From Christchurch we took a nice, long scenic drive over the Port Hills and then to the Banks Peninsula where Kayleigh and I celebrated an early Valentine's Day by eating dinner in the quaint little French colonial town of Akaroa. The following day we booked it outta there and headed for the mountains to get our first glimpse of the famed NZ alpine environment! As we made our way across the Canterbury Plains the temperature rose and rose, so that by the time we were entering the scorched brown foothills of the Southern Alps we'd almost wished we'd stayed in Akaroa one more day for access to the glorious blue water. We made a scenic pit stop at Castle Hill, which looks like a landscape straight out of Lord of the Rings, but apparently is instead from The Chronicle of Narnia films. A bit of climbing and scrambling over the rocks and hills in the hot sun and we were knackered enough to move on.
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| Akaroa |
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| Castle Hill |
The most awesome part of our drive to Arthur's Pass National Park however, was the stop at Cave Stream. Besides completely satisfying our desire to escape the hot sun, it proved to be quite an exhilarating, if not a little freaky. We began at the downstream mouth of the cave and waded into the waist deep water. The white limestone walls of the cave were carved and smooth from the stream which was nice since we constantly had our hands on them to balance as we sloshed over the underwater rocks. With only our flashlights as our guides we pushed forward laughing and buzzing from the excitement. Everything was going sweet as until I heard Kayleigh let out a terrified shout - she had accidentally stumbled upon a small pool full of wriggling baby eels! I consoled her and swore up and down that I didn't know that there were eels - true by the way - but I think passed that point it spoiled her fun. Unbeknownst to her, I actually did see the mama (papa?) eel in a deep pool on a wide corner, but I quickly moved her along before she noticed so as to avoid a full blown panic and potential breakdown in the middle of a pitch black cave. We moved a bit more quickly and carefully passed that point before reaching a small waterfall that we had to scale. Beyond that a few minutes and the light of the far end of the cave streamed into view. Much relieved Kayleigh livened up again and we climbed the steel runged ladder to the top of the fall before having to crawl on our hands and knees along a narrow lip on the side of the falls to finally get out of the cave.
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| The beginning of the hike |
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| Inside the belly of the beast |
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| A bad omen |
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| Dangerous? A little. Scary? A little. Worth it? Hell yes! |
We made camp for the night a few kilometers outside the national park and had our first experience with the infamous sand fly plague that scours pockets of the NZ high country. I swear to you all it was like a biblical plague! Hundreds and hundreds of the gnat sized nuisances descended upon us to feast. Any part of your body left exposed was toast (or maybe filet mignon to their little eyes). Once you'd covered yourself they would just harass you by swarming your face. It was one of those moments when you appreciate what modernity has brought to the world and deplore the fact that you're stuck outside with a gas burner in the middle of the woods. We made dinner as quickly as we could before retreating to the car to eat. As we ate we watched as our windows were covered with the pests as if they knew we had to go back outside, just waiting and watching and drooling over their coming dinner. Not all wildlife experiences are filled with smiles and photo-ops.
Before we left the car to clean up our dishes and put away our stuff we had the luck of spotting a Kea. The Kea is the world's only alpine parrot and is endemic to the Southern Alps of New Zealand. It's supposed to be one of the world's most intelligent birds with the smarts to rival some of the more sophisticated monkeys. We'd heard it singing high up in the tops of the forest before spotting it. It had apparently also spotted us, since it swopped down to the ground and was eyeing what we'd left outside on the table. It made a quick but amusing dash towards the table, as it sort of skips and hops in a laughable way. We had a chuckle before we realized it would make a big mess of things and shooed it away. Shame, as it's the coolest bird in all of NZ as far as I'm concerned.
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