Hi Folks!
Just in case anyone still glances as this old thing, I've started a new blog for my world tour this summer: www.eliseworldtour09.blogspot.com.
Check it out!
Cheers
May 13, 2009
July 17, 2008
Home again, home again, diggidydiggidydiggidydig
I never did tell you all about the flight from Melbourne. It was ridiculous, in a completely boring way. From Melbourne to Hong Kong I was stuck in the last row in a very tiny little space. Also, screaming kid in next row over. Mer. But as the flight was in the darkness, I could cover my head with my scarft and stare out at the stars... and it was almost like a was flying through space-- I could see stars below me, beside me, and above me. Magicalness.
At Hong Kong airport they were playing French folk music over the system. I fell asleep behind a giant metal column, wrapped in a scarf and huddled around my luggage, and woke up 2 hours later to see that my plane was almost boarded. Perfect timing. More space on the flight over China, Mongolia, Siberia, Moscow, and into Finland. But I didn't have a window seat so I've still never seen those places. Oh yeah, and again a screaming kid. This time it went on for hours, though. Trust me-- I counted. Each. Torturous. Minute. The parents (who must belong to some other culture) were eating their food and chatting with the flight attendents and entirely oblivious, apparently, to the fact that their kid was out-screaming the composite screams of all eagles and veloceraptors and tea kettles that ever lived through-out all of history. Even bad 80s rock couldn't drown this kid out. AAAAAAACCCCHKKKKK.
There were beautiful pines all around the Helsinki airport. The airport was packed full of people, but weirdly quiet. And sloooow. Everyone walked as though deep in thought and wading through molasses. I have since learned that this is characterstic of Finns. They are a quiet, relaxed, slow people. Needless to say I stuck out like an American thumb on all three counts. While waiting to board this last, short flight to Amsterdam after nearly 24 hours on a plane, I was feeling dirty, tired and cranky, but also needing to prepare my talk for the conference. So add "stressed"to that list. I started frantically shuffling through stacks of all my notes, several letters from Heisenberg in German, manuscripts of essays, copies from rare texts, etc. etc. from my bag, trying to find the draft of my presentation. At some point I realized that a young, Indian guy sat down next to me and was obviously reading over my shoulder. Or over my side. Whatever. He asked me, "Oh you do quantum information?" No, not quite. Didn't matter, though. This guy wanted to talk to me about everything at all remotely related to quantum or physics or philosophy of physics. He was a really bright guy-- a grad student in the States, in fact, studying Learning Theory which is pretty mathematically intense. But he kept jumping arguments for one thing in, say, philosophy of mind, to ethics to metaphysics...all over the place. And really intense and tenacious and...well, he switched his seat so he'd be next to me on the flight and the entire two hours wouldn't let me rest. And he was intelligent enough that I couldn't give a quick Calvin-And-Hobbes type answer and blow him off. I had to answer him, and do it in earnest. Í was so extremely tired, though, and he was so eager to talk about these things with me that he was almost violently argumentative. I'm normally a civil person but I wanted to punch him in the face. He begged me to visit him in Amsterdam after the conference. But it's the end of the conference and instead I'm going to take a bubble bath. Here in my hotel. In Utrecht.
The moment I got my luggage, had said goodbye to Stubborn Instense Argumentative Indian Guy I Accidentally Picked Up in Helsinki Airport, I breathed a deeeep breath and hopped on a train to Utrecht. I do love this country. The train ride was peaceful and still. I avoided people.
The conference was immensely fun, of course in many geeky ways (I got to meet many new people, and also some people who's names I know quite well, and actually got to have serious and wonderful chats with them about some things I've been studying or will be studying). All in all, a fantastic, hilarious, generous group of people; I am glad that this comprises my academic family internationally. I feel extremely lucky.
But I also have fun in more traditional ways (read: eating and drinking merrily and well, all on the ND Dime. How I do love that fat, shiny, ND Dime. But lest you think ill of me, I think I can make a good case of earning it, boyhowdy). The talk with Guido was today, on the last day of the conference, and was well-received, which is always fun. I told a joke, too, which is fun. I feel upset with myself if I can't squeeze in a least on little clever thing or other. Like I didn't entertain well enough or something.
And there were of course other moments at the conference-- like the very first day, when a cat wandered in the room smack in the middle of an intense talk on Wigner and group-theory in quantum mechanics. It just walked right in front of the presenter, hopped up on a desk and curled up to listen to the talk with the rest of us. Though, Cat, I DID happen to notice that you nodded off during the last few minutes of the presentation. Tsk tsk, Cat. Tsk tsk. Other small things, too, like today I was walking downtown with one of the Dutch hosts of the conference, and a group of people came up and first addressed me in Dutch, but then turned to him and asked him the same thing in English. They assumed I was the Dutch one and he was English-speaking. Ok, maybe that's not funny. He seemed mildly insulted, though, and I thought *that* was funny.
Another great moment was when Kristian and I got into an energetic and (mostly) whimsical argument with Michel Janssen about the Everett interpretation of QM. This is, of course, the infamous Many Worlds idea-- where each moment an infinite number of worlds supposedly splits off from this one, each realizing one of the infinite possible state of affairs of the universe in that moment. Michel was arguing that if one were to take this seriously, than one could adopt a much more care-free attitude about life. Almost get hit by a car? Who cares! There are still an infinite number of YOU in other worlds, surely one of which will live. Why should THIS you be special? Complete bollucks if you ask me. But we had a hilarious talk about what the ethics of a world of Everettians would look like. Folks, it is one grim picture. I tried to persuade Michel on these grounds, but of course he merely laughs (well, he is not the sort of person who does anything *merely*, but you get my meaning)-- and insists that he is truly, to his core, convinced of this interpretation. Ah well. I have some time to bring him back to the light. *wiiink*
Tomorrow I have a very early flight, and 4 hours in Dublin. If it were a bit longer, I'd go for a bit of an amble around Dublin--it's a neat city, and it has been quite a while since I was there. But instead I will have to sit in the terminal and work on my Big Important Paper for the philosophy department. I've been dreading writing it, but I had a good chat with Michel about my topic over beer tonight (Michel is probably one of the philosophers of physics I most admire, and he is also good friends with my advisor), and he was very enthusiastic. I feel like I can write it now. Nay-- I'm EAGER to write it, wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles.
I am sad that things are coming to an end-- the conference, all the nervous energy about giving several talks and collaborating with different people, etc. But I can't believe what good people these people are, and how kind to a poor young kid who isn't even in the dissertation stage yet. Lots of warm-fuzzies. And the good thing is I will see many of them again and again. Several of them tried to convince me to do a post-doc at their institution...mostly German schools. And Guido just accepted a position in Scotland, and he's asked me to plan a visit for next May to work more on our book.
I feel sort of like a princess. I don't deserve any of the things that have come my way this summer--I was (and I saw this with almost complete seriousness) "born" into all this not by my own doing, but because my advisor is fantastic, and knows how to disciple someone. I guess you might say (to continue with the metaphor) I was baptized this summer. Sometimes by fire, sometimes by wine. I find now that I regret that I have to sleep, and do mundane things like pay bills and take out the trash and feed myself, because there is so much good and fascinating work yet to be done. Not a bad way to enter the dissertation stage, eh? Feeling so in love with what you studying and the things you get to think about? (n.b. to those of you who are already IN the dissertation phase, pretty please don't spoil my cute little naivity about it all. Let me have it for a few more months; I'll come round to the reality of it soon enough).
But I am, I must say, glad to be going home. They played Kayne West's song Homecoming at the pub we were in this evening, and I almost burst into tears--because it reminded me of NZ on that mountain, but also because it's a song about coming home to Chicago. Tres apropos. For one thing I'm looking forward to Pitchfork like a crazy person, and being in Chicago for the weekend. And I will be *very* glad to see friends and family again, and hear more details about all the things I've missed, and laugh with you all about the things that only good friends really laugh about. It is sad to miss out on any part of the lives of those who are important to you, but 'tis how it goes for all of us, I suppose. And it does look like my future will be international to some high degree, just given the nature of this small little field, so I'd better get used to it.
I must now say goodnight. And, I guess, goodbye, as I won't continue this blog once I get back to the States. Thank you all for your comments and readership, and I'm tickled that some of you want me to keep writing. But I find that after blogging during this summer, a few things strike me as undesireable features of continuing blogging once I'm home. Specifically, I realized that I have started thinking about moments as they happen in terms of how I will *later* tell the story, or write about them. Maybe this is what happens for people who write memoirs or daily blogs or what have you. But I don't like it as an every-day prospect. Because, I am already a person with too much internal dialogue, and this only stresses my tendency to analyze each moment as it comes instead of just being present IN it. It is much like going to a beautiful place and snapping pictures from behind your camera lens the entire time. Your gain of having that pictoral memory is not, in my opinion, out-weighed by the gain of actually being fully in that moment. Of course, this is not an all-out, all-time conviction. Of course pictures are fantastic. And analysis and reflection are necessary. But a daily, written thing like this forced me to "go meta" far too often. And, after a while, it's all about me. And I love me and all, but geez. Boooooring. And who am I to write all this? It is as though I'm assuming people will have some need to hear every little detail of my life once I'm not doing anything adventurous any more. I'm not THAT kind of a princess. Maybe me in another Everttian world is-- I'll leave the blogging to her.
Thus, this is it. Love to you all, and thank you for making me feel somehow connected to the other side of the world on this little tour 2008. I'll be seeing you soon.
Elise
At Hong Kong airport they were playing French folk music over the system. I fell asleep behind a giant metal column, wrapped in a scarf and huddled around my luggage, and woke up 2 hours later to see that my plane was almost boarded. Perfect timing. More space on the flight over China, Mongolia, Siberia, Moscow, and into Finland. But I didn't have a window seat so I've still never seen those places. Oh yeah, and again a screaming kid. This time it went on for hours, though. Trust me-- I counted. Each. Torturous. Minute. The parents (who must belong to some other culture) were eating their food and chatting with the flight attendents and entirely oblivious, apparently, to the fact that their kid was out-screaming the composite screams of all eagles and veloceraptors and tea kettles that ever lived through-out all of history. Even bad 80s rock couldn't drown this kid out. AAAAAAACCCCHKKKKK.
There were beautiful pines all around the Helsinki airport. The airport was packed full of people, but weirdly quiet. And sloooow. Everyone walked as though deep in thought and wading through molasses. I have since learned that this is characterstic of Finns. They are a quiet, relaxed, slow people. Needless to say I stuck out like an American thumb on all three counts. While waiting to board this last, short flight to Amsterdam after nearly 24 hours on a plane, I was feeling dirty, tired and cranky, but also needing to prepare my talk for the conference. So add "stressed"to that list. I started frantically shuffling through stacks of all my notes, several letters from Heisenberg in German, manuscripts of essays, copies from rare texts, etc. etc. from my bag, trying to find the draft of my presentation. At some point I realized that a young, Indian guy sat down next to me and was obviously reading over my shoulder. Or over my side. Whatever. He asked me, "Oh you do quantum information?" No, not quite. Didn't matter, though. This guy wanted to talk to me about everything at all remotely related to quantum or physics or philosophy of physics. He was a really bright guy-- a grad student in the States, in fact, studying Learning Theory which is pretty mathematically intense. But he kept jumping arguments for one thing in, say, philosophy of mind, to ethics to metaphysics...all over the place. And really intense and tenacious and...well, he switched his seat so he'd be next to me on the flight and the entire two hours wouldn't let me rest. And he was intelligent enough that I couldn't give a quick Calvin-And-Hobbes type answer and blow him off. I had to answer him, and do it in earnest. Í was so extremely tired, though, and he was so eager to talk about these things with me that he was almost violently argumentative. I'm normally a civil person but I wanted to punch him in the face. He begged me to visit him in Amsterdam after the conference. But it's the end of the conference and instead I'm going to take a bubble bath. Here in my hotel. In Utrecht.
The moment I got my luggage, had said goodbye to Stubborn Instense Argumentative Indian Guy I Accidentally Picked Up in Helsinki Airport, I breathed a deeeep breath and hopped on a train to Utrecht. I do love this country. The train ride was peaceful and still. I avoided people.
The conference was immensely fun, of course in many geeky ways (I got to meet many new people, and also some people who's names I know quite well, and actually got to have serious and wonderful chats with them about some things I've been studying or will be studying). All in all, a fantastic, hilarious, generous group of people; I am glad that this comprises my academic family internationally. I feel extremely lucky.
But I also have fun in more traditional ways (read: eating and drinking merrily and well, all on the ND Dime. How I do love that fat, shiny, ND Dime. But lest you think ill of me, I think I can make a good case of earning it, boyhowdy). The talk with Guido was today, on the last day of the conference, and was well-received, which is always fun. I told a joke, too, which is fun. I feel upset with myself if I can't squeeze in a least on little clever thing or other. Like I didn't entertain well enough or something.
And there were of course other moments at the conference-- like the very first day, when a cat wandered in the room smack in the middle of an intense talk on Wigner and group-theory in quantum mechanics. It just walked right in front of the presenter, hopped up on a desk and curled up to listen to the talk with the rest of us. Though, Cat, I DID happen to notice that you nodded off during the last few minutes of the presentation. Tsk tsk, Cat. Tsk tsk. Other small things, too, like today I was walking downtown with one of the Dutch hosts of the conference, and a group of people came up and first addressed me in Dutch, but then turned to him and asked him the same thing in English. They assumed I was the Dutch one and he was English-speaking. Ok, maybe that's not funny. He seemed mildly insulted, though, and I thought *that* was funny.
Another great moment was when Kristian and I got into an energetic and (mostly) whimsical argument with Michel Janssen about the Everett interpretation of QM. This is, of course, the infamous Many Worlds idea-- where each moment an infinite number of worlds supposedly splits off from this one, each realizing one of the infinite possible state of affairs of the universe in that moment. Michel was arguing that if one were to take this seriously, than one could adopt a much more care-free attitude about life. Almost get hit by a car? Who cares! There are still an infinite number of YOU in other worlds, surely one of which will live. Why should THIS you be special? Complete bollucks if you ask me. But we had a hilarious talk about what the ethics of a world of Everettians would look like. Folks, it is one grim picture. I tried to persuade Michel on these grounds, but of course he merely laughs (well, he is not the sort of person who does anything *merely*, but you get my meaning)-- and insists that he is truly, to his core, convinced of this interpretation. Ah well. I have some time to bring him back to the light. *wiiink*
Tomorrow I have a very early flight, and 4 hours in Dublin. If it were a bit longer, I'd go for a bit of an amble around Dublin--it's a neat city, and it has been quite a while since I was there. But instead I will have to sit in the terminal and work on my Big Important Paper for the philosophy department. I've been dreading writing it, but I had a good chat with Michel about my topic over beer tonight (Michel is probably one of the philosophers of physics I most admire, and he is also good friends with my advisor), and he was very enthusiastic. I feel like I can write it now. Nay-- I'm EAGER to write it, wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles.
I am sad that things are coming to an end-- the conference, all the nervous energy about giving several talks and collaborating with different people, etc. But I can't believe what good people these people are, and how kind to a poor young kid who isn't even in the dissertation stage yet. Lots of warm-fuzzies. And the good thing is I will see many of them again and again. Several of them tried to convince me to do a post-doc at their institution...mostly German schools. And Guido just accepted a position in Scotland, and he's asked me to plan a visit for next May to work more on our book.
I feel sort of like a princess. I don't deserve any of the things that have come my way this summer--I was (and I saw this with almost complete seriousness) "born" into all this not by my own doing, but because my advisor is fantastic, and knows how to disciple someone. I guess you might say (to continue with the metaphor) I was baptized this summer. Sometimes by fire, sometimes by wine. I find now that I regret that I have to sleep, and do mundane things like pay bills and take out the trash and feed myself, because there is so much good and fascinating work yet to be done. Not a bad way to enter the dissertation stage, eh? Feeling so in love with what you studying and the things you get to think about? (n.b. to those of you who are already IN the dissertation phase, pretty please don't spoil my cute little naivity about it all. Let me have it for a few more months; I'll come round to the reality of it soon enough).
But I am, I must say, glad to be going home. They played Kayne West's song Homecoming at the pub we were in this evening, and I almost burst into tears--because it reminded me of NZ on that mountain, but also because it's a song about coming home to Chicago. Tres apropos. For one thing I'm looking forward to Pitchfork like a crazy person, and being in Chicago for the weekend. And I will be *very* glad to see friends and family again, and hear more details about all the things I've missed, and laugh with you all about the things that only good friends really laugh about. It is sad to miss out on any part of the lives of those who are important to you, but 'tis how it goes for all of us, I suppose. And it does look like my future will be international to some high degree, just given the nature of this small little field, so I'd better get used to it.
I must now say goodnight. And, I guess, goodbye, as I won't continue this blog once I get back to the States. Thank you all for your comments and readership, and I'm tickled that some of you want me to keep writing. But I find that after blogging during this summer, a few things strike me as undesireable features of continuing blogging once I'm home. Specifically, I realized that I have started thinking about moments as they happen in terms of how I will *later* tell the story, or write about them. Maybe this is what happens for people who write memoirs or daily blogs or what have you. But I don't like it as an every-day prospect. Because, I am already a person with too much internal dialogue, and this only stresses my tendency to analyze each moment as it comes instead of just being present IN it. It is much like going to a beautiful place and snapping pictures from behind your camera lens the entire time. Your gain of having that pictoral memory is not, in my opinion, out-weighed by the gain of actually being fully in that moment. Of course, this is not an all-out, all-time conviction. Of course pictures are fantastic. And analysis and reflection are necessary. But a daily, written thing like this forced me to "go meta" far too often. And, after a while, it's all about me. And I love me and all, but geez. Boooooring. And who am I to write all this? It is as though I'm assuming people will have some need to hear every little detail of my life once I'm not doing anything adventurous any more. I'm not THAT kind of a princess. Maybe me in another Everttian world is-- I'll leave the blogging to her.
Thus, this is it. Love to you all, and thank you for making me feel somehow connected to the other side of the world on this little tour 2008. I'll be seeing you soon.
Elise
July 15, 2008
Ta, dear Melbourne
I had a wonderful if frantic last week in Melbourne. Most of the week was the Australasian Assoc. of Philo annual conference, and I gave a talk on Tuesday that went well. Heisenberg again. I wonder if he feels slighted now that I'm writing my dissertation on something different... too bad. He is dead, after all.
So the conference was a blast, though I got into a hearty argument with my new friend Jimbo from Sydney (post-doc, American) about the merits (or demerits) of all the coursework we do in the States. It's a pain in the ass, all those classes, but I went to talks at the AAP from every field you could think of (minus ethics...sorry, I just can't do ethics) and was able to contribute to most of them. I loved having the generalist background which allowed me to keep up on epist, metaphysics, and all the rest. But Jimbo says it's better to have 2 more publications than 2 years of coursework under your belt when you go on the market. Perhaps I'm too much of a romantic about what this discipline ought to be, but I really disagree with Jimbo. Granted, he's recently BEEN on the market, and I have not... but what would become of our field if everyone was only ever a specialist from the get-go? No fun. Plus, being a philosopher of science, I bring different sets of questions to topics like consciuosness and metaphysics of time... and likewise, my friends who deal more with epist or metaphysics or ethics bring different sets of questions to the table as well.
We had a lot of fun, though, all arguments about the nature of time and coursework and consciousness, etc. etc. aside. Lots of good food and drinking and philosophy talk, of course. I also got to hear ALL about what American philosophy PhD students are *supposed* to be like. Eech. I'll spare you the details but they think we're all fast-talking jerk-faces. I tried to remedy that as much as possible. I think deep down they're a bit intimidated by our coursework (yeah, that MUST be it...ahahaha.....ahaha.......ahhh)
I had dinner with Neil Thomason and his partner Rosemary on Friday night, as my flight wasn't until midnight. Neil does philosophy of science at Melbourne. He's from the States, but loved Melbourne too much. He's an incredibly bubbly old chap who invited me to dinner after he'd found out that (i) I took a course on History and Philosophy of Statistics, which he loves but no one really has ever heard of, and (ii) I love opera almost as much as he and Rosemary do. We sat in front of a fire in their beautiful living room, drinking Cabernet Sauv. and listening to Bel Canto arias. It was a lovely evening, all told. Also, I ate 9 pieces of pizza, had three glasses of wine, a small bowl of nuts, two helpings of salad, some dessert pudding and a cup of tea. I had to prepare for over 24 hours of airline food, after all.
Oh shoot! It've gotta get going to the conference. More later...
So the conference was a blast, though I got into a hearty argument with my new friend Jimbo from Sydney (post-doc, American) about the merits (or demerits) of all the coursework we do in the States. It's a pain in the ass, all those classes, but I went to talks at the AAP from every field you could think of (minus ethics...sorry, I just can't do ethics) and was able to contribute to most of them. I loved having the generalist background which allowed me to keep up on epist, metaphysics, and all the rest. But Jimbo says it's better to have 2 more publications than 2 years of coursework under your belt when you go on the market. Perhaps I'm too much of a romantic about what this discipline ought to be, but I really disagree with Jimbo. Granted, he's recently BEEN on the market, and I have not... but what would become of our field if everyone was only ever a specialist from the get-go? No fun. Plus, being a philosopher of science, I bring different sets of questions to topics like consciuosness and metaphysics of time... and likewise, my friends who deal more with epist or metaphysics or ethics bring different sets of questions to the table as well.
We had a lot of fun, though, all arguments about the nature of time and coursework and consciousness, etc. etc. aside. Lots of good food and drinking and philosophy talk, of course. I also got to hear ALL about what American philosophy PhD students are *supposed* to be like. Eech. I'll spare you the details but they think we're all fast-talking jerk-faces. I tried to remedy that as much as possible. I think deep down they're a bit intimidated by our coursework (yeah, that MUST be it...ahahaha.....ahaha.......ahhh)
I had dinner with Neil Thomason and his partner Rosemary on Friday night, as my flight wasn't until midnight. Neil does philosophy of science at Melbourne. He's from the States, but loved Melbourne too much. He's an incredibly bubbly old chap who invited me to dinner after he'd found out that (i) I took a course on History and Philosophy of Statistics, which he loves but no one really has ever heard of, and (ii) I love opera almost as much as he and Rosemary do. We sat in front of a fire in their beautiful living room, drinking Cabernet Sauv. and listening to Bel Canto arias. It was a lovely evening, all told. Also, I ate 9 pieces of pizza, had three glasses of wine, a small bowl of nuts, two helpings of salad, some dessert pudding and a cup of tea. I had to prepare for over 24 hours of airline food, after all.
Oh shoot! It've gotta get going to the conference. More later...
July 13, 2008
A Little Latitude
Latitude of Melbourne, Australia: 37° 49' South
Latitude of Helsinki, Finalnd: 60° 10' North
NORTH-ward: I think as far as public airports or major populated areas go, Reykjavik is the winner at almost 65° N, with Archangel, Russia coming in second at 64° 33' N. The farthest north inhabited areas (apart from the poles...booooring) are Kaffeklubben Island in Greensland, at almost 84° North. Cape Columbia in Canada gets to 83°. But I don't think any of us is shocked about people living in Canada at that ridiculous latitude. And anyway, I think these are merely launch-ports for North Pole expeditions. Which is cheating.
SOUTH-ward: Tierra del Fuego wins here, at 55° South, although I'm not sure about this being a major populated area... in which case New Zealand might be the actual winner, with Queenstown at 45° South.
As far as sourthernmost marginally inhabited areas, first-place goes to the South Georgia Islands at 59.5° South. Chile has some close seconds at about 56° south. Not nearly as close to the poles as in the North!
All this reminds me of a book I bought called _Endurance_ in Melbourne at a great used-book store (I also bought some Solzhenitsyn and Sir Walter Scott, b/c I love Russian lit and I've never read Scott, respectively). I've read _Endurance_ before and loved it. It's an incredible account of Sir Ernest Shackleton's famously disasterous trans-Antarctic expedition in 1915ish. There more recent biographies of the adventure available, and probably more accurate, but I found this one much more fun to read. Absolutely thrilling. And the even more astonishing thing is that the crew that was suppopsed to meet Shackeleton's men coming from the other side of the continent (they launched from New Zealand, whereas I believe Shackelton's crew left the South Georgia islands) ALSO encounetred extraordinary disaster. I read a book on that too, but I can't remember what it's called-- it's newer, though.
ANYWAY, that's all sort of a caveat, I guess. I'll write up another post on less geographical things...and I will have to do it tomorrow night, as I haven't eaten yet and am still feeling jet-lagged to the max. Don't worry, I'll tell you more about the last week in Melbourne and my trip to the Netherlands soon. Cheers, all.
Latitude of Helsinki, Finalnd: 60° 10' North
Yesterday (and agian I use the term '`yesterday" loosely ) I flew from Melbourne airport through Hong Kong, then on to Helsinki, and from Helsinki to Amsterdam. Whew. Which means I covered a total distance of 98 out of 180 degrees latitude available on the globe. It makes me feel somewhat like a rock star. And of course, if you take my entire summer into account, I did have that jaunt down to Christchurch, which is 43° 32' S, that makes my total latitude coverage this summer 103°. AND if you consider that of major airports in the world, or major cities, the total degrees latitue is probably closer to 120°...103° ain't bad. Woohoo!
As far as longitude goes, I'm circumnavigating the globe all said, which is a perfect 360° for 360°. Hot diggidy. But to be totally honest, I have been flying Westward during all these flights (save the small flight from Sydney to Christchurch), and this means that since the earth is turning the opposite direction, the airplane's relative speed to the earth is such that relativistic considerations taken into account, it is slightly less than 360 degrees that I've traveled, as the earth has appeared to me slightly (ever so slightly) Lorenz-contracted.
But all in all, still a good trip, eh? I think I'll be jet-lagged for several months.
NORTH-ward: I think as far as public airports or major populated areas go, Reykjavik is the winner at almost 65° N, with Archangel, Russia coming in second at 64° 33' N. The farthest north inhabited areas (apart from the poles...booooring) are Kaffeklubben Island in Greensland, at almost 84° North. Cape Columbia in Canada gets to 83°. But I don't think any of us is shocked about people living in Canada at that ridiculous latitude. And anyway, I think these are merely launch-ports for North Pole expeditions. Which is cheating.
SOUTH-ward: Tierra del Fuego wins here, at 55° South, although I'm not sure about this being a major populated area... in which case New Zealand might be the actual winner, with Queenstown at 45° South.
As far as sourthernmost marginally inhabited areas, first-place goes to the South Georgia Islands at 59.5° South. Chile has some close seconds at about 56° south. Not nearly as close to the poles as in the North!
All this reminds me of a book I bought called _Endurance_ in Melbourne at a great used-book store (I also bought some Solzhenitsyn and Sir Walter Scott, b/c I love Russian lit and I've never read Scott, respectively). I've read _Endurance_ before and loved it. It's an incredible account of Sir Ernest Shackleton's famously disasterous trans-Antarctic expedition in 1915ish. There more recent biographies of the adventure available, and probably more accurate, but I found this one much more fun to read. Absolutely thrilling. And the even more astonishing thing is that the crew that was suppopsed to meet Shackeleton's men coming from the other side of the continent (they launched from New Zealand, whereas I believe Shackelton's crew left the South Georgia islands) ALSO encounetred extraordinary disaster. I read a book on that too, but I can't remember what it's called-- it's newer, though.
ANYWAY, that's all sort of a caveat, I guess. I'll write up another post on less geographical things...and I will have to do it tomorrow night, as I haven't eaten yet and am still feeling jet-lagged to the max. Don't worry, I'll tell you more about the last week in Melbourne and my trip to the Netherlands soon. Cheers, all.
July 6, 2008
Farewell to Lorien
New Zealand Day 6: I leave today.
Slept last night at the cheapest hostel I could find, too tired to care about character and charm any more. The place was right by New Brighton beach, and was attached to an excellent Thai restaurant. The owners--who were from Thailand, in fact-- kept asking me if their Thai food was as good as or similar to the Thai food in America. Most curious...
Sunday morning I got up early to walk to the beach. The pier was lovely-- the sky and sea blue and blue again. I ate a traditional Australian/New Zealand breakfast treat: two pancakes drowning in maple syrup and powdered sugar, with grilled bananas and bacon between them. Sounds like something they'd have thought of in West Virginia already. It was delicious, but of course I wanted to crawl under the table and die after I'd eaten it.
After that I had a series of long, arduous, annoying and time-consuming hassles with public transportation in Christchurch that made me (i) really cranky, (ii) really late to catch my flight, and (iii) NOT a fan of Christchurch. I finally had to take a taxi to the airport, which set me back about 50 buckaroos. Adieu to you, too, New Zealand. Sheesh, I was cranky.
But once on the plane flying back over the deep crevasses, shadows and glaciers of the Southern Alps, the beauty of the country put me right as rain again. It happened too fast, though, and soon we were over the never-ending ocean. Sydney was quite literally a grey haven--cloaked in rainstorms and gloomy. Though a small rainbow did appear at the end of the tarmac just as we landed, which was nice.
And that was it. The end of New Zealand.
I'm sorry it took me three weeks to get it all out. I don't think I'll ever really understand or be able to satisfactorily process all that happened there. But thanks for giving me a venue to try, at any rate.
This week is my last week in Melbourne, already. I will try to post once more from Australia, but I am attending and giving a talk at a conference for the better part of this week, and I've got a million things to tie up before I leave for the Netherlands. But at some point I will try to explain a bit about this place. I will say that I have spent far too much money eating the most amazing food here, and seeing shows and drinking good wine and traveling, and making friends with the philosophers here. This is a fantastic city, and I am sad to be leaving it after such a short stay. Perhaps someday I'll make it back again.
Slept last night at the cheapest hostel I could find, too tired to care about character and charm any more. The place was right by New Brighton beach, and was attached to an excellent Thai restaurant. The owners--who were from Thailand, in fact-- kept asking me if their Thai food was as good as or similar to the Thai food in America. Most curious...
Sunday morning I got up early to walk to the beach. The pier was lovely-- the sky and sea blue and blue again. I ate a traditional Australian/New Zealand breakfast treat: two pancakes drowning in maple syrup and powdered sugar, with grilled bananas and bacon between them. Sounds like something they'd have thought of in West Virginia already. It was delicious, but of course I wanted to crawl under the table and die after I'd eaten it.
After that I had a series of long, arduous, annoying and time-consuming hassles with public transportation in Christchurch that made me (i) really cranky, (ii) really late to catch my flight, and (iii) NOT a fan of Christchurch. I finally had to take a taxi to the airport, which set me back about 50 buckaroos. Adieu to you, too, New Zealand. Sheesh, I was cranky.
But once on the plane flying back over the deep crevasses, shadows and glaciers of the Southern Alps, the beauty of the country put me right as rain again. It happened too fast, though, and soon we were over the never-ending ocean. Sydney was quite literally a grey haven--cloaked in rainstorms and gloomy. Though a small rainbow did appear at the end of the tarmac just as we landed, which was nice.
And that was it. The end of New Zealand.
I'm sorry it took me three weeks to get it all out. I don't think I'll ever really understand or be able to satisfactorily process all that happened there. But thanks for giving me a venue to try, at any rate.
This week is my last week in Melbourne, already. I will try to post once more from Australia, but I am attending and giving a talk at a conference for the better part of this week, and I've got a million things to tie up before I leave for the Netherlands. But at some point I will try to explain a bit about this place. I will say that I have spent far too much money eating the most amazing food here, and seeing shows and drinking good wine and traveling, and making friends with the philosophers here. This is a fantastic city, and I am sad to be leaving it after such a short stay. Perhaps someday I'll make it back again.
New Zealand Day 5
Today's my last day of travel in New Zealand, and I'm looking forward to the train trip. Six hours... six hours speeding down the coast, with the sea out my left window and the mountains out my right. But first I had to take a crack-of-dawn bus to Picton harbor, and there catch the train.
Bumbling around in my early-morning haze, I stumble out of the shower only to run (literally) into Mysterious Sleeping Boy, who tall and skinny and mumbles something to me with a British accent. I don't say anything back, but duck quickly into the room. Later on while I'm eating a bit of breakfast (fresh bread from the hostel-keepers. Fab), I decide to read the newspaper, and I guess I must have accidentally started making my inner-commentary *outer* at some point (I could have sworn it was in my head...), because soon I realize someone is chuckling at me. I look up to see Mysterious Sleeping Boy eating breakfast at the other end of the table. Turns out he's also taking the bus to Picton (which is the only reason he, too, is up at this ridiculous hour). We chat for a bit-- he studies "Maths" at University of Leeds...and that's about all I remember.
There were only four people on the entire greyhound bus to Picton, but Mysterious Sleeping Boy No-longer Sleeping Who Studies "Maths" at Leeds came to sit in my row anyway. I probably should have taken that as a cue to become his best friend or something, but it turns out I'm terribly shy after all, and I decide to stare out my window at the rolling hills and endless vineyards and daydream all the way to Picton. At which point we say goodbye. Goodbye. Sorry I was too shy to become your best friend. I guess I'm only good at handling crowds.
I had to kill a few hours there in Picton before the train came. I ended up sitting on a park bench talking to the ducks and seagulls (yes, I had a chat with them. No one else was around) and watching a storm come in over the harbor. Eventually I hear the train come rolling into the station, and I leap on board, prepared for six hours of daydreaming, breath-taking scenery, and relaxation. Again, I am lucky to have an entire carriage to myself, minus an elderly couple a few seats ahead. But she was friendly and he just slept the whole time. I don't think I can explain the beauty of that trip--not only of the outside world, but of the inner-workings too. I mean, that trip was sort of a metaphysical journey. I've done a lot of soul-searching on this brief, intense solo trek in New Zealand. And, as I suspect is the case for many people who are painfully analytic, the best soul-searching happens unexpectedly, and without prompting. It can never be named afterwards, either. The thing has just switched over, and it's only when you find yourself back amongst a network of people who know you well that these subtle and nameless changes--these imperceptible shifts of the soul-- become a little clearer. Here on the train though, I want to try and put my finger on what this thing is... for fear I'll lose it. It will be some time before I'm again in the company of people who really know me, after all.
I feel as thought I've been made whole again--a complete person--but I hadn't realized I was less than whole in the first place. Which is why it was shocking. It wasn't that fierce independence, that I'm My Own Woman sort of thing, either. I've had that before and thought that THAT was what it meant to be whole, or be a grounded, full person. But this...this took the form of a rather painful realization of my complete and utter dependence on the love I have received and continue to receive most undeservedly from many sources. It was as though the depth of love I have for friends, for family...for my God...and that they have for me... became physically real. It became manifest somehow in those hours- a tangible thing that swallowed me but then spit me out again.
When I was climbing that mountain, and when I was lost on it, I felt like I was drowning in the life and death of the forest-- the way it went on and on without me, and without any concern, knowledge, appreciation or apprehension of me, a person. All there was was life and death, and that was all that comprised reality. But of course that's false. There is an infinite and unnameable chasm between that sort of living and ours. I had to drink in the air of a brilliant sunset on the back of that train before I realized that I needed to be swallowed up in that cycle of life-death, decay, life... death-- only to come out on the other side and see that there is a profound difference between my be-ing and the sort of be-ing I encountered on that mountain. That sort of be-ing, I realized, has very little to do with the truth of who we are. It can't even begin to give voice to the difference. But we can. I can.
Bumbling around in my early-morning haze, I stumble out of the shower only to run (literally) into Mysterious Sleeping Boy, who tall and skinny and mumbles something to me with a British accent. I don't say anything back, but duck quickly into the room. Later on while I'm eating a bit of breakfast (fresh bread from the hostel-keepers. Fab), I decide to read the newspaper, and I guess I must have accidentally started making my inner-commentary *outer* at some point (I could have sworn it was in my head...), because soon I realize someone is chuckling at me. I look up to see Mysterious Sleeping Boy eating breakfast at the other end of the table. Turns out he's also taking the bus to Picton (which is the only reason he, too, is up at this ridiculous hour). We chat for a bit-- he studies "Maths" at University of Leeds...and that's about all I remember.
There were only four people on the entire greyhound bus to Picton, but Mysterious Sleeping Boy No-longer Sleeping Who Studies "Maths" at Leeds came to sit in my row anyway. I probably should have taken that as a cue to become his best friend or something, but it turns out I'm terribly shy after all, and I decide to stare out my window at the rolling hills and endless vineyards and daydream all the way to Picton. At which point we say goodbye. Goodbye. Sorry I was too shy to become your best friend. I guess I'm only good at handling crowds.
I had to kill a few hours there in Picton before the train came. I ended up sitting on a park bench talking to the ducks and seagulls (yes, I had a chat with them. No one else was around) and watching a storm come in over the harbor. Eventually I hear the train come rolling into the station, and I leap on board, prepared for six hours of daydreaming, breath-taking scenery, and relaxation. Again, I am lucky to have an entire carriage to myself, minus an elderly couple a few seats ahead. But she was friendly and he just slept the whole time. I don't think I can explain the beauty of that trip--not only of the outside world, but of the inner-workings too. I mean, that trip was sort of a metaphysical journey. I've done a lot of soul-searching on this brief, intense solo trek in New Zealand. And, as I suspect is the case for many people who are painfully analytic, the best soul-searching happens unexpectedly, and without prompting. It can never be named afterwards, either. The thing has just switched over, and it's only when you find yourself back amongst a network of people who know you well that these subtle and nameless changes--these imperceptible shifts of the soul-- become a little clearer. Here on the train though, I want to try and put my finger on what this thing is... for fear I'll lose it. It will be some time before I'm again in the company of people who really know me, after all.
I feel as thought I've been made whole again--a complete person--but I hadn't realized I was less than whole in the first place. Which is why it was shocking. It wasn't that fierce independence, that I'm My Own Woman sort of thing, either. I've had that before and thought that THAT was what it meant to be whole, or be a grounded, full person. But this...this took the form of a rather painful realization of my complete and utter dependence on the love I have received and continue to receive most undeservedly from many sources. It was as though the depth of love I have for friends, for family...for my God...and that they have for me... became physically real. It became manifest somehow in those hours- a tangible thing that swallowed me but then spit me out again.
When I was climbing that mountain, and when I was lost on it, I felt like I was drowning in the life and death of the forest-- the way it went on and on without me, and without any concern, knowledge, appreciation or apprehension of me, a person. All there was was life and death, and that was all that comprised reality. But of course that's false. There is an infinite and unnameable chasm between that sort of living and ours. I had to drink in the air of a brilliant sunset on the back of that train before I realized that I needed to be swallowed up in that cycle of life-death, decay, life... death-- only to come out on the other side and see that there is a profound difference between my be-ing and the sort of be-ing I encountered on that mountain. That sort of be-ing, I realized, has very little to do with the truth of who we are. It can't even begin to give voice to the difference. But we can. I can.
July 3, 2008
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.
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.
June 30, 2008
The Land of Shadow
The deafening silence of the forest as I sped down through it pounded in my ears. It was almost painful; silence can be golden, but it can also be menacing. I was going at such a rapid pace when I reached the
steep portion--the largest bit of the climb-- that in the wetness I began slipping, sliding, falling, tumbling, rolling and banging myself after every three steps. I literally could not remain upright. I smirked and thought Val and Katie at least would be proud-slash-jealous of the bruises I was getting. I'd lose the trail every now and again, and have to retrace my steps in the bewildering density of tangles back to the last orange triangle I'd seen. Pressure, pressure-- I couldn't keep getting lost and having to back-track. I was not making good enough time. I had to face that fact. But neither was I prepared to spend the night on the mountain, though I might have managed it with my winter coat tied to my backpack, the liter of water and food. But I was also soaked to the bone. I had to get down, tonight.
For a while I went on in this way, with the anxiety increasing to more alarming heights than I'd felt before. It was growing very dark under the rain forest canopy, I was very alone, and very far away from the edge of the forest. And I didn't have a blasted flashlight. Maldita maldita maldita. My glow-in-the-dark compass proved itself quite useful in those terrifying moments when I'd realized I couldn't remember last seeing an orange triangle. But soon I could no longer make them out amongst the trees until my hand was touching one. I realized it was going to take hours to get out. And then I became really terrified.
I thought maybe I should start singing, to cheer me up. But the only song that came to mind, for some inexplicable reason, was Kayne West's "Homecoming", which I didn't remember all the words to and is a
rap song anyway...completely inappropriate. Stupid brain. I couldn't get the song unstuck, either. It was more torturous than the silence that fell like a heavy curtain all around me.
After what felt like many days of endless and repetitive scenery, I came at last to the inevitable, the terrible-- the river. I don't think I'd ever been faced with a path that I wanted to take less than this. At least the density of the forest let up around the river, and the moon was desperately trying to make its presence known through the clouds. Those clouds-- they took my last hour of light away from me; I now understood why my calculations about the waning light had been off. I now faced the slimy rocks. But I was so wet at this point I figured the focus of my balancing should rather be on not breaking an ankle, which I'd already nearly done several times, and which would really put me in a serious spot. Instead, I opted to get even more wet and take a safer, less-rocky path through the river. It was horrible crossing, and when I came to the other side all that adrenaline got the best of me and I started to cry in a small, pathetic voice. I had so much... so much left to climb. And I could no longer see the orange markers at all. It was hopeless. I stopped there on the other side of the river, and leaned against a large boulder and prayed a desperate prayer. I've never felt so swallowed up and alone. So suffocated by the night.
I opened my eyes to see a bright white light shining on my left leg. At first I thought the moon had managed to peek through, but far above it was just as cloudy as before. It took me, in my stupor and
tiredness, a few moments to realize that somehow my camera, which I'd put in my fleece pocket instead of in my pack, had somehow turned itself on and was running through a stunningly bright picture show of all my images to date. "AHA!!!" I laughed with tears still streaming down my face. I still to this day don't understand how it turned itself on, and much less, how it turned itself on to a slideshow of brightly colored pictures from the Sydney Zoo, instead of the normal mode it usually turns on in, which would have displayed only the darkness of the inside of my pocket coming through the lens. I have no doubt it was a miracle.
With my camera to guide the way-- and I couldn't help but laugh, because the white light it gave off was the exact bluish-whitish piercing light that the Star of Earendil gives to Frodo and Samwise in Shelob's
layer. I was very much relieved, and felt that I could pick myself up and go on again. However, I soon discovered that the orange markers were not light-reflective. I guess they didn't imagine anyone would
be so stupid as to try this tramp at nighttime. So it was still a long and arduous process of stopping at each marker, walking a few precarious steps away in some guessed direction (as the markers were far enough apart that you cannot see them from one to the next-- I'd even had trouble doing that in daylight. You have to guess at the direction of the path, walk for a bit, and THEN try to spot the next marker), So I'd wander in a desperately guessed direction for a few paces, then shining my camera in a generous arc, try to spot the next marker. I got in the habit of kissing each of the markers when I found them after frantic and sometimes overly long sweepings of light.
I also started singing at this point. Humming, really, but it kept me from feeling so desperately alone. I was still falling every few steps and whacking my knee, my shin, my arm, my face cruelly on various mean plants or rocks. It was even more complicated now climbing down, as I had to devote one entire arm to holding the light out in front of me (again, much in manner of Frodo), and trying not to destroy my precious, life-saving little Canon Powershot as I fell every few steps, which I inevitably did.
Every few minutes the camera slideshow would shut itself off, and I'd have to pause, fumble around in the dark, and start it going again. At one point while trying to turn the camera back on, I happened to see in my peripheral vision something glowing greenish-yellow a few paces away. I gasped and about wet myself-- there, in a nearby hill or tree stump, I knew not what, were several pairs of unblinking eyes-- looking straight at me. Glowing in this eerie green-yellow glow. I was too scared to turn my camera back on, so I just started singing much louder-- some nonsensical song much in the manner of Elf ("I'm in a FOREST...and I'm SING-ING!") but even Elf couldn't ease my mind at this point. I had no idea what sort of animal it...they were, but I couldn't scare them away. Any of them. They were everywhere-- eyes on both sides of the path, and way off in the distance. I thought maybe my eyes were playing games with me. And then... I fell.
Down, down, down I fell, tumbling with my backpack up over my head (which probably saved me from getting a nasty knock) and my limbs flailing in every direction, managing to catch on every sharp vine and branch and rock. At last I came to a stop in the middle of a muddy little stream. After I'd paused to take a few deep breaths, pray a prayer of thanksgiving that I'd still managed to remain unbroken and pulled my gear back in place, I realized my nose was only inches from a wall of glowing eyes. "Eee!" I yelled, but then I decided to solve the thing once and for all-- if these things, whatever they were, weren't afraid of my singing OR my flailing, then maybe they weren't such bad little critters after all. I pointed my index finger at the wall of mud, and slowly began to poke. Nothing moved. The glowing didn't fade or move or anything, and then I realized.. it must be some sort of glowing fungi. Hahaha! I'd been terrified it was some sort of evil cat or bird (eeee, birds)...or...or scary rain forest possums or giant rats or some such thing. And all the while, it was an innocent fungus. I sighed a sigh, and noticing that miracle-upon-miracle my dear camera was still unharmed, turned it on and headed off again.
Problem was, I was pretty badly hurt from this fall-- I'd banged my left shin so hard I'm amazed it did not break. And I was completely off the trail. I panicked, climbing back up the muddy slope for what felt like hours, more wasted time, more back-tracking... trying desperately to find the point at which I'd fallen, and the last orange marker. No luck. No sign to be seen.
At this point I made a very terrifying decision to forsake the trail completely and just try to get out of the forest as quickly as possible. By now I was out of drinking water, aching in every imaginable (and some unimaginable) ways, very wet and very cold-- the wet being equal parts rain forest precipitation and cold-sweat from the terror of those hours. I cannot describe to you how absolutely alone I felt, and how absolutely enclosed by the pitch-black, breathing forest. I myself felt I was gulping for air constantly, and not in that pleasantly sharp way you do at the top of a Colorado peak, but in a suffocating, thick, dark way. I couldn't see the sky-- couldn't remember the last time I'd seen it, and my shin was throbbing in slow, steady throbs. I could hear my heartbeat pounding in my ears, louder than even the Kayne West had been. But I had to keep going. I knew that I needed to head generally 25-ish degrees west of North by my compass-- that would land me somewhere in the farmlands between Karamea and the mountain. And I knew that I had to keep the river... the distant lurking black river...on my right. I just had to follow that sound--how could it sound so happy?-- and I'd eventually make it out.
Again, my inexperience with rain forest terrain did great harm to my calculations. I was hacking my way, with one hand, through the thickest bits of forest I'd encountered yet, and still falling. Always falling. I was whimpering at this point, like a small child with no hope of getting out. I didn't think I was going to die-- it wasn't that that made me afraid. It was the being lost, so utterly lost, and not knowing my way home. The uncertainty of it, and the forest feeling like a beast that had swallowed me up and no one on the outside knew. My teeth were chattering from the cold, and after a while I was so hopeless, and so lost, and so very weary from hacking and hacking, always with one hand, and falling, and having to pick myself up again- something that took increasing effort-- that I knew I had to make another decision. I was making such slow progress I couldn't bear it, and the amount of energy I had to expend to do it was not comparable. And I was so scared. I couldn't go on in this way. I was going to have to make my way back to the bank of the black river, and stumble along the slimy rocks until I was out of the forest.
I had to be very slow, and very careful, making my way back to the river. I had no idea where the steep and rocky bank began, and I'd already fallen enough times to make me unwilling to pick myself up again. It was one of the hardest things, always picking myself up again. My legs could hardly take my own weight anymore, and all of my body was begging to lay down, lay down. After a tortuously slow hack to the river, during which I entangled myself in too many vines to count, I was happy at last to find the river opening up to a lighter sky (the sky! I could see the sky!) I took a deep breath of air that had *not* been trapped under trees for months, and put away my camera, whose light I didn't need as much now, and who I was not willing to sacrifice to the murky water. I tied my pack around me as close as possible to keep the weight from shifting, causing me to lose balance and fall into the river. I crawled literally on hands and knees, very painfully and excruciatingly slowly, with the water beside me and the slippery rocks beneath me. I felt like gollum. I probably looked like gollum too, I thought. But I didn't have enough energy to be amused.
Each tick of my wristwatch felt like a moment completely suspended in space, and nothing seemed to move forward but the black water on my right. After a while the sound of it started to comfort me. At least, I thought, the water is getting somewhere fast. I think I got over my fear of rivers at night at that point. I still get the heebie-geebies by lakes and oceans. But the river was going to take me home. After another hour of days crawling slowly, so slowly onward, I stopped and stood for a moment, rolling my cramped neck and stretching my legs, which had been crouched for so long. I happened to glance over my left shoulder, and there I saw it-- away above me at the top of a steep, muddy bank, the dense foliage had completely ceased, and all I could see was grass, and the lovely, cloudy sky. I had made it out of the forest! I can't possibly explain the feeling. The complete and utter relief of having gotten out of it. I
knew I still have over three kilometers to go through pasture before I reached the farmhouse, and then another seven kilometers to Karamea, and another two to my hostel...which meant I somehow had to put one foot in front of the other foot and wobble along for another 12k, which on a good day would still probably take just over two hours. But it mattered not-- I was out of that forest. That terrible, horrible confined and angry place that had torn my flesh and hair and covered every inch of me with mud and slime and moss, and the smell-- always that smell. Of so much life and decay, but I could only smell the stench of decay now.
I don't know how I found the energy for it, but I was so happy that I bounded straight up that muddy bank, a sheer slope about eight feet high, just digging my fingers deep into the earth for a handhold like a crazed animal, and pulled myself to the top. The moon appeared at that moment, and I stood there, gasping in deep breaths of cool, fresh air between sobs. All of me was shaking, but I knew if I stopped to sit it would be harder to get up again, so I pushed on down through the hilly green pasture under the cloudy night, and towards the twinkling farmhouse below. I could hear the cows mooing lazily below me, and a few ducks having an evening spat on the other side of the road. But I fixed my eyes, bleary with tears and soil, directly on the light of that farmhouse. I have never, ever seen anything so beautiful as those lights.
I was walking much like a zombie at this point, my legs so sore they could not bend as the downward gravel path demanded. After a while I was more fully restored to my senses, breathing in the first truly fresh air I'd had in many hours, and recalled that on my journey up (which by now seemed a careless lifetime ago) I'd had to navigate more than one electric fence. This time I did laugh-- after all this, I still had to scale a few electric fences. Go figure. I slowed up a bit for the remainder of my farm wandering, wary of encountering any sort of electrical adventure that, given my state of wetness, would probably be less than amusing.
Eventually I reached level ground. I forced myself to look back up at Mount Stormy, here from the base of it, and I felt literally ill: there it was, still shrouded in mist, and haunting me-- this giant, black, living mass of earth. I'm not trying to wax dramatic, but I felt ill looking at it, and turned away. Soon I'd found
the barn, and I heard two male voices within. I was so happy to hear voices that I tried to run to the barn, shouting "Hello? Hello, who's there? Is someone in there?!!" No one answered, and I grew quite frustrated, until the talking stopped, and from the darkness of the barn I heard the first few measures of Sarah Bareilles' "Love Song", which is wildly popular over here and played constantly on the radio.
I was more disappointed than I would have imagined to realize I'd been trying to talk to a bunch of DJs who were no doubt on the other side of the island, in Christchurch. At least the cows inside the barn felt comforted by their voices.
After hopping a few more fences and giving up on trying to avoid cow poo in the darkness, I made it to the farmhouse front door and pounded as loud as I could. It was about 8:00, I could finally read off my
watch: four hours lost on the mountain. Four hours. It had felt like so much longer. A lifetime. I knocked again, but no one answered... yet there were lights on inside. I thought it most cruel that I was going to have to walk the remaining kilometers back into town, and wouldn't be able to hitch a ride from the farmer (Phil had said the lady who owned the farm was a very kind woman) or call a taxi. There was nothing for it but to get back on the dirt road and keep pushing onward. I've never been so tired in my life that I had to purposefully direct one foot in front of the other, but I was still so immensely grateful to be on a wide, empty road under diffused moonlight, with sea breezes wafting over from the distant Tasman, that I didn't care too much. Besides, it gave my mind something to do.
Although I got bored of thinking about my feet after a while, and started to plan what I'd do once I made it into Karamea. I recalled driving through with Phil earlier that day seeing a single pub, and telling Phil that that would be where I'd go to have a nice New Zealand ale after I'd conquered the mountain. My plan was different now. I decided that, as it was most likely the sole pub for a 20-km radius, the pub would be warm, well-lit and rowdy with locals (I had a guess that this pub was in fact where the farmer was at this very moment, enjoying a nice, cold glass herself)-- I decided that I would fling open the front doors of that pub and stand there, in stance much like Peter Pan, covered in the refuse of the mountain (and probably a bit from the cows as well), and make a little speech:
"Everyone, can I have your attention!" [I'd pause dramatically while all the patrons swivel to look at me and gasp at my shocking appearance, then continue:] " I just spent the last four hours LOST, and very much ALONE, on THAT mountain." [I'd point dramatically in the direction of the mountains]. "WHO will be so kind as to buy me a drink?" and then I'd collapse [as dramatically as possible] onto a nearby bar stool. I chuckled to think of what a ridiculous sight I'd be, and wondered if anyone would actually buy me a beer (though I think they'd be inclined to believe my story, looking as desperate as I knew I did).
I occupied my mind rehearsing this little speech for who know how long, until I heard a car approaching behind me. I was taken by surprise, as it was a middle of nowhere, isolated back-country dirt road. Who on earth would be driving it? I didn't care-- whoever it was was going to take me the last bit into town. I stepped directly into the middle of the road and waved my arms frantically above my head. It was a jeep, and it couldn't stop fast enough so I had to hop towrad the ditch while it slid to halt, and waited for the cloud of gravel following it to sweep past. The headlights had blinded me, after having been in darkness for a good while now, and I opened the door in my blindness and said "I don't suppose you all could give me a ride into Karamea? I'm staying at a hostel just beyond." After a minute my eyes adjusted enough to make out the shape of three shadowy persons sitting there, and just as I finished speaking, I noticed the name of my hostel, Rongo, was painted on the side of the jeep. "We're from that hostel," I small female voice said, and I knew it was the girl from earlier that day who'd I perceived as regarding me coldly when she warned me that the mountain was "cloudy up there." Now I realized her wisdom. She explained, "We're a little rescue party. When you didn't come back earlier this evening we decided to come and have a look for you. We were quite worried." She was sitting up front with Jack, who was driving. I hopped in and found myself seated next to the British boy, to whom I apologized because I knew I must smell like the vomit of the earth. It doesn't matter, he said. You're safe. We'll take you back, we have a fire going and we've just finished making some fresh bread.
I hadn't realized how hungry I was until then; I just hadn't had the mental space to think about the fact that I hadn't eaten anything proper since breakfast at Gibby's that morning, besides one scrawny muesli bar I'd forced myself to eat during the way up the mountain. I'd been too frightened and too anxious to stop and eat on the way down. The thought of a fire, a shower, and fresh bread revived me some, as did the pleasant company I now found myself in. I had completely misjudged them, and my spirits rose as we drove back through town. I told them about how I'd planned to burst into the bar and make a speech. They laughed heartily at that one. Hippies are great.
When we got back, I took a cold shower (for the hippies had only two minutes or so of warm water there in the middle of nowhere), but I didn't mind so much about the cold as much as getting the smell of the
forest, of that mountain, off me. I was stained with it, though, and realized nothing but a serious, hot scrub would get that stench--which I recalled at one point having found pleasant, but now made me feel sick to my stomach-- out of my clothes and hair and backpack and shoes. But for now I was too tired, and was satisfied with just getting off the slime, leaves and mud. I changed into the only remaining clean clothes I possessed, took a blanket off my bunk and sat myself in front of the warmest fire I have ever enjoyed, sipping on hot soup, fresh bread, the juiciest raw carrot I've ever had and a small piece of rum-and-raisin chocolate, which tasted more sweet to me than anything I'd ever known.
I chatted with the girl and the British boy for a while as Jack cleaned up dishes in the kitchen. They were sweet people, and I regretted that I had to leave so early in the morning, before I'd have a chance to get to know them more. I found a hot-water bottle in my very cold room, and heated it up in the kitchen. I said good night, and without even changing clothes (I had no others at this point), I laid myself down on the child-sized bottom bunk and curled up with my hot water-baby until I fell into a deep and most peaceful sleep.
steep portion--the largest bit of the climb-- that in the wetness I began slipping, sliding, falling, tumbling, rolling and banging myself after every three steps. I literally could not remain upright. I smirked and thought Val and Katie at least would be proud-slash-jealous of the bruises I was getting. I'd lose the trail every now and again, and have to retrace my steps in the bewildering density of tangles back to the last orange triangle I'd seen. Pressure, pressure-- I couldn't keep getting lost and having to back-track. I was not making good enough time. I had to face that fact. But neither was I prepared to spend the night on the mountain, though I might have managed it with my winter coat tied to my backpack, the liter of water and food. But I was also soaked to the bone. I had to get down, tonight.
For a while I went on in this way, with the anxiety increasing to more alarming heights than I'd felt before. It was growing very dark under the rain forest canopy, I was very alone, and very far away from the edge of the forest. And I didn't have a blasted flashlight. Maldita maldita maldita. My glow-in-the-dark compass proved itself quite useful in those terrifying moments when I'd realized I couldn't remember last seeing an orange triangle. But soon I could no longer make them out amongst the trees until my hand was touching one. I realized it was going to take hours to get out. And then I became really terrified.
I thought maybe I should start singing, to cheer me up. But the only song that came to mind, for some inexplicable reason, was Kayne West's "Homecoming", which I didn't remember all the words to and is a
rap song anyway...completely inappropriate. Stupid brain. I couldn't get the song unstuck, either. It was more torturous than the silence that fell like a heavy curtain all around me.
After what felt like many days of endless and repetitive scenery, I came at last to the inevitable, the terrible-- the river. I don't think I'd ever been faced with a path that I wanted to take less than this. At least the density of the forest let up around the river, and the moon was desperately trying to make its presence known through the clouds. Those clouds-- they took my last hour of light away from me; I now understood why my calculations about the waning light had been off. I now faced the slimy rocks. But I was so wet at this point I figured the focus of my balancing should rather be on not breaking an ankle, which I'd already nearly done several times, and which would really put me in a serious spot. Instead, I opted to get even more wet and take a safer, less-rocky path through the river. It was horrible crossing, and when I came to the other side all that adrenaline got the best of me and I started to cry in a small, pathetic voice. I had so much... so much left to climb. And I could no longer see the orange markers at all. It was hopeless. I stopped there on the other side of the river, and leaned against a large boulder and prayed a desperate prayer. I've never felt so swallowed up and alone. So suffocated by the night.
I opened my eyes to see a bright white light shining on my left leg. At first I thought the moon had managed to peek through, but far above it was just as cloudy as before. It took me, in my stupor and
tiredness, a few moments to realize that somehow my camera, which I'd put in my fleece pocket instead of in my pack, had somehow turned itself on and was running through a stunningly bright picture show of all my images to date. "AHA!!!" I laughed with tears still streaming down my face. I still to this day don't understand how it turned itself on, and much less, how it turned itself on to a slideshow of brightly colored pictures from the Sydney Zoo, instead of the normal mode it usually turns on in, which would have displayed only the darkness of the inside of my pocket coming through the lens. I have no doubt it was a miracle.
With my camera to guide the way-- and I couldn't help but laugh, because the white light it gave off was the exact bluish-whitish piercing light that the Star of Earendil gives to Frodo and Samwise in Shelob's
layer. I was very much relieved, and felt that I could pick myself up and go on again. However, I soon discovered that the orange markers were not light-reflective. I guess they didn't imagine anyone would
be so stupid as to try this tramp at nighttime. So it was still a long and arduous process of stopping at each marker, walking a few precarious steps away in some guessed direction (as the markers were far enough apart that you cannot see them from one to the next-- I'd even had trouble doing that in daylight. You have to guess at the direction of the path, walk for a bit, and THEN try to spot the next marker), So I'd wander in a desperately guessed direction for a few paces, then shining my camera in a generous arc, try to spot the next marker. I got in the habit of kissing each of the markers when I found them after frantic and sometimes overly long sweepings of light.
I also started singing at this point. Humming, really, but it kept me from feeling so desperately alone. I was still falling every few steps and whacking my knee, my shin, my arm, my face cruelly on various mean plants or rocks. It was even more complicated now climbing down, as I had to devote one entire arm to holding the light out in front of me (again, much in manner of Frodo), and trying not to destroy my precious, life-saving little Canon Powershot as I fell every few steps, which I inevitably did.
Every few minutes the camera slideshow would shut itself off, and I'd have to pause, fumble around in the dark, and start it going again. At one point while trying to turn the camera back on, I happened to see in my peripheral vision something glowing greenish-yellow a few paces away. I gasped and about wet myself-- there, in a nearby hill or tree stump, I knew not what, were several pairs of unblinking eyes-- looking straight at me. Glowing in this eerie green-yellow glow. I was too scared to turn my camera back on, so I just started singing much louder-- some nonsensical song much in the manner of Elf ("I'm in a FOREST...and I'm SING-ING!") but even Elf couldn't ease my mind at this point. I had no idea what sort of animal it...they were, but I couldn't scare them away. Any of them. They were everywhere-- eyes on both sides of the path, and way off in the distance. I thought maybe my eyes were playing games with me. And then... I fell.
Down, down, down I fell, tumbling with my backpack up over my head (which probably saved me from getting a nasty knock) and my limbs flailing in every direction, managing to catch on every sharp vine and branch and rock. At last I came to a stop in the middle of a muddy little stream. After I'd paused to take a few deep breaths, pray a prayer of thanksgiving that I'd still managed to remain unbroken and pulled my gear back in place, I realized my nose was only inches from a wall of glowing eyes. "Eee!" I yelled, but then I decided to solve the thing once and for all-- if these things, whatever they were, weren't afraid of my singing OR my flailing, then maybe they weren't such bad little critters after all. I pointed my index finger at the wall of mud, and slowly began to poke. Nothing moved. The glowing didn't fade or move or anything, and then I realized.. it must be some sort of glowing fungi. Hahaha! I'd been terrified it was some sort of evil cat or bird (eeee, birds)...or...or scary rain forest possums or giant rats or some such thing. And all the while, it was an innocent fungus. I sighed a sigh, and noticing that miracle-upon-miracle my dear camera was still unharmed, turned it on and headed off again.
Problem was, I was pretty badly hurt from this fall-- I'd banged my left shin so hard I'm amazed it did not break. And I was completely off the trail. I panicked, climbing back up the muddy slope for what felt like hours, more wasted time, more back-tracking... trying desperately to find the point at which I'd fallen, and the last orange marker. No luck. No sign to be seen.
At this point I made a very terrifying decision to forsake the trail completely and just try to get out of the forest as quickly as possible. By now I was out of drinking water, aching in every imaginable (and some unimaginable) ways, very wet and very cold-- the wet being equal parts rain forest precipitation and cold-sweat from the terror of those hours. I cannot describe to you how absolutely alone I felt, and how absolutely enclosed by the pitch-black, breathing forest. I myself felt I was gulping for air constantly, and not in that pleasantly sharp way you do at the top of a Colorado peak, but in a suffocating, thick, dark way. I couldn't see the sky-- couldn't remember the last time I'd seen it, and my shin was throbbing in slow, steady throbs. I could hear my heartbeat pounding in my ears, louder than even the Kayne West had been. But I had to keep going. I knew that I needed to head generally 25-ish degrees west of North by my compass-- that would land me somewhere in the farmlands between Karamea and the mountain. And I knew that I had to keep the river... the distant lurking black river...on my right. I just had to follow that sound--how could it sound so happy?-- and I'd eventually make it out.
Again, my inexperience with rain forest terrain did great harm to my calculations. I was hacking my way, with one hand, through the thickest bits of forest I'd encountered yet, and still falling. Always falling. I was whimpering at this point, like a small child with no hope of getting out. I didn't think I was going to die-- it wasn't that that made me afraid. It was the being lost, so utterly lost, and not knowing my way home. The uncertainty of it, and the forest feeling like a beast that had swallowed me up and no one on the outside knew. My teeth were chattering from the cold, and after a while I was so hopeless, and so lost, and so very weary from hacking and hacking, always with one hand, and falling, and having to pick myself up again- something that took increasing effort-- that I knew I had to make another decision. I was making such slow progress I couldn't bear it, and the amount of energy I had to expend to do it was not comparable. And I was so scared. I couldn't go on in this way. I was going to have to make my way back to the bank of the black river, and stumble along the slimy rocks until I was out of the forest.
I had to be very slow, and very careful, making my way back to the river. I had no idea where the steep and rocky bank began, and I'd already fallen enough times to make me unwilling to pick myself up again. It was one of the hardest things, always picking myself up again. My legs could hardly take my own weight anymore, and all of my body was begging to lay down, lay down. After a tortuously slow hack to the river, during which I entangled myself in too many vines to count, I was happy at last to find the river opening up to a lighter sky (the sky! I could see the sky!) I took a deep breath of air that had *not* been trapped under trees for months, and put away my camera, whose light I didn't need as much now, and who I was not willing to sacrifice to the murky water. I tied my pack around me as close as possible to keep the weight from shifting, causing me to lose balance and fall into the river. I crawled literally on hands and knees, very painfully and excruciatingly slowly, with the water beside me and the slippery rocks beneath me. I felt like gollum. I probably looked like gollum too, I thought. But I didn't have enough energy to be amused.
Each tick of my wristwatch felt like a moment completely suspended in space, and nothing seemed to move forward but the black water on my right. After a while the sound of it started to comfort me. At least, I thought, the water is getting somewhere fast. I think I got over my fear of rivers at night at that point. I still get the heebie-geebies by lakes and oceans. But the river was going to take me home. After another hour of days crawling slowly, so slowly onward, I stopped and stood for a moment, rolling my cramped neck and stretching my legs, which had been crouched for so long. I happened to glance over my left shoulder, and there I saw it-- away above me at the top of a steep, muddy bank, the dense foliage had completely ceased, and all I could see was grass, and the lovely, cloudy sky. I had made it out of the forest! I can't possibly explain the feeling. The complete and utter relief of having gotten out of it. I
knew I still have over three kilometers to go through pasture before I reached the farmhouse, and then another seven kilometers to Karamea, and another two to my hostel...which meant I somehow had to put one foot in front of the other foot and wobble along for another 12k, which on a good day would still probably take just over two hours. But it mattered not-- I was out of that forest. That terrible, horrible confined and angry place that had torn my flesh and hair and covered every inch of me with mud and slime and moss, and the smell-- always that smell. Of so much life and decay, but I could only smell the stench of decay now.
I don't know how I found the energy for it, but I was so happy that I bounded straight up that muddy bank, a sheer slope about eight feet high, just digging my fingers deep into the earth for a handhold like a crazed animal, and pulled myself to the top. The moon appeared at that moment, and I stood there, gasping in deep breaths of cool, fresh air between sobs. All of me was shaking, but I knew if I stopped to sit it would be harder to get up again, so I pushed on down through the hilly green pasture under the cloudy night, and towards the twinkling farmhouse below. I could hear the cows mooing lazily below me, and a few ducks having an evening spat on the other side of the road. But I fixed my eyes, bleary with tears and soil, directly on the light of that farmhouse. I have never, ever seen anything so beautiful as those lights.
I was walking much like a zombie at this point, my legs so sore they could not bend as the downward gravel path demanded. After a while I was more fully restored to my senses, breathing in the first truly fresh air I'd had in many hours, and recalled that on my journey up (which by now seemed a careless lifetime ago) I'd had to navigate more than one electric fence. This time I did laugh-- after all this, I still had to scale a few electric fences. Go figure. I slowed up a bit for the remainder of my farm wandering, wary of encountering any sort of electrical adventure that, given my state of wetness, would probably be less than amusing.
Eventually I reached level ground. I forced myself to look back up at Mount Stormy, here from the base of it, and I felt literally ill: there it was, still shrouded in mist, and haunting me-- this giant, black, living mass of earth. I'm not trying to wax dramatic, but I felt ill looking at it, and turned away. Soon I'd found
the barn, and I heard two male voices within. I was so happy to hear voices that I tried to run to the barn, shouting "Hello? Hello, who's there? Is someone in there?!!" No one answered, and I grew quite frustrated, until the talking stopped, and from the darkness of the barn I heard the first few measures of Sarah Bareilles' "Love Song", which is wildly popular over here and played constantly on the radio.
I was more disappointed than I would have imagined to realize I'd been trying to talk to a bunch of DJs who were no doubt on the other side of the island, in Christchurch. At least the cows inside the barn felt comforted by their voices.
After hopping a few more fences and giving up on trying to avoid cow poo in the darkness, I made it to the farmhouse front door and pounded as loud as I could. It was about 8:00, I could finally read off my
watch: four hours lost on the mountain. Four hours. It had felt like so much longer. A lifetime. I knocked again, but no one answered... yet there were lights on inside. I thought it most cruel that I was going to have to walk the remaining kilometers back into town, and wouldn't be able to hitch a ride from the farmer (Phil had said the lady who owned the farm was a very kind woman) or call a taxi. There was nothing for it but to get back on the dirt road and keep pushing onward. I've never been so tired in my life that I had to purposefully direct one foot in front of the other, but I was still so immensely grateful to be on a wide, empty road under diffused moonlight, with sea breezes wafting over from the distant Tasman, that I didn't care too much. Besides, it gave my mind something to do.
Although I got bored of thinking about my feet after a while, and started to plan what I'd do once I made it into Karamea. I recalled driving through with Phil earlier that day seeing a single pub, and telling Phil that that would be where I'd go to have a nice New Zealand ale after I'd conquered the mountain. My plan was different now. I decided that, as it was most likely the sole pub for a 20-km radius, the pub would be warm, well-lit and rowdy with locals (I had a guess that this pub was in fact where the farmer was at this very moment, enjoying a nice, cold glass herself)-- I decided that I would fling open the front doors of that pub and stand there, in stance much like Peter Pan, covered in the refuse of the mountain (and probably a bit from the cows as well), and make a little speech:
"Everyone, can I have your attention!" [I'd pause dramatically while all the patrons swivel to look at me and gasp at my shocking appearance, then continue:] " I just spent the last four hours LOST, and very much ALONE, on THAT mountain." [I'd point dramatically in the direction of the mountains]. "WHO will be so kind as to buy me a drink?" and then I'd collapse [as dramatically as possible] onto a nearby bar stool. I chuckled to think of what a ridiculous sight I'd be, and wondered if anyone would actually buy me a beer (though I think they'd be inclined to believe my story, looking as desperate as I knew I did).
I occupied my mind rehearsing this little speech for who know how long, until I heard a car approaching behind me. I was taken by surprise, as it was a middle of nowhere, isolated back-country dirt road. Who on earth would be driving it? I didn't care-- whoever it was was going to take me the last bit into town. I stepped directly into the middle of the road and waved my arms frantically above my head. It was a jeep, and it couldn't stop fast enough so I had to hop towrad the ditch while it slid to halt, and waited for the cloud of gravel following it to sweep past. The headlights had blinded me, after having been in darkness for a good while now, and I opened the door in my blindness and said "I don't suppose you all could give me a ride into Karamea? I'm staying at a hostel just beyond." After a minute my eyes adjusted enough to make out the shape of three shadowy persons sitting there, and just as I finished speaking, I noticed the name of my hostel, Rongo, was painted on the side of the jeep. "We're from that hostel," I small female voice said, and I knew it was the girl from earlier that day who'd I perceived as regarding me coldly when she warned me that the mountain was "cloudy up there." Now I realized her wisdom. She explained, "We're a little rescue party. When you didn't come back earlier this evening we decided to come and have a look for you. We were quite worried." She was sitting up front with Jack, who was driving. I hopped in and found myself seated next to the British boy, to whom I apologized because I knew I must smell like the vomit of the earth. It doesn't matter, he said. You're safe. We'll take you back, we have a fire going and we've just finished making some fresh bread.
I hadn't realized how hungry I was until then; I just hadn't had the mental space to think about the fact that I hadn't eaten anything proper since breakfast at Gibby's that morning, besides one scrawny muesli bar I'd forced myself to eat during the way up the mountain. I'd been too frightened and too anxious to stop and eat on the way down. The thought of a fire, a shower, and fresh bread revived me some, as did the pleasant company I now found myself in. I had completely misjudged them, and my spirits rose as we drove back through town. I told them about how I'd planned to burst into the bar and make a speech. They laughed heartily at that one. Hippies are great.
When we got back, I took a cold shower (for the hippies had only two minutes or so of warm water there in the middle of nowhere), but I didn't mind so much about the cold as much as getting the smell of the
forest, of that mountain, off me. I was stained with it, though, and realized nothing but a serious, hot scrub would get that stench--which I recalled at one point having found pleasant, but now made me feel sick to my stomach-- out of my clothes and hair and backpack and shoes. But for now I was too tired, and was satisfied with just getting off the slime, leaves and mud. I changed into the only remaining clean clothes I possessed, took a blanket off my bunk and sat myself in front of the warmest fire I have ever enjoyed, sipping on hot soup, fresh bread, the juiciest raw carrot I've ever had and a small piece of rum-and-raisin chocolate, which tasted more sweet to me than anything I'd ever known.
I chatted with the girl and the British boy for a while as Jack cleaned up dishes in the kitchen. They were sweet people, and I regretted that I had to leave so early in the morning, before I'd have a chance to get to know them more. I found a hot-water bottle in my very cold room, and heated it up in the kitchen. I said good night, and without even changing clothes (I had no others at this point), I laid myself down on the child-sized bottom bunk and curled up with my hot water-baby until I fell into a deep and most peaceful sleep.
June 29, 2008
Up the Mountain
The last time I hiked a trail this poorly marked was the Estes Cone along Highway 7 in Colorado. I climbed it with two guy friends who'd worked at a camp with me all summer. We left at midnight-- a night climb. And it was a literal team effort to fan out from one cairn until we spotted the next. Great fun-- and I'll never forget the stars from the top of the Cone at 2:30 in the morning, or whatever time it was when we finally reached the summit.
But Colorado is not a rain forest. I was unused to finding the little orange triangles nailed to trees, quite far apart and not brightly painted. It was very literally at times like finding a needle in a haystack, with that density of undergrowth and vines, trees, rocks, etc. No one must have gone up the trail in weeks, I thought-- I couldn't follow the path on the ground, as the foliage had overgrown it to the point that the actual trail was indistinguishable from small rivulets of water trickling down from on high after the recent rainy weather. And since it was winter, I was (I safely assumed) the only person on the mountain. I was having a lot of fun, actually. It all seemed very adventurous and grand to me, and it was physically hard because of the time constraint. I was in ok shape, but not tip-top (I miss playing the frizz and b-ball with the gang every week...). I had to cross a large river twice. Now luckily I'd had lots of practice scrambling over wet rocks after my brothers when we were kids (mom always called us little monkeys), so that went fairly smoothly. I didn't like the prospect of having to cross this river, twice, in the darkness on the way down. I'm terrified of water at night. I don't know why-- maybe it's the unsearchable depths and the power whose bounds I can't ascertain in the darkness. Water is like a living thing, and that gets to me in the night. Even more cause to push ahead more quickly now...
The trail was very steep for the last 1/3rd. My face was literally inches from the forest floor, covered in layer upon layer of moss, slime, and mud filled with so much life and decay that it filled my nostrils in a way I won't soon forget. It was very dense, and very dark, and eerily still. I knew there must be plenty of life going on all around me-- but I couldn't see it; I just sensed the forest as a breathing thing. Which was also eerie. But neat. I'd wished I had my biology/ecology friends with me to describe all the plants and slime and moss to me. I'd never been so dirty in my life, and it was good.
The last bit of the climb was difficult. It was wetter up there, and I slipped on the mud and was saved by a dangling vine more times than I can count. And I was growing so very tired. It was lightly raining this high up, and my view of the sea was strained, but I could make out the massive grey stretching out in the distance. More than three times I thought I'd finally made it to the top, and made that final extra push one makes before the finish line, only to come to a clearing and realize I had much more to go. Time was getting on. In fact, it was now almost 3:45 o'clock; well past time to turn round. The sun (which wasn't to be seen) would be setting in an hour, and I had two hours back down, at sprint speed. I started to get quite nervous. I thought maybe I should turn around. But I just.. I just couldn't. I had pushed myself so long and so hard, and to not make it to the top? I knew the view wouldn't be there, as it was dusk and still mist-cloaked at the top anyway. But still, I just had to do it, or I'd never forgive myself.
Then, at about 4:00, the "trail" flattened out. The trees grew more scraggly and eventually disappeared, giving over to tall reeds and ponds of mud. The top!!! I literally ran through the reeds, sharp as knives and unyielding, until I reached a rather unceremonious little wooden X nailed into the ground, with a final, large orange triangle nailed to it. The top. I wandered around a bit and caught my breath. I was in the midst of cloud, so unfortunately there was no grand sight to behold. I was bummed, but I also was getting rather nervous; it was very dark already. And, I don't think I mentioned this before, but I didn't have a flashlight, either. Idiot. I'd reasoned everything out, and somehow I calculated I'd be able to get out to the last few kilometers of farmland by the time it was really dark. And then, without the forest canopy and vines and sinkholes and whatnot, and with the moon at first quarter, I'd find my way back just fine.
Right.
But, from my vantage point on top of Mount Stormy, the adrenaline got the better of me and I felt overly optimistic about how fast the climb in the opposite direction would be. I took one last look out and over the valley below, shrouded in droplets, and shouted to no one in particular, "Welp... see ya later!"
I turned, and headed back down into the growing darkness.
But Colorado is not a rain forest. I was unused to finding the little orange triangles nailed to trees, quite far apart and not brightly painted. It was very literally at times like finding a needle in a haystack, with that density of undergrowth and vines, trees, rocks, etc. No one must have gone up the trail in weeks, I thought-- I couldn't follow the path on the ground, as the foliage had overgrown it to the point that the actual trail was indistinguishable from small rivulets of water trickling down from on high after the recent rainy weather. And since it was winter, I was (I safely assumed) the only person on the mountain. I was having a lot of fun, actually. It all seemed very adventurous and grand to me, and it was physically hard because of the time constraint. I was in ok shape, but not tip-top (I miss playing the frizz and b-ball with the gang every week...). I had to cross a large river twice. Now luckily I'd had lots of practice scrambling over wet rocks after my brothers when we were kids (mom always called us little monkeys), so that went fairly smoothly. I didn't like the prospect of having to cross this river, twice, in the darkness on the way down. I'm terrified of water at night. I don't know why-- maybe it's the unsearchable depths and the power whose bounds I can't ascertain in the darkness. Water is like a living thing, and that gets to me in the night. Even more cause to push ahead more quickly now...
The trail was very steep for the last 1/3rd. My face was literally inches from the forest floor, covered in layer upon layer of moss, slime, and mud filled with so much life and decay that it filled my nostrils in a way I won't soon forget. It was very dense, and very dark, and eerily still. I knew there must be plenty of life going on all around me-- but I couldn't see it; I just sensed the forest as a breathing thing. Which was also eerie. But neat. I'd wished I had my biology/ecology friends with me to describe all the plants and slime and moss to me. I'd never been so dirty in my life, and it was good.
The last bit of the climb was difficult. It was wetter up there, and I slipped on the mud and was saved by a dangling vine more times than I can count. And I was growing so very tired. It was lightly raining this high up, and my view of the sea was strained, but I could make out the massive grey stretching out in the distance. More than three times I thought I'd finally made it to the top, and made that final extra push one makes before the finish line, only to come to a clearing and realize I had much more to go. Time was getting on. In fact, it was now almost 3:45 o'clock; well past time to turn round. The sun (which wasn't to be seen) would be setting in an hour, and I had two hours back down, at sprint speed. I started to get quite nervous. I thought maybe I should turn around. But I just.. I just couldn't. I had pushed myself so long and so hard, and to not make it to the top? I knew the view wouldn't be there, as it was dusk and still mist-cloaked at the top anyway. But still, I just had to do it, or I'd never forgive myself.
Then, at about 4:00, the "trail" flattened out. The trees grew more scraggly and eventually disappeared, giving over to tall reeds and ponds of mud. The top!!! I literally ran through the reeds, sharp as knives and unyielding, until I reached a rather unceremonious little wooden X nailed into the ground, with a final, large orange triangle nailed to it. The top. I wandered around a bit and caught my breath. I was in the midst of cloud, so unfortunately there was no grand sight to behold. I was bummed, but I also was getting rather nervous; it was very dark already. And, I don't think I mentioned this before, but I didn't have a flashlight, either. Idiot. I'd reasoned everything out, and somehow I calculated I'd be able to get out to the last few kilometers of farmland by the time it was really dark. And then, without the forest canopy and vines and sinkholes and whatnot, and with the moon at first quarter, I'd find my way back just fine.
Right.
But, from my vantage point on top of Mount Stormy, the adrenaline got the better of me and I felt overly optimistic about how fast the climb in the opposite direction would be. I took one last look out and over the valley below, shrouded in droplets, and shouted to no one in particular, "Welp... see ya later!"
I turned, and headed back down into the growing darkness.
June 28, 2008
New Zealand Day 3
There were a surprising number of cow herds high up in the Southern Alps. There they'd be, slowly chewing mouthfuls of green, staring at me through the window of the train. I tried to explain to them how lucky they were, being here in the middle of all this-- with mountains and mist and blue sky and lush grass. But they just mooed at me. Don't they realize they might be in Iowa instead? Silly cows.
It was snowing lightly when we finally reached Arthur's Pass. I had a good look around while waiting for the other passengers to board the bus, and it seemed a deserted mountain town if ever I'd seen one. The rail station was wooden and dilapidated, and across the tracks was a small blue building with white trim and absolutely no people about. It would be tough to find a way out of here...
but, as luck would have it, there were five empty seats on the bus, so I made it in to Greymouth after all the fuss. I forgive you, hostel-woman from Christchurch.
I bought another bus ticket from Greymouth up to Punakaiki, which is along one of the most lovely coastal highways in the world, says Lonely Planet. But before I got on that bus, I had to buy more provisions at the grocery store. I also found a glow-in-the-dark compass, which made me feel pretty much like a rock star. I also bought black tights. For warmth. And because, why not?
The bus ride was gorgeous and ended much too soon. I was unceremoniously dumped off at the small Punakaiki tourist information station, at the foot of Paparoa National Park. I went on a short hike to see the Pancake Rocks, and then I spotted a sign for rental canoes. I literally ran to the little shack and rang the buzzer. After a few minutes, a grizzly male voice came over the intercom: "Z'there sommun there? Z'the buzzer ringin? Hang on aright mate, I'm comin"
The river went deep into the rain forest and through a limestone gorge that comprises much of Paparoa, and finished at the Tasman Sea. I was the only person around for miles, as my bus-mates had reboarded and continued farther North. It's such a sparsely populated country-- so completely wild in that way. It was perfect. I'm becoming a complete introvert, I tell myself. Eventually a grizzly, jolly middle-aged man came bounding 'round the corner of the shack and asked if I was there for hiring a canoe. I said I wanted a kayak, and he said, no, you probably want a canoe-- and then he pointed to a rack of kayaks. Ok, I want a New Zealand Canoe, I said. And so he gave me a lime green kayak. But first he advised me to put on a wetsuit, and handed me a giant rubbery black thing that was large enough to fit me AND my kayak inside. The changing room was...well, it was weird. It was a small, wooden room much like a sauna, but with eight or so amateur paintings on one wall, all of people kissing. Okay... and then there was the other side of the room-- there hung a single painting, of five grown men standing together in a wilderness, wearing overalls and hats and holding various farm tools. It looked like some Kiwi version of Deliverance. Eeeeeee. Needless to say I changed really quickly and ran down to the river with my "canoe".
The river was fairly shallow this time of year, but extremely peaceful and cool. I kayaked up the river (wonderful, hard work though the current wasn't terribly strong) for about an hour, and then turned round and let the water carry me back to the Tasman Sea. The sun was setting, the water was glass, and I was the only living soul in the entire canyon (unless you think birds and/or wild goats have souls, because they were the only other creatures I saw/heard). Before the beach was a large lagoon of freshwater from the river. I ditched my kayak there on one side of the lagoon, grabbed my oar and my camera, and ran down the beach to the ocean, my super-sized wet suit flapping in the wind. The sunset was incredible-- I have some pictures of it posted on my facebook page, but I'll put a couple here. Obviously they can only give a taste of it.. but at the time I thought the setting sun looked a lot like the Ascended Christ wrapped in cotton-candy. And I mean that with the utmost reverence.
After I'd taken a few photos I put my camera safely back in the plastic bucket the grizzly jolly man had given me ("More 'en one camera at the bottom of that river, I tell yeh"), and frolicked in my giant wetsuit in the surf until it was time for me to head back. The sea was pleasantly salty, and only a little cool. Quite calm. They say the sea is most beautiful and calm in the winter.
After I'd changed (again, as quickly as possible in the room with all the...paintings) I walked a few kilometers up the road to a small lodge hostel called Te Nikau. It's owned by Lisa, a bubbly Welsh woman who fell in love with the rain forest and never left. I was given a key to a cabin in the woods, where I had some supper and had a nice chat with four British travels by a wood fire. Two of the girls were together--they'd been WWOOFing around New Zealand for almost a year now and said they needed another few months at least to finish exploring the country. I was ashamed to tell them I only have four real days there. WWOOFing is a new term I learned; it stands for Willing Workers On Organic Farms. Basically, kids (well, mostly post-college aged) from Europe (though I met one American girl who was WWOOFing) come to work on organic farms and earn their keep in remote places in Australia, New Zealand, or other agricultural places on other South Pacific islands. The money is extremely little, but the point is to work hard and help locals build a more sustainable way of life, and then take what little you earn after a few months and travel around the rest of the country. It is a neo-bohemian style of living that brings you very close to the earth, very close to the natives of any country, and very close to bankruptcy. But that's what being young and without babies means, I guess. For many Brits and Germans, anyway (these two nationalities dominate the WWOOFing scene around NZ).
The next morning I got up early and hitchhiked to Westport, farther up the coast. I was really nervous to hitchhike. I mean, it's not something you get to do in many countries, especially if you're a female. And frankly, that pisses me off, but that's the way it is. So I thought I would have to face my fear and just do this one thing that I'd always wanted to have the freedom to do in the only country in the world where you can probably still get away with it and not fear for your life. I was picked up by the very first car along the stretch of highway, which turned out to have very, very little traffic. His name was Rodger, and he drives trucks for a NZ produce company. Probably mid-30s. I think he could tell I wasn't used to "thumbing it", being from the States and therefore paranoid, but after a few meters we spotted another guy thumbing it, and picked him up, too. As they say, three's company. They both were Kiwis, and so had a lot of nice, New Zealandy things to talk about. After a while they started to ask me questions and were very excited to find out I was studying philosophy of science. I must say I was more than a little amused when they both immediately assumed that meant I worked with genetics, or gene mutation (yes, they started asking a variety of questions about growing ears on the backs of mice and that sort of thing) and, though I was having fun letting them assume what they would about my research, eventually I told them that I worked more in physics. Which got them going on aliens. I was trying with all my might to maintain my composure. They were both just so earnest, and eager to talk about the possibility of life on other planets and what that would mean for us...philosophically. I realized what snobs we all become when we start to study philosophy, because we get away from what philosophy can really mean to most of the rest of the world. Sure, it was hard not to laugh when Roger and Len went from UFO hypotheses to wondering about the meaning of life in the same breath, but they got as excited thinking about these big questions as little kids do when they first see the moon through a telescope. And that's something I guess I didn't realize I'd lost touch with. Grad students really are the worst of snobs. Shame and double shame on us. Well, me anyway.
We arrived in Westport about an hour later, and went our separate ways. And that was the end of my hitchhiking adventure. I made a bee-line straight for the travel info center and booked a van-trip way up north, to literally the middle of nowhere: Karamea. In Karamea, which is right at the edge of Kahurangi National Park, I would-- that very afternoon-- climb to the top of Mount Stormy. It's a day climb, the women at the desk told me. But I wasn't going to let that stop me. All the really good hikes in NZ take over two days of good, solid hiking, and I only had one day. So the best I could do was this one hard climb, fast and steep, in an afternoon. I guess I'll just have to come back to do more backpacking when I have REAL time to spend here, not just a blink.
While I waited for the van shuttle to take me to the nether-regions of northern South Island, I popped over to a famous local cafe, Gibby's, for a bit to eat. At 11:00, a young man with fiery-red hair and piercing blue eyes pulled up in a white van with stacks of parcels and letters in the back. My ride. The driver's name was Phil, and he became a good friend during the two-hour drive through winding back roads up to Karamea. He stopped every 15 minutes or so, pulling into a little farmhouse or stopping at a lone convenience store in the middle of acres of pasture to deliver the mail. It was..quaint. Like I was in the middle of the novel Christy, in the Appalachian mountains ... but with less-bigoted people. Maybe that's harsh, but I was in a bad mood about that at the moment: just that morning at Gibby's I'd picked up the Christchurch paper and flipped through it for any news from home. I found plent of Obama buzz, featuring a full-length article of interviews from folks in the Appalachians who were quoted as saying they could never imagine "one of [Obama's] kind running our country. It's too big a job." I literally spat out my lemonad, all over that page of the newspaper.
Phil and I, during our chat, got right to politics. Although, Phil told me, the difference is New Zealanders are curious about the affairs of the world, but that's as far as it goes, whereas the Aussies (there is much rivalry between the nationalities)..the *Aussies* were desperate to become big in the world, and would "eat up any news from the States". This was Phil's frank opinion, and many other Kiwis shared the same. Australia was hungry to be on the world map. New Zealand wanted to go on living it's quiet, peaceful way, keeping their own business as their own, and the world's business and the world's. I think this might be the only reason I would not be able to live permanently here. Oh, and the incredible isolation you feel being thousands of miles from cities with more than a million people in them.
Anyway, Phil and I had a great laugh about a good many things. He became sort of like an older brother to me, and when I told him about climbing Mount Stormy he was a bit worried. It's sort of late in the day.. sort of drizzly and cloudy, don't you think? No, I said, I don't care. This is my only chance to climb in New Zealand. I need me some mountain. He just laughed, and said after I dropped some of my things off at my hostel for the night (called "Rongo"-- a really funky hippie hostel outside Karamea), he'd drive me the seven kilometers or so to the trail head. I ran inside Rongo, and asked to book a room and stash a few things on a bed for the next few hours, all in one hurried comment. The three blond people my age standing in the kitchen just looked at me slowly, and blinked. One of them said (British-ly. I surmised he was from Britain), that will be fine, 28 dollars please. I said I could only pay with a card, but he slowly shook his head and said, "We haven't any card-machines here. We have to travel up the road to the hotel to use your card. Jack here can take you" He pointed to an older man with a cowboy hat sitting in the corner, working on a laptop, whom I hadn't noticed before then. Jack looked up and waved.
I said "I'm sorry but I'm in an awful hurry-- I've got a ride waiting to take me to the Mount Stormy track. Can I pay you when I get back?" At this point one of the girls in the kitchen, who was sitting cross-legged on the counter eating bread like I imagine hippies probably do, and she said-- with the quietest and smallest and most monotone voice I'd ever heard-and very slowly: "It's misty up there." And that was all any of them said to me. It was like she was pointing out to me that my hair was curly, very slowly and matter-of-fact, with no sense of irony. She was being perfectly serious, and so were the others in the kitchen. I told them "Sorry, but I just gotta climb me some mountain!" Then I ran out the door to rejoin Phil, and told him of the odd, somewhat cold reception of the hostel-keeper-people.
"Ah well, may be they're all tossers. Don't you feel bad. But I know Jack- Jack's a good man. Did you meet Jack?" Phil knows everyone on the entire West Coast. He's been driving this country for 15 years, delivering people and packages and mail. He knows everyone, everyone knows him, and he knows all the best stories around these parts.
After making some turns past Karamea and off into the farmlands, Phil came to a stop right opposite a herd of grazing cows. "Here ya'are, mate! Have a good tramp! I'll pick you up in front a your hostel tomorra at seven forty. Cheers!" He shut my door, ran around to driver's side and sped off back down the gravel road toward Karamea. More deliveries to make, no doubt. I turned and face the "trail head", which was on the other side of an electric fence, and consisted of a small, less-than-informational sign saying "This is the beginning of the Mount Stormy Track. This is a 6-8 hour tramp of some difficulty. You must obtain permission to begin this hike, as it begins through private farmlands." Yes, I noticed, I though to myself, glancing over at a calf who'd been mooing at me since I stepped over the fence. I don't have time to walk all the way to the farmhouse to ask permission: it's already getting on 2:00 and it will be completely dark by 6:00. Must get going.
So off I went, through a hilly pasture full of cows (and all that cows entail, *ahem*), electric fences, rocks, and small streams. It reminded me quite a lot of an Irish farm. That still, that green, that beautiful. And that drizzly.
I was going to have to push myself extremely hard to make it to the top in time. This would be a challenge, and I had to be smart about it. There were no people. No people, anywhere. And just that morning Roger and I drove past a small group of television cameras set up alongside the road: they were still looking for a 21-year-old Asian tourist who'd disappeared on a tramp two weeks ago in that area, Roger explained. This is a different sort of adventure, I had to tell myself. Sober up. Compose yourself. Think.
I paused to take a single photograph of the lovely pastoral scene before facing the unrelenting thick of the rain forest. I turned to the mountain, still cloaked in mist, took a deep breath, and sprinted up and in.
It was snowing lightly when we finally reached Arthur's Pass. I had a good look around while waiting for the other passengers to board the bus, and it seemed a deserted mountain town if ever I'd seen one. The rail station was wooden and dilapidated, and across the tracks was a small blue building with white trim and absolutely no people about. It would be tough to find a way out of here...
but, as luck would have it, there were five empty seats on the bus, so I made it in to Greymouth after all the fuss. I forgive you, hostel-woman from Christchurch.
I bought another bus ticket from Greymouth up to Punakaiki, which is along one of the most lovely coastal highways in the world, says Lonely Planet. But before I got on that bus, I had to buy more provisions at the grocery store. I also found a glow-in-the-dark compass, which made me feel pretty much like a rock star. I also bought black tights. For warmth. And because, why not?
The bus ride was gorgeous and ended much too soon. I was unceremoniously dumped off at the small Punakaiki tourist information station, at the foot of Paparoa National Park. I went on a short hike to see the Pancake Rocks, and then I spotted a sign for rental canoes. I literally ran to the little shack and rang the buzzer. After a few minutes, a grizzly male voice came over the intercom: "Z'there sommun there? Z'the buzzer ringin? Hang on aright mate, I'm comin"
The river went deep into the rain forest and through a limestone gorge that comprises much of Paparoa, and finished at the Tasman Sea. I was the only person around for miles, as my bus-mates had reboarded and continued farther North. It's such a sparsely populated country-- so completely wild in that way. It was perfect. I'm becoming a complete introvert, I tell myself. Eventually a grizzly, jolly middle-aged man came bounding 'round the corner of the shack and asked if I was there for hiring a canoe. I said I wanted a kayak, and he said, no, you probably want a canoe-- and then he pointed to a rack of kayaks. Ok, I want a New Zealand Canoe, I said. And so he gave me a lime green kayak. But first he advised me to put on a wetsuit, and handed me a giant rubbery black thing that was large enough to fit me AND my kayak inside. The changing room was...well, it was weird. It was a small, wooden room much like a sauna, but with eight or so amateur paintings on one wall, all of people kissing. Okay... and then there was the other side of the room-- there hung a single painting, of five grown men standing together in a wilderness, wearing overalls and hats and holding various farm tools. It looked like some Kiwi version of Deliverance. Eeeeeee. Needless to say I changed really quickly and ran down to the river with my "canoe".
The river was fairly shallow this time of year, but extremely peaceful and cool. I kayaked up the river (wonderful, hard work though the current wasn't terribly strong) for about an hour, and then turned round and let the water carry me back to the Tasman Sea. The sun was setting, the water was glass, and I was the only living soul in the entire canyon (unless you think birds and/or wild goats have souls, because they were the only other creatures I saw/heard). Before the beach was a large lagoon of freshwater from the river. I ditched my kayak there on one side of the lagoon, grabbed my oar and my camera, and ran down the beach to the ocean, my super-sized wet suit flapping in the wind. The sunset was incredible-- I have some pictures of it posted on my facebook page, but I'll put a couple here. Obviously they can only give a taste of it.. but at the time I thought the setting sun looked a lot like the Ascended Christ wrapped in cotton-candy. And I mean that with the utmost reverence.
After I'd taken a few photos I put my camera safely back in the plastic bucket the grizzly jolly man had given me ("More 'en one camera at the bottom of that river, I tell yeh"), and frolicked in my giant wetsuit in the surf until it was time for me to head back. The sea was pleasantly salty, and only a little cool. Quite calm. They say the sea is most beautiful and calm in the winter.
After I'd changed (again, as quickly as possible in the room with all the...paintings) I walked a few kilometers up the road to a small lodge hostel called Te Nikau. It's owned by Lisa, a bubbly Welsh woman who fell in love with the rain forest and never left. I was given a key to a cabin in the woods, where I had some supper and had a nice chat with four British travels by a wood fire. Two of the girls were together--they'd been WWOOFing around New Zealand for almost a year now and said they needed another few months at least to finish exploring the country. I was ashamed to tell them I only have four real days there. WWOOFing is a new term I learned; it stands for Willing Workers On Organic Farms. Basically, kids (well, mostly post-college aged) from Europe (though I met one American girl who was WWOOFing) come to work on organic farms and earn their keep in remote places in Australia, New Zealand, or other agricultural places on other South Pacific islands. The money is extremely little, but the point is to work hard and help locals build a more sustainable way of life, and then take what little you earn after a few months and travel around the rest of the country. It is a neo-bohemian style of living that brings you very close to the earth, very close to the natives of any country, and very close to bankruptcy. But that's what being young and without babies means, I guess. For many Brits and Germans, anyway (these two nationalities dominate the WWOOFing scene around NZ).
The next morning I got up early and hitchhiked to Westport, farther up the coast. I was really nervous to hitchhike. I mean, it's not something you get to do in many countries, especially if you're a female. And frankly, that pisses me off, but that's the way it is. So I thought I would have to face my fear and just do this one thing that I'd always wanted to have the freedom to do in the only country in the world where you can probably still get away with it and not fear for your life. I was picked up by the very first car along the stretch of highway, which turned out to have very, very little traffic. His name was Rodger, and he drives trucks for a NZ produce company. Probably mid-30s. I think he could tell I wasn't used to "thumbing it", being from the States and therefore paranoid, but after a few meters we spotted another guy thumbing it, and picked him up, too. As they say, three's company. They both were Kiwis, and so had a lot of nice, New Zealandy things to talk about. After a while they started to ask me questions and were very excited to find out I was studying philosophy of science. I must say I was more than a little amused when they both immediately assumed that meant I worked with genetics, or gene mutation (yes, they started asking a variety of questions about growing ears on the backs of mice and that sort of thing) and, though I was having fun letting them assume what they would about my research, eventually I told them that I worked more in physics. Which got them going on aliens. I was trying with all my might to maintain my composure. They were both just so earnest, and eager to talk about the possibility of life on other planets and what that would mean for us...philosophically. I realized what snobs we all become when we start to study philosophy, because we get away from what philosophy can really mean to most of the rest of the world. Sure, it was hard not to laugh when Roger and Len went from UFO hypotheses to wondering about the meaning of life in the same breath, but they got as excited thinking about these big questions as little kids do when they first see the moon through a telescope. And that's something I guess I didn't realize I'd lost touch with. Grad students really are the worst of snobs. Shame and double shame on us. Well, me anyway.
We arrived in Westport about an hour later, and went our separate ways. And that was the end of my hitchhiking adventure. I made a bee-line straight for the travel info center and booked a van-trip way up north, to literally the middle of nowhere: Karamea. In Karamea, which is right at the edge of Kahurangi National Park, I would-- that very afternoon-- climb to the top of Mount Stormy. It's a day climb, the women at the desk told me. But I wasn't going to let that stop me. All the really good hikes in NZ take over two days of good, solid hiking, and I only had one day. So the best I could do was this one hard climb, fast and steep, in an afternoon. I guess I'll just have to come back to do more backpacking when I have REAL time to spend here, not just a blink.
While I waited for the van shuttle to take me to the nether-regions of northern South Island, I popped over to a famous local cafe, Gibby's, for a bit to eat. At 11:00, a young man with fiery-red hair and piercing blue eyes pulled up in a white van with stacks of parcels and letters in the back. My ride. The driver's name was Phil, and he became a good friend during the two-hour drive through winding back roads up to Karamea. He stopped every 15 minutes or so, pulling into a little farmhouse or stopping at a lone convenience store in the middle of acres of pasture to deliver the mail. It was..quaint. Like I was in the middle of the novel Christy, in the Appalachian mountains ... but with less-bigoted people. Maybe that's harsh, but I was in a bad mood about that at the moment: just that morning at Gibby's I'd picked up the Christchurch paper and flipped through it for any news from home. I found plent of Obama buzz, featuring a full-length article of interviews from folks in the Appalachians who were quoted as saying they could never imagine "one of [Obama's] kind running our country. It's too big a job." I literally spat out my lemonad, all over that page of the newspaper.
Phil and I, during our chat, got right to politics. Although, Phil told me, the difference is New Zealanders are curious about the affairs of the world, but that's as far as it goes, whereas the Aussies (there is much rivalry between the nationalities)..the *Aussies* were desperate to become big in the world, and would "eat up any news from the States". This was Phil's frank opinion, and many other Kiwis shared the same. Australia was hungry to be on the world map. New Zealand wanted to go on living it's quiet, peaceful way, keeping their own business as their own, and the world's business and the world's. I think this might be the only reason I would not be able to live permanently here. Oh, and the incredible isolation you feel being thousands of miles from cities with more than a million people in them.
Anyway, Phil and I had a great laugh about a good many things. He became sort of like an older brother to me, and when I told him about climbing Mount Stormy he was a bit worried. It's sort of late in the day.. sort of drizzly and cloudy, don't you think? No, I said, I don't care. This is my only chance to climb in New Zealand. I need me some mountain. He just laughed, and said after I dropped some of my things off at my hostel for the night (called "Rongo"-- a really funky hippie hostel outside Karamea), he'd drive me the seven kilometers or so to the trail head. I ran inside Rongo, and asked to book a room and stash a few things on a bed for the next few hours, all in one hurried comment. The three blond people my age standing in the kitchen just looked at me slowly, and blinked. One of them said (British-ly. I surmised he was from Britain), that will be fine, 28 dollars please. I said I could only pay with a card, but he slowly shook his head and said, "We haven't any card-machines here. We have to travel up the road to the hotel to use your card. Jack here can take you" He pointed to an older man with a cowboy hat sitting in the corner, working on a laptop, whom I hadn't noticed before then. Jack looked up and waved.
I said "I'm sorry but I'm in an awful hurry-- I've got a ride waiting to take me to the Mount Stormy track. Can I pay you when I get back?" At this point one of the girls in the kitchen, who was sitting cross-legged on the counter eating bread like I imagine hippies probably do, and she said-- with the quietest and smallest and most monotone voice I'd ever heard-and very slowly: "It's misty up there." And that was all any of them said to me. It was like she was pointing out to me that my hair was curly, very slowly and matter-of-fact, with no sense of irony. She was being perfectly serious, and so were the others in the kitchen. I told them "Sorry, but I just gotta climb me some mountain!" Then I ran out the door to rejoin Phil, and told him of the odd, somewhat cold reception of the hostel-keeper-people.
"Ah well, may be they're all tossers. Don't you feel bad. But I know Jack- Jack's a good man. Did you meet Jack?" Phil knows everyone on the entire West Coast. He's been driving this country for 15 years, delivering people and packages and mail. He knows everyone, everyone knows him, and he knows all the best stories around these parts.
After making some turns past Karamea and off into the farmlands, Phil came to a stop right opposite a herd of grazing cows. "Here ya'are, mate! Have a good tramp! I'll pick you up in front a your hostel tomorra at seven forty. Cheers!" He shut my door, ran around to driver's side and sped off back down the gravel road toward Karamea. More deliveries to make, no doubt. I turned and face the "trail head", which was on the other side of an electric fence, and consisted of a small, less-than-informational sign saying "This is the beginning of the Mount Stormy Track. This is a 6-8 hour tramp of some difficulty. You must obtain permission to begin this hike, as it begins through private farmlands." Yes, I noticed, I though to myself, glancing over at a calf who'd been mooing at me since I stepped over the fence. I don't have time to walk all the way to the farmhouse to ask permission: it's already getting on 2:00 and it will be completely dark by 6:00. Must get going.
So off I went, through a hilly pasture full of cows (and all that cows entail, *ahem*), electric fences, rocks, and small streams. It reminded me quite a lot of an Irish farm. That still, that green, that beautiful. And that drizzly.
I was going to have to push myself extremely hard to make it to the top in time. This would be a challenge, and I had to be smart about it. There were no people. No people, anywhere. And just that morning Roger and I drove past a small group of television cameras set up alongside the road: they were still looking for a 21-year-old Asian tourist who'd disappeared on a tramp two weeks ago in that area, Roger explained. This is a different sort of adventure, I had to tell myself. Sober up. Compose yourself. Think.
I paused to take a single photograph of the lovely pastoral scene before facing the unrelenting thick of the rain forest. I turned to the mountain, still cloaked in mist, took a deep breath, and sprinted up and in.
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