We spent about 10 days touring the South Island of New Zealand during the middle of January. Here are some notes on the trip, as well as some similarities and differences between New Zealand and Australia.
We landed in Christchurch, which is the largest city (pop. 100,000) on the South Island. It is very 'British' in design, and is known as the most English city outside of England. Lots of old-style cathedrals and universities, some cobble-stone streets, and tree-lined waterways (alas, there isn't a pub on every corner). It is a major center for the Arts, and the open-air arts and crafts market which runs each weekend is loaded with high-quality art of all forms. Besides the parks and shopping, we enjoyed the Science Center (small, but each exhibit is interactive and very high quality), the wildlife refuges, and the Museums. The beaches were also very pleasant, with a lot of interesting rock formations carved out over the centuries. We spent a total of 3 nights in Christchurch - one on arrival, and the others at the end of our trip.
We then went to Dunedin, a very Scottish town (it's name means Edinborough) about 4 hours drive south along the coast. Meredyth wanted to come here to the Anglican cathedral, where the first woman Anglican bishop presides (unfortunately, she was out of town at the time, but the cathedral was nice and Meredyth met a lot of friendly people). While she went to church, Nathan and I went out to New Zealand's only castle (perched on rocky heights overlooking the town and the ocean). It was built about 100 years ago by someone with too much money. The woodwork and furnishings were incredible, as were the gardens and, of course, the view. We also climbed up to the local war memorial (every town worth its salt has one) through a sheep pasture (they didn't mind), which, like in Edinborough, is named after Arthur. This trip was the scariest driving I've ever done. The way out was along the shore of a bay, and there wasn't much separating the road from the bay. They don't believe in guard rails, and the waves wash up on the road. Add to this the winding nature, and you can imagine the concentration needed. I chose the high road back to town, but that was even more harrowing, going along the edge of a cliff with, you guessed it, no guard rail. Oh, and did I mention that the roads are barely wide enough for a pair of sub-compacts to pass each other?
From here we headed west across the island to Te Anau, a small town in the middle of some breathtaking scenery. This is at the edge of the Fjordland, where you have narrow rivers passing through mile-high peaks which go up at precarious angles. There are also some beautiful lakes surrounded by snow-peaked mountains (and this is the middle of the summer!). The other major activity around here, besides cruises and bus excursions, is hiking. The majority of visitors to this town are hikers and campers. We were certainly in the minority, staying at a hotel. We were originally booked to go to Milford Sound, the most famous of the fjords, but the road to where the cruise started had been washed out by rain, so Milford was cut off except for by air. They gave us instead a trip to Doubtful Sound, so named by Captain Cook because he doubted he'd be able to get out of it if he had taken his ship in. It was a multi-modal trip - we took a bus to the edge of one of the lakes, and a 1 hour cruise took us to the base of an underground hydroelectric facility (5 million gallons of water per minute pumped out of the lake through a 10 mile tunnel out to the fjords). From here we took a bus through some rainforest over a pass down to the sound. The flora in this area is astounding. There is no soil to speak of - massive trees are growing in dead lychen which has clung to the rocks. Needless to say, the root systems are not deep, and tree slides which take out wide swaths of trees are common. The variety and color of the lychen is as diverse as you'll find anywhere in the world. After this 45 minute bus ride (with stops for ooing and ahhing), we finally got onto the cruise ship. We then spent the next few hours navigating the fjords amongst the towering rocky mountains. We found ourselves losing track of the time as we just stared in awe (Nathan, on the other hand, had made friends with other kids on the trip and was gleefully running around the ship playing pirates). This was certainly a trip not to be missed!
After 2 nights in Te Anau, we drove up to Queenstown, which is the major resort on the south island. It is situated, like Te Anau, on the edge of a lake surrounded by a mountain range called 'The Remarkables'. In Queenstown you can perform just about any risk-taking activity you can think of, from white-water rafting to paragliding to bungy-jumping (either from platforms off of mountains or from bridges high above rivers). We took a cable car up one peak overlooking the town (and saw some bungy-jumping - definitely not for me). Nathan and I then took a jet boat ride down a very shallow river (less than 3 inches deep at parts), which was like an ever-changing roller coaster ride. As I heard one visitor say, "Disney has nothing on the thrill you get with jet boats". The town is filled with touristy things to do, with lots of restaurants and shops. As we are not really a 'thrill-seeking' family, we decided to move on after one night here.
We then headed for the west coast and the glaciers. To get there, the only road over the Southern Alps is the Haast Pass, which had been devastated by rains the previous week and had only recently reopened. They had brought in the Army corp of engineers to make the road passable (which it was, just barely). Basically what happens is the water falls and streams off of the mountains take out huge chunks of the road when the weather is bad. We saw whole bridges which had been pushed down the mountains. A lot of the roads were down to single lanes (which made it tough when tour busses were passing you), and wherever a bridge was lost they just put in a new culvert and covered it with tons and tons of gravel. We were fortunate to get through, as storms 3 days later closed the pass again, as well as some roads along the coast which we drove on. The west coast is very lightly populated (only 30,000 people along a 300 mile stretch, with most in the town of Greymouth), and the environment is so unique it is classified as a world reserve. Basically, in a 20 mile band you can go from beaches to salt marshes to rain forests to glaciers to 1.5 mile high mountains! As you can imagine, the plant and bird life is quite diverse. Around here they measure annual rainfall in meters, getting anywhere from 3 to 5 meters per year, which translates to 15 meters of snow on the mountains. We were very fortunate in terms of weather during our trip. We only got rain on days where we were spending most of the time driving, and it was mostly sunny when we were out walking places.
We went to the Franz Josef glacier, which is about half way up the west coast. Basically, a glacier is a river of ice and snow which is continually advancing or retreating. This one is advancing at a rate of about 1 inch per day. It was a spectacular sight, though to get close we had to do some rather treacherous hiking. On the way out, we took 'the high road', which was mostly muddy, steep trails interrupted by streams and waterfalls. I must say that I've seen more waterfalls in this period than in all the rest of my life. As we got closer to the glacier, we could see how the mountains on either side had been worn smooth by the motion. Even small rocks exhibited this smoothing effect. We weren't allowed to climb on the glacier without a guide (which would have cost us $85for the family), but we got within 20 yards or so on a large rock formation just in front of the glacier. From here we could see the blue ice (the color is changed because the compression squeezes oxygen out of it) and the river flowing from under it. Needless to say, we got some great pictures! The walk back was along the edge of the river, which had been closed earlier in the day due to washouts. It still was quite tricky walking, with some sections simply being a notch cut into a steep wall of wet rocks and mud. I saw some women in leather pumps heading out as we came in, and I'm sure they would either turn around or ruin their shoes in the process.
Our next stop was Greymouth, a rather nondescript town which had been a center of gold prospecting in earlier years. Near Greymouth is a town with a major craft industry, where you could buy all sorts of New Zealand craft items (or raw materials) for very cheap. We bought a few chunks of raw jade (.25 - .5 pounds each) for about $2USeach. From each you could carve probably $200of jewelry if you were so inclined. We didn't stay in Greymouth long - it was mostly a convenient place to stop. We then started our return trip to the East coast over Arthur's Pass, yet another spectacular, winding ride through mountains permeated by waterfalls (we actually drove through one waterfall which was slowly eating away the road). The trickiest part of this ride was driving on long, narrow, one-lane bridges, which several times were for use by trains as well as cars (only one at a time, please). We're not sure what we would have done if we got half way over the bridge and saw a train coming at us!
Well, that completes the loop. We put about 1200 miles on the rental car, usually in 3-4 hour chunks. It was by far the most breathtaking scenery we've ever seen condensed in such a small area (the people are nice, too), and we are already thinking of coming back some day (25th anniversary?). Now, the main similarities and differences.
People: in Australia, the Aborigines preceded the invasion from Europe by 12,000 to 20,000 years, where as Maoris came to New Zealand only about 1000 years ago. A lot of Maori culture is very similar to Polynesian culture, though, like Aboriginals, Maoris migrated to different areas during different seasons for gathering and hunting. The total population of New Zealand is about 3 million, and is mostly concentrated in the North Island. The English accent is similar to Australia, though they pronounce some vowels slightly differently (notably the 'e' is pronounced closer to the 'i' of 'it' rather than the 'eh' sound). There is a sometimes bitter rivalry between Australia and New Zealand, who the Aussies call Kiwis.
Industry: New Zealand is dominated by the wool industry (at birthing time, there are 10 times as many sheep as people in NZ), agriculture, and touristry, but has little of the mining industry which accounts for much of Australia's exports. They are major exporters of kiwi fruit, which is mostly considered an invasive, annoying shrub by the locals.
Climate: NZ is wet. Australia is mostly dry (except in the far north). This is evident in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. For example, there is no notion of water conservation in NZ, where as most toilets in Australia have 2 buttons for flushing; half tank and full tank. Brush fires are rare in NZ, while they are a part of everyday life in Australia. NZ is cooler in general than Australia, and gets a fair bit of snow.
Wildlife: like Australia, there are many species of wildlife that can only be found in NZ. Like Australia, NZ is being overrun by non-native species introduced by Europeans which are devastating the native flora and fauna. The only mammal native to NZ is a type of bat, which is why there are so many flightless birds. Many of the native species are now on the endangered list because of the introduction of predators. Fortunately, both countries now realize the foolishness of upsetting the balance of nature by introduction of non-native species and are working at innovative ways of reversing the mistakes.
Geography: both countries have mountains, beaches, rain forests, and farm land. NZ has no desert. Australia has both temperate and tropical rain forests, while NZ is predominantly temperate. It just seems that NZ has more beautiful spots in a much smaller area than Australia, though Aussies are very proud of their deserts and wide expanses of bushland. Australian mountains are boring in comparison to NZ.
Well, sorry if I ran on a bit here, but NZ had a significant impact on us, and I'd strongly recommend a visit to anyone who has a reasonable amount of disposable income (though travel within the country is very reasonable in price compared to Australia).