New Zealand

How does one really explain what it’s like to experience New Zealand? I’m not even sure I want to try at this point.

To sum up: eight days ago I arrived in a fluster from Australia. Thinking I would be late to catch my connecting flight from Aukland (on the N. Island) to Christchurch (on the S. Island, where I was meeting my pal, Erin) I ran in a full, and ridiculous (mind you I was trucking along with a large backpack, smaller backpack, camera, and an unwieldy bag full of odds and ends) sprint through the international terminal, through customs, the front doors, down the road (who could be bothered waiting two minutes for the bus?!), and arrived at the domestic terminal in a sweaty mess only to be greeted by the first true Maori (indigenous people of NZ) I have ever met. He took one look at my passport, one look at my red and silent face (well, except for the gasping breaths) and said, “An American, ey? You are the quietest American I have ever met.”

My quiet didn’t last long. As soon as I made it up to the gate (a full hour EARLY) I was able to relax and begin my much anticipated crooning over finally having made it to New Zealand.

Of course, I’ve wanted to visit the legendary land for several years now. The first time I fell in love with mountains and started looking for pictures of them I discovered New Zealand – a place so far away from America that it almost seems imaginary. Mt. Cook. Mt. Tasman. Milford Sound. Franz Joseph Glacier. I knew of these places long before Lord of the Rings swept up the rest of the globe in the same jaw-dropping NZ scenery depicted in the films.

I met up with Erin, a pal with ISV, in Christchurch. After much talking, much excitement, and much beer (on my part anyway) we decided to hitchhike the next day, south 200km, to Dunedin.

I have only hitched a handful of other times, in Colorado and in Alaska. Thus, the hitching virgin that I was, I had an extremely paranoid, exciting, and at times, terrifying, day. The 6 or so rides and drivers we snagged were all, for the most part, harmless. There was only that one questionable character, the last ride of the day, Terry.

Only AFTER we got in the car, did we notice that Terry had 2 black eyes and a huge gash across his forehead. Don’t ask me how we didn’t see this earlier. I immediately began scouring the back seat for ‘signs’ of the kind of person that potentially had been in a nasty fight the night before – with another hitchhiker!? And to further fuel my growing unease, go ahead, ask me- what did I see? A pair of gloves, several disposable cameras, and a trash bag!!! I kid you not!

Later, after my paranoia abated a bit, Terry decided to pull off of the highway and ‘stop to see if his cousin was home’. There are two main rules in hitching. Always know where you are on a map. And if the driver leaves the main road, get out.

Okay, Mom and Dad, don’t freak out. If there is anywhere safe in the world to hitchhike, it is surely here! I did write this entire day into a pretty entertaining 2000 word essay but for now let me just say that Terry’s ‘cousin’ was actually a woman, in her mid 40’s, who offered Erin and I coffee and tea and enough interesting convo that I could have lived there for awhile! In the end, I never quite figured Terry out but he was a good guy, just a bit dodgy on the surface…

So, Dunedin. We stayed the night with one of my former students, Kai. And from there, we met up with an Italian, Alice (pronounced A lee chay) and rented a small kiwi-colored car and drove it clear around the bottom of the South Island until we ended up at Te Anua- the gateway to Milford Sound.

One word to describe Milford Sound, perhaps one of the most extraordinary places ever?

Moody. Want another?

I don’t have one. Trying to describe what it is like to stand in the lush haven that is Milford Sound is like trying to describe how it feels to fall in love for the first time. You can’t properly touch the experience (I tried, dipping my hands into frigid waters, water falls, rain soaked vegetation and trees), or hear it (how to describe the thunderous quiet of a place that remote? That calm?), or even smell it (again, how does mysticism and rolling fog and overhanging branches fat with green and wet travel through the air to your nose?) I took pictures, yes, but they will mean very little to anyone looking at them. You really need to stand there and take in the place. Take it into your being, experience it, let it roll around awhile inside, marinade yourself in it, maybe then you can grasp what a true spiritual and visual experience Milford is. See, it is like love. You can explain neither, but you know how they feel...

Ah, then to Queenstown! The adrenaline capital of NZ and maybe the world! anything outrageous and crazy and death defying you would ever want to do, you could do here. Instead of a wild night however, me and the girls drank wine and had an early night. At that point I had been sleeping in the car for a few days anyway, to save cash, and was all kinds of groggy once the sun set. Aside from that, lots of driving through stunning country can really tucker a girl out! I fondly named the car Gem (the other name I was fond of was puke, pronounced poookay, in Maori, this means hill). Sleeping in the car for 5 nights was not the most comfortable (the car was about the size of 2 fridges) but I somehow felt closer to nature. I do regret not having camping gear but I guess that just means ill have to come back.

Hear that Paul? Holly? Anybody?

Until soon all,
laura