In July, the schools closed for the two-week winter interterm holiday, so we set out for a vacation in Queenstown, South Island. Glenn would attend a medical conference on “Wilderness Medicine”—pity they have to schedule these medical conferences in such a location as the best ski area in all New Zealand.
A week or so before, Queenstown had had a fresh snowfall, so we were treated to lovely views of the mountains as we flew in. Another family on our flight were also planning a ski vacation there, and we visited pleasantly about the pros and cons of each of the three nearest ski areas. The next day, Glenn attended his conference and the girls and I set off for a day of skiing at Coronet Peak. Nearing the mountain, we pulled off the road to install the required tire chains, when I looked up and realized that the car behind us held the family from the airplane the night before. They correctly read my puzzled expression at the tire chains, so together we got both cars outfitted. Skiing that day was wonderful; it was delightful to see the girls swooshing down the slopes again, and it felt magical to be back on skis after missing ski season in the Northern Hemisphere.
While Glenn was at the conference, he sat next to an American doctor, Pete, who introduced himself as being from Stillwater, Oklahoma. And the small world quickly shrank even further when I met his wife Kelly, who had, it turned out, attended Oklahoma State University at the same time I did and had roomed in the same dorm with a friend I knew from Sand Springs. I’m sure we must have met in their dorm room more than once. Such a small world! They have daughters near Katy and Beth’s age, so all four girls and both moms skied together the following day while the two dads continued their conference.
Kelly suggested we take a trip to Arrowtown, a gold-mining town near Queenstown, so all six of us piled into their van and drove there to see the Chinese mining settlement and the quaint shops lining the main street of Arrowtown. Most of our time, though, was spent at the museum in town. They were hosting an Anne Frank exhibit, and we must have read every placard and taken in every photograph.
Once Glenn and Pete had completed the conference, they were ready to hit the slopes, so we had some family days at Coronet Peak, the Remarkables, and Cardrona. The ski areas in the Southern Alps are quite different from those in Colorado or Quebec, as the slopes are completely devoid of trees. Thus, the local scenery isn’t as spectacular, but visibility is fantastic and one can view distant mountains while skiing. Another difference, I thought, was the level of difficulty. Slopes marked as blue (intermediate) seemed fairly green (easy) to me, and none of the blue or black (expert) slopes had moguls. Most of the runs are quite short, which means more trips up the ski lift, more time waiting in the lift lines. We managed to ski enough days to satisfy all of us for now, though, and after all, in a few months we’ll be back in the Northern Hemisphere in time for more skiing!
Queenstown is a city apart from other New Zealand cities in that it is totally a tourist town. The main hub is a small, 12-block area or so filled with ski shops, Internet cafes, restaurants, and adventure shops—places where one can arrange skydiving, parasailing, hot air ballooning, and bungee jumping. In fact, it was not far from Queenstown that bungee jumping was invented by some crazy Kiwi who thought up the process of tying a stretchy rope to his ankles and hurling himself off a bridge. Not for me! But the town is perfectly situated among snow-capped mountains and glassy-clear Lake Wakatipu—gorgeous in every direction. It has a lovely little harbor from which tour boats take riders on excursions across the lake, as well as some of those adventure-seekers who’d rather see the sights from a parachute attached to a fast-moving boat. There’s a small steamship, the TSS Earnslaw, which circles the lake several times per day, and some children’s parks along the waterfront. Quite a lovely little ski town.
The highlight of the South Island trip for me was the day we took a tour to Milford Sound. We decided to schedule a package tour with a bus out to the Sound and a boat ride across it, rather than driving our rental car. The bus picked us up early—6:45 a.m.—from Queenstown for the four-hour drive. Along the way, the driver gave us informative commentary regarding the Maori legends about the formation of Lake Wakatipu, the geography of Fiordland, and other points of interest. As we rode along NZ Highway 94, he explained how the area is prone to avalanches (comforting thought), and described the construction of the Homer Tunnel that pierces the Main Divide between Te Anau and Milford Sound.
Fiordland is the most beautiful area we have seen in New Zealand, which itself is no dog. On the far southwestern corner of the South Island, Fiordland is a huge national park. Beth described it as a graceful, smooth, flowing landscape, but I find it more dramatic than that. Mountains jut up into the sky while waterfalls cascade down them at all times of the year. Birds such as the kea and white crane find homes here, as do dolphins, fur seals, and hundreds of plants found only in this area. Once we boarded the boat, Katy and I spent most of our time on deck, going back into the cabin only to warm ourselves with hot chocolate. When the captain spotted a fur seal napping on the rocks, he pulled us along shore to get a better look. It is a unique habitat, and despite the ecotourism industry, remains pristine due to careful management. It’s no wonder Rudyard Kipling dubbed Milford Sound “the eighth Wonder of the World.”
Next day back in Queenstown, a light snow was beginning to fall as we finished packing up our car to drive south to Invercargill. By the time we had driven half an hour out of town, snow had begun to accumulate on the roads; when the car slipped a little on a curve we decided that it was time to put the chains on the tires. As the snowfall grew heavier, more and more cars were having difficulty, and we saw several accidents. By the time we hit Kingston, an hour and a half south of Queenstown, we had four or five inches with no sign of it letting up. Fortunately we arrived in Invercargill without incident, but the road we had just negotiated was closed due to heavy snowfall. In fact, all the major roads around Invercargill were closed, so we would have to delay our drive along the Catlin Trail.
Staying in the Victorian Railway Hotel, we were comfortable and warm; the hotel had an extensive DVD library, so we allowed the girls to watch Harry Potter movies all evening and all the next day. Meanwhile, Glenn and I watched movies in our room while I knitted. We enjoyed having a “down” day in the middle of our vacation. We got out of the hotel long enough to fulfill Katy's quest for a Subway sandwich and to see the “World’s Fastest Indian,” an old 1920ish Indian Scout motorcycle ridden by Burt Monroe at Bonneville Flats to set several speed records. Oddly, the motorcycle is owned now by a local hardware store, as are 20 or so other motorcycles. We also saw the local museum, which houses a dozen or so tuataras—lizard-like creatures that aren’t lizards at all. The babies are about the size of my index finger, while the adults are about a foot long.
The weather cleared beautifully the next day, just in time for our journey along the Catlin Trail, the stretch of road along South Island’s southernmost coast. Talk about dramatic scenery! Starting at Waipapa Point, the coastline stretches more than 150 kilometers before turning northward, with waves crashing against steep bluffs and into blowholes. Waipapa Point had a bit of untouched beach, which Beth and I found to be great for seashell-hunting. Beth’s sharp eyes found several paua shells, and we ended up with lovely shells and greenstone rocks. She easily scampered up the steep sand dune that lay between us and our car, but I attempted what I thought looked like firmer ground—until it proved to be wet clay, slick as ice. My clothes smeared with clay and my treasures all scattered, I awkwardly clambered up, and sweet Beth collected my shells and pebbles again.
Windy and cold, the weather deterred the rest of the family from hiking with me out to Slope Point, the unofficial southernmost tip of the South Island. But at least it was clear and the roads were completely dry, so the drive was spectacular. At Curio Bay we arrived at low tide to see the fossilized forest: trees turned to rock within only a matter of months back in the Jurassic Period. Most of the trees were prone, but some vertical stumps were also visible, and Glenn was amazed at the detailed preservation of features in a 60-million-year-old artifact. Curio Bay is habitat to the rarest penguin in the world, the Yellow-Eyed Penguin, so we returned there at dusk to watch the adult penguins come ashore. We had been warned that we would be lucky to see any of these creatures, so we were amazed to see more than a dozen. By sitting or standing perfectly still, we could be very near them; one approached Katy by about ten meters, and another came even nearer to Beth and Glenn. As the penguins swam ashore, they would hop out of the water and perform an elaborate grooming ritual at the water’s edge. Then they would call to their young in the bush behind us, and then take their time making their way across the beach. Each bird took more than half an hour to waddle from the water to its nest. Sitting on the boulders made our backsides ache with cold, but we stayed until it was too dark to see any longer, and I was relieved that I had attached a tiny flashlight to my camera case so that we could pick our way back over the rocks to our car.
Our lodging overnight along the Catlin Trail was, ahem, rustic. It was a farmhouse, and it had all the basic necessities—running water, lights, beds—but it was c-o-l-d. The beds had heat blankets, so we found it difficult next morning to get out of the beds and put our feet on the cold, bare floors. Besides, it had begun to rain, making us glad that we’d seen the most beautiful part of the coastline the day before. We stayed in the area long enough to drive out to a llama farm so that I could get some llama wool for spinning, and then we headed to Dunedin. What a different sort of lodging greeted us there! We stayed at a lovely Victorian-era bed and breakfast where we were warmly greeted and cared for. Walking into the B&B, we all gave a satisfied "Aaaah." The rooms were lovely, cozy, and warm, and our hostess made us a superb breakfast. She even did our laundry!
Dunedin’s downtown streets are shaped in an octagonal pattern, with concentric octagons rippling out from its center. Its most famous building is its railroad station, but sadly, only one scenic railway uses the station: one departure per day. Dunedin is also home to the Cadbury chocolate factory, and it happened that we were there during the annual chocolate festival. There were all sorts of activities throughout week, but we were content with a tour of the factory, especially as our guide handed out samples quite liberally and we all had our fill. During the tour, we watched in amazement as a full ton of liquid chocolate plummeted down the inside of the silo. The children were also allowed to dip their fingers into a vat of chocolate (eew!) that was being carted down the hallway. Well, at least they weren't allowed to double-dip. The chocolate festival culminates with the Jaffa race on Friday, so we stuck around town long enough to witness 50,000 Jaffa candies being rolled down Baldwin Street, supposedly the steepest street in the world. Before the race, tickets with unique numbers are sold to benefit local charities, and the candies are individually numbered. The first five candies to enter the chute are the winners, with prizes awarded to the holders of those tickets. This year there were two races; first with red candies and then with purple. We had tickets for the purple race, so we had to wait and watch as the street sweepers cleaned up all the red candies that hadn’t made it so that the purple race could begin. I felt a little silly, but there I was yelling, “Go, 957930!” at a swarm of tiny purple dots in the distance. Alas, the $1000 in groceries and $1000 in petrol went to someone else, and we left Dunedin defeated.
As we made our way back to Queenstown, we detoured a bit to see the Moeraki Boulders, which we had missed seeing when we were near there last December. The boulders look like huge marbles strewn along the coastline, with some as large as ten feet in diameter. Then it was on toward Queenstown via Wanaka so that we could visit Puzzling World, an attraction with a maze, gravity-defying rooms, and lots of puzzles and brain-teasers. Between Wanaka and Queenstown we briefly spotted the Kawarau Bridge, home of New Zealand bungee jumping. We resisted the urge to stop. We did, however, take the gondola to the top of the mountains above Queenstown for a lovely dinner at the Skyline Restaurant. Looking over the city and mountains just at sunset, it was a beautiful final evening on the South Island.
Having booked the final flight of the day out of Queenstown, we had plenty of time to return our rental car and check in our baggage; the girls did that day’s math lesson (Glenn and I require them to do half a Saxon Math lesson every day, even on vacation), and we had a snack. But when our airplane arrived from its previous flight, the staff were in a rush to get us on the plane so that the plane could depart as quickly as possible. Asking whether bad weather was expected, Glenn was told that by regulation, the plane had to leave by 5:42 p.m. to avoid flying over the mountains at dusk. We made it; we took off at 5:36. Whew!
