Friday, April 30, 2010

From my adventures with Virginia

"Guten Tag everyone!

I write this on my German friend’s little computer, where the z and y keys are switched, so I have to think really hard when I’m typing! Apologies if some words look funny…

I finally wanted to fill you in on some of the really fantastic things I did with Virginia, because it was SO MUCH FUN. After the fantasticness of Abel Tasman we headed out toward the glaciers, and had wanted to go on the coastal highway to stop at the Punakaki Rocks, but somehow took a wrong turn (all thanks to V’s GPS, whose name is Ken. Ken was very helpful sometimes, and we were super grateful for him, but it was funny when he would say things like “in six hundred yards, go left” when there was clearly no turn, and just a bend in the road. Thanks Ken.) When we got to Greymouth we made the executive decision to go up the coast anyway, about an hour and a half detour round trip, so we could see the rocks. The weather was kind of grey but once we got views of the coast it actually made it more spectacular seeing huge rocks coming out of the water and mist coming in from the sea. The Punakaki rocks are this odd sedimentary formation that’s all in these flat layers, nicknamed “pancake rocks”, and they’re all in these weird eaten-away towers along the coast. Some have cool caverns and you’re looking down into them as the water swirls in, and when the sea is rough enough sometimes you get geyser-like effects of spray. It wasn’t so rough, but we saw little sprays. And we found a lamb rock. It looked like a lamb. Sort of. And there was a tour bus of older women that offered to take our picture a few times, and they asked where we were from- “California girls!? We have one lady from Santa Barbara, don’t we?” Then back in Greymouth we picked up some groceries and the same tour bus was there “Oh! California girls! We have someone from California with us too…” Cute.

We got in late to Franz Joseph, just barely making check-in before 9pm (this was quite the pattern with us) and the guy at the desk was surprised by our peppiness- “Wow. What are you girls so happy about?” “We’re hiking on a GLACIER tomorrow!” We couldn’t help it, even the long hours in the car couldn’t hold us back. The hostel was one of the nicer ones I’ve stayed in- very warm and a really good kitchen, though it wasn’t a BBH, which is just the hostel membership I have so I can get discounts on sleeping, but it was worth it for the coziness- and it had these amazing pictures of ice caves and of Milford Sound in the halls, so V and I were freaking out every time we headed around the halls. In the morning we got suited up at the Franz Joseph Guides company (the same one I applied to, but haven’t heard anzthing from them and it’s been like two months now, so I can safely say theyre not interested. Oh well, their loss); they give you jackets and socks and boots and pants and crazy ‘cramp ons’ for your boots which look like bear traps, and are put on the bottom of your boot so you can walk in the ice (spikes go into the ICE, not the BOOT; our guides said it was amazing how many people had put them on the wrong way). We took a bus to the beginning of the park, and had to walk pretty far to get to the foot of the glacier, but it didn’t look that far away. There was an optical illusion with the valley, so it looked like it wasn’t more than twenty minutes away when it was actually a 1.5 km distance, something about the valley walls narrowing at the glacier but widening out where we were… crazy go nuts. The walk to the glacier was flat at least, then we put on our cramp ons at the bottom, but had to walk on rock before getting to the ice, which sounded AWFUL with the metal on rock, and was super awkward to walk on anyway. Once we got on the ice, though, it was very, very cool. But actually not cold, it’s a temperate glacier (rare! There’s also one in central America, says our guide), so it was pretty pleasant actually! The guides all walked in shorts, I kid you not. Plus we were bundled up in our fleeces and borrowed gear, and once we started walking around I got pretty warm, so could have easilz done without the extras, but then if the wind blew a little I was glad again for the layers. You could see these ice cliffs ahead of us, which again didn’t look that far away, but it was another optical illusion against the white of the rest of the ice and it would take all day to walk up that far. The guide carried around a pick axe, and would carve out steps for us to walk on. Which I suppose isn’t natural, but it was kind of cool, and made the place feel like an ice castle. We got to shimmy through a narrow ice hallway, sliding through these smooth walls sideways, and it felt like we were ice explorers! We loved looking at all the cool formations of ice, clicking away our cameras and going I cant believe this! We were sad when we got to the ‘top’, which ended up being much closer than we expected, and then ate a snack and headed down again, amounting to only forty minutes or so on the ice itself.

We felt like it wasn’t enough time, so when we got back to the office we booked another walk for the next day… taking a helicopter ride to the top of the glacier! Long story short we had to wait two days before getting onto the helicopter because of bad weather, which kind of sucked because there’s not much in Franz Joseph other than hiking the glacier. We did fill our time by taking some walks to see glow worms, and one was at night in the forest! It was super dark but that made seeing the worms a little easier. They were etherial in a way, you spotted them better if you didnt look directly at them . Sometimes we had to crouch down and look under logs. We spent a long time looking at the green glow under a fallen tree, just staring and feeling at peace. On another hike we went up to these caves where we had to walk barefoot in the water (FREEZING! I thought my toes were going to fall off) and turn off our headlamps every few feet to check out the glow above us. Pretty cool.

Even cooler? Getting a HELICOPTER RIDE TO A GLACIER! That ride in was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done. This massive ice monster passing under us, wow. And we got to see those ice cliffs in the air, which was just so surreal. My jaw was in an open smile the whole time. We got so much time walking around, Virginia and I took so many pictures of cool ice formations and pools of water. We even got to go into an ice cave! Some of the ice was this amazing blue color, which comes from lack of air and increased pressure on the ice, so all throughout our walkways were these amazing blue streaks. I cant wait to see the pictures on a bigger screen, I may not be able to believe them. We also got to see some mini ice avalanches off in the distance, a cracking of sound throughout the valley and then aaaaah falling ice! It was a bit far away for us to be worried about it. We were on solid ground (well, ice), about 80 m thick, wow. And the guide said they get about 8 METERS of precipitation every year, so I felt really lucky that we were there on pretty clear days. In fact our helicopter was the last one of the day because the weather got too cloudy again, so we reaallly lucked out. We were so happy we stuck it out to get another few hours hiking around.

This was on Wednesday, St. Patrick's Day, and we wanted to be in Queenstown for the festivities, because it’s one of the big party towns. It’s quite a drive from Franz Joseph, about 5 hours, and we didnt really leave after the hike until around 4pm. We also made a stop at Lake Matheson, which we saw in pictures as having just stunning views of the glacial valley with Mt Cook in the distance, and on a clear day the water is still and it looks like a mirror of the landscape. It’s a long walk around the lake so we opted for just a 15 minute jaunt to a lookout, and the wind was blowing enough to make the water choppy, so we didnt replicate any postcards, but it was very pretty. And the walk was very pleasant too- V got to walk over her very first swingbridge in NZ, which are fairly common on walks here (I went over several on my Lake Waikaremoana Great Walk with Freddy) but since it was her first one she got all excited, and we enjoyed jumping on it and making it actually swing alittle while no one was on the bridge with us. Back on the road it got very dark and the road got all windy (and I think we may have hit a possum at one point? But they’re pests here so dont get all angry with us, we tried to swerve out of the way!) so we didnt make it into Qtown until very late, sometime after 11pm I think. Schade (German for sad). We did see that people were out but we were too tired from driving and just wanted to go to sleep, because the next day we had another 5+ hour drive.

Our next destination was Milford Sound, where the famous Milford Track is, arguably one of the most picturesque places in the world. The Milford Track is very difficult to book especially in the summer- you have to do it months in advance. Even in fall and winter it can be difficult, and V tried, but the first available day was just after she was leaving. Plus you have to stay in huts and it runs into money. We opted to take a late afternoon cruise of the sounds, which would get us time to get there from Qtown. The weather was grey in town, but as we drove out of the city it cleared up so we thought it would be a great day for the cruise. We stopped in Te Anau, about 2 hrs outside of the Sounds, to rent some camping gear, and also stopped several times to do short walks (Mirror Lakes was right by the side of the road and had some really nice views and ducks playing, plus an upside down sign that reflected correctly in the water) and take pictures of the scenery, more towering mountains in the valley. Once we got to the sign saying ‘Welcome to Milford Sound‘ we got nervous because the clouds were coming in. We had to wait at the tunnel entrance, which was a one-lane road cutting down through the mountain blockade, so only cars can only go in one direction at a time. While we waited for our turn we did another short walk by the side of the road, walking around boulders that had come off of the mountains. There were also TALL waterfalls coming down the slopes, some of the longest Ive ever seen! Your neck almost hurt looking up, then the fog kept getting thicker so we didnt really know how tall these cliffs were. When we drove down through the tunnel we thought, aw, we’ll drive under the fog and it will be fine. And then we got out to the other side and it was WORSE. Crap! We were also running late (as usual) and had to park the car and run to the cruise line. Virginia was quite sour leading up to the cruise because the weather was so bad, but I just tried to assure her that it was going to be fine. She asked the woman at the desk, since it was so foggy, if we werent satisfied with the cruise if we could try going on it again in the morning, and she told us that it was a definite possibility. Sure enough, we get on the boat and it’s raining and windy and foggy, and we really couldnt see much. The plus side of it raining was that there were tons of waterfalls all throughout the Sounds, but they were coming out of a blanket of mist, we couldnt even see where they began. We wanted to be happy that we were there, but it was truly disappointing that it was dark and grey and cold. We resolved to come back in the morning.

We stayed overnight at the Milford Lodge, the only accommodation in the Sounds, which wasnt that cosy like we thought a lodge should be. Their kitchen was subpar with not enough burners for the large number of people trzing to cook. But we tried to stay inside for as long as possible, because we were camping, and didnt really want to be outside longer than we had to. Anyway when we woke up it was still grey and at first we go aw crap not again! But then we thought, no, it might burn off. We go to the cruise line as soon as it opens to see if we can get on a morning cruise for free, and we can! We had an hour to kill, which was good for giving the weather time to wise up, and gave us a chance to do one of the walks around the area. We went to this place called The Chasm, a 30 minute loop in mossy green trees heading to a waterfall beneath a bridge that pooled into a crystal clear lagoon that reminded me of something out of Peter Pan. We were the only ones there at 9am, it was so gorgeous and quiet (except for the rushing water) and we were pretty happy.
Then we got even more excited when we came out of the trees and could see BLUE SKIES! We head back to the pier and get on the boat and it's just the clearest day, so the postcards of Milford Sound come to life before our eyes! Giant glaciated mountains towering out of the water, that's what I came to see! There was quite a bit of wind so it was actually fairly choppy on the water, I had trouble standing up as we cruised along. So the water wasn't calm enough to take the pictures of a perfect reflection, but that's okay. Sometimes they say you can see dolphins, but we didn't see any. We did see some seals on the rocks though! The cruise takes you out of the sounds and does a short loop out on the ocean, then takes you back in. Wow. So glad we stuck it out. We were on air with happiness, because if you aren't going to walk the milford track, at the very least you have to see them. YAY.

We did another walk around Lake Gunn through red beech trees -which were not red, but actually covered in moss, which was really cool and like another enchanted sort of forest. We found shapes in the moss, and sat on mossy thrones, and climbed on mossy trees hoping they would be Ents and carry us around. Some trees had these huge boil things on their trunks that had some sort of significance but of course I can't remember... But it was another quiet walk where we really didn't see anyone, so it was a forest and lake to ourselves.

This must have been on Friday, because V had 2 days to get to her flight in Christchurch, so we drove drove drove to Dunedin (We saw the west AND east coasts in one day!), stopping at a statue of a GIANT trout or something in Gore with these scary teeth, and met up with Jackie and Lisa in the evening over free wine, catching up on the last few months. They seemed to be really happy working in their hostel, where they shared a cleaning position and worked part time. Jackie has booked her flight to Australia at the end of April and then heading home the third week of May while Lisa seems to be staying in Dunedin for a little while longer. It was great to see them. The next day, Saturday, we went to the Dunedin farmer's market with all kinds of fresh herbs and baked things for sale. There was a magic show for kids and this guy ate an entire balloon which was kind of gross. We shared lamb skewers, yuuuum, and tried some sort of odd honey, rosemary or something. Then we tried out all of these cool bikes, one with a HUGE front wheel, small ones where you pedal side by side, a tandem one but one of the seats was backwards... crazy silly and fun!

There was a lot of falling over, and I got a sweet bruise from one bike, which was shorter than knee-height, and much laughter from the ridiculousness of it.

We took a walk outside of Dunedin up to these lava tubes, nicknamed organ pipes, with a cool view overlooking the Otago Peninsula. We got into Christchurch later that night and ate Thai food and treated ourselves to hokey pokey ice cream, a New Zealand treat that Virginia just had to try before leaving. We tried to polish off a 2liter box because that was the cheapest option, but somehow couldnt bring ourselves to do so. We made ourselves even more sick by trying out this amazing dessert red wine I had bought in Napier months before, which was meant to be paired with dark chocolate. So, we had a lot of indulgences on our last night, which I believe was necessary.

The next morning we found a hostel for me to stay in and took the car back to the rental place. Virginia had been travelling without her drivers lisence since the first hour that we got together- we looked for it all over the car and we decided it must have gotten left in Picton when we were loading everything into the Bluebird. We thought it wouldnt hurt to ask if it had turned up, and the lady called up Picton and THEY FOUND IT. So we gave V’s address info, which saved her a whole lot of DMV headache with having to get a new one, and by now she should have her lisence back. We waited for her airport shuttle in complete disbelief and happiness, yet sad to be parting, yet so glad that we had the journey together!!!




Thursday, April 29, 2010

DOLPHINS

I have just one minute to say that I swam with Dusky Dolphins and fur seals in Kaikoura yesterday, and it was absolutely AMAZING! Picking grapes for a month was DEFINITELY worth it :)

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Holy moly, only 6 weeks to go...

I'm leaving Blenheim today, after working in the vineyards for a total of 5 weeks. You would think that I've saved up a lot, but I really haven't, since the harvest was so short and not many hours to work. But that's okay, it's just time to go. It's definitely hard though, because the backpackers where I've been living this whole time, Copper Beech, has been so great. There's a core group of 25 of us that's been working, so it's felt like a family. A lot of people are leaving today and tomorrow, so most of us are realizing the harvest is over... But none of us really want to go, because it's such a great atmosphere. The two managers, Bonno and Ruben from the Netherlands, have been so helpful with helping us find work and then they organize things to do as a hostel. We've been having classic movie nights twice a week (Shawshank Redemption last Thursday, then Disney movies on Sundays) and they organized paralympic games over Easter, we have the soccer games and we once went to a driving range (man did I suck! but it was strangely addictive..), the other night they rented "Singstar" and we were all doing this karaoke together and sounding so horrible but laughing through the whole thing (which, sometimes, gave us more points than if we were really trying to sing...) and last week we went to "Housie". No one knew what it was, so we were all excited, thinking it could be like dodgeball or something, so a bunch of us are walking to it speculating, ooh maybe it's paintball or a dance party! We show up and it's BINGO. Ha. And it was full of old Maori women that were super serious about it "You know we started at seven, right?" It's 7:04, really? You have to get a "full house" of all your numbers on the card covered (hence, 'housie') and we bought just one strip each, but they had like 5 cards at once they were working with, and the numbers were called out so fast on the computer (double seven, seventyseven;three five thirtyfive; on its own number four) And we weren't exactly sure how to play at first, so there were some women that I've worked with before that were mouthing to us "Get a line! Get all the numbers!" so people were nice once we got in and sat down. Then you get into it and you're hoping to win $40, or on the "super housie" you can win up to $500!! and then someone else gets it, and it's like the entire room has been holding their breath and they all exhale in disappointment when someone else wins. It was really silly, but it was still hilarious for a bunch of us to go try. I'm really going to miss it here. But again, it's time to move on.

I've been very connected with the Nichiren Buddhist community here, and they're holding a training course next weekend in the area that I really wanted to go to. So, I'm going to wwoof this week in the Marlbourough Sounds at a house where you can only get to it by boat (!), then be back for the weekend to attend the course. I'll be wwoofing with a friend that I met through the SGI, and she's hoping to buy a car so that after the course is over we can travel some of the south island together. I've seen many of the highlights from my time with Virginia, but there's still more to see. I haven't been down the East Coast really, just saw Christchurch, so I'm hoping that we can make some stops in Kaikoura (dolphins!) and Omaru and Timaru (penguins!), then maybe cut over toward Queenstown and Lake Wanaka (sky dive???). My flight leaves out of Christchurch eeeeeeeeeeearly on May 28th, so I'll be there for a few days hopefully staying with my friend Hannah, who's working there. And since my birthday is the 27th, it only seems fitting to celebrate my last night in NZ and just not go to sleep, then jump directly onto the plane. Oooh that's going to be so insane...

Okay! So, wwoofing this week (aka WEEDING, ewww, but I think it's going to be beautiful and I'll get to chant lots with my friend Olivia) then the SGI course next weekend (More chanting!) and then... travel! Must make the most of my time left, weeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Whyyyyy winter!?

It was FREEZING this morning! It was something like 2 deg celcius, gross! And having to work in it, rawr! I thought my hands and feet would fall off. Once the sun came up it was much better, and then it was hard to believe how cold it was before, but damn. Winter is seriously coming in. Brrr and grr.

Monday, April 5, 2010

Yes, I'm alive!

I fail at blog posts, greatest apologies.

Question... We don't have an "Easter Monday", right? Here in NZ, and apparently all over Europe, they get a long four day weekend, counting both Friday and Monday surrounding Easter as public holidays. It was kind of cool listening to the radio on Friday because there were no commercials...

I want everyone to know that I'm okay. I'm working on vineyards in this town called Blenheim, which is supposed to get the most sun-hours on the south island, but today it's grey and windy. It really feels like winter is setting in- the other night we had a joint birthday party and goodbye party for some of the long-term tennants and everyone was sitting outside in their wool caps with blankets over them. Brrr! I'm so NOT prepared for cold weather.

The other day we played soccer as a hostel at a park, and it was some of the most fun I've had in the weeks since Virginia left. I am in the middle of writing a long post about all our adventures, so everyone can read what I've been up to :) Basically, the week travelling was fantastic.

Vineyard work is tough- lots of bending over to see the grapes, which sit about waist height , and getting scratches all over your arms, and there's much more pressure to go quickly than doing kiwi fruit (think supervisors behind you going 'faster!') but it's slightly better than not working at all. At least we can eat the grapes off the vine, which are always really sweet, so it's tempting to eat them all the time but you have to refrain so you don't get a sick stomach... I'm working with some of the German girls from Opotiki, and one of my contractors had a bbq at his house, so there's defintely a level of comraderie on the field.

Sorry this is so brief! I am writing a longer one, as I said, so I hope to post that really soon! Love you all, AND SEE YOU MAY 28TH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!