New Zealand

On Thursday – the last day of winter – I woke from a strange dream involving Dad and balls and a geolocation game. Mum had hardly slept; she wasn’t feeling good. Her ongoing neck pain and fatigue don’t help her mood. She really should see the doctor. We left the motel at the sprightly hour of 8:10. Our first stop (with Dad driving, we make lots of stops) was at Bruce Bay – the sea was dead calm and the tide was in. After that we stopped at Knights Point where there was a monument to the Haast–Otago road which Keith Holyoake officially opened in 1965. We soon reached Ship Creek which I’d been up several times before. Whenever we opened the door, we were ambushed by sandflies.

We crossed the Haast River and went over the Gates of Haast Bridge where there were huge rocks in a waterfall. Next came another waterfall – the well-named Fantail Falls – and then we stopped at the Blue Pools and that’s when things got weird. Mum was feeling crabby, so she stayed in the car while Dad and I walked to the pools. They weren’t the azure we hoped for, and in fact the suspension bridge over the shallow river was closed. Back in the car half an hour later, and Mum woke up not knowing what country she was in. She was out of it.

We had lunch at Makarora, at the north end of Lake Wanaka, where there was yet another waterfall. State Highway 6 then split off between Lake Wanaka and Hawea, and we passed numerous vineyards and orchards that had propellers that keep the air circulating and prevent the cold air reaching the ground at night. We then reached the man-made Lake Dunstan, where the weeping willows were already coming out – spring happens early in New Zealand, it seems – and crossed the 45th parallel which I live not too far from, only on the other side of the equator. A bike track followed the shore of Lake Dunstan – it got fair bit of use, and seemed to be taking over from the famous Rail Trail. During the gold rush, Chinese miners lived in huts – caves, really – built into the rocks around the lake. Imagine living there.

Next stop was Cromwell, a beneficiary/victim of a huge amount of recent development. Much of the old town of Cromwell had been flooded after the Clyde Dam was built in the 1980s, creating Lake Dunstan. Some of the old buildings were saved or rebuilt, to create a so-called Heritage Precinct. From Cromwell we drove the short distance to Clyde, which had been tarted up too much for me. You can keep your $6 single-scoop boutique ice creams. Clyde had become a hub for the bike trail, selling plenty of high-end electric bikes.

We made good time in spite of Dad’s propensity to stop every five minutes to find a painterly view, and we soon arrived in Alexandra and motel number three. Thankfully, Mum had perked up by then, but not enough to enter a takeaway restaurant. They seem to give her hives. Dad and I went to the Indian down the road – the price had shot up from the time the menu in the guest information brochure had been printed. We smooshed our lamb madrases and chicken tikka masalas together, and saved half for the following night. There was a separate bedroom from which I gave my lesson – my student spent most of the time despairing over her son Alexandru, near-namesake of where I happened to be.

That night we saw the super blue moon – the second full moon in a calendar month, and larger than normal. Far from the largest I’ve seen, though. When I was twelve my grandparents took us to a Christmas pantomime in Cambridge. Was it Robin Hood? I can’t remember. But I remember the colossal full moon, low on the horizon, that was saw on the way back. If I ask my brother about it, he’ll surely remember it too.

We woke up early on Wednesday morning and had a breakfast of sorts. We were out of proper coffee, so Mum made flasks of instant coffee even though she hates the stuff. When a small dog visited our motel room that morning, I could see why so many people prefer dogs to other people. We made our way down the ribbon-like West Coast. The leaves of straight-trunked rimu trees hung down, and other trees and bushes were sculpted by the wind – it was a rugged and at times sinister world that felt a long way from the East. Moving to the West Coast wouldn’t be easy – no matter how long you’d been there, you’d never be one of them. Saying that, look at what I did seven years ago. Again we were lucky with the weather. We stopped for our instant coffee at lovely Lake Mahinapua with the reflection of the mountains in the water, then at Lake Ianthe. This was all uncharted territory for me – though I’d been to the West Coast before, I’d never been south of Hokitika. We hopped from one DOC site to the next, remarking at how great an asset all these sites are to the country.

We arrived at Fox Glacier, the day’s destination, in mid-afternoon. During my brother’s New Zealand interlude in 2012-13, he was based there. He took people up for tandem parachute jumps. A couple of years earlier, on the day of the first major Christchurch earthquake, a parachuting plane crashed, killing all nine people on board. The aftermath of the crash was a controversial mess; evidence was literally buried. While Dad dozed in the car, Mum and I walked to the Fox Glacier lookout point – not a short trek anymore because the glacier has retreated so much. Later in the day we had another longish walk to Lake Matheson, which is situated a short distance from the glacier. Matheson is famous for its photo opportunity – a perfect reflection – but the best of the day’s weather had gone and the water was choppy. The walk around Matheson was peppered by rimu and totara trees. There were also lancewoods that evolved in an interesting way. During the time of the moa, lancewoods developed bone-like spiky structures until they grew nine feet tall, so their leaves above that height would be out of the moa’s range.

We arrived at our motel room in Fox to a rare and spectacular 180-degree rainbow. The room was much more spacious and comfortable than the one at Greymouth, but after a lovely day – albeit one in which I struggled with my sinuses – things turned sour in the evening. Booking motel rooms – one night at a time, each taking hours – had become a very stressful pursuit for Mum. It didn’t help that I’d thrown a spanner into the works by scheduling a two-hour lesson for the following evening, but Mum was unreasonably angry at everything and everybody. I found a place in Alexandra on Agoda instead of the usual booking.com, and to my great relief I convinced her to book it. We played Skip-Bo yet again. It was a long game: cards didn’t move easily from our stacks. Mum built up a useful lead but I kept coming back until we both needed to shift just one card to win. Mum pipped me – phew – and drew even with Dad at four games apiece; I remained one behind.

On Monday night Mum and Dad went to Geraldine’s most famous restaurant with some ex-neighbours. I had my Romanian lesson so I stayed at my parents’ place and saved them over $30. (They’re paying for everything while I’m here. There’s no point trying to change that.) In our lesson we covered serious and heavy subjects like last week’s LPG plant explosion near Bucharest – it killed three and injured dozens – and what happens to homeless people when they are discharged from hospital. My brother, still in crutches following his knee operation, called later that evening. Then the next morning we were off to the West Coast.

After briefly catching some action from day one of the US Open, we set off at nine on the inland route. It was a glorious day; the sunny weather would follow us for most of the trip. There was remarkably little traffic. Mum and Dad shared the driving – there was no chance of me getting behind the wheel. Springfield, at the foot of the Arthur’s Pass, seemed to have lost its Simpsons doughnut since I last went over the pass in 2009. We passed Lake Lyndon, then the Castle Hill Range. We then stopped at Lake Pearson which was gin clear. Maybe my brother and I swam there 37 years ago. An Emirates A380, minutes away from landing at Christchurch, was flying low overhead. Unbelievably for somewhere so beautiful, nobody else was there. In the UK, a spot like that would be rammed and it would cost you a fiver just to park your car. In Romania, it would be rather less crowded, but there’d be rubbish everywhere including at least one mattress and maybe a fridge. On a late winter’s day in New Zealand, however, it was pristine and deserted.

At Arthur’s Pass village – strangely the only placename in the whole country not to have been stripped of its apostrophe – we saw a group of very tame keas, or maybe kea’s, ready to wrench off our wing mirrors. (Outside the village you’ll have a hard time spotting one of those native parrots. And I know, the plural should just be kea.)

Once we’d gone through Otira and had made it over the pass, the landscape changed markedly. There were far fewer pine trees and more natives, such as the punga. We were greeted by wild goats on the roadside, reminding me of my adopted home, and a solitary weka. We were too early to check in to our motel at Paroa, which is basically a suburb of Greymouth, so we went down the coast a little way first, taking advantage of the sunshine. I’d almost forgotten what a Kiwi tradition these motels are. All those weird and wacky Aaltons and Aamiras vying for prime position in the phone book. I have fond memories of Mum buttering our toast with a toothbrush in a knifeless motel in Hamilton which featured bunk beds. I’m sure we were too stingy to stay at any of the (many) places that boasted waterbeds. Our motel this time was very cramped. Mum somehow put together a meal of sausages, beans and spuds, then we played two games of Skip-Bo on one of the beds. Mum and I each won one, cutting Dad’s lead to 4-3-3.

It’s another beautiful day – mid to high teens, without a cloud in the sky. I can have no complaints about the weather since I arrived here. I’ve been getting a load of extra sleep – I’m sure I have the more benign temperatures to thank for that; my much reduced screen time must be a big help too.

This afternoon we went to the cemetery in Temuka – the fifth cemetery I’ve been to so far on this trip – where many members of Mum’s family are buried. She put flowers on her parents’ grave, and then she searched for her other relatives. Her aunt Rene, who died in 2000, was famous for her extremely tall sponge cakes which I remember well. There was also her uncle William, known as Wormy Bill. Finally she found her great-grandfather who arrived on the boat from Ireland at the age of 50, in 1874. In the meantime I saw surnames of classmates and teachers I remembered from my (short, hard) time at the local school. Unlike what you see in the UK (and Romania, for that matter), modern New Zealand gravestones often provide information beyond dates of birth and death. You’ll see an engraved trout perhaps, or a handsaw. One lady had clearly won Lotto: the six coloured balls appeared above her name. You could see the changing styles of the different stonemasons over time, as well as the transition to machine engraving in about 2000. From the cemetery we went to Milford Lagoon – the mouth of the Opihi River – where people have huts (some live there permanently) and Dad used to catch brown trout.

Yesterday – another fantastic day – we went to Tekapo. I hadn’t been there for 15-plus years. The drive there is lovely, and the lake and surrounding mountains are as picturesque as ever, but Tekapo (which was a slice of paradise when I first saw it as a kid) is gradually morphing into a full-on resort like Queenstown or Wanaka. Somewhere to avoid, in other words. Busloads of Asian tourists had arrived there, and it was as if they’d landed on the moon. The small church, devoid of people as I remember it, now had queues. From Tekapo we drove to Lake Alexandrina. My late uncle had a bach there – he’d pretty much built it – and 30 years ago (probably to the day, just about) I stayed there with Mum and Dad while my brother stayed at our other uncle’s farm on the West Coast. My uncle sadly lost the bach after his second divorce.

After we got home, we went to my uncle and aunt’s place in Woodbury – they’re the ones who had the farm on the West Coast until 1996 – and had a big slap-up meal of roast beef and plenty of vegetables, followed by lemon meringue pie. With all the crisps and nuts and crackers beforehand, it was a veritable feast.

On Thursday I played tennis with Mum for the first time in absolutely ages. The brand spanking new courts, also used for netball, are just around the corner from here. We played for a very enjoyable hour and a quarter. She can still move around the court impressively, although her backhand isn’t quite what it was, and her loss of muscle mass means she’s lost some power. Balls don’t bounce very high on the astro surface – points are shorter on average than on the concrete I normally play on. While we were playing, we tried to remember the names of some of the players at the club in England. Was it Barbara? No, Brenda. I hope we can play once or twice more before I go back to Romania.

I forgot to mention in my recent posts that one of the flyers at Dad’s club is illiterate. Seriously, he makes and flies model planes, and works as a car mechanic, without being able to read or write. I mentioned him in my Romanian lesson on Tuesday and they were amazed.

Last week was quite a big one for news, with the Wagner leader Yegveny Prigozhin killed in that plane crash. Donald Trump’s mugshot will go into the annals of history – and he’s already trying to use it to his advantage. And India became the fourth country to land on the moon.

The Skip-Bo scores are now 4-1-1, with Dad the big winner so far. The probability of one specific player winning four games (or more) out of six is almost exactly 10%, assuming all players have an equal chance in each game. That assumption might not hold here – Mum’s competitive edge surely boosts her chances, making Dad’s four wins even more of an outlier.