Greg & Veronica's Singapore Update

Volume 18c

Friday, April 16, 1999

We spent the night in Murchison, a sleepy town a few hours away. Although Murchison was hosting the "World Wild Water Championships", the only signs of this were a few paper signs stapled to traffic signs and a group of foreigners (e.g. Europeans and Americans) with kayaks that were staying in the same motel as us. We were exhausted and spent a quiet night in front of the TV rather than confirm our impression that the small town had no nightlife. One interesting commercial we saw that night was for an up-coming "made-for-TV" movie that told the story of a man's sorrow that his family name would die with him, since he had had only a daughter. He wants the daughter to pass on the family name to one of her children and she refuses. The noteworthy thing was the movie's title: "The Last of the McGeechins". The next morning our departure was delayed when our credit card transaction couldn't be processed because the motel's only phone line was tied up by a German kayaker downloading his e-mail to see if his wife had given birth. From Murchison we started the long, long drive along the West Coast to get to the village of Franz Josef which sits a few hundred yards from the Franz Josef Glacier. The drive was tiring and took about 8 hours but parts of it followed alongside of the coast so it was very pretty. Along the way, we stopped at Pancake Rocks. This is a spot on the coast with weird rock formations that jut into the sea. They don't really look like pancakes but they're flat slaps of rock piled on top of each other sort of like the way pancakes look piled on top of each other. The wind and the waves have worn away parts leaving these black layered columns, spires and other weird shapes with the waves crashing against them. Unfortunately, that was about the only interesting stop along the drive other than a quick stop at a local grocery store. Two things struck us as odd. The first was that all of the Kiwifruit that was for sale came from California. The second was that they used "Swedish Rounding". This means that things that end in 1 or 2 are rounded down to 0; 3,4,5,6,7 are rounded to 5 and 8 and 9 are rounded up to 10. We're not sure why they do this, but we suspect it's a way of avoiding having to deal with pennies.

An hour or two outside of Franz Josef, we ran into heavy rain and fog which made the winding road even more fun to travel on. It was still quite rainy when we checked into our glacier-view equipped motel. We saw no sign of any glaciers and the guy behind the counter's answer to questions about the weather forecast was "It might clear up or it might not". Our room was very nice and the bathroom even had a heated towel rack. Unfortunately, the room did NOT come equipped with safe drinking water. It seems recent tests have found the whole villages drinking water contaminated and unsafe. Visitors were advised to boil water before drinking it. Coming from a part of exotic South East Asia which has drinkable tap water; it seemed a little strange to find ourselves having to boil water in such a familiar, European setting. We dined at one of the local hotspots, "The Cheeky Kea". For those who don't recognize any of those words except for "The", the following definitions from Webster's may be helpful:

The other odd thing about Keas is that they have developed a taste for the black rubber gaskets that hold car windows. Visitors are advised to coat these with insect-repellant to prevent these birds from doing major damage. Anyway, the Cheeky Kea is an informal restaurant that serves as the main social and eating place in the village. It is very busy and loud but they have good fried chicken and French fries. Greg also discovered they have very good and very fresh donuts. In fact, they fry it up right when you order one. Nice, warm and very tasty. By the way, the Cheeky Kea is currently for sale, so if you've always dreamed of getting out of the rat race, moving to the other side of the world and running a nice little restaurant, here's the opportunity. We were happily surprised when we woke up the next morning to discover that the rain had stopped and the skies had cleared. As advertised, you could see the glacier from motel if you stood in just the right spot. We ate breakfast (at the Cheeky Kea) and drove to the glacier. Since we only had an hour or two before having to drive all the way back to Christchurch, we took an easy hike to the base of the glacier. Wow! If you've never seen a glacier, you should go see one. It's this huge mass of ice that appears stationary but is actually moving in slow motion. The ice is compressed and takes on a very pretty sky blue color and melting has created these strange shapes. All along the river bed leading to the glacier, there were these huge blocks of ice tossed around. If we had had more time, we would have taken one of the tours that actually allow you walk up on the glacier. Some of them even supply you with an ice ax. We took some pictures and piled back into the car for another long day of driving.

Our flight back to Singapore from Christchurch left at 1:00AM so even though it was an 8 hour drive, we had plenty of time. For future reference, we would recommend NOT driving 8 hours before getting on an airplane for a 12 hour flight. Far too much time sitting in small confined spaces. The drive was very pretty and crossed over some high mountains. The scenery was absolutely beautiful but the road was curvy and steep, even by New Zealand standards. The toughest part is just before Arthur's Pass. Here the road narrows so much that only one car can pass in either direction. This is made especially tense by the fact that the road also is winding around a mountain and you can't see what is ahead of you. So, you don't really know if the road is clear ahead or if there's on-coming traffic. To make things even more interesting, the road is steeper than any road we've ever been on. It must be a 30 or 40 degree slope. Our trusty Toyota was struggling to maintain forward motion and we realized that any on-coming traffic would find it nearly impossible to stop. Evidently, the road keeps eroding off the mountain and they have to relocate it further up on the hill-side. They are now hard at work on building a major detour that will by-pass all of this fun and allow two-way traffic to travel. After Arthur's Pass the road travels through open, empty range that looks like something out of a cowboy movie. Almost no signs of civilization (other than the road and an occasional car) and lots of grasslands surrounded by steep hills. It was just amazing to see this kind of scenery without all of the clutter that usually crops up along highways. We think that's one of the greatest things about New Zealand; its greatest relatively empty and pristine. Of course, you can't figure that will last for too long. We finally arrived in Christchurch, grabbed a quick bite and headed to the airport. We parked the car and left the keys at the airline service counter (which is equipped with special envelopes and a box for just this purpose). After a few hours, we boarded our flight and flew home.

All in all a very memorable, relaxing vacation.