Roadtrip!

A few weeks ago, the German efficiency machine that is my fellow internship workmate came across the opportunity to relocate (meaning that the car company needs to move the cars/vans from one city to another so anyone willing to do it doesn't have to pay anything) a campervan from Christchurch to Queenstown.  Giving that convincing me to travel, especially if it is virtually for free, never takes more than 3.5 seconds, soon enough everything was booked and one week later we were hitting the road down south. Let me now take all of those km’s and putting them into words. 

 

the sweet ride!

 

Day 1: Christchurch – Timaru – Oamaru

 

Calling any allocation of people in New Zealand, with the exception of Auckland, Wellington and Chirstchurch, a city it’s an over stretch. There are, at the very most, towns. Ask any New Zealander what you should do in their country and the first thing they will say is ‘skip the towns’. Even the activities proposed by Lonely Planet for the towns themselves were certainly written just to fill what would otherwise be awkwardly blank pages. But I’ll be damn if I leave this country without a list of towns crossed off my to-do list! And so the first day was dedicated to two of the three main ones along the east coast south of Christchurch: Timaru and Oamaru. The third, Dunedin, will be targeted later this month on a weekend trip.

 

Timaru

Timaru

Oamaru

Oamaru

So, the towns. The formula seems to be the same anywhere: there’s an architectural mixture of pretty colonial British buildings with a central commercial street evoking the likes of small American towns. There’s maybe a beach, maybe some penguins and that is that. If you want to avoid death by boredom in a New Zealand town you need to a) go into the wild by yourself, b) pay a lot to enter the wild (tours, boat trips, skydiving, even hiking). But then again, it’s the country of Lord of the Rings, not the Matrix so it’s a known (and appreciated) fact that Nature rules over humans here. 

 

Sensitive Dunes in Timaru

Peguins have feelings too in Oamaru

 

In the evening, we drove to the free campsite located in Kakanui, a tiny town by the sea, south of Oamaru. It was a very pleasant small camping spot on a cliff of a beautiful beach, which made for an amazing waking-up in morning experience made of bright warm sun, the sound of waves and surfers hitting the water in the early hours of the day. One of those surfers was a Belgium young guy travelling by himself who played the guitar in our van the night before while it was pitch black and ruthlessly cold outside.  

 

Neighbours

 

Morning View

 Day 2: Danseys Pass – Omarama – Lindis Pass

 

The day looked promising with such a good start and, indeed, it was. With no “big” towns on the schedule, the plan was to drive through valleys and mountains and stop wherever Nature offered something cool to see or do. As a movie addict, the best way to describe this day for me is: something straight out of Hollywood blockbusters set in mystical lands. Morning session: The Chronicles of Narnia. As we drove into mainland near Duntroon, a sign pointing to a secondary road caught our attention – The Elephant Rocks. 

 

As we turned to check it out, I opened Lonely Planet to see if there was any mention of it and there was! The rocks, resembling elephants and lost in the middle of nowhere with just a sign indicating the way to find them, were feature in the Narnia movies. My travel partner couldn’t care less about this fact but I felt myself having a little geeky orgasm for being there. After leaving the Rocks, we stopped at Danseys Pass, by a river running through two mountains, where the weekend hobby for local men is to find gold (and they do!).

 

Narnia to the right

The Elephant Rocks

Danseys Pass

Part-Time Gold Digger

 

Next stop on the road was Kurow, a little town (population: 300) which made for the second movie location of the day: it seems like it was a recently built movie set of a tiny town of the American Midwest. Following Kurow, we headed to the water along the Waitaki River, Lake Waitaki, Lake Aviemore and Lake Benmore. The most incredible thing was seeing up-close the incredible Waitaki Hydro Dam. Oh, and just FYI, I was prohibited to publicly say that we stopped for a hike in one of the mountains next to the dam (“it is a WALK so don’t go say on your blog this is a HIKE”)  but as any step I take into nature seems very radical to me, I’ll call it just that, a hike. 

 

Kurow - just like a movie set

Waitaki Dam

Lake Waitaki

Walking Hiking!

 

Through the mentioned lakes and rivers, we finally arrived in Omarama (population: 230) where we were supposed to spend the night. However, after discovering that the free camping spot we were planning to stay in was beyond horrific, we only stayed there long enough to take a very cold bath in the near river (shampoo included) and to leave for the second option of free accommodation in Nature. With this decision we manage to change the plans of two german and two dutch girls who also didn’t want to stay in the place that Gandalf obviously destroyed in anger. 

 

 (sorry, no picture of me taking a shower will ever be available for public display)

Finding the second camping spot was, by itself, a whole adventure that led us to the third movie session of the day: Jurassic Park meets Lord of the Rings. While driving through cinematographic mountains, my mind kept wondering if I would be lucky enough to see Frodo being chased by a T-Rex. When we finally found the camping site, it was completely worth the time and fuel we spent on the search – a beautiful green grass place in a valley, surrounded by tall trees in the mist of the ruins of a hotel built during the gold rush era of the XIX century to serve miners, abandoned for many decades now. To end the journey, the theme of the day was kept and while the night fall outside, three germans and me set inside our campervan watching The Little Shop of Horrors (which reassured my deep hatred towards musicals and the whole 80's decade). 

 

Where's Frodo?

Finding the camping site

Lindis Pass Hotel at the Nine Mile Historic Reserve

 

 Day 3: Wanaka – Queenstown 

 

Day three was occupied with the main resort towns on the south island – Wanaka and Queenstown. We were welcomed by a sunny day in Wanaka, a town located at the southern end of a Lake with the same name. For most people that come here, New Zealand is about hiking and exploring nature to the fullest but, for me, the simple act of taking a swim in a lake of crystal clear water with mountain tops full of snow in the horizon is enough to have one of those moments that remind me why I came. To reach our finally destination, we drove by the breathtaking scenic Cardrona Valley Road, with those views where postcard pictures are born.  

Lake Wanaka

Cardrona Valley Road

And now a question to the audience: what’s the most stylish way to arrive in Queenstown? Walk the 10 km between the airport and the city center, of course. After dropping off the van at the airport we decided that the best use of our money would be to spend it in a well-deserved cappuccino and muffin and afterwards walk the trail by the river between Frankton and Queenstown. A decision not regretted. After slightly losing our sense of direction of how to get to town, we accidentally bumped into a jaw dropping view from the shore of Lake Wakatipu and we were lost no more. 

 

4km done, 6km to go!

 

First sight of Queenstown

 

After letting our eyes contemplate the views and our legs enjoy their accomplishment, we headed to the Hostel (chain hostel but very nice and very central: Base Queenstown), followed by watching the sunset at the beach (it's utter romantic if you do it with your better half, it's awesome if you do it with friends so win-win anyway), while holding what might just be the best burger I ever had – Fergburguer. After our cholesterol was fully satisfied, we 'hit the night scene' (whatever can be hit on a sunday night) in a very cool bar with good music just in time to catch the Australia Open final match (sorry Nadal). 

 

View from the Hostel room window

In the evening

 

Day 4: Queenstown – Lake Tekapo – Christchurch 

 

There’s not much to this day besides reporting that we caught a bus at 8 a.m. in Queenstown, stopped for lunch at Lake Tekapo and arrived back in Christchurch in late afternoon. Just a note of advise for those planning to travel with NakedBus – you can get very good deals with them (trips for 10$ or even 1$ and normal prices around 35$) but the buses are old with no suspension (prepare yourself to feel every bump in the road for 8 hours).

 

(Damn, it was more exhausting to write this post than the trip itself!)

Into the Night

In all honesty, the words you are about to read are not the first ones coming out of my keyboard for this post. I had already put together the story of how last weekend seemed to have been scripted by a Disney writer who dreamed of becoming the new Woody Allen only to be stuck with writing lines to the Hannah Montanas of this world. The result of that frustration is, as usual, just another episode of my life where tragic-comic elements meet teenage drama. That story describes how I was struck by a life epiphany in the dancefloor of a gay club, how I cuddled ponies on a mountain, how I met Prince Charming while dressed as a princess (well party princess, but still) and how an evil hobbit stole him from me. After writing all of that, I realized that if I published such fairy-screwed-up-tale, I’d get in trouble with people here in Middle Earth. Therefore, that story goes directly to my post-mortem heritage and I start from scratch a more adult and less compromising version of the facts. 

To begin, and given that the relevant events of the last days all happened after the sun went down, it is time to provide for some insights about kiwi night life. Going out in New Zealand its, for itself, a sociological phenomenon worthy of empirical field research and posterior theoretical analysis. The first thing you must know is: kiwis love to drink. A lot. Too much. Driving around at 22h30 (!) gives you the feeling of being in the middle of an apocalyptic zombie movie a) because parts of the city are, indeed, in a apocalyptic state and b) long before the clock ticks midnight, there are dozens of people (young and not so young) literally dragging their heavily intoxicated bodies through the streets after already leaving behind a collection of empty bottles at someone’s house, which makes them look like packs of zombies. The dress code is the second thing that strikes one’s attention. No matter how cold it is, and it’s always pretty cold, girls (young and not so young) dress like they are going to a cocktail party at a strip club with their fancy micro dresses. And, naturally, jackets are a thing for sober/uncool people. To avoid all of this there are two options: you go to a gay club or you party with your own well-behaved friends. Last weekend I did both.  

Night Out.  On Friday night I headed for the best place to go out in any town: a gay club. It just so happens that this simple truth – already known for a long while by gay people and their straight friends – has also been discovered by the general population of Christchurch. Never had I seen a gay club with so little, well, gays. Given that the earthquake destroyed nightclubs and churches in the same proportion, there are not many options left to pray or drink. People are not becoming more atheist by the lack of churches but they are, at least, becoming less homophobic just so they can enjoy their weekly doses of David Guetta anthems. 

Night In. Life is unpredictable. That’s the main thing I have to say about last Saturday night. When I go to a house party with work mates, including Interns and PhD's students of an already reasonable age, I expect a civilized and enjoyable time with people I see every day. What I don’t expect is that I'm going to start my night by screaming from the balcony with a bunch of people to the home alone guy in the apartment building in front of ours and that such a guy is not only willing to put his shoes on and join a party full of strangers but turns out to be the best live male specimen I ever encountered of what I always pictured my perfect guy to be like. Damn it, he actually exits.

The Twenties

Someone told me today that the twenties might just be the hardest period we need to go through in life. At the sound of these words, my first reaction was to vividly disagree – after all, it is the age when we are still young enough but no longer bound to adolescent stupidity and also the age when we can still enjoy life without too much ropes tying our wrists. Nonetheless, it was an arguable but valid point. 

Yes, teenage years are hard but you always have the comfort of knowing that your life still lies ahead in a (apparently) distant future and the thirties will bring you confidence (or regret) about the choices you made in the past. But the twenties are the present. It’s the decade when you make it or break it; when it’s now or probably never. All the dreams you had and all the things you always wanted to pursuit are finally in front of you to be taken or let go. The time when you need to have the courage to jump but also be aware where you are going to fall. When the roads you choose will, indeed, lead you somewhere (which may be no where at all). In no other period of you life is the pressure so high to build the foundations of what you will become.

In the end, I couldn't counter argue such statement because I relate to it. In my twenties I achieved the dreams I had since I was young and for that I am immensely proud of myself but I also feel constantly compelled to sort my life out and make the right decisions. I can hear the clock ticking. Loudly.

These are the twenties. Today will affect tomorrow. Do you agree?

New Zealand Reloaded

The clock was ticking past one in the morning of a Saturday night when the plain touched the ground but my body and mind were still unwilling to slow down as the adrenaline that rushed through my veins for seventeen days was still going strong. The next day, however, as I woke up, I wonder if I had actually slept on my bed or been a part of a hit and run. I could feel every muscle I own punching me and every cell of my brain screaming at me. That was Australia: an extremely intoxicating experience from which I was (finally) facing a massive hangover. Simply putting it, I was having a heavy redraw from a powerful drug.

Beyond the physical pain, I was also coping with a very strange mental adjustment. On the one hand, the feeling of utterly wanting to go back to  Australia and on the other hand, that strange sensation of going from perceiving New Zealand as a far away and exotic destination I would not visit in a near (or far away) future to calling it home. It always seemed a bit surreal whenever I said the words “I'm only in Australia for a short vacation, I'll return soon to New Zealand where I live”. But it really is the place where I live as I have a house, work, friends and routines to vouch for that (sometimes I need to say this to myself). Hence, I was trap between the unbelievably amazing two weeks I had in Australia and the unbelievable reality of calling New Zealand home. 

And perhaps out of jealously for my passionate affairs with Australia, New Zealand decided to make me a love declaration and reload our relationship – a Thursday afternoon off work to go to the beach, a Saturday day trip through mounts and valleys culminating in an amazingly beautiful beach, a lazy Sunday by the pool with a city skyline as background and catching up with friends over home cooked meals.

Australia is head over heels passion, New Zealand is steady love.

Blame it on Australia

It’s been three weeks since my last post and I figure that by now I have lost three quarters of my five and half faithful readers. For the remaining, I have a valid excuse for my blogosphere absence: Australia. Three states, three major cities, a Great Road by the Ocean, a National Park, the Tasman Sea, Christmas, New Years Eve, Australian beer and the best seventeen days of my life. But fear not for my lack of written words because during my time in the land of Oz, besides taking a total of 1036 photos, I religiously carried with me a little notebook which is now full of thoughts and key words I will soon(ish) turn into my Tales of Australia. That means that there will be a lot to read. ...Or not that much depending on the amount of events I should refrain from public knowledge. For now is back to reality (and reality is being back in New Zealand which after two months still seems a bit surreal to me). Stay tuned!

Rush Hours

Do you know when you go from a quiet and peaceful existence (also known as being bored) to all of a sudden barely stopping to breath for 48 hours? Well, when you have...

- A professional Christmas dinner in an insanely beautiful house straight out of a decoration catalog with a garden that inspired God’s landscaping project of Eden (peacock included), with a Barbie (what Kiwis call a barbecue) and even a co-worker playing Adele in the piano;

 

 
- A charity ‘Christmas Wonderland’ we spontaneously decided to stop on the way back from the Centre’s Christmas dinner. New Zealand is by nature a laid back, fashion-and-style-is-for-dummies kind of country so it comes as no surprise when you look around and 65% of the people you pass by are in their pajamas. Why bother to put on clothes just to go see Santa Claus by the side of the road right?

  
- A German breakfast. Anybody who has engaged in leisure activities with a typical German knows that events are bound to happen as clockwork. Hence, my German travel buddy for the day informed me that he would come by my place for a big breakfast before the road trip which, naturally, he promptly did.

- Crying over a postcard. While having breakfast, the postman rings the bell with a package from Portugal and a postcard from Germany, both for me. And for that I hereby state my deep appreciation to the New Zealand Post for serving as my personal Santa Claus on a Saturday morning of late December! However, the excitement of a five year old over surprise gifts soon turned into a river of tears as I read the postcard and realize how much I miss my friends and how far away and spread throughout the world they are.

-  A broken down car. The plan for the day was to reach Akaroa through the picture perfect valleys, mounts, lakes and harbors that lead there. Nevertheless, there is a long distance between the places you want to go and the places your car is willing to take you. Thus, as soon as we left Christchurch, Minty, the “beautiful but bitchy” Audi 80 my fellow German co-worker recently bought, made it clear she was not in the mood for such a trip and somewhere between no and where, she decided to be a diva and refused to go any further. Thus, there we were, stuck in a hill, surrounded by a scenery of green pastures that seemed to be Frodo Baggins’ walk from school, with many sheep expressing themselves and a car passing by every 20 minutes.

- Peeing to the sound of nature. And because cold, rain, a broken car in the middle of the Shire and a cranky German are not enough factors for a delightful Saturday afternoon, my body decided to make its own contribution to our Murphy’s Law momentum. So there I went, into the wild, trying to find a place where peeing would not be either a peep show for passing humans nor a radical sport downhill to join the sheep. Easy task it was not but boy, life really is all about the small things and few things in life can make you as happy as the glorious feeling of an empty bladder.

- Meeting James. After waiting three hours of assistance to arrive, we had the pleasure of meeting James, the relaxed, young mechanic who never set foot outside New Zealand and whose life dream is to visit his grandparents in the Netherlands and go to a Dutch coffeeshop. By the time he got there, Minty was in a better mood and decided the show must go on. The guy looked at us like we had ruining his plans of a quiet Saturday afternoon enjoying some natural herbs at the garage.

- Ruining a relationship. And speaking of ruining someone's day... After arriving in Christchurch there was still energy left to cause a minor earthquake on Manu’s South African flatmate recently established relationship foundations. What started as a simple explanation of being tired because he had spent the day helping his girlfriend moving to a new flat, soon turned into an inquiry on the definition of the word girlfriend, what a relationship implies and what women actually want from men versus what they agree to in the beginning. By the end of the interrogation he had a panicking look on his face, a paler skin tone and a “thank you for the chat guys!” which I’m pretty sure was actually a “please don’t ever make small talk with me again”.

- Christmas at the Park. After ruining James' afternoon and casting existentialist doubts into a relationship, it was time to disturb little children communications with Santa Claus. I guess Mother Nature was enjoying our Grinch spirit because by late afternoon the clouds and rain were gone and the sun was shining which led us to Hagley Park to check the gigantic lightning bolt Christmas Tree. While there, the most logical thing to do was, of course, to take pictures in the phone booth by the tree stating "Santa's Line" while children waited outside for their turn to ask for gifts via public telephone. One child in particular was quite sad that Santa wouldn't take his call and when we asked him " you didn't speak to him little man? maybe our call was the last!" he just said "no..." and slowly walked away.

- A Chinese dinner. Because being the Grinch takes a lot of energy, from the park we went to a co-worker's house where a westernized Chinese meal was expecting us plus Chinese and New Zealand beer. It was also a joyful moment to learn that native people from Hong Kong have no souls. After dinner, the full gang from the night before was reunited once again, this time at a bar watching cricket on tv.

-  A Portuguese Lunch. Comes Sunday morning and I'm off to the Portuguese family's house for a goodbye lunch given that I am not here for Christmas. While there, I still managed to make my body coordinate itself enough to help with the last Christmas decorations and bake *by myself* (!) a Kiwi cake.

...that’s how you feel.

Ordinary Days

I know, I know… I haven’t been as active on the blog as I should but that’s strictly because there are no life events going on that are worth turning into literary work. Sure, I’m having good moments but do you really want to hear about my flatmate performing Lady Gaga and Christina Aguilera in the kitchen while offering his services to spank the manly humps of an audience member? Or do you want to hear how I was the plus-one of my ‘adoptive mom’ to her company’s Christmas Dinner Party where she won the Award for Sweetie of the Year and I spend a really fun night filled with great food, great desserts and great coke all in a environment of uncoordinated and alcohol enhanced dancing of co-workers not only from New Zealand but also the surrounding islands?

Or how my own co-worker baked the most delicious and professional cake I have ever seen for his goodbye get-together before he leaves to Prague to continue his PhD? And let me add that while I was still recovering from that orgasmic inducing chocolate/nut/whipped-cream home made cake, he hugs me, looks at me and says ‘So. Goodbye. Nice to meet you. Fall in love and stay in New Zealand.’ which might just be the best advise I ever got. Or that on my way to the supermarket, while walking down the street I stumble upon a box with the words 'free food' which was, indeed, full of free food?! Naturally, I grabbed the whole box and went back home with a smile of true happiness on my face.

Moreover, do you even want to hear the outcome of me getting into a bus to a beach in the outskirts of Christchurch to meet a total stranger? And speaking of strangers, are you interested to know that a Canadian girl I briefly met on a flight from Sydney to Christchurch just spend the night at my place after a month of backpacking alone through New Zealand and that we shall meet for coffee next week in Melbourne? And how about a Christmas tree facing a jaw-dropping scenery that makes for one of those moments I will always remember?

All of this made for a nice week for me but I know none of it is that interesting for my very vast and dedicated legion of followers (don’t ruin the dream, people!). Honestly, December feels like a hangover to the continuous high moment that November was and nothing out the extraordinary has happened so far. But fear not my dear readers, in the name of the fine art of blogging, I promise I will get myself involved in fantastic and/or surreal (mis)adventures just so I can provide your with your daily comic relief. I´m sure next week when I’m off to Australia for Christmas and News Years Eve, I´ll have some new material.

The Road So Far

Christchurch by night

As I walk back home on a cold rainy night after a Vietnamese goodbye dinner for a few flatmates who will soon be leaving, I have this overwhelming perception that the emotional adjustment I should have felt a month ago is finally catching up to me. Since I arrived in New Zealand, or before I even landed, it has been a continuous rollercoaster of new experiences and it seems as if what I should have gone through in six months already happened in thirty days. So, let´s recap the story so far. 

I have changed houses, made friendships that seem to be developing at the speed of dog years, experienced movie-like encounters, was adopted by a loving family, went on road trips to breathtaking places, hiked mounts by day, kissed on mountains by night, went to local clubs and casino, had a part-time job interview (where I was asked about my background on cleaning toilets), enjoyed homemade food prepared by skilled Portuguese, Brazilian, German, British, Indian and Bangladeshi hands, baked a traditional New Zealand cake, etc, etc, et cetera. Oh, and on the spare time of all this, there is also a little thing I like to call "my internship" which is the reason that brought me here but that now appears to be a side note on the script of my kiwi life. In other words, I´ve laughed, cried, fell down, got up, but never stopped for a minute. Until tonight.

Funny how I crossed the world hoping to have a fresh start, a clean slate or whatever new beginning kind of analogy you want to call it, but the blank page I was preparing myself to slowly and carefully write on in order to avoid past misspelling errors, quickly turned into a full encyclopedia I didn´t have time to proofread as the pages flashed before my eyes. And tonight, as I am walking home shouting away laughs that echo on the empty wet road, I suddenly realize that I am already saying goodbye to people I grew extremely fond of on the exact day of my first monthversary with New Zealand. Hence, I take a long deep cold breath and it finally hit me that I am here. And in that moment it felt like a blank book just fell on my lap ready to be written on. Let´s see how the writings of the next volume turn out to be.

Into the Mountains

There are plenty of mountains you can climb in life and, for that matter, in New Zealand. It can be a figurative mountain of overcoming obstacles, reaching your goals, finding happiness, insert-life-cliché-here, or the actual mountain of going almost ninety degrees up through a narrow path of rocks and mud just for the sake of it. This past weekend I experienced both kinds. One I gave up half way through and the other one I carried it out until I saw the view from above.

Let´s begin with the mountain I turned my back to. The fabulosity that are my flatmates suggested that we should go do some hiking in a well-known Mount around Christchurch, Mount Somers. Despite being quite suspicious about the whole thing - and firmly asking what such hiking would involve - I was assured it would be a pleasant walk in tracks made for normal human beings to explore. Little did I know. First of all, what some people describe as hiking, I will from now on describe as unnecessary self-torture. Second, to my own gratification, I did manage to go through the most normal part of this involuntarily self-inflicted pain for about one hour to reach a waterfall and have lunch. 

Lunch time

Lunch spot

However, a sadistic group decision was made regarding the next spot to go which just happened to be up, through a very inclined path of rocks, mud, dirt and vegetation. I endured my Tarzan moment for ten minutes and realize that I could just tell Mother Nature to go take a hike herself. Hence, I waved everyone goodbye, turn myself around and, at that very moment, I could not be more proud of myself for having the courage to be, well, a quitter.

Path way to hell - the beginning

 

As for the second mountain, the figurative one, it was waiting for me back home and this time I was ready for the challenge. The problem with this mountain is that now I´m not sure how to get down from it. When your skin becomes so thick from the rocks and falls of the way, you just don´t know how to behave when you are actually able to stop and admire a perfect day in the horizon. After you allow yourself to take those minutes of pure contemplation regarding what you just accomplished, you start thinking about the implications and consequences of such a view and how nasty the ride downhill might get.

And because all of this needs, of course, to have a moral lesson to it, I have become empirically certain of two things this weekend: first, it is okay not to like or be good at something that you supposedly should be. In my case, I am not keen on sports and I am definitely not a fan of high levels of wilderness around me. Give me a civilized city park with pretty trees, a well-kept grass and a towel to lie on and I am happy but ask me to go hike a mountain and I´ll turn around and go take a nap in the car while everyone else get their grove on with Mother Nature. Second, no matter how hurt we might get, there is no other way to live but to forget the risk and take the fall. The pure laugh of happiness you shout to the sky after a great moment in your life is always worth the pain you may have to endure afterwards. No regrets right?

But in the end, what really made my day was entering a little flower shop in a small down of New Zealand´s southern island and listen to Fado on the speakers.