Fear of city apartments

You're going to think this must be fake, but it really isn't. The Press reports that young New Zealanders' worst fear is not war or financial ruin or a terrorist attack. It is being forced to live in a city apartment, away from outdoor pursuits.

New Zealand continues to amaze me.

From the Press:

The greatest fear for young New Zealanders is the prospect of living in a city apartment, a United Nations survey has found.

Eight thousand people aged 18 to 35 in 20 countries were interviewed about their hopes and fears, but young Kiwis were the only ones to list a city apartment as a major fear.

The survey was conducted before the Canterbury earthquakes but is being heralded as a guide for rebuilding Christchurch so it is suitable for young people.

The findings surprised Canterbury University academic Bronwyn Hayward, who compiled the results from 132 young Kiwis for the study.

The New Zealanders were asked to name their worst fear, with 34 per cent of respondents fearing city apartment living, 28 per cent fearing a loss of autonomy and 16 per cent fearing financial insecurity.

Hayward said young people feared apartment living because it would cut them off from outdoor pursuits.

She said the fear could be a big challenge for planners and urban designers hoping to lure young people into inner-city apartments.

"It is striking because they could have said anything, and that is what they said. It is certainly distinct from any other country," Hayward said.

"It is a real challenge for a city planner because we know the effects of urban sprawl and have seen the traffic impact of having no city centre.

"It is a huge problem. We are in danger of our planning decisions being led by international expectations."

One Kiwi student wrote in the report: "I would hate to live in a big city in an apartment, totally reliant on modern technologies with limited access to outdoor pursuits."

National MP Nicky Wagner said the findings could affect the Christchurch rebuild.

"The timing is perfect as we are looking at rebuilding Christchurch. We need to rebuild with our eyes on the future," she said.

Hayward said young New Zealanders were generally happier than young people in other countries.

"The positivity is quite remarkable.

"When you look across the 20 countries surveyed, the strong positivity of New Zealanders stands out," she said.

"What is interesting is there is a cluster of young people who feel very strongly that their life is very good.

"People felt very strongly that what they liked about living in New Zealand was their outdoor lifestyle."

Hayward said other countries in the global survey were surprised by the New Zealand fear of city apartments.

"When we presented these findings in Egypt, they said they would love to live in a country where the worst fear was being forced to live in an apartment," she said.

You can read the full UN survey report here (link to rather large .pdf file).

More holiday 2011

So where were we? Oh yes, the Catlins.

But before we got there, we had to stop at Nugget Point, because there's a lighthouse there. And you can never see too many lighthouses.

The lighthouse at Nugget Point was probably the most beautiful and dramatic lighthouse we saw. It helped that it was a gorgeous sunny day.

The nuggets at Nugget Point

Driving southward, we reached our destination: Papatowai. We did circles around this little town looking for the campsite where we were intending to stay. It was shown on our map, but we could not find it anywhere. Papatowai was one of those places that you could miss if you blinked, so we knew it should not be this difficult to find our campground. We pulled into a convenience store and I went inside to ask. Inside this convenience store I came across an unexpected phenomenon: New Zealand's only rude and unhelpful storeperson. This conversation ensued:

Me: Hi! We're looking for the campground?

Rude & Unhelpful Lady: Yeah, it closed down.

Me: Oh... right... ok.

R&UL: ....

Me: Is there another campground in town?

R&UL: No.

Me: ok...

R&UL: ....

Me: I guess we'll just drive on...

R&UL: ...

Me: ... and look for another campground somewhere else...

R&UL: ....

And I left. I refuse to believe that this person working in a town of, maybe, 50 people was not aware of other places for travellers to stay. She simply did not want to help me. I was unreasonably upset by this. It kind of ruined the day for me. Gareth could not console me. It was just so weird to be not helped by someone. I guess this says a lot about the high esteem I hold Kiwis in and how nice I expect them to always be. Especially small town Kiwis. You just expect people to be nice and helpful. Not rude and unhelpful. It's quite upsetting when your view of people is shattered, isn't it?

So we drove on, hoping to find a campground in the next town. We didn't have to go very far, as it turns out. Just up the road near McLean Falls, we found McLean Falls Motels and Holiday Park.

This place was perfect for us. We were the only tent campers, so no worries about the crying baby keeping other campers awake at night. It had a kitchen and a common room, so we had some place warm and light to take the crying baby when he woke up at 5:30 a.m. AND it had a cafe! No need to make do without flat whites while camping.

And we were well positioned to check out all the waterfalls in the area. Like lighthouses, you can never see too many waterfalls.

But it wasn't all waterfalls. There were also some caves. The Cathedral Caves are at the end of a 15 minute walk down through some bush, followed by a 10 minute walk along the beach.

At the cave entrance

Deep in the cave... ooooo

You walk in one entrance, go about 100 metres, and do a U-turn, coming out another opening. It was kind of neat.

It may be that by this point in our trip, we had just seen too much natural wonder. It's hard to be in a constant state of wonderment. We were experiencing beauty overload. So it's like, "magnificent caves on the beach... meh." But no, they were lovely. I'm glad we stopped. It's never a bad idea to walk on a beach. And if there are some caves at the end, all the better.

We spent two nights in the Catlins and then felt we had done about as much as we could there with a baby. It was time to move on.

A friend had recommended we stop at Curio Bay, so we did. Curio Bay has fossilised trees. I was not expecting much, to be honest. I had been sorely disappointed by the "Petrified Forest" in northern Arizona many years before. (The Petrified Forest doesn't look anything like a forest.) So my expectations were very low. They were so low in fact that when we got there, and the baby was sleeping in his carseat, I volunteered to just wait in the car with the sleeping baby while Gareth went on his own to check it out.

He came back 10 minutes later very excited. "It's amazing!" I assumed he was joking. "No, it's really cool. Really! Go see!!" At this point, Quinn woke up. So we could all go together. Great.

But it was really cool.

Used to be a tree... now it's a rock.

There's also a penguin hide here, but we did not see any penguins. We thought we saw a penguin, and slowly crept toward it so as not to startle it, but when we got close enough we realised it was just a penguin-shaped rock.

Another great thing about Curio Bay was the giant seaweed. It was pretty mesmerising. It was like watching giant fettucine noodles sloshing back and forth in the waves. I stared at it for ages.

We left Curio Bay, two very satisfied customers.

Going to fast forward a little bit here... Slope Point, the southern most point on the South Island!

And Waipara Point - another lighthouse!

Ok, now on to Invercargill, capital of Southland...

Mick Jagger famously described Invercargill as "the arsehole of the world". Not very flattering, is it? I had had the pleasure of visiting a couple times for work, and hadn't really found anything charming about the place. I was ready to give it another chance. Gareth was also completely open minded. We were ready to love Invercargill.

Invercargill sucked.

Thank goodness we had decided to take a break from the camping and got a hotel room, because the wind and rain were relentless. We were cowering in our room listening to the howling outside, wondering why anybody ever comes to this horrid place. The weather was that awful.

The sign greeting us when we drove into town announced that Invercargill was "the friendly city". Friendly people would have perhaps saved this place. But no one was friendly. Well, the motel lady was pretty nice I guess. But everyone else seemed utterly miserable. We felt bad for them. We were just passing through, but these folks had to stay. They had to stay in a town that, evidently, closed down at 3pm on a Saturday. When the weather cleared and we tried to check out town, everything was shut. It was all very odd. The street was full of cars, but no shops were open. We found the whole experience very perplexing.

We headed to the beach. This was not a great idea either.

Gareth is about to be carried away by the wind.

We spent two nights in Invercargill (we wanted to see Bluff too). On the morning we were leaving, we were glad we had visited, but had no plans to come back soon. We made one last stop at the Farmer's Market, and so happy we did. Invercargill's Farmer's Market was awesome. Whether it was awesome in its own right, or just awesome compared to the rest of Invercargill, we can't be sure. But I do know that I had not seen a spread of baked goods quite like that anywhere else in my life. Amazing. I ate a huge baked hunk of calorific deliciousness with my flat white; Gareth got a "kebab wrap" (part kebab, part burrito, all scrumptious). Bellies full, Invercargill didn't seem all bad anymore.

Next stop: Fiordland and Central Otago.

Plucky Bakery

Yesterday I had to go to the bank. This used to be a simple chore - I knew where all the banks were, and one was conveniently downstairs from my office. Not anymore. I have no office. I had no idea which branches were closed due to earthquake damage and which were still open for business. So I googled it.

The branch on Columbo Street in Sydenham was now open. This was good news - Sydenham was in the cordoned off area for some time but has recently reopened. Now I had a legitimate reason to head close to town and do some rubblenecking.

This area of Columbo Street is just devastated. At least 80% of the block seemed to be boarded up or demolished. So sad to see. But there was little ray of light.

The Sydenham Bakery is open for business! This was good news because (1) it was nearly 3pm, and I was hungry for some afternoon tea, and (2) it's good to see family businesses reopening. I walked up to the front doors but they were boarded up. A sign advised me to come round back. I followed the footpath around the block to the back of the building. There I found the bakery operating out of a tent in its back lot.

(I borrowed this photo from the Bakery's Facebook page. Go like them.)

Maybe I'm just emotionally overwrought, or maybe its the sleep deprivation that comes with a teething 10-month old, but the sight of this plucky baker doing whatever it takes to stay open brought a tear to my eye. Just lovely.

Also lovely: my chocolate caramel slice. Yum.

Holiday 2011, part 3

For the next leg of our journey, we drove from Moeraki, past Dunedin City, and on to Portobello, a small village on the Otago Peninsula.


View Larger Map

There were a few good things to see along the way, so we made some stops. One of our goals this trip was to always stop and smell the roses. Or see the seals. Or taste the cheese. We did it all.

First stop: Shag Point. There are supposed to be yellow-eyed penguins here as well as seals, but we only saw seals. It was a lovely sunny day though, so even if we had seen nothing but the ocean, we wouldn't have minded. It was worth the stop.

sun bathing seal

Gareth chatted with this guy and learned he was out to look for 'penguins in distress'

Carrying on, we noted that there were two points of interest ahead. The Matanaka Homestead, dating from 1846, and the Evansdale Cheese Factory. We briefly debated the merits of both attractions, trying to decide which one to stop and see. But then we thought, hell, we're on holiday! Let's see both! Old buildings AND cheese - our sense of adventure knows no bounds.

Matanaka Homestead

Seriously, I do really like old buildings. These were on a beautiful patch of green grass overlooking the sea. The carpark was empty when we arrived (I know, you'd think there'd be hoards of people there...) and we had the buildings to ourselves. Well, just us and the sheep that were wandering around. It was well worth the stop.

Now on to the cheese.

Who could have guessed that this humble building would house the first cheese curds we have ever seen outside of Wisconsin!! (more about delicious cheese curds here) We happily handed over $7 for a small container and greedily inhaled them back in the car.

Driving on, our bellies full of cheese curds, we marvelled at how gorgeous Otago is. Otago is incredibly beautiful. Rolling green hills, dramatic coast lines. It's just gorgeous. If things don't work out for us in Christchurch, Otago is a close number 2 for me. (Gareth says the West Coast is number 2 in his heart).

Soon we arrived in Dunedin City... and drove right through it.

By now, we were eager to get to our campsite in Portobello. We'd see Dunedin later. The drive around the bay was stunning.

We set up camp in Portobello, a little town on the peninsula.

Really good fish & chips here

Around this time, we decided that we should see every lighthouse we came across. And why not? Lighthouses are cool. There are two lighthouses on the peninsula; the first is way up top at Taiaroa Head by an albatross colony. We went there first.

lighthouse at Taiaroa Head

Although the albatross are the main attraction here, we didn't see any. We had come at the wrong time of day. Also, they evidently really like to glide on the wind, so windy days are good viewing days, but this was a rare calm day. So no albatross. But we learned all about these huge birds at the informative visitor's centre. Well, informative to us lay people. We met this German tourist at our campsite who was a biology student with a keen interest in birds. We saw him at the visitor centre writing page after page of comments for the suggestion box because "there is so much more they could do here!" So I guess the quality of the visitor centre is only satisfactory if you know nothing about albatross.

Next, we headed east of Portobello toward Matakitaki Point to see lighthouse #2. The roads were narrow and winding, but the rural scenery was quite nice.

This is a windy place.

The unsealed roads aren't wide enough for 2 cars to pass.

We drove and drove along the winding, unsealed roads. It seemed like ages, but surely this lighthouse would be well worth the trip, right? Imagine our dismay when, very nearly there, we came to a locked gate blocking the way. "Private Road," it said. Apparently the only road to Matakitaki Point and its lighthouse is private. Huge bummer. Our map had really failed us this time. We turned around and headed back the way we'd come.

Next we decided it was time to do some walking. We drove toward Sandymount, where there are a few walking trails.

This view makes my heart sing

We walked about 20 minutes to the summit of Sandymount, and then toward Lovers Leap. But the Leap looked to be quite a ways away. Not in the mood for anything so strenuous, we turned back early and headed back to the car. It's not like we would have leaped anyway.

The next day was a really rainy, windy, horrible day. So we decided the time was right to go into the City and spend the day at a museum. We walked around Dunedin in the rain a bit, admiring its cathedral with its in-tact spire.

We ducked into a cafe for a pie, where we saw the most gigantic cheese roll we had seen to date.

The weather was so horrible that I couldn't even get Gareth to pause for a photo in front of Dunedin's iconic train station.

One good thing about rainy weather is that it made all the boathouses along the bay look gloomy and poetic. Just gorgeous.

Yes, I am in love with Otago and its beautiful peninsula.

Next stop: the Catlins.

Holiday 2011, part deux

For the first leg of our holiday, we drove from Christchurch down to Moeraki.

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We were keen to see the Moeraki Boulders, these big round rocks on the beach. But we were a little annoyed to arrive there and see that someone had bought the land in front of the beached rocks. These entrepreneurs installed an ugly gift shop / cafe along with a wooden walkway to the beach. Then to be really tacky, they put out a collection box charging tourists $2 to use the walkway to go see the boulders. Because we thought this was annoying, and also because we didn't have any change, we used the walkway without paying (yeah, we're pretty badass). We slyly walked past the collection box and down to the beach.



The rocks are kind of big and round and pretty in their own way. But frankly, it wasn't that great. The photos we had seen made it look like the beach was just covered in them, but really it's a huge empty beach with only a few boulders. The photos were cooler than the real thing. Kind of a disappointment, but still worth seeing ... especially if you don't pay the $2.

By the way, we saw on our walk back that there is actually a free pathway to the boulders maintained by DOC, and DOC's track is way better as it has informative signs on it which explain how the boulders came to be there. But of course the entrepreneurs didn't signpost THAT walkway... you get to it from behind the gift shop.

Near Moeraki is Katiki Point, which has a lighthouse and a penguin colony. We headed over there to check them out.

The yellow-eyed penguin is endangered. At Katiki Point, there's a hide where they come to nest. There's a little walkway from the car park toward the sea, and you can walk along there and see penguins just on the other side of the fence!

Not taken with a zoom lens

I'm sure that you're not supposed to be this close to these adorable penguins, but the walkway is fenced on both sides and this penguin was right next to the fence. There's really no where to go to keep a respectful distance, except back to the car park I suppose. I quietly snapped a photo (no flash!) and moved on.

I think I've mentioned in past posts that we used to enjoy camping in the wilderness. We wanted to do some of that kind of camping, so we planned to spend our first night in Trotters Gorge at a DOC campsite. In hindsight, this was perhaps not the best choice we made during our holiday. Trotters Gorge is just a clearing in the bush with a muddy road running through it. There is a toilet and a sink with cold water in a dark hut up a little hill (no electricity). This would have been fine for just the 2 of us, but we've got a baby now and we have to take him with us....

Still, Trotters Gorge might have been okay if it weren't soaking wet the whole time we were there. It was just a wet, muddy mess.

That's our big blue tent - 2 rooms! It's pretty sweet. But even our awesome tent did not make conditions at Trotters Gorge bearable. Note that I took this photo the morning we were leaving: the sun finally came out after 2 nights of rain.

Despite the muddy conditions, we managed to get out and enjoy a walk through the bush.

After two nights, we were ready to move on. Next stop: Otago Peninsula.