Nelson

We left Blenheim for Nelson about 10:30 and arrived on the outskirts of Nelson about noon. At first the land was flat and mostly devoted to vineyards. Any other time I have seen vineyards, in Europe and the Okanagan, they have been on hillsides. I guess there is no reason why you can’t grow grapes on flat ground if you have enough sunlight and good drainage.

Leaving the vineyards, we turned into a wide valley with low forested mountains on either side. At the bottom of the valley, there were mostly sheep grazing. As we climbed higher toward the mountain pass and the valley narrowed, cattle grazing took over. Near the summit, it was all forested, except where it had been harvested. There were many areas of reforestation in various stages of growth. It seems so odd to see pine trees in the mountains growing in rows like any other crop.

The road was pretty good except for 7 km of cart track near the summit of the mountain pass. And another thing about those roads – You are driving on this narrow, winding road with no shoulder above steep cliffs, and most of the time there are no guard rails. I think it is because there isn’t room for them between the edge of the road and the edge of the cliff! And then, you have these whacko cyclists on the same road! It is barely wide enough for two cars to pass, and they want to overcome their personal challenges there. Go find somewhere else!

Suddenly, we emerged from the mountains to a sun drenched coast at Nelson. We had lunch and wandered the downtown for awhile. It was a beehive of activity with shoppers and sidewalk cafes, but they have created a very calm atmosphere with trees, paving stones, and other tricks, so it felt quite welcoming and relaxing.

We then found ourselves a motel around 3, walked about 1 km to the beach, then walked another km up the beach. It is very long and wide with fine sand, sand dunes behind it, and shallow, relatively warm water. There were about a dozen kite surfers out. It was interesting to watch them as their kites made a colourful contrast against the almost clear blue sky. I will see later if the camera was able to capture the effect.

Spotted a cool looking pub earlier in the day and went there for supper, thinking we would fit right in. We fit in alright! We were the youngest ones in the place! Well, not really, but there sure was a lot of white hair in there. I am sure it is a happening place after the suppertime crowd clears out. After supper we did some more walking and touring around town.

And what is with the sun in the North? That sure wreaks havoc with your sense of direction!

Another bit of Canadiana

The ferry we took from Wellington harbour on the North Island to Picton on the South Island was quite neat. It has a movie theatre (today’s viewing – ‘Narnia - the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe’ – admission $10) observation deck/coffee bar with a giant big screen TV, a cafeteria, a souvenir shop, a bar, a video arcade and children’s play centre that has some really neat play structures.

The TV was tuned into the Discovery Channel – first show was ‘Haunting’, a story about a haunted house in Canada and the second show was “Crime Story – the David Stone Story” which was produced by Partners in Motion in Regina. A small piece of home on the other side of the world.

One more thing – they sell McCains frozen dinners at the Supermarket.

I wanted some fish and chips for my special birthday meal – the kind they wrap in newsprint – sort of English style. The fish itself was tasty but the batter and chips were really bland and starchy - nowhere near as good as ‘Joey’s Only’ at home. Someone should open a Joey’s Only chain down here – show them how it should be done! They already have Pizza Hut, Dominos, McDonalds, KFC, and Subway – what’s one more food chain.

PS - a happy belated birthday, Linda. Hard keeping on top of things out here!

Uphill climb – both ways

Found something else Canadian – there was a maple tree growing in the Botanic Gardens in Wellington – apparently donated from Canada.

Another observation – did we mention that there were hills everywhere? The zoo and the botanic gardens are built on hills – steep hills. Even though we both like to walk those hills can be tough when you are used to nice flat Regina streets!

Wellington – Picton – Blenheim (for Jan. 19)

Weather is better again. Mostly sunny, mild temperature, and light wind.

Not much to report today. We got a fairly early start to check out of the hotel, gas up the car, find our way to the ferry terminal, find the rental car return, and check in for the ferry. It took a while to find the terminal, because there was no exit from the freeway, so we had to exit elsewhere and work our way back. At the terminal, it took a while to find the rental car return. Our instructions were to return it to the public parking and leave the keys with the attendant. We drove past one public parking area yesterday and drove past it again today, because the sign listed every rental company but ours. We figured there had to be somewhere else, but finally decided to try this place. The attendant said that this was the place, our rental company was just too cheap to pay to have their name on the sign.

The three hour ferry ride was uneventful. I studied my camera manual to see if I could make better use of its features. Celeste watched some TV and had a short nap. I thought we would be in open water for quite a while, but most of the trip was in the sheltered waters of Wellington’s long harbour and the strait leading to the opposite terminal at Picton. After trading our Nissan Maxima in at Wellington for a Holden (GM) Commodore Executive in Picton, picking up a few groceries, and having something to eat, we were on the road about 3:30.

We stopped in Blenheim, a city of 26,000+, to check out Brayshaw Museum Park, which had a reconstructed colonial village, antique farm equipment, and a miniature railway. This is not your average Lionel miniature train, but something big enough to ride on. The track width was about one foot, so it might be something like the old train they had at Kiddieland in Regina, for those of you that can remember that far back. It only runs every second Sunday during the summer, so we didn’t see it in operation, but

it had quite the impressive track layout. I took a few pictures for Greg Hebert. We were there pretty late, so we had to rush through everything, but most of the exhibits were behind glass anyway.

We checked into a motel around 6 and went for a walk around the quaint and pretty downtown. If you think they roll up the sidewalks early in Regina, you should try Blenheim!

Celeste decided that she would like fish and chips for her birthday, so we found a phone booth, found the only fish and chip place listed, and hiked down there. We were pretty pooped by the time we got back to the motel.

Zoo observations

Zoo was great - practically had the place to ourselves – probably because the weather was so crappy. Luckily it was ‘feeding time’ so the animals came out of hiding. Saw giraffes, lions, a tiger, red pandas, chimps, monkeys, kangaroos, ostriches, bears and plenty of birds - every kind of animal you have ever seen in a children’s ABC book (except elephants and aardvarks).

There supposedly were kiwis in a special nocturnal animal display but we never did find them – either it was too dark for us to see or they were hiding really well.

Wellington again (for Jan. 18)

Well, they were right about the weather. The morning had fairly steady drizzle developing into occasional light to moderate rain in the afternoon, with a strong wind all day.

We managed to find the zoo about 10 AM. It is off the edge of the detailed maps we have, but we knew its general location from the larger maps, so we thought we could find it pretty easily if we drove to the edge of our map and followed the “Zoo” signs. Wrong! They don’t believe in too many directional signs here. We had also looked for brochures with a map, but couldn’t find any at any of the tourist kiosks we stopped at. We finally found it after a scenic tour of south Wellington. It was quite a good zoo. You would think they would promote it better.

We had missed a couple of earlier opportunities to see Kiwi, so we didn’t want to miss this one. Kiwi are nocturnal, so they are housed in a darkened display house. After wandering for several minutes to let our eyes grow accustomed to the darkness, then wandering back and forth, squinting into the darkness without success, we finally gave up. We emerged from the Kiwi house, walked only a couple of dozen steps, and there was one staring right at us!

We finished up there at about 12:30 and made our way to the Te Papa (“Our World”) Museum by about 1 PM. It is quite an impressive new building filled with lots of “stuff.” The earth sciences section was very interesting, explaining New Zealand’s formation and current geology. They also had a large Maori area and many, many other exhibits. It was kind of like the Sask. Science Centre, Royal Sask. Museum, Norman McKenzie Art Gallery, and a couple of other places all rolled into one. We got out of there around 5 PM, just in time to experience Wellington at rush hour. No fun. We tried to do a dry run to the ferry terminal for tomorrow, but without much success and at the expense of a lot of time. We will just have to get an early start tomorrow.

A couple of more notes about driving. I have never been a big fan of traffic circles, but boy oh boy, they love them here. Takes some getting used to. And they really economize on street signs. The crossing streets are all marked, but they assume that you already know the name of the main street you are on – not always the case for us – and only occasionally mark them. You can go several blocks looking for signs before finding out whether or not you are where you wanted to be.

Wellington (for Jan. 17)

We had our tire fixed by 10 AM and continued on into the city to check out a place we were thinking of staying at tonight. Lo and behold, it is right across the street from a Botanic Garden we were going to take in. We toured around until 3 PM, then checked into the hotel.

The Botanic Garden was much more than I expected. It is 25 hectares (don’t know the conversion factor for acres) of tremendous variety, criss-crossed by numerous paths. There is something new and interesting around every corner. Part of it is natural growth, part of it is plantings of indigenous and imported tree and flower species, and a small part is flower beds, like in front of our legislature. It is full of people, walking, jogging, or just sitting around, yet it doesn’t seem crowded because there are so many visual separations. It occupies a fairly high and steep hill, at the top of which is an observatory and the upper terminus of a cable railway to the city below. There was a large rose garden, and a “Begonia House.” I am not that big a flower guy, but those masses of begonias were pretty impressive. I won’t force the flower pictures on everyone, but we have lots for those who want to see them when we get home.

After checking in, we walked down to the parliament buildings for their 4 PM tour. It was a very interesting tour of some very beautiful buildings. We were back at the hotel about 5:30 for a nap, a bite to eat, and some blogging.

There is a performance area in the Botanic Gardens right across the street from us and there is a band playing there tonight. Can two old fogies manage attendance at a rock concert? Or, can we tolerate one across the street at our 10 PM bedtime? I guess we will find out tonight.

The weather has been great so far. I would guess mid 20’s or better every day. Today was a little cooler though. I saw my first TV weather report tonight. They say it was 20 degrees here today. And there was a fairly stiff breeze too. Tomorrow, a cold front is supposed to move in with precipitation by late afternoon, Bummer!

Well, we took in the concert, sort of. It started at 8 and we only went after 8:30, but we enjoyed what we heard. The band pulled a bunch of little girls, mostly age 8-10, on stage near the end. They were pretty cute as they danced along. Unfortunately, I didn’t take my camera, thinking there wouldn’t really be anything to see. Lesson learned. Take it everywhere. The park was so cool, lit up in the night, that we went back and picked up the camera for a few pics.

The band was called “Hairy Lollies.” I don’t know what Lollies are. I have my suspicions, but I am not going to ask.

Napier to Wellington (for Jan. 16)

We went to the seashore and downtown about 10 AM and toured around until almost 1 PM. They have a black, pebbled beach – not very comfortable to walk on. The stones hurt your feet if barefoot and get in your sandals if you wear them. I guess the only thing to do is wear shoes. We also toured around the Art Deco and Spanish Mission architecture.

One interesting stop was Opossum World, which had a “Souvenirs” sign out front. We went in to check out the souvenirs, but got much more than we bargained for. The opossum was brought here many years ago to create a fur industry. Unfortunately, with no natural predators, the little varmints have taken over. They have endangered many indigenous tree and plant species and many of the birds and other animals that depend on them. Apparently, they also carry TB. There is quite a campaign to control them by trapping, poisoning, and whatever else they can do. This store was full of all kinds of opossum products, including various fur items, and various items knit from a blend of wool and opossum fur. They also had quite an extensive interpretive display.

A second interesting detour was to the top of the cliff that overlooks the town. Although the surrounding area is quite flat, this bluff rises abruptly 100 metres above the town. It had a great view of the port and of the suburbs to the north, but houses occupy all the viewpoints for the downtown to the south.

We pulled into Wellington’s outskirts about 7 PM. It wouldn’t normally take that long, but we stopped for lunch, then a nap, and, finally, a planning session to decide where to stop for the night. As for the nap, I felt this morning that I could have slept longer. While driving, I wasn’t to the point of nodding off, but I just wasn’t feeling sharp. The road was becoming hypnotic. After a one hour nap, I felt like a new man. I had planned to stop for the night in an area of vineyards an hour or two out of Wellington, but we decided to press on to Wellington instead. There is a lot to see and do there and there will be plenty of other opportunities fro wine tours. Also, maybe we can get a head start on fixing the tire.

Leaving Napier, the terrain was still much like the Okanagan, fairly dry and hilly with lots of fruit growing and vineyards. For most of the rest of the way, we were on a broad plain, but never far away from hills and small mountains. The hills became greener as we went further south, but had few trees. The primary land use was grazing again, but sheep became more common than cattle as we went further south. Just before Wellington, we reached another wine producing area, and crossed a range of hills where the road was a carbon copy of the ones I complained about before. It’s as if they are still using the same cart tracks they used 100 years ago, except that they have paved them.

Our Tyre

Monday morning. We found a tire in Wellington that they will hold it for us. We plan to arrive there Tuesday evening and take it in Wednesday morning.

This information highway stuff isn't as easy as it sounds. Every place has a different arrangement for broadband Internet, if they have it at all. Last night's place charged us $10 for a wireless card that was all enabled. All we had to do was install it and we could use it until we checked out. One previous place had unlimited use included with a conventional connection. In Rotorua, they had a dataport that needed a dial up connection and they also had a wireless connection. We weren't very successful with the wireless. Next morning they told us that you had to use it from the lobby. No wonder it was such a weak and intermittent connection from the room!

Odd Notes and Things We've Learned

Gas prices are 141.9 cents per litre everywhere you go, whether in a small town or large city – talk about price fixing!

If you shop at Pak N Save grocery store (like our Superstore only without the extras like clothing, housewares etc) you can purchase gas from their pumps from 2 to 5 cents less per litre – trick is, the pumps are self serve and will only accept a New Zealand issued credit card – can’t win!

Another oddity – when you check into a hotel they hand you a small container of milk – must be for your tea or coffee. So, not wanting any freebies to be wasted, we bought ourselves a box of cereal from the Pak N Save and have cereal and milk for breakfast.

The best hotel swimming pools are those heated by hot springs – the others are pretty damn cold!

They have so many aboriginal names for their cities, streets and landmarks – compared to at home where we only have a few. I find it hard to keep names like Wainuiomata, Waikanae, Tauranga, Whangamata, Whitianga, and Pukekohe straight and I’m never sure how to pronounce them. Luckily so far, we haven’t had to ask for directions – it could be embarrassing.

Napier

We left Rotorua about 8:30 to get to Wai-o-tapu in time for their geyser at 10:15. While we were waiting, we were wondering how they knew the timing so precisely and why a natural phenomenon would care about what time it was. Turns out that they throw soap down the hole, which breaks the surface tension of the cooler water on top and allows the hot water to gush to the surface - or so the interpreter said anyway. It starts out as a fountain of soap suds before it really gets going. We watched the thing gush for at least 20 minutes, and it was still going a bit when we left. Most everybody else had left by then. There was quite a crowd gathered.

We also toured the rest of the park. It was pretty interesting, with a self-guided tour of a wide variety of geothermal phenomena. As I feared, the camera didn't pick up the colours very well in the bright sunshine. Oh well.


We ate some lunch and hit the road again about 1 PM. There were other geothermal and Maori attractions along the way, but we figured we had our share and only made one short stop at a geothermal power station. Kevin would have loved it! Right out of Discovery Channel.




We only drove through Taupo. It is another resort and tourist town, much like Rotorua, with many similar attractions. We arrived in Napier about 4:30, found a place to stay, and took a long walk along the sea wall. Napier's claim to fame is its large collection of Art Deco architecture. An earthquake pretty much leveled the town in 1931. It was totally rebuilt in the style of the day. It is also a wine producing region. One disadvantage of a self-drive tour is that you can't fill up on the wine tours!

The roads have been much better since we left the coast just before Rotorua. There is still only about one foot of shoulder, but at least the driving lanes are wide enough and there are fewer and more gradual curves. Through the interior, there was a lot of forestry, with pine trees at various stages of growth, harvesting, and replanting. There was also a lot of grazing land. Again though, there weren't many sheep. Mostly cattle, and most of those were dairy cattle. As we neared the east coast, it became more mountainous again, and dry, kind of like the Okanagan or southern California. Lots of vineyards and more sheep now.

posted by Glenn on Celeste's page by mistake.

Observations

· After we discovered the Canadian Totem pole and took some pictures, a tour bus of Germans and a group of Japanese swarmed around taking pictures and posing with the Totem pole – probably thinking it was a New Zealand artifact. They didn’t even bother to read the plaque that explained it was a gift from Canada! Some tourists shouldn’t be allowed off the bus!

· We had a choice of two tour guides at the Maori Village tour – either a young woman or an older grandmotherly woman. We chose the older grandmotherly woman - and I mean grandmotherly! She didn’t tell us anything about what we were seeing – like the bubbling mud, geysers and the village itself. She talked about her grandchildren, who is related to who in the village, how when she was young she had to wear a school uniform and learn to march, and how she can predict earthquakes and tsunamis by reading the changes in the hot pools. Oops, wrong choice. We ended up taking the self-directed tour ourselves afterwards to take in what we missed.

Cell Phone

At long last, here is our cell phone info.

Check the phone book, but I think you dial 011 first.

Country code: 64. You will have to dial the New Zealand code throughout our trip because it is a New Zealand phone. It will be relayed on from here.

Access code: 021. If that doesn’t work, you may have to drop the 0.

Phone number: 0227-3241. Once again, try dropping the 0 if this doesn’t work.

From here it works with all the zeros in, but there was some mention about dropping zeros from somebody we talked to.

Rotorua (for Jan. 14)

This morning we tracked down the rental car company, even though the revised address was already out of date. He said just go ahead and get it fixed, so we went to the Firestone store. He said the tire was an odd size (16 inch wheel) and phoned around to everybody nearby trying to get one, but without success. Since it was Saturday, we decided we would press on and try to phone ahead to Wellington on Monday so that someone there will have a tire for us before we have to drop off the car and take the ferry to the South Island.

This all took until about noon, so we went from there to the Whakarewarewa Thermal Village for a tour, lunch, and Maori cultural performance. The village is built on a thermal area and there are boiling mud pits, steam, and hot water bubbling up to the surface throughout the village. They cook chicken in hot boxes sitting over steam vents and vegetables in a cheesecloth bag in a boiling pool. As the water runs off and cools, they catch it in concrete tubs for their baths.

We finished up there by mid afternoon, so we drove down to their version of Wascana Park along the lake. We found another Maori meeting house and a totem pole from Canada. We returned for a swim, a little lounging by the pool, supper, and blogging.