Iteris

It’s been quite a while since my last post and now we are not just in the south island, but we’ve headed up into the mountains.  Before I go into that, I will try and summarise some of the stuff that has happened over the past couple of weeks.  We headed down from Sue and David’s house and cycled our way towards Kaikoura, a town whose prosperity relies almost solely on the whale watching in that area.  I can certainly say that the whale watching was fantastic.  Due to the deep waters around Kaikoura they have a resident family of Giant Sperm whales and so you’re pretty much guaranteed a sighting.  By chance the conditions were perfect when we decided to go and we were treated to number of them.  Watching them dive and realising that they stay down there for such long periods as well as the incredible depths they dive to, was quite awe inspiring.  I’ve posted up some photos on Flickr, but, as I’m sure you can appreciate, snapping a good shot is hard on a rocking boat with a moving whale, no matter how big the target.

Before Kaikoura we stopped in at a restaurant known as “The Store” which is run by David’s nephew Clive.  He was a very gracious host and the food was excellent.  He explained to us that the restaurant had once been a petrol station, but had fallen into disrepair and when the land was bought the government refused to allow it to continue as a station, as storing petrol so close to water could obviously have extremely detrimental effects on the environment.  So they decided to open a restaurant.  It is an ideal location commanding excellent views over a large stretch of unspoiled coastline.

Arriving in Christchurch was great; I always enjoy hitting a city after, what seems like, long stretches camping.  So when Jimmy and Amelia told me that they wanted to go rent a car and camp on the Akora Peninsula I went to the Tourist information and booked myself into a five star hotel with all the forbearance I could muster.  Perhaps I was over awed by finally being in a hotel after such a long time, the bed was huge, the shower was great and the Sauna made my taught muscles melt with pleasure.  I had a fantastic meal and after retired to the bar where I took my book and sat reading in a comfy chair while I was brought drinks.  Only once during the night did I contemplate the other two sleeping rough on the side of a hill.  When it came to checking out I believe I would have left nail gouges in the marble had I not got the iron will that I possess.  The Cathedral Square seemed to be the heart of Christchurch and put us in mind of Covent Garden in London.  We spent most of our relaxing day just sitting in a café, drinking, eating and reading.  I can’t think of a better way of spending my time than watching the world go by.

We are now in the mountains staying alongside Lake Tekapo.  It is a stunningly beautiful lake the like of which I have never seen.  It appears to shift between green, blue and turquoise.  Its colour is apparently due to something called rock flour.  The lake sits snuggly in-between encircling mountains, at a height of seven hundred metres.  We climbed up to nine hundred metres into a headwind to get here.  It was a very very long day and we didn’t arrive at the camp site till well after dark.  We were shattered, but I was determined to rinse the grime off of me before I went to bed.  I could have slept in the shower it felt so good to have warm water pouring down me.  Hopefully we’re going to be able to arrange a Helicopter flight around Mount Cook and landing on one of the Glaciers.  I’ll keep you posted on that as well as putting up some photos when we have them.  There is an amazing church here in the town, apparently a very famous church, called the church of the Good Shepherd and I can honestly say it is one that I wouldn’t mind going to Mass in. 

After Lake Tekpo we are heading down to Twizle, Queenstown, Invercargill and then Bluff.  We’ve estimated that we have another nine days of cycling ahead of us, one of which includes a one thousand metre climb, ouch.  Along the way to Twizle we are going to visit a salmon farm.  Perhaps we’ll buy one and stick it in the trailer.  How much can a fish smell huh?