It wasn’t the best way to start a road trip. Somewhere on the Canterbury Plains, about two hours west of Christchurch, my car was ambushed by sheep.
In the distance, the jagged peaks of the Southern Alps were visible through breaks in the cloud, and the wide lanes of State Highway 73 rolled out across the plains. Ahead lay one of New Zealand’s classic road journeys — the east-west route across the mountains via Arthur’s Pass. But for the moment the rivers, rainforests and volcanic valleys made famous by the Lord of the Rings movies would have to wait.
The sheep weren’t moving, and neither was I.
Aside from the occasional sheep jam, it’s not difficult to understand why the SH73 is regarded as one of New Zealand’s great roads: the highway spans the width of the South Island (more than 320km) and cuts through awesome landscapes.
They are some of the same landscapes director Peter Jackson incorporated into his masterful films and leave you all the more appreciative of Frodo Baggins’s epic journey.
From Middle Earth back to Earth. The road from Christchurch on the east coast climbs 750m into the Southern Alps before plunging through forests and plains on its way to the port of Greymouth in the west.
En route, it passes through the heart of Arthur’s Pass, the historic mountain divide used by Maori hunters, Victorian explorers and gold prospectors, but now better known as one of New Zealand’s most beautiful national parks.
It is practically the same route taken by New Zealand’s flagship railway, the TranzAlpine Express. If you’d prefer to catch the train, it leaves Christchurch at 9am every day, taking five hours to complete the journey, before returning from Greymouth the same evening.
It is comfortable, with large windows and an open-sided observation platform, and travels through some thrilling tunnels and viaducts en route.
But the drive is even better. From the centre of Christchurch the SH73 cuts straight into the heart of New Zealand’s farming country. On either side of the highway, the neat fields and vineyards of the Canterbury Plains stretch out into the distance, a patchwork of green, brown and yellow squares tinted by crops of grapes, barley and wheat.
For the first hour, both rail and road track the flat, gravel banks of the Waimakariri river. The first place worth stopping at is Springfield, about 80km west of Christchurch. For NZ $85 (about R400), you can take an hour-long jetboat ride up the Waimakariri gorge, racing past waterfalls, bushland and beech forest on the way to the steep river canyon.
After Springfield, the rolling farms and fields give way to rough moorland and tussock-covered hills, dotted with smashed boulders and weird rock formations, legacies of the area’s volcanic past.
The road begins to climb sharply, and in just a few kilometres via a series of switchbacks, knife-edge curves and hairpin turns, it rises to several thousand metres above sea-level.
The road’s highest point is actually reached long before Arthur’s Pass. At 945m, Porter’s Pass is about 20m higher, but seems much less impressive, lacking the dramatic alpine scenery and mile-high peaks that surround its more famous cousin.
Beyond Porter’s Pass, the road plunges back to earth, veering through a network of lakes, valleys and river gorges, on its way towards Cragieburn Forest Park and the nearby ski fields. If the landscape looks familiar, that’s the sweeping yellow plains and rocky outcrops of the surrounding area that doubled as the land of Rohan in Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and the final instalment, The Return of the King.
In the foothills of the mountains, Bealey Hotel makes a good place to gather your energy for the final ascent. Outside the hotel stands a statue of a giant moa. The bird was more than 3m tall; unfortunately, it never learned to fly, and was soon hunted to extinction by Maori settlers.
A recent owner of the hotel claimed to have seen one in the beech forests nearby (hence the statue). No one else has found one, but if you feel like staying overnight to have a look, the hotel offers comfortable rooms from $85 to $95.
West of Bealey, the SH73 begins the climb to Arthur’s Pass. It is one of the world’s great stretches of road, traversing narrow bridges and deep ravines, diving past rock overhangs and murky caverns, and shooting through patches of mist and sudden sunshine as it climbs higher and deeper into the mountains.
About 1,6km overhead, the peaks of the Southern Alps disappear into cloud. At times a flimsy steel barrier is all that stands between you and a long, slow plummet down the mountainside.
The central passage through the Southern Alps was first discovered by the Maoris, who used it to transport pounamu (greenstone) across the mountains. However, it gets its name from Sir Arthur Dudley Dobson, who surveyed the area in 1864.
The first horse-drawn carriages made the crossing in 1866 and by the time construction of the railway began in the 1880s, the pass had become the main link between Christchurch and the booming goldfields of the West Coast.
The railway finally arrived in 1914, but was only completed in 1923 after the opening of the 8km-long Otira tunnel.
Today Arthur’s Pass is better known as a national park and nature reserve. The village itself is almost hidden in thick beech forest, and invariably shrouded by mist and cloud.
There is not much on offer apart from a couple of cafés, tourist shops and cosy alpine lodges: the real draw is the 100 000ha of alpine wilderness around the pass, which attracts snowboarders, hikers and rock climbers from across the globe.
If you’re planning to stay overnight, the best place is the Wilderness Lodge, a 20-room eco-hotel tucked into the forest near the village. All the guestrooms have fabulous mountain views, and the price includes a programme of guided nature walks, ranging from visits to local sheep stations to wildlife safaris in the national park.
Braver souls can tackle one of the tracks that venture into the surrounding mountains, including the ascent of Avalanche Peak and the arduous trek across the Mingha Deception — the route followed by New Zealand’s most demanding triathlon. Less strenuous is the 1,6km walk from the village to the Devil’s Punchbowl, an elegant 90m waterfall.
The downward stretch of the SH73 is every bit as spectacular as the ascent. For long stretches, the road clings to the mountainside. When it is raining, torrents of water cascade right over the highway and, until recently, flash floods and rockfalls were a regular occurrence.
Concrete shelters have been built to protect some sections of the road. the most impressive of these is between Candy’s Bend and Starvation Point, jutting out over a sheer river canyon a few miles west of the pass. En route, the road darts over the 440m-long Otira viaduct, a graceful, cantilevered bridge that crosses one of the area’s most flood-prone valleys.
The highway then snakes through rich forest and mist-filled canyons on its way towards the tumbledown settlement of Otira, built to house road and railway workers during the 19th century, but now little more than a ghost town. As the mountains fall away, the road levels out through flat bushland and scrub plains on its way towards the West Coast. A century ago this was the start of New Zealand’s gold country. At the height of the gold rush, hundreds of mining settlements sprang up in the surrounding countryside, but few lasted beyond the turn of the century and now only the odd prospector’s hut or abandoned pump-station remains.
The once-grand colonial buildings of Greymouth have also seen better days. The port has a rough-edged, frontier feel that seems a world away from the ordered avenues and smart architecture of Christchurch. On the west side, a concrete wall holds back the waters of the Tasman sea.
Although it does nothing for the views, the wall has managed to prevent the devastating floods that swept through the town five times in the last century.
Near the town centre the old Revington’s Hotel has been a feature of Greymouth’s skyline since 1876. Pictures of the Queen’s visit during her coronation tour in 1954 still adorn the walls and though some of the hotel’s former splendour has faded in the intervening years, it’s still the most comfortable place to stay in town.
Over hot chocolate and muffins, I wondered where else in the world you could travel coast to coast from sweeping plain to mountain peak, and arrive in time for afternoon tea the same day. — Â