First Sights

February 17, 2002-Love
(photos:Lake Tekapo& Mt. Cook,
Omarama clay cliffs,
Queenstown)

I’m in love with the South Island. Picton was a picture postcard of a town. We pulled into Marlborough Sound under clear skies. Believe it or not, the sky is still clear two days later. In fact, it’s hot & our hotel doesn’t have A/C.

So as not to disappoint us & disillusion us about New Zealanders capacity for screw-ups, Thrifty car rental didn’t have the car we ordered and had to downsize us since they were having trouble getting the cars back from Christchurch. It’s a good four hours away & that’s where we were headed. They were extremely apologetic & gave us free insurance, a free day of usage, a $25 discount certificate for our next rental (that would be Perth), & a free day rental the next time we used Thrifty. They didn’t date the certificates so we could use them anywhere anytime. Now, that’s an apology! We have a Nissan Pulsar with Bridgestone white wall tires. I didn’t know white walls still existed. A Pulsar is the size of a Corolla. The first hurdle we had to surmount was to figure out how to turn off the radio. Fortunately, there was a manual & we can read.

I don’t know why, but with as much as we’ve seen of the natural beauty in the world, we’re still startled & remark out loud when we come upon it again. Immediately on leaving Picton at 7 PM, we were in the mountains. These were emerald hills of dark pines givvingway to even larger rocky peaks covered in tall yellow grasses. The requisite livestock was about, &, Karen, I’m sorry to report that we saw five black sheep in one pasture. Lucky for us, the signs said that the road was “open.” This was a main highway (two-lanes & the occasional railroad crossing), but many roads close here due to snow, rockslides, or washouts. The roads seem to be well maintained, but, as David said, that’s easy to do when you have only three roads in the country. There was no one on the road with us for a good hour. For a while, we thought there was a curfew.

As the mountains changed to hills, we found ourselves on the Kaikora Coast in the Marlborough wine district. Every district seems to have its wineries on the South Island. These looked quite elegant & varied from ultra-modern glass & timber affairs to those reminiscent of Tuscan villas. We began to catch glimpses of the ocean between the hills as if it was teasing & flirting with us. We rounded a bend & were faced with the power & wrath of the Pacific as it beat the rocks & black sand beaches in a frenzy. It definitely reminded us of the other Pacific Coast Highway. There were even a couple of dozen surfers plying the waves to add to the ambiance.

We got lost trying to find our hotel & came across a curious type of gas station. Yes, we tried to ask for directions. There was no one at the station. The pumps either took credit or debit cards. They required pin numbers, but didn’t like the ones David keyed in. We moved on & eventually settled in by midnight.

Directions don’t seem to be a New Zealand thing either. The woman at our hotel told us how to get back onto the highway this morning. She was lovely, helpful, & dead wrong. We had a long drive to Queenstown (nine hours with stops) so, with the delay, we ended up eating breakfast at McDonald’s. Kiwis don’t say “brekkie.” They don’t tend to use diminutives the way the Aussies do. This Mc D not only had the rest rooms paneled in exquisite pine, but the entire dining area was paneled. They also had red & white check fabric tablecloths & flowers on the tables. I wondered how they cleaned the cloths between patrons. Ha! The best thing was they had beef sausage.

Back on the highway we went & we learned a new term. Here they have “rumble strips.” Those are edge lines that make noise when you drive on them. Our route took us through the Canterbury Plains & its mountain passes, somewhat fading wildflowers, rolling hills & scrubby desert tussocks to the edge of the Southern Alps. It was love at first sight. Snow covered Mt. Cook loomed over it all. Lakes Tekapo & Pukaki were startling. I don’t think I’ve ever seen water the color of robins egg blue. It was caused by rock flour floating in glacial melt. The water wasn’t clear. It wasn’t murky, but was milky in tone.

As if things couldn’t get more interesting, we found the clay cliffs of Omarama. We paid the $5 to drive down a dirt road & walk two miles (round trip) to see where the scenes of the dark city of the evil villain in Lord of The Rings was filmed. They look just like in the movie, only they’re the color of sand. I imagine there was a little computer enhancement going on. They look like giant crystals that point skyward & are sculpted in incongruous & fantastic patterns that vary from columns to lacey etchings.

Queenstown

We finally rolled into Queenstown. Now there’s a city with an approach. On one side there’s the Remarkables Range, & they truly are. They’re barren, granite, towering, & form the backdrop to the Frankton Arm of Lake Wakatipu. The town climbs the hills facing Queenstown Bay & it spread out before us as we rode the gondola to the top. This time there were no tunnels to obscure the view.

We just had enough time to see a kiwi preserve before dinner. Kiwis are monogamous. Females are larger & more dominant. The males sit on the eggs for eighty days before they hatch. Adults are about the shape & size of a basketball & can live forty years. We also saw a “morepork.” That’s the name of a bird whose name comes from the sound it makes.

And now for dinner! We finally found great pizza….but it had a broken piece of a dish in it. At first I thought it was my tooth. The manager offered to replace the pizza & since we were trashed after such a long day, she made it a take away. We didn’t check the box until we got to the hotel, but it was half pepperoni. I called the restaurant & she was very apologetic. Am I using that word a lot? She sent two more pizzas to the hotel by taxi. We gave some to the front desk & made friends for life.

David is in bed now. We have to get up at 6 AM for a 12-hour odyssey to the Milford Sound & Fjordland.
February 18, 2002-Swiss

I would like to welcome Ursula & Sven to the list of people who receive this email. We met them on our trip to Milford Sound. Ursula also emails friends & relatives at home in Switzerland. She offered to add me to her mailings, but she writes in German. Ursula does me one better. She takes her laptop everywhere & writes as she goes.

Toby