Stranded in Christchurch at Midnight

  Back from up north and burning up in Arkansas - I continue on with our New Zealand adventures.

                                                                    *

 We went to the Maori Museum. The Maoris, of Indonesian descent, were the original New Zealanders. They are a large, very husky people, extremely strong. They were very athletic. We had noticed in Australia that football was left largely to Maoris, whites played Soccer. We talked to two young Maori men while admiring their Grandfather's carving display. Each brother probably weighed  four hundred pounds. An extremely large proportion of Indonesian men wind up in the National Football League in America. Many people in that part of the world feel they will someday dominate the NFL. I tend to agree. These people are sometimes called Kiwis, along with the bird and the fruit.

     We arrived at the airport early on Sunday morning. When we checked our luggage, we got a shock. We had now accumulated so much stuff that there was an extra fee of $75 on this domestic flight.  If our common sense had just kicked in, we would have just stored most of it there. But no, that's just too easy. I preferred to carry all of it around with us all over New Zealand. When we picked up our tickets for the 10:00 AM flight, we got another shock. The flight was PM, not AM! It was a long, expensive bus ride back to Auckland, so we decided to kill the day wandering the airport. We would arrive at Christchurch at midnight. Oh, well, just go with the flow. I heard the announcer lady say “Auckland,” with her cute little accent, so many times that day, that I began to fall in love with her voice before we flew out. I didn't tell Barbara.

     When we arrived at Christchurch, it was the last flight of the night and the airport was closing down. Our ride was not there. We had called our hire car man about the time mix-up, and he had assured us that his brother would be there. We moved our stuff out on the sidewalk. The lady guard who locked the door on the way out stopped to talk to us. Barb explained our situation to her. And, as we “had on clean clothes and looked somewhat neat,” she took pity on us and waited with us outside until about 1 AM, when a nice lady driver showed up and took us to our motel. It was nice, and the car was fine the next day, and, since that was the end of the negative aspects of our car deal, it turned out fine.

     We toured Christchurch. It was a beautiful city. I say “was,” because, much of it has since been destroyed by a large earthquake, including the totally beautiful Cathedral we loved, and it's amazing gardens.

     We headed out across sheep country. New Zealand has vast expanses of open, rolling green hills with snow-capped mountains in the background. Millions of newborn lambs frolicked about. Barbara had me stop the car, time after time, trying to get a good face shot of the lambs, but almost every time she got  tails and heels. Miles of thick, green hedges, fifteen feet tall, perfectly trimmed, stretched across the rolling hills for windbreaks. In several places, we saw tall fences enclosing elk.  I learned later they were imported there for hunters, but they flourished so well, competed with the sheep so much, they were pinned up and domesticated. New Zealanders would just not tolerate competition for their sheep. Their opossum, which is different from ours, is a leaf eater. It was constantly vilified on large road signs, for “Eating up our forests!” Kill those suckers every chance you get!   Foxes in Australia were similarly vilified and poisoned, for being a sheep predator.  Sheep are king in that part of the world.

     We reached the mountains. While stopping at a roadside park, a very friendly, large green bird just walked up and stood on Barbara's foot. A nearby sign announced, “ This mountain is the only place in the world where the Kea Parrot is found.” Barbara went ballistic. “I've used that name on crossword puzzles for years. Now, here one is, standing on my foot!” Barbara is a crossword puzzle addict, and can often work our daily paper crossword in ten minutes. My conviction is, a person must be very smart in a warped sort of way to do that.

     We were into the extreme sports capital of the world. Queensland was filled with young thrill seekers from all over the world. Kinda made us feel old - - and young, too, in a way, just to be there. We passed roaring rivers, filled with young people, mostly, river surfing. They just ride a surf board over the rapids. We came to Bungee, NZ, home of the original bungee jump. Jumping from a very tall bridge into a roaring river. The elastic bungee cord snapped the divers out of the water after half the body (head first) had submerged. Barb assured me we could afford for me to dive, but I suddenly felt very conservative. We made our contribution to extreme sports by walking an open bottomed swinging bridge high over a roaring gorge.

     As we turned toward Milford Sound, the highway passed through a cave. Not a tunnel, as we know it, but  with natural walls and ceiling. Water dripped from the roof. It was very narrow and dark, and when we were about halfway through, a tour bus approached. It looked as if there was nothing to do except play chicken with a very big bus or back up fast. But, thank goodness, the bus driver turned into a bus turnoff as we approached.

      A totally new world awaited when we emerged. Extremely steep mountains soared into the clouds, many out of the sea. As there was still snow on top, many very high waterfalls fell from the clouds around us. Totally surreal. After touring around awhile, we wound up at the only lodging facility, a backpacker inn. Everyone prepared their own meals in the common kitchen. There was no electricity, and the sign announced that the generators, and the light and the heat, went off at nine o'clock. Beautiful waterfalls fell from the clouds on all four sides of  this building. As usual, we were the only ones over thirty.