New Zealand's southern Alps

Our destination was billed as Christchurch, but our port was Lyttelton, on the water side of the coastal range from it.  There is a tunnel through the mountain from one community to the other which saves considerable time in getting inland to the largest city (pop. 400,000) on the South Island of New Zealand.  

Lyttelton was quite a bit smaller than our previous port in Wellington.  

Our excursion's destination was the southern alps, but as we skirted around the outside of Christchurch, our guide gave us a little information about the 2011 earthquake which killed 185 people.  The reclaimed swampy land that lies under the city was the first contributing factor.  Secondly, there hadn't been a significant earthquake in 80 years, so there was quite a bit of complacency in the building requirements.  Then, there was a 7.1 earthquake in Sept. 2010 which caused liquefaction of a lot of the land, and damage to many of the buildings.  When the 6.3 earthquake hit in June 2011, the combination of already damaged buildings and a shallower epicenter caused 3/4 of the historic buildings to be destroyed contributing to the 185 deaths.  The iconic Christchurch Cathedral lost it's steeple and has yet to be repaired. 

We drove through the Canterbury Plains, the biggest flat area in all of New Zealand.  The plains are dotted with tiny (<200 pop.) towns interspersed in the agricultural land. We followed the route shown on the map.  The pin originally said Mt. Sunday, but when I reduced the size enough for the whole route to fit, Mount Taylor, which is much bigger, took the place of Mt. Sunday on the map.

New Zealand has the highest density of sheep per unit area in the world.  Until 1987, it was the most important farming industry, but it has been overtaken in rank by dairy farming.  Most of the milk produced is turned into milk powder and exported to China.  Another meat producing farmed animal is red deer.  David tried unsuccessfully to get a picture out the bus window.  We thought it was pretty unusual to see deer in a fenced pasture.  I suggested we should bring the idea back with us and turn our Pepperwood herd into a moneymaking industry.

After a about 3 hours of driving, we finally came to our destination, this valley containing Mt. Sunday, the location of Edoras, home of the Rohan in the film, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. The scenery was spectacular, but we came away feeling that we hadn't gotten as far into the southern alps as we had hoped.  It wasn't until we got back to the ship where I could Google the location, that I saw the tops of the mountains that had been hidden to us by low clouds.  We were there, but we couldn't see the full majesty of the scenery so powerfully used in the movie that truly put New Zealand on the map.

The set crew spent 8 months building Edoras on the top of this mountain.  Peter Jackson, et al, spent 11 days shooting in this location, then all the buildings were deconstructed and the land was carefully restored to it's original condition.

The cruise organizers had Lord of the Rings swords for us to pose with.  

On our way back, we stopped in the little town of Mt. Somers, where the locals had organized a lunch for the 160 or so people of 4 tour buses sent by Viking.  They had set up long banquet tables in their Memorial Hall and had juice, fresh fruit, sandwiches, and brownies ready when we walked in. 

David was charmed by some of the historic notices that were posted on their bulletin board.

    Although the clouds had cast a shadow on much of our day, by the time we sailed out of the Lyttelton harbor, the sun was out.             

The headland as we left the Lyttleton harbor.

Only one more port in New Zealand--Dunedin.