The afternoon of our first day, car now running smoothly, we headed toward the Banks Peninsula to Akaroa, which means “Long Harbor” in Maori. The town was well named. This picturesque French village situated on the Pacific Ocean 82 km south of Christchurch was first sighted by the legendary Captain Cook in 1770. The French had negotiated to buy the peninsula from a local Maori chieftain in 1838, but just a few days before 63 French settlers arrived to claim the land, the Maori ceded it to the British. Though owned by the British since, French families continued to colonize the peninsula, and Akaroa still maintains the ambience of a provincial French village with street names in French and such b&b names as La Belle Villa. The modest mom and pop motel we found that night was named La Rive.
Tourists at Akaroa can take a wonderful harbor cruise to view high concentrations of the world's’ smallest and rarest marine dolphins, the Hector dolphin, and other sea life. But that wasn’t our intention.
Back in the U.S. we had discovered an ideal way to acquaint ourselves with authentic everyday New Zealand life. What better way than to deliver the mail with a rural delivery mailman? We learned we could do this in Akaroa.
My friend Travel Jean, who lives in Washington DC, had passed along a flyer she had picked up on a previous trip to New Zealand. It advertised a chance to ride along with the rural delivery mailman on “the most scenic mail delivery route in New Zealand.” I loved the concept but tried in vain to find out more about the possibility. Finally reaching a dead end in my search for information, we called the Akaroa visitors’ bureau. It was possible to ride along with the mail van, they said, but we had to make a reservation weeks in advance. We did but had no idea what to expect when we got there.
At 8 a.m. that first morning in Akaroa, we waited for the van on the main street in front of the Visitor’s Center, wondering what the day would bring. A brilliantly painted red van pulled up right on schedule. Jerry and his wife Anita hopped out and introduced themselves. They owned the 140-km Eastern Bay’s Scenic Mail Run. It was a privately owned mail delivery route. People can accompany them to deliver mail to their 148 customers on the isolated bays, mountain roads and inlets of the Banks Peninsula, they explained.
The mail van was equipped to seat just eight passengers. Three New Zealand couples were waiting along with us, and we climbed aboard with them for the six-hour mail run. Jolly, loquacious and tanned from his constant outdoor life, Jerry and his friendly blond wife Anita had moved to the Banks Peninsula from England. They explained they had purchased the rural mail service several years before and delivered mail, packages, and newspapers to the 148 homes on the run six days a week all year long.
Seatbelts tightened, we headed up a steep mountain onto Summit Road. Before the day was over, we would careen up and down winding two-lane mountain roads, along the ridge of the summit several times, and swerve around numerous hair-raising horseshoe turns in our quest to deliver the mail on time.
We stopped frequently for Jerry to drop mail into a fascinating assortment of simple, austere or elegant little and/or over-sized brick, wood or metal mailboxes situated at roadside. Jerry commented that the assorted mailboxes mimicked the myriad personalities of the residents of these mountains, valleys, and inlets, and they did. I only wished he hadn’t zipped along so quickly so that I could have taken pictures.
Anita sorted addresses and relayed information to her husband at each drop. Jerry maneuvered the van skillfully over the narrow roads. As he drove, he talked and rolled down the car window, expertly dropping newspapers, packages and letters into the boxes and plucking letters for pickup almost without a pause.
Simultaneously, his sophisticated microphone system allowed us to hear a running commentary. He talked animatedly of the history of the Banks Peninsula, revealing amusing vignettes of the inhabitants and their lives as he headed up one road and circled down another. From Summit Road he led us to Pigeon Bay, Little Akaloa Bay, Okains Bay, Otenpatotu Scenic Reserve, Robinson’s Bay and other colorfully named spots. We gazed out the window at variegated vistas--bare rocky cliffs overlooking the sandy beaches far below, secluded valleys, and green grassy hillsides where sheep and cows grazed peacefully.
We listened fascinated to his tales of the people whose boxes we were watching him fill-- bits of gossip, an amusing detail of someone’s life or a poignant story along with a history of the house’s previous owners would come our way. He’d inquire of Anita whether someone was home, let us know who was ill, where the kids went to school, how many times this owner had been married, where a Japanese au pair lived, and more. Few addresses adorned the mailboxes. He knew every person by first name.
As he said at the end of this fascinating day, “The post office could write a book!”
We encountered only a few cars, but late in the run we met a monster-sized truck that emerged suddenly around a bend on the precipitous mountain road. Swerving, we missed it --narrowly. Jerry took this near-collision in stride calmly, but I sensed a few missing heartbeats among our companions.
At mid-morning we stopped at a community meeting hall overlooking a secluded inlet. Ten smiling children greeted us. Their teacher described the tiny one-room schoolhouse nearby where they attended school and showed us tea towels the community sold to supplement their meager income. One little tousled-haired blond child took Daryl by the hand and led us toward her pony tethered in the back. She rode it back and forth to school each day, she said.
At noon we stopped at Decanter Bay. Jerry and Anita spread a linen cloth on a picnic table overlooking a sparkling aquamarine sea. They poured us cups of steaming tea and served freshly baked scones and muffins Anita had whipped up that morning. Tuna sandwiches were piled high on the table along with chocolate chip cookies, and we enjoyed an unexpectedly elegant picnic in a remote cove overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
Best of all that day was our introduction to the three NZ couples who accompanied us on the mail run. We enjoyed asking many questions of their customs, interests and lives. It was a perfect introduction to life in New Zealand.
[Go to New Zealand Part Six]
