Heading South
Well, we’ve done the north of the South Island so now its on to the south of the South Island. Margot has friends in Dunedin and near Gore, which is not too far from Queenstown in the Fiordland area. As the pound spirals downwards and we try to make our pound stretch even further we are now trying out this relocation option. It seems Britz Campervans need a van currently in Christchurch to be in Queenstown and we are the team that can do it for them, and for only $5 a day! Provided they don’t mind us taking the scenic route of course.
So it is that Hugh drops us off at the airport and we sign up for the journey south. The road to Dunedin goes across the Canterbury Plains and , compared to our other routes in New Zealand is flat and straight and frankly a bit dull. We have come to like those twisty mountain roads with sheer drops into bottomless ravines.
Moeraki Boulders
We stop off just beyond Omaru (which we later find to be where Janet Frame, whose autobiography Peter has just started, went to school) to see the Moeraki Boulders.
These are a collection of round rocks just lying along the beach, some with textures like turtle shells, others smooth. Doesn’t sound much but they are really strange and, like much of the geology of New Zealand, no-one knows why or how they are here. It seems that about the time of the exploration of Australian and New Zealand entymologists thought they had the universe all sorted and labelled and then Captain Cooks return put them back to square one with platypuss, kangaroos and kiwis.
This also marks an end to the Plains and we arrive in Dunedin down a steep pass. As the name implies, Dunedin has strong Scottish ties and this is reflected in many of the street names and surrounding villages. We check out the nearest camp-site but our hosts, Aynsley and Jim have prepared the extremely comfortable guest room for us. We arrive just before Jim comes back from work and are greeted by Aynsley and Freeman, a very friendly and excitable shiatsu cross.
Aynsley and Margot became pen-pals when they were 9 years old and have kept in touch ever since and from our arrival to our departure the next day they chatter as if no time had passed. She and Jim had gone to Australia to work in the goldfields but after a couple of years of heat and flies the call of home became too much and they came back. They had some fascinating photos of the Coolgardie area, a part of Australia we hadn’t managed to see.
We noted from their local paper that the previous weekend's “Otago Toga Party Rampage” had been picked up by the world media. Together with the Christchurch “Boy Racer” riots you may be fearing for our safety. Don’t worry, most of the Kiwis we meet are wholesome peacable folk, but we are looking forward to a couple of quiet nights in south-side Los Angeles once we get to the USA.
In the morning we detoured off to the Otago Peninsula (not to look for a Toga Party we hasten to add). Steep narrow lanes take you through little hamlets with Scottish names out to the headland where you can find colonies of penguins and albatrosses. Or you could, if access wasn’t controlled by visitor centres. With time and money at a premium we parked in the car park over-crowded with motor caravans (they say there are more sheep than people in New Zealand – we think there are more campervans than sheep) and walked around the headland instead. With a stroke of luck and the help of our binoculars we nevertheless managed to see a couple of albatrosses heading out to sea. Very elegant looking birds.
Our next stop was to be with Willie and Pauline who live on a homestead that turned out to be much further out of Gore (Brown Trout Capital of the World) than we anticipated so the excellent supper – mostly from home-grown ingredients - was ready as soon as we arrived. With yet another guest room waiting for us we never had to use the campervan’s facilities, so it was lucky we were only paying $5 a day.
Willie had taught with Margot in Queenstown almost 40 years ago and was the only colleague she was still in touch with that Margot had not actually met up with in the intervening years. Nevertheless it was great to meet again and to see their lovely self-built house with beautifully landscaped gardens perched on a hill overlooking miles of farmland.
In the morning the view had disappeared and the first hours of our drive west was through thick mist. As the mist burnt off we found ourselves climbing in to the mountains with some fantastic views appearing through the fog until we arrived at the bottom of Lake Wakatipu. From here on there was an orgy of photo opportunities. We British used to joke about overseas tourists with their cameras but with the joys of digital photography we are every bit as bad. This area is so beautiful you feel compelled to try and capture every aspect. Each corner reveals a new vista that is just perhaps a bit more perfect then the one before. So we now have thousands of shots of lakes and mountains and our life’s work will be editing them and selecting those we will
want to use on our screensavers for the next few years.Queenstown
Queenstown claims to be the “adrenalin capital of the world” and with the exception of brown trout wrestling seems to offer every conceivable adventure activity under the sun. Margot taught here nearly 40 years ago and had been warned of dramatic changes. These were evident in the new hotels and housing
development along the shoreline and up the hillsides and indeed the school is now a car park and the hose she lived inis gone. However, the surroundings are far too big and dramatic to be damaged by mere human activity and you can see why so many people want to come here. People not unlike us, in fact, however much we like to pretend we are somehow different from those who threaten to spoil what they come to see.
1 comment:
still feeling jealous....
love becca
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