Riding the Rail Trail

Big sky country kiwi style

We left Christchurch and headed west and south towards Queenstown. Everyone told us that we had to go to Queenstown and we are not going to Queenstown as it is overrun with tourists celebrating Chinese New Year. Instead, we opted to ride some of the Otaga Rail Trail instead. This is an old railroad line that was decommissioned in the sixties and made into a 150 km bike trail. Like the Tasman Great Taste Trail, it's one of the Great Cycle Trails. It goes through dry farmland with massive rock formations resembling the American west. The whole trail takes about four days, staying in small accommodations along the way. The good folks at Trails Journey dropped us off at the top of the grade and rode back from there, mostly downhill, but it's not a steep grade. Spectacular day. We also rode the Roxburgh Gorge trail and with more time we would have been able to explore the Clutha River trail. Next time: Alps to Ocean Trail!  And maybe Queenstown after that, at a quieter time.

Wildlife encounter on the trail

Best carrot cake ever along the trail at the Station Cafe in Lauder

The Ring of Fire Strikes

The YMCA hosts the Street Art museum, a former stadium transformed. Jeff points to Seattle in the sticker room.

The Catholic Church is in limbo. 

Do you remember the 2011 Christchurch earthquake? I know, neither did I. As a fellow inhabitant of the, ring of fire, I probably should have taken more note of it. Here's a wikipedia link to refresh your memory (if you click on the photo of the church, you will see more images). Sobering.

ReStart: Brining retail back into the central business district

As a tourist, what you see in the central business district are empty buildings, damaged building (like the Catholic Church) and heaps of construction areas. You also notice a certain lack of people and sort of a ghost town feel. Except for the area around the Canterbury Museum, botanical gardens and the fabulous ReStart Mall it's pretty quiet. It's hard to imagine what it was like in the months after the quake and all the work that's been done over the past four years. Many of the city's gothic buildings were permanently damaged, liquefaction caused flooding and major damage, and infrastructure problems. Everyone would have been touched by someone who was either killed or injured during the quake. But what would terrify me was the aftershocks. The wikipedia link above gives a chart of the significant aftershocks that continued for months afterwards. It would take a strong stomach to stick around many people simply left.

Jeff is the speck at the bottom 

The Kiwis are a practical bunch and are turning their heads to the future. It's easy to see that in ten years, Christchurch is going to be an amazing city, one it wouldn't have gotten to without the earthquake. It already is an amazing city. Signs of resilience are all around. The city strives to be the Street Art capital of the world (at least some do!) and new artwork appears on building daily it seems. The new buildings that are state of the art. And who knew you could do so many creative things with containers?
I am so glad we came here, it's inspiring to hear the stories and see the resilience. When the next big one hits us in the US, I am sure we will be drawing on what happened here to learn how to recover.

We arrived in Christchurch by the Transalpine train (Kiwirail) across the south island. Relaxing and spectacular scenery.

New Murals appeared daily while we were here thanks to the Rise Festival

The nearby Banks Peninsula

South by Northwest

Claire Great Taste Trail

We traveled by ferry from Wellington to the South Island through the Marlborough Sounds. The boat leaves windy Wellington Harbor into open ocean, passing through 22.5 kilometers of Cook Strait before entering the intricate, beautiful, and calm water sounds at the tip South Island. The strait was rough enough, even on the huge ferry, couldn't imagine being in the water. There was a plaque on the boat about swimmers who have made the crossing.  The first woman to swim between the north and south island was Lynne Cox, (American) 12 hours and 7 minutes. She battled heavy seas and at one time a ferry pulled alongside to block the wind, flying an American flag to show their support for her effort. A much easier crossing for us and the seas calmed down when we entered the Marlborough Sound channel and we spent the final hour passing by very scenic inlets into the town of Picton. From there we headed to the Tasman region and the small village of Mapua, our home for ten whole days.

Mapua was on the Great Taste Trail, one of the developing New Zealand Great Cycle trails. The government began building trails all over the country about 10 years ago to build a cycling system to rival the Great Walks (think Milford Track). The coastal portion of this track is completed from the town of Nelson west to the Abel Tasman National Park.  We managed three days in on the trail, riding through estuaries, along beaches, through forests and along ridges. It's called the Great Taste for the opportunities to eat and drink along the way... a vicious cycle, eat/ride, eat/ride. A great way to see the country side.

The Abel Tasman Park to the west of Nelson/Mapua and offered some spectacular hiking along the well-worn coastal track. We boated in and out one day to see the middle part of the trail. Lumpy seas made that day a bit rough but it was a beautifully easy way to see more of this beautiful park.

Abel Tasman National Park coastal trail

Take away wine tasting

Our friend Rick at the Wild Ginger in Seattle used his wine connections to get us tastings with two wineries in the famous Marlborough Sound wine region. The first was Forrest, founded by two doctors. Trevor showed us the vineyards and we tasted some great wines with him. They produce 50 different wines with vineyards in the Hawkes Bay and Otago regions as well. Felt like being in a medium-sized Napa winery. The second tasting was quite the opposite, with Jules Taylor wines. It was the most relaxed tasting we have ever experienced. We met George Elsworthy in his office where he'd laid out ten different wines. We talked for almost three hours about travel, New Zealand, Seattle (George had been there many times) and occasionally, wine. By the end of the conversation, I realized that George was actually the very understated owner, being married to the winemaker, Jules Taylor. George sent us home with the open bottles we tasted which we happily managed to finish off over the next couple of days. Don't think that would happen in Napa! Jules and George got their start at Kim Crawford before starting their own project. If you see their wines in the store or on the wine list, give them a go, you won't regret it!

Jeff on the beach at Abel Tasman

We really enjoyed the small community of Mapua, our house was near the wharf and the grocery store so we could make meals or eat at one of the restaurants along the small wharf. Trail Journeys, the bike shop there was awesome and fitted us up for our rides. There was even an Iyengar Yoga teacher at the community center and I really enjoyed getting to practice with kiwis and with a very good teacher.

We left there this morning and drove along the West Coast on a spectacular, sunny day. A rare treat. When we pulled off the road to a nearly deserted beach, a fellow walking his dogs gave us a piece of greenstone. The beach was littered with it, along with what looked like agates and quartz. Tomorrow we catch the TransAlpine train to Christchurch. More from there! xoxo

Mapua Wharf 

The beach off the coastal track in Abel Tasman

What's the capital of New Zealand?

Southern Walkway into town.

Wellington. There, now you are ready for when you get hit with that question. We've spent the last week here in what's been called the quirkiest national capital in the world. Our host Gay says it's because of the weather, Wellington's location between these two islands with mountains and open ocean all around makes for quickly changing days with not always the best weather. We've experienced rain, sun and 40 knot winds, off and on the whole time here. Apparently half the year has winds over 32 knots. That kind of weather keeps the cool people here, according to Gay.

Cool has always eluded me but I can verify that these Wellingtonians do seem to be hardy. The city lies in a valley surrounded some quite steep hills. A town greenbelt surrounds it with the beautiful, natural Wellington Harbor out front. Great waterfront with heaps of people riding, walking, running and enjoying. We've enjoyed seeing the botanical gardens, the national museum (Te Papa) along with some great galleries and restaurants.

Seriously windy here...

We've been staying in the Hataitai neighborhood just on the other side of the hill from downtown. Our house clings to the side of the hill and we walk up through winding paths, by walk-in houses, up to Mount Victoria and then down along the Southern Walkway which runs along the ridge and then down through the forest into town. An awesome walk. From our deck we can see the final mountains of the North Island along with all the ferries that head out of Wellington Harbor to the South Island. We'll on that ferry tomorrow, heading for the Nelson area of the South Island, ten days in one place exploring the north end of the southern island of New Zealand.

The view from Mount Victoria towards downtown and the harbor on a rare, clear day. 

Portugal's rugby team working out in the water along the esplanade. The Sevens international rugby tournament begins.

A pose in the nose of an Air New Zealand 737

I think we have some subversives here...