south Island of New Zealand 2008

South Island.of NZ Spring.2008

Reflections on an 18 day tour of the South Island of New Zealand.
With 31 travellers, photographers, bored old dears, whose family can’t be
bothered with them, and a few passionate plants people ‘ mainly farming folk’
plus an allsorts: history, plant and people people like me.
We flew Air NZ, I recommend them, they put real milk in your tea and the food
is fresh and tasty, and the pilots speak with a pleasant cultured accent.
The flight was direct from Perth to Auckland, then shuttle plane over the town of Greymouth and the stunning snow capped Southern Alps bathed in sunshine. We flew over the patch worked farms of the Canterbury Planes,
and the snow fed, aqua coloured, braided Waimakariri River, to
Christchurch our first destination: appealingly English with 19th century architecture ,and the narrow Avon river winding through it.
We spent a couple of hours in The beautiful Hagley Park, named by the early Canterbury Pilgrims. It resounds to the song of imported english birds; sheep were grazed in the north and south areas of the park until 16 years ago.
The first oak tree was planted here in 1868 and now there are beech, elm, plane, chestnut, sycamore and lime trees as well as ash, hornbeam, silver birch, willows and poplars.
Nearby we were welcomed to The historic “ Homestead” in Mona Vale for an English cream tea. The Homestead was saved from demolition by the good people of the City of Christchurch in 1967.
We visited the Famous Christcurch Botanic Garden and Ilam: where the University of Canterbury now stands. Ilam named by the first owner J.C. Watts-Russell, after his homeland village in England. Subsequent owner Edgar Stead imported rhododendrons from England and seedling azaleas were donated by Lionel De Rothchilds to this wonderful garden It was purchased in 1949 by the government, destined to become the University of Canterbury.
Sir Miles Warrens beautiful garden “Ohinetahi”at Governers Bay gave us much pleasure. The locations was fabulous..
Barry Gadsbys green garden at St Albans was an insightful inspiration on how one can benefit from the serenity and lushness of green on green..
Ate out at the Octagon in Manchester St. a converted church, local uni students provide the entertainment. Food is seriously good.
Ashburton. Phar Lap was born here. We are still on the Canterbury Planes with the superb Southern Alps for backdrop, home to Allan Trott’s 3 acre nursery,garden, complimented by a chapel for special occasions.
The sheer boldness of the plantings and wonderful vistas and fantastic collection of trees that this passionate man has created are truly memorable. We also were treated to a a beautiful meal served in the chapel.Many of us thought it was our favourite garden.
Timaru. We were greeted by former MayorWynne Raymond and shown
the unique Trevor Griffith Rose and Peony Garden set on Carolyn Bay.
Designed by Sir Miles Warren and supported by Nan Raymond.
A dramatic setting, for the townsfolk of Timaru, great views to the
Pacific ocean.
Otago North. ……..Moreaki Boulders…astounding……. Maori have an explanation based in folklore…… that, I have forgotten ??.
Dunedin.has surely the best Botanic Garden in the world, in my opinion.
There is a great aviary with birds from everywhere.
Including an African Grey Parrot that can whistle the first verse of
“Singing in the Rain” how good is that’ ?.
Olverston House was available for those interested. Quite good when I was there 10 years ago. My friends thought it was very good.
Dunedin has well preserved Victorian and Edwardian buildings, founded in 1848 by the Scots..a gold city, this is Scot country. A statue of Robbie Burns
dominates the town.We were spectators to 2 ceremonies of piping the haggis
at our Hotel. The pipers gave us a wee sample of their skills whilst some of us were having our pre dinner drinks in the garden……quite hilarious.
We enjoyed and were educated by time spent at Taiaroa Head on The Otago Peninsular it is home to a colony of the Royal Albatross, a remarkable place, the worlds only mainland breeding place.
The first albatross came in 1938. A bird has been tracked flying 109 km an hour, at altitude 29 metres, one was located in Chile having flown 38,700 kms.
It is also home to blue penguins, and the rare Stewart Island shag.
I enjoyed along with several fellow travellers a journey with commentary on the spectacular Tairi Gorge Railway………………Just that….. Spectacular.
Lanark Castle was built by a man originally from Australia who
had gold money to spend. His distant relative, the present owner Margaret Barker, has spent much money restoring the “Castle” and grounds.
She is dedicated to restoring the garden with Goodnwana Land plants.
Margaret travelled to Cambell Is. Chatham Is. Lord Howe Is. Little Barrier and Great BarrierIs. Cradle mountain in Tasmania, the Andes in Chile and
Argentina, finding cousins to the plants already growing in New Zealand.
In an effort to restore a rainforest she has planted ponga, beech, kauri, totara, rewarewa.
The great Laburnum Arch and The glass cupola gave grace to this beautiful garden with views to the south over the harbour
Lanark Castle is set at 300meters above sea level.
The private garden Wylde Willow at Abbotsford was a joy to us all with the friendly owners Fran and Mike in his gum boots,shorts, singlet and cheeky grin. Home cooked morning tea. A memorable visit.
Te Anau…. Fiordland has the largest body of freshwater in the South Island.
The coast line is extraordinary, evidnce of glacial activity every where. A World Heritage area. Lake Manapouri has 35 bush clad islands and is presided over by the Cathedral Mountains. Mind blowing scenery, water falls.gorges ancient rainforests We glided to Doubtful Sound. James Cook was ‘doubtful’ about entering it. We had a 2 minutes silence on board just to try and get a feel of the awesomeness and the sounds of this marvellous place.
The Manapouri Power Staion visitors Centre was reached by a 2 kilometer bus ride down a spiral tunnel hewn from solid granite. Very impressive
I have forgotten how much power it supplies …a lot
Te Anau glowworm cave I’d rather forget It had been closed for 2 days before we got there. because of rain. When asked if they had monitors to gage when the water level was too high the people there said Oh no we check it by looking……… well to my mind there shoud be some sort of technology…
oh well never mind.its all behind me now…………..
Besides that the bloody things just didn’t glow……..We were kept in the dark literally.
Queenstown I was so looking forward to meeting Roger there.We dined
on scallops and laughed, walked and drank wine and sang on the
TTS. Earnslaw on Lake Wakatipu.
Drove to Arrowtown, went up the mountain in the Gondola. Drank seriously good NZ wine in the garden of the lovely airsuckingly expensive hotel. Wined and dined some more and laughed. Loved every minute of it ..
I couldn’t stop looking at the Remarkable Mountains. Very pretty place.
Had my first taste of NZ lamb……… very good.
The others went to see Lord of the Rings film settings………….big yawn……..
One 84 year old fellow traveller wanted to go hot air ballooning and tandem jumping, but she was told it was too windy……..what a shame.
Don’t really know what the rest did.
Lake Hayes we visited Rosedale Capel and water garden owned by artist
and author Da Vella Gore what a fabulously energetic talented lady.
Her beautiful colour co-ordinated garden has the advantage of a view over the Lake with mountains in the background. ………….a borrowed landscape.

Wanaka . The men all went to see the famous New Zealand Fighter Pilots Museum. The Warbirds over Wanaka was funded by Sir Timothy Wallis,
An amazing man with the vision to restore many war planes, including a Hurricane that had been flown in the Battle of Britain and ended up in the Siberian tundra for 50 years. The Spitfire now in Australia was restored by Tim, this plane was flown by the RAAF in the Battle over Europe.
Tim was also the founder of the venison business in N.Z. starting with live deer recovery, then deer farming .
Rainfall here is 682 mm fairly dry and warm for this part of the south
We visited Pat and Keith Stuarts lovely garden and enjoyed lovely home cooked afternoon tea.
Cromwell visited “ The Shambles” a lovely garden planted on what was once an abattoir, most of the area had been a lake of blood. So the garden looks very healthy.
Brannockburn we had lunch at Mt. Difficulty Winery.
Enjoyed a great lunch and superb white wines.Their Roaring Meg label is doing very well. a very desolate looking landscape here..
Twizel Finally get to MacKenzie Country, don’t know if my grandfather was related to Jack, the sheep stealer.. Lionel was a printer from Orange in NSW.
But I sat in the front seat as my right and enjoyed the very grand scenery
which reminded me of Scotland. Cant remember where the Lindis Pass fits in but that was very grand.
13 of our mob went in a 7 and a 5 seater plane with Air Safaris,. for a joy ride over glaciers and Mt Cook. Nic got to sit up front with the pilot and had headphones on so he could hear everything that was going on.. like having to be mindful of gliders etc.
It was clear and the sun was shining on Mt Cook/ Aoraki. I could see it from my bedroom. That was a thrill………..
We stopped to see the Church of the Good Shepherd at the beautiful aqua Lake Tepako with statue of a nice border collie dog, there we should all worship the dogs for all the hard work they did..People skate here in the winter..
Then on over Burkes Pass to .
Geraldine.. It was full of bikiers and nice little shops and had nice ice-cream.
Onward to Christchurch. Ate in hotel Copthorne. I get invited to hear some singers from Wales at their final dinner Avis a lady from Shropshire invited me
I had met her in Queenstown when I was with Roger on the Earnslaw.

Akaroa. On the Banks Peninsular we enjoyed the art and gorgeous garden of Nancy Titchborne a respected artist here in NZ. Charming lady, expensive art.
Lunch in the village of Akaroa checked out the blue pearls. Half pearls really
Grown in paua shells from implants, pretty colour.
More bikers here, nice seafood chowder.This village was occupied by the French until the English came and put ip a flag to claim it.Dramatic volcanic past ..lovely place.
Barbara Lea Taylor’s garden was our next stop, not memorable. If it had been mine I would have pulled it all out and just looked at the mountain.
Then to Lee Dunsters garden I couldn’t care less by this time. I wanted to hurry up and get to the winery
Tour dinner at Halswell….Rossendale Country Winery. We sampled seriously good wines. Marion and Nancy tipped their samples into my glass. So I got a bit tipsy. I think the food was very good.We all got a bit merry and sang on the way back to Christchurch. Mal told us a few jokes to keep our humour up.
Our Coach driver Mal……
A friendly West Coast born man who was a fountain of local knowledge, and entertained us with many funny and tragic yarns of local folklore as we traversed the lovely South Island.Great driver and great commentary.
Last day
Special trip north of Christchurch toHawarden to Flaxmere owned by
Penny Zino
Very lovely garden and a great lunch with wine.
Back to Christchurch and our final tour dinner at the Copthorne.
I kept thinking I have to stop eating. This is ridiculous. But Oh well
I’ll starve when I get home.
It was over all a great tour there were quite a few other gardens,
someones treasure and hard work gazed upon by us who are going home
to work hard on our little plots and get dirt under our fingernails
and squash snails and fertilize and rush out to the nearest garden centre and buy more plants…..I think we are all mad. But at least it’s the sanest kind of madness there is………………….J.