GOOD ON YA!!

…………….and good on us, we humbly (but giddily) admit. More on that later!

As dear Kiwi friends told us, you don’t visit New Zealand for the museums or culture, but for the beauty of the landscapes and the outdoor activities. We took full advantage of both.

SUSAN AND OUR HOSTESS ANN

We flew from Brisbane, Australia to Christchurch, NZ, easily found our rental car and 30 minutes after landing were at our wonderful old B & B. This was the kind of B&B we all hope for – old Victorian furniture, a fire in the fireplace, big, healthy (or not!) breakfasts and a hostess named Ann who knew all there was to know about the home and her country. We felt right at home immediately. It was a wonderful way to start our visit to a new country.

Christchurch, although the 2nd largest city in NZ, seemed like a small town to us (admittedly we did stick to the quaint, tourist areas). Our B & B was just blocks from that area of town, centered on the cathedral, so we walked there through the beautiful botanical gardens which were just coming into full bloom and visited the art and natural history museums (there ARE some – and they were excellent!), had a bite to eat, poked in alleyways, etc.

One VERY funny moment was when I came out of a public ladies room and found Rance in deep discussion with some stranger. Gregarious as he is, I thought he’d made another new best friend, but alas! the guy had approached Rance and wanted to proselytize. And he had met his match!!! I will not go into detail, but I believe that most folks doing whatever sort of mission they need to do either meet someone like me who would simply say “I have my own beliefs”, i.e. “Go away! I don’t want to hear yours”. Or, they would be in agreement and carry on a nice, conversation supporting one another. Not our boy Rance, who challenged the zealot as to why in the world he believed in such ideas. ‘Nuf said!

IN ANN'S FRONT PARLOR

We had planned to drive from Christchurch down the East Coast to Dunedin, following Amy’s trip of a few years ago, but it would have meant two long days of driving and Ann, our new B&B mom, suggested it would be a much prettier and shorter route over the inland scenic route. Don’t know what that East Coast drive would have shown us, but the route we took was absolutely breathtaking. We’ve always been amazed at the beauty of the Swiss Alps. Although these Southern Alps weren’t quite as high, they went forever. We could truly turn our heads 180 degrees – horizon to horizon - and see snow capped mountains. It was just beautiful. And in the foreground were all the bright green pastures with sheep, cows, domestic deer and horses grazing. Tranquil may be another right word for the scene.

Reaching Queenstown we went immediately to our next B&B experience. We had found Hulbert House on-line from our B&B in Christchurch and had called and left a vmm that we’d like a room for one night, be away for two, and return for another two nights. We weren’t in when the proprietor called back to confirm, but Ann’s assistant told us that he was quite a nice, older, chatty fellow and maintained the B&B all by himself. SHOULD HAVE BEEN A CLUE!!

COZY BUT OH SO COLD (ROOM, NOT WIFE!)

As we entered the front door of this beautiful, old home, Edward rose from his wood burning stove and 10 inch TV in the entry hall to greet us. He obviously had no other guests to fuss over so he fussed – and fussed – and fussed – over us. Showed us to our room which had a glorious view out of 12 ft. windows of downtown Queenstown and Lake Wakatipu upon which it sits. All lovely except that it was SO COLD!! The house was an old Victorian model, with very high ceilings and equally poor insulation. Although it ostensibly had central heating, use of it was apparently prohibitively costly and hadn’t been used in generations, probably. Instead each room had one or maybe two electric radiators, and a heating pad on the bed - into which we gladly retired as soon as possible for warmth (but it wasn’t that bad, even cozy, sitting in the chairs flanking one of the heaters; as long as you didn’t move more than 6 inches away from that source of the heat).

That first night, cuddled closely together under the quilt and on top of that heated mattress pad, we experienced our SECOND earthquake of this trip. At 1:29 a.m. those gigantic windows rattled like they were about to give way and the whole house swayed gently back and forth. My reaction was “Wake up, Rance! What was that?” Rance (not following the “wake up” part) told me it was the wind coming up. There was no wind to follow, however, until about 3 minutes later when there was an aftershock. It occurred in the Tasman Sea off Milford Sound and luckily, there was no real devastation to the mainland, but personally Rance and I felt this one heck of a lot more than we did the one in Peru back in August.

CHEATED DEATH AGAIN!!

Next day, after Edwards’s gourmet breakfast of coffee, kiwi fruit, and one piece of toast, we went dutifully off to answer Amykins’ challenge --- BUNGEE JUMPING AT THE KAWARAU BRIDGE!!! This is where the first “good on us!” comes in. We did it! It’s a very expensive 6 second high – and having jumped out of airplanes, Rance assured me it wasn’t nearly as exciting, but I’m here to say that flying from a bridge 45 m. above a very cold, fast flowing river was, indeed, exciting for me. I’m not sure how many of our family and friends would think it a wise investment of $160 each for this questionable thrill, but because I’m 65, I got the deal – complete with video, still shots and postcards – for half price! There now, dear friends my age and older. It’s a deal! Go for it!

It had started raining just before our jump and continued on and off for the rest of our stay in NZ and for the first time this entire trip, I had to get out the nifty, lightweight REI poncho I had purchased before leaving Phoenix. But the rain still didn’t interrupt any of our plans.

We left Queenstown for the 2 hour drive over to Te Anau, the small town where we overnighted for our trip to Doubtful Sound. Most folks (and Amy) visit Milford Sound, the more well-known one, but both our B&B hosts had suggested that Doubtful Sound was the more dramatic of the two – and less traveled, so we took their advice. It was a good thing we made that choice because the night before our day trip to the sound, there was an avalanche on the road from Te Anau to Milford, probably triggered by our earthquake. In any case, all the boat trips on Milford sound had been cancelled, so not only was our Doubtful Sound the best choice, it was the only choice. Speaking of roads, this may be a good time to mention that the roads in NZ are really small, and most of the bridges are one lane – takes a bit getting used to, especially when driving on the left side of the road (I wish I had a buck for every time I put on my windshield wipers, instead of the turn signal).

LOAD WIDER THAN THE ROAD

So on these small roads, one has to be prepared for large loads coming in the opposite direction – like the time we saw first a truck with a sign reading “Danger, slow down” and hands waving us to the side of the road. Another truck followed with a sign reading, “House follows” and, indeed, the third truck was carrying a house – an entire house taking up the road - the whole road!

Back to Doubtful Sound. Remember the old adage, “Rain before seven; gone by eleven?” it was, luckily for us, true on that day. To reach Doubtful Sound, we had to first cross a long, beautiful lake and then travel over a very primitive road through thick rain forest and over a pass, to get to the sound.

FROM TOP OF PASS TO DOUBTFUL SOUND

It rained until half way across the lake and by the time we reached the top of the pass, the clouds were lifting revealing a magnificent sound below and majestic snow covered mountains above. What a view! The trip out on the sound was equally magnificent, especially since we were the only boat there. I’m not sure what the Norwegian fjords look like yet (probably our next trip), but they may be very much like this one. We went all the way out to the very rough ocean, where Captain Cook, when urged by his crew to sail in to investigate it, had replied it was doubtful if they would ever be able to get out again.

WET BUT HAPPY ON DOUBTFUL SOUND

Really lovely. We were then back over the pass, which is billed as the most expensive road on NZ, hacked as it was through some very difficult terrain. The road’s reason was to bring in the generators for a hydroelectric dam on the lake side, taking advantage of the 120 meter drop from there to the sound. Of course they had to build a 12 Km raceway through the mountain to get to the sound. It turned out that it would be easier to build that road than attempt to reinforce all the roads and mostly one lane bridges to approach this task from inland. We also were given a short tour of the plant itself, all making for a very long, soggy but beautiful day.

GOOD OLD EDWARD

Back to Queenstown – and Edward – who was really a dear old man but shouldn’t have been running a B&B all by himself. We paid quite a good bit for coffee and toast, keeping him company, and making our own bed (he would have, but we didn’t want him to have to!). Ah well, he’s another memory of this adventure of ours – he goes into the “takes all kinds” category, I think.