Tues. - Arthur's Pass

We tried a different route to the train station – there is just no easy way to get there from the city center and it still took us an hour to walk there. Did I mention that it was still raining? We finally reached the train station, and realized that there is a ton of free parking at the station. We should have just drove – ugh.

We bought our boarding passes (which were the most expensive thing we’ve done while here), and headed off through the Canterbury plains toward Arthur’s Pass. It was either raining or drab and cloudy most of the ride there and all the time in Arthur’s Pass village. I’m sure it’s a spectacular sight when the weather is clear, but the clouds and mist obscured the views the whole time we were there. We still did 2 different walks while in the village and had a good lunch at the ‘The Wobbly Kea’ where we listened to Elvis’ greatest hits & I had some fish & chips (and some okay ice cream at the café across the street). (As a side note, a Kea is a large green parrot/hawk here that is endangered here in NZ – one exhibit at a DOC office said there were less than 5000 on the island, but Greg & I both swear that we’ve seen more than 5000 trying to pick at the possums that have been killed by traffic.)

Greg continued in his efforts to try to get me to eat a meat pie, which looks like a pot pie with all kinds of meat (steak, lamb, or chicken). I resisted – but I swear, there are meat pies in every café, convenience store, and bakery. When they say, pie – they do not mean fruit pie – they mean a little pie with meat, meat, and more meat.

Anyway, it was a nice day overall considering that it rained and we would have otherwise been stuck in Christchurch in the rain. Being at Arthur’s Pass in the rain was more our style – at least we were among the trees and waterfalls.

We also discovered ‘the deal’ with the possums – for those curious, they were imported from Australia in the 1800s sometime and apparently eat the rata flowers, which prevents the rata (NZ Christmas tree) from pollinating/reproducing. However, in recent years, possum fur has become in demand so the population has been controlled.

However, something called a skout and rat pelts are not in demand, and since there are NO natural predators here on the island, NZ takes active efforts to poison and set traps for these animals since they destroy the natural bird population. Interesting… huh?

Not as much as the deer – there were originally 20 deer imported in 1800s or so, and they thrived here. While there are deer farms and deer reserves here (they serve venison on almost every menu & in meat pies), they also shoot wild deer from helicopters to minimize or eliminate the wild deer population.

Well, enough of the flora & fauna lesson…

We reached Christchurch shortly after 6:00, and managed to walk back to the Old Countryhouse hostel in 45 minutes – in the rain. We then walked a block or so to a great little pizza place called “The Memphis Belle.” It was excellent, even though the music overhead was the same song played over & over.

We then decided to try what is a NZ custom & had ice cream treats at “Tip Top.” For those who aren’t in the know, Tip Top are frozen ice cream treats sold at Tip Top stores. They are actually pretty good – they’re like very high quality ice cream bars. Definitely worth a try.