Nov 11-18, 2002
3rd tale

Here you can get all four seasons in just a few days, they say . . . and as I will come to . . .

We flew down to the South Island on the 11th into Christcurch, which was dripping wet. No worries (I’m getting to really like this expression — it makes everything seem so easy and accomplishable). But I just knew it was going to be great weather for us the rest of the way. I have a thing with weather. We stayed overnight with a friend, an older lady who’s done the Milford Track (a 5 day hike through some of the most beautiful parts of the mountainous South Island, and a very rough go). She’s a bright and cheerful person who gave us a thoughtful and wonderful dinner. After a breakfast of fresh-laid eggs from her chickens in the backyard, we took off southward, toward the Queenstown region.

The land was flat and green, pastured with many sheep and some cattle. The sun was out, highlighting the poplar trees and the glacier-colored water from the Rackai Gorge as we passed through. We took a side tour up Mt. Hutt, a ski resort, but the unpaved road — they call it a shingle road here — nearly jarred the teeth out of my head. It seemed our little Corolla wasn’t liking it much either, but we got up to some snow. It was so very white! I’ve been in plenty of snow, but it never seemed as purely white and clean as this. It tasted good too!

Back on the main road (a two lane highway here is a main road, but very well kept they are here) we wound through hills and valleys more mountainous than the North Island; higher, cooler and more remote in feeling. Then around mountain lakes of stunning blues; pale and deep turquoises and aquas fed from the high snow-covered mountains above, casting their reflections in the wind-blown waters. Lake Tekapo, Lake Pukaki were their names. At the far end of Lake Pukaki we could see Mt. Cook rising hard and high through the clouds trailing in the sky; the highest mountain In New Zealand. How pure and remote its far presence.

Over the high plains we drove, called “tundra” here, barren and grazed only by the sheep that are hardy enough to live here, and then down, and down, though the Lindis Pass. This is a mountainous region of tufted grasses covering the hills in a golden sheen made even more golden and silky in the bright cold sun. A small river ran next to us growing larger as we came down into Cromwell. There are many vineyards here, new plantings rising up all over, as the New Zealand wines gain more and more renown. (Later I had an ice wine from the Nelson region, in the north of this island, which was one of the most delicious and inspiring I’ve ever had.)

Finally we came to Clyde, where our Bed and Breakfast awaited us. It’s funny and a bit magical how I found this place. Last Summer I was doing a search online for photos of tables for a drawing I had to do and found a beautiful photo that had me going to the actual website just to check it out. It turned out to be Oliver’s of Clyde, a unique old mining clutch of shops and Victorian house that had been connected together into fascinating old rooms and nooks. Enchanting! Stone walls and polished wooden floors, courtyards bursting with blooming things. Just my kind of place. I found out it was right here in New Zealand and right in the area we wanted to stay! And so we booked it before flying out here. It was even better than the photos, with an internationally trained cook whose food was second to none I’ve ever had. We stayed in the “Soap Room”, a delightful room of stone and angled Victorian and French windows opening on to a small courtyard filled with sunlit flowers and all manner of green things. We were welcomed to explore any corner of the place we liked, and I did, my camera with me.

Next day we drove up another shingle road, miles and miles with no one around, to a high place where outcroppings of twisted, thrusting rocks seemed to have been spat out of the earth like a bad taste in its mouth, ending up scattered all over. Poolburn Damn was its name and scenes from The Lord of the Rings had been filmed here. I could see why — it was alien and ancient. A lonely, haunting place with only a few empty shacks around the deep, dammed waters. We drove back, butting wandering sheep out of our way, up to Queenstown. We wound through a gorge of roaring water which at one point is crossed by one of the main Bungee jump bridges thrown up across this river, but we didn’t stop. We were going through some of the prettiest country I have ever seen. Poplar trees in stands and rows sheltering farm houses and crops from the winds, green pastures, oaks and willows, flowering shrubs scenting the air, and always the scent of wild jasmine and honeysuckle seducing your senses. When we descended to Lake Hayes I thought I have never seen such a beautiful sight. This had to be out of a dream I didn’t dare to believe. Well, it more than real.

Queenstown, which we were now passing through, was very commercial, packed with tourists. Even though the mountains high above Lake Wakatipu were beautiful in their rough starkness, and the lake clear and deep, we spent no more than 10 minutes there. Not my scene. We drove on to Glenorchy, a more remote area where the Lake bent around to meet it. It took 40 years for the people here to build the road we were driving. Up and down and around cliffs and vales, with always the deep Lake Wakatipu inviting you to come test its chilly blue depths. The day was brilliantly clear and calm. The crystalline mountains, rose straight up out of the lake, their towering white summits reflected the in the still waters beneath. God, they were awesome. Lofty and endless, marching off into the distance like sentinels guarding the last remnants of a country unwilling to be discovered.

The day after, we drove up and up, until we reached the Cardrona Valley, on a hairpin, twisting road that went higher and higher until we could see all of the valleys below us glowing green and blue and gold in the sun. The Cardrona Valley was another adventure into the wonder of a fantasyland of living beauty. Poplar trees, flowering trees of snowy white and pink and purple. High grasses and stone houses, sheep and deer munching lazily among the vibrant growth. We found the Cardrona Hotel along this road: from the outside it looks like an old abandoned western hotel front. But inside it was all warm, polished wood, tables and paraphernalia of the last hundred years garnishing its walls. The Cappuccino was good too. I do like a truly good Cappuccino.

On again to Lake Wanaka and Lake Hawea, each glistening gem more stunning than the last. I can hardly do justice to the color of the water. I have never seen anything like these intense blues and greens, just unbelievable in their clarity and purity. You can drink from any of them, from any stream here and never worry about it, not like in the states, where any such action is bound to get you sick, even in the high Rockies, now. The New Zealand water is the best I have ever tasted. From there we went down to Lake Benmore, and that also was an incredibly beautiful lake, surrounded by poplars, willows, yellow blooming gorse, and flowering plants of all kinds making the air a delicious treat. We passed through Waimate, and Timaru, now back in the more populated areas, and back up to Christchurch for the night.

In the morning we took off up the coastal road to the top of the South Island. The Kaikoura coast shows the Pacific in blue-green hues washing a shore that rises in subtropical bush-covered hills, windblown and wonderful. I find I like breathing here. I can never get a full clean breath of air in LA, and here I feel so free to breath deeply, to run and be myself in this open, unconfining country. I didn’t care much for Blenheim — too dry — too much like Southern California which I don’t care for, but further on we were suddenly winding up high hills and through deep gorges of plunging green and shimmering silver beeches, all the way up to Picton where we were to drop off the car and get the ferry across to the North island. We were pretty tired by then and glad to sit back on the ferry and watch the sun set on the myriad islands and inlets we passed through on the way to Wellington, back on the North Island. I will never forget that sunset. It was as if the island was on fire as it sank into the distance, as if it didn’t want me to leave, showing me one dazzling moment after another, each more beautiful and heart-rending than the next.

We stayed a wet night at “Gran’s”. Wellington is the wettest city I have ever been in. It seldom ever does NOT rain here, apparently. It is all hills and bay, a beautiful region, but too much city for me. After breakfast we were off northward-bound to lake Taupo. It rained on and off the whole way, but it was wondrous country to drive through, We went off on a side road around the Taihape region to hunt for another Bungee jump area and went through some of the most magical green fantasyland I have seen yet. Green mounds rising up like pointed hats, every few hundred yards populating hills and dips, grazed by sheep that appear to see nothing at all outlandish in their misty, mythical landscape. The gorge where the bungee jump was located was shockingly deep, with a river of misty blue-green rushing through it, rising as the rains continued to wash into it. The jump was closed as the river was expected to flood. So off we went.

Rising up into a high plain they call a desert here, we didn’t know if we were going to make it through, as the road had been threatened to be closed down. Due to a snowstorm. Yes, a snow storm, right at the beginning of summer, here. We were just able to get through it, before they closed it down, but it began to snow, harder and harder, until we were in a whiteout, able to see nothing but white and the road in front of us. The snow was pelting us sideways, driven by a harsh wind. I was thrilled. I got out in it just to make certain that it was real, to feel the snow catch at me and settle on my clothes! It didn’t last long, though. Soon were out of the high area and down through hills winding toward Lake Taupo, the biggest lake in New Zealand. It was too rain-swept to see much of it, except that it was long and large and begged to be explored. But we had fun clambering out of the car to gather the natural pumice stones that get washed onshore.

As the sun set in a misty haze, we traveled toward Auckland again, through more beauty-filled hills and flats until all I was left with was a mixture of wonder and awe. I didn’t want to go back home. And I was getting a distinct and visceral impression that this land did not want me to go. I understand it, and it seems to know and want this. I awoke my last day in Auckland to a high and brilliant rainbow right outside my window. The end of the rainbow rested in the trees before me. The tears of a passing storm were sparkling in the air. The sun broke through the towering thunderheads in rays of bright hope. A miraculous adieu. There is nowhere I have been that has touched me more, has been more conducive to my soul; so freeing in the ways of its peoples and welcoming environment. Will I go back? How could I not?

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