New Zealand: Kaikura and Christchurch

Scenic drive to Kaikura

On the drive to Kaikura (kura means crayfish and kai as we already know means food, so it means something like crayfish feeding ground) the recommended stops were the Oahu lookout point, where seals can be seen from the side of the road basking on the rocks, and you can also take a short walk through the woods to a waterfall which at certain times of year is used by the mother seals as a place to leave their pups while they go out hunting. It was probably a bit late in the season for the pups to be there, we were told, but we might get lucky, and it's quite amazing to watch them playing in the water.

As it happened, there was one seal there and I got a really good film of it, except for one spot when I was attacked by flies. Arthur said that the New Zealand tourist board probably keeps one seal there all the time so the tourists can be sure of seeing one.

The crayfish caravan that Gary at the Manse mentioned is also on this road. Helen and Brian recommended it, too.

There is indeed a caravan by the side of the road, called "Nin's bin". It seems to be a family run thing as there is a woman and her partner serving in the shop and they are able to point out to sea where his brother is out on his boat catching the fish.

Me at Nin's Bin

The recommendation had been that the crayfish is eaten with a glass of wine, but since Brookhurst wasn't one of the places that provided a fridge in the room we didn't have any chilled, so it was coffee instead. Arthur wasn't sure if he'd like crayfish as he doesn't like crab. It was very nice, eaten freshly cooked with butter and lemon, eaten outside, while keeping a suspicious eye on the hopeful seagull perched nearby. 

The New Zealand gulls are much more polite than the ones in Cornwall that nick your ice cream. It was watching us carefully in case we deemed to throw it something, but made no move to steal anything from us. 

The crayfish cost $44 and was quite small so quite an expensive lunch, but so many people had recommended it that it seemed like something you have to do once. Arthur did like it, and wondered if our evening meal, which, according to the itinerary was in-house dining, would include crayfish also.

As we were leaving, the American couple arrived, so we briefly chatted to them before getting underway. They were going to Christchurch but it sounded as if we might cross paths again later in the week, as they told us they were booked on a heli-hike, as are we, and we wondered if we'd run into them again.

The drive was very scenic. We drove from the Brancott station out to the distant hills we could see. It was quite windy and the grass was rippling as the wind took it. Then we were on the coast road with turquoise sea on our left and in time, snow capped mountains on the right. A railway line ran inches from the road, with nothing separating it from the cars, but we didn't see any trains.

Kaikura

In Kaikura, we found a café that sold ordinary filter coffee, which is a rarity in New Zealand. Although the B and Bs usually have it, when you go out, nobody ever has filter coffee. The options are either a long black (a double espresso) or a flat white (a bit like cappuccino, although cappuccino is usually available as well and I've never worked out quite what the difference is). Arthur is quite fussy about coffee - doesn't like it frothy or with warm milk. To get anything like what he wanted he would have to order a long black with cold milk on the side. To find a place where he could order exactly what he wanted off the menu was a goldmine. The barista agreed that this was probably the only café in New Zealand that sold filter coffee.

Tonight we stay at Manakau Lodge, which is run by Neil and Eileen. Well, mostly Neil - although we met Eileen briefly she didn't seem involved so much with the business.

This place had a Christmas tree and was playing musack - Christmas carols - which seemed to play whether or not anyone was actually there. Anything to do with Christmas still feels incongruous - we are on holiday, it's sunny and thirty degrees and yet these people persist with their quirky Christmas in summer thing...

Neil also runs photography courses from there and his pictures were on the walls and in display books in the rooms. He's another English immigrant, from Oxfordshire, who has lived in New Zealand for some time. From one window in our room you can see the sea, and the other looks out onto mountains. Great place to learn about photography! Arthur and Neil engaged in a bit of camera chat and when Arthur mentioned he couldn't find a shop that sold lens cloths, Neil gave him a free cloth.

Views from Manakau Lodge

Neil had no record of us being booked for in-house dining. He claimed he had some more people called Howlin coming to stay early next year and he'd confused the two bookings. We suspect he simply didn't feel like cooking a meal for just two people! Not that we minded. We are quite happy to sample different places and hadn't completely relied on there being food in house. Neil recommended a place called the Green Dolphin in Kaikura and we said we were fine with that.

We had to ask directions to the Green Dolphin as we seemed to be driving out of town. Turned out if we'd carried on for 10 seconds more we would have found it.

There was another big party in there, a coach party, most of them very elderly with a couple of younger tour guides. There were speeches, in which the blonde, female tour guide with the long legs got all the awards.

Neil had booked the table for us, and had arranged for a free Kir Royale for us because he'd screwed up. The coach party didn't stay too long so they didn't bother us!

Back at the lodge, Neil cracked open another bottle of wine which we shared with the other guests, a couple from Norfolk who had been to their son's wedding in Sydney. The woman, I recall, seemed awfully bossy but they were pleasant enough.

Day 28: 8 December: Kaikura Whale Watch - Christchurch

Whale Watch

After breakfast, drove down to the town to catch our whale watching boat. The itinerary said that we had to check in at the “Whaleway Station” which I thought was rather amusing, but there is not actually any such place as the Whaleway station. There’s a whale watching tour check-in which happens to be close to the train station. Luckily we quickly figured out this was where we needed to be and didn’t waste time looking for the Whaleway station.

We checked in at 10, but there was a bit of waiting around before we actually got underway. At 10.30, we had a safety briefing – how to put the life-jackets on and so on, waited around a bit more before being driven to the wharf on a bus, where the boat was waiting.

It was a fast boat which goes like a rocket out to sea where the whales are. A young woman called Vicky gave a running commentary about the local wildlife and what we might be likely to see, and about what to do if you felt seasick (“An unpleasant subject but it often comes up”). Even though the sea was millpond calm, a couple of passengers had been raising concerns at check-in and had been referred to the gift shop, where they had anti-seasickness pills for sale. There was a bit of motion when the boat was going fast, so if it had been a rough day it could have got nasty!

Our Whale Watching boat

The tours are organised so that it is virtually guaranteed to see a whale. If you don’t, you get your money back, or some of it, at least. There is a group of young male sperm whales that call that bit of sea home. The females and calves live further north in the warmer waters as they don’t have as much blubber to keep them warm, but the young males get kicked out of the community and go roaming in cooler waters until they are ready to mate.

The boat has a contraption that looks like a big ear trumpet which they put in the water and it allows the crew to listen for whale sounds, and then they can zoom over to where the whales are. 

So we did see, pretty close up, a male sperm whale who floated on the surface for several minutes. Another whale-watching boat joined us and overhead a helicopter and small plane (the scenic flight whale watch, which, says their advertising blurb, allows you to see the whole animal from above, not just its tail) were circling as well. 

Knowing how intelligent whales are I wonder what the creature makes of all this, whether it likes being the centre of attention, whether it’s bothered by it, or whether it believes it’s on a human watching expedition! Perhaps they come to the area especially to see humans and I wonder if they notice that there never are any four days after the summer solstice.

After a while, it must have got fed up with it all as it dived, treating us to a magnificent view of its tail as it disappeared into the depths.

A sperm whale

The boat cruised around a bit more and we were treated to the sight of some dolphins swimming alongside the boat, and a Shy Albatross, which may have been shy by name but not by nature as it sat there and let us take its picture!

Back at the gift shop I wanted the t-shirt. Arthur nagging me about which item of clothing I was going to throw out so it would fit in my suitcase. Ignored him and bought a t-shirt and a hoodie.

We had a quick snack at the only café in New Zealand that does filter coffee, although we chose to drink tea on this occasion, and set off on the drive to Christchurch.

Christchurch

The weather had been perfect for the whale watch but as we were driving it closed in and started raining. This made the scenery even more dramatic with birds of prey soaring overhead in the rain.

Eliza’s Boutique hotel where we were staying for one night is a wooden building, and in size and atmosphere reminded me a little of the Lily Langtree’s hotel we'd stayed in in Bournemouth last year. Eliza’s was built in 1861 – there was a potted history in the room – but I wasn’t able to work out who Eliza ever was, only that it wasn’t the nice lady who checked us in. Her name was Ann and she was the current owner.

Eliza's

There was also a set of instructions on what to do if there is an earthquake. Basically, stay put. Wooden buildings are the safest, because they are flexible, which is why Eliza’s survived intact. It was the brick and concrete buildings that fared less well.

Ann told us to take a look upstairs, because then we would know why there were chocolate teddy bears  in our room. We went to take a look, and she has an enormous collection of bears. She had seven or eight dressers and chests of drawers, all bulging with teddy bears. We thought of Arthur’s sister in law, Gillian, who is also a collector.

Ann's bear collection (there were another seven cabinets like this!)

Ann told us that we should go and see “container city”, which is where the shopping centre was rebuilt quickly after the earthquake, out of shipping containers. Also near to that was the ruined cathedral.

So we took a map and went for a walk, even though it was pouring down. We knew this was our only chance to look around as we were catching the train early in the morning. As we walked, we saw a lot of building sites, abandoned buildings cordoned off, some of them quite beautiful, others sixties concrete office blocks, and a lot of car parks where buildings had been demolished and nothing built to replace them as yet.

It was quite sad to see so many ruined shells of buildings, but you had to admire the businesses which picked themselves up really fast and rebuilt their shops from containers.

Container City, Christchurch

The ruined cathedral, Christchurch

It was chucking it down and we were soaked, and so when we came across a restaurant we took refuge in it. It was a bistro type place called Fiddlesticks with a rather interesting menu. Some of the things you could choose were coffee cured venison with cocoa, and seared tuna with lemonade puree.

Every table had Christmas crackers on it, and people were wearing their paper hats, and Christmas music was being played. It felt a bit more Christmassy than any place this far, probably because of the rain – that, to us Brits, is more like Christmas weather. So we pulled our crackers and wore our silly hats.

The people at the next table were mystified as to why all the other customers were wearing paper hats. We told them it was a Christmas thing. The waitress brought them crackers, and they had no idea what to do with them. The guy started unwrapping his like a present and we were saying, no, you PULL them. So they took a cracker each holding an end in each hand and pulled them with themselves, not with each other. We tried to explain you are supposed to take an end each and pull, but it was too late.

“Where are you from?” We asked, expecting them to say some place that doesn’t celebrate Christmas.

“Germany,” They said. So they celebrate Christmas all right, but they clearly don’t have Christmas Crackers there.

For the second time this trip, Arthur ordered a risotto he didn’t like – too salty. When he mentioned that to the waitress, she took it off the bill.

By now the rain had eased so it was a more pleasant walk back to the hotel. Chilled out in the room reading and noticed that one of the ceiling mounted lights kept going out and then coming back on again, which was slightly weird. There were no earthquakes, though.

Day 29: 9 December:  Christchurch – Fox Glacier

An early start today – a taxi came at 7am which followed us to the airport, where we returned our rental car, and then took us on to the train station to catch the Tranzalpine Express.

Ann gave me a teddy bear and a pen and a little notebook, a special gift for anyone who stays there. Can’t help thinking that Gillian would love this place. I thought Ann was lovely and not just because she gave me stuff!

The taxi driver was called Lyndell, and as we were chatting to her on the way to the station, we found another coincidence. She had family over from Singapore and she had taken them to Kaikura to do the whale watch. They were booked on the same trip as us, the 10am, and she would have been there dropping them off as we were checking in.