Nedly on his Treadly: A Week in New Zealand

A few months ago two of my sisters, Leah and Rachel, were organising a trip to New Zealand for some skiing and travelling. They asked if I wanted to join them, and considering the substantial amount of leave I had built up at work, and that I hadn't been on a holiday, or skiing, for quite a while, nor had I been to New Zealand before, I was quick to say yes. My other sister Rosanna also hopped on board but my youngest sister Silkom didn't have enough money to come with us too.

It was handy to spread the organising load between the four of us. Contrary to the way I typically organise (or don't organise) a holiday, we had all our hostels and the hire car already booked, and the ski resorts we planned to ski at penciled in. We managed to find flights as cheap as $230 return to Christchurch through Jetstar. So near the end of June 2013, we caught a taxi to Tullamarine and hopped on the plane, only the third time I've been on a commercial airliner.

Lining up at Tullamarine, L-R: Micheal our German couchsurfer who happened to be catching the same flight to NZ to travel around for a few weeks, a random, Rosanna, Rachel and Leah with an over-exposed face.

I was looking forward to the trip and my only concern was how my sisters would get along, having experienced their extreme mood-swings in the past. These concerns turned out to be well founded, but more on that later. This post is mostly a selection of some of the photos and highlights from the trip.

The drive from Christchurch to Wanaka

The flight was what is known as a "red-eye" flight, since it departed Melbourne late at night, and arrived at New Zealand early in the morning, at about 5:00 am, so there was no opportunity to get any reasonable amount of sleep in. This meant we had a five hour drive ahead of us while we were all tired. Only Leah and I were allowed to drive the hire car because we were 25 years old or older. So Leah and I took it in turns driving while the others napped in the back. It was a shame to miss some of the impressive scenery but I was so tired I had to have a few naps.

A stop in Geraldine for breakfast, with our Toyota Corolla hire car.

Lake Tekapo

Rachel throwing snow-balls at Lake Tekapo. It was novelty to be in snow.

Lake Tekapo

A little church at Lake Tekapo

Lake Tekapo

The little church at Lake Tekapo.

Rosanna at Lake Tekapo

Lake Tekapo

Driving towards Wanaka.

Driving towards Wanaka

A stop in the Waitaki District.

A photo of Leah taking a photo of Rachel posing for a photo.

We eventually arrived safely in Wanaka and checked into the Altamont Lodge for the first three nights. It was a fantastic hostel, one of the best I've stayed in, with clean, comfortable facilities, and a new kitchen, a good vibe and even some tennis courts. We went to have a play a match on them, but Rosanna had hit all three balls over the fence before I'd even made it out of the hostel! Unfortunately the balls were not retrievable because the neighbours were allegedly unneighbourly and grouchy, so that was the end of the tennis - over before it had even started, so sad! Thanks Rosanna.

What really made the hostel though was the helpful and friendly staff. Rod in particular gave us heaps of advice and told us many a story from his 80 odd years of life experience. He appeared very healthy for his age, and I suspect this was because he'd kept so active for his whole life. He told us about how he had recently been swimming in Lake Wanaka with a wet-suit, even though it was winter and only 12 degrees! He was a keen cyclist, in both road cycling and mountain biking, and would go for a jog regularly as well, or skiing or hiking, or athletics which he was in charge of when he was a teacher back in the day.
He had some devastating stories about the earthquake in Christchurch and how some of his friends had been affected, and a number of other depressing stories, but despite these he still maintained such an positive outlook on life, which I admired. He had recently contracted Golden Staph and was told by doctors that he would most probably die, but he pulled through and carried himself back to health! He gave an interesting insight into NZ politics, and coincidentally it was on this night that the ALP leadership challenge occurred and Kevin Rudd was reinstated as Prime Minister of Australia, which came somewhat as a surprise to me.

In the common room at the Altamont Lodge playing a game of 500.

The first two nights in the hostel actually felt like we had the hostel to ourselves, it felt like we'd rented out a large house for a few nights. There were others staying in the hostel, but strangely they didn't seem to be hanging out with us :p

The following three days after our arrival in Wanaka were spent on the ski slopes, more specifically at the Cardrona ski resort. We could have gone to Treble Cone for one of the days but we'd heard it was better suited to more advanced skiers, whereas we were all quite inexperienced.

One issue we had was that we didn't pay the extra fee to get snow chains with the hire car, thinking that we'd simply hire them in Wanaka. It turned out that no-where in Wanaka offered hire chains, or at least we couldn't find any. So we decided we'd just drive to the base of the mountain and then hitch-hike up. We had the option of hiring chains half way up (from the point they were required), but they cost $45 just for the day, and we all agreed that was a rip off, so we opted to hitch up instead. Hitching up to the ski-resorts seems to be a common approach in NZ, as lined up behind another half a dozen people hitching up. Everyone would lie down their ski/snowboard gear and stick up their thumb with a smile, to make themselves more attractive to prospective lift-givers. Everyone would go "awww" when a car with spare seats drove past without stopping. Leah and Rosanna got a lift up pretty quickly, but Rachel and I had to wait around another 15 minutes since it was getting on a bit and there were less cars, but eventually we were squashed into a hired Tarrago with a family of five from Queensland. Excellent!

The turn-off to Cardrona, looking back at the road from Wanaka where we'd come from.

At the turn-off to Cardrona as the sun rises, and waiting for a lift.

Looking up the road to Cardrona while waiting for a lift.

At the turn-off to Cardrona: Rachel and I waiting for a lift up the mountain.

I took a few green runs just to get the hang of skiing again, then moved onto the blue (intermediate) runs.

Rosanna and Rachel about to head down a green run at Cardrona

On one of the ski lifts at Cardrona, looking down.

The view from the a ski lift at Cardrona.

The view from Cardrona ski resort.

Rosanna at Cardrona ski resort, beautiful skiing conditions.

The back of Cardrona, Rosanna in the left of the photo.

The view from the back of Cardrona.

The view from the back of Cardrona as a light cloud floats in.

As it turned out, we were fortunate to have excellent skiing conditions; it was the start of the season so it wasn't busy, but there had been a huge dumping of snow the previous week, and there was allegedly 110 cm of packed powder snow. We heard it would be much busier the next week with the Australian school holidays commencing, and the season ramping up.

For our second day of skiing, we again had to hitch up. The four of us squashed into another Tarago, this time being driven by a lovely family of five from Sydney: Matt and his wife, and their three kids: Ben, Max and Lachlan. One of the boys told us a funny story about their Dad - he'd dropped the family off at the Airport in Sydney and then driven away to find a free-car park to avoid the exorbitant airport parking fees, but by the time he'd found a free car park and walked back to the airport, he'd missed his flight! His family were on the way to NZ without him. So had had to book another flight and a hotel, and Max reckoned it would have been cheaper just to pay for the airport parking!

Cardrona Ski Resort

Getting some lessons from our hostel manager, Rod, and 82 year old (centre of picture in blue). Leah is on the left and Rachel on the right.

Rachel, about to head down the slope.

Rosanna at Cardrona.

Some of the ski slopes at Cardrona.

One of the ski slopes at Cardrona.

Driving back to Wanaka after a fantastic day of skiing.

For our final night in Wanaka, we thought it'd be good to go out and experience the town's night-life. We brought along a few others from the hostel - Matt from Dunedin (NZ), Ben from France and Maria, a Singaporean girl from Melbourne. We went to a club called Opium, which had free entry, cheap drinks ($5 spirits) and surprisingly good music - I was impressed!
Speaking of music, this trip made me realise how much my music taste had diverged/expanded/developed compared to my sisters. They disliked almost everything I put on, from accessible music like Daft Punk's new album Random Access Memories, The Velvet Underground's self-titled and Loaded, Elbow - Cast of Thousands and Paul Kelly's new album Spring and Fall to Jon Hopkins new album Immunity, The Knife's new album Shaking the Habitual, A Hawk and a Hacksaw - Cervantine, Dirty Three, Goat and Four Tet. While we were listening to music in the car, all they did was complain about my music choices, except for maybe Elbow and Paul Kelly! This surprised me.

Rosanna and Rachel at Opium, a club in Wanaka.

The club was cool, as far as clubs go, but I was too tired to enjoy it, still recovering from the red-eye flight and early mornings for skiing. I was the designated driver so I drove back to the hostel with Rachel and Rosanna, leaving Leah behind with Matt.

The day was spent skiing at Cardrona again, our third and final day of skiing for the trip. We were able to drive ourselves up to the top this time because they were no-longer requiring drivers to fit chains.

Cardrona Ski Resort

Cardrona Ski Resort: Rosanna, Leah, Rachel and me on the Captains Expressway lift

Cardrona Ski Resort: Rachel, Leah and Rosanna.

Cardrona Ski Resort

Using your ski lift pass, you can hop online and see your ski stats. I had 86 runs over the three days, quite a lot, despite often having to wait around at the bottom of the runs for my sister(s).

I recorded my third day of skiing on Strava. Looks like I did 35 runs and covered a good portion of the ski field. One of the lift operators reckoned if you did over 25 runs in a day you were doing well.

So that was the end of three fantastic days of skiing. We drove back to Wanaka to drop off our hired ski's, poles and boots, and to pick up our luggage from the hostel before driving to Queenstown.

We stopped for a delightful view of Lake Wanaka as we were leaving.

Sun setting at Lake Wanaka.

As it turned out, leaving Leah behind at the club the previous night was a bad idea as she turned out to be particularly grumpy and temperamental today. In one particularly nasty outburst just as the sun was setting over Lake Wanaka, she became verbally abusive and caused a rupture in space-time contin..I mean, in the relationships between the siblings, especially between her and Rosanna. This meant that we could no longer do activities as a group because, understandably, Rosanna didn't want to talk to, or be around, Leah. Unfortunately though we had an hour long car trip ahead of us to get to Queenstown!
After that part of the holiday, Rachel sided with Leah, despite Leah's extreme nastiness, presumably so that she wasn't left on her own, while Rosanna had no choice but to side with me.
We checked into our hostel in Queenstown - the Haka Lodge. It wasn't bad, but not as good as the Altimont Lodge in Wanaka. Queenstown is known as "the adventure capital of the world". It's more of a party town than Wanaka and seemed to be full of foreigners, especially English people.
The next day we hiked up the Queenstown's "Gondola", in two separate groups.

Queenstown, looking towards the Gondola.

Queenstown: the Gondola. In the summer, you can attach your mountain bike to the lifts and ride down the excellent mountain trails. I'd love to return to Queenstown and do that.

The view from the Gondola, overlooking Queenstown and Lake Wakatipu.

On top of the Gonola, looking towards Ben Lomond. Note the Douglas Firs, an introduced species, creeping up the valley and gradually taking over.

A mountain goat on top of the Gondola, Lake Wakatipu in the background.

Looking down at Queenstown from the Gondola.

Lake Wakatipu: while Rosanna and I were walking back down the Gondola, we ran into Leah and Rachel who were walking up.

Rachel, in front of Lake Wakatipu.

It happened to be the final day of the Queenstown Winter Festival so there were a number of bands playing, with stalls and street food and the like. The bassist (on the right) was very funny.

Lake Wakatipu from Queenstown, as the sun sets.

The next day, our second day in Queenstown, wasn't too eventful. We had originally planned to go skiing at the Remarkables, but Rachel and Leah weren't keen and the forecast wasn't great so Rosanna and I didn't go either. I didn't want to just sit around in the hostel or stay in Queenstown for the whole day though, so I decided to drive to Arrowtown and go for a hike. Rachel and Leah came, but Rosanna stayed behind, presumably because Leah was coming.

The main street of Arrowtown

On the Big Hill Track.

On the Big Hill Track

Walking up the Big Hill Track.

I wanted to take the longer hike to Macetown (6 hours return from Arrowtown) but Leah and Rachel weren't keen, so we just did the Sawpit Gully Loop (2-3 hours). Considering it would be dark in an hour or two and we had no lights or supplies, this was probably a sensible move.

A bright tree by the walking track, near Sawpit Gully.

Rachel holding a shard of ice.

Rachel cautiously negotiating the slipper/icy walking track.

Me, with Sawpit Gully and Arrowtown in the background.

On our final day in Queenstown, Leah decided she wanted to go bungy-jumping. The rest of us weren't really interested in doing it, so we just watched Leah jump off the bridge.

Leah lining up on the left to bungy jump, Rachel and I watching.

Leah dangling off the bungy cord after jumping off the bridge.

After that, we had to drive back to Christchurch where we would spend one more night before flying back to Melbourne.
We stopped to pick up a hitch-hiker just out of Cromwell, even though we only had a little Toyota Corolla with all our luggage. The hitch-hikers name was Sam Scott, a young bloke originally from Picton; he'd been helping his parents manage the family hostel in Fox Glacier. We had to squash him into the middle seat in the back, but he said he'd been waiting over an hour and a half for a lift, and it was still five hours drive to Christchurch (would have been a long walk!) so I'm sure he was appreciative.

One of the lakes on the drive back to Christchurch.

Back at Lake Tekapo after the snow had melted.

When we got to Christchurch, our hitch-hiker Sam was able to navigate us through the city which still has many roads and streets closed off after the 2011 earthquake. We dropped him off at his friends place (his destination) and found our way to our hostel - Around the World Backpackers. It had supposedly been voted best hostel in NZ in 2011 or something like that but it was hard to see how - it wasn't bad, but nothing to write home about!
Our final day in New Zealand was simply spent walking around Christchurch until we had to drive back to the airport at 5 pm to catch our flight.

Christchurch Cathredal crumbling after the Earthquake

The Cardboard Cathedral, the worlds only Cathedral made substantially of cardboard. Also called the Christchurch Transitional Cathedral, it's intended to be a temporary cathedral, presumably while the other is being repaired.

Christchurch Cardboard Cathredral

A demolition truck carrying rubble from the Christchurch CBD.

A nifty little bike-fixing station, with a range of tools and a pump. Why doesn't Melbourne have this?!

We played a round of mini-golf around the Christchurch CBD, set up by Gap Filler. The intention is to get people back into the CBD and establish community, since many Christchurch residents have been too scared to come back into the CBD and have not been there since before the Earthquake.

A severed pile stands with it's reo exposed at the site of a former structure in Christchurch.

Excavators and other plant work to clean up the rubble of demolished buildings after the 2011 Christchurch earthquake.

More than two years after the Christchurch Earthquake, I was surprised how much of the city is still in ruins, with many more buildings in the CBD still to be demolished. What a devastating disaster it would have been for anyone involved! And on that sombre note, we met back at the car at the hostel and drove back to the Airport. Plenty of time to catch the plane home, who says we run on "Powell time"?!

Nedly on his Treadly

Sunday, July 28, 2013

A Week in New Zealand

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