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last updated September 25th 2007

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Part 1: Top of the south

It left at 8.25 am - the Coastal Pacific Express, calling at Rangiora, Kaikoura, Blenheim, and Picton. The low sun slanted golden through the morning haze, making that back side of the city which railways always see into alternating patches of gold and silhouette. We circumnavigated the outskirts of Christchurch, before turning north and heading across the Waimakariri and onto the unresponsive carpet of the Canterbury Plains.

Changes in the countryside were deceptively subtle as we ambled past Kaiapoi and Rangiora. When the hills first started appearing in the distance coastward of the train, I initially failed to notice, but soon they were striding alongside the train, looking green and refreshed after the end of the drought. In a country so often thought of in distinct sections - rocky Otago, flat Canterbury, hilly Marlborough, it was this gradual change that was as fascinating as the scenery itself.

This line, the Picton-Christchurch line, was first envisaged in the 1860s. But it was not until 1945 that the last section, along the cliff-faces around Wharanui, was completed. The rugged nature of the landscape meant that over a quarter of the country's rail tunnels - 21 in all - would be needed on one small section of line, and the final descent into Picton runs at a gradient of over 1 in 40 - the steepest part of New Zealand's main trunk line. The result is a line that, though very difficult to build, is one of the most scenic in the world.

On board, strange juxtapositions of travellers were taking place. A Maori university student was doing his bit for our tourist board by explaining everything from Rugby to a hangi to an elderly American tourist. Behind us, a woman was describing the different attitudes and atmospheres in New Zealand's main cities. We struck up a conversation with a man living in Birkenhead, Auckland, who had grown up in Birkenhead, England. He had been on his first ever trip to Invercargill, visiting his son. Outside, the train wound through the Hundalee hills.

North of the Hurunui, the land settled back to rounded hills surrounding a broad river flat. The sea was faintly visible in the distance, the sky was blue. I contented myself with reading some Larry Niven while my companion dozed. Soon the hills were back with a vengeance. Behind us, the river swept down its shingle banks to the ocean. As we left it, the Kaikoura coast started to make its presence felt. The sea, thankfully, looked mirror flat. The hills, rapidly becoming cliffs, slanted impressively to the other side. Ahead, aerial perspective thrust slabs grading from grey to silver up up into an uncompromising sky.

Slices of time: fragments of journey. Small kids in a car waving as the train outpaced it. A hawk battling two magpies. Watching the constantly changing sea. The coast slipped away, and the Kaikoura ranges eased to steep green hills. We returned to open country that could be anywhere in the south, and then, suddenly, the pink flats of the Grassmere salt-pans appeared. After Blenheim, the narrow Marlborough plains finally disappear entirely, replaced by the sharp, thin hill ranges and low valleys that north of Picton are submerged to form the Marlborough Sounds.

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I hate to admit this, but I rather like ships and boats. They (at least the inter-island ferries) still 'steam', or at least give the appearance of it, unlike the blue and yellow blocks of metal that N.Z.Railways tries to pass off as locomotives. Sadly in need of brightening up a bit, the Aratika sidled gently out of port. The new look for the ferries as seen on Aratika's sister the Arahanga - and as seen in the picture - is a vast improvement to the old.

The ferry service, first proposed in the 1860s, took almost exactly a century to come into regular service, with the rail, road, and passenger ferry Aramoana ('path to the ocean') coming into service in 1962. The Aratika ('direct path') was built in 1974 and carries upt o 800 passengers, 70 cars, and 50 rail wagons. The 120 metre (420 foot) ship makes the 52 nautical mile crossing in about three and a half hours.

At first, I enjoyed the crossing itself. There was a light swell, and just enough breeze to blow the cobwebs away. The feel of just being on a large lump of metal miles from land is somehow magical and makes life onshore seem less relevant. As the Marlborough Sounds and the South Island slid into blue and silver distance, the North Island slowly became more detailed, more tangible, and more believable.

Unfortunately, so did the swell. The southerly was picking up away from the land's shelter, as did the general anxiety for the lunch I had recently eaten. The Cook Strait acts as a funnel through by which the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean are connected. Coupled with the hilliness of the surrounding islands, wind and water are forced through this gap and, when the wind is directly from the south or north, an appreciable swell can result. The gap between the North and South Islands - only 11 miles (18 kilometres) wide at its narrowest - is sometimes, not unjustly, referred to as the roughest neck of water in the world. Suffice to say that my companion and I were both very thankful to set foot in Wellington.

The next day dawned bright with high cloud. Heading for the railway station, I could easily tell why ex-Dunedintes have a love/hate relationship with the capital. Wellington, scenically, is very similar to Dunedin, occupying a small plain at the foot of bush-clad hills next to an expanse of harbour. In Wellington, however, the central city has been handed over to the developers. At one time, the buildings may still have had the grandeur of those left in Dunedin, but the demands of big business and progress have pulled many of those down to replace them with mirror-glass towers.

The Silver Fern was my first trip on electrified rail since leaving Britain many years before. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Wellington- Porirua tunnels reminded me very strongly of the London Underground, especially newer lines like the Victoria Line. This line, thankfully, was much, much cleaner, however. Today, much of the North Island's main trunk line is electrified. The electrification process was only completed in the last few years, and has made the main trunk line cleaner, quieter, and more economical, as well as making it easier to haul heavy freight across the hilly country between Palmerston North and Hamilton.

The sun broke through the cloud at Porirua, sparkling on a harbour and surrounding town which - despite the efforts of architects - retains a remnant of attractiveness. Soon, we were above the sea, winding along cliffs dropping away to the rocks below. Mana and Kapiti islands (the latter is pictured) lay offshore to the west, looking like the petrified ridged backs of long dead dragons.

The train rolled on, first through hill country, and then across the wide, flat expanse that is the Manawatu Plain. The service on board the train, in comparison to on the South Island part of the journey, was surprisingly good. Free newspapers, and food and drink delivered to the passenger, rather than the South's buffet car. The train crawled round the edge of Palmerston North and lumbered through Feilding and Marton, typical medium-sized service towns for the surrounding farmlands. The countryside continued - endlessly changing, continually similar.

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North from Marton the hills don't just appear the way they do further south. Here, they build up in wave upon wave, gently rolling at first, then becoming more and more rugged as we swept up toward the Central Plateau. As we watched, the verdant green of the Manawatu Plain slowly changed to the more familiar grey-green and brown of hillside grass, and then to the ochre and white of bare ground.

The next stretch of line must have posed severe problems for the engineers. Viaduct follows viaduct across the deep sided gorges around the Rangitikei River. The 73 metre high, 225 metre long (238 x 738 foot) Makohine viaduct alone took six years to construct at the beginning of the 20th century. Winding north from Taihape, the train pushed through steep-sided valleys clad in bush and flax seemingly more lush than their southern counterparts. Then it was out again into sheep country. Snow glistened white on the stately yet volatile peaks of the plateau. We skirted to the southwest of Ruapehu, moving away towards the west.

After Ohakune we climbed with rock-hardened ash slopes on one side, forest-clad valleys on the other, and then headed across the rugged bush-lined and apparently largely unspoilt hills of the King Country. Often the rails and telephone wires were the only sign of human development. Wellington seemed centuries away.

Beyond National Park we entered what is, for a rail-buff, one of the highlights of the journey: the Raurimu Spiral. With three horseshoe curves, two tunnels, and a complete circle, the line descends over 120 metres (400 feet) in a distance (as the crow flies) of less than 2500 metres (one and a half miles). Built in the 1890s, it is still regarded as the most spectacular engineering feat in New Zealand railway history, and is known to railway enthusiasts worldwide. Despite the lackadaisical and unintentionally hilarious canned commentary by one of NZR's staff, it was an interesting experience.

Soon, we were travelling along a broad river valley between rolling hills, down towards Taumarunui. Taumarunui - the very name itself is synonymous in New Zealand with railways - an Antipodean Crewe or Swindon. Formerly of considerable importance as the largest town on the railway from Hamilton to Palmerston North, its decline has matched that of the railway. From the train, the town seems dowdy, with the cosmopolitan savoir-faire of a piece of dried toast. This is probably unfair - you never get to see the 'shop window' of a town from a train, but perhaps it's the real side of a town you see from the railway, cutting its swath past the backs of houses. Strangely, you see more of small towns this way than big cities, which often have their rail-lines through industrial areas. The view in each case is more true, not deliberately beautified like the view from the road.

From Taumarunui, the line runs north through largely unspoilt bush - sharp-edged rough hill country clothed in all the greens that native shrubbery knows. Occasionally open scrubby farmland appeared, and occasionally small service settlements like Waimiha, with its handful of houses, its pub, its general store and its garage. Slowly, the scenery changes one more time. Less bush, more flax. Clusters of trees dotting open grassland. Gradually the hills became more rounded and less steep. Te Kuiti, seven and a half hours from Wellington, fifty minutes from Hamilton, sprawls across a wide valley and up the slopes of surrounding hills. Finally the land flattened completely, the hills receding behind us and on either side. Goats and sheep were becoming less common among the increasing numbers of dairy cattle. The Waikato river could not be far away. We passed through the countryside around Te Awamutu - a nostalgic sight for an ex-pom like me. Fields - not paddocks - hedged and no larger than a couple of acres each. The land here is rich and fertile, and the climate is warm and moist enough for this very English style of farming. Soon, from out of the plain rose the distant shape of the city of Hamilton.

Despite one-eyed parochial views of 'the cold south', 'windy Wellington', and 'the wet north', this is indeed one country, diverse yet unified. Geographical forms flow into one another and distinctions blur, and the perfect way to see how it all fits together is from a train.

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