Living Like a Small Green Hairy Fruit

A Nice Day Out

Sunday 19 August 2007

Woke up to glorious sunshine, which was good, as we had a whole day out planned. Woke at at 8.30am, the time I'd wanted to leave for our whole day out, which wasn't so good.  But then no-one else was up either and I was too tired last night to make the picnic up so I still had that to do.

Mark didn't get up till about 10am and I still had of housework to do, like making sure all the school clothes and work clothes were washed and dried or drying ready for tomorrow as I wasn't sure what time we'd get back.  We finally left the house at around 11.30am.

We headed north on SH1 and passed the turnings for Kaikoura and Hanmer Springs (good to know where they are as I plan to meet Sarah from Blenheim for lunch one day at Kaikoura - even though its about a 2 hour drive!).  It really was just the most beautiful day and the scenery was awesome. We travelled west on Lewis Pass surrounded by hills and snow capped mountains.    I was amazed that even stream and creek had a name all clearly signed posted, presumably so that if you fell off the edge of the road due to the lack of barriers and long drops you could tell the emergencies services your location by the name of the stream you'd just careered past.

Driving up through the mountains, temperature dropped dramatically, sleety rain, but stunning views. NOTE: the white and red safety sticks.  See? No need for miles and miles of expensive safety barrier. Really simple, this side of stick, you are safe and on the road. Go the other side of the stick and you are not safe and not on the road. Not a lesson you'll be learning twice.

Even the kids occasionally glanced up from their Gameboys to look at the views, muttered 'yeah, awesome' before continue to do battle with daft named Pokemon.

I don't know the name of the river winding through the valley below but it was the most vivid aqua and turqoise water and looked so clean and fresh.  After a discussion about exactly what colour aqua and turqoise were we stopped at a thermal spring/spa hotel. Can't remember the name but needed the toilet so dragged the kids in too - always a useful tool to have a desperate, just-about-to-wet-myself-looking child in tow when its actually me that needs to use the facilities and both children are well rehearsed in covering for me.

We stopped at a picnic area just on from there to eat lunch.  Andrew wasn't feeling well - he never is when its something we want to do! But I guess he was worn out as Friday he'd been skiing all day, Friday night he stayed over a mates house, Saturday morning he had a footie match followed straight after by another mates birthday party of paintballing at Urban Paintball.

The picnic area was at the top of a gorge so we were looking down at the river.  It was very fresh up in the mountains; the temperature had dropped from 12 deg to 6 deg but it was still pleasant.  We insisted Andrew got out of the car as the fresh air would do him some good.  Andrew got back in the car insisting it wouldn't! Like the Sabre Tooth tiger in the Flintstones, he was deposited back outside where he sat on a tree stump shivering (or pretending to) eating his roll and occasionally waving his drink bottle at us in a kind of pleading way with his miserable face on.  Which had no effect.  However, he did actually feel better for having something to eat and the fresh air and we continued our drive climbing up through Lewis Pass.

The plan was to go to Westport, then drive down the West Coast to Greymouth and head back along Arthur's Pass.  But we came through a tiny village and hit a junction giving us the choice of Westport or Greymouth and as it was such a long drive I opted to just head for Greymouth.  There'd be just miles and miles of open countryside and mountains with nothing then you'd drive through a small community of about 4 - 10 homes.  We wondered how the people who lived there did their shopping as it really was miles from anywhere.  And where would you go if you got home from work and realised you'd forgotten to pick up a carton of milk on the way home. That kind of thing.  I like rural, but they were bordering on hermit.

Greymouth was a big disappointment. A bit like Bognor Regis, no offence, but a bit run down and although sheds for houses, much the same looking as any other tired looking, seen better days, UK seaside town.  We drove down to the Tasman Sea anyway, made the kids get out of the car so we could say 'there you go, the Tasman Sea, now you can say you've seen it, been there, walked on its shore', put them back in the car and left.  Driving out of Greymouth was nicer. Not because we were leaving, I mean the area, the look of the houses and that we were heading towards rain forest.

The Tasman Sea, looking back towards Greymouth. Apt name.

Other than exploring this part of NZ and enjoying the breathtaking views there was another reason for us heading west.  We love tree ferns and we'd been told by many locals that you can just go out west and dig a few up.  Tree ferns don't naturally grow over here on the East Coast and there may be a very good reason for that, not as wet, no rain forest, the occasional chill Easterly wind.  Or there might possibly be a sound ecological reason why such plants shouldn't be transplanted from one coast to another. But I figured we really needed to help the plight of these prehistoric species that are mercilessly ploughed into the ground or burnt as the loggers clear the way to get to the good, money making wood. Our plan is to build a colony here so that they can continue to thrive in NZ.   Erm, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

Although we'd been told it was ok to do, we weren't sure.  The first few we got were covertly smuggled into the boot of the car.  Mark then stopped at every available picnic area on our way up to Arthur's Pass and by about the 3rd or 4th stop, he'd lost all sense of possible wrong doing and tree ferns were flying out of the forest into the car park.  

You couldn't actually walk too far into the rain forest it was so dense and jungle like and you could easily get quickly lost in there.  What we didn't know until the next day was that there are quite a lot of traps set around there as it is common for cannibis to be grown in the depths of the forest.  Also, we saw possum bait on some of the trees but no traps and no possums.  Apparently the possums do untold damage by eating out the tops of the trees which kills the trees and they do aerial drops of poison as well in an attempt to reduce the possum population.

By the time we were heading home it was getting dark.  Arthur's Pass was just as beautiful as Lewis Pass but there appeared to be major problems with landslips.  Again, not too many barriers to stop you veering off down the sheer drops.  At one point you drive under a rock canopy where the road is actually carved out of the mountain face.  They've also put in a metal shute to allow the waterfall to continue over the road and down the cliff the other side. It was amazing to drive through but I couldn't get a photo of it due to the poor light.

Note: red and white safety stick and my proximity to it. I was not safe taking this photo - see what lengths I'll go to just to get a pic for you guys?!

It seemed to take forever driving back.  Again, a few little villages that looked like goldmining towns (probably were once as there is gold in them there rivers - or at least was at one stage).  Eventually we got to Springfield where they have a giant donut in honour of their namesake and The Simpsons.  Then onto Sheffield where we turned off onto the 73 through Oxford, Cust and home to Rangiora.

It was just a lovely, relaxing day and one of those times when you realise just how much wonderous nature we used to miss out on back in the UK.