At long last, my detailed chronicle of my South Island adventure is complete! I apologize for the delay. I had a few assignments to do for school right as I got back, and sorting through hundreds of photos took quite a while. But now the photos are up (almost 300 of them), and my gospel of the trip is written below! (WARNING: word length = 13,250 words. You might want to break this one up into a few sittings.) I call it a “gospel” because it is one of three recorded versions of the trip. My travelling companions, Cole Bingham and Allie Button, also recorded their own journals of our activities. Their perspectives can soon be found at their blogs, colebingham.blogspot.com and travelblog.org/Bloggers/Allie-Button in case you would like to read them.
Speaking of my travel companions, I should tell you a little about them before I launch into the trip.
Allie Button is a junior at Vanderbilt, like myself, except she’s studying neuroscience with hopes of one day becoming a pediatrician. I had only met her a few times at school before we both came to New Zealand with IFSA-Butler. She is smart, assertive, outdoorsy, and as you’ll see from the many photos I took of her, very pretty… so before you ask, no, she is not single. Any girl would struggle to survive a two-week campervan excursion with a pair of blokes like Cole and myself, but alas, Allie is a tough one.
Cole Bingham is a creative writing/children’s fiction major in his junior year at UVA, where he is also heavily involved as a YoungLife leader. Cole is extremely gregarious, unique, kind, and as you might expect, highly creative. He is also one of the pickiest eaters I’ve ever met, so analyzing his food preferences never ceases to entertain me. He happens to own a waterproof digital camera and loves taking photos (he’s in a photography class at University), so be sure to check out his photos if you want to see pictures OF me. Especially in wet places.
Day One – 16 August 2008
I didn’t get much sleep because I was up late packing the previous night but had to wake up early to make the 7:00 AM Bluebridge Ferry. I borrowed a nice camping pack from Leonie, one of the RAs for Everton Hall (where I live). Between Leonie’s pack and my big blue duffle bag, I was able to fit everything I thought I would need. I faced a packing dilemma, though – I needed to pack light, but bring lots of warm clothing. My new polypro thermals helped in this endeavor, but I still ended up hauling a very heavy duffle bag all the way to the waterfront.
I met Cole at the ferry, and Allie was nowhere to be found. Cole texted her, and when he received her cryptic, disoriented reply, we figured she had probably just woken up and was freaking out. We were right.
Eventually Allie arrived, and her tardiness didn’t matter after all. Before we boarded the ferry, we met Walter Moore, a GA Tech student studying abroad at Vic just like us. He was headed to the south island with another guy to do some extensive backpacking, which is very cool. He’s a nice guy, so we let him hang out with us for the whole ferry ride. He’s a plastics engineer, so my conversations with him on the ferry were incredibly nerdy in nature.
The ferry was comfortable because there was plenty of space on board, and we got to sit in couches instead of airplane-style seats. Seated near us was the entire Wellington Pride women’s rugby team, a fairly rugged bunch of women. They got quite comfortable in the space, and eventually we had the pleasure of watching them give each other intense menthol rubdowns. The pervasive scent of BenGay lingered in the cabin, but I wasn’t about to say anything because I didn’t want to get tackled through a wall.
Also on the ferry, I started eating the delicious apricot fudge slice that Hannah (my flatmate) made for us. Luckily for me, Allie and Cole didn’t like it very much. And the weather was beautiful the whole way across the Cook Strait.
In Picton, we ate at Subway and boarded the 1 PM TranzScenic train for Christchurch. The TranzScenic runs right down the east coast of the south island. The train had an open-air “scenic” carriage where we could go out and take pictures, which was great because the weather was wonderful. I took heaps of pictures off of the train. We also played some card games, notably forehead poker and Old Maid, both of which I had a tendency to lose. I tried my best to ration the fudge slice and not eat all of it at once. After some good train conversation, we bagged a few z’s.
We had arranged with Hannah to stay with her parents in Christchurch at the beginning and end of our trip, and that was a great plan. Hannah’s dad, David McKie, picked us up from the bus depot and bought us Chinese food, insisting that he pay. Once back at the McKie residence, we met Bev McKie, Hannah’s wonderful mother. It quickly became apparent where Hannah gets her extreme kindness and hospitality. The McKies were wonderful… they showed us the “real” way to make tea, which is basically a specific set of steps that ensures the tea is served as hot as possible. Then, we watched the Olympics and saw the rowers take home the first NZ medals. The NZ stations cover the Olympics differently than U.S. stations do because rowing and other water sports are huge here. There was an American team of twin brothers that competed in doubles rowing, but they sucked so bad it was embarrassing. Dead last, almost a minute behind the competition.
It was great to start the trip with a good night’s sleep… and a belly full of rice.
Day Two – 17 August 2008
There is something beautiful about waking up with no alarm clock. I had a wonderful hot shower that was probably a little too long. But hey, I have a lot of surface area!
Mrs. McKie made us breakfast before we left. Mr. McKie drove us up on top of these big hills/mountains that overlook all of Christchurch. It was on these hills that we realized two things:
1. It’s the time of year where all the baby lambs have just been born.
2. Baby lambs have tails, which makes them even more adorable.
Mr. McKie dropped us off at Escape, where we picked up our campervan. The Escape employees were out when we arrived, so for a while, Cole was determined that the demo van in front of the store was our van. It wasn’t.
You see, Escape camper vans are all uniquely airbrushed with a different theme. We didn’t know which one of their brightly coloured fleet we would get, so it was all very exciting. Our van was called the “Cook Strait”, and it had a cool painting of the BlueBridge ferry on one side. It was very appropriate for us, and it looked great.
I drove first, which made me quite nervous, for I had never driven a vehicle in British-style traffic, where the steering wheel is on the right side of the van, and the cars drive on the left side of the road. I took it slowly at first, but it wasn’t long before I started getting used to it.
We went to a Pak ‘n’ Save, which is supposed to be the cheapest grocery store in New Zealand. It was there that I got my first real introduction to Cole’s eating habits… ham, nuts, dried fruit, cheese, and most green foods are all on the “no” list.
We found Highway 1 and headed south! Before the trip, each of us burned 10 CDs of music, and we were excited about listening to them. As it turned out, there was an auxiliary input in the Cook Strait’s audio system for an iPod, but the CDs were way more fun.
Lunch happened at a random pull-off on the side of the road. Later, I used my brand new Gorillapod to get a picture of our first attempt at a standing-on-top-of-the-van group shot. (A gorillapod is a versatile tripod with short, flexible legs, and it is the best camera accessory I ever bought. www.joby.com )
Later, as it got dark, we drove through a mini-blizzard for about two minutes. Then a bunny hopped out in front of the van and I couldn’t avoid running it over. Allie pretty much freaked out, but Cole and I were quite sure that the bunny was old and dying anyway. Yeah, sickly too… with no family. So it was okay that we killed it.
We arrived at Lake Tekapo at dusk and walked around, shot some photos. We also stopped at Lake Pukeko, illuminated by the moonlight. I tried to take a cool moonlight photo, but the clouds covered the moon before I could. Then we drove to where the Mt. Cook DOC campsite should have been, but we couldn’t find it. (DOC = Department of Conservation. These campsites are low-quality but mostly free.) The Mt. Cook area had been under heavy snowfall recently, so there was about a meter of snow on the ground. We found a public shelter with a map in it, and the map led us to the closed road that was the only way to the campsite. So we had no choice but to park the van in the small parking lot of the public shelter and camp there. Was this legal? Not really. But to our credit, we didn’t find the “No Camping” signs until the morning.
We brought our propane burner inside the shelter to heat up our soup. With one propane burner, it’s hard to cook anything but soup for dinner. There were sinks with running water in the shelter, but we couldn’t find any bathrooms. I thought it was strange that they would build a structure like that and not include bathrooms, but we had prepared for this. So, one by one, we took turns with the toilet paper, headed into the woods, and pooped in the snow.
Not long after we had all done our business in the woods, Cole walked around the back side of the shelter and found the bathrooms.
Luckily, we all had good senses of humour. At least… at this point in the trip we did. Before long, the moon came out from behind the clouds again and was surprisingly bright. I used my awesome gorillapod to get some long exposures of the moon illuminating the crest of a snow covered mountain nearby. It was very cool.
Then we converted the back of the van into the bed for the first time, which took forever. With the rearrangement of a few boards and cushions, the storage cubbies/dining table in the back of an Escape van becomes a queen-sized bed. That’s right, one queen-sized bed for the three of us. Our sleeping setup was hysterical, with the three of us fully encased in our mummy-style sleeping bags like hot dogs on a plate, and Cole in the middle. It was really cold that night. Luckily, Leonie’s sleeping bag is awesome, rated down to -10 degrees Celsius. Only my nose got cold, for it was the only thing poking out of my face hole.
We went to sleep cursing the DOC.
Day Three – 18 August 2008
We awoke to discover that the Cook Straight had turned into a refrigerator during the night. A thin layer of ice covered most of the hard surfaces of the van’s interior. It was very cold.
Before we had stirred from our cocoons, we heard a vehicle pull up next to the van. Peeking through the window, we saw that it was in fact a DOC truck, so we expected a knock on our window, but it never came. Eventually, we got out of the van to see the driver of the vehicle, a DOC worker, some distance off. I suppose he had been checking the public shelter or something, but he was walking back toward us. Before we could greet him, we watched as he slipped on a patch of ice and fell onto the ground quite hard. It was an awkward hello.
It turned out that his name was Blair, and he was a nice guy. He didn’t say anything about our illegal camping spot, but was able to tell us the names of the mountain peaks surrounding our location. Unfortunately, the valley that leads to Mt. Cook was snowed in, so we couldn’t drive there. We did get as close as we could, though, and Cole snapped a picture with the peak in the background.
Then we drove to Wanaka! We had only a couple stops along the way. At some point we realized that we could cover more ground driving in New Zealand than we thought. After all, Aotearoa is a long, skinny island nation with less land area than Colorado, and you can drive from coast to coast in less than 4 hours. Our American conceptions of road travel allowed for a relaxed approach to our driving in New Zealand, and this “take-our-time” attitude characterized the entire trip. So we had no problem stopping to take photos anywhere, any time we felt like it. It was quite nice.
One of the places we did this was at Lake Pukaki, and I’m really glad we did. Lake Pukaki was a shade of turquoise so brilliant that it looked fake. We took a bunch of photos there. Further down the road, we found a scenic snowy pass where we got another on-top-of-the-van shot on Cole’s camera. Then we came to the first of many Merino wool shops. Cole bought an Icebreaker cap, but I didn’t want to spend $30 on a hat. An interesting thing about these shops is that they all sell Kiwi-esque hand creams and other skin products. They always have tester bottles open, so it was at this Merino wool shop that Allie and I began our habit of stealing hand moisturizer from the testers. Of course, this isn’t really stealing because the testers are offered for free, but we felt sneaky doing it anyway.
And right outside Wanaka, we visited Puzzling World, a tourist trap where you can pay to see a bunch of optical illusions or walk through a big maze. Or for free, you can sit in the front lobby and try to do the little puzzles they leave out on tables. That’s what we did. Not one of us was able to successfully complete a stupid puzzle, which was frustrating. I’m pretty sure some of the small children sitting around us did, though. We retreated.
Once we got into Wanaka, it was time for lunch. We parked on the edge of Lake Wanaka, which was a scenic little place to eat. We had sandwich meat to make our own lunch, but then we realized that it was Monday, and the Subway Sub of the Day for Monday is Meatball. There was a Subway across the street. Inevitably, meatballs won. So we had Subway Meatball subs on the edge of the beautiful lake.
Before long, we made our way to the I-Site. I-Sites can be found all over New Zealand, and they constitute an effective network of information centers necessary to sustain New Zealand’s growing tourism industry. There, we booked skydiving for the next day and paid deposits. You can pretty much book anything you want to do anywhere in New Zealand from an I-Site. They are very helpful.
At the I-Site, they told us the location of the cheapest holiday park in Wanaka and about Mt. Iron, which was supposed to make a pleasant afternoon walk. We had struck out on DOC sites anyway, so we found the Lake Outlet camp and signed in for the night. It was $10.50 per person. Compared to the night before, Lake Outlet’s amenities were luxurious… a powered site for the van, a kitchen, hot showers, and even laundry facilities! We were excited.
While the walk up Mt. Iron was a bit of a workout (but only because I’m out of shape), it offered some incredible views of the Wanaka area as the sun was setting. I used my gorillapod at the summit to get one of my favourite group shots of the whole trip: the three of us looking off the mountain, backlit by the sunset. Seeing the funny-looking tripod, an Australian family generated a friendly conversation with us. They were touring around the south island on vacation. They were nice.
After that, we visited an internet cafe in town, where I wrote an email to my parents hinting about skydiving the next day. I didn’t tell them directly because I knew they would worry. Plus, in the event that I did die, I thought it was a nice gesture.
Back at camp, we were really loving the amenities. We spoiled ourselves with hot showers and enjoyed dinner together. The water at Lake Outlet Camp was untreated, so we boiled it first. With power for the van, we could run our heater inside. Escape advertised that the heaters made the vans “toastie warm” in the winter, and that night, the Cook Strait was toastie warm indeed. Also, the electricity afforded us the opportunity to charge our camera batteries. Unfortunately, Allie overestimated the capacity of her camera’s battery and didn’t bring her charger. So Cole and I became the official photographers of the trip.
We were skydiving the next morning, so it was a little difficult to fall asleep. After all, I had never jumped out of a plane before.
Day Four – 19 August 2008
The previous night, we had tried a new sleeping configuration, with Cole reversed in the middle so everyone would have more shoulder room. Apparently, it didn’t work… Cole kicked Allie in the face.
We were incredibly excited for skydiving. Allie was obviously more nervous than Cole and I, so we comforted her with “Skydying” jokes. For example, “Skydive Wanaka has 100% positive feedback! I guess the negative feedback never quite makes it…” While our wit was borderline impressive, I don’t think Allie was actually comforted by our sarcastic quips.
When we were given our jump suits at Skydive Wanaka, the term “jump suit” finally made sense to me. I met my tandem partner, a Swedish guy named Angmar. (Unless you’re certified, you have to skydive connected to a professional.) Angmar gets paid to do as many as 20 jumps a day strapped to people like me. I was the last person in the plane, which meant I was going to be the first to jump out.
As the plane took off, I watched through the big, clear plastic door as the ground fell away and shrunk beneath us. Allie and I were the first two jumpers, so we had the privilege of being near the door, which offered a great view of the landscape. Several minutes into our ascent, Angmar told me we were passing 9,000 feet, and for the first time, I couldn’t believe I was about to jump out of that plane. The air grew noticeably colder as we climbed, and Angmar pointed out various landscape features as they came into view. The beauty of the snow-capped mountains, rivers, and lake beneath us was almost enough to distract me from what I was about to do. Then we reached 12,000 feet, and the door next to my knee slid open.
I slid out to the threshold of the door and tucked my feet under the plane as Angmar had told me to do. This was definitely a “wow” moment. There, with my feet tucked under a plane flying over Lake Wanaka… with nothing beneath me but a 12,000 foot drop… and a Swedish dude with a parachute on my back… I couldn’t believe it. I let go of the plane, so Angmar was the only thing keeping me there, smiled for the camera mounted on the wing, and dropped into thin air.
The most memorable sensation during my 45-second freefall was how fast and cold the wind was on my face. It took me a few seconds to get used to that, and then I remembered to look up while I was falling and take in a 360-degree view of the scenery. I won’t bother trying to describe how gorgeous that was.
Real freefall doesn’t feel like a fall; it feels like floating. It’s nothing like the “freefall” rides at amusement parks that accelerate you toward the ground at a terrifying rate. It is totally, totally awesome.
One of the best parts was the parachute “ride” down to the ground. Once we were gliding around, I was permitted to put my goggles up and take a good look around. Needless to say, it was quite a view.
We chose not to purchase the DVD/photo package before we jumped because it’s incredibly expensive. You have to tell them beforehand because to shoot your DVD, they send up another jumper with a camera. However, I did buy the wing photo for $20. It’s posted with all my other pictures.
Well, skydiving alone wasn’t enough adventure for one day, so we decided to summit a mountain with the rest of our afternoon. Mt. Roy stands 1578 meters tall (that’s 5177 feet) and borders Lake Wanaka. We had PB&J sandwiches at the bottom and, staring up at the snow-capped top, said foreshadowing things such as, “Oh look! There’s snow at the top! I’ve never hiked up into snow before…”
We were completely unprepared.
We knew the return hike was supposed to take 5-6 hours, and we knew it would be colder at the top. But I wore my Nike running shoes, for I had left my hiking boots in America due to their weight. This posed a huge problem once the pathway became snowy. Not only did my feet become cold and wet, but I had no traction walking up the mountain. It was like trying to walk up a playground slide in socks. I was working really hard just to walk through the snow. Also, I lost my water bottle on the ferry (I think), so Cole and Allie carried all the water we had, which wasn’t quite enough. Not even halfway up the mountain, I was quickly becoming exhausted.
The snow was knee-deep by the time we reached the ridge line where I took tons of photos. I’m still not done describing the physical misery I experienced climbing Mt. Roy, but in hindsight, the photos I got on that ridge line halfway up the mountain really did make it worth it. Cole was the first one to walk out on the ridge line to a vantage point with one of the most spectacular views I have ever beheld. I took photos of him while he stood out there at the edge of the world, and I’m pretty sure they’re some of the best I’ve ever shot. Then we took turns walking out on the ridge and taking photos of each other. I also took a six-shot composite for a panorama. I’ve posted some of these for you to see.
After our little crest line photo shoot, we returned to the steep snowy incline, and I wanted to die. We knew for sure we were unprepared when we passed a pair of hikers coming back down with crampons and hiking poles. They stared in wonder as I stumbled by in my Nikes. I just avoided eye contact and tried to keep my balace. It took us 3 hours and 15 minutes to reach the summit, and I’m telling you, the grade of those switch-backs was savagely unforgiving. At the top, I was completely exhausted. So exhausted, in fact, that I didn’t even take a picture. (But Cole got one!) Then I ate the apple from heaven.
Allie had packed a few apples for us to eat at the top. I took one out of her bag and bit into it. Right away, I knew it was the best thing I had ever put in my mouth. That apple was so delicious that I’m quite sure it was picked off a heavenly apple tree by God himself and polished by Jesus before it was sent to earth.
It was a sweet view from the top, by the way.
Then we went back down, which was terrible. Simply terrible. It went a lot faster than the way up, but I was dehydrated by then and wanted to die even more. Allie sprained her ankle at one point. We were all becoming quite physically and psychologically downtrodden. We finally returned to the Cook Strait about five and a half hours after we had left it, and I was on the verge of collapse. I stripped down to my thermals and drank a gallon of water.
We loved the Lake Outlet Camp (the office of which is run by the beloved Tracy), so we returned there for a second night. I enjoyed a nice hot shower and continued hydrating my body as the soreness set in. It wasn’t until I was walking around camp that I discovered a substantial pain in my left knee.
We did some laundry that night so our clothes would last us until the end of the trip, hopefully. Cole and Allie told me there were no dryers, only washing machines, so we were planning creative ways to get our things dry by the next day. Then, I walked around a corner in the laundry room and found the dryers. So that worked out.
Dinner consisted of tomato soup and grilled cheese. Okay, I have to mention the other people in the kitchen now… Every time we were using the kitchen, this other guy (in his 20s) and his female “friend” were always in there. He had large plastic bins of supplies stored under the counters, so it was quite obvious he had been there for a while. When we asked him, he told us that he had been living in a hut at that camp for almost 3 months. I found this odd because it would get really expensive to stay at a holiday park on a permanent basis. He didn’t offer any more details. Anyway, since this dude and his lady friend pretty much owned the kitchen, I constantly felt like I was intruding upon them in their home or something. It was weird.
Cole, Allie, and I would journal in the van right before we went to sleep each night. This blog is essentially a translation of the bullet points I recorded in my journal during the trip. That night, my final two bullet points were as follows:
- Most adventurous day of my life
- My entire body hurts
Day Five – 20 August 2008
I thought I would sleep like a rock because of my physical exhaustion from Mt. Roy, but I didn’t. I woke up well before Cole and Allie. I was very sore.
I decided to shave while I had access to hot water. Before long, we packed up and hit the road for Queenstown. Before we left Wanaka, we made another stop at the internet cafe to inform parents that we were alive, and we bought groceries.
On the way to Queenstown, we stopped at a river feature called “Roaring Meg”. It was basically some rapids in a shallow gorge, and it was pretty lame. I took a picture of Cole there.
We drove through an old gold-mining town and eventually came to the Kawarau Bridge, where we wanted to bungee jump the next day with a company called AJ Hackett. We watched from the observation deck as a few people jumped. It looked ridiculously awesome, so we decided we would jump the next morning.
We finished the drive into Queenstown and found a random car park (parking lot) to eat lunch. Paragliders continuously circled overhead, which seems normal for Queenstown, sometimes called the “adventure capital of the world”. We found the I-Site, booked AJ Hackett for the next morning, and got maps to navigate Queenstown… because responsible adults use maps! We walked around for a bit, but the city centre was extremely busy due to the skiing crowd. There were heaps of adventure gear shops. Nothing too special.
Then our search for a DOC site began. We consulted our little DOC booklet for a nearby site, and the one off Skipper’s road looked promising. So we followed the map and ended up really high in the mountains. Snow was everywhere. Skipper’s road, we found, was a narrow, icy, dangerous road with steep drop-offs to certain death. We all agreed that turning back would ensure our continued survival.
We then tried another DOC site, only to fail again. (So that’s three DOC failures now.) This time, we were led higher in elevation once more… up a treacherous icy slope called Moke Lake Road. When we lost traction, the road was only about 20 meters from a bottomless gorge of doom, we backed down the hill in reverse to ensure our continued survival, again. It was actually kind of scary.
As we returned to the main road, cursing the DOC with all our might, we were prepared to fork over the cash for another holiday park. Then Allie made the mistake of mentioning another DOC site down the road, so we decided we’d give it one last try. By now, we knew that if the road to a DOC site started gaining altitude, we should turn around. Fortunately, our final DOC site of the night was near the edge of a lake – low and flat. However, it was a dark, moonless night, and this site was located in what we called the Middle of Nowhere, NZ. It was kinda scary, but it was free.
The good thing about camping in New Zealand is that you don’t have to worry about getting killed and eaten by an animal. Humans are the only natural predators in New Zealand, so we could cook our soup outside the van and not care about bears, moose, poisonous snakes, alligators, sharks, etc. This is great because shark attacks are a huge problem at camping sites in the US.
Our soup selection for that night was Hearty Irish Stew, and it quickly became a favourite. We spent a decent amount of time joking around and laughing in the van before we went to bed… good times. I went to sleep in my bungee jumping clothes.
Day Six – 21 August 2008
We woke up almost 12 hours after we went to sleep, so we were well rested for bungee jumping.
Bungee jumping was totally sweet. Let me tell you about AJ Hackett Bungee:
- They have four locations in Queenstown. We chose the Kawarau Bridge.
- The Kawarau Bridge is suspended 43 meters above the beautiful Kawarau River.
- This was the first commercial bungee jumping spot in the world. AJ Hackett started it in 1988.
- The AJ Hackett building and staff there were really cool.
Walking out on the bridge to the platform, we came upon one of the staff members getting strapped in to jump off the opposite side of the bridge, just for variety’s sake. That was his way of starting off the work day.
I jumped first… again. The bridge staff strapping me in were perfect for the job… they all had sweet tattoos and plenty of piercings. Right as they finished attaching the bungee cord to my legs, the heavy metal song “Last Resort” by Papa Roach came on. (The whole place was nicely wired for sound.) The song is basically about killing yourself, so I found it hysterical that I was about to jump off a bridge with “Last Resort” playing in the background.
Still holding onto the bridge, I hopped out to the edge of the platform. My toes poked out over the edge of a 14-story drop, which was a little more scary than skydiving for some reason.
“You’ll need to let go of the bridge, mate,” the worker told me. “That’s got to stay here.” So I did. They counted backwards from 5, and I didn’t feel quite ready to jump, but I did anyway, which made it really thrilling.
I dove headfirst toward the water with perfect swan dive form, I’m proud to say. I had chosen the “touch the water” option, but I didn’t quite get there. After the initial drop, I bounced around for a while until they came out and got me into the raft. The bouncing part was really fun.
Cole used my camera to snap pictures of me and Allie, and then I took over when he jumped. This way, we didn’t have to buy the $45 DVD package that they try to sell you. I did get to watch the replay of my jump, though, and the DVD was quite nice. They’ve got about 12 video cameras mounted on and around the bridge to capture each jump. A roomful of editors work in real time to produce a high-quality DVD that’s ready to purchase by the time you get back upstairs. From the preview I saw, AJ Hackett’s DVDs are put together really well, but alas, I didn’t need to waste money on that.
Back in town, we decided we all like Wanaka better than Queenstown. One Kiwi after another had told us that Queenstown was the main place we should visit, but honestly, it was just crowded, expensive, and smelled like exhaust.
We took the famous Queenstown gondola up to the top of a mountain in the Remarkable range. The Remarkables are named such not because of their impressive steepness and beauty, but because they are apparently the only mountain range in the world that truly runs north to south. It’s really touristy at the top. I took a panoramic shot, and then we luged down, which is like go-karts without engines on a downhill track. It was more fun than we expected.
We found ourselves hanging out in a lakeside car park wondering what to do next. We had planned to spend more time in Queenstown based on everyone’s recommendations, but we were ready to move on, so there was a gap in our itinerary. There was a big awesome tree near that car park that looked easy to climb, so we decided to take a group shot on it. As it turns out, it wasn’t easy to climb at all, but we eventually got the shot. Then we decided to visit Arrowtown.
Arrowtown was a great call. It was a lovely little town. There, we visited a nice jade & opal factory, several wool shops (for the hand moisturizer), a cafe where I had a chai latte, and a candy/fudge shoppe where I bought creme brulee fudge.
Back in Queenstown, we found a nice holiday park for the night. The only thing was, a large group of year 7 school kids was staying there the same night. This group of about forty 11-12 year olds was on their annual ski trip, and they dominated the communal kitchen. It wasn’t long before we struck up conversations with the teachers and chaperones cooking the kids’ dinner. They offered us lasagne with desert and everything. Upon hearing Cole’s major, one of the dads asked us if we would like to tell the kids a bedtime story later that night. We had made post-dinner plans to visit Minus 5, the famous frozen bar in Queenstown (even the cups are made of ice), but sure! Why not entertain children instead.
So Cole, Allie, and I sketched out an original children’s story over the next hour, which was a creative adaptation of the story of Little Susuan and the Mean Old Witch that I told my campers last summer in Jackson Hole. I’m not about to type up the whole story, but for those of you familiar with a previous version of it, some of the key differences this time included cranapple raisin pumpkin bread, sheepskin slippers, and an evil forest ranger.
Cole and I delivered the story in the form of a dramatic reading for the entire group, and the kids ate it up. The teachers and chaperones liked it even more. I think one of them even captured the whole thing on his camcorder. It was a blast.
We got hot showers and went to bed hoping for free breakfast with the kids in the morning.
Day Seven – 22 August 2008
The free breakfast didn’t work out because we woke up later than expected. It was raining, and I had left my Nikes outside the van. A good call on my part.
There was internet access for hire in the common area, so I flicked an email home to touch base. In the same room was a toasty fireplace-oven thing, the kind that sits in the middle of a room and has a chimney chute to the roof. The top of this wood stove seemed like a good place to let Cole’s polypro thermals dry, so Allie arranged them on there for Cole while he checked his email. Before long, I smelled something burning, and you guessed it. A huge hole had melted into the butt of Cole’s pants before I could take them off. Luckily, the shirt escaped with only grill marks.
Don’t put your polypro items on heated surfaces.
We returned to Arrowtown to buy more gifts before hopping on Milford Road, the long, beautiful stretch to Milford Sound. It is the only road in and out of Milford Sound, so we had to stop for petrol at Te Anau because there are no stations past that point. At Te Anau, the service station worker was a guy with an awesome handlebar moustache. He gave us a detailed map of the road to Milford and where we could camp.
The drive to Milford Sound was remarkably gorgeous. We were in and out of rain for much of the journey. We had another side-of-the-road lunch.
Our music selection for Milford Road consisted of mostly singalongs and dramatic instrumental scores. Some of our favourites were “Through Heaven’s Eyes” from Prince of Egypt and “525,600 Minutes” from Rent. We also made multiple photo stops along the way, including a picturesque rocky lake beach. I never figured out the name of that particular lake, but it was beautiful. I was convinced it was the same beach that Jeff Bowen (a Vandy friend of mine) had photographed when he was abroad a few years ago. I later found out that his picture (which I saw on Facebook last year) was taken on the shore of Lake Pukaki, not our mystery lake. Either way, I was there!
The scenery increased to near-magical status as we drew closer to Milford Sound, and once we put in Allie’s instrumental movie theme CD, driving became a sublime experience. We wove through breathtaking snowy valleys and bright green patches of forest where the trees arched high over the road to form a tunnel for us. Put all of that to the main theme from Jurassic Park, and it truly is something else. Periodically, I would ask myself out loud, “What PLANET are we on?”
We reached Milford Sound at sunset, which couldn’t have been more perfect. I snapped a few photos just like the ones I had seen on so many postcards in every shop in New Zealand – Mitre Peak backlit by a glowing golden-orange sky.
It was a little bit of a drive back down Milford Road to Camp Gunn, where we stayed for the night. Camp Gunn was a weird, quirky little camp 8 km off of the main road. We met Helen, the desk lady who signed us in, and who was a little too excited about the greenstone (jade) they sold in the gift shop. She told us that the water was heated by a wood fire and therefore very hot. She also told us a bunch of other crazy stuff. Crazy woman.
We ate dinner in the tiny all-gas-powered kitchen provided for campers. Randomly enough, we met another group from Wellington. Allie’s neighbour/classmate, also named Allie (confusingly), got her mom to come visit her in New Zealand, and the two of them hired a guide to take them all over the South Island. Somehow, they ended up sharing the kitchen at Camp Gunn with us. Small world. But they gave us their leftovers, which we would never ever turn down.
One of the crazy things Helen told us about was the place right down the road where we could view glow worms. These are pretty famous in New Zealand. Basically, they’re just skinny little worms that glow a dark blue colour at night. So that was neat. On the way back, we took note of the impressive star field over our heads, and Cole taught us about “star tripping”. This is a fun game where you stare up at a single star while you spin around multiple times. Then, someone shines a flashlight in your eyes, and you try not to fall down. It might be impossible.
Camp Gunn is run on generator power, so at night, it was impressively dark. We capitalized on this and took some long-exposure flashlight drawing photos. That was fun.
Camp Gunn offered a charging station for mobile phones and cameras, but unfortunately, they did not actually have powered campervan sites. The heater would have been nice that night… the coldest night since Mt. Cook. We bundled up for bed and tried not to think about how early we needed to wake up for our Milford Sound cruise.
Day Eight – 23 August 2008
When the alarms started going off at 6:30, no one wanted to move. Cole’s watch alarm always wakes me up the first time, but he and Allie have developed these terrible habits where they silence (“snooze”) their alarms multiple times before actually getting up. This is a little weird for me because I never hit the snooze button on my alarm. So once Cole’s watch would go off, I would just lay there and wait for him and Allie to wake up.
Once again, the Cook Strait had become a refrigerator during the night. The frosty temperature made it difficult to leave our sleep cocoons, but we had to make the 9 AM cruise at Milford, so we got up. We were convinced we would need naps later, so we left the van in “night mode”.
We drove all 8 km out to Milford Road only to discover that the “road closed” gate had been pulled across where we needed to pass. The entire area had been snowed in only days before, so while this wasn’t a surprise, it was still a crushing blow right at first. Luckily, there was a road worker waiting in one of the trucks parked nearby. We rolled down our window and talked to him.
“So… it looks like the road is closed,” I said in one of my ‘here’s-your-sign’ moments.
“Yeah, but it won’t be long. They’re dropping bombs.” He was bald and complemented his reflective vest with very short shorts.
“Oh, good…” I said, confused, imagining a rap battle taking place in the valley.
“Avalanching, yeah. Should be another hour or two.” Ahh yes, avalanching made much more sense.
So we went back to camp. With time to spare, I decided a shower was in order. That shower was a horrible experience. Crazy Helen wasn’t kidding about the wood-heated water… it was basically boiling. The first challenge was getting the water to the “right” temperature. I found a spot on the dial where a millimeter to the right meant death by flesh melting, and a millimeter to the left meant death by hypothermia. Also, the water pressure was pathetic, so the entire time, I was doing a funny shower dance to try to stay warm because the air was freezing cold that morning. Did I mention the showers were almost outdoors? Yeah, if I opened the shower door, I could see outside.
Allie and Cole thought it wiser to remain fully clothed while at Camp Gunn.
My shower at Camp Gunn represents a common theme from our trip and my New Zealand experience in general. There is definitely a hot vs. cold water dilemma here. Simply put, the water is normally way too hot or way too cold. This is because of the two-faucet basin design that I see everywhere I go: One faucet for hot water and one for cold. I can’t help but think this is a flawed system. You can’t make warm water without stopping up the sink and mixing hot and cold, which is inefficient in almost every situation. Having two faucets instead of one is also a waste of metal, and it connects to the water supply the same way as a warm water sink would. Only fancy kitchen sinks and showers will mix hot and cold water for you. That’s dumb.
I had lost my cellphone the night before, but one of the elderly Camp Gunn employees found it for me. That was great news. I discovered that only old people work at Camp Gunn. Well, technically, they’re just running the camp for a charitable trust, but none of them looked younger than 65. So that was a little weird, but perfectly fine! Because I LOVE old people!
Helen told us about another local attraction known as the “big tree”, so on our way out when Milford Road re-opened at 10, we hiked into the woods to see it. It was not that big, so it was really lame. Then we left the kooky, creepy Camp Gunn forever.
Our return to Milford Sound was accompanied by more Lord of the Rings and Gladiator soundtrack music. At the Sound, we bought tickets for a cruise and boarded minutes later. Our boat was a smaller one, so it was cheaper and better in general.
Our tour was perfect. Milford Sound gets 6 to 9 meters of rain every year, but somehow, it was sunny when we went. What can I say? The good weather kept following us around. Dolphins swam alongside our boat for a while, and we saw a bunch of seals on the way back. I’ve posted a bunch of pictures from the cruise, but none of them do it any justice. It’s way better in person.
We had lunch in the car park before going to Key Summit.
Key Summit was a nice little walk… 3 hour return. There was snow at the bottom, so I knew for sure my footwear would be inappropriate before we even started. I was right. I might as well have been wearing bedroom slippers. Key Summit was nothing compared to Mt. Roy, but I was still having big knee problems. I took a few pictures at the top.
We left Key Summit not knowing where we would stop. Maybe Te Anau, maybe a Queenstown DOC site? It didn’t matter; we enjoyed driving. Our “FAIL!” moments were fun. For instance, Cole turned on the windshield wipers almost every time he wanted to turn on the blinker. I can’t blame him, really; the blinker was on the right side instead of the left. Regardless, we would shout, “FAIL!” every time he did it. The same went for me when I repeatedly tried to take pictures without removing my lens cap or left the Cook Strait’s headlights on.
We stopped to take sunset photos over some lake and bought groceries in Te Anau. Conversation in the Cook Strait was interesting that night. We covered such topics as biblical gender roles, homosexuality, and dating. Good stuff.
It was definitely dark by the time we reached Queenstown. In one of the first roundabouts in the city, we saw a sign for Wanaka, our favourite. It was only 109 km further. We checked the map, and Wanaka was on the way to the glaciers! The decision was made. We ate dinner in a car park somewhere, and made the final push to Wanaka.
We love Wanaka.
And since we were in Wanaka, why return anywhere but the good ol’ Outlet Motor Camp? We arrived at 11 and left Tracy a note saying we’d pay in the morning. We did a lot of driving that day! Camp Gunn to Milford Sound to Wanaka… and the van was in “night mode” the whole time. Obviously, we never got those naps.
My knee hurt as I walked around camp that night. I was hoping it wasn’t substantially injured because the pain was bad enough to ruin the rest of the trip if it persisted. I left my wet shoes by the heater in the kitchen to dry.
We talked about relationships for a little while in the van that night, which made me kind of sad. It always does. Cole and Allie both have significant others, and being around people with good romantic relationships often makes me a little depressed. I shook it off and went to bed hoping that glacier climbing wouldn’t be too expensive.
Day Nine – 24 August 2008
For the most part, this was a really chill day. We slept in at the Outlet camp. My knee was hurting really badly before I even got out of my sleeping bag, and I couldn’t figure out why. I was starting to get concerned.
We bought crumpets at the behest of Cole, who enjoys them because they are in the pancake family. In case you don’t know what a crumpet is, they’re like half-cooked pancakes… with a pancake surface on one side and a fluffy, porous bread surface on the other. While toasting them for breakfast, Cole and I decided we would put stuff on top of them… jam for me, peanut butter for Cole. They popped out of the toaster and Cole proceeded to put peanut butter on the “pancake” side of the crumpet, calling it the “top”. I insisted that the top was the spongy bread part. The random Australian guy sitting in the kitchen at the time agreed with me, saying that the holes on the “top” allowed your honey/jam/peanut butter to soak into the crumpet while it’s hot. I’m pretty sure Cole was wrong on that one.
Speaking of ridiculous kitchen arguments, listen to this one. We opened a new loaf of bread at some point during the trip (I think it was the first time we were at the Outlet Camp), and as I took the first “end” piece of the loaf, Cole and Allie stopped me. I thought I was taking one for the team by eating the butt piece that no one wants, but they told me to skip it. They truly believe that the butt piece “protects” the rest of the loaf and keeps it from getting stale as quickly. I don’t think that makes any sense at all. Bread gets stale when the moisture in it evaporates. If any of you can explain to me how the butt piece does anything to prevent moisture from leaving the rest of the slices in the loaf, I would love to hear it.
Anyway. I had an awesome hot shower before we cleaned up and hit the road for the west coast. Before we left town, we made an internet stop and booked glacier climbing for the next day. And then we drove… a lot.
New Zealand has heaps of one-way bridges. I guess there isn’t enough traffic in most parts of the south island to make two-lane bridges financially worth it. There are signs indicating which direction has default right-of-way, but we discovered that the biggest vehicle wins no matter what.
Tracy recommended that we visit the Blue Pools on the way to the glaciers, so we did. It was a sweet little walk over this awesome rope bridge that led to the pools, which were truly closer to a rich emerald green than blue, but beautiful nonetheless.
From there, the drive progressed into dense rain forest. Eventually, we reached a coastal lookout and stopped for a photo break. As I was snapping photos, an excited old man ran up to me shouting, “Look! Look over there! That’s a seal colony way down there!” I looked, and way down at the base of a cliff, there were some dark objects scattered around on the beach.
“Use your telephoto and you’ll see them! Those are seals!” This guy was emphatic.
“Wow, thanks!” I offered, and continued to feign excitement as I zoomed in and snapped a few shots.
I checked those photos later. There was nothing but rocks on that beach. Crazy old man…
We stopped to photograph the sunset that evening. Just as it started to vanish, the sky became a magnificent gradient of violet and fucia, and then moments later, it was gone. I got a photo, but I wish I had taken it just one minute earlier.
We did a great deal of car singing as we drove that night. It took two passes to find the DOC site, which didn’t surprise us by this point. We had more soup for dinner, and then I made PB&J sandwiches to pack for lunch on the glacier. My fingers smelled like peanut butter.
During dinner, I realized that Allie and I talk about Vandy a lot, and it bores Cole to tears. Now for an HOD moment: I’d say the three of us are starting to emerge from the “Storming” phase of group development. It’s hard to establish norms because our tasks are diverse, random, and often vague.
Before the trip, I bought waterproof pants for the glacier and wherever else I would need them. Cole and Allie also had waterproof pants, but theirs were really nice and expensive. Mine were $13 and featured elastic at the top AND the bottom. I was excited to wear them because they were soooooo cool.
I was really worried about my knee as I went to bed that night. My plan was to just take plenty of Advil before we started climbing and hope for the best. The last thing I wanted to do was hold Allie and Cole back like I did at Mt. Roy. I knew they would be stronger climbers than me anyway, and I didn’t want to be a burden.
Day Ten – 25 August 2008
We arrived at Fox Glacier by 7:45, which made for an early start. We chose Fox Glacier over the Franz-Joseph Glacier because we were told that Fox had smaller group sizes and better guides. I took Advil, still worried about how my knee would hold up.
Our guide was Richard, from Tazmania, Australia. He was awesome. Our group was just the three of us and Richard… couldn’t have been any better. Fox Glacier Guides supplied all the gear we needed: ropes, harnesses, crampons, wool socks, boots, helmets, ice axes (but Richard only called them “climbing tools”), and packs to carry it all. I wore my budget waterproof pants, and they were goofy, but they seemed to work just fine. Cole had the most legit gear because he is somehow a rep for Goretex. Not fair.
We drove to the glacier car park and hiked up through rain forest to the ice. It was a beautiful day, but we were used to that by then. We told Richard that we didn’t even bother checking the weather that morning because the sun followed us around everywhere we went. That’s a good thing, too, for the forested hillside that leads to the glacier is much more dangerous when it is raining. Richard was full of stories about landslides and huge rocks falling on our path. It made me nervous. About 600 steps were built into the hillside to make it easier to climb, but we still had to remove layers on the way up. We came to a mountain stream, and Richard told us it was safe to drink the water, so I did. It was cold and delicious.
Once we got on the glacier, Richard taught us how to safely use our gear and walk on the ice with our crampons (metal spikey shoe attachments). Walking out on the glacier was another “wow moment”. Once I comprehended the size of the thing, it was pretty mind-blowing. Just to give you an idea, Fox Glacier is about 300 meters wide and extends 6 kilometers down from the peaks of the mountains like a giant ice tongue lapping up the valley below. They estimate it weighs like 40 billion tons or something ridiculous like that. And the crazy thing is… it’s alive. The glacier is constantly moving and changing, pushing it way down the valley or retreating back toward the mountains, depending on the decade. Currently, Fox Glacier is growing.
Richard started us on an easy wall with no climbing tools so we could learn footwork. Ice climbing is both easier and harder than rock climbing. Crampons have two spikes that stick directly out on the front, and when climbing, they are used to literally create your own footholds. So ice climbing is easier than rock climbing in that respect. The hard part is keeping your foot perpendicular to the wall so you don’t pop out. Ice is much less reliable than rock.
Our first climbing spot was also my introduction to the beautiful blue shades of ice that hide from direct sunlight. The glacier is truly a light blue colour; only the outermost melting layer of ice is white. Richard explained the origin of this colour, but I can’t remember what it was. It’s not just light though; it’s in the ice.
At our first climbing spot, we scaled an “easier” wall with just one climbing tool at a time… first right handed, then left. Richard was trying to teach us to trust our feet and not rely too much on the axe. In keeping with the trend, I was the first climber. Before we left Spot 1, I found a stream of water running off one of the walls. I was thirsty, so I leaned over and sipped from the natural spring of glacier water. “Now that’s high-quality H2O!”
Then we explored some more of the glacier. As we did, Richard constantly emphasized the temporary nature of the glacial surface features. The top 15 cm of the ice melts in the sun every day, and the water runoff from that carves spectacular, dynamic shapes into the ice. If we had returned to Fox Glacier the next day, we probably wouldn’t have been able to climb in the same spots. Who knows?
Before we started on our second climbing spot, we ate our packed lunches on the ridged top of the glacier. Deep crevasses trace the length of the glacier, and Richard took special care not to lead us too close to them. He explained the danger of falling in a glacial crevasse: the perfectly smooth ice walls are friction-less, so there would be nothing to stop you from falling further and further into the wedge until your bones break. Crevasse rescues are often impossible.
Our second spot was a mini ice canyon with steep 30-foot walls on every side. But there was a super-cool tunnel (carved out by water, of course) that led from the top to the bottom. Richard anchored us at the top, and we crawled through the tunnel to the bottom of the “canyon” to climb back up. We climbed multiple walls at that spot, some of which had bulges or overhangs. We started climbing with two tools then, and Richard told us some additional techniques, such as the “monkey hang”. My forearms were starting to fatigue on my last climb at Spot 2. The way climbing works, if you have poor technique, you have to work much harder to climb. People with good technique know how and when to rest while they’re climbing. I’m not one of those people.
…yet!
For our final climbing spot of the day, Richard pulled all the stops. He brought us to an enormous crevasse and said he could anchor and belay from the top. The plan was to lower us into the crevasse as far as we wanted to go, and then let us climb back out.
Wait… was this the dangerous kind of crevasse? The one that will crush your pelvis if you fall into it? Why yes, yes it was. And we climbed around in it.
Only one of us could climb at a time, and the other two were anchored to a safety line to prevent them from falling in as they watched. Getting lowered in was more frightening than normal repelling. Since Richard belayed from the top, his first instruction was, “Go stand backward on the edge and lean back.” Just fall into the crevasse. It was also exciting because you couldn’t see the bottom of the crevasse from the top; even Richard didn’t know what was down there. So once I was lowered, I took a look around and said something like, “Woah… cool…”
Because we got to tell Richard when to stop lowering us, we got to “choose our own adventure” as far as climbing was concerned. I didn’t think I made mine too challenging, but I did. First, it took me forever just to get on the wall. Then, I failed to recognize the climbing options I had. From the positioning of my rope, I thought that this nasty overhang was my only way out. I later learned that I could have swung way over to the left and climbed a merely vertical wall. Oh, hindsight…
I fought that overhang for what seemed like an eternity. I couldn’t manage good footholds, so it didn’t take long for my arms to burn out completely. My forearms were the worst… I reached a point where my footholds and axe placements were good, but I simply couldn’t hang on to the tool to pull myself up. I couldn’t even snap my fingers. If any of you have experienced a good rock climbing workout, you know exactly what I’m talking about.
I fell off the wall about 10 times, but Richard froze my progress every time I gained an inch, so I eventually got out. That climb was extremely frustrating. I felt pathetic for taking so long and for my lack of endurance in general. I should not have attempted an overhang so far beyond my skill level. On the positive side, Cole took an amazing picture of me as I emerged from the crevasse. With ice spraying as I slam an axe into the glacier and a blue crevasse beneath me, I look way more hardcore than I am. It is currently my Facebook profile picture and probably will be for a while.
Needless to say, we were pretty spent when we hiked back down through the forest. Our conversation with Richard was energised and never awkward all the way to the end. He truly was a nice guy. Once we turned all the gear back in, another guide named Malcolm helped us plan the rest of our trip. They were even off the clock by then, so we really appreciated it. So if you happen to be planning a New Zealand trip right now (Nick Gordon), make sure you do Fox Glacier. The guided ice climbing was $215, and it was worth every dime. (They don’t have nickels or pennies here.)
On the way to the holiday park, we stopped at a dairy to pick up a pizza and a 6-pack of Montieth’s Gold to supplement our soup and “end a hard day the right way”. We took photos of a beautiful sunset and drove to the Top 10 Holiday Park at Franz Joseph because we didn’t know there was one at Fox. The Franz Joseph holiday park was the most expensive of the entire trip – $17 per person. For that price, you wouldn’t think we would have trouble getting the oven in the kitchen to heat up, but we did. Eventually, we had our soup, pizza, microwave meal for Cole because he doesn’t like cheese, and beer for dinner. We saved 3 beers for Mariua Hot Springs, our destination for the next day.
I returned from my much deserved shower to find Allie taking everything out of the van and piling it up on the vacant campervan spot next to ours.
Me: “What are you doing?”
Allie: “The van stinks. We need to air it out.”
Cole: “She lost her phone.”
Me: “I see…”
We eventually found it. In fact, we eventually found everything that the Cook Strait swallowed over the course of the trip… except my chapstick. I really needed my chapstick, too.
As I was plugging my phone charger into the power strip, I somehow dislodged the clip lamp from its precarious perch, and the ten-inch fall broke the light bulb. So despite being at the most expensive powered campervan site around, we were back to journalling by flashlight. My final bullet point that night:
- I love being clean. I hate not being able to find things.
Day Eleven – 26 August 2008
It didn’t take me long to realize how sore my body was. My knuckles were scraped and bruised from my boxing match with the ice, and I was having plantar issues as well. At breakfast Cole and I found a toaster with a crumpet setting. It was technically the same as a bagel setting, but it was a fun little cultural tidbit. Naturally, we used the crumpet setting to toast our crumpets. I love crumpets.
Then we were off to the Punikaiki Pancake Rocks and Mariua Hot Springs! But before we got to Punikaiki, we stopped at a sunny west coast beach for lunch. We hung out there for over an hour, and I took some photos. The weather was almost warm enough to be a cool summer day. The beach was really relaxing. Allie saw a baby seal.
The Pancake Rocks are these incredible limestone formations on the west coast that have somehow been carved into shapes resembling stacks of pancakes. Scientists still don’t know how this happened. We took a nice little walk among them. Cole hopped the barriers to explore the “dangerous” part of the formations. Also, they did not sell pancakes at the Pancake Rocks, which annoyed Cole more than anything. See also: Cole’s obsession with pancakes.
To be honest, the Pancake Rocks were kinda lame.
As we were leaving Punikaiki, Allie and I realized for the first time exactly how far out of the way we had gone to see the Pancake Rocks – 88 kilometers. Definitely not worth it.
We were so excited for the hot springs.
For the entire trip, Cole had been wanting a specific photo. He wanted a shot of a herd of sheep pressed tightly together, and his head popping up out of the middle. We finally passed a sheep pen small enough that it looked like we could pull it off, so we tried. In the end, I got a semi-disappointing shot of Cole in the pen acting like a sheep while a hundred actual sheep stared on curiously from a safe distance. We were really just scared about getting caught trespassing on some sheep farmer’s land.
As the sky grew darker and the mountain roads grew curvier, so grew our anticipation for the hot springs. The road signs were also growing more ridiculous with each turn.
We made fun of the road signs the entire trip. Our favourite thing to do was interpret the pictures literally. Kiwi road signs almost never use text to explain things like many American road signs do. Instead, they’re always pictures. For instance, an American road sign would warn, “BUMP” or “BUMP AHEAD”. The Kiwi counterpart would just have an awkward picture of a flat surface with something round growing out of its middle. Our literal interpretations led us to such nonsensical phrases as, “Large polka dots ahead,” and “Toothless shark attacks likely.”
Some of the signs were completely unique. We passed an actual Kiwi sign, which is just a silhouette of New Zealand’s national bird. They’re flightless and nocturnal, so I guess you have to watch for them crossing the road. We saw a penguin sign, too. Gotta watch for those.
Eventually, we reached Mariua Springs, only to find that the camp there was closed for the winter. FAIL!
I don’t need to tell you how excited I was to sit in the pool with a steaming hot waterfall cascading down onto my neck and shoulders. I held back my tears.
Soooo we found another crappy DOC site for the night. It was poorly marked and hard to find, as usual. Dinner was two-minute noodles with bread, chips, and the rest of the beer. It was even cold and rainy by then.
Over a month earlier, at orientation, someone said something about experiencing “four seasons in one day” in New Zealand. Apparently the weather varies so much that this is possible. I’d say that this was the closest we came to experiencing four seasons in one day. The beach felt like summer, we were parked in snow that night, and we caught everything in between. Pretty cool.
We truly did try to make the most of our Mariua Springs letdown. We played forehead poker again… our favourite game. Then we had a fun conversation about a talk show we should produce called, “Things you should know intuitively, but don’t.” On it, we would discuss the complexities of mixing cold water with hot water to make warm water and effect of heat on meltable substances.
We almost had an interesting philosophical discussion involving the existence of God, but Allie only likes to discuss topics over which she has intellectual authority.
Day Twelve – 27 August 2008
I woke up before Cole and Allie. We ate breakfast in cereal mugs because the bowls were soiled. Sure, we were camping, but we were also quite sanitary. I was consistently unmotivated to brush my teeth, though. My electric toothbrush died the first day of the trip, and as it turns out, I’m useless with a manual one.
We drove most of the day. Our first big stop was Castle Hill, perhaps the best thing anyone recommended to us the entire trip. Castle Hill consists of thousands of huge, wind-carved boulders nestled tightly together on a few beautiful hills. We were told it is home to some of the best bouldering in the world. We were also told that they shot one of the final scenes of the first Narnia movie there. This had Cole very excited.
Climbing around on the boulders was heaps of fun. Because of the way the boulders were built into the hillside, it was easy to reach impressive heights with little climbing. I took a bunch of sweet photos.
Cole and Allie trespassed into what we think might be Narnia. I took pictures. When I confessed that I had not read any of the Narnia books, Cole was completely disgusted with me.
Next, we visited the Cave Stream. This is a place with a fun, natural caving experience that we couldn’t pass up. Basically, there’s this river that runs through this big cave. Both the outlet and the inlet of this river are accessible from the car park above land, so Cave Stream has become a popular caving spot. The idea is to wade upstream through the cave (with headlamps) from the outlet to the inlet. The air was cold, and the water was colder, but we simply had to try it.
So we pulled out our plastic bags of dirty clothes and donned layers of soiled polypro. It smelled really bad. During this process, I yelled at Allie. I later apologized, but I think she will hate me forever.
We reached the outlet and started into the cave. We had been told that if the water is chest-high at the first turn, we shouldn’t go in. I stepped into the water and walked toward the gullet of this cave, sinking deeper with every step. The water was cold. Really, really cold. I got down into the first turn, and the water was up to my armpits. There was no way in hell we were about to wade through that cave.
We retreated and took a few pictures by the entrance. Then we set out in search for a camp spot. We were going to go through Porter’s pass to this random DOC spot, but we found another one with a little graffiti-decorated cinderblock shelter. It was there that we cooked the last of the soup and crackers. Campbell’s Hearty Irish Stew made a comeback, and we even made tea.
It was our last night in the Cook Strait, so to commemorate the event, we reviewed all of Cole’s pictures on his camera, complete with narration. That was funny. Somewhere deep down inside, we all knew we would miss sleeping crammed onto a makeshift queen-sized bed in our sleeping bags. Somewhere deep, deep down inside.
I need a chiropractor. And probably a deep tissue massage.
Day Thirteen – 28 August 2008
Guess who woke up first? That’s right, me again. But for the first time, our camping spot was even more desolate and windy in the daylight. Normally it went the other way around, where we would wake up to be pleasantly surprised by the scenery.
We stopped on the way to Christchurch to refill our propane tank. I was paying for all the group expenses at the end of the trip to catch up. Instead of splitting every grocery, gas, and motor camp bill into three parts, we just paid for them individually and kept tabs. I ended up behind Allie and Cole on the tab, so I had to break even.
In sunny Christchurch, our first stop was the McKie residence. There, we unloaded and cleaned out the Cook Strait so it could be returned. When Mrs. McKie first saw the van, she burst into laughter because of how small it was. Honestly, it was comically tiny.
We found all kinds of things as we cleaned out the van. I repacked all my gross dirty clothes into my duffel bag. I was not looking forward to the inevitably intense laundry session that lay ahead.
We returned the Cook Strait to the Escape van depot, where a nice Fiji man inspected it and found it to be satisfactory. (He didn’t find the broken light bulb!) As we walked away, we realized that we had left Allie’s fantastic instrumental CD in the CD player. Oh well. Hopefully Fiji man will enjoy the Jurassic Park theme as much as we did.
Mr. and Mrs. McKie gave us tickets to the “Hot Shoe Shuffle,” a big-band jazzy tap musical in town. Apparently, they were given the tickets for free and weren’t able to go, so they gave them to us. Fantastic!
We wandered the city centre for a while. Cathedral Square was packed with places to eat, so we got lunch there… and ice cream. We also found another internet cafe and touched base.
Then the tickets to “Hot Shoe Shuffle” fell out of Cole’s pocket.
We couldn’t find them. They were gone forever. We thought perhaps we could reclaim the tickets at will call, so we found the theatre where the show was playing. It was closed. So we had some time to kill. We decided that whether we got to see the show or not, we needed to get something for the McKies to show our appreciation for all their hospitality. We bought flowers.
We ate dinner at a hole-in-the-wall kind of place called Cafe 90. Only one employee worked there, and she spoke almost no English at all. I decided on a BBQ meat pizza, and Cole got a “beef torpedo”. I thought “beef torpedo” sounded really sketchy. The pizza was literally a frozen pizza that she cooked for 20 minutes. We ate at a little bar that faced a mirrored wall, so all of our conversation during the meal took place through the mirror. We found that entertaining.
We returned to the Repertoire Theatre and told the ticket ladies our story. In the end, they believed us, and essentially let us into the show for free. It probably helped that we were carrying around a bouquet of flowers. We really enjoyed the show, too. The tapping was very nice (of course), and the singing was impressive as well.
Mr. McKie picked us up, and we gave the flowers to Mrs. McKie when we arrived back at the house. We shared trip stories, and they confirmed how strange it was that we avoided bad weather for almost the entire trip. Then I told them the funny story about how we lost the tickets, which was probably a bad idea.
Showers and bed. We had to catch a cab at 6:00 AM the next morning to make our train! Staying with the McKies provided a fabulous end to a fabulous trip.
Day Fourteen – 29 August 2008
FINAL DAY
We woke up way too early. We taxied to the rail station to make our 7:00 AM TranzScenic train to Picton. I slept some on the train and ate pancakes. Cole and Allie slept as well. We didn’t feel bad sleeping because the skies were quite grey for the duration of the ride.
We arrived in Picton about 30 minutes late because of speed restrictions on the rails. Apparently, a few large mudslides had been blocking the tracks only days before we returned to Christchurch, and they had to watch our speed as a result. Again, our timing was perfect.
Once in Picton, we had to hike across the harbour to the ferry with all our bags. My bag was heavy, so that was a painful walk for me. Once on the ferry, I was still really tired, so I found an open cabin and took a nap for a while on the bed in there. Later, I bought lunch from their full-service cafe onboard and watched this stupid movie with Freddy Highmore in it (the kid that played Charlie in the new Willy Wonka).
Once in Wellington, it was a long walk back to Flat 33… also painful. I unpacked and wasted no time attacking my laundry.
It was great to have space again… probably more for Allie and Cole than for myself.
All in all, the trip was a tremendous success. I saw some of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen in my life. I had one unique experience after another, and it was so much fun. You might be wondering how much all of this cost. We planned carefully to make the trip as inexpensive as possible without sacrificing much fun. Including absolutely everything, this adventure cost me about $1500 NZD, which is just under $1000 USD. Financially speaking, it was well worth it.
Dear reader, you are a champion for making it this far. Again, I apologize for the huge delay in getting this post out… and for its excessive length. You can expect a catch-up, follow-up blog soon to cover some of my September highlights so far. Thanks for reading and make sure you check out the new photos!
