Hello, all! We are up in Northland, the northernmost part of NZ. Today, we will start our drive back down towards Auckland, where we will spend our last few days.
It’s funny, because a month ago, when we realized our time was quickly beginning to run out, we panicked. How are we going to fit everything in? Where should we go? Aack! But now that we actually have just a week left, we feel like we’ve finally exhausted ole NZ. We are, finally, ready to move on.
We're hitting the car fair in Auckland on Sunday, in hopes we can pass ole Betty on to some new owners. We gave her a good clean out recently, and I actually teared up. I love that car, as I have loved this trip. What an amazing three months we've had on the road with Betty.
Anyway, below are three entries about this last week, which we spent WWOOFing. If you want to read on, please do - starting with "Wwoofing Again" and working your way back up. If not, I will try to post pictures soon. We will be in Auckland for almost a week, and we're staying at a place that has FREE internet. Glorious free internet. Better believe I will use it!
Hope everyone is well. Much love.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
A Case of the Crazies
Tuesday night rolled around – our last night – and we were hopeful that we’d be able to just have a pleasant evening and then get the hell out of there the next morning. Simone had never, at any point, decided to lay any ground rules for us – don’t do this, this is how you operate this, etc. Instead, we were left to wonder, and we decided, on several occasions when she left us at home alone for long stretches (once overnight – scandal!), that yes, we should turn on the TV. We had done this several times without her supervision just fine.
Well, on Tuesday night, while she was around, we made the mistake of asking her if we could turn the news on. It was six o’clock, after all. Great idea, she said! Go right ahead! Turn on Channel One. We turned the TV on successfully and then tried to change the channel to one. Nothing. After several fruitless attempts, we decided, with utter terror, to consult Simone.
Uhhh, Simone? We can’t change the channels – are we doing something wrong? She came over, tried herself, and upon discovering that she couldn’t change the channels either, exploded.
“What have you done? What the fuck have you done to my TV? You people come in here, and you mess around with things you’re not supposed to. FUCK!” This is just a sampling of the things that came out of her mouth, directed at us, for the next thirty minutes.
Bjorn didn’t take much of this, though. After about three accusations that we had somehow screwed up her TV, he said firmly, “No, we did NOT,” and walked out the door. I sat around for a few more minutes, trying to delicately explain to her that we truly had done nothing more than turn the TV on and try the channels.
“No,” she said. “You’ve messed it up. You’ve been in here watching TV when I wasn’t around and screwed it up. This is why I don’t let you people touch my gear.”
She called up a friend, and after she had launched into how “these guys have fucked up my TV,” I excused myself as well. I found Bjorn back in the caravan, steaming. He was furious and wanted to pack up the car and leave that instant. I was mad, too, but I was more afraid than anything else. I do not like confrontations, and I did not like the idea of leaving Simone’s on such a bad note. Leaving right then and there, I reasoned, was going to just make us look guilty. As is sitting out here in the caravan while she tries to fix the thing. I know it’s going to be awful, but we have to go back in there and help her get the thing fixed. (It was clearly some really simple something, given the time to mess around with it a bit.)
Bjorn, having endured a whole week’s worth of this woman’s insults and yelling during his riding, was not feeling inclined to get back in there, but after a few moments of breathing, we went for it.
Inside, Simone was still at it. On the phone, bitching about us, shining her flashlight around her TV, examining buttons.
“They’ve totally fucked it up,” she said, again. I could feel Bjorn tensing up beside me. When she got off the phone, Bjorn patiently asked her a few questions about how her TV worked.
“You don’t know anything,” she said, harshly. “Actually, I do know about technology. More than YOU,” he said back to her. “No, you don’t know about technology. Otherwise you wouldn’t have fucked this up,” she screeched. I wanted to crawl under the carpet. “This is why I don’t let you people touch my things!” she said. “I already had to put a lock on the computer because somebody fucked it up, and now the TV!” “Well,” Bjorn said, “maybe you shouldn’t have people in your house, then.”
This was the bottom line, really. If you are going to sign up to be a WWOOF host, you ought to WANT to have people in your home, make them comfortable, and share your things with them. If the TV is complicated, freaking take a minute of your time to run through how to operate it, or tell them explicitly NOT to use it. It’s that simple. If you’ve made a rule about NOT using the TV, then perhaps (and only perhaps) it’s acceptable to get a little irritated if the rule, and the TV, have been broken. In this case, of course, she had told us to go right ahead! Turn on the news! Great idea!
Finally fed up, Simone chucked the remote at Bjorn and told him he could try to work with it. And within five minutes, the problem was solved.
Upon hearing the sound restored on the TV (we had at some point lost ALL channels altogether), Simone, just like that, was a different person. “You’ve fixed it!” she shouted proudly. “Well done! Well done, team!” Uh, team? No, no, crazy lady, we are not on your team.
She was then all kinds of nice, saying, “You know, it’s just so frustrating when your stuff gets messed up, and you have to get some guy in here to fix it, and it costs you $100 or something.” Sure, we understood, we said (though we didn’t, really). Enjoy your show. Good night.
We retired to our camper van and must have sat up talking about Simone for two hours. The whole incident had been so ridiculous. We couldn’t hardly believe it had happened. Where Bjorn and I come from, in normal people land, even if you suspect someone has messed up your TV, you don’t make them feel bad about it. You certainly don’t blame it on them to their face. (Unless, maybe, it’s your best friend.) Her behavior was the ultimate in rude and impolite, in my book. Not to mention uncalled for. We had done nothing wrong.
The next morning, we got up early and packed up the car before breakfast. We had one little chore to do for Simone, but we wanted to make sure to get out of there as soon as we could. When we finally ventured into the house, Simone greeted us energetically. “Hey, you guys, I’m really sorry about getting crabby last night. It was just the end of a long day, you know, and that’s the last thing you want to have happen when your favorite show (your favorite crappy soap opera) is on.” “Oh, no worries,” we said. “We totally understand.”
She was so nice that morning, that by the time we left, we were left with a totally different feeling about her than we’d had the night before. She just had that way – when she was awful to you, you hated her, but when she was nice, you thought she was really cool. I don’t know what to really make of her. She’s got issues, to be sure. I’m just glad that I was blessed with not having someone like her for a mother (and yes, she does have children and grandchildren…can you imagine if a little grandchild had messed up her TV?).
In any event, we left, and with a couple hours on the road, we’d left her behind us. Filed her away in our NZ experiences file.
Well, on Tuesday night, while she was around, we made the mistake of asking her if we could turn the news on. It was six o’clock, after all. Great idea, she said! Go right ahead! Turn on Channel One. We turned the TV on successfully and then tried to change the channel to one. Nothing. After several fruitless attempts, we decided, with utter terror, to consult Simone.
Uhhh, Simone? We can’t change the channels – are we doing something wrong? She came over, tried herself, and upon discovering that she couldn’t change the channels either, exploded.
“What have you done? What the fuck have you done to my TV? You people come in here, and you mess around with things you’re not supposed to. FUCK!” This is just a sampling of the things that came out of her mouth, directed at us, for the next thirty minutes.
Bjorn didn’t take much of this, though. After about three accusations that we had somehow screwed up her TV, he said firmly, “No, we did NOT,” and walked out the door. I sat around for a few more minutes, trying to delicately explain to her that we truly had done nothing more than turn the TV on and try the channels.
“No,” she said. “You’ve messed it up. You’ve been in here watching TV when I wasn’t around and screwed it up. This is why I don’t let you people touch my gear.”
She called up a friend, and after she had launched into how “these guys have fucked up my TV,” I excused myself as well. I found Bjorn back in the caravan, steaming. He was furious and wanted to pack up the car and leave that instant. I was mad, too, but I was more afraid than anything else. I do not like confrontations, and I did not like the idea of leaving Simone’s on such a bad note. Leaving right then and there, I reasoned, was going to just make us look guilty. As is sitting out here in the caravan while she tries to fix the thing. I know it’s going to be awful, but we have to go back in there and help her get the thing fixed. (It was clearly some really simple something, given the time to mess around with it a bit.)
Bjorn, having endured a whole week’s worth of this woman’s insults and yelling during his riding, was not feeling inclined to get back in there, but after a few moments of breathing, we went for it.
Inside, Simone was still at it. On the phone, bitching about us, shining her flashlight around her TV, examining buttons.
“They’ve totally fucked it up,” she said, again. I could feel Bjorn tensing up beside me. When she got off the phone, Bjorn patiently asked her a few questions about how her TV worked.
“You don’t know anything,” she said, harshly. “Actually, I do know about technology. More than YOU,” he said back to her. “No, you don’t know about technology. Otherwise you wouldn’t have fucked this up,” she screeched. I wanted to crawl under the carpet. “This is why I don’t let you people touch my things!” she said. “I already had to put a lock on the computer because somebody fucked it up, and now the TV!” “Well,” Bjorn said, “maybe you shouldn’t have people in your house, then.”
This was the bottom line, really. If you are going to sign up to be a WWOOF host, you ought to WANT to have people in your home, make them comfortable, and share your things with them. If the TV is complicated, freaking take a minute of your time to run through how to operate it, or tell them explicitly NOT to use it. It’s that simple. If you’ve made a rule about NOT using the TV, then perhaps (and only perhaps) it’s acceptable to get a little irritated if the rule, and the TV, have been broken. In this case, of course, she had told us to go right ahead! Turn on the news! Great idea!
Finally fed up, Simone chucked the remote at Bjorn and told him he could try to work with it. And within five minutes, the problem was solved.
Upon hearing the sound restored on the TV (we had at some point lost ALL channels altogether), Simone, just like that, was a different person. “You’ve fixed it!” she shouted proudly. “Well done! Well done, team!” Uh, team? No, no, crazy lady, we are not on your team.
She was then all kinds of nice, saying, “You know, it’s just so frustrating when your stuff gets messed up, and you have to get some guy in here to fix it, and it costs you $100 or something.” Sure, we understood, we said (though we didn’t, really). Enjoy your show. Good night.
We retired to our camper van and must have sat up talking about Simone for two hours. The whole incident had been so ridiculous. We couldn’t hardly believe it had happened. Where Bjorn and I come from, in normal people land, even if you suspect someone has messed up your TV, you don’t make them feel bad about it. You certainly don’t blame it on them to their face. (Unless, maybe, it’s your best friend.) Her behavior was the ultimate in rude and impolite, in my book. Not to mention uncalled for. We had done nothing wrong.
The next morning, we got up early and packed up the car before breakfast. We had one little chore to do for Simone, but we wanted to make sure to get out of there as soon as we could. When we finally ventured into the house, Simone greeted us energetically. “Hey, you guys, I’m really sorry about getting crabby last night. It was just the end of a long day, you know, and that’s the last thing you want to have happen when your favorite show (your favorite crappy soap opera) is on.” “Oh, no worries,” we said. “We totally understand.”
She was so nice that morning, that by the time we left, we were left with a totally different feeling about her than we’d had the night before. She just had that way – when she was awful to you, you hated her, but when she was nice, you thought she was really cool. I don’t know what to really make of her. She’s got issues, to be sure. I’m just glad that I was blessed with not having someone like her for a mother (and yes, she does have children and grandchildren…can you imagine if a little grandchild had messed up her TV?).
In any event, we left, and with a couple hours on the road, we’d left her behind us. Filed her away in our NZ experiences file.
Karoke Night
We got a bit of work done the next morning – shoveling out some drainage ditches, cleaning up a flower bed, and giving the pony another ride around, which, thankfully, did go much better. Our work was cut short, though, by the rain, which started pouring down again. As we were getting ready for our big night out to the pub, we offered to drive. It was the least we could do, we thought, to serve as Simone’s designated driver. She accepted gladly, and went on making some weird comments about how naughty she could be that night, since she didn’t have to stay sober.
We met up with her group of girlfriends, four or five single women around her age. Simone introduced around (“Braun and Ellen from Sweden and Canada!”), and then we sat around, watching person after person get up to sing. We were sufficiently entertained. It was a standard New Zealand pub scene.
True to her word, Simone did not stay sober. She started out with two small bottles of champagne, and then, once everyone got loosened up and the evening could really get going, the men came over and started buying drinks. Bourbon and coke after bourbon and coke after bourbon and coke. Yuck. Bjorn was staying sober (volunteer sober driver), and I had no interest in having more than a couple of beers.
The men that were creeping around were foul – the kind of regulars you’ll find lurking in any backwoods bar in America. And one of them was all over Simone, and she was not putting up any kind of a fight. We assumed that, out of courtesy for us being her sober ride home, she would not linger too long at the bar, or at least tell us we could go on home and she’d find herself another ride. But no, we were forced to just sit there, watching this pathetic behavior, this disgusting, drunk, flirtation.
The karoke wrapped up, the bartenders announced last call, but Simone and the three men hanging around her, stayed on. I don’t understand why, but far past last call, while they were cleaning up, the bartenders continued to serve these idiots, and in the last hour we were there, they probably consumed four more rounds of bourbon and coke. It was like, as the hours got later, and their time ran out, they became desperate for total drunkenness. They couldn’t leave the bar until they’d reached the point they wouldn’t remember the next day. I somehow thought this kind of drinking was reserved for young people, who hopefully would grow out of it, but that was clearly a very naïve notion. And watching a sixty year old woman and her friends, get drunk and try to find a guy to go home with, made me very, very sad. It was like they’d never progressed past their 20s.
We were the absolute last people in the bar. Bjorn and I were furious. We’d stayed about two hours longer than we’d wanted to, but it was only our second night with Simone, and we didn’t really know how to explain to her that we wanted to leave. Even after we walked out the door and stood out front waiting, she stayed inside, having some argument with this guy. When she finally stumbled out the door, she explained that he just needed to make up his mind, between herself and his current partner. We assumed that this was the same guy she’d mentioned the day before.
The next morning, aside from admitting that she was feeling quite hungover, she really made no mention of the night and didn’t appear to feel sorry or guilty for anything, especially not for making us stay out much longer than we’d wanted to.
The next few days with Simone was a total waste of our time, aside from getting rid of quite a bit of our stuff and organizing the car. The rain poured down every single day, so there was little we could do for her. She did get Bjorn out on the pony a few more times, but I won’t get into that. I’ve gone on long enough as it is. By Saturday, halfway through the week, I was ready to go. Our last days in NZ were wasting away.
We met up with her group of girlfriends, four or five single women around her age. Simone introduced around (“Braun and Ellen from Sweden and Canada!”), and then we sat around, watching person after person get up to sing. We were sufficiently entertained. It was a standard New Zealand pub scene.
True to her word, Simone did not stay sober. She started out with two small bottles of champagne, and then, once everyone got loosened up and the evening could really get going, the men came over and started buying drinks. Bourbon and coke after bourbon and coke after bourbon and coke. Yuck. Bjorn was staying sober (volunteer sober driver), and I had no interest in having more than a couple of beers.
The men that were creeping around were foul – the kind of regulars you’ll find lurking in any backwoods bar in America. And one of them was all over Simone, and she was not putting up any kind of a fight. We assumed that, out of courtesy for us being her sober ride home, she would not linger too long at the bar, or at least tell us we could go on home and she’d find herself another ride. But no, we were forced to just sit there, watching this pathetic behavior, this disgusting, drunk, flirtation.
The karoke wrapped up, the bartenders announced last call, but Simone and the three men hanging around her, stayed on. I don’t understand why, but far past last call, while they were cleaning up, the bartenders continued to serve these idiots, and in the last hour we were there, they probably consumed four more rounds of bourbon and coke. It was like, as the hours got later, and their time ran out, they became desperate for total drunkenness. They couldn’t leave the bar until they’d reached the point they wouldn’t remember the next day. I somehow thought this kind of drinking was reserved for young people, who hopefully would grow out of it, but that was clearly a very naïve notion. And watching a sixty year old woman and her friends, get drunk and try to find a guy to go home with, made me very, very sad. It was like they’d never progressed past their 20s.
We were the absolute last people in the bar. Bjorn and I were furious. We’d stayed about two hours longer than we’d wanted to, but it was only our second night with Simone, and we didn’t really know how to explain to her that we wanted to leave. Even after we walked out the door and stood out front waiting, she stayed inside, having some argument with this guy. When she finally stumbled out the door, she explained that he just needed to make up his mind, between herself and his current partner. We assumed that this was the same guy she’d mentioned the day before.
The next morning, aside from admitting that she was feeling quite hungover, she really made no mention of the night and didn’t appear to feel sorry or guilty for anything, especially not for making us stay out much longer than we’d wanted to.
The next few days with Simone was a total waste of our time, aside from getting rid of quite a bit of our stuff and organizing the car. The rain poured down every single day, so there was little we could do for her. She did get Bjorn out on the pony a few more times, but I won’t get into that. I’ve gone on long enough as it is. By Saturday, halfway through the week, I was ready to go. Our last days in NZ were wasting away.
Wwoofers Again
We have spent the past week WWOOFing for a completely crazy woman. We decided that it would be very beneficial to us to have a home, as it were, for a little while, so we could have some time to clean out the car, organize our things, and prepare for our departure. (I absolutely HATE feeling stressed and frazzled and unprepared when I’m leaving a place, and so wanted our last week here to feel CALM.)
Simone Finch, our new WWOOFing “hostess” (though I can’t really call her that) is probably 55 or 60 and lives alone on a huge farm. She breeds and trains horses as her main source of income, and has a little company called Sirroco Lodge. In addition to having about 14 horses of her own, she has a goat, two dogs, and a few cows.
We were a little unsure about ole Simone from the start. She had called us in response to an email we had sent her, but seemed to be in a big hurry on the phone. She said she’d love to have us, we accepted, and then she said she had to run, but she’d call us back “later” with some directions and details. Well, that call never came, so we finally called her again, a day before our supposed arrival, wanting to know what time we should come. “Oh, I have nothing going on here tomorrow. I’ll be here all day,” she said. “Come whenever you like.” Great, we said. We’ll be there around noon.
Well, we arrived around 12:40 PM, which I reckon still counts as “around noon”, but Simone was nowhere to be found. We found the house, we thought, a large barn-like structure with aluminum siding, and could hear rock music blaring from inside, but we couldn’t get anyone to respond to our knocks. Finally, we called her cell. “Oh, I had to run into town,” she said. “I’ll be there in 20 minutes”. So we sat in our car and waited. For over an hour. We were starting to feel, well, slightly unwanted.
Simone finally pulled up in a silver pick-up truck, decorated with a yellow smiley face bumper sticker, and one that said, “If there are no horses in heaven, I’m not going!” Our hostess emerged, all smiles and energy. “Well, I waited AND waited for you guys, but I finally gave up and went into town.” Oh, so you waited for…thirty minutes? And now you’re going to make us feel guilty about being a little bit late even when you said come WHENEVER!? “But nevermind,” she said. “Let’s go in and have a cuppa!” (“Cuppa” is an incredibly irritating Kiwi favorite phrase that means a cup of coffee or of tea. I thought it was just a colloquial thing, but I actually heard a newscaster use it in a story on the local news the other day.)
Simone is a fairly tall woman with stick thin legs and large bosoms. She has short hair that’s been dyed an unnatural red, and her face is lined with deep wrinkles that suggest a past (or current?) life as a smoker. Her home is essentially a barn that’s been converted into a single woman’s loft. The ceilings are quite tall, and the living area, though fairly small, is sort of one big room, so you get the effect of having lots of space. Simone’s been living here about three years, but it’s clear the place is a work in progress – there is no paint on the walls. The place is decorated with – what else? – photos and paintings and figurines of horses, as well as piece of aboriginal art collected during trips to Australia, and stacks and stacks of miscellaneous papers.
Within our first ten minutes in her home, Simone had informed us that she was dating a married man. “He just needs to figure out what he wants, you know?” she asked us. “Men!” I said, trying to be polite. She went on to tell us about Thursday nights at the local pub – the big night out! – as well as her boat, which she would take us out on, if we were lucky.
She asked us how long we wanted to stay, and after re-stating what was written in our initial email to her – one week – she seemed very disappointed. “Just a week?!” Good grief, I thought. She didn’t even read our email.
That afternoon, during a small break in the rain, she took us out for a ride around her property, introducing us to all the animals. Then, we went down to the stables and saddled up one of her ponies. During his stint in the Swedish Army, Bjorn rode the show horses that marched in the parades, and generally took care of the horses, tidying their stables and whatnot. When she had initially called us, she’d asked about our riding experience. Bjorn explained that he was a pretty confident rider, though perhaps a little rough, and that I essentially had no experience at all. No problem, she’d assured us. But it appeared that her plan for Bjorn and I was for Bjorn to break in this pony and for me to stand and watch.
Of course, Bjorn’s being a confident rider says nothing of his ability to break in a previously un-ridden horse, and Simone was not impressed with Bjorn that first day. My feelings were terribly hurt, standing there watching her order Bjorn around – take the horse this way! No, not THIS way, THAT way! STRAIGHT! The poor pony, of course, hadn’t been sat upon in weeks, didn’t remember what any of the commands were, and generally did not want Bjorn riding on him. “This isn’t going to work,” Simone said. “You just don’t have enough experience. The horse might as well have a child up there on him.” I wanted to cry for Bjorn. Thank God it was Bjorn up there and not me, or I probably would’ve cried. Bjorn, luckily, is a bit more thick skinned, and lets stuff like this roll off of him a bit better than I do.
When we were done with that, we were shown to our “accommodation”, an old caravan parked behind the house. Upon inspection, we found the caravan doable, though it was clear that Simone had gone to no trouble to prepare it for us. There were no sheets or blankets on the bed, and there were several empty cans of some nasty Bourbon and Coke mixed drink laying on the counter, one with a cigarette butt sitting on top. When we asked for sheets, Simone seemed slightly agitated, poked around the house a bit, then returned with a set of red sheets – two fitted sheets, we found out, when we tried to put them on the bed. And no blankets. We decided not even to bother asking for those and just got our sleeping bags out of the car.
We sat in the damp and dusty caravan, and I felt terribly uncomfortable with the whole situation. She didn’t appear to take her hosting responsibilities very seriously, she had been mean to Bjorn, and she had asked me my name four times already. Well, it’s only for a week, we reasoned.
Simone did fix us dinner that night and showed us some pictures of her boat, and generally made us feel slightly more wanted and welcome in her home. Before we went to bed, she reminded us that the next night was karoke night at the pub!
Simone Finch, our new WWOOFing “hostess” (though I can’t really call her that) is probably 55 or 60 and lives alone on a huge farm. She breeds and trains horses as her main source of income, and has a little company called Sirroco Lodge. In addition to having about 14 horses of her own, she has a goat, two dogs, and a few cows.
We were a little unsure about ole Simone from the start. She had called us in response to an email we had sent her, but seemed to be in a big hurry on the phone. She said she’d love to have us, we accepted, and then she said she had to run, but she’d call us back “later” with some directions and details. Well, that call never came, so we finally called her again, a day before our supposed arrival, wanting to know what time we should come. “Oh, I have nothing going on here tomorrow. I’ll be here all day,” she said. “Come whenever you like.” Great, we said. We’ll be there around noon.
Well, we arrived around 12:40 PM, which I reckon still counts as “around noon”, but Simone was nowhere to be found. We found the house, we thought, a large barn-like structure with aluminum siding, and could hear rock music blaring from inside, but we couldn’t get anyone to respond to our knocks. Finally, we called her cell. “Oh, I had to run into town,” she said. “I’ll be there in 20 minutes”. So we sat in our car and waited. For over an hour. We were starting to feel, well, slightly unwanted.
Simone finally pulled up in a silver pick-up truck, decorated with a yellow smiley face bumper sticker, and one that said, “If there are no horses in heaven, I’m not going!” Our hostess emerged, all smiles and energy. “Well, I waited AND waited for you guys, but I finally gave up and went into town.” Oh, so you waited for…thirty minutes? And now you’re going to make us feel guilty about being a little bit late even when you said come WHENEVER!? “But nevermind,” she said. “Let’s go in and have a cuppa!” (“Cuppa” is an incredibly irritating Kiwi favorite phrase that means a cup of coffee or of tea. I thought it was just a colloquial thing, but I actually heard a newscaster use it in a story on the local news the other day.)
Simone is a fairly tall woman with stick thin legs and large bosoms. She has short hair that’s been dyed an unnatural red, and her face is lined with deep wrinkles that suggest a past (or current?) life as a smoker. Her home is essentially a barn that’s been converted into a single woman’s loft. The ceilings are quite tall, and the living area, though fairly small, is sort of one big room, so you get the effect of having lots of space. Simone’s been living here about three years, but it’s clear the place is a work in progress – there is no paint on the walls. The place is decorated with – what else? – photos and paintings and figurines of horses, as well as piece of aboriginal art collected during trips to Australia, and stacks and stacks of miscellaneous papers.
Within our first ten minutes in her home, Simone had informed us that she was dating a married man. “He just needs to figure out what he wants, you know?” she asked us. “Men!” I said, trying to be polite. She went on to tell us about Thursday nights at the local pub – the big night out! – as well as her boat, which she would take us out on, if we were lucky.
She asked us how long we wanted to stay, and after re-stating what was written in our initial email to her – one week – she seemed very disappointed. “Just a week?!” Good grief, I thought. She didn’t even read our email.
That afternoon, during a small break in the rain, she took us out for a ride around her property, introducing us to all the animals. Then, we went down to the stables and saddled up one of her ponies. During his stint in the Swedish Army, Bjorn rode the show horses that marched in the parades, and generally took care of the horses, tidying their stables and whatnot. When she had initially called us, she’d asked about our riding experience. Bjorn explained that he was a pretty confident rider, though perhaps a little rough, and that I essentially had no experience at all. No problem, she’d assured us. But it appeared that her plan for Bjorn and I was for Bjorn to break in this pony and for me to stand and watch.
Of course, Bjorn’s being a confident rider says nothing of his ability to break in a previously un-ridden horse, and Simone was not impressed with Bjorn that first day. My feelings were terribly hurt, standing there watching her order Bjorn around – take the horse this way! No, not THIS way, THAT way! STRAIGHT! The poor pony, of course, hadn’t been sat upon in weeks, didn’t remember what any of the commands were, and generally did not want Bjorn riding on him. “This isn’t going to work,” Simone said. “You just don’t have enough experience. The horse might as well have a child up there on him.” I wanted to cry for Bjorn. Thank God it was Bjorn up there and not me, or I probably would’ve cried. Bjorn, luckily, is a bit more thick skinned, and lets stuff like this roll off of him a bit better than I do.
When we were done with that, we were shown to our “accommodation”, an old caravan parked behind the house. Upon inspection, we found the caravan doable, though it was clear that Simone had gone to no trouble to prepare it for us. There were no sheets or blankets on the bed, and there were several empty cans of some nasty Bourbon and Coke mixed drink laying on the counter, one with a cigarette butt sitting on top. When we asked for sheets, Simone seemed slightly agitated, poked around the house a bit, then returned with a set of red sheets – two fitted sheets, we found out, when we tried to put them on the bed. And no blankets. We decided not even to bother asking for those and just got our sleeping bags out of the car.
We sat in the damp and dusty caravan, and I felt terribly uncomfortable with the whole situation. She didn’t appear to take her hosting responsibilities very seriously, she had been mean to Bjorn, and she had asked me my name four times already. Well, it’s only for a week, we reasoned.
Simone did fix us dinner that night and showed us some pictures of her boat, and generally made us feel slightly more wanted and welcome in her home. Before we went to bed, she reminded us that the next night was karoke night at the pub!
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Enter the Maoris
Last Sunday morning, we started our day just outside of Taupo, a lakeside tourist town in the center of the North Island. It was Easter, and the town was chock full of people, international and local tourists alike.
When we arrived on the North Island last week, we planned to do a four day trek around Mount Taranaki, a huge volcano/mountain on the western edge of the island. However, when we arrived at Taranaki, we were greeted with drizzle, freezing air, and a fresh dumping of SNOW on the mountain. No, thank you! we said. So what are we going to do with this chunk of time? We both had our minds set on tramping for a few days, but the North Island just isn't crawling with the quantity - or quality - of walks in the way the South Island is.
We consulted our Lonely Planet "Tramping in New Zealand" book, and discovered a decently interesting sounding walk in Te Urewera National Park - the Whakatane-Waikare River Loop. The trek was four days through native podocarp forest (essentially the rainforest here), up the Whakatane River and back down the Waikare River, both offering "excellent" trout fishing. It was also supposed to be isolated, which was appealing to us after being somewhat startled by the general crowdedness of the North Island compared to the South (3/4 of NZ's population lives up here).
We visited Taupo's visitor's center first thing Sunday morning, hoping to get a bit more information on the walk (a map, perhaps?), as well as a weather forecast, and maybe some insight into how safe/unsafe the area was. We are constantly leaving Betty in places with my laptop locked up inside, and well, it's always a risk.
The visitor's center was a zoo. We waited in line for about 15 minutes behind a couple of Asian girls who were trying to book a white water rafting trip but who were slightly confused by why they couldn't wear their jeans under their wetsuits. But I shouldn't get off on that matter... When we were finally welcomed up to the counter, our helper didn't seem to have any information for us. "Well, it's a pretty remote area," she said. "And they have quite a lot of trouble around there. I mean, I don't want to sound racist, but it's all Maori communities around there, and frankly, there's a lot of unemployment, and well..." she trailed off.
I haven't really spoken at all about the Maori population in NZ, mostly because the majority of the remaining Maori communities are on the North Island, and we simply haven't been around them. I had heard Russell, our WWOOFing host, refer to the dog being down at "the Maori's place" several times, which I thought was odd. You wouldn't say, "Oh, Spot's over at the Native American's place" would you? Maybe it's not comparable. Regardless. Hearing a public servant, an agent at the visitor's center, make such a blatant blanket statement about the Maoris was startling.
Back in the car, we set off down the road for Ruatahuna, the tiny access town to our walk. Our visit to the visitor's center had basically been zero help, but we were determined to proceed with our plans. After re-reading the tramping book, we discovered that the general store in Ruatahuna would let you park your car there and provide security, as well as drop you off at the trailhead. Perfect, we said. As we drove further and further into total nowhereland, NZ, though, we started to have a few doubts. Abotu 30 kilometers outside of the town, the road turns extremely curvy and goes from being paved to gravel. Every roadside picnic spot we passed was covered in trash (not a typical sight in NZ), and at one point we passed a car parked on the side of the road that had been beaten to death - glass broken, tires stolen. What the hell? we thought. What is this place? The scenery, though, was otherwise lovely. Rolling green hills covered with lush forest, dotted here and there with farmland.
We finally came upon Ruatahuna, which couldn't have a population of more than 500, and pulled into the rickety, deserted-looking general store. The "town" consisted of a few ramshackle houses strewn about, with the general store seemingly the center of it all, supplying the only retail opportunities. Sitting outside the store were three or four women, exotic looking with dark hair, skin, and eyes, but dressed carelessly, whiling away their afternoons talking, looking after the store, and well, sitting.
The woman behind the counter was very kind, showed us where to park our car, and, after we got our packs organized and ready, drove us the 11 km to the trailhead herself. I sensed the slightest bit of hesitation from her about our going out into these woods. She mentioned several times that if we weren't out by Wednesday, she would send the Department of Conservation looking for us, and acted like we were crazy when we described the route we had planned. "That's quite a lot. Are you sure you're fit?" Yes, yes, we know what we're doing. We'll be back on Wednesday! She also advised us to be on the lookout for hunters, as something called "The Roar" was currently going on - I think it's when the male deer go out looking for a mate, and they make a loud roaring noise, making themselves good targets for hunters. "There are some silly people out there," she said. GREAT, I thought. This woman was slowly cutting away at my confidence that this hike was a good idea whatsoever. We were going to get involved in a hunting accident, our car was going to get smashed to bits, we were going to get totally lost. Whatever could go wrong would go wrong.
Well, she was wrong. And all of my initial worries slowly fell away. We had the BEST time. The walk was terribly, wonderfully isolated, the weather was warm and sunny, and best, the rivers we were walking along (and through, much of the time) were stuffed with trout. Bjorn caught nine over the course of two days, three of which have since gone into our bellies (the others went back into the river), and we just enjoyed ourselves like crazy. And we met several interesting hunters, a couple of whom were shooting with bows and arrows! They were all wearing very silly camo outfits, but I didn't otherwise find anything too "silly" about them.
(As an aside - Including Saturday, when we did the Tongariro Crossing, we've walked 85 kilometers over five straight days, averaging 17 km per day. Not bad! Though in some ways, I feel like I have lost a lot of my former good (or perhaps obsessive?) fitness/nutrition habits, I also feel like I'm in terribly good shape. These walks make me feel strong and able and accomplished.)
Yesterday, we hitched a ride from the trailhead with one of our new hunter friends, who dropped us back off at the Ruatahuna general store. As we were driving the 11 km through the "town", he said, "Makes you feel kinda ashamed to call this New Zealand, when you look at how these people are living...They're either unemployed, farming, working for the roads, or selling marijuana." And when we arrived at the general store, there were a whole new assortment of people, just sitting around, in the middle of a Wednesday afternoon.
It's an incredibly ignorant question to ask, but I've asked myself several times, Why do the Maoris even bother? What are they holding onto? Why don't they just assimilate into the rest of NZ? Why do they let themselves live like this? Of course, I can answer all of these questions myself, I think. It's culture, it's home, it's roots, it's everything that gives them a sense of self, of place, of origin. Their people were the first to inhabit New Zealand, and so they do - rightly - feel a sense of ownership about the place. But things have changed since the Maoris first arrived 800 years ago, and their position in NZ society has grown lower and lower over time.
I don't know what the answer is here. I was excited to get to this part of the country to finally see some "real" NZ culture, to take in the beautiful and intricate architecture of the Maori buildings and maybe even try to get an inside glance into what these communities were once like. But seeing what it is today is depressing. The communities that haven't "sold out" to tourism are destitute and literal road-ends for any children growing up there, but the communities that are embracing the tourist and putting on Maori shows every night...well, they're selling out, aren't they? I don't know.
Nevertheless, I am enjoying the bits of Maori culture I am being exposed to - the good and the bad. I feel like I am finally seeing a critical part of NZ and beginning to understand New Zealanders - Maori and European descendants alike - in a more thorough way.
We have arrived in Rotorua now and spent the better part of today wandering around. Rotorua, oddly, established itself in the middle of a huge volcanic area - the town essentially sits in a huge, flat crater created by a volcano thousands of years ago. There are natural hot water and hot mud pools all over the place, as well as clouds of sulpuric steam blowing up left and right. You drive through the suburbs here, and there are just huge puffs of white smoke coming up left and right. It seems insane to have a city here, but oh well. I guess that's another one of those ignorant questions I like to ask.
We visited a gorgeous Maori community on the edge of Lake Rotorua and also went to the Rotorua Museum, which is the most beautiful building I've seen in NZ, I think. It was built in 1907 as a sort of "South Seas Healing Spa". Apparently, people flocked to Rotorua from all over to visit the spa and have several weeks worth of water treatments from the natural waters here. That fell out of fashion in the sixties, though, and so they've made the place into a gorgeous museum.
We'll be in Rotorua til tomorrow (we're even going to go to a Maori "concert" and dinner tonight!), then we'll head on up the east coast, gradually making our way towards Auckland. We've got three weeks left, and have quite a bit of business to take care of before we can jet off - namely, selling Betty and figuring out what to do with all the masses of stuff we've accumulated over the last 7 months...yuck.
Photos, photos - http://picasaweb.google.com/ellen.bucy .
Love to you all!
When we arrived on the North Island last week, we planned to do a four day trek around Mount Taranaki, a huge volcano/mountain on the western edge of the island. However, when we arrived at Taranaki, we were greeted with drizzle, freezing air, and a fresh dumping of SNOW on the mountain. No, thank you! we said. So what are we going to do with this chunk of time? We both had our minds set on tramping for a few days, but the North Island just isn't crawling with the quantity - or quality - of walks in the way the South Island is.
We consulted our Lonely Planet "Tramping in New Zealand" book, and discovered a decently interesting sounding walk in Te Urewera National Park - the Whakatane-Waikare River Loop. The trek was four days through native podocarp forest (essentially the rainforest here), up the Whakatane River and back down the Waikare River, both offering "excellent" trout fishing. It was also supposed to be isolated, which was appealing to us after being somewhat startled by the general crowdedness of the North Island compared to the South (3/4 of NZ's population lives up here).
We visited Taupo's visitor's center first thing Sunday morning, hoping to get a bit more information on the walk (a map, perhaps?), as well as a weather forecast, and maybe some insight into how safe/unsafe the area was. We are constantly leaving Betty in places with my laptop locked up inside, and well, it's always a risk.
The visitor's center was a zoo. We waited in line for about 15 minutes behind a couple of Asian girls who were trying to book a white water rafting trip but who were slightly confused by why they couldn't wear their jeans under their wetsuits. But I shouldn't get off on that matter... When we were finally welcomed up to the counter, our helper didn't seem to have any information for us. "Well, it's a pretty remote area," she said. "And they have quite a lot of trouble around there. I mean, I don't want to sound racist, but it's all Maori communities around there, and frankly, there's a lot of unemployment, and well..." she trailed off.
I haven't really spoken at all about the Maori population in NZ, mostly because the majority of the remaining Maori communities are on the North Island, and we simply haven't been around them. I had heard Russell, our WWOOFing host, refer to the dog being down at "the Maori's place" several times, which I thought was odd. You wouldn't say, "Oh, Spot's over at the Native American's place" would you? Maybe it's not comparable. Regardless. Hearing a public servant, an agent at the visitor's center, make such a blatant blanket statement about the Maoris was startling.
Back in the car, we set off down the road for Ruatahuna, the tiny access town to our walk. Our visit to the visitor's center had basically been zero help, but we were determined to proceed with our plans. After re-reading the tramping book, we discovered that the general store in Ruatahuna would let you park your car there and provide security, as well as drop you off at the trailhead. Perfect, we said. As we drove further and further into total nowhereland, NZ, though, we started to have a few doubts. Abotu 30 kilometers outside of the town, the road turns extremely curvy and goes from being paved to gravel. Every roadside picnic spot we passed was covered in trash (not a typical sight in NZ), and at one point we passed a car parked on the side of the road that had been beaten to death - glass broken, tires stolen. What the hell? we thought. What is this place? The scenery, though, was otherwise lovely. Rolling green hills covered with lush forest, dotted here and there with farmland.
We finally came upon Ruatahuna, which couldn't have a population of more than 500, and pulled into the rickety, deserted-looking general store. The "town" consisted of a few ramshackle houses strewn about, with the general store seemingly the center of it all, supplying the only retail opportunities. Sitting outside the store were three or four women, exotic looking with dark hair, skin, and eyes, but dressed carelessly, whiling away their afternoons talking, looking after the store, and well, sitting.
The woman behind the counter was very kind, showed us where to park our car, and, after we got our packs organized and ready, drove us the 11 km to the trailhead herself. I sensed the slightest bit of hesitation from her about our going out into these woods. She mentioned several times that if we weren't out by Wednesday, she would send the Department of Conservation looking for us, and acted like we were crazy when we described the route we had planned. "That's quite a lot. Are you sure you're fit?" Yes, yes, we know what we're doing. We'll be back on Wednesday! She also advised us to be on the lookout for hunters, as something called "The Roar" was currently going on - I think it's when the male deer go out looking for a mate, and they make a loud roaring noise, making themselves good targets for hunters. "There are some silly people out there," she said. GREAT, I thought. This woman was slowly cutting away at my confidence that this hike was a good idea whatsoever. We were going to get involved in a hunting accident, our car was going to get smashed to bits, we were going to get totally lost. Whatever could go wrong would go wrong.
Well, she was wrong. And all of my initial worries slowly fell away. We had the BEST time. The walk was terribly, wonderfully isolated, the weather was warm and sunny, and best, the rivers we were walking along (and through, much of the time) were stuffed with trout. Bjorn caught nine over the course of two days, three of which have since gone into our bellies (the others went back into the river), and we just enjoyed ourselves like crazy. And we met several interesting hunters, a couple of whom were shooting with bows and arrows! They were all wearing very silly camo outfits, but I didn't otherwise find anything too "silly" about them.
(As an aside - Including Saturday, when we did the Tongariro Crossing, we've walked 85 kilometers over five straight days, averaging 17 km per day. Not bad! Though in some ways, I feel like I have lost a lot of my former good (or perhaps obsessive?) fitness/nutrition habits, I also feel like I'm in terribly good shape. These walks make me feel strong and able and accomplished.)
Yesterday, we hitched a ride from the trailhead with one of our new hunter friends, who dropped us back off at the Ruatahuna general store. As we were driving the 11 km through the "town", he said, "Makes you feel kinda ashamed to call this New Zealand, when you look at how these people are living...They're either unemployed, farming, working for the roads, or selling marijuana." And when we arrived at the general store, there were a whole new assortment of people, just sitting around, in the middle of a Wednesday afternoon.
It's an incredibly ignorant question to ask, but I've asked myself several times, Why do the Maoris even bother? What are they holding onto? Why don't they just assimilate into the rest of NZ? Why do they let themselves live like this? Of course, I can answer all of these questions myself, I think. It's culture, it's home, it's roots, it's everything that gives them a sense of self, of place, of origin. Their people were the first to inhabit New Zealand, and so they do - rightly - feel a sense of ownership about the place. But things have changed since the Maoris first arrived 800 years ago, and their position in NZ society has grown lower and lower over time.
I don't know what the answer is here. I was excited to get to this part of the country to finally see some "real" NZ culture, to take in the beautiful and intricate architecture of the Maori buildings and maybe even try to get an inside glance into what these communities were once like. But seeing what it is today is depressing. The communities that haven't "sold out" to tourism are destitute and literal road-ends for any children growing up there, but the communities that are embracing the tourist and putting on Maori shows every night...well, they're selling out, aren't they? I don't know.
Nevertheless, I am enjoying the bits of Maori culture I am being exposed to - the good and the bad. I feel like I am finally seeing a critical part of NZ and beginning to understand New Zealanders - Maori and European descendants alike - in a more thorough way.
We have arrived in Rotorua now and spent the better part of today wandering around. Rotorua, oddly, established itself in the middle of a huge volcanic area - the town essentially sits in a huge, flat crater created by a volcano thousands of years ago. There are natural hot water and hot mud pools all over the place, as well as clouds of sulpuric steam blowing up left and right. You drive through the suburbs here, and there are just huge puffs of white smoke coming up left and right. It seems insane to have a city here, but oh well. I guess that's another one of those ignorant questions I like to ask.
We visited a gorgeous Maori community on the edge of Lake Rotorua and also went to the Rotorua Museum, which is the most beautiful building I've seen in NZ, I think. It was built in 1907 as a sort of "South Seas Healing Spa". Apparently, people flocked to Rotorua from all over to visit the spa and have several weeks worth of water treatments from the natural waters here. That fell out of fashion in the sixties, though, and so they've made the place into a gorgeous museum.
We'll be in Rotorua til tomorrow (we're even going to go to a Maori "concert" and dinner tonight!), then we'll head on up the east coast, gradually making our way towards Auckland. We've got three weeks left, and have quite a bit of business to take care of before we can jet off - namely, selling Betty and figuring out what to do with all the masses of stuff we've accumulated over the last 7 months...yuck.
Photos, photos - http://picasaweb.google.com/ellen.bucy .
Love to you all!
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Happy Easter!
I know I’m not keeping up with my New Year’s resolution to blog twice a week, but we have just been too busy to waste hours in internet cafes! We’ve just got a month left here, and I will enjoy every bit of it, even if that means the blog going down the tubes.
When I last wrote, we were heading off to Golden Bay, a gorgeous bay on the northwest edge of the South Island. Golden Bay is known for its beaches, and its laid-back lifestyle and homegrown produce. It has a bit of a reputation in NZ for being eco-friendly – lots of cafes selling organic this and that – as well as being an artist community. We arrived first in Takaka, an adorable little “hippie” town, that consisted of one main street with shops and cafes and long-skirted, dread-headed folks wandering about. In towns like this (and I’ve come across them back home, too), you just get a sense that people care about the town itself. Takaka’s public bathroom (every town here has one – usually they’re decently clean, but spartan and sterile smelling) had been painted a bright orange color on the outside, with Men and Women written in an appealing cursive, and bubbly figures dancing across the walls. There was a bar of nice smelling hand-soap by the sinks. It’s such small stuff, but it makes an impression. Somebody out there is doing this stuff themselves – or else the whole community really does care so much that they budget in art work on the public bathroom. It’s a nice touch.
Anyway, we spent a couple days wandering around Golden Bay, and then headed out for a couple days on the Abel Tasman Track. The Abel Tasman is a Great Walk. There are something like nine Great Walks in New Zealand, and the designation basically means that it’s accessible to anyone who is decently fit. The designation also implies that the huts cost $45 per night to stay in, and that the track will be fairly crowded. For the record, a single person can stay in a dorm room in a hostel here, with sheets and pillows and blankets, and access to all the comforts of the hostel (kitchen, kitchen utensils, shower, television, etcetera), for around $22 per night. At a Great Walk hut, you get a shelter from the elements, a thin mattress upon which you can throw your own sleeping bag, flush toilets, and a cooking stove. For twice as much as a bed in a hostel! It’s an unbelievable rip-off, and I get really steamed about this, so let’s not get started.
Suffice it to say that Bjorn and I have avoided the Great Walks as much as possible. They’re highly trafficked, and it’s simply annoying to have to spend so much money trying to enjoy the great outdoors. The Abel Tasman, however, is probably the most popular of all tramps in NZ – Great or otherwise – and boasts spectacular beach scenery and a warm climate. I was going to have a hard time leaving NZ without having at least seen Abel Tasman, so we decided just go out onto it for two days and one night of camping. I’m really glad we went because the beaches were awesome, and, by going in early April, we missed the worst of the summer tourist season crowds. The track goes from lush rainforest to perfect beaches, so you spend a good bit of time actually walking down the beaches. Definitely a change of scenery from the sub-alpine conditions further south!
The beaches of Abel Tasman are exquisite. The water is calm and is of a vivid blue color that I have never seen before, and it rolls gently up to dark gold sands. The blues and the golds, against the deep, green hills of the rainforest – it’s just beautiful.
From Abel Tasman, we cruised east along the northernmost part of the South Island, which is famous for its fruit orchards and vineyards. The orchards are incredible to look at out your window, as you’re driving along. It’s a ridiculous thing, but I’m not certain I’ve laid my eyes upon a real apple tree before passing through the apple orchards of this area. And even if I have seen one before, I’ve certainly never seen a SEA of apple trees – short, delicate, leafy beings bearing perfect red ornaments. “LOOK!” I exclaimed as we passed the first orchard. “There are APPLES!” Endless apples. And pears. And cherries. And kiwifruit. It’s incredible.
Even more incredible is this honesty system they have at some of the orchards. They’ll bag up a bunch of their extra produce, put price tags on it, and set it in a little shack down by the road, with an “honesty box” pay system. We stopped by one and picked up one huge bag of apples and one of pears for $2 each. Unbelievable! And not a soul was there. Trust is such an amazing thing…when it works.
We crossed all the way over to the eastern side of the South Island to the Marlborough Wine Region, famous for its Sauvignon Blancs. We hadn’t done any real wine tasting since arriving in NZ and were eager to get going! We had booked a hostel in a little town called Renwick, right in the middle of it all. The hostel was perfect – such a treat after two whole weeks in the tent – and they even had bikes for rent…for touring the vineyards. The land is so flat, and the vineyards are all so close together that cycling around is a perfect option for touring!
And tour we did. We went out on our bikes around 10 AM and returned around 5 PM, after visiting eight vineyards and one chocolate factory. We probably tasted at least 5 different wines at each vineyard, and well, those tastings start adding up after a while. But they’re onto something – riding around wine country, warm with wine, on a beautiful day. I’m not sure it gets any better. It was SUCH fun. Exhausting, but great. I’m not sure that hitting eight vineyards in a row is really the best way to taste wine. We found ourselves getting more and more profound as the day wore on. Taking a sip, putting on your most thoughtful face, and exclaiming, “Oh, yes! That’s just LOVEly. Reminds me of…smoke, coffee grounds, rose petals.” Good grief.
After ridding our systems of wine, we headed on to Picton to catch the ferry to the North Island. When we took the ferry across the Cook Straight from Wellington to Picton 7 months ago, it was a lovely, three hour ride – a peaceful cruise. Well, this time was not so lovely. The waters of the Cook Straight were insane that day (though the ferry people called them “moderate”), throwing the boat this way and that and splashing huge waves of water onto the decks. The ferry isn’t a little ship, either. It’s probably the size of small cruise ships, with lots of area to wander around, a cinema, cafes, and tons of parking for cars. So I was shocked to find, thirty minutes into the ride, that I was about to get seriously seasick. And so was just about everybody else on the boat.
When I started feeling queasy, we went out to sit in a large atrium area, next to the doors out to the viewing decks, hoping that a little fresh air would be good. Well, within about 20 minutes, the room was FULL of people, vomiting into white paper bags, hyperventilating, crying, and generally freaking out. The ferry staff went around calmly with big garbage bags, collecting the smaller paper bags from people and passing around ice (apparently sucking on ice keeps the sickies away). It was mass chaos for the middle two hours of the three hour journey. I fought with everything in me – sucking on ice, staring out at the horizon line – to not get sick and managed to avoid it. But yuck! It was just awful. I was thoroughly relieved to be on solid ground in Wellington.
So here we are! We’re back on the North Island, with just under four weeks left before our departure on May 8.
We had planned to do a four day trek around Mount Taranaki, a volcano on the western side of the North Island, but a cold snap recently struck and covered the mountains with snow and ice! Tramping in the snow and ice? No, thank you. So we continued to drive east yesterday, finally ending at Tongariro National Park, where we did a one day trek today (weather conditions were much better there). The Tongariro Crossing is an extremely popular day hike, but we figured it would be fine at this time of year. What we didn’t consider is that we had selected the Saturday of Easter weekend to do this hike, and as we were told by a tour guide earlier today, that’s the busiest day of the year!
We arrived at the trailhead and were BAFFLED by the numbers of people. Hundreds of people were milling about the parking lot, being dropped off by tour bus after tour bus. We set off walking around 8:30 AM, and were quite literally in a line on the trail for the first three hours. I felt like I was back in New York City, having a fit of walking road rage at the slow pokes ahead of me. MOVE it, people! We didn’t have ten feet of space in front of or behind us, and as far as the eyes could see up and down the trail were PEOPLE! It was incredible. I don’t hardly have anything to say about the hike itself because the sheer spectacle of the whole thing was much more interesting.
It was a nice walk, but we’ve done nicer. I’ll put pictures up next time (next time!).
Okay. We are off into the woods tomorrow for four days. Doing a tramp in Te Urewera National Park on the eastern side of the island. There ought to be very few people there. Fingers crossed.
Must go now. There’s a movie on in the lounge at our holiday park. Happy Easter, everyone! Much love to you all.
When I last wrote, we were heading off to Golden Bay, a gorgeous bay on the northwest edge of the South Island. Golden Bay is known for its beaches, and its laid-back lifestyle and homegrown produce. It has a bit of a reputation in NZ for being eco-friendly – lots of cafes selling organic this and that – as well as being an artist community. We arrived first in Takaka, an adorable little “hippie” town, that consisted of one main street with shops and cafes and long-skirted, dread-headed folks wandering about. In towns like this (and I’ve come across them back home, too), you just get a sense that people care about the town itself. Takaka’s public bathroom (every town here has one – usually they’re decently clean, but spartan and sterile smelling) had been painted a bright orange color on the outside, with Men and Women written in an appealing cursive, and bubbly figures dancing across the walls. There was a bar of nice smelling hand-soap by the sinks. It’s such small stuff, but it makes an impression. Somebody out there is doing this stuff themselves – or else the whole community really does care so much that they budget in art work on the public bathroom. It’s a nice touch.
Anyway, we spent a couple days wandering around Golden Bay, and then headed out for a couple days on the Abel Tasman Track. The Abel Tasman is a Great Walk. There are something like nine Great Walks in New Zealand, and the designation basically means that it’s accessible to anyone who is decently fit. The designation also implies that the huts cost $45 per night to stay in, and that the track will be fairly crowded. For the record, a single person can stay in a dorm room in a hostel here, with sheets and pillows and blankets, and access to all the comforts of the hostel (kitchen, kitchen utensils, shower, television, etcetera), for around $22 per night. At a Great Walk hut, you get a shelter from the elements, a thin mattress upon which you can throw your own sleeping bag, flush toilets, and a cooking stove. For twice as much as a bed in a hostel! It’s an unbelievable rip-off, and I get really steamed about this, so let’s not get started.
Suffice it to say that Bjorn and I have avoided the Great Walks as much as possible. They’re highly trafficked, and it’s simply annoying to have to spend so much money trying to enjoy the great outdoors. The Abel Tasman, however, is probably the most popular of all tramps in NZ – Great or otherwise – and boasts spectacular beach scenery and a warm climate. I was going to have a hard time leaving NZ without having at least seen Abel Tasman, so we decided just go out onto it for two days and one night of camping. I’m really glad we went because the beaches were awesome, and, by going in early April, we missed the worst of the summer tourist season crowds. The track goes from lush rainforest to perfect beaches, so you spend a good bit of time actually walking down the beaches. Definitely a change of scenery from the sub-alpine conditions further south!
The beaches of Abel Tasman are exquisite. The water is calm and is of a vivid blue color that I have never seen before, and it rolls gently up to dark gold sands. The blues and the golds, against the deep, green hills of the rainforest – it’s just beautiful.
From Abel Tasman, we cruised east along the northernmost part of the South Island, which is famous for its fruit orchards and vineyards. The orchards are incredible to look at out your window, as you’re driving along. It’s a ridiculous thing, but I’m not certain I’ve laid my eyes upon a real apple tree before passing through the apple orchards of this area. And even if I have seen one before, I’ve certainly never seen a SEA of apple trees – short, delicate, leafy beings bearing perfect red ornaments. “LOOK!” I exclaimed as we passed the first orchard. “There are APPLES!” Endless apples. And pears. And cherries. And kiwifruit. It’s incredible.
Even more incredible is this honesty system they have at some of the orchards. They’ll bag up a bunch of their extra produce, put price tags on it, and set it in a little shack down by the road, with an “honesty box” pay system. We stopped by one and picked up one huge bag of apples and one of pears for $2 each. Unbelievable! And not a soul was there. Trust is such an amazing thing…when it works.
We crossed all the way over to the eastern side of the South Island to the Marlborough Wine Region, famous for its Sauvignon Blancs. We hadn’t done any real wine tasting since arriving in NZ and were eager to get going! We had booked a hostel in a little town called Renwick, right in the middle of it all. The hostel was perfect – such a treat after two whole weeks in the tent – and they even had bikes for rent…for touring the vineyards. The land is so flat, and the vineyards are all so close together that cycling around is a perfect option for touring!
And tour we did. We went out on our bikes around 10 AM and returned around 5 PM, after visiting eight vineyards and one chocolate factory. We probably tasted at least 5 different wines at each vineyard, and well, those tastings start adding up after a while. But they’re onto something – riding around wine country, warm with wine, on a beautiful day. I’m not sure it gets any better. It was SUCH fun. Exhausting, but great. I’m not sure that hitting eight vineyards in a row is really the best way to taste wine. We found ourselves getting more and more profound as the day wore on. Taking a sip, putting on your most thoughtful face, and exclaiming, “Oh, yes! That’s just LOVEly. Reminds me of…smoke, coffee grounds, rose petals.” Good grief.
After ridding our systems of wine, we headed on to Picton to catch the ferry to the North Island. When we took the ferry across the Cook Straight from Wellington to Picton 7 months ago, it was a lovely, three hour ride – a peaceful cruise. Well, this time was not so lovely. The waters of the Cook Straight were insane that day (though the ferry people called them “moderate”), throwing the boat this way and that and splashing huge waves of water onto the decks. The ferry isn’t a little ship, either. It’s probably the size of small cruise ships, with lots of area to wander around, a cinema, cafes, and tons of parking for cars. So I was shocked to find, thirty minutes into the ride, that I was about to get seriously seasick. And so was just about everybody else on the boat.
When I started feeling queasy, we went out to sit in a large atrium area, next to the doors out to the viewing decks, hoping that a little fresh air would be good. Well, within about 20 minutes, the room was FULL of people, vomiting into white paper bags, hyperventilating, crying, and generally freaking out. The ferry staff went around calmly with big garbage bags, collecting the smaller paper bags from people and passing around ice (apparently sucking on ice keeps the sickies away). It was mass chaos for the middle two hours of the three hour journey. I fought with everything in me – sucking on ice, staring out at the horizon line – to not get sick and managed to avoid it. But yuck! It was just awful. I was thoroughly relieved to be on solid ground in Wellington.
So here we are! We’re back on the North Island, with just under four weeks left before our departure on May 8.
We had planned to do a four day trek around Mount Taranaki, a volcano on the western side of the North Island, but a cold snap recently struck and covered the mountains with snow and ice! Tramping in the snow and ice? No, thank you. So we continued to drive east yesterday, finally ending at Tongariro National Park, where we did a one day trek today (weather conditions were much better there). The Tongariro Crossing is an extremely popular day hike, but we figured it would be fine at this time of year. What we didn’t consider is that we had selected the Saturday of Easter weekend to do this hike, and as we were told by a tour guide earlier today, that’s the busiest day of the year!
We arrived at the trailhead and were BAFFLED by the numbers of people. Hundreds of people were milling about the parking lot, being dropped off by tour bus after tour bus. We set off walking around 8:30 AM, and were quite literally in a line on the trail for the first three hours. I felt like I was back in New York City, having a fit of walking road rage at the slow pokes ahead of me. MOVE it, people! We didn’t have ten feet of space in front of or behind us, and as far as the eyes could see up and down the trail were PEOPLE! It was incredible. I don’t hardly have anything to say about the hike itself because the sheer spectacle of the whole thing was much more interesting.
It was a nice walk, but we’ve done nicer. I’ll put pictures up next time (next time!).
Okay. We are off into the woods tomorrow for four days. Doing a tramp in Te Urewera National Park on the eastern side of the island. There ought to be very few people there. Fingers crossed.
Must go now. There’s a movie on in the lounge at our holiday park. Happy Easter, everyone! Much love to you all.
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