Hal Goes Abroad

On the 27th I repeated my bus trip to the vantage point and again watched TDC lose to OneWorld. Rather frustrating. I spent the evening in conversation with a young Swiss man also staying in the hostel. It is interesting talking with people from around the world about their viewpoints. I wrote three postcards that night.

This was only my 2nd Thanksgiving away from home in my life. The last time I was in Monterey, CA and it was very hard. This one was also difficult, but I kept busy enough that I didn't really stop and think about it almost until bedtime. I took the bus out to the vantage point, but there was a snag. Some dog had left a larger "present" for me right where I had been sitting the day before. I really didn't want to spend 4 hours sitting next to it. Luckily, a passerby told me about another reserve further down the road. I walked down there and watched the races from there. The view wasn't as good, but it didn't smell at all. That evening I had a conversation with the owner of the hostel, a very nice Korean man. He wanted to tell me all about his adult life story of owning sushi restaurants and entrepreneurship. He is actually quite inspirational.

On Friday morning I broke down and bought a GSM phone. It works on a Pre Pay system, which means I don't get a monthly bill. Instead you can buy a card which has a silver lottery-style scratch off area. You call a central number and punch in the number revealed after scratching and then - POOF - you can make calls. It isn't cheap though. I'm not sure why, but telecoms here in NZ feel very expensive to me. Anyway, I decided to get the phone because I had met a few people who I wanted to keep in touch with and texting seems to be the way people do that around here.

After buying the phone I went back out to the vantage point, which didn't smell bad any more, though Team Dennis Conner sure did. They trailed the entire race and then touched the 5th mark with their chute. Sigh. I wrote three more postcards that night.

Saturday morning was fun. Jackie, a newly minted web designer who was in the same dorm as me, drove me down to Auckland, saving me $8 in bus fare and a very early start. She dropped me off right at the InterCity bus station. I'm still not accustomed to this drive-on-the-left thing they do here, but it is coming slowly. I think back to my bike trip in Ireland with Birdie and how easy it was then. Is it because I'm older, or because I'm not actively on the roads every day? Who knows. I took a nap as we left Auckland since it was just suburbs going by and they look the same everywhere. When I woke up I saw something I didn't expect at all: naked hills. Upon closer inspection it was clear that logging had be done recently. I had no idea that NZ had a logging industry. We spent at least an hour going through carefully planted forests interspersed with that awful gut-wrenching view of cut down landscapes. Eventually we ended up in the town of Taupo, which was holding its annual 160km bike race. When the bus pulled in to the station we had 20 minutes "comfort break". I sprinted down to the lakefront to get a picture of the first snow-capped mountain I had seen in NZ. Then I ran back and made it to the bus with 2 minutes to spare. Taupo was a pretty town and I put it on my list of places to come back to later. Pulling out of Taupo was dramatic. There's a stretch of motorway called Desert Rd and then right out of nowhere there's a mini Grand Canyon, with a stream and eroded layers of rock and everything. Very cool. The bus driver popped in a video when we were 2 hours from Wellington: Spiderman. It was a little distracting from the scenery, but it was a long bus ride, so the entertainment did help. Total time from Auckland to Wellington: 11 hours. I called Jane's friend Mark when I got off the bus and he came and picked me up and took me back to his house. Wow - what a house. Very posh. He was actually attending a party with his wife elsewhere, so he gave me a key and took off. New Zealanders take their hospitality very seriously. I freshened up a bit and went off to find the cable car. Wellington has a lot of similarities to San Francisco. Though the cable car is really more of a funicular, since it only goes up and down one small section. I did find it, though it was about to close, so I rode it down and right back to the top. I had wanted to go out and find a pub, but that was not to be. Once I got back to Mark's house, I started to unpack a little. Shortly, Mark and his wife Bria (like Brian without the -n) came home and we shared a bottle a NZ red wine - very nice, actually.

On Sunday morning I had a small bite to eat with Bria and then she drove me down to the waterfront, dropping me off at Te Papa. Te Papa is the national museum of New Zealand and is an amazing place. I spent several hours, and didn't even begin to do it justice. It really is a first-class museum and anyone in the part of the world must go see it. I cannot say enough nice things about Te Papa. I will come back to Wellington and revisit Te Papa when I've got more time. Next, I cruised through the Wellington City & Sea Museum, which wasn't quite worth the $5 entry fee, but was ok. It was very Wellington-centric, which was to be expected, though I didn't really get into their local sports heroes. Some of the maritime stuff was quite good. I took the cable car back up to Mark and Bria's neighborhood. Took a shortcut through the Botanic Gardens down to their house, though it wasn't very gardeny. In fact, they had a sequoia, and as I came up to it I thought to myself: "That looks a lot like it should be in CA, imagine parallel evolution like that so many miles away!" Then I saw the tag on it explaining it was from CA. Anyway, I met Bria and she took me to the supermarket. To show my gratitude I wanted to cook them (Mark, Bria and their son Alex) dinner. I made a salad, home-made ravioli and pasta sauce, and a fruit cobbler for desert. Alex is 12 or 13 and is really into cooking, especially a la The Naked Chef. I had fun teaching how to make pasta dough and he enjoyed making the cobbler.

Monday morning and another early start. Bria dropped me off in front of the Lynx, which is a fast ferry to the south island. Of course, the Lynx wasn't sailing until 3pm which was no good. So I hiked with my pack over to the train station where I caught a free shuttle bus with like 50 other backpackers to the regular InterIslander ferry building. I bought a ticket and checked my backpack, just like at the airport. The ferry takes about 3 hours to cross Cook Straight to get to Picton, while the Lynx would have only taken 1.5 hours, giving me some time to explore Picton. That will have to wait for another day. The ferry was huge - it had three passenger decks, one deck for cars and another deck for TRAINS! I had never seen that before. It was about one and a half football fields long, and had its own movie theater, though movie tickets were extra. The movie playing was: K-19 The Widowmaker. I thought that was an odd choice for a boat going across a tricky patch of water, but what do I know. The InterCity buses start right at the ferry building, so after collecting my backpack it was easy to get on the right bus. It took about 4 hours to get from Picton to Christchurch. During the ferry and bus ride I read "The Vintner's Luck" by Elizabeth Knox (who it seems is in Bria's book club - I told her about "Spartina" by John Casey as a book idea) which Bria had loaned me - it was quite enthralling. The south island is quite pretty. We went along the coast for a stretch - there were these razor-like rocks going some distance from shore which made me promise myself I'd never sail around here without good charts and a GPS. When I finally got to Christchurch, I checked in to my hostel and called Mrs Tuffley. Her son Chris had given me some books to deliver for his parents' birthday presents. I made plans to have dinner with them Thursday.

Tuesday morning and it was time to do laundry again. While my stuff was in the washer, I ran out and scored some corn flakes and milk to last me for breakfast for a few days. Once everything was dry and folded and set out for the day. First off was the Botanic Gardens, which were delightful. On the way there I went through Victoria Park and walked a little way next to the beautiful and scenic and serene Avon River, which you can go punting on, just like in Venice. Anyway, You would not believe the rose garden they have. It was huge and it just took my breath away. Thousands and thousands of roses all blooming. Roses in every shape and color. It was almost too much. I tried to take some good pictures, but I don't think they can capture the overwhelming feeling of being completely surrounded by so many flowers. Just incredible. Next door to the Gardens is the Canterbury Museum. This is another good one which some nice natural history focusing on early Maori culture, the now extinct moa (a huge flightless bird) and early European settlers. I was only able to do half before admitting defeat due to fatigue. I will come back later since I've got almost a week in here Christchurch. On the way back to the hostel I found Cathedral Square (not hard really - it is the epicenter of Christchurch). However, they have the coolest thing there - a huge chess set. The pieces are about 2 to 3 feet high and people just stand around and play. I watched a couple of games and then couldn't resist getting involved. :-) I won both my games.

Still to come: Hal learns about the bus system and forms some conclusions about the city of Christchurch. Plus: Hal visits Antarctica. But these won't get detailed until early next week when I'm back in Orewa. Stay tuned!