New Zealand, South Island, tramping and holidays

Part 2 of New Zealand. South Island, tramping and holidays.

Transcript

 E11 – New Zealand, part 2 : South Island, tramping and holidays

Hey there everybody! Welcome back for episode 11 of my podcast, “Goin’ down the road with Randy”. Remember to follow along on the Facebook page for pictures – and, actually there are a couple of Facebook pages – it’s a long story, short story is, I got hacked.

Anyway, if you have forgotten, we are in Nelson, on the northern coast of the South Island in New Zealand. It is Wednesday, November 21st, 1990 and it is still raining! Pro tip: If you are traveling to New Zealand be sure to pack varied and high-quality rain gear – you will use it! How long can it last? Probably best not to ask that question, Mother Nature may take it as a challenge. It takes some time to sort through all of our wet, smelly gear so it is 11 before we get out of the cabin and go into town to the post office, and cash travelers checks. I hit a bookstore for Nevil Shute’s “On the Beach” and Faulkner’s “Absalom, Absalom”.

We drive, in the pouring rain, straight to Greymouth. Our friend John is at the Pavlova Backpackers, but they are full. So is the Golden Eagle pub slash hotel. The Duke of Edinborough has a room but we are not keen on it, so we head for the Greymouth Seaside holiday park and get a cabin for 15 dollars each – 45 dollars.

We have some bread and veggies for a veggie stew. We also have a few beers left over – will miracles never cease? We must be slacking. We watch more “Lonesome Dove” and go to bed early – we intend to drive all the way to Wanaka tomorrow, a 9 ½ hour trip.

Thursday, November 22nd, 1990

Today is actual Thanksgiving here but it is not yet Thanksgiving in America. We leave Greymouth at 10:30 after picking John up at the Pavolova. We drive south on highway 6 on the west coast of the South Island of New Zealand. The South Island is marked by mountains and fjords on the west side, it is geographically quite similar to the west coast of Norway.

We go south to Hokitika, which is the center for greenstone – jade – and gold in these parts. We buy some greenstone and some gas. We continue south past Franz Joseph glacier and make a side trip to Fox glacier. A short dive up Fox glacier road followed by a short walk and, yep, looks like a bona fide glacier all right! If you keep going up there you’ll get to Mount Cook, the highest point in New Zealand at a respectable 12,218 feet but, coming from Colorado that altitude doesn’t impress me much.

We keep going south to Haast where we get a beer at a local pub and then the road turns east. There are no roads along the southwest coast of the South Island south of this point. We call Wanaka Backpacker but there is no answer.

We drive east up to Haast Pass and gorgeous sub-alpine terrain until we reach the far end of Lake Wanaka and then over “the neck” to Lake Hawea, past the town of the same name to Wanaka, on the shore of the lake of the same name. We go get groceries and then pull into the best backpacker hostel in New Zealand – Wanaka Backpaka. Eliot is already here. The location is tremendous with lakeside views over Lake Wanaka and snowcapped mountains in the distance. The room reserved for us is simply the best double in a backpacker hostel anywhere in New Zealand. It has its own bathroom and a nice queen-sized bed and it is a room with a view!

The owner / operators of Wanaka Backpaka are Julian and Robyn and when we tell them how much we like the room they just say, “We thought you’d like it.”

Eliot has somehow met Gary, who we met in Tongariro at the Mangetepopo Hut. Gary is staying in Queenstown but is supposed to come to Wanaka for our Thanksgiving feast.

After a curry veggie stew dinner Eliot turns us on to a big fat doobie that he has managed to find and we giggle down to the pub. It’s near closing though so we each get a jug – they call them riggers these days – to go back to the hostel. We are wasted and tired after the long drive and we are excited to slip between real sheets in a real bed. You must understand, usually we sleep in a sleep sack that we made by sewing a queen-sized sheet along the bottom and ¾ up the sides.

The next day is the day we have decided to celebrate Thanksgiving – it actually is Thanksgiving in the US anyway. I go to the store and the boys go get a turkey – two actually. They are fresh, from a local farm but not very big, about 10 lbs each. I go to the store for veggies and alcohol. I call home and talk to Dad and my Papa, Mimi and brother Bob.

I go back and we take over the kitchen, both ovens cranking, veggies getting chopped, birds being stuffed, taters boiling, pies being made! Pies, I say! All the while drinking, first bloody Mary’s then vodka and juice with a doobie or two thrown in for good measure. I’m wasted by 3 o’clock! We invite our hosts to the feast.

It all comes together at about 6 The table is set, our hosts have contributed 2 bottles of New Zealand wine – a chardonnay and a strawberry Rose. Just for backup we have a 3 liter box of red and another of white. This is not our first rodeo.

We feast. The turkey is perfect (if I do say so myself) the squash is amazing and the asparagus divine. We feast. The wine is the perfect temperature. We lay on the floor and walk by the lake and smoke doobies and give thanks for having the opportunity to be here right now and there is not much better than that is it?

We walk back for apple pie and coffee. We go back down to the lake to smoke yet another doob. Things start to get blurry. Too much wine and weed and food. We play cards and roll dice and pass out. Happy Thanksgiving, the first of many that I will mark outside of the US where the holiday is celebrated and though we were away from family, we celebrated pretty good.

I sleep until 11 the next morning – apparently I missed the memo to wake up at 7 for doobs and exercise and swimming in the lake. Or maybe I just ignored the damn ridiculous thing anyway. By the time I awake and have tea, everyone is napping again, proving the superiority of my approach.

It may have been our “first time away from home on a big holiday” nostalgia but we fell in love with Wanaka Backpaka and use it as our base of operations in southern South Island.

Our next order of business is to go W.W.O.O.F.-ing. WOOF is W, W, O, O, F or “willing workers on organic farms”. It is, I believe, a worldwide organization that links organic farmers and people willing to work on them in exchange for room and board. We paid a nominal fee – I forget the exact amount and did not record it – but you get a list of contacts. Friends of ours have recommended one nearby so we are going to see what’s up.

We call Vicky and Jamie at the Nook Road Nursery. They say they are no longer actively woofing but when we mention our friends’ names they tell us to come by. They run a plant nursery in Hawea. We drop Eliot and Kelly at the crossroads – they’ll hitch to Queensland from there and we go to the farm.

We arrive at about 11 and have some tea and chat and feel each other out. They don’t really have a lot of real work but agree to let us stay a couple of days. Vicki has herbs growing everywhere and Jamie does mysterious things to plants in tubes in a shed off to the side. I suspect the reason they don’t woof anymore is because Jamie is pretty actively anti-social.

Vicki wants to plant basil in a plastic greenhouse. Our job will be to get all the weeds out that are there now and dig five trenches, deep as a shovel, wide as a shovel and about 30 feet long. We will then line the bottom of the trenches with comfrey because comfrey is an herb which does not take nitrogen out of the soil as it decomposes – it adds it, or something. I don’t really know; I just do what I’m told.

Weeding was the longest, and the hardest, mainly because we tried to be lazy and dig the trench first which of course covered the weeds in a layer of dirt which would have been fine if they disappeared but they were still there and harder to find and pull under the dirt. There was also a layer of straw in there somewhere. We dug and pulled and listened to the rain on the plastic – hey, at least we’re dry. It feels good to be hanging out with real, live Kiwis again and to be doing work and getting our hands dirty.

We work until about six and have finished three trenches and all the tedious weeding. We’ll finish the last two trenches tomorrow. We pull the car up to our humble quarters, a caravan, or travel trailer, that has not been used in a while and has seen better days but is just fine when we clear all the cobwebs out. It is in back, beside another caravan that Jamie’s brother was rumored to live in, though he was apparently, even more anti-social than Jamie and we never saw him!

We wander around the farm and find their pet lamb, Joshua. They have 15 free-roaming sheep that they do not eat, or shear, and I never find out their reasoning behind that – it may be grass and weed control, I don’t know. Joshua loves to be cuddled but has globs of shit on his tail and is damp and smelly, so his appeal is minimal.

We go into the main house for a simple dinner of tuna and pasta with roasted potatoes and steamed cabbage and leeks. Jamie opens up books of a comic strip called “Footrot Flats” by a guy named Murray Ball, who lives in Napier and also does a slightly-better known strip called “Stanley”. I make friend with their kids – 3 boys, 6,9, and 11 and the eldest, and only daughter, Gabriel, who is 14. The kids soon drive me crazy and we retreat to the safety of our cobwebby caravan.

There is a beautiful alpenglow on the mountains when I go out to get water. The sun is not setting here until after 930 at night. Jamie says the latitude south here is comparable to Wisconsin.

We finish the basil trenches before lunch the next day and spend the afternoon meeting Jamie’s parents and planting a couple of rhododendrons. We go down to pub in Hawea around 5 and have a jug of Speight’s Ale from Dunedin and drink it with the good ol’ boys in the pub. Nary a tourist in sight other than us.

Jamie and Vicki are off to a bbq and leave us to watch the kids. Poor couple gets far too little time to themselves and these kids are a handful. We make lamb chops, mashed potatoes, peas and cabbage. I play cricket with the boys (Ellis, Eli, and Lachlan) and Greta has a girl talk with Gabriel.

We sleep in until 10 the next morning and then say goodbye and drive south to Queenstown, the tourist hub in the South Island. On the way we stop at Karawau Gorge to watch the bungee jumping. I want to go but can’t afford it. We pick up 3 hitchers and head into Queenstown. The town reminds me of a busy Grand Lake, Colorado – a touristy, alpine, mountain town on the shores of Lake Wakatipu.

We meet back up with Eliot, Kelly and John – they have been partying non-stop. There is an AMEX office here and we go get mail, drop off film, change money and then we go strolling down the Queenstown mall and we run into Mike, whom we met in Kaitra and he is with Lucy Lemer who went to school in Boulder and is friends of friends of ours. It is sometimes quite a small world! They are traveling with a guy named Stephen in a red Escort like ours.

We decide to camp with them tonight as none of us has a place to stay yet. We get two crates of DB Export Dry and some veggies and drive out towards Glenorchy on route 6A and find a place to camp by the lake near some signs that say, “No Camping” and “No Fires”.

We pitch our tents, drink some beer, make veggie curry and sit around the fire. I love New Zealand! Surprisingly, we end up piss drunk and happy. We crawl into the submarine for our first try sleeping in what the Kiwi’s call a “van”.

Tuesday, November 29th, 1990

We wake at dawn, covered in sandflies. We try to go back to sleep but it is hopeless and we get up, very much against our will, at 730. We have tea and chat. Lucy has just come through Thailand and Indonesia and writes out some recommendations for us when we get there. We all promise to meet up in Australia. Then we’re off, they are going to Christchurch, via Mount Cook and we are preparing to hike the Routeburn Track. Actually, we are doing a “tramp” that Includes the Routeburn, part of the Greenstone and the Caples tracks and we plan to be in the wilderness for about 10 days.

We get provisions for 5 – us two, Eliot, Kelly and John – which costs 26 dollars each, so roughly 2.60 per day. This is the kind of traveling that we need to start doing. Money has been going fast. We get gas for our camp stoves and drive up to Glenorchy and the country is more beautiful and alpine the higher we go. We get a bunkhouse at Glenorchy Holiday Park for 12 dollars a night.

The next day we book a van to take us to the start of the Routeburn and a boat to pick us up next Wednesday at the end of the Caples track, 25 dollars each. The van drops us off at the trailhead by 11 and it is an easy 2 hours’ hike to the Routeburn Flats hut.

The namesake Route Burn – burn is a name for a small stream, what we might call a creek or a brook, is an ice-blue glacial beauty and we are walking in a wide, flat glacial valley. Just about the time we arrive at the hut it begins to rain. We set up our tent – we have a really nice tent.

We make a dinner of potatoes, cheese and veggies. The plan is to hike to the McKenzie Hut tomorrow which will be 5 hours, mostly uphill. We are at 44 degrees 45 minutes south latitude and the sun is setting at 10 pm.

Saturday, December 1st, 1990

Kelly and John don’t want to wait and start off. Eliot and I hang back and handicap ourselves with a doob. Then the three of us set off towards Routeburn Falls Hut and Harris Saddle.

 When we reach the saddle the clouds are moving in and visibility is decreasing rapidly. The view is fabulous on the Falls side but the other side was all white. We eat a quick lunch at the Harris shelter and hike on relatively level ground in high alpine terrain with kea parrots chasing after us – more on them later.

We spot the McKenzie hut nestled beside the lake from a view point high on the mountain long before we get there. Steep switchbacks lead us down to the hut which sleeps 40 and is overcrowded with 55 so we set up the trusty tent once again. There is a fantastic view of Emily Peak – when you can see it. It is a cold night up here.

The keas, alpine parrots, must be watched. These birds have been known to destroy parked cars, ripping up the rubber components to try to get food inside and we’re keeping an eye on them and our tent. Their racket wakes us early but I persist in sleeping. We spend a lazy morning lounging in the sun and throwing rocks at the keas when they get close to the tent. It is only a three-hour hike to Lake Howden, our destination for the day.

The trail is level and the views are amazing, in places you can see all the way to the ocean, or the sound, I’m not sure which. The highlight is Earland Falls, 80 meters high and dropping into an emerald pool.

Before we know it we are at the Howden Hut on the shore of the lake of the same name. This marks the end of the Routeburn Track but we are going to keep walking on the Greenstone Track. We skip the hut and set up the tent in a free campsite 20 minutes down the trail. We share the meadow with a pair of Germans. Ramen for dinner around a smoky fire and – uh oh – the clouds start closing in.

Monday, December 3rd

We wake to rain pattering on the tent so it is easy to roll over and keep sleeping. I finally  get up at 10 and make coffee – unbelievably I am the first one up! It is slow packing in the wet but we are walking by 11, down the Greenstone River to Lake McKellar where we make a left and now we are on the Caples Track. We climb McKellar Saddle and the trail just goes straight up the damn hill, no switchbacks, not even a kiss on the cheek. It then goes straight down the other side to the Upper Caples hut.

We walk by the river and then its gone, after a while it comes back again, apparently it goes underground for a bit. We reach the hut and our packs explode spreading their damp contents all over the grassy meadow in the sun. We fire up some soup and rice then potatoes and veggies and spend an enjoyable evening chatting with a Swiss couple and an older Kiwi couple who are avid fishermen.

We walk out the next morning as we have eaten all of our food. It should be less than 5 hours on the flats beside the Caples River.  The bus picks us up at the trailhead at 3 and after a short detour to the start of the Ruuteburn, it drops us off at the Glenorchy Holiday Park where we reunite with the yellow sub.

We celebrate being back in civilization with cold beers, meat pies, potato chips and ice cream. We drive back to Queenstown and get a suite at the Family and Backpacker accommodation (FAB) for 15 dollars each. We go get groceries and fix up a memorable dinner of steak, asparagus, broccoli and baked potato washed down with cold beer. A much-needed shower seals the deal and we sleep well.

The next morning we’re all up by 8 and in town and lined up outside the BNZ bank by 9. We are a motley crew indeed. But we all get money then hit Millie’s for a great breakfast – eggs, bacon, toast, hash browns and bottomless coffee for 6 dollars and 65 cents. After breakfast it is errands – Amex for mail, chemist for slide film – 2 rolls and sundries. We also need webbing for harnesses to protect us from falling off walkwires on the Dusky Track, which is our next objective and is the subject of episode 4 of this podcast and the details will be skipped over here. Listen to episode four for those. We also get maps and information at the Department of Conservation office where we learn the boat will cost us 45 dollars going in and 25 dollars to come out. We plan to start on Saturday, so we have 4 days to prepare.

We go back to FAB to regroup, do laundry, organize, clean gear, make food lists. We go out to the Cow for their famous pizza which is superb, we get the Veggie Annie and the Porto Fino with bacon and mushrooms. We go to Chico’s to see some guy play guitar – not only could this bar be located in Boulder, Colorado rather than Queenstown, New Zealand but we also meet some fellow Boulderites and have a couple of beers and some sambuca shots. We go back to the FAB and I start not feeling well.

Thursday, December 6th, 1990

This is the day before episode 4 begins and it basically involves packing up the gear we have strewn all over this place. Kelly, Eliot and John are off to do the Young-Wilkins track. The two of us plan to do the Dusky just to get away from everyone for a while. I stop by AMEX for a last mail drop and get the shortwave radio that my brother sent me, a nice little SONY ICF-SW20. It is smaller than a pack of cigarettes and it will come in handy.

We pack up and head towards Te’ Anau. Along the way we pick up an English guy hitching to Invercargill. His name is Gary and he plans to meet his friend, a Kiwi named Andrew in Invercargill. As it turns out they are planning to be on the same boat to the Dusky Track that we have booked! We drop him off in a windstorm at Lumsden where we turn off to Te’ Anau to go to the Fjiordland National Park visitors center to fill out our intention forms for the Dusky Track. This is how the Department of Conservation guys know our plans – the Dusky is one of the most difficult and remote tracks in New Zealand.

We get a room at the Fjiordland Hotel for16 dollars each and then go shopping for food supplies and we spend almost 150 dollars but we have been warned to bring food for almost two weeks, just in case. This turns out to be quite good advice. We sort and pack and pack and sort and then go out for an excellent Chinese meal at the Ming Gardens. After dinner we drive the car to the Te Anau Motor Camp and park it there for a 2 dollar fee and walk back to the room. We are prepared to hitchhike to Invercargill the next morning. Our packs are mostly food.

Here would be a good time to listen to episode 4 of this podcast, The Dusky Track, if you haven’t already, as I will not cover that epic adventure again here, but I’ll meet you when you get back.

Oh, you’re back, well, put those wet clothes outside. I swear, I am damp to this day from that tramp! But I will never forget it

We check back in to the Fjiordland Hotel after retrieving our car. Do laundry, drink beer, eat fish and chips and generally enjoy being dry for a while. We take another hot shower and get to sleep in a real bed with sheets and it is heaven.

Thursday, December 20th, 1990

So, the plan all along was for everyone to meet back at the Wanaka Backpaka where Julian and Robyn, after enjoying our Thanksgiving feast, have asked us to cook Christmas dinner for the entire hostel. But right now we have damp gear strewn about but have Weet Bix – cereal, sort of like shredded wheat - and banana and it tastes damn good this morning.

We are off by 11 to Fjiordland travel and ask about Gabriel - the same Gabriel who gave us a ride to Invercargill when we were hitching to start the Dusky Track. She had invited us to look her up and we were always looking for a free place to spend the night and a chance to hang out with the locals. They tell us she is in Milford Sound on the afternoon fishing boat cruise so we decide to drive up there. We’re glad we do. The scenery along the way is nothing short of spectacular. First along a flat, grassy glacial valley until we reach the Divide which is the other end of the Routeburn Track. Then we are surrounded by snowy peaks and waterfalls. It is magical. The road then dives into the Homer tunnel with a gravel floor and water falling from the roof. It is long too!

We finally reach Milford which consists of the THC hotel and a gas station that sells gas twice a day. There are tons of tourist boats here to take excursions on picturesque Milford Sound, dominated by majestic Miter Peak, named for its’ resemblance to a bishop’s hat.

We walk out to mighty Bowen Falls where we see dolphins playing in the wake of the tour boats. We have meat pies and cheese and crackers for lunch and a beer in the pub. We head back to Te Anau and stop at The Chasm which was formed by the Cleddau River forced through a narrow, rocky valley. A kea tries to get friendly with our tire.

Next we stop at Mirror Lake which is especially beautiful with all the lupines in full bloom. We go to Henry’s in Te Anau where we meet Gabriel and she invites us to stay at her place (which is what we were hoping because we haven’t booked a room) and we all get drunk on Coruba rum.

The next morning we take Gabriel to work and then go out to walk some of the Kepler Track. It is a highway, gravel five feet wide with drainage ditches on either side. Quite a contrast with the Dusky! We climb rather steeply and steadily through brush for a few hours and then break into the alpine tundra. We have lunch at the luxurious Lexmore Hut and then climb a bit more. It is a sterling, sunny day. The view stretches the length of Lake Te Anau all the way to Manipouri. We run back down the trail to arrive back in town by 630. We do 30 kilometers in 7 hours – not too shabby.

We buy groceries and make a big spaghetti dinner for Gabriel and her brother, Nick. They have been so generous, and it has really helped us to save a bit of our fast-dwindling money supply.

Saturday, December 22nd, 1990

We say goodbye to Gab and Nick and head back to Queenstown and there are plenty of people out and about. We are still having trouble getting cash in Queenstown. I try the ATM and the machine eats my card. Feeling pretty bummed I go to pick up mail and there is a card from Mom for $225 actual dollars! Our troubles are, at least for the time being, resolved.

We clean out the car and treat ourselves to a nice dinner of sushi and sake. Then we creep around Queenstown in the car looking for a secluded place to sleep in it. The night is long, but the car is not.

Next morning we have breakfast at Millies – the last day of the special breakfast. Then it is off to Wanaka to have Christmas with the boys. We pick up an American girl hitching and drop her off in Cromwell where we take a photo of the giant fiberglass fruit.

Our room at Wanaka Backpaka is even better than our old room. Eliot is working here now and he has made it like a fancy hotel with a bottle of wine and glasses. They have stocked the large shower with soaps and lotions. It really makes us feel wanted and pampered and missed. The Dusky Track has taken a lot out of us. We make ramen and veggies for dinner and call it an early night.

Because the next day is Christmas Eve and there is lots to do. First, I have to go back to Queenstown to get my credit card and change some money. Queenstown is a madhouse – it takes me 20 minutes to park. I go to the bank but they won’t give me my card. They promise to send it to Christchurch – our next destination - for me to pick up there. I try to reason with them by pointing out the obvious – I am here now – but no dice.

I buy a few small presents for Christmas and then zoom back to Wanaka to buy groceries. After experiencing our culinary skills at Thanksgiving, Robyn and Julian have commissioned us to cook Christmas dinner for everyone at the hostel – 40 people! They give us a couple of nights free room for our trouble.

We play some frisbee and drink beers. Later on we have some shots, it’s beginning to look like a drunken Christmas.

We’re all a bit slow out of bed the next morning but some coffee kick us into high gear where we are making Eggs Benedict for the kitchen crew. We hope it sustains us through the long day of cooking. I make the hollandaise, Greta poaches the eggs, Peter and Greg do the English muffins, John, fittingly, is on homefries. We have a feast for breakfast and then it is turkey time!

So we make some shots and start on dinner for 40. Chopping onions and celery for stuffing. By the time the turkeys are stuffed and put into the oven it is 3 o’clock, but they are small birds so we should be good.

 We chop carrots, pluck peas and wash, peel and chop potatoes and wash and chop green beans. I make a glaze for the carrots while Kelly makes a couple of pies. By 630 Kelly and I are carving six turkeys while the finishing touches are put on mashed potatoes and veggies are all done.

At 7 o’clock, as promised, Christmas dinner for 40. Roast, fresh turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, green beans, glazed carrots, and peas. It is a sit down feast as each table has a turkey and bowls of family style veggies and fixings. Robyn and Julian provide a local wine.

Everyone is eating and drinking wine and there is plenty for seconds, but we have plum pudding, apple pie, cherry pie and rum cake for dessert. Another feast with much toasting and merriment all around. Coffee and Bailey’s round off the meal.

Then the serious drinking starts. Part of the deal, by the way, is that we are relieved of KP, so the cleanup is handled by another crew. I think the whole scheme is Julian and Robyn’s idea of letting everyone stay free for Christmas. They are such great people. Whatever it is, it is a smashing success.

We start drinking wine with three Aussies, Mary, Janine and Rob, who are here climbing. We drink every single thing in the hostel. I mean, if there was alcohol in a bottle, we searched it out, found it and drank it. When the rest of the sleeping hostel told us to be quiet, we went downstairs and drank some more.

Around 5 in the morning, just before dawn, after the moonlight swim in Lake Wanaka, Kelly is passed out in the driveway. We put his sleeping bag over him. Greg has managed to tip his bed over and is somehow sleeping under it. Eliot is proposing to a girl named Gardrona, and we watch the sun rise before we go to bed.

I wake after noon to find our bags covered in talcum powder and tied with my shoelaces to the bed. It seems Greg was the last one up and made sure everyone knew it. He tied John and Eliot’s sleeping bags together and John ripped his as he struggled to get out to take a pee in the night.

Peter was having a midnight shampoo with toothpaste when he decided to projectile vomit which caused Greg to stop. I guess we go off lucky! Everyone in here is hungover like a horse and moving slow. Some are worse than others.

 I eat lunch and then take a nap, later I go into town for groceries and make everyone a giant spaghetti Bolognese – not everyone like last night – just our group of 8 or ten or so. Eliot gets beers and we actually end up drinking them, but it is still a quiet night.

Thursday, December 27th, 1990

What a week it has been. But we’re packing up today to take a few days’ tramp in Mount Aspiring National Park. The plan is to hike up the West Matukituki valley to the Cascade hut for three days. It costs us nothing but the groceries we will consume which we will consume anyway, and the small amount of gas to get there.

 It takes us until about 2 to depart as we have to organize what we will take and what we will leave in storage here at Wanaka Backpaka because we are already planning the New Year’s celebration. We settle our bill and go buy food. John, Peter and Greg are along for the trip.

The road crosses about a dozen small streams. The submarine stalls out in one – she is a submarine, but she is overloaded with 5 people and gear, but we dry it out and continue on. A last-minute re-packing in the parking lot and we are off up the flat glacial valley so common of valleys in the South Island. A fine day and fantastic scenery take us to a two-bunk hut. We make curry and enjoy a majestic sunset reflected off the snow-covered peaks.

We wake late and have porridge and tea and then we are off to check out the views from the Cascade Saddle. We pass the Aspiring hut, a sweet category 1 stone structure and begin the long, uphill slog for 2 hours to the alpine tundra. We have a lunch of cheese, crackers, smoked oysters and fresh fruit above treeline. John and Greg are going to camp up here. We hang out admiring the graceful symmetry of Mount Aspiring, New Zealand’s 23rd highest mountain, known as the ”Matterhorn of the Southern hemisphere”.

Then we head down to the hut where we concoct a satisfying meal from instant potatoes, onion, broccoli, peas, carrots and cheese. The rest of the evening is spent quietly reading, writing and listening to the rain. Tomorrow we’ll see what the boys say when they get in from their wet campsite and decide if it is worthwhile to go see the magnificent Rob Roy valley.

Holy cow! Greta wakes me up in the middle of the night screaming bloody murder. There is a loud banging metal noise outside the hut – we are surrounded by a herd of cows. I was running around the place in my birthday suit – I don’t think Peter ever moved. Around daybreak we are awakened again by John and Greg who have been driven off of their mountaintop perch by the rain.

I go back to sleep while they try to dry gear and make breakfast in the staff hut next door. I manage to be the last one up even with all the commotion. It is truly an art form and I am an artist. Hey, I’m on vacation!

John and Greg are both for hiking out today and I suspect Peter is as well. We would rather stay another night, especially because it doesn’t cost anything. Oh well, majority rules. As we walk out we let the boys go ahead to the car and stash our packs beside the trail and take a 2 hour side hike up the beautiful Rob Roy valley. The view from the valley and the glacier are well worth the additional hike.

We meet the boys back at the car for another lunch with a similar menu as yesterday. We pile in and head back to Wanaka Backpaka which seems to be occupied by thousands of people. There are no rooms available. Robyn and Julian graciously allow us to pitch our tent on the grass for free. We go into town for dinner and bring back riggers of beer for a mellow evening.

The next morning a guy named Andrew comes by wanting to take us climbing on some local rock but he expects to get paid for the trouble and I am not keen on paying to climb rocks that are free, so I pass, but the boys all go. I take a mellow afternoon and evening preparing for the blowout that I know is coming tomorrow because it is New Year’s Eve!

We’re up early and Greg comes with us to Queenstown to pick up Kelly. We have driven the one hour route between Wanaka and Queenstown on highway 6 so many times it has become routine. Around Cromwell, which is roughly halfway, the sub starts running very poorly. It won’t idle at all when we stop at Vicki’s to get Kelly. We take care of errands in Queenstown and nurse it back to Wanaka where I ask at the garage for a tune-up. The guy there says to bring it by at “half nine” tomorrow and it would be 80 dollars. I’m kind of surprised he will work on it on New Year’s Day and I wonder who will be awake at half-nine.

Back at Wanaka Backpaka preparations are well underway for the New Year’s Eve barbecue. John, Eliot and Peter have stocked the fridges with numerous 2-liter riggers of assorted beers. We decide to hit the bottle shop for reserves and get 3 bottles of vodka, a bottle of Sambuca, 2 bottles of champagne for midnight, six liters of juice and 2 bags of ice. After all, there are now 8 in the party. We start on the riggers immediately and the party begins.

It all gets progressively burrier after that, but we play frisbee, drink, eat sausages, sing Happy Birthday, eat Greg’s boysenberry cheesecake and lounge in the hot tub. The hot water percolates straight to our brains and we’re officially piss-drunk.

It’s nearly midnight so we hop out for a couple shots of Sambuca followed by champagne. This proves to be a deadly one-two punch for Greta and Eliot who promptly pass out just as we begin some serious blues harp playing with a jolly Swiss fellow who also happens to be quite a proficient yodeler.

We decide to take the show on the road and go into town but we are hijacked by a group of Kiwis who want to take us to a party, but the party does not materialize so we head back towards town against the flow of partiers thus exchanging many greetings and everyone is drunk and happy.

We go back to the hostel ostensibly to get shoes but once there we realize how drunk we are and decide to stay and drink some more fearing that if we head into town now we’ll end up in a gutter somewhere. Greg, John and Kelly pass out so Peter and I are left to exact revenge for the Christmas Eve pranks. We get a permanent marker and creep into Greg’s room – against the wishes of the 2 frigid Canadians girls who are his roommates. We give him an American flag tattoo with a caption that reads, “I wish I was an American”. I think I pass out shortly thereafter.

I am up after nine to take the car in, still too drunk to be hungover. I drop the car off and stop at the grocery store on the way back. I cook up a huge breakfast of hash browns from the leftover potatoes and a cheese and avocado omelet – I thought we had leftover sausages too but I was wrong. With a full belly I head back to bed for a nap. I wake up in the afternoon to pick up the sub which is now running like a top! We have stir fry for dinner and finish off the 2 riggers and the half bottle of vodka that somehow escaped being drunk last night.

Wednesday January 2nd, 1991

We have less than 2 weeks before our visas expire and we have to leave New Zealand so we say our goodbyes to Robin and Julian and pack up the sub with Kelly and Eliot and we’re off before noon up highway 8 and then 80 along the shores Lake Pukaki to Mount Cook. There are tons of tourists here to admire the full glory and splendor of the mountain rising out of the lake and its’ glaciers into a bluebird sky.

We shoehorn ourselves into a campsite and take a hike up for a better viewpoint. We hang out in the visitor’s center and then go to a nearby pub for a beer and dinner. We hike back up to watch the sun set behind the mountain and the alpenglow is gorgeous. The sun goes down while we tip up a bottle of wine. Then we retreat to snug sleeping bags – it is cold up here!

We have to leave early the next morning because Eliot is meeting his cousin in Christchurch. She gets in at 1:20 and it is a solid 4-hour drive to get there. The sub is humming along at 60 most of the way. The countryside on the east side of the South Island is flat and boring compared to the alpine valleys we have been in.

We get to the airport with 15 minutes to spare only to be told the flight is delayed but it is only another 15 minutes. We call ahead to the Pavlova to book rooms and somehow we fit all six of us and gear into the submarine and navigate the one-way streets of downtown Christchurch to the Pavlova where we share a six bed dorm room and we hang our damp tents out to dry.

We are not really liking this place – there is no key for our door and there are only two bathrooms on this floor which has about a hundred people staying on it. We go out and get a late lunch and I go to the BNZ bank where I finally retrieve the credit card that got stuck in the atm in Queenstown. It is a relief to have it back because we need to buy transport back to Auckland.

We have Chinese food at a place on the Cashel Street mall and then go hear a lively Irish band called Black Velvet. We go back to the dorm to find that Eliot, as a minister in the Universal Life Church has married Nancy and Gary! I mean, he couldn’t have waited until we got back? I have trouble sleeping because this city is so fucking loud! Take me back to the country!

Friday, January 4th, 1991

Everyone else checks out and moves to Foley Towers aka Avon View. Greta and I have made contact with a friend, Dana, who lives here and has graciously invited us to stay with him and his parents. He also has an Aussie friend named Mark staying there and his parents are out of town so everything is cool. We drop stuff off at Dana;s place and then go back to the gang at Foley Towers.

They are going to the botanical gardens and we need to book our trip to Auckland. It is 133 dollars for a bus and ferry combo, but we can get a stand-by flight with our student cards for 157 dollars, so we’re flying, hopefully Monday morning. That done we go to the botanical gardens and then back to Dana’s where we learn we are going to a barbecue. We meet his friend’s Ian and Karen, and Dana’s girlfriend Julie is there. We have cold beers and talk and laugh. We go meet Eliot where we formally turn over the keys to the yellow submarine. Remarkably, we put 3,710 miles on that little car in less than 2 months’ time and it never once stranded us. I’m certain at least a thousand of those miles were driving between Wanaka and Queenstown.

We have bequeathed the car to him and he will use it for the remainder of his time in New Zealand and he will sell it when he leaves and pay us when he meets us again in Australia in a few months. (He has extended his visa to stay longer in New Zealand.) This arrangement saves us the hassle of selling the car.

We party a bit with Eliot and Kelly at The Loft where some drunk ass girl keeps showing her tits and then we have to take a taxi back to Dana’s where his parents have returned and he forces us to meet them even though they are in bed.

Somehow we manage to wake up at a relatively decent hour and we properly meet Dana’s parents. We have breakfast and then all go to the beach at Sumner where we spend a little time on the sand and a lot of time at the pub. We go to Julie’s house for a game of Pictionary and delivered pizza that tastes sooo good. Dana stays there and we go back to sleep at his parents’ house and, weirdly, it is not weird at all.

Sunday, January 6th, 1991

We’re up early and go for a leisurely drive out to the scenic Akaroa peninsula where we stroll around and have fish and chips. We buy a nice yellow cala lily for Dana’s parents to put in their garden as thanks for their amazing hospitality. We have a few rounds at the Hilltop Inn overlooking beautiful Akaroa and then go back and tidy up because Dana’s parents are treating us to an excellent steak dinner. It has been a pleasure to spend a few days with these friendly folks.

But early next morning Dana takes us to the airport and we get on the first flight at 1130 and by 1 o’clock we are back in Auckland. We call Andrew, from the Dusky Track, and he says’ “Come on out!” So we do. He lives in Torbay, well north of the city center, so we take the Super Shuttle into town and then catch a bus out to Torbay arriving there around 4 pm. He picks us up and takes us to his parents’ place which turns out to be a large horse farm on a hill. It is very nice.

We are having trouble reading the vibes we are getting so it is difficult to relax at first, but his parents, Brian and Madeleine seem very nice. He also has a brother, Mark. We sit down to dinner and we learn that his dad is a teacher and is into liberal politics. His mom is a barrister – lawyer. We have a shower and watch a little tv. We need to get up early to catch a ride into the city with Madeleine so that we can apply for our Australian visas.

Tuesday, January 8th, 1991

We are up at 7, showered and looking our best and out the door by 830. Madeleine gives us a quick tour of her law office in Ponsonby, near downtown and then we take a short walk down to the Australian Consulate on Quay Street to find that they will not open until 10. We spend the hour filling out the forms and at 10 we are in line and ready to go. We have no problems. We leave our passports, get a receipt and we should be able to pick them up on Monday, maybe Friday. We wander around Quay Street and the oriental market. One the way back we pick up ingredients for lasagna and then call Andrew who gets us at the bus stop.

We prepare a huge lasagna feast complete with salad, garlic bread and lively conversation and are in bed early. Clean living!

The next morning, we go with Andrew and drop his mom off at work and then go to the zoo where we finally get to see the signature bird of New Zealand, the kiwi. We take a picnic lunch and go slowly. It is really quite a nice zoo with many improvements going on.

Afterwards we drive to the top of Mount Eden for a panoramic view of the city. Mount Eden is an extinct volcano and it was very windy. We hit the Victoria Park Market which is touristy, but nice. We have a beer at the Corner Bar and watch the cricket – or Andrew does anyway. 

We pick up mom from work and head back to the east coast bays where we tuck into a delicious steak dinner with pesto pasta and ice cream for dessert. Brian serves wine with every meal. Dinner conversation centers around the growing anxiety over what is known as the “Gulf crisis” soon to be known as the Gulf War.

Thursday, January 10th, 1991

We’re a bit slow getting out of bed today. The plan today is to go scuba diving at the Cape Rodney / Goat Island Marine preserve. Andrew’s friend Dave has all the gear including tanks. I am still not a certified diver but they don’t care and it’s not too deep so, yes, a bit crazy but, what the hell, why not?

Dave and Andrew dive and then it is our turn. There are lots of people and divers. It is a beautiful sunny day. Underwater is teeming with life among interesting rock formations. We never get deeper than 25 feet. We see octopus and a starfish feeding on a shell. It was something I have wanted to do my entire life and now I know I’ll have to get officially certified in Australia.

I do something to my left ear – probably because of a failure to equalize, but it is just uncomfortable, like a pressure or fluid in the ear and not painful. On the way home we stop in Pahei at the Pahei Hotel for a celebratory beer where we are harassed by the drunk owner / barman for being American.

The next day my ear is still stopped up. Andrew and Dave are going diving again at a place just north of the marine reserve where we dove at a place where they can go spearfishing.

Our plan is to hang out at Brown’s Bay, just south of Torbay but it has a nice sandy beach. Brian drops us off and we chillaxe on the beach watching the people launching boats into the light surf and water skiing. We buy a plant and a bottle of wine as thanks for the McFadden’s hospitality.

We catch the bus to Long Bay and get off by the school planning to walk across the fields to the house. What a disaster! We get pretty lost crossing innumerable fences and fields, probably trespassing and walk down the road the wrong way. We finally stumble in and are treated to a roast lamb dinner and more great conversation about problems in the world.

Saturday, January 12th, 1991

A lazy morning and then Madeleine takes us with Andrew and Mike and drops us off at the cricket match where it is dollar day. Admission is a dollar, hot dogs are a dollar and beers are a dollar. Auckland is playing a three-day test match with Wellington. We call Kelly and he and Greg meet us there. We get a good buzz on watching Auckland destroy Wellington. The sun is hot and the beer is cold and the cricket does not demand our attention. Andrew educates us on the finer points of the game.

When they break for afternoon tea – and I said wait, what? They are going to have lunch and then come back and finish?! What a crazy sport! We take the opportunity to go into town to Prince’s Wharf, near Quay Street where there is a festival of some kind going on. 

We watch the buskers and wander over to the Rainbow Warrior which is in town. On the way to catch the bus we literally stumble into the Shakespeare brewery where we sample their fine handmade brews. We get the bus back to Torbay and run, the correct way, through the fields. We make dinner from one of the fish Andrew speared yesterday and watch a James Bond movie.

The next day we hang out doing laundry and catching up on some writing. We are preparing to leave to fly to Australia.

On Monday, we say goodbye to the McFadden family, thanking them for their hospitality. We have probably overstayed our welcome, spending nearly a week with them and we are thankful because it saved us a small fortune in lodging.

Madeleine takes us into the city and drops us where we started, back in October, at the Picton Street backpackers. We ditch our stuff there and then we have to go to her office as Greta left her daypack in the car.

We pick up our fresh new 6-month visas for Australia. It is, fittingly raining again. New Zealand saying goodbye. We get cash and change out all of our New Zealand money saving 16 dollars for the departure tax.

Greg stops by with wine and beer and we have a final drink session. 

The next morning finds us hungover again and we need to be at the airport by 7. Kelly is also flying out to Sydney today on a different flight. We get Bloody Mary’s at the airport bar and before we know it, we are in Sydney where it is hot and muggy.

And that about wraps up New Zealand people. It is one of my favorite places and in retrospect I wonder what would have happened if we had extended our visa to stay here longer and work, instead of working in Australia, but ah well, shoulda, woulda, coulda - can’t change the past and I feel like we covered the country pretty well and we were ready for a different one. I hope you enjoyed the tales of the travels, and we’ll catch you next time, somewhere down the road. Stay safe.