West Coast Wonder

rainforest and gorgeous waters of the west coast

I’m still adjusting to seeing so many men wearing so little clothing. Even with a hard frost on the ground, there are several Kiwi men who put on, not only in shorts, but STUBBIES! Shorts so short most American men (and many women as well!) wouldn’t be caught dead in them. Bizzare.

The most shocking stubbies-wearer we encountered on our first West Coast backcountry exploration went by Allen. He’s as grisly as they come, a leathery older man whose work at the nation’s mega-corporate dairy processing plant in Timaru slows down in the winter. (They have yet to figure out a way to artificially force year-round milk from cows as we’ve done eggs from chickens. So when the cows are enduring the necessary cold-season pregnancy the cogs at the factory stop turning.) Allen is an archetype of a befuddling sort found here in Kiwi land. He’s as blue-collar as can be from his daily grind to his outlook on life. When the hut warden scolded him for putting his plastic trash in the wood stove (plastic produces toxic smoke and the particulate lingers on the roof where it’s washed into the hut’s rain-catchment water supply), Allen just grunted. A man of few words, we did manage to get out of him that he spends most of his free time backpacking. He even volunteered that the longest he’s been “in the bush” without seeing another person is eight days. For me, stumbling downstairs bleary-eyed for breakfast and encountering the tall, long-legged Allen in tiny shorts eliminated any need for a caffeine wake-up.

more than halfway and more than a minute across the longest swingbridge

We shared the Welcome Flat hut with Allen, a group of four city-slickers out for the weekend, and a gregarious in-late-out-early hunter. This particular hike is famous for the hot springs awaiting the tired, trail-worn feet that cover the seven-hour journey up the valley. While we didn’t have to ford any rivers, we did encounter the highest, sketchiest swing bridges yet. A glance at a “swing bridge” inspires little confidence. All told, six tiny wire cables (the diameter of an M&M comes to mind) are all that stand between you and the icy river gorge far below. Four cables form the walking surface, spread apart by a cross bar every foot or so. The other two wires are strung at “handrail” level, and chain-link fencing runs from one hand wire down across the four walking wires, and up the other side. All together, it’s like a trench of metal swiss-cheese so narrow that Pat, with his size 13’s, has a tough time getting one foot in front of the other. We took turns bouncing across, adhering to the one-person limit signs and stopping to admire the views and the breathtaking drops.

palm tree or giant fern?

It was fantastic to be back in the rainforest! I read the other day at a DOC (Department of Conservation) display that something like 85-90% of the south island is covered in beech forest. While the west coast does have beech, it also grows an impressive array of other flora, including the delightful tree fern. It looks enough like a palm tree to make the whole place feel like Costa Rica (minus 40 blessed degrees). Much of the trail snaked through chest-high banks of mud-sand. Combined with the usual required scrambling, we had ourselves a genuine seven-hour adventure!

After slipping, sliding, climbing, and crashing through all types of terrain, the steaming hot pools were a welcome sight. We dropped our packs and didn’t leave the relaxing waters until dinner time! We couldn’t resist another soak after the sun had gone down, and we got up before the crack of dawn for a moonlight dip. Delightful! The night sky in New Zealand is amazing, rivaled only by my experience of starry evenings high in the Rockies. Viewing the whole spectacular display from the hot springs: enchanting!

chillin in the hot pools

The following morning I finally sighted my first non-winged wildlife, immediately rocketing the Welcome Flat trail into the top three on my NZ hikes list. The first was a chamois (said “Sham-whah”, but usually shortened to “Shammy”) whose hind end I saw disappearing down the trail in front of me just shortly after leaving the hut. This alone was unbelievable and thrilling, given our previous experience of nothingness in the NZ wild. Which is why I could barely contain myself when, upon stopping halfway across a swing bridge to look around, I spotted a tahr (“tar”) on the

tahr

riverbank below. A silent drama played out as I furiously tried to mime to Pat that there was a tahr *right underneath him* and frantically vacillated between trying to take a picture without dropping our hiking poles into the river below and running the rest of the way across the sketchy-one-person-bridge so Pat could come out and see it. I finally dashed the distance to the other side landing in time to see the tahr* nonchalantly slip into the woods as Pat climbed onto the wires. Dang!

Pat examines possum fur

There were plenty of consolation prizes for Pat, though. We saw our first wekas (forest chickens — said “Weck-uh”), we arrived back at the carpark to an intense double rainbow, AND we met a friendly possum hunter

who kept a bonfire roaring all evening! We fixed up a delicious Thai curry and swapped stories with Josh, a thirty-something kiwi bloke, well into the darkness. He owns an “eco” rafting company that helicopters customers and their gear deep into the wilderness. They pump up the rafts, paddle down river, stop at hot springs, go hunting and fishing — whatever the guests want — all for about $400 a person. Um, wow. In the off-season, he supplements his income by trapping and killing one of the most-hated, introduced kiwi pests — the possum — for its fur.

He described the ins and outs of finding a good spot to run a trap line, explained how he removes the fur, and even let us feel some of the goods he’d collected so far. Possum fur is coveted because it’s super-soft and has a hollow core like a polar bear’s, making it a superb

possum

insulator. Apparently they’re attracted to big trees, so Josh stakes out a trap line when he finds a forest giant with possum runs near it. Once their legs are caught in the traps, the possums usually go to sleep but “freak out” the next day when they hear him coming. He clubs them on the head (yes, this makes them dead), and then plucks the fur with a “peeling” motion that clears out three inch patches per peel. The fur sells for $200 cash per kg ($100 a pound) and rising. It takes a couple of possums to make a pound, and a couple more to make a kg.

Before the night was up, our possum-hunting-friend solved lots of kiwi mysteries and de-mystified the kiwi psyche for me. A perfect end to our West Coast beginning!

See rainbows and breathtaking vistas by clicking here.

*Tahr and chammy have split reputations among Kiwi’s.   Hunters love them for the reason they were introduced – the thrill of the kill!   (I just said that because it rhymes.)   Other non-hunters want them completely eradicated because they destroy the fragile balance of the local ecosystem that evolved without the presence of ANY mammals (we’re not counting the bat).   Ironically, this creates a conundrum in which the originalists are all for the hunters doing their thing, but the hunting industry is all for keeping the goats on the slopes.   Rumor has it some guiding companies are raising and re-releasing the animals to keep the sport alive.

Welcome to the West Coast!

Rumored to harbor biting “sandflies” so thick they sound like rain pinging against your tent walls, my feelings about our West Coast exploration were mixed. Also in store, however, were narrow glacier-filled valleys stretching almost to the sea, hot springs deep in the wilderness, and endless seaside vistas!

Princess Evie - adorable!

Our first stop was our second New Zealand home — Makarora. Emily, Chris, Evie and Hunter are a super fun family, and we’ve lucked into attending a community event almost every time we visit. We enjoyed a few relaxing days of familiar faces, and then we finally crossed the threshold to the West Coast! Having spent about six of our twelve months covering only 25% of New Zealand, I was anxious for new territory. However, every time I lamented this fact aloud, both travelers and Kiwi’s alike repeated the same refrain: “It’s the best part anyway!”

Climbing up over Haast Pass, we were treated to waterfalls swelling with recent rainfall and peephole views through cloud cover up to the peaks. The “Gates of Haast”, a bridge over a gnarly gorge-in-the-making, and the winding road slowly being washed into the river were awesome in that thrilling, ‘fear-of-mother-nature’s-raw-power’ sort of way.

At the Haast Visitor’s center we’d learned about whitebait — a West Coast icon. I’d assumed it was a type of fish. You know… trout, salmon, cod, whitebait. Not so. A few miles down the road, we followed handpainted signs past piles of rusting farm yard junk to a modern

whitebait pattie on the grill

manufactured home. A banner above the garage welcomed us and the smiling proprietor had a whitebait pattie on the grill straightaway. This mystery food consists of small aquatic creatures bound together with beaten eggs. When schools of whitebait are scooped into nets at the river mouth, they resemble 2.5 inch guppy jellyfish (no such thing, but imagine a translucent guppy sans legs). The writhing mass of clear worms would make an awesome stand-in for “monster brains” at a haunted house. Freeze them to death, thaw them out, beat some eggs, pour them into the whitebait, ladle onto grill, flip, eat! When cooked, the whitebait turn… well, white. The patty looks like a bunch of white worms (eyes, spines and all) twisted together and tastes like fish. I’ wouldn’t buy it at a restaurant or bother making it for myself, but I’d eat it again!

Afterward, we headed for the Copeland Valley trailhead where we braved sandflies and got ourselves sorted for the next day’s hike. To make ourselves feel better about our losing battle (2 humans versus 25 million sandflies) we came up with a list of reasons that sandflies aren’t as bad as mosquitoes.

1. Sandflies stop biting after dark.

2. Sandflies don’t make an annoying buzzing sound that keeps you awake all night

3. Sandflies can’t bite through your clothes, so being covered in them isn’t that bad.

4. Sandflies are heavier and can usually be felt when they land, unlike sneaky mosquitoes.

5. Sandfly bites don’t swell up into monstrous welts (although they itch just as badly).

6. If a sandfly is biting you, you can guarantee yourself the sweet satisfaction of revenge (SANDFLY DEATH!). Blow on it and it will cling to your skin as you slowly and accurately squash it.

Shortly after the sandflies went to bed, we crawled in and began dreaming of the next day’s hot springs!

See sandfly swarms, local Speights action, and Pat and Hunter’s motorcycle madness by clicking here.

Pat’s Bar Brawl

There weren’t any bloody noses or broken bones, but there were plenty of wide-eyed spectators when Pat found himself and a friend the target of a wicked bar room attack.

The life all the poor, snowless Wanaka ski bums are dreaming of

Item one in this recipe for disaster was our return to our New Zealand “home” – Wanaka – where we’d worked for four summer months. We’d left a sleepy, all-ages tourist town and returned to find hardly a face over thirty. The town was teeming with grungy, young ski bums. Our fun Tuesday poker night was overrun by this new group, leaving me speechless all the way to the final table (woot woot!).

Item two is a weekly karaoke session the following evening at one of the happening bars. We’d been invited to quiz night at the pub where I’d worked, so we started there. After some mean trivia, our team lost in the tie-breaker for not knowing how many floors were in the Empire State building (do you?). Damn! Then we were off to belt out various 80’s hits and dance the night away.

Item three is a short, stocky, blonde Welshman. Allegedly, he was in the royal marines and is a door man at another bar in town. He definitely got told off by our bar manager friend Ryan at closing time. Most of the riff-raff had shuffled out the door when I saw Ryan’s arm flying through the air. His hand landed with a resounding crack about half an inch from the beer on the countertop in front of Blondie and he yelled, “I told you to QUIT DRINKING!” Blondie had done enough imbibing to be relatively unphased by this new development. A few minutes later he followed us out the door to the last social venue open in town.

Martin - the sweet, unassuming Cambrian (Cambridge-ian?)

Item four is a mystery ingredient that is still unknown to me. Apparently, on the walk over, someone brought up Pat’s military background, perhaps in the face of Blondie’s antagonism. Blondie accused the group of lying, whereupon our friend Martin interjected in his formal British, “Well, actually, he was [in the military].” Now, for anyone who doesn’t know Patrick, allow me to profile this gentle giant. At six foot seven inches tall with medium build and a fierce brow ridge, the poor man is a magnet for aggressors looking to prove something. He is also a master of diffusing tension and anger (probably the reason our relationship contains minimum drama despite my often fiery personality). While he is trained as a boxer and in hand-to-hand combat, his preference is to never use these skills.

The face that invites a fight.

One can only guess what tripped Blondie’s ‘freak-out’ wire, but it happened like this. A group of six of us were at one end of the bar. Blondie was kickin’ it solo at the other end. Presumably, Martin’s insistence about Pat’s military service made him Blondie’s bullseye. Suddenly, Blondie came charging across the room and shoved Martin so hard that his body took out three chairs, a table, and two drinks in the fall. Pat became Martin’s instant body guard and tried to end it quickly by ‘placing’ Blondie on the floor. Oops. Blondie came up swinging, so Pat ‘isolated the threat’ by getting Blondie in a headlock. At this point everyone is yelling, two other beefy young dudes have joined in the fray, a young woman is shouting at Pat to let Blondie go, and Blondie is using his body to drag Pat around in a circle knocking over plenty of furniture in the process. Somewhere in the midst of the full-volume roar, Pat agreed to relinquish his hold on Blondie if the two men would get him outside without anyone else getting hurt. Oh what a night!

Other fantastic Wanaka moments: seeing all our friends! In addition to the latter, friend-filled antics, we had a fun night chatting with the crew at Pat’s old job. We got to spend quality time with our awesome friends Peter and Donna who are moving from Wanaka in ten days. And now we’re off to visit Emily, Chris & co.!

Goodbye, Wanaka. It’s been splendid!

Our Private (Public) Little Cabin

While there are 900 public huts in New Zealand, only a small handful are accessible without putting a few miles on your hiking boots. So imagine my delight when we drove up the moonlit, snow-covered lane to Ahuriri Base Hut and found it empty!

super sharp sheep shears save split-ends

We’d begun the day with a long “work” session at the Twizel library. Then we made our way back through Omarama where we’d spent the evening prior with a bunch of rough-and-ready types. We desperately needed to launder our outdoor garb before heading back out into the woods. All towns between outdoor haven A and B were devoid of facilities, so I attempted to charm the bar tender/bar owner pouring behind the “horniest” bar in New Zealand. (The bar is filled with taxidermy, but also posters of a woman’s backside clothed only in chaps.)

He was a lean version of Sly Stallone and talked in rapid-fire half-sentences. He also owned the entire and only hospitality complex in town — bar, hotel, restaurant, etc. After being snubbed by the Mobil attendant across the road, I wasn’t confident in our prospects. However, not only did he personally escort me to the cinder-block room with the hotel’s blessed washer and dryer, he and his buddies in the barroom spent the entire evening regaling us with sheep shearing tales. I even got to try out his “sharp as” hand shears on a few split ends, AND he offered to let us park up instead of having to drive to a campground. Sweet!

just out of the bushline above camp

Once through Omarama (oh-MAR-uh-ma), it was a short highway stretch, a long snow-covered gravel road, and finally an hour of grueling 4WD to arrive at the hut. Although we were in a race against the setting sun, the snow-capped peaks glowing pink at the head of the valley demanded several photo stops. (Which I would later, in an ongoing failure to understand the ‘protect’ feature of my camera, delete entirely).

We were exhausted and freezing. Prepared wood was scarce, so we declared the following day a “stay-in-bed-Saturday.” We filled the cast-iron stove with anything we could find that wasn’t wet or snow-covered and managed to get the hut to a comfortable temperature for dinner making and

I wanna get me some possums!

bed time. Stay-in-bed-Saturday dawned clear and beautiful. After a few hours of reading, we spent the remainder of the day dragging huge logs to the hut, chopping them up, and exploring the woods in and around the area. That night a pair of headlights wandered up the lonely valley and turned up the drive. It was Jakob and Ivan from Denmark, in NZ on a hunting trip and keen to share lots of stories, beer, wine, and whiskey. In true red-neck style, we even went on a possum hunting mission after dinner!

We stayed at the hut for two more nights, and spent our days hiking in the area. The first was a mission up to the Dingle Burn ridge line with an absolutely STUNNING summit. It’s impossible to capture, with words, how stunning, exciting, joyous, and maybe even terrifying it feels to stand among hard, black peaks rocketing skyward and covered in fierce, blowing snow. WOOOOOOO!!! We also got to witness nature in action as a hawk ruthlessly hunted a hare in the gusty breeze. First they were above us, and then the hare blasted out of the tussocks RIGHT in front of me in its escape attempt!

taken from half way up the ridgeline!

Our second excursion was up Canyon Creek. New Zealand mountains are SO young compared to the Rockies. As a result, they are (comparatively) un-eroded massive wedges driven straight up out of the earth’s crust. And so hiking in the country is always straight up, straight down, or deep at the bottom of a river valley. We started the day with straight up, and were rewarded grandly for our efforts. Then it was along the river to it’s headwaters in a gorgeous alpine basin crossing glacial till the whole way. The hanging glaciers are one of my favorite parts of New Zealand hiking, and the lack of giardia a second. It’s so nice to be able to drink straight from streams!

Our final night in paradise found us restless with the onset of cabin fever. Too much R&R does exist, apparently. In the morning, in preparation for the Wanaka social scene, we boiled a giant bucket of water on the fire and took hobo-showers on the hut’s front porch. Finally we were off for “home!”

See the Sly Stallone look alike, front porch antics, the Danes, etc. by clicking here.

Sea to Shining Peaks

cute sea lion hanging out at Aramoana

Just tuning in?   After one of the warmest NZ autumns on record, winter is finally here — complete with few precious hours of daylight in which to do our adventuring.   We’re seven months down on our one year visas, and two months into a schedule of backpacking, work trade in NZ homes, and sightseeing.   Rinse and repeat!

We left Dunedin following the side of the harbor we’d yet to explore.   The advice of many encouraged us to visit Aramoana where the harbor meets the sea.   We weren’t disappointed!   The surfing action was fun to watch, the shells were amazing, and we even happened upon a sea lion!

atop a boulder still in situ above the beach

From there we ascended to amazing, sweeping coastal vistas as we made our way along the scenic route.     We stretched our legs in the highly recommended tiny oceanside village of Karitane, before driving up to see the infamous Moeraki Boulders.   These oddities form much like pearls.   Eons ago, some mineral started collecting around organic fragments deep inside mudstone deposits and grew impressive orbs.   Erosion slowly sets the boulders free to roll down onto the beach where the ocean eventually breaks them along their fracture lines into puzzle pieces.   Their symmetry makes them beautiful!

The highlight of the coast was our sunset trip out to Katiki Point (thanks Rachel!).   Endangered Yellow-Eyed Penguins are shy birds who spend the day hunting at sea and bring home food for their young in the evening.   It’s said

first penguin returning from the sea for the evening

that if a predator is spotted between the penguin and its nest, the penguin will not return to land — threatening its own life and potentially starving the chicks.   As a result, most places frequented by penguins have “hides” built so that the voracious tourism doesn’t further threaten the declining populations.   It was from one of these tiny shacks that I got to see several of the adorable, awkward birds struggle ashore as the sun set.   Very cool!

In the morning, Omaru was quiet and their visitor’s center closed.   So it was off across the plains toward the glacier-clad peaks in Mt. Cook National Park. It was our first day since beelining it from Christchurch to Wanaka six months ago of true road-tripping.   Because New Zealand is so small, none of

hiking at sunrise

our drives so far have been longer than an hour or two.   We plugged in the iPod and made Mt. Cook before sundown!   The campground was swank, with a kitchen shelter to make meals and meet other tourists.   We packed gear for the next morning and were on the trail amongst the first fingers of daylight.

Our prize for the day was the Mueller hut poised at the base of Mt. Oliver overlooking the Mueller glacier.   Our total elevation change for the day was over 6,000 feet, so the views got more impressive with every step.   Clouds

Mueller hut with a clouded Mt. Cook watching over

slowly ambled through the valley, renewing my appreciation each time they concealed and revealed soaring, snow covered peaks.   The blue, gleaming glaciers and icefalls provided the soundtrack for the day, creating thunder and an impressive show as enormous chunks broke and tumbled down the slopes.

The milky turquoise terminal lakes disappeared as we clambered up onto the rock and snow leading up to the Mueller Hut.   After lunch, we headed up Mt.

surrounded by glaciers and icefalls

Oliver behind the hut — the first peak climbed by Sir Edmund Hillary, a nationally loved New Zealander famous for being the first person ever to stand atop Mt. Everest.   It was glorious!

Pink evening skies foreshadowed a fantastic day to come.   We were up with the sun again to explore the Hooker valley.   Despite the winter inversion pressing clouds close to the ground, we were still thrilled by peep hole views up to peaks glistening in the morning sun.   After crossing dubious bridges spanning raging murky rivers of ice water, we were finally rewarded with icebergs close enough to touch (and we did)!   Our next conquest involved testing out our van’s 4WD

ice bergs!

capabilities for the first time.   The beast successfully tugged all   3,000 pounds of itself, us, and our stuff over the glacial moraine of the Tasman Valley.   When the road got truly gnarly, we parked and set off on foot.

We slowly scrambled up a heap of glacial till to a breathtaking view high above vast expanse of melting ice.   The Tasman Glacier seemed to go on and on — over a mile across and over 15 miles up the valley.   A true outdoor junkie, I left Pat at our lunch spot to scramble down a scree slope and follow an old trail.   My ten minutes were up too quickly, as I promised myself I’d turn back after just one more view.     Just five or six more views later, I spied the Ball hut up on the flanks of a ridge and had to keep going.   I returned to Pat with my tail between my legs, so to speak, but still jazzed on the impressive scenes!

Mt. Tasman and the massive tasman glacier

We were back in the Mt. Cook village in time to catch the last few planetarium shows.   The visitor center desk man tipped us off to “quiz night” at the local pub where we did exceptionally well for not having grown up in New Zealand.   The morning brought glorious showers (bathing is a life highlight when it only happens six times a month), more planetarium viewing, and an interesting visit to the Sir Edmund Hillary Alpine Center.   We rounded out our day taking in the visitor’s center displays and said goodbye to one of New Zealand’s most beautiful places at sunset!

Penguins, boulders, and hip bus stops here.

See our trail antics, sunrises, and glaciers by clicking here.

San Fransisco of the Southern Hemisphere

Tower at the historic Railway Station

Dunedin is almost a fairytale city. Set in the steep, rolling hills of the coast with stunning architecture, gorgeous harbor views, chic cafes overlooking seaside surfing action, an enormous botanic garden, dozens of affordable international restaurants, and factories producing delights including chocolates, gourmet ice cream, and microbrews. It was like San Francisco, minus a few million people. Heaven!

After our WOF debacle was over, we managed to visit the impressive public art gallery, the iconic railway station, the university campus, and the unbelievable array of exhibits at the Otago Museum. Before leaving the city we also managed to visit Emerson’s Brewery and got a tour from Emerson himself! He taught us about different timing for hops, the use of glycol jackets on bright

The awesome "Your Face Here" exhibit at the Otago Museum

tanks, what goes on at the maltsters in making the various malts, and that a brewery can never have too much capital. I think we’re almost ready to open our own!

The highlight of our return to Dunedin was our return to Rachel & Scott’s. We made it to their place in time to catch a show at Carey’s Bay Hotel down toward the harbor mouth in idyllic Port Chalmers. The music was amazing. How good? So good that our hosts — attending several live shows a month for the past five months — haven’t seen one better. Hana Fahy’s lead vocals are worth googling for a listen.

Carey's Bay Hotel listening to the amazing Hana Fahy and crew

We one-upped ourselves the next night and made history attending the last Highlander’s Rugby game at the “House of Pain.” Carisbrook Stadium is being replaced by a newer, shiner edifice for the rapidly approaching, New-Zealand-hosted 2011 Rugby World Cup. We tagged along with Scott and his co-worker Oliver who has season tickets. Rugby is far more action-packed than American football (called ‘grid-iron’ here). The clock stops only at half-time, and the ball is almost always moving. Much of the time it’s buried in a pile of bodies, but special pile-up techniques usually have it out and moving back down the field within a few seconds. Game notables: (1) for some bizarre reason, the marketing manager of the Highlanders decided they needed new colors/jerseys and debuted the change from maroon, gold, and blue to green and white at the game. Obviously fans weren’t pleased. A man in front of us spent half the game shouting, “Roger Clark’s a wanker.” (2)

History in the making!

Disturbing half-time entertainment. Two teams of young university women pile onto the field to engage in a tug-of-war battle while the announcer makes degrading comments to the tune of them being hopeless, idiotic, silly, pathetic wenches. I was unimpressed. (3) Terrace section — nearly half the game’s patrons crowd into a block of concrete terraces where the seats have been removed. It’s a cheap ($10) way to see the game! (4) Massive Speight’s consumption. I think every single attendee had a can in their hand. The afterparty was at the world’s smallest bar, followed by a trip to the cask-pouring Albar where we conversed for a good hour with a (recently) former Seattlite.

The next morning, we lucked into an unexpected second Saturday at the Farmer’s Market before dropping off Rachel and Scott at their Queenstown departure point. Dunedin was a perfectly timed* and thoroughly enjoyable piece of our New Zealand adventure!

More game photos, Dunedin architecture, and one horrible bar photo by clicking here.

* upon arrival in the city, our vehicle registration was due for renewal, our WOF inspection was about to expire, Pat’s pinky infection had escalated to ‘definitely-need-antibiotics’ level, our telecom USB modem needed reloaded, we were out of basic groceries most affordable (ironically) in cities, and the quest to find a pair of jeans for a 6’7” frame had reached critical status (current/only jeans in actual tatters).

W.O.F – Wrecked Our Fun

New Zealand culture has a bizarre combination of retro-attitudes (I see respectable people everywhere without shoes — in restaurants, bars, post office, movie theaters, etc.) and obsessively over-regulated bureaucracy. One example of the latter is the automobile Warrant of Fitness. This bi-annual inspection is a requirement for all vehicles, and you are not allowed to drive a car without a current WOF. I’m not arguing that it’s an entirely unreasonable concept. Of course there is something to be said for keeping potential hazards off the road. However, in a country where at least half the bridges are one lane and people run around barefoot among shards of broken glass, it seems radically inconsistent.

Respectable, blue collar man taking care of business at the post office/drug store.             WITHOUT SHOES.

*rant alert*

To add to the befuddling contradictions, a WOF inspection (which carries a fee of $50 payable by the vehicle owner) leaves out key areas… i.e. The ENGINE! They don’t care if your oil is black as tar or non-existent. Or if your radiator is completely corroded or fails to hold liquid. Or if your brake pads are within a millimeter of non-existence (as long as the pressures are equal). Or if your timing belt is going to break any day now. But you know what they do care about? If your plastic blinker cover has condensation on the inside! FAIL. FAIL, FAIL, FAIL! Get out the blowdryer!

I feel that some of the bureaucratic standards are irrational and serve to decrease quality of life for the lower-middle-class and the flat-out-poor. Remember the car your friend had with the one door that didn’t open? FAIL. No more driving for them! What about the years you drove around with a giant crack in your windshield because you were a poor university graduate swamped in debt. FAIL. Hand over the keys! Remember the ’71 Volvo with the faded seat belts? FAIL. The suspension that you couldn’t afford to have fixed right away? FAIL. The speedometer that stopped working in the car that got 40 miles to the gallon? FAIL. The tires that you couldn’t afford right away? FAIL.

the coveted WOF “windscreen” sticker

To our deep disappointment, the results of our WOF inspection were: 1) rear braking pressures too different, 2) front suspension bushings worn, 3) condensation in blinker panel, 4) condensation in tail light with hairline crack needing repair. If you know anything about cars, you know the real spelling for #2 is $u$pen$ion. Especially on a 4WD like ours. Boo! I hung out with the mechanics in the shop while they worked on the vehicle for an entire afternoon and the whole following day past closing time. Upon return to the WOF inspectors we FAILED again! They said the braking pressures still weren’t good enough, and so ensued another day blown on car repair. The shop tweaked and tweaked again, and finally drove the car over to the inspectors and practically forced them to pass the brakes on account of the inspectors’ faulty machine!

In summary — I spent four long days bleeding money into the NZ auto industry watching my carefully planned and budgeted hopes and dreams being thrashed away an hour at a time. And of course the silver lining is that I’m privileged enough to own a vehicle, to have the time to deal with this wrench in the works, to be mired in NZ bureaucracy, and to have spent 25% of my remaining NZ travel budget on car repairs (instead of 100). I’m almost over it. Thanks for listening!

Dexters and a Chinese Greenhouse

Newborn Dexter calf

Imagine you are ready to carve out your own self-sustaining existence in the countryside — produce all you need to survive. Where would you begin? With dreams of a self-sufficient future, Pat and I were quite pleased to make the acquaintance of Marion and Lee. From nine to five they practice landscape architecture and accounting, respectively. During all other hours they are slowly beginning to live off the land.

chocolate delivery vehicle from the good old days

Marion works from home, so we were able to arrive in the middle of the morning and jump right into our wwoofing. (A work exchange program we’ve participated in between bouts of backpacking and sightseeing). After a quick run to the local nursery for supplies, we spent the afternoon digging up baby tussocks (New Zealand ornamental grass) and bagging them — maybe to be sold at the Farmer’s Market in the spring?! We spent the next day digging ditches to drain swamp-prone areas and weeding.

During the course of our stay, we learned about the type of cattle (Dexter) they’ve chosen to breed, how they plan on using their land, how they’ll manage the stock (including a small flock of sheep) over winter, how they chose their chicken breed, and what the master plan is for their garden and orchard. Exciting!

Brewing Kettles at Speight’s

Their main project for us was a greenhouse assembling project, which had to wait until the weekend. In anticipation of long weekend work days, we were free to spend Thursday catching up on some much needed recovery-time and Friday doing errands and seeing some of the sights in Dunedin. Our vehicle was due for it’s bi-annual Warrant of Fitness inspection (which turned into a total nightmare and will be an entire other blog entry). While it was being inspected, we embarked on our first ever chocolate factory tour! YUM!

The voracious, almighty dollar hasn’t taken over New Zealand culture quite as much as it has in the U.S.A. (Plenty of places are still closed on Saturdays, and almost nothing is 24/7 excepting the dairy industry which has grown like a tumor.) As a consequence, our 11:45 (nearly lunch) time slot left our small group with less to see than usual. Our Cadbury guide felt bad and plied us with heaps of chocolate. We did learn how they

greenhouse before lunch

make hollow figures (spinning molds), coated candy (spun in a cement-mixer-like machine as coatings are ladled in), and liquid chocolate (sweetened condensed milk, cocoa power, cocoa butter). We also got to taste almost everything, including a cocoa bean. I was really surprised by the lack of mechanization (many things packaged by hand) and the fact that the factory doesn’t run 24/7. Fun fact: the factory produces 10 hollow Easter eggs for every New Zealander every year!

After Cadbury, we made our way to the Speight’s factory. This place is like the Budweiser or Coors of New Zealand. The tour was really polished — very Disney — and the ancient factory was different than any other brewery I’ve been to — basically because all the vessels used in the process retain the copper shell of days past. The brewery ordered steel, but copper is what was delivered to this small-ish South Pacific Island so very long ago and they couldn’t afford to wait for new materials. I even learned how ancient Egyptians made beer from bread. The end of the tour was the best — 30-40 minutes in the tour bar pouring as many samples as we wanted! We then explored the downtown shopping district until it was appropriate to get behind the wheel for our return trip on the freeway to Marion and Lee’s.

Now, we’d heard about Dunedin’s amazing Farmer’s Market, and it looked like our Saturday with Marion and Lee would be the only opportunity to check it out. They treated us to a delicious breakfast of crepes before we wandered around enjoying all the sights and smells of the market and buying the gnarliest block of bleu you’ve ever smelled! Upon return, the breeze was too strong to erect the lightweight greenhouse kit, so we set about preparing the ground and getting things in order. We got up bright and early Sunday and were tackling the project before the sun made it over the hill.

assembled before sunset!

The greenhouse kit was shipped from China and contained mystical directions about fitting L-02 with T7 and securing it all with W-04 and part S-21. You can imagine that it was an amusing, frustrating, and eventually gratifying process to match everything up. By lunch, we’d only finished 15%. We got into the groove after the meal and managed to install the remaining framing, panels, bracing, doors, and weather stripping before dark! After one more day working on small projects, we said goodbye to a fantastic experience and wonderful couple and headed back to the city.

Click here for a few more photos.

Bluff & Round 1 Dunedin

Raw oysters on the half-shell & my first sea urchin (bottom right in shot glass)!

My favorite part of not having firm plans is ending up in unexpected places. With less than 12 hours to go til our “Pure Chevre Farm” departure, we discovered the annual Bluff Oyster Festival was slated for the following day. Bluff is famous for its oysters. With the Invercargill Brewery providing another lucrative reason to head that direction, we made up our minds pretty quickly!

Proof of having made the right choice was forthcoming when a local man approached me in the ticket line and offered me a free ticket — no strings attached. Score! Soon we were in, holding tasty bottles of Mac’s microbrews, and standing in line to educate

S-L-U-R-P!

ourselves at the numerous food stalls while various musicians graced the stage. I confess to being a seafood lover, and most of what we tried was great! I ate my first sea urchin. It melted in my mouth, and I became an instant fan! We also had fried oysters, seafood pizza, marinated scallops, blue cod in coconut cream, and raw oysters on the half shell. Slurp!

Pat with our host, Scott, at “the world’s smallest bar.”

Tour over, we were off for the south island’s most vibrant city — Dunedin! A good college friend of mine, Laurel (whose wedding we went to this past summer) studied abroad here, and I looked forward to retracing some of her steps. We finally got up the nerve to “couchsurf,” and we weren’t disappointed! Usually sussing out a good host is a long, arduous, fun-free process, but this time we lucked out! We turned up at Rachel and Scott’s, shared our Invercargill Brewery souvenirs, and set out for the world’s smallest bar (Mu Bar). By the end of the night, we’d been to half the evening establishments in downtown Dunedin. We finished off our soiree dancing on the glass floor of “The Fever Club” – colored lights flashing from below while a disco ball threw light on the white, 70’s, moulded fixtures.

Dunedin as seen from Buttar’s Peak

A cultural aside — Dunedin nightlife definitely has a dresscode. I am comfortable enough in my own skin that it took me until the wee hours of the morning to notice that I was the *only* woman not wearing a dress/skirt. Given that blue jeans are basically out of style, not a single other female was wearing them. This, coupled with insanely high hem-lines, made for entertaining people-watching stints playing the “shortest skirt” game. I’m thankful I don’t reside in a place where I’m subjected to mainstream clothing standards — I don’t think I could stomach skinny jeans.

King of the Hill

The plans to hike a nearby peak overlooking the city were slow to get moving the next morning as we all stumbled around on precious few hours of sleep, etc. Nonetheless, we crested the summit of Buttar’s Peak to blue clear skies and stunning 360 views. A jutting spire of rock tested our courage as we took turns ascending for photo ops. We also visited the “Organ Pipes” – an outcrop of columnar basalt — where we ate lunch and got lost trying to bushwhack our way down.

Rachel and Scott were back to adult life the following day — she is working on her PhD and studies seabirds and island restoration, Scott is teaching at a Dunedin school thanks to his ESL experience. We spent the day driving out the long peninsula with great harbor views. We checked out the aquarium and the albatross visitor’s center before hiking down to the gorgeous Sandfly Bay. The

sandfly bay!

return trip, along the crest of the peninsula was an amazingly scenic drive. We were able to see St. Kilda Beach, visit the infamous St. Clair Beach and watch all the surfers, and find our way to Tunnel Beach before the afternoon was up. As daylight faded, we hiked up the “world’s steepest street” (have they been to Bolivia or Peru?) and wandered around the botanic gardens (another amazing aviary!). After dinner and a quiet evening watching a flick with our hosts, we set off for the countryside to wwoof with Marion and Lee!

Click here for photos of the free-ticket giver, the steepest street, pinnacle photos and more!

Cheese Lover

Skies of Southland

Well, seven months into our New Zealand adventure, I’m glad we’re here! I’ve got many likes and many gripes, but it’s been a great life experience so far.

After a weekend in Kiwi Burn hut (public cabin) drinking wine, writing blog entries, reading, and playing cards, we arrived back at the trailhead to find our van battery dead. We spent thirty hilarious minutes, fruitlessly attempting to shove around at least a half-ton of metal, car parts, and all our stuff on wheels. Maybe if the ground hadn’t been soaked. Maybe if we’d had more than twenty feet of flat ground. Maybe if I’d known to try popping it in 2nd gear instead of 1st. Instead, we found ourselves easily two hours drive from any town, and (as we would learn later) we were also in an area with only two farms in 25 miles. The gods of fate

Not our back road buddies, but in the same club.

smiled upon us, however. We trekked across a sheep field and had to run the rest of the way to the road in time to flag down the only sign of life the whole day. The”Deliverance” theme song raced through my mind as I got a load of the occupants of the little truck we’d stopped. I tried to hide my surprise and worries behind a wide-eyed smile as I requested that they detour to help us. Neville and his reluctant hunting partner, Danny, had us back on our feet rather quickly and raced off to find some ducks to shoot. Thank you!

We’d planned to arrive at our umpteenth wwoofing spot ready to accomplish an afternoon of work. Instead, we turned up late and deflated from our unexpected experience. Bernard and Maryse — a wonderful, entertaining, fun French-Kiwi couple forgave us readily and we settled in to recover. Bernard is tall, lean, friendly, and very welcoming. Maryse is hilarious and possesses my favorite brand of humor — existentialist cynicism. They were absolutely fantastic!

sweet old Tanzi at the end of a winter day

Twenty years ago, they left France for a three-year stay in New Zealand with their 5, 12, and 15 year-old in tow. They’ve never looked back! After “too-long” in Auckland, they’ve bought up a little piece of “the only thing unique to New Zealand — nothing.” They raise goats for milking, supplementing the growth of their farm with jobs as a computer programmer (Bernard) and primary teacher (Maryse). All the goats were on “maternity leave” since we’d arrived so late in the fall. We didn’t get to milk the animals, but we did get to taste the cheese! Chevre (soft goat cheese) is one of my all-time-favorite cheeses (don’t knock it until you try it!). We got to taste several of Bernard’s creations — from a blue-cheesy block to feta and more! All, of course, were completely YUM.

Goat wants to ride the quad, too.

We spent our days fixing and reinforcing a fence, chainsawing felled Eucalyptus trees for winter heat, weed-eating the front paddock, and a few random bits. The goats were great company, and wildly curious. Other memorable personalities included Queias (sp?) – pronounced “Chaos” – and Cheyenne the horses, Lasko and Caleb the dogs, and Domino and Tanzi the cats. Queias deserves his homonym. Lasko is a beautiful HUGE Newfoundland canine, complete with webbed paws. Caleb is a sweet puppy trying in earnest to earn the title of farm dog. And Tanzi is my mom’s beautiful black cat reincarnate.

our pride and joy

Bernard is a wonderful cook, and we shared many lovely evenings of conversation and yummy food. One evening, we headed out to a small community event held at the local fire station — a speaker on heritage (heirloom) apple trees. Really, he ended up teaching more about permaculture, but it was really fascinating. Also very politically charged, which was interesting to observe.

I fit in a run on our final morning past fields of cows who were intermittently scared of and attracted to me, as well as “swedes” (rutabagas) growing tall for winter feed. Then we were off for a wild and spontaneous Saturday of oysters, beer, and nightlife!

Weird fireman, farm animals, and chainsaw massacre audition photos by clicking here.