The day after my physiotherapy in Kaikoura I was expecting my back to be all fixed....WRONG!
Sandy, again, had to drag the luggage around in the station...luckily the taxi drivers are very helpful so it wasn't too bad. This next part is about the train trip between Kaikoura and Christchurch.
The routes of the New Zealand TranszScenic are reputed to be some of the most beautiful in the world, and it's true. My first trip, from Wellington to Kaikoura, followed the coastline, and went between the mountains and the beautiful Pacific. Sometimes the track was only a few feet from the edge of the clif. The view was just spectacular. In other areas, huges areas of vineyards filled the land on both sides of the train...the Kiwis are really serious about their wines. I didn't think it could get better than that, but I was wrong.
Today we left the hostel, where Sandy and I had our own rooms for the first time (heaven! My first TV in 5 weeks, a solar pool, a great games room, internet cafe, etc.). It's great. Anyhow, we left here at 7:15, and got to the train station about 8AM where we checked in and got our boarding passes. I was fortunate enough to sit across from a woman from Northern New Zealand who lived on a farm, raised prize cattle, and was driving down to the South Island to babysit people's farms if they wanted a break from the work. She has a 5th wheel, an electric fdence to keep the animals away from her truck....but I digress. It was interesting beacause she was a treasure trove of information about the plant life and geology of the region.
First, just a word about Christchurch. It's a VERY English city, with all English Street names, and the River Avon flowing through the center. It's called the garden city because of all the trees and flowers...most of which were imported from England. More about this later.
Anyhow, the train travels through the Canterbury Plains, which is where there are a LOT of sheep, and cows, and even deer (in the North Island, they raise a lot of deer for venison). The train travels uphill until it gets to the continental divide at a place called Arthur's Pass. Well, the train made an unanticipated stop along the way because someone had a heart attack on the train , had to be ambulanced off, and later died. This made the train very late. I was taking pictures in the observation car and couldn't hear the announcement about how long the train was stopping at Arthur's Pass. I just rushed into my car, and grabbed my purse (which was being guarded by Noeline, the farmer lady). I got off the train like everybody else, and then just followed the people down into the National Park. There was a really interesting parrot walking around on the ground and I stopped to photograph it. Well, as I looked up, I saw the train pulling out of the station and I was a LONG way away. You have never seen me run as fast as I did then...my back was completely healed. Anyhow, they just kept on going. I walked back into the parking lot where there were 2 tour buses. I asked if the first one was going to Greymouth, and they weren't. The second one, which was a Chinese chartered tour bus, had a seat and was going to Greymouth. To make a long story short....we played "Follow that train!" The entire bus was laughing at me, but I didn't care. The train was in this 7kilometer long tunnel and we were on the road, so we couldn't be sure where it was. We finally caught up to the train at the next scheduled stop (2 minutes). I jumped off the bus, ran over to the train, opened the door and hauled myself up those steps...Success! It was quite an adventure! The funny thing is that the train is divided by the observation car, which has in the center, the compressor for the ventilation system of the train. I jumped on at the rear of the train and had to find a conductor to open up the compressor room so I could pass to the front of the train where I had been before. I finally sat down beside Sandy and we just laughed and laughed. It was quite an adventure.
The trip itself was amazing. The fields were absolutely covered with yellow scotch broom, wild lupins (purple, white, pink and yellow) buttercups; palm trees in bloom...the colors were incredible. I've been trying to grow lupens for 3 years in my garden and here they grow wild in abundance and pristine glory.
Passing the continental divide the climate changes completely. On the Pacific side, there is a lot of rainfall and things are very green; on the eastern side there is less than 1/20 as much rain and things are very dry. The bus driver told me they had a very warm winter, so there was snow only on a few of the peaks, and the runoff into the rivers was really low.
This train passed a lot of places where people looking for gold mined, and there are still mining operations going on for coal....we stopped several times to make room on the track for coal trains. The train, with a series of 21 tunnels and several very high tressels, climbs over the Snowy Mountains, and ends the trip in Greymouth. On the way you pass over deep canyons and have snowcovered mountain caps on either side of the train along the way.
Greymouth is a sweet town with a wild west flavor. It We stayed there less than we normally would have, but we'd lost a lot of time when the train stopped for the person who'd needed to be taken off. It's the largest town on the west coast of the South Island, but only has a population of about 5,000. was the center for the early mining in the Snowy Mountains.It's the main trading center for all the small communities around it, so has a lot of stores and restaurants and even a hostel in an old mine building. Speaking of wild west, something I didn't know but which I've enjoyed hearing about is the fact that New Zealand has it's own Country and Western music scene, the kiwi version of grammys, and it's pretty popular. In the taxibus on the way back from the train station there was a lot of yodeling and down home singing.
Back at the Stonehurst Accomodation, the first time in the trip when Sandy and I each had our own room, things are wonderful. Last night I had my first TV fix in 5 weeks, and of all things, it was a rerun of a Monk show I'd seen a couple of years ago. Tonight I plan on taking a long hot shower and crashing...it was about 9 hours on the train today, and with my little adventure, you can believe I'm tired!
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