Christchurch and over to the west coast

It is Thursday afternoon here and I am now on the west coast of South Island New Zealand.

The west coast region boasts 31,000 permanent residents and 12,000 of them live here in Greymouth, so when they claim remote they are correct.

I spent yesterday in Christchurch and it’s surrounds. I walked down the hill again (third time in total) and caught the local bus in to town, about a 30 min ride. Cost about USD$2 for the one way trip so great value. I also discovered that the house is approx 170 meters above sea level about 560 ft.

I walked around a little and visited the cathedral, and decided on the gondola ride, which involved another bus ride. I chatted with a couple from Knoxville TN on a tour of Australia and NZ.

The top is 455 meters above sea level and only a couple of km away.

There is a great view of Lyttleton harbor which serves Christchurch and it looks like a lot of wood products are shipped from there. Access by road is through a tunnel but there is a train line also.

It is possible (I discovered later) to hike down from the top of the gondola ride to the harbor. I would have done it if I had known. 

I took the more leasurly route by going back down on the gondola and on to Lyttleton on the bus (the same tcket worked as it was under 2 hours since I bought it. Saw a couple of Cat loaders with log forks and , as always a Volvo!!

Back to town and finished up at the Botanical Gardens. They are beautifully kept and there was a flower show that starts today so a lot of activity. 

I wandered back in to town, had a cold beer, and a nice chat with a NZ couple getting ready to start a business, and then met up with Tom for a ride back to the palace!

Tom has joined the volunteer fire brigade in Sumner, so he had training. I got my act together for an early departure this morning on the TransAlpine train.

The train leaves Christchurch at 8.15 and Tom gave me a ride on his way to work.

When I took the Overlander on North Island there were 4 cars. This train had 8 cars, and while not full was probably 80% full.

It crosses the fertile Canterbury Plain and starts it’s climb to Arthur’s Pass at 727 meters or about 2400 ft 

That is me below the sign blending with the scenery!

As always the scenery was magnificent even though there was rain and low cloud that limited the view some. After Arthur’s Pass the train goes through a 8km tunnel on about a 3% grade so dropping about 240 meters and then on to Greymouth arriving about 1.30.

A flurry of activity ensued as people collected their bags and rental cars or caught connecting busses on down towards Franz Josef Glacier or Queenstown. I will be doing that tomorrow. My accommodation is more than adequate but does not compare to the house in Sumner. That was a nice break but I am very happy with what I am finding with the hostels in general.

I am off to Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers tomorrow until Sunday morning. There is a possibility that I may be able to fly from Franz Josef and land on Mt Cook on a ski plane. How cool is that!

I have pushed my departure from NZ out again and will now be here until the 24^th leaving only a short time in Australia. I am keen not to rush NZ but know I will have merely scratched the surface in about a month.

I met a couple on the train today from Sydney who waxed eloquent about Tasmania and my friends April and Steve have already told me essentially the same. That may be where I spend my Aussie time.

Travel to Christchurch and Sumner. Nice digs!!

I left Picton on Monday and traveled by Atomic Shuttle, a local bus service on South Island. I bought a pass that allows me to book on line and it is roughly USD$7 per hour traveled. An added bonus is that they will stop at your hotel to pick you up, so no lugging 20kg bags down the street. At least not yet. 

 

  

V Rod and other Harleys

 

 

  

Atomic Shuttle in KiaKoura

The journey takes about 5 hours and the service is designed to connect with one of the ferries from North Island. The route is down the east coast via Kiakoura which is famous for whale watching and being able to swim with dolphins. I will probably try to come back up this coast on my return. There was some great surf (to watch rather than be in!) and seals sunning themselves on the rocks. We will see what time allows.

We reached Christchurch around 6.45pm and I am going to stay with a son of a family friend from the UK. Now I have not seen Tom since he was about 8 and he just turned 40 I think. He is currently house sitting ina place called Sumner which is about 12km out of Christchurch. The owners are visiting family in Egnland for a couple of weeks.

What a place. It is a couple of km out of Sumner and is on a steep hill/bluff. I estimate that it is about 500 ft above the ocean with a fabulous view and the house has a pool and tennis courts and a killer view.

 

  

 

Seeing as how he did not know me from Adam it is very kind of him to offer a room and also to cook an excellent risotto when I arrived. I did come bearing some wine and beer and we spent a pleasent evening getting to know each other. He is consulting with the local government in Christchurch on IT issues, so I have had the house to myself and taken the opportunity to catch up on laundry and some trip planning. 

 

  

Way steep narrow driveway in Sumner

I also walked down (and back up the very steep road) to see the village, so I got my exercise for the day.. Now I am having a beer to make up for it!.

I have decided to extend my stay (again) until the 24th and reduce the time available in Australia. I am staggered by how much there is to see and do and know I will only just be scratching the surface after 3 weeks or more and just focusing on South Island. 
I will be taking the TranzAlpine train on Thursday and then making my way down the west coast to Queenstown and Te Anau which is the gateway to Milford Sound and Doubtful Sound in Fjordland in the very southwest. Not sure after that!
Visiting Christchurch tomorrow. It is billed as a "traditional English town in the south" We will see.

Sunday. Travel to South Island

I just added a link to video of the Children's Day celebrations.
I enjoy ferry rides as you may know and today’s ride was yet another great experience with great views of Wellington as we left and then about an hour over open water before winding between some islands to approach Picton the ferry port for South Island and my destination for the day

The ferry is big at about 148 meters (compared to the Shetland ferries at 110 meters) and 13,600 tonnes gross tonnage. It cruises at 20 knots. I wrote the last paragraph on the ferry over open water, but the best was yet to come. As the ferry steams towards South island it looks like it is headed for the rocks and certain disaster, even on a clear day!

 

  

Ferry departs Wellington

The entrance to the Fjord is very small and you can see the turbulence in the water. The ferry heads for a patch of forest and there is a house just below it that has a fantastic view but must be difficult to get to. I am not even sure it has road access. It may just be by boat.

It is a beautiful day and the ride down the fjord was magical. The photos (or my ability to take good photos) do not begin to do it justice.

 

Mind the rocks!

Everyone was on deck and cameras a clicking!

 

I was worried that the small boat were Somali pirates coming to hijack us!

 

  

Picton harbor

One couple with 4 bags. Glad I travel relatively light

We wound our way eventually to Picton and arrived on time and there was a van to pick me up and drive to the hostel. Turned out it was about 300 meters and I could have walked it easily, as I had planned to do.

There was a festival going on in the park by the beach and it turns out that it is Children’s Day in NZ. Music, Bouncy castles and a very small beach along with ice cream seemed to be an excellent recipe for a fun day out.


Childrens Day video clip

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The hostel is very pleasant and friendly, and the bus will stop outside to pick me up tomorrow afternoon.

I took a walk today and hope to do another in the morning. There should be plenty of time. I am learning to focus less on the schedule and more on having fun, which I certainly am. I keep waiting for a rainy day to do laundry and catch up with banking etc., but the weather is not cooperating!

Wellington

Saturday saw yet another sunny morning although there was cloud and some showers when I arrived back on Friday evening. Wellington is known as a windy city and I can easily believe that you can get some big winds particularly in the winter. People are already starting to talk about “the southerlies” starting up. For us from the northern hemisphere this would indicate warmer weather but not here in the south. These will be the winds that blow up from Antarctica and Wellington is roughly 40 degrees south about the same latitude as New York. Wellington gets some shelter from South Island but is temperate at best.

 

Art Deco building downtown

 

Guide biscuits equals Girl Scout cookies in the American language! I like the balloon hat

 NZ Mailbox Circa 1960

 

 

View from the top of the Cable Car ride

 

View from my hotel room

 

The town is very hilly and compact. Mount Victoria is a natural eastern boundary for the city but there are other small suburban towns to the east near the airport.

 

Haight Ashbury? Wrong city I think!

I am going to do a separate post about the airport for any aviation lovers (like me) out there.

Wellington is the southerly most point on North Island and the train terminal and a port. The inter Island ferries run from here to Picton on South Island 4 times a day. 

 

New Zealand has it's share of ugly 60s architecture also

It is now Sunday morning and I am about to leave for the ferry.

I spent a pleasant day Saturday wandering about town and rode on the cable car up to the Botanical Gardens (I understand that Christchurch has better ones) and got some great views of the city. It is an easy city to get around by either walking or taking the bus. I did a little of both and stopped for a beer in a local tavern, and listened to a couple of guys discussing world topics and their views. It really could have been anywhere in the world! 

 

I attached my bottle opener to my CPR kit to be sure I did not lose it. CPR kit is for others, not me!

I stopped in town to get something to eat and noticed that a bacon and egg sandwich was NZ$4 (very cheap) but to order that as a plate was NZ$10.50g

. The overall parts content (Cat language) was the same, 2 eggs, a piece of bacon and 2 pieces of bread.

Golden Shears and Masterton

I have some video clips that I have now added below that show some of the competitors. Worth a look.

I am in Masterton NZ a small farming community about 90km from Wellington and 90 minutes on the train.

I am here for “Golden Shears” which is the premier sheep shearing competition in the country. How could you come to New Zealand and miss something as iconic as this!

There is a variety of competitions including shearing, wool packing wool sorting, and for some strange reason bull handling. The mind boggles at what “bull handling might entail. I did not see this, but there are some people at the hostel that are competing including teenagers and some girls.

The crowd and venue was much smaller than I had anticipated so it is different than I had expected.

Wool packing is either a team of two men or two women, or singles events. It looks like VERY hard work. The marks are awarded based on a combination of time, neatness of the bale and work area, and weight accuracy. The target weight for the bale is 165kg. It looks like the leading competitors can get within 5kg of that. 

 

 

The wool press has two halves and the wool is dumped into the press and tramped down by foot (not unlike squashing grapes). When both sides are full one side is mechanically swung up on the other and locked in place and then the top is winched down onto the bottom half and the top of the bale pinned with steel rods and eventually sewn together. There are some pictures and a video clip that may describe it better.

Wool Packing competition

 

 

The competitors look incredibly fit and I am sure they must be. I am sure there are some aspects that have been mechanized today but apparently the basic press and method are still used today.

The shearing competitions and judged on an aggregate of four criteria, speed, accuracy of the shearing (which is judged after the animal is dumped down the chute) and two others that I fail to remember at this point. I will revise the post if I remember or find out!!

The competitors grab a sheep out of a pen and there is then a couple of well defined techniques used to shear the sheep. The whole secret seems to be restraining the animal and having a free hand to stretch the skin and get a clean shear without any cuts and bruising. The number of sheep a shearer can handle in a day is dependent on the type of sheep or wool and the best can shear over 700 a day with a record of 866 in 9 hours! 

 

 

Actual Searing competition

 

A sheared sheep disappears down the chute

School kids on a field trip to Golden shears

It has to be a combination of strength, stamina and technique. The most popular “Bowen method” was developed in the 1960s. There have been attempts to further mechanize the process but it seems like hand shearing is still the most popular. The market for wool is in slow decline because of synthetic fibers but wool is still popular.

Golden Shears was interesting in that it is competition and an opportunity to socialize for people who sometimes live in remote places. No doubt lots of boys and girls meet up and fall in love and marry based on meeting up at Golden Shears. This ensures the future of farming as a side benefit.

There are lots of young competitors, and this year is the 50th anniversary. As I have said it was not as big as I expected but without doubt worth the trip.

I managed to lose my prescription sunglasses at the event, but they turned up at the local police station and the lady there said that a wallet with a lot of money in it had also been turned in. Honest folk these sheep farmers and shearers.

The train ride up here was great, and included a 7.3km tunnel, which then burst out into some awesome scenery. It gradually transformed in to more normal farmland and when I got to Masterton and started to walk to the hostel I could easily have been in South Africa in some little dorp (town) that is probably substantially unchanged today, even after majority rule. I suspect that there are many US, and Canadian towns that are similar also. 

 

 

 

 

The town is, I believe quite prosperous and has quite a few stores and small cafes, all the way from fish and chips and the inevitable McDonalds, to nicer more local places. There is a Thai place a sushi place and at least two Indian restaurants as well as a couple of pubs.

There is a very well kept municipal park and a sports center.

In general New Zealand is not as inexpensive as I had believed. Food in restaurants is pricey and not too much better in the grocery store. Bottled drinks (even water) seem very expensive and beer and wine is certainly expensive. I suspect high taxes on the beer and wine.

Transportation seems reasonable. The train fare from Wellington to Masterton was about USD$12 one-way and the ferry to South Island (three hours) is USD$40. I have not bought plane tickets but they appear to be cheap as well.

The hostel is on the second and third floor (American terminology) as opposed to the first and second floor in English (or Kiwi) English.

It is basic but adequate and reasonably quiet.

There are some young Kiwis staying here (the bull handling competitors) that are Maori I believe, and it is interesting to hear them talk among themselves as it is English (or mostly) but very difficult to follow, Is it dialect or accent? I am not sure.

I am somewhat perplexed in that I am enjoying the relative peace and serenity of the NZ way of life but an integral part of that is places like Masterton rolling up the sidewalks at 9 pm like any small town, with the notable exception of the worldwide standard boy racers in their Honda Civics with coffee can exhausts! They must all have a cheap source for tires!

Places like Masterton are a part of the conservatism that comes with rural life, but also the potential breeding ground for inflexibility and narrow-minded values. I cannot sort the contrasts out in my mind, at least right now.

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It is now early Friday afternoon and getting quite hot. I have decided to go back to Wellington tonight and try to see some of the city tomorrow. It will help me determine how much time to spend here when I return, as I will be flying out of here to Brisbane.

There are about 5 trains a day with a late service coming back on Friday nights.

I have just been reading the detail and the train stops in 12 places but only 5 for sure. The others are “On Demand” and the instructions make it clear that you have to wave at the driver and he will stop the train!