Christchurch to Harihari
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We slept late. Another late night after our Internet uploading and web log creating and we needed to catch up a bit. We got rolling around 9:30. We were headed for the mountains but first we wanted to check out Christchurch a bit more.
We stopped at a grocery store to get some sunscreen and while I was inside, Les found a little place that served English breakfast for only $8.95. The guy running the place was Chinese and we struck up a conversation with him. Well, Les did. We found out he actually works on a ship during the week. The restaurant is his wife’s but he helps out on the weekends to let the baby sleep and give her a break. They were from China but had gotten New Zealand citizenship. Christchurch has about a 5% Chinese population according to him (his name was Frank) and we believed it since we had noticed a lot of Asians as we walked around. Frank was very gracious. He gave us his card and said we could call him if we needed anything. Not sure he meant that but if the car breaks down before we get to Invercargill, we’re calling him.
For our next stop, we wanted to go back and check out the cyber cafe we were outside of last night. They were open and we went in and asked about their wireless. The staff was clueless. Do you have wireless? Uh, I don’t know. Well, you do and it’s broadcasting out there for free… dumb look, uh, okay. We were using it last night. Here’s a dollar, thanks. Uh, okay. We were there long enough that we fell to the temptation and logged in to check mail. I was able to instant message with both my sisters this time, which was nice. Good to “hear” the family banter, even from 12,000 miles away.
From there we went to see the cathedral, which is in the center of town. It’s a major building. We speculated, but never confirmed that it’s how the city got its name. We actually dropped a few dollars on them through various means. A couple of dollars to take photographs. We each bought and lit a couple of candles for our loved ones (every little bit helps) and for $4, you could climb the bell tower. We’re suckers for climbing towers so up we went.
It’s 300 or so steps. About 30 meters high and provides a reasonably nice view of downtown. The stairs were a narrow circular staircase most of the way and steep stairs, that were really a ladder, for the last bit. You could see into where the bells were and into the room with the bell pulls, which looked kind of cool.
So now it was 1:00 and we hadn’t made any progress. So we really had to go. But we both agreed that Christchurch was a good candidate for retirement. Small but not too small. Great weather. A thriving downtown. A bit far away so maybe not. And we didn’t get a chance to see the beach so Perth is still in the running.
We headed west out of town and towards the mountains. We passed through suburbia, which looked like every other suburb in the world but then things started getting interesting. The mountains off in the not too distant distance were very pretty. So much so in fact, that I kind of lost track of my speed and the next thing I knew, I looked in the other lane and just as I registered “police car” and took my foot off the accelerator, the lights came on, the car did a quick U-turn and we were busted. Well, I was. Les was more amused than busted. We tried the confused tourist gambit and a little “just visiting, leaving soon” but no dice. The policewoman was having none of it. She had me written up in 2 minutes or less for 115km, 15 over the posted limit. She actually cut us a break and didn’t write me up for 116 which would have added $60 to the $80 fine. It was all very friendly. Les asked her a bunch of questions and even took a picture. And apart from the cost, it was an interesting interchange with the local culture. I’ve got 20 demerits on my record now though :-). I’ve never had a demerit before.
One thing we discovered from our conversation was that there was some kind of festival on the west coast and that’s why so many people were out. The line of cars coming east to Christchurch looked like Highway 26 coming back from Seaside on a Sunday evening. Actually both directions were fairly busy. It made it a bit trickier to stop for pictures. We missed the days of stopping in the middle of the highway in Western Australia.
The mountains got more and more dramatic. It reminded us a lot of the Northern Cascades National Park in Washington. We even started seeing snow on the peaks. Near the top, before we headed down the other side, we saw a series of large rock formations that caused us to stop. This was Castle Hill and you can see from the pictures how it got its name. But the place we stopped also had a sign for a cave. The area was limestone and water had created a tunnel from one little valley to the other, right off the road. We walked down to have a look. Lots of people were there, dressed for caving, with lights strapped to their heads, wool shirts and polypropylene pants. They looked pretty goofy but it’s the right gear since a very cold stream runs through the middle of the cave and you have to wade through it to get in. We really wanted to go. It was only 360 meters long, but we didn’t have time and didn’t really have the right gear so we had to press on.
Perhaps as our reward for not going in the cave, we saw a strange creature in the road ahead of us. Thankfully, at that point there was no traffic so we stopped to see what it was. It turned out to be a hedgehog. Les got out to take his picture and try to get him off the road so he wouldn’t be squished. We figured he’d run off when approached but that’s not what hedgehogs do. He curled into a ball and sat there. So Les had to roll him off the road with his hat. Ultimately, Les picked him up in his hat to move him into some tall grass along the side. He was pretty cute.
We reached the top at Arthur’s Pass, where the mountains were the most dramatic yet. And fog or clouds were starting to descend on to the tops of the peaks. It definitely started looking like Middle Earth. The road down the other side descended at a 16% slope. It doesn’t sound like a lot but that’s really steep. They had built a long viaduct across the steepest part but a sign showed how the road used to go. A series of switchbacks and 180 degree turns that I’m glad we missed. The turn off with the sign showing the road was called “Death Turn” so I suspect they used to have some significant problems there.
Speaking of which, whoever is funding the bridge building division in New Zealand needs to get on the stick and get some more money. Almost all the bridges on this highway were single lane. I can’t believe it doesn’t cause accidents. The algorithm is that one side is designated as the “okay to go” side and the other side is supposed to stop and make sure before proceeding. But it’s easy to miss and come cruising up to these things at 100 km/hr only to discover you’re facing oncoming traffic. We managed to avoid hitting anybody, but come on. What’s so hard about making these things another lane wider? You’re already there. You’ve got all the materials. Have a car wash or a bake sale and buy yourself another lane for Chris sakes!
The best one lane bridge was the one with the railroad tracks down the middle of it. The train travels along the side of the road, the road curves to the right to where the tracks run down the road, the road and the tracks go across the bridge, then the road curves left and leaves the tracks again. What a system. Now you can hit a train *and* oncoming traffic at the same time.
We came down the other side, which was not quite as dramatic as going up. Probably because going up, the mountains are still ahead of you, and going down they’re behind. The foliage changed a bit, looking more like Oregon with ferns and pine trees (or things that looked like pine trees). This seems to be the side with the water. We got down out of the mountains and onto flatter road and started making some reasonable progress finally. We’d only gone about 150 kilometers, which is nothing.
We reached the west coast and turned left to head south. Coast to coast in a few hours. Try *that* at home. We traveled along the water for a little ways, then back into the mountains again. We passed through Ross, which was a gold mining town. Apparently there was a gold rush on the western coast. In fact, it’s why they built the road we had just crossed, so that people could get there from Christchurch.
We decided to quit a little early tonight. After all, we hadn’t really gotten anywhere anyway. We were a little concerned about getting into the mountains somewhere around nightfall and having to drive 3 hours to the next town. We stopped in a place called Harihari, a little town just north of the big mountains and the glaciers that we’ll see tomorrow (and force us to drive late into the night to reach Invercargill).
We had dinner in the motel pub, where it looks like most of the town comes on a Sunday night for a spot of dinner. There was a painting up on the wall of an upside down airplane. The story is, Guy Menzies flew it to Harihari from Sydney, by accident apparently, becoming the first man to fly solo across the Tasman Sea. He attempted to land in Harihari in what he thought was a field but turned out to be a swamp. He got a few feet, then flipped over on his head. But he survived and became a hero. Talk about stumbling into fame.
We used the extra time to catch up on backing up our pictures to CD and each others laptops and hopefully we’ll get to bed a little earlier tonight and continue catching up on our sleep. We’ve been just a little short for weeks now and it’s catching up to us. We’ve only got a few more days and are hoping to avoid doing anything stupid like running into someone on a single lane bridge.
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