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.

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.

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.

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.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Australia part 2

After spending part of Monday strolling the beach to the south, I could think of no better way to begin a beautiful Tuesday morning than strolling the beach to the north. According to science, sunlight is absorbed by darker colors while lighter colors, Arctic ice for instance, tend to reflect sunlight away. Fully confident that my alabaster sheen would serve the same function as a white t-shirt, I elected to take this stroll in full view of the sun, enjoying the warm breeze and comforting myself with how jealous everyone in the northern hemisphere would be when they found out how I spent my afternoon (and how gloriously bronze I would be soon). Now before you write me off as an idiot, keep in mind that the previous day I had walked the beach and "tested the waters" as it were, cautiously allowing parts of my body to become gradually exposed to the sunshine, which yielded no apparent color change by evening. And while you may be thinking to yourself that YOU would have tested this theory several times before flinging yourself before the mercy of the elements, remember that the 85 degrees and warm southerly breeze would be enticing you to remove your clothing as quickly as possible (especially after the snow and ice endured up north). By midafternoon I had a mild inclination that I could be getting a sunburn, but it felt surprisingly refreshing at the time, like the first blast of heat upon entering a sauna. Come evening it was clear that something was horribly wrong...the heat of the afternoon was subsiding outside, while my skin remained in the sauna. I couldn't understand where I had gone wrong, that is until Jill and Mary, both native to the southern hemisphere and familiar with my predicament, explained the fault in my logic. The culprit? Ozone. Unbeknowst to me, it has a tendency to come and go in this part of the world, so while one day may yield little (or at least normal) radiation, the next can be quite different. Not only that, but the malicious southern sun is especially good at picking out the most awkward parts to burn, leaving me with burned spots on the forearms (farmer tan), feet (teva tan), ears (dumbo tan), back of neck (redneck tan), nose (rudolph tan), and the patches of forehead on either side of my receding hair line (baldy tan). Put them together and you've got the honky American hopeless asshole tan (HAHA tan). The forehead burn was by far the worst, perhaps because my forehead has been more or less covered since the last time I had my hair this short...leaving for summer camp about 13 years ago. Perhaps I should have used sunblock you say? Perhaps you shouldn't have used aerosol...jerk.

Deciding I was no longer fit to be left to my own devices, Colin and Mary took the next couple of days from work to show me around the Mornington Peninsula. The first stop was Cape Shank, a national park along the southern tip of the peninsula with tide pools, really cool rock formations, and a lighthouse. Out to prove that they could not suppress my idiot tourist instincts, I insisted on crossing an active tide pool to have my picture taking with the waves violently crashing on shore. On a rock. Upon which the waves were violently crashing. In retrospect there were many things that could have gone wrong (rogue wave, bad balance, earthquake, acrobatic shark), but what a picture!
Upon leaving, we discovered that the gate at the exit required financial incentive to move, and spent about 20 minutes scouring the depth of Luke (the Renault) for change. Feeling humbled and poor, we went wine tasting.

Mornington really does has some fantastic wineries, producing some interesting and really refreshing reds and whites unlike many regions I've tasted. Some of my favorites included Main Ridge (great pinot), Paringa (really bright chardonnay and stinky, funky shiraz...in a good way), and Eldrige. David and Wendy Lloyd are a husband (winemaker) and wife (everything else) team behind Eldrige, and were also the ones who got me the pouring gig at the Mornington IPNC. They were both teachers until the 90's, and decided to take a chance and delve into the wine business, mortgaging everything they owned (several times) to plant a few acres and build a winery, which doubles as their house. Today, they managed to pay back everything they owed and are now living the dream, proof positive that it is possible to live the good life making wine even if you don't have millions to start with. Some times all you need is good credit, a little bit of patience, passion, dedication, and a dash of luck. They are some of the nicest people I have met (even by wine industry standards), and I happily traded them some help setting bird nets for the chance to taste through their cellar. Great stuff.

Later in the week Dave and Steph, some old college friends of Colin and Mary, came down for a visit, stopping down on their way to vintage in the Barossa valley. As we discovered over a few beers that afternoon, I had met Dave and Steph before. Dave had been thinking about working a vintage at Cristom two years ago, and had stopped by for a visit. Steve, the winemaker at Cristom, had been out of town that day so I had ended up giving them a tour of the facilities. Both Dave and Steph remembered the tour, and while he had decided to do vintage elsewhere, I was assured the tour wasn't what made his decision. It really is a small world.

I wouldn't be able to close the Australian chapter without saying a bit about the bush fires, which are the worst national disaster in Austalia's history. For those of you who haven't seen the international news in awhile, last Saturday while southern Australia was experiencing record heat (115 degrees) several fires broke out across the area north of Melbourne, an area of bush country with a few small communities just outside the suburban boundary of the city. Some of these fires were natural, began by a thunderstorm the previous evening, others were lit by arsonists. The heat, high winds, and months of drought combined into the perfect storm, and literally wiped towns off the map. The fires were hot enough to be deadly from 400 meters away, and moved at speeds of 110km an hour. People were caught in their cars trying to flee, chased down by the flames, while those that stayed and fought never had a chance. It was nothing short of hell on earth. The only good news to come out of this is how the country has reacted, within days $30 million in donations had poured in, even during the recession, and the government was telling fire victims to notify their local member of Parliament should insurance companies give any evidence of dragging their feet. While the scale is quite different, I found myself comparing the Australian reaction to the American reaction to Hurricane Katrina. I can only hope that it won't take years for the refugees to move out of the emergency tents and that the Australian Prime Minister never appears on the cover of Time magazine have to apologize for how he behaved in the recovery. Given what I've seen and heard from the media and talking to people, somehow I don't think either will happen.

Having tasted some great wines, eaten bbq kangaroo, and obtained a ridiculous sunburn (now peeling), the time had arrived for me to return to New Zealand and begin the next leg of my adventure. I thanked Colin and Mary and bid them farewell, hoped a train and a bus to the airport, and departed the land down under.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

The real Australian experience

There are two types of travellers. The first are the postcard travellers, the ones that are out to cross as many cities and countries off the map as they can just to say that they've been there, like a family hopping out of their RV to take a picture of the Grand Canyon before rushing off to the next natural wonder (thanks Abbey). Then there are the more detail oriented travellers, the ones that pick one place and spend a significant amount of time there, days or even weeks, really trying to get to know a city and the people there intimately. In my life I have done both types of travelling, but found the later to be far more memorable. Thus, even though it was only an hour away and even though I still had a week left in Australia and even though I could afford it (sort of), I opted not to fly to Tasmania, or really anywhere else in Australia (I had briefly thrown around the idea of visiting Alice Springs or Broome). Instead, I decided to take that money and that time and really get to know where I was, and to find a real Australian experience.

Both Colin and Mary had to work on Monday, so I set out on foot to look for Australia, even though I wasn't sure what I was looking for. It didn't take long to realize that a beach town may not be the best place to find it, given that they are usually full of tourists. Still, I maintained a slim hope that the relative size and isolation of Dromana would mean that at the very least it would be full of Australian tourists, and while they may not be tossing boomerangs to dingos at least there might be a bit of local flavor. I elected to wander the beach for a bit first, relishing that I was somewhere with turquoise waters and 80 degree temperatures in the middle of February. Just off the beach were a series of colorful beach shacks, many of which had rather interesting (and sometimes creepy) paintings on their doors. Every now and then I would pass a small gelatinous blob which at first appeared to be some kind of jellyfish, but after employing the scientific method (vigorous stick poking) they appeared to be nothing but a roll of jelly. Curious, but not distinctly Australian. I wandered the beach for awhile longer, keeping my eyes peeled for spontaneous rugby scrums or a discarded jar of Vegemite, but found only sunburnt Irishmen. Time to venture into town.

Dromana is really just one main street with a few shops and houses running parallel to the beach, with the city limits marked on either end with a gas station. It quickly became evident there wasn't much Australia here either. I passed up on schnitzel (german) and instead sat down to a meat pie (english) and gelato (italian) before being chased out of the cafe so they could close at 3pm (spanish..or the entire Mediterranean really). Feeling distraught, I wandered into the local butcher shop. There, sitting next to cuts of lamb and still more schnitzel, I finally found what I was looking for. Kangaroo! Hard to get more Australian than that. Buying enough steaks for the house, I may have even tossed the butcher a "cheers mate" on my way out the door. After swinging by the grocery store to pick up some veggies and (ridiculously expensive) Australian beer, I headed back to throw some roo on the barbi.

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Australia part 1

I had met Colin and Mary this past fall while working harvest in Oregon. Colin and I both worked at Cristom Vineyards (http://www.cristomwines.com/) while Mary worked up at Chehalem, although she spent a fair amount of time at Cristom as well (the harvest lunches at Cristom are legendary, especially in comparison to the standard lunch fare other wineries serve during harvest, usually a combination of hot pizza and cold pizza). Colin grew up in the bay area of California and was an artist before delving into wine, and he met Mary (a native Kiwi) while obtaining wine training at Lincoln University in New Zealand last year. They had left shortly after the Oregon harvest ended in November, having found impossibly cheap tickets to Australia and spontaneously deciding to do the spring vintage there. They both ended up finding work in the Mornington Peninsula, an up and coming Pinot Noir producing area south of Melbourne and invited me to come down and visit should I have some extra time before harvest. A few weeks ago I got an email from Colin saying that they had managed to land jobs pouring wine at the Mornington IPNC (http://mpva.com.au/), a wine festival that would feature many of the top pinot noirs being produced in Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand (with a few pinots from Burgundy, Oregon, and even Chile thrown in as well), and that they could get me a pouring gig as well. Great wine with beaches nearby and the chance to eat kangaroo? I'm there.

I booked a plane ticket on Pacific Blue (one of two no frills discount airlines in Oceania) to Melbourne, leaving the day after I arrived in Auckland. Despite having unburdened myself of some wine the previous day, I had kept a few bottles with me to give as gifts to wineries I planned to visit along the way (a trick I had learned in Italy a few years ago). The trouble was that wine bottles are rather heavy and classified as a terror-inducing prohibited carry-on item, so all of my clothing now became a carry-on item instead. God help us if some idiot figures out how to make a bomb out of cotton.

I passed the time in the airport figuring out rugby (the US even won a game, nevermind that they beat Fiji) and feeding the birds (yes, there are birds flying around in the international terminal of the Auckland airport). Turns out Pacific Blue is owned by Virgin Airlines, and both Virgin and Pacific Blue had the same curious habit of playing music during takeoff and landing. At first I thought this was to distract nervous fliers, but as it turns out the purpose is much more practical; the music choices reflect the culture of the place where they are played. On my Virgin flight from Seattle to LA for example, indie rock was played during takeoff and pop rock as we touched down. Taking off from Auckland indie rock was also the music of choice (albeit with a New Zealand twist), while touching down in Melbourne was the sort of mixture of 80's rock and techno that we all hoped died in Germany 10 years ago.

This wasn't the only thing wrong with Australia. The southern half of the country is going through one of the worst droughts and heat waves in recorded history, while the northern half is under water from flash floods. The vineyards here have already suffered crop losses of 30-50% due to sun damage, with the possibility of additional losses in the next few weeks before harvest. Things are so dry that brush fires have started breaking out all over the areas north and west of the city, and several vineyards and even a small town have literally been wiped off the map. Fortunately the place I was going was south along a peninsula with more of a marine influence, but things are clearly not going well for much of the area.

Passing through customs proved a rather annoying experience. While New Zealand took no time at all and even included humorous anecdotes about preserved vegetables, Australia was much more intense, demanding to sift through my camping gear and checking to make sure that I hadn't surpassed my wine allowance. They even made me pull out my unopened pack of trail mix to determine whether I had devised a new way to introduce invasive species via dried cranberries and nuts. It was around 7pm by the time I finally made it through, and I still had to find my way to Dromana, a tiny beach suburb about 40k south of Melbourne where Colin and Mary lived. I had instructions to get there via train to Frankston, which departed regularly from downtown Melbourne. I shouldered my backpack, found a shuttle downtown, and settled back to take in the city.

The city is quite large and modern, with a river knifing through skyscrapers reminiscent of the loop in downtown Chicago. Its the second largest city in the country (after Sydney) with just under 4 million people in the city proper. It is relatively young, having only been founded around 1850, but still retains some pretty interesting stone architecture and green spaces that seem to be lacking in a lot other modern cities of similar size. Although at the moment I had other places to be, Melbourne is a place where I could see myself spending a bit of time. Maybe I will.

The bus station was still sweltering despite the late hour, but I managed to track down the train station without too much trouble. On the train ride south I observed that Australians certainly have their own style, some of it borrowed (the women seemed to have just figured out the little black dress) and some of it entirely their own (the men still wear the same flashy t-shirts made famous by the extras in Crocodile Dundee). Colin and Mary met me in Frankston, and we drove the 15 minutes south to their place in an ancient Renault that looked like it had been on the losing end of a chase scene with Inspector Clouseau.

Colin and Mary had found accommodations for the harvest with an Australian artist named Jill, who was in her early 50's and had two children (one around my age and the other still finishing college in Perth). The house itself was fantastic, full of eclectic pieces of artwork and very comfortable, with a back porch that had a distant view of the ocean. There was a second building in the backyard with two rooms, one that Colin and Mary were staying in and another that housed Jill's studio. They had set me up with a mattress in the studio, which was a welcome surprise from the camping mattress on hardwood floor I had expected. The studio had a window near the ceiling that faced west, and around midnight the full moon shown through it and filled the room with soft light. Awesome.

We headed to bed rather early, having to get up around 7 to make it to the wine festival the next morning. The festival itself was at the Lindenderry Resort (which also had its own vineyard), and featured about 35 different wineries, mostly from the Mornington Peninsula (it was their festival after all). Turns out that one of these wineries just so happened to be Escarpment, the vineyard where I'll be working harvest in New Zealand next month (http://www.escarpment.co.nz/). And Larry McKenna, the winemaker I'll be working for, just so happened to be the guy that was showing their wines. I met him for the first time that morning, and was pleased to note that we shared a similar taste in footwear (teva sandals). He may not look like a winemaker (more of a rugby coach or a retired army drill sergeant), but the man makes some damn good wine. He was very pleased that I wasn't a scrawny hipster from the NW, although he did comment that he planned on putting more meat on my bones. Given his reputation for drinking and eating well, I couldn't be happier.

The keynote speaker for the festival was Jancis Robinson, who among her other accolades is the editor for the Oxford Companion to Wine, my bible during the early days of working in the tasting room at Cristom. She is, quite simply, a legend. We spent the day polishing glassware and pouring wine for the morning and afternoon tasting sessions, trying our best to stay in the air conditioned places and escape the 114 degree blasting everything outside (a new record!). After the glasses were set and the wine poured, we would retire to a back room and press our ears against the wall, listening to the same lectures and sipping the same wine that the attendees had paid $900 for. Granted we were working for free, but a few hours of polishing and pouring in exchange for musing over which vintage of grand cru burgundy is showing better sounds like a good deal to me. And while we didn't get to attend the posh banquet that night, we were allowed to take home any of open wine that was left over (it gets dumped anyway). I daresay we had a far better time that evening eating pizza and conducting our own private tasting (featuring 24 different pinots from 5 countries) than we ever could have in some decadent hotel full of largely pretentious and stuffy people. Life is good.

The festival ended Sunday afternoon, and we spent the remainder of the day lounging around with Jill before enjoying a fantastic dinner. The only thing I really had planned for this part of the trip was the wine festival, and as my flight doesn't leave until the afternoon of the 14th, I have some time to kill. I have a feeling the beach will factor largely into this equation, although Tasmania is only about an hour away by plane...

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Oh the joys of budget traveling...in the last 56 hours I have boarded two trains, 6 buses, 2 shuttles, and 3 airplanes, traveling a total of around 8000 miles to arrive here on the other side of the world. What's more, today I get to board another plane to Melbourne (we'll throw in a train ride too for fun). Despite wandering into this travel marathon with the tail end of a cold and a mild hangover, I don't feel too bad at all...thanks to the mysteries of the immune system.

I'd spent the better part of the last month prepping for this trip; booking reservations and plane tickets, investigating national parks and wine regions, fixing bicycles and all the while visiting friends and transporting myself from one gracious couch to the next. And yet despite all this preparation, I still found myself running around past midnight the day before leaving trying to tie up last minute details. Inevitable maybe, but to date I haven't really thought of anything major that I forgot. In fact, the morning I departed I was running through lists and checklists and feeling pretty proud of myself, that is until I blew a red light in downtown Salem and came about 3 feet from an accident. A good reminder perhaps, the rest of the world cares little for my plans and itineraries, so I'd better be paying attention.

Made the train to Seattle after switching trains in Portland, and was surprised to learn that not only was there an in-ride movie, but that it was a recent show of Cirque de Sole, something I knew of but little about. The 35 minutes I watched before dozing off was pretty interesting, almost as interesting as the half-asleep dreams it prompted (a mixture of trapeez artists, satan, and the lion king in an airport security line). Met my buddy Bill in Seattle, had a great dinner and headed to a local college pub near his place for a few drinks (ill-advised maybe, but then again it was my birthday). Realizing that our time-sense was losing ground, we set the Mambo Number 5 alarm on the jutebox and headed out.

I declined an early ride to the airport the next morning and chose to sleep in and navigate the Seattle bus system instead. I needed to get to LAX that evening for my flight to New Zealand, so I had booked a really cheap ticket on Virgin Airlines that afternoon. Despite carrying 75 pounds of gear and needing to catch 3 buses to get to Seatac, the trip was without incident. Made a few goodbye phone calls from the terminal (I was shipping my phone back to Salem from LA) and boarded the plane. The plane was unbelievably awesome. Instead of the harsh and sterile (ha!) white lights of a typical plane, Virgin's cabin lights were purple, which contrasted red and white seats. And though this was a domestic flight, every seat came with a touchscreen in-flight entertainment system, which allowed you to watch movies, tv shows, music videos, and even order food! If only I had been flying Virgin to New Zealand...

The contrast with the futuristic plane and LAX couldn't have been starker (like walking out of a movie theater after watching Star Trek and realizing you're still in 1984), the terminal smelled and was badly in need of renovation. Aparently someone else agreed with me, as the international terminal was very much under renovation, and had English been my second language navigating it would have been a nightmare. After checking my bags through, I had about three hours to figure out a way to mail my cell phone back to Oregon (it would be useless in NZ). Before leaving I had prepaid a small box and the postage and needed simply to drop it into a mailbox. Sounded simple enough, except that since 9-11, all post office drop boxes in the US were removed from airports. I had no choice but to venture out into LA to try and find one.

The information desk informed me of a post office across the street from the Hertz rental car station. Thinking I was home free, I went out to wait for the Hertz shuttle. However unlike most car rental companies, the Hertz buses were for customers with reservations only, and the driver wouldn't let you on board without a reservation number...well most drivers anyway. I wandered down to the domestic terminal thinking that there would be more passengers there (too many to check), and three shuttles later managed to slip aboard. I remember wondering why Hertz was being so elitest with their reservation policy, but as the rental lot came into sight I realized it wasn't so much elitest as a security measure. The place looked like a maximum security prison, complete with floodlights and electrified razor wire fencing. Not the kind of place to be wandering around in jeans and hiking boots with a car thief sized black bag at night stammering about mailing a cell phone before leaving the country. For a moment I thought about hoping another shuttle back to the airport and figuring out another way, until I remembered something I read in a spy novel once. The key to not seeming suspicious is to do everything with complete confidence, even if you have no idea what you are doing. So I shouldered my bag, walked straight to the exit gate and walked briskly through, head held high above the curious looks from the security guards.

The post office was across the street (thank you information desk) and the cell phone in the mail, I needed to figure out a ride back to the airport, some 5 miles away. I didn't dare try my luck twice in Fort Hertz, but I needed to find another airport shuttle someplace where security wasn't quite as tight...but where? The TSA employee parking lot. Strolled through the gate after nodding to the guard who questioned me in broken English about a permit and hopped the nearest bus with our nation's finest security team, all of whom were in uniform and didn't seem to think twice about what a guy in hiking boots and blue jeans was doing on their bus.

Turns out that in addition to being smelly and confusing, LAX is also incredibly expensive, even by airport standards. Two sandwiches and a snack for the plane ran about $35, and I was being thrifty. I briefly considered a beer before the flight, but $7 Budweiser was just too much (I didn't even venture a glance at the microbrew section).

My flight to New Zealand was aboard Air Pacific, and included a stopover in Fiji, having found the tickets at SkyAuction.com, sort of like the ebay of travel websites. I saved a considerable sum of money on the tickets, and quickly found out why. Let's just say that Air Pacific isn't Virgin Airlines. For starters I was in the middle seat of the middle row of the plane, and some clever airplane designer had decided to place the leg of the seat in front of me center-right of what traditionally had been considered leg space. And while equipped with an in-flight movie system, I could only manage to get the left side of my headphones working (not that it really mattered, the movies were all unknown to me, although City of Ember was pretty good). Dinner was served as lasagna (meat-based airline food options are never a good idea) in marinara sauce, a sauce that was repeated on "eggs" the next morning. And of course, within 3 minutes of taking off the guy in front of me immediately put his seat all the way back, and left it there for the next 12 hours.

The guy sitting next to me was friendly, a former flight controller for NASA named Joe who was spending a free month in Fiji working for Tony Robbins (the lifecoach). We talked a bit about traveling (he'd traveled pretty extensively throwing on a backpack and wandering Europe for 3 months in 1989, witnessing the Berlin wall come down) and other things before finally attempting sleep. I managed a few hours and awoke in time to see the sunrise over Fiji.

The Fiji airport was pretty tiny and we were the first flight of the day. I briefly wished this had been my final destination walking into the terminal being greeted by a tropical band, but the prospect of spending a few months surrounded by nothing but foreign tourists sort of ruined the appeal. A couple of Americans in line behind me (one of whom wore a hat with the geographical map of the US against a stars and stripes backdrop) started grumbling about the band almost immediately, wondering why the government would allow panhandlers in the airport (after concluding they were all from the same poor family). This didn't stop them from ridiculing a man who danced briefly with the band for not giving them a tip. No wonder American tourists have a bad reputation abroad...

I had originally thought about trying to slip out and find a beach during my three hour layover in Fiji, maybe drink something out of a coconut on a beach chair, but it wasn't to be. Instead I amused myself wandering the small airport (which was really a big duty free shop) and trying to guess the Americans in the crowd, as well as those who had been on my flight and those who were leaving after a holiday. I attempted more sleep, and finally dosed to the competing sounds of the native band (who were now playing in the departure terminal) and a duet of "I will survive" between Beyonce and N'sync playing from one of the music shops. For those of you who might be interested, the carpet in LAX and Fiji is exactly the same.

The flight from Fiji to the US was largely uneventful, my seat companion this time was a Field Biologist from Fiji who had grown up in Africa. The flight pulled in early and both bags made it. I breezed through the New Zealand immigration (its a pretty casual country as it turns out) and tracked down my hotel. My second piece of luggage was a large box of wine and harvest gear (not the type of thing a weight concious backpacker needs to haul around for a month), so I grabbed a taxi to the post office a few miles away and mailed it to my future employer. It was a brilliant summer afternoon so I elected to hike back to my hotel, stopping along the way to explore a tiny national park and buy some strawberries and ice cream. Returning to my hotel, I gloried in the value of the American dollar and ordered room service twice before passing out for about 14 hours.

I have learned exactly 6 things since being here:
1) Apparently if you are the first person to arrive at customs from a flight you do not get a pickle (although I am unsure as to what number you have to be to receive said pickle).
2) Wealthy people in New Zealand drive Fords.
3) At crosswalks, walking signals are accompanied by a sound that is precisely like a laser in Star Wars.
4) New Zealand cabbies would rather take exact change than make change, even for a tip.
5) The hot and cold faucets are backwards (still haven't determined the opposite swirl down the drain thing yet).
6) After watching Cricket for 2 hours, I still couldn't figure out the point.

Today I'm off to Melbourne to visit my friends Colin and Mary, attend the Mornington IPNC wine festival, and sleep on a beach for a week. That is, if all goes according to plan...

Pictures will be coming just as soon as I find a computer with a USB port!