We wanna live in Wanaka
We got to Wanaka after 10pm, at least 4 hours after we left the glacier. The ride was beautiful, except for the constant sandfly attack. By the time we got there, it was pitch black and we couldn’t find the campsite. We stopped and looked at a map in town, we drove down a dirt road trying to find it, and eventually, we did.
It was worth the trouble. The place we stayed, the Aspiring Campervan Park, is the greatest campsite in the world. The bathrooms have double doors and are all heated and immaculate. The sites are spread out from another, with picnic tables and trees in between. There is a sauna and two hot tubs. And as we discovered in the morning, there is a glorious view of the mountains.
We woke up late, showered, and decided to take a rest day. We did some laundry, moved the van to a better sightline, and I called my parents. Then we walked into town and I spent the remainder of the day taking pictures and crying out, “People live here! All the time! People get to look at this EVERY DAY!” and T would nod and say, “Yeah, I know. You’ve mentioned it.”
Wanaka is lovely. The lake is encircled by snow-capped mountains (even in December) and the lake is a beautiful blue. The town overlooks the lake overlooking the mountains, and it’s just perfect. On our first day, a Sunday, everyone in town was down by the lake, swimming and sailing and kayaking and I almost cried, it was so pretty.
I knew then we weren’t going anywhere for a while. We stayed in town for the afternoon, got dinner at a restaurant overlooking the whole scene, and then walked back to the campsite. We already knew—we were in love with Wanaka.
TRAGEDY! I awoke the next morning to find three grey hairs squirting out of my head. I told my loving husband, who responded, “JESUS! We don’t even have kids yet!” Yep, that’s my husband.
On our second day, we went to reception to extend our stay from two nights to four, since we had already decided to make Queenstown a day trip and just stay in Wanaka. We asked about different activities: skydiving, horseback riding, and kayaking in the Sounds. We could do the skydiving in an hour, she said. And we did.
I’ll be honest: I wasn’t too keen on the idea of skydiving again. Not because I was worried about myself, because I’d already done it. Obviously, I was worried about T. He had never done it, and would SURELY DIE. Also, he refused to promise me that he wouldn’t die, which made things all the more difficult.
We did it anyway, and it worked out all right. There was an outrageously friendly Dutch boy named Eric in our bus who was going for the first time, and he was accompanied by another Euro woman in his hostel who had gone the day before. And, the people at the skydiving place were fantastic.
I was paired up with Henk, who was also Dutch and had been skydiving for 18 years. T was paired up with Adam, who was from Southport (which I guess is near Chester) and had lived in New York and Melbourne, just like T. Fortunately for us both, they were both very chatty and hilarious guys.
They crammed us into a tiny plane with two other girls, their partners and another cameraman. T was to go second, I was going last. I was pretty nervous going up in the air, since I didn’t have a chance to say goodbye to T, who would SURELY DIE. We went up and up, and then we were at 12,000 feet. Out went the first girl and her cameraman. Then, it was T’s turn. There, he was, dangling with his legs out the door, and bam! He’s gone! AND HE DIDN’T EVEN SAY GOODBYE!
I tried to comfort myself with the fact that these guys are professionals and that if he had smashed into a bloody heap on the ground, then we wouldn’t go. Henk dragged me over to the door, so I assumed T was still alive. And then, we were gone.
The last time I went skydiving, I had a guy filming me, and trying to make me do funny things. I couldn’t do anything entertaining because A: I was terrified out of my mind and B: I was completely distracted by the mountains surrounding me that I couldn’t stop staring at them, because they were just so purty.
This time, I had no cameraman, just Henk. Bless him. He was wonderful. We jumped, and because he was so great, I wasn’t scared at all. We were falling, and falling, and I was completely relaxed. Henk wouldn’t kill me…Henk was married. His wife would be pissed! He kept holding my hands, and making a thumbs up, and waving his arms around, and then, the parachute opened.
He pointed out T from the air, and we had a nice little chat as we drifted back to earth. He let me “drive” the parachute, and we did some crazy little circles in midair. And then, we landed. In one piece. Standing up, even.
This time, I didn’t have the crazy adrenaline rush that I had the last time, because my partner was so much gentler and more friendly. Also, I had done it before, so I knew what to expect. Also, I was way less terrified. However, I would definitely do it again, and if I did, I would want to do it at the same place.
T, as I mentioned earlier, seemed pretty ambivalent about the whole thing at the time. He didn’t seem scared or excited by any of it. However, it should be said that the next day, he looked at me and said “If we had the money, I’d do the 15,000 foot jump today,” and he’s been all cracked out on skydiving since we jumped. But don’t tell him I told you that. He’s cool, man.
After the jump, we had lunch at Subway (what better way to celebrate being alive than eating fresh?), and we walked back to the campsite. We celebrated by going into the hot tubs and the sauna (T is completely obsessed by saunas now) and drinking wine and eating cheese. We even discussed our next trip…we know some people who did a trip called “1000 wines” and we talked about doing a 1000 cheese trip. I think T thought I was joking. I never joke about cheese.
There’s nothing like jumping out of a plane to make you glad to be alive.
Murder tonight, in the trailer park
After the glacier climbing, we were only too happy to get the hell out of Franz Josef. We looked at the map and saw that Wanaka was 300km away. No problem! 300km at 100 km/h = 3 hours! Sweet action!
Ha ha ha ha ha, we were so foolish. We had forgotten that in NZ, 300km = 3 days of driving. And so we started our journey down the west coast, through valleys and past mountains, and to a scenic vista infested by sandflies. We had some sandwiches as we watched the sun set lazily over our shoulders, and began to be attacked by the little bastards. We killed as many as we could and then continued on, worried about running out of gas.
We got to Haast at about 8pm and everything was closed. We found a petrol station that claimed to be the last for 28km, so we stopped. No one was there, so T was forced to feed cash into the manual paypoint so that we didn’t have to freedom camp in the petrol station car park. I had opened a little window in the back of the car so that the flies could get out, and I proceeded to start a massacre inside the car.
Unfortunately, the petrol station was even more infested than the viewpoint was, and they were swarming in. We spent the next two hours smacking down flies and screaming “All your dreams are dead!” as we checked for blood spurting from our limbs.
Good times.
T wishes his wife was as dirty as the Franz Josef glacier
After the drive to Franz Josef, we were ready to jump right out of the car and party. ..or at least walk around. Franz Josef town is one of those places that is full of non-English speaking tourists, and is composed of cute looking restaurants and stores that have clearly sprung up just to serve the tourist population. Any time you have a ratio of 3 internet cafés to one local, you know you’re in trouble.
The place we stayed was a mammoth eco-resort, with hostels, hotel rooms, and campsites. It was nice enough, but was full of Others. Young Others, in their teens and early 20s. We managed to hook my computer up to the wireless in one of the kitchens and I got online and did some blogging. The kitchen was full of backpackers, including one older French man who made my heart hurt. He was about 25 years older than all the people in there (excluding us) and he was obviously traveling alone. He had bought a giant package of frozen fish (perhaps intentionally) and was asking everyone in the room if they wanted some. It was heartbreaking to watch, but finally a sweet English girl whom he clearly knew came over to speak to him and look at his glacier photographs. It’s a good thing she did, because I was about 30 seconds away from going over and just giving him a hug.
The next morning, we wandered around town before our glacier climb. Franz Josef is a pretty place, but towns like that that are clearly designed and run strictly for tourists skeeve me out a lot.
TRAGEDY AVERTED! When we left Melbourne, I had the sinking feeling that I had accidentally shipped my sunglasses back to Maine. I couldn’t find them for days and was becoming increasingly sad about it. I wasn’t helped by the fact that in Golden Bay, T squinted at the sun and said to me, “It’s a great day for sunglasses!” and then fell over laughing. In FJ, I was told to get some for the climb, because the sun reflects off the glacier, so we did some shopping. None of the sunnies I saw was as nice as my $20 Target pair, but I resigned myself to buying some. Fortunately, we did one last sweep of the van before forking over the $45, and surprise! They were in T’s bag! Thief!
The glacier climb was interesting. There were about 50 people on the bus out there, and when it came time to climb and they asked for the people who were looking for a “more active” experience, about half of them shoved everyone else out of the way and pushed forward. This is why I hate people, people. It is much better to stay away from Others.
Since I only shove people out of my way to get onto a subway, T and I were left in the less aggressive group, which was fine with me. In the end, all the groups ended up spending the exact same amount of time on the glacier anyway, and I laughed inside.
We were all decked out in waterproof jackets, giant boots and crampons, and were also given wool hats and mittens. We were split into another two groups and started to climb the stairs that were hacked out of the snow. It was surprisingly easy for me, and I hate hiking. We climbed up for about an hour, then spent about 20 minutes having a snack, and then headed back down.
The glacier was covered with all sorts of rocks and crusty debris, which apparently comes from some kind of glacier explosion. Apparently, with all the melting and freezing, after a while glaciers suddenly expel all the dirt and grit inside, and that’s why the pictures are all of a grey glacier. Interesting, no?
T and I had decided to do the glacier climb because we figured that if Al Gore is right, there might not be much more time to do this kind of stuff. The glacier had once extended out to the end of the valley at its bottom, but gradually receded back to where it is today. It was interesting to hear that it’s actually pushing forward again now, and has been spreading back out since about 1999. It’s still much, much smaller than it was.
I was obviously disappointed by all the grit everywhere, but when we got close up to the ice, I was thrilled. It was a gorgeous sort of crystal blue—exactly the shade of my sister’s favorite color. And being a nerd for textures, I was fascinated by the ripples and valleys that the ice made. Inside the ice, we could actually see the water melting and moving around.
It was stunning and I’m really glad we did it, even if the crampons cut into my strangely shaped ankles so much that by the time we descended, my feet were nothing but bloody stumps. Even then.
On the road again
On the morning we were to leave Golden Bay, it was a little rainy and very cloudy, which I took as a good sign that it was time to leave. Just as we were packing up the van, however, a beautiful black dog bounded out and wanted to play with ME! So I let T pack up the van and I played with Beautiful Dog for about a half hour. After a while, The Mean Man made me say goodbye, and when it was time for us to leave, Beautiful Dog vanished as quickly as he appeared and I was sad. If it isn’t already apparent, I am a huge dog slut and will do endless humiliating human tricks to get their love. It’s a sickness, really. I may seek help when I get back to the U.S. But I’ll probably just get my own dog and sink even deeper.
I was sad until we got back to Takaka and had breakfast at the Wholemeal Café, which is an organic restaurant on the main drag, with high ceilings, brightly painted walls and pictures of old movie stars all over. It was full of people, and they had wireless. So T and I had breakfast while we checked our email and updated some pictures, and it was another lovely Golden Bay experience.
At about 11, we started the long journey to Franz Josef glacier. We weren’t sure how long it would take, but we knew it would be a while. We headed back over the giant Takaka Hill, around all the curvy roads, and back down on the other side. Fortunately, after the hill, the roads straightened out, which made driving much easier.
We listened to NZ’s “clussic huts” radio station the entire way to FJ, and it became apparent that I have an indefatigable knowledge of classic rock, of which T is in awe (or fear). Clussic Huts was a highly entertaining station because each hour, we received a “Beckham watch”—it seems ole Becks was in Wellington for a match and people would call in with updates about how dreamy he is (Really? Even with those teeth?) every 60 mins. Unfortunately, it was on this trip to FJ that T informed me that every time I hear Crowded House, I should not expect to see greyhounds. This was devastating news.
We passed through a lot of tiny little towns, and every time we turned a corner, there was another beautiful vista. For real—at every corner. This country is too pretty for its own good. We went through a beautiful valley at Owen River, and I stopped to take some pictures of the sign for my Owen cousins. At one point, I said to T that NZ makes me want to buy some of those giant waterproof overalls and start fly fishing, and he just about drove off the road laughing. When I told him to stop laughing, that I might meet Brad Pitt doing it, he had no idea what I was talking about. His movie knowledge is woeful.
Finally, we arrived at FJ at about 7pm. T drove like a star the whole way, though the scoreboard now stands at T: 2; birds: 0. He has embraced his identity as a birdslayer and is now insisting that he be called The Slayer, as opposed to A Slayer. Sick, I know.
…and we didn’t die!
So ask me what we just did. Go ahead, ask me.
Oh you know, we just jumped out of a plane. T just went for his first skydiving experience and I had my second. This time, it was 12,000 feet over Wanaka and it was even better than the first time. We went with Lake Wanaka Skydive, and I was paired up with a charming Dutch man named Henk, who entertained the hell out of me the whole time, which was much better than when I did it last time in Queenstown and I think my dude was a mute and I swear to God he let me dangle out of that airplane for 45 minutes before we jumped, which was just enough time to have about 3 heart attacks.
T got the video, so if you’re all real nice, we might show you the hilarious footage of him plummeting earthwards. I had the video done last time, and one humiliating skydiving video is quite enough, thank you.
I don’t have a whole lot else to say. I’m still processing the whole JUMPING OUT OF A PLANE thing. I’ve done it twice now, which means I am either completely insane or brilliant. I think I’d like to try it again… T is blase about the whole thing, of course, but I’m a little bit giddy.
Life is beautiful
I have a couple of posts to catch up on, but I don’t have the energy to write and then upload them. What I will tell you is that right now, T and I are in Wanaka, which is on a glorious lake surrounded by spectacular mountains and I am marveling that there are people who get to live here EVERY DAY. We had planned to spend two nights here and then head out, but I think we’re going to be here for a while. It’s still cranking weather and the sun is reflecting off the mountains and the lake and I need to get out of this internet cafe right now and enjoy it. Man, I love New Zealand.
The Greatest Place Ever
By our second day in Golden Bay, we already had our suspicions that it was the Greatest Place Ever, and we amended our plans so that we would stay an extra night and forget about going back to Abel Tasman with the kayaking teens, who would just wear us out with their youth and vigor.
Once again, we dragged ourselves out of bed at 10am, and went back to Takaka. Since we had just driven through the day before and not stopped, we decided to go back and check it out properly. It is The Greatest Place On Earth, I kid you not. It is not only full of charming hippies with organic restaurants and food stands, but it is also home to the Best Supermarket Ever.
I thought the supermarket might be the world’s greatest when we pulled into the parking lot and there was a kid outside moving carts wearing a Cat in the Hat hat. It only got better when we entered the supermarket and not only did one person have a ridiculous hat, but ALL THE EMPLOYEES HAD THEM. Even better, the store had actual food that we would like to eat, like brie! and meat! and Branston pickle! For some reason, I turn into a 4-year-old every time I go to the supermarket and start randomly grabbing things I don’t need off the shelves. This time was no exception. We spent $115 at the supermarket, and they CARDED T for buying the Mussel Inn black beer (which he had so vigorously claimed to hate the day before). Aaahahahahaha, you only have to be 18 to drink in New Zealand and they didn’t trust his driver’s license…they made him get his passport! I am married to McLovin.
After the market, we went back to PuPu Springs, which turned out to be appropriately named. The springs were meant to be the biggest cleanest springs in the history of time, but they have now been infested with Didymo algae, or “rock snot.” Mmm, pretty. So now you can’t swim in them or even touch them or look at them too closely, or you might spread the dreaded Didymo. So we looked and left. It was a real thrill.
We ended up pucknucking again on our way back to our campsite, and taking a nice walk on another beach. On the road to the campsite, we were stopped for roadworks and the man with the sign started giving us travel advice. Kiwis are so helpful, even at work!
When we got back to the site, the tenters were still there and appeared to have done nothing but sit in their camper all day and read. ??? The mystery continues!
T was pretty hepped up about the idea of swimming in the ocean, and I gave in in an attempt to be brave. After the numbness set in, it was actually quite lovely, and it seemed to be feeding time for every bird in the bay, so they were divebombing all around us. T claimed it was perfectly normal to go swimming at this time of year in this area, which I didn’t quite believe, given that there was no one around and another camper VIDEOTAPING US.
After the swim, we tried to go to the cafe across the road, but they were too busy for us, so we ended up cooking tacos in the van. No tent for the neighbors (I am not going to spell this word anymore), because it was really windy. Or so we’re guessing…
On the way to Golden Bay
We woke up at 8am, which was the earliest we have risen yet. As far as we are concerned, the sun does not even rise before 10am in NZ and it should remain that way. We had planned to get up at 8 and then try to go kayaking, but then 8 rolled around and we found ourselves frozen in the bed. It’s clearly some kind of medical condition. We would get it checked out, if we weren’t so busy sleeping. We decided to skip the kayaking and come back a few days later.
While we were preparing to leave for Golden Bay, a funny little dog appeared out of nowhere and came over to me. I gave her the love, and suddenly she became completely fascinated with T. T is not a huge fan of dogs, and remained immune to her doggie charms even after she dragged a giant branch over to him and began to cry. My dirty stinkeye finally pulled him out of his state and he started to play with her for about 20 minutes. It was truly hilarious. The dog was nuts about T, probably because he is such a hard sell. I would have been devastated that she didn’t like me best, were she not so hilarious trying to win his affection.
After leaving Abel Tasman, we headed to Golden Bay, which unfortunately is located over ANOTHER giant hill that looks as if it will take about half an hour on a map. In reality, it takes 36 days. We cruised through Takaka, the main town in the area, and headed to PuPu Springs. When we got to the springs, we saw a sign that said you couldn’t swim, so I pushed for having lunch and coming back later. Man, the whining that came out of the man. Waaaaah, he wanted to go PUCKNUCKING. Waaaah, why didn’t I want to go pucknucking too? Waaaaah, no one’s life has ever been so hard in the history of time. Fortunately, he was distracted on our way out of PuPu Springs when he HIT AND KILLED a bird. MY HUSBAND IS A BIRDSLAYER!
As I predicted in my infinite wisdom, the whining ceased when we got to the Mussel Inn, where we had lunch. Not only did they serve delicious greenshell mussels, but the Inn is a tiny little microbrewery, so T got to eat mussels with garlic bread and drink Dark Horse black beer. Were he not driven to moan about the pucknucking for hours to come, he would have admitted that it was a very good idea indeed.
From lunch, we went up to Whaririki Beach, which is at the end of 6km of unsealed road and a 1km jaunt through even more farmfields. We are so totally screwed when we go to immigration, I promise you.
This time, unlike the ‘waterfalls’, it was actually worth it. The beach is a giant stretch of the most stunning rolling dunes you have ever seen, which are made up of this really fine and warm and soft pale sand. It was like walking through heated velvet. We wandered the beach for ages and I took all kinds of bizarre shots of the sand, and accidentally found a giant seal in a cave. A boy had walked over to it, and I heard a weird yawp. I thought the kid was just mucking around, so I walked over after he left and almost walked right into a giant seal that was obviously just waiting to attack me and eat me for dinner. T noticed another seal in the far corner of the cave, waiting to get him next. Later, we found a giant carcass that T thought was a cow, which had clearly been gruesomely killed by the evil seals.
We spent ages at the beach, and I was really sad to leave. The sky had gotten really dark just before we got there, so the light made everything seem much more dramatic than it would have been in the sun. Cara, you understand about ‘the light’, so you will know what I mean.
From there, we tried to go to Farewell Spit, but weren’t allowed to walk on it. Instead, we looked at it from ANOTHER field full of cow and sheep poo, and pretended to be impressed.
Then we went to the campsite. This was the best one yet, if I do say so myself. And guess who found it? Not T, if that’s what you’re thinking. This one was on. the. beach. And not like that scary book about the end of the world on the beach. It was backed up right up to a beautiful deserted beach that stretched for miles and miles.
The last time we were on such a lovely deserted beach, I was completely paranoid about being eaten by a croc and dying a grisly death, so this time we were quite happy to take advantage of this crocodile-free zone. The beach was full of some of the greatest shells and rocks I’ve seen yet, and I tried not to steal them, I really did. Some just jumped into my pockets and THAT’S THE STORY I’M TELLING.
After our romantic walk, we came back to the van and made dinner. We ate more delicious dips and breads on the picnic table outside our camper, and moved inside when the bugs began to swarm and feast on my flesh. We ate a mediocre pumpkin soup and some cheese sandwiches, and then spied on our neighbors (I just spelled that with a U. Kill me now.) for a while.
The neighbors (I just did it again) were an older couple in a much bigger camper van than ours. Suddenly, at about dusk, they pitched a tent outside. What was the point of this? Why rent a giant camper, if you are going to sleep outside? (This is when my grandmother and other delicate eyes must AVERT!)
STOP READING HERE, DELICATE EYES!
We wondered whether they were going to have dirty tent sex. We wondered this not because we are perverts, but because we know people who have fallen prey to this behavior and they ended up with a BABY! We thought of warning the neighbors (good God, a third time) about the dangerous risks of acting in this way, but T figured that they were probably too old to worry about it, while I thought they might have been doing it with that specific goal in mind! Either way, we never saw who was sleeping in the tent or what happened, because it got too dark. We will never know the answer and it will torment us forever.
