The day in numbers:
311 km driven.
Whales seen: 0
Temperature height of 33°C
2 times nearly falling asleep at the wheel.
1 nap in a lay-by.
Map of Day 14 and Day 15:
V - Kaikoura. W - Hanmer Springs. X - Christchurch. A - Oamaru. Y - Home!
I woke up early after an evening of practicing my French and drinking beaucoup de bière.
I had to be up early to go on my rescheduled whale watching trip. Looking out of the window whilst munching my breakfast I wasn't optimistic of my chances of seeing any ocean wildlife. This was the view from the beach.
And so I still do not have the foggiest idea what seeing a whale is like. The worst bit of the trip being canceled is we still got to the stage of watching the safety video (how to jump into the sea with a life-jacket on), before we were told that 'the captain says no'. I queued up and got my refund then left Kaikoura.
I would definitely like to return there before I leave the country, not just to see a whale, but also because it is one of my favourite places from the trip. The geography/geology of the place is stunning and I do want to go and see the seal colony when they are all at home.
I headed off towards Hanmer Springs, to be honest I am not sure why I wanted to go there, other than there is a village very close to where I grew up called Hanmer. The drive there, through the mountains of North Canterbury, was awesome. They are the top of the Southern Alps range that is referred to as the backbone of the South Island in every single tourist brochure.
It gets very hot, very windy and very dry there, which makes most of it unsuitable for dairying. As soon as it got flat though, irrigation and milking sheds appeared.
Getting close to Hanmer Springs, I was for the first time in the whole trip feeling knackered. The combination of a hot car and my unnecessary early morning, and two weeks of being on the road was taking its toll. I pulled into a lay-by, parked under a tree, put the seat as far back as it could go and went to sleep. I woke up about an hour and a half later feeling like a new man and pushed on to Hanmer Springs.
The town seemed to be a holiday destination for New Zealanders, with its natural hot spas and lots of resort type places. It was the well worn crazy golf that really gave the game away. They had definitely got the weather for it anyway. I have just googled the weather report for when I was there and it says that it was 29°C but 'feels like 33°C'. It did.
I left Hanmer Springs, feeling like the place wasn't really worth including in my roadtrip and headed South. As the land shape flattened and the hills became the Canturbury plains, the almost solid block of dairy farms that stretches all the way down to my home began.
I tried to take quite a few drive-by photographs of cows with mixed results. And by mixed I mean poor. Here is one though, showing the pivot irrigation that makes dairy farming possible.
Once I got to Christchurch, probably losing a few pounds in the heat, I had another surprising city drive with no wrong lanes or missed turns. I quickly and easily found what turned out to be the best hostel of the whole trip, with its easy access car park, room with a balcony and the thickest mattress of them all.
I picked up a map and went for a walk around the city. It is a very sad place, the map had a huge area in the middle shaded red. This was the no access area, the result of the major earthquake in February 2011. 185 people lost their lives, that and the quietness of the almost abandoned streets brings a feeling of mournfulness and poignancy to the city. Built by the English, with English cities in mind, the once world renowned architecture took a real hammering. The main one to hit the headlines was the collapse of the spire of the cathedral, which is one of the many city centre buildings being demolished.
Despite the distress evident through the city, there is also a sense of optimism for the future and the Kiwi version of a stiff upper lip. Popular images illustrating that are often of the Restart shopping centre, made of shipping containers and painted in loud, clashing bright colours.
Back at the hostel, I cooked my final hostel meal, spaghetti bolognese. It turned out to be a bit of a farce, I had accidentally bought lamb mince instead of beef. This made the sauce far too rich and a too fatty. When I went to sit down at one of the tables to eat it, I put the plate down and the whole lot, the spag and the bol slid off the plate and onto the not-too-clean surface. Observing the popular 5 second rule, used extensively at university, I spooned it straight back onto the plate and ate it whilst watching England dominate the Welly sevens.
Day 15 - The Final Day.
The day in numbers:
268 km driven.
5 British heroes learnt about.
Speed limits broken: 0...
Homes arrived at: 1
Homes arrived at: 1
Straight after breakfast, the last one for which I would need to buy a stupid little 300 mm bottle of milk, I headed to the nearby Canterbury museum.
At the museum was a big exhibit about Captain Robert Falcon Scott's last Antarctic expedition.
For those of you that don't know, it didn't go well for Scott and four of his crew. The Terra Nova set sail in 1910, from a port very close to Christchurch, and it was in the city that the Antarctic explorations were prepared for. The main objective was to be the first to reach the South Pole, there were many other scientific aims too. Unfortunately the plucky Brits were beaten to the Pole by the Norwegion, Amundsen.
It was the return journey that went down in history, with all five members perishing in the planet's most inhospitable land. The team was severely malnourished, exhausted and all were suffering from serious frostbite and other injuries. Edgar Evans died first when he collapsed, possibly due to injuries sustained in a fall. The famous quote 'I am just going outside and I may be some time' was recorded by Scott in his diary as the last words of Captain Lawrence Oates who in a condition that was slowing the party down sacrificed himself to increase the chances of the others' survival. The remaining three, Edward Wilson, Henry Robertson Bowers and Scott himself all succumbed to their failing health and the conditions in their tent twelve days later, just eleven miles from a probably life-saving food depot.
The exhibit was a very interesting insight into the remarkable story. Scott was a prolific writer and kept a daily diary throughout his travels. This is one of my favourite quotes of his that was displayed:
And here is the flag that was raised at the South Pole:
There was plenty of other interesting things to look at at the museum, including an exhibit of later general Antarctic exploration. This machine I thought might go down well with the tractor fans among my readers:
And here is a skeleton of an elephant seal, in the traditional seal position:
I am a big fan of museums, perhaps an uncommon thing for someone of my generation. I left the Canterbury Museum when I got hungry after a good few hours of wondering around.
Back in my car I set off South down the coast on my final stretch of the trip. The road between Christchurch and Oamaru, is not a spectacular one. It is flat, straight and runs past thousands of paddocks in various states of dehydration. I put my foot down and bombed it home, obviously staying below the irritation speed of 100 kph. This is about 62 mph and applies to motorways, dual carriageways and main roads with virtually no traffic on them.
I will use this video to end my reports of my roadtrip, round as much of New Zealand as I could possibly fit in a fortnight.
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