I went off the map for a while on the West Coast of the South Island - by far the most undeveloped aread of NZ. Tho, I did feed a wild pig some toast. And I saw a possum, and the bus ran over a few. Some of those towns are frontier era - wood fire stove for heat, a whole town with only 5 telephones (a few with none), places running on a generator (and the generator is shut off at 11pm, so it’s lights out for everyone). The people in this region are similarly joked about like the Appalachian regions of the US: six-fingered hands.
I’ve pretty much been doing a nature tour of NZ up until now. I went to Abel Tasman Nat’l Park and did some walking on the shore and sea kayaking. I spent four days there, a few with rain, but I stayed on a farm - roosters sounding early in the morning, ducks walking around and laughing, llamas nibbling away at the lawns, peacocks parading around! The place was very calm, tho not quiet; but I did learn quite a few new card games!
Uh, James the driver took us (the bus) to Westport for a brewery stop (cheap good beer! 2L = NZ$7!); he also took us to an Op Shop where we could get anything we wanted for $1. We decided to cross dress and go to tourist places. The guys all looked like knitting grandmas, and the girls dressed up as lumberjacks (”and that’s ok!”). We got some great faces, some good smiles, and even the rare (but most rewarding) look of embarassment. The best spot for embarrassing tourists was Punakaiki - a place on the coast with pancake-like rock formations. We saw the sunset there as well (which is quite early down here - 5:20 or so).
I walked all over the Franz Josef glacier the next day. The guides gave us special cramp-on metal spikes so that our shoes could grab the ice! We walked through ice caves and ravines, negotiated tall and narrow ledges, and had a really long and exhausing day. The glacier moves about 5m per day; it’s one of the fastest glaciers in the world. It also gets about 10m of snow each winter.
I jumped off the bus for a day and met a German with a car. He drove me to another glacier (Fox) and we walked up to it (tho not on it - pieces of ice and rock were falling all over the place). It was a great experience - meet a guy at breakfast, and hang out with him in the afternoon.
I got on the bus the next day and went to Queenstown, the adventure capital of NZ, and maybe the world. Heaps of bungy jumps (from 43m to 138m), skydiving, and other death-tempting silly things. But before hand, we stopped in Wanaka to check out the Puzzle World: home of the first 3-D maze. It takes about an hour to solve, so we didn’t do the whole thing. We also went into other illusion rooms and saw stunning holograms. There was a hologram of a microscope. If you ‘looked’ into the microscope, you saw the what the scope was magnifying (a computer chip). One room was built on a 15 degree angle and really confused your sense of balance. They put in water falls that appeared to flow uphill (thanks to the incline).
Once in Queenie, we went out for a nice Thai meal (the first proper meal since leaving the beautiful and untouched West Coast). And then dancing in a club to bad music. I just don’t dig top 40 pop. Oh well. I had a full day in Queenstown, and while my bus friends threw themselves off of ledges, I took in a few walks and sights. I went to the highest hill around and saw the Remarkables and the lake of Queenstown. Once again, a stark constrast of scenery. The West Coast is often called the Wet Coast because it receives so much rain. The forests are temporate rain forests (like Oregon), and the sky is mostly silver all day. But in the hills of Queenstown, I was taken back to Banff in the Canadain Rockies. The differnce, tho, is the lack of soil. The mountains in NZ are so rocky and exposed, that soil cannot stay anywhere close to the tops. Thus, you see a tree line at about 400m, and the mountains are 2000m high! The ridges look just like saw blades.
We continued on to Milford Sound the next day and took a short cruise in it. More rugged mountains - they almost felt normal because we had been seeing them so much recently. But the sound was very quiet and serene. Temporary waterfalls were everywhere along the sides because it had rained the previous day. We saw seals and a few native birds as well.
The next day was a short travel day - to Invercargill - the southernmost city in NZ. We drove out to Bluff, which is nearly the southernmost tip of the south island. Just look out to the sea, knowing that over the horizon is Antarctica! It was the furthest I’ve been from the equator - 46deg south.
I pushed off to Dunedin, which is a uni town, so that means there are cool cafes and cheap restaurants and entertaining clubs. I’m rather surprised there’s no swing here. There’s a cafe called “the Arc” which has everything! Free internet, cheap food, good chai, poetry nights, concerts, the works. It’s so cheap because it’s subsidized by a not-for-profit trust! A cool idea, and it appears to be working rather well.
I went out last night with some people from my bus; we toured a brewery
(Speights), sampled beer for an hour, went to a pub for dinner. We moved onto an Irish pub where we met some locals who brought us to a student night club where they played top 40 crap music (there’s a theme here). But I danced anyway and had a good time. Poppin’ and lockin’, yo.
Two of the lads on the bus that went along were Irish and we got along well. They were incredibly funny and quick witted. Always laughing and playing pranks on each other.
But I’ve jumped off the bus, so all my friends are gone. I’m in Dunnes for a few more days before returning to ChCh. I’ll check out a few of the more arty cafes and dance to some proper hip-hop tonight (fingers crossed).