burning cars and frozen forests
Today is day three of our road trip. 'Our' being myself and cat who had the misfortune of being sat next to me on the coach when i said 'lets hire a car and drive places'.... places of course being nice ideas in my head but slightly incorpreal in character. Anyway Sunday we picked up the car and were on our way. Not having driven for two years speeding along NZ's twisty roads was practically and ends in itself to me. About half an hour later whilst stopping on the basis of 'ahhh thats a nice view' we got out of the car to be slightly disturbed by billowing and acrid fumes from under the bonnet...oh dear... Opening it up we found the oil cap resting neatly beside the hole it was intended to cover, and an oil spillage covering the engine that Shell would have been proud of. Oil was burning off on the hot bits (notice slight lack of manly engine knowledge) and creating the smoke, so a t-shirt was sacrifced to redeem the situation. The evening we stayed in Invercargill, a place which would make the description 'grey' sound like a complement. The streets were dead, not a sole to be seen, just the occasional clapped out motor rattling down the street like some laterday tumbleweed. The next day we set off to explore the Caitlins. This is a beautiful area at the soutern tip of NZ. Rolling hill meets forest meets golden beaches and azure seas. Driving unsurfaced roads dodging pot holes all day also makes driving entertaining. We took a wander to a waterfall and by the sea to a fossilized forest - a prehistoric rainforest petrified into the rocks. The area is also full of wildlife, I had a close incounter with an elephant seal which i mistook for a lump of drift wood, until i noticed it was furry had a face and moved.
of all the bars in all the world....
Queenstown; (native) population 5000, backpackers beds 15000 all of them full. You can imagine what a night out round here is like. Its definately got a small town feel with that everyone knows everyone 'charm' (aside from the 15000 who barely know who they are, let alone anyone else). Just the place to prove how small the world is.... My first night here I walked into the bar to see my cousin Fi serving behind it, I didn't even know she was in NZ - fairly typical disorganisation on my part i grant. That kicked off a night of partying and in which another amazing stroke of 'luck' saw me win the bar's competition that evening.... Have really just been chilling out over the past couple of days, organising some trips south next week and a 'tramp' on the routeburn track. In way of training, Fi and I set off up Ben Lomond yesterday - the local mountain, standing 1740m high. The day started beautifully, warm, blue skies etc etc. We trudged along stoping every few metres for photos and snacks, it didn't last. We saw the storm approaching but decided being English we knew a thing or two about wet weather and against the urging of those retreating off of the mountain continued on our way. Half an hour later, about 20 minutes short of the summit, we were huddling behing a boulder with horizontal rain driving past us. Soaked through and with the clouds decending around us we decided that discretion was the better part of valour and turned back. So no dramatic panoramas from the top i'm afraid, although we were rewarded with a intensely vivid rainbow across QT for our struggles.
A pain in the leg
Well I have to say the Franz Josef glacier is definately a highpoint thus far. The Glacier descends from a hight of 2000m to 250m into temperate rain forest - one of only 3 in the world that flow straight into a forest. I took a full day hike to the glacier and up to 750m at the point where the glacier falls through a narrow gorge to forest level. The glacier is named after the then emperor of Austro-Hungary Franz Josef as apparently it reminded the explorer of his long white flowing beard. Following this logic, the NZ government are planning to rename it the 'Gandalf Glacier' in a shameless attempt to further cash in on Lord of the Rings.... The walk to the Glacier was done in torrential rain - I have spent several years labouring under the foolish assumption that the term 'rain forest' was a forest where it rained alot. I now discover it is in fact a 'forest of rain' with the greenery purely incidental. The gorge was truely atmospheric with clounds clinging to the wooded slopes, waterfalls tumbling down the cliff faces on each side and mists rising from the river. The ice of the glacier is almost sky blue and from the top it looks like water from a bursting dam has been frozen in time as it exploded down the valley. We spent time exploring the crevaces and ice caves before heading back - every limb aching and every article of clothing totally soaked. My god the shower felt good.
So this is what awake is like
At last i'm feeling like i can function again - which is a relief. Booked myself onto a kiwi experience bus on thursday and spent the rest of the day doing organisational type stuff preparing to leave christchurch. Felt seriously bad yesterday, my bus was leaving at 7 in the morning but combination of jetlag and a serious case of over sleeping anxiety meant i woke up at 3am and couldn't get back to sleep... uurrrggghh. Well I made it onto the bus anyway. We cut across the Southern Alps to the west coast. The land scape goes through a transformation of english looking farmland to scottish highland to alpine forest to rain forest in about 2 hours driving. Its pretty incredible so much diversity is in such a small place. Once we had crossed to the west coast we joined up with a bigger bus and made our way south. We stopped for the night at 'the poo pub'. This is basically a collection of shacks and a bar run by the this old bearded NZ guy who literally has not left the place for several hundred years. Anyway we had a 'beach party' there in the evening and a big steak meal. I was feeling pretty bad so wasn't really up to the antics - starting to feel old already..... Anyways, today we carried on down the coast stopping at a couple of places - a museum showing men jumping out of helicopers to catch deer and a gold panning/paintball place. Needless to say i am currently peppered with bruises. Tommorow i'll be climbing the glacier here so looking forward to that! Still no photos i know - should be able to sort them out when i get to queenstown in a few days.
Joys of Jetlag
Still in daze, I had to just ask guy next to me what day of the week it is. Apparently thursday... The first thing that hit me when stepping out of the international terminal in Auckland (transfering to domestic flight) was the new country smell. In NZ this was of a sweet pollon - nectar to my nose after basking in my own sweat for the last 26 hours. Arrived in christchurch yesterday at about 8.30am Wednesday morning. Had to kill time before checking into a hostel, so set off into town. Christchurch seems pretty small, practically empty at 9.00 in the morning - I guess like provincial towns the world over. Found my way to the museum and botanical gardens in the morning before going to Cathedral square to listen to 'the Wizard'. For those who don't know the 'the Wizard' is an old guy with a big beard and gandalf suit who turns up outside the cathedral here every day (without fail) at 1 pm with a step ladder and a bugle and delivers a rant. His two hour speach mainly consisted of misogenistic, contradictory, post modernist psudo socialogical claptrap. It was all i could do to remain seated and stop myself arguing against his grossly misinformed (ie not mine) opinions. Quite interesting though and kept me entertained for 2 hours. After that I checked in I had a snooze and went to the bar with a German guy who was in my dorm. Being St Paddy's day there was a band playing such Irish classics as 'i would walk 500 miles' and 'american pie' Had some fabulously expensive guiness before going to bed about 10. Sorry about lack of photo's didn't bring camera, I'll get some soon.
Packin
Ahhh, the endless joys of organising numerous objects into square containers. I'm almost tempted to chuck everything back on the floor just to have another go... I sit here gazing out of the window at the timeless river of human kind that is the south circular; each individual neatly packed into their own little box, albeit one with such extravagancies as wheels, internal combustion engines etc. I think i'm going to miss the flexing glass in the window as the artics rumble by and the mini commuter train induced earthquakes, packed with people on the way to work where they'll try to think outside the box.
