Previous

Inge in Aotearoa

Though Tom's sister, Inge, has joined us in various exotic spots around the world she had yet to visit us in our new home in Aotearoa. With thousands of free air-miles and a couple of weeks clear in her busy calendar, she grabbed a flight to New Zealand. Having made one trip to the South Island already that summer (2010), we decided that we would try to visit with Inge as many places as possible that we had not yet visited ourselves, so that the experiences would be fresh for all of us. In keeping with this resolution, we also visited the splendid Auckland Museum, which we had so far missed. Its whole ground floor is dedicated to Maori life, history and culture and so makes an excellent introduction to NZ for any visitor.

With hardly a pause for breath we then flew to Christchurch, hired a car and set off for Wanaka via Lake Tekapo and Lake Pukaki, across which we had a wonderful view of Mount Cook in late afternoon sun with clouds rolling down the face of the ridge. As Inge discovered, one of the wonderful things about travelling in NZ is the availability of cheap but pleasant accommodation in 'backpackers'. Fortunately for Inge's introduction to them, we stayed in particularly pleasant example in Wanaka Bakpakas, with a beautiful view across the Lake from the common room. In her role as tour organiser, Vicky filled our days with hikes in the hills and bike rides along the River Clutha.

After two days of strenuous activity in Wanaka we spent a long day in the car to get right north to the Kaikoura Coast. This area is famous for its beautiful scenery, with the snow-topped mountains plunging almost straight into the sea. However, it is also notable for the many whales and dolphins which gather off the coast in summer. Both Inge and Vicky were keen to swim with dolphins – despite the very chilly water. This turned out to be the high-light of our South Island tour. Both the weather and the dolphins cooperated. The expedition was wonderfully well organised, by 'Dolphin Encounters', from the fitting out with wet-suits to the meeting with a huge pod of dusky dolphins, one of the smaller species. Though the water was cold, it was beautifully clear and the dolphins were in a playful mood, leaping and breaching exuberantly. Though both emerged from the water goose pimpled and somewhat blue around the lips, Inge and Vicky were as delighted and enthusiastic about their experience as the dolphins appeared to be.

We moved on the same afternoon to Blenheim, at the head of the Marlborough Valley, New Zealand's major vineyard area. Though Tom was feeling somewhat under the weather, Vicky and Inge set off to celebrate their swimming experience with a short tour of a couple of vineyards, just to get the feel – and a taste – of the Marlborough Valley. Fortunately the evening light was perfect to give a view of the misty hills which bound the Valley and appear on the labels of so many of the bottles of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc.

While Tom continued a gentle recovery and acted as chauffeur, Inge and Vicky continued their activities the next day in Marlborough Sounds. They first caught a water taxi through the sounds to reach one of the stages of the Queen Charlotte Track, then hiked their way back along that stretch to reach their starting point. Once again the weather cooperated with the area's usual sun and clouds. We rounded off the day by continuing on to Nelson, where we had the opportunity to admire 'Kakadu', Graham and Anne Evans new boat. Anne also kindly gave us a break from back-packer meals with a sumptuous dinner in company with our long-time Nelson friends, Peter and Jane Faulkner.

The unprecedented spell of dry weather broke on our penultimate day on the South Island. However, we decided that it was actually more appropriate that way, as we were driving down the wild West Coast, whose scenery is best appreciated when it is blowing fairly hard from the West. As a result our visit to the spectacular formations at Pancake Rocks was blessed with both rain and wind. Fortunately, the motel we reached that afternoon at Paroa near Westport was our most comfortable yet and blessed with Sky TV, which allowed Tom to catch up on his rugby watching.

We had hoped that the rain might clear for the following final day, when we were to transit Arthur's Pass – and it did, but only just. Nevertheless the mist and low cloud over the peaks either side were appropriately evocative and perhaps more typical of the area than the sunshine we had experienced ten years before when we came through with Vicky's sister, Annabel, on our way to the Milford Track. It is still amazing to think of the early surveyors finding their way through the pass. Once through, the weather cleared fully, giving us the chance to walk through the weirdly castellated formations of Castle Rocks on our way back to Christchurch and our flight to Auckland.

Having spent the majority of Inge's holiday in the South Island, we limited our North Island explorations to a day on the Coromandel Peninsula, driving the tortuous back roads in search of the few remaining huge kauri trees. We did manage to get Inge out for a sail on 'Sunstone' and she gamely endured helming through a rainy squall.

Though it is PC to have no enthusiasm for zoos these days, we decided to visit Auckland's and were pleasantly surprised. Though it is still a very limited and artificial environment for the animals, the enclosures were as pleasant and natural as they could be given the scale of the zoo. Every attempt had also been made to make viewing the animals child-friendly and interesting. There were some beautiful and engaging small animals, like the red panda and otters. The cheetahs were apparently tame enough that their keepers felt entirely comfortable being in their enclosure. However, the big cats were another matter. Though we had seen lions fairly close to in South Africa, we had never heard the truly tremendous roar let out by the big male and the sight of the tigers getting their teeth into enormous beef bones was only made comfortable by the very strong plate glass which separated us from them.

On Inge's final day, she and Tom acted as support crew for Vicky's assault on the bike course. She had been determined to participate in a biking event before we left on our cruise. The only available one locally was a 110 kilometre circuit starting and finishing at Clevedon to the east of Auckland. Though we had biked nearly this distance previously, it had always been a fairly gentle progress with numerous stops. This time it was definitely a race, with virtually all the participants on expensive highly geared road bikes, sporting lots of lycra, while Vicky was still pedalling away on one of our 12 year old mountain bikes. Nevertheless she put in a creditable performance, just about hitting her target of five hours. Inge's visit was all too short, but we had packed a lot into the time. With her departure we started to look much more seriously at our final preparations for our own much more sedate passage north. Though we were sad to do so we sold our car, which had given us wonderful service for nearly three years and reverted to bike transport – which suited Vicky just fine in her highly trained state!

Our plans came somewhat unstuck when Inge emailed us with unwelcome news that Tom's Mum, Erika, had been admitted to hospital to deal with her increasing levels of pain. Though the doctors dealt with the pain, Erika emerged from hospital in a very, very weak state and we were concerned enough that Tom booked a flight and headed back to New York, potentially for a longish stay. In the event, Erika proved yet again how tough she is and made a good recovery, so that Tom could return to NZ less than month after leaving. As it happened the visit to New York in summer time was also a reminiscent one for Tom as he had not been back to the City in summertime since 1970. It was something of a revelation to see how green the City can be when at its summer best.

Home

Next