Road Trip One

I am now the proud owner of a red 1997 Toyota Camry Wagon. The addition of wheels has allowed us to expand our horizons beyond ChCh. So far, Doug is the designated driver with me as the navigator. Driving on the left side of the road, and shifting with your left hand, is a different experience but he has had some practice in Britain, South Africa and here in NZ. I’ll get into the drivers seat at some point. Even walking around you need to remember that this is part of the British commonwealth with walkers and drivers on the left. When crossing streets you need to look right first to keep from getting run over by the cars. Another difference is that shadows from the sun in north make it more challenging to navigate – the sun rises in east and sets in west but is north in the sky. Petrol prices have started to come down – from $2.18/litre to $2.06/litre. Do the math conversion and find that it is very expensive but we still want to see as much of NZ as possible. We should be able to sell the car easily when we leave at the height of summer in January.

Saturday, the weather was sunny even though the water puddle on the patio table was frozen, so we drove 90 minutes north through rolling hills to Hanmer Springs in the foothills. We hiked up a beech-forested valley along Dog Stream. After a gorgeous one hour climb ending in several staircases we arrived at the foot of the 41 metre tall Dog Stream waterfall. A lot of the way we were in snow as the snow level was about 600 metres and the waterfall is at 840 metres. On the way back down we finally got a good look at a native bell bird. They are pretty elusive so no picture but have a beautiful call. We had been hearing them all the way up and down the trail. After the hike we relaxed in the sulphur pools at the thermal resort. Hanmer Springs sits along a fault line so there is a lot of geothermal activity. At 41° C it felt like the hot tub at home. Doug missed his cigar and being alone in the pool. Doug and I are both getting over a cold so the soak felt wonderful except for the crowds of other people.

Sunday it was cloudy with intermittent rain so we stayed closer to home and just drove over to the beach along the eastern edge of ChCh. We did some bird watching on the beach and the marsh and watched surfers from the pier. They looked cold even in full wetsuits. There is a huge storm (very deep low) up on North Island so the waves were pretty big. Storms move in off Tasman Sea from the west and winds circulate clockwise around low pressure areas here in the southern hemisphere.