Kia Ora – A New Zealand Odyssey in several chapters
Greymouth is at the heart of New Zealand’s coal mining industry and has also suffered from the worldwide downturn of mining. Its deep mines have been closed and only opencast mines remain. With a population of just over 13,000 it is the largest town on the West Coast of South Island and is the terminus for the Tranz Alpine passenger train route to Christchurch. The train journey to Christchurch is 139 miles and the route crosses Arthur’s Pass at an altitude of 2,425ft passes through the Otira Tunnel and alongside the Waimakariri River Gorge. The journey through the Southern Alps is spectacular, but the last hour through the Canterbury Plains quite boring.
We had been told about the earthquake exhibition in the Christchurch Museum and it was extremely well presented, but most interesting was the Red Bus Tour of the central city accompanied by the museum staff. The Christchurch area had its first earthquake in September 2010. It was magnitude 7.1 on the Richter scale, but the epicentre was 25 miles west of the city and although it did £2bn damage no-one was killed. There had been many aftershocks and on February 4th 2011 there were three major ones of 5.5, 5.6 and 6.3 causing further damage to an already devastated city centre. The large aftershocks were very close to the surface and also caused liquefaction of the sandy soil in the Canterbury Plains. Despite the devastation, Christchurch’s spirit has not been dampened and a new retail centre has sprung up built entirely from recycled shipping containers.
After three nights in Christchurch we caught the early morning Coastal Pacific train back to Picton and the ferry to Wellington. Although not as spectacular as the TranzAlpine train, the Coastal Pacific passes along the eastern coastal plain with mountains rising almost vertically just a couple of miles inland.
Wellington houses the Museum of New Zealand (Te Papa Tongarewa) which had a wonderful exhibition of Māori cloaks together with demonstrations of the techniques used to make them. The weather was rather wet as we left the museum, so we ran across the square and spent a very pleasant afternoon at a Sunday matinee in the Circa Theatre. After visiting many of the attractions of Wellington including the Museum of Wellington City & Sea, where there was a very moving account of the 1968 Wahine ferry disaster, it was time for us to leave and catch our flight back to Tauranga. Luckily the weather was clear and we had great views as we flew directly over Mount Ruapehu in Tongariro National Park with Mount Taranaki showing its peak above the clouds to the East.
