We were supposed to have dinner in Martinborough around 6pm. We were late. More accurately I suppose, we were suppose to have dinner in Martinborough the previous Thursday, so we were really late. Only that time we were late because of a car accident. Wine tasting is not quite as dramatic of an excuse.
And so I returned to Martinborough, approximately 7 months and 1 week after harvest had ended the previous spring/fall. The town looked, well, exactly as I remembered it. There was one significant development, the Pukemanu, the diviest dive bar around, was undergoing a renovation. It remained open for business however (indeed, I'm not sure any of the regular patrons had left their barstools). We met Huw and his girlfriend Amanda at the Hotel bar for dinner and drinks and to catch up on the latest goings on(sidenote: many of the pubs in NZ refer to themselves as "hotels", although many of them don't seem to have actual rooms to rent, save maybe a closet behind the bar for the sleepy drunk. Evidently the hotel industry is not extremely profitable in NZ. The drinking industry remains robust). Compared to the usual nights I had spent at the hotel, the evening was relatively low-key, most likely because Huw and Amanda both were still a bit hungover from the weekend's festivities.
After spending the night in Huw's new house, we tasted through a few of the old haunts of fellow interns (Palliser and Martinborough vineyards, as well as Schubert) before heading out to Escarpment to taste through the fruits of some very intense labor. After Hawks Bay, the air in Martinborough seemed very different than I remembered. The tasting rooms were a bit stuffier and the wines more expensive, and there was a distinct lack of bleary eyed unwashed harvest interns running around. Still, after the charm of Hawks Bay, Martinborough was a bit flat.
We went out to meet Huw at Escarpment, hoping along the way to run into some of the other Escarpment boys, but it seemed our timing couldn't have been worse. Larry (the winemaker) was running around doing last minute pre-Christmas errands, while Dave (the viticulturalist) was off attending some conference (I had a sneaking suspicion that he too was nursing a hangover in a dark corner somewhere, but I suppose we will never know). Nonetheless, the timing for tasting the wines was perfect, just after finishing their secondary fermentation but before being stabilized with sulfur (which makes the wine rather undrinkable until just before bottling). It was good to catch up with these old friends.
We left Martinborough that afternoon and made for Wellington, driving over the familiar and treacherous Pakuratahi pass through Upper Hutt. The kiwis are not big fans of building tunnels. Maybe its because they have such beautiful scenery. Maybe its because there is a distinct lack of high quality dynamite in NZ. Or maybe its because they have a lot of people that like building roads but there just aren't that many roads that need to be built. For whatever reason, they elect to build ridiculously dangerous roads over mountains that are just wide enough to fit you and an oncoming truck, if you hug the shoulder that is. Except there really isn't a shoulder. The road may be safe if you travel at the recommended speeds (although this is highly questionable), but the locals are more keen to test the physical limits of their machines on corners than obey any speed limit. The guard rails aren't much help either, and in some cases are even cemented into the ground. The one thing the road doesn't lack is crosses. Needless to say, it was a bit of a white knuckle crossing.
We pulled into Wellington with a few hours to kill before our ferry departed, so we headed down to Mac's brewery on the waterfront for a quick bite. The time passed quickly (funny thing about pubs), and as we got back into the car we noticed that our ferry ticket had a final boarding time about an hour before the departure time. Which meant our final boarding time was 15 minutes ago. And it was rush hour in Wellington. Well done.
Thankfully the final departure time was more of a suggestion than a requirement, and we made our ferry with about 10 minutes to spare. Nevermind that we were just about the last car aboard. One thing we had timed well that day was our arrival time in Picton, pulling into the gorgeous Queen Charlotte Sound just as the sun was going down. The ride was relatively smooth and quite beautiful, and as darkness descended our wheels hit the pavement of the south island. We were Renwick bound, ready to rest our bones on the same earth that yielded perhaps New Zealand's most famous wine: Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Hawks Bay...oh my goodness the goodness
Car packed, bruises healing and spirits high we bid Raglan goodbye and headed back into our adventure. Our backpacking plans still on hold for the time being, we decided to continue with our original plan and head for Hawks Bay, a wine region along the east coast of the north island well known for its cabernet, merlot and malbec. While our current car was slightly newer (1990) and bigger (it has 4 doors and a trunk!) than ole Moldy Milo (RIP), we were still a far cry from anything that might invoke such impressive adjectives as nice or clean. It did have an air conditioning unit entirely in Japanese and 10 disk cd changer (although the cd player part of the system had gone missing) so 19 years ago it was a probably a pretty good car. We were sincerely hoping that it would continue to be. Out of respect to Milo, we christened it Otis.
We had heard the drive could take anywhere from 4-7 hours, depending on how fast you planned on travelling. Fortunately for us, our travelling speed was pre-determined. Again, the car could physically go faster than Milo (RIP), capable of reaching speeds of 120km per hour whereas Milo topped out at 90. But any speed above 104km/h activated a safety alarm system. Yep, try to speed in this car and it will remind you in a gentle high-pitched cheerful chirp that you are going "too-fast, too-fast." A good way to avoid a speeding ticket perhaps, but also a good way to convince yourself that despite your lack of any real mechanical skills it still might be a good idea to root around under the hood with a screwdriver.
It may have been possible to drown out this wonderful little bell with some good tunes, but cleverly both front speakers were not functioning. Tapes and CDs were both out too, leaving only the radio as the only musical diversion (not a great option in a country that is largely unpopulated). I offered to sing, but one look at Tracy's face made it clear that this was not a solution. No the only solution was to drive at or below the speed limit. Thank god for the scenery.
We wound our way through the beautiful mountains and forests to Lake Taupo, pausing there just long enough to decide the wind would never be able to blow away all the tourists (although it was certainly trying). The skies had been a mixture of clouds to Taupo, but as we pushed on through the heavily logged forests of Tarawea to the coast, the skies cleared as if our choice of destination couldn't have been more correct.
Hawks Bay is divided into a few different wine regions, mostly centered around the town of Hastings, a little town about 20km south of Napier, the biggest city in the region. The most famous area is called the Gimlett Gravels, so named for the rocky well-drained former river bed that yields some of the best cab and merlot in the southern hemisphere. The Red Triangle is just south of the Gravels, and while it isn't quite as famous as its neighbor to the north, it is certainly making some pretty smart wines. The other big region lies the the south and east of Hastings along the coast and contains some of the bigger names in the region, including Craggy Range, Elephant Hill and Clearview. There isn't a huge amount of red being grown in this area (although all of the wineries are producing red wine from vineyards all over the region), but there is some really tasty Chardonnay and Savignon Blanc going on.
We tasted at a few wineries the day we arrived before retiring to our "backpackers", which was really more of a run-down motel. Unable to locate any kitchen facilities, we elected to barbecue using a rusty old grill on the property, a plastic drink tray from our room and my backpacking cookware. It was one of the finer meals we put together.
We hit the local farmers market the next day for breakfast and to provision ourselves with picnic supplies for a solid day of tasting. And taste we did. Working off recommendations of friends in the industry and tasting room staff of vineyards we'd enjoyed the day before, we wound our way through the Gimlett Gravels and Red Triangle. The best winery of the day? Unison vineyards. Far and away Unison vineyards. There are some seriously special wines coming out of this place. Like religious experience special wines...like mortgaging your soul to the devil's bank so you can stay steeped in this delicious nectar until the end of your days special wines...
Well maybe not quite that good, but you get the idea.
The next day we had planned to head to Martinborough to pay a call to the Escarpment crew (where I had worked harvest 6 months before), but we decided to spend the morning tasting along the coast. Curiously, while the Gimlett Gravels got all of the attention, we both agreed that the caliber of the vineyards along the coast was much higher (save Unison of course). Elephant Hill was the best, although Craggy Range was also quite good. One of the most surprising things about the region as a whole was the cost. Not only were tasting fees a rarity (unless there was a restaurant attached), but the prices of the wines were relatively inexpensive as well. You could get a fantastic bottle of cabernet or merlot for under $35, a bottle worthy of cellaring or giving as a wedding gift to Hugh Johnson and Jancis Robinson. We did taste a few duds, and there was a hint of snobbishness at a couple of wineries, but compared to buying pinot or tasting in Napa, this place was a little slice of heaven. My understanding is that this sort of phenomenon (affordable quality) is rather fleeting in the wine world, so we felt privileged to have gotten in at the ground floor. And seriously, pick up some wine from this region, you won't be disappointed. Or maybe you will and you can give the rest to me.
We had heard the drive could take anywhere from 4-7 hours, depending on how fast you planned on travelling. Fortunately for us, our travelling speed was pre-determined. Again, the car could physically go faster than Milo (RIP), capable of reaching speeds of 120km per hour whereas Milo topped out at 90. But any speed above 104km/h activated a safety alarm system. Yep, try to speed in this car and it will remind you in a gentle high-pitched cheerful chirp that you are going "too-fast, too-fast." A good way to avoid a speeding ticket perhaps, but also a good way to convince yourself that despite your lack of any real mechanical skills it still might be a good idea to root around under the hood with a screwdriver.
It may have been possible to drown out this wonderful little bell with some good tunes, but cleverly both front speakers were not functioning. Tapes and CDs were both out too, leaving only the radio as the only musical diversion (not a great option in a country that is largely unpopulated). I offered to sing, but one look at Tracy's face made it clear that this was not a solution. No the only solution was to drive at or below the speed limit. Thank god for the scenery.
We wound our way through the beautiful mountains and forests to Lake Taupo, pausing there just long enough to decide the wind would never be able to blow away all the tourists (although it was certainly trying). The skies had been a mixture of clouds to Taupo, but as we pushed on through the heavily logged forests of Tarawea to the coast, the skies cleared as if our choice of destination couldn't have been more correct.
Hawks Bay is divided into a few different wine regions, mostly centered around the town of Hastings, a little town about 20km south of Napier, the biggest city in the region. The most famous area is called the Gimlett Gravels, so named for the rocky well-drained former river bed that yields some of the best cab and merlot in the southern hemisphere. The Red Triangle is just south of the Gravels, and while it isn't quite as famous as its neighbor to the north, it is certainly making some pretty smart wines. The other big region lies the the south and east of Hastings along the coast and contains some of the bigger names in the region, including Craggy Range, Elephant Hill and Clearview. There isn't a huge amount of red being grown in this area (although all of the wineries are producing red wine from vineyards all over the region), but there is some really tasty Chardonnay and Savignon Blanc going on.
We tasted at a few wineries the day we arrived before retiring to our "backpackers", which was really more of a run-down motel. Unable to locate any kitchen facilities, we elected to barbecue using a rusty old grill on the property, a plastic drink tray from our room and my backpacking cookware. It was one of the finer meals we put together.
We hit the local farmers market the next day for breakfast and to provision ourselves with picnic supplies for a solid day of tasting. And taste we did. Working off recommendations of friends in the industry and tasting room staff of vineyards we'd enjoyed the day before, we wound our way through the Gimlett Gravels and Red Triangle. The best winery of the day? Unison vineyards. Far and away Unison vineyards. There are some seriously special wines coming out of this place. Like religious experience special wines...like mortgaging your soul to the devil's bank so you can stay steeped in this delicious nectar until the end of your days special wines...
Well maybe not quite that good, but you get the idea.
The next day we had planned to head to Martinborough to pay a call to the Escarpment crew (where I had worked harvest 6 months before), but we decided to spend the morning tasting along the coast. Curiously, while the Gimlett Gravels got all of the attention, we both agreed that the caliber of the vineyards along the coast was much higher (save Unison of course). Elephant Hill was the best, although Craggy Range was also quite good. One of the most surprising things about the region as a whole was the cost. Not only were tasting fees a rarity (unless there was a restaurant attached), but the prices of the wines were relatively inexpensive as well. You could get a fantastic bottle of cabernet or merlot for under $35, a bottle worthy of cellaring or giving as a wedding gift to Hugh Johnson and Jancis Robinson. We did taste a few duds, and there was a hint of snobbishness at a couple of wineries, but compared to buying pinot or tasting in Napa, this place was a little slice of heaven. My understanding is that this sort of phenomenon (affordable quality) is rather fleeting in the wine world, so we felt privileged to have gotten in at the ground floor. And seriously, pick up some wine from this region, you won't be disappointed. Or maybe you will and you can give the rest to me.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
RIP Moldy Milo
I remember blogging before about how safe and courteous kiwi drivers were, pulling to the side of the road to allow you to pass if you were in a hurry, not scolding you should you forget your signal at a roundabout. So polite that one wonders why they even have horns on their cars, except maybe to compel sheep to leave the roadway.
We left Raglan that morning with great news. While I had heard about my job in Margaret River, Tracy was still waiting to hear a final confirmation. The more time passed, the more concerning things were becoming, as it was a bit late in the game to be restarting a job search for harvest. But the news finally came. She had gotten the job! But as we drove out of Raglan making plans for champagne on our arrival in Hawks Bay, we came around the corner of an S-curve and spotted trouble. A black BMW had taken the turn too fast and had already started fishtailing coming towards us. We had time to slow down and make for the ditch just as the BMW fishtailed back the other way and struck our car full on, leaving us in the ditch and her in the middle of the road.
A car crash isn't very fun to read about, and is even less fun to write about, so I'll skip the details. We both made it out of the car ok, I had a pretty good knock on the head and banged up knees, and Tracy had a sore neck from the whiplash and some pretty serious seatbelt bruises, but otherwise we were ok. Milo did not fare quite so well. Nor, should it be noted, did the Idiot Irene's BMW (names may have been altered to more accurately reflect intelligence). To be safe, we both were taken to the hospital to get checked out, about a 40 minute ambulance ride away. Quite a few of the medical staff there, including our ER nurse (French) and doctor (Chinese) were foreigners, something I thought was kind of interesting. What was far more interesting was that after we were treated, we just walked out the door.
New Zealand has a very interesting program set up that whenever there is an accident, a government organization called the ACC covers all of the medical costs associated with the accident, including emergency care and secondary treatment. The idea is to keep people from suing each other for exorbitant amounts of money, and making sure that everyone involved, even those that are at fault, can get health care. The costs of the program are covered by vehicle registration fees, which are a few hundred dollars every 6 months. So medical care that would have cost us around $6000 in the US without insurance was completely covered in NZ. And yes, somehow they are saving money doing it.
We spent the next few days back in Raglan recovering from our injuries and trying to figure out exactly what to do next. The other driver's insurance would cover the damage to our care since she was at fault (and charged with reckless driving to boot), but in the meantime we had no transportation and were trapped in a rather beautiful but isolated place.
That's when kiwi generosity kicked in.
After a day or so we went to the local garage to collect all of our belongings from Milo, who was towed into town after the accident. The mechanic at the garage, after seeing we were planning on walking back into town with all of our gear, asked if we wanted to borrow their loaner car. I said yes and promised to have it back within 20 minutes, but he tossed me the keys and told me to keep it for a few days until we could sort ourselves out.
A few nights later as we sat outside our hotel room (we opted not to return to the backpackers, who were nice enough to find us a place at a quiet hotel in town that wasn't too expensive), the owners of the hotel, Andy and Brent, came by and struck up a conversation. After finding out what happened, Andy offered to take us back to his house the next morning for a soak in his hot tub and a personal tour of all the local sites in the area. We had managed to track down a car in a town about 40 minutes south of Raglan (thank god for the internet), and Andy even agreed to drop us there when we were finished on the tour. We couldn't say no.
While the kiwis may not have lived up to their reputation as being safe and courteous drivers, they more than lived up to their reputation for kindness and generosity.
We were in a car accident. Our car was totaled. And within 5 days we were mostly healed up and back on the road.
We left Raglan that morning with great news. While I had heard about my job in Margaret River, Tracy was still waiting to hear a final confirmation. The more time passed, the more concerning things were becoming, as it was a bit late in the game to be restarting a job search for harvest. But the news finally came. She had gotten the job! But as we drove out of Raglan making plans for champagne on our arrival in Hawks Bay, we came around the corner of an S-curve and spotted trouble. A black BMW had taken the turn too fast and had already started fishtailing coming towards us. We had time to slow down and make for the ditch just as the BMW fishtailed back the other way and struck our car full on, leaving us in the ditch and her in the middle of the road.
A car crash isn't very fun to read about, and is even less fun to write about, so I'll skip the details. We both made it out of the car ok, I had a pretty good knock on the head and banged up knees, and Tracy had a sore neck from the whiplash and some pretty serious seatbelt bruises, but otherwise we were ok. Milo did not fare quite so well. Nor, should it be noted, did the Idiot Irene's BMW (names may have been altered to more accurately reflect intelligence). To be safe, we both were taken to the hospital to get checked out, about a 40 minute ambulance ride away. Quite a few of the medical staff there, including our ER nurse (French) and doctor (Chinese) were foreigners, something I thought was kind of interesting. What was far more interesting was that after we were treated, we just walked out the door.
New Zealand has a very interesting program set up that whenever there is an accident, a government organization called the ACC covers all of the medical costs associated with the accident, including emergency care and secondary treatment. The idea is to keep people from suing each other for exorbitant amounts of money, and making sure that everyone involved, even those that are at fault, can get health care. The costs of the program are covered by vehicle registration fees, which are a few hundred dollars every 6 months. So medical care that would have cost us around $6000 in the US without insurance was completely covered in NZ. And yes, somehow they are saving money doing it.
We spent the next few days back in Raglan recovering from our injuries and trying to figure out exactly what to do next. The other driver's insurance would cover the damage to our care since she was at fault (and charged with reckless driving to boot), but in the meantime we had no transportation and were trapped in a rather beautiful but isolated place.
That's when kiwi generosity kicked in.
After a day or so we went to the local garage to collect all of our belongings from Milo, who was towed into town after the accident. The mechanic at the garage, after seeing we were planning on walking back into town with all of our gear, asked if we wanted to borrow their loaner car. I said yes and promised to have it back within 20 minutes, but he tossed me the keys and told me to keep it for a few days until we could sort ourselves out.
A few nights later as we sat outside our hotel room (we opted not to return to the backpackers, who were nice enough to find us a place at a quiet hotel in town that wasn't too expensive), the owners of the hotel, Andy and Brent, came by and struck up a conversation. After finding out what happened, Andy offered to take us back to his house the next morning for a soak in his hot tub and a personal tour of all the local sites in the area. We had managed to track down a car in a town about 40 minutes south of Raglan (thank god for the internet), and Andy even agreed to drop us there when we were finished on the tour. We couldn't say no.
While the kiwis may not have lived up to their reputation as being safe and courteous drivers, they more than lived up to their reputation for kindness and generosity.
We were in a car accident. Our car was totaled. And within 5 days we were mostly healed up and back on the road.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
The road ahead
Its a wonderful feeling. The converging in a single point in time, that moment tasted on the last day of school before summer or a first kiss, that rare moment when time, money and opportunity are all on your side, when you have nothing but open road in front of you. Our day had come.
Over breakfast that morning we broke out our lonely planet to decide where to head to first. We were both keen to do some backpacking, but elected to spend a few more days relaxing from the journey before getting our boots in the mud. We settled on Raglan, a sleepy little surfer town about 3 hours south of Auckland on the west coast, just outside of Hamilton. Car packed and occupants caffinated, we hit the road.
Getting outside of Auckland proper didn't take long (even in a car whose top speed was only 90k, about 50mph), and before we know it we were winding through a postcard of the sunny New Zealand countryside. The hillsides were not dotted with sheep however, but cows. As we later found out, the dairy industry had soared recently, thanks to the high price that milk products were demanding in the market, so many former sheep farmers had traded their crooks for metal buckets and ridden the lactose wave. The rest of the county, however, looked exactly as I had remembered it.
We pulled into Raglan around the middle of the afternoon and found our backpackers. After dropping our gear and picking up some dinner supplies, we headed out to the black sand beaches for a stroll and a beer before dinner. The town was not actually on the ocean, but a few kilometers to the east of it along an innlet. Raglan is known for being one of the best surfing locations in New Zealand, but for us this meant one thing: it was really damn windy. Like two weeks later you are still pulling sand out of your ear windy. I had been thinking a swim would be quite nice, but as the clouds descended and the wind increased, I had second thoughts, so we headed for home. Fortunately for us, our backpackers was equipped with a hot tub!
The next day we borrowed some kayaks and went for a paddle in the innlet before once again attempting to head to the beach for a swim. The wind remained almost as strong as the day before, but I was determined enough to dash out in between clouds. Feeling quite satisfied with myself, we spent the rest of the afternoon soaking and reading before another quiet evening of cooking dinner and watching movies. We decided the next morning to make a break for Hawk's Bay and wine country on the east coast and seemed to be hitting our travelling groove.
If only we had known what was just around the next corner.
Over breakfast that morning we broke out our lonely planet to decide where to head to first. We were both keen to do some backpacking, but elected to spend a few more days relaxing from the journey before getting our boots in the mud. We settled on Raglan, a sleepy little surfer town about 3 hours south of Auckland on the west coast, just outside of Hamilton. Car packed and occupants caffinated, we hit the road.
Getting outside of Auckland proper didn't take long (even in a car whose top speed was only 90k, about 50mph), and before we know it we were winding through a postcard of the sunny New Zealand countryside. The hillsides were not dotted with sheep however, but cows. As we later found out, the dairy industry had soared recently, thanks to the high price that milk products were demanding in the market, so many former sheep farmers had traded their crooks for metal buckets and ridden the lactose wave. The rest of the county, however, looked exactly as I had remembered it.
We pulled into Raglan around the middle of the afternoon and found our backpackers. After dropping our gear and picking up some dinner supplies, we headed out to the black sand beaches for a stroll and a beer before dinner. The town was not actually on the ocean, but a few kilometers to the east of it along an innlet. Raglan is known for being one of the best surfing locations in New Zealand, but for us this meant one thing: it was really damn windy. Like two weeks later you are still pulling sand out of your ear windy. I had been thinking a swim would be quite nice, but as the clouds descended and the wind increased, I had second thoughts, so we headed for home. Fortunately for us, our backpackers was equipped with a hot tub!
The next day we borrowed some kayaks and went for a paddle in the innlet before once again attempting to head to the beach for a swim. The wind remained almost as strong as the day before, but I was determined enough to dash out in between clouds. Feeling quite satisfied with myself, we spent the rest of the afternoon soaking and reading before another quiet evening of cooking dinner and watching movies. We decided the next morning to make a break for Hawk's Bay and wine country on the east coast and seemed to be hitting our travelling groove.
If only we had known what was just around the next corner.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
New Zealand take 2
Every good sequel needs something. Whether it be a new character (Lando Calrissian) or a new take on an already established character (Robert Di Nero as Vito Corleone), there has to be something in a sequel to make it interesting enough for people to tune in to the same old scene. Well fear not, this particular sequel has both! Not only to you get the same main character in a different time (6 months older and wiser), but a new character as well. Everyone, I would like you to meet Tracy.
Tracy and I met over the summer in Oregon. I was working in a wine bar at the time and she was in town exploring the possibility of a harvest in Oregon. Thanks in no small part to the Newberg Taco Truck, we hit it off. She ended up working a harvest in Oregon at Torii Mor (while I was working once again at Cristom), and after harvest ended we both landed a spring vintage in Margaret River (her at Vasse Felix, me at Cape Mentelle). Needing something constructive (and ideally financially beneficial) to do in the meantime, we decided to head to New Zealand to do a bit of viticultural work at Felton Road in Central Otago. Turns out they didn't really need us until after Christmas, so we decided to head down a bit earlier and do a bit of vacationing before the work began. So we did.
I met Tracy and her mom Sue in LAX, having left Chicago that morning after spending Thanksgiving with my family in Geneva. Wanting to ensure that this bit of travelling would be as much of a marathon as the last go around, I was booked on the early flight out of Chicago (8am), meaning by the time I hooked up with Tracy and Sue in LA I had already been on the road some 8 hours (thanks to a stop-over in Tuscan). Mercifully we elected not to hang around the airport, heading for a nice early dinner in Santa Monica (after a brief detour through Inglewood). Given that both Tracy and I are vertically unchallenged, upon checking in we decided to try and snag an exit row for the flight over. As it turns out we were in luck. There would be no cramped middle seat with awkward chair leg placement for us. Not only were we in the exit row, we were on the upper level. A free upgrade to business class! Not only that, but the flight was undersold, meaning we had an entire row of business class seating to ourselves. Sipping on a complementary glass of red wine after a rub down with a hot towel, we both slipped off quite easily into the soundest sleep possible on a 777.
The Fiji airport was about as exciting as I remembered it (I forgot to mention we fly Air Pacific yet again, it really is the cheapest means to get to NZ), although this time around I knew that all the shops took American currency, something that would have made my last go-round far more interesting. Another few hours on a slightly smaller plane and we had arrived in Auckland, exactly 15 hours and two days after leaving the states.
I didn't really see much of Auckland the last time I was in NZ, electing instead to head to Australia immediately and drink some damn fine pinots at a wine festival. I had also largely bypassed the north island entirely in favor of exploring the more scenic and less populated south. Our mission was much the same this time around (find some damn fine wine and explore the south island), but we had decided to pick up some wheels for the journey and Auckland was the best place to do that.
I've heard that Auckland has about three quarters of the population of NZ within the city and the surrounding area, meaning it would be about 3 million people or so. A fair amount of concentration in a country the size of Colorado. We had booked three nights in a cheap backpackers/hotel (it really was a cross of both), which we hoped would give us enough time to track down a car and do a bit of sightseeing. Fighting off the jet lag, we wandered the city a bit that afternoon, having dinner at a small cafe in an area of downtown which resembled a European city more than anything else. We discovered exactly two things about Auckland immediately. It is a rather expensive place (especially for NZ), and it is full of Asian people. There were far more Asians than kiwis, or Maoris, or even tourists. The Sky Tower (Auckland's central landmark) was literally overrun with them.
Our second day in Auckland poured down rain, but we were so excited about being in a new place that we didn't care. We walked everywhere, exploring the artistic section, wandering malls and wine shops and cheese shops and bakeries and even a funny hat store. All told, we probably walked 15 miles before 3pm, before finally calling it quits in favor of over-priced beers and people watching. The night ended early, as we wanted to be up fairly early the next morning for the Auckland city car fair, where we hoped our chariot awaited.
Buying a car in New Zealand is rather different than buying a car in most other places. For starters, New Zealand gets lots of quality imports from Korea and Japan, both new and used, so most of the cars on the road are fairly reliable. The government also requires every car on the road to be completely checked over every 6 months to ensure it is in proper working condition. Plus, with the amount of backpackers and tourists that circle the country every year, the used car market is especially robust and cars tend to have a high turnover rate. In short, we were pretty confident that we could find a reliable set of wheels on the cheap that we could turn around and resell to other backpackers on our way out of the country. The best place to do so, according to several sources, was the Auckland city car fair.
We were not disappointed.
It was the first car in the row, a well loved spray paint silver 1986 Mitsubishi Mirage 2dr hatchback. It may have been held together in certain areas with electrical tape, it may have had brakes that squealed like a banshee at every intersection, but it had a phil collins tape in the glove box and a red chili pepper hanging from the mirror. And it had that certain indefinable quality, like fate had brought us to this particular moment for a reason. Maybe it was love. Maybe it was the moldy smell. But we knew we had to have it. We talked its current owner (a British backpacker nursing a nasty hangover) down from $1400 to $800 and an hour later we were proud parents. Its previous owner had named it Micky. We christened it Moldy Milo.
Having sorted out the car in the morning, we still had the rest of the day free to do a little exploring. Tracy had read that one of the nearby islands had a budding wine region, so we booked tickets on a ferry that afternoon. After provisioning ourselves at a farmer's market near the harbor, we set out for Waiheke island.
There are about 30 wineries on Waiheke, making primarily Bordeaux varietals with a dash of syrah here and there for fun. We were a bit dissapointed with the majority of the wines, finding them rather overpriced and uninteresting, but the island itself was quite beautiful, sort of a mixture between South America and Scotland. We did find a beautiful lunch spot and ate quesidillas with a fine rose, and spent most of the afternoon hiking alternatively between vineyards and nature preserves. A ferry ride back at sunset brought Orca whales breeching in the harbor, leaving little doubt that this was a blessed day indeed.
Tracy and I met over the summer in Oregon. I was working in a wine bar at the time and she was in town exploring the possibility of a harvest in Oregon. Thanks in no small part to the Newberg Taco Truck, we hit it off. She ended up working a harvest in Oregon at Torii Mor (while I was working once again at Cristom), and after harvest ended we both landed a spring vintage in Margaret River (her at Vasse Felix, me at Cape Mentelle). Needing something constructive (and ideally financially beneficial) to do in the meantime, we decided to head to New Zealand to do a bit of viticultural work at Felton Road in Central Otago. Turns out they didn't really need us until after Christmas, so we decided to head down a bit earlier and do a bit of vacationing before the work began. So we did.
I met Tracy and her mom Sue in LAX, having left Chicago that morning after spending Thanksgiving with my family in Geneva. Wanting to ensure that this bit of travelling would be as much of a marathon as the last go around, I was booked on the early flight out of Chicago (8am), meaning by the time I hooked up with Tracy and Sue in LA I had already been on the road some 8 hours (thanks to a stop-over in Tuscan). Mercifully we elected not to hang around the airport, heading for a nice early dinner in Santa Monica (after a brief detour through Inglewood). Given that both Tracy and I are vertically unchallenged, upon checking in we decided to try and snag an exit row for the flight over. As it turns out we were in luck. There would be no cramped middle seat with awkward chair leg placement for us. Not only were we in the exit row, we were on the upper level. A free upgrade to business class! Not only that, but the flight was undersold, meaning we had an entire row of business class seating to ourselves. Sipping on a complementary glass of red wine after a rub down with a hot towel, we both slipped off quite easily into the soundest sleep possible on a 777.
The Fiji airport was about as exciting as I remembered it (I forgot to mention we fly Air Pacific yet again, it really is the cheapest means to get to NZ), although this time around I knew that all the shops took American currency, something that would have made my last go-round far more interesting. Another few hours on a slightly smaller plane and we had arrived in Auckland, exactly 15 hours and two days after leaving the states.
I didn't really see much of Auckland the last time I was in NZ, electing instead to head to Australia immediately and drink some damn fine pinots at a wine festival. I had also largely bypassed the north island entirely in favor of exploring the more scenic and less populated south. Our mission was much the same this time around (find some damn fine wine and explore the south island), but we had decided to pick up some wheels for the journey and Auckland was the best place to do that.
I've heard that Auckland has about three quarters of the population of NZ within the city and the surrounding area, meaning it would be about 3 million people or so. A fair amount of concentration in a country the size of Colorado. We had booked three nights in a cheap backpackers/hotel (it really was a cross of both), which we hoped would give us enough time to track down a car and do a bit of sightseeing. Fighting off the jet lag, we wandered the city a bit that afternoon, having dinner at a small cafe in an area of downtown which resembled a European city more than anything else. We discovered exactly two things about Auckland immediately. It is a rather expensive place (especially for NZ), and it is full of Asian people. There were far more Asians than kiwis, or Maoris, or even tourists. The Sky Tower (Auckland's central landmark) was literally overrun with them.
Our second day in Auckland poured down rain, but we were so excited about being in a new place that we didn't care. We walked everywhere, exploring the artistic section, wandering malls and wine shops and cheese shops and bakeries and even a funny hat store. All told, we probably walked 15 miles before 3pm, before finally calling it quits in favor of over-priced beers and people watching. The night ended early, as we wanted to be up fairly early the next morning for the Auckland city car fair, where we hoped our chariot awaited.
Buying a car in New Zealand is rather different than buying a car in most other places. For starters, New Zealand gets lots of quality imports from Korea and Japan, both new and used, so most of the cars on the road are fairly reliable. The government also requires every car on the road to be completely checked over every 6 months to ensure it is in proper working condition. Plus, with the amount of backpackers and tourists that circle the country every year, the used car market is especially robust and cars tend to have a high turnover rate. In short, we were pretty confident that we could find a reliable set of wheels on the cheap that we could turn around and resell to other backpackers on our way out of the country. The best place to do so, according to several sources, was the Auckland city car fair.
We were not disappointed.
It was the first car in the row, a well loved spray paint silver 1986 Mitsubishi Mirage 2dr hatchback. It may have been held together in certain areas with electrical tape, it may have had brakes that squealed like a banshee at every intersection, but it had a phil collins tape in the glove box and a red chili pepper hanging from the mirror. And it had that certain indefinable quality, like fate had brought us to this particular moment for a reason. Maybe it was love. Maybe it was the moldy smell. But we knew we had to have it. We talked its current owner (a British backpacker nursing a nasty hangover) down from $1400 to $800 and an hour later we were proud parents. Its previous owner had named it Micky. We christened it Moldy Milo.
Having sorted out the car in the morning, we still had the rest of the day free to do a little exploring. Tracy had read that one of the nearby islands had a budding wine region, so we booked tickets on a ferry that afternoon. After provisioning ourselves at a farmer's market near the harbor, we set out for Waiheke island.
There are about 30 wineries on Waiheke, making primarily Bordeaux varietals with a dash of syrah here and there for fun. We were a bit dissapointed with the majority of the wines, finding them rather overpriced and uninteresting, but the island itself was quite beautiful, sort of a mixture between South America and Scotland. We did find a beautiful lunch spot and ate quesidillas with a fine rose, and spent most of the afternoon hiking alternatively between vineyards and nature preserves. A ferry ride back at sunset brought Orca whales breeching in the harbor, leaving little doubt that this was a blessed day indeed.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Catching up Part 2: The last days of travel and the beginning of harvest
With each passing day, Karamea proved more and more irresistable. What had started into a quick overnight before a long road trip had become several days of lounging and feasting. Not a bad turn of events by any means, but the time had come to begin making my way to Martinborough and the next leg of the adventure: making New Zealand Pinot Noir.
With Jens' van thoroughly out of commission, Jens, Marleis and I elected to hitchhike our way out of Karamea, but not before a final bonfire and beers on the beach, and of course a few beers in the van as well. I was going to miss these crazy Germans. Jens and Marleis had decided to head south and make for Christchurch, while my path led north to Picton and the ferry to Wellington, where I could catch a train to Martinborough. It was only about 150km as the crow flies from Karamea to Picton, but the relative isolation of Karmea left no direct route there, meaning the total trip was more like 350km. Still penniless, I planned to hitchhike the entire way (save the ferry crossing of course). I bid a fond farewell to Jens and Marleis with promises to reunite some time down the line, and caught my first ride to Westport from a young Dutch couple who were staying at the holiday park. The rain began to pick up in Westport (the west coast of New Zealand sees about as much rain as the Oregon coast, ie A LOT), but I remained hopeful that the pity of strangers would keep me dry. Just then, the clouds parted and the sun shone brilliantly across the land as a chariot piloted by two young beautiful Belgian angels smiling radiantly at me slid to a stop along the road. As I climbed aboard amid excited giggling, I ran through a mental checklist of all the available dieties whom I would be sending a small thank you note to in the very near future. But oh the folly of man! Their path was leading south to Hammer Springs, the exact opposite direction from my idiotic responsibilities, so our wonderful time together only lasted some pitiful 8km. Time and time again I have wondered exactly where this particular path that had been laid before me would have led should I followed them to some delicious clothing optional thermal spring high on a mountaintop somewhere in Middle Earth...but instead I was left standing on the road watching their tiny blue nissan dissapear in the distance. It was, quite simply, the biggest mistake I made in New Zealand.
As if to ensure plenty of time to mull over my cold, lonely decision, my next ride didn't arrive for nearly 30 minutes (which felt like 40 hours). The rain, which had briefly abated for my glimpse of divinity, returned in earnest. Finally, a car pulled past me and ground to a halt, and I was moving again. Trent, Tom and Mel were three older gay men from the US and Canada. Tom and Mel were celebrating their 20th anniversary, and Mel owned property somewhere in Nelson. They were all very friendly and invited me to spend time with them at Mel's house (which I politiely declined), and left me where the highway split towards Blenheim just after 1pm at a place called Hope River. Four hours in and I was already halfway there! Elation quickly turned to despair as an hour slowly ticked by, with only four cars passing in my direction. My rate of pickups thus far had been about one car in twenty, and Hope flowed downstream. I had all the necessary gear to spend a night in the mountains, but food was a real concern. So was the isolation.
Finally, two French girls picked me up and got me to St Arnold, saving me the prospect of a cold lonely night of warm Belgian fascination. I spent another hour there waiting (at least St Arnold had a bus stop en route to Blenheim) before getting picked up by a Kiwi marthon runner who got me all the way to Blenheim. A van full of American and French hippies and an old kiwi handyman landed me in Picton in time for dinner at the Villa, a little backpackers near the ferry. A beer and a soak in the hot tub, and I was a new man.
I caught the ferry early the next morning to Wellington, spending the two hour trip watching the tides ripping across the Cook Strait before grabbing a train and a bus to Martinborough. I met Dave, the vineyard manager of Escarpment, at the bus station and after a quick drive around Martinborough (or really a quick loop around the square at the center of town) he deposited me at my home for harvest. I was staying with Carla, a divorced mother of two who worked in the office for another winery in town and had a house situated on 7 acres of savignon blanc and pinot noir.
As it turns out the month of February had been very cold, meaning harvest was at least another 2 or 3 weeks away. Having spent all of my money travelling the previous 6 weeks however, I had little choice but find ways to amuse myself locally. On my first day, I oriented myself with Carla's kitchen, which had a very flash espresso maker. Not wanting to use such an expensive devise without instruction however, I chose instead to make myself instant coffee with the tea kettle. Putting the kettle on the gas stove, I set about making toast and jam. I began to notice a peculiar odor coming in the direction of the kettle, and turned just in time to see the kettle burst into flames. As it turns out, this particular kettle was electric, and though it was made almost entirely of metal (as to emulate an actual kettle), the bottom was in fact plastic. Thus, my first day in Martinborough was spent frantically rushing around downtown trying to find a replacement before Carla came home from work. Not the best first impression.
Now I could spend hours writing about harvest and the weeks I spent before it began, but given that I am once again in New Zealand and fresh adventures are turning up daily, I'll keep things brief. In short, I attended a cricket match and drank some champaign, visited a seal colony on the coast and ate paua (sort of a giant mussel), made 200 tons of pinot, riesling, chardonnay and savignon blanc in a barrel hall (the winery at Escarpment is yet to be built), drank a lot of beer and some really good wine, and generally worked harder than I ever have in my life.
Such is the life of a traveling winemaker :)
With Jens' van thoroughly out of commission, Jens, Marleis and I elected to hitchhike our way out of Karamea, but not before a final bonfire and beers on the beach, and of course a few beers in the van as well. I was going to miss these crazy Germans. Jens and Marleis had decided to head south and make for Christchurch, while my path led north to Picton and the ferry to Wellington, where I could catch a train to Martinborough. It was only about 150km as the crow flies from Karamea to Picton, but the relative isolation of Karmea left no direct route there, meaning the total trip was more like 350km. Still penniless, I planned to hitchhike the entire way (save the ferry crossing of course). I bid a fond farewell to Jens and Marleis with promises to reunite some time down the line, and caught my first ride to Westport from a young Dutch couple who were staying at the holiday park. The rain began to pick up in Westport (the west coast of New Zealand sees about as much rain as the Oregon coast, ie A LOT), but I remained hopeful that the pity of strangers would keep me dry. Just then, the clouds parted and the sun shone brilliantly across the land as a chariot piloted by two young beautiful Belgian angels smiling radiantly at me slid to a stop along the road. As I climbed aboard amid excited giggling, I ran through a mental checklist of all the available dieties whom I would be sending a small thank you note to in the very near future. But oh the folly of man! Their path was leading south to Hammer Springs, the exact opposite direction from my idiotic responsibilities, so our wonderful time together only lasted some pitiful 8km. Time and time again I have wondered exactly where this particular path that had been laid before me would have led should I followed them to some delicious clothing optional thermal spring high on a mountaintop somewhere in Middle Earth...but instead I was left standing on the road watching their tiny blue nissan dissapear in the distance. It was, quite simply, the biggest mistake I made in New Zealand.
As if to ensure plenty of time to mull over my cold, lonely decision, my next ride didn't arrive for nearly 30 minutes (which felt like 40 hours). The rain, which had briefly abated for my glimpse of divinity, returned in earnest. Finally, a car pulled past me and ground to a halt, and I was moving again. Trent, Tom and Mel were three older gay men from the US and Canada. Tom and Mel were celebrating their 20th anniversary, and Mel owned property somewhere in Nelson. They were all very friendly and invited me to spend time with them at Mel's house (which I politiely declined), and left me where the highway split towards Blenheim just after 1pm at a place called Hope River. Four hours in and I was already halfway there! Elation quickly turned to despair as an hour slowly ticked by, with only four cars passing in my direction. My rate of pickups thus far had been about one car in twenty, and Hope flowed downstream. I had all the necessary gear to spend a night in the mountains, but food was a real concern. So was the isolation.
Finally, two French girls picked me up and got me to St Arnold, saving me the prospect of a cold lonely night of warm Belgian fascination. I spent another hour there waiting (at least St Arnold had a bus stop en route to Blenheim) before getting picked up by a Kiwi marthon runner who got me all the way to Blenheim. A van full of American and French hippies and an old kiwi handyman landed me in Picton in time for dinner at the Villa, a little backpackers near the ferry. A beer and a soak in the hot tub, and I was a new man.
I caught the ferry early the next morning to Wellington, spending the two hour trip watching the tides ripping across the Cook Strait before grabbing a train and a bus to Martinborough. I met Dave, the vineyard manager of Escarpment, at the bus station and after a quick drive around Martinborough (or really a quick loop around the square at the center of town) he deposited me at my home for harvest. I was staying with Carla, a divorced mother of two who worked in the office for another winery in town and had a house situated on 7 acres of savignon blanc and pinot noir.
As it turns out the month of February had been very cold, meaning harvest was at least another 2 or 3 weeks away. Having spent all of my money travelling the previous 6 weeks however, I had little choice but find ways to amuse myself locally. On my first day, I oriented myself with Carla's kitchen, which had a very flash espresso maker. Not wanting to use such an expensive devise without instruction however, I chose instead to make myself instant coffee with the tea kettle. Putting the kettle on the gas stove, I set about making toast and jam. I began to notice a peculiar odor coming in the direction of the kettle, and turned just in time to see the kettle burst into flames. As it turns out, this particular kettle was electric, and though it was made almost entirely of metal (as to emulate an actual kettle), the bottom was in fact plastic. Thus, my first day in Martinborough was spent frantically rushing around downtown trying to find a replacement before Carla came home from work. Not the best first impression.
Now I could spend hours writing about harvest and the weeks I spent before it began, but given that I am once again in New Zealand and fresh adventures are turning up daily, I'll keep things brief. In short, I attended a cricket match and drank some champaign, visited a seal colony on the coast and ate paua (sort of a giant mussel), made 200 tons of pinot, riesling, chardonnay and savignon blanc in a barrel hall (the winery at Escarpment is yet to be built), drank a lot of beer and some really good wine, and generally worked harder than I ever have in my life.
Such is the life of a traveling winemaker :)
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Catching up part 1: The Heaphy track and Karamea
So here we are again. It’s been a little while…again. And I’m supposed to come up with a clever and witty way to attempt to explain to all my long-lost loyal readers (such that they are) why the hell I never finished writing about my travels last spring. The trouble is, I used up that clever and witty post already (see below). I got nothing. Well I do have excuses, but they aren’t really that clever. Something along the lines of not having time because harvest started in New Zealand, followed by a move and constructing a rather comfortable setup in Portland, only to tear it all down once again for the madness of yet another harvest. Maybe I’m just more comfortable procrastinating until the last possible moment, in this case riding on a plane at the start of another travel marathon to New Zealand. Or maybe my life was removed from the mindset of a traveler, having put roots down for a little while (albeit a brief while). Maybe I just needed to be crammed on a plane, having said goodbye to friends and family for 6 months, packing my life into a backpack and a box, feeling the urge to tell a few more stories before the fresh ones crowd them out. We’ll go with that one. And maybe I just needed the guy sitting in front of me to push his seat all the way back…perfect.
The Abel Tasman was the only the first leg of the backpacking adventures, allowing the opportunity to explore golden sand beaches and subtropical forests. The Heaphy track promised to be something quite different. It’s the longest “Great Walk” in New Zealand, stretching almost 100 kilometers from the Farewell Spit through the Kaikoura National Park and finishing along the remote northern tip of the west coast. My friend and guardian angel Aoife, whom I had rendezvoused with at the Innlet, had offered to give me a ride to the trailhead the next morning. Still feeling rather good about my new found hitchhiking abilities, I nonetheless accepted her offer, and we set off the next morning after a hearty breakfast. While guidebooks and maps have surely improved the world over in the last few decades, this particular part of New Zealand still stubbornly clung to history, and a drive that was supposed to be “approximately 12km” turned out to be closer to 30km. And while the guidebook did mention that there may be a “low point in the road that may be a wet crossing”, it accounted for neither the number of said crossings (4) nor the depth (the shallowest was several inches). When we pulled up to the 4th crossing, the water was moving swiftly and looked to be almost 6 inches deep in places, with rocks sprinkled for extra merit. One look at Aoife and I realized that I was near the point of exhausting her goodwill, so I pulled my gear out and prepared to hike the rest of the way in (somewhere between 2 and 20km, according to the guidebook). As luck would have it, a Canadian expedition en route to the trailhead happened to pull up just as I shouldered my gear, and I managed to hitch a ride with them the rest of the way in, for a nominal fee of course. Bidding Aoife farewell, I climbed aboard.
The Heaphy track begins at the headwaters of a small river valley, and follows a step and steady climb for 10 miles or so, gaining nearly 800 meters in the process. The trail was very well maintained (felt more like a logging road than anything) and the climb was steady, so I settled into my pace and started climbing, pausing at breaks in the trees to judge my progress. My campsite for the night was the very first shelter along the trail named Aeore Shelter, which made for a pretty short day. Dropping my gear I continued up the trail another mile or so to Flanagan’s Corner, which marked the highest point on the trail. Some crazy DOC ranger had dragged a picnic table up there (or more likely driven it up, given the size of the trail), which was occupied by an elderly Kiwi couple. Turns out they were both ecology buffs and gave me a private lesson on the local flora and fauna, some of which only grow in this one place in the entire world. My personal favorite was the dracophilia tree, a sort of tiered pom-pom looking tree that made me wonder if I stumbled into the pages of a Dr Seuss book. At least the kiwi’s looked normal enough.
After a quiet night at Aeore my trail turned west and flattened out as I left the river valley for the high desert of the Kaikouras. I paused at Perry Saddle hut briefly to take advantage of the sunlight and dry the dew off my rainfly. In the meantime I explored the inside of the hut, which was obviously maintained regularly and very clean (as huts go), when I noticed a hand written note posted on the notice board describing where to find the trailhead to the summit of Perry Mountain, the 2200 meter peak at the north end of Perry Saddle. With plenty of daylight left, I decided to give it a go, finding the (hiker’s marker) off the main trail and stashing most of my gear, save some water and lunch. The climb was grueling, winding straight up through a forest of gnarled trees which gave way to ankle-spraining scree which in turn gave way to large broken boulders announcing the approach of the summit. The sun mercifully found its way behind some clouds as I gained elevation, and with sweat pouring out pores I didn’t know existed I clawed my way to the top. The view was well worth the exertion. To the east, the river wound its way through Farewell spit to the Cook Strait, and to the east, I could just make out the Heaphy track winding its way to the west to the Tasman Sea. As I stumbled along on burning legs searching for a comfortable lunch spot, I came upon a fire pit and a rather human shaped rock shelter. While the wind was howling and carrying on about what an awful idea it would be to camp up here, I wondered what kind of crazy person would think camping up here was a good idea. Looking up at the sky beginning to come through the clouds, I realized it wasn’t a fair to judge this person just yet, as the billions of star witnesses making up the defense were at recess. Recharged and reinvigorated after a little food and a satisfying rest, I bounded down the mountain and continued on my way along the trail. The sun began to shine once again, and I paused along the way to strip for a plunge in a stream fed mountain pool, washing away the sweat and grime I had accumulated in 2 days of uphill climbing.
As I drew nearer to my campsite I spotted several DOC rangers hiking through the bush, and hiked along the trail with them briefly before they disappeared back off the trail. My campsite for the night was Gouland Downs, which had the advantage of not having a public hut (and thus less public). It did, however, have a government run hut for research purposes, which was occupied by the rangers I had run across earlier. As I was setting up my tent, a beautiful blonde woman pulled into camp and began to set up her tent, and I suddenly had the feeling that there was something special about this particular campsite. Before I had the chance to walk over and introduce myself however, she disappeared into her tent and did not return for an hour or more. Sighing to myself, I pulled out my cooking supplies and set to work on dinner. I was joined by a rather curious but rather unintelligent weka, a flightless bird about the size of a chicken, who was keen on investigating the boiling water in my pot. In a different time I would have satisfied his curiosity, and I couldn’t help but wonder if he bore some distant relation to another flightless bird of questionable intellect that went extinct on another island some 150 years ago…
Perhaps the smell of my delicious cooking enticed the other camper from here tent, or perhaps she had just woken from a short nap, but I was fortunate enough to have a dinner companion after all. Turns out she was a German 20-something from Hamburg named Marleis who was slowly winding her way around New Zealand doing agricultural work to pay for explorations. The rangers returned while we were eating dinner and we chatted about the usual where from and what for, and as it turns out they were in the midst of tagging the endangered Great Kiwi (the largest in New Zealand, or the world for that matter) and had been scouting for good places to trap kiwi for most of the day. Sarah and Dave were both indeed DOC rangers, while Natasha and James were both former DOC rangers who elected to do private contracting instead (as James put it, get paid by the government and not deal with the bloody mess). They were heading out to hunt that night, and I immediately asked if they minded if we tagged along. They agreed to let us go, but only if we promised not to tell anyone about it. Word has a way of spreading quickly along the trail, and allowing tourists to take part in the tagging of endangered wild animals (while just so happen to be on the currency) may not be in the best interests of the DOC, let alone kiwis. The sunset and night fell, and we set off with the group, flanked on either side by rangers and trackers. James went over exactly how one catches a kiwi, grabbing its legs in a particular way and flipping it upside down to calm it, all without snapping off its signature beak or rendering it lame. Natasha helpfully chimed in to watch out for their claws, which are very good at digging up insects and ripping up Jack Wolfskin gortex jackets. Even in the dark I could see Marleis’ eyes widen, but as Natasha hiked up ahead with James, Dave caught up and informed us that under no circumstances were we to do anything but observe, avoiding my choice between looking like a sissy city boy and crippling/killing a national treasure. We left the trail and hiked down a large embankment to a small clearing. To the north was a small stream, the east the steep embankment we just hiked down, so we took up positions around the outside of the clearing to the south and west in a semi-circle, making a net. Dave took up a position near mind, obviously sensing that in addition to be a clumsy American I might just be stupid enough to try to get involved (having something to prove from my getting picked last at kickball in grade school days, among other things). James arranged himself in the middle of the circle, and had a small mp3 player to entice wild kiwi with various X-rated kiwi calls. Dave muttered to get comfortable, as last night they had sat motionless for 2 hours waiting for the elusive kiwi to show up, which of course it never did. I settled into a spot where I could see the stars through the trees and waited. The first of the calls blared loudly from the clearing, and sure enough, they were answered some distance away. After another 10 minutes, James repeated the calls, which again were answered from what seemed like the same distance, and I began to wonder if someone had forgot to make sure there weren’t other DOC groups out here playing tag with us. The minutes continued to tick by, stretching longer and longer as the excitement of the hunt began to wear off. After my leg fell asleep, James repeated the call one last time. This time, however, it was answered, and far closer than any of the previous calls. James repeated the call once more (an especially provocative one I might add), and the call came even closer. Absolute silence reigned for a few moments, with every hair on my skin searching for any vibration in the air. Something moved behind me. I couldn’t move, not to turn my head towards the noise, or even to shift my second leg, which oblivious to the suspenseful nature of the situation, had also fallen asleep. No matter, every inch of my attention was focused on that rustling, my mind mentally projecting the distance, 10 feet, 5 feet, moving to my left, now pausing for a moment, now walking around to the fruit, over to my right side. Then nothing. Whatever it was now stood less than one foot away from me, probably trying to figure out why the hell this funny looking red tree stump was perspiring. Suddenly I felt something tap my arm, lightly at first but quickly followed by several sharper, more authoritative taps. Likely very confused now and wondering where the sultry kiwi vixen had vanished to, I heard several steps behind me and the loudest kiwi cry of protest I have ever seen. Think T-Rex roaring at a Ford Explorer in Jurassic Park. Quick thinking James quickly played the kiwi temptress once more and the intruder charged to the center of the clearing, libido flaring no doubt. Before it could realize its mistake, James leapt up (in the dark mind you) and snagged the male kiwi in one fell swoop. We broke the circle and walked/hobbled in to give him our congratulations. But James wasn’t done. Lifting his head suddenly, he quickly passed off the kiwi to Natasha and darted off in the woods again, returning moments later with a second kiwi. Evidently the female kiwi had followed her mate (apparently he had a habit of sneaking off) and was coming in to spoil the party. How James had spotted her, let alone chased her down in the middle of the woods in the middle of a moonless night shall forever be a mystery to me. I bet he was the first one picked at kickball.
The rangers quickly set to work taking measurements and blood samples and attaching tracking bands while Marleis and I stood by uselessly observing. Natasha looked over at Dave, grinned, and called me over. Now what you need to do, she said, is take the big male here by his leg and cradle him in your arms, like holding an upside baby. Naturally. Before Dave could utter a word of protest (I think I managed to get a syllable out), I was holding an endangered national monument like an overstuffed pillow case. After the proper electronic documentation was undertaken, the kiwi seemed to relax a little, and tucked his head under my arm in what was almost an intimate gesture (or a desperate attempt to avoid the light from my headlamp). This moment was fleeting however, and as he began to struggle he was quickly removed from my care. Marleis (who was almost as jittery as the kiwis) also got to take a turn, and admittedly looked far better with her kiwi than I did with mine. Before long both kiwis were tagged, poked and prodded, and the time came to place them in a velvet sack and administer a mild sedative, so upon waking they would think it had all been a dream. Lacking these items however, we just tossed them (gently, or as gently as a man like James could muster) back into the woods. They stood a bit startled for a moment, before disappearing back into the darkness. As the rangers headed off to another spot, Marleis and I headed back to camp, thanking them profusely for such a rare opportunity. Enchanted campsite indeed.
Marleis and I compared itineraries and elected to hike the remainder of the trail together. We crossed a serious of suspension bridges as we made our way through high desert country, before the scrubby bushes gave way to forest once again. At the edge of this transition was our campsite, and we rewarded ourselves by finding a cold stream to plunge into before returning back to the campsite for dinner. Marleis had booked herself in the hut that night and befriended another German named Jens, and the three of us ate dinner gazing on the mouth of the Heaphy River, some 20km in the distance. As the sun set that evening, clouds rippled over the horizon, as if someone had forgot to pull the sunset canvas taunt over the horizon. The show didn’t end there, with the Southern Cross and Milky Way competing with the half moon in the sky.
Jens, Marleis and I set off the next day under overcast skies, crossing many more suspension bridges as the clouds beginning to sprinkle rain. The forest here was much different than the one the greeted us at the beginning of the trail, with beech trees giving way to dense jungles full of ferns and massive trees. We had crossed the rainshadow. Despite the weather and the increasing number of black flies, we all remained in high spirits, climbing trees and taking pictures, answering the riddles of little birds that guarded our path. Now I’ve heard that some people become philosophical after spending time in the woods. Others become spiritual or environmentally conscientious. And some people wear banana leaves on their heads. I’m not sure who started it, but we unanimously decided that the best way to keep the rain from our heads was to wear large seed pouches on our head. Feeling the tribalism developing, we crafted ourselves a totem (Mr. Banana Leaf), and thus was born the Banana Leaf Tribe!
Marleis and Jens were both stopping at the Heaphy hut that night along the mouth of the river, but I (in my attempt to avoid overcrowded campgrounds) had elected instead to move on to a shelter 2 more hours up the trail along the coast. We paused for a little while at the mouth of the river, but as the skies continued to darken, I knew I needed to make camp soon or face very unpleasant circumstances. I left my companions at the crowded but cheerful Heaphy hut and continued down the coast. As I made camp that night in my lonely campsite, I had a feeling I was in for a bit of a storm. Turns out I was right.
I have camped in serious weather before, but never alone, and never this close to a raging ocean. The shelter was well off the beach, but as the storm picked up intensity I couldn’t help but wonder about storm surges and tsunamis. Making matters worse, the shelter was at the foot of large sloping cliffs, which offered little protection from, well, anything. The rains were heavy at first, but they began to lighten up past midnight and I thought I had come through the worst of it. Then the wind started blowing. It was an eerily devilish, screaming down the sides of the cliffs through the trees before pausing just a moment and then battering my tent. I had my tent staked down with large rocks, but as the beating continued I began to worry that my tent poles were getting ready to snap. My tent is mushroom-shaped with two poles crossing at the head of the mushroom, which just so happened to be facing the wind. It also just so happened that this part of the tent was right above my face, making each gust an up close and personal experience. It was a maddening storm. When it finally did abate (around 4am) and I finally started to drift off to sleep, the storm delivered one last gust strong enough to smack the tent right into my face. Screw you too. With the storm gone, the sandflies (which had become increasingly numerous as we descended down the Heaphy River) came out in full effect to greet me the next morning. The plan had been for me to wait for Jens and Marleis and hike with them, but I couldn’t spend another minute in that godforsaken place. Breakfast was on the trail that morning.
I had one more night scheduled on the trail at a place called Scott’s Beach, which supposedly had the prettiest sunsets of the trip. I waited for Jens and Marleis there, and decided to hike out with them, thanks to overcast skies and, well, the prettiest German of the trip. Jens was travelling around by campervan and staying at a holiday park in Karamea, the forgotten little town whose only claim to fame is a rainbow hostel and a bar or two. From there we had planned to travel the long way to Picton, where I would catch a ferry and make my way to harvest in Martinborough. There was only one problem. The van wasn’t working. And by not working I mean totally dead. And unfixable. A disaster. Only, well it wasn’t. Jens had lived in the ole girl for 2 months and felt he had gotten his money’s worth, and while this meant we were stuck in Karamea for the time being, that didn’t bother him at all. And to be honest, it didn’t bother any of us. Karamea was awesome!
For starters, instead of staying at the hippie hostel, we stayed instead at the holiday park, which had a bunk room in it with comfy mattresses for half the price of the hostel. The park was run by a retired elderly couple named Joe and Pip (a Dutchman and a Kiwi respectively) who were about the nicest people you could ever meet. They met each other in New Zealand 55 years ago, and were spending their twilight years living off their pensions in a trailer, managing various holiday parks for a few years at a clip before moving on. Joe was a former commodities trader who, as Pip put it, lived through his phone, so much so in fact that he absolutely refuses to talk on it anymore. Seriously. If the phone rings and Pip isn’t around, plan on getting the answering machine. He doesn’t even like to touch it. Instead, he spends his time cooking and walking his cat, Tiger, around the holiday park.
There was one flash “resort” in Karamea which had a hot tub, so after dropping our gear at the holiday park we made for the showers and tub, and of course, celebratory beers. And coffee. Good coffee. And more celebratory beers. We re-provisioned our food supplies at the local general store and cooked a feast that night, drinking wine and listening to German reggae until the wee hours of the morning. The next morning we awoke to beer and banana pancakes (love Germans) and decided to spend another day exploring Karamea. In addition to the hostel, resort, general store and bar, there was a library (open 4 hours a week), a museum (think it was part of the library), and an artist colony. And a second bar. That was about it. Having explored these places, we went back to what we were good at, cooking up another feast that evening and knocking back a few beers. Being Saturday night, we elected to explore the local nightlife, and as luck would have it an Irish band was randomly playing in one of the pubs in town. Dancing and drinking with the hippie hostel folks commenced, and I happened across another traveler from Oregon, a junior on hiatus from Lewis and Clark College in Portland (where I looked at going to school before ending up at Willamette). Small world indeed.
The Abel Tasman was the only the first leg of the backpacking adventures, allowing the opportunity to explore golden sand beaches and subtropical forests. The Heaphy track promised to be something quite different. It’s the longest “Great Walk” in New Zealand, stretching almost 100 kilometers from the Farewell Spit through the Kaikoura National Park and finishing along the remote northern tip of the west coast. My friend and guardian angel Aoife, whom I had rendezvoused with at the Innlet, had offered to give me a ride to the trailhead the next morning. Still feeling rather good about my new found hitchhiking abilities, I nonetheless accepted her offer, and we set off the next morning after a hearty breakfast. While guidebooks and maps have surely improved the world over in the last few decades, this particular part of New Zealand still stubbornly clung to history, and a drive that was supposed to be “approximately 12km” turned out to be closer to 30km. And while the guidebook did mention that there may be a “low point in the road that may be a wet crossing”, it accounted for neither the number of said crossings (4) nor the depth (the shallowest was several inches). When we pulled up to the 4th crossing, the water was moving swiftly and looked to be almost 6 inches deep in places, with rocks sprinkled for extra merit. One look at Aoife and I realized that I was near the point of exhausting her goodwill, so I pulled my gear out and prepared to hike the rest of the way in (somewhere between 2 and 20km, according to the guidebook). As luck would have it, a Canadian expedition en route to the trailhead happened to pull up just as I shouldered my gear, and I managed to hitch a ride with them the rest of the way in, for a nominal fee of course. Bidding Aoife farewell, I climbed aboard.
The Heaphy track begins at the headwaters of a small river valley, and follows a step and steady climb for 10 miles or so, gaining nearly 800 meters in the process. The trail was very well maintained (felt more like a logging road than anything) and the climb was steady, so I settled into my pace and started climbing, pausing at breaks in the trees to judge my progress. My campsite for the night was the very first shelter along the trail named Aeore Shelter, which made for a pretty short day. Dropping my gear I continued up the trail another mile or so to Flanagan’s Corner, which marked the highest point on the trail. Some crazy DOC ranger had dragged a picnic table up there (or more likely driven it up, given the size of the trail), which was occupied by an elderly Kiwi couple. Turns out they were both ecology buffs and gave me a private lesson on the local flora and fauna, some of which only grow in this one place in the entire world. My personal favorite was the dracophilia tree, a sort of tiered pom-pom looking tree that made me wonder if I stumbled into the pages of a Dr Seuss book. At least the kiwi’s looked normal enough.
After a quiet night at Aeore my trail turned west and flattened out as I left the river valley for the high desert of the Kaikouras. I paused at Perry Saddle hut briefly to take advantage of the sunlight and dry the dew off my rainfly. In the meantime I explored the inside of the hut, which was obviously maintained regularly and very clean (as huts go), when I noticed a hand written note posted on the notice board describing where to find the trailhead to the summit of Perry Mountain, the 2200 meter peak at the north end of Perry Saddle. With plenty of daylight left, I decided to give it a go, finding the (hiker’s marker) off the main trail and stashing most of my gear, save some water and lunch. The climb was grueling, winding straight up through a forest of gnarled trees which gave way to ankle-spraining scree which in turn gave way to large broken boulders announcing the approach of the summit. The sun mercifully found its way behind some clouds as I gained elevation, and with sweat pouring out pores I didn’t know existed I clawed my way to the top. The view was well worth the exertion. To the east, the river wound its way through Farewell spit to the Cook Strait, and to the east, I could just make out the Heaphy track winding its way to the west to the Tasman Sea. As I stumbled along on burning legs searching for a comfortable lunch spot, I came upon a fire pit and a rather human shaped rock shelter. While the wind was howling and carrying on about what an awful idea it would be to camp up here, I wondered what kind of crazy person would think camping up here was a good idea. Looking up at the sky beginning to come through the clouds, I realized it wasn’t a fair to judge this person just yet, as the billions of star witnesses making up the defense were at recess. Recharged and reinvigorated after a little food and a satisfying rest, I bounded down the mountain and continued on my way along the trail. The sun began to shine once again, and I paused along the way to strip for a plunge in a stream fed mountain pool, washing away the sweat and grime I had accumulated in 2 days of uphill climbing.
As I drew nearer to my campsite I spotted several DOC rangers hiking through the bush, and hiked along the trail with them briefly before they disappeared back off the trail. My campsite for the night was Gouland Downs, which had the advantage of not having a public hut (and thus less public). It did, however, have a government run hut for research purposes, which was occupied by the rangers I had run across earlier. As I was setting up my tent, a beautiful blonde woman pulled into camp and began to set up her tent, and I suddenly had the feeling that there was something special about this particular campsite. Before I had the chance to walk over and introduce myself however, she disappeared into her tent and did not return for an hour or more. Sighing to myself, I pulled out my cooking supplies and set to work on dinner. I was joined by a rather curious but rather unintelligent weka, a flightless bird about the size of a chicken, who was keen on investigating the boiling water in my pot. In a different time I would have satisfied his curiosity, and I couldn’t help but wonder if he bore some distant relation to another flightless bird of questionable intellect that went extinct on another island some 150 years ago…
Perhaps the smell of my delicious cooking enticed the other camper from here tent, or perhaps she had just woken from a short nap, but I was fortunate enough to have a dinner companion after all. Turns out she was a German 20-something from Hamburg named Marleis who was slowly winding her way around New Zealand doing agricultural work to pay for explorations. The rangers returned while we were eating dinner and we chatted about the usual where from and what for, and as it turns out they were in the midst of tagging the endangered Great Kiwi (the largest in New Zealand, or the world for that matter) and had been scouting for good places to trap kiwi for most of the day. Sarah and Dave were both indeed DOC rangers, while Natasha and James were both former DOC rangers who elected to do private contracting instead (as James put it, get paid by the government and not deal with the bloody mess). They were heading out to hunt that night, and I immediately asked if they minded if we tagged along. They agreed to let us go, but only if we promised not to tell anyone about it. Word has a way of spreading quickly along the trail, and allowing tourists to take part in the tagging of endangered wild animals (while just so happen to be on the currency) may not be in the best interests of the DOC, let alone kiwis. The sunset and night fell, and we set off with the group, flanked on either side by rangers and trackers. James went over exactly how one catches a kiwi, grabbing its legs in a particular way and flipping it upside down to calm it, all without snapping off its signature beak or rendering it lame. Natasha helpfully chimed in to watch out for their claws, which are very good at digging up insects and ripping up Jack Wolfskin gortex jackets. Even in the dark I could see Marleis’ eyes widen, but as Natasha hiked up ahead with James, Dave caught up and informed us that under no circumstances were we to do anything but observe, avoiding my choice between looking like a sissy city boy and crippling/killing a national treasure. We left the trail and hiked down a large embankment to a small clearing. To the north was a small stream, the east the steep embankment we just hiked down, so we took up positions around the outside of the clearing to the south and west in a semi-circle, making a net. Dave took up a position near mind, obviously sensing that in addition to be a clumsy American I might just be stupid enough to try to get involved (having something to prove from my getting picked last at kickball in grade school days, among other things). James arranged himself in the middle of the circle, and had a small mp3 player to entice wild kiwi with various X-rated kiwi calls. Dave muttered to get comfortable, as last night they had sat motionless for 2 hours waiting for the elusive kiwi to show up, which of course it never did. I settled into a spot where I could see the stars through the trees and waited. The first of the calls blared loudly from the clearing, and sure enough, they were answered some distance away. After another 10 minutes, James repeated the calls, which again were answered from what seemed like the same distance, and I began to wonder if someone had forgot to make sure there weren’t other DOC groups out here playing tag with us. The minutes continued to tick by, stretching longer and longer as the excitement of the hunt began to wear off. After my leg fell asleep, James repeated the call one last time. This time, however, it was answered, and far closer than any of the previous calls. James repeated the call once more (an especially provocative one I might add), and the call came even closer. Absolute silence reigned for a few moments, with every hair on my skin searching for any vibration in the air. Something moved behind me. I couldn’t move, not to turn my head towards the noise, or even to shift my second leg, which oblivious to the suspenseful nature of the situation, had also fallen asleep. No matter, every inch of my attention was focused on that rustling, my mind mentally projecting the distance, 10 feet, 5 feet, moving to my left, now pausing for a moment, now walking around to the fruit, over to my right side. Then nothing. Whatever it was now stood less than one foot away from me, probably trying to figure out why the hell this funny looking red tree stump was perspiring. Suddenly I felt something tap my arm, lightly at first but quickly followed by several sharper, more authoritative taps. Likely very confused now and wondering where the sultry kiwi vixen had vanished to, I heard several steps behind me and the loudest kiwi cry of protest I have ever seen. Think T-Rex roaring at a Ford Explorer in Jurassic Park. Quick thinking James quickly played the kiwi temptress once more and the intruder charged to the center of the clearing, libido flaring no doubt. Before it could realize its mistake, James leapt up (in the dark mind you) and snagged the male kiwi in one fell swoop. We broke the circle and walked/hobbled in to give him our congratulations. But James wasn’t done. Lifting his head suddenly, he quickly passed off the kiwi to Natasha and darted off in the woods again, returning moments later with a second kiwi. Evidently the female kiwi had followed her mate (apparently he had a habit of sneaking off) and was coming in to spoil the party. How James had spotted her, let alone chased her down in the middle of the woods in the middle of a moonless night shall forever be a mystery to me. I bet he was the first one picked at kickball.
The rangers quickly set to work taking measurements and blood samples and attaching tracking bands while Marleis and I stood by uselessly observing. Natasha looked over at Dave, grinned, and called me over. Now what you need to do, she said, is take the big male here by his leg and cradle him in your arms, like holding an upside baby. Naturally. Before Dave could utter a word of protest (I think I managed to get a syllable out), I was holding an endangered national monument like an overstuffed pillow case. After the proper electronic documentation was undertaken, the kiwi seemed to relax a little, and tucked his head under my arm in what was almost an intimate gesture (or a desperate attempt to avoid the light from my headlamp). This moment was fleeting however, and as he began to struggle he was quickly removed from my care. Marleis (who was almost as jittery as the kiwis) also got to take a turn, and admittedly looked far better with her kiwi than I did with mine. Before long both kiwis were tagged, poked and prodded, and the time came to place them in a velvet sack and administer a mild sedative, so upon waking they would think it had all been a dream. Lacking these items however, we just tossed them (gently, or as gently as a man like James could muster) back into the woods. They stood a bit startled for a moment, before disappearing back into the darkness. As the rangers headed off to another spot, Marleis and I headed back to camp, thanking them profusely for such a rare opportunity. Enchanted campsite indeed.
Marleis and I compared itineraries and elected to hike the remainder of the trail together. We crossed a serious of suspension bridges as we made our way through high desert country, before the scrubby bushes gave way to forest once again. At the edge of this transition was our campsite, and we rewarded ourselves by finding a cold stream to plunge into before returning back to the campsite for dinner. Marleis had booked herself in the hut that night and befriended another German named Jens, and the three of us ate dinner gazing on the mouth of the Heaphy River, some 20km in the distance. As the sun set that evening, clouds rippled over the horizon, as if someone had forgot to pull the sunset canvas taunt over the horizon. The show didn’t end there, with the Southern Cross and Milky Way competing with the half moon in the sky.
Jens, Marleis and I set off the next day under overcast skies, crossing many more suspension bridges as the clouds beginning to sprinkle rain. The forest here was much different than the one the greeted us at the beginning of the trail, with beech trees giving way to dense jungles full of ferns and massive trees. We had crossed the rainshadow. Despite the weather and the increasing number of black flies, we all remained in high spirits, climbing trees and taking pictures, answering the riddles of little birds that guarded our path. Now I’ve heard that some people become philosophical after spending time in the woods. Others become spiritual or environmentally conscientious. And some people wear banana leaves on their heads. I’m not sure who started it, but we unanimously decided that the best way to keep the rain from our heads was to wear large seed pouches on our head. Feeling the tribalism developing, we crafted ourselves a totem (Mr. Banana Leaf), and thus was born the Banana Leaf Tribe!
Marleis and Jens were both stopping at the Heaphy hut that night along the mouth of the river, but I (in my attempt to avoid overcrowded campgrounds) had elected instead to move on to a shelter 2 more hours up the trail along the coast. We paused for a little while at the mouth of the river, but as the skies continued to darken, I knew I needed to make camp soon or face very unpleasant circumstances. I left my companions at the crowded but cheerful Heaphy hut and continued down the coast. As I made camp that night in my lonely campsite, I had a feeling I was in for a bit of a storm. Turns out I was right.
I have camped in serious weather before, but never alone, and never this close to a raging ocean. The shelter was well off the beach, but as the storm picked up intensity I couldn’t help but wonder about storm surges and tsunamis. Making matters worse, the shelter was at the foot of large sloping cliffs, which offered little protection from, well, anything. The rains were heavy at first, but they began to lighten up past midnight and I thought I had come through the worst of it. Then the wind started blowing. It was an eerily devilish, screaming down the sides of the cliffs through the trees before pausing just a moment and then battering my tent. I had my tent staked down with large rocks, but as the beating continued I began to worry that my tent poles were getting ready to snap. My tent is mushroom-shaped with two poles crossing at the head of the mushroom, which just so happened to be facing the wind. It also just so happened that this part of the tent was right above my face, making each gust an up close and personal experience. It was a maddening storm. When it finally did abate (around 4am) and I finally started to drift off to sleep, the storm delivered one last gust strong enough to smack the tent right into my face. Screw you too. With the storm gone, the sandflies (which had become increasingly numerous as we descended down the Heaphy River) came out in full effect to greet me the next morning. The plan had been for me to wait for Jens and Marleis and hike with them, but I couldn’t spend another minute in that godforsaken place. Breakfast was on the trail that morning.
I had one more night scheduled on the trail at a place called Scott’s Beach, which supposedly had the prettiest sunsets of the trip. I waited for Jens and Marleis there, and decided to hike out with them, thanks to overcast skies and, well, the prettiest German of the trip. Jens was travelling around by campervan and staying at a holiday park in Karamea, the forgotten little town whose only claim to fame is a rainbow hostel and a bar or two. From there we had planned to travel the long way to Picton, where I would catch a ferry and make my way to harvest in Martinborough. There was only one problem. The van wasn’t working. And by not working I mean totally dead. And unfixable. A disaster. Only, well it wasn’t. Jens had lived in the ole girl for 2 months and felt he had gotten his money’s worth, and while this meant we were stuck in Karamea for the time being, that didn’t bother him at all. And to be honest, it didn’t bother any of us. Karamea was awesome!
For starters, instead of staying at the hippie hostel, we stayed instead at the holiday park, which had a bunk room in it with comfy mattresses for half the price of the hostel. The park was run by a retired elderly couple named Joe and Pip (a Dutchman and a Kiwi respectively) who were about the nicest people you could ever meet. They met each other in New Zealand 55 years ago, and were spending their twilight years living off their pensions in a trailer, managing various holiday parks for a few years at a clip before moving on. Joe was a former commodities trader who, as Pip put it, lived through his phone, so much so in fact that he absolutely refuses to talk on it anymore. Seriously. If the phone rings and Pip isn’t around, plan on getting the answering machine. He doesn’t even like to touch it. Instead, he spends his time cooking and walking his cat, Tiger, around the holiday park.
There was one flash “resort” in Karamea which had a hot tub, so after dropping our gear at the holiday park we made for the showers and tub, and of course, celebratory beers. And coffee. Good coffee. And more celebratory beers. We re-provisioned our food supplies at the local general store and cooked a feast that night, drinking wine and listening to German reggae until the wee hours of the morning. The next morning we awoke to beer and banana pancakes (love Germans) and decided to spend another day exploring Karamea. In addition to the hostel, resort, general store and bar, there was a library (open 4 hours a week), a museum (think it was part of the library), and an artist colony. And a second bar. That was about it. Having explored these places, we went back to what we were good at, cooking up another feast that evening and knocking back a few beers. Being Saturday night, we elected to explore the local nightlife, and as luck would have it an Irish band was randomly playing in one of the pubs in town. Dancing and drinking with the hippie hostel folks commenced, and I happened across another traveler from Oregon, a junior on hiatus from Lewis and Clark College in Portland (where I looked at going to school before ending up at Willamette). Small world indeed.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Oh...hey there...
It's been awhile. I've got excuses, some pretty good ones in fact, but that doesn't matter. I was doing other things...
Geez this is awkward. Maybe it's best to just take it slow, catch up over a cup of coffee or something. Look back at the good times, rekindle the magic...
So now what? Start fresh? Or go back to the point where the communication just stopped suddenly and try to continue? So much has happened since then...
It has to happen that way, I can't forget the past. I don't want to. It will take a lot of time to get things back to where they should be...but deep down, I think that maybe, just maybe, it will be worth it in the end.
Only one way to find out, right?
Geez this is awkward. Maybe it's best to just take it slow, catch up over a cup of coffee or something. Look back at the good times, rekindle the magic...
So now what? Start fresh? Or go back to the point where the communication just stopped suddenly and try to continue? So much has happened since then...
It has to happen that way, I can't forget the past. I don't want to. It will take a lot of time to get things back to where they should be...but deep down, I think that maybe, just maybe, it will be worth it in the end.
Only one way to find out, right?
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Money...its a drag
It only took a few kilometers to demonstrate what a colossal mistake hiking out from Totaranui would have been. The road was an engineer’s nightmare, full of unforgiving cliffs and hairpin turns and composed primarily of loose (and increasingly wet) gravel sitting on top of rather loosely consolidated sandstone. To make matters worse, large sections of the road had dwindled to one lane barely wide enough for the bus, let alone an unsuspecting tourists traveling in the other direction. The other lane? It had slid down the cliff after, you guessed it, a heavy rain. In true cavalier fashion, our kiwi bus driver was unconcerned with the terrain, often looking back over his shoulder to chat with the passengers as we barreled along towards an increasingly certain fiery descent down the mountainside. Needless to say, I don’t think I was alone in breathing a sigh of relief as the tires finally touched onto the flat asphalt of civilization.
I had about a little less than 2 days before I was due to begin backpacking down the Heaphy Track, near Collingwood about 50km to the north. My original plan was to head north immediately and make for the Innlet, a hostel just to the west of Collingwood along the Farewell Spit. I heard about the place from Aoife, an Irish girl who I met in Marlborough a few weeks before, and was going to meet her up there before heading back into the woods. The rain, however, continued to fall unabated, ensuring that hitchhiking would remain a soggy venture, so I elected to wait out the storm and spend the night in Takaka, the town/artist colony where I had been dropped off by the bus. I wandered around looking for accommodations, and finally arrived at Annie’s Nirvana, a smaller hostel located just off of Takaka’s main drag (such that it was). Setting my gear out to dry on their back porch, I took a hot shower and tossed in a load of laundry, before blissfully napping away the afternoon.
The rain continued for the rest of the evening, but the morning brought sunshine and blue sky, so I packed up and resupplied (which left me with the uncanny feeling that there was something I had forgotten…), before wandering through town to the edge of the road. Being Sunday, most of the little shops along Main Street were closed, saving me from deciding between a week’s worth of groceries or the merino wool hats and wood carvings on display. My first ride came in minutes from a British surfer in a camper van on his way to a campground halfway between Takaka and Collingwood. He had spent the previous night at the Mussel Inn; a little microbrewery near the campground that he assured me had the finest beer and cider in Golden Bay. Even though it was 10am, by the time we came upon the entrance we were both convinced we should stop in for a quick pint, but to our dismay they remained closed for at least a couple of hours. Reflecting upon it now, maybe it was for the best.
I caught my next ride from the very first car that came along, an older hippie woman who was heading to a church just up the road. She had a tape of Bob Dylan playing with the Grateful Dead, but unfortunately the ride was too short for any real conversation. She invited me to come to church with her, but I politely declined, unsure of how easy it would be to get to a backpackers that was, for all intents and purposes, in the middle of nowhere. After 20 minutes of standing along the road I began to change my mind, but just as I was about to shoulder my bag and head for the steeple, another car pulled up and opened its door. As it turns out, they were traveling past the Innlet and could drop me at the doorstep. Coincidence?
The occupants were an older Kiwi woman who lived locally and young guy from Michigan. After several attempts at conversation that became increasingly awkward, it became clear that they were not in a talkative mood, so I passed the time gazing at the scenery, which bore a strange resemblance to Cape Cod. Thanking them for the ride, I arrived at the Innlet just before noon.
If you ever find yourself near Farewell Spit, or for that matter Golden Bay, or for that matter the south island of New Zealand, do yourself a big favor a spend some time at the Innlet. Arriving there felt like getting to your grandparents’ house after spending 11 hours crammed in the backseat of a car fighting with your sister. Nestled along the edge of a forest at the foot of some modest mountains, the “hostel” is really a large old house, full of worn and cozy furniture and interesting people, many of whom spend their entire holiday (sometimes months) taking life slowly. Throw in a cast iron stove in the living room and a pair of claw foot bathtubs near a babbling stream just off the porch, and it isn’t hard to see why.
I reunited with Aoife and we decided to spend the afternoon kayaking around the spit (yes, the Innlet also rents kayaks), and as I headed to my room to unpack a bit and change, I suddenly remembered what I had forgotten to do before leaving Takaka. I had forgotten to feed my now quite skinny wallet. I had a little bit of cash left, enough to cover my night at the Innlet, but would need more if I wanted to rent kayaks. Figuring I would just pop into Collingwood (the closest town) before going, I quickly learned that they didn’t have an ATM. Nor did Karamea (where I was headed), nor did anywhere else for miles around, save Takaka. I still had an hour before the kayak trip left, so I borrowed Aoife’s car and raced back down to Takaka.
As I waited for the woman in front of me to finish her transaction, the thought briefly popped into my head how totally screwed I would be if Takaka didn’t have an ATM either. Her cash and card spit out, and I walked up to the screen. Just as I was about to insert my card, the screen blinked and suddenly flashed. “This machine cannot conduct cash transactions.” The ATM had run out of money. Shit. There was a bank across the street, so I hurried there looking for another ATM. There was none, and it was Sunday, so everything was closed. Shit Shit. Now running, I went into a local shop and asked the woman behind the counter where the ATMs in town were. She told me about the one across the street. “I tried that, but it’s out of order. Is there another one?” I asked, trying to suppress the panic in my voice. “Yeah,” she said, as I breathed a sigh of relief. “In Motueka.” Shit Shit Shit! Motueka was at least 2 hours away, and wearily I resigned myself to the fact that I would not be spending the day peacefully paddling along in a kayak or relaxing on a well-worn couch, but standing along the side of the road. At least the sun was out.
Before heading back up to the Innlet and returning Aoife’s car, I stopped in the information center on the off chance that they might know somewhere closer where I could turn plastic into cash. “Sure,” the radiant, angelic woman behind the counter informed me, “there’s an ATM just across the street in the grocery store.” I could have kissed her.
I burst out the door and ran across the street, and it was all I could do not to jump up and down while I waited for the man in front of me to finish. Card in, PIN entered, and withdrawal amount requested, I waited in agony for what seemed like hours before mercifully the machine whirled, its magical little door opening and spiting out paper salvation into my now sweaty palm. I was so elated I stopped and bought myself a steak and bottle of wine for dinner.
My heart was still beating fast throughout the entire drive back to the Innlet, and it wasn’t until I pulled up the gravel drive that I began to relax a little. I found Aoife and the rest of the kayakers (a older German couple and Sam, our British “guide” who was really just a long-term guest), and we loaded up and headed off. The wind was howling, so we choose to paddle up an estuary, taking advantage of the high tide. In fact, the tide was running so high that we paddled further into the river than our guide had ever been before, and were greeted by a small but incredible waterfall. It was pure magic. After kayaking I wandered down to the beach for a swim, thoroughly enjoying the sunshine and distinct lack of sandflies. After a cozy evening on the couches, I dreamed that night to the sound of crickets.
I had about a little less than 2 days before I was due to begin backpacking down the Heaphy Track, near Collingwood about 50km to the north. My original plan was to head north immediately and make for the Innlet, a hostel just to the west of Collingwood along the Farewell Spit. I heard about the place from Aoife, an Irish girl who I met in Marlborough a few weeks before, and was going to meet her up there before heading back into the woods. The rain, however, continued to fall unabated, ensuring that hitchhiking would remain a soggy venture, so I elected to wait out the storm and spend the night in Takaka, the town/artist colony where I had been dropped off by the bus. I wandered around looking for accommodations, and finally arrived at Annie’s Nirvana, a smaller hostel located just off of Takaka’s main drag (such that it was). Setting my gear out to dry on their back porch, I took a hot shower and tossed in a load of laundry, before blissfully napping away the afternoon.
The rain continued for the rest of the evening, but the morning brought sunshine and blue sky, so I packed up and resupplied (which left me with the uncanny feeling that there was something I had forgotten…), before wandering through town to the edge of the road. Being Sunday, most of the little shops along Main Street were closed, saving me from deciding between a week’s worth of groceries or the merino wool hats and wood carvings on display. My first ride came in minutes from a British surfer in a camper van on his way to a campground halfway between Takaka and Collingwood. He had spent the previous night at the Mussel Inn; a little microbrewery near the campground that he assured me had the finest beer and cider in Golden Bay. Even though it was 10am, by the time we came upon the entrance we were both convinced we should stop in for a quick pint, but to our dismay they remained closed for at least a couple of hours. Reflecting upon it now, maybe it was for the best.
I caught my next ride from the very first car that came along, an older hippie woman who was heading to a church just up the road. She had a tape of Bob Dylan playing with the Grateful Dead, but unfortunately the ride was too short for any real conversation. She invited me to come to church with her, but I politely declined, unsure of how easy it would be to get to a backpackers that was, for all intents and purposes, in the middle of nowhere. After 20 minutes of standing along the road I began to change my mind, but just as I was about to shoulder my bag and head for the steeple, another car pulled up and opened its door. As it turns out, they were traveling past the Innlet and could drop me at the doorstep. Coincidence?
The occupants were an older Kiwi woman who lived locally and young guy from Michigan. After several attempts at conversation that became increasingly awkward, it became clear that they were not in a talkative mood, so I passed the time gazing at the scenery, which bore a strange resemblance to Cape Cod. Thanking them for the ride, I arrived at the Innlet just before noon.
If you ever find yourself near Farewell Spit, or for that matter Golden Bay, or for that matter the south island of New Zealand, do yourself a big favor a spend some time at the Innlet. Arriving there felt like getting to your grandparents’ house after spending 11 hours crammed in the backseat of a car fighting with your sister. Nestled along the edge of a forest at the foot of some modest mountains, the “hostel” is really a large old house, full of worn and cozy furniture and interesting people, many of whom spend their entire holiday (sometimes months) taking life slowly. Throw in a cast iron stove in the living room and a pair of claw foot bathtubs near a babbling stream just off the porch, and it isn’t hard to see why.
I reunited with Aoife and we decided to spend the afternoon kayaking around the spit (yes, the Innlet also rents kayaks), and as I headed to my room to unpack a bit and change, I suddenly remembered what I had forgotten to do before leaving Takaka. I had forgotten to feed my now quite skinny wallet. I had a little bit of cash left, enough to cover my night at the Innlet, but would need more if I wanted to rent kayaks. Figuring I would just pop into Collingwood (the closest town) before going, I quickly learned that they didn’t have an ATM. Nor did Karamea (where I was headed), nor did anywhere else for miles around, save Takaka. I still had an hour before the kayak trip left, so I borrowed Aoife’s car and raced back down to Takaka.
As I waited for the woman in front of me to finish her transaction, the thought briefly popped into my head how totally screwed I would be if Takaka didn’t have an ATM either. Her cash and card spit out, and I walked up to the screen. Just as I was about to insert my card, the screen blinked and suddenly flashed. “This machine cannot conduct cash transactions.” The ATM had run out of money. Shit. There was a bank across the street, so I hurried there looking for another ATM. There was none, and it was Sunday, so everything was closed. Shit Shit. Now running, I went into a local shop and asked the woman behind the counter where the ATMs in town were. She told me about the one across the street. “I tried that, but it’s out of order. Is there another one?” I asked, trying to suppress the panic in my voice. “Yeah,” she said, as I breathed a sigh of relief. “In Motueka.” Shit Shit Shit! Motueka was at least 2 hours away, and wearily I resigned myself to the fact that I would not be spending the day peacefully paddling along in a kayak or relaxing on a well-worn couch, but standing along the side of the road. At least the sun was out.
Before heading back up to the Innlet and returning Aoife’s car, I stopped in the information center on the off chance that they might know somewhere closer where I could turn plastic into cash. “Sure,” the radiant, angelic woman behind the counter informed me, “there’s an ATM just across the street in the grocery store.” I could have kissed her.
I burst out the door and ran across the street, and it was all I could do not to jump up and down while I waited for the man in front of me to finish. Card in, PIN entered, and withdrawal amount requested, I waited in agony for what seemed like hours before mercifully the machine whirled, its magical little door opening and spiting out paper salvation into my now sweaty palm. I was so elated I stopped and bought myself a steak and bottle of wine for dinner.
My heart was still beating fast throughout the entire drive back to the Innlet, and it wasn’t until I pulled up the gravel drive that I began to relax a little. I found Aoife and the rest of the kayakers (a older German couple and Sam, our British “guide” who was really just a long-term guest), and we loaded up and headed off. The wind was howling, so we choose to paddle up an estuary, taking advantage of the high tide. In fact, the tide was running so high that we paddled further into the river than our guide had ever been before, and were greeted by a small but incredible waterfall. It was pure magic. After kayaking I wandered down to the beach for a swim, thoroughly enjoying the sunshine and distinct lack of sandflies. After a cozy evening on the couches, I dreamed that night to the sound of crickets.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Tramping the Abel Tasmin (and the battle of highway 60)
After spending the night in the pod-like sleeping chambers of the backpackers, I awoke to blue sky eager to begin my tramp. Still not free of my internet addiction however, I had decided to venture down to Motueka (the much bigger town about 25km to the south) to utilize their free internet at the library. My plan had been to hitchhike with Chris (my Canadian kayak guide friend), but I was unable to find him around the campsite and figured he went to work. I had planned on giving him a couple of beers I had leftover, but I’m sure he was happier to have something to do instead.
I stashed my backpack in a closet at the backpackers, and got a ride walking out of the entrance to the campground from an older Scottish guy who was vacationing before guest lecturing at a university in Christchurch. Upon arriving in Motueka I quickly found the library, although as it turns out I wasn’t the only backpacker to have figured out how to get on the internet for free. I signed up for a 30 min slot but still had about an hour to wait, so I scoped out the local DOC (Department of Conservation) office to kill some time. On the Abel Tasmin (and many of the other more popular tramps in New Zealand), reservations are required in advance for the huts and campgrounds sites in an effort to control the number of visitors to the national parks. The policy seems sound at first; however it only applies to those spending the night, not for day users. As I later discovered, in places like the Abel Tasmin (which is accessible nearly everywhere for day hikers by water taxi or kayak) this policy is about as effective as bailing a rowboat with a teacup. After ensuring that my reservations were in order (the DOC ranger was even impressed by the campgrounds I had selected), I checked my email for the last time and found my way to the edge of town to hitch back to Marahua.
Waiting at the city limit time was a young German guy with a large backpack on his shoulders who eyed me a bit suspiciously. Oblivious to his territorial air, I cheerfully greeted him as one road warrior to another, to which he gave a rather chilly reply. When I told him where I was going, he snorted. “That’s a tourist town, and tourists don’t pick up hitchhikers. You should go back to town and buy a bus ticket.” Smiling, I fought off the urge to tell him where to stick his advice, and instead continued walking out of town. “It’s going to be a long walk,” he called after me.
I walked another kilometer up the road and thumbed with determination next to rows of hops (which curiously are called Cascade hops like those in Oregon, although I think we grew them first), and just before desperation set in I caught a ride with a local French guy. I was so happy to have found a ride I gave him the last of my beer, hoping to appease the hitchhiking karma gods. He didn’t get me all the way to Marahua, but instead dropped me where the highway split off to Takaka to the northwest. And who was there waiting for me? The German.
There have been more than a few great battles in history involving Germans and Americans; along the banks of the Delaware River in the Revolutionary war, in the trenches near the river Marne during World War I, along the beaches of Normandy during World War II. More recently there has been a peace between the two great powers that has seen fruitful exchange (we got BMWs, they got David Hasselhoff), but the ghosts of history are not fully at rest, as I’m sure all present along the shoulders of highway 60 that day will attest to. The minutes stretched to hours as the ferocity of mental warfare flew back and forth across the pavement, thumbs flying in every direction. Flies withered and dropped from the air and birds cried in alarm as the tension mounted with each passing car. Finally, at long last, a vehicle coming from Marahua turned around at the intersection and opened its door to me, and I was borne away on my golden chariot to victory (in this case a Ford Focus). The British couple who picked me up claimed they had just forgotten their cell phone in the charger back in Marahua, but as I turned and looked in the face of my vanquished foe, I knew that freedom had won the day. U-S-A! U-S-A!
Stealthily I collected my backpack from the hostel and found my way to the trailhead, quite comforted by the knowledge that my itinerary for the next few days involved nothing but eating, sleeping, swimming, and hiking. The hour was beginning to get late, and many of the people I passed were heading in the other direction out of the park. My campsite at Akersten Bay was a mere 6km into the park, and I arrived there in the late afternoon with enough time to have a swim before dinner.
The site was absolutely magical. My tent site had been perfect, on a nice flat sandy space sheltered by trees that opened out to view the ocean just meters from the golden sand beaches sloping gently into turquoise waters free of rocks or seaweed. This particular campsite was quite small (only 4 tent sites and no hut), and I had the place to myself. As I dried myself in the sun I couldn’t help but think that this was all too good to be true. Apparently someone else had that same thought.
As I walked back up to my tent to collect my dinner supplies I noticed an out of place pile of grasses and moss a few feet away. As I moved closer to investigate, my heart sickened at the site of a corner of white paper. Moving the pile aside with a stick, the blasphemy was revealed. Someone had come to this place, this perfect site, this literal slice of paradise, and had taken a shit in it. They had left it there, unburied, in the middle of where I had been planning to sleep. And what’s worse, a perfectly good outhouse stood just 50 meters away. At first I was simply shocked, then incredibly sad, and then slowly but surely I became absolutely furious. I am still poisoned by it. It was, quite simply, one of the ugliest and most offensive things I have ever seen. I cleaned it up and moved my tent to another spot, and then spent the rest of the evening trying to recover something of the magic I had felt earlier in the day, but couldn’t. It was all polluted.
That night it began raining, not heavily, but just enough to leave everything a little damp by morning. The clouds did clear in time for the sunrise, and after swimming in the ocean I began to recover from the hideousness of the night before. I packed up my gear but elected to have a coffee break before leaving the bay, hiking along a nearby peninsula to watch the water taxis pour in. I was joined on the peninsula by a colony of sea birds, and observed with amusement some of the chicks taking their first flights. As the sun climbed higher in the sky I returned to my campsite and shouldered my backpack, and began the trek to the next site. This was to be my shortest day, although in my infinite foresight and wisdom I had neglected to bring a decent map along, and wound up accidentally exploring a hidden cove and an old ranger trail on my way to the campsite at Te Pukatea Bay. The skies became overcast, and I retired rather early that evening, doing suduko puzzles as the rain became louder and harder. The next day seemed like it could be fair in the morning, but by mid-afternoon the rain continued in earnest, dampening my gear and my spirits. I passed by hoards of day-hikers, of which it seemed the vast majority were Germans, or so I gathered by their accents and Jack Wolfskin jackets. The rain had finally let up by the time I reached my third campsite at Medlands Beach, and by the evening my favorite hiking companion (my shadow) had returned.
The clouds and overcast skies continued into the fourth day, but this time without any rain, for which I was rather thankful. My route was to take me across a couple of salt-water estuaries, both of which could only be crossed during low tide. As I arrived at the first estuary (which was the smaller of the two), I discovered that I had timed my crossing perfectly…for high tide. I backtracked to a nearby beach and began my long wait, eating granola and defending myself against the sand flies. As I sat there a power boat turned up full of Canadians, who seeing my predicament asked I wanted a beer. Is the pope Catholic?! They pulled ashore and we had a good chat, and they offered to ferry me across the estuary, or even take me all the way to my campsite. I chose the former, and in no time I was back on the trail as the sun finally broke through the clouds.
After hiking another couple of hours I found my second crossing at Aworora Bay, which was far larger. I rested and ate lunch at a hut along the shore, which was occupied by an older American couple and their son, who was a few years younger than I was. A second beer was offered (and gladly accepted), and as it turns out they were from California. Their son had contemplated going to Lewis and Clark and had a good friend who went to Willamette University, my alma mater. Just for fun, I asked for his friend’s name, who quite coincidentally just so happened to be a member of Willamette’s cycling team, and a heavy user of the Bike Shop I helped to found. A great big world, and a small one too. Love it. I thanked them for the beer and made my exodus across the bay into the sunset, arriving in time for dinner at Waiharakeke, my next campsite.
The sun decided to stick around the next morning, and I had a short hike to my next campsite at Anapai Bay, which was my furthest point north. Along the way I passed through Totaranui campground, which was the site of both the shuttle bus pickup and the ranger station, and noticed on a posted weather forecast that rain would be returning the following morning (although the same forecast had said the past three days should have been sunny...hmm). Setting my mental alarm clock for dawn, I continued working north, arriving at my campsite by midday and spending the afternoon eating the remainder of my food and lounging by the beach. At low tide I ventured over to some nearby tide pools (which were full of crabs and starfish) and really interesting rock formations, some still bearing the scars of quarrying (a lot of the stone from this part of the park was used to construct Wellington's capital buildings). I retired early that night as the sun went down, looking forward to a restful night before my early departure. As it turns out, mother nature had other plans.
There are no bears in New Zealand, or cougars, or really anything that could harm a person. As such, the concept of bear bags or hanging food from trees is rather foreign to the locals, who are quite used to keeping their food in their packs or tent. Over the course of the trip I had slowly succumb to this laziness, and left my food and garbage inside a couple of plastic bags inside my tent. Just as I was dozing off to sleep, something started growling outside, and in alarmingly close proximity to my head. Being alone in my campsite, I was momentarily paralysed by fear, wondering whether I had awoken some evil Maori spirit or escaped tiger. I shouted back and whatever it was seemed to go away, and after an hour of vigilant listening I had finally started to drift asleep once more. As if emboldened by my lapse in surveillance, the growler returned once more.
They say that every animal (including humans) experiences a flight or fight reaction when confronted with danger in the wild. Now normally I consider myself to be a bit of a passivist, but the growling had awoken something primal within me, as things tend to do when my sleep becomes seriously disturbed. Snatching my flashlight and knife I leapt from my tent to meet my enemy, searching in vain across the campsite for any trace of his retreat. The next twenty minutes saw a brutal display of chest beating and hitting things with a large stick before, feeling satisfied, I returned to my den. My quarry was not so easily intimidated however, and within a few minutes his cowardly growling had returned. I renewed my stick-on-tree onslaught with renewed vigour, but despite my continuing taunts to show itself and face its destiny, my foe seemed content to hide amongst the shadows and wait for my watch to falter with sleep. Finally, the rational and civilized mind persevered, and I took my food and hung it from a nearby tree. Now some might see this as giving in to an inferior mammal, while others might be wondering why I persisted in running around in the dark with a stick in my boxers hitting trees for several hours before figuring out how to outsmart a possum. Either way, whatever the hell it was left me alone and I slept peacefully through the rest of the night.
My mental alarm clock held true and I was up by dawn, albeit a bit haggard, and as I was packing up a light rain began to fall. I hustled back down to the ranger station at Totaranui in time to see the heavens open. I had thought about trying to hitch a ride with some campers leaving the park, or perhaps even try to walk the 20km out, but the prospect of standing in the rain was less than appealing, and I bought myself a bus ticket to Takaka.
I stashed my backpack in a closet at the backpackers, and got a ride walking out of the entrance to the campground from an older Scottish guy who was vacationing before guest lecturing at a university in Christchurch. Upon arriving in Motueka I quickly found the library, although as it turns out I wasn’t the only backpacker to have figured out how to get on the internet for free. I signed up for a 30 min slot but still had about an hour to wait, so I scoped out the local DOC (Department of Conservation) office to kill some time. On the Abel Tasmin (and many of the other more popular tramps in New Zealand), reservations are required in advance for the huts and campgrounds sites in an effort to control the number of visitors to the national parks. The policy seems sound at first; however it only applies to those spending the night, not for day users. As I later discovered, in places like the Abel Tasmin (which is accessible nearly everywhere for day hikers by water taxi or kayak) this policy is about as effective as bailing a rowboat with a teacup. After ensuring that my reservations were in order (the DOC ranger was even impressed by the campgrounds I had selected), I checked my email for the last time and found my way to the edge of town to hitch back to Marahua.
Waiting at the city limit time was a young German guy with a large backpack on his shoulders who eyed me a bit suspiciously. Oblivious to his territorial air, I cheerfully greeted him as one road warrior to another, to which he gave a rather chilly reply. When I told him where I was going, he snorted. “That’s a tourist town, and tourists don’t pick up hitchhikers. You should go back to town and buy a bus ticket.” Smiling, I fought off the urge to tell him where to stick his advice, and instead continued walking out of town. “It’s going to be a long walk,” he called after me.
I walked another kilometer up the road and thumbed with determination next to rows of hops (which curiously are called Cascade hops like those in Oregon, although I think we grew them first), and just before desperation set in I caught a ride with a local French guy. I was so happy to have found a ride I gave him the last of my beer, hoping to appease the hitchhiking karma gods. He didn’t get me all the way to Marahua, but instead dropped me where the highway split off to Takaka to the northwest. And who was there waiting for me? The German.
There have been more than a few great battles in history involving Germans and Americans; along the banks of the Delaware River in the Revolutionary war, in the trenches near the river Marne during World War I, along the beaches of Normandy during World War II. More recently there has been a peace between the two great powers that has seen fruitful exchange (we got BMWs, they got David Hasselhoff), but the ghosts of history are not fully at rest, as I’m sure all present along the shoulders of highway 60 that day will attest to. The minutes stretched to hours as the ferocity of mental warfare flew back and forth across the pavement, thumbs flying in every direction. Flies withered and dropped from the air and birds cried in alarm as the tension mounted with each passing car. Finally, at long last, a vehicle coming from Marahua turned around at the intersection and opened its door to me, and I was borne away on my golden chariot to victory (in this case a Ford Focus). The British couple who picked me up claimed they had just forgotten their cell phone in the charger back in Marahua, but as I turned and looked in the face of my vanquished foe, I knew that freedom had won the day. U-S-A! U-S-A!
Stealthily I collected my backpack from the hostel and found my way to the trailhead, quite comforted by the knowledge that my itinerary for the next few days involved nothing but eating, sleeping, swimming, and hiking. The hour was beginning to get late, and many of the people I passed were heading in the other direction out of the park. My campsite at Akersten Bay was a mere 6km into the park, and I arrived there in the late afternoon with enough time to have a swim before dinner.
The site was absolutely magical. My tent site had been perfect, on a nice flat sandy space sheltered by trees that opened out to view the ocean just meters from the golden sand beaches sloping gently into turquoise waters free of rocks or seaweed. This particular campsite was quite small (only 4 tent sites and no hut), and I had the place to myself. As I dried myself in the sun I couldn’t help but think that this was all too good to be true. Apparently someone else had that same thought.
As I walked back up to my tent to collect my dinner supplies I noticed an out of place pile of grasses and moss a few feet away. As I moved closer to investigate, my heart sickened at the site of a corner of white paper. Moving the pile aside with a stick, the blasphemy was revealed. Someone had come to this place, this perfect site, this literal slice of paradise, and had taken a shit in it. They had left it there, unburied, in the middle of where I had been planning to sleep. And what’s worse, a perfectly good outhouse stood just 50 meters away. At first I was simply shocked, then incredibly sad, and then slowly but surely I became absolutely furious. I am still poisoned by it. It was, quite simply, one of the ugliest and most offensive things I have ever seen. I cleaned it up and moved my tent to another spot, and then spent the rest of the evening trying to recover something of the magic I had felt earlier in the day, but couldn’t. It was all polluted.
That night it began raining, not heavily, but just enough to leave everything a little damp by morning. The clouds did clear in time for the sunrise, and after swimming in the ocean I began to recover from the hideousness of the night before. I packed up my gear but elected to have a coffee break before leaving the bay, hiking along a nearby peninsula to watch the water taxis pour in. I was joined on the peninsula by a colony of sea birds, and observed with amusement some of the chicks taking their first flights. As the sun climbed higher in the sky I returned to my campsite and shouldered my backpack, and began the trek to the next site. This was to be my shortest day, although in my infinite foresight and wisdom I had neglected to bring a decent map along, and wound up accidentally exploring a hidden cove and an old ranger trail on my way to the campsite at Te Pukatea Bay. The skies became overcast, and I retired rather early that evening, doing suduko puzzles as the rain became louder and harder. The next day seemed like it could be fair in the morning, but by mid-afternoon the rain continued in earnest, dampening my gear and my spirits. I passed by hoards of day-hikers, of which it seemed the vast majority were Germans, or so I gathered by their accents and Jack Wolfskin jackets. The rain had finally let up by the time I reached my third campsite at Medlands Beach, and by the evening my favorite hiking companion (my shadow) had returned.
The clouds and overcast skies continued into the fourth day, but this time without any rain, for which I was rather thankful. My route was to take me across a couple of salt-water estuaries, both of which could only be crossed during low tide. As I arrived at the first estuary (which was the smaller of the two), I discovered that I had timed my crossing perfectly…for high tide. I backtracked to a nearby beach and began my long wait, eating granola and defending myself against the sand flies. As I sat there a power boat turned up full of Canadians, who seeing my predicament asked I wanted a beer. Is the pope Catholic?! They pulled ashore and we had a good chat, and they offered to ferry me across the estuary, or even take me all the way to my campsite. I chose the former, and in no time I was back on the trail as the sun finally broke through the clouds.
After hiking another couple of hours I found my second crossing at Aworora Bay, which was far larger. I rested and ate lunch at a hut along the shore, which was occupied by an older American couple and their son, who was a few years younger than I was. A second beer was offered (and gladly accepted), and as it turns out they were from California. Their son had contemplated going to Lewis and Clark and had a good friend who went to Willamette University, my alma mater. Just for fun, I asked for his friend’s name, who quite coincidentally just so happened to be a member of Willamette’s cycling team, and a heavy user of the Bike Shop I helped to found. A great big world, and a small one too. Love it. I thanked them for the beer and made my exodus across the bay into the sunset, arriving in time for dinner at Waiharakeke, my next campsite.
The sun decided to stick around the next morning, and I had a short hike to my next campsite at Anapai Bay, which was my furthest point north. Along the way I passed through Totaranui campground, which was the site of both the shuttle bus pickup and the ranger station, and noticed on a posted weather forecast that rain would be returning the following morning (although the same forecast had said the past three days should have been sunny...hmm). Setting my mental alarm clock for dawn, I continued working north, arriving at my campsite by midday and spending the afternoon eating the remainder of my food and lounging by the beach. At low tide I ventured over to some nearby tide pools (which were full of crabs and starfish) and really interesting rock formations, some still bearing the scars of quarrying (a lot of the stone from this part of the park was used to construct Wellington's capital buildings). I retired early that night as the sun went down, looking forward to a restful night before my early departure. As it turns out, mother nature had other plans.
There are no bears in New Zealand, or cougars, or really anything that could harm a person. As such, the concept of bear bags or hanging food from trees is rather foreign to the locals, who are quite used to keeping their food in their packs or tent. Over the course of the trip I had slowly succumb to this laziness, and left my food and garbage inside a couple of plastic bags inside my tent. Just as I was dozing off to sleep, something started growling outside, and in alarmingly close proximity to my head. Being alone in my campsite, I was momentarily paralysed by fear, wondering whether I had awoken some evil Maori spirit or escaped tiger. I shouted back and whatever it was seemed to go away, and after an hour of vigilant listening I had finally started to drift asleep once more. As if emboldened by my lapse in surveillance, the growler returned once more.
They say that every animal (including humans) experiences a flight or fight reaction when confronted with danger in the wild. Now normally I consider myself to be a bit of a passivist, but the growling had awoken something primal within me, as things tend to do when my sleep becomes seriously disturbed. Snatching my flashlight and knife I leapt from my tent to meet my enemy, searching in vain across the campsite for any trace of his retreat. The next twenty minutes saw a brutal display of chest beating and hitting things with a large stick before, feeling satisfied, I returned to my den. My quarry was not so easily intimidated however, and within a few minutes his cowardly growling had returned. I renewed my stick-on-tree onslaught with renewed vigour, but despite my continuing taunts to show itself and face its destiny, my foe seemed content to hide amongst the shadows and wait for my watch to falter with sleep. Finally, the rational and civilized mind persevered, and I took my food and hung it from a nearby tree. Now some might see this as giving in to an inferior mammal, while others might be wondering why I persisted in running around in the dark with a stick in my boxers hitting trees for several hours before figuring out how to outsmart a possum. Either way, whatever the hell it was left me alone and I slept peacefully through the rest of the night.
My mental alarm clock held true and I was up by dawn, albeit a bit haggard, and as I was packing up a light rain began to fall. I hustled back down to the ranger station at Totaranui in time to see the heavens open. I had thought about trying to hitch a ride with some campers leaving the park, or perhaps even try to walk the 20km out, but the prospect of standing in the rain was less than appealing, and I bought myself a bus ticket to Takaka.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Are you gonna go my way...
"Hurry up and get in brah, I'm not supposed to be stopping along here," he said to me as I contemplated how to fit myself and my backpack into the front seat of his tiny 2-door hatchback. "And watch out for the feathers." Great.
I'd only really hitchhiked once before. I was at a music festival in upstate new york a few years ago and discovered during the second day that I had misplaced my car. The festival "staff" were as puzzled as I was, and suggested that maybe it had been parked incorrectly and towed somewhere. As I walked along the road I got a ride from an older hippie guy who had misplaced the music festival, so working together we drank beer and tracked down what the other was seeking.
Turns out my second ride was also from an older hippie guy on his way to a gypsy festival, although between his heavy accent and the roar of his overworked Japanese engine I could hardly understand anything he was saying. Thinking he was asking where I was from, I confidently replied Oregon, which puzzled him. After explaining where Oregon was he stared at me blankly and pointed to his left hip. "Oh" I said, and buckled my seatbelt.
He went on to tell me how everything in the world is contaminated (or that he had a dog), and gave me a small card with a Buddhist Deity on it. 10 minutes later we had arrived at the festival, and while he graciously offered to allow me to leave my backpack in his car while I went to check it out...I elected to move on. I wandered a bit further down the road, this time making sure there was enough space for a car to pull over safely, and tried my luck again.
People do curious things when they see hitchhikers. Some wave and smile, some pretend they don't see you, some say things (or at least move their lips), and still others make rather curious hand signals. But the nice ones pull over and give you a lift.
My next ride came from an middle-aged guy who had come down for the weekend from Auckland to see his kids in Motueka (a town about 15km from Marahau, where I was headed). After we had covered the usual where from and doing what, the conversation turned to music and beer (funny that). As it turns out he was an avid Radiohead fan (he had even taken up guitar so he could play their songs at local open mic events) and also a homebrewer. We talked hops through Motueka, and before I knew it he was dropping me in Marahau!
I elected to camp that night to ensure my gear was in good working order, and stayed on the lawn of a local backpackers called "The Barn". Tent pitched, I strolled down to the ocean for a swim and to check out the local surroundings and try to find some dinner. Marahau is beautiful but isn't really a town, just a few buildings and shops at the gateway to the Abel Tasmin National Park. Most of these shops either rent kayaks or water taxis, and the whole area is very touristy. Thankfully I had bought most of my food earlier in the day at a supermarket in Nelson, provisions at the local Marahau grocery displayed gourmet prices for such delicacies as white bread and cheddar cheese. I headed back to the campsite and cooked up some noodles for dinner, and retired to my tent as the sun went down. For a spell I was lullabied by the sounds of native bird calls, until an American blues cover band took the stage at a bar down the street. At least the stars were out...
Over breakfast the next morning I struck up a conversation with a young Canadian guy that had come to Marahau as a kayak guide, but quickly found out that this industry was anything but recession proof. As bad as it was being largely unemployed, he didn't seem too phased by it. I suppose there are worse places in the world to get stuck. He was full of great tips, including that the local library in Motueka allowed you to use the internet for free. Being closed on Sundays, we decided we would both hitch there tomorrow, and in the meantime I decided to take the day and hike around the Abel Tasmin National Park.
The park is a large 80km loop, partly along the coast and up through the mountains. I was backpacking north one way along the coast, so I decided to head up into the mountains and see what I would have been missing. The day couldn't have been more perfect: brilliant blue sky over turquoise waters with clouds rippling overhead, just warm enough to hike without a shirt (and plenty of sunscreen) but not uncomfortable. I hiked up to a vista for lunch, and along the way amused myself trying to audibly track down cicadas (nature's version of Where's Waldo). The view from the top was incredible, although it was clear where the national park ended and the national forest began (native vegetation gave way to scab-like blocks of coniferous replants).
I was back down with enough time to grab a powernap and do a bit of laundry before dinner, and decided to spend my last night in civilization in the pod-like dorm room of the backpackers. After dinner I wandered over to a little artist colony, complete with a hand carved waka (Maori canoe) and lots of wood sculptures. Their gift shop was heartbreaking...I could only afford the zucchini.
I'd only really hitchhiked once before. I was at a music festival in upstate new york a few years ago and discovered during the second day that I had misplaced my car. The festival "staff" were as puzzled as I was, and suggested that maybe it had been parked incorrectly and towed somewhere. As I walked along the road I got a ride from an older hippie guy who had misplaced the music festival, so working together we drank beer and tracked down what the other was seeking.
Turns out my second ride was also from an older hippie guy on his way to a gypsy festival, although between his heavy accent and the roar of his overworked Japanese engine I could hardly understand anything he was saying. Thinking he was asking where I was from, I confidently replied Oregon, which puzzled him. After explaining where Oregon was he stared at me blankly and pointed to his left hip. "Oh" I said, and buckled my seatbelt.
He went on to tell me how everything in the world is contaminated (or that he had a dog), and gave me a small card with a Buddhist Deity on it. 10 minutes later we had arrived at the festival, and while he graciously offered to allow me to leave my backpack in his car while I went to check it out...I elected to move on. I wandered a bit further down the road, this time making sure there was enough space for a car to pull over safely, and tried my luck again.
People do curious things when they see hitchhikers. Some wave and smile, some pretend they don't see you, some say things (or at least move their lips), and still others make rather curious hand signals. But the nice ones pull over and give you a lift.
My next ride came from an middle-aged guy who had come down for the weekend from Auckland to see his kids in Motueka (a town about 15km from Marahau, where I was headed). After we had covered the usual where from and doing what, the conversation turned to music and beer (funny that). As it turns out he was an avid Radiohead fan (he had even taken up guitar so he could play their songs at local open mic events) and also a homebrewer. We talked hops through Motueka, and before I knew it he was dropping me in Marahau!
I elected to camp that night to ensure my gear was in good working order, and stayed on the lawn of a local backpackers called "The Barn". Tent pitched, I strolled down to the ocean for a swim and to check out the local surroundings and try to find some dinner. Marahau is beautiful but isn't really a town, just a few buildings and shops at the gateway to the Abel Tasmin National Park. Most of these shops either rent kayaks or water taxis, and the whole area is very touristy. Thankfully I had bought most of my food earlier in the day at a supermarket in Nelson, provisions at the local Marahau grocery displayed gourmet prices for such delicacies as white bread and cheddar cheese. I headed back to the campsite and cooked up some noodles for dinner, and retired to my tent as the sun went down. For a spell I was lullabied by the sounds of native bird calls, until an American blues cover band took the stage at a bar down the street. At least the stars were out...
Over breakfast the next morning I struck up a conversation with a young Canadian guy that had come to Marahau as a kayak guide, but quickly found out that this industry was anything but recession proof. As bad as it was being largely unemployed, he didn't seem too phased by it. I suppose there are worse places in the world to get stuck. He was full of great tips, including that the local library in Motueka allowed you to use the internet for free. Being closed on Sundays, we decided we would both hitch there tomorrow, and in the meantime I decided to take the day and hike around the Abel Tasmin National Park.
The park is a large 80km loop, partly along the coast and up through the mountains. I was backpacking north one way along the coast, so I decided to head up into the mountains and see what I would have been missing. The day couldn't have been more perfect: brilliant blue sky over turquoise waters with clouds rippling overhead, just warm enough to hike without a shirt (and plenty of sunscreen) but not uncomfortable. I hiked up to a vista for lunch, and along the way amused myself trying to audibly track down cicadas (nature's version of Where's Waldo). The view from the top was incredible, although it was clear where the national park ended and the national forest began (native vegetation gave way to scab-like blocks of coniferous replants).
I was back down with enough time to grab a powernap and do a bit of laundry before dinner, and decided to spend my last night in civilization in the pod-like dorm room of the backpackers. After dinner I wandered over to a little artist colony, complete with a hand carved waka (Maori canoe) and lots of wood sculptures. Their gift shop was heartbreaking...I could only afford the zucchini.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Penguins, Marborough, and the road north
According to mapquest, I could expect the drive north to take somewhere in the neighborhood of 12 to 13 hours, provided that things were running smoothly. This is quite a long time to be alone in the car with just the radio for company, so I decided to pick up a hitchhiker just outside of Dunedin. Alex was probably in his early 20's and had grown up in France. He had spent the last 8 or 9 months hitchhiking his way through Australia before venturing over to NZ and was on his way north to Christchurch to visit some friends before popping over to Nelson.
Debbie and Hamish had informed me of another spot along the road north were chances were very good I would run into Yellow-eyed penguins, so Alex and I took a slight detour from the road north to see if we could track them down. My instructions were a bit vague, I was to look for a lighthouse up a road in a small town at the second peninsula from Dunedin, but fortune was with us and we found it during our first attempt. Ordinarily I'm sure the place would have been overrun with tourists, but given the early hour we had the place largely to ourselves. It was approaching the end of the penguin nesting season, and the nesting areas were fenced off from the public. Of course, while a wooden fence might mean something to a human, it is little more than a curious looking tree to a penguin. We walked along the fence peering into the bushes but didn't see much. Turning around, I tapped Alex on the shoulder. The penguins weren't in their designated nesting area, they were all over the hill outside of it! You could tell they weren't going to be here much longer, the chicks looked fully grown and had shed most of their fluff, but we had timed it perfectly. It was penguin-tastic.
Back on the road again, Alex and I chatted about music and travelling, and life in general. He had gone to school to pursue sculpture, but had felt a bit disenchanted with the job prospects in the field and had started travelling, working along the way as he went. He planned on spending another month in NZ before returning home to France for a spell, earning some euros and then heading on to Mongolia (or maybe Montana). We exchanged some music info and email addresses, and I left him Christchurch around noon.
Waipara is another wine region just to the north of Christchurch that produces some great wine, and I wanted to stop there for lunch at a winery called Pegasus Bay. It was by far the most expensive meal I have eaten so far, but the grounds were beautiful and I met some folks from Wrigleyville in Chicago in their tasting room. Wallet lightened and belly full, I hit the road again.
The Waipara region is pretty dry, even more so given the season, and I passed lots of brown grass and irrigated vineyards beside bone dry rivers. The road wandered into some mountains, and the grasses were replaced by forests so dense that the hillside looked like it was covered with broccoli. I hit the summit and rushed downward towards the sea where the Pacific ocean crashed along black sand beaches and surfer towns. It was absolutely stunning. The highway continued to wind along the coast at the foot of the mountains, around cliffside corners and through tunnels before shrinking back into fuzzy grasslands once again. Patches of green began to appear amongst the rolling prairie hills, massive grape plantations of Savignon Blanc. I had reached Marlborough.
The main city in Marlborough is Blenheim, but I choose to stay in a hostel about 10km outside of town in the little village of Renwick, which was much closer to the wineries. There was a proper english pub in town where I chose to have dinner, complete with Yorkshire pudding and tasty ale. My dinner companion was a rather friendly stray cat who sat very patiently on the bench next to me, and after a spell a very old man came by and struck up a conversation about an Oregon wrestling team that had passed this way about 50 years before. His son was a beekeeper.
The next day I had appointments to go wine tasting and really get a feel for the wine being produced in the region. There is plenty of Savignon Blanc of course, but also some really fantastic Rielsing and even a bit of Pinot Noir. I tasted at some very large producers (6600 tons) and very small ones (50 tons), and learned plenty about what it means to grow grapes and make wine here. My favorite place by far was Te Whare Ra, a tiny little producer run by a husband and wife winemaking team who have two sets of twin girls at home (ages 4 and 17 months). How they manage to keep it together I have no idea, but they are definitely making some very special wines, particularly Riesling.
I ended the day at Fromm winery, the place that was largely responsible for my being in New Zealand. I had sent them a resume last fall looking for work, and though they were all filled up they were kind enough to pass my info along to several other top wineries, including Escarpment in Martinborough, which is where I ended up finding work. I had a beer with Hatch and Rachel (the winemaker and sales manager respectively), the perfect end to a perfect day. Really kind and gracious people, and great wines too!
I had toyed with the idea of doing a bit of tasting in Nelson (my next stop), but my palate and finances were a bit exhausted so I posted the remained of my non-backpacking gear up to Martinborough (where it would wait until harvest). I left Renwick and drove on to Nelson that afternoon, dropping my rental car off at the airport there. I had thought about spending the night and exploring the city, but Saturday is not a great time to find last minute reservations and the whole city was booked. Having no other choice, I threw my backpack on my shoulders, walked to the highway, and stuck out my thumb.
Debbie and Hamish had informed me of another spot along the road north were chances were very good I would run into Yellow-eyed penguins, so Alex and I took a slight detour from the road north to see if we could track them down. My instructions were a bit vague, I was to look for a lighthouse up a road in a small town at the second peninsula from Dunedin, but fortune was with us and we found it during our first attempt. Ordinarily I'm sure the place would have been overrun with tourists, but given the early hour we had the place largely to ourselves. It was approaching the end of the penguin nesting season, and the nesting areas were fenced off from the public. Of course, while a wooden fence might mean something to a human, it is little more than a curious looking tree to a penguin. We walked along the fence peering into the bushes but didn't see much. Turning around, I tapped Alex on the shoulder. The penguins weren't in their designated nesting area, they were all over the hill outside of it! You could tell they weren't going to be here much longer, the chicks looked fully grown and had shed most of their fluff, but we had timed it perfectly. It was penguin-tastic.
Back on the road again, Alex and I chatted about music and travelling, and life in general. He had gone to school to pursue sculpture, but had felt a bit disenchanted with the job prospects in the field and had started travelling, working along the way as he went. He planned on spending another month in NZ before returning home to France for a spell, earning some euros and then heading on to Mongolia (or maybe Montana). We exchanged some music info and email addresses, and I left him Christchurch around noon.
Waipara is another wine region just to the north of Christchurch that produces some great wine, and I wanted to stop there for lunch at a winery called Pegasus Bay. It was by far the most expensive meal I have eaten so far, but the grounds were beautiful and I met some folks from Wrigleyville in Chicago in their tasting room. Wallet lightened and belly full, I hit the road again.
The Waipara region is pretty dry, even more so given the season, and I passed lots of brown grass and irrigated vineyards beside bone dry rivers. The road wandered into some mountains, and the grasses were replaced by forests so dense that the hillside looked like it was covered with broccoli. I hit the summit and rushed downward towards the sea where the Pacific ocean crashed along black sand beaches and surfer towns. It was absolutely stunning. The highway continued to wind along the coast at the foot of the mountains, around cliffside corners and through tunnels before shrinking back into fuzzy grasslands once again. Patches of green began to appear amongst the rolling prairie hills, massive grape plantations of Savignon Blanc. I had reached Marlborough.
The main city in Marlborough is Blenheim, but I choose to stay in a hostel about 10km outside of town in the little village of Renwick, which was much closer to the wineries. There was a proper english pub in town where I chose to have dinner, complete with Yorkshire pudding and tasty ale. My dinner companion was a rather friendly stray cat who sat very patiently on the bench next to me, and after a spell a very old man came by and struck up a conversation about an Oregon wrestling team that had passed this way about 50 years before. His son was a beekeeper.
The next day I had appointments to go wine tasting and really get a feel for the wine being produced in the region. There is plenty of Savignon Blanc of course, but also some really fantastic Rielsing and even a bit of Pinot Noir. I tasted at some very large producers (6600 tons) and very small ones (50 tons), and learned plenty about what it means to grow grapes and make wine here. My favorite place by far was Te Whare Ra, a tiny little producer run by a husband and wife winemaking team who have two sets of twin girls at home (ages 4 and 17 months). How they manage to keep it together I have no idea, but they are definitely making some very special wines, particularly Riesling.
I ended the day at Fromm winery, the place that was largely responsible for my being in New Zealand. I had sent them a resume last fall looking for work, and though they were all filled up they were kind enough to pass my info along to several other top wineries, including Escarpment in Martinborough, which is where I ended up finding work. I had a beer with Hatch and Rachel (the winemaker and sales manager respectively), the perfect end to a perfect day. Really kind and gracious people, and great wines too!
I had toyed with the idea of doing a bit of tasting in Nelson (my next stop), but my palate and finances were a bit exhausted so I posted the remained of my non-backpacking gear up to Martinborough (where it would wait until harvest). I left Renwick and drove on to Nelson that afternoon, dropping my rental car off at the airport there. I had thought about spending the night and exploring the city, but Saturday is not a great time to find last minute reservations and the whole city was booked. Having no other choice, I threw my backpack on my shoulders, walked to the highway, and stuck out my thumb.
Dunedin, Otago and the road south
After a fine evening of sampling the local microbrews and reggae, I awoke early the next morning to seek out the location of the brave company willing to rent a car to a backwards American. Upon arrival I was informed that my car was not yet ready and was told that things should be set in about an hour or so. Given that my travel schedule was rather flexible I wasn't concerned, so I grabbed a cup of coffee and gathered my belongings before returning at the prescribed time. Once again I was informed that my car would not be ready for an hour. Now that I now had all of my gear with me and was sufficiently caffinated, I elected to remain on their rather comfortable couches and do sudoku puzzles. As I pondered numbers and boxes, I began to think that perhaps I was not the only one whose car lay at the other end of the magical hour, given all the huffing and puffing going on at the counter by some other foreigners in a big hurry to relax. In between tourist's chest beating and laying siege to the office, I struck up a conversation with the agent and discovered that it was her very first day on the job and that the car shortage had to do with a big screw up at the airport rental counter, not hers. After trading horror stories about working in the service industry, she taught me the Hertz secret handshake and gave me an upgrade and extra day for free. That, and because my car was much smaller than anything the other renters were looking for (they all wanted SUV's), I drove away only 2 hours behind schedule while their faces turned from red to purple. Maybe there's a lesson here...
It has been my experience that even people who live in places with a so called "laid back attitude" still drive like maniacs in the right circumstances, and yet in New Zealand this just isn't the case. Kiwi drivers are perfectly content to drive an easy 10 km/hour under the speed limit, and should you choose drive faster, they will happily pull off onto the shoulder to let you by. This attitude may have something to do with lack of superhighways, or a built-in wariness to their roads being spontaneously overtaken by flocks of migratory sheep. It is a bit difficult to get somewhere if you are in a hurry, but maybe that's the point. Besides, it gives you plenty of time to listen to the radio.
There are really only 3 radio stations on the south island, one for pop, one for classical, and one that plays the greatest hits of the 60's and 70's. Once you left the tower range of one city, the same station would appear at a different frequency in another tower range. Even the advertisements were entertaining. Radio jingles in many western countries have been replaced by testostorne excitement (Monster truck ralley this SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY) or the ever-annoying converstional sales pitch ("Hi John! That's a nice tie...do you know where I could buy a flatscreen tv with a 2 year warrenty?"). But in New Zealand, jingles still rule the airwaves and in fact are surprisingly effective (after about an hour I found myself musing whether or not I might could use a new microwave at any point in my travels...the jury is still out).
As I pulled through the Canterbury plains the skies lightened and I started passing road signs cautioning me against wind socks. I puzzled over the meaning of these signs for some time, and looked to the surrounding countryside to determine what changed immediately after passing one of these signs. In the end I decided it had something to do with hills, or perhaps dreadlocked mullets (which were suddenly everywhere). The landscape went from green to brown, irrigated crops to pastures and sheep, and I decended into the small city of Dunedin. On a side note, the sheep population in New Zealand used to be about 40 million (compared to about 4 million people) until 10-15 years ago, until cheap imports from China made sheep farming less profitable. So while the sheep to human ratio is still rather comical (today it stands at about 4:1, or 16 million sheep), it has been in decline.
I had found a place to stay in Dunedin using the website couchsurfing.com, a sort of travellers network of places to stay across the world. Essentially you make your couch or spare bedroom willing to host travellers (or make yourself willing to meet them for coffee or a drink and show them around), and people can search your profile and request to come and stay with you. The beauty of it is that you can do the same thing when you are abroad, and get to meet local people who are travellers themselves with an intimate knowledge of where you are. A comfy bed/couch, a place to cook and do laundry, interesting people to talk to, and the whole thing is free! What a great idea!
My hosts for the next three days were Debbie and Hamish, a couple whose kids had grown and moved out, leaving them with a few empty bedrooms and seats at the dinner table. I got in just before dinner and cooked some mussels for Debbie (Hamish was out of town), and after dinner we took a drive out to a random hill outside of town to check out a glow worm nest. That's right...a glow worm nest...next to a waterfall. No pictures of this one (the worms aren't big fans of flash cameras), but imagine being in a very small planetarium during a star show (with a waterfall). Not a bad way to start a visit.
My intent in coming to Dunedin was to pop over to Central Otago and visit some contacts in the wine industry there, but after chatting with Debbie I found out that "popping over" to Otago takes about 3 hours, so I took the day off of heavy driving and decided to explore Dunedin instead. I started the day by venturing out to the tip of the Otago Pennisula, home to the world's only albatros nesting site that's shared with human inhabitants (and some blue penguins thrown in too). The road to the tip of the peninsula was a bit challenging, driving along the left side with no shoulder for about 40 kilometers, the margin of error being the ocean. I had hit the big leagues of rental car driving.
The peninsula itself was pretty amazing, imagine the best parts of Vermont (sleepy little towns with history), Oregon (the scenic beauty), and Scotland (rolling hills covered in sheep and even a castle!). It was very hard not to wander off amongst the towns, but I was on a mission. There was a large tourist site marking the end of the peninsula that charged an entrance fee, but thanks to Debbie I found a free vantage point along the edge of a cliff face that was just as good. As I waited I was joined by another couple, and we debated whether or not the large birds flying around were albatross. To be safe, I took lots of pictures of what turned out to be well fed seagulls, but if these were albatros I couldn't understand what the fuss was about. Just as I was beginning to loose heart, a clumsy duck looking thing jumped off the cliff and spread its wings, and then kept spreading them. While the bird was only about 2 feet tall, its wingspan was easily over 10. This, at last, was an albatros. How do they fly? They don't, they simply unfold their wings and glide around. It was well worth the wait. I hadn't been expecting to see any blue penguins while I was there, (they tend to only be active in the morning and the evening to avoid sea lions), but I spotted something swimming around in the water far below me and snapped a picture. It sure as hell looked like a penguin anyway.
Leaving the point, I came across a small beach up to road and decided to try and find get a shot looking up the bay towards Dunedin. Part of the beach was closed off as a wildlife reserve, but I managed to find my way along some rocks towards the water. I was just about to leap down to the water's edge when at the last possible instant I noticed the rock wasn't composed of the usual rock-like components, but was actually a large mass of blubber. I had come about 2 feet from bounding right onto a napping sea lion! While I was quite unnerved...the sea lion didn't seem to care. It opened an eye, looked at me, scratched its unmentionables and rolled over with a groan, which was answered but similar groans from several directions. Half the damn rocks were sea lions...I was in the middle of a colony! Thankfully their groans were more of the "some asshole has wandered onto the rocks again, if anybody is up to the task you can chase him out...I just can't be bothered at the moment" variety, and I was able to cautiously back away with limbs intact (after taking a few photos of course).
I wound my way back along the highway, taking the upland road for a change of scenery, which offered stunning views of the Pacific and even the site of New Zealand's first cheese co-opt! Upon my return to the city I stopped at the world's steepest street (or steepest 6.3 meters of street anyway...take that Japan!), and took some video of myself driving down it. The locals who lived on that street gave me dirty looks, a group of Asian tourists at the bottom waved and cheered me on.
The next day it was off to Otago for some wine-tasting, but first I had to pass through some strangely familiar scenery. It was a bit uncanny, at any moment I expected a marauding band of orcs carrying two hobbits to go dashing across the road, pursued by a ranger, an elf, and a dwarf. No such luck though...must have been too cloudy.
Otago is full of Cristom alumni, and a day really wasn't enough time to spend there. I saw Bannockburn and Cromwell and tasted at some fantastic wineries, but couldn't help feeling like I hadn't even scratched the surface. I may be heading back down to Queenstown post vintage when the funds have been replenished, maybe I'll even throw myself off a bridge or two (it was invented here after all). I returned to Dunedin to Debbie and Hamish and had a lovely evening talking wine and politics (things usually not to be mixed in strange company, but the conversation was very polite and really interesting), and awoke the next morning with the bread trucks. It was a long way to Renwick and Marlborough, longer still with the two lane highway. Not that I really minded all that much.
It has been my experience that even people who live in places with a so called "laid back attitude" still drive like maniacs in the right circumstances, and yet in New Zealand this just isn't the case. Kiwi drivers are perfectly content to drive an easy 10 km/hour under the speed limit, and should you choose drive faster, they will happily pull off onto the shoulder to let you by. This attitude may have something to do with lack of superhighways, or a built-in wariness to their roads being spontaneously overtaken by flocks of migratory sheep. It is a bit difficult to get somewhere if you are in a hurry, but maybe that's the point. Besides, it gives you plenty of time to listen to the radio.
There are really only 3 radio stations on the south island, one for pop, one for classical, and one that plays the greatest hits of the 60's and 70's. Once you left the tower range of one city, the same station would appear at a different frequency in another tower range. Even the advertisements were entertaining. Radio jingles in many western countries have been replaced by testostorne excitement (Monster truck ralley this SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY) or the ever-annoying converstional sales pitch ("Hi John! That's a nice tie...do you know where I could buy a flatscreen tv with a 2 year warrenty?"). But in New Zealand, jingles still rule the airwaves and in fact are surprisingly effective (after about an hour I found myself musing whether or not I might could use a new microwave at any point in my travels...the jury is still out).
As I pulled through the Canterbury plains the skies lightened and I started passing road signs cautioning me against wind socks. I puzzled over the meaning of these signs for some time, and looked to the surrounding countryside to determine what changed immediately after passing one of these signs. In the end I decided it had something to do with hills, or perhaps dreadlocked mullets (which were suddenly everywhere). The landscape went from green to brown, irrigated crops to pastures and sheep, and I decended into the small city of Dunedin. On a side note, the sheep population in New Zealand used to be about 40 million (compared to about 4 million people) until 10-15 years ago, until cheap imports from China made sheep farming less profitable. So while the sheep to human ratio is still rather comical (today it stands at about 4:1, or 16 million sheep), it has been in decline.
I had found a place to stay in Dunedin using the website couchsurfing.com, a sort of travellers network of places to stay across the world. Essentially you make your couch or spare bedroom willing to host travellers (or make yourself willing to meet them for coffee or a drink and show them around), and people can search your profile and request to come and stay with you. The beauty of it is that you can do the same thing when you are abroad, and get to meet local people who are travellers themselves with an intimate knowledge of where you are. A comfy bed/couch, a place to cook and do laundry, interesting people to talk to, and the whole thing is free! What a great idea!
My hosts for the next three days were Debbie and Hamish, a couple whose kids had grown and moved out, leaving them with a few empty bedrooms and seats at the dinner table. I got in just before dinner and cooked some mussels for Debbie (Hamish was out of town), and after dinner we took a drive out to a random hill outside of town to check out a glow worm nest. That's right...a glow worm nest...next to a waterfall. No pictures of this one (the worms aren't big fans of flash cameras), but imagine being in a very small planetarium during a star show (with a waterfall). Not a bad way to start a visit.
My intent in coming to Dunedin was to pop over to Central Otago and visit some contacts in the wine industry there, but after chatting with Debbie I found out that "popping over" to Otago takes about 3 hours, so I took the day off of heavy driving and decided to explore Dunedin instead. I started the day by venturing out to the tip of the Otago Pennisula, home to the world's only albatros nesting site that's shared with human inhabitants (and some blue penguins thrown in too). The road to the tip of the peninsula was a bit challenging, driving along the left side with no shoulder for about 40 kilometers, the margin of error being the ocean. I had hit the big leagues of rental car driving.
The peninsula itself was pretty amazing, imagine the best parts of Vermont (sleepy little towns with history), Oregon (the scenic beauty), and Scotland (rolling hills covered in sheep and even a castle!). It was very hard not to wander off amongst the towns, but I was on a mission. There was a large tourist site marking the end of the peninsula that charged an entrance fee, but thanks to Debbie I found a free vantage point along the edge of a cliff face that was just as good. As I waited I was joined by another couple, and we debated whether or not the large birds flying around were albatross. To be safe, I took lots of pictures of what turned out to be well fed seagulls, but if these were albatros I couldn't understand what the fuss was about. Just as I was beginning to loose heart, a clumsy duck looking thing jumped off the cliff and spread its wings, and then kept spreading them. While the bird was only about 2 feet tall, its wingspan was easily over 10. This, at last, was an albatros. How do they fly? They don't, they simply unfold their wings and glide around. It was well worth the wait. I hadn't been expecting to see any blue penguins while I was there, (they tend to only be active in the morning and the evening to avoid sea lions), but I spotted something swimming around in the water far below me and snapped a picture. It sure as hell looked like a penguin anyway.
Leaving the point, I came across a small beach up to road and decided to try and find get a shot looking up the bay towards Dunedin. Part of the beach was closed off as a wildlife reserve, but I managed to find my way along some rocks towards the water. I was just about to leap down to the water's edge when at the last possible instant I noticed the rock wasn't composed of the usual rock-like components, but was actually a large mass of blubber. I had come about 2 feet from bounding right onto a napping sea lion! While I was quite unnerved...the sea lion didn't seem to care. It opened an eye, looked at me, scratched its unmentionables and rolled over with a groan, which was answered but similar groans from several directions. Half the damn rocks were sea lions...I was in the middle of a colony! Thankfully their groans were more of the "some asshole has wandered onto the rocks again, if anybody is up to the task you can chase him out...I just can't be bothered at the moment" variety, and I was able to cautiously back away with limbs intact (after taking a few photos of course).
I wound my way back along the highway, taking the upland road for a change of scenery, which offered stunning views of the Pacific and even the site of New Zealand's first cheese co-opt! Upon my return to the city I stopped at the world's steepest street (or steepest 6.3 meters of street anyway...take that Japan!), and took some video of myself driving down it. The locals who lived on that street gave me dirty looks, a group of Asian tourists at the bottom waved and cheered me on.
The next day it was off to Otago for some wine-tasting, but first I had to pass through some strangely familiar scenery. It was a bit uncanny, at any moment I expected a marauding band of orcs carrying two hobbits to go dashing across the road, pursued by a ranger, an elf, and a dwarf. No such luck though...must have been too cloudy.
Otago is full of Cristom alumni, and a day really wasn't enough time to spend there. I saw Bannockburn and Cromwell and tasted at some fantastic wineries, but couldn't help feeling like I hadn't even scratched the surface. I may be heading back down to Queenstown post vintage when the funds have been replenished, maybe I'll even throw myself off a bridge or two (it was invented here after all). I returned to Dunedin to Debbie and Hamish and had a lovely evening talking wine and politics (things usually not to be mixed in strange company, but the conversation was very polite and really interesting), and awoke the next morning with the bread trucks. It was a long way to Renwick and Marlborough, longer still with the two lane highway. Not that I really minded all that much.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Christchurch
My plane from Melbourne left mid-afternoon on Saturday, but thanks to connection with a layover in Sydney, I didn't pull into Christchurch until after midnight. By the time I had finished picking the slowest line and demonstrating once again that my tent did not harbor any biological weapons, it was rapidly approaching 2am. As it turns out, I had missed my shuttle into the city and would have to catch a later one, so in the meantime I found an internet kiosk and checked the obligatory email. Waiting for me was a message from my hostel saying that they had accidentally filled up before reading my second reservation email (funny that), but they had booked me at another hostel around the corner for about the same price. While relieved that they were able to find me another spot (it was Saturday night after all), I was a bit apprehensive about this other hostel, which seemed geared towards the "Wow you mean alcohol gets you drunk?!" crowd (it was Saturday night after all). Having spent the night before my travel day drinking wine until the wee hours of the morning (now standard procedure prior to big travelling days), I was getting desperate for some decent sleep, so desperate that I managed to pass out even with four out of 10 beds (including the top bunk above me) in my dorm room quite noisily double occupied. At least I got to laugh at the four separate walks of shame the next morning. Happy Valentines Day.
I had the next day to rest up in Christchurch before heading south, so I ventured out into the city to try and catch some of the flavor. By reputation Christchurch is the most conservative city that New Zealand has to offer (which isn't saying much), and at first I was a bit concerned that the whole city would be closed up and nothing would be going on (being Sunday morning). Just as despair had begun to set in, I turned down an alley and found a little cafe that served delicious pancakes with fresh local berries. Taking my last sip of precious coffee, the sun burst through the clouds. All was right with the world again.
Energized by food and sunshine, I wandered over to a botanic garden and relaxed for a bit under an old sequoia tree (planted by the Duke of Edinburgh in 1856!), before happening upon an outdoor arts festival, complete with live music, lots of vendors, sidewalk artists, and even street performers. I arrived as one guy was just getting his act going, and stuck around to watch it for a bit.
The guy was an Australian named Bruce who had given up a life working as a computer programmer to pursue a life entertaining tourists. Now you've probably seen a street performer before, and you've also probably tried to tuck yourself into the crowd and become as anonymous as possible...a leftover instinct to remain amongst the herd and away from danger perhaps. In between playing matador to moving cars and balancing a bike on his face I had somehow caught his attention (my ploy to hide amongst 12 year olds was ill conceived), and became his volunteer for the remainder of the program. While I had the powerful urge to run away with arms flailing (I'm sure I wouldn't have been the first)...but what the hell, I don't know anyone in this city anyway. At first my tasks involved simple things (like using my head to catch hats Bruce tossed from 30 feet away), but by the end I had graduated to kissing a german for world peace and allowing Bruce to juggle knives while standing on my forearms. Dangerous maybe...but a hell of a lot of fun.
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