Day 19: The Penultimate Day in New Zealand

The gale force winds predicted for last night never materialized, so I slept peacefully until eight minutes before the alarm was set to go off at 7:00 a.m. Being parked adjacent to the ocean, I decided that if it was going to happen, today was my opportunity to see the sun rise over the Pacific. I opened the drapes, and it appeared to be clear – but surprisingly cold, given the generally moderating effect of the ocean. The sky was already beginning to lighten in the northeast by the time I got the camera set on its tripod at 7:15 a.m.:

I walked over to the surprisingly roomy ablutions block, and by the time I finished my routine and was ready to head back to the van at 7:45, it was raining lightly – although it was still clear over the ocean to the east. I converted the van to travel mode, then thought “Hmmm… sun at my back, rain in front of me… there should be a rainbow here somewhere…”

It was a complete, unbroken rainbow (I have a photo of the middle section as well, and I hope to PhotoShop it into one image when I get home). I poured a bowl of Black Currant Kellogg’s Mini-Wheats with milk, and ate breakfast at the table in the van – although this also meant no coffee or tea this morning as I didn’t feel like heating water to boiling in the rain. Cleaned up the dishes, and I was ready to roll at 8:55 a.m.

I drove the 8 km back to “downtown” Kaikoura, and arrived at Sacred Heart Catholic Church at 9:15 for 9:30 Mass. They only have one Mass every weekend, unlike the ten Masses we have at St. Patrick’s, and the priest was waiting in the back of the church, greeting people as they arrived, so we talked for a few minutes. There were about 80 people in attendance, with no missalettes or hymnals for the congregation to use; instead, they had an overhead projector set up at the front of the church, and they just displayed the prayers and hymns on the front wall of the church. No guessing how many verses of a hymn would be sung – if it was on the overhead, we sang it.

Out of Mass at 10:30 a.m. (there must be a worldwide goal of “Mass in an hour”), I headed out to Point Kean to see the Peninsula Seal Colony – to see what a real seal looks like. They look like this:

There were about a dozen New Zealand fur seals, mostly resting in the sun, in an area of the beach less than a hundred meters long. These seals can swim at 30 kph, dive to depths of 230 meters, and sleep soundly underwater, surfacing every 30 minutes to breathe without waking up. And when they really relax, they roll over and sleep on their backs, sort of like certain yellow Labrador Retrievers:

I hiked around this area quite a while, as the day was mostly sunny, and the temperature was about 12 C (54 F). I decided it was time to start heading south toward Christchurch, however, around 12:45. I stopped at a café on my way out of town, and picked up a mini-ham and mushroom quiche that I could reheat for dinner tonight, then stopped and fueled up to prevent a repeat of yesterday’s Close Encounter of the Petrol Kind.

It’s about 180 km to Christchurch on SH 1, and except for two technically curvy sections of road - one just south of Kaikoura, and a second just north of Cheviot, the road is straight and I could make good time. I did, however, stop to document one horticultural feature prevalent throughout New Zealand: the use of hedges as fences:

Sort of like the bonsai project from Hell; I can see how with some scaffolding (and a lot of free time), you could shape the sides flat over time. But how you trim, and then maintain, the tops of the hedges to be so flat, is a mystery. (And I didn’t see a lot of articulated bucket lift trucks in the farm sheds, either.)

Back into Christchurch by 3:15 p.m., I stopped to buy some final souvenirs and a small suitcase padlock for the trip home. I checked in to Amber Park Holiday Court again, as I had been here a week ago, although on the motorcycle then as opposed to the campervan today. I did my (hopefully last) load of wash, purged some of the crap that has accumulated in the van during the week, and ate dinner. (I also talked Air New Zealand into putting me on an earlier flight from Christchurch to Auckland tomorrow, such that I should have adequate time to make my Auckland to Sydney flight later in the day. I originally had one hour from the time my connecting flight landed in Auckland until my flight to Sydney departed, which just didn’t seem like sufficient time to clear customs and get from the domestic side of the terminal over to the international side.)

And it’s now 8:50 p.m. Sunday night, so the New Zealand part of this blog ends here. I’ll try to check in from Sydney during the next couple of days, and I should be home on Thursday. I miss being home, and am looking forward to seeing my family, warm feet and cutting the grass, somewhat in that order. Adieu from Aotearoa.

Campervan mileage: 225 km for the day, 2,391 km for the trip