New Zealand Adventures
We are almost a week into our NZ journey and I finally have a chance to breathe a little bit and gather my thoughts - we are on a ferry, crossing from North Island to the South Island. The trip is 3 hours long and we cannot go outside due to the wind anyway. So here is the very wordy diary of our adventures.
Day 1:
plane:
One can say that 'abroad' started right on the plane, since we took Qantas and the flight attendants all had a funny accent. I also had a taste of nostalgia - a drink of Tonic Water -for some reason it was called Indian Tonic Water, not sure why, tasted just like plain Polish-made Tonic Water we had in Riga in the early 90's. We also had a chance to indulge in "flavourful supper and dispose of our rubbish in rubbish receptacles" - we kept giggling throughout the entire flight, because their English is funny, right? :) Oh, a hint of food wonders to come - they offered us tea by default, not stupid coffee, I loved that! And it was the best airplane food ever - I actually ate, once again, a hint of food glory to come.
Auckland:
landing in Auckland, went through customs that are paranoid about everything that might contaminate their eco-system, had to declare our brand new hiking boots. Then, being hungry and tired and lazy, decided to eat at the first non-macdonald's restaurant we see (they are called McDees here btw) and what we saw was a petting zoo cafeteria. Well, we figured we are too tired to be picky especially when there is all of NZ to explore, so why waste time looking for a better place, so we went it....
Well well well, can you imagine a zoo cafeteria in Latvia/Russia or the US? The food would be inedible at the worst and plastic at the best. Not in NZ, not only were eggs benedict the best I've ever had (I suspect the eggs were fresh from the zoo chickens), they also served tea in china cups and they have never heard of coffee machine (drip kind) coffee - it's all espresso with or without milk and they even made patterns on the foam. We figured this must be in some kind of an upscale zoo, animal royalty...
After eating and wondering at the food, we drove off to Rotorua, as we were told by a New Zealander friend of ours that Auckland is the LA of NZ, big and dirty.
On the way we started seeing the famous sheep and the cows that looked boney and starved for some reason. I also made Tim stop at a farm fruit/veggies (which are veges here) that advertised fresh strawberries. Since I was shell shocked by our breakfast, I hoped that maybe NZ is a magical food heaven and strawberries would actually be sweet here, as I remember them from Latvia. So we went into the fruit stall and I picked up a small container of strawberries, and boy they smelled good.... I got a maniacal glimmer in my eyes, thinking YES, this is IT, real strawberries, dropped the small container and got the biggest one I could find instead. Then I figured, what the heck, might as well get a container of chocolate covered strawberries - this will be my strawberry payback for 10 years of strawberry depravity. Turns out, I am a stupid consumer - after driving off, we realized that these strawberries do not smell at all, have no taste at all, and the chocolate ones are covered in something nasty pretending to be chocolate... So I still don't know if the small container had a different kind of strawberries, or I just imagined the real smell or I was just jet-legged. But this turned out to be the only food-related disappointment so far (I'm writing this one week into the trip). You may have noticed a recurring food theme - that is because every day I am stuffing myself with different kinds of food and it is ALL good - this is dreamland - I'll grow fat and happy here if we stay longer.
Rotorua:
Rotorua is one of the must-see stops in NZ according to the guides. Seems it is the capital of Maori culture which is experiencing a sort of renaissance these days. All official signs are doubled in English and in Maori, there are various Maori ministries and I've even read that NZ government set apart 1 billion dollars to settle all maori land claims. In general, after one week here, I've realized that New Zealand is way better than America in its relationship between the native population and the white colonists. They have managed not to kill of the native population completely and not to destroy their culture/identity completely. What deteriation of the population and cultural identity did happen, happened due European diseases and urbanization of the Maoris, and these days both are making a major come back. There were problems for sure, such as land wars and stealing of the land, but there was no systematic and sadistic destruction, such as forcing all of the natives into reservations or selling them small-pox infected blankets.
So back to Rotorua. After checking into a hostel, we were given coupons for free beer, which is funny - if you are a backpacker, they assume you want free beer :)). The coupons turned out to be for a place with a funny name "Pig and Whistle" - turns out this is not an accident - the building with the pub was originally a police station. I think a better name would have been Pigs WITH Whistle, but I guess that's even less subtle :). Once again, the food was really really good, unexpectedly, since it was just bar food. By this time we started thinking that maybe NZ food is just that - uniformly good and there was no royalty living at the Auckland zoo. Tim had a lamb burger, which turned out to be Russian style kotleta with beet dressing no less. So that's it, next time an American tells us that Russians are weird for eating beets, will tell him that no, it's americans who are weird because they do not eat it - the rest of the world does, look at New Zealand!!
After a great lunch (food is turning out to be one of the attractions here), we reserved a Maori cultural experience for the evening and had a couple of hours to kill. Not really enough time to do any real site-seeing, but just enough to wonder the streets. Rotorua town center turned out to be tiny and poor. But we did see a Maori man with traditional tattoos all over his face!!! I decided to act like a stupid tourist which I am and almost twisted my neck staring at the guy, was about the whip the camera out, but then remembered that I am too cool for that.
The downtown was also full of punk teenagers and also street musicians who sounded american and were dressed in some halloweenish attire - not sure what americans are doing singing on a corner in rotorua wearing lawrence of arabia outfit - maybe they ran out of money and are trying to get home or something...
New Zealand is a strange kind of place for someone who's lived in america for 10 years - the towns look pretty american, the signs are all in english (except the funny things like centre and theatre), so your brain gets all complacent and you feel like you are back home, and then a car almost runs you over because it's coming from your right and you are looking on your left when crossing the street, or they might sneak beets into your salad dressing.... And then you are all confused. It was not this bad in Japan, because everything was very different there, so your brain never relaxed and expected a trick at every turn. Sneaky, sneaky NZ...
As I mentioned we had a Maori culture evening - a shuttle took us outside of Rotorua to a Maori tribe's land - where they have lived for generations and can trace they ancestry to one of the original canoes that settled NZ, according to the legend, which might be true because the settlement happened around 1350's - not that long ago. At the site we saw a full hour of performances that included the traditional Maori welcoming song/dance and the traditional Maori war/threatening song/dance - which to me looked equally threatening and not welcoming at all. I just wonder what the first whites thought when they did not know the language and saw this kind of welcome - kind of a scary cultural misunderstanding that could have been...
They also fed us hangi dinner, which is food cooked in a pit in the ground, do I even need to say that it was good? At the same event had a taste of NZ tourists - they are all mean bastards, that's all I have to say. They all give each other side-long evil glances, shove their way to better photo-op locations and whisper (or say them out loud) mean things to each other about other tourists. The locals on the other hand, I really very friendly.
We were supposed to see glow-worms as part of the Maori tour, in a creek on their tribal land, but once again, the mean tourists messed that up - they kept shining their flash-lights at the water to decide on the best spot for their picture and scared all the worms away. I got to see only one, and I may have imagined that one.
One curious tid-bid - eel is called tuna here...
Day 2:
We started the site-seeing in earnest today - and just to show that we are very serious, we decided to go for the gold - take a scenic flight, on one of those small planes landing on water. It did not disappoint, the flight lasted about 30 minutes and took us over Lake Rotorua, Lake Tarawera and Lake Okataina, which looks like a bird with outstretched wings if you look at under a certain angle. We also flew over multiple volcanoes (actually in NZ anything could turn out to be a volcano) and over Mt. Tarawera, that erupted in 1886, burying everything around it, including a village. We flew right over the craters of this volcano, which look quite peaceful now. Another beautiful sight was the Whakarewarewa (incidentally, it is pronounced fa-ka-re-wa-re-wa and it is a shortening of its full name, Te Whakarewarewatanga o te Ope Taua a Wahiao, which means The gathering together of the war party of wahiao') Forest area - there are 3 lakes that form a straight line and each of them is smoking and contains all kinds of minerals and are different shades of blue and green. On the way back we flew over Rotorua city itself. The lake Rotorua has this nasty patch of whitish water, which I thought was polllution, but we were told that it's actually sulphur seeping from the ground and that is where the nasty smell permeating the whole town is coming from. Another interesting feature that we saw was an innocent looking, albeit smoking, lake smack in the center of town, right behind a hospital - that turned out to be the newest addition to the town scenery - that innocent lake erupted a couple of year ago and sprayed the hospital with hot water and rocks. The end of the flight tour was exciting as well - we landed on water for the first time in our lives, which turned out to be a much softer landing - I wish all planes could land on water.
On our way to Turangi, in the middle of the North Island, we stopped at Hell's gate, a thermally active area, so named by Bernard Show, the atheist, for its stench of sulphur and evil looking fissures in the ground. He said that it reminds him of a place promised to him by the theologians. The stench there really is awful, rotten eggs does not describe it, there is something else mixed in it. Every little nook and cranny is bubbling there, emitting hissing sounds and spitting out dirt (which is very mineral rich and supposedly has healing powers). There is a spa on the grounds, which i was very eager to visit until I smelled the air and decided that no I do not want to have a relaxing soak in a tub that smells of rotten eggs, I don't care how silky smooth my skin will feel afterwards. It is said that there was a Maori priest who attributed his prophetic powers to spending time in the area and breathing in the fumes - I am not surprised, after spending an hour there, I was getting light-headed and after a while I might have started seeing little green men. This are also has the tallest hot water waterfall in the Southern Hemisphere - not that impressive, since it was warm outside so the waterfall was not smoking - it is not hot enough.
Since we are trying to cram everything possible into three weeks, we also stopped by the Whakarewarewa forest area, this time to see it from land. It is a beautiful and relaxing walk through the forest to all of the three lakes, we only had time to see two- both of which are either steaming or bubbling or doing something else of the sort and have all shades of green imaginable. One of the lakes is surrouned by the "Cathedral" - rocks with steam coming out, very beautiful. This whole area was completely destroyed by the 1886 volcanic eruption, and it is the only area in the world that was allowed to restore itself - it is very lush and green now and the pictures from the early 20th century show it as completely barren - life is amazing.
The forest that grows there now is green and lush and full of giant fern trees. Tim and I both read the same books as kids, one of which was about dinosaures and how they roamed these pre-historic forests with giant ferns - so we half expected to see a dinasaur.
The last note-worthy sight that we drove by, was huka falls, which are not that remarkable, except that they are very powerful and are the color of water in the swimming pools because the water is so clear that it reflects the sky.
Driving through Lake Taupo area, we only had time to notice that this area is something like Lake Tahoe and is more well to do than Rotorua. Either way, there were farms and sheep everywhere and all of the farm houses have lace curtains, that I haven't seen in years.
The last thing for this day is of course food related :) - the town that we stayed in for the night, Turangi, had only one restaurant open, so we didn't have much of a choice and it did not disappoint, not only was the food good, BUT - they also gave us a bowl filled with lemon water to rinse the hands after eating pork ribs - this little detail finished me off, just like silver tongs for lemon in tea in Japan.
Man, I just keep coming back to this food thing - it's so good it's depressing because normally eating out is an ordeal for me - takes me months to find restaurants that I like and even then I rarely finish the entire meal - here I don't even have to think about it - walk into any restaurant and just eat. America does have everything and has more upscale restaurants than NZ, but the question is - how long is it going to take one to find this goodness and how much is it going to cost? Does one want a chance to indulge only once in a while in really upscale lavish and fashionable meal or does one want to simply eat out every time one wishes too without too much hassle? And talking about fashionable -every little hole in the wall kind of a place that we had a chance to visit so far never simply throws food on the plate - it is always carefully arranged and looks good enough to eat, literally.
Day 3:
Tongariro Crossing:
this is one of the experiences I will always remember for better or for worse. I am sure that this is not the worst hike possible, but to untrained, woussy me, this was the scariest and most illuminating experience of my life. this was the first time I had a real panic attack, by real I mean by medical definition with hyperventilation and my first mild case of hypothermia (which I didn't realize until later, b/c leading a sheltered life up until then, I only had a vague understanding of what it is - it actually means - fatigue, uncontrollable shaking, mental degradation, slurred speech, loss of consciousness and death -outside of loss of consciousness and death I had all of these experiences - tim had shaking and fatigue, but not mental degradation I think b/c if not for him, I was ready to crawl under a rock and just lie there and hope for the best or for the worst about half way thru this all day(supposedly all, cause it took us only 6 hours b/c we were sick and tired and almost running thru most of it whenever possible to get that horror over with) hike.
it all started back in Rotorua, when we were making reservations for the next leg of our journey, the Tangariro national park. The guy on the phone asked us "are you coming here for the crossing?" - Tim didn't really understand what he was asking due to the funny accent and said yeah sure. Then at checking out at Rotorua, the hostel manager asked us the same thing - are you guys going to Tangariro for the crossing? Well, at that point we thought -ok, guess we really should go for this crossing, whatever it is. We looked it up in the guide book and it said that it's the best one day hike in all of new zealand, you get to see alpine views, volcanoes, craters, emerald lakes and other wonderful bodies of water in interesting colors. It also said that the hike normally takes 7-8 hours but might take longer if you are not very fit. I thought, well, if they mention not so fit people, that's me, I guess we'll make it in about 9 hours, that should be ok, it grows dark later here... It should be all good, b/c I'm used to US paranoia, where everything has a huge warning and a disclaimer, saying that if you go there you might die and we do not take any responsibility unless you are a competitive thriathlon athlete. Since this did not have a huge warning, it must be pretty easy. Besides, the guide book says that it's mostly a pleasant walk with a couple of steep spots. It did mention something about unpredictable weather and warned to bring warm clothing and to consult the locals about the weather conditions - which we did, a pleasant german girl who used to live in the area informed us that there will be showers in the afternoon, which means we'll be on the final leg of the journey, so we'll be going thru a pleasant bush forest, so the rain will not bother us very much. I did see a weather report out of the corner of my eye, that said that hail is possible, but hey, the pleasant german girl said the hike is great.
Oh, btw, as in all good horror/dark comedy movies, there was an omen at first - the hostel that we checked in was called "extreme backpacking" - we had a good laugh about it - me, staying at a hostel having a word extreme in the name...
so the next morning, the morning of... we pack our lunch, realize that we didn't bring a small backpack with us and figure, nah, my leather purse and a fanny pack will be enough -stuff a couple of sweaters in there, leave our passports in, and set out. The shuttle takes us to the beginning of the path, wishes us good luck and tells us that they'll see us at 4.30 on the other side. we get out, notice that it's kinda windy, start putting sweaters on. The group from the bus stretches out on the path before and after us and we happily hop down the road. We snap pictures away, look at moss of all colors imaginable, discuss which of the scenery was shot in Lord of the Rings and then remark that hmmm, the showers were promised in the afternoon, but it's getting kinda cloudy and foggy now.... Then we remember that hey, NZ weather is unpredictable and more importantly changes fast and think that the nice promised morning will show up any minute now. And this gloomy fog only adds to the character of the surroundings, right? about one hour of pleasant almost flat walk passes by, we start taking sweaters off, we even pass some people as I adjust to thinner mountain air, I'm thinking wow, this isn't too bad - the part that was supposed to take 1 hour according to the signs and maps, took us 40 minutes. You can see in the pictures how happy and innocent we are, snapping away at stupid flowers and rocks...
So we get to the last stop/bathroom before the first steep slope. We think, we're not that hungry now, and it's kinda beginning to drizzle, so let's not eat now, let's eat after the first slope, b/c by then, the sunshine is sure to come out. so we set out and the first ascent begins. It is not a "steep path" as mentioned in the guide book, there is no path, there are rocks that one has to climb and the rocks are getting wet. It's not bad going up, just exhausting, but it would be really bad going down - and some people were goind down, and some ppl even had their baby with them, who was howling on top of its lungs - another one of those horror movie omens - a howling baby that we stared at for a while. so we climbed and climbed, the wind was whipping at our backs, our clothing was getting semi-wet in our backs. This was the first and only time when I thought that maybe we should get back, which some people did, but then we thought we are about 1/3 of the way thru our journey and it cannot get worse, besides, the wind would be blowing into our faces if we turned back and we do not want to go down those wet steep rocks, so we decide to push forward. We make it to the top of that first slope, exhausted but happy, because according to the map there are only two steep slopes and the one behind us was the steeper of the two, even though the second one is slightly longer, and there is a long stretch of flat surface in front of us (which was supposed to have cool views too, but we saw none of that, because visibility was about 10 meters). by this point, the back of our pants are wet, tims shoes are almost wet, but mine are still dry. as we are walking this flat part, getting our breath back, I get the brilliant idea of making fun of the situation which is becoming not funny at all and I say to tim: "you know this really cannot get any worse" and then i say "remember all these movies where one of the characters says this cannot get any worse and then they pan to an hour later and it is way worse for the characters??? hahaha" and 30 minutes later we get to the second slope...I still cannot believe that i said this, the gods must be laughing at me... my shoes are almost wet, tim's are completely wet, our backs and fronts are wet. and we start climbing and then the wind starts blowing to our backs our fronts our sides and all kinds of directions. and the slope is steep and the rocks are wet, and we are already tired from the first climb. so basically we were climbing this second slope for about an hour, which was supposed to take 2 hours, b/c you are supposed to stop and soak in the view, because you are on top of the mountain with volcano craters all around and beautiful lakes.... but as i said, the visibility was about 10 meters, just enough to show us that there are drop offs on both of our sides full of fog and another couple of poor souls struggling to make it to the top in front of us. About 3rd way thru i realize all of a sudden that there is no way for us to turn back - we are 4 hours away from either end point of the journey and the way back means climbing down treacherous rocks thru the wind and rain which has picked up considerably. at about the same moment the wind blows especially hard and i cannot make another step and then the page with the weather report promising hale swims in front of my eyes. I try to imagine what it would feel like with the hale and see no possible shelter in the vicinity, just rocks. I guess I am not desperate enough to crouch under the rocks just yet. Tim keeps pushing me to make steady steps and just walk ahead. I try for about 10 other steps and the wind just keeps getting worse, i cannot even make out the couple in front of us, I see no humans at all, just tim and me, standing almost on a mountain top, with no shelter, 2 wet sandwiches, wet clothing, one extra wool sweater which I cannot even imagine putting on, b/c that would mean taking the rain coat off first and my hands are not responding to me anymore... at this point we are desperate enough and we do crouch under a rock which provides a little shelter b/c under it the wind is at least coming from just one direction. and then the panic attack hits... i just have to say that if not for tim i don't know how bad it could have gotten and if i could make it from that mountain (it sounds very dramatic, but hey, i'm weak, i always was on the verge of failing gym and i do not enjoy physical challenges, this was supposed to be a pleasant walk). so thanks to tim (and yes there were some comical parts to this too - when i was panicking, tim patted me on the back and said that's ok, we just have to make it over this ridge, the wind will die down" - the wind died down right then and there - later on tim told me that he thought "wow, I have jedi powers", but then the wind picked up again and that dream came crashing down :)). so after coming back to my senses, we starting climbing again, one pole marking the path to another pole, one step at a time. by then a german guy wearing jeans!!! caught up with us, so we had another human being, which was comforting to struggle up the mountain with. We made it the top, which was exhilarating, b/c i fully expected the wind to get better on the other side and deep down inside I was still hoping for the promised sunshine and even deeper down inside there was the fear of hale which i beat down with enormous effort of will power. On the top of the mountain we saw a hint of the magnificent views - the emerald lakes in the crater. I guess I do appreciate that view - it was very eerie and beautiful. We even took a picture, b/c at this point adrenaline kicked in and we decided, god dammit we are getting our money's worth on this fucked up hike. And then even more irony hits, just as tim snaps the first picture, the camera says "please change the battery". right now, I have no idea what possessed us to take the camera out in that weather and take a picture of me, maybe my hypothermic mind thought i looked particularly good at that moment (back to that mental degradation part of hypothermia, definition)... so we made it to the top in 3 hours, even thouugh it was supposed to take 4 and we are soaked, the rain and the wind are NOT dying down and we have 3-5 hours more of this. the only comfort is that it's mostly down hill from there. but downhill means less stress on the lungs and more stress on the legs, which have become their own entities at that point and the shoes are full of water. The walk down was pure adrenaline for me, i was almost running and shaking like crazy. Finally i was able to put the semi-dry sweaters on, which took a lot of effort from tim and me, b/c neither one of us was apparently able to figure out how to turn the sleeves inside out. oh and also by this time the map that we had was turned to mush and we had to rely on hour estimates and far in between road signs to figure out how much more we have to go. And btw, the the rain and wind kept going almost all the way to the end and the wind had a mind of its own, it was coming from all directions. We got down to the hut that is 2 hours away from the end and I can say that this was the worst experience of my life. The hut was full of miserable germans all trying to wring their socks and maybe eat some food. a lot of them were wearing jeans and some who were better prepared were not much better off, that rain has really gotten to everyone. most of the people were trying to cram into the washroom b/c that provided some shelter, so did we and we even tried to eat a little bit. tim started shoving down chocolate cookies and later said that he has never tasted anything better in his life. i could not chew at that point b/c my jaws were not responding, but tim did manage to shove some bits of apple down my throat and i am thankful for that -and that apple also tasted like the best thing I have ever had - I am still trying to find an apple that is that good. but since we stopped moving, we became much colder and shaking has gotten really bad. oh it became even darker and windier (if that's even possible ) outside. but we decided that if we stay we'll get even worse, so we ran out.... we kept running until we got to the promised pleasant bush forest, and then adrenaline ran out and we almost crawled for the last hour. This is when the sun decided to come out... but the bush was very pretty, we even managed to take some pictures - i think that picture taking was on autopilot really. The picture of me is awesome - it really reflects how I felt at the time.
Then we got the the end! the promised land... we still had more than 1 hour to wait for our bus to pick us up,so we huddled with all the germans under the roof of this semi-shelter. it looked really funny from the outside - a bunch of miserable tourists shivering under a wooden tent - we looked like a bunch of penguins on the south pole in that penguins documentary. On the positive side - everyone has become much nicer to each other, actually the more miserable everyone was, the nicer they were to each other - the nicest people were on the mountain top and then it was decreasing slightly as one went down - a perfect bell curve of niceness :).
I don't remember but I think i may have been giggling like mad at the thought that sunscreen was the biggest thought on my mind at the beginning of the journey and I studiously applied it to my face. One word to describe the whole ordeal is THE experience. I think it was the experience of a lifetime. Really really bad, through which we kept thinking "why the hell are we doing this?? how the hell did we end up on this stupid mountain?" - but there were some breathtaking views, no pictures to show for it though. and it was a tremendous bonding experience for tim and me.
After all this, it feels like i left a piece of my soul on that mountain top, that is still struggling thru the wind and the rain. At the end of it all, I can say for certain that this is not an experience I want to repeat, but I am not sure if this is an experience that I am unhappy to have had.
To make matters worse or more ironic, we keep encountering pictures of Tangariro crossing everywhere, because it really is the NZ highlight and it is breathtaking... What we saw was also breathtaking, but we really had no idea that we were walking on a rim of a volcano crater or that there was an even bigger volcano right in front of us or that this is the best view in all of NZ. And every time we tell someone that we drove through North Island on our way to Wellington - they ask, "so did you do the magnificent crossing?", every freaking time!!! How unlucky were we with this weather, huh? If anyone goes to NZ, this crossing is probably worth the trouble, but if there is even a slightest chance of rain, DO NOT go, unless you would enjoy what I described above.
Day 4:
Drive to wellington.
try to see Mt. rhapua - still covered in clouds, did not see much.
Not sheep crossing the road - sheep ON the road.
trying to find LOTR stuff.
Day 5:
Rivendell
The great river Anduin
Maori arts
Day 6:
Te Papa museum
Cable car - used to be just like SF, but then was refurbished and is not all modern/safe and boring
Botanical Gardens
Parliament - just like any other gov't building in the world, trying to be lavish but in reality boring. the only exception -Maori affairs selection committee room - decorated with maori carvings and weaving.
Day 7:
Interislander ferry - Cook strait.
Nelson
NZ Geographical Center
Day 1:
plane:
One can say that 'abroad' started right on the plane, since we took Qantas and the flight attendants all had a funny accent. I also had a taste of nostalgia - a drink of Tonic Water -for some reason it was called Indian Tonic Water, not sure why, tasted just like plain Polish-made Tonic Water we had in Riga in the early 90's. We also had a chance to indulge in "flavourful supper and dispose of our rubbish in rubbish receptacles" - we kept giggling throughout the entire flight, because their English is funny, right? :) Oh, a hint of food wonders to come - they offered us tea by default, not stupid coffee, I loved that! And it was the best airplane food ever - I actually ate, once again, a hint of food glory to come.
Auckland:
landing in Auckland, went through customs that are paranoid about everything that might contaminate their eco-system, had to declare our brand new hiking boots. Then, being hungry and tired and lazy, decided to eat at the first non-macdonald's restaurant we see (they are called McDees here btw) and what we saw was a petting zoo cafeteria. Well, we figured we are too tired to be picky especially when there is all of NZ to explore, so why waste time looking for a better place, so we went it....
Well well well, can you imagine a zoo cafeteria in Latvia/Russia or the US? The food would be inedible at the worst and plastic at the best. Not in NZ, not only were eggs benedict the best I've ever had (I suspect the eggs were fresh from the zoo chickens), they also served tea in china cups and they have never heard of coffee machine (drip kind) coffee - it's all espresso with or without milk and they even made patterns on the foam. We figured this must be in some kind of an upscale zoo, animal royalty...
After eating and wondering at the food, we drove off to Rotorua, as we were told by a New Zealander friend of ours that Auckland is the LA of NZ, big and dirty.
On the way we started seeing the famous sheep and the cows that looked boney and starved for some reason. I also made Tim stop at a farm fruit/veggies (which are veges here) that advertised fresh strawberries. Since I was shell shocked by our breakfast, I hoped that maybe NZ is a magical food heaven and strawberries would actually be sweet here, as I remember them from Latvia. So we went into the fruit stall and I picked up a small container of strawberries, and boy they smelled good.... I got a maniacal glimmer in my eyes, thinking YES, this is IT, real strawberries, dropped the small container and got the biggest one I could find instead. Then I figured, what the heck, might as well get a container of chocolate covered strawberries - this will be my strawberry payback for 10 years of strawberry depravity. Turns out, I am a stupid consumer - after driving off, we realized that these strawberries do not smell at all, have no taste at all, and the chocolate ones are covered in something nasty pretending to be chocolate... So I still don't know if the small container had a different kind of strawberries, or I just imagined the real smell or I was just jet-legged. But this turned out to be the only food-related disappointment so far (I'm writing this one week into the trip). You may have noticed a recurring food theme - that is because every day I am stuffing myself with different kinds of food and it is ALL good - this is dreamland - I'll grow fat and happy here if we stay longer.
Rotorua:
Rotorua is one of the must-see stops in NZ according to the guides. Seems it is the capital of Maori culture which is experiencing a sort of renaissance these days. All official signs are doubled in English and in Maori, there are various Maori ministries and I've even read that NZ government set apart 1 billion dollars to settle all maori land claims. In general, after one week here, I've realized that New Zealand is way better than America in its relationship between the native population and the white colonists. They have managed not to kill of the native population completely and not to destroy their culture/identity completely. What deteriation of the population and cultural identity did happen, happened due European diseases and urbanization of the Maoris, and these days both are making a major come back. There were problems for sure, such as land wars and stealing of the land, but there was no systematic and sadistic destruction, such as forcing all of the natives into reservations or selling them small-pox infected blankets.
So back to Rotorua. After checking into a hostel, we were given coupons for free beer, which is funny - if you are a backpacker, they assume you want free beer :)). The coupons turned out to be for a place with a funny name "Pig and Whistle" - turns out this is not an accident - the building with the pub was originally a police station. I think a better name would have been Pigs WITH Whistle, but I guess that's even less subtle :). Once again, the food was really really good, unexpectedly, since it was just bar food. By this time we started thinking that maybe NZ food is just that - uniformly good and there was no royalty living at the Auckland zoo. Tim had a lamb burger, which turned out to be Russian style kotleta with beet dressing no less. So that's it, next time an American tells us that Russians are weird for eating beets, will tell him that no, it's americans who are weird because they do not eat it - the rest of the world does, look at New Zealand!!
After a great lunch (food is turning out to be one of the attractions here), we reserved a Maori cultural experience for the evening and had a couple of hours to kill. Not really enough time to do any real site-seeing, but just enough to wonder the streets. Rotorua town center turned out to be tiny and poor. But we did see a Maori man with traditional tattoos all over his face!!! I decided to act like a stupid tourist which I am and almost twisted my neck staring at the guy, was about the whip the camera out, but then remembered that I am too cool for that.
The downtown was also full of punk teenagers and also street musicians who sounded american and were dressed in some halloweenish attire - not sure what americans are doing singing on a corner in rotorua wearing lawrence of arabia outfit - maybe they ran out of money and are trying to get home or something...
New Zealand is a strange kind of place for someone who's lived in america for 10 years - the towns look pretty american, the signs are all in english (except the funny things like centre and theatre), so your brain gets all complacent and you feel like you are back home, and then a car almost runs you over because it's coming from your right and you are looking on your left when crossing the street, or they might sneak beets into your salad dressing.... And then you are all confused. It was not this bad in Japan, because everything was very different there, so your brain never relaxed and expected a trick at every turn. Sneaky, sneaky NZ...
As I mentioned we had a Maori culture evening - a shuttle took us outside of Rotorua to a Maori tribe's land - where they have lived for generations and can trace they ancestry to one of the original canoes that settled NZ, according to the legend, which might be true because the settlement happened around 1350's - not that long ago. At the site we saw a full hour of performances that included the traditional Maori welcoming song/dance and the traditional Maori war/threatening song/dance - which to me looked equally threatening and not welcoming at all. I just wonder what the first whites thought when they did not know the language and saw this kind of welcome - kind of a scary cultural misunderstanding that could have been...
They also fed us hangi dinner, which is food cooked in a pit in the ground, do I even need to say that it was good? At the same event had a taste of NZ tourists - they are all mean bastards, that's all I have to say. They all give each other side-long evil glances, shove their way to better photo-op locations and whisper (or say them out loud) mean things to each other about other tourists. The locals on the other hand, I really very friendly.
We were supposed to see glow-worms as part of the Maori tour, in a creek on their tribal land, but once again, the mean tourists messed that up - they kept shining their flash-lights at the water to decide on the best spot for their picture and scared all the worms away. I got to see only one, and I may have imagined that one.
One curious tid-bid - eel is called tuna here...
Day 2:
We started the site-seeing in earnest today - and just to show that we are very serious, we decided to go for the gold - take a scenic flight, on one of those small planes landing on water. It did not disappoint, the flight lasted about 30 minutes and took us over Lake Rotorua, Lake Tarawera and Lake Okataina, which looks like a bird with outstretched wings if you look at under a certain angle. We also flew over multiple volcanoes (actually in NZ anything could turn out to be a volcano) and over Mt. Tarawera, that erupted in 1886, burying everything around it, including a village. We flew right over the craters of this volcano, which look quite peaceful now. Another beautiful sight was the Whakarewarewa (incidentally, it is pronounced fa-ka-re-wa-re-wa and it is a shortening of its full name, Te Whakarewarewatanga o te Ope Taua a Wahiao, which means The gathering together of the war party of wahiao') Forest area - there are 3 lakes that form a straight line and each of them is smoking and contains all kinds of minerals and are different shades of blue and green. On the way back we flew over Rotorua city itself. The lake Rotorua has this nasty patch of whitish water, which I thought was polllution, but we were told that it's actually sulphur seeping from the ground and that is where the nasty smell permeating the whole town is coming from. Another interesting feature that we saw was an innocent looking, albeit smoking, lake smack in the center of town, right behind a hospital - that turned out to be the newest addition to the town scenery - that innocent lake erupted a couple of year ago and sprayed the hospital with hot water and rocks. The end of the flight tour was exciting as well - we landed on water for the first time in our lives, which turned out to be a much softer landing - I wish all planes could land on water.
On our way to Turangi, in the middle of the North Island, we stopped at Hell's gate, a thermally active area, so named by Bernard Show, the atheist, for its stench of sulphur and evil looking fissures in the ground. He said that it reminds him of a place promised to him by the theologians. The stench there really is awful, rotten eggs does not describe it, there is something else mixed in it. Every little nook and cranny is bubbling there, emitting hissing sounds and spitting out dirt (which is very mineral rich and supposedly has healing powers). There is a spa on the grounds, which i was very eager to visit until I smelled the air and decided that no I do not want to have a relaxing soak in a tub that smells of rotten eggs, I don't care how silky smooth my skin will feel afterwards. It is said that there was a Maori priest who attributed his prophetic powers to spending time in the area and breathing in the fumes - I am not surprised, after spending an hour there, I was getting light-headed and after a while I might have started seeing little green men. This are also has the tallest hot water waterfall in the Southern Hemisphere - not that impressive, since it was warm outside so the waterfall was not smoking - it is not hot enough.
Since we are trying to cram everything possible into three weeks, we also stopped by the Whakarewarewa forest area, this time to see it from land. It is a beautiful and relaxing walk through the forest to all of the three lakes, we only had time to see two- both of which are either steaming or bubbling or doing something else of the sort and have all shades of green imaginable. One of the lakes is surrouned by the "Cathedral" - rocks with steam coming out, very beautiful. This whole area was completely destroyed by the 1886 volcanic eruption, and it is the only area in the world that was allowed to restore itself - it is very lush and green now and the pictures from the early 20th century show it as completely barren - life is amazing.
The forest that grows there now is green and lush and full of giant fern trees. Tim and I both read the same books as kids, one of which was about dinosaures and how they roamed these pre-historic forests with giant ferns - so we half expected to see a dinasaur.
The last note-worthy sight that we drove by, was huka falls, which are not that remarkable, except that they are very powerful and are the color of water in the swimming pools because the water is so clear that it reflects the sky.
Driving through Lake Taupo area, we only had time to notice that this area is something like Lake Tahoe and is more well to do than Rotorua. Either way, there were farms and sheep everywhere and all of the farm houses have lace curtains, that I haven't seen in years.
The last thing for this day is of course food related :) - the town that we stayed in for the night, Turangi, had only one restaurant open, so we didn't have much of a choice and it did not disappoint, not only was the food good, BUT - they also gave us a bowl filled with lemon water to rinse the hands after eating pork ribs - this little detail finished me off, just like silver tongs for lemon in tea in Japan.
Man, I just keep coming back to this food thing - it's so good it's depressing because normally eating out is an ordeal for me - takes me months to find restaurants that I like and even then I rarely finish the entire meal - here I don't even have to think about it - walk into any restaurant and just eat. America does have everything and has more upscale restaurants than NZ, but the question is - how long is it going to take one to find this goodness and how much is it going to cost? Does one want a chance to indulge only once in a while in really upscale lavish and fashionable meal or does one want to simply eat out every time one wishes too without too much hassle? And talking about fashionable -every little hole in the wall kind of a place that we had a chance to visit so far never simply throws food on the plate - it is always carefully arranged and looks good enough to eat, literally.
Day 3:
Tongariro Crossing:
this is one of the experiences I will always remember for better or for worse. I am sure that this is not the worst hike possible, but to untrained, woussy me, this was the scariest and most illuminating experience of my life. this was the first time I had a real panic attack, by real I mean by medical definition with hyperventilation and my first mild case of hypothermia (which I didn't realize until later, b/c leading a sheltered life up until then, I only had a vague understanding of what it is - it actually means - fatigue, uncontrollable shaking, mental degradation, slurred speech, loss of consciousness and death -outside of loss of consciousness and death I had all of these experiences - tim had shaking and fatigue, but not mental degradation I think b/c if not for him, I was ready to crawl under a rock and just lie there and hope for the best or for the worst about half way thru this all day(supposedly all, cause it took us only 6 hours b/c we were sick and tired and almost running thru most of it whenever possible to get that horror over with) hike.
it all started back in Rotorua, when we were making reservations for the next leg of our journey, the Tangariro national park. The guy on the phone asked us "are you coming here for the crossing?" - Tim didn't really understand what he was asking due to the funny accent and said yeah sure. Then at checking out at Rotorua, the hostel manager asked us the same thing - are you guys going to Tangariro for the crossing? Well, at that point we thought -ok, guess we really should go for this crossing, whatever it is. We looked it up in the guide book and it said that it's the best one day hike in all of new zealand, you get to see alpine views, volcanoes, craters, emerald lakes and other wonderful bodies of water in interesting colors. It also said that the hike normally takes 7-8 hours but might take longer if you are not very fit. I thought, well, if they mention not so fit people, that's me, I guess we'll make it in about 9 hours, that should be ok, it grows dark later here... It should be all good, b/c I'm used to US paranoia, where everything has a huge warning and a disclaimer, saying that if you go there you might die and we do not take any responsibility unless you are a competitive thriathlon athlete. Since this did not have a huge warning, it must be pretty easy. Besides, the guide book says that it's mostly a pleasant walk with a couple of steep spots. It did mention something about unpredictable weather and warned to bring warm clothing and to consult the locals about the weather conditions - which we did, a pleasant german girl who used to live in the area informed us that there will be showers in the afternoon, which means we'll be on the final leg of the journey, so we'll be going thru a pleasant bush forest, so the rain will not bother us very much. I did see a weather report out of the corner of my eye, that said that hail is possible, but hey, the pleasant german girl said the hike is great.
Oh, btw, as in all good horror/dark comedy movies, there was an omen at first - the hostel that we checked in was called "extreme backpacking" - we had a good laugh about it - me, staying at a hostel having a word extreme in the name...
so the next morning, the morning of... we pack our lunch, realize that we didn't bring a small backpack with us and figure, nah, my leather purse and a fanny pack will be enough -stuff a couple of sweaters in there, leave our passports in, and set out. The shuttle takes us to the beginning of the path, wishes us good luck and tells us that they'll see us at 4.30 on the other side. we get out, notice that it's kinda windy, start putting sweaters on. The group from the bus stretches out on the path before and after us and we happily hop down the road. We snap pictures away, look at moss of all colors imaginable, discuss which of the scenery was shot in Lord of the Rings and then remark that hmmm, the showers were promised in the afternoon, but it's getting kinda cloudy and foggy now.... Then we remember that hey, NZ weather is unpredictable and more importantly changes fast and think that the nice promised morning will show up any minute now. And this gloomy fog only adds to the character of the surroundings, right? about one hour of pleasant almost flat walk passes by, we start taking sweaters off, we even pass some people as I adjust to thinner mountain air, I'm thinking wow, this isn't too bad - the part that was supposed to take 1 hour according to the signs and maps, took us 40 minutes. You can see in the pictures how happy and innocent we are, snapping away at stupid flowers and rocks...
So we get to the last stop/bathroom before the first steep slope. We think, we're not that hungry now, and it's kinda beginning to drizzle, so let's not eat now, let's eat after the first slope, b/c by then, the sunshine is sure to come out. so we set out and the first ascent begins. It is not a "steep path" as mentioned in the guide book, there is no path, there are rocks that one has to climb and the rocks are getting wet. It's not bad going up, just exhausting, but it would be really bad going down - and some people were goind down, and some ppl even had their baby with them, who was howling on top of its lungs - another one of those horror movie omens - a howling baby that we stared at for a while. so we climbed and climbed, the wind was whipping at our backs, our clothing was getting semi-wet in our backs. This was the first and only time when I thought that maybe we should get back, which some people did, but then we thought we are about 1/3 of the way thru our journey and it cannot get worse, besides, the wind would be blowing into our faces if we turned back and we do not want to go down those wet steep rocks, so we decide to push forward. We make it to the top of that first slope, exhausted but happy, because according to the map there are only two steep slopes and the one behind us was the steeper of the two, even though the second one is slightly longer, and there is a long stretch of flat surface in front of us (which was supposed to have cool views too, but we saw none of that, because visibility was about 10 meters). by this point, the back of our pants are wet, tims shoes are almost wet, but mine are still dry. as we are walking this flat part, getting our breath back, I get the brilliant idea of making fun of the situation which is becoming not funny at all and I say to tim: "you know this really cannot get any worse" and then i say "remember all these movies where one of the characters says this cannot get any worse and then they pan to an hour later and it is way worse for the characters??? hahaha" and 30 minutes later we get to the second slope...I still cannot believe that i said this, the gods must be laughing at me... my shoes are almost wet, tim's are completely wet, our backs and fronts are wet. and we start climbing and then the wind starts blowing to our backs our fronts our sides and all kinds of directions. and the slope is steep and the rocks are wet, and we are already tired from the first climb. so basically we were climbing this second slope for about an hour, which was supposed to take 2 hours, b/c you are supposed to stop and soak in the view, because you are on top of the mountain with volcano craters all around and beautiful lakes.... but as i said, the visibility was about 10 meters, just enough to show us that there are drop offs on both of our sides full of fog and another couple of poor souls struggling to make it to the top in front of us. About 3rd way thru i realize all of a sudden that there is no way for us to turn back - we are 4 hours away from either end point of the journey and the way back means climbing down treacherous rocks thru the wind and rain which has picked up considerably. at about the same moment the wind blows especially hard and i cannot make another step and then the page with the weather report promising hale swims in front of my eyes. I try to imagine what it would feel like with the hale and see no possible shelter in the vicinity, just rocks. I guess I am not desperate enough to crouch under the rocks just yet. Tim keeps pushing me to make steady steps and just walk ahead. I try for about 10 other steps and the wind just keeps getting worse, i cannot even make out the couple in front of us, I see no humans at all, just tim and me, standing almost on a mountain top, with no shelter, 2 wet sandwiches, wet clothing, one extra wool sweater which I cannot even imagine putting on, b/c that would mean taking the rain coat off first and my hands are not responding to me anymore... at this point we are desperate enough and we do crouch under a rock which provides a little shelter b/c under it the wind is at least coming from just one direction. and then the panic attack hits... i just have to say that if not for tim i don't know how bad it could have gotten and if i could make it from that mountain (it sounds very dramatic, but hey, i'm weak, i always was on the verge of failing gym and i do not enjoy physical challenges, this was supposed to be a pleasant walk). so thanks to tim (and yes there were some comical parts to this too - when i was panicking, tim patted me on the back and said that's ok, we just have to make it over this ridge, the wind will die down" - the wind died down right then and there - later on tim told me that he thought "wow, I have jedi powers", but then the wind picked up again and that dream came crashing down :)). so after coming back to my senses, we starting climbing again, one pole marking the path to another pole, one step at a time. by then a german guy wearing jeans!!! caught up with us, so we had another human being, which was comforting to struggle up the mountain with. We made it the top, which was exhilarating, b/c i fully expected the wind to get better on the other side and deep down inside I was still hoping for the promised sunshine and even deeper down inside there was the fear of hale which i beat down with enormous effort of will power. On the top of the mountain we saw a hint of the magnificent views - the emerald lakes in the crater. I guess I do appreciate that view - it was very eerie and beautiful. We even took a picture, b/c at this point adrenaline kicked in and we decided, god dammit we are getting our money's worth on this fucked up hike. And then even more irony hits, just as tim snaps the first picture, the camera says "please change the battery". right now, I have no idea what possessed us to take the camera out in that weather and take a picture of me, maybe my hypothermic mind thought i looked particularly good at that moment (back to that mental degradation part of hypothermia, definition)... so we made it to the top in 3 hours, even thouugh it was supposed to take 4 and we are soaked, the rain and the wind are NOT dying down and we have 3-5 hours more of this. the only comfort is that it's mostly down hill from there. but downhill means less stress on the lungs and more stress on the legs, which have become their own entities at that point and the shoes are full of water. The walk down was pure adrenaline for me, i was almost running and shaking like crazy. Finally i was able to put the semi-dry sweaters on, which took a lot of effort from tim and me, b/c neither one of us was apparently able to figure out how to turn the sleeves inside out. oh and also by this time the map that we had was turned to mush and we had to rely on hour estimates and far in between road signs to figure out how much more we have to go. And btw, the the rain and wind kept going almost all the way to the end and the wind had a mind of its own, it was coming from all directions. We got down to the hut that is 2 hours away from the end and I can say that this was the worst experience of my life. The hut was full of miserable germans all trying to wring their socks and maybe eat some food. a lot of them were wearing jeans and some who were better prepared were not much better off, that rain has really gotten to everyone. most of the people were trying to cram into the washroom b/c that provided some shelter, so did we and we even tried to eat a little bit. tim started shoving down chocolate cookies and later said that he has never tasted anything better in his life. i could not chew at that point b/c my jaws were not responding, but tim did manage to shove some bits of apple down my throat and i am thankful for that -and that apple also tasted like the best thing I have ever had - I am still trying to find an apple that is that good. but since we stopped moving, we became much colder and shaking has gotten really bad. oh it became even darker and windier (if that's even possible ) outside. but we decided that if we stay we'll get even worse, so we ran out.... we kept running until we got to the promised pleasant bush forest, and then adrenaline ran out and we almost crawled for the last hour. This is when the sun decided to come out... but the bush was very pretty, we even managed to take some pictures - i think that picture taking was on autopilot really. The picture of me is awesome - it really reflects how I felt at the time.
Then we got the the end! the promised land... we still had more than 1 hour to wait for our bus to pick us up,so we huddled with all the germans under the roof of this semi-shelter. it looked really funny from the outside - a bunch of miserable tourists shivering under a wooden tent - we looked like a bunch of penguins on the south pole in that penguins documentary. On the positive side - everyone has become much nicer to each other, actually the more miserable everyone was, the nicer they were to each other - the nicest people were on the mountain top and then it was decreasing slightly as one went down - a perfect bell curve of niceness :).
I don't remember but I think i may have been giggling like mad at the thought that sunscreen was the biggest thought on my mind at the beginning of the journey and I studiously applied it to my face. One word to describe the whole ordeal is THE experience. I think it was the experience of a lifetime. Really really bad, through which we kept thinking "why the hell are we doing this?? how the hell did we end up on this stupid mountain?" - but there were some breathtaking views, no pictures to show for it though. and it was a tremendous bonding experience for tim and me.
After all this, it feels like i left a piece of my soul on that mountain top, that is still struggling thru the wind and the rain. At the end of it all, I can say for certain that this is not an experience I want to repeat, but I am not sure if this is an experience that I am unhappy to have had.
To make matters worse or more ironic, we keep encountering pictures of Tangariro crossing everywhere, because it really is the NZ highlight and it is breathtaking... What we saw was also breathtaking, but we really had no idea that we were walking on a rim of a volcano crater or that there was an even bigger volcano right in front of us or that this is the best view in all of NZ. And every time we tell someone that we drove through North Island on our way to Wellington - they ask, "so did you do the magnificent crossing?", every freaking time!!! How unlucky were we with this weather, huh? If anyone goes to NZ, this crossing is probably worth the trouble, but if there is even a slightest chance of rain, DO NOT go, unless you would enjoy what I described above.
Day 4:
Drive to wellington.
try to see Mt. rhapua - still covered in clouds, did not see much.
Not sheep crossing the road - sheep ON the road.
trying to find LOTR stuff.
Day 5:
Rivendell
The great river Anduin
Maori arts
Day 6:
Te Papa museum
Cable car - used to be just like SF, but then was refurbished and is not all modern/safe and boring
Botanical Gardens
Parliament - just like any other gov't building in the world, trying to be lavish but in reality boring. the only exception -Maori affairs selection committee room - decorated with maori carvings and weaving.
Day 7:
Interislander ferry - Cook strait.
Nelson
NZ Geographical Center