May 18, 2019
(A rare current post from Cyndi)
As promised, I’d like to diverge from the chronological posts and put up a few posts about our 2019 season in New Zealand’s south island. Only a small percentage of foreign cruisers make it down to the South Island in their own boats, and of those who do, nearly all remain on the north coast of that island.
When we explored that coast a few seasons ago, we saw only a handful of foreign yachts. This season, venturing even farther south to Chirstchurch, Dunedin and Stewart Island, we’ve only seen a couple of foreign boats. It seems we’re so far out of the usual realm that I can only imagine some of our perplexed fellow cruisers wondering where we’re going next: Mars, Pluto?
The common perception of the lower South Island is one of a wild, cold and windy place. After all, Christchurch is referred to as “the gateway to Antarctica,” Dunedin is considered to be very far south, and only hard-core sailors consider Stewart Island.
The reality, though, is different. Christchurch is equivalent latitude-wise (if you overlay the hemispheres to compare them) to Cannes, that city of sunny golden beaches, palm trees, and topless sunbathers in the South of France. I don’t believe anyone would think of Cannes as the “gateway to the Arctic.” The reason Christchurch gets its nickname is because it’s one of a handful of world ports that ships use before heading to Antarctica, not because it’s particularly close.
Dunedin, latitude-wise, is about the equivalent of Portland Oregon, hardly a representative of a far northern city. Stewart Island isn’t much further south than Dunedin. I guess what I’m trying to point out is that while sailing down here may be an unusual thing to do, it isn’t all that exotic as far as weather, temperature, or sea conditions. In fact it’s pretty much been business as usual.
So why is the south island so widely perceived by yachties and North Islanders alike as being cold and windy? It seems the news media may be partly to blame. Weather reporters love to harp on the most extreme weather in their country; so people hear their local reports and as an added item of interest, some snow, rain or low temperature event happening in wintertime South Island. Meanwhile, warm summer temperatures aren’t worthy of notice. (The same thing goes on with mainland Australia and Tasmania. We couldn’t believe the number of Aussies who were horrified to hear we were going to cold and windy Tasmania, not realizing that Tasmania actually has warm, mild and sunny summers.)
Not that there aren’t some differences between the North and South Islands of New Zealand. Generally upon telling native Kiwis just how beautiful we were finding the North Island, we’d inevitably hear: “Wait ’til you see the South Island!” Now after spending a couple of seasons in the south, we still think the North Island holds its own compared to any other place on earth. Yet we have to admit the South Island has an extra “wow” factor in much of its scenery.
Much of this comes down to a difference in scale. The beauty of the North Island can be found in its rolling green hills, calm bays with blue-green water and white sand beaches, incredibly scenic small islands, lush fern-filled forests alive with birdsong, impressive waterfalls, golden grassy hills covered with vineyards, distinctively volcano shaped mountains, and some of the oldest trees on earth.
The South Island has all this scenery but on grander scale with massive hilly peninsulas, large areas of pristine wilderness, fiords surrounded by high mountains and waterfalls, rain-forested hills surrounding deep sounds, glowing glacier-blue lakes, and the magnificent Southern Alps with their snow-dusted peaks.
In all, I’d say the North Island’s beauty is more serene, while the South Island’s scenery is more dramatic and majestic. There have been times here when we cannot believe what we are seeing: we stare and stare and still can’t believe it. I’m glad I like to take photos; otherwise I’d look back and think my memory must be exaggerating things.
One other key difference down here is the sky. New Zealand is called, “the land of the long white cloud,” but that is a more fitting description for the North Island. The South Island is subject to frequent northwest winds which create a phenomenon known as the Nor’west Arch. This brings some bizarre cloud formations that are at times swirled, roped, twisted, or distinctly disc-shaped like little flying saucers. The effect is especially dramatic at sunrise and sunset when these clouds take on vivid orange, red, pink and yellow hues. If this effect happens before a rain, the sky takes on the most beautiful shades of gray making a striking backdrop to the white flying saucer clouds. Down here in the South Island, even the sky is more dramatic. (Below, a photo gallery of Nor’west Arch skies in the South Island. As always, you can click to enlarge and scroll.)
Coming up, I’m going to do a few posts on what we’ve been doing this season and how we’ve found cruising and traveling around the South Island. (Hint: We don’t feel any need to go back to the North Island and the dark regime currently ensconced in Opua and Marsden.) –Cyndi
