Kaikoura – Was this the day we all made silent promises to move down here? We were about halfway between Christchurch and Kaikoura, on the highway, passing through wide golden pasture lands and arriving at nearly the exact middle of nowhere, when we decided to stop at the next roadside restaurant for a snack… and just as randomly as that, found the freakin’ Secret Garden – an old train station in Domett, converted to a cafe, which served the most extraordinary food on its private back patio, wreathed in flowers and shrubs. Mainline Station, it’s called – get the chicken filo pie, if you’re in the area. Which you probably never would be, because this place is, again, in the middle of nowhere – an hour and a half in either direction to the nearest large town – and yet it’s possibly the most beautiful, perfectly realized cafe I’ve ever been to. The food is locally sourced, the chef comes out to talk to the customers, and in every direction is paradise.
I’m not much of a car guy, but I proceeded to have quite possibly the most fun I’ve had driving in my entire life, after leaving Mainline. The highway climbed up into some low mountains and snaked around corners and turns, and here we are in Chris, our crappy rental Subaru station wagon, and I’m driving on the wrong side of the road, mind you, and around EVERY corner – I swear to you – there is a very large truck charging towards us… and it’s AWESOME. We got in behind a tractor trailer who was driving even more batshit fast than we could and followed him up the mountain. I tried to execute a Tokyo Drift but I haven’t seen that movie. I did, however, come screaming around a hairpin sharp enough that my passengers weren’t sure we’d be able to pull out in time – just like Beggar’s Canyon back home. And when we were all just about losing our shit entirely from the sheer euphoric fun of it all, the mountains opened up – and there was the Pacific.
Kaikoura is like someone dropped a piece of Tahiti in a sheltered piece of the coast here on the South Island. Again, paradise. Main street is twelve stores long. The fish is superb. We went to a place called the Green Dolphin, all had the catch of the day, and for desert, there was fig salami with candied walnuts and goat cream cheese. I can hear the ocean now as the sun comes up, calling me home. Today we hike around the bay, eat more of the local food, and then jump on the ferry to the North Island. Further up and further in. I still don’t have my sword.
There was a point in the planning of this trip where we were only going to come to the South Island for a single day. Now I’d never leave, if I came here again.
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