THE BIG SOUTH LOOP

And so we left our home from home at Uncle Alun's once again to start a big loop that would take us to Methven, Geraldine, Lake Tekapo, Mount Cook, Wanaka, Queenstown, Te Anau and Fiordland, Invercargill, Stewart Island returning to Christchurch via the Catlins Coast, Dunedin and Oamaru. Uncle Alun had promised not to rent our beds out or sell some of the stuff that we'd left with him in the meantime.

Just an hour's drive from Christchurch across the Canterbury Plains, Methven sits in the shadow of the Hutt Range. Relatively quiet for the warmer months, this place comes alive between June and October when it is over-run by ski bunnies taking advantage of the excellent skiing on Mount Hutt, over what is often the longest ski season in New Zealand. As there were only a few snow-capped peaks when we arrived, skiing was out of the question (phew) so we took a half-day tramp up the spectacular Rakaia River Gorge. From the track the views down into the gorge were awesome, the milky blue river shimmering in the sun a sharp contrast to the bright emerald forests on the clifftops. The clearly visible stepped sides of the gorge are the result of glaciers over subsequent ice-ages that have scraped their way down to the sea, carving deeper and deeper each time. A side-track through the forest led us to the now-gated entrance of the Snowdon coalmine, the props still standing proud amongst the dripping mosses and ferns.

Day two at Methven and not such a good start on the weather front but by late morning the howling wind had blown away all the clouds so we clipped on a couple of very flattering safety helmets to cycle out of town and along the River Diversion Canal track. The canal is a feat of engineering that links the Rakaia and Ashburton rivers with the purpose of irrigating the lush dairy meadows in between and a tramping and cycling track runs alongside. Our feat was to stay on the bikes as we wobbled and weaved our was up the road, being buffeted by the wind. Every trace of the sun-screen that I'd put on my face was washed off in five minutes flat by the tears streaming from my eyes. We turned onto the canal-side track which was not the nice smooth surface that I was expecting - this was green and bumpy and my rock-hard slither of a saddle had no shock-absorbing qualities whatsoever. At each field boundary there was a stile for walkers and a gate for cyclists, most of which didn't open, so Marc ended up lifting the bikes over the top which was a pain for him but a welcome relief from torture by bicycle for me. Having said all that, it was a beautiful journey, we rode through the greenest of pastures with hundreds of grazing cows (Anchor Butter cows I expect) with a backdrop of grey rugged mountains and after reaching the Ashburton river end of the canal, we lazed about in the sun by the bright blue water for a while before heading back for the hostel where Marc made supper and I went in search of a large, fluffy cushion.

No sooner had we arrived in the charming little town of Geraldine than we'd been offered a lift to the nearby Peel Forest. This vast forest riddled with tramping tracks is predominantly conifer but it also hosts some magnificent Totara trees and other native giants. Totara grow very tall, stout and straight and traditionally these are the trees from which Maori's would have carved waka - war canoes. The largest in the forest was huge - it had grown to 30 metres over 1000 years and had a circumference of over 9 metres. I guess that my hug is somewhere short of 2 metres wide so it would take 5 hugs at least to go around. After following a stream up to a dark, mossy nook where the lovely Ackland Falls slides quietly down a smooth rockface high above we decided we were hungry and headed back for town in search of something tasty for supper. Geraldine is packed with art galleries, craft shops and lovely-smelling places selling locally made produce of all kinds. We picked up some smelly cheeses, fresh bread and a bottle of Shiraz that we ooo'd and mmm'd over before a night out at the pictures. We were the first in the queue at this tiny cinema - they have a minimum number of 5 before they will show a movie - 2 couples and a gooseberry! After a chat with owner Reverend Dave, Gary the projectionist gave us a tour of the projection room which was fascinating as the cinema still uses twin arc-lamp projectors from the 1920's to screen films. There is quite an art to changing projectors and 7 reels of film per movie so that no-one sees the breaks and we enjoyed a completely 'seamless' viewing of The Kite Runner from the comfort of our two-seater sofa in the circle.

Our next stop was Lake Tekapo which I've raved about since we were here last and with good reason as the village is perched on the shore of a vivid turquoise lake. All glacial water here are this colour - the result of rock being ground into a fine flour by glaciers in the heads of the streams which is suspended in the water and reflects the blue sky. We picked up a tramping leaflet and put on our boots after deciding to do Walk No 6 on the map, then seeing how we got on, possibly doing 7 and 8 afterwards. Halfway around No 6, Marc saw an opportunity to merge 6, 7 and 8 so we wandered off the marked track in the direction of a very wide, almost dry river bed at the bottom of the valley far below which we'd cross and climb up the high bank on the far side. All was well until we reached the bottom of the bank by which time we could see that it was covered in scrubby vegetation and was nothing but loose shale and dust. We decided to give it a go and started to limbo and wiggle our way through the evil prickly bushes while trying not to slide down backwards. After half an hour (with me walking on hands and feet), we made it to the top with scratched legs and a thick covering of dust and to Marc's delight (and saving grace) we almost immediately joined up with Walk No 7!

The Church of the Good Shepherd sits right on the water's edge at Tekapo and has a secret that is only revealed to those who enter. In the place of a stained-glass window behind the altar there is a pane of clear glass that frames the most wonderful view across the lake and snow-capped Southern Alps in the distance - truly heaven sent. I'd be no good as an organist here - I'd miss all my cues for gazing out of the window.

Just about the first thing we did when we arrived at Lake Tekapo was to book places on a star-gazing night at Mount John Observatory high above the village and I just couldn't wait for nightfall. Wrapped up to the hilt we were picked up at the hostel and headed off into the night. A Japanese University also scans the skies from Mount John, looking deep into other universes for undiscovered planets so as we turned off the main road to the Observatory, the track was chained off behind us to make sure that no other traffic came up causing light pollution and we drove up the last 200 metres by the side lights of the bus only. I was the first off the bus and into the dome housing the large computer-controlled telescope where they started with a spectacular sight - it was Saturn and all its moons that looked so clear it was as if someone had just put stickers on the front of the eyepiece! Next came Alpha Centauri - the closest star to Earth which turns out to be two suns taking 80 years to orbit each other. I've often remarked on otherwise clear nights on two small clouds that always seem to be in the same place in the sky, but it turns out that they're not clouds but other galaxies called the Clouds of Magellan (he too thought that they were clouds). We looked at nebulae in the Milky Way that absorb all the light from stars behind them and appear as dark patches in the sky and a whole host of other heavenly bodies. I can now pinpoint the Southern Cross, the constellation that appears on the flags of both NZ and Australia and navigate my way to Mars and Saturn. Of course, all this information will be useless when I get home as everything will be upside-down! As we stood inside the dome and the roof whirred and rotated to the next position the astronomer remarked that children in the group usually get very excited at this stage and I thought to myself - "what does he mean children?". I bet that a walk into the village after dark would reveal everyone who has been on the skytour - they'll be the ones looking upwards and tripping over the pavements. It was enough to make you rush home and saw a hole in your shed roof!