A day and a half of rain on a holiday can really bring you down AND make the sunshine seem spectacular. We quickly packed our bags for the trip to Christchurch (our flight out the next morning) and raced to the Franz Joseph Glacier walk in the sun!! It is one of the few glaciers that is advancing in the days of global warming. The walk out there is filled with waterfalls that we would pull off highways in the rain to hop out and view because they’re so beautiful, but they almost seemed ho hum because there were so many of them. Charlie impressed the other walkers by wading through the glacial runoff as if it were a hot tub – he got his picture taken with one family. Silly boy.
By a late lunchtime we were in the town of Hokitika, eating in Café de Paris. Hokitika has some industry and a big tourism trade in jade, or greenstone. I think we counted 8 jade outlets in town. We also happened upon the Sock Museum, which just begs a visit. The owner produces and sells hand-crank machines that knit socks. She has about 15 of the machines on display in one little room and sells the hand crank knit socks for $35 a pair. Strangely, the socks are not even made from New Zealand wool, despite the sheep population – the wool was from Germany. She told Mike that she sells 1000 of these machines a year for $2000 each, mostly to wealthy Americans. Her U.S. base is in Pinkney, MI – just down the road from East Lansing. While we’ve been in Australia, she was in Michigan. If you’ve ever read “Roadside America” – this would definitely belong in “Roadside New Zealand.”
We traveled through Arthur’s Pass on the way to Christchurch and eventually caught back up with the rain, just about the time we met these Kea – the only Alpine parrot in the world.
New Zealand isn’t really about the wildlife in the same way that Australia has been for us – I think I read that bats were the only wild native mammal. Possums and deer were introduced and their overpopulation lead to creative outlets: possums are a pest that get made into some sort of wool/possum material. If you ever order venison in the States, most likely it was imported from a deer farm in New Zealand.
We had a few minutes of dusk to check out the business district of New Zealand that was hit by the earthquake. Most of the central business district is inside a fence that is inaccessible - pretty eerie by night. We heard that all buildings over 4 stories will be demolished.
Remember our view of the mountains in Queenstown? This is our view from the Avalon Motel in Christchurch:
Now, right to bed because we have a 6:30 AM flight to Sydney in the morning!
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