Last Friday I went on the first proper holiday I've been on since I was 16. Unfortunately, it began with a 5:25am wake up call, which was quite hard as the night before we'd been to a comedy show as part of the New Zealand Comedy Festival. But, we soldiered on, and went to the South Island.
The Maori name for NZ's South Island is 'Te Wai Pounamu', which means 'The Water of Greenstone'. This is because the West Coast of the South Island is the only place in the country that greenstone, or jade, can be found washed up on the shores and in rivers.
I have no idea what I was expecting a site of a recent natural disaster to look like, but when we flew into Christchurch it looked as if nothing had happened. Clearly we must not have been in the part of town that was badly affected, which was fortunate as it meant all the roads were open and we were able to get sushi for lunch. We didn't stay in Christchurch, as many places are closed, so we set off in our rented car for Kaikoura.
This is our rented car, in front of Lake Te Anau, which we visited later in the week. We named him Rory, because of the lovely noise he made when we forced him to go up hills.
Kaikoura is about 180km north of Christchurch, on the east coast of the island. Maori legend has it that Maui used the the area to stabilise his feet when he was hauling up the fish that made the North Island (I hope you remember your Maori legend lessons!). Kaikoura literally means 'food crayfish' in Maori, and gets its name from 'Te Ahi Kaikoura a Tami-ki-te-Rangi', which means 'the fire which cooked the crayfish of Tami-ki-te-Rangi'.
Tami-ki-te-Rangi was a most unfortunate fellow who returned home one day to find three of his wives had been stolen by Poutini, the guardian of the greenstone. He set off immediately to find them, and he stopped off in Kaikoura to have a meal of crayfish, hence the name. He did catch up to his wives eventually in Milford Sound, but found Poutini had turned them into greenstone. The three different types of greenstone found in NZ are named after his wives. One of the types is flecked with black, and these are said to be Tami-ki-te-Rangi's tears that he wept onto the statue of his wife, staining the stone forever.
More on greenstone and Milford Sound later.
Anyway, we arrived in Kaikoura late afternoon. Kaikoura is the kind of place where you can be gazing in wonder at a sea fret over a beautiful bay, and then drive round a corner and be confronted by the sight of snow-topped mountains, the low sun creating a spectrum of colours in the mist.
That night we ended up wandering round the Kaikoura bay watching the sun set, stopping every few minutes to take pictures.
Then we returned to our hostel and had our first experience of cooking in a kitchen overrun with young gap year backpackers. After that we set off to find a local uninhabited field (not difficult in the South Island at all!) to look at the stars, as it was such a clear night. None of us had seen so many stars before, and me and DrE spent the time educating the other two on astrophysics using knowledge imparted by Professor Brian Cox.
After that it was back to the hostel and to bed, as we had a big day the next day.
WORD OF WARNING:
At least half of my blogs from the South Island will involve pictures of cloud+mountain+body of water in various combinations. Try not to get too bored.
WORD OF WARNING No.2:
The cloud+mountain+body of water pics do not do NZ justice. I know I keep saying this, but if you want to fully appreciate NZ, you have to come here. Photos are nothing in comparison.
WORD OF WARNING No.3:
Due to the cloud+mountain+body of water combinations being so amazing in the second half of the trip, it is hard to be too enthusiastic about Kaikoura, even if when I was there I was convinced it was one of the most beautiful places I'd seen. Milford Sound has ruined my appreciation for other places.
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