Hanmer, Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve!  And hot and sunny – we played crazy golf in the morning, and I haven’t laughed so much in ages.  This is Rob, trying to get out of the water feature, on the previous hole to the one we were playing – his ball rolled Too Far Back.  “I didn’t bring my umbrella!” he wailed, when he saw where his ball had landed.

The whole course was laid out like a gold town – I’ll draw a veil over my terrible score!  I had fun, so who cares?

It’s all amazing mountain scenery around Hanmer, plus hot springs (which we haven’t bathed in: it’s quite hot enough as it is!) which are the main tourist attraction, summer and winter alike, apparently.  And at an hour and a half from Christchurch, I guess it’s close enough for a day out with the family.

Christchurch to Hanmer

Today we went into Christchurch, which was an odd mixture of sobering and optimistic.  There were a lot of cleared spaces, a bit like English towns post-blitz, and quite a few boarded-up buildings waiting for demolition.  But there were also places like the Re:start retail area, with shops in shipping containers, and public art in cleared spaces.  To me, it felt like a place where the hurt and the rebuilding were happening side by side and entangled with each other.

After Christchurch, we hit the road up to Hanmer (once we’d finally tracked down a supermarket for food stocks), and that was another amazing New Zealand drive: fabulous scenery, nearly empty roads – it did help that the sun was shining again!

  Ate out at Venuti’s, which was nice and near (due to savage bites on my feet, walking was a bit of a problem!), Italian cuisine, and featured garlic, heavily.  Then crashed out: I’ve been having real problems staying awake beyond about 10 pm.  I think it’s all the fresh air…

Coromandel to Christchurch

The road to Thames was just as James Bond as we’d remembered it, but we weren’t as tired, so it didn’t feel quite so hair-raising (or plain fun, if you like haring round bends!).  The views on the way were pretty spectacular.

Flying down to Christchurch was actually just like flying over a map, probably because we weren’t at such a high altitude.  The tip of the South Island was totally recognisable, even to a geography drop-out like me.

We stayed at Centrepoint on Colombo motel – the owner was very friendly, as was everyone we met in Christchurch: I think it’s been the friendliest place we’ve been so far, and in New Zealand, that’s quite an achievement.  Ate out at Venuti’s, which was nice and near (due to savage bites on my feet, walking was a bit of a problem!), Italian cuisine, and featured garlic, heavily.  Then crashed out: I’ve been having real problems staying awake beyond about 10 pm.  I think it’s all the fresh air…

Coromandel, December 21st 2014

Grey skies, thick cloud blanketing the hills: it’s like the Lake District, Rob lamented.  And then a small patch of blue sky appeared, and pushed and shoved at the clouds until the whole sky was blue, blue, blue – and Rob was a very happy man again.  He went off for a walk, and I stayed behind because I’ve been bitten (again!  As usual!) this time on my foot, and walking hurts (grrr!).  But there are worse things to do than sit on a veranda, looking at an amazing view and drinking tea, so it’s only a small complaint.

In the afternoon, Rob drove me to the lovely beach he’d walked to in the morning, and we sat there looking at the blue sky, blue sea and sunshine, occasionally (and rather smugly) reflecting on the fact that it would be the shortest day at home, and here was in fact the longest day.  “I can feel the light levels going up,” has been one of Rob’s frequent phrases – which makes a nice change from “It’s a natural disaster!” as the night comes down at four pm.

Today’s culture has been a visit to Coromandel Museum, featuring a lot of rock samples, some amazingly accurate scales that cost £22 back in 1880 or thereabouts, and some scary pictures showing the scale of Kauri forest logging that went on at the end of the 19^th century. And these trees take forever to grow.

Tomorrow, we’re off to Christchurch, so it’s back along the Mr-Bond-I-think-you-have-made-a-big-mistake road and then to Auckland airport and an internal flight to Christchurch – Rob keeps saying I can’t buy too many books, or we’ll be overweight on our baggage!

Coromandel, December 20th 2014

Today the sun did not shine!  But, as it wasn’t actually raining, we went off up along the 309 – another James Bond style road – to see some of the sights there.  Like a waterfall, where we discovered all sorts of fascinating optical illusions: if you watch the water going down the fall for a while and then focus on the bark of a nearby tree, then it looks like the tree is growing before your eyes.  Totally Dr Who style stuff.

Next stop along the road was a Kauri grove: massive trees that at 600 years old, still only look mature rather than ancient, unlike 600 year old oak or yew trees do.

After lunch, not only was the sun not shining, but it was beginning to mizzle with rain, which meant that going to see the stamper battery was a) a good idea, as it was all indoors and b) didn’t feel like a waste of lovely outdoor weather.  The guy who does the tour and talk is a geologist.  Which means I was expecting a sort of bearded academic enthusiast, with a touch of introversion, perhaps.

Beard: tick.

Academic: tick.

Enthusiast: tick.

Introversion: totally untick.

The guy could have given Brian Cox a run for his money in the presenter stakes, and Billy Conolly a run for his money in the stand-up comedian stakes.  Actually, he mentioned Billy Conolly more than once, so I suspect I know where some of his style came from.

Masses of geological facts, lots of jokes about the Australians and Australia (all at their expense) and quite a bit of mining on the Coromandel history – it was all very lively and entertaining.  As for the 1 hour tours – well, he had no more sense of timing than a Welsh preacher with the Spirit moving him.  Not something to go to if you’re on a tight schedule, but really interesting if you’re not clock watching.

Later on, it poured – stotting off the roof and streaming out of the gutters in a totally tropical way.

Coromandel, December 18th,19th

The general plan for today had been to go to Miranda, on the way to Coromandel, as it’s got a bird sanctuary, but the weather there had been even worse than the weather in Auckland, so we decided to go to the Art Gallery in Auckland instead, and leave later.  They had a Light Show exhibition on (fresh from London apparently).  I don’t think six fluorescent tubes against a wall is actually art, but Leo Villareal’s Cylinder II was amazing.

Then we (well, Rob) drove to Coromandel, in part along a road that would have fitted very respectably into a Bond film – the bit where they’re being chased by baddies, trying to shoot their tyres out!  Hairpin bends, drops at one side: it had the lot.  Except, thankfully, baddies trying to shoot our tyres out.

Today the sun shone!  This made Rob a lot happier.  This is the view from our room (well, it’s sort of like a little semi-detached cottage.  With very poor soundproofing.  Just like being in Headingley again). 

So after eating breakfast on the veranda (seriously civilised: it would be cold and dark in Headingley), we went out for a walk – Rob said he wasn’t driving anywhere today, Not After Yesterday, Thank You Very Much.  And then we pottered round Coromandel, which is a cute little village/town, and had a cup of tea, and read a bit, and did some more not much…Rob might be a human being again by the end of the holiday, and able to face another term of work.

Just for Fiona: I saw 2 new birds, a kingfisher and a spur-winged plover.  Well, I think that’s quite exciting (sad, I know…).

Auckland December 16th-18th

The flights actually all arrived and left on time, but it was still a looong journey!  On the plus side, I finally got to watch Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs (brilliant, and as soon as I see it on sale for £3, I’m buying it.  I don’t care if it’s an animation, Rob’ll like it); Guardians of the Galaxy, for the second time, and just as good as the first time; Mr & Mrs Smith, which was okay, and by the end of a 36 hour journey, who cares anyway, The Other Woman, which was so dreadful, I gave up on it – Cameron Diaz must have been desperate for the money and a couple of episodes of The Big Bang Theory.  That made me laugh a lot!

It was a China Southern flight, so the inflight food was…interesting…but the service was really good, and the planes and airport are all pretty new – Guangzhou, in this case.  But you can’t get a decent cup of tea there!

We got to the hotel at about 8 am, on some unspecified day in December (could have been January, for all I knew.  It felt like all I’d done for the whole of my life was travel) and found to our delight that we could go straight to our rooms.  So we booked in for  (an enormous) breakfast, unpacked slightly and fell asleep.  The plan was to sleep until about 1-ish and then get up and go out – the actuality was sleeping until about 5-ish, then getting up slowly and going out in search of food.  Which we found at Degree, in the harbour area: Duo of Lamb, which was big enough for the two of us, plus interesting vegetables and a shared pudding with the most amazing blood-orange sorbet.  It had me thinking, I must try out some new recipes; a resolution that normally holds until I go into the kitchen and realise that trying out new recipes mean cooking something unfamiliar, and I’m not that mad on doing that.

It was raining!  “Where’s my sunshine?” Rob kept demanding – so we went to the museum and saw the World of Wearable Art exhibition, which was amazing – dresses made out of cable ties, wood, recycled tyres, metal -  and, sometimes, conventional things like wool.  That took up the day nicely – as did failing to buy a cagoule for Rob (he didn’t want one that cost £100.  The guy in the shop seemed to think that it was a bit of an insult to suggest that they would sell anything cheap).  This time we ate Italian, down in the harbour area again, at Portofino.  Nice food, but the service was nothing like as amazing as it had been the night before.