Travel Journal: 8th January

Saturday 8th January: Our Lady on Saturday (formerly, in the Octave of the Epiphany)

My bed was so comfortable... why not sleep a little longer?  I compromised by reading the morning Office in bed, finishing a little before eight.  To-day again dawned astoundingly clear and bright, with nary a cloud in the sky, and such a sight of the perpetual snowfields on the high peaks (which feed the glaciers) seeming so near in the morning light.

Breakfast done, time to catch the bus for Greymouth.  I had a pleasant conversation en route with some Canadians, who agreed with me about the dodgy "bushman's" centre that we were forced to stop at for elevenses: it was pretty poor, even crass.

Thankfully, our next stop, Hokitika, proved a beautiful neat little town, and I was glad to make a visit at St Mary's Church, a handsome edifice consecrated Deiparæ Virgini Mariæ; best of all, the sanctuary had not be mucked with, the high altar and sedilia and (parts) of the altar rails still in situ, so it would be a work of a few minutes to move out the forward altar and such temporary bric a brac.

We caught the train at Greymouth for the trip over the Southern Alps to Christchurch.  I must say, while pretty, it wasn't as scenic as the bus trip from Queenstown to Franz Josef, nor the bus trip to Milford Sound that I took back in 2009; then again, in winter, with the Alps in snow, it would then be very fine.

Walking around Christchurch at first one is all but unaware that a great earthquake struck the city back in September: but gradually the number of fenced-off buildings, and the odd bit of fallen masonry, even of a few properties in process of demolition, begins to bring home to one the destruction caused.  It is as if one were visiting genteel relations fallen on hard times: at first, all would appear painfully normal, but gradually one's attention would be drawn to the signs of straitened circumstances, forced economies and disrepair.  I hasten to add, I hope that Christchurch is not too dazed by the swingeing blow it received, and the city seems bustling and prosperous despite it all.

Four months after the Earthquake in Christchurch

Not a church, but a unique example of parliamentary Gothic: 

the meeting-place of the former Provincial Council of Canterbury – 

badly damaged by the Earthquake

To-morrow, off to Mass for the feast of the Holy Family at the chapel of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour.

Travel Journal: 7th January

From the pages of my diary:

Friday 7th January: Feria after the Epiphany (would that it were still the old Octave)

Arising at six, I strolled out onto the balcony of my room: though the sun had not yet risen above the peaks of the Remarkables, the light of morn was bright and strong, and inspiring for Lauds.  Breakfast done, time to board the bus for Franz Josef.

Bizarre interlude number one – I have been amusing myself trying to put N.Z. placenames into Cyrillic: thus Queenstown is Квинстаун, Kvinstaun; and my objective for to-day, Franz Josef Glacier, is apparently Ледник Франца-Иосифа (thanks, Wikipedia); which I reach via Ванака and Хааст.  I can't wait to get to Крайстчёрч, Kraystchyorch!

The road threads its way through the Kawarau Gorge, and I marvel that eighteen months ago I drove through this.  On the bus one can relax and take in the scenery; last time I deliberately focussed on the road.  The Kawarau River is in spate.  Further on, Wanaka was a brilliant spot to visit, with Lake Wanaka whipped up by winds off the Alps, every wave white-crested, and surf breaking over the beach onto the grassy sward by the waterfront, the lake being swollen by the recent heavy rains that have hammered the South Island, and in imminent danger of flooding.

The road ran north by Lake Hawea (also high) and then back to the northernmost reaches of Lake Wanaka.  All along, the scenery was magnificent, with mountain after mountain: to quote an Australian poet, they "raise their torn and rugged battlements on high".  The Haast Pass was something, with beech forest grading into rainforest, and ever the peaks so high above, all streaked with landslides and waterfalls.  Mountains and rivers here are wild, still eroding rather than long-eroded as the gentler, older landscape of Australia.

What providence: to-day and this weekend the West Coast is having fine weather, after three weeks' rain, and in a climate where it normally rains every second day, and has 5 metres or more of precipitation a year.  It is gloriously sunny.  Afternoon tea at the South Westland Salmon Farm: quite the best smoked salmon with cream cheese and red onion.

Mount Cook is the snow-covered peak just left of centre

Just before reaching Fox Glacier township, we had the luck to catch sight of Mount Cook, normally wreathed in cloud (hence the local Maori name Aoraki, Cloud-Piercer).  Just after the Village, we crossed the Alpine Fault, the strikingly markèd line where the Australian and Pacific tectonic plates rub against each other, and which is long overdue for a colossal magnitude 9 earthquake (the last one was before European settlement).

At last, after this eight-hour bus trip, Franz Josef township, and my accommodation.  I had time to relax for half an hour or so before being shuttled up to the glacier car park, giving me two hours (5 to 7 p.m.) to walk the two kilometres to the very mouth of the glacier, from which black forbidding cavern (as in some mediæval image of hell) issues forth the furiously churning Waiho River, the colour of wet concrete, and strewn with ice blocks.

Once returned safely to town (a village really, of about 300 souls, almost entirely given over to tourism), I was glad to find the tiny church of Our Lady of the Alps open for prayer: how convenient at the hour of Vespers.  I noted the stained glass windows either side of the outer doors featured St Bernard, for he is the patron saint of mountaineers.  A copy of the famous photograph of Bl Pier Giorgi Frassati, that keen mountaineer, smoking a pipe halfway up an alpine ascent would be a fine addition!

A sign explained that, as Mass is only celebrated monthly, the Blessed Sacrament is not in fact reserved in the Tabernacle.

Dinner followed: some excellent local whitebait, a specialty of the West Coast, washed down with a pint of Speight's Old Dark.

A correction: a pint is not the same as, but is bigger than a "handle", which in turn is bigger than a "12oz", whatever that is.

Some quick research... beer being still traditionally measured in Imperial fluid ounces, a "12oz" is 350ml (an uncommon size for beer in Australia, as being already bigger than a middy or half pint), a pint is 20oz or 570ml, and a handle must be in between I suppose (at least going on the prices).

Our Lady of the Alps, pray for us.
St Bernard, pray for us.
Bl Pier Giorgio Frassati, pray for us.

Over the Alps to the Glaciers

God willing, this morning I head off bright and early on a coach trip to the West Coast, passing through Wanaka before crossing the Southern Alps via the Haast Pass.  I hope I sight Mt Aspiring on the way.

By late afternoon I should be at Franz Josef Glacier.  (Pray for two Australians, their parents' only children, who were killed there a few years ago when imprudently they ventured too close and the ice collapsed upon them.  I plan to keep further back...)

Our Lady of the Alps, Our Lady of the Snows, pray for us.