On this day in 1985 I walked for hours along the beach from Paekakariki to Paraparaumu, on the west coast of NZ North Island. As I walked the tide went out, revealing a wide beach of dark sand and shells.

I got talking to an elderly man as we both walked along, paddling. I learnt about the bird sanctuary on Kapiti Island in the distance, about Maori words, culture and ecology of NZ. He was a fascinating companion for part of my 10 km walk.

As you can see, I was still in NZ. I had postponed my flight back to Australia. I stayed with my new friends in Auckland as I sorted out logistics of staying in NZ. I then stayed with friends of theirs, in Wellington where I found work as a nanny.

Looking back, knowing the bureaucracy involved today and the qualifications required to work with children, I am amazed that I found work so easily. I guess as a twenty something English girl, with driving licence and six months experience of work in a residential children’s home, I was deemed responsible and capable for such a position. Most of the jobs I had involved sole charge of kids while their parents went away on business or specific family commitments. I wonder now where I got the confidence from.

My first family consisted of four year old Andrew, who met me in a Batman outfit, eight year old Catherine and ten year old Simon. I had seven days doing the school run, sports clubs and music lessons, cooking meals and generally taking care of a house and family. We played games, went to the local park, went swimming. I dealt with a sick kid and ear infection.

I wrote … “Bank work is nothing compared with responsibility of looking after children”. But I’d enjoyed the week and happily signed up for the next job, starting in a few days time. Hence this mini break walking along the beach on my own.

In the days following, I visited Wanganui and New Plymouth, both were interesting towns, with old buildings, botanical gardens, monuments, hill look outs with views of the coast, a volcano and surrounding landscapes.

I stayed in a quiet little youth hostel on the Wanganui River, a couple of miles out of the city of Wanganui but with the river literally at the end of the garden and a few minutes walk from the sea and another black sand beach. It was a beautiful place to watch the sun set over the sea.

The journey to New Plymouth gave superb views of Mount Egmont (since renamed to its Maori title of Mount Taranaki). It rises 2,500 metres above flat rolling countryside and is one of the worlds most symmetrical volcanic cones. At times it looked ethereal, with the volcano hovering above cloud at ground level.

So back to Wellington for my next nanny job.

Paekakariki beach

Mount Taranaki

On this day in 1985 I was in Christchuch.

Queenstown seemed very crowded and touristy after the peace and serenity of the previous few days at the glacier.

I’d travelled by bus through more beautiful scenery, river gorges, serene lakes, through rainforest on the western side of the Alps to beech forests and farmland on the dry eastern slopes.

Queenstown was a pretty town on Lake Wakatipu, snuggled in-between the mountains. But it was a resort. The resident population of three thousand increased to thirty five thousand during holiday season.

I explored the town, the gardens and lake side walks. Large trout were visible in the lake from a jetty.

I took the gondola lift up to the Skyline restaurant for spectacular views over the town, the lake and mountains. The gondola itself was absolutely horrible. I don’t particularly have a fear of heights but I didn’t enjoy that ride at all. It was a tough decision whether to get the four minute ride back down or a long walk. A couple of days after I’d left town, there was an incident where one of the gondolas near the top slid back down the cable, taking all the others with it, crashing into the terminal at the bottom. Several people had minor injuries.

I wanted to visit Arrowtown and was offered lifts even without actually hitch hiking. I found everyone to be very friendly, locals and fellow travellers. After an interesting day in the old mining town, I waited for a bus back to Queenstown and ended up chatting to a local lady who’d lived two streets away from where I’d lived in London. Small world.

A few of us from the hostel visited local caves and walked through part and took boats through the darkest caves. The glow worms were remarkable, blue and green light shows on the ceilings , like looking at the night sky.

Milford Sound has spectacular natural features, a fjord carved during the ice age, steep cliffs, tall waterfalls and just stunning scenery. But on the day I visited, it rained and rained and rained. I didn’t see any of it’s beauty.

This was the only disappointment of my travels so far. I just had to imagine the scenery from the postcards I bought.

I then travelled across to Dunedin on the east coast and up to Christchurch. There is a strong British influence on these cities, churches, old style buildings but still wide streets, squares, gardens. So much of the Christchurch I had seen was devastated in the 2011 earthquake.

My tour of the South Island came to an end with a train journey back to Picton and ferry to Wellington. It is a truly beautiful part of the world.

My three weeks of back packing and hosteling had worked out well. All the hostels that I stayed in were comfortable. There were so many fascinating people that I’d met on these travels. A Dutch guy growing orchids outside Auckland, a farmer from Western Australia, girls from UK, Canada and Australia, travelling around NZ on the same youth hostel circuit I was following. It was nice to meet up with familiar faces on occasion and it made a change from the constant introduction conversations when meeting new people all the time.

I wrote a comment in my journal about travelling with a fellow twenty something “rather than talking to a middle aged woman I sat next to on an earlier stage of the journey”. I guess now I am the middle aged woman!

I loved NZ and wanted to stay longer. I had a work visa for Australia but could I work in NZ? Could I postpone my flight back to Melbourne?

This is what I didn’t see at Milford Sound.

At the beginning of March 1985 I was at Franz Josef Glacier.

I expected to only spend one month in New Zealand so I packed a lot into those few weeks.

NZ is said to have all the natural landscapes of Europe, from wonderful beaches to lakes, mountains, fjords and glaciers. So I set off to explore.

I got the bus from Auckland to Wellington. Eleven hours! But some beautiful scenery along the way, from hills with cloud covered summits, along the Rangitikei River cut into a huge gorge with sheer cliffs, to the final leg along a coastal route with views of the South Island in the distance.

I had one day in Wellington, exploring the city centre and taking the cable car up to Kelburn Lookout and the botanical Gardens. Great views of the circular Wellington harbour.

The ferry to the South Island gave a different perspective of the harbour and surrounding scenery. Three hours later I arrived in Picton and began my journey via Nelson, through the Buller Gorge and down the west coast via Greymouth. Rugged coastline with good surf, Mount Cook and Southern Alps inland.

Hokitika was a lovely surprise, beach and views of snow capped mountains, jade factory, glass blowing, museum of gold and jade mining over the past century. A pretty and fascinating place.

The Franz Josef Glacier was amazing. Huge, rough, jaggedy. At this time in 1985 it was advancing more than one meter per day, but on a general scale over the past two hundred years it had receded by a mile. I could see the valley where the glacier used to be, now with different levels and stages of vegetation. Rocks on the valley floor were totally smooth where they had been worn by the ice. It was all just so vast. I had a wonderful day, a once in a lifetime experience.

The local township was a garage, two shops, one hotel with a bar, a few motels, a church and and aerodrome. The 7km walk to the glacier was along a dry dirt road, fine when just walking alone and enjoying the countryside, not so good when a car drove past leaving a cloud of dust.

I attended a wedding in the church. I didn’t know the bridge or groom, they were from Cambridge, England. Two local people were friends and were their witnesses, but they were happy to have other travellers attend their wedding. It was a lovely surprise to my day.

I wrote in my journal “What a lovely wedding. Certainly the way to get married. I’d love to do it like that, away from family and all the fuss of weddings, and in a beautiful part of the world.”

Who knew that I would elope and that my eldest daughter would also elope and get married in New Zealand.