March 19: Dunedin
We had a "free day" today - no excursions planned so we took the shuttle into town and simply walked around the central business district - called "The Octagon." Had lunch at "The Craic" - an Irish tavern and visited the historic train station. Fun day without a lot of "hurry-up / be on a schedule!"
When we arrived in Akaroa early Tuesday morning Kim and I were with the very first tour group to leave the ship just past 8 a.m. The weather was in the upper 40s as we left the ship and got on board the small tender vessel to make our way to land. Up until three years ago this cruise would have taken guests like ourselves into Christchurch today, but with the devastating earthquake in February 2009 all plans were changed. Christchurch is still trying to recover from that event and so the tourist industry has shifted a bit northward to this quaint, sleepy village. We were told that the population is made up of a permanent base of around 700 New Zealanders, but when the holiday tourist season arrives the population swells to well over 20,000!
We docked at the small pier about 20 minutes after our journey across the harbor and set out on our bus trip to the railway station. I did not know until on board that the train portion of the journey would not begin for over an hour as we had to first reach there. The bus climbed way, WAY up the hills / mountains that surround Akaroa - with some pretty spectacular views I might add! (the view from the top of the mountain looking back into Akaroa is the background to this web page) - and then we had to wind our way back down onto the plains before we could reach the train station. The skies were a brilliant blue for most of the day with lots of sun - it made you think that it was a beautiful, warm sunny day until you stepped outside and found it to be quite chilly. It was supposed to get to 65 today, but with most of our outside time being spent somewhere in the area surrounding the Alpines it was a bit nippy eveywhere we stopped - but refreshingly so! We arrived at the train station and got into our very nice car for our trip - the coach was not full and we had a table for four to ourselves. We quickly made friends with a couple from Toronto and shared the trip with them........
The first half hour we were basically on the plains heading into the Alps in the distance. We stopped in Springfield and you could see the mountains were not that far away. And soon we were crossing bridges and surrounded by visages straight out of a postcard factory! The only problem with the train trip was that the HUGE glass windows on either side of the train - which provided a dynamic view of the countryside - were not very conducive to taking photos. No matter where we were most photos reflected you and your camera! But I found that if I shot at an angle out a window in front or behind me I could get some good photos. The two mountain photos above were taken like that. When we reached Arthur's Pass - see Kim in photo at right - we were halfway across New Zealand and the Tranz Alpine train journey, but at the end of our portion of the train trip. The same bus (and driver) which had taken us to catch the train was waiting to take us back down out of the mountains for the second half of our trip.
I thought - and the people we talked to later from our tour agreed - that the most stunning scenery was actually on the bus trip back down through Alps. The mountain view above across the lake was taken on this portion of the trip. Not only were the views better, but there was also no windown glare which made for much better photos. The roads were very narrow and often we were looking right off a cliff as we would our way through what seemed like a never ending series hair-pin turns.
About halfway down the mountain we stopped at Cave Stream. This area had been used extensively in the filming of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, and the mountain backdrop was spectacular - clearly the most impressive of the day. We posed for two photos with this as the backdrop - see below - and I took several pictures of the scenery, the best of which is shown below. As a side note, there were huge bees buzzing around and they seemed particularly interested in in Kim's purple hat :)
We continued our journey back down the mountains and towards Akaroa, but we had one final stop, the Homebush Homestead. This is an operating sheep farm that was one of the original settlements in New Zealand. If you watch the video I am standing in the l - o - n - g tree-lined entry (pictured below). When we arrived the residents were waiting for us with pots of coffe and tea and three tables of home-made cookies, cakes, and sandwiches! Sadly, the gorgeous home which had sat here for well over 150 years had been a victim of the earthquakes. You can see the before and after photos in the vidwo - and it all happened in a mere 45 seconds (at 4:30 in the morning).....luckily no one was injured. We were shown the now empty plot of land where the home had sat. The stop was highlighted by a demonstration of a sheep-shearing, which took less than five minutes, and by a demonstration of how the sheep dog rounds up the sheep.
We were running about a half hour late by this point and it was about two hours back to Akaroa (up the mountain/hill and back down). We got back at 6 pm just in time to catch the LAST tender back to the ship at 6:15 pm! A long, but outstanding day :)
March 20: Akaroa - Tranz Alpine Adventure
When we arrived in Akaroa early Tuesday morning Kim and I were with the very first tour group to leave the ship just past 8 a.m. The weather was in the upper 40s as we left the ship and got on board the small tender vessel to make our way to land. Up until three years ago this cruise would have taken guests like ourselves into Christchurch today, but with the devastating earthquake in February 2009 all plans were changed. Christchurch is still trying to recover from that event and so the tourist industry has shifted a bit northward to this quaint, sleepy village. We were told that the population is made up of a permanent base of around 700 New Zealanders, but when the holiday tourist season arrives the population swells to well over 20,000!
I thought - and the people we talked to later from our tour agreed - that the most stunning scenery was actually on the bus trip back down through Alps. The mountain view above across the lake was taken on this portion of the trip. Not only were the views better, but there was also no windown glare which made for much better photos. The roads were very narrow and often we were looking right off a cliff as we would our way through what seemed like a never ending series hair-pin turns.
About halfway down the mountain we stopped at Cave Stream. This area had been used extensively in the filming of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, and the mountain backdrop was spectacular - clearly the most impressive of the day. We posed for two photos with this as the backdrop - see below - and I took several pictures of the scenery, the best of which is shown below. As a side note, there were huge bees buzzing around and they seemed particularly interested in in Kim's purple hat :)
We continued our journey back down the mountains and towards Akaroa, but we had one final stop, the Homebush Homestead. This is an operating sheep farm that was one of the original settlements in New Zealand. If you watch the video I am standing in the l - o - n - g tree-lined entry (pictured below). When we arrived the residents were waiting for us with pots of coffe and tea and three tables of home-made cookies, cakes, and sandwiches! Sadly, the gorgeous home which had sat here for well over 150 years had been a victim of the earthquakes. You can see the before and after photos in the vidwo - and it all happened in a mere 45 seconds (at 4:30 in the morning).....luckily no one was injured. We were shown the now empty plot of land where the home had sat. The stop was highlighted by a demonstration of a sheep-shearing, which took less than five minutes, and by a demonstration of how the sheep dog rounds up the sheep.
We were running about a half hour late by this point and it was about two hours back to Akaroa (up the mountain/hill and back down). We got back at 6 pm just in time to catch the LAST tender back to the ship at 6:15 pm! A long, but outstanding day :)
No comments:
Post a Comment