The Fortress by the Sea

I write from yet another stunning location – a newly built house atop a mountainous hill, towering over a vast plain spread with the sprawl of New Zealand’s Christchurch. The horizon is dominated by the snow-capped Southern Alps, stumbling into the sea to the NE. You will have to come and see for yourselves. The wall between me and this view is almost entirely glass, making it I suppose a window. There is a balcony outside (complete with hot tub) where a frail butterfly is struggling desperately to crawl back to some unknown warm embrace against the morning’s strong easterly wind.

We ended up here (instead of in our station wagon) after going to church yesterday – the house belongs to the couple who sat next to us, who invited us back for dinner and then to spend the week living here! Yet again God has provided above and beyond what we could hope for or imagine.

So as I gaze over the distant Alps like some kind of Grecian god, I will endeavour to pick up the New Zealand story where I left off. It was Tuesday 23rd February. We had returned to Maude & Bruce’s (Lisa’s parents) after our exploration of the Far North. Maude fed us roast chicken with crispy, rosemary covered roast potato cubes. The men sat around chatting and the ladies watched tripe on the television. Tom & Lisa then suggested we join them for a weekend at their bach* on the Coromandel. Sounded good to us!

After re-packing the car and depositing anything unneccessary in the MacDonald garage. We set off in the direction of the Coromandel, unsure where we would be spending the night. It was a beautiful drive and began with an impromptu visit to Auckland botanical gardens – free entry! We made a lunch with what food we had left and took it in… A lovely place. We munched beside a lake under the shade of a softly weeping willow. Back at the entrance we were inexplicably drawn to the cafe where, predictably, we drank dark coffee. We continued our journey along the Pacific Coast Highway past vast deathly white mud flats covered with clear blue water and had our breath forcibly removed by views of sea and mountain which Hannah insisted on photographing endlessly.

We arrived at Thames, a large town in the Coromandel named so because a guy who saw it a long time ago thought it’s river looked like …the Thames. Looked like a river to me. It was here we discovered that our gas stove cannister could be filled at all petrol stations for about $6! Highlight of the trip so far. We were given some unhelpful help in an i-site before deciding we would sleep in a real campsite you had to pay for, nearby some popular walking routes. After buying mince and kidney beans, this is where we went.

The campsite was situated at the end of a 15km unsealed gravel road. We shared the campsite with a tired French lady called Sophie. We cooked chilli and invited her to join us. She agreed but would bring her own food (I think scared of what we might make) once she had seen and tasted our chilli, of course the empty bowl was returned for seconds. She kindly offered us some of her spiruline (green mould) which is apparently good for you. She was very generous and urged us to take as much as we wanted. We spent the evening pleasantly chatting away – Sophie was leisurely cycling NZ. Epic. She was very talkative and as the darkness surrounded us and clouds of mosquitoes descended, we feebly attempted to draw conversations to a conclusion. Eventually she permitted us leave and we escaped into the car from the creatures of the night.

Early in the morning we had our porridge which was inspected and approved by Sophie. We donned suitable footwear and made our way to the beginning of the track for the day’s walk, our bag packed with sandwiches, water and waterproofs (the sky was looking ominous). Map in hand, we took off. Minutes later I ran back to lock the car. It all began very pleasantly with a well maintained pathway leading us gently through NZ’s famous silver ferns. Before long, however, the path began to climb and become a little more rugged. It was an old packhorse track from the 1920s and the track users had lazily hewn solid rock into a rough pattern; a “staircase” if you could stretch your imagination far enough. This wasn’t something the Incas would have been proud of. We slipped and crawled up steep rock gullies through oppressive jungle vegetation for an hour or two, crossing thirsty rivers over stepping stones or chainmail swinging bridges. We reached a point where we could take an extra track to see ‘The Pinnacles’ – a reportedly good viewpoint. Another uphill struggle, although much more open and much more pleasant – views of forested hills and valleys stretching away, clouds encircling jutting volcanic structures (these clouds were also coating us in a fine drizzle). The pinnacles hut was an hour along this track and we were just stepping onto a wooden walkway leading to it’s entrance when the stomach of a cloud nearby was mauled by a mountain peak causing a torrent of rain to crash over us. We ran the last 20 steps and escaped a soaking. The hut was impressive – room for 80 people to stay when doing a more lengthy walk – a large kitchen (the only things left behind for lonely trekkers were two Gladwrapped** stale biscuits) and a large covered area for BBQs and merriment. We ate our peanut butter and plum jam sandwiches and waited for the rain to ease before setting off again. It was definitely downhill from here, mentally more than physically. Hannah had not been feeling great and we decided to head back rather than go the extra hour to the pinnacles themselves. The hour back to the original trail passed without drama – except for the fact that the rain began again and got even heavier. The path slipped into it’s ‘stream’ state and we eventually became one with the water, accepting it finally after fruitless attempts to avoid it. Back on the original track, we decided that rather than go the 2 hour walk we had done to reach that point earlier (remembering the rock ‘staircase’ and imagining it would be pretty treacherous now) we would take our chances and walk the unknown 3 hour route… A miserable few hours as the rain poured thickly and unceasingly. We were saturated. The path was barely distinguishable from the valley of death. Log steps once useful had decades ago become washed-out obstacles with half metre drops to pools of wet mud beneath. Where there were no steps, the path was now either a V-shaped stream bed or a collection of angular ankle-twisting boulders. Hannah was really not having a good time. Thoughts of hot chocolate and the angry letters we would write the the DOC*** who had recommended and ‘maintained’ the ‘walk’ kept us going through the slips and falls. The final hour was a little less like walking through an upside-down swimming pool of pain but the path became illegally steep. At least it was a path. I am remembering the aches of the stretchy bits between my toes…ouch. We eventually made it back to the car and after bagging our clothes, took off as fast as we were able to Tom’s Aunt’s bach (holiday home), stopping for a hot chocolate on the way.

The bach was lovely – a small two bedroomed place set just off a beautiful beach with honey-coloured, tree topped sandstone cliffs to the North and kilometres of white sand stretching away to the South. Out to sea the blue water was dotted with small forested islands.

No TV so after unpacking, the evening was spent eating chocolate and puzzling over a puzzle. Great to sleep in a bed again! Tom and Lisa arrived from Auckland around 3pm the next day and unpacked all the tasty groceries they had bought. Tom declared that we would all go for a swim and so we did. We swam a fair distance to a cave/blowhole along the coast. It was stunning – oak trees grew on the surface, hanging over the opening which was about 8m across. They filtered a perfect green light down to the water. I wanted to stay and gaze but was treading water and cold out of the sun so we swam back to the beach. It was pretty exhausting as I can’t really swim. We (well, Tom) fired up the BBQ for delicious bloody steak and chinese honey sausages. The second puzzle was started before Lisa eventually managed to convice Tom to play cards with us. He rose from his stupor and taught us ’500′. Kind of like poker. Well, cards and remembering are involved.

After a breakfast of french toast**** and golden syrup (not Tate & Lyles’) we drove to Cathedral Cove – the beach where the new Prince Caspian film begins. It was a beautiful day and the carpark was packed – we parked on the side of a road hanging over a cliff edge. With a 45 minute walk down to the beach, I was amazed to see how many people were making the trip. When we arrived, we saw why – easily the most perfect beach we have been to on our travels. Not too crowded either, which is normally complained about. The sand was white, the cliffs were yellow and soft, the water was clearer than the clearest crystal, there were impressive arches and stacks towering over the beach, everyone was having a great time. Beachy things were done before returning to the car. We stopped at a nearby shop for icecreams and toffee which we ate on a parasoled picnic bench. Hot Water Beach was the next stop – a beach where at low tide you can dig a hole with your shovel and it will fill with hot water – your own jacuzzi! Unfortunately we got there at high tide. All Tom’s fault. Back at the bach we had soup, sausages and slowly BBQ’d sweetcorn for dinner before wandering through the moonlight to a local lookout with Tom. Again the rest of the evening was spent playing 500.

In the morning, about 7am, Hannah and I were woken by an air-raid siren. I was going to go back to sleep, thinking it would only sound a few times at most, but it kept going… Hannah and I joked when ‘Tsunami’ immediately entered our minds as all coastal areas in NZ are plastered with warning signs and escape routes. Tom and Lisa hadn’t woken up so we were going to go back to bed when we heard someone run up the stairs on the side of the house, knock on the front door, run back down and around the back of the house and bang on the french windows at the end of our room. Then we became more curious. We went outside and heard a neighbour shouting to another “I’ve been listening on the radio, there was an earthquake in Chile, the tidal wave will hit NZ at 7:30am with a 3m swell!” Now Tom and Lisa were awake. After listening to the radio in Tom’s car it was still unclear what was supposed to be happening. We went and had a look at the sea and it was still there so we went back inside and had some more eggy bread for breakfast. Tom then suggested we go for a swim. Lisa wasn’t too keen on that idea but we went anyway … the hills were literally on the beach, so we (perhaps foolishly?) reasoned it would be ok! The tide was out a lot further than it should have been as it was supposed to be high tide, but not further out than Tom had ever seen. Whilst we were in the water, larger choppy waves began rolling in – still quite small, but fast. As we returned to the sand, we saw that the tide had moved about 10 metres up the beach from where it was when we arrived a few minutes earlier. This is pretty much the way it continued for the next 12 hours, advancing to high tide and then retreating to low tide, every 30 minutes or so. It was incredible to think that the sea on our beach was reacting to an event 10000km or so away. Just think what terror all those butterfly wings must create after all… We returned to the beach every now and then to check the sea was still there and it always was. Much of the rest of the day was spent sleeping and reading. Most of the locals took the event in their stride – a few people left but most just carried on as normal. There was a lot of excited chatter at the small passenger ferry terminal – it wasn’t running due to the freakish tide – first time ever or something… The seagulls were especially confused as the rocks they perched on were routinely engulfed. The radio blared the order to “Stay away from ALL beaches”!

Tom and Lisa left that night and we will not see Tom again this trip as he will be working in Switzerland. They have been such a blessing to us and really looked after us. Great guys!

We survived another night without being washed away, cleaned the house and drove to Whakatane to visit Tom’s parents and get the car a new WOF*****. The papers were full of reports of ‘stupid Kiwis’ who had heard about the tsunami warning and rushed down to the beach to have a look…

Great to see Rob and Liz again. We were fed a delicious casserole for tea and given a lovely big warm bed to sleep in again. I had agreed help Rob on the farm in the morning but didn’t really know what he wanted me to do. I put on a boiler suit and gumboots before stomping out to find him. He asked me to walk a small herd of cows back to their field as he went off to get something from the house. It started off well, the cows were very obedient – however I did not know where their field was and how far I was supposed to walk them… I had seen them in the first field on the left before and they did hesitate at the closed gate so I went to open it – but they had already moved on. I went into the field hoping to overtake them and head them back to the opened gate but I spooked them and they took off. We danced in this fashion for a few minutes, me surging ahead, leaping or diving over or under cruelly barbed fences as the cows warily stumbled along the path, stopping every few metres desperately wanting to understand exactly what act I needed them to perform that I might stop tormenting them. Eventually I managed to get ahead of them, slipped deftly back onto the path and stood my ground, exultant, ready to send them back. At this point I noticed Rob speeding up the track on the quad bike waving his arms – apparently the herd was supposed to be walked another few hundred metres right to the end of the track. I meekly stepped aside. The beasts had known what they were doing all along.

Later that day we took in the local galleries and cafes as our car languished at the mechanics. We found one of those small cash and carrys – filled with huge bins of cornflakes and rice and sugar and flour and popping corn and all manner of things and we were happy. Corned beef for dinner. Forget everything you think you know about corned beef and prepare for revolution. Rob + Liz had their church homegroup in the evening and we were invited to join them and tell them all the exciting things going on in Southampton and England in general, contrary to the popular view of Britain’s dying faith.

In the morning we set off South to continue our expedition. It was sad to say goodbye to Rob + Liz in the morning, they have been like parents away from parents! Ahead were lakes, mountains, waterfalls and egg-smells galore.

Christchurch (where we have been for a month) is, I’m afraid to say, still a long way from appearing in the blog. Perhaps bulletpoints are the way to go…

Brownout.

*Holiday home
**Cling Film
***Department Of Conservation
****Eggy Bread
*****Warrant Of Fitness (MOT)

Advertisement