Scavenger Hunt

As previously noted, I opted for the no insurance bit with the rental car do to the $750 price tag for it. I’ve been super careful (as I always am). However, when I was parallel parking, the curb reached out and attacked my hubcap. There was a small ditch right next to the curb, and my tire fell down into it and the plastic hubcap biffed it. During the past week, multiple people have told me that my tire was falling apart. Well, it’s just the plastic hubcap. I have been looking for a place to replace it because I don’t want the rental car company to look for other nicks and dings. There aren’t any that I know of, but I have been hit by flying rocks on gravel roads. So, in Christchurch, the 2nd largest city in NZ, I went to an auto parts store (owned by Napa Auto Parts) and priced them. I can get a set of four for $50. Not bad, and I figured that the rental car company would charge me more. However, plan B was to find a wrecking yard and see if I could get one there . They have a big “Pick a Part,” yes, determine your own interpretation, where for a $2 admission price, cheaper than an ice cream, you get to forage through the 350 trashed cars for the desired part, in this case, hubcap. Prices on the wall indicated that a hubcap is $7. We were told that if there were hubcaps they would be inside the car. So Carol and I put on grungy orange vests which identified us as pick-a- parters and we started scouring cars of all conditions of trashedness. Other orange vests were under, on top of, inside the interiors and inside the engine compartments of all kinds of cars….some had the glass all missing, some had front ends smashed, others well, you get the picture. We found a sort of acceptable one and finally a better one and so, paying our $7 we walked out with our hubcap…Hours later on the road, in the quiet of the car as it hummed down the road, Carol said out of the blue: “I certainly have interesting adventures with you.” So to my long list of $7 items, I can now add a hubcap.

We haven’t actually seen that many accidents, but we did come upon the scene of one fatal crash. Interestingly, they had the car covered in a blue tarp…bad vibes from seeing that. People really adhere pretty well to the speed limit of 100 kph, even though there is a paucity of highway police…in our three weeks, we’ve only seen about 5 of them… Just outside Christchurch is the Antarctic Experience where the replicate and explain an Antacrtic expedition with huts and an “Antarctic blizzard” experience…You pay $30 for the opportunity to bundle up in heavy parkas in temperatures of 17 degrees Fahrenheit and have the wind blow at near hurricane strength just to know what it is like…there is no end to the gullibility of human beings, myself included. After a few minutes we retreated to an igloo to get out of the wind but only after getting my butt wet by sliding down a solid ice slide….don’t ask why. But beyond that they have an excellent exhibition of “little blue” penguins, who lived up to their name…they are all rescues..sickly and/or maimed penguies which would not make it on their own in the wild. The exhibits were well done with Shackleton’s amazing sea voyage well documented and explained, plus other’s about Scott’s and Amundsen’s polar excursions. Across the street is the US Antarctic headquarters. NZ is a main jumping off point for polar expeditions. Although Ushuaia, Argentina is closer to the continent, NZ is the place where western trips start. As we tool down the road, or more accurately up and down the road, we pass multiple large field with large hay bales the shape of dice about 5 feet to a side all wrapped up in green plastic like some oversized Christmas present without the bow. They are scattered around the field in seemingly random order as if some agriculture god/goddess had rolled them out and let them sit where they stopped rolling. It seemed strange to me that they weren’t all orderly and organized, but it was explained to me that they were scattered about the fields in precise order so that in the winter time stock could access various bales without having to bring trucks into the wet, soggy fields where they would get stuck in the mire. They open various ones and the cattle/sheep/deer will come to them and feed without messing up the pasture. Rural golf courses don’t need to be mown since sheep graze along the fairways keeping it down…talk about local rules…I don’t know and don’t want to know about golf balls coming to rest in the middle of sheep droppings. The highway took us to Gore, and as we hit the highway, Carol chuckled next to me…”What’s up,” I asked?...she looked up from the map she was reading and said: “In order to get to Gore, you have to go through Clinton.” As we approached Clinton a sign read: “Presidential Highway.” I could only groan and say: “If only that were true the world would be a much better place.” A two night stay in Kaikoura was a delightful stay…excellent fish and chips and a whale watching trip that actually produced whales. Sperm whales stay permanently in a channel with a deep gorge where they can do their deep diving act for krill and squid…we watched and felt that finally after multiple trips to see whales, we finally had success. We wanted to have a “crayfish” dinner, which in actual fact aren’t crayfish/crawdads as we know them. At home they are fresh water small lobster types, but here they are what we call “spiny” lobster or Pacific lobsters…no claws. But the price of a dinner was $125 for a full one or $70 for a half…we opted for our $7 fish and chips.

Further up the road we saw a sign for “seal colony.” So far, the seal colonies have consisted of one or two, but here was indeed a colony and since we had lots of time and little distance to travel to Blenheim we watched the babies play in the water and chase each other over the rocks for an extended time. A giant salt works provided an interesting diversion. Huge ponds were spread out over several hundred acres….flooded and then left to evaporate. The salt left behind is scooped up by large earth mover types of machinery with large front end loader buckets and brought to large hoppers where it is conveyer- belted to places where it is dumped in huge piles over 40 feet (13 meters) high. From there after further drying, it is again scooped up and transported to a bagging facility where it is put into bags about 3 feet (one meter) square. Looks like it is all industrial grade salt…They do have workers picking out impurities along the conveyer belt, but still don’t believe this is table salt. Am not totally sure about what the difference is between this process and the sea salt we buy at the market. Sign of the day: “Possums….New Zealand’s little speed bumps”