Busy Two Days on South Island - New Zealand
SWATTING SAND FLIES ON THE SHIPS CREEK BEACH
Kia Ora from Christchurch, New Zealand! We have had a very busy last two days.
Yesterday morning we woke at Lake Moeraki Wilderness Lodge to clear skies and India’s full agenda of activities. As soon as we finished breakfast, we suited up with lodge-provided Wellington boots and rain gear. We met up with Ben, the lodge’s awesome naturalist/guide, and drove 20 minutes down to Ships Creek. I thought the name Ships Creek was hysterical, and couldn’t help asking repeatedly “will we be up here without a taddle?” Despite making this lame joke several times, the only one who laughed was Tallulah. I think she felt sorry for me.
Once we got to the beach, Tallulah flat-out refused to walk. It was windy, and the sea was rough. She had gotten confused about the order of the day’s activities, and was vocally concerned that we were going kayaking in the ocean. She had also gotten used to staying back with Adrienne, doing “girl stuff” at the sheep-station homestead, while we went off on walks. Tallulah sustained and amplified her protestations. India and I basically flipped a coin to see who would go on the walk with Zola and Ben, and who would take Lu to sit in the van in the parking lot.
Lu and I left the beach, and once we were out of the wind, she was fine. We had a very nice, totally sheltered walk through the swamp on a boardwalk, and climbed a strange wooden observation tower, made with multiple aluminum household ladders. The rest of the group met us, and we did the swamp walk a second time. It was great to see Zola asking Ben a thousand questions about Maori legends, and laughing gleefully as he and Ben imitated bird calls and acted out ritual Maori warfare,
In the early afternoon, we took a canoe and a kayak out on the river in front of the lodge. Zola went in a kayak by himself, which was a character-building experience for him, I think. We had been warned repeatedly to only go upriver toward the lake, avoiding the scary rapids just below the lodge. We were a little concerned with Zola’s lack of kayak control. He paddled in circles for a while, and was drifting slowly downstream. We were on the verge of a dramatic canoe-rescue intervention when he figured it out, and saved himself.
While I was on a conference call later in the afternoon, India took the kids on a walk down to Monro Beach, about 3 kilometers from the lodge. Interestingly, India told me later, both kids hiked and ran the entire way with great enthusiasm. Not a word of protest from either of them, even as the Wellington boots rubbed blisters on their little feet.
We all went part of the way back down the Monro Beach path at 5 pm, for eel-feeding time. By dripping pig blood into the water, Ben quickly attracted 10-12 big, black fresh-water eels. Ben and Zola fed the eels pieces of pork, driving the creatures into a slithering frenzy of slimy bodies and gawping, toothy mouths. Lu was alarmed by the whole scene, and retreated 5 meters or so back from the river’s edge, into the rain forest. Her favorite part of the experience was when Zola slipped on the rocks, and nearly fell into the midst of the eels. Ben saved him, and India caught it on camera.
A CLOSE CALL
Before dinner, India and I went for a run together back down the Monro Beach track. This is only noteworthy because it was literally the first time that we have left Zola and Tallulah on their own for more than a few minutes. They and we knew that the lodge staff was there if they needed anything, but the plan was that the kids were to stay in our room and take care of themselves. Tallulah was fine, but Zola, India and I were all nervous about this. He took my watch, to count down the maximum of 40 minutes we would be gone. India and I flew down to the beach and back in just over 30 minutes, my fastest run in my recent memory. We got back to the hotel room before anyone panicked or got upset. Success!
The last adventure of the day was going out to see glow worms after dinner. We walked along the deserted highway for about 300 meters, until we reached a muddy cliff face next to the road. In the dark we could see hundreds of tiny, pale green lights hanging from the mud. The glow worms use their luminescence to attract sand flies, which they catch for food in simple hanging webs. Go glow worms! On the walk back to the lodge, the ubiquitous Ben used his laser pointer to show us the Southern Cross, Saturn, the Pleiades. When he pointed out three bright stars in a close row, I was thrilled to hear Tallulah shout from my shoulders, “That is Ryan’s belt!”
This morning we raced out of the lodge at 8:30 am, driving up the west coast to Greymouth, to catch the Tranz Alpine Express at 1:30 pm. We had been told that the trip would take at least 4 to 4.5 hours, driving fast. We were genuinely concerned about missing the train. The road was generally pretty twisty and narrow, with many one-lane bridges over milky, glacial rivers. About two hours into the drive, though, we had covered enough distance to realize that we were probably OK. In a fit of time optimism, we decided to make a fly-by visit to the Franz Joseph Glacier, 4 kilometers off the highway.
GLACIER IS OVER ZOLA'S LEFT SHOULDER
We parked as close to the glacier as we could. With helicopters buzzing overhead, we selected the shortest trail that gave us a view of the glacier, and literally ran up it (Lu on my shoulders). We got to the end of the trail, admired the glacier for a full 30 seconds, took a photo, and then ran back to the car. In all, the side trip set us back nearly 40 minutes, which made catching the train a touch-and-go proposition again. As we drove, the kids entertained themselves by singing endless camp songs, and then with a game called, “imitate Daddy’s scream when he went bungy jumping.” Wholesome fun on the road.
In the end, we still made it to Greymouth, and found the station by 1 pm. By coincidence, on the platform we ran into A.J., our Nebraskan interior designer dinner companion from three weeks ago at Ayers Rock. He had just arrived from Christchurch, and was headed in the opposite direction, but we had 20 minutes to talk before our train and his bus both departed. Nice kid.
The 4-hour Tranz Alpine from Greymouth to Christchurch is reputed to be one of the most beautiful train rides in the world. The second half of the ride was definitely pretty spectacular: lots of viaducts perched hundreds of feet above steep riverine gorges, long views of low, rolling mountains. At the halfway point, dozens of kids boarded the train, on their way home after two weeks of government-sponsored mountain camp. They ranged in age from 8-9 to 13-14. Zola fled, afraid that we would suggest he interview some of them.
When we finally arrived in Christchurch, we had an experience which made us melancholy and short-tempered for the rest of the day. Our taxi driver was a woman about our age, who had recently emigrated from South Africa. I greeted her in my bad Afrikaans, and she and India and I started talking about South Africa versus New Zealand.
Intellectually, we know that someone who has emigrated permanently from their home country is likely to be very negative. If South Africa weren’t a complete and irredeemable mess, why would she have left? Still, her deep negativity, and talk of lawlessness and murder and corruption made us feel just awful. She even invited us to have dinner with the Afrikaner expat community, who would “convince us to never set foot there again.”
Would it be completely irresponsible if we were to move back to Cape Town? Are we delusional and naive? Are we crazy? Should we even vacation there? Tough questions to ask ourselves at the end of another long day on the road.
Our spirits were lifted, and our travel mojo restored, when we walked to a nearby Indian restaurant for dinner. We had not eaten Indian food since we flew out of Delhi in early December. We were all excited to order our favorites (Zola ate basket after basket of butter naan), and to talk about the amazing things we saw and did on that part of our trip. We bored our Varanasi-born waitress with stories about our trip to her hometown. We even sent our Indian guide, Indrajit, a family “wish you were here” e-mail.
Tomorrow we are swimming with dolphins, and seeing the sights of Christchurch. We will probably decline the Afrikaner dinner invitation, and continue believing that South Africa is wonderful and safe(ish). We certainly continue to like our time in New Zealand.
SWINGING BRIDGE IN THE RAINFOREST