New Zealand - Queenstown to Christchurch

The world is a dangerous place, but there are people out there who place themselves a little farther over the precipice of doom, and Queenstown, New Zealand, is the place they come to do it.  For a fairly steep fee, the friendly kiwis in this frontier-like town will do their best to satiate the hottest desire for peril by placing adventurous tourists on jet boats in narrow canyons, at the end of bungy ropes on tall bridges, strapped to parachutes rocketing through the sky, and on mountain bikes on trails that would make a hill troll ponder taking the gondola tour instead.  After ten months on the road, we still had a bit of the adventure spirit left, so we pushed the limits of our collective cholesterol level by dining at the downtown Fergburger establishment which advertises “burgers as big as your head.”  It’s easy to get comfortable quickly in Queenstown looking from the mountainside streets over Lake Wakatipu. The bohemian feel about the place made me wonder where I should pick up my government-subsidized Birkenstocks and weekly granola ration.

Since the drive to Queenstown from Makarora was just over two hours, we took our time leaving Pete’s cabin and enjoyed breakfast looking out at the mountain range while one last fire crackled in the woodstove.  After we loaded the car and prepared to hit the road again, Pete and Cash came out to bid us farewell and sent us off with a proverb:  “No matter how thin you make a pancake, it always has two sides.”  We set off down the highway scratching our heads over that one and finally concluded that Pete is a New Zealand frontier wizard of the highest order.  We continued through the mountains past the picturesque town of Wanaka and headed farther south toward Queenstown, which is located in the bottom third of New Zealand’s southern island.  The countryside down this way is rugged and remote, and travelers are advised to be well-supplied and fueled before taking to the highway since the only roadside offerings are some of the best views of nature in the world.

The main objective for our visit to Queenstown was a tour of Milford Sound on the west coast. We had booked two nights in the Reavers Lodge situated on a steep mountainside with a panoramic view of the area.  This accomodation was a basic hotel with a continental breakfast and proximity to a pickup point for the Go Orange tour bus.  We typically prefer to tackle tourist destinations ourselves, but the Milford Sound excursion encompasses a twelve-hour day of bus and boat travel, and we decided to leave the driving to others.  Besides, Deena worked her magic and found an online deal that allowed her to book each of us for the child's price, which made the experience less expensive than if we had done it ourselves.  

The hilly streets of Queenstown were easy to navigate, and we quickly found the hotel. Because the staff let us check in early, we had plenty of time to find lunch and explore.  The city center reminded us of Colorado towns with streets lined by shops offering the latest outdoor clothing and gear and coffee shops full of the young and hip.  The mountains behind the city were steep and full of fall color against a bright blue sky, and gusts of bracing cool air made us thankful we had lugged our down coats all around the world.  Deena and I dropped the kids off at the hotel and drove back to a salon we discovered near the main drag and got some much needed haircuts from a delightful couple who had moved to New Zealand from Ecuador. The cool air rushing against my freshly-mowed scalp made me thankful I had toted my Carolina Panthers beanie for ten months as well.  After one more trip downtown for the much esteemed Fergburger, we called it a day early since we had a 5:00 wake up the next morning.

The temperatures were in the thirties as we stood shivering at the bottom of the steep hill below the Reavers Lodge and waited for our bus at 6:15.  The only light came from a solitary street lamp and the pre-dawn stars left over from from the nightly display.  We were the first pickup that morning for Shale, our driver and guide for the trip to the sound. Shale, a rare Queenstown native, was a cheerful bloke who piloted a large comfortable coach where we quickly staked our claim on prime seats and settled in for the day.

State highway 94 is the only road leading out to Milford Sound in the heart of Fiordland National Park. This location at the southwest tip of New Zealand is only fifty-five kilometers away from Queenstown as the kea flies, but the Southern Alps get in the way and leaves a four-hour trek ahead of those seeking the beauty of the fiords.  Once we left the mountains surrounding Queenstown, the terrain changed to fenced grassy plains full of sheep, cattle, and deer farmed for their wool, milk, and venison, and they all grazed in the shadow of distant hills and evergreen forests.  Shale provided a wealth of information about the flora and fauna as we motored along. We learned all about how the New Zealand countryside went from only one native mammal, a small bat, to the introduction of rabbits, which led to the introduction of stoats to curb the rabbit population, which led to the stoats decimating the population of native flightless birds including the kiwi.

After a few short breaks, we entered Fiordland National Park. The landscape changed dramatically to thick, deep evergreen forests with towering craggy mountains topped by ancient ice fields which fed torrential azure blue rivers of glacial melt.  With every bend in the road, we stared in astonishment at displays of natural wonder, and by the time the coach reached the harbor at Milford Sound, we figured we had seen the best of the national park.  We realized our error in this assumption as our tour boat left the dock for a two-hour cruise of the sound and circled in front of iconic Mitre Peak with waterfalls cascading down the surrounding cliffs.  According to all the smart people, Milford Sound and other fiords in the area, were carved out by the slow-moving rivers of glacial ice in the area millions of years ago. All the signage and tour narrative again may fulfill the human desire to explain our environment or uncover its ancient origins, but for the most part, I think it’s enough sometimes to just gaze and declare, “that’s real purty.”  

The sheer, towering cliffs descended gradually to the Tasman Sea where the blue green water of the sound met open ocean. When we turned around and took the voyage back, we had closer views of the waterfalls as they cascaded in showers of droplets that produced hazy floating rainbows.  Fiordland National Park is known for ten meters of annual rainfall that results in close to three-hundred rainy days, but this day wasn't one of them. We had brilliant sunshine during our tour, and the high cliff edges were sharp against a deep blue sky.  We spent the long bus ride back to Queenstown mostly in silence as we pondered the powerful natural beauty we beheld that day, and I’m hoping our memories of Milford Sound will stay potent over the years as the many pictures we took did poor justice to the enormity of the slice of earth we saw in southern New Zealand.

Thankfully, checkout from the Reavers Lodge was 11:00 the next day which allowed us to sleep a bit later and enjoy a continental breakfast in the hotel community room.  By the time we loaded our gear, the clouds had lifted from the lower slopes of the mountainsides, and we got some nice parting views of Queenstown as we pointed the car northwest for the countryside of Fairlie which lay at the end of a three-hour passage through the central valleys.  Again, we were rewarded with a completely different landscape as low, barren hills gave way to long stretches of plains covered in brown grasses and low scrub.  The plains were traversed by meandering rivers flowing past stone banks. As we approached small crossroad towns, the waterways were lined with tall beech trees still full of golden leaves made more intense by the filtering of autumn sunlight through the branches.  We spent most of the day chasing distant mountain ranges that never seemed to get closer, their tall peaks capped with snow that looked like a dusting of powdered sugar.

Just outside of the township of Fairlie, we stopped at the Church of the Good Shepherd, one of the most photographed buildings in the world on the shore of Lake Tekapo, and took our own pictures while resting from the road.  The drive into Fairlie took us back into rolling green hills and large tracts of farmland, and we found our cottage for the night at the end of a long gravel road deep in the countryside next to a farmhouse by a swiftly running stream.  As the sun went down, we settled in and cooked a pasta supper and took advantage of the large DVD collection in the living room where we watched Pride and Prejudice and our all-time family favorite, Napoleon Dynamite.  The temperatures dropped a good bit that night, but were were warm in our beds piled high with thick quilts, and we woke to the warm sun rising slowly over the hills and the musical, whirring calls of the black-and-white jacketed magpies in the meadow behind the cottage.  We cooked a breakfast of sausage and roti bread and spent some time talking with our host, Sonia, as we slowly loaded the car in preparation for the drive to Christchurch several hours away.  Joseph and Deveny walked down to the barnyard below the farmhouse and fed our food scraps to the happily squealing hogs before we took to the road again leaving the peaceful countryside of Fairlie behind.

Three hours later, we crossed the city limits of Christchurch, the largest city on the southern island located about halfway up the east coast.  Between 2010 and 2012, the citizens of Christchurch endured several strong earthquakes which led to the destruction of 1500 buildings and the permanent displacement of 10,000 people.  Through a worldwide hospitality service, we had arranged to stay with a retired couple in the New Brighton suburb of the city. We arrived at their house late afternoon just in time for hot tea and ginger biscuits.  Elizabeth and Derry and their dog, Minnie, made us feel welcome and gave us the best rooms in the house for two nights.  They cooked huge meals for us including meatloaf with greens and roasted potatoes and spice cake with freshly whipped cream for dessert. The only cost being several hours of intense conversation about our travels and their life in New Zealand.  

After a night spent under down comforters on soft beds, Elizabeth and Derry put on a breakfast spread of homemade muesli and multigrain toast with raspberry jam.  We had a lively time around the table with the sun’s rays streaming through the rear windows and a bright fire popping in the pellet stove.  After Elizabeth and Derry gave us some tips on exploring Christchurch, we headed downtown to the Canterbury Museum, which boasted an impressive collection of ancient Maori artifacts, complete dinosaur skeletons, and rare gems and minerals among many other well-curated displays.  We loved it there and spent several hours wandering the halls and eventually ended up in the rooftop cafe for lunch overlooking the green lawns of the botanical gardens behind the museum.  We spent some time driving around the city center, which is in the midst of rebuilding from the earthquakes, and there’s still much work to be done.  Elizabeth and Derry told us of the thousands of people who had their property deemed unstable after the earthquakes and were forced to move after the local government purchased the land and bulldozed the houses.  Whole neighborhoods were affected and we saw many of these “red zones,” which now resemble parks with lots of green grass, but the trees and bushes leftover from landscaping around houses were a creepy reminder of the lives forever changed by the quakes.

Elizabeth and Derry were wonderful hosts, and we enjoyed getting to know them and listening to stories about their four children and many grandchildren.  On our last afternoon in Christchurch, Derry and Minnie took us walking down to the community garden where volunteers from the neighborhood keep beautiful rows of flowers, vegetables, and fruit  growing all year long for residents to enjoy.  He told us that the garden had helped neighbors get to know each other better and offer support to one another during the aftermath of the earthquakes, and it’s still going strong five years later.  We had one more delicious dinner and another evening of conversation before bringing our time in Christchurch to a close as we prepare to head farther north to the small town of Maruia in the center of the southern island.  We were thankful to Elizabeth and Derry opening their home to us, and I already dread the sting of forever leaving our new friends tomorrow morning.