Change In Plans

Three good quotes from this week:

Zola, as we walked in the rain in Akaroa,
“You know what I find attractive? Girls with pigtails. Very attractive.”

Tallulah, as she admired herself in the mirror, wearing a new princess outfit,
“I’m as cute as a … as a … I’m as cute as a duck!”

Scott, our glamorous new friend and father of four boys from Orange County, on his philosophy as a father and husband,
“If Momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.”

Words to live by, all.

WEATHERING THE STORM AT THE ANTARCTIC CENTRE

Kia Ora again from Christchurch, New Zealand!

This was a good day that got off to a bad start.

For some reason, we are staying in a bed and breakfast, which is probably our least favorite of all accommodation types. We always feel as though B&B owners and other guests look askance at our noisy family and in-room sprawl.

Because we did schoolwork early in the morning (after being woken up by construction workers in the house), we showed up for breakfast at 9:15. We were not aware that the owners usually stopped serving at 9:00. Further opprobrium.

I immediately spilled two cups of coffee on the table cloth, then Zola dropped a piece of toast, butter side down, onto the carpet.  Tallulah toasted and buttered about a dozen slices of bread, and left them neatly stacked on her plate, with no intention of eating them.

Our host, slightly shocked by the breakfast carnage, announced that a driver was waiting for us outside.  The taxi to take us to pick up our rental car had arrived 20 minutes early. In hyper-egalitarian New Zealand, it was very awkward to ask the driver to continue waiting (in the pouring rain, no less) while we finished breakfast. Further opprobrium from the B&B crowd.

Our taxi driver, who turned out to be a gentle and patient man, entertained us on the drive downtown by describing all of the ways that New Zealand is superior to Australia.  The history was biased but interesting.  

After some moderate rental-car confusion at Hertz, we started our 90-minute drive down to Akaroa, on the Pacific coast.  We had to hurry to catch an 11:30 “swim with dolphins” boating trip.

The rain, the twisty mountain roads, and our lateness made for a nerve-wracking drive.  When we pulled up to the pier in Akaroa village, tires smoking, we found that the dolphin cruise had been cancelled due to bad weather. Given the high wind, pouring rain, rough seas, and 45-degree (Fahrenheit) air temperature, nobody was terribly disappointed. 

At this point, we were at serious risk of having a Dingle Day: a frustrating waste of time. We invented this name after a fairly disastrous day trip to Ireland’s Bay of Dingle, back at the beginning of our round-the-world journey.

In an effort to prevent a full Dingle, we found the coziest, most inviting pub in Akaroa, and stopped to revise our plans over hot cocoa and Diet Coke. With our guidebooks out, we discovered that we had stumbled into Harbour 71, one of the best restaurants in New Zealand.

We had a terrific lunch at Harbour 71, and then a beautiful weather-shortened walk around quaint Akaroa. The town had originally been settled by the French (who knew?), so the streets were all “Rues,” and tricolors were flying from most of the old buildings.

On the way back to Christchurch, we took the scenic “Tourist Drive” route. The road was set high in the volcanic mountains of the Banks Peninsula, looking down through steep green pastures to the ocean below. Like everything else in New Zealand: ridiculously beautiful.

HIGH ABOVE AKAROA

Plan B, as agreed at Harbour 71, was to check out the “International Antarctic Centre.” It is billed as “the world’s best center for experiential learning about Antarctica”. I’m not sure how much competition there is for the “world’s best” title, but the Antarctic Centre was flat-out awesome.

The first big room was a recreation of Scott’s Antarctic camp, with a deep-voiced narrator reading from the explorers’ diaries. Lights rose and faded, then real snow started to fall on us.

The main attraction was a huge freezer room, cooled to -8 Celsius, with an igloo and an ice slide. An electronic sign gave the temperature, wind speed, and wind-chill, with the ominous text, “Next storm begins in 6 minutes.” When the 6 minutes had counted down, there was some broadcast radio chatter of “Oh no, big storm coming.”

The lights went down, and a wind machine was cranked up to about 50 kilometers per hour.  The wind chill dropped to about -30 Celsius.  Tallulah howled for us to get out of there. We ended up taking refuge in the igloo, although I still really regretted having worn shorts.

SHELTER FROM THE STORM

The rest of the center had a live-penguin exhibit, an awesome HD video of Antarctic scenery, and loads of well curated artifacts and science exhibits. The kids ran around in a state of high excitement, dragging India and me physically to see the inside of a tent, or a smooth rock, or a giant model that shows how seasons are created by the earth spinning on its axis.

As we were leaving, we took a ride on a Swedish-built, amphibious half-track vehicle called a Hagglund. The driver blasted through an outdoor obstacle course at tremendous speed, jumping dirt mounds, climbing steep hills, fording a deep pond. We got bounced around like crazy in the back of the Hagglund, but it was definitely good, old-fashioned, redneck fun.

From Antarctica, we went to the Willowbank Wildlife Reserve for what turned out to be a quadruple-pack of evening entertainment.  First we did a very quick fly-by tour of the zoo on our own. At some points we were literally running past the cages, but it was fun to see more eels, wallabies, great bird life, and some gnarly feral pigs.

We rushed through the animal exhibits to be on time for the second event of the visit: a Maori cultural program. A heavily tattooed, fur-clad Maori woman led us on foot through the zoo, to a replica Maori village. On the walk, our group was “attacked” noisily by warriors (scared the pants off little Tallulah), had a peace conference, and was instructed about Maori language and culture. When we reached the village, the attacking warriors sang and danced and showed us the famous pre-battle haka. The whole program was incredibly well done, participative, and fun. The kids loved it.  There was a small group of non-English-speaking Japanese tourists with us, though, who looked completely baffled during the entire experience.

DOING THE HAKA

The third event was dinner, in front of a roaring fire.  By any standard, the food was good.  Considering that the restaurant was basically the cafeteria of a municipal zoo, it was truly remarkable.

The final event was the long-awaited “Kiwi Tour.”  A zoologist walked us through a lot of bird exhibits, including letting the kids feed honey to the big, brown Kea birds.

Eventually, we were shushed into silence and taken into the darkened kiwi area.  Kiwis are nocturnal, and, being nearly extinct and essentially helpless against all predators, they are justifiably nervous animals.  Tallulah and Zola were thrilled to finally see these birds up close.  

Overall, the Antarctic Centre and the Willowbank Reserve were just great.  It turns out they are affiliated.  Despite the small initial challenges, we ended up having a pretty terrific day.

FEEDING THE KEA BIRDS ON THE KIWI TOUR

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 godfather dvd

ALL ABOARD!

 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