Motueka Valley to Arthur's Pass

Monday, 15 February 2010     Lake Hawea Station near Wanaka, New Zealand

I'm writing this in a great little cottage on the southern shore of Lake Hawea, after almost two weeks of action-packed adventure.  More about Lake Hawea Station in a future post.  For now, let me take you back to the day we left the Kahurangi Brown Trout B&B in the Motueka valley up in the northwestern corner of the South Island.

Wed 3 Feb: Motueka Valley (Kahurangi Brown Trout B&B) - Westport (Bella Vista Motel)

We drove first back to the east a bit to revisit Nelson Lakes National Park.  On the western shore of Lake Rotoiti we hiked "Paddy's Track" up the mountain overlooking the lake.  Here is Paula on the track:

Beautiful views like this were typical along the track:

Note the tree in full bloom in the foreground:

There are two similar species of trees commonly known as the "tea tree", both in the myrtle family Myrtaceae but in different genus - the manuka (Leptospermum scoparium) and the kanuka (Kunzea ericoides).  They both have striking white flowers that honeybees love.  Manuka honey evidently has documented antibiotic effects and is sold widely throughout New Zealand, usually marked with some numerical grade indicating the concentration of active ingredient.  The manuka flowers are somewhat larger than kanuka and occur singly, whereas the kanuka flowers occur in bunches and are smaller.  That's a pretty subtle distinction for Tyler to discern, but Paula, plant taxonomist that she is, assures me that it is meaningful.

Thur 4 Feb: Westport - Arthur's Pass (Alpine Motel)

Wednesday night we stayed in the coast town of Westport.  Thursday morning, before continuing on the coast road southward, we took a local road due west out of Westport to explore Cape Foulwind.  You can imagine why it was so-named by eighteenth-century sailors.  Here is the lighthouse:

I would show you the heavy house but I couldn't find it.  This view is fairly typical of a lot of coves and beaches along the upper west coast, with the jumble of big rocks just offshore.

This is from the path to the lighthouse looking east toward Westport.  The smokestacks in the distance are part of major cement factory, taking advantage of the limestone available to quarry nearby, as well as the ocean shipping port.

Some more views from this vicinity:

On down the coast road about 60 km from Westport we found Punakaiki, the Pancake Rocks and Blowhole.

Look at the rocks on the left, not at the pretty woman:

We had been seeing this type of rock formation earlier as we stopped at scenic overlooks, but this place is really spectacular.  The "blowhole" referred to in its name is a natural phenomenon in which large waves are directed into a narrow channel:

through which they enter a surge basin.  Note the free-standing arch over the entrance.

In the basin walls there are tunnels and caves which each wave surge can enter and blow out the other end with a sometimes spectacular spray and "whoosh".

Fri - Sat, 5-6 Feb: Arthur's Pass

Arthur's Pass, 920 m altitude, is the best of four principal passes over the Southern Alps.  If you lived on the east coast in the region of Canterbury (Christchurch) and wanted to get to the west, this is your best option.  The highway up from the west has several noteworthy features.  Here is a rockfall shelter designed to keep water and (duh!) falling rocks off the highway.

This viaduct replaced a tortuous mountain road segment that was constantly being eaten by landslides down the scoria slope above.  Note the large double-trailer tank truck leading a parade of frustrated motorists in the third photo.  This whole route up through the Otiro Gorge is serious driving!

The slopes of this whole mountain region are covered with southern rata trees blazing red in full bloom.

We were amazed to see several of the rare kea, the only alpine parrot in the world.  Look up the kea on Google.  They are amazing birds - sociable, highly intelligent, able to solve puzzles that no other bird can come close to, inquisitive, and (from an anthropomorphic viewpoint) mischievous and destructive.  They are sort of like a very smart hyperactive adolescent male human (a subject about which Tyler and Paula know a lot).  This one was in a scenic viewpoint turnout trying to pry the rivets out of the metal railing.

Here are two strange birds observing each other:

Here's another kea (banded) that we observed at another stop.

During our three days in Arthur's Pass we must have seen ten or more kea.  We were told that the total known population is only about 2500 birds, so we probably saw 0.4% (check my math) of the world's supply of kea.  They were prolific in these mountains 150 years ago, but they had an annoying habit that caused the sheep ranchers to hunt them almost to extinction:  they supposedly would land on the back of a sheep and use their strong, sharp beak to dig right through all the wool and muscle and get at the kidneys, which are surrounded by rich layers of fat.  Of course, it may be that they didn't actually attack live healthy sheep, but only took advantage of sheep already dead from other causes.  Anyway, it didn't take many instances of shepherds finding dead sheep with gaping wounds in their lower back before the ranchers got the government to put a bounty on the kea.  Lesson to wild animals: it isn't a good idea to get ranchers mad at you.  How many times have other animals learned that lesson the hard way on the other side of the world?

Another "pest" throughout New Zealand is the introduced Australian possum.   Its fur is valued and blends well with Marino sheep wool to make exquisite woven goods - scarves, socks, hats, sweaters - which are sold in every tourist town in the country.  But they are very destructive out in the bush, both to the indigenous trees and to the remaining birds.  They specialize in eating the tender new growth at the tops of trees and the ends of branches, effectively curtailing development.  They also eat bird's eggs, which is especially destructive of the remaining indigenous flightless birds.  Because they grew up living on an island totally devoid of predators, the birds lost the ability to fly and they build their nests on the ground.  Of course, this makes them and their eggs easy prey to all kinds of introduced mammals: dogs, feral cats, stoats, weasels, and rats.  But this possum is prolific and widespread.  They say there are 70 million of them currently in New Zealand.  So the government allows and encourages open hunting of them.  On one trail we briefly talked with one hunter returning from his traps with two rifles slung over his shoulder and a bag with 5 possum, on their way to be sold to private fur companies.  There are also active programs to trap them or poison them.  The poison program is controversial but effective.   They use large pellets made of some substrate that the possums like, laced with a poison called 1080, which, for the chemists in the audience, is sodium fluoroacetate (i.e., the sodium salt of fluoroacetic acid).  The objection is that the poison is non-selective and kills anything that eats it.  The counter is that the possum is the only thing in the remote bush that actually eats the pellets, and the pellets are mostly dropped by air in the remote bush.  They also post signs all over the place, so any creature that would just read the signs and pay attention should be OK!

Arthur's Pass is the main stop for the TranzAlpine Scenic Railroad between Christchurch on the east coast and Greymouth on the west.

It runs one round trip every day, bringing loads of tourists and New Zealanders into the mountains, dropping them off for a few hours, and then returning them.  We intend to take this ride when we get to Christchurch.  Here it is approaching the Arthur's Pass train station from the west, headed east toward Christchurch.

One of the things that makes this train special is the Otira Tunnel, an amazing 18 km long tunnel under the mountains from Arthur's Pass heading to the west and downhill, emerging at the village of Otira on the Otira river, alongside the highway.  Why did they do all that work to build a tunnel, rather than just follow the Otira River gorge like the highway does?  To understand, you need to know two things.  (1) the Otira River gorge is very steep and winding, as is the road that goes through it, with grades exceeding 10% in places; (2) ordinary trains are limited to a grade of about 3% - otherwise it requires special locomotives and tracks, like the cog railways that can still be found in several mountainous regions around the world.  So it was much better to tunnel through the mountains and create a gentle, consistent 3% grade so they could use ordinary locomotives.

Here is the tunnel face at Arthur's Pass.

Here comes the train, approaching from the east.

Here it is after its stop at the station, continuing west just as it enters the tunnel.

Bye bye, choo choo.

As a digression, the streambed next to the tracks at Arthur's Pass was fascinating for Tyler.  Common amongst the mixed gravel were these large, black rocks, and smaller flat pieces that had chipped off of them.  It's not coal - it is slate, the metamorphic result of shale altered by high pressure and temperature several kilometers below the surface, then uplifted by orogeny (mountain-building processes), and finally exposed by erosion of the overlying rock.  See how it fractures in this sequence of photos.  It started out big in the first photo, and then I broke it into progressively smaller pieces.

We took a couple of field trips during our stay at Arthur's Pass.  One was a tramp (hike) called the Dobson Nature Walk.

Here is the memorial to Authur Dobson, after whom the pass is named.

Here is a great big rock along the beginning of the track, and another one toward the end.

The other field trip was eastward on the highway toward Christchurch.  The highway first follows the valley of the Bealey River, which joins the Waimakariri river and takes its name.  The Waimakariri opens up to an archtypical broad, flat braided river valley.

On this trip we saw these magpies, another foreign import.

Several places we saw this beautiful little flower, which Paula still has not been able to identify, despite buying every book she could find on New Zealand Flowers.  If any of you readers can definitively identify this, please comment.

One final digression:  Paula is assembling a collection of the odd road signs we have seen, but Tyler just has to comment on this one, because it is so misleading.  The obvious message is that if you drink and drive you will die.  The clear implication is that if you refrain from driving and drinking you will NOT die.  So far as I know there has been only one exception to the rule that everybody dies, and we know from historical records that he drank wine and drove moneylenders from temples.

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Greetings from Paula!

I have left the blogging to Tyler thus far because I use the "hunt and peck" method of typing, which is excruciatingly slow, and the computer is most often being used to download thousands of photos from my camera or for Tyler to write his blog.  I am searching for our next lodging when I have time online.  

We have found two major differences between the accommodations in the US and New Zealand.  First, I have only found one small "motel chain" here.  There are some "accommodation groups" which provide the 12th night free, but they don't have the consistency in facilities that we find in the US.  (If you have stayed at one Holiday Inn Express, you can expect the same shower head, linens, breakfast, etc. at all Holiday Inn Expresses.)  Motels here are small compared to US chains; many have only 10 - 20 rooms.  We are here during the school summer break when most of the country is vacationing and using the limited number of motel rooms.  The second major accommodation difference is the availability and cost of internet.  We were surprised that our hotel in Sydney charged $20 per day for internet use.  We managed to get by using Boingo at the McDonalds down the street and the free service at the public library.  The cruise ship charged $0.75 per minute and the connection was slow and inconsistent.  So we used public libraries during the port visits.  Our hotel in Auckland charged $35 per day, so we found Esquire coffee shops where our Boingo account worked.  (The Auckland Library was too slow.)  On Christmas Day we paid the $35 since everything was closed and because I hoped to visit with my children on iChat.  That is when we learned that the $35 only covered the first 100 mB and each mB thereafter costs $0.10, until you are disconnected completely when you reach 1G.  We found out how easy it is to use 1G.  Many motels in NZ don't even have internet available because they are catering to vacationing families and not business travelers.  

Since we have plenty of time, we try to not be on a fixed schedule and just wait out bad weather.  This means most reservations are made no more than a week in advance.  (We would have spent another day in Wellington if we had not had ferry reservations.)  Each of our stays has shown us more about what the ideal room would be like: spacious, quiet location with easy access, non-smoking, free and limitless internet, air conditioning (very, very rare in NZ, but every bed we've slept on has had an electric heating-pad for the mattress!), ceiling fan or excellent cross ventilation (we finally bought a floor fan which we will donate to our final landlord), screens on the windows (I have not seen any in NZ) or sheer curtains to keep out at least some of the bugs, private or "ensuite" bathroom, high shower heads, high water pressure delivering powerful and hot showers, good lighting, ground level room or an elevator, parking at the door, closet and drawers, good quality toilet and facial tissue, large trash cans (our current bathroom trash can is about the size of a roll of toilet paper), counter space and many hooks and towel bars in bathroom, bathroom ventilation, comfortable queen mattress, easy chairs and a good desk or table, shampoo and bath gel provided, good guest laundry open until 10 PM, a vending machine with coke and pepsi products, many pillows and good linens (including wash cloths), many electrical outlets distributed around the room, helpful hosts or managers, website with online availability and booking, and all for a "tariff" of $100 or less per night for two!  (NZ tariffs include all the taxes.)  None of our accommodations so far has come very close to this ideal!

I use many books, brochures and the internet to find a place which provides the best option for each location.  Sometimes the most important factor is having a place to do the laundry.  We have stayed in a wide range of accommodations and find that perhaps the most unpleasant aspect is simply the cycle of unpacking and repacking. Since a vacation shouldn't be this much work, we are trying to stay longer in each place so we can see the sights and also have time to catch up with the blog or just read (or sleep).  B&Bs have provided some of the best values because the price of breakfast can be significant even at McD.  Some have provided such a large breakfast that we didn't need lunch. They are also usually in quiet and scenic locations and the hosts have really added to our understanding of the country and directed us to less-known opportunities.  All but one of our stays has had a small fridge, microwave and an electric kettle with tea and coffee supplies or use of a complete kitchen.  I prepared roast lamb for Christmas dinner and washed the dishes in the small dishwasher. 

Christmas was quite different this year.  I was surrounded by flies and not family, other than Tyler.  There were few Christmas decorations, the wearing of red and green, carols or even the mention of gifts in downtown Auckland.  December 25 is the one day that many museums are closed, but many places closed for a week or longer because of it being summer vacation.  When we tried to extend our visa past 90 days, we found that the NZ Immigration office was closed until Jan.11!  

The following observations about grocery stores are based on the small number I have visited.  It was crowded on Christmas Eve, just like home.  But there were some obvious differences between the NZ and US stores.  Holiday cooking may have had some influence, but have you ever seen 2 liter bottles of cream?  

Then I saw the very compact packages of laundry detergent and thought, "New Zealand women enjoy life."   

There are no saltine crackers, peanut butter and cracker snacks, cornnuts, cheetoes or fritoes.  I looked for chips to use with guacamole (avocados are a bargain) and found that most tortilla chips are flavored.  And there are more potato chips than all other snacks combined. They come in flavors such as sea salt, chicken, tomato sauce, salt and vinegar, tasty cheese, Greek tzatziki, sweet chili relish, lemon Moroccan chicken, sea salt and vinegar, sour cream and chives, chicken, original(!), barbeque, BBQ bacon, green onion, garlic aioli, cheese and onion, reduced cream and onion soup, seaweed, ready salted and The Works (bacon, sour cream, chives and cheddar cheese).  This was in Hokitika, population 4,000, and they had only two choices for pickles!   Eggs are not refrigerated.  There are many "Gluten Free" products.  Pepsi products are rare.  The pharmacy selection is small.  Plastic cups are no larger than 10 oz.  Milk does not seem to be in high demand.   Groceries are placed in your "trundler." 

  

While driving 5,537 Km (3,440.53 mi.) since leaving Auckland, I have probably seen fewer than 2 dozen intersections with stop signs and a dozen with traffic lights.  "Yield" signs and roundabouts are used.  This one on the South Island's major west coast highway is the most insane.

The official website says that NZ has 3,983 bridges and that 177 of them are one lane.  This number seems too low because I think we crossed at least 30 today.  A circular sign indicates which direction of traffic has the right of way.  This is the scariest bridge so far.

It  was scary because it is wooden and the train also used the same bridge right after we crossed.  Notice, trains are "exempt." 

Long one lane bridges may have "passing bays."

The website also says there are 15 timber bridges and 12 bridges with speed restrictions.  There are 10,894 kilometers of highway and the longest straight road is 13.7 Km.  The width of the lanes is barely adequate and shoulders are rare.  I have done a lot of gasping while Tyler drives.  {She gasps at a lot of other things I do, too!  TBT}  The road to view Franz Josef Glacier even has one lane speed bumps!  They are very effective in slowing down traffic.  I think NZ could also install more automated RR crossing signals.

The taxis in Auckland were usually white and looked like police cars. The police cars remind me of taxis.

But there have been hints that they don't all look like checkered cabs.  And besides unmarked cars, the car rental agency warned us about speed cameras that generate tickets automatically and send them to the registered owner.  If you get caught, you don't know it until you return the rental car, upon which the car agency tacks on a $20 surcharge in addition to the fine, just for the labor of paying your ticket for you.

New Zealand has used car lots as we do in the states.  But they also have used house lots where houses wait until the house mover has a customer.  We stayed at Cotswold Cottage B&B which had been floated more than 60 Km on a barge from Auckland to Thames, and then placed on top of a hill!

Houses are often made of wood because masonry structures don't survive earthquakes as well.  Roofs are usually made of metal.  Corrugated metal was the ballast left in New Zealand by ships taking wood, wool, etc. to markets around the world.  So NZ used it on the sides and tops of their buildings.  Our guide at the Te Papa Museum explained that the car covered in corrugated steel was one man's effort to promote what many Kiwi consider tacky and cheap looking.  (It was reported that gas milage wasn't very good as it toured the country.)  We went through one town which took up his campaign and has proudly and creatively made corrugated metal the center of attention, rather than accept it as an embarrassment.  It is used for signs, decorations and even unique structures.        

The following are random observations about NZ.  

• We have not seen a pay-at-the-pump gas station.
• There are few billboards.
• Summer also means road construction in NZ. 
• "Pie" usually means meat pies.
• During our search for an open restaurant on the anniversary of Wellington's founding, a holiday, we counted seven shops selling Fish and chips and Chinese take-away. 
• Many, many Shell stations have car wash structures which never had the mechanical parts installed.
• Fountain soft drinks have only been found at fast food establishments.
• I have not found a McDonalds which has a carton of milk for sale.    
• The only free refills have been for water.  Tyler has to pay full price for every cup of coffee, even refills.
• Restaurants often have a bottle of cold water for each table.
• All electrical outlets have on/off switches.  The electrical standard is 240 volts.
• Almost all toilets have two flush buttons, one for small ("wee pee") and the other for large amounts of water ("big poo").
• Most of our accommodations have had electric towel warmers.
• Most poles for power lines are made of concrete and have a metal band around them to keep the possums down.
• Books are expensive.  A Ngaio Marsh paperback which sells for $8 US was $30 NZ.
• There is no weather channel.  Sigh.
• All towns with just a few thousand people have wonderful "i-sites" (tourist information centers).
• They depend on foreign workers for harvesting kiwifruit and filling various other short-term jobs.  I found one being a temporary railroad crossing sign!

Next time I will share my thoughts and pictures of New Zealand's wonderful flora and fauna.