Kiwiland

This winter holidays we had two weeks in New Zealand. I hadn’t been since I was four, and I don’t remember anything about that trip except the plane and my teddy, which might be a mixed up memory with the photo we have of us in the main isle of the plane.

Apparently my brother, sister, parents and I went to the north Island. Steve, the girls and I touristed in the south. Our smart, clean YMCA hotel in Christchurch where we arrived in the early hours of the morning was opposite the Botanic Gardens, and after a good sleep and a sunny brunch in the café downstairs, we explored it, finding some enormous conifer trees with branches that reached far down almost to the ground that the girls climbed. It’s so relaxing unwinding in nature.

That day was the mildest of our trip, you hardly needed a jumper. After enjoying the greenhouse full of tropical plants, we spent a couple of hours in the afternoon at a magical playground that looked like something out of Dr Zeuss, covering a large area with extra-wide slide, sand and water play areas (which the girls didn’t use – it wasn’t that warm), towering climbing areas, a spinning disk accommodating fifteen children and swings. We traded in New Zealand currency to buy hot chips made with freshly peeled potatoes skewered in one piece on a stick and icy drinks made with real fruit sold in the kiosks by the playground. And on the way home we all warmed up and Steve had a beer at a Rum diner decorated like an old-fashioned gentleman’s study with booths, located in a street that reminded me of Cape Town. Christchurch didn’t feel like a city that has experienced such trauma as an earthquake a few years ago and a mass shooting a few months earlier. We had a superficial experience of it, only seeing people going about their lives.

That night Rhea was angry about something – I have forgotten what – and ran outside our hotel room. We spent about 45 minutes looking for her on four floors of the hotel with the senior staff member on duty before we found her under her bunk bed where she had snuck back.

After another relaxing brunch at the café, Steve picked up the hire car and we drove to Lake Tekapo, about four hours away, past snow-capped mountains and crossing bridges over cold streams to our most expensive accommodation which had views of the turquoise lake and was a short walk from a stone church perched on the edge of it. We checked in after lunch, Lara arranged her seventeen Beanie Boos on her bed and we enjoyed the facilities. The next day we spent at the nearby (artificially-but-sustainably-heated) hot springs: the girls skated in the outdoor ice-skating rink, then had rides down a hill atop inflated tyre-like cushions for an hour, then joined me in the hot springs. Bliss! One was 35, another 37 and a third 39 degrees and they all had panoramic, elevated views of the surrounding lake and mountains in the distance. I got out before the others to have a back massage. Pure indulgence.

Before leaving the next day, we drove up to the peak where there are space facilities which are part of the university and a café where we had a drink. Then onwards to our next stop, Dunedin, about three-and-a-half hours by car.

Our Air BNB house was a jhoojed-up 1950s brick veneer with views of the surrounding suburbs and rolling green hills beyond that. The kitchen was tucked away at the back as kitchens used to be in many houses of that era, and the girls’ bedroom reminded me of the bedrooms that both my grandmothers had for us to stay in when we were little. The girls were very reluctant to explore the sights with us – the idea of art galleries and museums didn’t appeal, and it was very cold – but I had a lovely half-hour in the modern art gallery while they waited with Steve in the car, and they enjoyed the interactive science centre when we managed to coax them in to it. Like the Melbourne Museum, it housed a humid butterfly area in a section of rainforest, miraculously secreted inside it. Dunedin was fun after all.

Last stop, Queenstown. We were there to go skiing for four days in the (fairly) nearby Cardrona ski resort. We stayed at a backpacker’s lodge in Queenstown, drove one hour every morning, took a shuttle bus up the mountain for convenience so we wouldn’t have to walk a long way with our ski gear, skied for the day and repeated the process back, eating out every night because there was no functioning kitchen at the lodge. The ski resort was packed with people, the slopes were nice but probably not as extensive as Thedbo’s – and the weather was bitterly cold and foggy for one day, clear for a couple of days, and a mixture of both for the remaining day. The first day the girls were almost crying because their fingers were so cold so at the conveniently located ski shop at the foot of the slopes we bought a clever heat pack that produces warmth when you open it and insert it in your gloves. But that didn’t work because it didn’t reach their fingers, so we found a pair of glove inserts in our pockets and bought another. It was only bearable for Lara when she used a heat pack squeezed inside a pair of glove inserts and a pair of gloves.

The girls had two lessons and improved in skill and confidence. I had none and regressed in both. On the second last day, Rhea was furious that we had left her last lesson to the last day without consulting her, meaning that she wouldn’t have all day skiing with us as she had hoped, and she slid off into the fog close to the time that the mountain was closing for the day after getting off a chairlift ride with us. Steve stuck closely to her side and negotiated a truce by suggesting that the girls have a morning lesson on the last day so that we could all ski together in the afternoon. The last day went well. As we had every day, before our last drive back, we rewarded ourselves with hot chocolates, crepes with Nutella and tiny marshmallows, and home-made NZ ice-cream bought from the enterprising temporary stallholders who were based in the carpark.

We couldn’t bring any food back into Australia so before flying out, we ate through our fruit supply of kiwi fruit and delicious NZ apples and I managed to give away half a cabbage to the Dumpling House where we had dinner two nights; milk, honey, crème fraiche and bran to the kitchen of the lodge; and some unopened coffee, tinned tomatoes, a head of garlic and (opened) oats and cheese to some fellow lodgers in the car park who were about to set out on some camping. I was happy that this food didn’t go to waste. I couldn’t persuade Steve or the girls to consume the last three bananas though so they were binned at Customs after we arrived.

In our last few hours before flying out, we went to a wildlife centre and saw some kiwis, then the girls flew in a wind tunnel in an indoor flying centre that we came across just down the road. Rhea was furious afterwards that Steve hadn’t paid extra for her to have another go (he had already paid more than $200 per child for the three-minute experience). By the time of our flight back to Australia she had recovered and quite enjoyed the trip. Lucky they haven’t done any international flying before so didn’t think too badly of the limited inflight entertainment (you had to use your phone to download anything and the choice was quite small).

All in all, it was a trip of ups and downs, and blew our entire annual travel budget in two weeks. While there were many lovely, fun and relaxing experiences, there were also a lot of challenges. I won’t be doing any further international travel with the girls next year. We’ll see how their behaviour is the year after.