New Zealand (3)

Our final period in New Zealand was spent in Auckland with our friends Clive and Annie Couldwell. Their amazing new house had what to us is a typical New Zealand construction, perched down the side of one of the steep-sided gullies so common in this terrain. To reach it, one turns the car down a steep lane leading between two houses that face the road. There is a landing half-way where the gradient eases somewhat and then one pitches down even more steeply to a yard just big enough to turn round. (Fortunately, they don't have snow and ice in the average winter!) One enters the house by the garage which is the highest point, goes down a flight of stairs to the kitchen and living room and then down another to the bedrooms. There is space below the bedrooms for storage. Their "garden" descends the bank to the stream at the bottom of the gulley and the patio depicted above has been carved from the hillside.

Each floor has its own balcony from which one can observe the native vegetation in the gulley. There is plenty of wildlife about, too.

We were pleased to have dinner with them, Clive's two daughters Philippa and Caroline and their mother Sue, allowing us to catch up with all the news.

This trip we were introduced to the islands off Auckland. The first we visited, Waiheke, is large, well inhabited and has nice wineries (we visited this one here) and beaches. There is a regular ferry service from the harbour in Auckland and a lot of the inhabitants commute.

This is a native swamp-hen (Pukeko) foraging in Clives garden.

The next day we were taken to Tiritiri Matangi, a much smaller island, on this ferry. The island is a nature reserve and only organised parties are allowed to land. Volunteer guides monitor the visitors- a wide range of disruptive activities is discouraged, including, to my delight, the use of mobile phones. Non-native trees have been eradicated with the exception of a few Australian bottle-brushes that provide a reliable source of nectar for the hummingbirds. There is a lot of rare native bird-life in the bush, but they move too rapidly, and live too deep in the dense vegetation, to be photographed by someone with my level of skill. The island has a colony of Takahes, a rare large ground-living rail that had been thought to be extinct for over a century until a few were found deep in fjordland in the 1950s. They are said to be so tame that they will pinch your packed lunch, but it was just our luck that they were breeding and must have been sitting on their nests, so we didn't see them. This is the second time that I've missed a takahe- the one at Mount Bruce bird sanctuary had died just before I went to see it in the 1970s.

The ridge of the island still has open areas of grassland, which give a good view over the sea.

Further down there are a lot of walks along well-tended paths that give a good chance of seeing the plant and wild life.

This one leads down to Hobb's Beach, where some of the party went swimming. It really is very attractive around here.

And here we are on the beach, standing under a Pohutukawa tree. This flowers only at Christmas and is hence known as the New Zealand Christmas Tree. So- a belated very happy Christmas and prosperous New Year to all our readers.........if there are any left by this time!

New Zealand (2)

Our first activity in Queenstown (and, as you'll hear, the last) was a trip up on the Coronet Peak cable car. This gives spectacular views of the area.

This is the view from the observation platform. The house we were staying in is on the neck of the second peninsula out. The mountains behind are the Remarkables. Central Queenstown and the harbour are in the foreground.

We had a fairly extensive walk in the forests above the head of the cable car. This is the point from which the hang-gliders take off, and it gives a good view in an unconventional direction, i.e. one that doesn't include the lake.

Back on terra firma, we walked in the reserve on the peninsula by the harbour. This is the lake steamer SS Earnslaw, which was assembled on the lake from parts transported overland at the end of the 19th century. The lake waters are extremely pure and the metal doesn't rust at all rapidly, so it's still in service now.

The next day, the rain set in and I started to suffer from a very heavy cold, so we did almost nothing beyond an unrecorded walk along the lake shore from Kelvin Heights. We had originally intended to cross the Southern Alps by the Haast pass and make our way up the West coast past the Fox and Franz Josef glaciers, but the weather continued foul. Instead, we returned by the inland route and crossed the Alps by Arthur's Pass. As can be seen on the above view of the Rakaia bridge, the weather was generally good. However, as soon as we were across the main divide the heavens opened. We overnighted at a hotel in Greymouth (as it had a restaurant and we wouldn't have to go out again) and the next morning did some searching after Liz's family history- mistakenly, as it turned out. Her great-grandfather had been in Greytown (NI) and not Greymouth (SI.) We then headed north along the coast in rather poor weather.

This can be seen in the view of these rock stacks, which look a good deal more spectacular in the sunshine!

Even the Buller Gorge, inland, looked very atmospheric in the continued mist and rain.

We stopped off to look at Lake Rotoroa, in the Nelson Lakes area, a place we hadn't been to before. We then went on to Nelson and stayed overnight with our old landlady Rosemary Doyle-Smith. Stupidly, we forgot to take any photographs while we were there.

Next day we proceeded along Queen Charlotte Drive, on the Marlborough Sounds, in the direction of Picton. Even in disappointing weather, they still look pretty spectacular.

Stopping only to buy some supplies at the Montana winery, we headed South again down the Kaikoura coast. These New Zealand fur seals are at a colony just north of Kaikoura. One isn't allowed to approach them nearer 30m.

This minimum distance is reduced to 10m at the Kaikoura beach. The seals seem totally unconcerned by human proximity, anyway.

We stayed in Kaikoura at the Fyffe Country Lodge hotel, where we had been before. They actually recognised us (after 8 years) and gave us an upgrade to a huge bedroom with two ensuites in consequence. The food here is exceptionally good (deserved plug!) but due to the recession business seems pretty poor. There was only one other party when we were there.

On the way back to Christchurch, we visited the church in Kaiapoi where Liz's great-grandfather had been rector. It is well worth visiting, as the oldest church in the South Island and the oldest wooden church left in New Zealand. We'll have to leave unravelling his sojourn in Greytown until some later visit.

New Zealand (1)

We travelled to New Zealand by a two-stage journey from Adelaide, changing at Melbourne. The second stage of the journey was very delayed because of problems with the computerised booking system and because the hold eventually had one too many pieces of baggage, causing the whole lot to be unloaded and checked before the offending item was found. As a result, we arrived in NZ at about 1.30 am. To our surprise and relief, all the immigration, customs, biosecurity and even car hire staff were in place and we sailed through the lot in only 20 minutes. We stayed in Christchurch with our old friends the Shaws, who are still in the same house, just opposite to the house where we lived in 1975. (The latter has been demolished and rebuilt, by the way, so little opportunity for indulging nostalgia there.)

Robin and Peter seem well and essentially unchanged. I gave a seminar at the Canterbury department and also caught up with a number of old, and now retired, colleagues.

We headed off to the suburb of Cashmere, in the Port Hills, to see Brian and Joan Earl. the view over the city of Christchurch, the Canterbury plains and to the southern Alps from here is spectacular.

They, again, are looking well and essentially unchanged. We also went to see Miles Kennedy, the professor in my time, together with Arthur Williamson, another retired professor, and their wives. All, again, are well and prospering.

We also indulged in a bit of nostalgia by driving to Akaroa, on the south of the Banks peninsula, which is as attractive as ever.

We aslo walked through central Christchurch, seeing various remembered items like the giant chess game in the Cathedral Square,

the Town Hall building where Liz used to sing with the Christchurch Choral Society (yes, they were having a piping and highland dancing competition at the time!)

The River Avon (complete with punters)

Hagley Park and the Botanic Gardens, and many other scenes.

It has to be said that, after Adelaide, and even in the New Zealand summer, we found NZ bone-chillingly cold. Just as well we had this partial re-acclimatisation before our return to the wintry UK.

We started a tour of the South Island by taking the inland route to Queenstown, past Lake Tekapo, (above) lake Pukaki and the Lindis pass (below), where we were impressed by the lupins that were growing in profusion on the road verge- presumably deliberately planted.

and on to Queenstown, where the Shaws had very kindly made their holiday home in Kelvin Heights available to us.

This had spectacular views along Lake Wakatipu on both sides. Mount Earnslaw can just be seen in the distance below. The hills on the left are Walter and Cecil Peaks, where we once visited a sheep station.

Next posting- continuation of the South Island tour, together with some unseasonally bad weather.