The Banks Penninsula, New Zealand

The Banks penninsula is only 20km away as the crow flies, but is about an hour and a half drive as the kiwi flies with many ups and downs and twists and turns. I'm beginning to think that the road engineers know how much tourists like taking pictures and purposefully curve the road in every direction, multiple times, to make sure that anybody taking pictures out of the passenger window gets many chances for a full 360 view of the landscape. Coupled with the tiny engines in all the cars, rocketing us uphill at around 40km/hr, and it's a "full-on" (check later post for Aussie/Kiwi 'isms' we've had a great time colleting them) consipracy theory. Not going anywhere very fast and plenty of time to take pictures of it all. I think I read somewhere that tourism makes up to 40% of the economy in some areas of the South Island.

Our large campervan is the new accomodation for the rest of the time on the south island. It is a the 'economy model' with a double bed, grill, heater, and keyhole. All 4 cylinders make going uphill like a 4th grade school play: Lots of enthusiam at the start, lots of encouragement needed in the middle, some swerving and swaying from the original path, and thunderous applause at the end because it's over. We do love it though, and sleeping at night, with all the curtains drawn and the beds made up, reminds me of the forts we used to make out of blankets and pillows when I was in 4th grade. Mostly it was high time we got out of the cities and into the best parts that new zealand has to offer.



On our first day in the campervan we drove through Lyttelton harbor where the ships originally landed for the new pioneers, it is now a quaint harbor town with a large shipping dock full of containers and lumber. We took a quck picture of the 'Time Station'. Similar to a lighthouse in size, it was also used nautically.A large ball would be dropped from a tower at 1pm everyday and took 5 seconds to get to the bottom crew could test the ships chronometers to make sure they were accurate for lattitudinal navigation. I guess my new handheld GPS (birthday present :) takes the place of the tower/ball, ships navigator and the chronometer.

Regina's response to the GPS navigation was one question "How does it know?" She was of course sorry she asked because Jay immediately started explaining the velocity/angle requirements needed to launch an orbiting satellite far enough away from the planet that it can maintain a geo-synchronous (freefall velocity equal to the acceleration caused by the mass of the earth) orbit. The explanation went downhill from there.



A quick stop was then made at what turned out to be a private garden which was only open until 4pm, we arrived at 5:10. There being no signs we started to walk around until we were found by the owners ferocious toy schnauser. The wife was quite accomodating to us being after hours, the husband less then polite. He was really quite grumpy we were there at all and let us know before walking away. His wife then said, "well since you're here you might as well have a look around" and took our money and gave us the pamphlets. The husband then came back out and was then really crabby because his wife had taken our money and told us that this was a private residence couldn't believe that we had arrived after hours and said that since his wife had taken our money we should have a quick look and be off, because this was a private residence.



Some favorite responses we wished we had made:

"Your sign says open."

"I will tie you in a knot"

"How can we be quick in such a beautiful garden?"

"Go be crabby with your wife, I hope she gives you the back of her hand"



What we did say was "Sorry for the intrusion. We'll take a quick look and leave"

Regina pulled out the second camera and holding one vertically and one horizontally took 300 pictures in 7 minutes and we were off. Without Regina's incredible photographic talent there was little chance of leaving the situation without Jay, Toy Schnauser, Husband, or prized Plum tree getting seriously hurt.



I have been to NZ once before and the scenery is coming back to me and feels familiar; around every turn there is a new postcard-esque picture to be taken and there are lots and lots of turns! Regina is caught up in taking pictures of the scenery and I hope it sticks because last time I seem to remember we kinda've abandoned stopping the camper for every great picture because we weren't getting anywhere. The best part of the country is still to come and we are heading to the sceneic highway and into the mountains.