On top of the world on the Port Hills
May 17th 2010 02:56
There are several routes over the rugged hills to the Port of Lyttleton just outside Christchurch in New Zealand. You can zigzag, on foot or on horseback, up the Bridle Path tramped into the tussock by the early settlers 150 years ago. You can cut straight through the centre, via the Lyttleton tunnel. You can zoom around a hundred hairpin bends on the spectacular summit road. Or like us, you take the Gondola and swing straight up a sheer cliff face in a glass bubble on a slim wire cable.
Accustomed to leaping virtual tall buildings, if not mountains, on their Nintendo DS and their PSP, Matthew and Otis laugh in delight as a rocky hillside hurtles towards us, but G and I clutch each other’s sweaty hands in panic while, beyond a sign which tells us not to be alarmed if our capsule stops, the flat ground drops swiftly away.
As we dock at the summit, a couple of teachers lead a school group of miniature mountaineers, all in high-visibility gear, over the skyline.
We picnic on a vertiginous slope. In front are the modest towers of Christchurch and beyond them, the Canterbury Plains stretch away to the Southern Alps. On one side the Pacific Ocean vanishes into the horizon. On another there are folds of dun coloured hills and beyond them Lake Ellesmere. Behind us Lyttleton Harbour lies like an opal in its volcanic crater bed. Unmoved by the stunning view but not the dizzying height and space the kids dance madly on the edge of the land and make wild leaps at the sky.
Safely inside the hill, we climb into little ghost train cars and whizz back 12 million years. Aotearoa is erupting from the sea in a rush of red hot lava and smouldering ash. A few million years later, we’re in a lush bush paradise with the first Maori settlers. A thousand years more and we’re lurching alongside a creaking sailing ship en route from England. One hundred and fifty years after that, we’re back blinking suddenly at 21st century Christchurch. Matthew and Otis are keen to linger in the past, so the operator graciously takes them for a re-run.
As we lurch off one side of the summit in our glass bubble, the tiny hikers set off through the tussock on the other. We watch the lineof fluoro yellow hats until they vanish behind a ridge. Just in front of us a red sail drops from a cliff. We follow the paraglider as it circles the fading evening sky and comes to rest on the Heathcote cricket ground. And then, painlessly and barely noticing it rushing up to meet us, we're back too, on terra firma.
The Gondola runs daily from 10 am from the Christchurch side of the Port Hills. Cost; adults NZ$22, children NZ$10
the view from the top
Accustomed to leaping virtual tall buildings, if not mountains, on their Nintendo DS and their PSP, Matthew and Otis laugh in delight as a rocky hillside hurtles towards us, but G and I clutch each other’s sweaty hands in panic while, beyond a sign which tells us not to be alarmed if our capsule stops, the flat ground drops swiftly away.
The view from the bubble
As we dock at the summit, a couple of teachers lead a school group of miniature mountaineers, all in high-visibility gear, over the skyline.
We picnic on a vertiginous slope. In front are the modest towers of Christchurch and beyond them, the Canterbury Plains stretch away to the Southern Alps. On one side the Pacific Ocean vanishes into the horizon. On another there are folds of dun coloured hills and beyond them Lake Ellesmere. Behind us Lyttleton Harbour lies like an opal in its volcanic crater bed. Unmoved by the stunning view but not the dizzying height and space the kids dance madly on the edge of the land and make wild leaps at the sky.
Safely inside the hill, we climb into little ghost train cars and whizz back 12 million years. Aotearoa is erupting from the sea in a rush of red hot lava and smouldering ash. A few million years later, we’re in a lush bush paradise with the first Maori settlers. A thousand years more and we’re lurching alongside a creaking sailing ship en route from England. One hundred and fifty years after that, we’re back blinking suddenly at 21st century Christchurch. Matthew and Otis are keen to linger in the past, so the operator graciously takes them for a re-run.
As we lurch off one side of the summit in our glass bubble, the tiny hikers set off through the tussock on the other. We watch the lineof fluoro yellow hats until they vanish behind a ridge. Just in front of us a red sail drops from a cliff. We follow the paraglider as it circles the fading evening sky and comes to rest on the Heathcote cricket ground. And then, painlessly and barely noticing it rushing up to meet us, we're back too, on terra firma.
The Gondola runs daily from 10 am from the Christchurch side of the Port Hills. Cost; adults NZ$22, children NZ$10
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