Wellington to Christchurch, South Island
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We set two alarms to make sure we’d wake up in time to make the ferry and both went off. We had breakfast in the hotel (only $18 each!) and made a quick stop at the free(!) Internet PC. We were hoping to swipe their Ethernet connection to upload web pages but it turned out it was wireless. But unfortunately, not a public connection and it was password protected. We have not had much luck with wireless here in New Zealand. But more on that story later.
The way the rental car works is you drop off your North Island car at the North Island ferry terminal and pick up your South Island car at the South Island ferry terminal. So we had to pack everything up for travel, which was a pain. But at least they check bags onto the ferry so we didn’t have to carry that much on board.
The ferry is pretty big and holds a *lot* of people. The place was mobbed. The ferry is 10 levels. It’s the size of a small cruise ship. They loaded a train on board. The tracks go right up the ferry ramp and on to the boat and there’s a similar track on the other end.
The trip out of Wellington is pretty and we got what little view of Wellington we were going to get on the way out. As we started out we saw dolphins again. Too fast for pictures. There were 4 or 5 of them this time. We just happened to be in the front of the boat at the time they appeared. It was all of 10 seconds and it was really the only time we were up there. Our good karma continues.
We went around a headland and then a short bit “out to sea” between the islands. On the south side we entered the Malborough Sounds which is a series of islands and inlets. We spent an hour and a half of our three hour cruise in this part and it’s really pretty. Very reminiscent of the inland passage from Vancouver Island to Prince Rupert in British Columbia, but without the waterfalls and the trees. The New Zealanders seem to have a fetish about cutting down all their trees. Almost every hillside has been cleared. But even without the trees it’s very pretty.
We collected our new car without much difficulty and corralled our luggage into it. It looks just like our other car. Same make, model and color. But a few subtle differences. Before we left we took a look at the Edwin Fox, the “ninth oldest ship in the world”, which I guess is pretty impressive. It’s not top 5 or anything, but top 10 isn’t bad at all. It was built in 1853.
We started south (which is really your only choice from there) and decided to head down the east side to Christchurch instead of the westside to Greymouth. We had originally planned to go west since it was shorter to the road through the mountains where we’re headed, but for some reason, we changed our minds and I’m glad we did.
The initial part of the road looks a lot like what we’d been seeing. Green hills with a few trees and lots of sheep. But shortly after, we started seeing mountains in the distance. These are spurs of the “southern alps” which are the mountains along the middle and west side of the southern island. The ones we’re headed for tomorrow. The farther south we came, the more dramatic they became. This was more like it. We had expected some major scenery in NZ and even though the Cape and the lakes were nice they weren’t amazing.
Somewhere along the way we passed a town with another big lobster. This time it was on the side of a building. That’s now the second giant lobster we’ve come across. One is a fluke, but two is an epidemic. And this one was attacking a building so they are clearly becoming more antagonistic. It may be time to raise the alarm. While we’re busy defending justice and freedom in Iraq, giant lobsters are attacking the soft underbelly in the southern hemisphere.
About an hour into the trip we came out along the ocean along the Kaikoura Coast. And let me tell you. It’s spectacular. THIS is what we came to see. The water is beautiful. That Caribbean blue. The mountains come up close to or even to the edge. But they extend off into the distance as well. It’s a lot like Big Sur, but the road goes at sea level instead of half way up the hill. It wanders and meanders the way Highway 1 does too. I have always thought Big Sur was the best coast drive I’d ever seen but I’m not so sure anymore. It’s a close call. And yet somehow, we managed to hardly take a picture of it. Sorry. Not sure what happened. I guess we were just driving along enjoying it.
Along the way, we came upon a large collection of sea lions, like the ones we saw on Kangaroo Island. They were just off the road on some rocks. We stopped and watched them and photographed them for awhile. There were a number of infants running around playing with each other. Well, not running exactly, but that’s the best way to describe it. And various males having turf wars that were interesting to watch.
The coast road lasted about 100 kilometers or so, then turned inland and went up and over a smaller portion of the mountain range. Very twisty turny on that part but once on the other side, it settled out and we made pretty good time. Our old friend the golden afternoon sun returned and made for a very pleasant drive.
Along this stretch, the farmers seemed to be having a hedge competition. Just about every farm had a large hedge on it somewhere, usually separating fields from each other. And when I say large, I mean 15 to 20 feet high and 6 feet thick. They were huge.
We had been on a driving binge for a few hours and Les wanted to stop and take some pictures before it got dark. He was looking for pictures of the large eucalyptus we had been passing, which we got, but both times we stopped we had an interesting surprise. The first time, it was a couple of different variety of deer that were being raised, I presume, for food. They moo’d like cows. It was weird. The second time it was ostriches. Two of them came over right by the fence to check us out. Les was feeding them the greener grass on our side of the fence (it’s always greener on the other side you know) which they liked very much.
We got into Christchurch around 7:30. The first 5 motels we passed had No Vacancy signs and the warning alarms started going off. The next few were full too so we decided to stop at one and ask if there was something special going on. Well there was. A surfing festival. Everything in that area was booked and other places were filling fast. But the helpful lady at the motel called around to a few places and managed to find us a place (after much delay finding phone numbers and fumbling about while motel rooms were being given away, much to our irritation — which we kept to ourselves).
It was now 8:30 and our big plan to get into town early, find an Internet connection and upload, and get to bed early was not working out. But we headed into town to see what we could find. First stop, dinner. We found a pub, with the largest TV screen I’ve ever seen in an eating establishment, showing rugby. We had a decent meal and a beer there while we watched the Wellington Hurricanes beat the snot out of the Cats who are so unfortunate that the announcers never mentioned what city they were from.
Next step, Internet. The motel guy had told us there was a place a few blocks from the hotel. But it had gone out of business (that’s how we ended up at the pub actually, it was next door). But we were told there was another place a few blocks up. We didn’t find that one but we found another one. It was 9:30 and they didn’t close til 10:30 but the lazy bugger who worked there refused to give us a network hook up “so close to closing”. He suggested we come back tomorrow. I had some suggestions for him but decided not to express them. So we decided to go it the old fashioned way. Ride around town until we found a connection and pirate it.
We rode around for about 15 minutes but couldn’t really find anything. We were about to give up, well, we actually had given up, but on the way back to the hotel suddenly I picked up a signal from the “Chancery Cyber Cafe”. We looked around and saw a restaurant with that name, so we figured we’d go over there and check it out. The only place to park was in front of The Doll House, which is a strip joint (30 live nude girls). With some trepidation we left the car there and went down the street towards the restaurant. The signal was actually coming from a little courtyard nearby and we discovered a little cyber cafe behind the restaurant. But it was closed. Well the access point was on so let’s give it a shot. But no place to sit. There were a couple of pillars with platforms on them that looked like they were for holding your beer while you drank outside. So we set up there and presto, we were connected. And for free! Up above us, we heard singing (well, if you can call it that) from Caesars, a bar that was apparently having a karaoke night.
So picture this. We’re around the corner from the strip club, in a somewhat dingy little alleyway/courtyard below this club with music playing and people singing really badly, standing at this pillar with my laptop out on a ledge, uploading our web pages. Various riff raff are coming and going and we’re getting some strange looks from the club employees. 30 minutes later you all had 4 more days to read about and we got the heck out of there. Thank you wireless internet. And we hope you all appreciate the efforts we’re going to to keep you informed of our travels :-).
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