Went for a little trip yesterday up the Gondola to the top of Mount Cavendish. (This is in the Port Hills above Christchurch for readers overseas). I've got an annual pass, and haven't used it very much, so I'll try and get my money's worth, as they say. The picture above is the view north over the Christchurch estuary towards Pegasus Bay and the foothills of the Southern Alps, obscured by the haze.
Looking down on the other side of the hill of the Port of Lyttelton and over to Diamond Harbour. This harbour is the flooded caldera of an old volcano, about 12 million years old (quite new!) now collapsed and eroded. Another eruption of this hotspot created another harbour, Akaroa Harbour, to the south east of this, about 8 million years ago. We have interesting geology here in New Zealand. Being geologically young means you can see a lot of different landforms; glaciated landscapes, young fold mountains, karst, and volcanoes both active and extinct. This particular volcano was really a series of volcanic eruptions which built up a mountain about the height that Mt Etna is today. It was huge, and was originally an island out at sea. The remains of the volcanoes were tied onto the mainland by huge shingle fans from the rapidly eroding Southern alps, flushed down into the sea by powerful river systems. These shingle beds created the Canterbury Plains.
View to the south east - the landscape is very dry at this time of year. The bluffs on the left are part of the crater rim. A walking track runs along the tops, fabulous views but can be very cold and exposed. The climate up here is really almost sub-alpine, harsh extremes of cold, wet, dry, hot and windy. And sometimes all in one day.
View to the south-west. The outcrops on the far right are known as the Seven Sleepers. Quail Island in the middle distance was a quarantine station for leprosy sufferers in the bad old days before drugs made leprosy less of a death sentence. It also acted as a quarantine station for dogs and horses taken by Scott and Shackelton on their various expeditions to the Antarctic.
Love those views.
ReplyDeleteHorses in the Antarctic? That I didn't know about - and it strikes me as cruel and unusual punishment.
I found this fascinating article in horsetalk which explains that the horses used were Siberian or Manchurian ponies, used to survival in very cold temperatures. The problem was feeding them - a special meat-based ration was invented for them:
ReplyDeletehttp://horsetalk.co.nz/2012/12/29/ponies-at-the-poles-proud-history/
Feeding animals things they were never intended to eat for our convenience is one of the reasons Mad Cow's Disease exists. Sigh. Sometimes I despair of our race.
ReplyDeleteYes, it goes against nature, feeding the bodies of dead cows to live ones, ghoulish.
DeleteBeautiful. New Zealand is on my list of places to visit one day: have only spent 24 hours in Auckland on a Western Samoa stopover years ago but I will be back one day.
ReplyDeleteYou'll have to visit the South Island next time, there's lots to see here.
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