New Zealand, Part III: Kaikoura and Christchurch

Kaikoura was, without a doubt, the most anticipated destination of our entire journey. Why? We had made reservations to swim, in the ocean, with dolphins and seals. Originally we were to do both of these in the same day. For reasons that will become apparent later, that plan eventually changed. But anyway…

We arrived at the hostel in the late afternoon, where we were greeted at the car (what service!) by the wildly enthusiastic and slightly unsettling French owners. None of the rooms had any locks, but there were free bikes, and we were assured that theft was a non-issue. That night, we decided to make a real dinner for the first time. After the spending spree debacle that was our trip to Melbourne and Sydney, the two of us had made a vow to cut back on our food spending. This meant preparing most of our meals, but by “preparing our own meals” I mean “making peanut butter sandwiches and instant noodles.” In Kaikoura, we decided to make something a little more elaborate: pasta. Natalie is weird and hates tomatoes, so she was fine with only cheese and no sauce. I, on the other hand, wanted sauce, so I mixed olive oil, a tomato, half an onion, a tiny zucchini and a smattering of spices into my most successful cooking achievement to this date. Seriously, I was really proud of myself. Then, Natalie wanted to make “puppy chow”, which is a dessert that incorporates Chex cereal, peanut butter, melted chocolate chips and powdered sugar into a highly fattening but eminently delicious creation. She’d made it lots of times in Townsville with her girlfriends, but here something went wrong and she set off the fire alarm. Luckily, nothing was harmed except some of the peanut butter, but it was embarrassing for all of us. During dinner, we had a long conversation with a young British couple who were traveling the world for several months before settling back down in London.

In the morning, we woke early, because we had a big day of swimming with animals. After receiving a wetsuit and all other applicable gear, we got on a boat with about 15 other passengers and went in search of a pod of dusky dolphins. For those of you who have been swimming with dolphins yourself, and maybe are not really very impressed with the idea, you can skip ahead. But know that these were wild dolphins, and that the boats do nothing like feed them or attract them to the boat in any way. It’s probably true that the dolphins have come to expect large groups of people every day, but the only thing that the animals get out of it is play time. Wow, I sound really defensive, for some reason. Anyway, we found about one hundred dolphins (not an exaggeration) after about a half-hour of searching, and we jumped in the water. It was amazing, even though my fingers almost froze off. Dolphins would swim up from underneath you, shooting by at speeds we couldn’t even dream of matching. Sometimes they would circle us, daring us to match their speed. We were told to make sounds the entire time in the water in order to attract the animals, and then to make eye contact with them once they arrived. I did my best to imitate dolphin noises, made nonsense sounds, even hummed “Under The Sea.” It was thrilling.

We got in and out of the water three separate times, following the pod as it made its way around the bay. Afterwards there was hot chocolate and ginger snaps and a lecture on the reckless endangerment of dolphins around the world, which I thought was a bit ill-timed but seemed acceptable to the rest of the passengers.

The plan, originally, was to swim with seals in the afternoon, but the warnings of the hostel owners and the temperature of the water dissuaded us, so we moved it to the following morning. That afternoon, we rode the hostel-provided bikes into town and wandered around, and later drove out to the nearby seal colony, which we would experience up close the following day.

The dolphin and seal swimming experiences can be compared in the following way: the dolphin experience was clearly run like a business (even though it was an impressively well-run, streamlined, friendly business), while the seal swimming was like if you had a friend that one day said “Hey, I know where some seals are and I have a boat, do you want to go swim with them?” Natalie and I were the only two people on the tour, which consisted of driving out to the seal colony on a dinghy (stopping at a crayfish-trapping boat, the owners of which tossed two live, recently caught crayfish into our boat—crazy!), then jumping into the water with the guide, who paddled around on a boogie board, pointing to where the seals were. Seals are more elusive than dolphins, and as a result they are more mysterious. Underwater, their eyes are unsettlingly cloudy, as if they are covered by cataracts that hide some deep wisdom. They move with a grace that is in complete contrast with this apparent blindness and on-land awkwardness. The seal colony is also home to huge kelp forests, fronds and leaves three feet in diameter, giving the environment an alien feel, but apart from the freezing temperatures, the whole experience was soothing. Afterwards, we felt like accomplished wildlife-swimmers. On to Christchurch!

Christchurch is described as “the most English” of New Zealand cities, and I think I agree, but then again, I’ve never been to England. A tiny river (the Avon), complete with river rats (!), runs through the city. We spent the longest time in Christchurch of any city of our New Zealand trip, but we probably did the least, visiting several art galleries, the botanic gardens, and the Arts Centre, a collective of 40 stores/artists plying their handicrafts, housed in an old cathedral-type building. It was nice, I guess, with the highlight of the art-gallery-visiting being a “brick circus” at the Centre for Contemporary Art, in which bricks were doctored and altered and added to in order to represent different circus acts. It was clever and cute and concrete, qualities that are usually lacking in much of the other art in the museum. We didn’t do much, but what was important about Christchurch is that it allowed us to recharge for a few days before a few hard days of driving and sightseeing: across the country, through the Southern Alps, to the glaciers, down to Queenstown and Milford Sound and then the long-anticipated trip home.

New Zealand, Part II: Wai-o-Tapu Thermal Wonderland, Tongariro National Park, Wellington

On Sunday, since we apparently hadn’t had enough of the omnipresent thermal activity that defines Rotorua as a tourist attraction, we made one final stop at the Wai-o-Tapu Thermal Wonderland, located approximately 30 km south of the city. It’s most exciting attraction, the Lady Knox Geyser, erupts (with a little help from some organic soap) at 10:15 AM every day, so we made sure to arrive there in time for that. It was perhaps less impressive than I had hoped, though still exciting. We left early to beat the crowd back to the actual thermal sites, which were located along a 3 km loop walk.

Here’s the deal with thermal phenomena, and a lesson that we probably learned too late: it’s fascinating, amazing to see—bewildering, even, for no one expects to see mud and water boiling and bubbling and toiling and troubling of their own accord. But it is not particularly beautiful. There are exceptions, surely, like the Wonderland’s Champagne Pool. The majority of it, however, is made up of wide expanses of sickly yellow or off-white hardened minerals. It smells bad. Steam fogs up your glasses (ok, maybe that’s just me). In retrospect, we allowed too much time for thermal things.

From the Maybe-Less-Than-A-Wonderland, our travels took us to Tongariro National Park. I was particularly excited about visiting—it is a World Heritage Site, noted by guidebooks, the internet, just about everyone as one of the must-see, most beautiful places in New Zealand. It did not disappoint. The landscape is at first scrubby, made up of ground vegetation and large shrubs and grasses. Then, rising from the earth, two enormous mountains: Ngauruhoe and Ruapehu, snow-capped even in summer, dominating the horizon and holding captive our gaze. Driving was difficult in their presence. I had never been around such large mountains (one is even an active volcano!).

Once at the Visitor’s Centre, we examined the hikes available to us. Natalie is by no stretch of the imagination a trail-walking enthusiast. Plus, it was 3:00 PM. Those two criteria cut our possibilities down to a few short 15-30 minute round trips, for the powers that be at Tongariro National Park had somehow decided that the only worthwhile walks in the whole of the park were that length or 5+ hours or 3-4 days long. We were in search of a nice 1-1.5 hour walk that afforded nice views of the mountains, but none exist. Disheartened, we made three 15 minute treks, and left. I regard this as a missed opportunity: there were several walks that I would have been interested in taking had we more time, but I doubt that Natalie would have complied. I can dream, though…

Our final destination of the day was Wanganui, a sleepy town with nothing particularly interesting to offer except a bed closer to Wellington than the national park. So, what did we do? After our attempt at a sort-of-nice dinner was thwarted by my torn jeans, we did what anyone would do in that situation: skip dinner and see Borat instead. Borat is probably not the comedic masterpiece that many are lauding it as, but it certainly has its moments, crass as they may be at times. So it was worth it, if only because it paved the way for this exchange that could happen at any time in the future:

A friend: “Have you seen Borat?”

Me: “Yep…in Wanganui, New Zealand. Top THAT.”

Friend: (cowers in fear and awe and shame)

The drive to Wellington was uneventful, the driving in Wellington was not. New Zealand’s capital is as hilly as San Francisco, as wet as Seattle, as crowded and impatient as Chicago. It is, as we were told several days later by a young British couple who had just spent six months there, a place better suited to living than traveling.

After surviving the nightmarish traffic and paying for a parking permit, we made our way to Te Papa (Maori: “Our Place”), the National Museum of New Zealand. The museum is five (maybe six) stories of New Zealand history, artifacts and art. It is Wellington’s premier attraction, and with good reason—it is a wealth of information, whether one wants to learn about the history of Maori-European relations, how the earth was created, or the influence of Italians on New Zealand’s culture. It would be difficult to absorb all of it in a full day, let alone the few hours we spent there.

Next on the agenda was a cable car ride to one of the city’s highest points, which was also home to the Botanic Gardens, where we wandered downhill for 45 minutes amongst huge succulents and the inevitable rose garden, pausing to snap photos but moving along hurriedly because even though it is the middle of summer in that part of the world, it was probably 55 degrees and damp, like Indianapolis recently. Hmmm… The only trouble was our hostel was at the top of another, smaller hill, which we had to climb in order to make the return trip. After dinner we went up and down again because we had run out of fresh fruit and other items only available at the corner grocery store. Natalie was less than enthused, and I can’t say that I was too happy myself. It was a lot of walking, and we slept well that night.

In the morning, we departed for the South Island. A short play:

CURTAIN

NATALIE and PATRICK are waiting in their car, in line at the ferry terminal.

NATALIE: Where’s our ticket?

PATRICK: I think it’s that thing taped to our windshield.

NATALIE: Really?

PATRICK: Probably. What else would it be?

NATALIE removes the object from the windshield. They pull up to the attendant’s booth, noticing a strict NO BEES TO THE SOUTH ISLAND! sign, giggling.

PATRICK: Hello. (Hands attendant the object formerly taped to the windshield.)

ATTENDANT #1: Um…this appears to be your registration.

PATRICK (mortified): Oh. Uh…

ATTENDANT #1: Do you have a ticket?

PATRICK: The rental car company booked this for us; we don’t have anything. Our names are Patrick Lindsey and Natalie Friedman. (hyperventilates)

ATTENDANT #1: Well, I don’t see anything under those names.

PATRICK: (sweats profusely)

NATALIE: (remains calm)

ATTENDANT #2: Oh, I see your names here. Here’s your ticket. (hands over a piece of paper that looks nothing like what was taped to the windshield)

PATRICK: (almost collapses from stress)

NATALIE: (remains calm)

They pull through, another crisis averted.

CURTAIN

The ferry ride itself, after the hair-raising adventure that was getting our tickets, was fairly uneventful. It took about three hours, during most of which Natalie, you guessed it, stayed awake and talked! Nope. She slept. The scenery was, as always, beautiful. Fun fact: although you are traveling from the North Island to the South, the ferry actually goes north on the trip. The southernmost parts of the North Island (i.e. Wellington) are in reality further south than the northernmost parts of the South Island (i.e. Picton, where we were dropped off). WOW! Then we drove to Kaikoura, but Kaikoura deserves it’s own posts because our activities there were so very exciting.