Christchurch, Tekapo, a NZ Hunt, and Kaikoura

Off to Christchurch with our caravan amongst roads filled with orange traffic cones, the sheer number a somewhat contentious topic here between political groups. There is an insane amount of cones, cones every cone length on both sides of the road at times. It’s almost comical. I have to admit that in today’s world, I’m very happily living in the land where traffic cone debates make the front page.

We moved from the mountains toward the sea today. “What are mountains on high but the crystallized waves of the sea, And what is the white-topped wave but a mountain that liquidly weaves? (Glover, 1953).  

Christchurch is the 2^nd largest city in Aotearoa and is compelling, its history of recent earthquake destruction raw – the mix of heritage buildings next to modern new architecture next to partially demolished buildings. Bright, creative murals decorate the new walls. We settled into a Holiday Park for three nights, while welcoming Gma and Gpa Hyer from Alaska for a New Zealand adventure. We took the restored heritage tramcars, giving us an overview of the city and its history, architect Gpa excitedly taking it all in. Gma gifted us with personalized Terikah Night Crew hoodies, a thoughtful gift that will keep us warm on our upcoming passage. They also hauled the obligatory massive duffel full of our “orders,” a task all visitors get to enjoy – from a pressure switch for our freshwater pump to our favorite deodorant, it always feels like Christmas when guests visit.

An excited Calder turned disappointed Calder when all the bikes at the Adventure Park were rented out, but we took the chairlift to the top anyway, hiking back down before driving over to Mount Cavendish where we took the Gondola up to meet Gma/Gpa for their mandatory first NZ pie. We were all a bit unnerved when the wind picked up and we swayed our way down the mountain in the Gondola between gusts.  A sign showed that we are 11,000 km from both Los Angeles and Cape Town, exciting to think about, but also a long way to go!

The next day brought wind and rain, as we walked around the regenerating city center, the Canterbury Museum PopUp with its colorful yarn marae, the free and bold Christchurch Art Gallery, and the Harry Potter like stairs of the public library.

Quake City Museum was striking with stories of loss, heroism, and hope; the science behind the massive and destructive 2010 and 2011 quakes, and the process of rebuilding. “Civilization exists by geological consent, subject to change without notice (Durant),” highlighting how fragile human civilization is in the face of the immense and unpredictable forces of nature. Traveling here we have come to realize how “active” geologically NZ is, from earthquakes to volcanoes to tsunamis. We are standing on very active ground, the “shaky isles.” The country sits astride the boundary between two of the Earth’s great tectonic plates (the Australian and Pacific plates); a M7 (magnitude 7) earthquake occurs on average about once every ten years somewhere in the country. It’s not if, but when.

Our caravan home returned to the depot, we embarked on 2 weeks of Air BnB travel with the grandparents.

First stop, Cairns Alpine Resort at Lake Tekapo, where Gpa Terry coordinated a “meat hunt” of fallow deer. The deer species here were introduced and have no natural predators, therefore NZ has to “cull” a certain number of animals yearly. There is also trophy hunting here for such amazing animals as tahr and stag, but our focus was getting some delicious, healthy wild deer in our freezer. I’ll let Calder tell the tale:

“A half hour drive out of Tekapo, New Zealand, and a few river and cow pasture crossings later, and we were on the privately accessed but public land that we would be hunting for the day. In New Zealand, private access areas are the best way to hunt, public land having been more heavily hunted. We hired a guide to take my grandpa, dad, and me hunting on what we refer to as a “meat hunt.” Most of the time, the guide does trophy hunts for Red Stag, Elk, Himalayan Tahr, and a manner of other ungulates, but not us. We were after the Fallow Deer, not any larger than Sitka Blacktail, but just as tasty. After taking a few shots at their makeshift shooting range, we drove up a valley, parked the truck, and took a walk.

Because this land access is private, the population is very good in the valley, and the animals are less skittish. Within the first hour, we had already seen five massive bull Elk and more Fallow and Red Deer to count, as well as a few Himalayan Tahr farther up the mountain. The guide spotted a small herd of Fallow deer in a clearing, and we made for them, the matagouri bushes and their long spines scratching us all the way. We made our way towards them in a small creek bed, then crawled over the bank, to have a look. We sized up the deer, moved downhill a bit more, took note of the wind direction, and when everything was right, we came back up on the bank where I took a careful shot. It turned out to be a heart lung shot, which dropped the deer almost instantly. I was very thankful to have placed a killing shot, as there is nothing worse than wounding an animal and having it run off suffering. It is always a good feeling to be providing for the family, whether it is fish or game, and is something that I will always enjoy.

After gutting and hauling the deer back to the truck, we found another small creek and broke the deer down, getting the meat into the cooler and the hide into the bushes. The day proceeded, and my dad shot a deer, which he did not let us forget that it was the biggest of the deer. My grandpa shot his deer near the end of the day, and we were on our way back home just as the sun started to set, Mount Cook lit in an orange glow against its striking peak. This hunting experience was different from any Alaska hunt I’ve been on, but its uniqueness and success made it one of my favorites!”

While the guys were hunting, Gma, Cora, and I went to the local petting zoo; I’m a sucker for feeding sheep and alpacas. I looked back to see that Gma and Cora had left me in the field with the animals after a while, not too excited to get jumped on by a rambunctious 4-month-old lamb. I continued to feed and take selfies with my animal friends. We enjoyed a lovely walk along the lake and stumbled upon the best bookstore I’ve visited in New Zealand, where the owner helped me pick out a few books with a local flair. Autumn is settling in—the leaves are beginning to change, and we’ve been lighting the woodstove each morning to chase away the chill… though honestly, I think we’d be doing it anyway; Chris has missed having a fire so much.

Lake Tekapo is a lovely tiny town (500 year-round population, up to 3,000 in summer) on a stunning lake; at 700 m above sea levels, the air in this inter-mountain microclimate is crisp and the skies are clear. The lake, 25 km long and 5km wide, is the result of millions of years of melting and contracting glaciers with its turquoise waters from the sun’s reflection off tiny particles of glacially-ground up mountain rock. Some sites here include the Church of the Good Shepard (built in 1935) and the Sheepdog Monument.

Tekapo is in the largest one of the 12 International Dark Sky Reserves in the world; we have greatly enjoyed the remarkable brightness of the stars and Milky Way whilst sitting in the hot tub at night. A cloud moved in at midnight when we were scheduled for our Dark Sky astronomy experience, but we thoroughly enjoyed the education center interactive experiences, finally understanding how to use the Southern Cross to find South, as well as finding other constellations in the Southern Hemisphere.

I took an afternoon to hike up to Mount John Observatory summit and walk the Lake trail down, stopping for a view of the Southern Alps as I ate my baked camembert sandwich.

Mount John Observatory is NZ’s main astronomical research facility with four main telescopes used for scientific research in astronomy and astrophysics, focused mainly on stars in our Milky Way Galaxy and on solar-system bodies. My mind is always “blown” by reading about techniques to explore space (gravitational microlensing?) and our minute place in it all.

Enjoyed delicious wood-fired pizza from a foodcart, as well as a freshwater king alpine salmon dinner at Blue Lake.

As we’ve been traveling, I’ve been intrigued by watching bikers on the Great Rides in New Zealand, 23 different long-distance bike trails all around the country. Most recently, we’ve seen signs for the “Alps to Ocean” Great Ride. We decided to rent bikes for a day and do one leg of the ride, a stunning day of riding along Tekapo Canal, past salmon farms and the remarkable dam system, and ending along the shoreline of the magnificent Lake Pukaki with the Southern Alps and its gem of Mount Cook. We ate our lunch on the beach and enjoyed a different view and pace of this part of New Zealand rather than speeding by in our car.

These Southern Alps and Aoraki speak to me.  As one mountaineer said in 1891, “We seemed to breathe a heavenly atmosphere, to live a new life in another and a better world. Where is the man who can come into contact with these surroundings and not be better in body and soul?”

The people of New Zealand are an all-in-all positive and accommodating people. At our Air BnB, we were processing the deer meat and had a pile that needed to be ground. The woman working at the Air BnB called up a friend and dropped by a meat grinder. Unfortunately, even with Chris’ tinkering, we couldn’t get it to work. I let her know this and said no worries, we’ll figure something out later. A few hours later a man shows up, knocks on the door and declares, “I am the mincer.” Hilarious. He fixed it and off we grind! We have met this spirit of going above and beyond repeatedly here. Also, overall a very positive outlook on life. We had signed up for a nighttime astronomy experience but the sky was clouding up. The waiter at the restaurant said, “Well, it’s a sky half full of stars sort of night,” which I related with – seeing the stars, not the clouds.  The cloud did indeed move in and the tour was cancelled, but we understand the weather is on its own schedule! In the bathroom stalls, there are quotes posted, such as, “By being yourself you put something wonderful in the world that was not there before.” Just putting good out into the world.

Checked out of our Tekapo home and back on the road. We stopped at the eccentric Three Creeks Collection in Burkes Pass to peruse antiques, the Fairlie Bakehouse for country famous pies, and Geraldine Cheese Factory where I tasted every cheese on display.  Enroute we were stopped to allow a herd of cattle to cross the major highway to a new pasture. We spent a couple nights in the coastal town of Kaikoura, exploring the region, walking the Kaikoura Peninsula Walkway, watching young seals nose each other on a playground of rocks, playing a comical pool tourney (Gpa won), and just being together preparing and enjoying meals.

It seems that to live here and launch your boat you need a tractor! People had tractors parked in their yards, boat trailers behind, as well as large tractors along the coast to launch large boats.

We enjoyed fresh New Zealand deer for dinner, so thankful for our time together.