Fond farewell to NZ

The last bit...

Jamie left me and I was on the final stretch, some time alone to pay my respects to an incredible country and then jet the hell out of here! I hopped on the bus up to Kaikoura, a hot spot for whale and dolphin watchers and while I love both I didn't feel the need to pay to view them and opted instead for an afternoon fishing in the same seas with the same views. I went out with Ian for a 3 hour trip during which time we had no shortage of dolphins to view as well as some of the local albatross population who swoop in to hang-out next to the boat along with little seagull cousins, but when some scraps get thrown overboard there is no fight for who gets it, the albatross easily wins every time. Ian is an organised man who already has pots out for his guests and so our first stop was emptying some nice big beefy crayfish out of his pots, we’ve barely started and already we have a meal to look forward to. The fishing was fun and made easy by the electric reels aboard the boat, so when there’s a bite we can manually snag the fish and then lazily allow the reel to take it in for us. We caught loads of fish, mostly perch but among everything else we reeled in a small reef shark too, we didn’t keep it but it was interesting to have a good look at. By the end of a very productive and fun day I went home with a small bag of perch fillets and 3 large crayfish to share with the hostel workers. How lucky am I? The hostel manager is a trained chef and so I shared the whole catch with him and his partner and in return he cooked it all up for us! In the most extravagant feast I’ve had in quite a while I dined on crayfish salad and battered perch and chips with some wine too, it was truly scrumptious and an absolute steal at the price! I am grateful for my experiences.

I travelled further north to Nelson, while I have previously come from the north I haven’t spent much time there and felt I’d missed an opportunity. Nelson is considered a city though it seems quite small to me, it’s friendly and easy to find your way around. A short walk through a park and up a small hill takes me to the geographical centre of New Zealand, I don’t remember a country having this celebrated before but here they have a monumental needle and nice views of the harbour and surrounding area. Nelson is geographically different from most places in the world as it has a natural harbour in that it is home to a boulder bank of about 14 km in length, this is a band of rock which shelters the bay from the sea and it looks really quite man made so to find out it is actually natural came as a surprise. I walked further around the hills to reach the local Japanese gardens which are lovely and exist to celebrate their twinning with a Japanese town that is also home to a natural boulder bank. There are beaches nearby and I was fortunate to be staying at a very traveller friendly hostel who offers free bikes to guests. I spent a most enjoyable morning cycling along the Nelson river and then heading out to the local beaches, of which there are a couple although they are all neighbours, the one I selected was tiny and empty, perfect for a moment of peace and reflection.

For one of my days in Nelson I opted to take a day on the Abel Tasman track, another of New Zealands great walks, the full track is a 3-5 day trek but I didn’t have time to do it all. A bus took me out to Marahau from where I could take a water taxi to the start of the trek. The taxi was a small boat that picked us up at the taxi office while perched on a trailer behind a tractor, the beach we leave from is a long and flat beach and so the tractors are needed to take the boat out to where the tide is currently sitting, drive us in deep enough to float and then drive back to the safety of dry land. The boat then took us out to Anchorage via a small rocky island known as Split Apple Rock, New Zealand tends to name things as they seem, so I don’t feel the need to explain this rock. Anchorage is quite different to its namesake, it’s within a national park and consists of a campsite and a hut, there’s no city! From here I started with a one hour walk around the local peninsula for some pretty coastal views and a chance to get down on to some small and fairly remote beaches in the area. Then I started on the Abel Tasman path heading back towards Marahau. While it’s a coastal walk a lot of the walk is hidden in the trees so I found it a nice combination between forestry and coastal views. Every time there was a break in the trees I could see miles and miles of stunning deep blue seas, or else I could glimpse a nearby beach with the gorgeous green water of a sandy seaside. There are pretty islands off the shore and on such a stunning day I could see for miles along the coastline. It was a really beautiful walk, such a contrast to the Routeburn track although not in any way better or worse, both have a great deal making them an attractive break from the ‘norm’.

My next stop was Christchurch, a sad place to stop for me as I know it’s the end of the end, my last stop, the end of a truly incredible journey spanning 9 months and 24 countries. Still catches in my throat to say that it’s the end! What a place to end too, somewhere so sad, so much to look at, or should I say gawp at in shock and dismay at what can happen when Mother Nature get’s a strop on. Most of the city centre remains cordoned off for the safety of the public, there are construction workers everywhere knocking things down and building things back up. So many buildings are surrounded by rubble, diggers sitting on top of piles of rubble, or even just buildings with scaffolding or iron supports.  Along the river side there’s the lovely option to take a punt along the river, pretty little boats awaiting your custom, with ducks swimming around, an umbrella inviting you into their boating area while in the background there’s a crumbling building with iron supports holding it up and all sorts of mechanical machinery working behind it, a strange picture of beautiful serenity in among a crazy land of mayhem. The biggest attraction now living in the city, for me, is the new shopping centre. There’s a new area where shipping containers have taken up residence to serve the community as a shopping hub, they’re all brightly coloured, the containers are stacked and crafted to create something really quite special and I would happily entertain the thought that it’s one of the most original and creative shopping centres I have ever had the pleasure to visit. Coffee shops have stacked containers to create outdoor rooftop areas, some windows and a lick of paint can do wonders for a few sheets of corrugated steel, there are banks, a post office and all manner of shops. The eateries are burger vans, there’s a shared outdoor seating area with a stage, it’s all very cool, concentrated and stylish, I can’t help hoping that they keep it as a remarkable momento of how to overcome some of life’s hurdles, it’s truly unique.

I had hoped to help out in Christchurch with some volunteering work but it would seem that I was too late to help with the earthquake effort, however, I did manage to secure a day’s conservation volunteering out on the nearby Banks Peninsula in a small place called Okains Bay. A lovely little beachside hamlet exists here and the plan is to assist the effort in saving the sand dunes. In times gone by Europeans had planted marram grass in an effort to keep the sand in place, but since then the kiwis have realised that this grass is stifling their native version of it which suits the area better for various reasons. Our job was therefore to pull out all the marram grass that grew in close proximity to the local variety so as to give it a chance to survive without the marram grass overpowering it and stealing all the nutrients from the ground. While it wasn’t a particularly hard day some of the roots really take hold and it’s a struggle to remove them, I left the place quite tired with blisters on my hands and feeling quite satisfied that I had done something for the good of the local ecology. I would have happily continued with a few more days work but it wasn’t to be this time around, I need to leave something for next time!! So I returned to my hostel to wait out the rest of my time here, enjoy the sun, relax in the tranquillity and reflect on the feelings I have for a country so many miles from my own.

There’s no doubt in my head that I have fallen for this country, I have a lot of love for it, it holds a lot of things which are dear to my heart and that I thought only Scotland could give me. I don’t doubt that my true love is Scotland but it’s interesting to have that challenged once in a while, to ask yourself what it means to have a ‘home’. It’s quite amazing that I have come through so many countries and yet the one I want to stay in more than any other is the one that is the furthest away and therefore in my head that means that it should be the least likely, of course this can’t be true, all it means is that I have travelled so far from my home that I have fairly well reached its polar opposite, and therefore they’re as good as twins. So here I am, sitting awaiting the bus to the airport to board my flight(s) home, 20,000 miles I’ve come and so I will return, the quick way. If I’ve said it once, I’ve thought it a million times, I am one lucky lucky girl!