Accompanying Apollo 4:From Western Australia to South Island New Zealand

As customary we spent our last Donnelly day visiting Bridgetown, lunching at The Cidery, and paying affectionate homage to Hugh’s birthplace. Then all too soon it was Jan. 1 and off we set for Freo via Busselton, where we took tea with Hugh’s parents, and rested for a while under the trees at the war memorial in Manjimup.

Next day we met the Palm Court trio (Susan and Janet plus husbands Russ and Peter) for a final dinner at Joey’s in Fremantle.

Only Laura was missing—she had an unbreakable baby-sitting date—and the pictures of Mandy, Erin and me show a remarkable family resemblance. But the picture I like best is of the men on the beach, looking exactly like Stephen Hero and friends on the Dublin strand—even to Cranley’s umbrella.

All too soon it was our last day. The weather had broken by now and become grey and cool in sympathy as we said our farewells and paid a last visit to King’s Park in Perth, where Hugh took the last of our Ozzie pictures. We parted knowing there might well be reunion next year, either here or in Europe, so tears were few.

Goodbye, Western Australia, until our next Christmas visit.

and hullo South Island New Zealand, to us a true home from home

To reach our next destination, Christchurch on the south island of New Zealand, we had to fly to Auckland from Perth, an eight hour journey. Once there we transferred to a domestic flight in the wee small hours of the morning, arriving in Christchurch at 8 a.m. Our “Kiwi” guide, Rhys Warner, was waiting for us and told us we were to be his only guests, so we had very comfortable riding in a commodious all-terrain vehicle. Everything we could ever need, from extra cushions to umbrellas, was in there, and our guide soon proved to be an excellent driver and raconteur. He was actually a musician (singer/guitarist) manqué who had given up a promising career to look after his widowed mother, and whose two sisters lived in Perth—which he had never yet visited. He loved his south-island home and knew every corner of it. He intended to show us as much as he could in the four days we had in his care.
We began early that first day in the Antarctic Museum, where we took a virtual journey with Captain Scott and hobnobbed with the lovely little blue-eyed penguins. Then we checked IN at the “Copthorne”, a comfortable central hotel, and checked OUT the extensive park and gardens nearby. The city was remarkably like its prototype, Oxford, with punts trailing through the backs piloted by bowler-hatted young bucks. We happily explored the museums and the cathedral, feeling very much at home and warmly welcomed as Canadian tourists. Later in the day we found a tiny movie theatre, the “Cloisters”, showing “The Queen”, so we watched it with great pleasure before eating in a quite Dickensian pub called “The Bard of Avon”. So very English it all seemed to be, and I confess we liked that.

With Rhys in the South Olympics, Mount Cook behind us

The next day saw us bound for Geraldine and the west where we saw extensive views of Mount Cook from the Church of the Good Shepherd. Here, though it was at the base of the mountain range, I had a mountain-top experience. This area was called the Southern Alps, and very lovely it was. We drove past field after field of beautiful lupins as we approached the resort of Queenstown.

Here Alan went wandering through the town once we had checked into another lovely “Copthorne”, and came back declaring it was the one place he had found on earth to match the Gulf Islands for scenic splendor. I agreed. I could happily live here.

vistas like this along every road--Monty Python country!

Queenstown Main Street and Queenstown from our hotel

Can you spot the seal on the rock? This is in Milford Sound, among the spectacular fjords, and the torrents are pouring down into the Sound.

We were off early the next morning to reach Milford Sound by midday. This was Fjord country now, and the weather became suitably rainy so that we saw torrent after torrent fountaining down the hillsides as we careened along.

Milford turned out to be a beautifully planned harborage, and our boat for the cruise was comfortable and even cosy as we watched the cascade on every mountainside. Despite the streaming windows it was spectacular indeed; we even saw a solitary seal flat out on a rock. Meanwhile our guide was recounting how Captain Cook never came into the sound, being unable to spot the entrance, and how Doubtful Sound, next door as it were, was even more of a marvel. But to see it meant spending an extra night, which we didn’t have, on another cruise ship—so we saved it for another day (though knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted we should ever come back. . .) A friendly kea bade us farewell as we drove back up the valley. It is said this people-loving kiwi parrot always seeks out new tourist visitors and welcomes them to his habitat. He certainly found us, and stayed beside us till we regretfully drove on. Goodbye, fjordland.

Our next stop was Te Anau and a motel-type lodging across from a delightful steak-house, where we enjoyed an unusually large meal before descending to the underground caves to see these extraordinary creatures—actually larvae—drop their garlands of enticing beads to entrap their suppers of moth and fly. Somehow seemed appropriate to our engorged state. These beads are what give off the luminescence distinctive of other kinds of glow-worm; they look like nothing so much as constellations of stars in a night sky. It was quiet and eerie paddling along a subterranean stream.
On our way to Dunedin the next day we stopped at Annatown, a delightfully quirky little frontier-type village with attractive shops, and alongside the Eyre Mountains we saw the Kingston flyer—a train plying its way between Annatown and Queenstown. Later we marvelled at the Remarkables (the fabulous mountain range across the centre of South Island), bought fresh fruit and delicious freshly made ice cream at a wayside stall, and picnicked beside a fast-flowing river.
Though the journey was long, it was so rich in delightful scenery that we found the time flew by as we sang some old songswe all knew—Gershwin, Hammerstein, Cole Porter.
Main Street, Annatown, and the Kingston Flyer

Alongside the Remarkables -- a great place for a picnic

If Christchurch was Oxford, Dunedin was Dundee. A more Scottish town could surely not be found outside of Scotland. Evidences of Presbyterianism were everywhere, not only in the churches themselves but also in the town’s layout and architecture, even in the brogue we heard spoken in the streets. There was a most imposing railw ay station as well as several other beautiful buildings in the central octagon of the city, which was where our hotel was located. Again we dined well in a tavern before retiring for our last night in the South Island.

The journey south along the Otago peninsula was full of pastoral scenes—deer and lamas as well as sheep in the pastures, all very well cared for. New Z ealanders seem to love their animals dearly.

The mission for today was to visit the albatross colony and see there nesting albatrosses, penguins, seals and other sea creatures.
The information centre at the nesting site provided a deal of lore about the albatross, a bird with a magnificent nine-foot wing span and a fixed zone of flying and feeding activity around the south pole. The peninsula is the only mainland site favou red by nesting pairs, which more customarily raise their broods on off-shore islands. This being the breeding season, there were several nests visible from the carefully constructed hides, to which Alan dutifully climbed. He was able to snap a couple of brooding birds, but the distance was too far for them to appear as anything larger than two white blobs on the hillside. But we know what they are, and feel greatly privileged to have been allowed to enter their domain for however brief a glimpse. The record of successful fledging at the centre is quite good, despite the egg-stealing of predators like the ferret and the feral cat, and no doubt the longevity of their champion “grandma”—62 years old when last seen—will be surpassed in the course of time.
Our way back to Christchurch, where we had to catch a plane at 6 p.m., took us through many little towns, where we bought provisions for another picnic, and past the “beach of boulders” where perfectly smooth spherical stones dot the sand and where domestic deer come to take apples from your hand.

Above you see Dunedin (the railway station), sheep dotting one hillside and nesting albatrosses dotting another, and hungry deer who are remarkably like fatter versions of our own Canadian white-tails. The beach of boulders below has no known explanation.
Perhaps, like the Giants Footsteps linking Ireland to Wales, this marks the pathway we should take on our next journey with Apollo.