Boulder To Birmingham*

6 March 2010
Gregg’s Birthday dawned sunny with clear skies, very welcome but just adding injury to yesterday. Never mind we were off on another journey – another long drive and the last of our stay in New Zealand. On reflection we think we may have tried to see too much in too short a time but when planning the trip 24days seemed like enough time to do most of what we wanted but it takes a long time to get places because of the low speed-limits, the twisting, turning narrow roads and bridges and the stunning scenery around each corner. However, we have to say that with a resident population of only four million in the whole country the road infrastructure is excellent and one can drive for days without seeing a set of traffic lights or a roundabout. We have caught items of NZ news that seem to be firing the population, two of these concerning driving. The first is that the new Government is not going to raise the age limit at which Kiwis can start driving – it is currently 15! – but it is going to introduce a total drink/driving ban up to the age of 20, this means that anyone under the age of 20 who has consumed any alcohol and is then stopped by the police (or “dobbed by a mate”) will receive a driving ban for life. There is a huge campaign against drink/driving so we assume it must be a problem but with alcohol prices so high and beer so bad (yes, we have tried more – even going to a bijou micro-brewery) we are surprised. The other piece of legislation is repealing the give-way to those turning left rule. This is an eccentric driving rule which means that even though they drive on the left in NZ you must give way to all traffic crossing or coming from your right; this means that if you are turning left and another car coming from the opposite direction wants to turn right into the same road, you must let them go first. Evidently, and rather unsurprisingly in a country with so many foreigners in hire-cars and drunken residents on the roads, it has been the cause of numerous accidents.
Anyway on to our journey for the day; we left Queenstown after another of Donald McDonalds’ wonderful eggy breakfasts in Brown’ Boutique Hotel and headed across country on virtually empty roads (empty that is of other traffic and human habitation but not squashed possums), through the mountains, which used to be mined for gold, and on to the east coast stopping to view the strange Moeraki Boulders. These are large spherical rocks which lie partially submerged in the sandy beach. Some of them have broken open to reveal that their smooth skin hides a honeycomb centre. There is a complicated geological explanation about how they formed involving carbonate of lime crystals and fossilised shells but we won’t bore you with that here. We had a great time wandering around the boulders even though by now the sky was quite overcast again.