And Back to the East Coast!!

I continued down the westcoast, bound for Hokitika. My good friends, Henry & Jane had just informed me that they'd finished travelling the south, and were heading back up to the top of the south island (Nelson) to work. So realistically, I wouldn’t see them again whilst we were in NZ, as I was planning to stay down in the south. Nooooo! As I was driving, I came to a crossroads. One road continuing down the west coast, and the other cutting back across the island to the east coast. I had about 3 seconds to consciously decide, and I veered off left. I had only got down as far as Kaikoura on the east coast anyway. So I drove over Arthurs Pass. And it was beautiful. So many mountains everywhere. And great driving roads!

  

  

I stopped off in a DOC campsite for the night, and carried on to Garaldine, a lovely little village south of Christchurch. I popped down to Timaru, and decided to drive back via the back-roads, so that I could pass through such places as: Pleasant Point (which was quite pleasant), Beautiful Valley and Pleasant Valley. Whilst the valleys were, respectively, quite beautiful and pleasant, I must admit that I was expecting more from them. But Kiwi names really aren’t that original – they tell it how it is. And as everywhere in New Zealand is beautiful, I guess that I was expecting something spectacularly beautiful. But maybe in that case, I’ll just need to hold out for a place called ‘Spectacularly Beautiful Valley’. There’s probably one out there somewhere. I also passed a road called ‘Love Road’ in Pleasant Valley. Now that would be a great address: ‘Love Road, Pleasant Valley, New Zealand’. Awesome.

After my (quite significant) detour, I finally met up with Henry and Jane at a campsite. It really was great to see them – it had been 3 weeks since I’d last seen them, which was a long time for us! We chatted away the evening, and went to bed. In the morning, there was a glorious sunrise, but it was cooooold! Where had the sunshine gone??

Beautiful birdsong at sunrise :)

We decided to head up to Akoroa, just east of Christchurch. It was great fun driving there along the windy roads!!

The town itself is amazing – it’s got a real French character, and is so so beautiful. We stayed in a hostel (a real novelty for me!), which meant that we had a warm living room to relax in, whilst drinking cider. I never liked cider until I tried it in Nelson – it always reminded me too much of the brand that I consumed as a teenager, White Lightning. But now I’m definitely a fan. And it will always remind me of the South Island of NZ too – much like my association of tomatoes with Cyprus, and olives with France :)

Lots of signs were in French!!

  

  

The next day, we headed up to Hanmer Springs for our last night together. As the road from Akoroa to Hanmer Springs goes around Christchurch, I thought I'd go and have a quick drive through... I didn't drive into the centre as it's still declared as a significant danger, and I'm not stupid - buildings could still potentially fall etc. But driving around the streets near the centre gave me enough of an idea. Many of the roads I was driving on had been newly repired, but there were still huge bumps and cracks along some. Outside houses were piles of bricks. Roofs had blue tarpaulin where chimneys used to be. There were port-a-loos on the roadsides. Some roads asked non-residents not to drive down them (which I obeyed, of course), and I saw a church that had more or less been completely destroyed. And this was reasonably far away from the epicentre of the February 22nd earthquake. I didn't take any photos - that would have been severely disrespectful. I felt bad enough driving and gawping at the scenes in front of me. I felt wrong being there for 'touristic value', so promptly left - but I would still like to go back there and help at a time that's appropriate for the residents...

We arrived at our hostel in Hanmer Springs, and Martin ended up driving over from the West Coast to join us! We had a lovely evening in a hostel - so much so that we decided to stay for another night! We went to the Hanmer Springs thermal pools which, whilst overpriced, was still a lovely experience with the snow-capped mountains in the distance. That evening I cooked us our 'last supper'. Sob sob.

When it was time to all part ways, it was sad indeed. I'll really miss these friends that I've become so close to and love dearly... Travelling friends will come and go, but I know I've made some very special friends over the past 6 months, and despite my inability at keeping in touch, I KNOW that we'll all be seeing each other again! :)