New Zealand retrospective Part II

I certainly had a lot to think about on those first days in Christchurch,NZ. I arrived from Sydney the day before Anzac day and spent the first few nights in a Base Backpackers, I try to avoid these more popular ones, they are loud, expensive and do not allow alcohol. Of course this made me want to drink – the easiest way to make me do something is to tell me I am not allowed.

The first thing I noticed about New Zealand was the change of pace, even in the city the traffic was pretty slow and sedate, the architecture more British. The Irish bar around the corner from the hostel contained a couple of old guys who I joined them to hear re-tellings of their fathers stories from Galipoli. A close cropped thick set bloke approached our group, and asked if I was a marine, apparently Buffallo tops like the one I was wearing are hard to get, but considered good kit as I have found them to be.

The Cathedral in Christchurch held an early remembrance service, I was sorry to have slept through , arriving in time to see young Cadets salute the cenotaph solemnly, placing a poppy – then giggling and chatting moments later.

On my second day of wandering I called into an antiques shop, amazed to see in the window two Doulton figurines, a cottage shaped butter lid and silver soap dish I knew from my Grandmothers house. When coincidences start like this it tends to be a catalyst for more – probably selective attention, but thats not the whole story.

The next shop was a book store in the window I saw five books from my own collection, two by authors I had met in person. The lady in charge was very helpful in my quest to find books on Kiwi ingenuity and put some titles by for me, including one I had not spotted from the Centre for Alternative Technology and a great volume of personally influential environmental essays I had never found bound together before.

Walking back to the hostel with my bundle I called into a map to plan my trip and got talking to the owner, a former marine who also remarked on my top. He had been camping in Three Cliffs Bay, Gower, where I work often, only two weeks before bivvying in the exact spot I had spent many formative nights as a young teenager!

Back at the hostel I met Nicholas, a thoughtful Argentina guy from Cordoba, a city I had visited on my first solo trip, and was interested to hear how the experiences of living there in the current downturn compared with those of difficult years after their economic crash. We became friends and I was happy to have someone to listen to on the drive down to Queenstown.

My transport was a Toyota Sprinter with a suspicious stain above the passenger seat, which could have been blood or coffee, I was never quite sure. We stopped en route at Lake Takapo to camp out under a tarp, it had been too long coming, I needed an uninterrupted view of the sky and camp fire. We cooked pork and beef steaks planked beside the fire and made a great sauce with tomatoes, chillis, anchovies and herby cream cheese triangles. With my Buffallo, wool cap, bergen and his parka we looked like we were on our way to Goose Green. Being sympatico we drank toasts of cheap red wine to our shared heroes including Che Guevara, George Borges and John Lennon until the box was empty.

Queenstown is the place to go if you want to jump off, or slide down something very high or fast relatively cheaply. My folks will be pleased to hear I did none of those things, content to enjoy the jaw dropping scenery and local characters.

One memorable encounter was with a huge kiwi who had walked from Auckland to Queenstown over the previous three months wearing a Swandri shirt (A long heavyweight woolen top, normally worn by farmers), board shorts full of strong beers and flip flops.

He was bit of a handful around the bars with his unique brand of humour. In the first bar, he asked the barmaid her favorite animal.

She said “An otter”,

He replied that an “an otter is a poor choice, it has very small ears and smells of fish ...” his favourite, appropriately, an elephant, was far better.

“Well I like otters, with their little hands!” she replied. The kiwi maintained that an elephant was far more impressive, could lift logs with its nose, and has much better ears, while the queue was getting deeper and impatient. He then confounded us by conversing at length with others in fluent Spanish and Japanese!

The hostel was pleasant enough, but not being much of a drinker or keen to do anything “extreme” with a 100 percent safety record I dropped off the Argentinian guy at his bus, and drove West across the Island to Dunedin to visit an old uni friend who since I last saw him had settled there, marrying a lovely kiwi girl Michelle and had a two week old son Alfie. They were so welcoming, even though the little fella was feeding every one and a half hours. It was wonderful to catch up, having not seen one other for six years, and though so many things had happened, we were still the same in many ways. Sitting down to the first sunday roast in six months was such a treat, as were the friends and family invited to join us, thanks guys!

I then headed back to Christchurch, excitedly awaiting the arrival the special lady writer who made leaving Newcastle so hard. The hotel by the airport came as a deal including breakfast and free drinks, but we were too late coming down. After explaining about the delayed flight and how we were so looking forward to catching the Hot Springs at Hanmer before dark, the staff relented, and made us a special picnic that really made the day.

The hot pools were much appreciated after the long drive and our log cabin very cosy, but next morning I could not find my camera – containing the shots of camping at Takapo, my visit to Gregs little family and other precious moments. Worse, I still had on the camera photos of bank cards I had not got around to encrypting. It was a terrible feeling driving back to our picnic spot, I remembered putting it down on the boot, but not what happened next, I did not expect to see it again.

Amazingly, after giving up on the park we drove off, but spied it beside the road on the grassy verge ofter a corner. A little damp, but otherwise unharmed by its travels and night out– we picked up a hitchhiker in the rain in an attempt to pass our good luck on, and it was....

Takaka – a hippy village at the top of the South Island was a very chilled place to spend a few days, with great organic meals, good coffee, and the best and cheapest accommodation so far. By this point my new friend had heard many of my silly stories, including my homemade orange wine named matchmaker for its resemblance to the chocolate orange confection, and the several couples who got together through loosing all inhibitions after drinking it.

Over breakfast in the hippy hostel I saw a familiar face, but I could not remember where from. It was she who remembered first, “Second year! Aberystwyth Uni, you used to have a big beard and kept squirrels in the fridge, there was a party, we got devastatingly drunk on orange wine!” We asked after mutual friends from those heady student days and shook our heads in disbelief, small world indeed.

Over the next few weeks we shared an amazing time visiting sights and having a very touristy time of it, whilst covering a lot of ground, rarely staying more than one night in any place.