I apologize for the length of this.
I figured regardless of Mark’s alacrity or lack there of uploading my photos, I might as well start posting about the trip in order to move along. The trip was divided into three main parts: 1) The Tour of the South Island, 2) Out and About in Christchurch, and 3) Abel Tasmen and the Last Rites.
My trip to New Zealand: The Tour of the South Island
First of all, I would like to point out that I did see Adrian Brody on my plane, it was not a look-alike, and I know it was because there was an article about him filming King Kong with Peter Jackson in Wellington. So there. Much hotter in real life.
After a few days in New Zealand, going to classes on moral rationalism and whatnot, Mark and I pack up a duvet, tent, messes of clothes, and a random cross section of the food pyramid into the back of Mark’s ancient and very box-like Honda (the choke! The novelty!) and set off to tour the lower half of the Island. New Zealand, as many of our more geographically-minded readers are aware, is in fact two islands. The northern one is volcanically active, and as such drier and beach-prone. Auckland and 75% of the population, as well as most of the indigenous peoples, find themselves in the North Island. The South Island is more or less uninhabited, with only 25% of New Zealand’s entire population residing in wet, English-looking countryside that is in fact almost twice the size of the North Island. So really, there was no one around except for sheep. And there were lots of sheep, though we would occasionally see deer and alpacas for variety.
There is nothing of interest between Christchurch and Dunedin (the next big town) but typical Rolling Green Hills and farms. Once we got to the area around Dunedin the coast started getting more interesting—the sky became perpetually stormy (as it turns out is typical of sub-Antarctic climates), the sea was choppier, and the grasses became red, yellow, green, all tangled over sharper hills and black rocks. We stopped at a little area called Shags Point (I wish—no no, there is a bird in NZ called a shag. It’s like a crane, only blue and dumb). Shags Point is famous for seals and penguins, and since penguins were my El Dorado of the trip, it was very important that we stop and observe the wildlife. As it turns out, the seals had scared all the penguins away, as they are mean and barking and very tough. I crawled down on a rock and got with in a few feet of one. They have gianormous, bulging eyes and they twitch their noses like beagles.
There were thousands of cocoons around with big thick cave spiders nestled in them, which served to make Mark extremely uncomfortable once I pointed them out. Hiking over to another bay, we tried looking for more penguins, but all we saw were shags. Then Mark points over to my right and says, “Look”, you know, all nonchalant, and what do I see over my shoulder but a huge quantity of seals, barely 10 feet away, all stuffed in between a crack in the cliffs. The seals were either comatose, lying about, or they were fighting. The fighting was quite cute—they looked as though they were trying to get their baby seal jaws around the opponent’s baby seal head. A lot like watching my siblings fight at home.
Stopped by a pawn shop in Shags Point: The Town. Mark and I bought each other presents that were $2 or less in value. I got an oil lamp with a hideous Japanese rustic scene, and Mark got a glass stopper and knitting needles. Love is where the heart is, baby.
Dunedin was in fact quite extraordinary when it came to clothes. We stopped there for lunch and I glutted my eyes on dozens of boutiques selling one-of-a-kind, hand-made dresses in the strangest designs I had ever seen. As a consolation for poverty, Mark bought my Valentine’s Day present from one of the stores—a heart broach made from copper wire. It made the pain less intense. Before leaving, we made a point of stopping by the steepest street in the world, just on the outskirts of town. The thing was ridiculous, it was practically vertical. We had to leave Mark’s car about 20 feet up as the engine threatened to explode on us.
It was nearly dark by the time we got to the Catlins, one of the few Native forests left in NZ that wasn’t turned into Rolling Green Hills by colonial deforestation. The trees we drove through were unbelievable—like green and black neurons—and the red underbrush and strange vines made me feel as if I were in the middle of a primeval jungle, only without the dinosaurs. We went on a brief hike to a stunning, multi-tiered waterfall in the middle of a silver-beeched forest. Mark and I pitched our tents in a quiet corner of a beach-side campground, then drove over to Nugget Point, a crumbly coastal view that was rumored, more importantly, to have penguins. We drive up and I run to the overlook area, and then sure enough, there, a hundred feet below, is one solitary penguin alone on the wet sand. For me, that was insufficient. So I followed a very sketchy, unofficial looking trail down the steep mountain until I reached the shore, then slowly, like a panther, approached the tiny creature. It was all I could do not to run up and hug the thing—it was so tiny, and it stayed there, watching the waves, all cuteness and small feet. Mark kept looking at me disapprovingly, so I stopped encroaching on the penguin’s territory once I got within 10 feet or so, but it was a beautiful little moppet of a bird, and I was glad to have experienced such pure and unadulterated love.
We had a bit of sunlight left after the penguin rendezvous, so we drove to the top of Nugget Point and walked out to the old lighthouse. The sunset was a marvelous pink and purple, and there was a storm coming up from the south. This was probably the furthest south I have ever been—I was what, 40degrees latitude? 35?—and everything around me seemed absolutely wild in a ferocious Antarctic way, though the temperature wasn’t even that severe. We were surrounded by sheer black cliffs with strange parallel striations and blue purple water and gold from the setting sun and I felt like I was maybe part of something bigger than myself, that maybe my life didn’t have the limits on it I had imagined. But that kind of hippie thinking was only a temporary rush of blood to the head.
Vignette on the power of reading: Walking back from the lighthouse, a small fly flew into Mark’s eye and just under the eyeball, and as much as he tried rubbing it wouldn’t come out. Now, I had just read in
Lolita a scene where Humbert helped Lolita get some dust out of her eye by licking it out. Gross I know, but being as that the thing was still alive and clawing at the cornea, I figured it was better gross than blind. Peeling back the lid, I saw the sandfly (a fly, not a gnat), and much to Mark’s horror, I leaned in and licked the beast out, spitting it on the ground. The trick worked much better than even I had anticipated. So Mark’s eye was saved, all due to the power of reading. Knowledge is power!
We had no pads or tarp underneath us in the tent that night, and the cold crept in with such violence that neither of us slept well, being paralyzed on whatever side had contact with the ground. We woke up around 7am with a grey dawn, and trying to warm up, decided to walk down to the beach. Proving that maritime mornings are the best sort, the walk was stunning. The tide was out, and so a gold-sanded lagoon stretched under some twisted white-barked trees that seemed to grow out over the sand, then turn upwards at right angles. The sky was completely blue-black with an upcoming storm, and the wind was whipping the top layer of the sand into hazy diamond patterns which slithered across the shore. We played on some rocks and walked through the water that was escaping from the lagoon to the ocean. I felt strange and utterly alone.
We had covered so much ground the previous day that we allowed ourselves to slow down for our trip along the southernmost part of the south island, a place neither of us had ever been before (Mark had been to the west coast and the north part of the island on a previous road trip). As I am the ‘rock person’, I decided that we must go to the fossilized forest, since the Cathedral Caves were closed for some unknown reason. Away we went to the southernmost tip of one of the southernmost countries in the world. It was raining. It was wet and cold. In fact, wet and cold were the predominant conditions we endured for the majority of our Southland experience. But for the fossil forest, we arrived during low tide, during the briefest of all possible sun-windows. Most of the trees and the good fossils had been stolen long ago, but there were still excellent petrified stumps and branches frozen into the brown mudstone. The tide pools were pretty cool as well: yellow balloons of sea weed and red crabs, sheets of blue mussels stuffed into cracks. There were even sea anemones and a blue starfish. But what makes New Zealand tides different from those throughout the rest of the world is that during low tides one comes face to face with what I named “mutant seaweed”. The paradox about New Zealand is that while it is very lush and perfect for farming, there is almost no indigenous plant or animal life outside of fern trees and a few flightless birds. Anything that was brought into New Zealand therefore has almost no competition and multiplies like crazy, becoming a gigantic, mutant form of its former self. Opossums are like two and a half feet tall and there are so many of them that you see one being pecked by hawks every fifty feet on the highway. This explosion in growth naturally includes seaweed. Now most normal seaweed is about 3 feet long, half an inch thick, and green right? Along most New Zealand shores, every rock you will sea will be flanked by what look like 7-10 foot long tape worms, over an inch thick and yellow or brown. They wave in perpetual, synchronized motion like evil flagella waiting to attack a white blood cell. I was afraid to climb on the rocks because one false move and I could fall into their grasping tentacles, never to be seen again. Mark and I discover near some limestone caves (full of the rotting corpses of more mutant seaweed, I might add) a rock full of fossils of ancient beech leaves. We are so delighted by the delicate ghosts that we start scrambling around the rocks searching for our own leaf fossils. I found a perfect purple fern which I gave to Mark as payment for the heart pendent, and as I looked in between two boulders I heard Mark mumble behind me, “Ummm, Mary?” I glanced over to see if he’d found something. “Yeah?” He points in front of me. Whipping my head around, I find that I am face to face—within 3 feet, if that—from a penguin. And not just any penguin, some weird rare penguin with pink-grey feathers in a mask pattern. They are bigger close up, though still no taller than my knee. The penguin, he looks at me, and he kind of squints his eyes. It was totally a wild west sort of stand off. The penguin flicks his fins at me, and so I sort of back away, and he follows me with his eyes. Evil beast. By far, the strangest encounter of the trip.
And then Mark and I get caught in a downpour on the way to the car.
Sopping wet and hungry and sick of being in the sub-Antarctic (what does that really mean anyway?) Southlands, Mark and I drive as quickly as possible through the water sheets they called rain. Civilization is a relative term in New Zealand, so we were pleasantly surprised that the nearest town, Invercargill, at least had several streets and a sporting goods store (we learned our lesson and bought foam mats). We had a cold and mediocre lunch at the local casino/pub (all pubs/pool houses here seem to double as small casinos, not entirely dissimilar to the UK). I picked up some chocolate and tabloids at the local supermarket and felt better about myself for doing so.
We tried to get out of the southlands as quickly as possible, tired of the rain and the wet, so we made a few stops at some scenic little towns with blue bays and strange names (monkey island?) and drove full speed ahead to Te Anau, land of the glow worms and a location for Lord of the Rings filming (don’t ask me which scene). The Fjordlands were a land of sunshine compared to the Southlands, so that was marvelous. Te Anau was a charming little town that reminded me of yuppie skiing retreats in Wyoming and Colorado—organic food restaurants, upscale gift shops, and cute cafes. Refusing to pay $20 for a camp ground Mark and I finally wrangled out of some hotel manager the location of a free campground outside of town. It turned out to be much, much better than anything in town, though it was a 20 minute drive, and since it was a national park we had to pay $5, but it was golden and shining and right on a white pebble shore with prickly pines growing out of the water. So we pitch our tent and drive into town, spending our evening eating carrot cake and reading at a local café. (They had some fabulous pizza combination there—salsa and sour cream with chicken.)
The next day we buy tickets for the glow worm cave (thank you Mrs. Roberts!), and I checked my bank balance after, and found that my parents had sent me some extra money so I could tour the fjords (thanks mom and dad!) We reserve the last glowworm viewing of the evening (9ish) and pile in the sketchy Honda to drive the 200 or so km to the fjords. For those of us unsure of geological phenomena, fjords are V-shaped cliffs that fill with sea water, the results of glaciers and other fun erosions. In order to reach them, we had to go through some very steep mountains and drive past some very blue glaciers, then drive through a steep tunnel, then down some steep roads before we reach the bay. And Mark’s car goes about 30km uphill, and the brakes have been known to cut out on occasion, so we were on pins and needles most of the time. But finally, we made it in time to get the 2:30 cruise. It says cruise, and that sounds posh, but it’s a glorified ferry with a Chinese food bar on the first deck. Mark and I stood on the top of the boat, in freezing cold air, listening to ipods, you know, being the uber-hip couple we are. I had to listen to the Album Leaf, as it was just too appropriate. There were many forceful and graceful waterfalls, and dolphins chased the boat. The low clouds made everything balmy, but the cold was invigorating and I had a wonderful time freezing my blood alive.
We stopped at a mini-glacier on the ride back. The ice was blue, as was the river water runoff. Reminded me of being back in Switzerland.
Mark took me to dinner at a very cute, quiet Italian restaurant with excellent garlic bread. It was strangely romantic, and I mean that not in a sort of sappy lovey sort of way, but in the more old fashioned sense of the word—it seemed dignified, adult, intimate. Such a dinner was rare considering we were dirty and in perpetual companionship—that kind of familiarity usually breeds a certain amount of fatigue. But no, dinner was charming, and the waitresses were (as is standard, apparently, in Australasia) very cute in an Avril Lavigne sort of way. In fact, most of the waitstaff I experienced were extraordinarily good looking. It gave me quite a complex.
After dinner we drive over to the pier to get on our boat for the glow worm trip. Egads! Glowworms! It was finally happening! Lake Te Anau had some of the clearest water I had ever seen—I could see individual grains of sand nearly 4 feet down. It was the first lake I had ever seen that I could imagine swimming in without getting creeped out. Mark and I sat amidst a huge pod of aging Japanese tourists who spent a good part of the trip taking blinding flash photographs of everyone and everything with the most amazing top-of-the-line Nikon digital cameras. We watched the sun set red over the lake, and it was night by the time we reached the caves. At first we were led into a cheap-looking visitor’s center and forced to watch a horrid power point presentation on the history of the caves and the indigenous bird life surrounding the caves and the life cycle of the glowworm. New Zealand tourist attractions always make a special point of mentioning “indigenous” things—as a Eurocentric heteronormative republican, I found all that quite cute in a pat-the-child-on-the-head way.
We tried to let the Japanese go ahead of us, as they looked as if they were going to explode from excitement.
The entrance to the cave was small and incredibly low, I had to crouch down until I was about 3 feet tall, and then walk along a metal gang-plank, underneath which raged a white-water river. This made me slightly nervous, as the previous day several tours had been canceled when heavy rain caused the caves to flood. And judging by the narrow entrance, it wouldn’t take too much groundswell to drown us all. We were then hearded into a narrow boat, around which was a strange amount of light yellow foam, which I touched much to Mark’s embarrassment (my affinity for “physical and sensory experiences” is something he frequently rolls his eyes at). The guide pulled us along the river rapids with chains that were attached to the cave walls, not too dissimilar from a Styx crossing. Our guide was a blonde butch farm girl I’ll call Charon, and Charon was all about the shouting: This is a CAVE. The cave is reLATiveLY YOUNG by normal stanDARDS. And the like. Charon took us to a large room in which a huge, very scary, and very powerful waterfall pounded down into a whirlpool that flooded beneath our feet. The foam that was produced in the churning, the same I touched, was acidic, the product of “aggressive water” (many jokes then ensued from us smart alecs). Aggressive Water is water mixed with the carbon from decaying plants to form a special acidic water that eats more forcefully through limestone (hence, the caves). We climbed up a set of metal stairs next to the Waterfall of Death and followed a series of whirlpools and intimidating rapids until we reached the top, at which point, all the lights were shut off so we could “hear the intensity” of the rapids. Keep in mind, gentle reader, that the metal banister that kept us from certain death only came up to the hip bones, so any sort of trip or push forward would send someone over the railing. After a few minutes of darkened terror, a few lights were gently lit to guide us to a new set of death boats. Charon loaded us up, flipped off the lights again, and slowly we glided into the glowworm tavern.
The grotto itself looked as if it were a solar system—the worms seemed to cluster around certain points like stars in a nebula, and each area had its own set of green constellations. The hungrier glowworms are, the brighter their phosphorescence, and so some of the speckles were a dark green, others rang out like an emerald Polaris. The worms were reflected in the water, and the light from the grotto was so bright I could see my hands, quite a feat in such intense darkness. It was the strangest, most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
That night, rather than go back to our lake-side camp ground, we decided to search for some place that was truly free and much closer to Queenstown. We ended up finding a little dirt road by a river, and when we followed it we found that it led to an empty spot in the woods. It turned out to be the best night sleep we had on the trip, as the trees made a barrier against the wind, and pine needles are extra-good insulators.
The next day we go into Queenstown, but since both of us were on a budget, we couldn’t indulge in most of the tourist packages offered (ie water rafting, bungee jumping, hanggliding, skydiving). I bought a Maori charm for my brother at a market, and café slummed for a little bit. Then, buying lunch at a local market, we drove up to Arrowtown (or some such name)—a gold rush town. I actually regret not walking around it—main street had all of these Old West style storefronts. Like every town in New Zealand, there was a skatepark, so after lunch Mark watched the kids do their skateboarding tricks, and I rolled up my jeans and walked in the river (the same one that Liv Tyler keeps the black riders from crossing in The Fellowship of the Ring). I see some dude panning for gold in the stream and so I search through the silt and find a small stone with an itsy bitsy vein of gold in it—gold, not mica or pyrite thank you very much—but Mark wasn’t nearly as thrilled over this discovery as he should have been. Some people have no sense of priority.
We spent the afternoon driving through the fjordland country, passing by many sunny, strangely opaque and smooth lakes while I read the Dalhai Lama’s “Freedom in Exile” outloud. We stopped by a tourist spot called the Blue Lakes or something to that effect, and being the adventurists that we are, decide to stop and investigate. In order to get to the blue lakes you had to cross the most rickety suspension bridge this side of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom: It was at least 30 feet off the ground and swayed violently as we bounced across. There was also a very reassuring sign that warned travelers “Max. Capacity: 5”. On the other side of said river we traveled along a narrow dust path until we came across a little pocket carved into some smooth grey rock. The inlet siphoned off parts of the roaring river which collected in this still, completely sky blue lake, maybe 6 feet deep. The water was ice cold—my feet almost cramped up when I stuck them in—but there were many smooth, flat stones that we skipped over the water. It would have been completely idyllic if not for the sand flies that ate away at every bit of exposed skin.
By the time we approached the rainforest area of the West Coast, the sun was beginning to set. I felt as if I were lost in South America—nothing but dead animals and tin bungalows to break up the walls of black forest. Getting addicted to the sound of water noises circa bedtime, Mark and I tried to find a body of water in order to camp nearby. We found a spot on the beach, and we set up camp there after Mark asked permission from the Maori family who appeared to own it (“Sure. Whatever”). We went into town (Franz Joseph Glacier: The Town) and had coffee, talked about modern art (I got to gush about Julie Speed and Lee Bontecou, my latest obsessions). I mention this because this sounds all so sophisticated, but sadly all romance was tempered with the wettest and nastiest night so far, plus sand flies. But we got to wake up to an ocean sunrise, with fog curling around the grey driftwood stumps on the shore, and that at least was worth something.
We woke up at dawn to see Lake Matheson, one of the famed “mirror lakes” of the west coast. Mirror lakes are created, as I discovered through some investigation, by streams that travels through reddish barks and mosses, turning the water a cola brown. When this water seeps into lakes, it creates a very dark, but very clean surface that reflects everything perfectly. The lake was stunning, with sharp yucca and fern trees all around it, but unfortunately, we were not early enough to avoid the ducks, who swam back and forth, ruining the picturesque, hallmark moment of Mt. Cook’s mirror image. In order to leave we had to past through a forest of spiderwebs—literally every tree had a huge, sprawling web glistening in the dawn. Not the best way to wake up. We also drove out to see the Franz Joseph glacier. Eh, so so. I don’t recommend driving out of your way for it unless you’ve never seen a glacier before. It was rather small and retreated up the mountain in a manner I felt was cowardly.
On our way up to Hoktika (I’m still ticked off that the Wild Foods festival was sold out), we’re driving through the mountains, and all of a sudden we hear this grinding noise. Mark, with an uncharacteristic display of calmness in the face of adversity, pulls over and hops out under the car. The exhaust pipe connected to the muffler has split. Apparently, this has happened before. With some shoestring, duct tape, and two cars full of kind volunteers, we managed to tow ourselves into Whataroa, a small and meaningless town in the middle of nowhere with a mean gas station clerk who couldn’t bother herself to call a mechanic out on a Sunday to fix the vehicle. We had to hang out in a dirty diner/convenience store/ post office while Mark tried every 20 minutes or so to reach the mechanic and finally, after 3 hours or so the mechanic was contacted. He welded the muffler together while I played with stray dogs. He advised Mark and I to take a “marital arts” class instead of a martial arts class, telling me it was the best way to keep my husband in line.
Mark took me to a beach he had been to on his last road trip. It was near a lagoon famed for its white cranes, and had sand so soft I could barely walk. We trudged all the way out until we were completely isolated, collecting along the way stones with quartz bands or rough jade pieces. I went wading (swimming was a bit too dangerous) in the sea for a bit before climbing up on a slab of rock with Mark and baking in the sun. I can’t remember where I read it—maybe it was Woody Allen—but one woman complained that she set up these perfect, extraordinary moments, and her husband’s flaw was that he would never act the way he was supposed to. I am up on a granite boulder and it is late afternoon, there is black sand sticking to my legs and I have a beautiful boy lying on my stomach. It was a perfect, extraordinary moment. Then Mark tilts his head up and kisses me. It occurred to me then that finally, someone acted the way they were supposed to at the moment they were supposed to. I read too many novels.
So we drive and we drive and we drive up to Hoktika, where we found the town completely deserted in the wake of the Wild Foods Festival. The slogan for said festival is: “There’s a place for all God’s Creatures…Between Two Slices of Bread.” It’s basically a once-a-year thing where New Zealanders gorge themselves on goat testicles and grasshopper vodka in a bacchanalian display of drunken hedonism. The festival ended Sunday morning, so when we got there everyone was gone, leaving behind some plastic cups, a dozen portable toilets, and some orange barrels. We camped with some leftover hippies in a park by a swamp (yes, I know) and had some excellent Indian food (which was lucky, as it was the only place open). At night, we could see the stars, the milky way. It’s rather sad that in most places, only a handful of stars can be seen. The whole spectrum is without parallel.
Don’t sleep by a swamp with hippies if you can avoid it. If the inept guitar plucking doesn’t keep you awake, the strange and ominous sounds of the swamp will. We got out of there at first light—before the hippies could wake. Gosh I hate hippies. We drove up to Greymouth, along the northern part of the coast. Mark took me to a strange little spot—it was a small bridge that linked two chunks of rock together. The day was very calm, so there were few waves, but apparently the bridge is extremely treacherous with people routinely getting soaked or even, de temps en temps, swept away. The mutant seaweed skirted the island, so I didn’t get too close, but I did play around with the barnacles and scramble around searching for birds’ eggs.
Later in the afternoon we went to Pancake Rock and the Blowholes (I know! Right?), which were not nearly as edible/mildly erotic as they sound. The pancake rocks are a strange sort of limestone deformity where sediment stacked up just so to create what bears a perfect resemblance to stacks of flapjacks. In fact, the café even advertised pancakes with syrup, so I guess people get quite a craving). The stacks of rocks create, between them, numerous caverns which trap water when it rushes in, forcing it up into the air with a loud punching noise (hence, the blowhole aspect). Again, it was a calm day, so the blowholes were pretty latent, but still, very cool, very different.
And then we drove through the mountains (Arthur’s pass—steep cliffs, grey green riverbeds a mile wide, wheat colored plains) back to Christchurch. Luckily, the car stayed alive just long enough for us to roll back in. And believe me, that is no small feat. Overall, I’d say that the trip was the best roadtrip I’ve ever had. Mark and I managed to spend the entire time without fighting, the scenery was beautiful, and the pace perfect. Too bad I don’t have any pictures for you.
