riverECHO

Three months in New Zealand have flown by faster than I imagined and this week BJ and I decided to submit our applications to stay in the country a little longer than planned. We filled out the lengthy application to extend our permit to the end of July and were pleasantly surprised to receive a call a DAY later from the immigration office saying our passports were ready to be picked up. That was easy! We are definitely looking forward to some more time down here, and possibly some time on the north island during the NZ winter. BJ has also been scheming with his brother Brandon, who has been living and working in Shanghai for the last two years, about meeting up in China once we leave New Zealand. Brandon and his wife Jen are flying back to Idaho at the end of August and have a little bit of time off before they leave. We will be missing out on Australia, which we figure we can always come back to on our own, but REALLY excited to see some parts of China with someone who knows it well. Some ideas are brewing for a trip to Lhasa as well. If anyone has been, we are all ears for suggestions and advice on entering and visiting Tibet.

This week my volunteer job at the winery turned into actual work. No, I’m not getting paid (although I count the many bottles of wine they have sent me home with as more than enough payment) but it wasn’t a typical tasting and testing week at the winery. My roommates could no longer give me crap for just drinking wine all day. I actually came home dirty, tired, and sore. My job for the week was moving and washing empty pinot noir barrels, which were damn heavy and my little weak arms were tired after a while. I know I know . . . waaaaa. I’m really not complaining. It was fun to be moving around and practicing my wine barrel roll and lift, something I didn’t realize would actually take some skill.

We’ve become quite the homebodies down here, cooking dinner, watching movies or reading at night, and not spending too many nights out on the town. But last night we made an exception and rode our bikes to town for an evening out. Nothing fancy . . . some okay food at Pog Mahones, a drink at Barmuda where we sat by ourselves in front of this HUGE outdoor fireplace, and some strange music at Dux-d-Lux . . . but a fun time none-the-less in downtown Queenstown.

On another note, my mom and stepdad flew in to the country this morning. They are going to spend a while on the north of the south island and then make their way down to see us by next weekend. We are looking forward . . . Kia Ora!

I know this sounds a bit morbid, but on my dad and Fran’s last day in Queenstown we spent the better part of the morning googling “When will I die?” Fran had been amazed at BJ’s ability to simply ask Google a question and find an answer, so she tried to come up with a really difficult question (and one she thought very useful). After two hours, we had submitted answers on questionnaires on a few different websites and learned that both Fran and I, simply because we are women who do not smoke, will probably live to be about 100. BJ and my dad, because of their family history and simply because they are men, are going to leave us, the two women in the room, lonely during our final years. We were able to find quite a bit of humor in our fortunes as Fran, who is usually on one sort of diet or another and who was appalled at the idea of living to 100 years, found that if she actually gained a few pounds would die earlier.

Once we were satisfied (or unsatisfied) with our fortunes, as told by Google, we ventured out into another rainy day for a brief wine tour of Gibbston Valley. Since it was Sunday, Mount Edward’s Winery was closed so we settled for a cheese and wine sampler at Gibbston Valley Wines. BJ and I practiced our wine tasting skills and all agreed that we needed some coffee to turn around our late afternoon sleepy wine heads. We headed into downtown Queenstown for some cappuccinos and a movie . . . Slumdog Millionaire. It was by far (and I’m sure I’ve said this before but this time I mean it) the best movie I have seen this year. The cinematography was brilliant, in both color and style. It moved so quickly, jumping from scene to scene, that it almost gave me the feeling of being in India. It was a really creative way to share a story about Indian life in the slums.

After the movie, we spent a “Last Night in Queenstown” dinner at the Fishbone where we continued to laugh about certain scenes from the movie and reminisced with my dad and Fran about their entire trip. They saw the most of New Zealand you could possible see in a month’s time and loved every minute of it. I felt like our time together flew by. We were busy bouncing to the West Coast and to Milford Sound, but had an unexpected blessing with a chunk of rainy days in the end where we could all relax together in Queenstown. I think they truly enjoyed a bit of time to relax while they were on vacation.

We dropped my dad and Fran off at the bus station yesterday morning so they could bus back to Christchurch before flying back to San Francisco and joined Ali and Steve last night for yet another movie . . . The World’s Fastest Indian, a great film about a kiwi whose love for going fast on his Indian motorcycle takes him from Invercargill, New Zealand to the salt flats of Utah. Something about Anthony Hopkins’ character reminded me immediately of my dad, whether it was his love for engines, his white hair, or his mannerisms. After the movie and before going to bed I had a sudden wave of missing my dad and I burst into tears. Despite spending the last week and a half with him, I feel like we never truly had a chance to catch up and I had this regretful feeling that if we continue on with our travels, I may not see him for a long time. While they were here, we had briefly discussed meeting up again with them . . . and maybe even in India. So Dad, we’ll just have to make it happen!

We’ve made it through both the first and second films and are about to embark on the third one. My dad and Fran have even watched most of the extras that go into how the trilogy was filmed, the costumes and props, and the characters. While BJ had to return to work the day after we returned from Milford Sound, the rest of us drove up to Glenorchy, a small town just an hour’s drive up the lake from Queenstown. We knew many scenes from the Lord of the Rings had been filmed in that area but didn’t know which or where. We weren’t a minute away from the house when the questions started coming and I decided that we better prepare ourselves with a bit of solid information to guide our journey instead of just making it all up. We stopped in Queenstown before our departure and went into an official Lord of the Rings Store where Fran purchased a Lord of the Rings Location Guide. My dad narrated the drive up to Glenorchy and we followed a dirt road out to an area called Paradise. It was beautiful and we could see the glaciated peaks of Mount Earnslaw in the background. It was fun having the guide to tell us what had been filmed where but to be honest, all of the names in films sound so similar that I could never really picture which part, or even which of the three films, they were referring to. After a while along the road to Paradise, we backtracked a bit and drove out towards the Routeburn Track where we strolled along the nature walk for a while.

As we left Glenorchy we could see clouds starting to build in the mountains and sure enough the rains came pouring down the next morning. Our big outings over the last two days have been to a local coffee shop and to the cinema and museum in Arrowtown. It’s actually been quite refreshing for us, and my dad and Fran, to have some down time while it rains.

Sunshine is usually unheard of in Milford Sound, but we somehow timed it perfectly (with the good weather luck from my Dad and Fran) and experienced the stunning fjord under the hot summer sun. When BJ and I had quickly visited Milford after a long hike a couple months ago it was pouring rain and thousands of tiny waterfalls lined the steep walls of the fjord. Under the sun, the temporary waterfalls had disappeared. It just so happens that you can’t have the best of both worlds in Milford Sound. When the sun is shining there will never be as many waterfalls and when there are a thousand waterfalls there will never be sun.

We started out our tour of Milford Sound with a day in Te Anau. We checked in to another Holiday Park, went on a self guided tour of a small bird sanctuary, and then spent a few hours reading and writing on the grassy lawn in front of the holiday park. While I was writing this blog on paper, BJ took a sip of beer and then sprayed it all over me and my paper. I thought it was a joke at first until he said that a bee had slipped into his beer and stung him on his lip. It had started to puff up pretty quickly. Later in the day we went to the local cinema to watch a film on the area called “Shadowland.” BJ noticed that one of the local beers that they were selling was called Wasp. He thought it was very fitting. Unlike the horrible film we saw in Franz Joseph, this film was beautifully done. Some of the scenery and accompanying music even gave me goosebumps.

It’s hard to describe the insignificance and smallness one feels in Milford and the photos will never do the area justice. But I can say that it is one of, if not “the” most beautiful places in New Zealand. We toured Milford on a small “nature cruise” boat which was able to get closer to the shoreline than some of the larger cruises. They taught us a few things as well . . . Milford Sound is actually a fjord and not a sound at all. It was incorrectly named by Captain Cook and the name stuck. A fjord is an area that has been carved out by glaciers and filled in with sea water and usually has very steep and dramatic mountains that jut up from the ocean. A sound is a flooded river valley . . . think of Puget Sound in the Northwest. We also learned that Milford Sound has many “treevalanches.” There is so little topsoil on the massive rock mountains that the trees either cling on to cracks within the rock or they grow on top of one another. If one tree comes loose from the rock, an entire string of trees below it will come crashing down with it, grabbing on to more and more trees as it slides down to sea level.

Probably the highlight of our boat cruise in the Milford was our experience under the Lady Bowen Waterfall. After the captain advised everyone who didn’t want to get wet to go inside, the boat slowly inched toward the base of the falls, which plunge into the fjord from over 500 feet above. The boat dipped its nose directly into the waterfall and BJ and I, although somewhat hiding below the bow, were instantly soaked.

On the return back to the boat dock, we had the option of stopping at an observatory called Milford Deep. Milford receives about 8 meters of rain a year which creates a fresh water layer over the salt water. Unlike the muddy rain water that you would see during a typical rain storm, there is no mud for the rain water to pick up. The rain water turns a little bit darker in color from tannins but is not murky. The fresh water layer that ends up above the salt water shields enough of the sunlight that fish and sea creatures like black coral, eleven-armed starfish, sea urchins and sea cucumbers that would normally live much deeper in the ocean can live closer to the surface of the ocean. Obviously, this was a beautiful and yet very informational tour of Milford Sound.

My dad and Fran arrived in Queenstown last Thursday night and it has been go go go since then. I had a wonderful 28th birthday and I thank all of those who sent me e-cards (especially from my little sister who sent me a talking squirrel) and notes on facebook . . . oh, what would we do without the internets. We spent the day making plans for the following week together, leisurely exploring Queenstown, on a short hike that I had remembered as flat but was very much up and down, followed by a beautiful dinner and delicious sangria at a new restaurant for us called The Bathhouse, along Lake Wakatipu’s waterfront.

On Valentine’s Day, the following morning, we loaded up the Holden to head west over Haast Pass to visit Franz Joseph and Fox Glaciers. BJ and I had quickly visited the area on our initial drive down to Queenstown but only hiked the 5 minutes to the lookout at Franz Joseph and missed Fox Glacier entirely because it was closed . . . we didn’t realize glaciers closed and opened for business. My dad and Fran had brought the good weather with them and as we made our way over Haast Pass we stopped the car at pretty much every attraction including the Blue (actually quite green) Pools and Thunder Falls. When we arrived in the town of Franz Joseph we checked in to a Top 10 Holiday Park where my dad and Fran had reserved a room and we pitched our tent. Because of all the backpackers and campers in New Zealand, these holiday parks are quite the fad. They have a variety of rooms, campsites, huge kitchens, and usually a lounge with games, TV and internet. They are a bit more expensive option for setting up a tent but a much cheaper option for someone looking for a bed who doesn’t want to share a dorm room with a bunch of young backpackers. We had dinner in town and then quickly made our way to the Franz Joseph Hot Pools . . . a great business idea for a place where it rains so often. We have a great buddha-like photo of my dad in the pools, but had to remove this as requested. There were three pools, each a different temperature, surrounded by lush native rainforest foliage. Despite the 80’s decor of a neon wall that faded through different colors and was supposed to look like a glacier, the pools were quite peaceful.

We were Franz Joseph glacier bound the following morning. We had contemplated hiring a guide for the walk but since we weren’t planning on actually walking on the ice we thought, and correctly assumed, that it would be a waste of money. The trail follows an almost paved walkway for about 20 minutes before opening up to the wide river valley below the glacier. The “proceed at your own risk” trail continues on along the river bed for another hour before reaching the toe of the glacier. The glacier looked huge at the lookout but not until we we were standing below it did we realize its scale. We watched as a few groups put crampons on and began hiking up the ice steps that were perfectly carved out of the glacier by their guides. Next stop . . . Fox Glacier. This time the glacier was open but the minute we turned on to the dirt access road it began to rain and we decided to wait until the next morning to see it and head back to town to watch a film called “Flowing West” made by a local helicopter company. The imagery was beautiful but they sped all the scenes up to give it an “artistic” effect. It, and the horrible music, just made me dizzy. We spent the rest of the evening cooking dinner and playing a few heated games of hearts and gin rummy back at the holiday park.

Just as we planned, we woke up the next morning to sunny skies. We didn’t hike to Fox Glacier but took a ton of photos at a couple lookouts, one of which showed off the entire glacier, top to bottom. Both Franz Joseph and Fox Glaciers are some of the fastest moving glaciers in the world, moving up to a meter a day, and some of the only glaciers that are now actually advancing as a result of the amount of moisture and snow the area receives.

As we drove back over Haast Pass we stopped at Fantail Falls, were visitors had slowly created what looked to be a graveyard of cairns. We added our creative piece and continued along our journey. Although we are not avid Lord of the Rings fans, the movie and its locations were the topic of conversation during our trip back from the west coast . . . so much in fact that we planned the entire evening back in Queenstown around watching the first film in the LOTR trilogy. Luckily our roommate Steve was there to answer my dad every time he asked “Where’s that?” Not surprisingly, a majority of the country’s tourism industry is based on the release of the movies, and there are a ton of tour companies that offer LOTR guided trips to all of the filming locations.

By now I would assume most of the world is aware of the fires that have been engulfing Australia, the largest fires in their history, having killed 130 people! Yesterday we experienced their magnitude when we woke up to an orange haze, the haze that back home I associate with a fire. It had us perplexed for a while as we tried to think of what was west of us . . . mountains covered in rainforest, the rainiest place in New Zealand, and the ocean. It was hard to imagine a fire taking place in any of these very wet places. But across the ocean a ways . . . Australia . . . of course.

The eerie apocalyptic sky set the tone for the day for us. Our plans for a big bike ride turned into a morning of drinking lots of coffee, cooking a huge breakfast (eggs, bacon, mushrooms, and onion covered in puff pastry), and reading on the couch. BJ’s quote of the day, which almost won as the title of this blog: “I love drinking coffee and doing nothing.” That pretty much sums it up. We finally dragged ourselves out of the house, went on a 30 minute bike ride, half of which was up a paved road near Coronet Peak, and then drove to Arrowtown to spend a couple hours reading and napping in a park under a tree under an orange sky, followed by our classic kiwi date . . . dinner and a mooooovie. This time, however, we didn’t watch the typical blockbuster. Waltz with Bashir, an animated portrayal of an Israeli soldier’s memory (or loss of memory) of the Lebanon War in the early 1980s, is one of the most unique and powerful films I have seen. Based on the dreamlike memories that he has, and those that he discovers through interviews of fellow soldiers, it seems only fitting that the film would be animated. We quickly drove home to look up a map and details on the war.

The orange skies had moved on from Queenstown today and we woke up with a bit more energy. We still spent a little time with coffee, breakfast, and books on the couch, but sooner than later got antsy and headed out to a place called Moke Lake for a bike ride. Despite the encroaching dark rain clouds, we set out anyways along a dirt road that wrapped around the backside of Ben Lomond Peak, which shadows Queenstown. The road eventually meets up with singletrack along the Moonlight Track. We had some hellish climbs and fast descents along the road but were clearly enjoying worrying the sheep, the lack of people, the historic feeling of riding along an old mining road, and the incredible views over the valley that dropped off from the road. On our way back to the car, BJ got an idea in his head (or maybe his belly) of a Fergburger, a famous burger joint in downtown Queenstown that we had yet to experience. I pictured Homer (BJ) sleepwalking (riding a bike) to the fridge (Queenstown) with a thought bubble of beer (big juicy burger) above his head. We tried the burger kiwi style by asking for a topping of sliced beets and, of course, a side of chips (fries). It was a delicious Monday afternoon in New Zealand.

Set in the 1800s, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan portrays life as a woman in China when foot binding is a common practice, the size of a woman’s feet determines her fortune and future, and an arranged marriage is for the sole purpose of benefiting the family. There isn’t much choice in the life of a nineteenth century woman in China, and it’s a pity, according to the culture, that the woman wasn’t born a man.

But there is one method of escaping it all . . . through nu shu writing, a secret written language that only exists between women. The story follows two young girls, joined as latong (a friendship bound by contract, literally meaning “old same”), who experience childhood, foot binding, marriage, children, and death together through their nu shu writings.

Beautifully written, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is a fascinating novel about friendship, love, deceit, and the hardships of being a woman in nineteenth century China.

We arrived in Dunedin on Saturday evening to a very quiet and somewhat deserted downtown. BJ had spent 6 months of his college career studying (a.k.a. kayaking) in Dunedin and remembers late nights and busy dance clubs. The stranded streets surprised us as we toured the University of Otago campus and the octagon. But after emerging from a leisurely evening of dinner and a movie, the sidewalks were filled and the bars were bouncing. We had loaded our camping gear and bikes for the weekend and planned to explore some of the city’s well known trails. We spent the first night in a city campground under bright lights and actually woke up in the middle of the night to a car cruising (with their music bumping and everything) the campground. A little sleep deprived on Sunday morning, we drove up the Otago Peninsula to see the ocean and to try to spot an albatross. We stopped for breakfast and the farmer’s market in the very small town of Portobello, but didn’t catch a glimpse of any of the enormous birds.

We spent the afternoon on three bike rides. The Switchback Trail, although it sounds grueling, was perfectly built with banked turns and steady inclines . . . it was fun both up and down. Bethunes was a series of trails that left and came back to the same city park. On the last section of Bethunes, BJ went for the “expert” but short drop back to the park while I took the long and cruisy “sport” track back. We were loving the trails so far and after grabbing a small bite to eat and a beer at an Irish Pub just down the street from BJ’s old house, we were very excited to hit up Whare Flats, what we had read as a technical haven for mountain bikers. We were floored . . . or should I say thrown to the floor, or in this case the rocky ground. The ladders and bridges were way over my head and I spent most of the time either walking or asking BJ for a hand to pull me out of the bushes. Not our favorite trail, but it had been a great day so it was hard to complain too much.

That evening we drove up the east coast to camp next to the Moeraki Boulders, a geological formation along the beach that from afar look like a bunch of car sized soccer balls. I still don’t fully understand how they were formed but as the ocean erodes the shoreline, more and more “soccer balls” are exposed and slowly roll onto the beach. The nearby town has flourished on this tourist attraction. Walking back to our camp along the beach, we stopped for a swing in a small park. The “climbing structure” in the park was actually a small replica of the boulders.

On our drive back toward Queenstown, we read a description in our mountain bike guide book that lured us to a trail in the forest outside of the small town of Naseby (picture the movie “The Village”). The book had warned that sometimes the forest service closes the forest for fire risk . . . and it was Closed when we arrived. A local told us that sometimes they flip the sign at mid-day, so we parked the car, pulled out our books, and laid down in the grass to wait it out. After an hour or so with no sign of a ranger, we hopped back in the car and drove the final two hours to Queenstown. To subside itch to get back on our bikes, we road a trail around Lake Wakatipu to Jack’s Point. There was a surprising amount of technical areas along this city trail and with its proximity to our house, we are sure to return many times. It feels good to be off the feet and back on two wheels.

Our flatmate Ali brought this book home from the Queenstown library. She didn’t know anything about it and picked it off the shelf “just because.” I didn’t mean to read it actually but one rainy Friday afternoon I picked it up and by the time I put it down I was about half way done.

The storyline is simple . . . an American girl, Laura, studying art in Italy falls in love with an Italian chef. The twist . . . the man she falls in love with, Tommaso, and the Italian chef, Bruno, are actually two different people and best friends as well. To try to win Laura’s heart Tommaso needed the skills of a talented chef and talked his best friend into secretly cooking, while Tommaso took the credit, for Laura. All hell breaks loose when Laura finds out that she was actually in love with Tommaso’s cooking, and therefore Bruno, and not Tommaso at all. It’s a quick read and I almost had the sense that I was watching a movie as I read it.