And so to Christchurch

North west of Nelson you can drive along the edge of Marlborough/Picton(?) Sound. It must be one of the most beatiful drives in the world. Perhaps because of our couple of days breathing traffic fumes in Nelson, being jostled by crowds and shopping in a supermarket my weariness with beautiful countryside was gone. Perhaps you can see why.


Someone suggested I sound a bit cynical about NZ which isn't true. I think NZ is wonderful. We watched a TV program last night about New Zealanders buying homes abroad and our reaction was "Why bother?". Nothing we say seemed as good as what we've seen here. And apart from driving through it we've also looked in estate agents' windows. You can buy a virgin plot or a house very cheaply compared to Bristol prices. However it is a bit like drinking only champagne sometimes. There is a competition in one of the papers to find the best view that anyone has from their work place. As you can imagine some are amazing but one just showed a scruffy yard with rusting tractors and junk. Sometimes water is a necessary change to champagne.

Before I get all gushy about NZ, and after drooling all the way along the road from Nelson, we encountered a useful corrective. I sort of imagined, naive fool that I am, that the Marlborough wine region would be full of cosy little vinyards, hugging the hillside, where wine lovers would buy a few acres and live the dream of creating the perfect wine. In fact it is a soul-less place. It's flat with (though there are mountains in the far distance) and full of big, professional, identical square blocks of vinyards (sorry 'wineries'). Each one has a carefully designed logo to make them look modern. There are three sorts of logo: a) give it a Maori name with some vaguely ethnic looking design, b) make it look classic and elegant (Domaine George-Michel) c) try to suggest NZ beauty (Cloudy Bay). The logos are all different but somehow the same spirit comes through all of them.

As we drove past mile after mile of identical flat fields, each vinyard we realised we had come to a new New Zealand. I'd just learnt a NZ phrase, "Number 8 'll fix it". Number 8 is fencing wire and the saying reflects the traditional strength of the country. You invent, mend, improvise and use what comes to hand. Sometimes whole houses seem to be built with Number 8 and a few old planks. That's old New Zealand. New New Zealand (does New Labour spring, ever so slightly, to mind) is planned, researched, big on image. You don't need Number 8 if you've got good enough PR to make what you do seem different, and you can add on a fancy restaurant (as many have done) which you enter through a shop where you can order a few cases, or you can order as you leave.

Which raises one slight problem. There is a nationwide anti drink-driving campaign with hundreds of different posters (I like the one which shows a foot with an id tag on the toe poking out from under a sheet - slogan "If you drink-drive you might get a ticket"). So come to a restaurant on a winery and don't drink? My guess is that the aim is at the coach loads of Americans doing "the Kiwi experience".

I'm just an old fogey. Never mind (and I do like NZ wine), we won't stay. On to Kaikoura ... but first to camp.

Throughout this trip Eleanor has had a secret sense of shame. This camper van stuff isn't real camping. We should be in the bush, listening to the sea, watching the stars, at one with nature. It is, I freely admit, my fault we haven't done it. I like hot showers, clean toilets, internet access, a box of exchangeable books to root through, a list of what's on at the local cinema. We aren't equiped for real camping but, driving beside the sea we found a camp site which is closer to the ideal. It is almost deserted (I wonder why?), the sea is only a few yards away, it's almost in the bush (or maybe the bush is moving in to the camp). There is electricity but it isn't working (end of season - not worth it). There are showers but not hot and, as a bonus, there is more local fauna in the shower than I've seen in the whole trip. Probably both NZ's venomous spiders, certainly an interesting assortment of mosquitos, sandflies and cockroaches. And you can't shut the doors in the gents so any other nature can just walk right in.

We had quite a good night, pity about the sandflies, and, because we are far away from the civilized world where people might compain, the tiny railway we hadn't noticed can carry rumbly something or other on it's squeaking, rattling rolling stock all night. To balance the scales a bit, we did buy from the camp manager a freshly cooked rock lobster, caught that day by her husband. Nature has its place.

Next day along the coast, stopping now and then to watch the seals, to Kaikoura a pleasant seaside town. To my surprise Eleanor wanted to stay at a modern campsite with a promosing restaurant opposite the entrance and only 5 minutes walk from the town centre. I pointed out there was a more 'natural' alternative with just the sort of shady sites next to a creek which would encourage wildlife.

We took a short flight in a light airplane to look for whales. Kaikoura is at the head of the (underwater) Kaikoura Canyon where, in addition to very deep water, two currents meet making it an ideal breeding ground for plankton and krill and so popular with sperm whale. Especially hoons. Hoons is the NZ word for stroppy teenagers and though, as far as I know, young whales neither play loud music nor sleep all day, they get the label anyway. So we flew over the Kaikoura Canyon with a pilot who seemed more an age to be playing computer games than flying a real planes. We saw one big hoon which did look magnificent. Alas he only appeared late in the trip - no doubt he'd been lounging around in his room playing hip-hop.

Not a very good picture but we were overhead and the vibrations of the plane probably affected it.

Which brings us to the end of the South Island. We spent a couple of days in Christchurch site seeing and then left our campervan at the airport. Off to Auckland.