We met up with Ken and Les in Wellington had some of Tash’s mum’s delicious scones (Stu decided to do scientific testing of the Great Scone Debate re the order of jam and cream, and came to the *wrong* conclusion, risking life and limb!), and a last meal out altogether also with Tash’s folks, I had some last strokey time with King Fred the cat and the next morning Ken and Les and I drove north back up to Auckland.

On the drive back we stopped at Lake Taupo again and this time I went for a swim in it. The largest lake. It had to be done!

Here are some general observations about NZ that I haven’t fitted in anywhere else:

The Rugby World Cup was on while I was there. This is the national sport, really, and is called “footie” (as opposed to “soccer”, which means football in English terms). Everyone loves the All Blacks! They feature in the current Air New Zealand flight safety video. Apparently currently, the coaches for the footie teams from Japan, Ireland, Wales (and Scotland) as well as New Zealand are all kiwis. England beat the All Blacks just after I’d left to fly to Melbourne. Perhaps it’s better I wasn’t still around!! I felt quite sad about it really though.

Apparently you don’t have to pay at all for local phone calls here, so people often ring and chat more often and for longer, fostering a sense of community, at least among the pre-social media generation.

There are concierges at many of the petrol pumps to help you, and packers in most supermarkets as well as the checkout staff. Nobody asks whether you want help with your packing, they just do it, all the while chatting away with you about the footie, the weather, whatever.

I have the general impression that most people talk to you and pass the time of day still, often saying not only, “Hi” but also “How are you?” And waiting for and expecting a response, and listening to it. But it’s not that people interfere. If you don’t particularly want to talk, that’s all ok too. It’s really a very hospitable place.

Goodbye New Zealand. I hope we meet again before too long 💕🙏

My last view of the South Island included more stunning snow capped mountains apparently defying gravity, floating in between the clouds. Then, just as I was thinking that was the last of the jaw dropping views of the South Island, stunning views of the snow topped mountains of Kaikoura (on the north east coast of the South Island) loomed large right by my window. Wow. I mean, wow.

Goodbye, South Island. You have been awesome.

This is pronounced “Dun-ee-dn” not “Dundin” as I accidentally pronounced it in the mini market at Owaka, making the checkout lady and my companions laugh (they are never gonna let that one go)! (When I was a child, my aunt and uncle sent us a board game of New Zealand where you had to get to all the places on the destination cards you’d been dealt. For some reason, I read it as “Dundin” and it stuck in my mind! (Unlike “Invergiggle”, which is the kiwis’ affectionate name for Invercargill.))

What a joy a good shower and a warm motel is. Our Air bnbs had been fine and in great locations, but it was good to get into something a bit more standardised and a bit less someone else’s space, somehow.

Dunedin is known as the “Edinburgh of the South Island”, which even has streets named after streets in Edinburgh, Scotland. As we ventured into the city, a female piper with two drummer girls with special needs lent a bit of Scottish colour and music to the scene by the beautiful station building:

Like Edinburgh, Dunedin is a big student city, full of nice cafés, quirky boutiques and beautiful historical buildings (European-historical for NZ anyway, ie from the 1800s). So the comparison is fair, I think.

Our search for genuine Maori crafted pounami (greenstone) turned up trumps here, so I bought myself some earrings. Normally it would only be gifted, not bought. I gather the Maori makers consider the money you offer as a donation towards their craft work, rather than a direct exchange for the stone. I like that idea, but of course it hangs on only by a thread in our consumer age.

On our one complete day in Dunedin, we had the bluest sky yet, half of it was even cloudless, which is unheard of in New Zealand. I was confused, because going South in the UK usually means the weather getting slightly warmer, but in New Zealand going South means getting closer to Antarctica, so the weather is supposed to get colder. Although it was quite cold when we arrived in Dunedin, the weather became warmer than we’d experienced anywhere else in NZ! That is the New Zealand spring season for you.

We stopped off at the farmers’ market for a browse, a delicious coffee and crêpe made by a Frenchman…

…then we drove on the high road up onto the Otago peninsula.

The sun was so bright it threw the trees into sharp relief. After only a short while, suddenly the city dropped away to our left, and there it was. Glorious views over the shapely harbour. All was blue; blue sky, sparkling blue sea, and warm yellow sandy beaches alternating with dark rocky coves.

I realised this is one of the most stunningly beautiful corners of the world I’ve seen. Particularly if I’m thinking about cities. To have this peninsula so close to the city and for it to be so unspoilt is incredible.

We went to the albatross colony at the end of the peninsula, where they also provide one of the largest nesting sites for the apparently endangered red eyed gull (it was hard to believe they’re endangered there were so many of them here).

I couldn’t get close enough to get a picture of an albatross, though we saw a few through the binoculars from the hide, though not in flight.

Albatrosses are incredible creatures – really big birds (these had about a 3 metre wingspan). They glide out at sea for a vast amounts of time never landing anywhere, and only come to land in order to nest once a year. They mate for life and only produce one egg per year, which may or may not survive, too.

We saw another couple of seals on the beach by the Albatross colony too 👆🏼

We visited (and climbed) the world’s steepest street. (“Not suitable for camper vans”! Such a kiwi kind of notice!)

We also visited the Chinese gardens:

On our last evening in Dunedin, we explored the city a little bit more on foot and then went out for a delicious posh meal to celebrate being together. It was glorious!

On the way into the city Tash explained to me about the green cabs here. These are taxis painted green that are either entirely electric or at least hybrid. The company operates across New Zealand. While we’ve been sleeping in our arrogance in the UK this technology and investment has been happening elsewhere. Maybe London has green taxis? Maybe not? I don’t remember being aware of any hybrid or electric taxis anywhere in the UK. I wonder again how come a country with such a smaller population has managed to think of this and bring it about without fuss so successfully so quickly. We so need to get with the programme.

The next morning we had breakfast – I had my most glorious bircher yet – on George Street (also a salubrious street in Edinburgh) before heading off to the airport.

We decided to adopt the motto “If in doubt, ask at the i-site”. (“i-site” is the name for NZ tourist information bureaus.) Everywhere we went, they had super helpful staff, who were very knowledgable about the area and gave great practical advice on routes and sights we should see.

I’ve spent most of my life struggling to work things out independently for myself. The joy of asking someone who actually knows stuff for help has been a recent discovery. I still struggle to do it, but we accumulated such good advice from people on this trip, it reminded me to keep practising asking for help. I actually really don’t like doing it, but of course most of the time people love to be able to help. (Maybe I should think of it as giving someone the opportunity to be able to help me? Would that persuade me to do it more…?) It’s an uncomfortable, vulnerable feeling, needing help. But maybe this is one of the gifts of this trip to me? To exercise vulnerability, to become more accustomed to it? Or maybe to change the way I think about needing help?

On the road to Dunedin, we stopped for lunch, and Tash introduced me to New Zealand lolly cake. “Lollies” are what we’d call “sweets” in England. This cake is a sweet kind of refrigerator cake, made (I think) with crushed up malted milk biscuits, some sort of condensed milk and marshmallows. The taste of it was very sweet and reminded me a lot of the taste of dolly mixture. Yum!

A general reflection about traffic. It’s been a relief even being in a country where you drive on the left. Even though I’ve not had to do any of the driving, crossing roads is so much less stressful here a) because the roads are usually only single carriageway or at most dual carriageway, b) because there’s hardly any traffic out here in the South Island and c) because when walking across, I automatically look in the correct direction to see what traffic might be coming. In America I found it pretty stressful trying to work out where to look at major crossroads, where each road had about four lanes to it. Here, you’re generally more likely to come accroper from sheep roaming across the road!

Many of the beaches along this coastline (including the South Island’s very own Brighton Beach) have long stretches of distinctive white sand. Although the weather was not great, it was good to stop and admire the view periodically.

This waterfall, just a short walk from the road, was different from any of the others we’d seen. We wondered exactly how that huge bolder ended up sitting in the middle of one of the shelves.

We met an older couple travelling around the area in the opposite direction and swapped their tips about Dunedin for our tips about places we’d been to. We were often bumping into kind people here, all too ready to share tips of good sights to see or things to avoid, or just to pass the time of day.

We’d decided to brave the long, unsealed road to Cannibal Bay in the hope of seeing seals. The guy in the chic café in Owaka gave us his top tip, which was to walk from Cannibal Bay across the dunes to Surat Bay, where he said we were pretty much guaranteed to see seals or even sea lions, even if we didn’t see them at Cannibal Bay.

I paddled in the Tasman Sea at Cannibal Bay. It felt like it was probably the coldest place we’d been to yet because of the wind chill factor, but the smooth sand was just so unspoilt and inviting. As with pretty much all the beaches I saw in New Zealand, there was not a scrap of rubbish anywhere.

We enjoyed our walk along Cannibal Bay and just as we reached the dunes where we would cross to the other bay, we saw a seal sun bathing. And some extremely big kelp, too (trainers for scale).

Then we continued to Surat Bay, and were rewarded by the sight of (we think?) a sea lion, who seemed very pleased with himself, basking in the sunlight:

After a short while, the sky became overcast and we had to hot foot it back to the car before the rain.

We stayed one night in an Airbnb in Owaka that had really awesome morning views over the river and lake:

This 👇🏼 is about a minute long silent (Apart from a dog barking and birdsong) video of the view. It makes a lovely moment of wonder and reflection, should you enjoy such a thing:

Apparently the Australian company that makes the reduced cream you use to make “kiwi dip” is stopping producing it. This was the information we found out in the Four Square mini market in Bluff. There was great consternation at the checkout! Once the footie’s over I think the kiwis will have to mount a revolt. And maybe start producing it themselves being one of the world’s largest dairy producers presumably that’s not beyond the realms of possibility (as all kiwis I meet keep drily observing to me). Chippies and kiwi dip is apparently a national institution in NZ. Very tasty it is too!

The reality of being off the beaten track in sleepy Owaka took us a bit by surprise. There was no breakfast venue open at 9am, or much choice for dinner in the evening. On both occasions we were saved by the Four Square mini market. And in the morning also by the surprisingly chic coffee bar that was open. The guy gave us tips about seal sighting while he made immaculate mocha, long black and flat white coffees for us. The availability of extremely good coffee in NZ even in real backwater places is really extraordinary. I tried to explain to Stu and Tash the concept of a greasy spoon café that such a place might have in England. I’m not sure if they had any real concept of how awful the instant coffee there would be.

We made a little evening excursion out to see the unusual rocks and lighthouse at Nugget Point, and saw a seal too.

On the way back to the car, we saw numerous examples of trees rooted into the virtually vertical cliff edge. The rain enables the trees to grow really well, but then they become so heavy that when the ice comes it gets in the cracks in the rocks made by the roots and sometimes huge chunks of rock and tree break off and create a landslide down to the sea.

Tash suggested there must be a lesson in this for a vicar like me to use. I’m mulling that one over. Maybe something about where you put your roots being important, even if everything is going well on the surface? I would say from my experience and from the stories of people I’ve met even on this trip, life can sometimes, in one fell swoop, knock you for six (cause a landslide), even when on the surface everything looks green and lovely. That sounds a bit doom laden, but it needn’t be. I think it’s a question of thinking carefully about where we put our roots down. Which we, unlike the trees, have a choice over, of course. Hmmm…

To get the scale of the cliff face, that’s a couple of people standing at the viewpoint at the top left hand corner👇🏼

We continued onto Roaring Bay to the hide at dusk to see whether we could catch a glimpse of the incredibly shy and rare yellow eyed penguins. Stu managed to get a picture of one with his superduper lens. I saw it through some binoculars, preening away, briefly and then it was gone.

On this day, we stood among the trees of a 160 million year old forest. What an awesome thought.

This is a Jurassic forest that has been preserved for about 160 million years courtesy of a volcanic eruption. The lava seeped into the trees halting them at the stage of growth they had reached at the time. The volcanic mud has preserved the wood all this time, and the action of the pounding of the waves has washed away subsequent deposits of soil to reveal the original tree stumps embedded into the rocks, and also some branches that fell and lay horizontally along the ground.

To touch wood that is 160 million years old is extraordinary! I’m from Dorset in the UK which is famously a Jurassic coastline, but we have nothing like this to my knowledge. Given the pounding the waves of the Tasman Sea were giving all of this even on a clear, sunny and calm day, I am amazed there’s anything left of the petrified forest at all. Respect to you, quiet earth.

This was the Southernmost point that we reached altogether. I think from here it’s just sea and more sea until you reach Antarctica.

We had a short walk down a deserted track past some cows to the end of it all. By the time we came back up the track, all the camper vans had arrived bringing fellow sightseers. It was lovely that we had so many moments in special places on our own on this trip, though. Sometimes the timing of things is such a gift.

The countryside was soft and smoother rolling bright green hills of grass with occasional small woods of trees or lines of trees on this part of our journey. You often see tall trees planted close together in a single line, I imagine to mark a boundary, create a landmark or act as a wind break or all three.

I’ve never seen such bright green grass as they have here in NZ. But then the blue of the sky is also somehow brighter. So I’m not sure whether the grass is literally greener here, or whether it’s something to do with the lack of ozone layer, or perhaps both. Even on cloudy days here you really have to wear sun glasses. And it means my phone camera keeps saying every photo is overexposed, no matter what angle I take a picture from. The device just can’t cope with this much brightness. My cousin and uncle who are both keen photographers have told me it is a real problem even when you know what you’re doing photography wise.

The Great Hawk Hunt

Which reminds me… all my road trip has been interspersed with cries of “There! Look! Stoooop! Ach no- I missed it”. These are the cries of anguished photographers wanting to capture a hawk in flight. Because the hawks mainly demonstrate their beauty right by the nearly deserted roadsides, photographing them is almost certainly a doomed enterprise, especially if a) the photographers are driving at the time or b) their clever cameras are not set up with the correct lens or c) the camera is not ready to hand in the car cabin or d) there isn’t a safe place to pull over. Between all of those factors, though we must have seen maybe even ten or more hawks in flight nearby, Stu never really managed to capture them to his satisfaction on camera.

As we drove, the sky was blue again with fluffy white clouds across it. Not for nothing is NZ known as Aeotoaroa “Land of the long white cloud”. This is not a particular, immovable cloud as I used to think when I was a kid! It’s a sky that is never totally cloudless. In fact it’s nearly always full of clouds, but they are quite often incredibly long and white and have blue sky above and below and in between them.