The Visitation of Margaret and Cory!

Margaret, Cory, and me at the terminus of the Hooker Valley trail, Mt. Cook/Aoraki NP

It is a cause for celebration when we have visitors from back home, and even more so for family. My "baby sister" Margaret and her husband Cory finally made it down under to visit and experience the joys of New Zealand.  They managed to find a three-week block of time to travel here the end of February and the first half of March, and were with rewarded with one of the finest stretches of weather we have seen here.

They initially flew into Auckland on a Monday and the plan was for them to make there way down to rendezvous in Wellington by Friday afternoon. This gave them a wee taste of the treasures on the North Island, including Auckland and environs, Hot Water Beach, Rotorua, and the Waitomo Glowworm caves. For those details, you can either consult previous blog posts by me, wait for them to start a blog, or ask them yourselves.

Fayne and I were in Wellington for the annual IMSANZ (Internal Medicine Society of Australia and New Zealand) autumn (in the Southern Hemisphere) meeting. This is the fourth consecutive year I have attended and they always do a bang-up job as documented in three previous March blogs: good focused educational talks and well-planned and fun social activities and dinners. It is surprising to me how many of the other Internists practicing in NZ I have had the privilege to get to know in my time here and this gathering has become a CME highlight of each year. This year's gala dinner had a Polynesian theme and was held in the Boathouse on the waterfront.

The tables are set. Let the fun begin!

Wellington is always busy and full of good food and many entertainment choices and we can always find new things to do here. On Saturday with Margaret we went to Zealandia, a remarkable wildlife sanctuary within the city limits. We were able to get up close and personal with several severely endangered native New Zealanders, including kākā, kākāriki, takahē, tīeke (saddleback), hihi, tuatara, and the green gecko.

Our guide with a hungry takahē

Kākā (NZ bush parrot)

Kākā feeding

Tuatara, the closest living relative to a dinosaur

A little toutouwai (North Island robin)

Female hihi (stitchbird)

Kākāriki (NZ parakeet)

What follows next is a path that will be familiar to long-time readers of this blog, those with good memories: a tour of New Zealand’s South Island beginning with the ferry trip across the Cook Straight from Wellington to Picton. The weather was ideal and the sailing is a perfect prologue to a visit to the south.

Cruising the Queen Charlotte Sound on the Interislander

From Picton we took the scenic shoreline drive to Havelock, the self-proclaimed Greenlipped Muscle Capital of the World. Cory had a mighty hankering for some muscles, and we found a steaming pot of them aptly enough at the Muscle Pot.

 

Another claim to fame of this town of 500 is that two world-renown scientist went to the Havelock School here; Sir Ernest Rutherford who won the 1908 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his experimental work in radioactivity and later was the first to split the atom, and the former head of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory William Pickering. Not bad! Must be the muscles. A local also told me the (possibly apocryphal) story that after graduation from Christchurch’s Canterbury University he tried and failed to get a teaching job in the area, so instead he accepted a post-grad position at Cambridge in the UK, and the rest is atomic history.  

We continued on to Nelson for the night, known for its fair weather, seaside views, good food, and relaxed life-style. 

View of nelson Harbour

It is also proud to be the original home of the World of WearableArt Show now an annual gala in Wellington. It is honored here at the National WOW Museum and Nelson Classic Car Gallery, an interesting mix. It brings back memories of our first visit to Nelson with sister Angela in 2010 and our trip to the Wellington WOW show with Florry O in 2015. A friend who grew up in Nelson says there is still some local resentment the WOW show moved to Wellie, much like Kiwis resent the Aussies appropriating the great Kiwi racehorse Phar Lap and the dessert the pavlova.

Alien Egyptian Motif

Off the Frame:"When the painting fell on the museum curator, the pompadour came back to life"

The innovative 1936 Cord 810

Next it was off to the West Coast and Punakaiki Pancake Rocks and Blowholes.

We spent the night in Greymouth and had dinner with Jonathan and Heidi Pace. We worked with them in Fort Bragg years ago and they have lived and worked in Greymouth for almost a decade. It was good to see them again.

 

They suggested we make time to take the Point Elizabeth Walkway just north of town. Despite cloudy weather, it was well worth it.

On the walkway

I tend to structure my blogs based on photos I have, but of course many notable times have no photographic residue. Like the English sailors that ate the Giant Galapagos Tortoises before they made it back to the Royal Society in London for scientific scrutiny (they are delicious, or so I understand), I frequently eat an enticing meal before I think to get a snapshot of said meal. Likewise, I have no pictures from our next stop overnight in Timaru after passing through the Southern Alps via Arthur's Pass and Castle Hill. We got back in time to have my guests join in the traditional Tuesday night dinner with other doctors here, and for dessert C&M got to see one of our own blue penguins coming in for the night.

There is a lot to see and limited time, so Wednesday we were off to the oft photographed Lake Tekapo, en route to Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park.

Margaret relaxing at the Café on Mt. John Observatory overlooking Lake Tekapo

Blogulars (blog regulars?) may remember the Mt. Cook is one of my favorite spots in NZ, and when you come to see me in Timaru, there is a great chance I will insist you go there. Cory had identified as a tourist priority was to see a glacier, and this was his chance. It was also an opportunity for me to do something that I hadn't been able to complete before. I have set off on the Hooker Valley Trail before but never made it to the end, until now. The photo at the top of the blog shows us triumphantly at the terminus. This is another view of the lake, glacier , and icebergs

Hooker Lake and Glacier

We were in for more glacial excitement early the next morning as we took an excursion to visit the Tasman Glacier, New Zealand's largest. It started with a short bus ride then a 30 minute walk where we boarded our dinghy to get "up close and personal" with the ice sheet. I never realized that glaciers are made up of millions of ice crystals.

Up close to an iceberg

The face of Tasman Glacier

Me holding a glacial ice crystal

After the cruise and a brief visit to the visitor center, we were off to Wanaka. I had trouble getting a room booked, and only found out on arrival that this small town was expecting 35,000 visitor over the following two days for their annual A&P Show. That stands for Agricultural and Pastoral Show, and is the equivalent of a County Fair in the USA. What a great opportunity for our visitors to experience true Kiwiana. I got to introduce Margaret to whitebait patties....

sheep shearing....

and especially the Fabulous Topp Twins, New Zealand's own twin busking, yodeling, lesbian, comic legends!!!

No time to dawdle, it was off to Queenstown and up the gondola where Cory dared try the bungee swing.

Look out Cory!

We continued on to Te Anau, a starting point for many fiordland adventures. It was across the lake in 1948 when a few takahē were found. Thought to be extinct for decades, this flightless native bird is slowly coming back (like the ones we saw in Zealandia in Wellington) due to careful conservation efforts.

Giant takahē statue

Margaret and Cory were off the next day for an overnight cruise on Doubtful Sound, a wonderful experience Fayne and I enjoyed in 2010. We parted ways as I had to return to work, but not before we had another new-to-us outing, sailing across the lake to the Te Anau Glowworm Caves. The caverns were worth the visit, with a rushing stream flowing through the narrow passage and ceilings full of the bioluminescent larvae.

M&C wave goodbye, off to Doubtful Sound

View as we prepare to return from the glowworm caves (sorry, no photos allowed inside caves)

Margaret and Cory went on to have many more South Island adventures over the next week. As stated above, you will have to wait for their blog or ask them personally for more details. They got back to Timaru Thursday and squeezed in several more local sights and made us a lovely dinner before flying off at noon Friday.

In front of the house, with Fayne's shoes, as they prepare to leave.

I am not a perfectionist, but in planning parties or trips I strive for the Platonic ideal. My goal is for everyone involved to think "That was the best party/trip ever!". I know this is not possible, but I judge success by how near that summit I can climb. In my humble opinion, we came very close. All of the pieces came into place: the weather, the food, Kiwi-centric experiences, and all the activities. I’m really glad they came all this way, and I hope they had as good a time as I wished for them!