We weren't expecting much of Te Anau as it's completely in the back of beyond, but it was pretty bustling and a very pleasant place. The lake there is beautiful and marks the start of several well known tramping trails. We've booked a two-hour cruise on Milford Sound tomorrow – it’s a 240 kilometre round trip, but should be worth it, providing the dry weather holds. As this area gets 7000 mm of rain a year, the odds aren’t looking too good! The weather so far has been superb - other than the first day & the day in Christchurch, it's been blue skies all the way! Not so in the rest of NZ according to the reports, but we've been following the sun about -hopefully it'll keep up for tomorrow.

South Island Trip - Day 6 - Greymouth to Haast

crossing a road/rail bridge

A rather disconcerting feature of the road between Greymouth and Haast is the number of bridges which are shared by the road and the railway line. There are no barriers across the road. (There are none of these anywhere in New Zealand, though). There aren't any friendly red flashing lights to warn you of an approaching train. In fact, on only a couple of the bridges were there any road signs warning that the road and the railway were about cross, let alone merge. We'd be driving along, enjoying the scenery, when suddenly we'd find ourselves driving along railway tracks, sometimes for up to half a kilometre. We felt like Wile E. Coyote trying to outrun an express locomotive on a jigger, his arms pumping up and down so fast they're just a blur.

One of the villages we passed through was HariHari, whose claim to fame is as the landing site (albeit accidental) of the first solo flight across the Tasman Sea. Australian aviator Guy Menzies took off from Sydney on 7th January 1931. He meant to land in Blenheim, further to the north and on the opposite coast, but bad weather forced him off course, and he ended up crash-landing in a swamp just outside Harihari. Not exactly a glorious end to his adventure, but he did succeed in his goal and was lucky enough to walk away uninjured.

Guy Menzies and his aeroplane after crash-landing near HariHari

Just over halfway between Greymouth and Haast is an area known as Glacier Country. This area of the Southern Alps contains the glaciers which covered a broad swathe of the South Island during the last ice age. Two of the most famous, due to their easy accessibility, are Franz Josef Glacier and Fox Glacier. There's some interesting information about the glaciers here.

Franz Josef Glacier - note the people in the foreground!

Haast is only a tiny village. The primordial rainforest that surrounds it is so rare that the whole area has been designated a world heritage site. Haast is by far the most remote of the places we visited on our trip, and still has the feel of a true frontier settlement. For example, it's not connected to the national power grid, the whole village relying instead on a couple of generators. The lights in our hotel room were really dingy and there were no fridges in any of the rooms, all in an effort to conserve power. According to the hotel information leaflet, the electricity can be cut off for days at a time, especially in the winter. Until about forty-five years ago there were no roads at all into or out of Haast; there were just tracks through the bush. Overland travel of any kind was very hard and slow because of the terrain. Boats were used instead.

The first road connecting Haast to the rest of New Zealand (to Hokitika – currently a 4-hour drive away) was only completed in 1960. The road south to Wanaka, two hours’ drive away, wasn’t completed until 1965!

The people of Haast used to look forward to the supply boat that arrived once every three months. When it arrived there was always a huge party, and if it was late - delayed by storms for example - people would go hungry. If anyone was ill and needed medical treatment they would be carried out on a stretcher along the bush tracks by a team of volunteers. The journey took several days.

After we'd dumped off all our stuff at the hotel, Iain and I went to Haast beach for a bit of R & R. It was a shame we didn't take a camera with us, because it was the most spectacular beach I've ever seen. Miles and miles of sweeping golden sand, turquoise blue sea, a stunning bush and mountain backdrop, and it was utterly deserted. While beachcombing I found a green pebble which I think might be a piece of jade. The area around Haast was on the ancient pounamu (greenstone) trail taken by the Maori, so it's not too fanciful a notion. I'm planning on polishing the stone up and making it into a piece of jewellery when I get home.

Helen

the beautiful landscape around Haast - The Haast River

South Island Trip - Day 5 - Christchurch to Greymouth

the Southern Alps

When we turned on the laptop this evening to download the photos we'd taken today, we discovered we were in range of an unsecured wireless network. So we've taken a cheeky piggyback to make this post!

We're now five days behind in our trip report, but I'm going to post just one day at a time rather than trying to catch up all at once.

On day 5 of our South Island trip we drove right across the country from Christchurch on the east coast to Greymouth on the west. We really must put together a map showing our route, and add it to our posts, but I think that's a job that's best left until we get home.

It was day 5 that we got our first glimpse of the Southern Alps, the mountain range that runs almost the whole length of the South Island. We took the road that goes over Arthur's Pass. There's an interesting history behind the pass, which you can read here.

Part of the way down the west side of the Alps we stopped to take some photographs, and our car was attacked by a cheeky kea, or alpine parrot. It made two holes in the cover of our spare tyre and had started work on the piece of rubber securing our back window before Iain managed to chase it off. I think 'flying monkeys' would be a better description for these birds!

Who's a cheeky boy, then?

On the road to Greymouth we went past the old Brunner coal mine, the site of New Zealand’s biggest ever mining disaster, in 1896, in which 65 people died. There's an interesting account of events here.

After we'd checked into the hotel at Greymouth we took a short drive up the coast to see the pancake rocks and blowholes at Punakaiki. Here's a description from the official Punakaiki website:

The Pancake Rocks that Punakaiki is famous for, are limestone formations that began forming 30 million years ago, when lime-rich fragments of dead marine creatures were deposited on the seabed, then overlaid by weaker layers of soft mud and clay.

The seabed was raised above sealevel by earthquakes to form the coastal cliffs and coastline. The sea, wind and rain have since etched out the soft layers to form the unusual rock formations we see today.

When conditions are right, heavy ocean swells thunder into the caverns beneath the rocks and huge water spouts blast skywards through the blowholes in a truly spectacular sight.

some of the 'pancake rocks' at Punakaiki

the beautiful West Coast - we thought this bit looked more like the Caribbean than New Zealand!

Greymouth seemed a bit of a dump, to be perfectly frank. When we arrived it was New Year’s Eve and everywhere was shut - including most of the pubs and all of the restaurants. The streets were deserted apart from the occasional small group of bewildered tourists, looking in desperation for somewhere that was open where they could spend the evening. Eventually we found a cafe that was open, and despite the seedy decor, the food wasn't bad, and the waitress pointed us in the direction of the place where the party was - an Irish bar. In distinctly un-Irish fashion we left before midnight, making a New Year's resolution not to bother coming back to Greymouth again.

Helen

A rapid hello

Hi there - we're in Dunedin, spending fifteen minutes at an internet cafe. So far, none of the places we've stayed in have had internet access, so we've not been able to upload our photos and trip report, but I've been keeping notes about what we've been up to, so you can expect a long entry some time soon! So far the highlight of the trip has to be our boat trip along Milford Sound yesterday. Can't wait to tell you all about it.
Bye for now,

Helen

South Island Trip - Days 2 to 4 - Nelson to Christchurch

Rabbit Island Beach, Nelson

Day 2 Nelson to Collingwood and back
Iain and I have fallen in love with Nelson and have decided we’re going to try to move there within the next twelve months. It’s got everything going for it: a good climate with the highest sunshine hours in the whole of New Zealand at 2,500 (to give you some idea of how sunny that is, Birmingham averages 1,400), beautiful beaches, easy access to hills, mountains, lakes, rivers, and bush, including two of the most stunning National Parks anywhere in the world, and the town itself is a vibrant place with lots going on, particularly in the areas of sports and culture. There’s a thriving arts and crafts community and a lot of alternative lifestylers (AKA hippies), which suits us just fine.

Nelson main street

On our last day in the Nelson area we decided to take the coast road to Collingwood, a leisurely two-hour drive.

Our first great find was Rabbit Island, a recreation reserve with a stunning beach. Tahunanui beach in town seems to attract most visitors, leaving Rabbit Island beach, which is only a fifteen-minute drive out of town, nice and empty. Just the way we like it.

On the way to Collingwood we went through Motueka, which is a small village almost entirely given over to backpacker hostels and teashops. It’s the nearest settlement to both of the National Parks and as such attracts a huge number of visitors, especially during the high season between Christmas and mid January, a time when almost every New Zealander is taking their annual holiday. We didn’t stop in Motueka, instead pressing on to Collingwood, an old gold mining village.

To our relief Collingwood was almost deserted. Even the guy who runs the Farewell Spit Eco-Tours was taking a break. His tour vehicle was an ancient, patched-up truck that looked like it would never pass an emissions test (if New Zealand had such a thing, which it doesn’t) Did he think that by the simple expedient of attaching the word ‘eco’ to his business he was going to persuade tourists that he was interested in minimising the environmental impact of his little operation? I had to have a little cynical chuckle over that one.

We had a veggie burger at the village café and then crossed the road to visit the Collingwood Museum, which is a building the size of our sleepout crammed with an unorganised jumble of old artefacts that it’s impossible to untangle any coherent narrative from. For example, a whale’s eardrums were lying in between a wind-up gramophone and a leaflet explaining how to get measured for a suit. Multiply that little anomaly a thousandfold and you’ll get some measure of the museum. I loved it, and could have spent at least an hour there, spotting weird combinations of things, but Iain, who gets ‘museumed out’ more quickly than I do, didn’t have the constitution to deal with the muddle, and hotfooted it out of there after about thirty seconds.

One of the smaller Waikoropupu Springs

On the way back from Collingwood we visited Te Waikoropupu Springs – one of the largest freshwater springs in the world, with some of the clearest water anywhere on the planet. Apparently, the only clearer water known to exist is under the Ross iceshelf in Antarctica. The photographs really don’t do the place justice. It was stunning. The springs are sacred to the local Maori, who believe they possess healing powers. On average the springs discharge about 14,000 litres of water per second – that’s about forty bathtubs full!

This is several metres deep, and clearer than it looks in the picture!

Day 3 Nelson to Christchurch
On Day 3 we drove from Nelson to Christchurch. This involved first driving back to Blenheim, which we had come through on our way to Nelson, but we needn’t have worried about getting bored when doing the return journey. As the weather had been so bad on our outward journey we’d not got to see much of the landscape through the low cloud.

On the way back the sun shone and we got to see how gorgeous the surrounding countryside really was. About halfway between Nelson and Blenheim the landscape undergoes a shift, partly due to geography, and partly due to climate. The sheep and cattle-filled valleys and lush, green, bush-clad hills give way to a broad plain covered in orchards and vineyards, with a range of arid, yellow hills in the distance. Marlborough, the area around Blenheim, is much drier than Nelson, and you can see this immediately in the parched brown grass on the verges and the number of irrigation systems in the fields.

The road swings up and over the Marlborough Hills, whose unusual colour comes from the coarse yellow grass that covers almost every square metre of their surface. I wanted to get a picture of this landscape, but there were no stopping places and this stretch of the road was very busy.

Around midday we passed through a village called Ward, and a sign saying ‘Ward Beach, 6 km’, so we went off to investigate a possible picnic spot. And what a picnic spot it was. We sat on the shingle beach and admired the beauty of the Pacific ocean while we felt our blood pressure, which hadn’t been high to start with, gently falling with every swish of the waves against the shore.

Ward Beach

On the other side of the Marlborough hills the road veers east and for a long stretch – maybe 50 kilometres or more - hugs the Pacific coast. The landscape is still arid, but this is tempered by the seascape, which presents an amazing palette of at least three distinct shades of blue, ranging from light turquoise to deep azure. The water is almost glass-still and laps an endless stretch of golden sand half-hidden behind impressive sand dunes. Gradually the coastline gets rockier, and soon you start spotting seals on the rocks. The rocks are a long way below the road, but with the aid of the telephoto lens I managed to get a shot of some seals who were having a bit of a sunbathe.

Sunbathing Seals

We stopped for a tea break at Kaikoura – a small coastal town known for its whale-watching cruises. We passed up the opportunity to go whale watching because of time constraints, but made a mental note that it’s something we’d like to come back and do when we’re living ‘down south’.

After Kaikoura the traveller who’s going to Christchurch has two routes to choose from – the shorter and faster Route 1, which stays close to, but not on the coast, or the slower and longer inland route, which wends its way up the mountains. We opted for the latter, and were rewarded with brilliant views not dissimilar to the area around Crianlarich in the highlands of Scotland.



Day 4 in Christchurch
The weather today was cold, wet and miserable. The thermometer struggled to reach 12 degrees, which, after Nelson’s balmy 24 degrees, and with a brisk wind coming from the south (straight off Antarctica) felt considerably colder. If the weather hadn’t been so bad we were planning on taking a scenic drive down to the Banks’s Peninsula, about an hour’s drive south, a picturesque area of hills and bays dotted with little fishing villages. With visibility at about 100 metres there was little point in bothering, so we decided to go into town and have a wander round instead.

Christchurch Cathedral

Christchurch is definitely the most English-feeling of the places we've visited so far. There are many more brick and stone buildings than elsewhere in New Zealand, and the city is laid out on a regular grid pattern, with wide, tree-lined streets. The leaden skies, blustery winds and near-horizontal rain all added to the authentic English feel.

The people who founded the first European settlement here were obviously all English and must have been suffering from severe homesickness to boot, because they were desperate to remind themselves of the old country at every opportunity. They named the river that flows through the city the Avon, called the region Canterbury, and named most of the streets after midlands towns – Hereford, Manchester, Worcester, Gloucester, Peterborough, Oxford, Cambridge and Lichfield all have streets named after them.
As if New Zealand hadn’t got enough trees to satisfy even the most ardent Victorian tree-hugger, the colonists chopped down all the native trees and replaced them with English varieties, samples of which they must have brought with them for that express purpose. The riverbank is lined with willows, oaks and horse chestnuts. They also imported English birds, for some reason, including blackbirds, sparrows, pigeons, and mallard ducks. Taking birds to New Zealand is like taking ice to Alaska. It’s a wonder the colonists had any room on the ships for themselves and their belongings. It also makes you wonder why they bothered emigrating, especially when the life of a migrant in those days was so tough. I suspect most of them would have been better off staying at home.

Punting on the Avon

Many New Zealanders we’ve met speak about Christchurch in glowing terms, as if it’s some sort of rare jewel. ‘Oh yes,’ they’ll say. ‘Christchurch is lovely – very English.’ For them, that means it’s exotic, but for us, it’s not so appealing, partly because it feels too familiar, and partly because it feels a bit false – like you’d imagine the Disney Corporation’s idea of an Olde English Towne would look like.

Once again it's late at night and my brain has gone into go-slow mode, so it's time to call it quits. We definitely won't be posting tomorrow night because there's no broadband at the place we've booked in Greymouth. We'll catch up with you next time we manage to log on. Bye for now,

Helen

South Island Trip - Day 1 - Wanganui to Nelson

It's the end of a very long day, so forgive me if I don't make much sense.

We left the house at 5:30 this morning and drove down to Wellington to catch the Interislander ferry for our trip to South Island. The ferry was due to leave at half ten, but with Iain being a stickler for being early, we arrived at the docks at a quarter past eight. As luck would have it the earlier sailing, the 8:30, was just loading up its final cars, and the woman at the checkin booth managed to get us on that one instead. I'm very glad we didn't have to wait until the later sailing. The ferry terminal is just a car park with a few little booths for the employees. There's no main building and no facilities, like toilets or a cafe or anything, like there would be anywhere else in the world you might care to mention. I most definitely wouldn't have fancied waiting at the ferry terminal for two hours.

View from the ferry docked in Wellington

The crossing was a bit weird. The weather in Wellington was overcast and threatening rain, which was no surprise given a) Wellingtons' reputation for dreadful weather, b) the miserable wet winter and spring we've had, and c) the fact that summer doesn't appear to have arrived yet. They say this year's terrible weather is something to do with El Nino, so while Europe basked in the longest, hottest summer for years, we suffered the longest, coldest, and wettest winter on record. Anyway, I digress. During the crossing the sky remained black and the wind got stronger and stronger until it was blowing a veritable gale up on the 'sundeck' and we reluctantly had to give up and go inside. However, despite the gale, the sea remained calm, and the ship was hardly rolling at all. I mention this because it seemed to defy the laws of nature, not because I was hoping we'd be thrown about all over the place. Neither of us are good sailors, so we were very lucky.

Our first view of South Island - coming into Marlborough Sounds

The last third of the ferry crossing is within the narrow channels of the Marlborough Sounds. We saw quite a few holiday homes - called baches on the North Island and cribs here down South - which were in remote little bays, surrounded by bush. There are no roads in the Sounds, so the only way to get to these places is by boat. What a wonderful place to spend a holiday! When the weather's good apparently the Sounds can look quite tropical, but with the low, dark clouds today it looked mean and moody, and reminded us a lot of Scotland.

Iain looking windswept

New Zealand does a fair impression of Loch Lomond

Needless to say, by the time we rolled off the ferry it had started raining, and the rain bucketed down for almost the entire two hours it took us to drive to Nelson. I've heard the drive is very scenic, but with the bottom of the clouds hovering just a few metres above the road, we didn't get to see much of it. On the last leg of the journey you drive up a steep and winding road over a range of bush and forestry-clad hills, before finally dropping down the other side into Nelson. As Nelson came into view, the rain stopped, there was a break in the cloud, and we saw sunshine and blue sky for the first time today. Nelson had put on its best clothes to meet us. We're staying a second night, so we'll post our impressions of Nelson, as well as some photos, tomorrow evening. You never know, I might even be able to persuade Iain to put finger to keyboard. It's very late now, and I'm getting to the point where I really need to call it a night. Iain's asleep already. Goodnight, all.

Helen

I'm so excited!

A couple of weeks back I was chatting to Alison, one of my fellow students on the Te Reo Maori course, and when I told her Mo had died she asked whether I was looking for a new cat, because her friend's cat had recently had kittens. I said that sounded interesting, so she said she'd get her friend to ring me. Well, I forgot all about it, and this afternoon I got a call from Alison's friend, Dawn.

Iain and I have just come back from viewing the kittens and they're gorgeous. Their mum Snuffy is a very confident, affectionate and intelligent grey and white cat with a lovely silky coat. She came to greet us as soon as we arrived, and when she saw we were going to see the kittens, she ran ahead and called them to her so that she could show them off. There are five kittens - two males and three females. Two of them are already spoken for - a tortoiseshell female and a black male, leaving three grey and whites needing a home. We've chosen the stockiest-looking female, who has unusual splotches of pinkish-beige fur. I've decided to name her Smudge, because it suits her markings (and it also sounds good with 'Pookie' - try it!)

Dawn is happy to keep Smudge for us until we get back from holiday. So it's all systems go for a new kitty when we get back! I just hope Pookie copes OK with the new addition to the family!

Helen

Pub Quiz Christmas Bash

The pre-flash always makes Iain blink - he had his eyes closed in every one of the photos we took of him

We've been going to the pub quiz at Rosie O'Grady's Irish Bar for nearly a year now, and on Wednesday evening we had our 'Christmas edition'. Alex, the quizmaster, said he would be giving extra points for the best fancy dress, so, fiercely competitive as ever, we wore silly headgear (flashing deely-boppers and Christmas crackers) and covered the table with reindeer and Christmas trees. As it turned out, Alex didn't give any extra points for dressing up at all, so we all looked like eejits for no good reason, other than Alex's amusement. I think he might be one of those evil geniuses, although I've never seen him with a cat.

Helen

me

Bruce

Bruce's daughter, Yvette

from left to right, Andrew (AKA Maccas), me, Stuart, Heather and Bruce

Drat, drat and double drat!

Took some fun photos last night of our Christmas Pub Quiz, but I can't post them up today because Blogger keeps giving me an error message when I try to upload images. I'll try again later.

Helen

Shocking News

our photo from September

NZ Herald's photo of the slip

Landslides, or 'slips' as they're called in New Zealand, are a very real danger, particularly in the Wanganui-Manawatu region, and we've been shocked by a local tragedy which appeared on the New Zealand Herald's website this morning. You may remember my post in September about our walk along the Pohangina river. We parked in the Totara Reserve car park just a few metres from where we took the first photo, and from the description of the incident, we think this particular cliff is the one that collapsed.

Brother and sister among three children killed by landslip

Three young children died last night in a horrifying tragedy at a Manawatu holiday camp.

The trio - a girl aged eight and two 13-year-old boys - were killed when a 50m cliff collapsed and buried them as they played in the middle of the Pohangina River.

Senior Constable Mark Glentworth of Ashhurst police said today that one of the 13-year-old boys and his eight-year-old sister were from Palmerston North while a second 13-year-old boy and his 10-year-old brother, who escaped with minor injuries, were from Feilding.

The children, close family friends, along with the parents and grandmother of the 13-year-old and his sister had been picnicking at the reserve, Mr Glentworth said.

The 10-year-old boy who survived was flown by helicopter to hospital suffering from shock and a suspected broken ankle. His mother flew with him.

A spokeswoman for Palmerston North Hospital said the boy was being assessed in the emergency department.

The tragedy happened about 6pm. The parents of the children were at the scene and watched as the cliff fell. Mr Glentworth said they were devastated.

The children were holidaying with their families at a camp at Totara Reserve, about 32km from Palmerston North.

Kelly Williams, the camp caretaker, said she tried calling 111 but could not get through. She then called the rescue helicopter.

"It's just devastating. Why do these things happen? They were just swimming and enjoying themselves.

Palmerston North's Square Trust rescue helicopter arrived just after 7pm to find the bodies of two of the children, both boys, lying on the opposite bank of the river to the collapsed cliff.

Another boy was sitting in a car in deep shock and with an ankle injury.

The body of the girl was not found immediately, which caused rescuers to hope briefly she might have survived.

The helicopter crew took off for Palmerston North Hospital but doubled back after the body of the girl was found under water 150m to 200m downstream.

The pilot, who did not want to give his name understood the four were playing in the river when the cliff collapsed on them.

St Johns Ambulance Central Region regional operations manager Grant Pennycook, who is based in Palmerston North, said: "It's horrific just before Christmas. It's shocking."

Wellington Police Inspector Tom Ireland said Manawatu-Wanganui Regional Council had closed the park and the cliff collapse would be part of a coroner's investigation.

The reserve, on Old Coach Rd, is a short scrambly drop down from the road 12km north of the Raumai Bridge.

Kelly Williams' father, Russell, who lives nearby, said the children had been at the camp last year and had enjoyed it so much they had returned.

Mr Williams said they had been talking about the visit of their grandmother from South Africa for Christmas.

Helen

Hey, look what I did!

The dining room fireplace before...

...and after

In spare hours here and there over the last couple of weeks I've been working on a budget facelift for the hideous fireplace in the dining room.

First of all I painted the horrendous faux bricks white, which is not their final colour. When we decorate the rest of the room after our holiday we're going to paint them whatever colour we've chosen for the walls, so that they blend in and hopefully do a bit of a disappearing act - they're truly horrible. Then I painted the interior of the fireplace black, and finally I set to work on creating a new hearth to cover up the multi-level concrete monstrosity that was there before. It's the first time I've done tiling apart from mosaics. Still, if you stand a fair distance away and squint a bit it doesn't look too bad!

I'm just waiting for some more tiles to be delivered and I'm going to do a similar job on the bedroom fireplace.

Helen