Keeping Track

South of Picton the train follows the rugged coast, through tunnels dug through rock face, past basic cribs plonked between the tracks and the sea. It’s a moody view – shabby, kelpy, with grey-black jagged rocks and brown-black smooth rocks that move suddenly in fright and become seals.

I’m on an excursion. My lucky fellow passengers are taking two weeks to see New Zealand from another angle; I am having a taste of it for just three days.

We shift off through grape country, through Blenheim, through steep farm land. Lambs push at their mothers, their tails flat out like pump handles. Wild cattle rush away from the tracks. Farm dam surfaces shake with rising ducks, swans and the reflections of circling hawks.

In Kaikoura we stop for a walk above the boulder beach and then file back on board for a packed lunch. Comfortable food, nothing flash – sandwiches and muffins, tea from the pot. The train falls quiet after lunch: there may be some snoozing going on.

But there’s such a riot of colour out the train window, I can’t possibly sleep. Shockingly bright yellow hills, woolly with broom blossom, almost shout. Providing light relief, willowy river banks are sliced through with pale, silvery water.

Then we leave the coast. I know it’s still there, but out of view, past the broom-covered hills. The train speeds up. The land changes from wild to tame to smooth sheep farm country, velvety with boxy trimmed hedges and macrocarpa.

Train travel is very calming and relaxing. You can just be; you just go. There are no decisions to make, no worries to consider, no stress to carry. It’s a convivial mood on board, with its mix of couples and people travelling alone, looking for adventure in familiar territory, keen to have their own country revealed without the effort of driving it. And they make friends, as I do, over dinner in Christchurch.

I hear about the trip so far – the highlights of the Auckland to Wellington leg, the morning in the Capital, the rocky Cook Strait crossing and the relief of sliding into the Sounds. Everyone’s amped about the days ahead of zig-zagging down the island from coast to coast, by rail as much as possible.

Leaving Christchurch, the snow-topped mountains are bright against a flat blue-sky background. The train passes fuzzy horses and healthy, happy cattle, then climbs up above river valleys. We meet tunnels, rushing into darkness, then emerging into broad valleys; fly over viaducts slung high over grey-green rivers; race under steep high mountains soaring above us. The windows are full of astonishing land.

Train travel is very calming and relaxing. You can just be; you just go. There are no decisions to make...

In high-up country, the train stops and we pile out to take photos and, again, at Arthur’s Pass, we stop for a cuppa. Then it’s down the other side, through the five kilometre-long Otira tunnel, which took 15 years to build and takes 17 minutes to slide through.

Nearer the West Coast, the train pulls up next to a swing bridge, which we trek over to see the remains of the Brunner mine, with its brick kiln remnants, rusted equipment and ruins etched with industrial history.

It's stops like these that provide the true gems of this excursion. They reinforce the magic to be found in the detail of our country and the delight to be had in the journey itself.