On the road in New Zealand: Wanganui-Wellington-Christchurch and many other places in between.

"The real travelers are people the world does not know."

-Paul Theroux

It's a sunny afternoon in Hanmer Springs. Due the internet situation in New Zealand I'm writing away here in the public library surrounded on two sides by incessantly chatty French and German backpackers (the French in particular are doing the most inane giggling), small children (with very clunky shoes) and those book bins that make 100% more noise to return a picture book to than necessary.

Yes, I'm on the move again after many weeks staying with family on the north island I have taken off to the south in my 'reasonably cheap but still works o.k. car'. The scenery here is absolutely breathtaking and has been so from the first day of travel. It is so photogenic at times that I have not been able to remember to photograph it. However on occasion I have been suitably underwhelmed by the view in order to remember I'm carrying a camera and to get it out. That's what you're basically seeing here. The stuff that I remember to take pictures of.

Mount Doom, apparently.

The joys of driving in New Zealand

These, everywhere.

The sluggish Whanganui winds it's way to the ocean.

I began the road-trip by following the Whanganui river south as closely as I could, at times I had to drive far away from the river but soon enough I was following it closely downstream through its valleys and around its bluffs. The area contains many sites of historical interest and I enjoyed stopping off to take a look at whatever I spotted.

Jerusalem

My first overnight stop was in Wanganui, it was quite a shock to be staying in a hostel again after so long staying with family. Hostel kitchens can be quite busy at times and with a large Chinese family colonising the one in Wanganui, even eating can be quite a challenge. I took a walk along the bank of the lower stretches of the river and decided to stay another night in order to explore the town some more. This is slow travel after all.

The Wanganui war memorial tower.

A view of the city from the monmument.

In order to understand yourself it is important to understand what motivates you to do things. What fascinates me about incredibly dull little cities? Why do I feel compelled to explore them in order to find something 'happening' unknown to most if it's inhabitants in a crumbling building at the end of a dark alleyway in a quiet part of town? Why the obsession with melancholic seafronts or bay-sides at the end of the summer, old adverts, closed shops and peeling paint?
I have no idea.

You too can have all the mod-cons: 1990 Mitsubishi Mirage brought up to date with some wires and duct tape

One of the best things about going on a road trip by yourself is the ease of just changing your mind and going off on a tangent to see what's there. One of the worst things about going on a road trip by yourself is the ease of just changing your mind and going off on a tangent to see what's there. It's nice to indulge the impulsive side now again.

I spent a little too much time in Wellington, it's easy to do as there is a lot to see and to do there. The people are interesting to watch too.

Curiously the city felt quite homely in spite of its size, I did my usual 'walk around the place until I get blisters' and everywhere I wandered there was something of merit and quite often something good to see and do. The old wharves have been redeveloped and thrown quite gracefully into a state of useless usefulness. There are artsy sculptures along the waterfront and the odd literary quote embossed in the concrete in various hidden places that reward those that loiter to look harder. Away from the bay, a boring grid of wide streets is patrolled by a mixture of funny looking tourists, students and beautiful locals. Almost every other other person seems to be in sportswear en route to or currently taking exercise. The bodies are beautiful in Wellington, yet the faces are remarkably, well, British in their thin-lipped earnestness. Strange. One must see is the museum on the waterfront 'te papa' where I went for a morning but ended up being thrown out at closing time.

Inside te papa

Wellington from Mt. Victoria, I have a thing for cites on a bay.

Contrary to what others suspect; how I get lucky while traveling. only another 4 to find so I can get a coffee!

Still Wellington

Oh Lord, how those negative life-choice patterns come around time and time again.

FIRE IN THE HOSTEL! FIRE IN THE HOSTEL!! unfortunately at 6.50am. 

In case anyone as forgotten the point of this road trip was to explore the south island before the weather got nasty down in the far south. So I booked a car ferry to Picton. The Cook strait was as windy as advertised but the views from the observation deck on the 'roof' of the ship 8 decks up were well worth the exposure. The journey through the bays and islands to Picton reminded me a lot of the Lofoten islands and the ride on the 'hurtigruten' I took back in 2008.

In Marlborough sound

Picton harbour

In Wellington I posted an advertisement of sorts on couchsurfing for traveling buddies for my journey around south island, the post got a fair bit of interest though only a few serious offers dropped into my inbox, one matched my route exactly so In Picton I went over to the Sequoia lodge backpackers to meet Kira and show her that I 'wasn't too creepy' (It must be the beard). As I've written before I prefer traveling along for most of the time, however it is nice to have a travel buddy when you're driving for hours and hours every other day for three weeks and staying in hostels where everyone else seems to be traveling in self-contained groups of around 4 (and very antisocial). As I found in India it is WAY easier to couchsurf when you're sending requests from the account of a young woman; this saddens me considerably, I'll write more about this later when this trip is done, suffice it to say I believe it to be one of the major flaws in hospitality website/schemes, or perhaps it is in fact a flaw in human nature?
We agreed we were both going to head southwards somehow, I had no actual idea which way to go and no particular reason to head anywhere in any order. Kira ad a couple of weeks to kill before going job hunting in the southern wintersports resorts so we decided to just muddle generally southwards stopping wherever either of us found a place to stay or something interesting came around the corner.

Split Apple Rock

Taking photos of peopletakaking photos ofpeopletakingphotos...

Riwaka resurgence: http://www.motuekaonline.org.nz/attractions/walks/riwaka-resurgence.html
It's like the gateway to hades or something...

Another one of those traveling sunsets

Kaikoura

Sleepy Fur Seal

..and another

 If there is one experience that I can call truly mind-blowing and that I'd recommend to anyone it would be a visit to the seal creche at the Ohau falls; we got there an hour or so before dark and found the path along the stream almost entirely deserted.
Then suddenly a small group of seal pups climbed into view and began to play in the shallow pools under each small fall of water.

 We climbed further after a long while and lots of bad-quality photographs to find even more seal cubs sitting around in the bush, at this point I was completely astounded and took even more poor photographs (the light was too low) so many that my camera battery went flat.

Further along the track, taking care not to step on any seal cubs we came across the plunge pool of a waterfall literally full of frolicking baby seals.  

I managed to take a few grainy photos with my phone, none of which even touch on the life-affirming joy of spending time at the waterfall. I think there is a video somewhere.. search for Ohau seal pups on youtube, go on. I dare you.
After Kaikura I went to visit cousin Jethro near Christchurch at Akaroa, discovered I really don't like mussels at all then carried on to Christchurch. You have probably heard about the loss of life caused by the February 2011 earthquake http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Christchurch_earthquake but not how the city's core was so devastated. It still is almost four years on. Some reconstruction has finished or is nearing completion but most is only just getting started, yet there is a sense of collecting momentum around the place as the reconstruction gains momentum as it passes out of the planning stages. The greatest problem (so I am told) is that there is just not enough money available to rebuild quickly.
It's that old money problem again. 

ANZAC day

Yesterday was ANZAC day. 
Although I was aware of it I've never understood the significance of April the 25th to the national psyche of the Kiwi (and Australian, but they're not under scrutiny right now) and the self-image of the country as a whole. When travelling I enjoy investigating such ideas of collective identity or the perception of the self as part of a greater whole, shared common values and mythology in a historical context so when Brigette said she was going to the dawn parade to represent St. John's Ambulance I had to go along to learn more.

And so at 4.30am I rose bleary-eyed, complete darkness outside and rain lashing against the window. I got dressed and staggered into the kitchen, downed a black coffee, chewed up a muffin and we were off. Around 45 minutes later we arrived (still well before dawn) in Taumarunui, the rain had petered out and stars buried in the spaces between the clouds were beginning to invite upward glances with their flickering; stationary but moving.

Outside the RSA, see any kids wearing medals?

We headed to the local RSA club which is analogous to the British Legion to find a decent-sized group of people waiting for the dawn service. Some medal-decked old men and their families, current servicemen, police, fire and ambulance in uniform, assorted townspeople and Maori wardens, whatever they are, stood about fussing with poppies and sharing bonhomie. Later, but still before dawn a senior member of the club mustered the group into a marching column with the veterans at the front. The column moved off to the irregular beat of a muffled drum in order to reach the town war memorial by the 6am ceremony. 

The column ready for the march

The old boys take a minibus

The group marched down the street, turned right and moved along one of the main east-west streets. more people joined the procession including myself. 

The ceremony was very similar to the ones in the UK, with wreath laying by order of importance, religion, anthem singing etc. There were some interesting differences such as the inclusion of a lot of the Maori language into the service and a haunting waiata (female solo) sung at the end of the service. There is a gun salute in this case provided by a cannon somewhere away in a car park.
The date and time of the dawn service is in commemoration of the dawn landings and battles at Anzac cove on the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey. After eight months of bitter fighting in the hills of the peninsula the invasion failed and the troops withdrew. In those eight months the Anzac legend was born, an important facet of the Australian and New Zealand national character as some would point out. Of course the veterans of this campaign are long gone, but like armistice day in the UK, subsequent conflicts have unfortunately provided more returned servicemen, some maimed, some just to be remembered by those who return to these spartan memorials every year to honour their memory. However, the way in which Anzac day and the ANZAC spirit have become such an important part of the national consciousness reminds me of a time last year when I was considering the foundation myths of another country directly linked to this story. 

I remember writing about what I had learned about the Turkish sense of identity based on the defence of the Ottoman Empire as it was then from a series of invasions culminating in the foundation of the Turkish Republic. I wondered as I heard and read about the tradition of Anzac day if there was a common nationalist impetus to forging a joint identity using the sacrifice and bravery of the nations soldiers as a figurehead (almost, perhaps prototype?) for the qualities that each nations leaders aspire to. The comparisons between the heroic ANZACs of lore and the way in which the Turkish defenders are portrayed are easy to make; for every Simpson and his donkey bravely evacuating the wounded there is a Gunner Seyit keeping the guns firing using superhuman feats of strength. Both are now more fiction than fact, ideals rather than human beings. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Simpson_Kirkpatrick and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seyit_%C3%87abuk
What is the Anzac spirit? I'm not going to explain it here, as people I've asked here can't really explain it well and I cannot pare it down beyond what i found on wikipedia:

"...endurance, courage, ingenuity, good humour, larrikinism, and mateship."

These qualities are considered so important that politicians have considered including them into some sort of citizenship test- except there is no practical way to test if you're fit to join the Kiwi club. 
If this is such a large part of what it is to be a New Zealander, is there any chance that over the last 99 years the meaning and use of the public holiday has changed? Certainly the memorial has become more of a public holiday (of remembrance) with the liberalisation of trading and licencing laws. However, there is still a lot of pride here, in the tenacity of these island's inhabitants in the face of hardship in particular. So it seems the events of 99 years ago will not fade from the public consciousness soon, to the contrary the increasing mythalogicalisation of the Gallipoli campaign (Mel Gibson, again) is even now overshadowing the sacrifice of the Australian and New Zealand soldiers in northern Europe during the Great War where many more were killed and wounded over a longer period of time.  It seems from my observations that in the years since 2001 and the subsequent wars, this remembrance and encouragement to feel pride is on the upswing. 
To someone who grew up in the relatively non-observant 1980's having to sit through emotional powerpoint presentations and holding a full minute silence (followed by an actual bugle rendition of the last post) in school assemblies is a little unsettling. The young people now enthusiastically marking this anniversary are the great grandchildren of the veterans of world war two and the great-great grandchildren (at least) of those that fought in the Great War. What about their children, and theirs? Will we still hold such parades in 100 years from now? If so why? In New Zealand I believe that the 'myth' of the Anzac spirit is so deeply ingrained in the common identity that I think it will go on, I cannot say the same for the UK where there is no equivalent and after the centenaries approaching over the next four years as well as the decreasing number of surviving veterans from WW2, I expect that the original meaning of armistice day will begin to fade for better or for worse and the rituals become more divorced from reality and living memories, text book history. I hope that whatever happens the insanity and the slaughter that occurs when so-called civilised nations go to war with each other will not be forgotten in the plastic poppy fever, and the silence.