New Zealand: Invercargill, Queenstown, Glenorchy

Invercargill

At this point we diverted from our itinerary, and instead of going back to Queenstown, turned south towards Invercargill. Invercargill is one of the most southerly points in New Zealand so when we got there we had done the New Zealand equivalent of John O’Groats to Land’s End. If we had had time, like another day, we could have gone to Stewart Island which is even further south, but for today we had to be content with seeing it from the mainland. Next time, maybe.

I didn’t know what to expect from our day with Steve, as I’d never met him and just knew he was from one of the games clubs Arthur goes to. Steve, as it turned out, had a very interesting day planned for us.

First of all, after we met up with him at his office, he took us on what he called the “ticky tour” of Invercargill. There’s a place called Bluff, a short drive out of town, where there is one of those signs showing how far you are from all the major cities in the world, and the South Pole. Various combinations of pictures were taken with us and the sign. 

The sign at Invercargill; Steve and me

Next stop, a viewpoint, which is where you could see Stewart Island. An amazing view, but slightly marred by the huge factory below us. The factory provides work for a lot of the population of Invercargill, though, and is very important for the town’s economy. It uses 10% of all the power produced in New Zealand, Steve told us. So that’s the entire output of the underground power station we saw yesterday, then.

We also spotted a pair of tuis, a native New Zealand bird.

A tui bird

View from the viewpoint

We drove on to a huge, empty beach so that we could take our shoes off and paddle in the Great Southern Ocean.

The Great Southern Ocean

Then we went to a museum. We didn’t go inside, but peered through the windows at the tuatara lizards, which are billed as New Zealand’s dinosaurs.

A larger than life model of a tuatara

Steve was telling us that he volunteers for a charity called Habitat for Humanity, which has the aim of making sure every human being has a decent home to live in. One of the things they do is buy old houses and do them up for homeless or inadequately housed people to move into. That evening there was a dedication of one such house, which was finished and ready for the keys to be handed over to the people who were going to live there. Steve is something like the chairman or president of the charity and so he needed to be there to play his part in the ceremony.

We went along with him, as visitors who had come to see what the charity did. There were quite a few people there, mostly, I think, people who had played some part in getting the house ready, either by fundraising, donating or doing the renovation work. We felt a little like interlopers with no real right to be there, but everyone was friendly, nevertheless.

The ceremony consisted of a mixture of Christian and Maori blessings – the family seemed to be of Maori descent, and a presentation where they were handed the keys, a Bible each, and a pot plant. It was quite an emotional moment for them. The father gave a little thank you speech and said that a year ago, two of his children were in hospital with pneumonia, but now they had a chance of a new start in a stable home. He came over and greeted us warmly and I wished I had some sort of gift to give him for his new home. I could only wish him and his family health and happiness there.

There was the option of staying for a barbecue supper, but we both agreed that it seemed a bit of a cheek to stay and eat the food when we had played no part in obtaining or preparing the house. So we took up Steve’s other option.

Dessert pizza

Steve’s neighbours and friends were holding a pizza party. We learned that they hold a kind of open house and pizza making session on most Friday evenings, when their work and other life commitments allow.

Rick and Sandy were pretty much living The Good Life in terms of being as self-sufficient as they can. Rick showed us his goats, chickens, rabbits, beehives and extensive vegetable patch. He had built a large pizza oven outside his back door, which was being used to cook the home-made pizzas. Inside, his wife Sandy had a large, rustic kitchen table groaning with pizza ingredients including the dough which she had made herself which was rising away in a covered mixing bowl. Every pizza had a slightly different combination of toppings. We sampled a few, and chatted to the various friends and neighbours who had gathered, and presumably do most Fridays, to hang out together and eat pizza.

There were a lot of children and teenagers running around in one room, including one girl of about fifteen who had her head buried in a book and was letting all the noise and hubbub wash over her. She didn’t speak to us or acknowledge our presence at all, but I kind of liked her. Wondered if she would be the writer in the family who would one day write a book about growing up in a self-sufficient Invercargill family.

Steve’s contribution to the evening was a dessert pizza, which was a very simple and extremely delicious snack which I imagine would go down well at games weekends and informal parties. Basically you get some pizza dough (I’m sure we could cheat and buy frozen stuff rather than make our own like Sandy did, but if we have time on our hands…) and sprinkle the base with a mixture of milk chocolate and white chocolate buttons, and add some fruit – Steve added sliced banana and strawberries, which worked very well but I guess you can use whatever fruit you like if you don't like bananas or strawberries. Finally chuck on a few dollops of custard, shove it in the oven and eat hot. Yum.

We had a long drive to Queenstown ahead of us and so we took our leave after that. The sun was going down and the light was amazing, and the combination of the lake, the mountains and the lights in the city just starting to come on was beautiful. I’d quite like to live here in my next reincarnation.

A part of the route back was known as “The Devil’s Staircase” but compared with some of the other roads we’d been on, like the “infamous 309” and the road/railway bridge, it wasn’t scary at all.

We were staying in the same accommodation and in the same room. We had warned them we’d be late back and they had left us a note and the key. It was, by this time a little too early to go to bed and too late to go down into the town, so we just read for a bit.

Day 34: 14 December:Queenstown /Glenorchy/ Auckland

Jet boat safari

A very fast breakfast and checkout today as it was an early-ish check in for our jet boat safari. We finally met Louise, the owner. We had noticed a display of photographs on one wall which showed Louise posing with various people who had stayed there. One of them, I am sure, was Sir Peter Jackson. Didn’t recognise any of the others.

It was about an hour’s drive to Glenorchy, where our safari started from. It’s real Lord of the Rings country there and there are several fan tours you can take. While on our forest walk we saw another group whose guide was dressed up as Gandalf. There are also any number of car registration plates with Lord of the Rings words on them: I spotted “ENTS”, “BILBO”, “BROMUR” and my favourite one, “GO11UM.”

When we got to the safari place we immediately recognised some people who had been on the Doubtful Sound cruise, a couple of Americans with their grown up daughter. They were on the tender with us. They were booked on a slightly different excursion, though, something called “funyaking” which involved taking a jet boat and then paddling back up the river in inflatable kayaks. The mother got a bit concerned when they went through for their trip and were issued with wetsuits, but reception persuaded her to go ahead with it by telling her that “an 87 year old did it last week and loved it.” As their trip wasn’t returning until 3pm, we’d never know whether she ended up enjoying it or not.

Our trip started with a bus ride and a short walk in the woods. Arthur had been wondering why the bus had such large tyres – it turned out that it drives right across the bed of the braided river over rocks and streams to where the boat leaves from.

The bus tour took in various movie locations. Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit aren’t the only films made around there. The Wolverine film was, too. I got Arthur to take a picture of me standing where Wolverine stood. 

Me following in Wolverine's footsteps

This forest became alive with Ents in Lord of The Rings

The walk was interesting. Our guide pointed out growths on the trees, one of which looked like a green orangutan, and explained that the trees, although called beech trees, are not the same as beech trees in the Northern Hemisphere. The original explorers only did a quick survey of the flora and assumed the trees they could see were the same as beech trees at home, trees belonging to the genus Fagaceae. Only later did people realise they were totally different trees, not belonging to any genus they knew, so they became the genus Notfagaceae (ie not a northern beech tree).

There are trees which, like yew trees, die from the inside and become hollow in the middle. There was one that was big enough for several people to get inside of it and take photographs of the hollow stem stretching way up to the top of the tree. 

Looking up inside the hollow tree

Arthur emerging from the hollow tree

Then we came across a giant wooden chair in the middle of the forest and all had our pictures taken on it. 

Me on a giant chair

The jet boat trip was exhilarating. Once I got over the fear that the guy driving it was going to crash into a rock or that it would hit a bit of wood at ninety miles an hour and turn the boat over, I rather enjoyed it. There was more amazing scenery to see, and the fun of doing 360 degree turns in the boat, which is fun for us and also gives the boat drivers a chance to show off.

Us on the jet boat

The Dart River

The Mountains in Glenorchy

Quick lunch at a café in Glenorchy and then went back to Queenstown for a final look around. There was a craft market on at the waterfront. While I’m glad we got to see Invercargill, it would have been nice to see more of Queenstown, too. We never got to Dunedin, either, and Arthur has another friend there, apparently. We’ll just have to go back. Though if we do it will probably be in a camper van, not boutique hotels.

Queenstown waterfront

The flight from Queenstown to Auckland was one of the best flights I’ve ever taken. It was a clear day, so there were fabulous views of Queenstown, and the mountains, and the hills and the coastlines of the two islands. Our last proper look at New Zealand and what does Arthur do? Sleeps through it. Typical. But at least he’d given me the window seat.

Selected views from the Queenstown/Auckland flight

At Auckland we had the choice of taking a bus to the terminal or following green lines on the ground and walking it. It was a sunny late afternoon and so the walk was quite pleasant, especially as we now faced 23 hours on planes. It will be months before we see summer sunshine again. Wistful.

At the Airport

We found a bar that did a nice Thai curry and had a drinks cabinet made from old TV screens. Then we went up to the viewing area to look at the Dreamliner parked below. We didn’t get to fly back on one of those, or even the Airbus 380 we came out on. I think it was a 777.

Massive queue at check in but then someone came round asking if anyone had checked in online, and we had so we got fast-tracked.

11 hours later changed planes in Singapore. There’s free wifi and charging points at Changi so we could zap our kindles and phones before the next leg. There’s also a butterfly garden and koi pond to go and see.

Another different feature on the aircraft entertainment system – this one showed the gates for the connecting flights people would be taking – except the only one it didn’t seem to know was the flight to Heathrow so it wasn’t that useful to us.

After a VERY long day travelling, we arrived back at Heathrow. Arthur’s brother Michael and his wife Mary picked us up. The day grew even longer with the endless traffic delays on the M25 and North Circular, but at least we had Michael and Mary to talk to about all our adventures.

Now we had to get used to the cold, the very short days, and get to grips with the fact it is Christmas in just over a week!

We can cheer ourselves up with the knowledge that our next holiday is already booked - although this one is to France, so it's nowhere near as far afield.