North by Northeast

Paua House at Canterbury Museum

Interior of Cardboard Cathedral in Christchurch

A Lazy Seal

Kaikoura Coastline

Maori Carvings on an Axe

On the Way to Masterton

Sculpture by Paul Dibble at Palmerston North Museum

View from Te Mata Peak

Blue Penguin

(Not a Real) Kiwi but Look at the Size of the Egg!

Art Deco Architecture in Napier

Our tour of the South Island has come to an end!

We left Christchurch after visiting the Canterbury Museum, the Cardboard Cathedral (yes, it’s really made from cardboard), relaxing, eating excellent food and surviving a so-so haircut (still not really happy with it), and drove to Kaikoura. While the area is known for their dolphin, whale and seal populations, we were only fortunate enough to have some more close encounters with seals. So far, we’ve been out of luck for spying any yellow-eyed penguins. Perhaps our luck will improve in Australia.

On the way to Kaikoura, we drove along the coast through mile-upon-mile of road repairs due to an earthquake that occurred about 18 months ago. The damage was jaw-dropping! I’ve never seen so much destruction along such a huge swath of coastland. In some spots, there were shipping containers stacked near a rock face, perhaps to hold back the worst of any future landslides—or to fill with rocks. My hat’s off to the engineers and road crews who are working so hard to put things in order before winter sets in.

After spending one night in Blenheim, we drove to Picton to board the ferry back to Wellington on the North Island. While the water was a little choppier than the last voyage, it was basically an uneventful trip, so I spent most of it chatting with this young woman who has been in New Zealand on a temporary work visa. The younger generations of today’s world are not intimidated by travel, and I find it pretty impressive how easily they settle in to a new place, even when the country’s language is different from their own. I’ve also met couples whose religious and cultural backgrounds are so different, that I can’t even imagine how they ever met. It’s a beautiful sight to see the human diversity that is expanding across the globe. I hate to break it to the people who disapprove of this sort of “mingling,” but it’s too late to stop it or change it back, I am thrilled to report.

After a one-night stop in Masterton, we drove to Palmerston North, which is a nice town with a bunch of good restaurants and an art/science/history museum. On our way, we had to take a detour due to recent storm activity. Mother Nature sure means business when she creates storms in New Zealand!

The morning of our departure from Palmerston North to Napier, it started to rain (again), and we drove down the road while Peruvian flute music from Herman’s iPod kept the beat with the rain on the windshield. It was so miserable that we decided to bypass the Pukaha Mount Bruce National Wildlife Centre, since the white kiwi that was usually in residence was no longer there. Sigh!

Suddenly, after crossing over a winding, hilly road, the rain stopped, as if on cue. Finally, some sun with which to view the countryside, so we drove to the top of Te Mata Peak with its 360-degree outlook over the surrounding hills and the distant ocean. We then drove to Cape Kidnappers, where there is a colony of Gannets…except they’ve already flown away for the winter to…Australia!!

For the last three nights, we’ve been in Napier, a beach town filled with Art Deco architecture that bears some resemblance to Miami, Florida. We also toured the aquarium, where finally we were able to get up close and personal with blue penguins and, oddly enough (for an aquarium), a pair of young kiwis. It was a real treat to see them walking around and poking their long beaks into tree limbs to dislodge small bugs. Even though I’ve seen plenty of photos of these birds and knew that they didn’t have wings (for balance), it was still a bit mesmerizing to watch them run around their glass enclosure so easily. Unfortunately, we couldn’t take any photos of the pair because kiwis are nocturnal, thus the lighting was very dim.

Tomorrow, we head for Gisborne and another trilogy of one-night hotel stays. I will probably report back once we reach Coromandel, provided the Internet access is fairly decent. It’s hard to believe that in a little less than three weeks, we will be leaving New Zealand and heading for new adventures in Australia! For now, ta-ta!