In the House of Tom Bombadil

I awoke to my alarm playing Spoon. It was Friday morning, my second-to-last day in NZ. I quickly packed up all my things and went outside at precisely 7.40 am to meet Phil with the van. It was pouring rain, but it was a soft, fresh rain. Scottish. Or maybe that's how most island rain feels.

I fell asleep in the back of the van almost immediately, waking only now and again when Phil swerved off into some back back back road to deliver a package or pick up a passenger. About half way through the drive back down to Westport, I woke up and regaled Phil with a dramatic re-telling of the prior day's events. I watched him wince and frown and make an assortment of faces at me in the rear view mirror. He laughed good and long when I told him about the 'glowing eyes' though.

"They were glow worms, mate. GLOW worms. HAHAHAHA!"

Phil being Phil, I surmised that by the very next day most of the South Island's west coast would have heard tall tales from Phil about the strange American girl who was afraid of glow worms. Something so harmless that you buy stuffed versions of the things for tots. (Well, we also buy stuffed snakes, tigers and bears for kids, too...but they're usually wearing pants or smiling).

We picked up two more women on the remainder of the trip. Of course item #1 on Phil's agenda once boarding a new passenger was to tell the story of the glow-worms. Yes Phil, glad to provide you with such amusement. Jolly good.

Actually, to be honest it was nice to have people from this country who were already teasing me like brothers or old friends. But lest I laugh too quickly at my own plights the day before, the smell of rain forest still covered me. Sickeningly sweet. I tried chewing gum.

In Westport I said goodbye to Phil and was truly sad to part ways with my first real New Zealand mate. I immediately went into Gibby's and ordered a ginormous, hot plate of breakfast: grilled tomatoes, wheat toast with real butter, bacon, two eggs, a sausage the size of a small submarine, and a tall glass of newly squished orange juices.

It was still pouring rain by the time I finished my "I'm Still Alive, Let's Celebrate With Cholesterol" breakfast of goodness and delight. I'd been planning to 'thumb it' all the way up to Nelson-- almost 3 hours northeast, but a few locals warned me that no one wants to pick up a wet hiker, no matter how charming their tales about glow worms might be. So I booked another passage on a van service headed all the way to Nelson, with one quick stop for lunch at Murchison-- a beautiful little town nestled at the bottom of massive, wild, Kahurangi National Park-- the park of that fell beast, Mount Stormy. I've never had a moment in my life in which I wasn't thinking about, wishing to be in, or enjoying the mountains. This Friday was a new first, truly: the thought of the mountain still made me queasy; anxious in a way that you'd feel upon meeting a good friend after you'd quarreled. Oh, and this friend had tried to kill you. Let's just say the feeling of magical power and romance the mountains never fail to give me....failed me that day. And a bit still, I imagine. Those wounds went deep. Indeed, it was only later that night that I was finally able to take a scorching hot shower, wash all my clothes with three doses of soap, and assess the physical damage properly: I had a fascinating array of colored bruised all up and down my legs and arms, and had scratches on any part of flesh that'd been uncovered. Also, I realized it was difficult to breathe deeply- I must have partially re-injured my quasi-punctured lung, which was a little treat from New Year 2007's misadventures with a sled, a mountain and that mean, stupid hut-thing at the bottom of said mountain. [It still hurts to take deep breaths now, July 3rd, exactly three weeks to the day later. Maldita.]

We switched vans at Murchison, myself and the two other passengers from Westport. We joined a bubbly group who'd just come from who knows where, and all prepared to set out for Nelson together. Before we took off, our young, sprightly chauffeur calling roll for the new collated mass of persons:
"Thomas."
"Crull."
"Mr. and Mrs. Coffin"--at which point an elderly lady in the back piped up and said "Aahya, wouldn't a taken bus on Friday the 13th wid name like THAT on board". Everyone laughed. It was a fun group.

I fell asleep again. I had panicky, flitting dreams about mud and slime and moving in slow motion, and always and everywhere, that pungent, wet, breathing smell of the forest covering my mouth and nose and eyes and...

I woke with a start. The van had pulled to the side of a steep pass and the passengers were all stirring from various degrees of sleepiness to take stock of the situation: the van had stalled. In the middle of nowhere. And I mean NO WHERE. Our driver got on the horn to the Big People, who said they'd have to drive out a new van and a mechanic to fix the old one, but the nearest town was over an hour's drive out of the mountains. Nothing for it but to wait.

Fortunately, the stranded folks were all of a jovial sort that make for good company. Well, there was one creepy guy who kept mumbling about alcohol, but we ignored him. Two teenagers immediately set to work flirting with each other and chatting about this and that, she sitting on a pile of gravel tossing little pebbles from it into the road, he standing facing her, tossing little pebbles from the road back onto the pile. I warn them that they're canceling out each other's efforts. They laugh, and I bet the boy 50 NZ cents that I can hit yon tree on its one, small bark-less spot with a single, tiny pebble. You're on, he says, and shakes my hand. I make a big dramatic scene of picking the correct rock, shaking out my left arm, breathing in deep (ouch), and aiming...

..and of course I miss it by a mile. The pebble drops a good 10 yards in front of the tree and both the teens double over in laughter. He thought I was scamming him because I'd suggested the game so randomly, and then swaggered with such American confidence over to the gravel pile to choose my projectile with much care and discernment. We all had a good laugh (and now that I think of it I never did give him the 50 cents), and we went on inventing similar games to amuse ourselves for a while. After an hour or so, the elderly folks chided us younguns' for not running down the mountain to bring them steaming cups of soup. Lazy youths, they chuckled. It was a damp, chilly day. All the mountains were wearing mist, just like Mount Stormy had exactly 23 hours earlier. I shuddered, decided not to think about that and started chatting to another young girl engrossed in a novel, standing next to me. She's early 20s, actually from Maryland. She's been studying forest ecology in Australia and now she's WWOOFing in NZ for a few months. She was really cool. One of those people you immediately click with. She was also the sort of person who I wished could have been on the mountain with me yesterday. Not only because of the ecology bit-- she just seemed down- to- earth and practical in a way that I never will be and so I desperately need friends who are. You know, to keep me from... well, killing myself. Probably.

Finally the new van arrived to take us the remainder of our journey up to Nelson, a town known for its bohemian artistry and fabulous local wine. The drive seems to last forever, and since this new van is decidedly smaller than our first one, we are crammed in like sardines. The American girl sits next to me and we bury our noses in books, since it's much too rainy to see any countryside out the window. I have to hold my backpack on my lap. Of course, it reeks of forest. First order of business at new hostel: WASH CLOTHES. Everything was going in the tub: shoes, backpack, every inch of clothing I wore or thought about wearing or maybe wore at some point that day was getting sterilized within an inch of its life.

The hostel I stayed in in Nelson was amazing. It was just the sort of cozy, bright and happy retreat that I imagine the House of Tom Bombadil was for the hobbits after *their* encounter with a menacing forest. The hostel was called The Bug, run by a British guy in his early thirties, his partner Anne, and their spotted dog, Yukon. As I said, it was incredibly warm, friendly, fresh bread baking, hot steamy showers, small dorm rooms with only four beds and butter-yellow walls with a scent of fresh flowers and clean linen... unsurprisingly it's a huge rarity to find warm, good-smelling hostels, but I must say that by sheer chance I happened to stayed at the most fabulous places while in New Zealand. All dripping with character, very clean and safe. This one also had free internet so I could finally tell a few people I was still alive, and book my tickets for the TranzCoastal train. The TranzCoastel takes you for a six-hour ride from Picton--just east of Nelson-- all the way down to Christchurch. And it is a spectacularly beautiful trip. More on that later.

After I'd taken a wonderful scalding shower and washed my clothes, I had some dinner and found out that my only other roommate-- a young British girl, probably 23 or 24--had hired a car for the week. I convinced her that the two of us should go into Nelson and sample some of New Zealand's most famous beers and wines. She was easily persuaded, if I promised to do all the navigating. So we were off. We walked around a downtown that felt much smaller than South Bend, yet managed somehow to have four times the bars, shops and cafes, and with four time the character. *sigh*. We popped in to one place at random, which turned out to be decorated entirely in theme of Halloween, apparently for Friday the 13th (is it normal to associate Friday the 13th with Halloween?) A bartender dressed like an angel and one dressed like a devil served us a fine New Zealand Shiraz. I think I still like Aussie wine better, but don't tell the folks of Nelson-- it's located in the Marlborough district, which fancies itself the Napa Valley of New Zealand. The vineyards were quite lovely, though I didn't actually see them until my train trip the following day.

My roommate and I started chatting, sipping our wine and eating candy out of a plastic cauldron. This chick was way cooler than me. She studied food science and Uni, but had joined the RAF at who knows how young an age, and got her pilot's license. She got to fly jets, people. Now this seems to me most enlightened of England, because I tried to get a bunch of Marines at South Bend Airport to let me fly a jet my first year of grad school, but they shook their heads at me and said it'd take an act of Congress for THAT to happen. Thanks a lot, Marines.
They still ended up letting me fly a twin-prop Bolsa Navajo up over Lake Michigan, around the farmlands at the boarder of Indiana, and to finish off with a "buzz" over Notre Dame...which of course doesn't really work in a twin-prop but it was fun anyway, because I knew everyone else was in logic class with Mic at that moment. But jets... this girl had flown jets. She'd been in the RAF! She knew what it was like to be in a male-dominated work place. And she knew the chemical make-up of fruit rollups. And she was only 23. Awesomeness.

Pretty soon we decided to ditch Halloween Land and look for a friendlier place to sample more local fermented delights. After a short walk we stumbled upon a Sushi and Beer place that was cheery and bright, and full of locals, all sitting together around the bar. Bingo. The bartender was actually the bar owner's father, covering for his son who was touring the States. He was the good-humored old chap--the sort that flirts with every female in that safe and charming way that makes a girl feel like a million bucks. My new friend and I ordered New Zealand draughts--I can't remember what they were called but they were very good. I decided since it was a sushi place, and the chef-- a round, bubbly woman who couldn't have been a day past 30 who'd been sharing a pint with a couple at the other end of the bar-- she was supposedly a local celebrity, the bartender told us. They all wanted her to apply to be on one of those shows with Chef Ramsey. So I ordered Grilled Scallop Te Mahi, which is a cone-shaped sushi. I still hate seafood, I have to admit, but I could understand how good this food was. And you can't be at the edge of the ocean with a locally famous sushi chef and not try it. It would be some sort of crime. Plus, she would prepare it all right in front of us, there behind the bar with her stocks of spices, iced fresh seafoods and bundles of green herbs and vegis. And a huge bucket of steaming rice. I begged her and the bartender to move their entire operation to South Bend. They said they would, if I could arrange for expenses and visas. Right. Visas in the States....

At one point a very jolly local, a little tipsy and obviously known and loved by the bar's patrons, came stumbling in. After asking me my life story, which I didn't tell him, he decided he wanted to have me listen to his Southern accent, to see if it was any good. He was an actor he said. So I put down my drink, folded my hands in my lap with utmost gravity and said, Yes. Yes, I would be willing to evaluate his accent. He cleared his throat (everyone was laughing at the show we were putting on) and quoted a little monologue for me. When it was all over I paused (the whole bar leaning in to listen in at this point, including the bartender with his towel thrown over his shoulder--the whole scene felt like an episode of Cheers). I looked at the poor guy directly, and announced that it was without question the worst Southern accent I'd ever heard. Everyone burst into uproarious laughter, including the guy himself. He really was jolly. But then everyone wanted a go at giving me their best Southern accents. It was hilarious-- out of about eight of them, only one shy older woman who had to be begged to do it by her date, actually came close to an authentic southern accent. I was pleasantly surprise, and told her she could definitely pass off as a genuine Southern Belle. She blushed and giggling, buried her head into her date's shoulder, he looking quite pleased. On that happy note, my roommate and I decided we'd better get back to the hostel.

It was only after we've both gotten back into our cozy, four-bed room and turned on a few lamps and started getting ready for bed that we happened to notice there was some random guy sleeping in our room-- curled up in the bed next to mine. We laughed (as quietly as possible) to have failed to notice that poor, tired guy huddled under mounds of quilts there in our room, trying to sleep--typical hostel situation, people coming in and out at all hours. He must have checked in very late, before we'd gone to paint the town red. We finished getting ready bumbling around in the dark, trying not to wake our roommate. I crawled quietly into my bed, sighing with relief a bit that the boy, who was all of three feet away from me, was already asleep. I've done my share of camping and such, but this more typical hostel sleeping-proximity-with-strangers I'd managed to avoid so far. But this guy seemed harmless enough. In fact, in the dim light I think I perceived a faint smile on his sweet little slumbering face.

Feeling a bit more comfortable, I settled myself into fresh sheets and piles of blanket, and mentally mapped out my last full day in New Zealand: I'd take a bus to Picton Harbor, hop on my last New Zealand train, and spend another night in Christchurch. On Sunday, my adventure would be over. But for now I need not think about that. I snuggled into the warm bed, listening to faint snores coming from some other part of that house, and drifted into dreams that did not, most thankfully, involve a forest of any kind.