Her eyes rolled back into her head and she moaned loudly. Suddenly everyone in the room was aware of Amelia's presence and her altered state. Eden pulled herself up off the bamboo platform and went to her just as she fainted into the dirt, her crumpled form startling us into action.
Our trek began after a lunch of fried rice and Thai vegetables. We set out in mid afternoon, under the merciless blaze of the high sun. Our heavy feet kicked up red dust on the way through the village. Passing lean-to's and bamboo pigpens we clumsily trod the uneven ground. At the end of the village we passed a school--the pupils busied themselves with work but still they stared and paused in their lessons long enough to ask, in perfect English, "What is your name?"
Oh the advent of digital cameras and instant gratification. As I snapped pictures the children grabbed for my camera, turning it toward them to inspect their reproduction. For my friends they did the same but Christina's left them puzzled, there was no picture to see, merely the back of the camera. Even this far removed there was technology too old for them.
The village faded into rice fields, and that to jungle as we crossed the rocky terrain--sweat pouring from our bodies in an attempt to cool ourselves in the damp heat. At the top of an especially arduous hill we stopped to rest. Only then did we notice that someone had disappeared from our group. Later our human nature would be revealed when we collectively griped about the Spaniard.
"Why would anyone, with known knee problems, a heavy smoker and snoring like a bear in winter join up with a group three day expedition?" one trekker would ask. He held us up and slowed us down but provided endless entertainment in his person. What could we do but laugh as he stripped down for the waterfall to but a tiny pair of speedos. He smoked ceaselessly and greedily used up massive amounts of sugar in his coffee. On there second morning there would be none left and we grumpily glared at his hairy backside. The villagers called him gorilla man.
To Be Continued....
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Sunday, July 1, 2007
Into the Hills and onto the Tribes: Part One
The clouds were gathering overhead and the sky
darkened as we scrambled out of the river, laughing
and wet, with arms outstretched to receive the lunch
waiting for us. I was especially famished. The trip
down the river on a bamboo raft, propelled by the
current and steered by poles was as exhausting as it
was exhilarating.
Jumping at the opportunity to steer the ten meter long
raft I took to the helm like a fish to dry land. After
repeated near misses and one bamboo splintering
collision with a rock I got my sea legs and drove us
forward. We slipped past debris, rocks and shallow
outcroppings as smooth as silk until, of course, I got
cocky.
When given the option of an easy passage and a more
difficult one, without even thinking I steered us down
the path of danger, and it was going smoothly. Making
one small adjustment I drove my bamboo pole into a
grove of saplings, lodging it firmly between a couple of them.
Painfully it banged on my shins as I skipped backwards
before finally leaping over it leaving my passenger to
fend for themselves. But "David Beckham" saved the day
and quickly dislodged it while everyone else prepared
to flatten themselves against the raft. Miraculously
we made it through the eye of the needle no worse for
the wear.
The rapids behind us we floated lazily down the river.
I had grown complacent and was practicing yoga when a
shallow spot made itself apparent. Quickly I dropped
the stance and picked up the pole to clear us. As my
attention was directed forward I heard the sound of
splintering wood and the scream of a passenger behind
me--suddenly the raft was about sixty kilos lighter.
Two days early we had all walked into the jungle,
naive as newborn kittens. Tainted by our western
upbringing we assumed safety was a call away and
first aid easily administered. Still, as I packed, I
thought to bring my compass, my knife, and basic first
aid. I was the only one--not even the guides thought
to bring supplies.
We happily and carelessly walked passed the women
toiling in the fields, we crossed the streams on
fallen logs, sure footed and with a spring in our
step. The sun above blazed on but we were shrouded by
the leaves of the jungle. But the down hill slope
leveled out and as we headed up the first of many
hills the bamboo forest gave way to sparsely foliaged
trees and steep hillside steps. We headed straight up,
in a path cleared by years of water runoff. The rocks
had worn smooth of the years and we slipped and slid
with ever step, our walking sticks our only salvation.
When I think back on those that didn't make to the end
I am surprised that our Spanish companion did. With
each step he fell further and further behind.
To Be Continued...
darkened as we scrambled out of the river, laughing
and wet, with arms outstretched to receive the lunch
waiting for us. I was especially famished. The trip
down the river on a bamboo raft, propelled by the
current and steered by poles was as exhausting as it
was exhilarating.
Jumping at the opportunity to steer the ten meter long
raft I took to the helm like a fish to dry land. After
repeated near misses and one bamboo splintering
collision with a rock I got my sea legs and drove us
forward. We slipped past debris, rocks and shallow
outcroppings as smooth as silk until, of course, I got
cocky.
When given the option of an easy passage and a more
difficult one, without even thinking I steered us down
the path of danger, and it was going smoothly. Making
one small adjustment I drove my bamboo pole into a
grove of saplings, lodging it firmly between a couple of them.
Painfully it banged on my shins as I skipped backwards
before finally leaping over it leaving my passenger to
fend for themselves. But "David Beckham" saved the day
and quickly dislodged it while everyone else prepared
to flatten themselves against the raft. Miraculously
we made it through the eye of the needle no worse for
the wear.
The rapids behind us we floated lazily down the river.
I had grown complacent and was practicing yoga when a
shallow spot made itself apparent. Quickly I dropped
the stance and picked up the pole to clear us. As my
attention was directed forward I heard the sound of
splintering wood and the scream of a passenger behind
me--suddenly the raft was about sixty kilos lighter.
Two days early we had all walked into the jungle,
naive as newborn kittens. Tainted by our western
upbringing we assumed safety was a call away and
first aid easily administered. Still, as I packed, I
thought to bring my compass, my knife, and basic first
aid. I was the only one--not even the guides thought
to bring supplies.
We happily and carelessly walked passed the women
toiling in the fields, we crossed the streams on
fallen logs, sure footed and with a spring in our
step. The sun above blazed on but we were shrouded by
the leaves of the jungle. But the down hill slope
leveled out and as we headed up the first of many
hills the bamboo forest gave way to sparsely foliaged
trees and steep hillside steps. We headed straight up,
in a path cleared by years of water runoff. The rocks
had worn smooth of the years and we slipped and slid
with ever step, our walking sticks our only salvation.
When I think back on those that didn't make to the end
I am surprised that our Spanish companion did. With
each step he fell further and further behind.
To Be Continued...
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
"Cutlivate Your Own Garden" Part Two
Our small party continued southward and the sky turned a threatening grey then opened up, rivets ran down our windows and small rivers snaked across the road. We drove through corridors of towering trees and lacy ferns. Raindrops hung from and dripped off of every leaf and branch, the rivers, already swollen with rainwater and runoff, increase ever more until once bubbling brooks grow into savage monsters devouring everything in their path: bulldozing past granite rocks and swallowing up saplings. The rain lets up ever so slightly as we stop for lunch just outside of Fox Glacier.
The road leading up to the glacier is uneven and rocky, small signs advise of the rapid withdrawal of the million-year-old block of ice and rock. It has shrunk over a kilometer in fifty short years. We drive over rocks only recently exposed, a large hill of ice, camouflaged by a coating of rocks and debris gives itself away with the slow drip of glacial water from beneath an icy overhand, it broke off during the retreat and it shrinks evermore at a visible rate.
We picnic in the car, munching on sardine sandwiches washed down with a bottle of merlot. Glasses in hand we venture into the misty rain an onto a swing bridge offering up a vantage point for viewing the glacier. The bridge sways beneath our feet and we try to take pictures of the scenery and one another, attempting to capture the glory of the moment in a stagnant 3x5 replica. How do you bottle the grandeur of the sheer cliffs, how insignificant you feel and how short your life has suddenly become? The land around us remains but we march on and on and into oblivion; New Zealand will stay.
We walk towards the glacier, measuring the passage of time in footsteps and short breaths. The clouds grow heavy above and release their weight on the few trampers out to enjoy themselves regardless of what Mother Nature dishes up. All around us the mountains are in a constant state of change. As the glacier shrunk back it carved sheer cliffs into the surrounding hills leaving behind a very unstable structure. Released from the grips of binding ice the hills sigh and stretch and avalanches of rocks tumble down taking out everything on the way. Moss and seeds find new homes in the recent additions and quickly the landslide slides back into the surroundings.
The frequent rains feed the plethora of rivers and creeks pouring out of the mountains and they race over the edges of the cliff faces and down the rockslides forming waterfalls that stream onto the valley floor, a constant flood of water pours out from under the glacier itself forming the main river snaking between the two towering hills. We trek on toward the glacier, clambering over the rocks and fording the streams.
A sign, still meters from the glacier, advises us to keep back, the glacier is unstable and capable of breaking off at any moment. But I did not come this far to not have my close encounter with so ancient a history. I want to touch it, feel the ages in a cold crevasse and steady myself on the melting surface. We cross over the ropes and make our way up to the face of the glacier. High above us it towers, deep caverns slide into the depths of the icy mammoth. I touch the glassy sides and climb onto its slick hide, the first person and the only person to make contact, older than I will ever know. I truly am insignificant.
The road leading up to the glacier is uneven and rocky, small signs advise of the rapid withdrawal of the million-year-old block of ice and rock. It has shrunk over a kilometer in fifty short years. We drive over rocks only recently exposed, a large hill of ice, camouflaged by a coating of rocks and debris gives itself away with the slow drip of glacial water from beneath an icy overhand, it broke off during the retreat and it shrinks evermore at a visible rate.
We picnic in the car, munching on sardine sandwiches washed down with a bottle of merlot. Glasses in hand we venture into the misty rain an onto a swing bridge offering up a vantage point for viewing the glacier. The bridge sways beneath our feet and we try to take pictures of the scenery and one another, attempting to capture the glory of the moment in a stagnant 3x5 replica. How do you bottle the grandeur of the sheer cliffs, how insignificant you feel and how short your life has suddenly become? The land around us remains but we march on and on and into oblivion; New Zealand will stay.
We walk towards the glacier, measuring the passage of time in footsteps and short breaths. The clouds grow heavy above and release their weight on the few trampers out to enjoy themselves regardless of what Mother Nature dishes up. All around us the mountains are in a constant state of change. As the glacier shrunk back it carved sheer cliffs into the surrounding hills leaving behind a very unstable structure. Released from the grips of binding ice the hills sigh and stretch and avalanches of rocks tumble down taking out everything on the way. Moss and seeds find new homes in the recent additions and quickly the landslide slides back into the surroundings.
The frequent rains feed the plethora of rivers and creeks pouring out of the mountains and they race over the edges of the cliff faces and down the rockslides forming waterfalls that stream onto the valley floor, a constant flood of water pours out from under the glacier itself forming the main river snaking between the two towering hills. We trek on toward the glacier, clambering over the rocks and fording the streams.
A sign, still meters from the glacier, advises us to keep back, the glacier is unstable and capable of breaking off at any moment. But I did not come this far to not have my close encounter with so ancient a history. I want to touch it, feel the ages in a cold crevasse and steady myself on the melting surface. We cross over the ropes and make our way up to the face of the glacier. High above us it towers, deep caverns slide into the depths of the icy mammoth. I touch the glassy sides and climb onto its slick hide, the first person and the only person to make contact, older than I will ever know. I truly am insignificant.
"Cultivate Your Own Garden"* Part One
Harvest is behind us now but the experience continues in our travels. Traversing the highways of the South Island we can explore the big and small and find in it and our selves awe inspiring moments. Moments where our mouths hang open from the sheer scope of the beauty we are witnessing or the private moments that only the mind is privy too when a revelation comes that we have changed and are changing and growing and becoming better more complete human beings. At the heart and soul of who I am I will always be me but the rough edges are rounding off and my scope of vision widening. Life is a great learning experience and I am ready to absorb.
Amanda is a woman who loves to have fun and enjoys herself and her company. She is rubbing off on me and everyday gets a little better. Each car picnic is the best ever, every dinner more delicious than the one before and our experiences topped only by the next. What a way to live.
I look forward to advancing onto our next leg of the journey: to the time when we leave our base in Bannockburn to explore the south east side of New Zealand. We are comfortably stagnant for the time being, lazily soaking up the sun’s rays and safe from the blustering winds in our little beach house in the desert.
Driving into Bannockburn there is a welcome sign inviting travelers to enjoy their stay in “the heart of the desert”. We gaze around us and see trees sparsely dotting the landscape, shrubs and California poppies hug the ground while a dry wind whips above, a brilliant aquamarine lake hugs the roadside. Summer has just passed but I wonder how green it grows with spring. This is the kiwi version of a desert: more water than Central California and not a succulent to be found. It is all about perspective.
The dry landscape and cloudless blue sky is a welcome and dramatic change. Driving down we were plagued with dark low clouds and torrents of rain. The Southern Alps hidden behind a blanket of precipitation, their lush green vegetation grey in the dim light.
For one day the sun shone on us. As we headed out from Nelson and down to Hokitika the clouds stayed back allowing us our only outside lunch. We sat down and began a tradition that will continue until the end of this journey. We feasted on cheese and crackers, apples and avocados, seafood and meats. Cucumber and portabella mushrooms spilled from herbed pita bread and we washed it all down with a glass of Nelson Sauvignon Blanc, courtesy of my winemaker and mentor.
We had stopped in Punakaiki the sight of New Zealand’s famous pancake rocks and one of the few blowholes in the world. The sun continued to shine as we poured two more glasses and set off down the trail. Stepping into dense forest vegetation we walked along blinded on all sides by a wall of native bush; shortly it opened up and we cast our eyes on a sparkling blue ocean, deep grey rocks, formed by layers of sediment, with bright green grasses clinging precariously to them.
As the path wound on and our glasses slowly emptied our eyes soaked up deep crevices carved by pounding waves, precipices shaped like animals and tikis, all the while our feet carefully navigated the spray soaked rock pathways, every meter threatening to topple unwary visitors. The air was heavy with the smells of the ocean, the aromas breaking loose with each crashing wave and ascending to reach our senses, mingling with the capsicum and gooseberry floating out of the wine.
*from "Candide" by Voltaire
Amanda is a woman who loves to have fun and enjoys herself and her company. She is rubbing off on me and everyday gets a little better. Each car picnic is the best ever, every dinner more delicious than the one before and our experiences topped only by the next. What a way to live.
I look forward to advancing onto our next leg of the journey: to the time when we leave our base in Bannockburn to explore the south east side of New Zealand. We are comfortably stagnant for the time being, lazily soaking up the sun’s rays and safe from the blustering winds in our little beach house in the desert.
Driving into Bannockburn there is a welcome sign inviting travelers to enjoy their stay in “the heart of the desert”. We gaze around us and see trees sparsely dotting the landscape, shrubs and California poppies hug the ground while a dry wind whips above, a brilliant aquamarine lake hugs the roadside. Summer has just passed but I wonder how green it grows with spring. This is the kiwi version of a desert: more water than Central California and not a succulent to be found. It is all about perspective.
The dry landscape and cloudless blue sky is a welcome and dramatic change. Driving down we were plagued with dark low clouds and torrents of rain. The Southern Alps hidden behind a blanket of precipitation, their lush green vegetation grey in the dim light.
For one day the sun shone on us. As we headed out from Nelson and down to Hokitika the clouds stayed back allowing us our only outside lunch. We sat down and began a tradition that will continue until the end of this journey. We feasted on cheese and crackers, apples and avocados, seafood and meats. Cucumber and portabella mushrooms spilled from herbed pita bread and we washed it all down with a glass of Nelson Sauvignon Blanc, courtesy of my winemaker and mentor.
We had stopped in Punakaiki the sight of New Zealand’s famous pancake rocks and one of the few blowholes in the world. The sun continued to shine as we poured two more glasses and set off down the trail. Stepping into dense forest vegetation we walked along blinded on all sides by a wall of native bush; shortly it opened up and we cast our eyes on a sparkling blue ocean, deep grey rocks, formed by layers of sediment, with bright green grasses clinging precariously to them.
As the path wound on and our glasses slowly emptied our eyes soaked up deep crevices carved by pounding waves, precipices shaped like animals and tikis, all the while our feet carefully navigated the spray soaked rock pathways, every meter threatening to topple unwary visitors. The air was heavy with the smells of the ocean, the aromas breaking loose with each crashing wave and ascending to reach our senses, mingling with the capsicum and gooseberry floating out of the wine.
*from "Candide" by Voltaire
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Moving On Again
Leaving your home feels much the same whether you have been there for years or months, and each time I leave knowing that many I will never see again, though I may want to, but that there will always be more people to meet to become close to and to leave. It is a circle that grows to include those that continue on in my mind, as their presence never fades completely. We touch each other and change one another and move through the world and time hoping to have a profound effect that will not be forgotten in the passage of life.
It is easiest when you are the one doing the leaving. Leading up to my departure from Tahunanui Beach my time was too consumed to allow room for feelings of sadness. I busied myself with parties and dinners. I had a whole room to shove back into a backpack and the prospect of great adventures to look forward to. There were routes to plan and places to contact. I was busy and excited and happy with short tinges of sadness when I had the moment to reflect on the people I now loved who would not travel on with me.
I left Tony and Marcus and Rob and Daniel. I left Lisa and Barry and Carolyn and Ben. I left those I just met and wished I could have spent more time with and those I have seen so much you would think I would be aching for a change, but I wasn’t and I feel their absence when I am still and the old sneaks up behind me.
Already there are more people to keep in contact with, a list of travelers and harvest interns to look up when I am in their corner of the world. It doesn’t matter where you go in New Zealand; at this time of year we are everywhere. Fresh out of the wineries and anxious to see as much as possible before our lives take us from here; there are car loads of us moving up and down both islands. There is a convergence in Queenstown and the scenery changes but the faces are again the same.
You spy gumboots with winery logos in the back of cars and a conversation strikes up. The twenty questions I use to ask fellow travelers have changed to include one more: “Which winery did you work for?” We share horror stories of tanks crushing in because someone forgot to vent the top, of accidental blends and stuck ferments. We brag and share accolades—proud of our hard work and the people we worked under. It does not matter where you go for harvest is done in New Zealand and the hard workers are looking to have a good time and will go anywhere to find it.
It is easiest when you are the one doing the leaving. Leading up to my departure from Tahunanui Beach my time was too consumed to allow room for feelings of sadness. I busied myself with parties and dinners. I had a whole room to shove back into a backpack and the prospect of great adventures to look forward to. There were routes to plan and places to contact. I was busy and excited and happy with short tinges of sadness when I had the moment to reflect on the people I now loved who would not travel on with me.
I left Tony and Marcus and Rob and Daniel. I left Lisa and Barry and Carolyn and Ben. I left those I just met and wished I could have spent more time with and those I have seen so much you would think I would be aching for a change, but I wasn’t and I feel their absence when I am still and the old sneaks up behind me.
Already there are more people to keep in contact with, a list of travelers and harvest interns to look up when I am in their corner of the world. It doesn’t matter where you go in New Zealand; at this time of year we are everywhere. Fresh out of the wineries and anxious to see as much as possible before our lives take us from here; there are car loads of us moving up and down both islands. There is a convergence in Queenstown and the scenery changes but the faces are again the same.
You spy gumboots with winery logos in the back of cars and a conversation strikes up. The twenty questions I use to ask fellow travelers have changed to include one more: “Which winery did you work for?” We share horror stories of tanks crushing in because someone forgot to vent the top, of accidental blends and stuck ferments. We brag and share accolades—proud of our hard work and the people we worked under. It does not matter where you go for harvest is done in New Zealand and the hard workers are looking to have a good time and will go anywhere to find it.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
The Family We Become
May 19, 2007
Long hours and hard labor, the stinging smells of sulphur while trying to breath an air permeated by carbon dioxide, and these are the best days of the years. You can be so lucky to love your job but at the end of the day it is the company of your peers that makes it the best six weeks during the hardest time. While the northern hemisphere slips out of winter garb and readies for summer winemaking interns converge on New Zealand from every grape growing region in the world. We struggle through language barriers and life miles from home to form a connection, a bond that will stretch the miles and test the changes in our lives.
Long nights spent processing the tons of grapes fresh in from the vineyards stretch out with after hour’s beers. Sleep depraved and hungry from a lack of frequent feedings we push on again the next morning. There is no time to notice the exhaustion—we are working too hard and having too much fun.
There are no days off so we make the most of our free time. Friday nights find the whole of the Nelson vintage crew at Ruby’s Bar. Walled in by glass, carpeted with broken shells and furnished with leather sofas, towering trees and flowering vines—a tree house on the ground. Old country music blares from the speakers and local micro brews flow from the tap, it is one of the few bars showing more micros than commercial beers.
Farther on down the Appleby highway and into Golden Bay the Mussel Inn makes their famous brews, one in particular caught my eye one night after a long walk from the Shambala backpacker’s accommodation. Travelers and locals alike cozy up on long tables, listening to live music and sustaining themselves with handles of fresh brewed beer and platters of seafood. Beers are their specialty and though you can’t take it home I can find my favorite, Captain Cooker Manuka Ale, at a select few bars around the region. Ruby’s serves it up and I drink it down.
Foreigners are easy to spot from the color of the beer they drink. Kiwis stick to lagers and blondes with an amber hard to be spotted. Pale ales and stouts are more slowly bought up but quickly consumed by travelers and interns. Ruby’s tabletops resemble calico cats as people of all nations and states mingle and drink, whittling away the hours before a big day and an early morning.
Depending on the size of the winery interns live in an assortment of accommodations. I have seen converted sheds with long drop toilets, pool houses and home-made group accommodation complete with Internet and big screen televisions. We live above bars and in backpackers’ accommodations. I made my home near the beach at the aptly named Beach Hostel, sharing a living room with Germans, all speaking a different dialect and having an equally hard time understanding one another. Though not on the vintage circuit I drug them with me to party after party and before long they were often found on the porch at Seifried’s intern compound than the interns themselves.
Seifried’s was the local for many barbecues and pre-parties, in the morning we would return to pick up our cars and lie about on the sunny stoops drinking prosecco and staving off the inevitable headaches. Germans, Italians, South Africans and Canadians. Californians, French, Maori and Kiwi. We ate and drank under the great expanse of southern hemisphere stars. The Southern Cross pointed down on us as the world spun moving the galaxies about our heads. On the right night the tail of the big dipper would peak up over the edge of the horizon giving me a taste of home, but on these nights I was never homesick. We lived and loved our life and drank in the moments.
Numbering over twenty we would pile into taxis and take the fifty-dollar ride to town, but fifty twenty ways is mere pennies and these were our only excursion out into the Nelson nightlife. For a small town the city of Nelson gets going on weekend nights. We danced to the popular sounds of the states; all entwined in the music of the moment and the beats of our bodies hitting the floor.
They were moments of pure bliss when we were carefree and flying high on living in the moment the most we could. This is a feeling that cannot be bottled or duplicated back home; we are on our own but safe in the family that we created and will forever love.
Long hours and hard labor, the stinging smells of sulphur while trying to breath an air permeated by carbon dioxide, and these are the best days of the years. You can be so lucky to love your job but at the end of the day it is the company of your peers that makes it the best six weeks during the hardest time. While the northern hemisphere slips out of winter garb and readies for summer winemaking interns converge on New Zealand from every grape growing region in the world. We struggle through language barriers and life miles from home to form a connection, a bond that will stretch the miles and test the changes in our lives.
Long nights spent processing the tons of grapes fresh in from the vineyards stretch out with after hour’s beers. Sleep depraved and hungry from a lack of frequent feedings we push on again the next morning. There is no time to notice the exhaustion—we are working too hard and having too much fun.
There are no days off so we make the most of our free time. Friday nights find the whole of the Nelson vintage crew at Ruby’s Bar. Walled in by glass, carpeted with broken shells and furnished with leather sofas, towering trees and flowering vines—a tree house on the ground. Old country music blares from the speakers and local micro brews flow from the tap, it is one of the few bars showing more micros than commercial beers.
Farther on down the Appleby highway and into Golden Bay the Mussel Inn makes their famous brews, one in particular caught my eye one night after a long walk from the Shambala backpacker’s accommodation. Travelers and locals alike cozy up on long tables, listening to live music and sustaining themselves with handles of fresh brewed beer and platters of seafood. Beers are their specialty and though you can’t take it home I can find my favorite, Captain Cooker Manuka Ale, at a select few bars around the region. Ruby’s serves it up and I drink it down.
Foreigners are easy to spot from the color of the beer they drink. Kiwis stick to lagers and blondes with an amber hard to be spotted. Pale ales and stouts are more slowly bought up but quickly consumed by travelers and interns. Ruby’s tabletops resemble calico cats as people of all nations and states mingle and drink, whittling away the hours before a big day and an early morning.
Depending on the size of the winery interns live in an assortment of accommodations. I have seen converted sheds with long drop toilets, pool houses and home-made group accommodation complete with Internet and big screen televisions. We live above bars and in backpackers’ accommodations. I made my home near the beach at the aptly named Beach Hostel, sharing a living room with Germans, all speaking a different dialect and having an equally hard time understanding one another. Though not on the vintage circuit I drug them with me to party after party and before long they were often found on the porch at Seifried’s intern compound than the interns themselves.
Seifried’s was the local for many barbecues and pre-parties, in the morning we would return to pick up our cars and lie about on the sunny stoops drinking prosecco and staving off the inevitable headaches. Germans, Italians, South Africans and Canadians. Californians, French, Maori and Kiwi. We ate and drank under the great expanse of southern hemisphere stars. The Southern Cross pointed down on us as the world spun moving the galaxies about our heads. On the right night the tail of the big dipper would peak up over the edge of the horizon giving me a taste of home, but on these nights I was never homesick. We lived and loved our life and drank in the moments.
Numbering over twenty we would pile into taxis and take the fifty-dollar ride to town, but fifty twenty ways is mere pennies and these were our only excursion out into the Nelson nightlife. For a small town the city of Nelson gets going on weekend nights. We danced to the popular sounds of the states; all entwined in the music of the moment and the beats of our bodies hitting the floor.
They were moments of pure bliss when we were carefree and flying high on living in the moment the most we could. This is a feeling that cannot be bottled or duplicated back home; we are on our own but safe in the family that we created and will forever love.
Friday, March 23, 2007
Hokitika Wild Food Festival
March 10-11
Hokitika is overrun with the young this time every year. This is their Mardi Gras. They take over the bars and fall down in the streets. Tents dot the local beaches and public parking lots. There is no holding them back as they swarm into the town, their arrival as noticeable and sudden as the departure. They leave flushed from too much sun but paled by long nights and rough mornings.
The merriment centers on a one-day food festival complete with beer, wine and entertainment ranging from buskers to tribute bands. Anything seemingly astronomically displeasing was available. We gorged our selves on possum tail and huhu grubs picked fresh from a woodpile and speared before our eyes. Crickets roasted and served up in vodka laced jell-o cups slipped down the gullet as easy as pickled fish eyes. Local wineries provided a bit of normality while continuing the buzz brought on by the liters of beer carried in over the ten-foot fence we so easily scaled; the festival sells out months in advance.
From ten to seven we ate, drank and danced at the Wild Food Festival. All in a jovial mood we made the trek to the bars and as the sun went down we again moved on to the beach and our campsite where, like the multitudes already there, we made a campfire of driftwood. Giant logs, once belonging to ancient trees having survived and followed the currents of the ocean to be washed upon the shores of the West Coast, met their fate in the fires of tourists from around the world. We came from all over, most from New Zealand and Christchurch in particular but all corners of the globe were represented: within our own expedition California, Scotland and England.
As the night moved into the wee hours of the morning one by one we deserted our smoking fire pit. Some went to bed, others in search of new fires. They could be seen for miles stretching down the seashore, a plethora of golden orbs dancing on the sand.
Our man from Scotland wandered for miles up then down the beach. On the outward travel he found a fire and passed out next it, a heavy night of drinking rum and lager providing the blanket to keep him warm. As morning approached and the alcohol wore off he awoke to a face full of sand. It coated his ears and itched his scalp. It ran down his back and into his pants. It covered the backs of his legs and filled his shoes. He could feel it grinding in his molars and tickling the hairs in his nose. Instinctively he reached for his knapsack, the one he had so painstakingly searched for the night before. There in his grasp was a knapsack, but the wrong one. The sun just peaked over the horizon as he slowly and with much effort made his way back to us.
Try as I might I do not think that I could make up a character such as Maury. Driving down in the car he told us of his life in Scotland. How he had never been on a plane before boarding one to fly half way around the world and land in New Zealand.
Back home he had a car, a small two door hatchback, with a passenger side door held closed by a rope looped around the driver’s elbow. When making turns he had to grip the wheel to prevent centrifugal forces from pulling it out of the crook of his arm. Passengers would pay their way by taking over the task.
His uncle has one eye, lost the other when a tractor flipped over crushing him underneath. He wears a patch over it and married a prostitute. Each with their own scars they share their life together.
Miles from home Maury continues to live his life like no change of scenery has occurred. Once again he became familiar with a jail cell after sailing a water balloon out the car window into a stationary patrol car and the officer standing outside it. Their chase was inevitable but still Maury urged us on, our sensible driver merely pulled to the side of road. Sheepishly he fessed up, but with head held high marched from our car to the officer’s; at the police station we cheered him on as he did the walk of shame into the station. The weekend was over an hour later when, together again, we got on the road and headed home.
Hokitika is overrun with the young this time every year. This is their Mardi Gras. They take over the bars and fall down in the streets. Tents dot the local beaches and public parking lots. There is no holding them back as they swarm into the town, their arrival as noticeable and sudden as the departure. They leave flushed from too much sun but paled by long nights and rough mornings.
The merriment centers on a one-day food festival complete with beer, wine and entertainment ranging from buskers to tribute bands. Anything seemingly astronomically displeasing was available. We gorged our selves on possum tail and huhu grubs picked fresh from a woodpile and speared before our eyes. Crickets roasted and served up in vodka laced jell-o cups slipped down the gullet as easy as pickled fish eyes. Local wineries provided a bit of normality while continuing the buzz brought on by the liters of beer carried in over the ten-foot fence we so easily scaled; the festival sells out months in advance.
From ten to seven we ate, drank and danced at the Wild Food Festival. All in a jovial mood we made the trek to the bars and as the sun went down we again moved on to the beach and our campsite where, like the multitudes already there, we made a campfire of driftwood. Giant logs, once belonging to ancient trees having survived and followed the currents of the ocean to be washed upon the shores of the West Coast, met their fate in the fires of tourists from around the world. We came from all over, most from New Zealand and Christchurch in particular but all corners of the globe were represented: within our own expedition California, Scotland and England.
As the night moved into the wee hours of the morning one by one we deserted our smoking fire pit. Some went to bed, others in search of new fires. They could be seen for miles stretching down the seashore, a plethora of golden orbs dancing on the sand.
Our man from Scotland wandered for miles up then down the beach. On the outward travel he found a fire and passed out next it, a heavy night of drinking rum and lager providing the blanket to keep him warm. As morning approached and the alcohol wore off he awoke to a face full of sand. It coated his ears and itched his scalp. It ran down his back and into his pants. It covered the backs of his legs and filled his shoes. He could feel it grinding in his molars and tickling the hairs in his nose. Instinctively he reached for his knapsack, the one he had so painstakingly searched for the night before. There in his grasp was a knapsack, but the wrong one. The sun just peaked over the horizon as he slowly and with much effort made his way back to us.
Try as I might I do not think that I could make up a character such as Maury. Driving down in the car he told us of his life in Scotland. How he had never been on a plane before boarding one to fly half way around the world and land in New Zealand.
Back home he had a car, a small two door hatchback, with a passenger side door held closed by a rope looped around the driver’s elbow. When making turns he had to grip the wheel to prevent centrifugal forces from pulling it out of the crook of his arm. Passengers would pay their way by taking over the task.
His uncle has one eye, lost the other when a tractor flipped over crushing him underneath. He wears a patch over it and married a prostitute. Each with their own scars they share their life together.
Miles from home Maury continues to live his life like no change of scenery has occurred. Once again he became familiar with a jail cell after sailing a water balloon out the car window into a stationary patrol car and the officer standing outside it. Their chase was inevitable but still Maury urged us on, our sensible driver merely pulled to the side of road. Sheepishly he fessed up, but with head held high marched from our car to the officer’s; at the police station we cheered him on as he did the walk of shame into the station. The weekend was over an hour later when, together again, we got on the road and headed home.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Harvest Coming On
Many would tell you that winemaking begins in the vineyard. If your grapes are not up to snuff then there is little a wine maker can do to better the end product. We are spending these last few days ripping through the vineyard, figuratively and literally. The vines have taken on new form. A newcomer to vineyard work I stepped up the vines with an untrained eye and a vague idea of what needed to be accomplished.
From my bedroom window in Paso Robles, California I had sat back and watched as field hands, moving like ants down a line, worked each row leaving behind sunlight spotted grapes and a blanket of green, leaf cuttings that go dry and crunch underfoot, a red carpet of a different sort. Over a thousand miles away I eyed the canopy with a mix of false bravado and amateur angst. My body language read of the prior but my mind reeled with the former.
Third bunches and lateral shoots jump out at me now; my deft fingers pluck unwanted plant life. Discarded, the leaves flutter to the ground, tickling my ankles. Grape clusters splatter on rock piles staining my boots with acid and sugars. Much of Nelson is planted on an old riverbed. Beneath the rows boulders, cleared out of the path of mowers and trimmers, pile up under the vines, hugging the bases. Between the rows a late crop of grass pushes past the dried clusters, wildflowers spring forth. There is much vigor in the rocky soil.
Depending on who you ask Nelson receives slightly more or slightly less rain than Hawkes Bay, for like the northern wine region the surrounding mountains hold many oceanic storms at bay, many, but not all. Enough rain makes it over the mountains to make it an ideal location for growing apples, pears and a number of root vegetables, but not so ideal for grapes. Growing here is a labor-intensive process—this year more so than others. Already the mechanical trimmer and leaf-plucker has been down these rows multiple times, but the vines are not to be deterred and now we stand, pulling at what shade we can ripping through the vineyard, giving light and room to the ripening fruit.
The harvest looms overhead, a rain cloud threatening to dump on already saturated ground. Ours will be a flood of unripe fruit.
From my bedroom window in Paso Robles, California I had sat back and watched as field hands, moving like ants down a line, worked each row leaving behind sunlight spotted grapes and a blanket of green, leaf cuttings that go dry and crunch underfoot, a red carpet of a different sort. Over a thousand miles away I eyed the canopy with a mix of false bravado and amateur angst. My body language read of the prior but my mind reeled with the former.
Third bunches and lateral shoots jump out at me now; my deft fingers pluck unwanted plant life. Discarded, the leaves flutter to the ground, tickling my ankles. Grape clusters splatter on rock piles staining my boots with acid and sugars. Much of Nelson is planted on an old riverbed. Beneath the rows boulders, cleared out of the path of mowers and trimmers, pile up under the vines, hugging the bases. Between the rows a late crop of grass pushes past the dried clusters, wildflowers spring forth. There is much vigor in the rocky soil.
Depending on who you ask Nelson receives slightly more or slightly less rain than Hawkes Bay, for like the northern wine region the surrounding mountains hold many oceanic storms at bay, many, but not all. Enough rain makes it over the mountains to make it an ideal location for growing apples, pears and a number of root vegetables, but not so ideal for grapes. Growing here is a labor-intensive process—this year more so than others. Already the mechanical trimmer and leaf-plucker has been down these rows multiple times, but the vines are not to be deterred and now we stand, pulling at what shade we can ripping through the vineyard, giving light and room to the ripening fruit.
The harvest looms overhead, a rain cloud threatening to dump on already saturated ground. Ours will be a flood of unripe fruit.
Monday, March 12, 2007
Changing Times
Harvest is approaching rapidly. The grapes hang down, heavy and full, pregnant with juice and ripening sugars and acids. They burst with the pressure of rain and shrivel from the heat of the sun. The birds fly down in attack formation. They come as one, grab the berries whole and fly away. The unfortunate few get caught up in the nets. I try to free them but the rat terrier is quick or a well-aimed rock from the vineyard manager finds its mark and the war is no closer to being won. The wind whips down from the mountain range, on the tail of a pressure change. The chilly breaths raise goose bumps on my arm while the hot sun beats down on my neck. Black clothing reflects and absorbs the heat. There is little shade out in the rows. I huddle close to the vines. By mid afternoon the shadows grow long but the sun blazes on.
I can get lost in my thoughts in the mundane tasks of the vineyard. Lazily plucking at wind blown nets my mind recreates the past and wanders into the unknown future. As the days grow shorter my life, the one I have been living in ignorance and without great influence stretches out in front of me. I see my hiccups and wrong turns like potholes in city streets. Every misspoken word and phrase, every unintentional and intentional harmful utterance plays on my ears, scratching into my conscience, refusing to be ignored—the popping of balloons at a child’s party, seemingly harmless but stabbing me to the core.
Whomever I was is being forced upon my present state to learn from and be better for. I can watch my history like a movie, fast forward and rewind, pause, slow down, repeat. All the experiences I tried to record over stack upon each other and I know; I see clearly the effects of trying to change the past and I know that the only possible route is to learn from it.
Childhood dreams are tumbling down, washed over by waves of realization and reconciliation. I forgive myself my trespasses, but dwell on the task of avoiding them in the future. How long now have I stepped back, after the fact and seen where it, whatever it is at that moment, went wrong? Now is the time to pause. I give myself homework.
I can get lost in my thoughts in the mundane tasks of the vineyard. Lazily plucking at wind blown nets my mind recreates the past and wanders into the unknown future. As the days grow shorter my life, the one I have been living in ignorance and without great influence stretches out in front of me. I see my hiccups and wrong turns like potholes in city streets. Every misspoken word and phrase, every unintentional and intentional harmful utterance plays on my ears, scratching into my conscience, refusing to be ignored—the popping of balloons at a child’s party, seemingly harmless but stabbing me to the core.
Whomever I was is being forced upon my present state to learn from and be better for. I can watch my history like a movie, fast forward and rewind, pause, slow down, repeat. All the experiences I tried to record over stack upon each other and I know; I see clearly the effects of trying to change the past and I know that the only possible route is to learn from it.
Childhood dreams are tumbling down, washed over by waves of realization and reconciliation. I forgive myself my trespasses, but dwell on the task of avoiding them in the future. How long now have I stepped back, after the fact and seen where it, whatever it is at that moment, went wrong? Now is the time to pause. I give myself homework.
Monday, March 5, 2007
Settling Down in Nelson
Transitions and changes is the mantra of the backpacker, and just when I think I have settled into the rhythm of travel and new adventures daily I am settling in, in a town that has until now not known that I existed. The sound of the ocean breaking on the sandy shore, just minutes from where I stand, reaches my ears, these are waves I have never heard before but will become well acquainted with, with time. Time stretches out before me now. Weeks pull away into the distance, months so far off that not a glimmer registers on the horizon. I have lived a year in three months and now must slow to match the rhythm of the world around: the satiated, the stagnant and me. Theirs is a life of processes driven by worriless days and careless nights, it is hard to see that they work and live but easy to see that they do it effortlessly.
Staying in place, in one place where I get to know street names and shop owners, where I can make a special request and be around to receive it. I have an address and a bank account. I have a car and a job, things I gave up to come out here, to hunt and explore to find something new. This can’t be the end to give it all up just to arrive at my departure point. As my time flattens out and I become use to my new habits and repetitions my feet grow heavy and I see that I am starting to put down roots. There are people here I will miss and restaurateurs who know my name. I have a favorite bar and a regular seat. I am a local, drinking with and laughing like all the rest, and then I open my mouth and I am just another outsider, momentarily infiltrating their ranks. They are use to my kind and I see others just like me everywhere I go.
We adopt the dress and the pace but soon we will be seen trudging down the highway thumb out looking for a new road to hoe. Once more into the wild with a rucksack and a rapidly dwindling savings account, where a budget means having food to eat at all, let alone enough. We do not need all or as much as we think. We can get by on so much less
Staying in place, in one place where I get to know street names and shop owners, where I can make a special request and be around to receive it. I have an address and a bank account. I have a car and a job, things I gave up to come out here, to hunt and explore to find something new. This can’t be the end to give it all up just to arrive at my departure point. As my time flattens out and I become use to my new habits and repetitions my feet grow heavy and I see that I am starting to put down roots. There are people here I will miss and restaurateurs who know my name. I have a favorite bar and a regular seat. I am a local, drinking with and laughing like all the rest, and then I open my mouth and I am just another outsider, momentarily infiltrating their ranks. They are use to my kind and I see others just like me everywhere I go.
We adopt the dress and the pace but soon we will be seen trudging down the highway thumb out looking for a new road to hoe. Once more into the wild with a rucksack and a rapidly dwindling savings account, where a budget means having food to eat at all, let alone enough. We do not need all or as much as we think. We can get by on so much less
Monday, February 19, 2007
Golden Bay
When you need to be somewhere that is far away, but close enough, there is no better place. The sun has finally come out, like a child grown impatient with a game of hide and seek. The turquoise water glitters under the sun’s rays and a silver road hidden under layers of sand is swept clean by the receading tide and a path of sea shells beckons from beneath inches of waters. It leads into the deep and out again, where on the other side a pale white beach has risen from the sea. Like the birth of Venus I ride the seashells to its shore. On all sides the azure waters lap at the sand. Sea birds dance on the wind as they take flight, weary of my presence. Underwater waves have smoothed the surface and my footprints are the very first and last. There is a release that comes with being utterly alone on a tidal island mere meters in size.
I lift my arms above my head and the music comes to me moving my body to the rhythm of an island beat. It is as rapid as the pounding of the surf and my feet kick up spray to the tempo of my blood pumping through my veins and around again. I dance in circles and figure eights and weave my way all over and round my island. The sky is blue, the sea is blue and my thoughts are as clear as the air before me.
The salty sea air slows my breathing and my footsteps with it. My feet, still enough to sink into the wet sand, pull me downward. The sea is the sirens calling me toward a watery grave and it scares me, this strong pull to be upside down and completly encompassed by its flowing touch. I want to bathe in it every day and eat of the shores each night. I want to dress myself in sea grass and scallop shells with clams as hairpins and sandals made of sand. I will ride a dolphin in the depths and hitch a ride back on a passing orca. As my feet sink deeper I live this life and am at complete peace, content to be above and below.
The tepid water falls away still and my island connects to an inlet, but I am still alone and cut off, and further off another island begins to rise. I transfer homes but the magic has faded and the moment is over. Standing, surrounded by water I am despondently aware of my status as an outsider. I do not belong below, waving with the kelp--an amorous duo; I belong above, on the island littered with the homes of shellfish; a trailer park besieged by a deadly tornado. Small, flat and white they decorate the edges, coming and going with the fluctuating tide.
As quickly as the islands appear they begin to sink back into the sea, Atlantis lost under layers of sand and salt water. Taking long, lazy strokes I make my way back to shore, civilization and reality. I build my castles on the sea but they too are wiped out by the tides, waiting to be built again, on another day, on another beach, by a different woman, changed by the world as the oceans change the shoreline.
February 17, 2007
Farewell Spit
The air is so clean it becomes a vacuum, pulling trees and plants alike inward until I can reach out and touch them from my spot on the chaise. The sweet aroma of new grass and fresh flowers wafts in as familiar and powerful as baking bread. The cicadas are at it again and the air is filled with their song. The chickens rustle in the brush down by the stream and it, in response, gurgles back.
Waiting, just behind the veil of noise the silence is waiting to be heard. It is waiting to move in and take my heart in a vice grip until once again I feel utterly abandoned, but the silence never comes and I can breath and the smells come through the window with the tree branches and songs of nature.
It is an idyllic setting. The Inlet is a house, cozy and converted into a home for vagabonds, gypsies and soul searchers. A wrap-around porch hugs the house like a skirt. It is rain beaten and sagging from the weight of the world on its planks. They come from all over, each carrying their own burdens, and the porch carries us all. It protects the house where the siding still bears paint and the structure, sturdy after all these years, stands tall in a harsh juxtapose to its sagging skirt and guardian.
Faintly, almost unnoticeable a fiddle is tuned, it is the background music. Mary begins to play and it takes center stage. The insects grow a little quieter and anyone doing dishes takes care not to clink the plates and rattle the silver lest they upset the wavering notes coming from the other room. She plays with a broken finger and not a person in the room can tell. You get use to hearing certain instruments; guitars and voices are the most common. We are so use to them that they can cease to move you or make a whole house stand still and listen. It could have been any number of instruments, a brass or a wind, achieving the same effect but today, in this home it is Mary and her fiddle.
The kayaks are pulled from the beams of the barn, cracking against old wooden planks and the hard earth as they slip from our grip and tumble to the floor. But their hulls do not crack and they are assembled on the car, one on top of another with paddles hanging out the window. It is a colorful and dilapidated contraption: my silver car, the yellow and white vessels, paddles as blue as the deep ocean. We bump and slide down the country roads. Riding on pavement, sliding on dirt and rocks. At a sharp turn both boats slide left and I instinctively take my foot off the gas, but they are merely adjusting and not falling. On the return trip they will be more securely attached.
The Whanganui Inlet is a national preserve and host to any number of wild fowl and underwater creatures. Brochures boast of rainforests but as we paddle out Mark and I both think that we have seen more rainforest on the drive out than on the bay.
Happy go lucky we plod on in the car. As we near our launch point the wind starts to pick up. Dust flies through the open window where the paddles hang out and a fine layer settles on the interior. It matches the layer on the exterior.
Pushing off into the choppy waters of a receding tide we have no plan but to paddle. We take aim at a near, though distant, shoreline. The waves and the wind put up a worthy fight. We battle our way out pausing only to wipe the stinging salt spray from our eyes, lest we let the boat list and are toppled by a wave. Water is pouring in and the level rises until all but our knees poke out. Risking a rollover to prevent a capsize we frantically pull at the cork stoppers in the bottom of the kayak. They resist freedom and it is a harrowing balancing act, fighting the waves and trying to muscle free a couple of bits of bark. The water level quickly drops as the holes unplug and the added weight drains away.
Made lighter and more buoyant we travel quickly, flying blind for the most part, till a shallow bottom stops our progress. I peak out from salt water caked eyelids. Spreading out for meters all around we have beached on a great green carpet, the rocky bottom trapping bright green algae as the waters recede. Paddles sink into sludge before lodging in the rock below. We punt alongside the green giant until the choppy waves carry us away and onward. There is no going around it though and our excursion is over before it even began.
To proud to express it, we silently exalt that the trip is over. Arm mussels scream in protest as we pull the kayak around. We have been battling the waves and wind for going on two hours with little headway. Straining at the paddles we achieve in turning back toward the coast where the tide pulls back but the waves, propelled by the stronger and more adamant wind, carry us forward. We lie back, laughing with exhaustion, and let the sea bring us in.
Waiting, just behind the veil of noise the silence is waiting to be heard. It is waiting to move in and take my heart in a vice grip until once again I feel utterly abandoned, but the silence never comes and I can breath and the smells come through the window with the tree branches and songs of nature.
It is an idyllic setting. The Inlet is a house, cozy and converted into a home for vagabonds, gypsies and soul searchers. A wrap-around porch hugs the house like a skirt. It is rain beaten and sagging from the weight of the world on its planks. They come from all over, each carrying their own burdens, and the porch carries us all. It protects the house where the siding still bears paint and the structure, sturdy after all these years, stands tall in a harsh juxtapose to its sagging skirt and guardian.
Faintly, almost unnoticeable a fiddle is tuned, it is the background music. Mary begins to play and it takes center stage. The insects grow a little quieter and anyone doing dishes takes care not to clink the plates and rattle the silver lest they upset the wavering notes coming from the other room. She plays with a broken finger and not a person in the room can tell. You get use to hearing certain instruments; guitars and voices are the most common. We are so use to them that they can cease to move you or make a whole house stand still and listen. It could have been any number of instruments, a brass or a wind, achieving the same effect but today, in this home it is Mary and her fiddle.
The kayaks are pulled from the beams of the barn, cracking against old wooden planks and the hard earth as they slip from our grip and tumble to the floor. But their hulls do not crack and they are assembled on the car, one on top of another with paddles hanging out the window. It is a colorful and dilapidated contraption: my silver car, the yellow and white vessels, paddles as blue as the deep ocean. We bump and slide down the country roads. Riding on pavement, sliding on dirt and rocks. At a sharp turn both boats slide left and I instinctively take my foot off the gas, but they are merely adjusting and not falling. On the return trip they will be more securely attached.
The Whanganui Inlet is a national preserve and host to any number of wild fowl and underwater creatures. Brochures boast of rainforests but as we paddle out Mark and I both think that we have seen more rainforest on the drive out than on the bay.
Happy go lucky we plod on in the car. As we near our launch point the wind starts to pick up. Dust flies through the open window where the paddles hang out and a fine layer settles on the interior. It matches the layer on the exterior.
Pushing off into the choppy waters of a receding tide we have no plan but to paddle. We take aim at a near, though distant, shoreline. The waves and the wind put up a worthy fight. We battle our way out pausing only to wipe the stinging salt spray from our eyes, lest we let the boat list and are toppled by a wave. Water is pouring in and the level rises until all but our knees poke out. Risking a rollover to prevent a capsize we frantically pull at the cork stoppers in the bottom of the kayak. They resist freedom and it is a harrowing balancing act, fighting the waves and trying to muscle free a couple of bits of bark. The water level quickly drops as the holes unplug and the added weight drains away. Made lighter and more buoyant we travel quickly, flying blind for the most part, till a shallow bottom stops our progress. I peak out from salt water caked eyelids. Spreading out for meters all around we have beached on a great green carpet, the rocky bottom trapping bright green algae as the waters recede. Paddles sink into sludge before lodging in the rock below. We punt alongside the green giant until the choppy waves carry us away and onward. There is no going around it though and our excursion is over before it even began.
To proud to express it, we silently exalt that the trip is over. Arm mussels scream in protest as we pull the kayak around. We have been battling the waves and wind for going on two hours with little headway. Straining at the paddles we achieve in turning back toward the coast where the tide pulls back but the waves, propelled by the stronger and more adamant wind, carry us forward. We lie back, laughing with exhaustion, and let the sea bring us in.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Pictures of Kaikoura
It just suddenly appeared, as I stepped off the road to cut through to the beach.
Hidden Treasures on the Beach
And then we went for a drive to a near by waterfall and seal colony
It had been raining on the drive up.
Down on the beach; perfect rocks, perfect shells, perfect life just sleeping away.
February 12, 2007
Hidden Treasures on the Beach
And then we went for a drive to a near by waterfall and seal colony
It had been raining on the drive up.
Down on the beach; perfect rocks, perfect shells, perfect life just sleeping away.
February 12, 2007
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Dinner Party of Ocean Offerings
Oh the bountiful ocean; giving up her gifts she is the monastery of the world where all are welcome, but take only what you need. We breached her one rule and came home with much more. With her protective waters out to sea and her wares laid bare for all to see we went, we saw, we took. In the harbours of Motueka we picked up rock oysters, white with mineral deposits and green with algae. The slowly rising and receding tide of the bay leaving behind green slime on the jagged edges of the pearl bearers.
From the deeper waters of the inlet, where the water is constantly rushing one direction or another we pluck large dark mussels from where they cling to each other and the rocks. Not the famed green lipped mussels of New Zealand they are ignored and passed up, but these mussels are even more precious to me. Hidden inside their protective shell mediterranean mussels harbor meat as big as the shell. They are a rare and unexpected treat.
Further out still, in the still receding waters of the bay, hunkered down under the sand, cockles filter sand and sea water, easily spotted by the bubbles they leave behind. Deft fingers punch and pull the heavy, water logged sand and up come the prize. Our bag fills quickly and we are confident none are too small, but we neglect to recall the number we can take.
Separating and soaking our bountiful harvest our happy smiles turn to sheepish grins. We have taken more than our fair share, not by a lot, but still more than what’s fair. Slowly the idea comes to us, we will feed the lot, the people we have become acquainted with and close to. We will feed those who stay behind when the rest move on.
It is quite a production and suddenly I am a chef overseeing a staff of five. There is someone in charge of the noodles but I must season the water and am the deciding vote on the level of doneness. Three people take to salad making like a fish to water. They chop and dice and whip up a wonderful vinaigrette. And still I watch over them too. They want to add the feta and the dressing but it is early and all their hard work will turn to mush, I convince them otherwise. As I trot from station to station, checking on barbecued mussels and oysters, watching over browning garlic, adding butter to a sauce, I am a composer, a manager, a chef, an artist. It is our project but it will be my masterpiece.
We are timing the dishes just write and as it comes down to the wire there are a million places to be at once, but my staff, eager to please and perform are more than capable and I sneak a moment with a glass of wine. Chatting by the barbecue I hear a murmur inside.
Nervously but quickly I approach the group standing over the cockles, they are inhaling the aroma. I am pleased beyond words and I wonder if this is what life is like every time for an accomplished creator of anything. I feel the waves of happiness pass over me and go out and come back again. I am basking in the glow of a job well down and the slight blurring of edges from the glass of wine.
Dinner is delicious noises and clinking shells. The empty pile grows as the others diminish. More people gather and more plates are passed around. There is just enough for all; we are satiated. I pour more wine and soon the bottles are empty as well.
February 12, 2007
From the deeper waters of the inlet, where the water is constantly rushing one direction or another we pluck large dark mussels from where they cling to each other and the rocks. Not the famed green lipped mussels of New Zealand they are ignored and passed up, but these mussels are even more precious to me. Hidden inside their protective shell mediterranean mussels harbor meat as big as the shell. They are a rare and unexpected treat.
Further out still, in the still receding waters of the bay, hunkered down under the sand, cockles filter sand and sea water, easily spotted by the bubbles they leave behind. Deft fingers punch and pull the heavy, water logged sand and up come the prize. Our bag fills quickly and we are confident none are too small, but we neglect to recall the number we can take.
Separating and soaking our bountiful harvest our happy smiles turn to sheepish grins. We have taken more than our fair share, not by a lot, but still more than what’s fair. Slowly the idea comes to us, we will feed the lot, the people we have become acquainted with and close to. We will feed those who stay behind when the rest move on.
It is quite a production and suddenly I am a chef overseeing a staff of five. There is someone in charge of the noodles but I must season the water and am the deciding vote on the level of doneness. Three people take to salad making like a fish to water. They chop and dice and whip up a wonderful vinaigrette. And still I watch over them too. They want to add the feta and the dressing but it is early and all their hard work will turn to mush, I convince them otherwise. As I trot from station to station, checking on barbecued mussels and oysters, watching over browning garlic, adding butter to a sauce, I am a composer, a manager, a chef, an artist. It is our project but it will be my masterpiece.
We are timing the dishes just write and as it comes down to the wire there are a million places to be at once, but my staff, eager to please and perform are more than capable and I sneak a moment with a glass of wine. Chatting by the barbecue I hear a murmur inside.
Nervously but quickly I approach the group standing over the cockles, they are inhaling the aroma. I am pleased beyond words and I wonder if this is what life is like every time for an accomplished creator of anything. I feel the waves of happiness pass over me and go out and come back again. I am basking in the glow of a job well down and the slight blurring of edges from the glass of wine.
Dinner is delicious noises and clinking shells. The empty pile grows as the others diminish. More people gather and more plates are passed around. There is just enough for all; we are satiated. I pour more wine and soon the bottles are empty as well. February 12, 2007
Friday, February 9, 2007
Like a Wildflower
There is something about flowers that pulls at me; they run so deep inside me they can be found in my veins. I search out perfumes that smell of gardenia and jasmine. A wisteria vine will whisk me back years and I am gardening with my mother. Peaceful as they grow I cannot resist the urge to pick them and adorn my hair. As I live I shall plant flowers in my wake and use the ones before me to decorate my life.
Flowers in a garden bring me serenity. There is order in their numbers and rows, even in the gardens that grow will with time. The structure, though restrictive, is comforting. A little order and the guiding touch of another are all that many of us search for. Even amongst my travels I find it. They settle down for weeks and months at a time. Those who travel alone are never alone for long; they group up and continue their journeys together. But every now and again you come across a gypsy so unique her presence glows and again I am drawn in.
Quiet and happy to observe she did not invite me to sit but once I was there she engaged me and soon I was wrapped up in her and desperate to drink her in. Her soft whispery voice told her tale. She had been in New Zealand for six weeks. She came here to learn English, but also, and more importantly to try to make sense of the events of the past year. She had lost her baby and I could see that it saddened her and I felt her pain running deep, but she was not devastated by it. She has gone out into the world searching and open to whatever the universe hands her. Her mine is “open to the journeys inside it.”
Yvonne is a flower that grows where she pleases. At the mercy of the elements, without a tending hand she is thriving. Cut a wildflower down and the next year, again, it appears. She is a wildflower that finds its way back to the garden and then out again. She does not belong with the rest of us, but on the open road and camping along beaches. She is fearless and open to the world and her surroundings.
I have been living amongst my ordered peers. This trip, my first venture into the wild brings me into contact with many others like me. Like a field of wildflowers we cluster together and travel the same roads, propelled by the same winds. We are together, but free to be. I am starting to put my roots down amongst the rest, but the pull home remains strong. For now though, I am content to sit outside the wall looking in from time to time.
February 7, 2007
Flowers in a garden bring me serenity. There is order in their numbers and rows, even in the gardens that grow will with time. The structure, though restrictive, is comforting. A little order and the guiding touch of another are all that many of us search for. Even amongst my travels I find it. They settle down for weeks and months at a time. Those who travel alone are never alone for long; they group up and continue their journeys together. But every now and again you come across a gypsy so unique her presence glows and again I am drawn in.
Quiet and happy to observe she did not invite me to sit but once I was there she engaged me and soon I was wrapped up in her and desperate to drink her in. Her soft whispery voice told her tale. She had been in New Zealand for six weeks. She came here to learn English, but also, and more importantly to try to make sense of the events of the past year. She had lost her baby and I could see that it saddened her and I felt her pain running deep, but she was not devastated by it. She has gone out into the world searching and open to whatever the universe hands her. Her mine is “open to the journeys inside it.”
Yvonne is a flower that grows where she pleases. At the mercy of the elements, without a tending hand she is thriving. Cut a wildflower down and the next year, again, it appears. She is a wildflower that finds its way back to the garden and then out again. She does not belong with the rest of us, but on the open road and camping along beaches. She is fearless and open to the world and her surroundings.
I have been living amongst my ordered peers. This trip, my first venture into the wild brings me into contact with many others like me. Like a field of wildflowers we cluster together and travel the same roads, propelled by the same winds. We are together, but free to be. I am starting to put my roots down amongst the rest, but the pull home remains strong. For now though, I am content to sit outside the wall looking in from time to time.
February 7, 2007
Thursday, February 8, 2007
Christchurch
The largest city in the south island, Christchurch measures up to its national hype. The city centers around a large gothic cathedral and from it stretch the streets, meandering along rivers, running alongside parks, stretching out to the sea and mountains. Colonial style buildings, once the homes of settlers were converted years ago into office spaces, restaurants, shops and travelers’ accommodations. Large outside patios and backyards provide a habitat for people and animals alike. Everything is as quiet as a Sunday picnic. 
Light laughter here and there but the majority of the city is slumbering, a constant nap stirring only from time to time to populate the busy shopping stores hanging onto the edge of the square. It is Super Bowl Monday and everyone in America is gathered around a television set. I heard rumor of a large outdoor screen being set for the big game but when I finally wander over it is deserted and the screen is blank. A few couples are sipping wine and beer under the canopies. I figure I have missed it until walking home I pass a sports bar, deserted as the streets of Pamplona after the bulls have; their television sets are tuned in to the most watched sporting event in the world. The game is not only playing but it’s not even half over. Priorities run different here.
When I drove into Wellington I thought I had stumbled onto a hazing ritual for new sorority and fraternity pledges. Men and women alike were dressed up in all manor of costumes. Football players and cheerleaders from Ridel High, Oompa-Loompas, women in muumuus and men in muumuus they were all here to celebrate the Sevens, an annual rugby tournament, featuring sixteen international teams. The revelers’ voices combined to make one incomprehensible roar, but once the match was on the streets were noticeably empty and the bars bursting at the seams. They may not care for American Football over here but their love for sports runs deep.
In Cathedral Square and along the brick lined streets running out of it like spokes on a bike street performers work the crowds. They use similar techniques and I wonder where they learn their tricks. Crowds, when spread out look sparse, but group them together and you have an engrossed audience drawing others in. It appears that the veteran performers understand this rule and from time to time they break from the show to draw in the crowds. And how shamelessly they play on our weakness for children. A child volunteer is pulled from the crowd. He or she performs a multitude of tasks culmination in one final great one. The performer offers the child a five or ten dollar bill to really give it his or her all. But before the bill is handed over the performer asks the audience if the child deserves the money. The reply is a resounding yes, after which the child is presented with the money and the performer points out that watching someone perform, for their benefit, is indeed work worth five or ten dollars.
The evening before Waitangi Day a big concert is given in Hagley Park. In the great expanse of a park over 70,000 people attend. It ends with a fireworks display capable of being viewed from anywhere in the city. The symphonic orchestra plays Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture and cannons fire from across the park. A group of Maoris come out and perform the haka. The meaning is lost on the crowd. They do not see Napolean retreating from the Russian countryside before him like red ants after a meal. The watch the war dance but they do not see the ghostly fighters put up against the British. They ooh and awe over the popping lights in the sky; like adults scoffing at children with a firefly in a bottle they can not comprehend the enormity of what they behold, but the children do and we sit back amazed.
The next morning it is quiet out. Many shops are closed and it is basically impossible to get anything, of any importance, done. I will walk pass three closed grocery stores before I am finally able to buy supplies for my dinner and next day’s meals. The once busy park is now dotted with families picnicking. People rent kayaks and go for a paddle down the Avon River.
Those looking for romance go punting and are pushed along. The ducks stay close, in case of food, but remain weary of humans.
Farther down the botanical gardens are alive with people and plants. Giant trees give off shade and surrounding them, like a fairy ring, people take shelter from the blazing New Zealand sun. In the flowerbeds themselves small plaques name the plants, but they have overgrown and you can’t always tell from where one plant was suppose to be and where it has ended up. The garden of useful plants is my favorite stop. On each plaque a symbol tells you if the plant is used for medicinal, herbal or edible purposes. Also within the garden are poisonous plants. Here’s to the gardener that finds poisonous plants useful.
February 6, 2007
Light laughter here and there but the majority of the city is slumbering, a constant nap stirring only from time to time to populate the busy shopping stores hanging onto the edge of the square. It is Super Bowl Monday and everyone in America is gathered around a television set. I heard rumor of a large outdoor screen being set for the big game but when I finally wander over it is deserted and the screen is blank. A few couples are sipping wine and beer under the canopies. I figure I have missed it until walking home I pass a sports bar, deserted as the streets of Pamplona after the bulls have; their television sets are tuned in to the most watched sporting event in the world. The game is not only playing but it’s not even half over. Priorities run different here.When I drove into Wellington I thought I had stumbled onto a hazing ritual for new sorority and fraternity pledges. Men and women alike were dressed up in all manor of costumes. Football players and cheerleaders from Ridel High, Oompa-Loompas, women in muumuus and men in muumuus they were all here to celebrate the Sevens, an annual rugby tournament, featuring sixteen international teams. The revelers’ voices combined to make one incomprehensible roar, but once the match was on the streets were noticeably empty and the bars bursting at the seams. They may not care for American Football over here but their love for sports runs deep.
In Cathedral Square and along the brick lined streets running out of it like spokes on a bike street performers work the crowds. They use similar techniques and I wonder where they learn their tricks. Crowds, when spread out look sparse, but group them together and you have an engrossed audience drawing others in. It appears that the veteran performers understand this rule and from time to time they break from the show to draw in the crowds. And how shamelessly they play on our weakness for children. A child volunteer is pulled from the crowd. He or she performs a multitude of tasks culmination in one final great one. The performer offers the child a five or ten dollar bill to really give it his or her all. But before the bill is handed over the performer asks the audience if the child deserves the money. The reply is a resounding yes, after which the child is presented with the money and the performer points out that watching someone perform, for their benefit, is indeed work worth five or ten dollars.
The evening before Waitangi Day a big concert is given in Hagley Park. In the great expanse of a park over 70,000 people attend. It ends with a fireworks display capable of being viewed from anywhere in the city. The symphonic orchestra plays Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture and cannons fire from across the park. A group of Maoris come out and perform the haka. The meaning is lost on the crowd. They do not see Napolean retreating from the Russian countryside before him like red ants after a meal. The watch the war dance but they do not see the ghostly fighters put up against the British. They ooh and awe over the popping lights in the sky; like adults scoffing at children with a firefly in a bottle they can not comprehend the enormity of what they behold, but the children do and we sit back amazed.
The next morning it is quiet out. Many shops are closed and it is basically impossible to get anything, of any importance, done. I will walk pass three closed grocery stores before I am finally able to buy supplies for my dinner and next day’s meals. The once busy park is now dotted with families picnicking. People rent kayaks and go for a paddle down the Avon River.
Those looking for romance go punting and are pushed along. The ducks stay close, in case of food, but remain weary of humans. Farther down the botanical gardens are alive with people and plants. Giant trees give off shade and surrounding them, like a fairy ring, people take shelter from the blazing New Zealand sun. In the flowerbeds themselves small plaques name the plants, but they have overgrown and you can’t always tell from where one plant was suppose to be and where it has ended up. The garden of useful plants is my favorite stop. On each plaque a symbol tells you if the plant is used for medicinal, herbal or edible purposes. Also within the garden are poisonous plants. Here’s to the gardener that finds poisonous plants useful.
February 6, 2007
Monday, February 5, 2007
Gray Day
Is there really such a thing as something we will want to do for the rest of our lives, or are we always in an ever evolving, forever changing state of affairs? Is it chaos or the evolution of all things?
The scenery leaving Napier is as disruptive and inconsistent as my current state. It is a fitting end, or perhaps it is a beginning. Past the golden pastures and grazing livestock, past the farmhouses and country cottages with white picket fences, past the seashore hiding a deadly undercurrent there lies a grove of great dead trees. Their bleached, skeletal remains could easily have been the inspiration for A Nightmare Before Christmas. Choked to death in the swampy water surrounding them now. A stagnant bog, algae thrives on its surface the harsh yellows and green of the primitive life forms standing out against the while trunks. The surface is covered by their presence, up until the very edge where the land suddenly rises sharply and it is again rolling grasslands. I imagine that this is what the world looked like right before the last dinosaurs died—life struggling to survive in an environment to harsh to sustain it. The water, dark and dank hides the remains of many but contributes to life as well. It is circular, taking and giving until it too will one day dry up and disappear. Something else will move in and take its place and the circle will be complete and able to continue around again.
I pass the swamp in less than 30 seconds, but it has made an impression on me. Without the swamp the land looks stable, in a state of production. Every few kilometers a new town with a church or a school, with immaculate lawns, and well cared for homes. The grasses are greener in the towns and the dairy cattle look straight out of a commercial for California cheese. Tress of all shapes and sizes, planted years ago, now provide ample shades for the front porches and sidewalks. And then the town is behind me and it is once again rolling ranch land with towering mountain ranges on either side. I am boxed in by them, but have no desire to try and cross them. That time will come.
It hasn’t yet ceased to amaze me how much New Zealand looks like California. I wonder if I will ever grow old of the constant showing of familiarity, but for now I am grateful for it. Grateful as I would be to suddenly see an old friend or hear my name called out in a crowd. I had made friends in Napier, friends that I will probably see before anyone from back home. I am starting to belong and in doing so I feel myself being pulled further and further away from my life before and I know that I can never go home; the scenery will have changed, and the people, but most of all I will have changed beyond any going back. At least that is the hope.
For almost four hours there is nothing new to look at. Each town is as the one before, each house resembles all the others and the pastures contain the same animals, be they cattle, sheep for elk. But it has come time to cross the mountains and drive into Wellington. It is then that the scenery abruptly changes. No more are there golden grasses and cornfields, gone are the slowly curving roads and flat drives, now we climb, with sharp cutbacks bordered by breathtaking drops and sheer cliffs that tower above. Part of the range that keeps the east coast so dry this area is lush from all of the moisture it has garnered for itself. The giant king ferns have returned. A flash of metallic on green and I know I have passed the silver fern. The foliage is dense the mountainside dark green.
The gray sky grows closer the higher I climb and soon the car is motoring through a cloud. All visibility beyond the edge of the road is lost and a viewing station at the top of the mountain is deserted. New Zealand’s rainforests are in the South Island, but if I didn’t know any better I’d say this was it. A world apart the car carries me onward.
February 3, 2007
The scenery leaving Napier is as disruptive and inconsistent as my current state. It is a fitting end, or perhaps it is a beginning. Past the golden pastures and grazing livestock, past the farmhouses and country cottages with white picket fences, past the seashore hiding a deadly undercurrent there lies a grove of great dead trees. Their bleached, skeletal remains could easily have been the inspiration for A Nightmare Before Christmas. Choked to death in the swampy water surrounding them now. A stagnant bog, algae thrives on its surface the harsh yellows and green of the primitive life forms standing out against the while trunks. The surface is covered by their presence, up until the very edge where the land suddenly rises sharply and it is again rolling grasslands. I imagine that this is what the world looked like right before the last dinosaurs died—life struggling to survive in an environment to harsh to sustain it. The water, dark and dank hides the remains of many but contributes to life as well. It is circular, taking and giving until it too will one day dry up and disappear. Something else will move in and take its place and the circle will be complete and able to continue around again.
I pass the swamp in less than 30 seconds, but it has made an impression on me. Without the swamp the land looks stable, in a state of production. Every few kilometers a new town with a church or a school, with immaculate lawns, and well cared for homes. The grasses are greener in the towns and the dairy cattle look straight out of a commercial for California cheese. Tress of all shapes and sizes, planted years ago, now provide ample shades for the front porches and sidewalks. And then the town is behind me and it is once again rolling ranch land with towering mountain ranges on either side. I am boxed in by them, but have no desire to try and cross them. That time will come.
It hasn’t yet ceased to amaze me how much New Zealand looks like California. I wonder if I will ever grow old of the constant showing of familiarity, but for now I am grateful for it. Grateful as I would be to suddenly see an old friend or hear my name called out in a crowd. I had made friends in Napier, friends that I will probably see before anyone from back home. I am starting to belong and in doing so I feel myself being pulled further and further away from my life before and I know that I can never go home; the scenery will have changed, and the people, but most of all I will have changed beyond any going back. At least that is the hope.
For almost four hours there is nothing new to look at. Each town is as the one before, each house resembles all the others and the pastures contain the same animals, be they cattle, sheep for elk. But it has come time to cross the mountains and drive into Wellington. It is then that the scenery abruptly changes. No more are there golden grasses and cornfields, gone are the slowly curving roads and flat drives, now we climb, with sharp cutbacks bordered by breathtaking drops and sheer cliffs that tower above. Part of the range that keeps the east coast so dry this area is lush from all of the moisture it has garnered for itself. The giant king ferns have returned. A flash of metallic on green and I know I have passed the silver fern. The foliage is dense the mountainside dark green.
The gray sky grows closer the higher I climb and soon the car is motoring through a cloud. All visibility beyond the edge of the road is lost and a viewing station at the top of the mountain is deserted. New Zealand’s rainforests are in the South Island, but if I didn’t know any better I’d say this was it. A world apart the car carries me onward.
February 3, 2007
Friday, February 2, 2007
A Diamond in the Rough
Within one of New Zealand’s lesser-known grape growing regions is an appellation based solely on its soil. It’s the only one its kind in the country. For 18,000 years a river flowed through what is now called Gimblett Gravels, during that time fertile soil was rushed down stream and deposited on the banks. These areas now make up much of New Zealand’s “fruit bowl”in Hawkes Bay. Highly fertile the area is ideal for the myriad of fruit trees planted about.
While the soil was washed down stream years of sediment settled on gravel over sixty meters deep. For years this river raged on covering what would become highly sought after growing ground for syrah, Bordeaux varietals, and even tempranillo. Pinot gris and chardonnay now flourish as well. In 1870 a great flood shifted the river and through human interference its course has changed little since. Not too long ago the region was almost lost again. Ideal not only for grape growing but a gold mine of a quarry as well a lengthy legal battle was fought over the rights to the land. The grape growers, though underdogs at the time prevailed and now we can drive through the countryside stopping every few hundred meters to drink some of the finest wines in New Zealand.
Small or large Gimblett Gravels wineries are starting to make a name for themselves throughout New Zealand and the world. Not to long ago all we ever heard about was Marlborough sauvignon blanc or Central Otago pinot noir, but now thanks to a few key wineries word is getting out. One of the wineries most responsible for the regions growing international fame is Hatton Estate. Producing fewer than 10, 000 cases a year the majority of their wines goes over seas and is served in such restaurants as the French Laundry in the Napa Valley and at Charlie Trotter’s in Chicago. Using a hands-on approach to marketing he travels the world peddling his wines and using the power of the personal touch.
When I set out tasting Hatton Estate wasn’t even on my list of wineries, but acting on a recommendation from an employee a Trinity Hill, a winery that makes the only tempranillo in New Zealand, I found my self driving down a dirt road past row upon row of vineyards. Every few meters a new sign naming the winery that owns the grapes. Names like Te Mata and Villa Maria jump out at me, there is even a block owned by Cloudy Bay.
My first view of Hatton Estate makes me smile. This is what I have come to New Zealand to find. A large corrugated metal warehouse houses the wineries handful of equipment. What once was dairy equipment has been converted into fermentation tanks and bins. The hoses and fittings too come from that industry. The tasting room is two barrels with a wood plank placed over them acting as a bar.
The floor is wet and the faint smells of iodine and sulphur dioxide hang in the air. They are busy cleaning for the upcoming harvest. It is less than a month away. The winemaker quietly moves about the spacious room and comes and goes. I recognize him from his picture in the numerous articles collected by the winery. Ben, working the cellar door knows his stuff and answers all of my questions as well as providing insight into the terroir. It is closing time but he does not rush me. We sit down and talk about the winery and taste the wine.
The vineyard was first planted in 1993 and they have remained 100 percent estate grown ever since. Of the nine wines I tried four of them are heavily exported to the United States. As I taste I begin to think that this is what great New Zealand wine should taste like. Still subtle and quiet on the nose and palate they are complex and well balanced.
Of the two merlots the Gimblett Road 2004 is my favorite. Twenty-four percent cabernet, it has a bigger nose than any red wine I have tried in New Zealand. Packed full of blueberry and black pepper and I was surprised at the strong fruit element. With a great mouth feel, smooth tannins and toasty oak on the palate I would have a bought a bottle on the spot had I been in the market.
Apparently I had arrived on a great day for they were releasing their 2004 Carson’s Cabernet. Made up of 74 percent cabernet franc and 26 percent cabernet sauvignon this wine had a beautiful nose of hints of mushroom, game, violets and peppermints I spent almost ten minutes simply sniffing this wine. The bottle had done beautifully in storage. Any harsh tannins had disappeared leaving soft and supple feelings behind. The palate reflected everything on the nose and there wasn’t a vegetal element to be found, a problem I have come across with many New Zealand cabernets.
Of the three red wines Hatton Estates exports to the United States I have to tip my hat to the Tahi, a 2002 cabernet, merlot and cab franc blend, with The Doctor, a 2005 syrah, coming in second. The Tahi was my favorite because of how unusual it was while still being a great wine. In the beginning the nose stumped me but once I let my mind wander I started noticing sea salt and bread. With a little aeration it opened up even more and out came blackberry and hints of jabanero. On the palate: many of the same surprises with a beautiful base of chocolate covered cherries and a mineral finish.
The Doctor also stumped me at first until I finally decided that the pepper I was smelling was fresh cracked red pepper. Sticking with the New Zealand there was very little fruit on the wine but a nice meaty characteristic of jerky. The palate, with a little fruit had hints of plum. It is by far the best syrah I have had here to date.
New Zealand is very young when it comes to making wine. Few wineries are older than ten years old and many of their wines reflect this. Additionally they are still working out the kinks in developing their own style, but places like Hatton Estate make me confident that before long New Zealand will be a world player in more than just sauvignon blanc.
While the soil was washed down stream years of sediment settled on gravel over sixty meters deep. For years this river raged on covering what would become highly sought after growing ground for syrah, Bordeaux varietals, and even tempranillo. Pinot gris and chardonnay now flourish as well. In 1870 a great flood shifted the river and through human interference its course has changed little since. Not too long ago the region was almost lost again. Ideal not only for grape growing but a gold mine of a quarry as well a lengthy legal battle was fought over the rights to the land. The grape growers, though underdogs at the time prevailed and now we can drive through the countryside stopping every few hundred meters to drink some of the finest wines in New Zealand.
Small or large Gimblett Gravels wineries are starting to make a name for themselves throughout New Zealand and the world. Not to long ago all we ever heard about was Marlborough sauvignon blanc or Central Otago pinot noir, but now thanks to a few key wineries word is getting out. One of the wineries most responsible for the regions growing international fame is Hatton Estate. Producing fewer than 10, 000 cases a year the majority of their wines goes over seas and is served in such restaurants as the French Laundry in the Napa Valley and at Charlie Trotter’s in Chicago. Using a hands-on approach to marketing he travels the world peddling his wines and using the power of the personal touch.
When I set out tasting Hatton Estate wasn’t even on my list of wineries, but acting on a recommendation from an employee a Trinity Hill, a winery that makes the only tempranillo in New Zealand, I found my self driving down a dirt road past row upon row of vineyards. Every few meters a new sign naming the winery that owns the grapes. Names like Te Mata and Villa Maria jump out at me, there is even a block owned by Cloudy Bay.
My first view of Hatton Estate makes me smile. This is what I have come to New Zealand to find. A large corrugated metal warehouse houses the wineries handful of equipment. What once was dairy equipment has been converted into fermentation tanks and bins. The hoses and fittings too come from that industry. The tasting room is two barrels with a wood plank placed over them acting as a bar.
The floor is wet and the faint smells of iodine and sulphur dioxide hang in the air. They are busy cleaning for the upcoming harvest. It is less than a month away. The winemaker quietly moves about the spacious room and comes and goes. I recognize him from his picture in the numerous articles collected by the winery. Ben, working the cellar door knows his stuff and answers all of my questions as well as providing insight into the terroir. It is closing time but he does not rush me. We sit down and talk about the winery and taste the wine.
The vineyard was first planted in 1993 and they have remained 100 percent estate grown ever since. Of the nine wines I tried four of them are heavily exported to the United States. As I taste I begin to think that this is what great New Zealand wine should taste like. Still subtle and quiet on the nose and palate they are complex and well balanced.
Of the two merlots the Gimblett Road 2004 is my favorite. Twenty-four percent cabernet, it has a bigger nose than any red wine I have tried in New Zealand. Packed full of blueberry and black pepper and I was surprised at the strong fruit element. With a great mouth feel, smooth tannins and toasty oak on the palate I would have a bought a bottle on the spot had I been in the market.
Apparently I had arrived on a great day for they were releasing their 2004 Carson’s Cabernet. Made up of 74 percent cabernet franc and 26 percent cabernet sauvignon this wine had a beautiful nose of hints of mushroom, game, violets and peppermints I spent almost ten minutes simply sniffing this wine. The bottle had done beautifully in storage. Any harsh tannins had disappeared leaving soft and supple feelings behind. The palate reflected everything on the nose and there wasn’t a vegetal element to be found, a problem I have come across with many New Zealand cabernets.
Of the three red wines Hatton Estates exports to the United States I have to tip my hat to the Tahi, a 2002 cabernet, merlot and cab franc blend, with The Doctor, a 2005 syrah, coming in second. The Tahi was my favorite because of how unusual it was while still being a great wine. In the beginning the nose stumped me but once I let my mind wander I started noticing sea salt and bread. With a little aeration it opened up even more and out came blackberry and hints of jabanero. On the palate: many of the same surprises with a beautiful base of chocolate covered cherries and a mineral finish.
The Doctor also stumped me at first until I finally decided that the pepper I was smelling was fresh cracked red pepper. Sticking with the New Zealand there was very little fruit on the wine but a nice meaty characteristic of jerky. The palate, with a little fruit had hints of plum. It is by far the best syrah I have had here to date.
New Zealand is very young when it comes to making wine. Few wineries are older than ten years old and many of their wines reflect this. Additionally they are still working out the kinks in developing their own style, but places like Hatton Estate make me confident that before long New Zealand will be a world player in more than just sauvignon blanc.
Thursday, February 1, 2007
Feathered Friends
The Feathered Friends
New Zealand’s birds think they are of regal blood. They walk with their heads held high, and there’s not scuffing of the feet either. As if Andalusians on parade the kick up each foot--every step is deliberate. With their flashy colors and high stepping ways it is no wonder they garner all the attention while the shy kiwi shirks about at night as if ashamed of his drab colors and squat build.
The Pukeko seems the most arrogant while the Tui is hot on his heels. Blue-black feathers shimmer in the sunlight, his bright red beak and legs stand out as flares in the night. He is a Doctor Seuss character. And how haughty when he walks! The dark tail feathers flick up with each step revealing a white undershirt, a gentlemen lifting his waistcoat to take a bow. Comparable to a crow they are matched in size and absurdity by the magpie. The magpie’s wings are black with white spots. He sports a yellow beak and looks as if out of child’s coloring book, complete with long tail feathers. If the Pukeko is the queen’s guard then the Magpie the court jester.
Thinking much too highly of himself, like a too short police officer, the Tui commands your attention everywhere he treads. The size of a pigeon they comically bob their heads with each step, and keeping in time the legs step up and down like soldiers on the march. The Tui has a brown body and shoulders, their wings and tail are of an unassuming black but the sharp beak and legs are of an uncompromising yellow. Beneath their feathers they too wear white undergarments, visible only when in flight.
As common as they are precocious the Pukeko, Magpie and Tui are of no great importance to the average Kiwi, but to the visitor from a far off land, their presence makes the New Zealand fairytale all but complete.
January 31, 2006
New Zealand’s birds think they are of regal blood. They walk with their heads held high, and there’s not scuffing of the feet either. As if Andalusians on parade the kick up each foot--every step is deliberate. With their flashy colors and high stepping ways it is no wonder they garner all the attention while the shy kiwi shirks about at night as if ashamed of his drab colors and squat build.
The Pukeko seems the most arrogant while the Tui is hot on his heels. Blue-black feathers shimmer in the sunlight, his bright red beak and legs stand out as flares in the night. He is a Doctor Seuss character. And how haughty when he walks! The dark tail feathers flick up with each step revealing a white undershirt, a gentlemen lifting his waistcoat to take a bow. Comparable to a crow they are matched in size and absurdity by the magpie. The magpie’s wings are black with white spots. He sports a yellow beak and looks as if out of child’s coloring book, complete with long tail feathers. If the Pukeko is the queen’s guard then the Magpie the court jester.
Thinking much too highly of himself, like a too short police officer, the Tui commands your attention everywhere he treads. The size of a pigeon they comically bob their heads with each step, and keeping in time the legs step up and down like soldiers on the march. The Tui has a brown body and shoulders, their wings and tail are of an unassuming black but the sharp beak and legs are of an uncompromising yellow. Beneath their feathers they too wear white undergarments, visible only when in flight.
As common as they are precocious the Pukeko, Magpie and Tui are of no great importance to the average Kiwi, but to the visitor from a far off land, their presence makes the New Zealand fairytale all but complete.
January 31, 2006
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Part Two
Lesley, a southern UK native, has been in this country for about as long as I have. We are similar in age and she reminds me so much of a my college roommate. Like Kaycee, Lesley lives for the moment. With little more than a vague suggestion at the possibility of mussels she grasped onto the idea that it could be done, and when I mentioned kayaking she knew we would have to give it a try. As we paddled out I thought back on my first time kayaking. Rarely have I kayaked when I don’t remember that eventful day, a day that should have put me off of one of my favorite outings, forever.
When I was younger many weekend days were spent at Morro Bay on the central coast of California. A natural bay, improved upon and intruded upon by humans it is also an estuary. A great sand spit reaches out into it, protecting the bay from the ocean’s waves and the wind. In most places it is so shallow that you can actually see to the bottom, through the murky cool waters of the pacific. We’d rent canoes and head out to the sand spit for a highly challenging game of hide and seek where we would try and track each other through ice plant, crushed sea shells and all other types of terrain commonly found on the dunes.
One such day we switched to a kayak. My father and I, glad to be free of the bulk and cumbersome actions of rowing, hoisted our paddles and laughed as the tide and the wind pulled us towards our most frequent destination. Years spent on these adventures should have wizened us to the realization that the return journey wouldn’t be so easy. As I think back I am certain that my father must have known, an ex-coast guard he had spent hours upon weeks on the sea, but he must of also figured it could be handled. Nothing, could have prepared him for what we were about to face.
In our many times exploring the estuaries and coves of Morro Bay we had, on countless occasions, encountered adverse current, tidal and wind conditions. The difference here was, and I can truly and without guile say, it was our equipment. Kayaks are shallow vessels. Your legs lie low and rest, more than post off a couple of small plastic foot rests. They are at best insufficient in a time of need. What compensates for this is the backrest. Attached with straps each rest can be adjusted to fit the needs and body shape of the user. But when the rest is missing there is nothing to hold you up and your stomach and your legs take a brutal beating.
Never, in all those excursions, has my father had to stop and rest at any point, let alone desperately grasping at a moored boat’s buoy. We were exhausted in our uphill battle to fight the current. Stomach, arms and shoulders screamed. Our calves and quads folded in on themselves in excruciating cramps sending us into reams of agonizing pain. What fools we must have seemed, on our way out gaily waving our paddles above our heads, as if propelled by sails. The ocean had shamed us for our mocking ways.
Years later and thousands of miles away Lesley and I had to pull hard against wind and current as we battled our way out to one of the many islands in the aptly named, Bay of Islands. From the coast it appears to be the largest. A gentle shoreline hugging its front side is the only reprieve from our struggle. Just as quickly as we enter the calm waters we are back out in the chop and fighting our way past rocks, rocks that harbor at their bases a collection of mussels so large that but one will fit in the palm of our hands. Lesley is unsure if this is the spot. Her friend, who told her of the harvest, had mentioned a small beach. And then we see it. Around a rock outcrop a small sandy beach. Tall trees and bushes rise up sharply on the steep slopes above and around it. It is a formidable landing with sharp rocks jutting on all sides. Lesley is quite at home on and in the sea. She powers ahead of me in the kayaks and as soon as we have beached she grabs her goggles and swims out into the rough waters. I too am at home with the sea but there is something daunting about the way the waves break on, and the current pulls at the rocks. Unsure of my safety I follow her wake.
There are a series of rocks that jut out of the water just north of the island. They are sharp and cut our feet as we try to balance ourselves against them. Lesley and I learn the hard way that trying to swim with our feet results in bloody toes and little movement. She is moving about the area diving under the chop and searching the rock bases for shellfish trimmed in green. We feel we are out of luck when time and time again she surfaces with out sighting a single mussel over a centimeter in length. Then what we think is the jackpot. Lesley starts to dive down frantically. As she surfaces her hand rises out in a triumphant salute. Held tightly in it a mussel, a New Zealand Green Lipped mussel measuring three inches in length. She dives and surfaces and dives and surfaces. After a couple failed attempts her technique is honed and she surfaces each time with a mussel in hand. Once she holds up a mussel so big we break out into laughter. We are amazed at our luck. Just this one is enough to make us more than ecstatic.
It is tiring work and we trade places. She stands guard over our growing sack of mussels and I take to the sea. Still unsure about the strong current I wade into the deeper waters. She points into the foreboding darkness. There, the mussels are there, she says. Then I dive and my fears are but silly childish apprehensions. Beneath the waves and white wash the current gently flows and the sea grass waves to and fro. Near their roots the mussels have taken hold and grown. They cut my hands as I grasp at them. I am indiscriminate as I grab and pull and I come away with two or three or at a time. Our smiles grow broader and our eyes shine with joy and the stings of salt water.
Lesley again points into the water. Over there is where I found the big one, she says. I begin to dive for the new destination. The rust colored sea grasses cast shadows over the mussel beds, but I can still see that they are big. I come up laughing and Lesley joins in. In each grasp are mussels so big they fill my hands. We are ignorant to the cuts and scrapes on our hands and feet. Later that will smart when exposed to hot water and soap but for now there is only the joy of the harvest and the thoughts of our dinner to come.
We know it is time to stop when our greedy eyes see four-inch mussels as small.
(2 of 2)
January 26, 2007
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Diving for Mussels (in two parts)
I arrived in Paihia today. The sun opened up and the blue green ocean called my name. It was spring break during the winter holiday. Young and old spread across the ocean shore, and though of no great size or scope in beauty it is a comfortable and relaxing place, free of pretence.
There are more backpacker accommodations in this tiny seaside town than in all of Auckland—New Zealand’s biggest city. I had arrived on my own. My partner stayed on in Wharehine to work for a carpenter painting houses for a few days. Already I look forward to his arrival. I am in love with this tiny seaside town and I think, hope, that he will too.
It was a stroke of luck ending up at the lodge that I did. My bus ride ended at the wharf, dropping us off at an information booth. The first off the bus I struggled to pull my bag on amidst a jostling swarm of elderly people, ruthless in their attempts to get their bags and get out of there. As the bus pulled away I stood alone anxiously anticipating my next move. Laden and ready to move I made my way to the information booth. With phone in hand I went through the backpacker brochures. My first four attempts all resulted in no vacancies. Then came my lucky call. The Peppertree Lodge was available and waiting.
Sight unseen I agreed to a two nights stay. As I walked down King Street, a street basically dedicated to backpackers, I eyed my earlier attempts and the lodges that I hadn’t gotten around to calling, but as I turned down the drive I was certain I had chosen the proper place. The advertised free kayaks were parked outside, just waiting to be put to use. A bicycle rack stood empty but it spoke of rides untaken and promised to fulfill.
Free tennis beckoned my as well. It was with a heavy heart that I sold my tennis racket back in the states. Bought when I played in high school it had remained one of my prized possessions all through the years. Now here it was free for me to enjoy once again. What I thought was the icing on the cake was only the beginning.
Physical comforts were catered to as well. My room, a light and airy place with crisp white sheets, ventilating windows and glass doors that open wide to let in the sea breeze and ocean smells. Our room for four even featured our own bathroom complete with shower. There is something so refreshing about paying very little for what feels like resort accommodations. With a backpacker’s budget but a taste for the finer things in life roughing it can only satisfy for so long. Thankfully, though unbeknownst to me, I was facing the freshest shellfish dinner of my life, complete with a fine bottle of wine.
I could not have been at the lodge for but thirty minutes when I was whisked off to dive for mussels off the beaches of a distant island. With little by way of a plan Lesley and I set off. I met Lesley as I was situating myself in my new home. I had planned to be here but two days, but I suspect it will be longer. She came in briefly to grab the bag of a mate. We were introduced then she was gone.
Last night was a big night in Wharehine. Our youth hostel hosted their weekly ten dollars all you can drink special. As beers are quite over priced we took it upon ourselves to make back our money. We drank and we talked and we made new friends. There were many new faces and few familiar ones. Many of the German speakers had moved on and in their place came the Spanish speakers. I was in seventh heaven. Though my Spanish is far from being even remotely good I still love to speak it, and speak it I did. It is a beautiful when I am frustrated by being surrounded by people who don’t speak any language I know to suddenly hear a language, that though is far from fluent to my ear is near enough.
Starting at around seven o’clock the people begin to trickle in. By seven thirty it is far more packed than I have ever even imagined at seeing it. Then, when eight rolls around and the evening has begun there is little standing room and all seats are coveted and carefully guarded. By getting in with the guardians of the chairs I was able to secure a spot for myself at the railing. We drank and we rolled cigarettes, the obvious preference in New Zealand, and drank some more. I like to think I got my money back, at least I hope so for otherwise the headache and upset stomach the next day sure weren’t worth it.
The next day in Paihia, with barely more than a power bar in me, but loads of liquids, I left my room in search of food and relaxation, what I found was an excursion and a new friend.
1 of 2
January 25, 2007
Lesley: My Kaycee Overseas
I would venture so far to say that I had the best roommate in college. One of the most gregarious and outgoing persons I have ever met, she made everyday fun just by the way she lived her life—for the moment. And then there was the side of her that was reserved and shy. This side came out whenever she dealt with authority figures. Lesley is very much like Kaycee.
On the briefest of suggestions to take out kayaks Lesley turned a relaxing paddle into a four-hour excursion featuring challenging currents, razor sharp rocks and dangerous diving—all in the name of mussels. After our adventure was over and we had learned the name of the island where we found our mussels she decided that the official name just wouldn’t suffice. So she changed it to Charisley (chair-is-lee) Isle. I must agree that I do find it more agreeable.
Kaycee once made up and named a drink that slowly spread around the town we lived in and the surrounding areas. We use to frequent the Frog and Peach in San Luis Obispo, California and it was there that we first tried Blue Moon. It is a Belgian white-wheat-ale, similar to a hefewiezen but lighter and with a more citrus taste. We were instant suckers for it. At this time we were also very fond of Black and Tans; we would show up at the bar order a Black and Tan, each, and a Blue Moon, each. This was how she lighted upon the wonderful idea of making a Black and Tan with Guinness and Blue Moon. Right then and there she coined it a Black and Blue and the drink and the name have spread. How like Kaycee, Lesley is to also come up with something new and catchy on the first try.
Lesley too is open and friendly. She is giving and kind. She eats cake for lunch and ice cream for an afternoon snack. Kaycee was always my partner in crime when it came to ingestible vices. The two of us would head out to a local bar and grill for happy hour food and free drinks courtesy the bartender who of course, thanks to Kaycee, became a fast friend.
After only two partial days together Lesley is getting ready to leave, and, though she has checked out, her stuff has remained in the room. True to Kaycee form she frets and fumbles over how to sneak her bag downstairs so the owners wont know that she hasn’t properly vacated the area. She took a shower too. Before the shower though she decided to wait up in the room until her hair had dried before going out. She just knew that they would see her hair and know she had used their facilities. In all reality the worse that would happen is a stern look or maybe a passive-aggressive comment and what harm would that do, still she paced, causing herself more pain in agonizing over it. This is not to be misunderstood as an obsession. It was more of a quaint preoccupation. As she stood in the doorway, preparing to make her daring escape she peaked out the door, then with a sheepish grin back at me she left. Oh how like Kaycee that whole maneuver was.
January 26, 2007
On the briefest of suggestions to take out kayaks Lesley turned a relaxing paddle into a four-hour excursion featuring challenging currents, razor sharp rocks and dangerous diving—all in the name of mussels. After our adventure was over and we had learned the name of the island where we found our mussels she decided that the official name just wouldn’t suffice. So she changed it to Charisley (chair-is-lee) Isle. I must agree that I do find it more agreeable.
Kaycee once made up and named a drink that slowly spread around the town we lived in and the surrounding areas. We use to frequent the Frog and Peach in San Luis Obispo, California and it was there that we first tried Blue Moon. It is a Belgian white-wheat-ale, similar to a hefewiezen but lighter and with a more citrus taste. We were instant suckers for it. At this time we were also very fond of Black and Tans; we would show up at the bar order a Black and Tan, each, and a Blue Moon, each. This was how she lighted upon the wonderful idea of making a Black and Tan with Guinness and Blue Moon. Right then and there she coined it a Black and Blue and the drink and the name have spread. How like Kaycee, Lesley is to also come up with something new and catchy on the first try.
Lesley too is open and friendly. She is giving and kind. She eats cake for lunch and ice cream for an afternoon snack. Kaycee was always my partner in crime when it came to ingestible vices. The two of us would head out to a local bar and grill for happy hour food and free drinks courtesy the bartender who of course, thanks to Kaycee, became a fast friend.
After only two partial days together Lesley is getting ready to leave, and, though she has checked out, her stuff has remained in the room. True to Kaycee form she frets and fumbles over how to sneak her bag downstairs so the owners wont know that she hasn’t properly vacated the area. She took a shower too. Before the shower though she decided to wait up in the room until her hair had dried before going out. She just knew that they would see her hair and know she had used their facilities. In all reality the worse that would happen is a stern look or maybe a passive-aggressive comment and what harm would that do, still she paced, causing herself more pain in agonizing over it. This is not to be misunderstood as an obsession. It was more of a quaint preoccupation. As she stood in the doorway, preparing to make her daring escape she peaked out the door, then with a sheepish grin back at me she left. Oh how like Kaycee that whole maneuver was.
January 26, 2007
Parihaka Reserves, Whangarei
The locals call it a hill, but historically it was a great volcano that at one time, even before the Maori, it blew its top off, and in reality it is a spiritual awakening. There is a moment, when you are on the volcano, when history stands up, wraps you in its arms, and takes off to a place so long gone that only ancient remnants and our imaginations bring us hints of what life was like before I trod there.
As I walked I became a part of the story. My footsteps in the damp decaying earth forever changing the forest floor. What air I exhale is absorbed in the surrounding plant life; giving life in a place so dense with vegetation you can almost see the leaves competing for my carbon dioxide waste, and compete they must. Few people come here. In my four-hour hike I never once saw another person.
The walk to the volcano is as unassuming as the sight of the former mountain. From afar both look like an average spot. Somewhere you can experience in just about any corner of the world where it rains enough to turn the hills green in spring. The walk begins in the town and meanders through neighborhoods. The postie rides by on her bicycle delivering the mail. Up a street and down a street, I begin to think I am lost when time after time the road curves around and back again, but shying away behind some bushes along a driveway a fresh sign points the way and I am once again confident in my plans.
As soon as I step on the path the scenery changes from suburban quaint to natural beauty. The path wanders beside a river. It is connected to the sea and rises and falls with the tide. That seems to be a common theme around here. Sea birds and ducks alike swim along the banks. I am startled to see, amongst all the beautiful things nature has to offer, the ugliest duck I have ever laid eyes on.
With the body of a molting goose and the head of a turkey vulture it looks as if it would scavenge the waterways for anything dead or decaying. It swims with its head moving back and forth like a saw blade and it is not very popular amongst the more serene mallards. With a bad mood to match its looks the lone creature takes aim at every passing duck. The mallards easily stay out of its reach for apparently it is lazy as well.
At a small park nestled in a river bend the path curves and you begin the climb to the look out and war memorial at the top of Parihaka. The flora changes drastically and the forest envelopes you in shadows and the sounds of hundreds of cicadas, only they aren’t cicadas; the noise belongs to an insect that resembles a chubby cricket. It is a steep climb and at what I think is the halfway point I stop and rest. Sitting on the path I can see through the trunks of the great ferns and tall trees. I look past the treetops and fern leaves rising up below me and I can see out to the sea.
Though Whangarei sits on a harbor it is miles to the nearest beach and this is my first glimpse of the ocean in days. Moving with the currents it is flat and blue in some places and a silvery sea foam green in others. I try to smell the sea but the wet damp earth all around me is overpowering. The forest smells of life and death as the two intertwine and create one another. It is a beautiful hike, and spectacular in its own right, but it is not a far cry from much of the bush I have scene in other places, including the middle of Auckland, but I am enjoying the nature around me and the solitude keeps me at peace.
Nature is like a distant lover, it pulls you in and fools you into thinking you are safe and accepted and then it drives you away. As I left the top and made my way down the scenery changed drastically. Where once the land had been cleared for grazing and building reforestation has turned it into a nursery for kauris. Their slim straight trunks beguile the monsters they could become with time, if allowed. It is these monsters I am hoping to see. Few exist any more, and found in only very specific places I hadn’t heard much about their presence in Whangarei.
Past the nursery I am thinking about the kauri and the devastation caused to it by the settlers when a small sign, tucked into the bush, catches my attention. It is simple and confusing. “Pa, this way” with an arrow. As I had hiked upward I came across what I had thought to be the remnants of a European settlement. I was soon to learn that it was a Maori settlement, and more specifically, a Pa.
These early homes had been built into the mountain and the lava rock. Their many storage pits still dot the volcano. They look like shallow graves dug out of stone. Also carved out are terraces—risers that act as protection from warring tribes, and later, Europeans. These terraces were not successful in protecting the occupants. A great massacre occurred here during the Maori wars. Today the area is been mapped out for the public to see and learn from but the path has overgrown. It is hard to follow in many places and I lose it all together at the end of the loop and have to retrace my steps. It is obvious this is becoming a dark place once again. It may have been mapped but it is not being remembered or observed.
I stand in the middle of what once was the main establishment. A tree stump is visible through the middle of an ancient cooking pit. About five inches wide it grew for sometime between the end of the settlement and the discovery of the site. The place has the old feel of an attic. I try to absorb its history but the ghosts have gone, even they have abandoned the site.
The volcano holds more sights for me still. Tall trees rise up all around. Hopeful that these are kauri I examine them closely. Tall and straight they share two characteristics, but their bark is of the wrong color and is smooth in most places, though with each passing year an exterior ring is blatantly visible. Trying to count them proves to be a lost cause. Like an impressionist painting they are visible from afar but up close I get confused and cannot tell a scar from a year. I continue to try to talk myself into believing they are kauri when a giant rises high above the trees. I can’t see the leaves to identify it, the surrounding treetops close in above me, but I know what I am seeing.
The size and the bark are telling markers of the great trees. Like camouflage clothing spots of color shift in shape and size blending in with the shadows and shafts of sunlight. This bark, when pulled away leaves an indentation. Its legacy flows through the tree so that when cut it bends and warps under your fingers. As I look at it I am trying to come up with a way of conveying its sheer size and a song from childhood pops into my head. It is a song about a man with a very large wife. She is so large that when he goes to give her a hug he has to chalk where he began so he will know when to stop rounding her middle with his embraces. This tree is of a size that I would have to be “a huggin’ and a chalkin’ at least two times with the third just overlapping the first. Maybe I will come across another hiker working their way around in the opposite direction. The man in the song had just such an encounter around his wife.
Maybe it was my hopes or sheer determination to see a kauri but I couldn’t help but feel its presence. It permeates the air around it taking up even more space that its physical form. The forest is quieter here. These are things of reverence and the flora and fauna worship them as is befitting their status. From a meter away my skin tingles and my hair stands up on end singing in praise. The air has grown thicker than water and I feel myself being pulled deeper into the embrace of the forest and the magic of the mountain. We share our energy but the power of the tree is almost too much to bear and I have to move on.
Still tingling from my encounter my next jaw dropping moment almost achieves in breaking my heart in two. There, but three meters in front of me is the stump of a kauri even larger than the first. It is new. The jagged shards haven’t lost their golden hue, little debris has collected on the base and I am in awe that such a thing, after surviving so many axes over the years was cut down so recently and seemingly senselessly. I am driven to find an answer, something that will tell me this tree was chopped down because it was dying and posing a threat to the surroundings, but in its fall it has crushed the symbol of New Zealand. A number of silver ferns lay dead in its wake, and, even more devastating, younger kauris as well. On a steep slope it is held onto the mountainside by friction and young trees. In my mind’s eye I see a great rain causing the ground to slicken and I see the massive trunk slip from its hold and tumble with gravity destroying all living things in its path, and there are many.
A severe wrong has been committed and my heart has slowed. Against my better judgment I climb down the slope to sit upon the fallen giant. It is so freshly fallen that I worry for a moment that it isn’t as stuck as it appears but I am desperate to touch it in hopes of connecting with what once was its greatness, but once I am down there I know that what was there is gone. Dazed I can’t bring myself to leave. I can’t believe it is down—its power and mystery abandoned and betrayed. Now there is only one way to walk the park for if you come upon the felled tree first then it is all ruined. How can we enjoy beauty when we are first slapped in the face with destruction?
January 23, 2006
As I walked I became a part of the story. My footsteps in the damp decaying earth forever changing the forest floor. What air I exhale is absorbed in the surrounding plant life; giving life in a place so dense with vegetation you can almost see the leaves competing for my carbon dioxide waste, and compete they must. Few people come here. In my four-hour hike I never once saw another person.
The walk to the volcano is as unassuming as the sight of the former mountain. From afar both look like an average spot. Somewhere you can experience in just about any corner of the world where it rains enough to turn the hills green in spring. The walk begins in the town and meanders through neighborhoods. The postie rides by on her bicycle delivering the mail. Up a street and down a street, I begin to think I am lost when time after time the road curves around and back again, but shying away behind some bushes along a driveway a fresh sign points the way and I am once again confident in my plans.
As soon as I step on the path the scenery changes from suburban quaint to natural beauty. The path wanders beside a river. It is connected to the sea and rises and falls with the tide. That seems to be a common theme around here. Sea birds and ducks alike swim along the banks. I am startled to see, amongst all the beautiful things nature has to offer, the ugliest duck I have ever laid eyes on.
With the body of a molting goose and the head of a turkey vulture it looks as if it would scavenge the waterways for anything dead or decaying. It swims with its head moving back and forth like a saw blade and it is not very popular amongst the more serene mallards. With a bad mood to match its looks the lone creature takes aim at every passing duck. The mallards easily stay out of its reach for apparently it is lazy as well.
At a small park nestled in a river bend the path curves and you begin the climb to the look out and war memorial at the top of Parihaka. The flora changes drastically and the forest envelopes you in shadows and the sounds of hundreds of cicadas, only they aren’t cicadas; the noise belongs to an insect that resembles a chubby cricket. It is a steep climb and at what I think is the halfway point I stop and rest. Sitting on the path I can see through the trunks of the great ferns and tall trees. I look past the treetops and fern leaves rising up below me and I can see out to the sea.
Though Whangarei sits on a harbor it is miles to the nearest beach and this is my first glimpse of the ocean in days. Moving with the currents it is flat and blue in some places and a silvery sea foam green in others. I try to smell the sea but the wet damp earth all around me is overpowering. The forest smells of life and death as the two intertwine and create one another. It is a beautiful hike, and spectacular in its own right, but it is not a far cry from much of the bush I have scene in other places, including the middle of Auckland, but I am enjoying the nature around me and the solitude keeps me at peace. Nature is like a distant lover, it pulls you in and fools you into thinking you are safe and accepted and then it drives you away. As I left the top and made my way down the scenery changed drastically. Where once the land had been cleared for grazing and building reforestation has turned it into a nursery for kauris. Their slim straight trunks beguile the monsters they could become with time, if allowed. It is these monsters I am hoping to see. Few exist any more, and found in only very specific places I hadn’t heard much about their presence in Whangarei.
Past the nursery I am thinking about the kauri and the devastation caused to it by the settlers when a small sign, tucked into the bush, catches my attention. It is simple and confusing. “Pa, this way” with an arrow. As I had hiked upward I came across what I had thought to be the remnants of a European settlement. I was soon to learn that it was a Maori settlement, and more specifically, a Pa.
These early homes had been built into the mountain and the lava rock. Their many storage pits still dot the volcano. They look like shallow graves dug out of stone. Also carved out are terraces—risers that act as protection from warring tribes, and later, Europeans. These terraces were not successful in protecting the occupants. A great massacre occurred here during the Maori wars. Today the area is been mapped out for the public to see and learn from but the path has overgrown. It is hard to follow in many places and I lose it all together at the end of the loop and have to retrace my steps. It is obvious this is becoming a dark place once again. It may have been mapped but it is not being remembered or observed. 
I stand in the middle of what once was the main establishment. A tree stump is visible through the middle of an ancient cooking pit. About five inches wide it grew for sometime between the end of the settlement and the discovery of the site. The place has the old feel of an attic. I try to absorb its history but the ghosts have gone, even they have abandoned the site. The volcano holds more sights for me still. Tall trees rise up all around. Hopeful that these are kauri I examine them closely. Tall and straight they share two characteristics, but their bark is of the wrong color and is smooth in most places, though with each passing year an exterior ring is blatantly visible. Trying to count them proves to be a lost cause. Like an impressionist painting they are visible from afar but up close I get confused and cannot tell a scar from a year. I continue to try to talk myself into believing they are kauri when a giant rises high above the trees. I can’t see the leaves to identify it, the surrounding treetops close in above me, but I know what I am seeing.
The size and the bark are telling markers of the great trees. Like camouflage clothing spots of color shift in shape and size blending in with the shadows and shafts of sunlight. This bark, when pulled away leaves an indentation. Its legacy flows through the tree so that when cut it bends and warps under your fingers. As I look at it I am trying to come up with a way of conveying its sheer size and a song from childhood pops into my head. It is a song about a man with a very large wife. She is so large that when he goes to give her a hug he has to chalk where he began so he will know when to stop rounding her middle with his embraces. This tree is of a size that I would have to be “a huggin’ and a chalkin’ at least two times with the third just overlapping the first. Maybe I will come across another hiker working their way around in the opposite direction. The man in the song had just such an encounter around his wife.
Maybe it was my hopes or sheer determination to see a kauri but I couldn’t help but feel its presence. It permeates the air around it taking up even more space that its physical form. The forest is quieter here. These are things of reverence and the flora and fauna worship them as is befitting their status. From a meter away my skin tingles and my hair stands up on end singing in praise. The air has grown thicker than water and I feel myself being pulled deeper into the embrace of the forest and the magic of the mountain. We share our energy but the power of the tree is almost too much to bear and I have to move on.
Still tingling from my encounter my next jaw dropping moment almost achieves in breaking my heart in two. There, but three meters in front of me is the stump of a kauri even larger than the first. It is new. The jagged shards haven’t lost their golden hue, little debris has collected on the base and I am in awe that such a thing, after surviving so many axes over the years was cut down so recently and seemingly senselessly. I am driven to find an answer, something that will tell me this tree was chopped down because it was dying and posing a threat to the surroundings, but in its fall it has crushed the symbol of New Zealand. A number of silver ferns lay dead in its wake, and, even more devastating, younger kauris as well. On a steep slope it is held onto the mountainside by friction and young trees. In my mind’s eye I see a great rain causing the ground to slicken and I see the massive trunk slip from its hold and tumble with gravity destroying all living things in its path, and there are many.
A severe wrong has been committed and my heart has slowed. Against my better judgment I climb down the slope to sit upon the fallen giant. It is so freshly fallen that I worry for a moment that it isn’t as stuck as it appears but I am desperate to touch it in hopes of connecting with what once was its greatness, but once I am down there I know that what was there is gone. Dazed I can’t bring myself to leave. I can’t believe it is down—its power and mystery abandoned and betrayed. Now there is only one way to walk the park for if you come upon the felled tree first then it is all ruined. How can we enjoy beauty when we are first slapped in the face with destruction?
January 23, 2006
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