Mount Cook on the way to Hooker Lake
Mount Cook
Hooker Lake at Mount Cook
Hooker Lake at Mount Cook
Tenting in the Ahuriri Valley - before the wind
Clay Ciffs up close
Clay Cliffs from a distance
Joe communing with Barry's girls
Day 49 – Jan. 20 –Ranfurly to Cromwell
Had breakfast in the old hotel with a couple we’d met last night. He’s a captain of a huge yacht for some rich guy who made his millions manufacturing oil drums. His wife is the steward on the ship, serving meals and taking care of their daily needs. We seem to keep meeting people who live on boats and tie up at these islands to escape the winter storms in the Pacific.
Climbing out of Ranfurly, we drove up onto the top of a huge flat plain, dry as a bone, we could see forever. Alongside a dirt road we drove down sat the lower part of a house made out of adobe and apparently abandoned many years ago. The chimney still stood, and the walls were about 5 feet high, the windows and doors were empty holes. Huge trees encircled the property, indicating the builder had planted them at least 80-100 years ago, probably the same time he built the house, to break the wind that must continually roar across this plain.
The tiny town of St. Bathans (I’ve never heard of this saint) sat off the beaten track, on the edge of a huge crater that was created by the miners many years ago. To get at the gold in the sand here, they shot huge streams of water at the sand to break it up so they could get at the gold that was in it. The result is a huge hole in the ground that’s now filled with water that they call Blue Lake. The old hotel the miners stayed in is still there, and an old dog lay inside on the floor of the restaurant part.
This country doesn’t like dogs in general. We see signs everywhere: No dogs. That’s because dogs like to chase things and there are so many endangered species of things that can’t fly here, like kiwis, that they just don’t let dogs into any areas where at-risk animals live, and that’s pretty much everywhere.
We are headed back toward the place we love the most – Arrowtown. We got as close as Cromwell, and pulled in for the night at a B&B owned by June and her dog Guinness. It sits right above a beautiful lake that has a trail along it, so Joe and I took Guinness and went for a long walk. Guinness flushed out rabbits the whole time, and we could hear his high-pitched yipping every time he got close to one. We have a huge apartment all to ourselves, with kitchen, sitting area, bedroom, and a bathroom whose shower is about 5’ x 5’. All for $53 US!!
Tomorrow is Obama’s inauguration and is this country excited about that. It’s all anybody wants to talk about. They’re almost more enthusiastic about him than we are.
Day 50 – Jan. 21 – Cromwell to Ahuriri Valley
June made us a yummy breakfast of cereal, OJ, and homemade bread. Then we headed out to meet Barry Dawson at the Arrowtown Golf Course, the same guy we’d played with a couple of weeks ago. This time Des wasn’t able to join us, so another guy, who builds swimming pools, made up our foursome. He shot a 71, a really good golfer. Golf cost each of us $10 US because we were playing with a member.
After golf, we followed Barry to meet his ‘girls’, about 150 Jersey cows. When we drove into the pasture and got out of the car, they all came trotting over to investigate us. They wouldn’t get within arm’s reach, but stayed just out of reach and watched our every move. They have soft eyes with long eyelashes and Barry says they’re all very gentle. Unlike deer raised on deer farms, which can be very aggressive and mean, especially when they’re being herded somewhere. His friend was kicked in the temple by a deer and killed.
Obama was inaugurated today and everybody at the golf course was discussing it and asking us what we think he’s going to do to get the country back in the good graces of the world.
This part of NZ is the fruit basket and wine-producing region. They grow huge, sweet Bing and Rainier cherries, apricots, plums, and apples. Feels like eastern Washington, around Wenatchee. I’ve been eating my weight in cherries and apricots. Offsets all the French fries they serve.
We passed a golf course in Tarras that has sheep grazing on the fairways and they put fences that you have to step over around all the greens to keep the sheep off them. Cuts down on their fairway mowing expenses. We’ve played a lot of courses that have 1 employee who maintains the entire golf course. Members of the course volunteer to help him. I don’t see how they keep as many courses in business as they have in this country. Some courses only have 30 members, so there’s very little money to keep them in good shape. But NZ’ers will play anything that has fairways and greens.
We finally saw a live possum today, running across the road (successfully) in front of us. We’re sort of keeping track of the dead ones we’ve seen: so far about 100. Number of birds we’ve killed on the windshield: 2.
We didn’t want to return to Auckland and hand over our tent and sleeping bags to some total stranger, since we’re not going to haul all that stuff back home with us on the plane, without using it at least once. So we decided tonight is the night. We’re out in the boonies, and we went down a dirt road that, according to our road map, hugged a river. We drove down it for about 15 miles before we saw anything that was close to water, and that had a tree. There wasn’t a single campground, and we saw one house the whole way. It’s in a sheep pasture but the sheep aren’t anywhere near us. There is a small lake, with one tree hanging out over it, and ducks, geese, and black swans are floating on it. Perfect.
We set up our tent for the first time ever, no problem. When it started getting dark, we crawled in the tent, and the wind came up. And up. And up. Soon it was blowing like a hurricane! The tent walls were flapping like flags on a flagpole, and slapping us both in the head. The tent is so small, we have to sleep with our knees bent, so skootching down to get away from the flapping wasn’t an option. We lay there almost the entire night like this, laughing every now and then at our predicament. What choice did we have? There was no place to go to get out of the situation, so we stuck it out. I suppose sometime after 4 am the wind must have died down, because we finally did get a couple of hours sleep and woke up about 7 am. During the time we set up the tent and folded it up the next morning, only 3 cars went by.
Day 51 – Jan. 22 – Ahuriri Valley to Mt. Cook
The day after the night of the wind dawned bright, sunny, calm, and warm. Perfect. Headed for Mt. Cook, which we never did see from the west side of the island, too many clouds. Hope for better luck today. On the way were some cliffs made from clay that had weathered into bizarre shapes. We drove 10 miles down a dirt road, put $5 NZ in an honesty box, went through a gate that we had to open and shut to keep in the sheep, and drove for a couple of more miles until the road got so horrible we parked the car. We were almost right under the cliffs now. They towered several hundred feet overhead, and were eroded into very sharp and stark columns. We hiked about a mile along the front of them, all the time they loomed above us, until we got to a break in the cliff face, and we could hike back into them. We could only get about 200 yards up into them. The trail was very steep, rocky, slippery, and finally it stopped when it reached a vertical wall.
It’s geography like this that makes this country so much fun for a geology nut. Driving along the roads for me is to read the violent and tumultuous geologic past of this island, which is being torn apart by tectonic forces. The story of it is written in the roadcuts, with its lava beds telling of its volcanic outbursts, sand dunes representing the time that the sea water was locked up in the ice during the Ice Ages, the limestone indicating the times that it was all deep under the sea, and the rocky layers bespeaking of exposure to the air and erosion eating away all the layers created before.
Luck was with us. When we reached Mt. Cook, it was still perfect weather and we could see all the moraines, huge mounds of rock, pushed up on the front and sides of the glaciers by the advancing and retreating ice packs. We checked into a motel that had a stupendous view of the entire mountain and the valley leading up to it. We took an hour hike up to one of the pretty lakes backed up behind one of the moraines, then headed to the main building in the resort complex for a buffet dinner with about 100 dishes to choose from. Needless to say, we ate enough for 4 people.
Day 52 – Jan. 23 – Mt. Cook to Lake Tekapo
One company has all the concessions for the Mt. Cook National Park, with a museum, planetarium, and shops where you can buy anything you need while you’re in the park. Sir Edmund Hilary, who was the first, with Tenzing Norgay, to reach the summit of Mt. Everest, did a lot of climbs on Mt. Cook in preparation for his big climb. He was a beekeeper in the Auckland area prior to climbing Everest, and over his lifetime he spent a lot of time in the Mt. Cook area. As a result, the park has dedicated a huge amount of their space to examining his life. There is a full-length movie of his life, which we saw in its entirety, many pictures, and a lot of narrative to read. You could spend the entire day inside this museum and never be bored.
After several hours in there, we went for a 3-hour hike up to a glacial lake. It was a pretty calm day but when we got near the lake, the wind came up and by the time we actually reached the lake, it was so strong you could hardly stand up. Icebergs floated on the lake, having calved off the glacier at the head of the lake.
Day 53 – Jan. 24 –Lake Tekapo to Timaru
Some of our e-mail pals have asked if we aren’t getting tired of always packing and unpacking every day. Truth is, we’re not. We’ve got it down to a science, though, which makes it easy. We take in one suitcase for each of us, which we keep in the back seat; the computer, kept in the trunk, if there’s an internet connection; our daypacks, which are like our purses, containing everything we need in the way of ID, money, glasses, reading book, etc.; and the ‘magic box’, a cardboard box that contains all the guide books and maps that we use all the time. That’s it. Everything else stays in the car. We each have our toiletries in hanging bags, so those get unpacked and hung in the bathroom as soon as we unpack.
We have like things in large black garbage bags. Food is in one bag, which stays in the car if we’re not going to eat in the room, which is usually the case (not eating in the room). Shoes and boots, jackets, and books are in separate bags. Then we have a whole suitcase dedicated to things we hardly ever use, but might need, like snorkels, masks, fins. Camping stuff – tent, sleeping bags, and pads - are loose in the trunk, and we end up shoving it aside a lot to get to other stuff.
Today our plan was to take a gravel road for about 60 miles along a river and spend the night somewhere on the way. We don’t drive many miles in a day, as you can see. But after we’d gone about a half-hour along the road, we came to a sign that said ‘Road Closed’. That was the end of our camping plans. Change plans and head for the coast instead.
This is desolate and barren country, a flat valley full of dry stream beds and few trees and brown everywhere. Along the western edge is the Southern Alp Range, the prettiest mountains in all of NZ. But they obviously stop all the clouds and they dump their precious liquid cargo and dissipate over these mountains, so the rain rarely falls on these plains. There are a few sheep and cattle just because they are EVERYWHERE in NZ, why should this bleak place be any different?
Because the valley runs north-south, and we have turned west to hit the coast, we climb out of the valley and get into hilly country with a few trees and streams. Rounding a corner of the dirt road down which we’re driving, we see a sign ‘Monument’. Always curious about what they felt was important at such out-of-the-way spots like these, we slammed on the brakes. There was nothing but a sheep pasture, and a big tree. Under the tree was what appeared to be a typical monument to the Confederate soldiers from the Civil War. There was a gate in the fence keeping in the sheep, so we went through it, and went up to the memorial. Sure enough, out in the middle of nowhere, miles from the nearest town and with only one farm every 2-3 miles, surrounded by bleating sheep, is a memorial to the soldiers fallen in the first and second world wars. Way out here!! I doubt 10 people a year view this thing. Who in the world dreamed up this crazy place to put up a monument???
It appears the sheep think it’s a rare event, too, for they came up to within about 10 feet of us, eyes bugging out, ready to flee if we even looked in their direction. We looked at them, and they ran about 20 feet away, stopped, looked back, and when they saw we weren’t looking at them, they tiptoed tentatively back towards us. I told Joe that I was going to try something. I wondered if I could get up close to them if I did like the Horse Whisperer and didn’t make eye contact. So I looked in the opposite direction and walked along the front row of the sheep. They closed ranks behind me and followed me, getting to within about 3 feet of me. I stopped. They stopped. I crouched down so I would appear to be smaller and not a threat to them. They came right up to me and began sniffing me. I didn’t move for about a minute, and they stayed right close to me. When I did finally stand up, they scattered. Then they heard dogs barking in the distance, probably their personal herding dogs, and they took off in the direction of the barking, hooves flying, bleating all the way up and over the hill, leaving behind a big cloud of dust
We’ve eaten a lot of bacon and ham for breakfast but have yet to see a single pig. We’ve seen about a billion sheep, 100 million cows, thousands of farm-raised deer and elk, a handful of chickens, 10 billion wild rabbits, but no pigs. Do they hide them in barns or what??? Well, today we finally saw our first pigs. They were in a big field, each with its own little shed, to which each was tied and most were lying in the shadow of the shed, because it was pretty hot. There lay our future breakfasts.
On the map we noticed a street named "Phar Lap" on the outskirts of Timaru. When I was little, I read a book about a race horse by that name, and was so moved by his early death, thought to be caused by intentional poisoning, that I cried my eyes out. What is his connection with Timaru, NZ? When we saw a sign to the Phar Lap memorial, we turned down a side road and a few kilometers later saw a tall white statue of a horse. A plaque indicated that Phar Lap was born right on this property in 1929 and died in 1936. This is in the middle of nowhere, with a little house in the middle of a field next to the statue. When I finally got an internet connection, I looked up Phar Lap and learned that, indeed, he’d been foaled right here in Timaru, then sold to somebody in Australia. He had been poisoned by arsenic, it was presumed, by some jealous competitor, but not before he became one of the best race horses ever.
Our destination was a golf course in Timaru, billed as one of the best in this area. There were 3 cars in the parking lot. Looks like we’re going to be playing by ourselves again. Timaru GC never gets any water, so its grass is brown and dried up. It actually crunches when you step on it, and when the sun bounces off it, it feels like an oven. We decided we’d rather feel like we were in an oven than whatever the people in Seattle were going through today.
After playing a really fun round of golf, we found a motel right on the bay in downtown Timaru, overlooking a beach and park, surrounded by a lot of good restaurants. When we checked in, the guy at reception asked if we wanted ‘girl milk or boy milk’. Girl milk for my cereal in the morning. Dinner was venison meat pie, delicious, followed by a walk on the beach at sunset. A great ending to another great day in a loooooong string of great days.
Day 54 – Jan. 25 – Timaru
Woke up, at 9:30!!, to another glorious day in Paradise. We’ve decided to spend another night here. After a breakfast of cereal and a plum in the room, I read the paper whilst Joe wandered down to the beach for an hour-long dip in the ocean. It was very shallow and he had to wade out a long way before the water even came up to his waist. But it was warm and refreshing, and he finally got the water experience he’d been yearning for at least a month.
Right across the street is a huge park area that includes a beach whose sand has been trucked in from somewhere else. Before they dumped all that sand, and made a beach, the water’s edge was just clumps of grass and swamp. The sand is gray and is as fine as powder. Would love to have that in our bunkers at home!
When we got up we heard a loudspeaker touting something we couldn’t understand. Soon people in running togs were galloping past our motel, one at a time, and heading out toward the beach and up a street at the far end of the park. It went on for an hour or more. I finally asked somebody what was going on and they said today was a triathlon – running, biking, and kayaking. Joe had seen the kayaks earlier paddling like made, no doubt the first leg of the triathlon, so now it made sense to him.
Another golfing day for us, this time at HighFields right in town. When we drove into the parking lot, there was one other car. Guess this will be another day when we’re just a twosome. The clubhouse is closed, even though it’s a lovely Sunday afternooon, school is out, and what better time to play golf??? The pro shop is a separate building, like one of those you can buy at Costco, about 8 x 10 feet, baking out in the sun. Being the pro at this club probably isn’t a plum job.
As we were getting ready to tee off, a foursome walked off #18 and headed home. The first green had a sprinkler going on it. When I got to the green and saw where my ball lay, I laughed. Between me and the hole was a hose, connecting the sprinkler to the faucet in the ground. There was another hole in the green, and, even though it didn’t have a flag in it, I putted to it so I could at least have a go at making the putt. I had to make 3 attempts to putt, because every time I got up to putt, the fast-moving sprinkler would spray me. Finally I just stood in the water when it came around. The day was hot enough it felt good anyway.
This is the craziest golf course I’ve ever seen. Number 10 and number 13 use the same fairway, but in opposite directions. So if there are 2 foursomes out there at the same time, 8 people are firing shots at one another. Wonder how many people have been beaned on the noggins there? Another green is in the flight path of tee shots from the next hole. So while you’re putting, people are hitting balls over your head (in the best-case scenario). They only water the greens so the fairways crunch like paper underfoot, and some of the fairways are cracked like dried mud.
Had breakfast in the old hotel with a couple we’d met last night. He’s a captain of a huge yacht for some rich guy who made his millions manufacturing oil drums. His wife is the steward on the ship, serving meals and taking care of their daily needs. We seem to keep meeting people who live on boats and tie up at these islands to escape the winter storms in the Pacific.
Climbing out of Ranfurly, we drove up onto the top of a huge flat plain, dry as a bone, we could see forever. Alongside a dirt road we drove down sat the lower part of a house made out of adobe and apparently abandoned many years ago. The chimney still stood, and the walls were about 5 feet high, the windows and doors were empty holes. Huge trees encircled the property, indicating the builder had planted them at least 80-100 years ago, probably the same time he built the house, to break the wind that must continually roar across this plain.
The tiny town of St. Bathans (I’ve never heard of this saint) sat off the beaten track, on the edge of a huge crater that was created by the miners many years ago. To get at the gold in the sand here, they shot huge streams of water at the sand to break it up so they could get at the gold that was in it. The result is a huge hole in the ground that’s now filled with water that they call Blue Lake. The old hotel the miners stayed in is still there, and an old dog lay inside on the floor of the restaurant part.
This country doesn’t like dogs in general. We see signs everywhere: No dogs. That’s because dogs like to chase things and there are so many endangered species of things that can’t fly here, like kiwis, that they just don’t let dogs into any areas where at-risk animals live, and that’s pretty much everywhere.
We are headed back toward the place we love the most – Arrowtown. We got as close as Cromwell, and pulled in for the night at a B&B owned by June and her dog Guinness. It sits right above a beautiful lake that has a trail along it, so Joe and I took Guinness and went for a long walk. Guinness flushed out rabbits the whole time, and we could hear his high-pitched yipping every time he got close to one. We have a huge apartment all to ourselves, with kitchen, sitting area, bedroom, and a bathroom whose shower is about 5’ x 5’. All for $53 US!!
Tomorrow is Obama’s inauguration and is this country excited about that. It’s all anybody wants to talk about. They’re almost more enthusiastic about him than we are.
Day 50 – Jan. 21 – Cromwell to Ahuriri Valley
June made us a yummy breakfast of cereal, OJ, and homemade bread. Then we headed out to meet Barry Dawson at the Arrowtown Golf Course, the same guy we’d played with a couple of weeks ago. This time Des wasn’t able to join us, so another guy, who builds swimming pools, made up our foursome. He shot a 71, a really good golfer. Golf cost each of us $10 US because we were playing with a member.
After golf, we followed Barry to meet his ‘girls’, about 150 Jersey cows. When we drove into the pasture and got out of the car, they all came trotting over to investigate us. They wouldn’t get within arm’s reach, but stayed just out of reach and watched our every move. They have soft eyes with long eyelashes and Barry says they’re all very gentle. Unlike deer raised on deer farms, which can be very aggressive and mean, especially when they’re being herded somewhere. His friend was kicked in the temple by a deer and killed.
Obama was inaugurated today and everybody at the golf course was discussing it and asking us what we think he’s going to do to get the country back in the good graces of the world.
This part of NZ is the fruit basket and wine-producing region. They grow huge, sweet Bing and Rainier cherries, apricots, plums, and apples. Feels like eastern Washington, around Wenatchee. I’ve been eating my weight in cherries and apricots. Offsets all the French fries they serve.
We passed a golf course in Tarras that has sheep grazing on the fairways and they put fences that you have to step over around all the greens to keep the sheep off them. Cuts down on their fairway mowing expenses. We’ve played a lot of courses that have 1 employee who maintains the entire golf course. Members of the course volunteer to help him. I don’t see how they keep as many courses in business as they have in this country. Some courses only have 30 members, so there’s very little money to keep them in good shape. But NZ’ers will play anything that has fairways and greens.
We finally saw a live possum today, running across the road (successfully) in front of us. We’re sort of keeping track of the dead ones we’ve seen: so far about 100. Number of birds we’ve killed on the windshield: 2.
We didn’t want to return to Auckland and hand over our tent and sleeping bags to some total stranger, since we’re not going to haul all that stuff back home with us on the plane, without using it at least once. So we decided tonight is the night. We’re out in the boonies, and we went down a dirt road that, according to our road map, hugged a river. We drove down it for about 15 miles before we saw anything that was close to water, and that had a tree. There wasn’t a single campground, and we saw one house the whole way. It’s in a sheep pasture but the sheep aren’t anywhere near us. There is a small lake, with one tree hanging out over it, and ducks, geese, and black swans are floating on it. Perfect.
We set up our tent for the first time ever, no problem. When it started getting dark, we crawled in the tent, and the wind came up. And up. And up. Soon it was blowing like a hurricane! The tent walls were flapping like flags on a flagpole, and slapping us both in the head. The tent is so small, we have to sleep with our knees bent, so skootching down to get away from the flapping wasn’t an option. We lay there almost the entire night like this, laughing every now and then at our predicament. What choice did we have? There was no place to go to get out of the situation, so we stuck it out. I suppose sometime after 4 am the wind must have died down, because we finally did get a couple of hours sleep and woke up about 7 am. During the time we set up the tent and folded it up the next morning, only 3 cars went by.
Day 51 – Jan. 22 – Ahuriri Valley to Mt. Cook
The day after the night of the wind dawned bright, sunny, calm, and warm. Perfect. Headed for Mt. Cook, which we never did see from the west side of the island, too many clouds. Hope for better luck today. On the way were some cliffs made from clay that had weathered into bizarre shapes. We drove 10 miles down a dirt road, put $5 NZ in an honesty box, went through a gate that we had to open and shut to keep in the sheep, and drove for a couple of more miles until the road got so horrible we parked the car. We were almost right under the cliffs now. They towered several hundred feet overhead, and were eroded into very sharp and stark columns. We hiked about a mile along the front of them, all the time they loomed above us, until we got to a break in the cliff face, and we could hike back into them. We could only get about 200 yards up into them. The trail was very steep, rocky, slippery, and finally it stopped when it reached a vertical wall.
It’s geography like this that makes this country so much fun for a geology nut. Driving along the roads for me is to read the violent and tumultuous geologic past of this island, which is being torn apart by tectonic forces. The story of it is written in the roadcuts, with its lava beds telling of its volcanic outbursts, sand dunes representing the time that the sea water was locked up in the ice during the Ice Ages, the limestone indicating the times that it was all deep under the sea, and the rocky layers bespeaking of exposure to the air and erosion eating away all the layers created before.
Luck was with us. When we reached Mt. Cook, it was still perfect weather and we could see all the moraines, huge mounds of rock, pushed up on the front and sides of the glaciers by the advancing and retreating ice packs. We checked into a motel that had a stupendous view of the entire mountain and the valley leading up to it. We took an hour hike up to one of the pretty lakes backed up behind one of the moraines, then headed to the main building in the resort complex for a buffet dinner with about 100 dishes to choose from. Needless to say, we ate enough for 4 people.
Day 52 – Jan. 23 – Mt. Cook to Lake Tekapo
One company has all the concessions for the Mt. Cook National Park, with a museum, planetarium, and shops where you can buy anything you need while you’re in the park. Sir Edmund Hilary, who was the first, with Tenzing Norgay, to reach the summit of Mt. Everest, did a lot of climbs on Mt. Cook in preparation for his big climb. He was a beekeeper in the Auckland area prior to climbing Everest, and over his lifetime he spent a lot of time in the Mt. Cook area. As a result, the park has dedicated a huge amount of their space to examining his life. There is a full-length movie of his life, which we saw in its entirety, many pictures, and a lot of narrative to read. You could spend the entire day inside this museum and never be bored.
After several hours in there, we went for a 3-hour hike up to a glacial lake. It was a pretty calm day but when we got near the lake, the wind came up and by the time we actually reached the lake, it was so strong you could hardly stand up. Icebergs floated on the lake, having calved off the glacier at the head of the lake.
Day 53 – Jan. 24 –Lake Tekapo to Timaru
Some of our e-mail pals have asked if we aren’t getting tired of always packing and unpacking every day. Truth is, we’re not. We’ve got it down to a science, though, which makes it easy. We take in one suitcase for each of us, which we keep in the back seat; the computer, kept in the trunk, if there’s an internet connection; our daypacks, which are like our purses, containing everything we need in the way of ID, money, glasses, reading book, etc.; and the ‘magic box’, a cardboard box that contains all the guide books and maps that we use all the time. That’s it. Everything else stays in the car. We each have our toiletries in hanging bags, so those get unpacked and hung in the bathroom as soon as we unpack.
We have like things in large black garbage bags. Food is in one bag, which stays in the car if we’re not going to eat in the room, which is usually the case (not eating in the room). Shoes and boots, jackets, and books are in separate bags. Then we have a whole suitcase dedicated to things we hardly ever use, but might need, like snorkels, masks, fins. Camping stuff – tent, sleeping bags, and pads - are loose in the trunk, and we end up shoving it aside a lot to get to other stuff.
Today our plan was to take a gravel road for about 60 miles along a river and spend the night somewhere on the way. We don’t drive many miles in a day, as you can see. But after we’d gone about a half-hour along the road, we came to a sign that said ‘Road Closed’. That was the end of our camping plans. Change plans and head for the coast instead.
This is desolate and barren country, a flat valley full of dry stream beds and few trees and brown everywhere. Along the western edge is the Southern Alp Range, the prettiest mountains in all of NZ. But they obviously stop all the clouds and they dump their precious liquid cargo and dissipate over these mountains, so the rain rarely falls on these plains. There are a few sheep and cattle just because they are EVERYWHERE in NZ, why should this bleak place be any different?
Because the valley runs north-south, and we have turned west to hit the coast, we climb out of the valley and get into hilly country with a few trees and streams. Rounding a corner of the dirt road down which we’re driving, we see a sign ‘Monument’. Always curious about what they felt was important at such out-of-the-way spots like these, we slammed on the brakes. There was nothing but a sheep pasture, and a big tree. Under the tree was what appeared to be a typical monument to the Confederate soldiers from the Civil War. There was a gate in the fence keeping in the sheep, so we went through it, and went up to the memorial. Sure enough, out in the middle of nowhere, miles from the nearest town and with only one farm every 2-3 miles, surrounded by bleating sheep, is a memorial to the soldiers fallen in the first and second world wars. Way out here!! I doubt 10 people a year view this thing. Who in the world dreamed up this crazy place to put up a monument???
It appears the sheep think it’s a rare event, too, for they came up to within about 10 feet of us, eyes bugging out, ready to flee if we even looked in their direction. We looked at them, and they ran about 20 feet away, stopped, looked back, and when they saw we weren’t looking at them, they tiptoed tentatively back towards us. I told Joe that I was going to try something. I wondered if I could get up close to them if I did like the Horse Whisperer and didn’t make eye contact. So I looked in the opposite direction and walked along the front row of the sheep. They closed ranks behind me and followed me, getting to within about 3 feet of me. I stopped. They stopped. I crouched down so I would appear to be smaller and not a threat to them. They came right up to me and began sniffing me. I didn’t move for about a minute, and they stayed right close to me. When I did finally stand up, they scattered. Then they heard dogs barking in the distance, probably their personal herding dogs, and they took off in the direction of the barking, hooves flying, bleating all the way up and over the hill, leaving behind a big cloud of dust
We’ve eaten a lot of bacon and ham for breakfast but have yet to see a single pig. We’ve seen about a billion sheep, 100 million cows, thousands of farm-raised deer and elk, a handful of chickens, 10 billion wild rabbits, but no pigs. Do they hide them in barns or what??? Well, today we finally saw our first pigs. They were in a big field, each with its own little shed, to which each was tied and most were lying in the shadow of the shed, because it was pretty hot. There lay our future breakfasts.
On the map we noticed a street named "Phar Lap" on the outskirts of Timaru. When I was little, I read a book about a race horse by that name, and was so moved by his early death, thought to be caused by intentional poisoning, that I cried my eyes out. What is his connection with Timaru, NZ? When we saw a sign to the Phar Lap memorial, we turned down a side road and a few kilometers later saw a tall white statue of a horse. A plaque indicated that Phar Lap was born right on this property in 1929 and died in 1936. This is in the middle of nowhere, with a little house in the middle of a field next to the statue. When I finally got an internet connection, I looked up Phar Lap and learned that, indeed, he’d been foaled right here in Timaru, then sold to somebody in Australia. He had been poisoned by arsenic, it was presumed, by some jealous competitor, but not before he became one of the best race horses ever.
Our destination was a golf course in Timaru, billed as one of the best in this area. There were 3 cars in the parking lot. Looks like we’re going to be playing by ourselves again. Timaru GC never gets any water, so its grass is brown and dried up. It actually crunches when you step on it, and when the sun bounces off it, it feels like an oven. We decided we’d rather feel like we were in an oven than whatever the people in Seattle were going through today.
After playing a really fun round of golf, we found a motel right on the bay in downtown Timaru, overlooking a beach and park, surrounded by a lot of good restaurants. When we checked in, the guy at reception asked if we wanted ‘girl milk or boy milk’. Girl milk for my cereal in the morning. Dinner was venison meat pie, delicious, followed by a walk on the beach at sunset. A great ending to another great day in a loooooong string of great days.
Day 54 – Jan. 25 – Timaru
Woke up, at 9:30!!, to another glorious day in Paradise. We’ve decided to spend another night here. After a breakfast of cereal and a plum in the room, I read the paper whilst Joe wandered down to the beach for an hour-long dip in the ocean. It was very shallow and he had to wade out a long way before the water even came up to his waist. But it was warm and refreshing, and he finally got the water experience he’d been yearning for at least a month.
Right across the street is a huge park area that includes a beach whose sand has been trucked in from somewhere else. Before they dumped all that sand, and made a beach, the water’s edge was just clumps of grass and swamp. The sand is gray and is as fine as powder. Would love to have that in our bunkers at home!
When we got up we heard a loudspeaker touting something we couldn’t understand. Soon people in running togs were galloping past our motel, one at a time, and heading out toward the beach and up a street at the far end of the park. It went on for an hour or more. I finally asked somebody what was going on and they said today was a triathlon – running, biking, and kayaking. Joe had seen the kayaks earlier paddling like made, no doubt the first leg of the triathlon, so now it made sense to him.
Another golfing day for us, this time at HighFields right in town. When we drove into the parking lot, there was one other car. Guess this will be another day when we’re just a twosome. The clubhouse is closed, even though it’s a lovely Sunday afternooon, school is out, and what better time to play golf??? The pro shop is a separate building, like one of those you can buy at Costco, about 8 x 10 feet, baking out in the sun. Being the pro at this club probably isn’t a plum job.
As we were getting ready to tee off, a foursome walked off #18 and headed home. The first green had a sprinkler going on it. When I got to the green and saw where my ball lay, I laughed. Between me and the hole was a hose, connecting the sprinkler to the faucet in the ground. There was another hole in the green, and, even though it didn’t have a flag in it, I putted to it so I could at least have a go at making the putt. I had to make 3 attempts to putt, because every time I got up to putt, the fast-moving sprinkler would spray me. Finally I just stood in the water when it came around. The day was hot enough it felt good anyway.
This is the craziest golf course I’ve ever seen. Number 10 and number 13 use the same fairway, but in opposite directions. So if there are 2 foursomes out there at the same time, 8 people are firing shots at one another. Wonder how many people have been beaned on the noggins there? Another green is in the flight path of tee shots from the next hole. So while you’re putting, people are hitting balls over your head (in the best-case scenario). They only water the greens so the fairways crunch like paper underfoot, and some of the fairways are cracked like dried mud.
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