New Zealand: Notes From the South Island

After spending just over a week in Christchurch, I headed out to explore more of the South Island. My journey started with a transalpine train trip to the west coast. The scenery on the trip was very impressive and the time passed quickly. My destination for the afternoon was the town of Greymouth, which has little to offer. However, one available activity was a tour of the Monteith's Brewery. The brewery tour was pretty good. Having logged enough brewery tour hours to apply for a degree, I already knew most of what the tour guide had to say. However, there were the pleasant additions of (1) local history (2) my first exposure to "open vat fermentation" and (3) becasue Monteith's is a relatively small brewer, the employees were still much more hands on in the packaging process. This included some of the machinery they did have being created by a long time employee who was handy with a blow torch and spare machine parts.



From Greymouth I joined a "Magic" bus that was heading south to the Franz Joseph Glacier. Again, the drive presented a day of gorgeous scenery. In the little village of Franz Joseph, I went for a several hour hike around the area and eventually made my way to the base of the glacier.



At 3am, I was awoken as a party had apparently made its way to my room. Somehow over the blasting stereo and tv I was able to hear my roomates inform me that I had been chosen for the honor of making sure everyone was awake to get on the bus in 4 1/2 hours. About 4, things died down and I managed to get back to sleep despite my excitement surrounding my new found responsibility. In the morning, I was half tempted to leave my roomates behind, but decided that blasting the stereo at 7, just 3 hours after they had gone to bed, would probably be just as fun.

From Franz Joseph we had a big driving day past more stunning scenery to get to our destination of Queenstown. Queenstown is New Zealand's "extreme" sports epicenter. People flock there to catipult themselves off bridges, out of planes, down hills in a variety of ways, down rivers, and really anyway you can imagine that might provide an adrenaline rush. I still haven't seen someone heavier than me bungy jump, so I opted for the less extreme tour of Milford Sound.

While Milford Sound may be less extreme in the adrenaline sense, it should not be discounted as the tour offered truly world class scenery. While I find it difficult to compare different areas such as mountains and tropical beaches, I can say that the Milford Sound and the drive there represent one of the more attractive places I have seen in all of my travels. The drive was highlighted by dramatic snowcapped peaks, rain forest, and rivers that were a picture perfect color of blue.

Once at the sound, we went on a boat cruise to explore the fjord. Again, the boat trip was highlighted by dramatic peaks and the contrast of mountains rising so immediately from sea level. Certainly Milford Sound is ever bit as good as the Norwegian fjords and potentially better.

From Queenstown, the bus headed for the university town of Dunedin. After another day of impressive scenery, Dunedin offered a chance to tempt my tastebuds with a tour of the Cadbury Chocolate factory. I learned a fair amount on the tour, but maybe the most notable is that the average American apparently consumes 22 Kilos (over 45 pounds) of chocolate per year. In comparison, Kiwis (New Zealanders) average only about 4 kilos a year.

On the way out of Dunedin, we stopped to walk up the world's steepest street. For those of you from Eureka Springs, it made Howell street seem somewhat tame. It isn't easy to capture in a picture, but here is a look.

After returning to normal streets, we headed for Lake Tekapo. It was yet another day of impressive scenery. If you like green hills and snow peaked mountains, I seriously reccomend a trip to New Zealand's South Island. In Lake Tekapo, I decided to go for a swim. Most people thought I was crazy and the water was in fact shockingly cold. However, the cold quickly became numb and then a burning/stinging sensation the encouraged me to get out after a few minutes. I did inspire one other person to go for a swim and we later revelled in the fact that we were both idiots. Actually, the swim was rather refreshing and after a nice hot shower, I joined the others from the bus as we prepared a big BBQ.

The next day I made it back to Christchurch. It felt good to be back. Before leaving, one of my friends was determined to take me on an eating tour of his favorite places in Christchurch that we hadn't been yet. It was a tough effort, but after about five meals and a day long food coma, I felt I was ready to leave Christchurch and head for the North Island. It was that or face the reality that a heart attack could be in my near future if I kept up that eating pace.

On Saturday morning I caught the transcoastal train from Christchurch to Picton and the ferry from Picton to Wellington. I missed the first few hours of the train ride as I caught up on sleep fromt he night before. However, when I woke up I was again stunned by how impressive the scenery was. Much of the train ride went along the coast giving passengers the opportunity to look for seals or just watch the waves come in.

After a very pleasant ferry ride, I was in Wellington. Finally, I made it up to the North Island and New Zealand's capital.