Seeing as we were planning to leave from Christchurch tomorrow, and we were a day ahead of schedule, we decided to go for a “lap of the block” and see what we could find outside the Christchurch city limits. A quick visit to the tourism office provided us with a very surprised assistant when Trav asked what drives there were for up to 4 hours in any direction. Seeing as you can cross the island (which we did yesterday) in less than that, she was a little taken aback by the distances we were prepared to travel.

After hearing the benefits of going north (Kaikoura, to see the whales on a cruise, or swim with dolphins), west (where we’d come from, no point in that), and east (winery tours, which are pointless when you have to drive back), we headed south to Geraldine. There was already some interest in the area because it is where Trav’s PhD supervisor comes from (Hi Dave!) and so we thought we’d do a little stalking, er, religious pilgrimage to the site of the supervisor’s origins…*grin*

A little known fact about Geraldine is that it is the home of the world’s largest jersey. No, not the cow, the article of clothing… We did not know it was there until we pulled up outside the shop it is housed in, in order to walk over to the tourism office. When we got back to the car, Trav noted a small (about 2′ tall) sign promoting the “world’s largest jersey inside”, so we went in for a look.

Sure enough, there’s a bloody great big jersey hanging on the wall, with the Guiness Record certificate proudly displayed next to it. We asked whether there was a bigger one now (the certificate was dated 1991) and they said there wasn’t, but that “if there was, well, we’d just make a bigger one”.

After a quick bite to eat, we headed out of town to the Orari Gorge and began to climb the track. Given the dirt roads to the walking track were dusty, we did not expect the VERY wet and muddy path we found. It was a 2-hour return track, but the speed we were moving at would have meant we’d take much longer than that. On the basis it was only a matter of time before one or both of us slipped on our posteriors, we decided to cut our losses, sliding and slipping the few hundred metres back to the car (but remaining upright!)

We still wanted to go to a gorge, so we headed toward Weihei Gorge, but ended up driving right past it. We felt we had done so, because it didn’t seem like it should have been that far down the road, but we were on back roads, and signage was at a minimum, so it was hard to tell for sure. We ultimately found a sign for it that informed us there was no track at all, but we could explore the surrounding bush if we wanted. We didn’t.

Tried again to sate our gorge fetish with the Te Moana Gorge, but it turned out to be just a narrow road beside a stream. We eventually decided that the Te Moana Gorge was like the Weihei Gorge - just a stream in a valley, so we turned around after a few kilometres and headed out of the Geraldine area.

Before we left the Te Moana Gorge, there was a fork in the road that Trav decided to drive down to see what was there. The road came to an abrupt end a few hundred metres later with the stream crossing the road. The ford provided was made of concrete, but the water seemed to be flowing strongly. Using rocks, we estimated the depth of the water, then looked at the car and realised if we tried to cross it, we’d fill the car with water and drown the engine in the process. The idea to cross the stream was quickly abandoned.

There were a couple of other fords on the way out of the Geraldine area, but they were deeper and faster flowing water, with only loose gravel bases, not formed concrete. As a result, we decided to give them a miss also.

We opted for the “inland scenic route” back to Christchurch and were pleasantly surprised to find it was indeed scenic (see Western Australia, Cape Leeuwen for our surprise). We were certainly in the area where all the picturesque postcards of sheep and cattle grazing in front of snow-capped peaks are photographed, but we refrained from the obligatory “heaps of sheep” photo. Until, that is, we rounded a corner and found several hundred sheep on the road, headed straight at us…

Among the sights of the roadside, we noticed a couple of wire moa next to a shop. The moa is a bird that stood about 3m tall, and made such good food for the Maori when they arrived in NZ, that they are now extinct.

We also stopped at the Rakeira Gorge to have a look at the intense turquoise water, and just soak in the view. There is a jet boat operating in the area, but they were just packing up when we arrived. We considered asking them if they would be interested in taking us for a slower ride along the gorge, but decided it would not be worth their time to do so, since it was after 5pm.

While driving into the outskirts of Christchurch, Di noted there was a local attraction called the Travis Wetlands. Of course, we just HAD to go see them. We found them on Travis Road, opposite the Travis Medical Surgery, and just down from the Travis Takeaway Shop. The main problem we found with the Travis Wetlands is that they seem to be removing it to build a new housing complex, so we could not get access to it without written permission from the site manager, had to wear hard-hats and all the rest of the safety gear. About the only up-side of the wetlands destruction was that the housing estate they were building was called Travis Country. Well, it’s sort of an up-side from Trav’s point of view…*grin*

We stayed in the same park as last night, but in a different cabin, and relaxed for our last night in New Zealand. A special day today, for there was nobody that qualified themselves for SPOTD. There were probably a couple of people that could have received the award, but there was nothing truly memorable about them, so it was felt more appropriate to keep the award recipients at a higher standard.

Onward to Melbourne tomorrow… Bugger.

Categories: NZ 1999, Travel