After a month of lockdown we reached Easter and we were starting to run out of local ideas for adventures, only so many walks and biking trips you can go on before fatigue starts to set in. Saying that the usual haunts of Sumner Beach, Taylors Mistake, Mount Pleasant and Godley Head never disappoint and an eggcellent and cracking Easter Egg hunt in the garden was loved by all the children. (I’ll grab my coat, dad jokes have become the norm round here!) The walk out to Boulder Bay on Godley Head from Taylors is a great one, lots of sea views and even some exciting DWS into a wave lashed cave for daddy to scare himself on! Also found an excellent 50 mile 5000ft loop (being mathematical I always like the round number rides!) via Summit Road and Gebbie’s pass to Diamond Harbour with it’s sparkling blue water coves and beaches and back via Lyttelton and Evans Pass. Possibly stretching the bubble a little bit further than “local” but at least I started at home!
I was getting quite a reputation at work for joining online meetings while stuck in typical NZ rush hour traffic (road full of sheep) or from the beach post surf, getting very used to the normal daily routine now of a lazy porridge and cosmic kids yoga fuelled start followed by meetings, lessons (just the one short one each day, don’t want to overdo it!) and admin in the morning and a fun adventure with the family in the afternoon. I could definitely get used to this kind of working life, though it’s hard work on the eyes staring at a screen all morning and I miss the face to face interactions with students. Usual healthy mix of Mount Pleasant, Sumner and Taylor’s Mistake adventures continued ad infinitum and the long summer weather also just kept going and going…surely we’ll get some snow one day? Actually really missing winter now after two very long summers in a row…
Luckily things were going well in NZ in the fight to eliminate Covid-19 and after a month of level 4 we finally dropped to level 3 and could go surfing and boating again and travel locally which opened up a whole range of exciting local adventures. Three small children were very, very excited to finally get their wetsuits back on and into the water for some splashy fun and body boarding, sea and air temps have been dropping lately but still very pleasant in the sun and water just about warm enough for adult swims without wetsuits. Sara continued her SUP training and we found a fun slack line in Corsair bay and a swimming platform to swim out to. This is where Christchurch beats Edinburgh hands down, having so many stunning beaches so close by and clear blue water with temps that are reasonable even in late Autumn, the grey North Sea just isn’t quite the same, still have nightmares about swimming across the cold, deep and dark Firth of Forth in late June (aka mid summer!) in 11 degree water! Mcleans Island turned out to be the perfect venue for a family mountain biking trip – even better than the excellent Bottle Lake Forest Park, with plenty of fun undulating single track suitable for all ages…
Last few weeks of home learning sadly came to an end (maybe less sad for Em who had done most of it!!) and the necessary return to work beckoned as we dropped to level 2 which meant travel round NZ was also back on the cards. We of course got a little over-excited about all the things we could now do, plan a) was taking the kids to a mountain hut for the night but these of course filled up the second the DOC booking opened, plan b) was Hamner Springs for some mountain biking but the thermal pools weren’t quite open yet, plan c) Castle Hill for bouldering and biking, bit chilly up high in the hills, so after much deliberation we settled on plan d) you’ve guessed it back to the Banks Peninsula for our first post lockdown adventure. I thought self catering might be the best option for these chilly late Autumn overnight temps (2-3degrees minimum, bracing!) but Em persuaded me to go for the camping option so we booked the Top 10 holiday park in Akaroa again and headed there with a sunny forecast on the cards. Camping was just about warm enough with multiple layers on but breakfast and dinner was super chilly being outside only as no indoor seating allowed in level 2!! Saturday we ventured down the insanely steep Lighthouse Bay Road past the “4WD only” signs to Akaroa Head at the very tip of the Banks Peninsula. After a steep walk down to the sea we were rewarded with more seals and sea lions than you could hope to see, best seen up close on the SUP. Was a bit too choppy to take the kids out in the boat there so after slogging back up the hill to the car and just about making it back up the steep access road without snapping a fan belt this time (yay!) we headed to the harbour instead for a very pleasant late afternoon paddle along the coast and back. Day was rounded off nicely with the first meal out in at least two months, an excellent pizza restaurant (Harbar Beach Bar) on the harbour with great views. We got lots of funny looks from the locals as we walked down the high street afterwards in the dark and near freezing temps eating our dessert ice creams! Amazing star gazing complete with hundreds of satellites whizzing past at high speed, fascinating for Science kids (and parents!)
Great start to the weekend and Sunday wasn’t bad either exploring the scenic, recently built singletrack options just south of town overlooking the harbour and town. Em bravely opted to cycle to the start via Lighthouse Road which turned out to be too steep even for MTB gears! The biking trails were a little bit extreme for the mini team (hardest blue trail I’ve ever done!) with exposed drop offs and steep loose hairpins but it got better as it went down and they loved the final section through the forest back to town. Unfortunately as we started at the top I had a bit of a slog back to the start to get the car but had a quick whizz down the well named Bermalicious on the way up to make it worth the effort. The sun was beating down at this point so we headed to our old friend the harbour for the usual chilly swimming and warmer SUPing options and headed home tired and happy and looking forward to a warm bed finally! Akaroa blissfully quiet without cruise ships bringing boatloads of tourists in and probably our favourite visit so far because of it, no doubt we’ll be back again soon!
The following weekend we all needed a quiet one after a busy week back at school and work which had left everyone very tired, quite a shock to the system breaking out of the bubble and seeing so many other people again. Social distancing at school was never going to work and I went straight back to classes of 25 or so in one room, due to less buses the days were much shorter from 9am to 2.15pm which sounds great but was at the expense of shorter break and lunch so the days were very busy now and a real shock to the system after one half an hour lesson each day with no commute needed!! I needed a decent pint to recover from the shock to the system and enjoyed my first proper non fizzy and cold NZ beer after work one day. A day trip over to Diamond Harbour was a fun wee adventure especially now the ferries were up and running again (and currently free for some reason, yay!) so we boarded the passenger only ferry loaded up with the usual assortment of outdoor ed toys, when you can’t decide between biking, bouldering, SUPing etc just do them all! I wisely left the bouldering mat and shoes in the car in the end but the coastal path from Diamond Harbour to Purau Bay is definitely a walkers path not for biking, loads of scary cliff sections and uneven roots bits meant Em and I did a lot of pushing and bike carrying. The SUP back round was a bit too many waves to be relaxing especially with all my dry clothes strapped to the SUP (no dry bag) just waiting to fall into the sea but was possibly better than the hike a bike back over the hill with the kids? (Thanks Em!) Em jumped on her bike and “enjoyed” the super hilly 25mile cycle home over Summit Road including Christchurch’s biggest and toughest hill, the well named “The Bastard” – she’s tough that girl for sure, was a windy cold day for it, only one fingerless biking glove too, she looked fairly blue coloured on her return! We are still in summer mode and will need to adjust to winter biking gear at some point soon! Sunday we got worked by some big waves at Cave Rock Sumner on the SUP (sadly trusty blue longboard was in the repair shop getting it’s broken fin plug fixed) and the kids showed once again how tough they are by swimming merrily in the pools and sea despite the chilly air and water temps, was going to buy them full length suits but they don’t seem to need them!!
Queen’s birthday weekend is a public holiday in NZ so a first long weekend at the start of June meant time to venture further afield and the Wild West Coast was calling once again. After many attempts at finding a place on Lake Kaniere we opted for Hokitika instead and headed over with Heather and family after work on Friday, first stop the Bealey Hotel near Arthur’s Pass for some amazing burgers (bacon, egg and cheese topped, yum yum) and fries, a very late meal for the kids but super relieved to find somewhere open with space for two families to eat. Stayed in some cool little cabins at the Hokitika Kiwi Holiday Park which worked out well with a great playpark, excellent outdoor BBQ area and a warmer indoor eating option for breakfast (hard frost each morning this weekend, camping season definitely over!). I’d done an awful lot of research on the famous West Coast Wilderness Trail to try and find the best sections for our mini biking team and there were plenty of flat easy sections we could have picked but of course in the end we somewhat predictably went for the hardest (and most scenic) section from Kowhaka Intake to Cowboy Paradise. This involved dropping Heather and Emily and all 5 children at the start and then driving round to the finish and biking in from there to meet them, we had a a very pleasant ride up to the pass and down to them and they had a pretty tough uphill section with Em basically walking and pushing each child in turn, three of the bikes only have one gear and Iona is still only three! Anyway spirits were high when we reached them and with a few more Daddy uplift pushes we were up and over the pass and some excellent downhill, though in retrospect 14km of hills probably too much and Iona and Ethan looked pretty glad to finally reach the end!
A quieter second day was needed for sure and a day at Lake Kaniere was planned to see what all the fuss was about, Duncan and I cycled the technical, twisty and rooty bike trail on the western shore and both had one exciting wipe out apiece which we fortunately walked away from. Duncan came off a corner and went down the bank into the trees and I managed to fall off a high wooden bridge but somehow managed to unclip, dismount and land catlike in the river bed below, phew! Heather and Emily enjoyed the easier northern half and I ran a SUP ferry service out to the islands in the lake near Hans Bay. Again the sun was beating down and swimming though not warm was very pleasant especially when you consider that Winter starts tomorrow! The reflections on the lake and the vibrant colours were memorable, the itchy sandfly bites less so, even paradise has to have some negatives! Day was rounded off nicely with fish and chips and a four family campfire on the beach with more marshmallows than you could possibly eat, even Iona said “no more!” The driftwood burns amazingly well and there’s certainly no shortage to choose from. We liked the beach so much we returned the following morning for a surf and mega sand construction challenge – marble runs, tunnels plus the usual castle or two. Surfing alone on the West Coast is always that bit more spicy than elsewhere – strong cross-shore currents meant Em and I would end up what seemed half way to Greymouth and a long walk back and the big waves and cold dark water are intimidating at best, especially when some large black fins came very close to me – hopefully a seal or sea lion but could easily be a shark. (Update, my marine biology colleagues reckon Hectors Dolphin most likely) I did manage to catch a few decent waves but also got fully machine washed by others and was relieved to make it back to shore and warm up a bit. Time to head home sadly after an epic west coast weekend but one final stop at the Otira viaduct to laugh at the Keas ripping apart some poor tourists large camper van, they even van surfed it down the road while it tried to drive off! Great to be back exploring New Zealand finally and so glad to be in a country that is pretty much eliminating Covid-19 and getting back to normal (though with closed borders and no income from tourism), shocked at what I read about the UK though in contrast – highest mortality rate per capita in the world, 50,000 deaths, ending lockdown early and beaches crammed with tourists and rubbish piling up, can only hope that it’s better than the BBC and Guardian make out and fingers crossed a vaccine comes soon. Thinking of all our friends and family in the UK and sending you lots of hugs from afar, as the impressive Jacinda Ardern says, be strong and most of all be kind, seems to work well over here , impressed with the locals efforts (mostly) to support their government and do the right thing.
So is winter coming or not? Still waiting I’m afraid – the ski season starts in a few weeks but not much snow on the hills currently, all set to change though as a cold rainy week beckons, a rare event in Christchurch for sure and I’m sat here still trying to warm up after two very Scottish cycle commutes today – that great Scottish word dreich sums it up best, certainly character building cycling through a fine mizzle and dense cloud but makes you appreciate the hot shower at either end! Bring on those high pressure crisp cold winter days I’ve been hearing so much about…..until next time…..
Harrison Family Adventures Down Under 