Ice, White & Blue

Redhead Amok in Antarctica

The Kill

I had to walk back and get Ron to put the piglet out of its misery. Bonnie had started the kill and we had to finish it.

Walking home from the lodge to Ron's place, along the dirt road in the heavy starless dark-- headlamp shining a 10 foot circle, bluish and dim but distinct enough for travel in the windy overcast night--I was accompanied by Bonnie, a 2-year-old Staffordshire Bull Terrier.

Bonnie is still adolescent in her excitements and eager to chase, though very responsive to voice commands and needful of human approval. I had seen her my first day here with the four horses who roam the property. They got into the garden and we needed to chase them out. Tigger, the 7-year-old sheep dog, Ron (the owner) and I all circled them to push them back through the gate, but Bonnie darted in & out over-excited and illogical to the horses, champing & clicking her mighty jaws at them, making a nuisance of herself.

I had watched Bonnie try and creep up on a seagull floating standing on seaweed just offshore, up to her chest in the surf, vibrating with the need to chase, more so than with the cold. But she doesn't chase the cat, pays no attention to the wekas and the pukekos. She swore off the horses after our next encounter when the lead gelding let her know just how much bigger he was than her in a way that left her cowed & leaping away in surprise, finally responsive to my deep cries of "No! Bonnie! No! No!"

But walking along that night, with Bonnie as company darting excitedly in & out of my circle  of light, she found what she wanted: a family of feral pigs on the road. It must have been a whole litter and mama pig. I saw a small black thing scurry by four-legged, then Bonnie rapid and low on its heels. They both disappeared around the corner of the road and I was rushing to catch up. Perhaps I am to take some of the blame for her behaviour, for as soon as I heard the distinctive panicked squeals of a piglet I lost my cool. My voice rose in pitch, and I yelled after her "What the fuck?! Bonnie? Stop that!" My excitement in the moment probably encouraged her, if I had been quicker in divining what was happening I would've moved my voice immediately into the lower negative "No! Bonnie! No!" range she had begun listening to from me. Maybe she would have stopped sooner.

As I came upon her & the piglet, other grunts and squeals echoed around us. Mama pig was in the bushes, too. Bonnie had the small black squealing piglet in her jaws, by the back of the neck and was shaking it fiercely and mightily until it dropped from her mouth. It tried to get up and run again but she picked it up again by the throat, enveloping the tiny head entirely in her mouth. Enough repeats of this--in the few stunned and elongated seconds I stood there light on the scene bellowing at her to stop--and she had the piglet torn up and bloody, back probably broken by the ferocity of the shaking.

When she finally heard me screaming through the squealing and the bloodlust and the genetic heritage and the taste of it all, she stopped shaking the piglet. I drew nearer and she eyed me, before dropping it to the ground and backing away, towards me.  I was appalled, and fascinated by this evidence of Bonnie's breeding and instinct, and disbelieving that it had even happened. I stood there horrified, patting myself down, looking for the knife I always have on me but had failed to put on that evening. I found a rock, 4 times the size of the piglet, but was unable to lift it high enough to bring it down from a height sufficient to kill the poor shaking dying thing.

I pulled Bonnie away and headed back to the Lodge. Perhaps Ron had a gun? Maybe I could get a knife from the kitchen? He was surprised to see me when I interrupted his socializing with the guests to say "May I speak to you outside?" but he thought he knew what happened. Bonnie can be a guilty little pest, and he assumed she'd gotten into the leftovers. He swiftly changed mental gears when I told him, grabbed the axe with which I'd been chopping wood outside the Lodge that evening, and we leapt on the dirt bike to race to the piglet, trailing Trigger and Bonnie. Tigger found the piglet first and pointed, quivering dumbfounded within a few centimetres of it, Bonnie headed back in to continue her attack. Ron was off the bike in a moment, calling the dogs away. He stood over the piglet and without heitating smashed its head in to finish the kill, saying "Sorry. I'm sorry you poor little thing."

Ron rounded on Bonnie with the piglet in his hand and lit into her with all the fury of a man who did not like to see animals suffer, barking angrily at her until she stood cowed and guilty and understanding her wrong. Covered in pig blood, the axe, Ron and Bonnie all. Ron headed back to the Lodge and I took Bonnie the rest of the way home to clean her up. She heeled quietly and sadly, tail between her legs the entire way home. Once in the house she was afraid to meet my eyes and cowered at my withdrawal of affection, and effective weapon in our arsenal of control over this dog and her instinct to chase & kill. I used a whole roll of paper towel cleaning the blood off her face & chest & legs & sides & back, she was coated in the kill. I finally had to take her outside and douse her with a few cups of warm water while rubbing her down. She took all this treatment without complaint or comment, in fact leaning into my legs in a yearning to be back in my good graces. I cleaned her gently until the towels came clean and she was dry, then led her back inside. I sat exhausted on an easy chair eyeing her in disbelief as she sat there gazing at me her entire body shaking and vibrating so badly she could barely stand. Her tail tucked tightly under her.

She asked me for forgiveness and I gave it. What could I do? In her need to be approved of, she climbed into my lap and lay across me as I held her until her shaking stopped, though every time I touched her, looking for possible injuries, she nearly jumped in fear. It took a good 30-40 minutes before her adrenalin calmed and she relaxed in my arms.

This is a private wildlife preserve with red deer, wild goats, feral pigs, free roaming horses, paradise sheldrakes, wekas, pukekos, blue penguins, possums, shags, hawks, quail, etc. Though it would be nice to reduce the damage the pigs do to the land by culling them a la Bonnie, or to take out a possum or two before it kills and eats the wekas' eggs or worse yet the blue penguins' eggs, Bonnie is not the answer. She can't be used for her instinct and punished for her response both, even if the animals differ. She needs to learn that ALL animals and birds are off limits. She knows that about cats and wekas. She didn't even bat an eye when a weka near the gold mine took a shine to her and in its curiousity kept on chasing her through the bush as she sniffed around. I coulda been chopped liver to this weka: her Bonnie-focussed stalking went on for a good 20 minutes as I sat there for lunch. Bonnie, despite the running bird, the avian dodging & ducking & quick footwork that triggers her chase instinct in goats & pigs, didn't even pay attention, except to avoid the avid bird and ask me occasionally with her eyes, "Why me? Why is this bird chasing me?"

Bonnie is still young, and a charming companion on long rambling walks across the peninsula. She stops chasing goats when told to, comes to me call and heels when told to. I hope she learns not to give chase after running bounding leaping things, as well as she has learned with wekas and cats. It is exhausting to have her learn the same lesson, bird by bird, and animal by animal. This place would be lesser without her.

But I am sorry, tiny piglet, for your awful death. I am so sorry.

posted by: coldwish at 20:32 | link | comments (3) |
nz 2006

Hitching & Freedom

I like to hitch hike.

Despite the waiting in the rain, the big trucks whipping past and soaking me, or on dry stretches blowing my hat off and leaving me squinting at the dust in my face, scaring the following drivers as I spit the crap from my teeth. I don't mind the long long walks when no car is passing, carrying everything I own on my back, knees aching, hipbones grinding against the pads holding most of the weight. I really have no issue with when I pause to chat with a fellow hitcher, or a local walker, pack on my back, shifting the weight from leg to leg and a toe in my left foot starts going numb. It's no problem to hump this road long and uphill in the rain with nary a car passing, and the ones that do, not stopping. I don't mind, as the day grows long and I am far from my goal, keeping an eye out on the side of the road for a likely camping spot where I won't get eaten by sheep or flooded by a rise in a river, but preferably where I cannot be seen by other people.

This is all part of the adventure, part of the freedom hitching provides. Because around that corner in the pass where no car will ever be able to stop on the narrow cliffside you tread, is a view to stop your heart. If I had a ride, I would have whipped past that view and forgotten it in the subsequent speedy forward motion that is riding in cars. I like to meet the people who pick me up, they have great stories, and I meet a lot of new people with new ideas, Kiwis and foreigners alike. Not everyone is friendly, but most are generous with their knowledge when I ask questions of them. Some even take me out of the way to show me local areas of interest in which they obvioulsy take pride.

Yesterday, barely out of Greymouth headed north, I accepted a ride from Nick, with 2-year-old son in a carseat. I was not at this point hitching alone, I'd been joined by another hitcher, 19-year-old Zach, just outside Grey when he'd been dropped off in the rain by a driver. There was little space for us to stand safely, and it was not safe to walk the road, as it was one of those narrow winding blind hillside roads so common in the West Coast. So everyone who passed assumed we were together. We weren't but we may as well have been; so we figured, why compete, hitch together.

Nick offered us a short ride to the next town then said that if we were still on the road when he emerged from his friend's house later, he'd take us further. We weren't there, but we hadn't made it much farther when Nick pulls up for us with a big grin on his face. He offered to take us out to Waiuta, a ghost town of a former goldmining community, just past where he lived. I was game, as was Nick, so out we headed. He offered us tea and coffee, and a fresh (so fresh it didn't need salt) hard boiled egg at his place, as he fed his son. I stood among a small grove of trees talking to a bellbird and trying to locate the humming sound that echoed there. A wasps next in the trees? A swarm of bees? I was surrounded by the buzzing busy winged insect sound, but saw nary a bee or wasp in the entire grove. Then a quick tour, in the pouring rain, of the ghost town, and he offered us the place for the night, even though he was headed elsewhere. Zach took him up on it, I chose to ride back to the main road to hitch alone. I would have loved to have stayed there and spent the next day walking about the ghost town in a more liesurely fashion. But I had places to go, directions to move in.

Much much easier to solo hitch. After a day creeping north town by town, the second I was set back on my route and stuck my thumb out alone, the next car stopped and took me a long way further.

It took a lot of rides, so many I lost track by the time I stopped that evening. I ended up at Kawatiri junction, when a trucker headed to Nelson dropped me off at about 6:30pm. I had self-designated that time as when I would stop hitching, as that would give me an hour to find a camping spot & get my tent up before it got dark. So I stayed there. I lay in my tent as the light died, contentedly munching on apricots and muesli bars and rice crackers dipped in hummus. Later that night it rained, and I woke grinning to myself at the sound and how safe I was in my tent, despite the hard sleep (cars on the nearby road woke me infrequently but often enough).

It was not easy sleep by far. I am a side sleeper almost exclusively, and the thin foam pad beneath me and the hard grassy earth was insufficient to soften the meeting between my boney hips and shoulders and the surface I lay on. I flipped over often, shifting my weight, uncomfortable and wishing I were a heftier softer-built person, with her weight distributed more along the sides of her knees, my hips and my shoulders. I don't need all the padding I do have along my front side, as it does me no good when I lie on my sides, and I cannot reincarnate myself as a front sleeper. I only sleep on my back when I am truly exhausted or drugged. So thoughts of a better pad  and more fish & chips dinners flitted through my brain frequently. But still I slept, and woke easily, packed up & got back on the road.

Three rides later I was in Picton in the early afternoon, where I remain for the night. I will be taking a water taxi tomorrow at 9am to my next WWOOF.

I'd hitch it if I could. I can see myself cruising the waterfront and seeing which private yacht is headed out there, but I don't need to.

I think I'd like more freedom in my hitching. I'd prefer not to have a destination in mind. How wonderful it would be to use it as more than simple cheap transport. I'd love to follow the suggestions of the drivers I've met who've recommended places to hike or visit. Simply to tell a driver, "Hey! Let me out here!" because I see a neat road heading off somewhere or the view needs more considering.

posted by: coldwish at 18:10 | link | comments (3) |
nz 2006

Snot & Fear in Blackball

posted by: coldwish at 13:29 | link | comments (1) |
nz 2006

A Hike With Ginger & Fred

I've been sick lately. Nothing serious, just a very frustrating head cold, that I disregarded until finally breaking down and getting some Sudafed. Get this, I bought 10 pills for $16NZ (about $12 US). Meds are bloody expensive here for OTC stuff.

But I have arrived at my next WWOOF, at Formerly the Blackball Hilton in Blackball on the West Coast. Yes, I haven't left the area yet, still madly in love with it. But after this I head North to Picton and the Marlborough Sounds area for another WWOOF, hopefully a more long term one than this.

I arrived here fully drugged on Sudafed, and barely keeping upright, but nonetheless put in the requisite 4 hours of work as required by WWOOF contract. But by 2pm yesterday I was in bed for the day, or so I thought. I drifted in & out of a light haze, birdsong drifting in my open window, occasional bursts of laughter from the bar downstairs. By 4pm I was refreshed and awake and aware of feeling better, the sun was out, I needed to get myself out & about.

I thought I'd explore Blackball. Well, 5 minutes later I was done. Small town. At the end of town past the Community Centre a road continued on up into the mountains with a yellow diamond-shaped sign warning of sharp curves in the next 3km. Right after that sign was a spped limit sign inodicating a speed limit of 100km/h! Yeah, no shit. These Kiwis are cracked to drive that fast (55mph) on such a road.

With no destination but curiousity I walked up that narrow paved road. It followed along the side of the river/stream up into the mountains. I was vaguely hoping to access the water but when given a choice between a gorse overgrown road headed down almost parallel but closer to the water, and an old grafitti-covered cement ruin, I chose the latter. I entered, wondered about it, exited, but noticed a road heading into a small steep gorge/valley with a dead smokestack, fronted by a smaller smokestack that appeared to be a smelter oven of some sort. Given the intensive coal mining history of the area, and the steep sides to which the smokestacks clung, I guessed there must be an old mine up in there. I followed the road, it became a trail, narrow and overgrown with gorse.

Thank goodness I was wearing my jeans. Fucking prickers. Luckily nothing at foot level, as I was only wearing my Tevas. But the gorse was well over my head. I bulled on through, dodging & ducking & weaving, wondering where the trail led. I came upon a fenced off area with warning signs surrounding a structure built over the stream, which looked like a cave entrance. I could hear the water as it entered this hole and it seemed to fall quite some way and echo in there.

But the path continued, as did my curiousity, so I followed it generally upstream. The gorse faded somewhat and turned to bracken, and led me to an old wooden dam, broken open and collapsed, once built to hold the water back. I thought, "Hmmm...so this is it?" but I continued exploring and wanted to see over the wooden remnents so I squirreled around, picking up a sturdy stick for balance, and lo' & behold the path continued on the other side. All I had to do was climb over the rotting collapsed wooden struts and boards. I did so very carefully and headed up into this ever narrowing valley, with its steep rock face striated and exposed in places, the stream trickling along beside me.

At this point in the open brush where there were a lot of small dead trees about my height or taller, still upright and bare, I was approached by a bevy of curious fantails. One flitted in, another danced by, several more tapdanced at eye level within 2 feet of me. Then there must have been a dozen or more in the branches around me & above me, streaking & wagging their tail right at me. I was an audience of one for their antics. Every where I looked I was surrounded by fantails dancing like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, smooth & quick & easy and beautiful to behold. I held my breath as they moved from branch to branch. I was stopped there, awed.

At most, previously, I've seen two at a time, attracted by the bugs I kick up, but this was dozens, everywhere, as far up & down the gorge as I could see. I'd count 5 on one tree then another 3 in another then more up overhead winging their fanciful dancing way like avian butterlies or slowdancing humming birds checking me out.

When they faded away I went on, undeterred, gifted generously, encouraged.

But still I thought, "Why the path? Where does it end?", perhaps it was a path up to the stream head, a spring, the source of the water. The valley became narrow and steep and treed with beeches, shadowed & uphill along the trickle of water. I met a tree up the hill in the dark green dank, tall & wide, somehow having escaped the intensive logging of the area. I greeted it and continued up hill, thinking where was Pav to identify it for me? I found the stream head & the path went even higher.

I realized then that perhaps the purpose of the track was to go up. Perhaps there was a top to this now narrow furrow, no longer wide and valley-like at all. The gorse came back, my trusty stick came in handy, but I still backed into a few inadvertently as I tried to step up the muddy slope. Luckily the undergrowth was not wet, or I would've been thoroughly soaked well before the fantails' greeting.

By now, 35-40 minutes into the bush I was beginning to glimpse a top. I rose through gorse into an opening and there was the reason for the path: the view. Boringly at first glimpse it looked like nothing but a view over town. When I sipped my water and stopped panting I was able to focus further away. For beyond town stretched the Grey Valley stockaded by mountains and mountains stretched left to right north to south. It was a broad wide view, a panorama of green with a river running through it, dark green wooded mountains erupting into taller sharper bare ranges above the tree line. If I'd known what I was looking at I know I could have seen Mt Elliot across the valley.

I descended the other side with the path, thankful not to be returning the way I came, as I'd noticed certain areas where I knew I'd be sliding down on my ass, deliberately or not, and on the uncontrolled slides I knew I'd get gorse up my butt more than the tentative needle touch & release sharp reminders of the ascent.

The descent was toward town through bush mostly head height, with a few very muddy marshy steps over a small stream I emerged at a ditch on the outskirts of town, across from a small house with chooks in the yard and grapevine climbing up it obscuring the windows. A hop across the ditch, a turn around to plant the stick into the mud, and I walked back to the Hilton.

I felt better. I was happier. I was sweaty and muddy and content. I cleaned off my Tevas before entering, as they were solid mud by then.

I must ask what hike that was, though the pleasure was in the discovery, in stumbling into it unheralded or recommended. I felt if I had been told...I would not have tried it. But in not knowing, in following my curiousity, I ended up with a fantail jazz dance performance, wings & tails shaking & flitting, and an unexpected view of where I was. A context for my week here.

posted by: coldwish at 10:49 | link | comments (5) |
nz 2006

Travel Lull

I have descended into a travel slough, in which the plans I had have been scuppered by a friend's inability to make contact and I am left hanging. Mind you I am hanging on the West Coast in Greymouth, and am quite content here. The weather is bizarre, I think it is a year ago about now when the tornado hit town, and yesterday on my walk out to Cobden Beach it rained, then it shined, then it rained, then it shined then it hailed. Yeah.  That was an amusing experience, sudden strong horizontal winds blowing water and ice pellets up my backside as I beat a slow retreat across the stones I had been perusing. The rat-a-tat-tat on my widebrimmed hat, the plastering of my clothes against my backside as I turned ass into it, the pinging & flicking on my feet in their sandals, all par for the course it seems here in the West.

I had been strolling, head down, eyes scanning the stones still wet from the heavy surf, as always completely oblivious to the larger world around me. The beach was different than last year, as beaches do change with time & tides. The slope was steeper, the driftwood more small and less significant. Last year's profusion of gigantic tree trunks silvered & red erupting from stones into the sky, were able to shelter me in the wind storm that blew up in the days before the tornado hit. These ancient trees must have been felled up river or up coast, roots as large as branches but nestled within them were dozens of perfectly rounded silver stones, around which the roots had originally grown. This boggles the mind, to see stones as rounded as the beach stones I walked on embedded in the wood grain of these trees, as I knew the trees came from inland. But the geologic history of the land is fresh & new enough that the dirt in which the tree seedlings took root was once, ages ago, seabed and seashore.

This year, the beach is not so populated by tree bones and skeletons, but more piles of brush and tree limbs. Less beautiful to my eyes. But the stones are eternal, rolled and sanded constantly by the sea. The beach appears largely silver when dry, rounded, softly curved stones in varying shades of grey & silver, with the odd stark white or granite stone leaping out to the eyes that scan. But if you walk along the water's edge, things change, colours abound and shock and delight the senses when the stones are wet.

I was walking along the grey silver dry part of the beach after a moment's rest and water break, when the...water broke...from the sky. Large fat drops dappled the stones I was looking at, making Appaloosa marks in sudden colour on the grey, then more numerous and smaller spots like wet cheetahs until the grey was gone and the colours had emerged along the length of the beach. That slowed me down considerably. It opened up my range from beach top to surf start and I collected more stones.

I did not consider necessarily that the pockets full of stones I carried were deadweight to a backpacker. I found a grand fist-sized granite stone with a corset of grey stone that had at one point millions of years ago erupted anew through a crack in the granite to create this new stripe between the speckles. The new stone was softer and in its years on the beach had worn away faster than the harder older granite ends, leaving it encircled & girldled tight around the midriff. I kept that. Another stone was gold & red & rusted all over like gold quartz, but with black chiselled like a wood carver or a pen & ink artist all over it, like splays & ferns & flowers of black. I kept that one. Other smaller green granite stones came away with me, as did a stone striped with one solid pink quartz line bold around it, crossed by a yellow stripe as bold and strange.

I MAILED these stones home.

Yeah, stupid me. But I had to. I couldn't schlep 'em and I couldn't abandon them. Keep me away from stone beaches for a while though.

posted by: coldwish at 12:36 | link | comments (6) |
nz 2006

Naked Plunge From A Mossy Boulder

We slept in the next day, after staying up late in the rain talking by candlelight. Very late, a lot of candle burned. I was smitten by this man with his sleek golden summer tan, his intelligence and his easy ways. Perhaps he is indeed that, perhaps it is my cold-addled warmth-seeking deprived headlong rush from the Ice, 6 months of winter dressed even in 24/7 sunlight. Perhaps he represented the innocence of great weather and personal freedom, the flight from too many people into a private paradise of green & animals & nature. Perhaps I was weak with the need for this privacy, or yearning so mightily for the ability to have magnificent weighty discussions, odd humour, learn new things, learn a new human, one on one with no interruptions whatsoever.

Just to talk off-Ice, safely with only one person, a sustained conversation, a fresh new person in my life. I am bound to be charmed by this man, the way he is so content within his own skin. Mostly he taught me in response to my wondering awed questions about the birds: bellbirds with their bell like sounds, the tui who imitates, magpies black & white chatterers, NZ Wood Pigeons or kereru with their noisy effortful flight, fantails quirky & curious dancers & visitors, keas, the alpine parrot. Often he pulled out books to refer to for details to my questions. He taught me some of the southern astronomy with the Southern Cross (by the dark starless spot in the Milky Way, slightly atilt) and the Southern Point of Navigation. He guided my gaze in the dark, arms on either side of my head, gestures concise & fluid with the stars perforating the dark blue in millions of colours. I was enchanted, and could see what he saw as he explained it.

I slept on the couch clouded in mosquitoes and insect repellent.  But we lounged late in the day. Once we made it out of our respective beds around noon, he started me off on digging a shallow trench for his water pipe, burying the phone line that would follow it up hill into the bush underneath it. He worked on his roof, as we had discovered a leak in it in the downpour the night before. It started to rain again in the afternoon and we retreated to the hut where I made a stir fry out of the fresh veggies we'd gathered at the market. Another late night over food & candlelight & books, discovering in him another dictionary diver, a spelunker of words and meanings and histories, wandering from word to word without seeming connection, yet all making sense.

The next day was a fine day and after some fairly delinquent addressing of various work by both of us, he offered me a choice of hikes to go on in the afternoon. I chose the Safety Camp Stream hike with the plunge pool. Pav dressed in gumboots, me in hiking boots, I followed him on this slightly marked trail into the rainforest lush around us, headed for the sound of the stream ahead of us always through the green. We reached this "stream". In my experience this is not a stream, this is a small river barreling downhill around boulders the size of sheds and bears and bowling balls, with timber long & strong trapped like giant struts. This is a stream one can see in flood rolling these great stones downhill before it, tumbling tree trunks, but now it ran fast & clear & cloudless & cold around the obstacles, finding paths, leaping stones, sneaking around blockages.

Pav twinkled at me and asked me if I knew what rock-hopping was. He said he was going to take his gumboots off and leap from stone to stone downriver. I know this. Yes, indeed I grew up hopping blithely along the stone coast of Maine, barefoot and innocent of stumbles or dangers. I had dreamt of this while on the Ice. So we shed our footwear and off he flew.

He leapt & flew & bounded & danced effortlessly from boulder to stone to rock downstream, elegant and long-legged he traveled. I, with my tender too-long-shod feet and shorter legs, hopped behind, gleeful to be barefoot, euphoric to be free of footwear. Slower and more cautious, less powerful were my leaps, but I followed. He would pause every now and then and wait for me to catch up, then off he'd fly again, unstoppable momentum and grace as he retreated from my sight.

I felt my feet return to me as I bounced & trod & tilted & balanced & leapt & trusted landing on them full weight impact. I could actually FEEL my feet, I could balance & grip, textures & shapes appeared to me through the soles of my feet & I was alive again. We arrived at an area where we crossed the water via a broad mossy log and my feet stopped me astonished and thrilled by being barefoot in moss. I danced, I wiggled my toes, I shouted my joy and made Pav laugh across the log awaiting my arrival.

He stopped us on a mossy boulder in the shade about 2 metres above a deep pool alive & boiling with water rushing into it from upstream. He asked me as I arrived if I would plunge, and without hesitation I said yes. This pleased him, as he wanted to plunge, and it would require disrobing. How much easier if we both did it. We both shed our clothes quickly on that mossy boulder, and Pav leapt with a shout immediately into the water. I stood there above him awaiting his emergence from beneath the water, and to get out of my way. He told me I had to turn off my brain at this point, and I said "This is me turning off my brain." as I leapt out into the water. It was cold, yes, but not so in comparison to Maine waters, but nonetheless I rose from the water shouting "Fuck!" about the cold shock of it. We stood there for a bit by the side of the pool, drying in the sun & dappled shade, until Pav got chilled.  I was fine, feeling the warmth in my bones returning to me. I've been cold and that wasn't it.

We climbed back up to our clothes, and he gave me a hand up on the last incline. We dressed, and headed back upstream barefoot and damp and happy. Back to where we left our footwear. The tramp, shod, through rainforest & tree ferns & felled rotting moss-covered trees, with harakeke and rimu seedlings, beech trees blackened by honeydew beetles, tiny red nertera depressa berries (unidentified at the time, but we discovered later related to coffee) which he popped curiously into his mouth. I pointed out different fungi I recognized as similar to the ones from Maine. I was traveling with a naturalist, a fount of knowledge about the trees & plants around us, and generous with his knowledge. We were approached by tomtits and fantails, attracted to the insects our gallumphing movements kicked up. I heard the cry of a kea (alpine parrot) as it flew over head. Maori names for birds often resemble their calls, logically. So a weka sounds like ka-wek! ka-wek! and a kea sounds like a long repeated string of keakeakeakea up over the canopy. The mosses were varied and soft and moistly touchable, ferns & epiphytes & seedlings & berries abounded. This forest was so lush with life, sheltered green, moist and prehistoric to my senses.

We ate well that night, replete and relaxing once more on the floor in front of the fireplace by candlelight. Another night of dictionaries and books and discussions delicious and meaty. But the next day he was gone, leaving me there in his paradise for 5 days of recovery and bliss in my solitude. I missed his company the first day, but was greedy and hungry for the solitude I had by the next day. I unfurled into it.

posted by: coldwish at 13:17 | link | comments (1) |
nz 2006

Man Laughing By Candlelight

Pav picked me up in Greymouth at Wild West Adventures late in the afternoon. He walked in to WWA, tall & golden with a great smile. Clad in a torn plaid blue shirt, dark khaki shorts split completely along the centre seam from front to back, blue boxer briefs (patently obvious), a green knit cap with ear flaps and a wisp of hair sticking out the front.

We apologized to each other for our missed connections, with his being back a bit late from Happy Valley, and me being uncertain as to my hitching success and therefore my arrival in Greymouth. Then I humped my bag onto my shoulders and the first question past his glorious welcoming smile was "Can you drive?"

Can I drive? Hell yeah, whatever you may want to throw at me. Walked to the car and dumped my pack in the back & he said he needed me to drive to his place, as he needed to pick up his motorbike. In NZ they call a bicycle a "push bike" and a motorcycle a "bike", a bit different from what I'm used to. As soon as I got in his car I saw what he meant by "Can you drive?" He meant can I drive a standard shift. Yeah, prefer it actually. No problem.

It is so much easier to drive a standard shift on the left side of the road, on the right side of the car. By being physically engaged with the vehicle through the switching of gears & using the clutch, the shift of sides is that much more natural. I see it as a right brain/left brain spatial shift, that to my slightly right/left dyslexic mind makes good sense. Driving an automatic leaves my brain disengaged and my body on autopilot, and I am much more bound to drift to the wrong side of the road around turns.

First to food shopping together. At first there was the natural discomfort of two strangers tossed together, but his boyish enthusiasm, intelligence and generosity of spirit overrode any possible awkwardness as we negotiated how long I'd WWOOF and how I'd leave, since I was carless and he lives way out in the bush. We stood by the carts at the grocery store negotiating these items before starting with the food shopping.

What a fascinating way, a great way, to get to know a complete stranger: go shopping. We were off and asking direct questions of each other about foods & preferences & dietary choices & limitations. He's a vegan mostly, I'm a vegetarian mostly but lactose-intolerant. He lives without electricity, so we had to consider what would keep & how. There was much comedy & discussion & laughter & impulse buying, specially on Pav's part. We were there a good while & conversation was free & easy by the end of it. I had a sense of him, he of me, and we'd both relaxed. 

Food bought & bike picked up, I followed him up the Grey Valley, where he stopped us once to point out the last of the world's largest gold dredges working the Grey River. The West Coast was populated largely by the gold rush they had; Gold was the impetus behind pushing through the Southern Alps to the West Coast. Arthur's Pass & Lewis Pass both with roads built by the gold-seekers. But it remains the lightest populated area of the South Island. It still feels a bit pioneering push west into the wilds, compared to Canterbury where Cheech is.

He stopped us a few other times once we turned off the paved road past Ahaura onto the dirt to point out views of the Ahaura River as it sped through some gorges, or ran silver and braided along the wide flat river valley. While stopped there in the rainforest he taught me how honeydew honey is made. There in the woods were these blackened trunks, looking like trees that survived a forest fire, but with leaves fresh & green up high above our heads. I had noticed these trunks and branches through the lush greenery of the forests by the road, and wondered, in such a wet environment, about the frequency of forest fires here. Not blackened by fire, but blackened by the beech scale beetle that inhabits the bark of the beech trees here. See the link above for a great explanation with pictures of the process. The honeydew honey is a wonderful full tasting honey, dark and sappy to the tongue, like maple syrup. Though as he put it with a grin, "It's honey that's been through the digestive tracts of TWO insects, not just one."

Just an aside here: It behooves the innocent NZhiker to be aware of the black trunks of a beech forest, as it means that there will be heightened wasp activity there, and the likelihood that you'll be stung, if not paying attention while brushing past these trees, is quite high. I wasn't. I'm so much into the hunt for tiny flying things & spiders & minute details of forest life, that I will stand a foot away from this busy buzzing flying activity quite fascinated for ages, unstung and respectful of their pursuit of this sap nectar.

Pav also introduced me to Rata honey, a warm creamy delicate honey with subtle sweet flavours blended into the smooth mouth feel. I like it so much I'm afraid I finished his stores by simply spooning it out of the bottle and eating it straight. Glorious manna from the bee gods. The honeys here astonish me in their flavour heft and variety. I have never really been a great honey fan, I loved bees and beekeeping for the bees, not for what they could produce for me. Honey, from my childhood, was often too tinny & high-pitched a sweet flavour. But I grew up on apple blosom honey, a northern fruit. This southern stuff is revelatory; magnificent, varied and gourmet. I will never look at honey the same way.

The first night on his land at his hutt (his spelling) I met the bog (loo, toilet) under the tree in the wind and heavy rain in the dark with an umbrella and bog paper, headlamp on my head.  Stumbled back to the hutt through the wet grass and inside to a dinner of avocado, tomato & cuke sandwiches I made of our grocery store gleanings.

We sat on the floor eating & talking by candlelight as it poured outside.

posted by: coldwish at 11:14 | link | comments (4) |
nz 2006

Deep Wet Underground

posted by: coldwish at 12:34 | link | comments (1) |
nz 2006

Elliot's Toe WWOOF

Gosh.

I'm stunned and in love. So much to say. I'm back from Elliot's Toe where Pav has his bees & feral sheep. I had three days with him, then 5 days alone. Completely utterly totally naked outdoors rock-hopping alone. Peeing in long grass, crapping in the rain under a beech tree, reading & writing by candlelight. No evidence that I am not the only person alive in the world. Bless Pav for leaving me, though I mourned to see him go. Such a lovely man, with a generous heart, an open mind and a knowledge of the wilds of NZ (trees, birds, ferns, etc) that I basked in while I had him.

I need desperately to do a laundry. =) I am hip deep in sheep shit and mud on my jeans. There is not a spot left that is blue.

Will try to explain more later.

Tonight in Greymouth, tomorrow to Motueka for the party. Hitchhiking remains safe, easy & fun, learning a lot about the country this way.

From world to world I spin faster & faster. But healed and unfurling from my 6 months on the Ice.

posted by: coldwish at 13:41 | link | comments (1) |
nz 2006