We travelled to New Zealand this week with our initial stops in Picton and Napier as outlined in last post. Due to weather conditions, our trip to Wellington was cancelled but was rescheduled with Dunedin and cruise through Milford Sound being cancelled. From Napier we travelled down the east coast to Christchurch and then north to Wellington. The ship captain made several announcements about the change in schedule due to the stormy weather forecast and mentioned that we expected >10m swells for our trip toward Sydney. So, translation to American is 10m swells means greater than 30 feet, so the boat was rocking a little bit. This provided a slow rocking motion for a good night sleep.
In Christchurch, we took a train “Mountaineer” powered by a retro red and white 1950’s classic Diesel Locomotive and vintage cars. We travelled from Christchurch over the Canterbury Plains and then through untouched mountain landscapes across turquoise blue rivers, gorges and bridges to Arthur’s Pass. As we left Christchurch it was a chilly 55 F with a breeze. The day before it snowed in Arthur’s Pass, luckily for us, the temp stayed in the mid 50’s. The scenery was beautiful as we travelled the plains which reminiscence of Tolkien’s description of the Rohan’s plains to the Ered Nimrais. Arthur’s Pass is one of the highest settlements in NZ near Mount Murchison (2400m) and is the midway point in the southern alps between Christchurch and Greymouth on the west coast of the South Island.
Giddy had recently passed his engineer’s test and had opportunity to climb onboard and check out the diesel locomotive. He oversaw the turning of the locomotive on the manual turntable so we could head back down to Christchurch.
In Wellington, we walked through the town to the Incline cable car. This is an easy walk from the shuttle drop point and provides a great view of the city. The Wellington Botanical Gardens located at the top of the cable car route provides an alternative path back to the city. This is a beautiful stroll among the trees and plants. The trees in gardens were planted in 1850’s and are majestic in height and size. The Rose Garden and begonia house were beautiful.
Our path from the botanical gardens took us through the Bowen Cemetery which is an oldest cemetery in Wellington that had a great view of the harbor prior to the building of skyscrapers. The cemetery included many old families from the 1840’s to 1900’s The cemetery is bisected by a large motorway with buildings within 3ft of the cemetery. This saved the cemetery but looked odd with pillars within the cemetery supporting the motorway and walkway bridge. Our city landmark for the shuttle buses was a building called the “Beehive” which is a NZ government building which we could see in a distance. We had lunch in Wellington at Bailey’s Pub of cheeseburgers and beers which was excellent.
More to come