Sunday, 28th January
Palmerston North, North Island
Morning
Today is my last day in New Zealand. Yesterday was spent shopping in Christchurch (we are proud supporters of the New Zealand economy) and then hopping a quick flight up to Wellington. Christchurch was great, I wish we had had more time there. We were there during the World Buskers Festival, so there were street performers of all kinds in Cathedral Square, and we watched a big clown/magic trick/high unicycle show that was great.
We rented another car in Wellington and ended up in Palmy, where we are staying with Sara, who is a distant but fun relation: Provo's Mom's ex-Boyfriend's Niece. Shes going to vet school down here and was nice enough to put us up and feed us!
Funny note- the new rental car has a "Rest Reminder Warning Light" that comes on after 2 hours of driving: it's in the shape of a coffee cup.
It's great to be back on the North Island-- I think I like it better than the shouth. The grandeur of the south island is great, but when all's said and done, the pastoral, green beauty of the North Island is what really affects me, and is more foreign to me than mountains and Alpine country. So today we continue the sojourn north, we'll traverse the whole of the island and stay outside of Auckland so that we'll be close at hand to catch our flights back to the states tomorrow.
It's been an awesome trip, and by now I'm looking forward to going home but not to sitting on planes for 17 hours in order to get there. By the time I get back to Portland (via Sydney!) I will have been in transit for over 24 hours.
So here's a lovely farewell to Aotearoa, the Land of the Long White Cloud, it's been marvelous!
Glad you could come along for the ride, thanks for tuning in.
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Friday, January 26, 2007
Musings on Kiwi Quirks
Friday, 26th January, 2007
10:30ish PM
Christchurch, South Island
We've left the mountains and gained the coast again. I won't bore you with too much of a narrative today, as we've mostly just backtracked what we drove on our way to Queenstown. The main differences were that this time it was done in an orange Holden Viva (very slick car, I want one. Also getting much better at driving on lefthand side- very instinctual now) after very little sleep (had to stay up late because our half-done laundry got locked in the washroom at our backpackers, and us with no other clothes than what we had on and had to get staff to let us finish drying our clean ones), and that we took a bit of a different route. We cut east at Omarama and took Highways 83 and 82 through to Timaru at the coast, then north on 1 to Christchurch. Staying in a really cool lodge here, and after Thai food for dinner went to see "The History Boys" at a really neat old cinema. It's a film I would recommend to anyone.
Because today was mostly just driving, I thought I'd provide you with some more notes on life in New Zealand, some of the interesting differences between NZ and the States and some interesting factoids and stories we've gathered along the way.
Firstly, Amy emailed asking what was the strangest/most interesting thing I've eaten while down here. Food is slightly different here, taking on a very British air most of the time, but with some distinctly Kiwi treats. My favorite new things are the single-serving pies, my favorite being bacon and egg. These pies are about 3 or 4 inches in diameter, filled with various foodstuffs, usually a meat and cheese or the like. They're served either warm or cold, and are quite good depending on your tastes- I had a steak and cheese one that was gelatinous and disgusting, but the egg ones are great. Another new find is a drink called L & P, or Lemon & Paeroa. Paeroa is a town somewhere in NZ where early settlers discovered a mineral spring. At some point someone decided to mix the springwater with lemon and some sweetener, and thus L & P was born. It's delightful and advertised as "World Famous in New Zealand."
Some other notes on food: 1) Like England, take-out or "to go" food is "takeaway." It's not uncommon to see a sign reading "Fish and Chips Chinese Takeaways". You can get chips (fries) on their own here, at any little stand or grocery, without them being a side dish. 2) Bacon is what we would call Canadian bacon. What we staties know as bacon is dubbed "American streaky bacon." 3) Similarly, pecan pie is popularly called "American pecan pie". 4) Coke can be bought in glass bottles, and most streets have recycling bins next to the rubbish bins, for pop bottles. 5) Kiwis don't know what granola is. Down here, it's muesli.
Kiwis say "eh" at the end of almost every sentence. Also, I've never heard a single New Zealand native say "thanks" or "thank you." It's always Cheers or Ta.
New Zealand and Australia have to get along well because they're the only countries in this corner of the ocean. However, they have a very strong rivalry when it comes to rugby. The All Blacks are the New Zealand national team, and there's something of a mania about them. I saw a t-shirt today that said "Support 2 teams: New Zealand and anyone who plays Australia." On a side note, today is Australia Day. The DJ on the station Provo and I were listening to as we drove was urging listeners to Hug an Aussie.
Apparently, marijuana is legal in NZ. I don't know what else could explain the apparently legal shops we have seen in the main shopping districts of several towns, selling multiple types of hash and advertising herbal highs.
Vocab of the day: "Daggy": scruffy, unkempt, smelly or slightly dirty. Bit of an interesting story here (Disclaimer: not for the weak of stomach). This is an Aussie term, we learnt it off an Australian-British woman on the Routeburn Track. It is derived thus: when a sheep has, let's say, a very explosive and easy bowel movement (common when one's diet is entirely grass), it tends to collect effluent on the fur around its bum. Flies are then attracted to the excrement, and the sheep can become "fly-struck": eaten from the inside by flies that have entered through the hind orofice. In an attempt to prevent this, sheep farmers burn the wool off the woolies' bums, which prevents the "dags," or what some would refer to as cling-ons. So if one is daggy, one is perhaps not as clean or well-kept as one could be. It conveys a sense of being not quite put together, not a state so severe as that which the sheep can be in.
Fact: New Zealanders commonly breed deer and elk on farms. We've seen paddocks full of both, and a sign near Burkes Pass advertising a Deer and Wapiti Stud Service.
Most recent Lord of the Rings sighting: on the drive out of Mt. Aspiring National Park yesterday afternoon, the van driver showed us a photograph of Isengard, and pointed out that we were driving right along the valley in which it was situated. We could see exactly where it would sit if it were not computer generated, and where the mountains stood in orientation to the tower. The Lord of the Rings mania in the high country is not as pronounced as I thought it would be, but nonetheless there is an entire store on Shotover Street in Queenstown dedicated to the films, and most gift shops sell Lord of the Rings Filming Site guides.
Said van driver made a really cool point that the best way to get to know a country that is not your own is to get to know its natural world, and to spend time learning about its natural history. It makes me feel good to know that I have done a good deal of that in Aotearoa, what with tramping through its mountains and surfing in its seas. I've tried to pay attention to its plant life as well, and have noticed that, like many other places in the world, New Zealand is inundated with Scotch Broom and Lupine. Apparently the early homesteaders thought that there needed to be more colour and that lupines would do the job nicely.
The van driver also told us an interesting story about the aforementioned kea, which is the smartest member of the parrot family. Van driver (known as Van from here on out) was skiing in the Remarkables and was eating lunch on the lunch deck of the ski lodge. People at a neighboring table had left chips and pieces of burger out on a table, and several keas came right in and started eating up the leftovers extremely gleefully. Upon further investigation, Van noticed that there was one kea who was not taking part in the fun but was perched on the aluminum roofing above, peeking over and watching his mates eat up all the food. After some contemplation, said observant kea hopped down the roof a little ways, and then bent his head down and began to hop back up the roof, rolling a snowball with his head and beak as he went. (Van gaping the whole time, not believing what he was seeing). Kea reaches the crest of the roof again, this time in possession of a snowball the size of a grapefruit. Kea peeks over the edge of the roof, checks out his mates' progress through their dinner, and then nudges his snowball over the edge of the roof. Snowball hits table where kea party is occuring, sending partying keas squawking and shrieking in every direction, obviously fussed that they've been targeted. Smart kea on roof is obviously incredibly proud of himself for playing a joke on his mates, and flings himself on his back, obviously laughing, flapping wings and squawking with his little legs waving in the air. Van said that all witnesses were completely flabbergasted, and continued to be amazed as the kea pulled of his snowball trick 3 or 4 more times before the dining keas got tired of being pelted with snow and took off for more peaceful climes.
I think that's about all for tonight, tomorrow we have a day in Christchurch before flying up to Wellington to begin the final stage of the trip. As has always happened with me while traveling, home is beginning to sound good at just the right time. I can't believe I've been away for two and a half weeks- it seems like a year or so by now, I've seen so much and met so many people. But after so much time on the move, my own bed and kitchen and more than 2 changes of clothes are beginning to sound quite good. Besides our first week, we haven't spent 2 nights in the same place. I miss having space to spread out and have some privacy, but I'll miss the freedom from winter and my cell phone. I've gotten used to not being tied to any one place and not worrying about checking my voicemail. It's extremely liberating, as is summer. I've also become very used to sunshine and warmth and my tan, and having daylight from 6 AM till 10 PM. I'm again accustomed to having foreign accents of all kinds around me and explaining to people where Oregon is. Just the same, as travel is wonderful, so is home and the familiar people and places that I can take stories back to. I'll be ready to head back by the time the time comes, but until then I'll continue enjoying the new sights and sounds, some of which I am already used to but many of which are still foreign.
Kiwi phrase for the day: "Can't be stuffed" = Can't be bothered, not a big deal.
10:30ish PM
Christchurch, South Island
We've left the mountains and gained the coast again. I won't bore you with too much of a narrative today, as we've mostly just backtracked what we drove on our way to Queenstown. The main differences were that this time it was done in an orange Holden Viva (very slick car, I want one. Also getting much better at driving on lefthand side- very instinctual now) after very little sleep (had to stay up late because our half-done laundry got locked in the washroom at our backpackers, and us with no other clothes than what we had on and had to get staff to let us finish drying our clean ones), and that we took a bit of a different route. We cut east at Omarama and took Highways 83 and 82 through to Timaru at the coast, then north on 1 to Christchurch. Staying in a really cool lodge here, and after Thai food for dinner went to see "The History Boys" at a really neat old cinema. It's a film I would recommend to anyone.
Because today was mostly just driving, I thought I'd provide you with some more notes on life in New Zealand, some of the interesting differences between NZ and the States and some interesting factoids and stories we've gathered along the way.
Firstly, Amy emailed asking what was the strangest/most interesting thing I've eaten while down here. Food is slightly different here, taking on a very British air most of the time, but with some distinctly Kiwi treats. My favorite new things are the single-serving pies, my favorite being bacon and egg. These pies are about 3 or 4 inches in diameter, filled with various foodstuffs, usually a meat and cheese or the like. They're served either warm or cold, and are quite good depending on your tastes- I had a steak and cheese one that was gelatinous and disgusting, but the egg ones are great. Another new find is a drink called L & P, or Lemon & Paeroa. Paeroa is a town somewhere in NZ where early settlers discovered a mineral spring. At some point someone decided to mix the springwater with lemon and some sweetener, and thus L & P was born. It's delightful and advertised as "World Famous in New Zealand."
Some other notes on food: 1) Like England, take-out or "to go" food is "takeaway." It's not uncommon to see a sign reading "Fish and Chips Chinese Takeaways". You can get chips (fries) on their own here, at any little stand or grocery, without them being a side dish. 2) Bacon is what we would call Canadian bacon. What we staties know as bacon is dubbed "American streaky bacon." 3) Similarly, pecan pie is popularly called "American pecan pie". 4) Coke can be bought in glass bottles, and most streets have recycling bins next to the rubbish bins, for pop bottles. 5) Kiwis don't know what granola is. Down here, it's muesli.
Kiwis say "eh" at the end of almost every sentence. Also, I've never heard a single New Zealand native say "thanks" or "thank you." It's always Cheers or Ta.
New Zealand and Australia have to get along well because they're the only countries in this corner of the ocean. However, they have a very strong rivalry when it comes to rugby. The All Blacks are the New Zealand national team, and there's something of a mania about them. I saw a t-shirt today that said "Support 2 teams: New Zealand and anyone who plays Australia." On a side note, today is Australia Day. The DJ on the station Provo and I were listening to as we drove was urging listeners to Hug an Aussie.
Apparently, marijuana is legal in NZ. I don't know what else could explain the apparently legal shops we have seen in the main shopping districts of several towns, selling multiple types of hash and advertising herbal highs.
Vocab of the day: "Daggy": scruffy, unkempt, smelly or slightly dirty. Bit of an interesting story here (Disclaimer: not for the weak of stomach). This is an Aussie term, we learnt it off an Australian-British woman on the Routeburn Track. It is derived thus: when a sheep has, let's say, a very explosive and easy bowel movement (common when one's diet is entirely grass), it tends to collect effluent on the fur around its bum. Flies are then attracted to the excrement, and the sheep can become "fly-struck": eaten from the inside by flies that have entered through the hind orofice. In an attempt to prevent this, sheep farmers burn the wool off the woolies' bums, which prevents the "dags," or what some would refer to as cling-ons. So if one is daggy, one is perhaps not as clean or well-kept as one could be. It conveys a sense of being not quite put together, not a state so severe as that which the sheep can be in.
Fact: New Zealanders commonly breed deer and elk on farms. We've seen paddocks full of both, and a sign near Burkes Pass advertising a Deer and Wapiti Stud Service.
Most recent Lord of the Rings sighting: on the drive out of Mt. Aspiring National Park yesterday afternoon, the van driver showed us a photograph of Isengard, and pointed out that we were driving right along the valley in which it was situated. We could see exactly where it would sit if it were not computer generated, and where the mountains stood in orientation to the tower. The Lord of the Rings mania in the high country is not as pronounced as I thought it would be, but nonetheless there is an entire store on Shotover Street in Queenstown dedicated to the films, and most gift shops sell Lord of the Rings Filming Site guides.
Said van driver made a really cool point that the best way to get to know a country that is not your own is to get to know its natural world, and to spend time learning about its natural history. It makes me feel good to know that I have done a good deal of that in Aotearoa, what with tramping through its mountains and surfing in its seas. I've tried to pay attention to its plant life as well, and have noticed that, like many other places in the world, New Zealand is inundated with Scotch Broom and Lupine. Apparently the early homesteaders thought that there needed to be more colour and that lupines would do the job nicely.
The van driver also told us an interesting story about the aforementioned kea, which is the smartest member of the parrot family. Van driver (known as Van from here on out) was skiing in the Remarkables and was eating lunch on the lunch deck of the ski lodge. People at a neighboring table had left chips and pieces of burger out on a table, and several keas came right in and started eating up the leftovers extremely gleefully. Upon further investigation, Van noticed that there was one kea who was not taking part in the fun but was perched on the aluminum roofing above, peeking over and watching his mates eat up all the food. After some contemplation, said observant kea hopped down the roof a little ways, and then bent his head down and began to hop back up the roof, rolling a snowball with his head and beak as he went. (Van gaping the whole time, not believing what he was seeing). Kea reaches the crest of the roof again, this time in possession of a snowball the size of a grapefruit. Kea peeks over the edge of the roof, checks out his mates' progress through their dinner, and then nudges his snowball over the edge of the roof. Snowball hits table where kea party is occuring, sending partying keas squawking and shrieking in every direction, obviously fussed that they've been targeted. Smart kea on roof is obviously incredibly proud of himself for playing a joke on his mates, and flings himself on his back, obviously laughing, flapping wings and squawking with his little legs waving in the air. Van said that all witnesses were completely flabbergasted, and continued to be amazed as the kea pulled of his snowball trick 3 or 4 more times before the dining keas got tired of being pelted with snow and took off for more peaceful climes.
I think that's about all for tonight, tomorrow we have a day in Christchurch before flying up to Wellington to begin the final stage of the trip. As has always happened with me while traveling, home is beginning to sound good at just the right time. I can't believe I've been away for two and a half weeks- it seems like a year or so by now, I've seen so much and met so many people. But after so much time on the move, my own bed and kitchen and more than 2 changes of clothes are beginning to sound quite good. Besides our first week, we haven't spent 2 nights in the same place. I miss having space to spread out and have some privacy, but I'll miss the freedom from winter and my cell phone. I've gotten used to not being tied to any one place and not worrying about checking my voicemail. It's extremely liberating, as is summer. I've also become very used to sunshine and warmth and my tan, and having daylight from 6 AM till 10 PM. I'm again accustomed to having foreign accents of all kinds around me and explaining to people where Oregon is. Just the same, as travel is wonderful, so is home and the familiar people and places that I can take stories back to. I'll be ready to head back by the time the time comes, but until then I'll continue enjoying the new sights and sounds, some of which I am already used to but many of which are still foreign.
Kiwi phrase for the day: "Can't be stuffed" = Can't be bothered, not a big deal.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Routeburn Track Completed!
Thursday, January 25
9:30 PM
Queenstown again
We did it! 3 days, many miles, and a lot of sweat later, Provo and I can claim that we have hiked what is supposedly one of the most beautiful tracks in the world! Although I haven't seen any of the others, I am ready to stand up for Routeburn's claim to beauty and general splendour.
Here's a profile of our days in the backcountry:
Day 1: Tuesday
Woke up at 6 AM. Luckily some Scottish girls in our dorm had loaned us an alarm, because we were both dead tired. We rolled out, packed up quickly, and walked across the road to the Department of Conservation (Te Papa Atawhai) building, and were picked up by a shuttle van at 7 AM. The drive to The Divide (as the trailhead is known) took about an hour, and the van driver was really cool and told us all about everything we were seeing. We saw the boat that you have to take to the head of the Milford Track, the Manuka trees that are famous for their honey and for being nurse trees for new plants in cleared areas, the Murchison Mountains on the far side of Lake Te Anau, the Eglington River, and the Mirror Lakes. It was a gorgeous drive, per usual, with mist hanging low over the mountains and just above the Mirror Lakes, which lie perfectly still and reflect the mist and ferns on their banks. We drove up the Avenue of the Disappearing Mountains, so named because of said mist. We started our tramp at 8 AM, the first ones on the trail that day. The first hour or so was very wet, though it wasn't raining- we were hiking through close, tight beech woods, with a thick canopy and trees hanging close to the trail. It had rained the night before, and everything was wet. The mist was hanging close, and every once in awhile the sun would shine through in rays- its own type of beauty. Our major wildlife sighting was a kea, the large gray parrots that are actually very common in New Zealand and were described by one hut warden thusly: "In the daytime, keas are loud and funny. At night, they're silent and destructive." Apparently they have shredded clothing and packs left on hut porches at night. Still, it was cool to see one sitting on a branch just a few feet away.
The entire first hour was uphill, switchbacks through the forest, until we came to Earland Falls. The falls are 80 meters high, and the wind comes down the mountain and throws the spray out across the track, which of course runs about 15 feet from the bottom of the falls. We luckily had prior warning and had our pack covers on, but we still got totally soaked by the spray. A couple hours in, once we had passed Howden Hut, the mist began to lift, and we began to realize that we were surrounded by huge, snowy peaks and unbelievably craggy rock pinnacles. We had lunch at a clear spot where we could see one peak above the clouds, and as we ate, about 6 more peaks appeared across the canyon.
The beech woods are amazing- the trees are all gnarly and moss-covered and old, with ferns and such growing out of them. I expect there were a lot of ents in among them, just standing still.
The two of us were the first trampers to reach Mackenzie Hut that day, our lodging for the night. We had done about 5 1/2 hours of hiking, excluding breaks, and arrived at about 2 pm. The hut sits just up on the shores of Lake Mackenzie, with beech forest around it, huge peaks on the other side, and a clear grassy place with big rocks that made for a perfect swimming spot. The hut itself is slightly more than a hut, according to my definition of the word. In the main house, there is a kitchen and dining area on the lower level, gas burners, cold water sinks, and rough tables, and upstairs are 30some bunks, with another 15 or 20 in a second bunkhouse. The hut warden has his own quarters, and then there is a block of flush toilets and "ablution blocks" ---pretty posh camping, if you ask me. After claiming our bunks, Provo and I spent a couple hours doing our laundry in the lake and then tanning in the 90-degree sun on the shore until our clothes were dry. By that time more trampers were showing up, and the fun really got started. This tramp was a major social experience- the multitudes of people on the track come from every nationality imaginable, and that night we shared a dinner table with a couple from London, two German girls, and 2 American boys, one who was hiking all the way out to Howden that night in his jandals (Kiwi-ese for flip-flops) and one who was taking a year to travel wherever he wanted on flexible airline tickets. It was great to meet new people, here awesome stories, compare notes, and laugh with total strangers. There was a lot of great camaraderie, with so many people crammed into such a small place, and trampers coming from both ends of the trail and giving advice to eachother regarding the next leg of the the hike. Dinner and a cup or two of tea later, it got dark (at 10 PM) and everyone headed for bed.
Day 2: Wednesday
We intended to sleep in a bit, but the nutters who were going all the way out the long way were up at 6 PM, so we got up earlier than we intended to. There was a mad rush of everyone eating breakfast, packing up, and trying to be the first on the trail so as not to get stuck behind a slow party, and hurried farewells to newly-made friends (there was no bother over learning one another's names, but good times had just the same), and then some worry over the weather. The hut warden said that it was supposed to rain, but we could see blue sky through the morning fog, so we decided to leave now and beat the rain if it was coming. Provo and I managed to be on our way by 9:30, and spent the first hour gaining about a vertical mile, zigzagging back and forth up the steep slope above Lake Mackenzie, with fog swirling around us. It wasn't cold, but at times we couldn't see more than 10 feet in front of us. Once we crested that particular hill, we began side-hilling across a rockfield of glacial granite, huge chunks of stone strewn across a very very steep slope whose only vegetation was something akin to beargrass. We were well above the bush line by now, and hiking sometimes in total fog. To continue with the geeky Lord of the Rings references (don't worry, this is not the last), we agreed that we felt a bit like Frodo and Sam climbing about the Emyn Muil, the difference being we had a trail to follow and lacked an emaciated fiend chasing us and attempting to nick our valuables.
The wind moves the mist so quickly up there that one moment we were in a white-out, and the next minute we would realize that there were crags several hundred feet above us, that we hadn't been able to see before. It was actually a really neat kind of beauty, and we could tell that the sun wasn't too far away behind the clouds. After a couple hours, we began to really climb, and the sun came out, and we got pretty spectacular views. We reached Harris Saddle by lunchtime, completely out of breath but also out of the clouds. At the Saddle there are a couple emergency shelters/day huts, and we met a bunch of cool people who were also lunching there. We stowed our packs in the hut after food, and headed off for the much-recommended side hike up Conical Hill. I'm glad I did it, but I had some doubts on the way up. The closest thing I can think of to describe what that hike (a very long 30 minutes) up was like is to compare it to the vertical steps that Gollum leads Sam and Frodo up to the den of the creepy huge spider. It was that insane- nigh vertical in places, requiring use of hands to climb, huge rocks placed in steps 2 feet tall, sometimes no path over rock piles except where orange markers led. But the top of the hill was pretty amazing- the winds were 50 miles an hour up there, and the clouds racing about faster than I had seen, and clearing for a view of the valley for a few seconds before shrouding it again. I hunkered behind a windbreak rock for about 30 minutes attempting to get a good picture, but the clouds weren't cooperating so I then had to go down the path again, which of course was worse than going up. There I was, picking my way from rock to rock, thinking that I was going to pitch off the mountain and die at any moment, when two tiny Chinese women come running down the path, pass me, and take off down the mountain without a care in the world. I still don't get it.
The rest of our hike was mostly downhill, more rock-hopping (this time with a 30-pound pack to make things even more entertaining), more incredible views, and finally coming down the ridge into the Routeburn Valley. The Route Burn comes out of an alpine lake just below the Harris Saddle, and we followed it to Routeburn Falls. We came down a rocky corner and suddenly were standing in heavy winds right beside the top of the falls, with the valley stretching out in front (the picture you will see on any postcard of the Routeburn track- I won't even try to describe it, I can't do it justice) and the Routeburn Falls hut perched on the cliffside right below us. It was a long day of hiking, ankles and legs were sore, but weather had been fantastic, views incredible, and sense of accomplishment very great. Routeburn Falls hut was great- it sits on an i-don't-know-what-percent slope, with stilts to allow it to sit level, a helicopter pad in case of emergency (too steep to evacuate safely any other way), and a deck around the front looking out over the valley a mile below. I didn't like the bunkrooms there, though- dark and without storage space, the way I imagine steerage berths on a 19th century ship to be. But the kitchen and dining space was great, all windows, and this time it was a German couple we ate dinner with. The hut warden there was really fun, and had been collecting languages for about 6 weeks. He had a huge poster on the wall with "Welcome to Routeburn Falls, Merry Christmas!" written on it in about 30 languages, all by people who had come through the hut. He was offering a big chocolate bar to anyone or any group who could correctly identify 25. We teamed up with a group of Israeli girls and a Czech couple to see how well we could do. By bedtime we only had 24! Alas.
Day 3: Today!
Again we evaded rain (mostly). We really lucked out with the weather- it was gorgeous every day after the fog burned off, and we just got lightly sprinkled for a few minutes on our way out today. We talked to one couple who had been hiking for hours in fog so thick they could only see 2 feet in front of them. The hike out through the Routeburn Valley was mostly downhill, this time through open beech forest. Unlike the first day, the woods were open, the trees tall, with lots of light and just a thick fern understory- absolutely beautiful, and I'm convinced there were elves and fairies in there- it seems their natural habitat :) We followed the Route Burn through the woods, and then crossed it and several tributaries on "swing bridges," which are cable suspsensions with two boards to walk on and netting down the sides and can get pretty bouncy if you have a heavy pack on. We had lunch next to the burn, and then the rest of the hike was flat, but longer than we anticipated. Nonetheless, we still came out 3 hours before our shuttle was scheduled to pick us up. So celebration! We did it! 33 kilometres in total, not counting the hike up Conical Hill. We hung out at Routeburn Shelter, journaling and sleeping in the sun and trying to keep the sandflies off until the shuttle came.
A note on sandflies: While New Zealand doesn't have many mosquitos, it does have horrendous little creatures called sandflies. These little cretins come at you in swarms, eager for flesh and not usually caring about insect repellant. They are horrid and disgusting. I smashed a couple in my journal for keepsakes. And for the vindictive pleasure of killing something so irritating.
"Jandals guy" was actually on the shuttle, coming out to drive his car back to Queenstown, so we got to say hi again to one of our trial aquaintances. Then it was an hour's ride back to Queenstown, dinner (a "Fergberger" that was big enough for us to split and then barely manage to consume), and now laundry so we can take showers after feeling very greasy due to 3 days of hiking.
Almost out of 'net time-- I'll update again soon! Love from the southern hemisphere!
9:30 PM
Queenstown again
We did it! 3 days, many miles, and a lot of sweat later, Provo and I can claim that we have hiked what is supposedly one of the most beautiful tracks in the world! Although I haven't seen any of the others, I am ready to stand up for Routeburn's claim to beauty and general splendour.
Here's a profile of our days in the backcountry:
Day 1: Tuesday
Woke up at 6 AM. Luckily some Scottish girls in our dorm had loaned us an alarm, because we were both dead tired. We rolled out, packed up quickly, and walked across the road to the Department of Conservation (Te Papa Atawhai) building, and were picked up by a shuttle van at 7 AM. The drive to The Divide (as the trailhead is known) took about an hour, and the van driver was really cool and told us all about everything we were seeing. We saw the boat that you have to take to the head of the Milford Track, the Manuka trees that are famous for their honey and for being nurse trees for new plants in cleared areas, the Murchison Mountains on the far side of Lake Te Anau, the Eglington River, and the Mirror Lakes. It was a gorgeous drive, per usual, with mist hanging low over the mountains and just above the Mirror Lakes, which lie perfectly still and reflect the mist and ferns on their banks. We drove up the Avenue of the Disappearing Mountains, so named because of said mist. We started our tramp at 8 AM, the first ones on the trail that day. The first hour or so was very wet, though it wasn't raining- we were hiking through close, tight beech woods, with a thick canopy and trees hanging close to the trail. It had rained the night before, and everything was wet. The mist was hanging close, and every once in awhile the sun would shine through in rays- its own type of beauty. Our major wildlife sighting was a kea, the large gray parrots that are actually very common in New Zealand and were described by one hut warden thusly: "In the daytime, keas are loud and funny. At night, they're silent and destructive." Apparently they have shredded clothing and packs left on hut porches at night. Still, it was cool to see one sitting on a branch just a few feet away.
The entire first hour was uphill, switchbacks through the forest, until we came to Earland Falls. The falls are 80 meters high, and the wind comes down the mountain and throws the spray out across the track, which of course runs about 15 feet from the bottom of the falls. We luckily had prior warning and had our pack covers on, but we still got totally soaked by the spray. A couple hours in, once we had passed Howden Hut, the mist began to lift, and we began to realize that we were surrounded by huge, snowy peaks and unbelievably craggy rock pinnacles. We had lunch at a clear spot where we could see one peak above the clouds, and as we ate, about 6 more peaks appeared across the canyon.
The beech woods are amazing- the trees are all gnarly and moss-covered and old, with ferns and such growing out of them. I expect there were a lot of ents in among them, just standing still.
The two of us were the first trampers to reach Mackenzie Hut that day, our lodging for the night. We had done about 5 1/2 hours of hiking, excluding breaks, and arrived at about 2 pm. The hut sits just up on the shores of Lake Mackenzie, with beech forest around it, huge peaks on the other side, and a clear grassy place with big rocks that made for a perfect swimming spot. The hut itself is slightly more than a hut, according to my definition of the word. In the main house, there is a kitchen and dining area on the lower level, gas burners, cold water sinks, and rough tables, and upstairs are 30some bunks, with another 15 or 20 in a second bunkhouse. The hut warden has his own quarters, and then there is a block of flush toilets and "ablution blocks" ---pretty posh camping, if you ask me. After claiming our bunks, Provo and I spent a couple hours doing our laundry in the lake and then tanning in the 90-degree sun on the shore until our clothes were dry. By that time more trampers were showing up, and the fun really got started. This tramp was a major social experience- the multitudes of people on the track come from every nationality imaginable, and that night we shared a dinner table with a couple from London, two German girls, and 2 American boys, one who was hiking all the way out to Howden that night in his jandals (Kiwi-ese for flip-flops) and one who was taking a year to travel wherever he wanted on flexible airline tickets. It was great to meet new people, here awesome stories, compare notes, and laugh with total strangers. There was a lot of great camaraderie, with so many people crammed into such a small place, and trampers coming from both ends of the trail and giving advice to eachother regarding the next leg of the the hike. Dinner and a cup or two of tea later, it got dark (at 10 PM) and everyone headed for bed.
Day 2: Wednesday
We intended to sleep in a bit, but the nutters who were going all the way out the long way were up at 6 PM, so we got up earlier than we intended to. There was a mad rush of everyone eating breakfast, packing up, and trying to be the first on the trail so as not to get stuck behind a slow party, and hurried farewells to newly-made friends (there was no bother over learning one another's names, but good times had just the same), and then some worry over the weather. The hut warden said that it was supposed to rain, but we could see blue sky through the morning fog, so we decided to leave now and beat the rain if it was coming. Provo and I managed to be on our way by 9:30, and spent the first hour gaining about a vertical mile, zigzagging back and forth up the steep slope above Lake Mackenzie, with fog swirling around us. It wasn't cold, but at times we couldn't see more than 10 feet in front of us. Once we crested that particular hill, we began side-hilling across a rockfield of glacial granite, huge chunks of stone strewn across a very very steep slope whose only vegetation was something akin to beargrass. We were well above the bush line by now, and hiking sometimes in total fog. To continue with the geeky Lord of the Rings references (don't worry, this is not the last), we agreed that we felt a bit like Frodo and Sam climbing about the Emyn Muil, the difference being we had a trail to follow and lacked an emaciated fiend chasing us and attempting to nick our valuables.
The wind moves the mist so quickly up there that one moment we were in a white-out, and the next minute we would realize that there were crags several hundred feet above us, that we hadn't been able to see before. It was actually a really neat kind of beauty, and we could tell that the sun wasn't too far away behind the clouds. After a couple hours, we began to really climb, and the sun came out, and we got pretty spectacular views. We reached Harris Saddle by lunchtime, completely out of breath but also out of the clouds. At the Saddle there are a couple emergency shelters/day huts, and we met a bunch of cool people who were also lunching there. We stowed our packs in the hut after food, and headed off for the much-recommended side hike up Conical Hill. I'm glad I did it, but I had some doubts on the way up. The closest thing I can think of to describe what that hike (a very long 30 minutes) up was like is to compare it to the vertical steps that Gollum leads Sam and Frodo up to the den of the creepy huge spider. It was that insane- nigh vertical in places, requiring use of hands to climb, huge rocks placed in steps 2 feet tall, sometimes no path over rock piles except where orange markers led. But the top of the hill was pretty amazing- the winds were 50 miles an hour up there, and the clouds racing about faster than I had seen, and clearing for a view of the valley for a few seconds before shrouding it again. I hunkered behind a windbreak rock for about 30 minutes attempting to get a good picture, but the clouds weren't cooperating so I then had to go down the path again, which of course was worse than going up. There I was, picking my way from rock to rock, thinking that I was going to pitch off the mountain and die at any moment, when two tiny Chinese women come running down the path, pass me, and take off down the mountain without a care in the world. I still don't get it.
The rest of our hike was mostly downhill, more rock-hopping (this time with a 30-pound pack to make things even more entertaining), more incredible views, and finally coming down the ridge into the Routeburn Valley. The Route Burn comes out of an alpine lake just below the Harris Saddle, and we followed it to Routeburn Falls. We came down a rocky corner and suddenly were standing in heavy winds right beside the top of the falls, with the valley stretching out in front (the picture you will see on any postcard of the Routeburn track- I won't even try to describe it, I can't do it justice) and the Routeburn Falls hut perched on the cliffside right below us. It was a long day of hiking, ankles and legs were sore, but weather had been fantastic, views incredible, and sense of accomplishment very great. Routeburn Falls hut was great- it sits on an i-don't-know-what-percent slope, with stilts to allow it to sit level, a helicopter pad in case of emergency (too steep to evacuate safely any other way), and a deck around the front looking out over the valley a mile below. I didn't like the bunkrooms there, though- dark and without storage space, the way I imagine steerage berths on a 19th century ship to be. But the kitchen and dining space was great, all windows, and this time it was a German couple we ate dinner with. The hut warden there was really fun, and had been collecting languages for about 6 weeks. He had a huge poster on the wall with "Welcome to Routeburn Falls, Merry Christmas!" written on it in about 30 languages, all by people who had come through the hut. He was offering a big chocolate bar to anyone or any group who could correctly identify 25. We teamed up with a group of Israeli girls and a Czech couple to see how well we could do. By bedtime we only had 24! Alas.
Day 3: Today!
Again we evaded rain (mostly). We really lucked out with the weather- it was gorgeous every day after the fog burned off, and we just got lightly sprinkled for a few minutes on our way out today. We talked to one couple who had been hiking for hours in fog so thick they could only see 2 feet in front of them. The hike out through the Routeburn Valley was mostly downhill, this time through open beech forest. Unlike the first day, the woods were open, the trees tall, with lots of light and just a thick fern understory- absolutely beautiful, and I'm convinced there were elves and fairies in there- it seems their natural habitat :) We followed the Route Burn through the woods, and then crossed it and several tributaries on "swing bridges," which are cable suspsensions with two boards to walk on and netting down the sides and can get pretty bouncy if you have a heavy pack on. We had lunch next to the burn, and then the rest of the hike was flat, but longer than we anticipated. Nonetheless, we still came out 3 hours before our shuttle was scheduled to pick us up. So celebration! We did it! 33 kilometres in total, not counting the hike up Conical Hill. We hung out at Routeburn Shelter, journaling and sleeping in the sun and trying to keep the sandflies off until the shuttle came.
A note on sandflies: While New Zealand doesn't have many mosquitos, it does have horrendous little creatures called sandflies. These little cretins come at you in swarms, eager for flesh and not usually caring about insect repellant. They are horrid and disgusting. I smashed a couple in my journal for keepsakes. And for the vindictive pleasure of killing something so irritating.
"Jandals guy" was actually on the shuttle, coming out to drive his car back to Queenstown, so we got to say hi again to one of our trial aquaintances. Then it was an hour's ride back to Queenstown, dinner (a "Fergberger" that was big enough for us to split and then barely manage to consume), and now laundry so we can take showers after feeling very greasy due to 3 days of hiking.
Almost out of 'net time-- I'll update again soon! Love from the southern hemisphere!
Sunday, January 21, 2007
From Fiordlands
Monday, 22nd January, 2007
Te Anau, South Island
8:01 PM
Provo and I are sitting in a "Surf-n-Wash" on the main street of Te Anau-- you can do your laundry while you go on the internet. Someone was logged on before me, and I accidentally hacked into someone else's gmail, deleted what I took to be spam, and then realized what happened too late to go back and repair the damage--whoops! The last two days have been fun, and we put 867 kilometres on our rental car before turning it in in Queenstown. We picked up the car on Sunday morning in Picton-- it was the funniest little car, a Holden Barina, pretty much the smallest car that you can fit 4 doors onto. Funny thing, though, we couldn't figure out who to get the boot open, so had to cram both our packs into the backseat for the whole trip. Driving on the lefthand side is not as weird as you would think- once you're on the road, it of course seems the normal thing to do, or else you'd die from a head-on. Although you might die from a head-on anyway, Kiwi drivers are totally insane. The roads are usually tiny and really curvy, and bridges even on the main highways are only one lane. Everyone passes on corners and cuts corners and basically tries to run everyone else off the road. In defense of our own lives, we've started learning to drive like the locals, though hopefully without endangering as many lives. The weirdest part as a driver in this country is to sit on the righthand side of the car, and to have the blinkers ("indicators") on the righthand side of the steering wheel and the windscreen wipers on the left. Can't tell you how many times one of us has turned on the windshield wipers in an attempt to signal a turn.
Yesterday we drove all the way from Picton to Lake Tekapo, in the alpine country. We came through such amazing landscapes- different all the time. Down here, you're in the Shire one minute, then in Rohan, and then suddenly you're in the middle of a valley surrounded by snow-covered peaks. Highway 1 follows the coast from Wharanui to Christchurch, and we pulled of right by the ocean to ogle the sea lions that were camped out on the rocks 20 feet from the highway. We drove through loads of tiny tunnels, and took a break in Kaikoura. Kaikoura is apparently a center for whalewatching, and the coast there is spectacular. We came through loads of wine country as well, there are vineyards everywhere in that valley, it's really beautiful. As we came over Burkes Pass, we came into a high plain with peaks rising up on all sides, and every colour of lupine imaginable, in wide rainbow banks six feet out on either side of the road. I somehow don't think pictures would do it justice.
We're both glad we decided to rent a car- we're on our own timetable, and in the long run it actually comes out cheaper. Last night we stayed in Lake Tekapo, this adorable little town on the shores of a huge blue-green alpine lake, with a wee stone church on the shore and the southern alps rising up at the other end. We were hard-pressed to find accomodation, but while driving around an avenue full of B&Bs, an older lady hailed us from her window, and told us that a chap with a hotel down on the waterfront had a studio free and that we should hurry down before someone else got it. It was only slightly more expensive than a backpackers, and it was nice to have a little more privacy and room to spread out. We were right on the edge of the lake, and walked down to the tiny church to take pictures. Provo has a function on the timer of her camera that takes ten shots in a row, so we set it up to do that and then kept moving around into funny statuesque positions, then laughed ourselves silly at the result.
This morning we woke up to incredible sunshine (it was gross when we came into Lake Tekapo last night) and packed up and hit the road by 9:30. We came up to Queenstown, which is an incredible drive through the Otago Valley and the Kauwarau (??) Gorge. For any Lord of the Rings geeks out there, we came through the valley at Twizel where the charge of the Rohirrim at the Battle of Pelennor Fields was shot. That whole valley is incredibly desolate and remote in a really beautiful and challenging way. Besides a short stop to switch drivers (during which we were serenaded by an irritated sheep with a bass voice), we drove pretty much nonstop until we came through the gorge into Queenstown. Queenstown is supposedly the Adventure Capital of the World, with bungy jumping, skydiving, whitewater rafting, etc. advertised everywhere on the main street. The city sits on the shores of Lake Wakatipu, with the Remarkables rising up directly on the other side of the lake and the really really steep ski hill with a gondola rising up right behind the town. Most of our time in Queenstown was spent running errands-- picking up our hut reservation tickets from the Department of Conservation, booking transport to Te Anau and to and from the trailheads, putting our non-backpacking items in storage, buying some last-minute food for the hiking trip, grabbing lunch at an indian place, and returning the rental car. One-way rentals rock, by the way. We accomplished all that in about 4 hours, and then hopped the bus to Te Anau. There were only four of us on the bus, so we had plenty of room to spread out, and Provo and I stretched out with our legs in the sun, hoping to get a little more tan :)
The drive out here to the Fiordlands took about 2 1/2 hours. The first hour was spent driving on a little highway squeezed in between the shores of Lake Wakatipu and the Remarkables. The Remarkables are a mountain range that are, truly, remarkable. The rise straight up out of the valley floor, and are made mostly of rock, with nothing growing on them. Their slopes can't possibly be scale-able, and they are very very craggy and saw-toothed. You can see the whole ridgeline from Queenstown, and it seems to defy any other range to challenge their starkness and strange stony beauty.
Rain hit just before we reached our toilet stop at Mossburn, but seems to have cleared up a bit here. We are lodged at a Holiday Park, which has camping, RVs, and backpackers and is right on the shores of Lake Te Anau. We head out early tomorow morning for the Routeburn Track, a 3-day tramp that crosses from Fiordlands National Park into Mt. Aspiring National Park. We'll come out into the Queenstown side, so my next check-in should be from there on Thursday evening.
Best from the high country!
Te Anau, South Island
8:01 PM
Provo and I are sitting in a "Surf-n-Wash" on the main street of Te Anau-- you can do your laundry while you go on the internet. Someone was logged on before me, and I accidentally hacked into someone else's gmail, deleted what I took to be spam, and then realized what happened too late to go back and repair the damage--whoops! The last two days have been fun, and we put 867 kilometres on our rental car before turning it in in Queenstown. We picked up the car on Sunday morning in Picton-- it was the funniest little car, a Holden Barina, pretty much the smallest car that you can fit 4 doors onto. Funny thing, though, we couldn't figure out who to get the boot open, so had to cram both our packs into the backseat for the whole trip. Driving on the lefthand side is not as weird as you would think- once you're on the road, it of course seems the normal thing to do, or else you'd die from a head-on. Although you might die from a head-on anyway, Kiwi drivers are totally insane. The roads are usually tiny and really curvy, and bridges even on the main highways are only one lane. Everyone passes on corners and cuts corners and basically tries to run everyone else off the road. In defense of our own lives, we've started learning to drive like the locals, though hopefully without endangering as many lives. The weirdest part as a driver in this country is to sit on the righthand side of the car, and to have the blinkers ("indicators") on the righthand side of the steering wheel and the windscreen wipers on the left. Can't tell you how many times one of us has turned on the windshield wipers in an attempt to signal a turn.
Yesterday we drove all the way from Picton to Lake Tekapo, in the alpine country. We came through such amazing landscapes- different all the time. Down here, you're in the Shire one minute, then in Rohan, and then suddenly you're in the middle of a valley surrounded by snow-covered peaks. Highway 1 follows the coast from Wharanui to Christchurch, and we pulled of right by the ocean to ogle the sea lions that were camped out on the rocks 20 feet from the highway. We drove through loads of tiny tunnels, and took a break in Kaikoura. Kaikoura is apparently a center for whalewatching, and the coast there is spectacular. We came through loads of wine country as well, there are vineyards everywhere in that valley, it's really beautiful. As we came over Burkes Pass, we came into a high plain with peaks rising up on all sides, and every colour of lupine imaginable, in wide rainbow banks six feet out on either side of the road. I somehow don't think pictures would do it justice.
We're both glad we decided to rent a car- we're on our own timetable, and in the long run it actually comes out cheaper. Last night we stayed in Lake Tekapo, this adorable little town on the shores of a huge blue-green alpine lake, with a wee stone church on the shore and the southern alps rising up at the other end. We were hard-pressed to find accomodation, but while driving around an avenue full of B&Bs, an older lady hailed us from her window, and told us that a chap with a hotel down on the waterfront had a studio free and that we should hurry down before someone else got it. It was only slightly more expensive than a backpackers, and it was nice to have a little more privacy and room to spread out. We were right on the edge of the lake, and walked down to the tiny church to take pictures. Provo has a function on the timer of her camera that takes ten shots in a row, so we set it up to do that and then kept moving around into funny statuesque positions, then laughed ourselves silly at the result.
This morning we woke up to incredible sunshine (it was gross when we came into Lake Tekapo last night) and packed up and hit the road by 9:30. We came up to Queenstown, which is an incredible drive through the Otago Valley and the Kauwarau (??) Gorge. For any Lord of the Rings geeks out there, we came through the valley at Twizel where the charge of the Rohirrim at the Battle of Pelennor Fields was shot. That whole valley is incredibly desolate and remote in a really beautiful and challenging way. Besides a short stop to switch drivers (during which we were serenaded by an irritated sheep with a bass voice), we drove pretty much nonstop until we came through the gorge into Queenstown. Queenstown is supposedly the Adventure Capital of the World, with bungy jumping, skydiving, whitewater rafting, etc. advertised everywhere on the main street. The city sits on the shores of Lake Wakatipu, with the Remarkables rising up directly on the other side of the lake and the really really steep ski hill with a gondola rising up right behind the town. Most of our time in Queenstown was spent running errands-- picking up our hut reservation tickets from the Department of Conservation, booking transport to Te Anau and to and from the trailheads, putting our non-backpacking items in storage, buying some last-minute food for the hiking trip, grabbing lunch at an indian place, and returning the rental car. One-way rentals rock, by the way. We accomplished all that in about 4 hours, and then hopped the bus to Te Anau. There were only four of us on the bus, so we had plenty of room to spread out, and Provo and I stretched out with our legs in the sun, hoping to get a little more tan :)
The drive out here to the Fiordlands took about 2 1/2 hours. The first hour was spent driving on a little highway squeezed in between the shores of Lake Wakatipu and the Remarkables. The Remarkables are a mountain range that are, truly, remarkable. The rise straight up out of the valley floor, and are made mostly of rock, with nothing growing on them. Their slopes can't possibly be scale-able, and they are very very craggy and saw-toothed. You can see the whole ridgeline from Queenstown, and it seems to defy any other range to challenge their starkness and strange stony beauty.
Rain hit just before we reached our toilet stop at Mossburn, but seems to have cleared up a bit here. We are lodged at a Holiday Park, which has camping, RVs, and backpackers and is right on the shores of Lake Te Anau. We head out early tomorow morning for the Routeburn Track, a 3-day tramp that crosses from Fiordlands National Park into Mt. Aspiring National Park. We'll come out into the Queenstown side, so my next check-in should be from there on Thursday evening.
Best from the high country!
Saturday, January 20, 2007
Into the Misty Mountains
Saturday, January 20
sometime after 10 PM
Picton, South Island
The Portland-based Surf-n-Tramp Team covered a lot of ground today. We flew out of Auckland at 10:30 this morning and arrived in Wellington an hour later. Wellington is the capital city of New Zealand, and sits on a beautiful harbour at the south end of the north island. As soon as we got in we sorted out our transportation for the rest of the journey- a series of one-way rental cars, which is actually cheaper in the long run and gives us much greater travel freedom than relying on bus and train for the rest of the journey. We pick up our first car down at the ferry terminal here tomorrow morning-- driving on the lefthand side of the road will be an entire adventure within itself.
Wellington is great, I wish we had time to spend at least a couple days there. As it was, a really nice shuttle driver from the airport dropped us at a downtown backpackers (as hostels are known here) to stow our packs in lockers and book the ferry, and then we had the whole afternoon to kill. We walked the two blocks up to Parliament and saw the amazing state buildings and the Beehive, which is the actual Parliament building. It's a crazy glass structure shaped like, well, a beehive. We had lunch in a pub and then walked down the waterfront to Te Papa Tongarewa, the Museum of New Zealand. Te Papa is only about five years old and is absolutely beautiful. It sits right on the waterfront and is free and was really beautifully designed- the building uses a lot of different materials and shapes, wood and metal and glass and a lot of shapes that evoke the ocean and sails. We spent a couple hours exploring it, I learned loads and made it through two floors of exhibits. Here's a few things I saw/learned:
1) The bones of Phar Lap, one of the best racehorses of all time, born in New Zealand.
2) A beautifully and intricately carved wooden Marae (ma-rai), a Maori meeting house that was handcarved in the 1850s
3) I learned that the Maori words for placenta and Earth are the same
4) I found out that New Zealand was originally Nieuw Zieeland (or somesuch), first charted by the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman in the 17th century.
5) There are sheep-shearing competitions. Who knew?
After Te Papa, we wandered the shopping district for awhile, then headed back to retrieve our bags and grab the shuttle to the wharf. At 6:00 we checked our bags and walked up a bonafide gangway onto the Arahura, one of three Interislander ferrys that sail the Cook Strait. It's huge, holds probably 100 cars and several hundred passengers at full capacity. There are 20some-odd miles of open water between Wellington and Picton, and when the swells get up to 15 and 20 feet, you want a real live ship, not some puny boat that's going to get tossed around easily. The waves were only up to about 3 feet today, so though we definitely could feel the sway and looked like drunkards trying to walk about the passenger decks, there was no seasickness and you noticed the motion more with your eyes than your stomach. I realized today that I have never been truly at sea before. But today I was in the middle of a stretch of water where I could see no land in any direction, at least for a little while. The crossing took 3 hours, and we got sunset on the way. Jean was right- the south island is even more beautiful than the north island, which is saying something, since the north island is nothing short of spectacular. At about 8:15, I looked up and saw dark mountains and cliff faces rising out of the mist and water, and sun breaking from behind them. Then we sailed into the narrow sound, sometimes no more than 50 yards between the lifeboats on deck and the trees on shore. The closest thing Provo and I could come up with do describe what the last hour of sailing was like is to equate it to Alaska and what pictures of Prince William Sound and Skagway look like: steep, green mountains covered in trees sliding down into the ocean, with no civilization in sight-a feeling of being totally isolated and remote, out in the water with dramatic and beautiful wilderness on all sides.
We came into berth at Picton at nightfall, it was really really cool to stand out on deck in the warm air and see the tiny little town nestled in next to the water with steep mountains rising up immediately behind it. The only reason Picton is on any map is because it is the ferry port for sailings from the north island. It's a little burg with a lot of backpackers, car rentals, a ferry terminal, and not much else- it's just a jump-off for the rest of the island.
Tonight we are lodged in a really cute little Mom-and-Pop backpackers, a converted house with a little fluffy dog running around, free tea and coffee, and a really cute old couple who runs it and keeps it really cozy and home-like.
Time for bed now, to get an early start south tomorrow morning- we don't know where we'll end up tomorrow night, but we do know that we're heading towards Queenstown and that we'll be seeing amazing country, but I'll bet that even that isn't going to prepare us for what's in store.
sometime after 10 PM
Picton, South Island
The Portland-based Surf-n-Tramp Team covered a lot of ground today. We flew out of Auckland at 10:30 this morning and arrived in Wellington an hour later. Wellington is the capital city of New Zealand, and sits on a beautiful harbour at the south end of the north island. As soon as we got in we sorted out our transportation for the rest of the journey- a series of one-way rental cars, which is actually cheaper in the long run and gives us much greater travel freedom than relying on bus and train for the rest of the journey. We pick up our first car down at the ferry terminal here tomorrow morning-- driving on the lefthand side of the road will be an entire adventure within itself.
Wellington is great, I wish we had time to spend at least a couple days there. As it was, a really nice shuttle driver from the airport dropped us at a downtown backpackers (as hostels are known here) to stow our packs in lockers and book the ferry, and then we had the whole afternoon to kill. We walked the two blocks up to Parliament and saw the amazing state buildings and the Beehive, which is the actual Parliament building. It's a crazy glass structure shaped like, well, a beehive. We had lunch in a pub and then walked down the waterfront to Te Papa Tongarewa, the Museum of New Zealand. Te Papa is only about five years old and is absolutely beautiful. It sits right on the waterfront and is free and was really beautifully designed- the building uses a lot of different materials and shapes, wood and metal and glass and a lot of shapes that evoke the ocean and sails. We spent a couple hours exploring it, I learned loads and made it through two floors of exhibits. Here's a few things I saw/learned:
1) The bones of Phar Lap, one of the best racehorses of all time, born in New Zealand.
2) A beautifully and intricately carved wooden Marae (ma-rai), a Maori meeting house that was handcarved in the 1850s
3) I learned that the Maori words for placenta and Earth are the same
4) I found out that New Zealand was originally Nieuw Zieeland (or somesuch), first charted by the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman in the 17th century.
5) There are sheep-shearing competitions. Who knew?
After Te Papa, we wandered the shopping district for awhile, then headed back to retrieve our bags and grab the shuttle to the wharf. At 6:00 we checked our bags and walked up a bonafide gangway onto the Arahura, one of three Interislander ferrys that sail the Cook Strait. It's huge, holds probably 100 cars and several hundred passengers at full capacity. There are 20some-odd miles of open water between Wellington and Picton, and when the swells get up to 15 and 20 feet, you want a real live ship, not some puny boat that's going to get tossed around easily. The waves were only up to about 3 feet today, so though we definitely could feel the sway and looked like drunkards trying to walk about the passenger decks, there was no seasickness and you noticed the motion more with your eyes than your stomach. I realized today that I have never been truly at sea before. But today I was in the middle of a stretch of water where I could see no land in any direction, at least for a little while. The crossing took 3 hours, and we got sunset on the way. Jean was right- the south island is even more beautiful than the north island, which is saying something, since the north island is nothing short of spectacular. At about 8:15, I looked up and saw dark mountains and cliff faces rising out of the mist and water, and sun breaking from behind them. Then we sailed into the narrow sound, sometimes no more than 50 yards between the lifeboats on deck and the trees on shore. The closest thing Provo and I could come up with do describe what the last hour of sailing was like is to equate it to Alaska and what pictures of Prince William Sound and Skagway look like: steep, green mountains covered in trees sliding down into the ocean, with no civilization in sight-a feeling of being totally isolated and remote, out in the water with dramatic and beautiful wilderness on all sides.
We came into berth at Picton at nightfall, it was really really cool to stand out on deck in the warm air and see the tiny little town nestled in next to the water with steep mountains rising up immediately behind it. The only reason Picton is on any map is because it is the ferry port for sailings from the north island. It's a little burg with a lot of backpackers, car rentals, a ferry terminal, and not much else- it's just a jump-off for the rest of the island.
Tonight we are lodged in a really cute little Mom-and-Pop backpackers, a converted house with a little fluffy dog running around, free tea and coffee, and a really cute old couple who runs it and keeps it really cozy and home-like.
Time for bed now, to get an early start south tomorrow morning- we don't know where we'll end up tomorrow night, but we do know that we're heading towards Queenstown and that we'll be seeing amazing country, but I'll bet that even that isn't going to prepare us for what's in store.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Surfer girls checking in
Friday, 19 January, 2007
8:34 PM NZST
Back in Auckland
Hello again!
It's been a few days since we've had a chance to reach the internet. It's been kind of nice to be in a place without any form of communication but letters and postcards, it reminds me of working at summer camp. However, I now have heaps of stuff to write about, so prepare for a long saga!
I left off on Tuesday afternoon in Kaitaia. From there we drove north for about an hour through some more amazingly scenic country to a beach called Rarawa, near the settlement of Houhora. Rarawa is on the east coast, the Pacific Ocean. It was some of the most gorgeous weather we've seen yet- totally clear and sunny, the ocean an amazing blue, and the sand incredibly hot. Rarawa is a beautiful beach, lots of wide sand, in a little bit of a bay. The surfing there was crazy though- Rangi's surf report said the swells were 2 feet, but they were actually 3 and 4 feet, which is closing on terrifying if you're a beginning surfer, and we had riptides to look out for. In a protected bay, the water can't wash sideways along the beach to get back out to sea-it has to go straight back out. That flow is the riptide, and it can be really dangerous if you get sucked into it, so we had to be careful. The waves and the power of the water at Rarawa was brutal- we got totally battered just trying to get out to where we could get some good distance for a ride, sometimes I would hang onto my board to jump through an oncoming wave and it would wash me back 10 or 20 feet towards shore. I think we each only got 2 or 3 rides in an hour, and in the end Rangi was the only one out there, and the rest of us were sunbathing or playing soccer on the beach. It was frustrating, I had done pretty well that morning and was really disgruntled that I didn't get any good surfing at that beach, but at least everyone else seemed to feel the same way :)
Surfing is really hard on the body. At least on my body. Until about yesterday, I was sore in pretty much every way imaginable. I still have bruises on my knees (from jumping onto the board), my hips (from the board being washed against me while heading out into the waves), my elbow (have no idea what from), my thighs (again, no idea). I have sunburned pretty much every imaginable part of my body, even taking precautions against the sun. The ozone layer is much thinner down here and you can fry after about 20 minutes of exposure. I also have surfer's rash on my ribcage- this comes from surfing just in a swimsuit (two-piece), and my ribcage being irritated by sand stuck in the surfboard wax. But it's a heck of a lot of fun, and my burn will be tan soon, and I love the fact that right now I have more freckles on my face and arms than I've ever had in my life!
Rangi cooked spaghetti for all of us on Tuesday night, and we had a great time eating in and sitting around with drinks. However, as Rangi promised, we were all totally knackered by about 11 PM and crashed accordingly.
Wednesday was awesome- we took a break from surfing in the morning, and got to sleep in a bit. Kate and Provo and I had a nice walk on the beach in the morning, and saw horse trekkers, and 4 dead stingrays (about 2 feet wide, each) that had washed up on the beach. We all loaded up and headed out late in the morning, and our first stop was a lookout point high above shipwreck bay, not far from our house. I don't remember if i mentioned Shipwreck Bay, but it's a gorgeous cove just inside the rocks, with an old mast and hull buried in the sand, and a wave that breaks for hundreds of feet and attracts surfers from everywhere. It's too bad the weather wasn't better that day, or the views would have been even more incredible.
We stopped about 45 minutes later at Awanui, just north of Kaitaia, and the Ancient Kauri museum. Kauri trees are amazing to look at and pretty rare. But there is a swamp somewhere near Ahipara where Kauri wood ended up being preserved for 30,000-50,000 years, and then extracted and worked by masters into the most beautiful items. The museum as a showroom full of dishes, sculptures, and furniture made of Kauri. It has the most beautiful sheen and colour, and is finished with beeswax, so it becomes really silky. There was also a spiral staircase to the second floor, carved out of the inside of a 15-food wide Kauri trunk. It was really neat to see, and I thought it was cool that Rangi decided to take us there to check it out. Kauri is really expensive though, so I just bought a small carved top, just so i could have some of that beautiful wood.
Next, we headed north on our longest drive yet, up past Rarawa and out through some really wild country that reminded me very strongly of the highlands of Scotland. Rolling, brushy hills covered in sheep, with a few gnarly trees here and there. I hadn't realized before how remote the northland is- there's one road that goes north from Auckland, and it takes hours to get to the north tip of the island, and there's only tiny settlements north of Whangerei. Our first stop was at Te Paki Stream and the giant sand dunes there. They're a huge tourist attraction, that we just drove up to, taking the truck down the streambed. Our purpose: dune surfing! Dune boarding is a blast. Here's what you do:
1) Take off your shoes.
2) Put on lots of sunscreen (I forgot) and your sunglasses
3) Grab a boogie board or skim board
4) Climb about 50 yards up a very steep pure sand dune. Wheeze a lot.
5) Walk to edge of dune.
6) Make sure the coast is clear.
7) Fling yourself down on boogie board, stomach-down and head first.
8) Go barreling down the dune at a million miles an hour, braking with your feet and sending and everywhere.
9) a. Make it to the bottom safely but totally covered with sand or b. Wipe out spectacularly and come out with sand in every orofice.
I did it twice, it was a riot. There were loads of people there, some on sleds. We saw lots of speed and lots of bad endings.
From Te Paki we headed even further north, into even more remote country. On the way up, we ran into a New Zealand traffic jam: a herd of a couple hundred sheep covering the highway, being herded to a new paddock by dogs and a farmer on an ATV. We had to follow them for about ten minutes while the crossed the one-lane bridge- it was a totally classic scene. Eventually we ended up at our destination: Cape Reinga (ree-ainga). The cape is the northernmost point of New Zealand, where the Tasman sea and the Pacific come together. We walked out to the lighthouse on the point, and you can actually see where the two oceans meet: the waves crash up against eachother and form a lot of whitewater way offshore. You can also see the difference in colour of the two oceans: the Tasman is very green, and the Pacific much more blue.
While we were up there, Rangi showed us a tree that clings to a cliff way out above the water just southeast of the lighthouse. It's an ancient tree and the only one that has survived living on that rock. Its significance is this: When a Maori dies, no matter where he or she is buried, his or her soul leaves New Zealand via that tree. It is the passage through which all Maori pass into the next world, and I can't imagine a more beautiful spot for such a journey.
We drove just a few minutes from the Cape, to an isolated little beach on the east coast called Taputaputa Bay, a cove surrounded by steep cliffs and with no other visitors. After a quick lunch we hit the waves, and it was some of the best surf conditions we had run into. There were crazy sideways undertows because it was a bay, and at one point I got caught in a "V", where two waves were coming from different directions at I was at the point of the V when they both broke, which according to Dominik and Sherman created a fairly impressive wipeout, but the rest of the surfing was great. It got cold and started raining on the way home, and Provo and I both got really carsick on the drive back to Ahipara. It was about 3 hours on a windy road with a stomach full of saltwater and a cold wet swimsuit under my clothes, not at all pleasant. However, some ginger ale, a quick lie-down and a fantastic barbecue that night cured all illness.
Yesterday:
We took a break from driving (much to mine and Provo's relief) and surfed at Ahipara both in the morning and in the evening. Our schedule has been controlled by the tides for the last five days, we surf at high tide because especially at Ahipara that's when the swells are biggest. It was great conditions though, warm enough in the morning that I surfed sans wetsuit, but it started raining in the afternoon. It was nice to just have the middle of the day to sit around, journal, talk, walk up to the store for a treat. In the afternoon some of us drove out on the rocks past "Shippy's" (Shipwreck Bay) with Rangi to pick mussels before the tide came in too far to reach the mussel beds at his "secret mussel trove." We didn't quite beat the tide though- Rangi and I got our lower halves drenched by a wave as we attempted to reach the biggest mussels.
We hit the waves out in front of the house again at about 7 PM. It was great to be able to just suit up, grab my board (which I feel to be a good friend now, I got so used to it's pattern and the way it handled), wade across the channel, walk across 100 yards of beach, tether up, and get my surf on. Last night was some of my best surfing yet. We surfed in the rain, and Kate didn't want to get in, so she stayed ashore with me and Provo's cameras, so we have lot of photodocumentation and proof that we both can surf pretty well by now! Unfortunately all the pictures look like we could be in Oregon- it's gray and wet!
Provo and I were the last ones out of the water, and as we came back up to the house, we could smell divine dinner smells wafting down. We had an awesome sit-down dinner with all 11 of us around a big table on the porch, with lots of laughter and good food. Jean cooked the mussels we picked in a white wine sauce with onions and parsley, and it was probably the best seafood dish I have ever had. Rangi made butter chicken, served over rice, and we all realized how lucky we were to have a tour guide who was not only funny and unpretentious, but a fabulous cook.
Provo and I were the first ones in the waves again this morning- the weater beautiful again, but we all wore wetsuits now that we were familiar with surfer's rash. We all surfed for an hour or so before we had to load up all the boards, rinse the wetsuits, get 11 people cycled through the 1 shower, get all the bags packed, beds stripped, dishes washed, and lunch eaten. Just before noon, the Fellowship of the Surf (Martin's term) was broken: Martin, Dominik, and Ino headed to the Bay of Islands for a fishing trip, and the rest of us piled back into the surfmobile to drive back to Auckland, with our final stop at Bidz, the local shop where ice creams (New Zealand makes the best I've ever had) are $1. The trip back was really fun, and none of us got motion sickness this time. It's great to travel with people who feel like family, through gorgeous countryside with Green Day on the radio, talking about politics, laughing at Rangi getting upset at other drivers, and making fun of Kate sitting between the 2 Ethans in the back seat.
We got back to Auckland at about 6, and we all finally had to part ways. It's really weird, and sad, to spend every minute of 5 days with the same group of people, and then realize that you'll probably never seen any of them again. Jean especially felt like a kindred spirit, and as the trip's unofficial photographer promised to hook us all up with photos of the group.
There's so many other details I want to mention, but I know I'll forget something. So many little things happened: running out of water at the house (New Zealand houses run on tank water, trucks come periodically to refill the tank- all toilets here are dual flush, to conserve water.) and having to shower at the local campground at 11 PM, learning that "Pants" is Dutch for stomach, and adjusting to a totally unfamiliar eating schedule. Surfing works up a massive appetite, so we usually would eat one light breakfast before heading out front, then have "second breakfast" after, lunch at 3 or 4 PM, and dinner at 9 or 10. Definitely took some getting used to.
This is getting long and I'm almost out of internet time. We fly south to Wellington tomorrow and start the next phase of our trip. Provo is uploading some surfing pictures, so I'll try and figure out how to post some on here. Here's me sending you some sun (but hopefully not a sunburn!).
8:34 PM NZST
Back in Auckland
Hello again!
It's been a few days since we've had a chance to reach the internet. It's been kind of nice to be in a place without any form of communication but letters and postcards, it reminds me of working at summer camp. However, I now have heaps of stuff to write about, so prepare for a long saga!
I left off on Tuesday afternoon in Kaitaia. From there we drove north for about an hour through some more amazingly scenic country to a beach called Rarawa, near the settlement of Houhora. Rarawa is on the east coast, the Pacific Ocean. It was some of the most gorgeous weather we've seen yet- totally clear and sunny, the ocean an amazing blue, and the sand incredibly hot. Rarawa is a beautiful beach, lots of wide sand, in a little bit of a bay. The surfing there was crazy though- Rangi's surf report said the swells were 2 feet, but they were actually 3 and 4 feet, which is closing on terrifying if you're a beginning surfer, and we had riptides to look out for. In a protected bay, the water can't wash sideways along the beach to get back out to sea-it has to go straight back out. That flow is the riptide, and it can be really dangerous if you get sucked into it, so we had to be careful. The waves and the power of the water at Rarawa was brutal- we got totally battered just trying to get out to where we could get some good distance for a ride, sometimes I would hang onto my board to jump through an oncoming wave and it would wash me back 10 or 20 feet towards shore. I think we each only got 2 or 3 rides in an hour, and in the end Rangi was the only one out there, and the rest of us were sunbathing or playing soccer on the beach. It was frustrating, I had done pretty well that morning and was really disgruntled that I didn't get any good surfing at that beach, but at least everyone else seemed to feel the same way :)
Surfing is really hard on the body. At least on my body. Until about yesterday, I was sore in pretty much every way imaginable. I still have bruises on my knees (from jumping onto the board), my hips (from the board being washed against me while heading out into the waves), my elbow (have no idea what from), my thighs (again, no idea). I have sunburned pretty much every imaginable part of my body, even taking precautions against the sun. The ozone layer is much thinner down here and you can fry after about 20 minutes of exposure. I also have surfer's rash on my ribcage- this comes from surfing just in a swimsuit (two-piece), and my ribcage being irritated by sand stuck in the surfboard wax. But it's a heck of a lot of fun, and my burn will be tan soon, and I love the fact that right now I have more freckles on my face and arms than I've ever had in my life!
Rangi cooked spaghetti for all of us on Tuesday night, and we had a great time eating in and sitting around with drinks. However, as Rangi promised, we were all totally knackered by about 11 PM and crashed accordingly.
Wednesday was awesome- we took a break from surfing in the morning, and got to sleep in a bit. Kate and Provo and I had a nice walk on the beach in the morning, and saw horse trekkers, and 4 dead stingrays (about 2 feet wide, each) that had washed up on the beach. We all loaded up and headed out late in the morning, and our first stop was a lookout point high above shipwreck bay, not far from our house. I don't remember if i mentioned Shipwreck Bay, but it's a gorgeous cove just inside the rocks, with an old mast and hull buried in the sand, and a wave that breaks for hundreds of feet and attracts surfers from everywhere. It's too bad the weather wasn't better that day, or the views would have been even more incredible.
We stopped about 45 minutes later at Awanui, just north of Kaitaia, and the Ancient Kauri museum. Kauri trees are amazing to look at and pretty rare. But there is a swamp somewhere near Ahipara where Kauri wood ended up being preserved for 30,000-50,000 years, and then extracted and worked by masters into the most beautiful items. The museum as a showroom full of dishes, sculptures, and furniture made of Kauri. It has the most beautiful sheen and colour, and is finished with beeswax, so it becomes really silky. There was also a spiral staircase to the second floor, carved out of the inside of a 15-food wide Kauri trunk. It was really neat to see, and I thought it was cool that Rangi decided to take us there to check it out. Kauri is really expensive though, so I just bought a small carved top, just so i could have some of that beautiful wood.
Next, we headed north on our longest drive yet, up past Rarawa and out through some really wild country that reminded me very strongly of the highlands of Scotland. Rolling, brushy hills covered in sheep, with a few gnarly trees here and there. I hadn't realized before how remote the northland is- there's one road that goes north from Auckland, and it takes hours to get to the north tip of the island, and there's only tiny settlements north of Whangerei. Our first stop was at Te Paki Stream and the giant sand dunes there. They're a huge tourist attraction, that we just drove up to, taking the truck down the streambed. Our purpose: dune surfing! Dune boarding is a blast. Here's what you do:
1) Take off your shoes.
2) Put on lots of sunscreen (I forgot) and your sunglasses
3) Grab a boogie board or skim board
4) Climb about 50 yards up a very steep pure sand dune. Wheeze a lot.
5) Walk to edge of dune.
6) Make sure the coast is clear.
7) Fling yourself down on boogie board, stomach-down and head first.
8) Go barreling down the dune at a million miles an hour, braking with your feet and sending and everywhere.
9) a. Make it to the bottom safely but totally covered with sand or b. Wipe out spectacularly and come out with sand in every orofice.
I did it twice, it was a riot. There were loads of people there, some on sleds. We saw lots of speed and lots of bad endings.
From Te Paki we headed even further north, into even more remote country. On the way up, we ran into a New Zealand traffic jam: a herd of a couple hundred sheep covering the highway, being herded to a new paddock by dogs and a farmer on an ATV. We had to follow them for about ten minutes while the crossed the one-lane bridge- it was a totally classic scene. Eventually we ended up at our destination: Cape Reinga (ree-ainga). The cape is the northernmost point of New Zealand, where the Tasman sea and the Pacific come together. We walked out to the lighthouse on the point, and you can actually see where the two oceans meet: the waves crash up against eachother and form a lot of whitewater way offshore. You can also see the difference in colour of the two oceans: the Tasman is very green, and the Pacific much more blue.
While we were up there, Rangi showed us a tree that clings to a cliff way out above the water just southeast of the lighthouse. It's an ancient tree and the only one that has survived living on that rock. Its significance is this: When a Maori dies, no matter where he or she is buried, his or her soul leaves New Zealand via that tree. It is the passage through which all Maori pass into the next world, and I can't imagine a more beautiful spot for such a journey.
We drove just a few minutes from the Cape, to an isolated little beach on the east coast called Taputaputa Bay, a cove surrounded by steep cliffs and with no other visitors. After a quick lunch we hit the waves, and it was some of the best surf conditions we had run into. There were crazy sideways undertows because it was a bay, and at one point I got caught in a "V", where two waves were coming from different directions at I was at the point of the V when they both broke, which according to Dominik and Sherman created a fairly impressive wipeout, but the rest of the surfing was great. It got cold and started raining on the way home, and Provo and I both got really carsick on the drive back to Ahipara. It was about 3 hours on a windy road with a stomach full of saltwater and a cold wet swimsuit under my clothes, not at all pleasant. However, some ginger ale, a quick lie-down and a fantastic barbecue that night cured all illness.
Yesterday:
We took a break from driving (much to mine and Provo's relief) and surfed at Ahipara both in the morning and in the evening. Our schedule has been controlled by the tides for the last five days, we surf at high tide because especially at Ahipara that's when the swells are biggest. It was great conditions though, warm enough in the morning that I surfed sans wetsuit, but it started raining in the afternoon. It was nice to just have the middle of the day to sit around, journal, talk, walk up to the store for a treat. In the afternoon some of us drove out on the rocks past "Shippy's" (Shipwreck Bay) with Rangi to pick mussels before the tide came in too far to reach the mussel beds at his "secret mussel trove." We didn't quite beat the tide though- Rangi and I got our lower halves drenched by a wave as we attempted to reach the biggest mussels.
We hit the waves out in front of the house again at about 7 PM. It was great to be able to just suit up, grab my board (which I feel to be a good friend now, I got so used to it's pattern and the way it handled), wade across the channel, walk across 100 yards of beach, tether up, and get my surf on. Last night was some of my best surfing yet. We surfed in the rain, and Kate didn't want to get in, so she stayed ashore with me and Provo's cameras, so we have lot of photodocumentation and proof that we both can surf pretty well by now! Unfortunately all the pictures look like we could be in Oregon- it's gray and wet!
Provo and I were the last ones out of the water, and as we came back up to the house, we could smell divine dinner smells wafting down. We had an awesome sit-down dinner with all 11 of us around a big table on the porch, with lots of laughter and good food. Jean cooked the mussels we picked in a white wine sauce with onions and parsley, and it was probably the best seafood dish I have ever had. Rangi made butter chicken, served over rice, and we all realized how lucky we were to have a tour guide who was not only funny and unpretentious, but a fabulous cook.
Provo and I were the first ones in the waves again this morning- the weater beautiful again, but we all wore wetsuits now that we were familiar with surfer's rash. We all surfed for an hour or so before we had to load up all the boards, rinse the wetsuits, get 11 people cycled through the 1 shower, get all the bags packed, beds stripped, dishes washed, and lunch eaten. Just before noon, the Fellowship of the Surf (Martin's term) was broken: Martin, Dominik, and Ino headed to the Bay of Islands for a fishing trip, and the rest of us piled back into the surfmobile to drive back to Auckland, with our final stop at Bidz, the local shop where ice creams (New Zealand makes the best I've ever had) are $1. The trip back was really fun, and none of us got motion sickness this time. It's great to travel with people who feel like family, through gorgeous countryside with Green Day on the radio, talking about politics, laughing at Rangi getting upset at other drivers, and making fun of Kate sitting between the 2 Ethans in the back seat.
We got back to Auckland at about 6, and we all finally had to part ways. It's really weird, and sad, to spend every minute of 5 days with the same group of people, and then realize that you'll probably never seen any of them again. Jean especially felt like a kindred spirit, and as the trip's unofficial photographer promised to hook us all up with photos of the group.
There's so many other details I want to mention, but I know I'll forget something. So many little things happened: running out of water at the house (New Zealand houses run on tank water, trucks come periodically to refill the tank- all toilets here are dual flush, to conserve water.) and having to shower at the local campground at 11 PM, learning that "Pants" is Dutch for stomach, and adjusting to a totally unfamiliar eating schedule. Surfing works up a massive appetite, so we usually would eat one light breakfast before heading out front, then have "second breakfast" after, lunch at 3 or 4 PM, and dinner at 9 or 10. Definitely took some getting used to.
This is getting long and I'm almost out of internet time. We fly south to Wellington tomorrow and start the next phase of our trip. Provo is uploading some surfing pictures, so I'll try and figure out how to post some on here. Here's me sending you some sun (but hopefully not a sunburn!).
Monday, January 15, 2007
Sweet as bro
Tuesday, 16 January, 2007
early afternoon
Kaitaia, Far North
"Sweet as bro" is a Kiwi phrase that gets used constantly by Rainge, our surf tour leader. It translates roughly as "cool," "sounds good," "catch you later," and the like. "Sweet ace" is also very common, funny when Germans say it because it comes out "sweet ass."
I'm writing from an internet cafe in Kaitaia, near the very north end of the North Island. The Kiwi pronunciation of the town comes out more like "Kay-tau." We're here on our way to another unspellable place for surfing this afternoon.
We came up from Auckland yesterday, after meeting Rainge (Raing-ee) and the rest of our group at the waterfront in Auckland. We loaded eight people into a souped-up range rover with a big metal box ("boot") for luggage on the back and 10 surfboards strapped on top. We drove what would have probably only taken 2 hours on a U.S. freeway but actually took us 4 hours. New Zealand highways leave something to be desired, though they are never boring. Once we got off the motorway onto Highway 1, it was two lanes and constant curves the entire way. Rainge is also a nutzoid driver, and the range rover rides really high, and I was in the middle of the back seat, so I got swung around quite a lot. It was a gorgeous drive though. The scenery once we got out of the city was absolutely stunning. I don't think pictures will really do it justice, it is so green and dramatic. Everything here is green. Green fields, green trees, green water. The forests we came through were leaf trees interspersed with palms of some kind, which look amazing when you look at a hillside spotted with the tops of palms coming through the regular foliage. There were green fields, hedgerows, stone fences, millions of sheep, and load of idyllic little streams with fairy tale trees growing beside them, and cars pulled off the side of the road and families picnicking right there in the verges. It was phenomenally beautiful and I no longer feel any need to go in search of actual Lord of the Rings sites-- you can easily imagine hobbits in any of the fields and elves in any of the forests. At every curve I kept expecting to see a hobbithole in the side of the hill. The hills are not calm and rolling hills like in England,but really steep, sharp, dramatic ones, just springing up out of the lowland. This results in the roads being really steep, in addition to not usually having guardrails.
We came through Whangerei, where we learned that "wh" makes a "f" sound in New Zealand:
"Fahnga-ray." Whangerei is the last major town heading north, probably only the size of Sandpoint or so. A little while later we stopped in Kawakawa for a roadside lunch and to pick up another surfer. Then we came up over the Mangamuka range, home of one of the most insane roads I've ever had the pleasure of driving on. I think we were all a little queasy coming off of it. But just a few minutes off the other side we came through Kaitaia and found ourselves at Ahipara, where our beach house is. The company running the surf tour owns the house, it's great, with a kitchen, tv room and 8-person dorm, and RIGHT on the ocean. Or rather, the Tasman Sea, which is the body of water on the west coast of New Zealand. We stopped quickly to drop our stuff, then took off for our first surf!
We drove to Taipa, which is a beach on the east coast of the island, the Pacific Ocean, a mere 30-minute drive from the opposite coast. It was of course a fantastically beautiful drive, and at the end we all pulled on wetsuits, had a brief lesson on the beach, and then were heading out to the breakers by about 5:30 PM. It was a beautiful spot, and we all got some good surfing in, but the waves were really huge so I was only able to ride the surf, and after my first two times standing up, I had a really hard time. I realized later it was because the wetsuit is just too much weight-- and not really necessary, since the water was, if not quite tepid, not nearly cold enough to make your lips blue after three hours. It was a blast though, and great to be back on a board. My tether snapped at about the point at which I was ready to quit, so I took it as a sign. For those of you who aren't familiar with surfing, the tether is a leash that's attached to the board and then strapped to the rider's ankle. When you're riding a wave, you can get tumbled pretty spectacularly, and you don't want to be wasting energy trying to swim after a surfboard that cuts through the water much faster than a human. So we tie ourselves to our boards, to save ourselves a lot of trouble. The only disadvantage is that if you forget you're tethered to your board, it can get pulled away by a wave and pull your feet out from under you.
Provo and I were both done with the surfing, but we got rid of the wetsuits and headed back out to do some body-surfing until Rainge said it was time to head in. It was the first time I've ever been able to actually swim in an ocean- it was incredibly warm. We all headed back to the house, stopping in Kaitaia for takeaways: take-out hamburgers and fish and chips. We feasted on grease at the house, showered, and spread out on the front deck with drinks and a guitar, enjoying the dark, the stars, and the sound of the surf.
This group of people is fantastic. I don't think I've laughed as much in the last month as I have in the last day and a half. Here's our crew:
Rainge: Our fearless leader. Thirty-something, a fair-skinned (but very tan) Maori (it comes out like "Mary" if you're a kiwi), surfing for about 15 years. Hilarious, with an awesome sense of humour, really laid-back but watching out for all of us. He's our driver, teacher, and clown. He's full of it most of the time, trying to convince us that New Zealand grows pineappelopes and that the big plastic-covered round haybales in the fields are in fact huge rolls of toilet paper.
Sherman: fortysomething, a music tour leader from Memphis. King of corny jokes and punchlines, rookie surfer, and keeper of the coolest hat in the world (I'll take a picture).
Jean: Swiss, late twenties, just finished up six weeks in New Zealand, and just came off the Routeburn Track four days ago, so showed us pictures that made me incredibly excited to see th Alpine country. Just lost his passport before we left auckland, so is stressed out and trying to sort that out while learning to surf!
Kate: the third girl on the trip, a 16-year-old Kiwi from Cambridge, near Wellington. Never surfed before either, but her ability to laugh and have a good time is wonderful. It's great to have another girl around, we can gang up on the guys if they get out of hand.
Ethan #1: 13, from Wellington, been surfing lots before and got a new board for Christmas. He's quiet but does his talking on the waves.
Ethan #2: 15, from North Carolina but his family is living near Kawakawa for the next 6 months. he claims to be bummed out about missing the snowboard season back home, but once we saw him on the waves we realized that he's pretty good out there.
That was the crew for the ride up. When we reached Ahipara, we met up with the rest:
Martin: a short, shaved-head, INSANE twenty-something from Holland. He speaks really good English and is one of the funniest and wittiest people I've ever met.
Dominique: German, randomly hooked up with the Dutch boys to travel around. Rarely says anything but laughs a lot.
Ino: Also Dutch and friends with Martin. Our introduction went like this: "Hi, I'm Liz." "I know." "What?!" "Don't laugh." It took several times before we all realized that his name is actually Ino.
Anyway, with Provo here too it's the greatest group of people I could imagine spending five days with. We're base camped in Ahipara for the next couple days, and then we'll be heading to Cape Reinga ("ree-ainga"), which is at the very north tip of the North Island and is the spot where the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean join hands.
This morning we were woken at 7:30 by Bob Marley and Vanilla Ice blasting from the kitchen and Rainge dancing into our room. We were up and on the waves before breakfast--what a great way to wake up: roll out of bed, change into swimsuit ("togs" if you want the Kiwi expression), grab board, wade through the channel, hike 100 yards of beach, and head out through the breakers. It was bright and sunny by 6 this morning, so it was gorgeous and warm and only Jean wore a wetsuit. I had a great time, the waves were fantastic and I found it much easier to stand without the extra weight of the suit. I even managed to carve a couple times, which means standing up and then steering the board with your feet, riding the crest of the wave. At one point, I was paddling back out and watched a fish swim through the crest of a wave right before it began to break.
After breakfast, we loaded up the rover and Rainge took us on a "tiki tour" of the bay, through "yuppie-para", the other side of the burg where all the million dollar houses are. Then we drove out this high winding road over Shipwreck bay, and the green of the hills against the incredible blue of the sea made the most unbelievable view. The dutch/german boys followed in their car and when we got down to Shipwreck beach, Martin squeezed in the backseat with us and Ino and Dominique climbed up on the boot to hang on up top. Then we drove across the beach and the top of the rocks (which you can only do at low tide), past fishermen and picnickers, around to some crazy advanced surf beaches where you have to jump of the rocks with your board to catch a wave.
We'll probably surf Shipwreck Bay tomorrow. It's a surfing mecca, but no one's up here right now for some reason, which is great- none of the places we've surfed so far have been remotely crowded. At Shipwreck Bay, one wave at a time comes in, and then it breaks right-to-left for 300 meters, and you can ride it all the way, parallel to the beach. I can't wait to try it, it looked incredible, and it's a beautiful little cove. There actually was a shipwreck there, you can see the mast near the beach, and at low tide you can see where the cabin washed up on the shore.
We stopped back for an ice cream in Ahipara, and then came over here. It's great that we get the middle of the day for siteseeing and stuff, we surfed until 9 last night, it was light that long. The sunset on the way back was insane- the whole sky was bright pink. We'll probably hit the east coast at about 4 today, to surf again at high tide.
We've got a few more minutes in town, so I'm going to go scout out some postcards and enjoy the sun. Hello from Provo as well!
early afternoon
Kaitaia, Far North
"Sweet as bro" is a Kiwi phrase that gets used constantly by Rainge, our surf tour leader. It translates roughly as "cool," "sounds good," "catch you later," and the like. "Sweet ace" is also very common, funny when Germans say it because it comes out "sweet ass."
I'm writing from an internet cafe in Kaitaia, near the very north end of the North Island. The Kiwi pronunciation of the town comes out more like "Kay-tau." We're here on our way to another unspellable place for surfing this afternoon.
We came up from Auckland yesterday, after meeting Rainge (Raing-ee) and the rest of our group at the waterfront in Auckland. We loaded eight people into a souped-up range rover with a big metal box ("boot") for luggage on the back and 10 surfboards strapped on top. We drove what would have probably only taken 2 hours on a U.S. freeway but actually took us 4 hours. New Zealand highways leave something to be desired, though they are never boring. Once we got off the motorway onto Highway 1, it was two lanes and constant curves the entire way. Rainge is also a nutzoid driver, and the range rover rides really high, and I was in the middle of the back seat, so I got swung around quite a lot. It was a gorgeous drive though. The scenery once we got out of the city was absolutely stunning. I don't think pictures will really do it justice, it is so green and dramatic. Everything here is green. Green fields, green trees, green water. The forests we came through were leaf trees interspersed with palms of some kind, which look amazing when you look at a hillside spotted with the tops of palms coming through the regular foliage. There were green fields, hedgerows, stone fences, millions of sheep, and load of idyllic little streams with fairy tale trees growing beside them, and cars pulled off the side of the road and families picnicking right there in the verges. It was phenomenally beautiful and I no longer feel any need to go in search of actual Lord of the Rings sites-- you can easily imagine hobbits in any of the fields and elves in any of the forests. At every curve I kept expecting to see a hobbithole in the side of the hill. The hills are not calm and rolling hills like in England,but really steep, sharp, dramatic ones, just springing up out of the lowland. This results in the roads being really steep, in addition to not usually having guardrails.
We came through Whangerei, where we learned that "wh" makes a "f" sound in New Zealand:
"Fahnga-ray." Whangerei is the last major town heading north, probably only the size of Sandpoint or so. A little while later we stopped in Kawakawa for a roadside lunch and to pick up another surfer. Then we came up over the Mangamuka range, home of one of the most insane roads I've ever had the pleasure of driving on. I think we were all a little queasy coming off of it. But just a few minutes off the other side we came through Kaitaia and found ourselves at Ahipara, where our beach house is. The company running the surf tour owns the house, it's great, with a kitchen, tv room and 8-person dorm, and RIGHT on the ocean. Or rather, the Tasman Sea, which is the body of water on the west coast of New Zealand. We stopped quickly to drop our stuff, then took off for our first surf!
We drove to Taipa, which is a beach on the east coast of the island, the Pacific Ocean, a mere 30-minute drive from the opposite coast. It was of course a fantastically beautiful drive, and at the end we all pulled on wetsuits, had a brief lesson on the beach, and then were heading out to the breakers by about 5:30 PM. It was a beautiful spot, and we all got some good surfing in, but the waves were really huge so I was only able to ride the surf, and after my first two times standing up, I had a really hard time. I realized later it was because the wetsuit is just too much weight-- and not really necessary, since the water was, if not quite tepid, not nearly cold enough to make your lips blue after three hours. It was a blast though, and great to be back on a board. My tether snapped at about the point at which I was ready to quit, so I took it as a sign. For those of you who aren't familiar with surfing, the tether is a leash that's attached to the board and then strapped to the rider's ankle. When you're riding a wave, you can get tumbled pretty spectacularly, and you don't want to be wasting energy trying to swim after a surfboard that cuts through the water much faster than a human. So we tie ourselves to our boards, to save ourselves a lot of trouble. The only disadvantage is that if you forget you're tethered to your board, it can get pulled away by a wave and pull your feet out from under you.
Provo and I were both done with the surfing, but we got rid of the wetsuits and headed back out to do some body-surfing until Rainge said it was time to head in. It was the first time I've ever been able to actually swim in an ocean- it was incredibly warm. We all headed back to the house, stopping in Kaitaia for takeaways: take-out hamburgers and fish and chips. We feasted on grease at the house, showered, and spread out on the front deck with drinks and a guitar, enjoying the dark, the stars, and the sound of the surf.
This group of people is fantastic. I don't think I've laughed as much in the last month as I have in the last day and a half. Here's our crew:
Rainge: Our fearless leader. Thirty-something, a fair-skinned (but very tan) Maori (it comes out like "Mary" if you're a kiwi), surfing for about 15 years. Hilarious, with an awesome sense of humour, really laid-back but watching out for all of us. He's our driver, teacher, and clown. He's full of it most of the time, trying to convince us that New Zealand grows pineappelopes and that the big plastic-covered round haybales in the fields are in fact huge rolls of toilet paper.
Sherman: fortysomething, a music tour leader from Memphis. King of corny jokes and punchlines, rookie surfer, and keeper of the coolest hat in the world (I'll take a picture).
Jean: Swiss, late twenties, just finished up six weeks in New Zealand, and just came off the Routeburn Track four days ago, so showed us pictures that made me incredibly excited to see th Alpine country. Just lost his passport before we left auckland, so is stressed out and trying to sort that out while learning to surf!
Kate: the third girl on the trip, a 16-year-old Kiwi from Cambridge, near Wellington. Never surfed before either, but her ability to laugh and have a good time is wonderful. It's great to have another girl around, we can gang up on the guys if they get out of hand.
Ethan #1: 13, from Wellington, been surfing lots before and got a new board for Christmas. He's quiet but does his talking on the waves.
Ethan #2: 15, from North Carolina but his family is living near Kawakawa for the next 6 months. he claims to be bummed out about missing the snowboard season back home, but once we saw him on the waves we realized that he's pretty good out there.
That was the crew for the ride up. When we reached Ahipara, we met up with the rest:
Martin: a short, shaved-head, INSANE twenty-something from Holland. He speaks really good English and is one of the funniest and wittiest people I've ever met.
Dominique: German, randomly hooked up with the Dutch boys to travel around. Rarely says anything but laughs a lot.
Ino: Also Dutch and friends with Martin. Our introduction went like this: "Hi, I'm Liz." "I know." "What?!" "Don't laugh." It took several times before we all realized that his name is actually Ino.
Anyway, with Provo here too it's the greatest group of people I could imagine spending five days with. We're base camped in Ahipara for the next couple days, and then we'll be heading to Cape Reinga ("ree-ainga"), which is at the very north tip of the North Island and is the spot where the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean join hands.
This morning we were woken at 7:30 by Bob Marley and Vanilla Ice blasting from the kitchen and Rainge dancing into our room. We were up and on the waves before breakfast--what a great way to wake up: roll out of bed, change into swimsuit ("togs" if you want the Kiwi expression), grab board, wade through the channel, hike 100 yards of beach, and head out through the breakers. It was bright and sunny by 6 this morning, so it was gorgeous and warm and only Jean wore a wetsuit. I had a great time, the waves were fantastic and I found it much easier to stand without the extra weight of the suit. I even managed to carve a couple times, which means standing up and then steering the board with your feet, riding the crest of the wave. At one point, I was paddling back out and watched a fish swim through the crest of a wave right before it began to break.
After breakfast, we loaded up the rover and Rainge took us on a "tiki tour" of the bay, through "yuppie-para", the other side of the burg where all the million dollar houses are. Then we drove out this high winding road over Shipwreck bay, and the green of the hills against the incredible blue of the sea made the most unbelievable view. The dutch/german boys followed in their car and when we got down to Shipwreck beach, Martin squeezed in the backseat with us and Ino and Dominique climbed up on the boot to hang on up top. Then we drove across the beach and the top of the rocks (which you can only do at low tide), past fishermen and picnickers, around to some crazy advanced surf beaches where you have to jump of the rocks with your board to catch a wave.
We'll probably surf Shipwreck Bay tomorrow. It's a surfing mecca, but no one's up here right now for some reason, which is great- none of the places we've surfed so far have been remotely crowded. At Shipwreck Bay, one wave at a time comes in, and then it breaks right-to-left for 300 meters, and you can ride it all the way, parallel to the beach. I can't wait to try it, it looked incredible, and it's a beautiful little cove. There actually was a shipwreck there, you can see the mast near the beach, and at low tide you can see where the cabin washed up on the shore.
We stopped back for an ice cream in Ahipara, and then came over here. It's great that we get the middle of the day for siteseeing and stuff, we surfed until 9 last night, it was light that long. The sunset on the way back was insane- the whole sky was bright pink. We'll probably hit the east coast at about 4 today, to surf again at high tide.
We've got a few more minutes in town, so I'm going to go scout out some postcards and enjoy the sun. Hello from Provo as well!
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