Riding The Waimakariri River with the Waimak Alpine Jet Company

I was out visiting with my cousin today.  Tania lives in a beautiful house nestled in at the foothills of the Southern Alps here in Canterbury.  It's probably my favourite house in the world and I took some photographs of it, just to remember the feeling of it when I'm back in Belgium.

So Auntie Coral drove Gert and I out to Tania's and, upon arriving, Tania and Al announced that they had organised a ride for us on a Waimak Alpine Jetboat.

Oddly enough, my first reaction was a nervous 'Really?'

I wasn't sure I was up for a ride on a jetboat that had an '8.1 litre engine and a cruising speed of 80+ kilometers per hour.'  It all seemed a bit fast and slightly insane.

How wrong was I ...

So wrong! 

It turns out that my favourite thing on that wild ride up the turquoise-blue Waimakariri River, on this 29 celsius summer day, was that manoeuvre known as the HAMILTON 360º spin. It's that moment when the jet boat is spun out at full cruising speed and it feels divine.  I'm so glad that it happened more than once too.

It was bliss out there in that world only accessible by boat.  And I can't recommend this jetboat operator highly enough ... and our driver, Greg, he was simply superb.  A lovely Kiwi bloke who made us laugh often but also earned our trust with his professionalism, and his knowledge of the river.

The photo at the start of this post is one that captures that moment when Greg was talking of the 360º spin and the need to hold on ...   Gert couldn't come on the boat trip today but he was happy to wait on the bank and take more than a few beautiful photographs.

It was a grand day out here in New Zealand.  Thank you to Tania and Al, who made it all happen.  I loved it ... intensely, immensely.

News from the New Zealand Road Trip

We have stopped in Oxford, out on the Canterbury Plains, with my aunt.  The aunt I have, quite simply, adored for years.

We have stopped after 1,700kms - the distance from here to Dunedin traveled these last 5 days, via the convoluted route I chose to take Gert on.  In my 8 years away from New Zealand, I've only driven once.  There was that visit to Ireland to see Rob and Angie.  I was a bit nervous back then but Gert put me in the driver seat and told me to drive from Dublin to Connemara ... so I did.  And I loved it.  It does all come back and I used to have a big passion for driving in NZ.

This trip has been something else again and we have driven some truly interesting New Zealand roads.  The Haast Pass, then the road between Fox Glacier and Franz Joseph, and yesterday it was the Arthurs Pass.  All been spectacularly memorable with their 25km hairpin corners, kms of twisty-turny mountain roads, mountain passes, and gradients that once saw me drop the car into second-gear. 

That was this road: 'State Highway 73, and remains an important communication and transport link between Canterbury and Westland. There are 11 bridges with a total length of 406.6 metres (m).  Road gradients range from 1 in 30 to 1 in 8. Five bends through a zig zag section facilitate ascent and descent over the Pass. 

Over the years work has been done to improve blind corners and ease bends. However, the nature of the landscape and the weather can still make the Otira Gorge and Arthurs Pass road a challenging driving experience.'

There have been a million stops to take photographs along the way ... stops so Gert could buy my exquisite greenstone/jade necklace in Hokitika.  Stops for pies, and stops just to wander along some beach or mountainside lookout.

Yesterday, on safely reaching the other side of the alpine pass, we stopped because I needed out of the car for a bit ... and voila, we met a Kea, who was most confused when I mimicked his cry. 

As per the rules, we didn't feed him but we did 'chat' for a while, and that was just lovely. 

Arthurs Pass ... I wondered why I didn't remember anything about that 'interesting' alpine crossing.  I had never driven it before, I just thought I had and I have to say ... I won't be in a hurry to take a 1600CC car across it again.  The little red car is a valiant little car and I'm completely loving it but, by crikey, that was an interesting road.

Absolutely loving the whole driving thing though.

It's summer here.  It's a little confusing but easy enough to embrace.  Auntie Coral has a chicken roasting in the oven tonight, there are new potatoes boiling, and I can hear her cutting up some silverbeet.  She kicked me out of the kitchen but I'm on dish-duty. 

All is good out here on New Zealand's Canterbury Plains.

I'll wrap this meandering post up with a photograph I took of that Kea I met ...

Seeing 'Home' in a New Way

I've come back to New Zealand, after 8 years away, clear on some of the things I need to see, do, and taste however there are other things ... things that have startled me as they have turned my head, again and again and again.

I've fallen for fern fronds in a fairly major way.  The hotel manager here in Fox Glacier just discovered me out in the front garden and introduced me to the hotel's private garden. 

It was grand out there ...

New Zealand's Dawn Chorus...an early morning recording

 

This morning, alarm set for 5.30, I woke at 5.25 and quickly dressed then set up the small video camera out on the verandah.  My voice recorder too.

Last night, Gert and I had prepared both pieces of equipment for this morning, wanting to capture something of New Zealand's dawn chorus on video and audio here in Manapouri, Fiordland.

I miss the birds in Belgium. I miss the Bellbirds and the Tuis. I miss the familiarity of the birdsongs I've grown up hearing, consciously or unconsciously, and I wanted to try recording something of them.

Gert offered up his video camera so that I would have a little bit more memory and it turns out that our cabin, here on Hunter and Clare's property in Fiordland, looks straight out across a tree-filled landscape and on out to the mountains in the distance.

I was hoping for a bit of a sunrise video too but that was a little problematic, as the early morning cloud didn't burn off till after 8am.

So there I was, siting out on the verandah, with the equipment (such as it is) as all those trees … the cabbage trees most specifically, quietly exploded with the sounds of 100s of bird voices welcoming the new day.

It was like a wall, or perhaps being enclosed in a bubble, of familiar sound … a sound that I love. 

And the air, have I written of the air here?

Fiordland's air is one of the sweetest in the world, to me. I sniff  it like a wine connoisseur might smell a wine.  It seems to be a mix of grass and stones, of the cabbage trees in flower, the beech forests that cover the land/  But more than that, here on the property, there are eucalyptus trees and all kinds of others too.

The most dominant scent out there was the sccent of water on river stones …or that was my interpretation. Over breakfast, just now, Clare explained that the watertable here is high and so perhaps I can smell the water just under the land I'm walking. 

But I love water.  New Zealand water, in all its forms.  The Tautuku bush walk after or during rain.  The smell of sun-warmed wet river stones.  The sea.  The torrential downpours that fall here in the South Island's rainforest country.

Then there's the quality of the light.  It has caught me this time.  Belgium has a high population density and the European traffic that flows through my adopted country means that I long for the sweet clean air of places like Fiordland … that place I spent two years living back in the 90s.

Gert and I squint when the sun is out. We are stunned by the light on these exquisite landscapes and, this morning, watching the morning light gently unfold … that has been something rather beautiful.

My senses are so enjoying this homecoming …

My Beach in New Zealand

The photograph below doesn't really capture why I might feel passionate about this particular beach here in New Zealand and it's frustrating because Long beach is so definitely my beach.

My 17-year-old niece, the lovely Georgia, drove us out there yesterday and finally, it felt like I had returned ... completely returned.

Long Beach is located over the back of Dunedin city - turn left just before Port Chalmers, climb up into the hills and drive towards the east coast a while.

The sun was out, as was the tide, and the beach was like all of my favourite beaches here ... almost empty.

Cooper, the happy hound, fulfilled his role and chased the tennis ball endlessly.  And that was me, looking  like the happiest little kid ... just quietly wandering along the waters edge. 

The yellow lupins were in full-bloom and, honestly, they would have to be my favourite flower.  They have this delicate scent that, when mixed with the smell of the sea, is as close to heaven as I can get.

We sat in the sun out there on the beach, simply breathing in the best of New Zealand's air - 2 lovely nieces, my sister and brother-in-law, and the Belgian bloke too - just enjoying being there, back on that beach I love so well.