I Can’t Wait to Get on the Road Again – to New Zealand

by Rob Sangster

Calling it sheltering makes me feel better, but I’m so locked down I’m getting root bound. At least it provides a lot of time for writing, so long as I can keep my synapses firing.

To accompany my first three novels—Ground Truth, Deep Time, and No Return—I am well into writing my next book. But the truth is that I can hardly wait to be on the road again. That makes me think of a place in which it’s likely to be safe to travel in the foreseeable future. That’s a country that makes me so happy I even bought a bit of waterfront land there. In case you, too, are eager to travel, I’ll tell you about it.

Meeting New Zealand is like beginning a fine love affair. The anticipation is wonderful and, of course, there is much more to it than you realize in the beginning.

New Zealand has a multi-faceted personality. Most evident is the familiar, traditional one travel agents promote and most visitors encounter. Typically, travelers arrive in Auckland, the capital city, and leave the next day for the small town of Rotorua to wrinkle their noses at pungent sulfur odors and watch mud boil in volcanically charged thermal springs. From there, they head south to stroll the banks of the River Avon in bucolic Christchurch, take a launch across Lake Wakatipu, and shop in Queenstown. Following an afternoon cruise in Milford Sound watching the dolphins play, they admire the Tasman Glacier and the angular summits of Mts. Cook and Tasman, even if only through the picture window of the Hermitage Hotel.

A few visitors experience mild adventures by spending several days hiking the Milford Track or a week skiing the Coronet Peak snowfields near Queenstown.

But New Zealand offers so much more, so I’ll suggest two rather different ways to get to know this distant country. One is very relaxed, the other considerably more energetic.

When I’m in the mood to experience the relaxed aspect of New Zealand, I spend a week at an inn on the banks of a rocky brook near Lake Taupo on the North Island, watching world-class rainbow trout leap in the sun. I may pass a tranquil day in a hot air balloon above pastoral landscapes where snow drifts metamorphose into thousands of fluffy sheep. From there I immerse myself in quiet thoughts while strolling through fragrant vineyards or laze away a peaceful afternoon talking with youngsters in a Maori village outside Wanganui. Traveling farther south, I share a day with an elderly New Zealand couple on a remote sheep station, savoring silence broken only by faint yelps from sheep dogs working a flock down from high pastures.

Along the route, “backpacker hotels” provide economical private rooms and a chance to trade stories with other travelers.

An aspect of the New Zealand personality not to be missed is the warmth of its people. They are generous and opinionated and, happily, speak a language not altogether different from my own. One easy way to meet them is by spending the night in “caravan parks.” Designed for RVs, they usually offer cozy cabins as well. Community kitchens and lounges, often with logs blazing in the fireplace, are a fine setting for late-night discussions about the state of the world. When you drop into a pub for the second time, you’re likely to be greeted by a call of “good on yer, lad,” and a clap on the back.

In Wellington, board the Arahua, a shiny-white ferry with a plunging dolphin painted on its navy-blue funnel. After a few tranquil hours crossing the Cook Strait, we glide into Picton harbor at the end of the snow-capped Kaikoura mountain range. Rent a car from a local agency and drive west along the sinuous Queen Charlotte route. After several hours of spectacular views of the Marlborough Sounds, turn north toward the small settlement of Okiwi Bay and drive out French Pass Road. To either side of this winding ridge route are magnificent views of deep-water bays accented by picnic-size islands. A few impassive cows balance lopsidedly on steep hillsides, knee-deep in newly shorn lambs mindlessly munching on straw-colored tussocks. At the remote end of the peninsula, fishing boats swing slowly at anchor, feeling the pull of the deadly whirlpools of the nearby French Pass channel.

Leaving the Marlborough Sounds, you’ll reach Nelson, the artistic and sunshine capital of the country, in a couple of hours. Depart from Nelson early in the morning in order to reach the mountains to the west just as the night-fog rises from the valleys. Breakfast smoke still curls above farmer’s cottages as untended flocks wander at the edges of verdant forests. Carbon-black boulders are imbedded high on mountain slopes. These great stones look as if they’d been expelled from the subterranean world.

After tea and conversation in the picture-postcard town of Takaka, continue out the long sweep of Golden Beach to Farewell Spit. The tip of its projection into the Tasman Sea is as lonesome as the end of the world.

When it’s time to turn back, follow the river southwest through Buller Gorge, passing through a dozen rainbow arches. Mosses and lichens in shades of red and yellow clothe rock walls glistening in the mist.

Reaching Westport on the west coast, you meet the sea as it pounds itself into foam and spray. This is where you are introduced abruptly to a primitive aspect of New Zealand’s personality. The coastal shrubbery, sculpted by ceaseless wind, grows with a forty-five-degree inclination. Farther inland, weathered tree trunks stand in gray legions, branching only at the very crown. The drive is punctuated by sounds like the “crump” of artillery shells as compressed water and air explode out of caverns.

Break the drive down the coast with a trip in a shallow-draft jet boat into the mountains and the heart of wilderness. Or pause at a roadside trailhead for a solitary walk to an emerald lake.

After several hours on this deserted coast, it’s time to stop at Franz Josef, a village near one of the glaciers cascading down from the Southern Alps. Hike over the moraine on the valley floor between towering cliffs to reach the glacier’s “toe.” That’s where you’ll hear the sound of rushing water I think of as the song of New Zealand. From snowfields far above, waterspouts hundreds of feet out from the cliffs before splintering on ledges far below. The song comes, too, from underfoot as crushing pressure and the eternally slow friction beneath the living glacier melt thousand-year-old ice, freeing it to return to the sea. Crampons strapped to your boots, ice ax in hand, climb into a frozen world, exploring crevasses and caves until turned back by a craving for hot cider and the comfort of a log fire.

Continue down the coast, crossing streams with names like “Imp’s Grotto,” and “Roaring Billy,” until the road runs its course in the fishermen’s village of Jackson’s Bay. From there, scramble along the rocky coast to watch a colony of Fiordland Crested Penguins at play. Being in these places is to return to the days when human beings stood in places for the first time.

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