Our first day in NZ was…interesting to say the least. We woke up really early to get to the airport for our 7:45 flight, went through immigration to get OUT of the country (seems a little strange), and flew to Christchurch. Our flight was about 30 minutes late, but customs was surprisingly easy and we got the rental car place promptly to wait for almost 50 minutes before our car was finally ready, even though I pre-checked in online a few days earlier, so we got off a little later than expected.
Having a day of driving under my belt from a couple weeks ago really helped- I got into the groove pretty quickly, by days’ end I didn’t have to think a whole lot about it. We went towards the city center for a bit to try and find a place to grab a bite to eat and for Nicole to look at a jacket, but since Christchurch really isn’t all that big, despite being the center hub of the South Island, we were downtown before we knew it. We stopped at a deli and had some sandwiches, coffee, and a nice conversation with they guys working there. The map we had wasn’t very detailed, so the directions that they gave us to head out towards the highway we needed to be on didn’t end up working so well. Despite being small, Christchurch is not easy to navigate behind the wheel.
After we finally got on the right track, we stopped at a big Costco-like grocery store to load up on snacks for the road for the week, and were shocked at how cheap food was, especially compared to Australia. It was comparable or maybe even a little less than what we’d pay in the states.
Then we headed out on the “highway” towards the West Coast. It’s a 2 lane road, and all of the bridges are one lane, with signs letting you know who has the right of way. Guess they couldn’t be bothered to make the bridges 10 feet wider. Everything here is very pastoral. The drive over Arthur’s Pass and the Otira Gorge was spectacular while the sun was still out (about halfway there it got dark), and intense once it got dark. At first it was like driving through Ireland, then it was like driving through the Alps (the Southern Alps, actually), or the Rockies back home. I got pretty good at judging how sharp the turns would be by the signs suggesting how fast to take them (just like exit ramps at home, etc.), but it was still a very concentrated drive for me, especially when we got a little bit of snow flurries. By the way it was 95 in Brisbane the day before we left.
We finally made it to Hokitika at about 9:45, and stopped to see the glow-worm dell just before town- a little disappointing but still pretty neat. That’s when the real fun began. Hoki is a pretty small town, and by the time we checked in at about 10, everything was closed, except for this bar we found. But it turns out it was changing hands the next day and the owners were having their last hurrah party. A very outgoing old man named Peter quickly befriended us, bought us each a drink and got the owner to cook us up some food- but since it was changing hands they didn’t have any food on hand except for some fries and bread and butter. But we were really glad to get about a pound of hot fries and some bread to eat rather than the snacks we had in the car. It was a great old time with country music blaring and mingling with the locals- it was a pretty small bar and these people obviously all knew each other. But they continued the trend of Kiwi hospitality that we’ve been met with everywhere (except the rental car place) so far- and absolutely loved the fact that Leslie and Nicole were from Texas. They made us sing the Star Spangled Banner on the karaoke microphones before we left. It was truly an experience despite the difficulties earlier in the day, or in a way because of them.
No comments:
Post a Comment