BoomerGirl Diary

During our stay in Christchurch, New Zealand, I had the pleasure of spending time with a craft group founded by the University of Canterbury Newcomers Club.

Every other Thursday we would get together to chat and work on our various projects. It is a very friendly, very talented group, and I also enjoyed seeing the beautiful homes and lovely gardens of each hostess. One hostess invited me to give a talk at the quarterly meeting of the Hurunui Patchworkers, which is a group that meets in Hanmer Springs. I did not have any of my quilts with me to show the group, but I did have some very small quilts that I had finished while here, and a lot of pictures of my work and work of members of Kansas Art Quilters that I could show. At any rate, it was great to have an excuse to rent a car and make the 90-minute drive north to the resort town of Hanmer Springs.

Hanmer Springs is an alpine-style village on the South Island high country. In the winter it offers skiing, and in the summer it offers hiking on trails of all levels of difficulty. What it is famous for year round, though, are thermal hot springs. The Hanmer Springs Thermal Reserve has seven open-air thermal pools, three sulfur pools, sauna and steam rooms, as well as a heated freshwater pool, a family activity pool with water slides, a gym and therapeutic massage facilities.

Unfortunately, the timing of our visit was such that our free time was before my “showtime.” I get tense before public speaking, and while a trip to a therapeutic spa might seem like a good idea before an appearance, I decided it would probably not be a successful use of time and money. Nothing was going to be relaxing until the talk was behind me, so instead we took a pleasant walk along the easiest hiking trail. The Hurunui Patchworkers were very friendly and a pleasure to spend an evening with — I had no reason to be worried.

Leaving early the next day, we continued to drive north towards the coastal town of Kaikoura. We decided to take the overland route rather than backtracking and taking the highway that runs along the coast. Since the weather was sunny, this route was a good choice. We saw hills and valleys and picturesque farms. At one point we had to stop and wait for a herd of cows to be transferred from one field to another via the road ahead of us.

One new experience for us when driving here has been one-lane bridges. These are not like the short, narrow spots that sometimes occur on the county roads back home. These one-lane bridges are long and over serious rivers. As you approach the bridge, there is a sign telling you which direction of traffic going over the bridge has the right of way. Then you scan the road ahead and decide whether you need to stop and wait for oncoming traffic, or, if you have the right of way, whether that oncoming vehicle is going to give way. It keeps a driver on his toes! I have no idea how this works out at night.

Arriving in Kaikoura, we sign up for a whale-watch trip. This whale-watching boat trip operates out of a very up-to-date building that also houses a café and gift shop. While we wait, we are encouraged to watch videos about whales in a theater that is also on site. There are many cautionary signs posted in the building that encourage everyone to take seasickness medicine well before leaving on the boat. We cave into the pressure and load up on drugs. It is also announced that sometimes there are no whales to be seen, and if that happens we will be refunded 85 percent of our ticket fee. At the appointed time, a bus, not a boat arrives to take us to the opposite side of town where we then board the shiny big tour boat. We head about five miles out into the ocean over a deep ocean trench to begin our watch.

It turns out that there are two bachelor sperm whales that live in this trench. They are constantly monitored as to when and where they surface to breathe. We will not be watching the big migrating herds of breaching whales that are shown on the TV nature shows, although this is sometimes the case here. We are watching and waiting for one or other of the two resident fellows to take a break from feeding to catch a breath. After about 45 minutes we see the first whale, and after he returns to the deep, we zoom over to where the second whale is expected to surface and watch him. It is a thrill to see these big guys, but I cannot help but think about all of the tourist money that will be lost when they move on. Hopefully, new residents will take their place quickly.

The surprising highlight of the trip, however, is when the boat takes us to a shallower place nearer to the coast where there is a very large group, or pod, of Dusky Dolphins. These dolphins are larger than the Hector’s Dolphins that we had seen previously, but not as large as the bottle-nosed dolphins that we have seen in aquarium settings. We are told that the Dusky Dolphin is the most acrobatic of the dolphin species, and it must be true. These creatures are hysterical! They seem to having a competition to see who can leap the highest and make the biggest splash. They do back flips, and most incredibly, full somersaults in the air. They just seem to be celebrating life! It is impossible for me to imagine a creature on this earth having a better time. We could have watched these dolphins for hours, but our tour time is soon over and we headed back to the coast. Inspired, but groggy from the seasickness medicine, we stagger off of the boat and check into our hotel where we are asleep by sunset.

Our final New Zealand adventure is a trip to the third island ...