Every holiday comes with its quirks and observations that make for good stories when you return home. New Zealand has provided many and we thought we’d share a few through our blog.

Roads – We have travelled over 6,000 km in our five weeks here. The road system on the North Island is quite developed since the majority of Kiwis live there. There are a number of major expressways around Auckland and divided multi-lane highways in other major centres. On the South Island most of the roads are just two-lane highways. There are three main posted speed limits in NZ – 50 in town, 70 or 80 approaching towns and 100 everywhere else. The mountain roads in the south usually have 100 as the posted speed and dotted lines for passing, even on corners and hills. We often had the road to ourselves so it didn’t matter too much. In our five weeks we only saw one accident and that was a transport trailer that was going too fast around a corner, slid into the cliff face and overturned.

Kiwis are minimalists: when it comes to bridges, except in major centres, bridges (and there are many) are often one lane. A posted sign indicates which direction has the right of way. When it comes to stop signs – there are few, preferring instead to use the “give way” sign so you can just slow down and “merge like a zip!”

Signs – We were quite fascinated with the good-driving warning signs along the roads. We would often see signs about sharing the road with bicycles (there are many especially in the mountains), not driving when sleepy, and watching your speed (they have photo radar here). One of our favourites was a picture of a stylized zipper and the words “merge like a zip.” Unfortunately, good signage doesn’t extend to street signs, which were often nonexistent. An additional issue is because their major centres are built around the English suburb system, a street may change names three or four times on the way into town. Good maps are a must!

Food – We frequented grocery stores on a number of occasions and were quite surprised at the price of some items. Blueberries were $9.99 a pint. Limes were $39.99 per kilo, which seems odd since they grow lemons and oranges here. We’re not sure why they don’t grow limes. Meals served in cafés and bars were often first-class, using unique ingredients and plating styles. Jenn, I never had to experience the soft poached egg on my fish and chips but did experience it on one or two salads.

Animals – New Zealand has no native mammals, only birds. Rabbits, stoats and possums were brought in by the Brits for hunting and, since there are no natural predators, have reduced many of the native birds to extinct or near-extinct status. There is a real effort underway to increase the Kiwi bird population by placing them on controlled islands which have been cleared of pests. Time will tell if these efforts are working. Red deer were also brought in for hunting purposes and extreme measures have had to be taken to control that population. While most red deer are now farmed in paddocks, a bounty is still paid for wild deer that are captured using helicopters and nets.

In an earlier post, I wrote about the number of sheep in NZ. Many farmers are now turning their farms into dairy farms since there is more money in cattle than in sheep. This is causing great concern for the environmentalists since the runoff from cattle pollutes rivers and streams. Local Councils are beginning to consider limiting the size and/or placement of herds to ensure the rivers, lakes and oceans don’t suffer negatively from this change. We did see the effects of farming in one place – the beach down by the ocean was covered in green algae – didn’t make for a very appealing dip.

Mail – There has been some controversy while we’ve been here about reducing mail delivery given that, as is the case in many places, the volumes have dropped. In urban and small town areas, the mail is delivered by a postie on a bicycle. The proposal is to reduce delivery from six to three days per week in urban areas. In rural areas the delivery is done by van and out at Akaroa one of the tours was to go with the postie for the day on his rural delivery route.

Language – While we speak the same language, which makes travel easier, it’s interesting to see how we use words differently. Two examples:

• Slips/slides – we call them landslides, they call them slips
• entree/main – we call it an appetizer, they call it an entree; we call it an entree, they call it a main

Well folks that’s it for now. We are shortly due to board the bus that will take us out to meet our cruise ship. We’ll look forward to sharing more stories and some of our 1,000+ pictures with you when we return.

Nov 22nd – Today was our last day in Christchurch and New Zealand was crying…well really it was just raining when we woke up. We are currently sitting in the airport awaiting our flight to Auckland. Tomorrow morning we leave for Honolulu.

After packing our cases into the car and rationalizing our leftover food, we left our car in the apartment parking lot and headed downtown one more time. There were a number of things we wanted to do/see not the least of which was a ride on the trolley. George is a streetcar fan, so this was a must. We got on at the Cathedral and rode to the end in either direction before disembarking back at the mid-way point. Pre-earthquake, the trolley run was 14 stops with an additional line 6 to 8 weeks away from completion. The current run is only 7 stops and they are hoping to have the additional line up and running by March 2014. It will likely be another three years before the full original line is able to be used.

After leaving the trolley, we headed over to the Re:Start Mall. This is a story of determination and recovery. As you can imagine, with 1,000 buildings in the downtown core torn down many small business owners lost their livelihoods. Many moved away or started up in a new location, but many were determined to continue in the downtown core. The Re:Start Mall is an area of shipping containers, which have been stacked and artistically designed as temporary retail operations. It is amazing what business can be done out of a small shipping container. Fortunately, the weather is more temperate than in Canada so it is a reasonable option. We stopped at a coffee shop for a light lunch and sat upstairs (a box on top of a box) in a very narrow space with windows and an outside deck.

Obviously, there are many stories to be told by the people who lived through three earthquakes in a small space of time. There is also much to be learned, especially for the folks from Christchurch who complain about the slow pace of recovery. In the midst of the Re:Start Mall is an expo which explains why the first earthquake in December 2010 was not nearly as deadly as the February 2011 quake, even though it was more powerful. If you don’t know the word liquefaction, I encourage you to look it up. Think about mud bubbling up from underground and the impact that might have on buildings, roads and infrastructure. Another new word we have learned is munted…the definition is not the one in the Urban Dictionary! We think it may have originated in England and means destroyed, uninhabitable. Some areas of Christchurch have been declared munted.

Since our flight wasn’t due to leave until 8:45pm and we couldn’t go back to the apartment, we went for a drive in the country out to a little town called Oxford. Yet again the travel brochures described it as an English-style town, well worth the visit. Well, maybe after five weeks we’re a bit jaded or maybe the writer of that brochure got munted (as in the Urban Dictionary) the night before. English-style it was not and it’s only redeeming feature was that it had a pharmacy where I was able to purchase a little travel pack of tissues.

We were back to the airport in lots of time to have a quiet dinner and then return the car. Problem was…there are no restaurants out near the airport. It really is in the middle of nowhere. Back into the city with the same problem as last night! Fortunately, I had remembered seeing a restaurant at the Super Centre that was advertised in the Where to Dine magazine. We had a unique meal…four different types of meat, served raw, on a hot stone grill. You cook your own meat right at the table. Interesting idea!

The end of a wonderful time in New Zealand. Stay tuned for one more post of miscellaneous bits that we have been collecting along the way. We’ll try to get that posted tomorrow before our noon flight.

Nov 21st – We had been told by many people that Hanmer Springs was a great place to visit to take in the thermal pools. Since we didn’t do this in Rotorua, we thought a day at the spa would be a great way to close out our time in the Christchurch area.

Since it was a nice warm sunny day, we took advantage of the weather to cruise around downtown to get some pictures of some of the buildings that have been destroyed. Hopefully I’ll be able to have some before (scanned from a calendar) and after pictures to help people get a sense of the magnitude of change this city is going through. It was a real surprise, and brought a lump to my throat, to see the trolley rolling along Worcester Street. Today was the first day the trolley has run in almost three years!

Much of the trip to Hanmer Springs was along the road we had travelled yesterday but we had a bit more time today to make a few stops. The first one was at the Athena Olive Grove. It turns out that it’s owned by a guy from England who emigrated, bought the property, and then figured out what he needed to know about olives. We made a purchase to bring home.

After a brief pit stop in Calverdon, we arrived in Hanmer Springs in time for lunch. Since rain was in the forecast for the afternoon, we had a quick bite and then enjoyed the water for an hour or so. There are about 12 different pools ranging in temperatures from 33 – 40 degrees. Unfortunately the sulphur pools were closed for maintenance…but then I’m not much into sulphur anyway.

We have passed many golf courses in our travels – most not seemingly played too much – but we never wanted to take the time to play a round. So today was the day but it was just a small pitch and putt course. It took just over an hour for the 18 holes and you guessed it – he beat me again. The good news is that we both broke 100!

We decided to go back to the apartment to pack and do a bit of washing before heading out to dinner. Unfortunately it took more time than planned and we found ourselves heading off to the local cafe about 6:30. Big mistake…both cafés were full to the rafters with a 45 minute wait. We went back and picked up our car and headed off in another direction. Surprisingly, it is very difficult to find restaurants in Christchurch. I’m sure they have lost a lot in the downtown core. Many are in small suburbs but you have to know how to find them. To make a long story short we finally got seated in a bar about 8pm but it was just after 9pm when our meal finally arrived. Lots of apologies and a little discount helped resolve our frustration and we were able to laugh on the way home about how close we had come to dining Chez the Golden Arches which is a big no-no at dinner time in our house.

Nov 20th – Today’s trip was up the coast to Kaikoura, yet another seaside town. It is well known as a place to see dolphins, albatross and whales. We chose the whale trip. Again we lucked out, arriving to find the 12:45 and 1:15 sailings fully booked. We asked to be wait-listed for those and confirmed for the 3:30 sailing. We were quite surprised to hear our name called for the 12:45 boat. Since it was a nice warm sunny day, we were looking forward to being out on the water.

The boat is a large sea catamaran which goes out about 9 km. A number of sperm whales make the sea canyon in this area their home and the tour operators obviously know their patterns well. A sperm whale can stay down in the ocean depths for 45 – 60 minutes and will then stay on the surface for about 20 minutes. When we arrived at the spot where the previous boat had spotted a whale, they told us that another boat had indicated that the whale had been down for 20 minutes so it would be awhile before he resurfaced. They used the sonar to track his clicks and evidently when they no longer hear the clicks they know he is getting ready to resurface. Shortly thereafter not one, but two sperm whales surfaced – it was our lucky day. There was lots of excitement aboard as everyone took their spot for good photos. I was up to about 50 shots by the time he raised his tail and headed back down to his feeding ground.

After the boat trip we drove up to the lookout point which provided a lovely view of the ocean and snow capped peaks all in one view. On our way back to Christchurch, we stopped at the Nor’wester Cafe in Amberley. It didn’t have white table cloths (mother’s requirement for choosing a restaurant) but the dinner was delicious and the dessert even better. We chose parsnip and carrot cake and it was so good I asked for the recipe. Unfortunately the answer was no, so I’ll just have to try to replicate it myself.

Nov 19th – Akaroa is a seaside town at the tip of a peninsula southeast of Christchurch. Since the French were first to land here, all the street names and many of the towns along the way have very French names.

The road to Akaroa is typical here on the South Island – lots of twists and turns, ups and downs. We arrived in time for lunch and enjoyed a platter of “fruits de mer” including just about everything but oysters – phew! It wasn’t a very sunny day, but we’d been told to try the Kapiti ice cream so we licked our cones on a bench seaside and watched two guys bring back the results of a fishing adventure.

The town has become a mecca for crafters and we enjoyed strolling along the main street checking out the shops. Barry’s Bay Cheese is a well-known cheese producer in this area. We stopped to purchase some samples for dinner and had a chuckle at the sign on the big cheese wheel in the refrigerator –  “don’t play with the cheese”. The sales rep told us that it’s more for the parents’ benefit. She is sometimes exasperated by how they can ignore what their kids are doing.  Unfortunately even wine and cheese didn’t help me beat George at Scrabble. He’s now 4 and 0!

Nov 17th & 18th – Our Sunday plan was to attend church and then have a quiet day – no travel, an afternoon rest, a good book, and a game of scrabble. We didn’t quite get to the scrabble game choosing instead to walk around town a bit instead. Words cannot express the change that has occurred in this city, after three major earthquakes. At least 1,000 buildings have been torn down in the city centre with another 300 scheduled for demolition. This count includes 80 churches. Our apartment building, at seven stories, is one of the tallest buildings remaining.

As we were driving to church, we wondered why all the motels had ‘no vacancy’ signs out. We found out why on our city bus tour on Monday – they lost fully 60 percent of their hotel accommodation. The only hotel we have seen in the downtown core is the Novotel which appears to be brand new.

Our Monday morning Grand Tour (four Canadians, two Germans) took us first to the Avon River where we spent half an hour punting through the city. We suggested that doing this every Monday morning would be a great, stress-reducing way to start the work week. After a bit of a tour of some of the important city buildings that are slated for repair, we were delivered to the caterpillar at the botanic gardens for a one-hour guided tour. They certainly grow trees big in New Zealand and I don’t think I have ever seen such a beautiful rose garden anywhere. All 1200 rose bushes were in full bloom!

From there we headed southeast to the Port Hills area, a collapsed crater rim of an extinct volcano. We toured a number of beachside towns to see the changes created by the earthquakes and the rebuilding efforts. It appears that Christchurch has cornered the market on orange traffic cones – seen everywhere – and shipping containers – used as temporary measures to line road verges which border unsafe cliff faces.

A gondola took us up the mountain for a 360 degree view including lunch at the top.

Obviously the cost to the country is huge. The national government has allocated up to $100,000 per building for repairs/rebuild/replacement – the remainder is expected to be paid by insurance claims and the owner. On our walk downtown we met an insurance adjuster who works for the company that covers the Anglican diocese. He said they found that none of the buildings were insured at the proper level. We also discovered on our tour that the Anglican Bishop, Victoria Matthews, a Canadian, is not a favourite amongst the folk of Christchurch. You may have heard that the cathedral was seriously damaged and the diocese decided it should be torn down and rebuilt. People of Christchurch (most who likely don’t ever attend the cathedral) have challenged that decision in court. We also inspected the main Baptist Church called Oxford Terrace BC. It was completely demolished, and a portable building has been built as a temporary site while fundraising continues towards erecting a new building. Check out their website at http://www.otbc.org.nz for pictures and more information.

Having experienced a day of earthquake information, was it ironic that we felt a tremor as we were getting ready for bed? Just 4.6 they say.

Nov 16th – You know the vacation is almost over when you are heading off to your last stop. The quick way from Oamaru to Christchurch would be up the coast, but we’d heard from many people that the inland route is much more interesting. Why do a 3 hour boring drive when you can do a 6 hour interesting drive?

There were three stops within the first 80 km, to see some ancient wonders. Our first stop was to see the Elephant Rocks, which are massive limestone formations on private farm land. For those who are fans of C. S. Lewis, this was the location for Aslan’s camp in The Chronicles of Narnia. A little further along the road we stopped to see some fossils that had been discovered in some of the limestone rocks. Because they were just pieces and not a whole animal, they were left exposed so people could see them, rather than removing them. The third stop was to see the Maori paintings which reminded us very much of the Petroglyphs out near Peterborough.

After a brief stop at a wayside picnic area for lunch, we headed up into the mountains towards Twizel. This area borders three lakes which have all been created to generate hydroelectricity. Lake Benmore is the largest man-made lake in New Zealand; the Benmore Power Station the second largest power station after Manipouri (at Doubtful Sound). Our B&B host in Te Anau, the professional rower, had suggested we stop at Twizel to see the rowing centre which is where the National Team trains and where they hold many international events. Since it’s currently the off season, there really wasn’t too much to see.

On to Lake Tekapo which is a tiny mountain town – really a sporting centre (skiing, boating, fishing, etc.) From the edge of the lake you get a wonderful view of Mt. Cook on a clear day.

On to Geraldine, a little town that many people had indicated was a must stop. We arrived just at 4:30pm to find a very busy town square. Saturday was their annual Arts and Crafts show, which unfortunately was just closing down. After a brief stop we decided to move on since all the little shops were closing too. We’d love to go back to explore Geraldine a bit further, but we’ll likely run out of days.

From there it was an hour in to Christchurch and we were happy to find our apartment and get settled in. We are just a block away from the red zone (basically the central business district) and the view from our balcony is quite devastating, but more about that later.

Nov 12th – 14th – Our trip from Te Anau to Dunedin was fairly boring when compared to all the lovely places we’ve been. The landscape could best be described as relatively flat pasture land with large farming operations of sheep and cattle. We passed through lots of little hamlets and stopped in the town of Gore for lunch. Our afternoon stop was in Balclutha to tour their museum. It was absolutely packed to the rafters with stuff and the curator was quite a character in his own right. The biggest story in the museum was about Amy Bock, who impersonated a male and married her land lady’s daughter. She was found out three days later and charged! How interesting to find a Bell & Co organ made in Guelph in the museum – originally installed in St. Mary’s church.

About 4pm we arrived in Dunedin, found our B&B (up a very steep hill) and made plans for our stay here. The B&B is an Art Deco style house built in the 1930s for a ship’s captain. The owner, Joyce, is a nurse who has lived/travelled all around the world prior to raising her twenty-year-old son as a single mom. She is quite eccentric,  and the house is chock full of various collections (mirrors, plates, buttons, zipper pulls, ceramic cats, art, etc., etc.). I’d say it’s a dusting nightmare. Three years ago a widower, Dave, stayed there for three weeks while his son was in hospital and a relationship developed. They married last year.

After settling in, we decided to take a drive out the Otago Peninsula, where there is a penguin colony and the world’s only mainland breeding colony of Royal Albatross. Since the Albatross are not viewable at this time of year and we have seen the penguins in Australia, we decided not to pay the rather steep fee to tour the site…besides which, it was downright cold out there! On the way back we stopped at a pub and had Blue Cod, a local fish, for dinner. The picture is looking back towards Dunedin as the sun sets behind the mountain.

Wednesday morning we drove downtown and took a two-hour bus tour of the city. We certainly learned a lot:

• The city was settled in 1844 by a group of Scots, who wanted to establish a free church
• Dunedin is the Gaelic name for Edinburgh
• Originally, the plan was to lay out the city in the same way as Edinburgh, but when they got here, the topography was very different so changes had to be made
• Dunedin is the fifth largest city in New Zealand and the University of Otago accounts for 25 percent of the city’s economy
• Otago was the first university in the world to admit women
• New Zealand was the first country to give women the vote
• Dunedin is home to the steepest street in the world with a grade of 35 percent

After the tour we paid a visit to the Botanic Gardens, the first in New Zealand and the first to employ women gardeners. The rhodos were just about finished and the roses were struggling with aphids but it was pleasant nonetheless.

Joyce and Dave invited us to a BBQ they were hosting. We accepted the invitation and spent a few pleasant hours enjoying food, wine and conversation on the deck until the sun started to dip behind the mountain and it got too cool.

Nov 10th & 11th – We arrived in Te Anau after a somewhat long drive from Queenstown. We had packed a picnic lunch but ended up eating our sandwich in the car since it started to rain just as we got set to have lunch. Fortunately that was the only rain we saw. Scenery along this route was quite different than what we had seen previously. There are very few trees in this area but large tussocks of red grass dot the landscape. Te Anau is a relatively small town, mostly geared to those who are travelling on to Milford Sound or Doubtful Sound.

After discussion with many folk along the way, we decided to take the trip to Doubtful Sound. Milford is much better known, of course, but requires a two hour road trip to get there and then the boat ride is only an hour long, following which you have a two hour bus trip back again. The Doubtful trip is a full day trip with additional options. Weather also plays into the consideration since the Milford trip is cancelled much more often than the Doubtful trip because of poor weather.

Weather turned out not to be an issue since the day dawned cool but sunny. The crew said it was the best day in the past three weeks. We were picked up at our B&B and driven out to Lake Manapouri where we boarded our first boat. After arriving on the other side we boarded another bus and were driven down through a 2km long tunnel to see the hydro electric power plant 200 metres below the lake surface. It was quite an interesting story of engineering feats that required 1800 workers and eight years to complete. A road had to be specially built to move all the construction equipment and the power station equipment, which arrived by barge from the mainland. After the tour we travelled on this road to Deep Cove where we boarded the boat to tour Doubtful Sound.

The scenery was very typical of fiords with sheer cliffs on both sides, waterfalls galore, inlets (called arms) that go off the main channel, and then eventually access to the sea. While we were travelling out to the Tasman Sea, we found a pod of dolphins that enjoy the slightly warmer water of the fiord. The morning boat tour saw humpback whales out in the sea, but we weren’t so lucky. We did, however, see a seal colony and then on the way back in two New Zealand crested penguins paid a visit. In one of the arms, our boat pulled right up under a rock ledge and we were able to fill a cup with “99.9 percent pure” water dripping off the ledge.

It was a great day but we were pretty tired when we finally got back to our B&B about 6:30pm. We invited a Swiss lady, from our B&B, who is travelling alone to join us at the local pizzeria for dinner and then chatted with our hosts and other guests until bed time. Cliff, our host, was an international rower and umpire – we enjoyed his many stories.