West Coast

This is one of the very few photographs I remembered to take.
I can't remember precisely where it is, except that it's on the way up to Arthurs Pass.

Annette and I went on an overnight road trip up to Arthurs Pass, and then over to Greymouth, Westport, and back over the Lewis Pass home.

I didn't take very many photographs, because I'm terrible at remembering that I'm supposed to be taking photographs.

1. There's not much to Arthurs Pass village, and nowhere really to buy groceries that aren't weet-bix or tomato sauce. The pub does surprisingly good food, but it's quite pricey, and they close their kitchen very early (7:30, I think). The motel we stayed at, Arthurs Pass Alpine Motel, was cheap and comfortable, and the hosts were very pleasant. The weather overnight was extremely wet and stormy, and trains seemed to go past very, very often.
2. Otira Gorge is very spectacular and not very comfortable to drive. It seems like a place that very rarely gets any actual sunlight — dark, brooding, and dangerous-feeling. The road is incredibly steep in places.
3. Greymouth is kind of a dump. Admittedly, our acquaintance with it was short, and the weather wasn't great, but we couldn't find any interesting shops or anything, and the breakfast we bought was just OK.
4. The journey up to Westport was in dense fog and rain for a lot of the way, sometimes with visibility down to twenty or thirty metres, which does not make for fun driving. However, when it was possible to see anything, the coast road is spectacularly beautiful.
5. Westport is also not very interesting.
6. Reefton is surprisingly attractive.
7. The Lewis Pass is beautiful, easy to drive, and felt very long.

By the time we were half way through the Lewis, I was pretty sceneried out and just wanted to get home. Unfortunately, Annette is very reluctant to surrender control of the vehicle, so I pretty much had to sit immobile for about six hours (with a few breaks), just looking out at scenic wonders. Now my back and bum hurts.

On the way up to Arthurs Pass. All very majestic and what-not.

Very strong gusty wind made long-lense photography a bit tricky. This is the only one that was even a bit sharp.

In the bush on the Lewis Pass on the way home. Lots of mosses, very wet.

Impromptu Road Trip — Wanaka

Since Annette is on holiday at the moment, we decided to drop everything and head off on an overnighter to Wanaka. It's about a 450 km drive from Christchurch, so not an extreme day's driving, but significant.

We hadn't booked anything, so we went into the first waterfront motel we saw with a vacancy sign showing. The view from our balcony was this:

Click to embloaten

It cost about average for a motel studio room, but it was a bit nicer than average, so that was nice.

One thing though: it had a great big mirror facing one right where one gets out of the bath, which makes it very difficult to maintain one's carefully nurtured illusions. Alas.

We had dinner (and quite a few drinks) at the Speights Alehouse, for two reasons:

1. It was really close, and
2. The motelier gave us a voucher for 10% off food and drinks there.

The food was... let's call it inoffensive and unexciting. Call me a snob, but I do believe a red curry should at least have some chilli waved in its general direction before sending it out to be eaten.

Anyway, it was all OK, if not a taste sensation, and it was pretty cheap. We were pretty knackered, so we went back to the motel fairly early and went to bed.

The view from our balcony the next morning was this:

Click to embloaten... you know the drill.

Then we had a nice breakfast at a nearby café, and then started off home.

Just an aside: pretty much everyone we mentioned it to found it quite incomprehensible that anyone would drive all the way from Christchurch to Wanaka in one day, which I found a bit odd. They were even more surprised to find out we were only planning to stay one night, and were going to drive all the way back to Christchurch again in only one day. Huh.

Anyway, just outside Wanaka is a truly amazing place: The Transport & Toy Museum. It really has to be experienced to be believed, there's all kinds of stuff just kind of shoved in together like a gigantic cabinet of curiosities. There are many, many, MANY model aeroplanes. There are many, many cars and motor-bikes and mobility-scooters and vacuum cleaners and old cash registers. There is a full-size replica of a Renault FT-17 made out of plywood. There is a fibreglass Gloster Meteor. There are shelves full of creepy dolls. There's a Morris Minor covered in teddy-bear fur. There are cabinets overflowing with Smurfs and Star Wars toys. And so, so much more.

There's sort of an organisation to the place, but not a lot, and unfortunately a lot of the stuff is showing signs of neglect and decay. Apparently the guy who collected all this stuff — just one guy — died very recently, and I wouldn't lay too much money on the museum being around for very much longer unless something miraculous occurs. So, go and see it while it's still there to be seen.

I don't know that I'd call the experience educational, but I did find myself often making a slack-jawed what-the-fuck face a lot, which I rate as a plus. Whatever the experience is, it's definitely an experience.

Overall, I'd rate Wanaka as better than either Queenstown or Tekapo. It feels friendlier and like less of a tourist-mincer than Queenstown, and classier and less transient than Tekapo.