Being unable to progress any further south without a boat, I caught a plane from Invercargill back to Christchurch, for a short stopover there. I'd booked a ticket on the Tranzalpine train to Arthurs' Pass: it's a favourite tourist tour, NZ Railways run a daily excursion from Christchurch to Greymouth on the West coast, returning in the evening. I took the option to get off at the Pass and catch the train on its return trip.
Arthur's Pass, named after Arthur Dobson, the engineer who surveyed the railway, is possibly the most spectacular of the NZ Alps passes. From the green farmlands of the Canterbury Plains, the line winds up into the foothills, and crosses some deep gorges on high steel girder bridges. The scenery gets more vertical as you climb. At about 900m the line levels out onto a grassy valley that in Switzerland would be called an alp: there is a large sheep station, Craigieburn, up there, it must be a very lonely and bleak place to work in winter. In late September there was still snow on the surrounding peaks.
At Arthur's Pass station, I disembarked, with the intention of taking a short walk to one of the spectacular waterfalls I'd read about. I changed my mind after I'd gone a short distance down the main street, as the rain increased to a deluge, and the wind from the Tasman side blew into a gale. It was freezing, and probably snowing at higher altitude, and seeing little point in getting both cold and wet, I retreated to one of the two cafés in the main street, where there was a log fire and some tea and cake. Having sat around there for long enough, I crossed the road to the other café, where I had some more tea and read a newspaper. A sandwich and apple served for lunch, which I ate out in the wind on the verandah. Two Keas, the comical alpine parrots of New Zealand, provided some entertainment for the tourists: these large green birds are very tame, but also cheeky, and will pull at your shoelaces with their sharp, curved beaks. Many hikers have found their boots or rucksacks pecked to shreds in the mornings! More about them later.
Feeling I'd outstayed my welcome on that side, I moved back to the other café to sit by the fire and have a coffee. The gale was by then blowing the rain horizontally. Having had more than enough coffee and tea, I stopped off at the DOC (Dept of Conservation) visitor site, where there were some interesting nature displays, and one of the original stagecoaches that traversed the Pass in the 1800's. The coach is in a good state of preservation; it was interesting to note that the vehicle was built in New Hampshire, USA.
The old road pass was built in the 19th century to connect Christchurch and the Canterbury Plains with the developing goldfields on the west coast, and the track was hacked out of the mountainside with pick and shovel. There were many landslides and rockfalls, and the journey through the old pass must have been an ordeal for passengers.
On the assumption that it would by then be polite to leave the two cafés, I walked across to the station waiting room, and got thoroughly wet just walking there. The heaters in the waiting room weren't working (nb: they were, I just couldn't find the switch), so I spent the rest of my afeternoon walking in circles round the room, clapping my gloved hands together to try and warm them, while the rain drove hard against the windows, and at one point water began to leak through the frames. The crowd of tourists returned, and we waited for the train to appear from the Otira tunnel . I'd waited patiently to get a photo of the train emerging from the Otira tunnel, and when the headlights appeared, the tourists all got in the way. I hope that the pictures will reflect the rather dramatic view through the driving rain and mist.
The rain cleared soon on the descent from the pass, and a rainbow appeared. Down on the plains it was warm again. A rainbow appeared in the mist as the train wound down to the plains. Back in Christchurch, relaxed and felt that this had been a worhtwhile adventure despite the awful weather. As R L Stevenson wrote;
"to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive,"
and in my book, at least, one takes the countries one travels to as you find them, bad weather and all (but this sort of thing should be done when you're younger!) New Zealand has been a great experience, I leave tomorrow with a collection of pleasant memotries of a spectacular country, and many friendships made and renewed.
There is still something to tell about the scenic parts around Marlborough Sounds and Kaikoura, watch this space after I get back to SA. For the time being, farewell to Aotearoa, islands in the southern sea.
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