Part 2A of my series of e-mails from 2010 detailing my journeys through New Zealand (and a bit of Sydney at the end). The fact that it is split into Parts 2A and 2B also demonstrates my struggles at the time with the frustrations of modern technology. As mentioned previously, this is an entirely unedited set of e-mails sent to a selected group of friends, which I foolishly thought could be circulated via facebook. Should have stuck to being a luddite....
"Greetings once again from New Zealand. The more assiduous readers among you will recall that last time I wrote I ended by describing my experiences in Wellington just before I crossed over to the South Island, and that I visited Te Papa museum, which contained, amongst other things, an exhibition all about earthquakes. Having spotted that NZ is right smack bang (if you excuse the expression) in the middle of a huge faultline, the thought occurred to me that it was strange that the country suffered from so few earthquakes. I clearly must have been thinking too loudly, as Ruaumoko the earthquake god obviously heard me and decided to throw a massive wobbler that very night. Or possibly it's Julie's fault. She does have an uncanny habit of being on the scene for all sorts of disasters (as evidenced by the fact that our first date was on the Cutty Sark just before it caught fire) and I have often speculated that if she had been born a century earlier she probably would have found herself sailing across the Atlantic in the Titanic and then come back on the Lusitania.
But technically, as far as the earthquake goes, neither of us were "on the scene", being on the wrong island and several hundred miles away at the time, so one could say that this time we had the perfect alibi. However, the fact that a state of emergency was subsequently declared in Christchurch (which also happened to be crawling with scientologists, but that was probably a coincidence), did not stop us, gluttons for punishment that we are, from visiting the city a few days later (twice!)
First, however, we crossed over on the Interislander ferry and took the bus to Nelson, a useful "gateway" to the Abel Tasman National Park. There we were greeted at our hostel by a rather sleepy looking individual with a thatch of blond hair who reminded me a bit of a narcoleptic polar bear. This led me at once to the mistaken assumption that this hostel would have rather a laissez faire attitude to its guests, but instead the owners proceeded to treat us rather like unwelcome house guests, closing the various facilities at arbitrary cut off points. For example, the kitchen was open from 6 am, but the lights and power did not go on until 6:30, so in effect the owners were indicating that it was perfectly acceptable for us to fumble around in the dark during that period (it was particularly dark in the area surrounding the "sharpened implements" drawer) as long as we didn't get it into our foolish little heads to do anything outlandish like actually trying to cook anything. Normally neither of us would dream of getting up that early during our holidays anyway, so it would not have been a problem, but this was the "active" part of our trip, as we had planned kayaking and hiking trips in the Abel Tasman. And unfortunately getting transport out there meant getting up very early indeed.
Our tiny windows of sleep were further diminished by the garrulous German girls who were on skype outside our room until ungodly hours every night (isn't modern technology wonderful? Once upon a time it would have taken months to travel from Germany to New Zealand, but now German girls can giggle at each other from opposite ends of the globe at the touch of a button). By contrast, the rugby team that were also staying at the hostel did little more than throw a few pebbles off the roof at around 10 pm one evening. Aren't rugby players supposed to be hell raisers? It was actually faintly pathetic, a bit like the Rolling Stones in their heyday going off to feed the ducks instead of getting completely trashed.
Our tiny windows of sleep were further diminished by the garrulous German girls who were on skype outside our room until ungodly hours every night (isn't modern technology wonderful? Once upon a time it would have taken months to travel from Germany to New Zealand, but now German girls can giggle at each other from opposite ends of the globe at the touch of a button). By contrast, the rugby team that were also staying at the hostel did little more than throw a few pebbles off the roof at around 10 pm one evening. Aren't rugby players supposed to be hell raisers? It was actually faintly pathetic, a bit like the Rolling Stones in their heyday going off to feed the ducks instead of getting completely trashed.
Our kayaking session was very enjoyable, although it did involve a bit of clambering around on a cliff that had not been mentioned in the brochure, which I suspect that the guide would not have suggested had he known a bit more about myself (extremely clumsy) and Julie (almost as clumsy and also terrified of heights), but fortunately my fiancee rose to the challenge bravely and we survived the terrifying ordeal. After such healthy outdoor activities in the Abel Tasman we proceeded to Blenheim to undo all the good work with a fantastic afternoon of wine tasting in the glorious sunshine. I say "good work" but in fact Julie had caught a cold and sore throat in Wellington which got worse in the Abel Tasman, which affected her voice to such an extent that if I had not been looking at her when she spoke on a couple of occasions I would have assumed that Frank Butcher must have come back from the dead.
In Blenheim we treated ourselves to a night in a hotel following the wine tour (as opposed to the usual grotty hostels), and were given a Moroccan style room (referred to as "the Raja Room") with more pillows and cushions than one could shake a stick at. I had in fact been to Blenheim before, back in 2003, and am very proud of the fact that, together with a Geordie called Dave, I managed to break the record for the number of wineries visited in a single day by the tour company in question. Sadly, this time we used a different company (the "Bubbly Grape Tours") and although they did a grand job and still managed to get us around six vineyards in four hours plus a distillery, a chocolaterie and what I suppose should be referred to as a "fudgerie", they had not heard of these legendary exploits, so unfortunately my name does not appear to have lived on in infamy.
By this time (tanked up on booze, no doubt) we felt more than ready to handle Christchurch. We arrived on the Wednesday evening (the earthquake had struck on the previous Saturday) and there was, as you would expect, a lot of damage to many of the buildings to be seen as soon as we got close to the city. There were a lot of soldiers around as well, and it was extremely difficult to find anywhere that was open for dinner that night. We eventually found a Japanese place that was open called "Mums" which was brilliant. Having experienced both Mums and "Sweet Mother's Kitchen" in Wellington, I would advise you that if you are ever hungry in New Zealand, try to find something with a maternal name and you are unlikely to be disappointed.
Our first stay in Christchurch was a very brief overnight stop on the way to Hanmer Springs, which had a lovely spa and excellent fish and chips, but was marred by the YHA being a bit like a prison camp (at least on the inside), only with rowdier and more reprehensible inmates. These consisted of a gang of noisy schoolchildren in their late teens, who I suspected would be a pain in the backside as soon as they walked through the door. The YHA staff did make a half hearted warning to them not to make too much noise outside, advice which, in fairness, they did take, as they proceeded to make too much noise inside instead. All night. I may be sounding like a prematurely grumpy old man, but is it really socially acceptable among today's youth to run around corridors at 4am screaming "Hamish" at the top of their voices? What is it supposed to achieve? I am not even sure that "Hamish" existed. Anyway, after that night of fun and games it was a relief for us to get back to Christchurch where there was nothing to plague us but earthquakes and scientologists. We did feel a few piddling little tremors both nights we stayed there, but nothing worse than a 4 on the Richter scale, peanuts compared to the original, which was a 7.1.
In Blenheim we treated ourselves to a night in a hotel following the wine tour (as opposed to the usual grotty hostels), and were given a Moroccan style room (referred to as "the Raja Room") with more pillows and cushions than one could shake a stick at. I had in fact been to Blenheim before, back in 2003, and am very proud of the fact that, together with a Geordie called Dave, I managed to break the record for the number of wineries visited in a single day by the tour company in question. Sadly, this time we used a different company (the "Bubbly Grape Tours") and although they did a grand job and still managed to get us around six vineyards in four hours plus a distillery, a chocolaterie and what I suppose should be referred to as a "fudgerie", they had not heard of these legendary exploits, so unfortunately my name does not appear to have lived on in infamy.
By this time (tanked up on booze, no doubt) we felt more than ready to handle Christchurch. We arrived on the Wednesday evening (the earthquake had struck on the previous Saturday) and there was, as you would expect, a lot of damage to many of the buildings to be seen as soon as we got close to the city. There were a lot of soldiers around as well, and it was extremely difficult to find anywhere that was open for dinner that night. We eventually found a Japanese place that was open called "Mums" which was brilliant. Having experienced both Mums and "Sweet Mother's Kitchen" in Wellington, I would advise you that if you are ever hungry in New Zealand, try to find something with a maternal name and you are unlikely to be disappointed.
Our first stay in Christchurch was a very brief overnight stop on the way to Hanmer Springs, which had a lovely spa and excellent fish and chips, but was marred by the YHA being a bit like a prison camp (at least on the inside), only with rowdier and more reprehensible inmates. These consisted of a gang of noisy schoolchildren in their late teens, who I suspected would be a pain in the backside as soon as they walked through the door. The YHA staff did make a half hearted warning to them not to make too much noise outside, advice which, in fairness, they did take, as they proceeded to make too much noise inside instead. All night. I may be sounding like a prematurely grumpy old man, but is it really socially acceptable among today's youth to run around corridors at 4am screaming "Hamish" at the top of their voices? What is it supposed to achieve? I am not even sure that "Hamish" existed. Anyway, after that night of fun and games it was a relief for us to get back to Christchurch where there was nothing to plague us but earthquakes and scientologists. We did feel a few piddling little tremors both nights we stayed there, but nothing worse than a 4 on the Richter scale, peanuts compared to the original, which was a 7.1.
We had a bit longer in Christchurch the second time round, and decided to go to the Antarctic Centre, which is a bit out of town but is served by a coach called the "Penguin Express" which runs every hour. The driver, presumably Mr Penguin, turned out to be a former policeman, and upon hearing that I was a lawyer, mentioned that, by an astonishing coincidence, he had a friend who was a lawyer who had referred a couple of clients with problems to him once upon a time. I am not quite sure why he spoke of this with such pride, as not only did Mr Penguin fail to solve these problems, but he also added another fairly large problem to their pile in both cases by arresting them! He then suggested that if we bought him a bottle of gin and sat him down by the river he would tell us all about it. Even though this would probably have proved cheaper than the Antarctic Centre turned out to be, we declined his generous offer. In terms of eccentricity he was second only to the taxi driver we recently came across in Ireland who, when asked what there was to do in Limerick, replied with two questions of his own, which were "Can you swim?" and "Can you throw a knife?" (TO BE CONTINUED)"
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