Notes from the Road: 9 November, 2007

Hi all,

First, I survived my bungy jump! It was really amazing, and as soon as I can get the photos downloaded from teh company's website, I'll send them around. 134 metres (440ft) is a LONG way down - I went from absolutely petrified to utterly elated in 2 seconds. Would I do it again? Not that one, but maybe another one. Two reasons. First, it was just that much fun. :) Second, it's really empowering to know that I have the guts to face my fear and hurl myself off a perfectly sturdy platform. I'm pretty impressed with myself. :) (of course, there are those who would call bungy stupid, and I completely understand that attitude ...)

Greetings from New Zealand! I'm currently at Mount Cook on the South Island - it's the highest mountain in NZ. Wow, I don't even know where to start. It's been 2 1/2 weeks since my last email and SO much has happened. This'll be the longest email yet, so settle in.

First, New Zealand is stunning. Beautiful. Breathtaking. Every five minutes on the road, the scenery changes and becomes something new and beautiful. Scenically, it's the most beautiful place I've ever seen. I could spend months here. I'll definitely be extending my time here, by at least a week. I promise you - I WILL come back and I WILL get to the US on my way back, though it'll be for a shorter period of time. It's just that this place is so special that it would be a real shame to shortchange it. Anyway, on with the story.

When I last wrote, I was about to leave New Zealand on the Stray bus, which I did the next morning. And I was so lucky to get on the bus with a great group of people. These hop-on/hop-off buses are luck of the draw, but a group of about 6 of us started at the same time, and hit it off immediately.

Our first stop was Kaikoura, headed up the east coast from Christchurch. We were so lucky, as there had been snow there recently, so we had snowcapped mountains in our background all day. Kaikoura is famous for whales, primarily, where a group of sperm whales reside there. The continental shelf sits just off the coast there, and the sperm whales like the depths. I went whale watching, and saw two males surface twice (four sightings in total), along with a group of dusky dolphins. Whales are such beautiful, majestic creatures, and it was a really special way to start the trip. We also saw several albatross, which are even bigger than I thought they'd be. That night, we went out on the town. You should remember that there are only 4 million people in ALL of New Zealand, so town is a word I use loosely. The town was ONE pub. :) Still, it was a good night out, and those of us who'd hit it off so well bonded with each other and some locals.

We left the next day for Picton, which is the point at which you catch the ferry to Wellington and the north island. I'm doing teh south island first, so we stayed in Picton for a night. It's a charming little town, and our hostel was one of the nicest I've ever stayed in (after sleeping in dorms for almost 4 months, the value of this can NOT be understated). A group of us went on a nice long (8km?) walk, then cooked a nice meal. I've done a lot of communal cooking in NZ, which has been fun, tasty, adn money-saving. A nice touch that night was free apple crumble for dessert - again, backpackers LOVE this sort of thing!

The next day was on to Abel Tasman National Park via Nelson, on the north tip of the south island. This is a beautiful place, and a group of us decided to spend 4 days there, including a trip up to Golden Bay, a more remote part of the Park. Our first evening, we had a BBQ at Old McDonald's Farm, our hostel (complete with farm animals and teh occasional peacock).

One of the nice things about Stray is that the drivers get really involved with the passengers (too involved occasionally - you can imagine the cheeky stories that go around about romances between passengers and drivers). DC, our driver, put together a good spread, and we all chipped in. Again, it's nice to eat a "real" meal on the road - NZ has been really different from the other places I've been. That night, we had a bonfire and some yummy food.

A group of six of us left the next morning for Golden Bay, to do a tour called "The Kerry With Cheese", started by a one-time Stray bus driver named, you guessed it, Kerry. I'll explain it someday - it'd take too long here. The drive there was really beautiful, through some gorgeous rolling hills. I'd try to describe it, but it's not possible. The photos are uploading as we speak, and I'll get them out ASAP. En route, we stopped at Pu Pu Springs, and national spring, where you can see the water coming up in the center of the pond. Then we went to Bencarri animal reserve, where I was able to feed sheep, goats, alpacas, llamas, donkeys, and eels. Yes, eels. Slimy little things. And actually, not so little. We stayed at a nice hostel in Golden Bay and had the opportunity to sleep in the grass for a bit, which was quite a nice little bit of decadence. After a nice pub meal, we all hit the hay early - travelling is exhausting work. :)

The next morning, the hostel had set up a nice little trip for us. We went up to one of the coolest beaches I'd ever seen - Wharariki Beach. It's an amazing grey sand beach - really windy, rugged, bit rocks, dunes. Stunning. Then we went to Cape Farewell, the northernmost tip of the south island. New Zealand is beautiful. Did I already say that? I'm truly in awe.

Our trip back to Old McDonald's was a fun one. We took a water taxi that went over some fantastic chop (almost like a jet boat), then saw a good section of coastline, which is one of the most stunning parts of Abel Tasman. That night was a bit of a party, as the next Stray bus (they run roughly every day or every other day, making it easy to hop off and hop back on) pulled into town. It was fun to meet a brand new set of people.

The next morning, we left to start our journey down the stunning west coast of the south island. But first, I went SKYDIVING! I had known that I would do it in NZ, but didn't know where. The weather was perfect, so I went for it, along with three other people on the bus. I did a tandem jump from 13,000ft, strapped to a very competent instructor named Tomas, who had 2500 jumps under his belt. Wow, what a great experience - I was so excited that I didn't even have time to be scared. Nervous, yes, but not truly scared. We back-flipped out of the plane. I had closed my eyes, but luckily opened them in time to see us backflip away from the plane. Beautiful views - I could see bits of Kaikoura and the north island. I have a DVD from the day, which is full of me being silly and overly excited. I actually pounded my feet and hands on the ground when we landed, just from the sheer joy of it. If you can get past the fear, skydiving is an incredible experience, and I urge you all to try it.

That day, we had a stunning drive down the west coast, one of the wildest pieces of coastline I've ever seen. We stopped several times to do short walks and take photos. One memorable stop was the Pancake Rocks (Panaikaiki?), some amazing rock formations with ginormous blowholes. Really stunning. That night, we stopped in Barrytown, and I again use the word town loosely. Barrytown is a pub with a hostel attached to it (and a crap hostel, at that), and that's about it. We stayed 2 nights - maybe it's coincidence that the owners of Stray have part ownership in the pub ... hmm. Still, it was a good time.

I did two bone carving necklaces, which are very common in NZ, along with greenstone (jade) carvings. The second night, we had a fancy dress party. Well, primarily, it was the boys dressing like girls and the girls putting makeup on the boys. Silly as hell, but amusing. The photos are uploading as I type this, so I'll send them round soon.

After the second VERY late night in Barrytown, we headed for Franz Josef Glacier, which is just stunning. There are a number of glaciers on the west coast, Franz and the Fox glacier being the most well-known. While Franz has been receeding over the longhaul, it's grown 700 metres in the past 4 years. I had been concerned that the glacier wouldn't be stunning enough, but wow.

We all did a full-day guided walk in the glacier, complete with crampons and ice axes (30 of us). We walked through blue ice, and into crevasses, and up steps cut into the ice and down rope ladders. SO COOL. Well, so cool until about 2pm, when we were about to head back down. The guides thought they'd found a new path, and were trying very hard to cut through for us. Sadly, they couldn't get through, and we'd gone through a truly awful crevasse before we realized that we had to go back. And by awful, I mean that we had to climb down some pretty dodgy terrain to get into the crevasse (15 feet down, I think). Then, a few of us fell into a waist-high puddle down in the crevasse. THEN, a few of us got really stuck, including me. So stuck that as I was standing sideways, my feet had to face forward because there wasn't room to put them sideways. We had to pull each other through, literally. It was pretty scary, and I was none too thrilled to find that we had to go BACK through. Where I got stuck again, and developed a new-found claustrophobia. I actually had a bit of a breakdown there, stuck in a crack between two big slabs of ice. But, obviously, I got myself unstuck. At any rate, we were cold and miserable by the time we got through it, but I still rate Franz as one of my absolute highlights. How often to do you get to walk on a glacier, y'know?

That night was a fun one - we'd all bonded on the ice, and it was the birthday of one of the girls on the bus. Travelling like this brings people closer together quite quickly - I think because we're all backpacking, we have a more immediate understanding of each other than if we just met on the street. It sounds a bit corny, but there are things that people I've just met will understand about me more quickly than if we'd known each other for a long time, just because we're in the same mindset of travel. So somehow, we manage to leapfrog a lot of the initial pleasantries and bond more quickly. I've met some amazing people on my travels, but NZ has been the best for this, because we're all travellign together.

Our next destination was Makarora, in the Haast pass - this is one of the 4 passes that runs through the Southern Alps from the West Coast to the East Coast. It was such a stunning trip - the West Coast is fantastically beautiful, with the rocky coastline on one side of the road and the mountains on the other. To drive through the mountains was just terrific. Makarora is another teeny little town, this time in Mt. Aspiring National Park.

A group of us went for a jetboat ride on the Wanaka River. It was a neat experience, aside from the captain grounding the boat on the rocks. The guys had to carry the girls over to the shore, then get in the water and unground the boat (sounds sexist, but I wasn't complaining, as I got a piggy-back ride rather than stick my feet in the water). That night was spent at the pub singing karaoke and playing pool.

For me, it was a rough evening, because I came down with a nasty cold (which I still have the remnants of - I hear it's a west coast special). So I wasn't much up for singing or pool. Oh, fun pool rule in NZ - if someone runs the table on you, you have to drop your pants in the bar. I learned this the hard way (it was a bad pool night for me), but got out of dropping trow because I didn't know the rule before we started playing. Phew!

Okay, I'd go on, but this is getting ridiculous - I've been writing for a few days, and I'm still nowhere near caught up! I'll stop here for now, and try to write the rest of it (Queenstown and the southern part of the south island) in the next day or two.

I hope you're all well, and think of you often. Hope you're all well!

Best,
Dina

Notes from the Road

Thursday, January 17, 2008

9 November, 2007 - Still New Zealand

No comments:

About Me

Blog Archive