When I left you in the last posting, we were heading to bed because we had a 3:45 am wake up call to get ready to go to the airport for our flight from North Island to South Island. With such an early flight on Air New Zealand, and only 45 minutes long it gave us a full day to start the last leg of our journey. A last look back at North Island:
It was an uneventful flight with blue skies and big white clouds. I cleaned my window on the plane as best I could with one of those eye glass cleaners. These are views approaching the South Island.
I thought this landscape looked much like flying over the farmlands of the Midwest in the U.S.
We picked up our rental car, got great tourist information from the rental agent, who was very enthusiastic with sights we shouldn’t miss, and headed to our hotel. Our view from the room was right over the Cathedral and a bit of Cathedral Square. The Cathedral also houses an elementary school, store, and cafe. You can see our hotel in the background.
We dropped off our bags and went out to explore our surroundings. From the room I could see a sidewalk chess game going on in the Square, so we headed to see how the opponents were faring. The chess pieces are free for the public use.
Also on another day we found children from the Cathedral school outside for recess, playing a confusing game of dodge ball or kick ball with bases.
The area around the square is chock-a-block full of souvenir shops and restaurants. We snooped around and also scouted for a restaurant for dinner, we decided on a Turkish restaurant – Topkapi. Good food.
I had seen a special on Singapore TV about the TranzAlpine train ride across South Island. It starts in Christchurch and goes west through the Southern Alps and ends in Greymouth. It’s a 4 1/2 hour train ride one-way; running only once daily. You can take it one way and stay overnight; or come back in another mode of transportation; or book a round trip ride as we did. It meant another early night for us. We needed to get to the train station in Addington, 3 kilometers south of Christ Church, by 7:45 am. We took a taxi.
There was a deck car where you could stand outside to get photographs, smoke, stretch your legs and get some air. You can see the railing of the deck car over Mick’s shoulder. But with the moving train and the wind blowing you around it was quite a feat to keep your balance and a steady hand. We went through a total of 17 tunnels; the longest one, just outside Arthur’s Pass, is the Otira Tunnel. It is 8.6 kilometres (5.3 miles) long, making it one of the longest tunnels in New Zealand. It was completed in 1923, allowing direct train travel from east to west across the South Island.
You start out crossing flat farmland, fields of sheep, cattle, and red deer. Along the way are rivers, lakes, a suspension bridge, mines (now abandoned), etc.
This lake is a popular destination for vacationers. The normal local population is about 50 people, when the summer hits, it swells to about 3,000!
- these are two of the bridges we passed.
. . . it’s not your eyes, these photos are black and white
. . . then you start seeing the snow-capped Southern Alps out on the horizon
The most spectacular sight are the alps. I hope I do them justice and you see the splendor —
We are at Arthur’s Pass
We made it to Greymouth, where we had about an hour layover, just enough time to grab lunch at a local cafe.
To see more pictures, lakes, and other scenery, etc., as we head back into Christ Church, click on any picture above. We have a couple more day trips from Christchurch coming up.
I found this You Tube video of the train ride if you wish to view it – Click Here. This must have been filmed during the summer as there are no snow-capped mountain. I think we did better going in the Fall/Winter season.
