Been There, Done That

Here is a map of the places we have been (minus others where there is no road shown on the map) on the South Island.

January 10 - Back to Christchurch

Braindeath spreads...a girl sits in the middle of the airport concourse, plugged into a floor outlet so she can use her iPad and iPhone at the same time. God help us.

Like a leisurely stroll, we left Fairlie and wandered the back roads out to highway 1 at Temuka. Then it was the strait shot up 1 to Christchurch. We arrived, much as we had left, in the rain, and here we are again, the last night in New Zealand.

We decided that we would go out to dinner at a Japanese restaurant downtown. I went on line and searched. I found one that had nothing but 5 star ratings. I called to make sure it was open, or to see if we needed a booking. A Japanese man with poor english answered the phone. "Are you open for business?" I asked. "What" he replied. It went like this for a couple of iterations until he understood what I was asking. Finally he said "No open. Restaurant destroyed".

We selected another place and carefully laid out our route, but ran into the dead end not shown on the map. The city was in shambles right where we wanted to go. There are lots of one-way routings through the earthquake zone, but none to where we wanted to go. It appears that the building we were headed for simply no longer exists. By sheer coincidence we ended up in the area we had been on our first trip in 2006, to find that a Greek restaurant we had eaten in had been destroyed. It's pretty shocking to see the devastation of a place we had spent time in. This isn't supposed to happen in the real world. It's supposed to happen "over there"; you know, Chile or something. A few pictures just taken driving trying to find a way through. Not even close to the "bad stuff".

We ate here

I didn't even know Christchurch had a beach...

This is cool. The cart automatically puts on the brakes at the edge of the car park. It must be magnetic like one of those invisible fences for dogs. Now if they could just issue bark collars for the kids in the carts...

It's going to take some time for me to decide what I think of this trip, or if I'll return. I know that it has been too long and poorly organized. The only profound thing that I can say right now is I miss my cat.

January 7 - Fairlie; Another Day on the River

While in Twizel I decided to check to see how bankrupt we were, because with four days to kill I thought I might spring for another guided day on the river. I found that if we sold two children (we don't have any so they would have to be someone else's) I could afford it, so we headed off in that direction.

We decided to take a little detour up around Lake Pukaki and over to Lake Tekapo by a back road route. There is a pretty good Japanese restaurant in Tekapo (can you guess why?) that I can't pass up whenever we come through.

Lake Pukaki looking south

Lake Pukaki looking (can you guess?) north - Mt. Cook "peaking" out

Snippet of Mt. Cook

We made it into Fairlie and checked into the Pinewoods Motel. Fairlie is a nice little town in a farming district. It's surrounded by green hills and rivers. And the best way that I could guarantee rain is to book an expensive fishing guide.


Bright and early Sunday morning we sat waiting for the guide (who was sitting in the parking lot of the wrong motel) to show up. We climbed in and headed off down the highway. I was a little skeptical because the rains that they had had for the last couple days had the river high and colored. However, as was later demonstrated, someone with 30 years of experience spotting trout in less than ideal conditions comes in quite handy.

Beautiful day...just like home!

Here fish, fish, fish...


Nice water. Can you imagine spotting trout in this?


Round one



Round two


Fly! Be free!


Third grade school pictures pose


It would be nice to put my hood up...but then I can't hear the barked commands



Round three



Round four



Into the backing, running for the rapids. This one was foul hooked so lots of horsepower




Thanks to a tactical error (on the fishes part, zigged when he should have zagged) he comes to the net



Great care is taken to ensure that they are healthy and happy before turning them loose


Squall line


Round five


Go home now...so the guide can make some more money off of you tomorrow!

After being dropped safely back at the motel we chose to go out to a combination Western, Pizza, Thai and Chinese restaurant. Our hopes were not high. We were looking at the menu (we wanted Thai) and had our mouths all slobbered up for some green curry.



I had to quiz the waitress about this because we have seen some pretty "creative" interpretations of curry. We were really surprised. All was excellent. In fact, we tried going there the next day but they are closed on Mondays. We opted instead for the "Flame Room" in one of the main street pubs.



I had the roasted chicken, she had some kind of chicken thing with girlie sauce. We had the great pleasure of being seated next to two married couples who had six boys (aged 8-10 I'm guessing) and one girl. The creatures began howling at the moon and tearing around the room. The entire coterie was adorned in flip-flops.

We were sitting eagerly awaiting our food when I looked up as the waitress came out of the Ladies room with our appetizer! Then a few minutes later out she comes again with our mains!



Whenever we mentioned going to Fairlie people would say "You've got to go to EAT's, they have the best breakfast!". Well, they are closed Mondays, so as soon as we checked out of the motel on Tuesday we trotted right over. Not sure what we were supposed to be looking for. The menu had exactly the same breakfast items as every other NZ restaurant. Maybe they're just better. Maybe by great they meant it in the proper context which is large, or extensive. Wrong again.

I ordered the pancakes with bananas, she had the eggs benedict. Mine was small and rubbery and tough, and at the same time doughy in the middle; hers had the only decent hollandaise sauce we've found here, but she had to use a knife to cut the bread. But the big bonus was when four women came in with ten children (boys) in the aggregate, ranging from about 5 to 10, who proceeded to run around like untrained animals shrieking at the top of their lungs. I'm beginning to see a pattern here in New Zealand child rearing practices. Half were bare foot, the other half left their gumboots outside so were stocking feet. All had the fledgling male kiwi attire: short shorts and rugby shirts.

It was like someone stuck an ice pick in my ear, or the smoke detector was going off and you couldn't find your big stick to shut it off. No big surprise, the women were completely numb to it. Made me feel like I was back in the good ol' USA. If I had behaved like that when I was growing up I would have been swiftly banished to the car to await a gruesome punishment when I got home. Can't wait to see what their kids will be like. Probably be whipped if they don't misbehave. It was one of the rare times when I ate faster than my wife and squirmed in my seat to get out. Next stop, Christchurch!

Funny Thing I Saw Today

January 6 - Queenstown to Twizel - Homeward Bound

On the way out of Queenstown we stopped off for breakfast. Our friends actually live in Kelvin Heights which is a kind of "suburb" of Queenstown. There is a nearby trading post (Remarkables Village) which has all the basic requirements without having to actually go downtown. However, we made the tactical error of going into the heart of the beast.

Anyway, we slithered into town and it wasn't 30 seconds before I felt like someone was sitting on my chest. You constantly had to keep your head on a swivel (to borrow an old fighter pilot's term) while driving to keep from using someone for a speed bump (tempting, but illegal; even here). We had one more stop to make (to pick up bleu cheese and cherries in Pinot Noir syrup), and afterward we decided to sneak out the back door rather than have to test my self-control again.

We sneaked into Arrowtown to use the much needed facilities before further travel. Ever heard of the movie The Invasion of the Body Snatchers? Well, this was just The Invasion of the Bodies. Help! Mister Wizard!

When we passed through Cromwell (whew!...nobody want to go there) we picked up a big bag of cherries at a roadside stand and had a competition seeing you could spit the pits the farthest into the wind while driving (the side mirror took a real beating).

We finally made it to Twizel (with cherries to spare), heaved a sigh of relief and checked into a motel. That night it just poured rain. It was the first time we had seen rain since November 24.

The Kiwi Caravan

Apart from the bar-b-que and the blue tarp, there is nothing more iconic of the kiwi holiday season than the caravan. Caravan is the term used for tow-behind camping trailers which act like a kind of portable bach.

What makes this also iconic of the 1960s in the US, is the fact that the vast majority are towed behind cars. I can remember as a child hardly anyone we knew had a pick-up truck. So consequently the family car served as a multi-purpose vehicle (unlike our multi-purpose vehicles of today which only transport kids to soccer practice). It was used for camping, hunting (hence the stereotypical deer strapped over the hood), going to the drive-in (both movies and restaurants) and pretty much everything in between. I don't think I knew of anyone as a child who could afford two vehicles.

Similarly, we have seen very few pick-ups here. Instead pretty much everything has a trailer hitch on it (even SUVs) and everyone has a tandem-axle utility trailer. Pretty efficient.

At least 80% of all the caravans we have seen have been this model/vintage