New Zealand. Whoa. Part II.

Continued from below…

From Milford Sound, we made our way towards Queenstown, which we summarily skipped. Now, we have heard that Queenstown is beautiful and it is the nexus of “adventure travel” in New Zealand. Being as Sally and I were not interested in dropping $200 to jump out of, off of or into something we drove on past for real adventure travel: wine tasting. Outside of Queenstown is Gibson Valley, known for its Pinot Noir. We did accidentally drive by the bridge that was the site of the very first bungee jump in the world. We had to stop and gawk. Plus it was beautiful.

Anyway, we skipped Queenstown because we wanted to get to Wanaka, a little-ish town on Lake Wanaka (naturally) that was the amazing. I want to move there. It reminded me of a much smaller Lake Tahoe—on a big lake and surrounded by mountains. Word on the street is that there is a lot of skiing around there. It being summer here, that wasn’t an option. We only had one night there, which was too bad because I really liked it.

But we were in a hurry to get to the glaciers area and it was worth it. From Wanaka, we had a couple hour drive up to Fox Glacier, where we stayed in a wonderful, wonderful hostel called Ivory Towers. They have a big, crowded hostel in town but we stayed in their cottage that they have out of town. It only has a couple of rooms, a wonderful shared kitchen and a view of Mount Cook to blind you (shrouded in clouds most of the time that we were there). We stayed there 2 nights but could have happily stayed longer. From there, we were walking distance away from Lake Matheson, which is well-traveled because of the mountain reflections in its calm waters. I went for the birding!

The real draw, however, of the glacier areas are its two accessible glaciers, Fox and Franz Josef. When we first got there in the evening, we made a run up to Fox Glacier to just hike to the terminal face which you can do without charge or fanfare. In order to get onto the ice, you have to take a guided (and pricey) tour, which I am told one should just do because it is amazing. Well, after our hike to the face of Fox Glacier we decided that the next day, we would pay the money to do the tour on Franz Josef glacier. The next day we were all booked and ready to go when the rains hit…and we started feeling the buyer’s remorse. Ultimately, we canceled the tour thinking it too expensive to run around on the ice. We also figured that there may very well be access to glaciers is in our future. Anyway, we hiked to the terminal face of that glacier as well and that was stunning. Glaciers are amazing, amazing things. Oh and if you need any more evidence that the earth is heating up, head on down to New Zealand and see that glaciers melting and retreating into the mountains as fast as they can.

Leaving Fox Glacier, we had our big driving day—something like 8 hours up the west coast and back into the mountains further north. First made a little detour down to Jackson Bay for one reason and one reason alone: penguins. I really like penguins. I don’t know why but I do. There is a penguin called the southern fjordland penguin that hangs out there but since breeding season was over, they weren’t really around. We scoured beaches and braved driving rain to get a glimpse of one but alas had no success. Abandoning the effort, we drove into the little town to turn around and there, walking down the road was one crested fjorland penguin. Cool.

So, we drove up the west coast of the southern island, which we had heard compared to Highway 1 in CA. Nope. But it was really pretty—small towns separated by miles and miles of grassland and beach on one side and the towering Southern Alps on the other. We stopped at a couple of towns to stretch and eat fudge: Hokatika and Greymouth being their names. Hokatika had been touted as a great little town. It is if you are trying to drop hundreds of dollars on jade artwork. We were fresh out of $500 bills so after gawking at some of the beautiful jade pieces, we just bought some fudge and headed out. You can’t even eat jade.

Our final destination that day was Hanmer Springs, a getaway spot for the city of Christchurch. In the winter, it is a mountain playground surrounded by mountains and skiing. The draw for us was the hot springs which are not the kind at the end of a secluded trail where some naked hippies are bathing. This was a complex with something like 10 pools of various water temperatures from pretty warm to hotter than you can stand with every kind of pulsating and massaging jet at your disposal. We just hung out there for hours, moving between pools, reading, napping, soaking again. It was sort of a cool day so it was perfect. It was perfect right up until a very large man walked by us and shook the deck that we were lounging on. Wait, he walked by but the deck was still shaking. Then when we figured that couldn’t possibly still be shaking the deck, we realized that an earthquake was happening. It was a long one but not particularly strong. Sally and I didn’t think much of it. Everyone else did. Soon after, people went running for the exit.

It turns out that the last time an earthquake was felt at Hanmer Springs was in September when a 7.1 earthquake hit outside of Christchurch and did some serious damage. When this earthquake hit, everyone at Hanmer Springs was hoping that it was just a small local quake. But as reports came out of Christchurch, that was obviously not the case. Christchurch got nailed again, this time by a smaller but more destructive quake as its epicenter was closer to the surface and closer to the city. Sally and I responded by going back into the pools, not thinking much about it.

It was when we left Hanmer Springs and headed for Kaikoura that we realized the scope. As all communications had been wiped out, there were just periodic rumors circulating around. It wasn’t until people started arriving from there, fleeing the city that it became clear just how bad it was. At that point, we also realized that family and Peace Corps were going to hear about this and that we had no ability to contact anyone. It wasn’t until the next day that we got a window of internet to shoot Peace Corps and family a note that we were OK. Of course, by then Peace Corps had sort of gone nuts. They have to account for volunteers at all times and so had to report to headquarters in DC that they couldn’t account for us and that we were in the area of the earthquake. It is all cleaned up now, but there was manhunt on for us which got as high as the US embassy in New Zealand.

Anyway, Kaikoura. Sally and I literally looked at property here. We want to move here. Ocean on one side, skiable mountains on the other and lots of fertile land for a little farm. Beautiful downtown and ridiculous scenery everywhere. We were there for three nights and never wanted to leave. Plus, they had the best fudge on our trip. We got the 5-pack. We went on a wonderful hike around the peninsula, took some bikes out for a ride, ate good food, drank good beer and wine and had a generally nice time. Most folks when they come to Kaikoura go on a whale-watching boat trip. Whales are cool, but they are no birds! I opted for the Albatross Encounter! It was one of the highlights of my trip. I won’t try to convince you just how cool large seabirds like albatross, mollymawk, and giant petrels are but I will say that if you ever have the chance to see these birds up close, you will agree with me. First of all, until you see one up close, I don’t think you can understand just how big a 9 foot wingspan is on a bird and how big that bird must be on which they are attached. We saw Wandering and Royal albatross and they are really giant, beautiful birds. From the boat, the guide threw out some chum, which drew in birds of all shapes and sizes, mostly very large and beautiful. We also saw more penguins on that trip along with a colony of seal pups and a pod of about 50 dusky dolphins jumping around. Cool. Really cool.

We left Kaikoura with a bit of dread. First of all, due to the earthquake destruction Peace Corps had told us not to go to Christchurch but to instead drive north, cross the straight between the two islands and then to try to fly out of Wellington. However, they could not help us financially. We had to drop our rental car in Christchurch and that was where our flight was. So, after some pretty tense conversations that resulted in me telling Peace Corps that we were going to do what they were telling us not to do. It was a bit of frustrating double-standard. They were telling us that we were not allowed to go to Christchurch but that since we were on annual leave on private time, they could not help with anything financially. In our minds, when you are on “private time” and paying, no one gets to tell you what to do. So, we went to Christchurch. Upon arrival it became very clear that we should not be in Christchurch.

The first thing that we saw was the liquefaction. Christchurch is built on a plain of glacial silt that holds a lot of water. So when the earth shook around, that slurry of silt and water turned into a liquid that flooded the city. Once the water settled out, it left behind a 3-5 inch layer of muddy silt covering the city. By the time that we got there, there were piles of this everywhere, almost like it had snowed and people had shoveled it out of their yards and off their driveways. Cars were buried in it and roads were closed where they hadn’t cleared yet. As we got closer to town, the roads got worse and worse where giant cracks had opened up and chunks of land decided to be a few inches higher or lower after the quake. We were trying to get to our hostel which claimed on its website to open and “fully functional” after the earthquake. We had a hell of time getting there because so many roads were closed. Ultimately, we asked one of the many police managing the city what to do and they sent us on a roundabout way to get there.

When we got to the hostel, we found that “fully functional” meant no gas, no heat, no hot water, and no water. There was bin of water that we could pull from and boil to drink. The bathroom was a port-a-potty a few blocks away. We tried to stay anywhere else but everything was full. So we settled. And just as we settled in to our room, we felt our first aftershock, a 4.4 bolt that struck fast and furiously. 10 minutes later, another one hit, and then another. We started to come to the conclusion that maybe we shouldn’t have come to Christchurch. We probably felt 10-15 aftershocks in the 10 hours that we were in Christchurch. But we dropped of our car and got on our flight to Auckland in the morning like it was nothing. Just like that, our New Zealand trip was over. And in a few short hours, we found ourselves in Nadi again, sweating profusely. Welcome home.

Alive and Well

We have heard a whole lot from family and friends concerned about us and with regards to the earthquake here in New Zealand. Thank you all for your concern but rest assured all we are alive and well. We felt the earthquake from Hamner Springs, a couple of hours from Christchurch, where there was no damage. We are now in Kaikoura which is just north of Christchurch. Phone lines and internet have been in bad shape since the earthquake, so I am sorry about the spotty and brief email contact.

The tricky part will be going home (Fiji-home I mean) since we are scheduled to fly out of Christchurch tomorrow morning. We will be driving from Kaikoura today and are just sort of hoping for the best once we get there. There is widespread damage and the central part of town is closed. That being said, we have a booking at a hostel that we are pretty sure is up and running and the airport is reportedly working, despite the tower having collapsed. Many roads are out and Christchurch is a disaster. Wish us luck!

I will continue with my blogs about our New Zealand travels soon.

New Zealand. Whoa.

As advertised, New Zealand is amazing. It is more than amazing. Consider this: the water runs all the time, there are always lights and plugs, hot water comes from the tap(!), almost all of the roads are paved, there are refrigerators around like there was a nation-wide clearance sale on them, and there exists the notion of customer service. These are all pretty much absent in Fiji and their presence alone would have made this a great trip. But, New Zealand really is an amazing place.

So, here is what is has looked like so far. We got here on Sunday night and spent a day in Auckland between our flight from Fiji and our domestic flight to the south island. Auckland was cool. We ate veggie wraps and had our first dark beer in about 2 years. It was like heaven. I’m not kidding. Monteith’s Black Beer is a wonderful, wonderful creation.

The wrap was good too. Anyway, we had just a few hours to walk around a western city, marvel at the cleanliness, the traffic signal where the green guy signaling to walk actually walks too. He moves and looks like he is doing a little dance. Anyway, that night we flew to Christchurch and stayed at a backpackers called Kiwi Basecamp.

Here we are marveling at the wonderful treats the New Zealand has to offer.  Sally also like me.

In the morning, we picked up our car. It started a little inauspiciously as the car didn’t work. A little backstory here: I have been scouring the web for cheap car rental places in NZ and this was the cheapest advertising old, but reliable, cars for discounted rates. Well, they got the old part right. The good news was that it never left the lot and we got a little upgrade. We are traveling around in a little Mazda 4-door hatchback thing. It works. As for the driving, remember that I have not driven in 4 years and I haven’t driven on the left hand side of the road in almost 10 (Australia). Did I mention that it is a manual and that you have to shift with your left hand? The first few days were a harrowing experience for all but after a few narrow misses, it is old hat. I even parallel parked that thing yesterday with little fanfare.

From Christchurch we headed south towards Dunedin, stopping along the way at craft distiller in Oamaru to try some whiskey. They had a tasting room like wine. Good stuff. Unfortunately, the whiskey maker went belly up and they aren’t making it anymore. We got to try the tail end. We didn’t buy any; I can make better. (Before I forget, there is a barrel of whiskey aging in my basement as we speak that I made before leaving for Fiji. You are all invited to the uncorking to give it a try when I get back.)

That tasting necessitated eating lunch and walking around to avoid driving under the influence on the left hand side in a manual, but Oamaru is a really neat place. The waterfront is all old warehouses that once served to supply the world’s wool. There is still a bunch of wool packing done there but the majority of the spaces were being turned into shops and alehouses and places to try whiskey.

After sobriety, we continued south to the town of Dunedin and then out to the Otago Peninsula, where we stayed in a little hamlet called Portobello for a couple of nights. The draw here was for me: birds. Specifically, penguins and albatross! We stayed at a really small place called Bus Stop Backpackers, which stopped operating 3 days after we left. The owners retired. So, I would really recommend it only, you can’t go there. Sorry. I spent my mornings running around going crazy about new birds and Sally spent them trying to get warm. I am sure that it is not particularly cold here but after a few years in Fiji, it feels pretty cold to us here.

The highlight for me was the night that we watched the little Blue penguins (smallest in the world) come ashore in groups of 25 and waddle to their nests. As long as you keep still they just walk right by you and a couple came as close as 10 feet, milling around, trying to remember where they left their babies. Super cute. We also did some good hiking and got to see my first albatross. There is a point on the peninsula where they nest and so were flying all around. These were Royal albatross and until you’ve seen one, it is impossible to explain just how big they are. With a wingspan of 9 feet, they can just glide like it’s nothing—so amazing.

We went on a few hikes as well, mostly along ridiculous beaches where the waves crash on-shore like in California and Oregon. I forgot how much I missed that. In Fiji, there aren’t any waves at the beach because they all get knocked down at the fringing reef. The beaches in Fiji are quiet, docile affairs. Beaches in New Zealand are chaotic and loud, and thanks to my heritage, I prefer the latter. Then again, I didn’t swim in these waters (cold!). On the beaches, we got to see fur seals and sea lions and lots of more birds.

After Otago, we hit the road inland to Te Anau where all of the New Zealand’s tourists end up. The town is amazingly beautiful and reminiscent of Lake Tahoe, with its town situated on a massive lake. We stayed at a gigantic holiday park that had fields of tents, rows and rows of campervans and mobile homes and cabins all over the place. I don’t recommend these. It was pretty cool to see how everyone travels but there were really a lot of people there. Te Anau on the other hand is worth the price of admission.

First of all, there were the glow worm caves. Whoa. The only way to see them is to take this tour but it is worth it. The cave is pretty standard. You walk in with a guide and she tells you all the cool stuff about caves and water and you look at crazy formations and underwater waterfalls and the like. But then you get into this little Gollum-esque boat and the turn off the lights and you paddle into this grotto which is totally black expect that these worms that live there glow on the wall. They are everywhere and they make constellations all over the walls and roof. It was amazing. Do this if you are in New Zealand. Sorry, no photos of this—not allowed as the wee beasties don’t like it.

Just outside of Te Anau, we took the road up to Milford Sound. First of all, this road is really beautiful and had we not taken a boat into the Sound (really a fjord, not a sound at all), the drive would have been worth it. I guess that I have not seen many glacial valleys in my life outside of Yosemite, but they are unbelievable. Crazy mountains, impossibly deep valleys, waterfalls everywhere, and lakes with water colored like it is straight out of a toxic waste dump. We went on a hike in those mountains following a part of the famous Routeburn track that people reserve months ahead of time to hike over 3-4 days. We just did a day hike there so we didn’t need to book it. Beautiful forest full of trees from some other planet, lots of birds. Then we got up above tree-line and impressive views of the surrounding mountains opened up. Cool.

Milford Sound is a bit of a tourist mecca, but worth it despite the crowds. The draw is the boats that tour the fjord and we hopped on one of those. We took an early morning boat to avoid the crowds (and because it was cheaper) and were happy we did. We spent a couple of hours cruising the fjord and just staring agape at the world around us: waterfalls, mountains, glaciers, birds, fur seals. It was great.

From here, we head off to the west coast. More to come!..

I Will No Longer Play

There are many games that one must play in Fiji. There is the “Try-To-Figure-Out-Who-You-Are-Talking-To-On-The-Phone Game”, the “Guess-When-The-Meeting–Will-Actually-Start Game,” and my personal favorite, “The Kerekere Game.” I hereby declare that I am done playing them.

The first game, “Try-To-Figure-Out-Who-You-Are-Talking-To-On-The-Phone” goes like this. When you call someone on the phone, never, ever identify yourself. First, repeat the greeting, “Bula” as many times as you can get away with. Then, if you are making the call, yell the person’s name you are calling in the receiver repeatedly until they guess who you are. Do not, under any circumstances give the receiver of the call an inclination as to who you are or what you want. If they ask your name, respond by yelling their name into the phone again. Continue this until the person guesses who you are correctly. It is the part of receiver that I will no longer be playing. I will now limit my participation in the game to a maximum of two “Bulas.” If a name as to who is calling is not immediately forthcoming, I hang up the phone. Let this be a lesson if you are calling internationally to not trifle with telephone sporting with me.

The “Guess-When-The-Meeting–Will-Actually-Start Game” is one that I am more willing to play. Meetings start when everyone is there and not before. So there is plenty of time spent waiting for everyone to get there. The thing is, you don’t want to sit there waiting for everyone else to get there. So what most people do is to try to time it so that they get there just as the last person arrives, making them, you guessed it, the last person there. You know that there is going to be a meeting because someone blows the conch shell (davui). You would have to be a straight idiot to go to the meeting the first time they blow the davui. I used to go after the second time, but I soon found out that going then also made me a straight idiot. You go after the third one, but even then you wait a bit. I try to not be the last one there, but someone towards the end of the line is ideal. Sally is really good at this. She will often walk in as the meeting is getting underway.

The third game, called the “The Kerekere Game” is a game that I thought I was up for but almost two years into Fjii, I quit. Here is how it works. If someone asks you for something, you give it to them. Likewise if someone has something that you want, you just ask them for it and they give it to you. Simple rules, no? Now, we know that we have come out on the losing end of this, but the built in insurance of always being able to bum flour or sugar or a cat when yours ran out or died was in its own way, worth it. So, we played…for a long time…longer than most. It started out simple enough—people asking for a little sugar because theirs ran out, or an egg, maybe a little flour or if they could use our knife. No problem. I guess the turning point was the guitar. My rule with the guitar had been, you can use it, but I am coming with it. I made the mistake ONE TIME of letting some folks use it without me. That has meant that whenever a group of trashed (on grog) men decide that they want a guitar, they come a-knocking.

Let’s talk about knocking protocol for a minute. I bet that you didn’t even think that something like how you knock on someone’s door changes culturally. In the US, you knock a few times, wait about 30 seconds, and knock again. If you are familiar with the dweller, you may shout a name. If there is no answer after that, you leave figuring that they are either away or don’t want you. In Fiji, there is either time to kill or a very indomitable spirit. You go to your neighbors and repeat this pattern: Knock, knock, knock “Name.” Knock, knock, knock “Name.” This is repeated until someone comes to the door. Volume is not raised and the pattern is not changed. There is also no end. The knock is fairly quiet so that if you are sleeping, it may take a while to hear. And you may not ignore it. One time, someone came over to my neighbor’s house, the pastor (Talatala), before his house washed away in the flood of course, for something. I knew that Talatala had gone to town that day and wasn’t at home. The knocker did not. I kid you not, the knocker repeated, knock, knock, knock, “Talatala” for upwards of a half an hour with no interruption, no raise in volume or frequency, nothing. Like a machine. It sort of faded into the background for me and I decided that I wanted to see how long this would continue. So I didn’t tell him. 30 minutes, nonstop.

Anyway, back to the guitar. So there a group of grog-doped guys who want a guitar. They decide that someone should go kerekere mine. They had asked multiple times throughout the course of the day and I told them that if I go and drink grog, I will bring it but I won’t be giving it to anyone. (Lest you think that I am a selfish monster, Fijians are notorious for not giving a damn about material things and things just aren’t taken care of like you or I would.) I go to bed at 10:00pm usually when the generator goes off. There are no lights on and the doors are closed—both pretty clear to signs to me that sleeping is happening at this house. It doesn’t matter. Knock, knock, knock “Brian” starts. The first time it happened, I thought that I would pretend like I was sleeping until they went away. They never went away. 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes: knock, knock, knock, “Brian.” Then it stopped. He had gone away. Then from my bedroom window: knock, knock, knock, “Brian.” That is when Sally lost her cool and yelled at him something along the lines of having intercourse with himself. He left. I went to sleep.

20 minutes later it started again: knock, knock, knock, “Brian.” It woke me up eventually and I let it go for a bit before I finally got up and went and yelled at him for waking me up since with the doors closed and the lights off, I was obviously sleeping. He replied, “Sorry, but can I have the guitar?” I said no, emphatically. 20 minutes later, again: knock, knock, knock, “Brian.” This time I got up immediately and chewed out whomever it was as best as my Fijian would allow. Unfortunately, my Fijian is all pretty polite so I wasn’t able to fully express my emotion. That third one was the last that night…that night. It has happened since.

But the guitar is not where it has stopped. The kerekere has expanded from the simple food items to school fees for kids, my shoes, clothes, and worst of all, money. The money one we had run into before but for some reason, it has gotten more pronounced lately. One day I was working in the garden and I guy I sort of knew came up to me. The conversation went like this:

Him: Wow, those tomatoes look great.

Me: Thanks, I can give you some starts if you want to plant your own.

Him: Oh, that would be great. What plant is that right there?

Me: That is a broccoli. It’s in the same family as cabbage and you eat the flower!

Him: The flower! Wow, that’s interesting. Kerekere, can I have $300?

Me: No.

Him: OK, it looks like it will be hot today.

Me: Yeah, looks like it.

Him: OK, I am going over here now. Bye.

Me: Bye.

Just like that. That was the most money that we have been asked for, but we are now getting daily requests for $2, $5, $10. I learned that lesson right away not to give or loan (same thing) money to Fijians. The problem isn’t the amount; it is that they will blab about it and then everyone and their uncle wants their $2 too. And worse is that recently, friends have started asking for just about everything. In a shared culture, if you have it, you share. That is no problem for most people because they don’t have anything. It is easy to share nothing. However, we have things partly because we just plan ahead. We think, hey if I am going to use this much flour this month, I am going to buy this much flour. Fijians don’t think that way. You use your flour and when you are out, you just go kerekere. That means that Fijians are always out of everything and we always have it.

So, I quit. I lose. You win. And I am done playing the kerekere game. We are actually going to have the chief tell the village at the next village meeting on Tuesday. Sally and Brian are no longer playing kerekere so please do not include them in any more of your matches. Speaking of matches, kerekere Brian, can you give me some?

Sorry Australia

Well, that cyclone that we made just to the north of us decided that it wants to eat Australia.  What happened is that after it turned west and left Fiji, the Tropical Depression TD09F up and turned itself into cyclone Yasi and decided that North Queensland had once slandered its mother.  It is now a Category 5, and lest you are wondering why I care enough to post this on my blog, North Queensland and I go way back to 2002 when I got my MS and James Cook University in Cairns. If that sounds familiar, its because you cheated and looked ahead to the map and thought to yourself, "I sure would hate to be in Cairns right now."  Well, that is probably what my friends there are thinking.  Let me take this moment to apologize for what Fiji accidentally generated in our waters.  And please be safe all in the way.