Crazy busy with seeing. . .

Kaikoura in the sun

Well. First, my apologies to any wonderful souls who might have been following our travels here. (That means you, K.). I have been utterly remiss in writing. We have had so many adventures, and then S and A joined us in Christchurch, and we all toured together in a small SUV (called a Kuga. . .not making that up. . .imagine the jokes. . .) in what John and I have come to think of the the Backbone of our South Island travels. I'll try to be sequential in my thoughts, but there is no doubt that I will miss or forget some Very Important Things. Unavoidable, given my Dotage status.

Seals in Kaikoura

Our first trip out of Christchurch, prior to the kids joining us, was to Nelson, on the North Coast. We expected to simply take the SH1 up the coast, have a 2 day stop in Kaikoura, and head on up via said highway to Nelson for a week's stay. The weather had other ideas. And, the SH1 was severely damaged in an earthquake in 2016 (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Kaikoura_earthquake)  which was magnitude 7.8. Very high on the Rictor scale, which is apparently not what they call it anymore. Keeping up with these sorts of changes is tough isn't it? S and A were trying to educate us on the new genders and sexualities that are now considered sensitive, and as much as we'd like to understand, we are totally lost on that front.

Anyway. There are signs everywhere in New Zealand that say "New Zealand roads are different". Even the highways are two lane roads, with many sections that don't have shoulders. And even the highways can become extremely narrow in areas that are more remote. I had the good sense to not plan more than 2 hours driving time on most days, and thank goodness! While in Kaikoura (which is an absolutely beautiful coastal town, though we couldn't actually see it until we were driving out on our last day there), it rained buckets for two days solid. We slipped out between raindrops here and there, but that's not really the kind of rain they get. Solid. That's a good description.

New Zealand Alps: first view

On our last night there, our hosts asked us over to chat, and ended up offering us tea, which I think meant that they thought we were ok, despite our suspect nationality. They were an older couple who rented out our little flat for extra income. I think they were pretty badass in the day though (sorry for the language. . . S must be rubbing off on me. .  .) They had owned extensive orchards, and there was a very cool old motorcycle in the garage. He was also a pilot who had made a living for years as a crop duster. Their description of living through the earthquake (Kaikoura was the epicenter) was harrowing. And they all ran outside to high ground, because they expected a post-earthquake tsunami, which didn't come in this case. The SH1, however, is still being rebuilt. Every few miles you can expect to have road workers stop you, because only one lane is passable, and traffic in each direction has to take turns going through. During the rainstorms, all of the three roads that went in and out of Kaikoura were closed due to flooding. We were able to get out on our third day, as planned, but couldn't take the SH1 because it remained closed north of Kaikoura. Instead, we took a winding inland road and drove through the mountains west and then north, and eventually reached Nelson. This did grant us our first view of the New Zealand alps, which you will see a lot of in future posts. And Nelson, in spite of it's less-than-colorful name, is one of my favorite places. More on that in the next entry.