The adventures continue

December 30th, 2002 at 12:00am

Many good and interesting things have happened in the last 5 days since Christmas.

I woke up on the morning of the 26th (Boxing Day in OZ/NZ) to rain (of course), sleet and SNOW in Arthur’s Pass! Mind you, it’s the middle of summer here in New Zealand. Didn’t know what I was going to do since I didn’t want to go hiking in that weather but at the same time I knew it would be hard to get a hitch. So I layed on the couch of the hostel in my sleeping bag and proclaimed to no one in particular that I was going to sit on the couch all day and ask people coming in and out if they were headed to Christchurch and that was going to be the extent of my hitch-hiking. Just as I said it a guy in the kitchen said hey I’m going to Christchurch if you want a lift. Brilliant! That was just about the easiest hitch I’ve gotten yet. So I was able to get away from the bad weather of the west coast and head to sunny Cantebury for a few days of R&R.

The guy who gave me a lift’s name was Roger from North Carolina. He’s in his 50′s and this is his 5th time to New Zealand and he’s got a car which he keeps in Auckland when he’s back in America. He also gave a lift to another guy, Austin, also from NC, who’s doing a year abroad in OZ and came over to NZ for summer holiday. The 3 of us drove through the mountains towards Christchurch and the ride was so beautiful, with all the fresh snow on all the surrounding peaks and so many flowers blooming in the valley. We had a great time making the 150 km journey, stopping several times along the way to go for short walks, take photos, and admire the scenery.

In Christchurch we dropped off Austin at the bus depot (he was heading to Kaikora) and then Roger asked me where I wanted to go. I was hoping to stay with some friends of my parents but I hadn’t been able to get in touch with them in the short time in which I’d decided to come to Christchurch (since that morning basically). Roger offered to let me stop by where he was staying and have a coffee while waiting to try to contact them again. I said sure so we went to this place, which, for lack of better words, I’d have to describe as a commune. It’s an old historic building in Christchurch which is owned by some type of trust and is being renovated by 10 or so people who live in it. Roger has stayed there before, and the money he pays to stay there ($10/night NZ) goes towards the renovation of the house. It’s a beautiful brick building with hardwood floors and high ceilings and used to be the main house of a 150-acre farm in downtown Christchurch. Really cool place. Mostly all the people who live there are artists or sculptors or film makers and they were all so nice and friendly to me when I arrived with Roger.

We tried to call my father’s friend a few times but when I couldn’t get in touch the housemates offered to let me stay there for the night. Which I did. We all watched a movie together in the evening (Amelie) and then I crashed, exhausted from a long day.

The next day Roger asked me if I wanted to go for a bike ride and I said why not so he took his bike and I borrowed one of the bikes from the house and we drove over to the Port Hills and did a 3-hour ride, starting in Governor’s Bay then going around the peninsula and up up up the 1000 m (3000 feet) high summit road to the top of the hills. It was a grueling uphill and I only managed to do about half of it on the bike then walked the rest of the way, but the effort was well worth it because the views from the top were great. From the summit we cycled down to Cashmere, one of the suburbs of Christchurch, where my parent’s friends live and we were able to stop in for a visit. There I met Gloria and Garth and we had a really nice visit with them and I was finally able to pick up some things that the folks sent from home. Turns out Roger and Garth had a lot in common since Roger has been a professional landscaper for 30 years and knows everything about plants (even the NZ ones), and Garth is a real enthusiast as well, having spent the last 30 years rehabilitating his 10 acres of land with all native growing NZ plants and trees. We walked around the property for a tour (compulsory with any visit of his home Garth says) and Roger actually knew more about many species than Garth did! So they enjoyed comparing stories and ideas on the plantings and such.

I wound up staying another night at the commune since the house mates were kind enough to offer again and Roger and I went out that evening to a small gathering of friends of one of the housemates, Dave. Dave’s a librarian at one of the Christchurch libraries and so it was basically a librarian party of work mates. They were all really nice and friendly people and I enjoyed spending the evening with them. The woman whose house it was is a mosaic tile artist and she had 3 big walls outside her house done in mosaic and many more small pieces inside. The stuff was beautiful.

Next day I decided to leave Christchurch to get back into nature and more tramping. I wasn’t exactly sure where I wanted to go because I was still unsure where to spend New Years so I decided to just head south and picked Mt. Cook Village as a destination. I spent the morning running around town doing errands and then said goodbye to the commune folks and got on a bus heading south to get a better spot for hitching. The bus driver was really friendly actually and gave me a tour of the city as we drove out of town. About 25 km out of Christchurch I got off the bus, found a good spot on the road, and stuck out my thumb with my sign to Mt. Cook.

I waited about 5 minutes then started to worry a bit because it was late in the day (4pm) and I was hoping to get a fair distance still. Then a car stopped. It was a single woman, Sharlene, and she said she was heading to Queenstown but would gladly drop me off on the way. So I got in and said well if you don’t mind I’ll take a ride all the way to Queenstown and she said well it’s up to you and yeah, I just decided to go for it! What luck! So just like that and I got a 5.5-hour ride all the way to Queenstown! And I knew I had done the right thing because Sharlene seemed really cool as soon as I got in the car and we wound up having a great time talking with each other the entire way. She’s 34 years old and has been living in Queenstown for 10 years but has also travelled on her own for 5 years and has done a fair bit of hitching on her own as well so we had a lot in common right from the start.

The time in the car seemed to fly by and before I knew it, it was 9:30pm at night and we were in Queenstown! Man I was excited to be there and the scenery was so unbelievable with the lake and the surrounding mountains and the sun just starting to set.

Sharlene helped me find a campground to pitch my tent for the night and invited me to meet her and her friends for breakfast in the morning. She said she would have offered me to stay the night at her place but she was off to her boyfriend’s house for the night and I was already so grateful for the ride that it was more than fine for me to camp. But she invited me to stay with her the following night.

So the next day (yesterday) I packed up my tent at the campsite and walked down to the cafe to meet Sharlene and friends. There was a full table of 10 people in the restaurant when I arrived! They were all NZers, really nice and friendly, and I had no problem feeling welcomed and comfortable to chat with them all.

After breakfast Sharlene took me up to her house where I dropped off my backpack. In the afternoon I went on a hike with one of the women at breakfast, Sally, and her friends from Auckland, Ellen and Graham. It was so nice of them to invite me along for the day. And the weather was perfect for a hike.

We went up to the Ben Lomond Saddle, a straight up climb from Queenstown into the hills, first through a pine forest, and then up into the hot sun and grass of the mounatins. The view from the saddle was incredible – with Queenstown below and the lake and the mountains and the paragliders in the air – wow. I was so enjoying the view and the fine weather that I just wanted to sit and take it all in so I did just that, and waited for over 1.5 hours while Ellen and Graham went up to the summit of Ben Lomond and back. I sat at the saddle with Sally and we talked about Queenstown and travelling while enjoying the views. Once Ellen and Graham came down the 4 of us headed over the saddle to the other side and down around the valley all the way to Arthur’s Point. From the saddle it took about 3.5 hours and the whole time we were in the hot sun and it was tiring for us all. The sun is setting late in Queenstown (10pm) and it’s amazing how it can still be hot at 8pm at night.

Finally we saw the town at the end and came down from the mountain to the road, straightaway to Arthur’s Point Pub! A cold beer never tasted so good! We sat around over a few beers and enjoyed some chips and my American pretzels sent from home. So far my intro to Queenstown has exceeded all my expectations. And it’s only just the beginning!

On the road from Arthurs Pass to Christchurch

Cave Creek

Cycling up to the Port Hills

Entry Filed under: Hiking/Trekking,New Zealand,Queenstown