"We were brainwashed and we loved it. Every Saturday night the entire camp marched into a clearing in the woods, where we lit a gigantic bonfine. Four girls were selected each week to dip torches into the crackling fireball. Each torch represented a moral category at which we aimed to excel: Friendship, Cleanliness, Sportsmanship, and Love. What they really were were long sticks we'd find in the woods the evening before. We'd wrap the ends in extra-large overnight maxi pads and roast them in the flames as we said our prayers. Then we'd hold them above our heads, imagining how embarrassing it would be to explain that one's death - or worse, one's disfigurement - came from a flaming maxi pad to the face."
On Wednesday we'll be heading home to Ohio to celebrate Easter - and Christmas - our birthdays, Thanksgiving, and Independence Day. However, you've probably noticed I didn't get to finish NZ. This is A GREAT SADNESS - or at least pretty darn big disappointment. I think my best bet is to dump and run. Then, maybe someday, I'll get to revisit this time and add more detail. (Currently listening to AT40 from March 1974 - the gift of NZ keeps on giving!)
That's as far as I got. It's two weeks later and I'm back from the US. I am beginning to despair.
No photography permitted in the glow worm caves. Seems glow worms are insecure beasts who get there feelings hurt and stop glowing if a bigger glow, like a camera flash, goes off in the area. I'll try to give you a bit of a feeling for the whole thing.
First, a very pleasant boat trip across part of Lake Te Anau, The Largest Lake in the South Island.
Second, the passengers are divided into groups of about 10 or 12 persons and groups are singly led to the cave. Here, clinging to a hand rail I lead the way with one small flashlight though TOTAL DARKNESS. Seems the lights aren't working. Yet. Soon they are back on and we walk more confidently through the cave looking at "cave stuff" including some pretty amazing rushing water. Then, we reach the little row boat where we line up, seated, back to back, down the center of the boat. Once again all lights are extinguished. Our guide drags the little boat through the glow worm cave into nooks and crannies where the blackness above us is interrupted by shimmering points of lights like stars in a cloudless night sky. In one cul de sac he pauses, spins the boat, and then...nothing. We float under these sticky, glowing fishing lines for one minute, two minutes, three minutes... and my mind is filled with what seems to me to be the only rational thought appropriate at this time. "What if he's been killed? and we are left alone in this total darkness to feel our way out??????????? What if there's a glow worm mutant with strands so sticky and toxic that its preferred prey is no longer moth, but human? Have we been brought to its lair and abandoned? Was our guide the first victim?"
Another minute and the boat once again is gliding - retracing our path to the dimly lit dock.
We return to the visitor's center and wait for the remaining groups to complete the glow worm tour. In the visitor's center there is coffee or tea or cocoa and an employee gives a little spiel about glow worms (don't touch their glowing threads - the toxin will numb your finger. It's a little late for this information, in my opinion.) and about the once (believed to be) extinct Takahe. We glance at the posters on the wall and wander out to the beach.
By the time we return to Te Anau it is after 6 PM and our goal is to make Invercargill where we have a reservation for the night. Still, we stop once again to see the takahe who is looking, as I've already told you, a bit more alive than yesterday.
Another beautiful evening to drive. We drive along Lake Manapouri (NZ's *second* deepest lake) and pass within 32 km of Lake Hauroko (NZ's *deepest* lake). At McCracken's Rest we turn off and enjoy the sunset at the most southwestern point on the Southern Scenic Route.
It is about this time that the radio gets very intersting - Not only were there advertisements for a company that specializes in "Home Kill" (when the killing simply must be done at home but nobody has the time. "Our mobile slaughtering service is for the general public, hunters and farmers") but it was time for Casey Kasem's American Top 40 from the 1970s! We listened to "If I can't have you", "Flashlight", "The Goodbye Girl", and "Dust in the Wind" and played name that year (1977). It was such a thrill! We've reached that age where we prefer listening to music we 'know' rather than what's new on the chart. But, the "classic" radio we hear in Australia has a limited playlist. I don't know if it reflects the radio playing in Brisbane back "in the day" or the tastes of "our generation" of Brisbanites now. (I'm guessing that whatever the reason someone begins the explanation with "I'm not prejudiced but...") It was fun - like running into old friends you haven't seen (heard) for years and years and years (high school!) A song would be "debuting" on the chart and we'd know - "Oh, you'll go far! People will be listening 30 years from now!" or "Gee, I know you're excited about this. Enjoy your brush with fame. Invest that money now."
We arrived in Invercargill, found our hostel, parked just as "our song" played. Heatwave's "Always and Forever".
Another early morning - driving along the Milford Road from Te Anau to Milford Sound. A gorgeous strip of land with (more) mountains, streams, waterfalls and CLOUDS. A number of very nice walks for which we had very little time. We set a goal of being on a Milford Sound Cruise before the big tour buses arrived.
That doesn't mean that we didn't stop - nor that we didn't take a couple short walks.
The Homer Tunnel - sight of THE highest alpine traffic light! (Sorry, you can't see the traffic light. There was nothing unusual about it - just the location was unique.)
And, finally, the Chasm Walk. We buzzed through this walking loop - more to keep ahead of the pack of German tourists that were clogging the path than due to our time constraints. What we were instructed by our guide books to appreciate was the massive volume of water that moves through this area and I must say the streams and water falls were very impressive.
We were very pleased to find Keas in the parking lot when we returned from our walk - just like the guide books said we might - and even more pleased to find they were not eating Anna and Andrew's car!
The Milford Sound is really a fjord. (I love that word! I remember learning it in 3rd grade geography class. It hasn't gotten to be any less fun to say.) Our cruise took us through the fjord and into the ocean (just barely). We had chosen the "Nature Cruise" rather than the "Scenic Cruise" because we figured it would be hard to miss the scenic element of the location. So, along the way we nosed up to two spots where the fur seals like to snooze and even turned around in order to cruise with a small pod of bottle nose dolphins. The cliffs surrounding the sound (which isn't, really) were streaming with water falls thanks to the recent rainy days. Only a couple are always "on" and to appreciate them fully we pulled up with the bow of the boat underneath two of them. I didn't stand in the full spray - not good for my camera, you know - but Kevin got dampish.
After the cruise we retraced our path - now with sunshine
Partly this was because I had taken the New Zealand original "Sea Legs" anti-motion sickness tablet prior to our cruise and, despite what the clerk at the chemist told me, I was very, very drowsy. Partly it was something else, of course. Glow Worms in Te Anau. We were hoping to get back in time to see the caves and still have enough hours left in the day to travel onward.
Eventually the day comes when one must do laundry. That day would be Saturday, February 20. Interesting, there isn't much of a crowd in the laundry at 7 AM. The people who do come in tend to walk in, open a washing machine and look inside, then walk out. I do not understand.
Our plan for the day - Queenstown. Added bonus? The road between Wanaka and Queenstown is the highest paved road in New Zealand. Woohoo! And, you probably will find this hard to believe - I mean - isn't just being high and paved enough? - but, no, there's more - it is scenic.
Queenstown is a big tourist mecca which for us meant we struggled to find parking. On the other hand, it was easy to find a reasonably priced lunch. Our Queenstown highlights:
Diving Ducks (Papango): For $5 you can enter the under water observatory and then, for only another $1, you can release food pellets. Trout, eels, and the New Zealand diving duck scramble to "eat them up, yum!".
The Gondola: Not the flat bottom boat or the passenger basket under a balloon, but the enclosed cabin suspected from an overhead cable. A beautiful trip up the mountain to get an overview of the Queenstown region, watch bungee jumpers, and ponder the toilet habits of the world. Here we learned a couple of useful things. If you decline the photo package (you and your party in the gondola!!!!), they will reduce the price and offer to break it up! (only the CD? only the postcards?) And, if you offer me only the postcards for $10, I'll buy them.
We enjoyed our walk up to the gondola but didn't go in to see the aviary or play miniature golf, though I've since been told it is phenomenal. We did drift through the cemetery and pause to pose for some photos for ourselves.
Our evening lodging was scheduled, so we had to leave in the mid-afternoon. Te Anau. The beautiful landscapes were made more so by remembering that we were still alive.
Te Anau - you have to love a place with a big blue chicken statue. This is the Takahe, once believed to be extinct - now, as we saw, to be very sleepy. They have a 20+++ year old female at the Te Anau Wildlife Centre. We visited her twice over the two evenings we spent in Te Anau. Two visits were necessary to feel like we were seeing a live bird.
We debated traveling to see the "other" glacier - Fox Glacier. Ultimately, considering our limited time and what a fabulous experience we'd had already at Franz Josef (and, really, what more could you expect from a second glacier?) we decided to go to the lookout then push South.
The little off-road to the lookout and the path down to the look out were WAYYYYYYY better than the lookout. "That's it?" we asked a young man who was coming from the opposite direction. Yes, we'd seen the best view. There are no photos - and this doesn't even count as one of the photos I missed.
We did enjoy some spectacular views on our continued journey - including mountains,
By far, however, the most exciting scene was something totally unexpected. Our road emerged once again at the seaside at Sandy Beach (Bruce Bay) and there stood for hundreds of feet a series of cairns. We added ours. Very simple. We're new at holy.
We ended our day in Wanaka, home of the Cinema Paradiso - too late for the 6 PM showing of "Sherlock Holmes" and, as was to happen to us again and again and again in little cinemas across New Zealand, too unimpressed for a second (or third or forth or) viewing of "Avatar". We ate their pizza - very good - but were disappointed not to see the cinema itself, let alone enjoy a film from a car seat or comfy sofa. (One thing I'm sure of, however, is that the sofa would not have included a dog. New Zealand was very unfriendly toward dogs. Very.)
Even combining my new year's eve resolution to look presentable in public with assigned clothing (jacket and pants), I manage to find my inner bag woman.
Another early morning on the road - destination Franz Josef Glacier. The most remarkable thing - it was sunny. (This becomes more amazing when we learn that the Glaciers get over 7 METERS of rain each year!)
Random thoughts.
It is OK to wear shorts. I worried about what to wear because jeans were verboten and I only had my blue jeans and a pair of black jeans. Denim they say will get wet and stay wet and your leg will fall off - or something to that effect. I changed into my shorts after I saw the fashionable and warm pants they had for us to wear.
Layers are good. Walking and climbing can get pretty sweaty. Standing around in walls of ice one cools off.
Hat and gloves. Even though they said we wouldn't need them - they were very nice to have.
Clamp on spikes. Watch out! Sexy and practical!
The photos follow our progress. From the point we entered the rocky "stream" leading to the glacier - from photo 2 - to the glacier was 2 km. Amazing! It didn't look an inch over 1.8 km.
The "ice cave" with the stream running through - we saw some of that ice - hunks - dropping off into the stream. Splash! Just like ice coming off the back wheel wells!
In the photo where people are looking over the edge at the glacier - look - you'll see 2 groups of people ON the glacier and they are very, very tiny. (Physics. Heat expands. People are smaller on ice.)
The hike involved climbing up, up, up a gravel wall - with a rope hand rail, thank you. During the journey across the boulder/gravel/rocks to the ice I was thinking NEVER AGAIN! Even with the spikes, the rocks would roll and I could imagine the tumble I was up for. Once we hit the ice, it was much easier.
It was a very, very cool thing to do - and I haven't even mentioned the fancy public toilets (the "Exeloo") in the little town of Franz Josef. Two thumbs up from both Kevin and Ann!
Get your motor running Head out on the highway....
Thursday the 18th was a big driving day. We were taking on The Western Highway - dubbed by Lonely Planet as one of the planet's best road trips!!! Probably pretty high up in the universe, as well.
First, we had to get to Westport from our mountain cabinesque sleeping spot at the Hu Ha Bikepackers. (They let us stay even though we had no bikes to pack.) And, you can't just drive drive drive, particularly when you are passing New Zealand's LONGEST SWING BRIDGE! So, we bridged then walked their little loop through the NZ rainforest - but we did not take the flying fox back. While everything was wet, wet, wet there was reason to hope that the sun might be coming out soon.
Perhaps if it were not raining so hard, it would have been more obvious that after you park your car near the picnic table you need to cross the highway at the hairpin curve to climb up to where the real lookout awaits.
Eventually we came to Punakaiki National Park - the home of the Pancake Rocks. First, however, we needed to make arrangements for lodging overnight and register for climbing the glacier the next day. (Being on vacation we weren't really thinking that "tomorrow is Friday" and that weekends might be challenging for finding economical lodging near major attractions. These activities took longer than they sound. Oh, and we ate lunch!)
Pancake Rocks: The waves crashing onto the shore were fabulous. This time I remembered the continuous function on my camera and so I have whole series of photos of waves approaching, cresting, exploding, receding. The down side? My camera got pretty wet and the view finder has never had the same clarity since. (It is still usable. This is not a tragic story.)
Kevin identified an old ghost town so we detoured inland. Waiuta was a gold mining town - established in the first decade of the twentieth century. In 1951 the mine collapsed and since this was the source of employment for the entire community, they all left town. As we drove eastward the day brightened and there was no significant threat of rain remaining as we completed the 7 km dirt road leading into town. As you might expect, there are mostly building skeletons (foundations, chimneys). What you wouldn't guess unless maybe you knew something about gold mining was that there were signs posted everywhere describing what a toxic mess the ground was. By the time we'd seen the town and driven on to find the processing plant, the dark clouds had found us.
And, then, we drove back to the coast. We were too late for both the National Kiwi Centre and the Hokitika Sock Machine Museum (oh no!). And, while we did stop at the Glow Worm Dell just outside of Hokitika - it is hard to appreciate a glow worm in the daylight! Most disappointing - we could not get to Okarito in time for the Kiwi safari (boasting a 90% success rate in finding kiwi in the WILD). We did reach our Thursday home in Hari Hari in time for the the "Criminal Minds" marathon.
I saw the hematologist yesterday and my last two blood counts were completely normal. I am not considered normal, however, and I wonder if or when I ever will be. Will I forever be the woman who spent a year without neutrophils? Next check up, September.
As we drove from Cape Farewell back down the narrow road to the "body" of the island we noted the mud-flat were gone - replaced with water lapping up to the green strip fringing the pavement. At the end of the spit road we took a short detour to Collingwood for lunch.
From Collingwood we needed to do a couple of hours of backtracking to get to the highway that would take us down the western coast. So, we had the opportunity to stop at some of the sights we'd passed up the day before.
Pupu Springs (Te Waikoropupu)- the largest freshwater springs in NZ and reputed to be the clearest in the world. We followed a short walking trail to the spring where we were disappointed not to recognize any sand dancing. Maybe sand doesn't dance in the rain. At the big spring pool stood a guide who was very knowledgeable and informed us about all sorts of spring facts and figures. Amazingly helpful for someone standing in the rain... but at least he had an umbrella.
Ngarua Caves - Kevin was excited about seeing caves. He'd identified several in the South Island. One, Harwood's Hole, the largest cave in the Southern Hemisphere!!!, we had already decided to skip. (Eleven kilometers on an unsealed road then a 30 minute walk (in the rain) to peer into a big dark hole - no entry.) We pulled into the parking lot and split up as it was just past 4 PM and that was the time of the day's last tour. Kevin rushed in to see if we could get tickets while I found our coats. Everything worked out and the cave was a fine one - with all the stalactites and stalagmites a person could want, the mandatory turn off the lights ("this is what real darkness looks like"), and moa bones!
Moas were a form of flightless birds. New Zealand is literally crawling (well walking) with flightless birds and these were particularly big flightless birds. Flightless birds do well on an island with no predators. Unfortunately for New Zealand birds, particularly the moa, the predator-free status changed. While many of NZ's are struggling to survive the introduction of stoats and ferrets, cats and dogs, the moa were wiped out by people. Giant chickens (up to 12 feet tall) - it was all too easy.
Our final stop on the Farewell Spit - Cape Farewell - The northernmost point on the South Island - but you knew that. Kevin's a big fan of superlatives. I think it because he's such a tall person with a freakishly large head.
Another walk through pasture ending not at a beach but at a cliff. (Stay behind the safety railing! Hold onto children lest they be blown off!) Sheep. Seals. Waves. And, the introduction of .... rain.
