29.2.08 7:45pm- Christchurch

Making beds at Tailor-Made-Tekapo Backpackers

Morning cleaning

Morning tea with Maryrose and Michael at Tailor-Made-Tekapo

Baby hedgehog in Michael's garden

Our room at Tailor-Made-Tekapo

I don’t know how it happens, but it seems like everything Seth and I do ends up being really sketchy, and this is one of the sketchiest days yet.

We spent our last night in Lake Tekapo trying to repack our bags like crazy, but we did manage to find a few minutes to pick freshly ripened raspberries (a daily ritual), as well as indulge in a game of evening tennis (playing in low light is a bad idea: it is hard to judge where exactly the ball is when trying to hit it).

After a late night, we got up early for a nice long run. Running in Lake Tekapo isn’t all that impressive due to the barren, but hilly, landscape, so I had been saving this one track for the last day. We went up and around the summit of Mt John, near the observatory, then headed back down and along the lake so I could take a close look at the sheepdog statue and church before the crowds arrived. (The church opens at 9am, which is when all the tour buses flock in.) From afar the two icons were fairly quiet, but as we ran down the long peninsula a bus full of Asian tourists turned the corner, and I raced that bus down before the passengers got off. Boy, it was a very close call, but I barely made it and was able to take a few unobstructed pictures.

Mt John Observatory

Church of the Good Shepherd

Church of the Good Shepherd

Sheepdog monument

Like any big trip, we gave ourselves plenty of time but had to pack up and leave Tailor-Made in a whirlwind flurry (just barely getting to say good-bye to Michael), and drove directly to Christchuch in time to return the car by our 4pm deadline. Along the way we ate raspberries, apples, and ice cream that were left over from the past few days, and admired the great fields of fluffy white (and some black) sheep that so characterise Mackenzie Country.

We pulled into Better Rentals in Christchurch around 4:15 (we had to swap driver’s seat and I took the wheel so that Seth wasn’t seen driving when we arrived). Luckily, the car wasn’t damaged in any way and we didn’t have to pay any fines. Even though we take good care of rental cars, damaging them is always a source of anxiety for me. I was a little disappointed, however, that when we first picked up the car, the dealer convinced us (well, me) that we should buy glass insurance for $75, but by the end of the trip we didn’t even chip the glass. Seth was determined to chuck a rock at the windshield if it was not damaged by the end of the trip, but we were running late and I think he forgot to do it.

We asked the rental guy where we could leave our bags for a few hours so we could walk around town. He offered to leave our things (four backpacks, a guitar, a black duffle, and two bags of food) in the back of a large truck, and we could pick it up before the final van arrived, due back by 7pm.

We spent the next two hours wandering around downtown in the drizzling rain (we weren’t wearing our raincoats and didn’t have our umbrellas, but at least it wasn’t very heavy). When we returned to the rental agency at 6:45pm, the van had already arrived and the gate was locked. Seth had to climb the fence and pass our bags over to me, one by one. At least the truck was unlocked so we could get to our bags! At this point, things were starting to become sketchy.

We lugged our eight bags back to the city centre. We will take the bus to the airport tonight and sleep at the international arrivals section, which is open 24hours and also has a shower. Our flight is at 6:35am and it would save lots of time and money to stay at the airport overnight. We could save about $50 in not having to stay at a busy hostel (even though we would only actually sleep there 3-4 hours and it would be really out of the way), and $20 in not having a shuttle pick us up early in the morning (the city buses don’t run before 7:30am on Saturdays). The airport bus is $7 (per person), but if we get off two stops before the airport and walk a kilometre or so, it would only be $2.50. Similar to Canberra, we have this down to an art.

When we got to the town centre I realised that I had spent my remaining NZ cash on petrol and forgot to save $5 for the bus ride. I bought a shirt (the only souvenir I purchased during the entire trip, besides a necklace for Dahlia, and a pin, which I collect) and a discounted Starbucks coffee, but my US check card was unable to let me get cash back. I can get $20 from an ATM but I don’t want to be stuck with an extra $15 in NZ currency. I am in a busy downtown Starbucks right now, watching over our bags, and Seth is practicing his guitar. He just happens to be practicing in the street, with his guitar case open and facing passers-by… I hope he gets at least $5 so we can get some bus tickets. I also hope he doesn’t need a permit to busk, even though he is simply “practicing” guitar!

It is really frustrating how much more difficult things become when you try to save a few dollars while travelling. I am pretty sure that Seth and I resort to doing things that seem “sketchy” because we won’t spend what money we have on silly, frivolous, or overpriced conveniences, just because they are easy. For example, we could lighten our load quite a bit if we chucked our leftover food and went out to eat. Or, we could pay a few dollars to store our luggage somewhere, instead of having to stash it in a cargo truck and needing to jump a fence to retrieve it. I believe that money should be well spent and not wasted, and not put towards arbitrary things such as paying nearly three-times as much to be dropped off in front of the airport, just because it is the airport (which heavily taxes taxies and buses), instead of a nearby stop about a 10-15min walk away. Another example is buying a cup of tea, which runs up to $4. Not only is it silly to pay so much for the 10c tea bag, but it is also silly to pay for hot water. When you earn less than $10,000 a year and have to pay $20,000 a year on tuition and about $150-200 per week on rent (we have been lucky in this area), walking to the airport seems like a pretty good idea.

28.2.08 6:30pm- Lake Tekapo V

This is our last night at Tailor-Made-Tekapo Backpackers. Neither Seth nor I want to leave since it is so nice here, and because we still don’t have a place to go when we return to Canberra! We will spend the evening preparing to fly back, and one of the big challenges will be to eat all our food—we have done such a good job making use of “free bin” items (random foods hostel guests leave behind) that we actually have a few more cans of beans, tuna, packages of noodles, eggs, etc to eat by tomorrow!

On Sunday (Feb 24^th) we went to an evening service at the Church of the Good Shepherd (1935). Lake Tekapo is famous for this small chapel made of great stone blocks, which hangs on to a small peninsula that reaches into the iridescent blue lake. It is shared by several denominations, and the service on Sunday was Anglican. The interior was very cute—only 4 rows of pews on the left and 5 on the right, and it seemed quite full with about 20 worshippers. The doors were, at that time, closed to onlookers, but we could still see people passing by the windows outside. The service was full of little old ladies (probably half local and half visitors), and the worship books had many sections written in both English and Maori. I was really surprised at how frequently the Maori language appears in NZ—we even found a news program on TV delivered in Maori!Lord's Prayer in Maori

Lake Tekapo is also famous for the small statue of a collie dog, which stands next to the chapel. The monument (erected in honour of the sheepdogs that made possible the development of Mackenzie Country) seems a little silly to me, particularly since it attracts hordes of tourists who jump off their bus, take a few snapshots, then hop back on and never really explore the area beyond the little merino wool gift shops. The statue is fairly new, built in the 1960s, and doesn’t do justice to its surroundings. I still haven’t gone to see it up close—we’ve only run past it in the early mornings—but maybe I will tomorrow when we pull out of town, just for the heck of it.

Yesterday Michael gave Seth and me the morning off from work and suggested we spend the day at Mt. Cook National Park. It was a great sunny day so the threat of a shower on the ranges was not as high. The drive was only about 1hour 15min, and our first stop was at the Blue Lakes. We took an hour walk to and from the lakes, which were not nearly as majestic as their namesake, being little green pools unworthy of even a photograph! Luckily, the walk also took us to the Tasman Glacier, which is actually horizontal for its last several kilometres and melting, so what remains at lower elevations is spectacular chunks of very dirty ice surrounded by murky water.

Our big walk for the day was the Sealy Tarns tramp, which began at the Horrible Hermitage Hotel at Mt Cook Village and after about 30minutes of boardwalk took us suddenly up an extremely steep ridge face. It was like doing a Stairmaster for 2 hours, but much harder and scarier. It even made my legs feel like Jell-o when I would stop to admire the view past the sudden drop. Seth’s legs were wobbly, too, which was very funny! The narrow, rocky track ended at Sealy Tarns—a tarn is a small lake that sits on a mountain—and from here we got a nice face-full of Mt Sefton (3145m) and views of Mt Cook (3754m, tallest peak in “Australasia”). The total walk was about 3 hours, but we climbed nearly 500m (1,667 feet) from the base of the ridge in about 1 hour.

When we were walking back we could hear keas off near the village. After our initial excitement we remembered how curious and destructive they are, and that our car was unattended! We got to the car just in time to see the little buggers flying in, so we spent a little while playing with them in the road. They are so intelligent and inquisitive, probably as smart as human toddlers.

Once again, the keas were probably the highlight of a very fun day. :P However, it was an added bonus that we got away with not having to buy any petrol at Mt Cook (which probably would have been close to $2/L) and managed to just barely get back to Tailor-Made without running out!

When we returned, tired and hungry, and fairly late at night, Seth decided to trim his beard. He had been unshaven since we camped in Okarito, 19 days ago. His beard got fairly impressive, mostly because of big splotches of white (not gray, white) mingling with the red and brown. He did not fully shave but at least it is more manageable now!

Good news about great people

Just a quick note to congratulate my friend from 3rd grade, Dahlia, on her engagement :o)

Also, Seth just received his first request for a big job interview from Brandeis University in Massachusetts. It is a tenure-track position with the title of assistant professor and would be a fantastic job. Oh, I'm so excited for him!

Some of Seth's pictures

Here are just a few of Seth's photos--he has a nice camera and lens to help get a bit closer to the wildlife :o)

Rare yellow-eyed penguin coming ashore (Curio Bay's petrified forest)

Royal albatross nesting after spending years at sea (Taiaroa Head, Otago Peninsula)

Curio Bay and Seth's one-week stubble. This was nearly two weeks ago and he still hasn't shaved!

22.2.08 7:30pm- Lake Tekapo IV

This afternoon, after our daily hostel cleaning, Seth and I went out with Michael (the owner of Tailor-Made-Tekapo Backpackers) in his 4WD to Clover Hill, located on the bank of Lake Tekapo. Michael, once a farmer, is a keen birdwatcher and knows quite a bit about plants, animals, and all sorts of other interesting things. He is an intriguing fellow--keeps to himself but has a good sense of humour and a kind demeanour.

Clover Hill was just like the rest of this region—flat, dry, and treeless. Michael explained that the reason the land is so dead is because it is very dry. This side of the mountain range only gets about 12-16 inches of rain a year. What little that seems to grow also gets its share of sheep to graze it down!

Michael brought his spotting scope and pointed out some endemic birds—such as paradise shelducks, New Zealand scaups, and rare black stilts (these long-legged black curiosities have been recovering from devastatingly low numbers, with only 23 birds in existence in the early 1980s).

Black stilt (photo from Department of Conservation website)

Being an enthusiastic fisherman, our guide then also pulled out his pole and invited Seth to join him in catching “a wee fish or two.” Michael started it off and only a minute or two later reeled in a large brown trout (an introduced species, of course). It weighed in at 4.25lb and was 22inches long. Seth had his turn, but no luck.

When we returned to the hostel Michael gave us his trout and even gutted it for us (which we had no idea how to do) then gave us a lemon and fennel from his garden to cook it with. The fish was very good, though it was a little strange to eat something I watched die just an hour or so ago.

21.2.08 5:30pm- Lake Tekapo III

The past few days in Lake Tekapo have been pretty cruisy, and I have even managed to get a bit of work done! It feels great to be able to unpack our bags and stay in one place for more than one or two nights. We have already gotten into a daily routine—go running first thing in the morning, do two hours of housekeeping, have lunch, read/work/check email, have dinner, play tennis (there are courts about 20m away, at the community centre next door), pick a big cupful of raspberries hanging on the bush in Michael’s garden, do a bit more work, then have supper (evening snack), and go to bed. Not a bad way to spend our days! In some ways, when I begin looking forward to going back to Canberra at the end of the month, I remember that there really is no home for Seth and me to return to when we get back. We don’t even have a mailing address (Seth’s superannuation forms got bounced back from Johns and they can’t be delivered). Tailor-Made-Tekapo Backpackers is our only home for now, which is pretty silly and a bit depressing.

Lake Tekapo

Chapel of the Good Shepherd, Lake Tekapo

Fresh raspberries, every day!

Today we mixed things up a bit by visiting the observatory on the top of Mt. John, which overlooks Lake Tekapo. Lake Tekapo offers some of the clearest sky in all of New Zealand, and at an elevation of 700m it is also the coldest region in New Zealand. The sky always seems cloudless and immaculate and at night the temperature drops very quickly. I believe the southern lights are visible here, so I will have to dig up information on when to look for them. The top of Mt. John gave a full 360 degree view of the electric blue lakes and desolate ranges (all brown save a few pine plantation). I still can’t help but wonder why it is so treeless…

19.2.08 2:30pm- Oamaru and Lake Tekapo II

When I returned from the run (Seth was still out), I went to grab some clean clothes off the line. As soon as I stepped outside, Agra grabbed my shirt sleeve and firmly told me to leave $10 for the laundry. She asserted that I had “done at least five loads worth, used up all the detergent, did the washing way too late at night, and tied up the washing lines.” Stunned, I didn’t know what to say and let her walk bitterly away from me. Well, we had only done two medium-sized loads of laundry, used the recommended amount of detergent, did the washing as soon as we returned from viewing the penguins--which she insisted we do--and used the lines she told us to hang our clothes on. I was a bit confused over the whole thing, but she was so stern she left me in shock.

When Seth returned from his run I could hear Agra outside arguing with him about the laundry. Seth is much better at putting up a fight than I am, and I knew he would not let her get away with pulling a fast one on us. After a while he came in to the room and said she had told him the same thing about the laundry, and he refused to pay. I bumped into her a few more times in the morning, and she didn’t bring it up with me again. It was hard to read Agra: she seemed really generous and protective, yet also burnt out and tired of backpackers. Perhaps she had gotten taken advantage of the past few weeks from the hordes of people passing through her home. She had mentioned that she had been fully booked the past two weeks, but for some reason it was very quiet when the two of us were there. Instead of fleeing her house on a sour note, it would have been good to speak with her, but at that point we just wanted out. Besides, it was 10:38am, and she warned us the night before not to be in her way after 10:30.

We spent the rest of the morning exploring Oamaru. For a town its size it sure had some pretty impressive features, like that opera house! We did some last-minute grocery shopping, knowing that good food from that point on would be harder to come by. One place, Bin Inn (which we also found in Nelson but it was closed), was really great—it was full of reasonably priced organics, bulk grains and mixes, and other splurge items.

We left Oamaru, heading northwest through the Waitaki Valley, passing farmland and beautiful grassy hills. Our first stop was at the Elephant Rocks, giant limestone rocks formed 25 million years ago and eventually exposed by the sea and wind. The rocks are so named because they look like huge, lumbering creatures grazing in the fields. This site was used as a setting in the movie Narnia, which I have yet to watch.

We carried on westward through Omarama, then north, past the fabricated, overly modern Twizel, and finally to our grand destination, Lake Tekapo. The drive was extremely flat, brown, treeless and dry, but the entire time this landscape was contrasted by the surrounding mountains, equally barren. The more distant Southern Alps, however, were also visible, but snow-capped. We passed by several lakes and rivers, damned up for hydroelectric plants. What an eye-sore! The lakes, however, were extremely opaque and blue (like a swimming pool with too many chemicals in it), but this milkiness is caused naturally by sediments called “rock flour”, remnants from when the glaciers carved the lakes.

The town at Lake Tekapo (pop 315) is small, yet booming. It is pretty flat with not many trees (which I didn’t notice before when looking at pictures of Lake Tekapo), surrounded by brown, chiseled mountains, and has a great, open, cloudless sky. We went to Tailor-Made-Backpackers and checked in with Maryrose and one of the owners, Wilma. We will be working here the next ten days.

Wilma gave us a brief tour and let us have the afternoon off, which we spent cooking dinner, walking into “town” and exploring the area, and writing. (Seth played his guitar, which he had regretfully neglected the preceding week or so.) Tailor-Made-Backpackers is very comfortable, clean, and new-looking (even though it is somehow considered a heritage site because it was built for people who worked at the hydro-electric plants some years ago). It consists of several little buildings (VIP, Singlemens, and the Kitchen Building) so the rooms are set apart a little. It does lack a bit of character, but the way it is set up reminds me of my old house in Raleigh. Luckily, Wilma gave Seth and me a nice big double room to ourselves. There is also a garden with veggies and a raspberry plant, some kiddie play areas, and a little community centre with tennis courts right next door. This suburban neighbourhood makes me very nostalgic for home!

This morning (Tuesday 19^th Feb) Seth got up early for his run and I slept in a bit. At 10am we went to reception to begin working. Wilma hired a few external girls for the morning to clean the kitchen and bathrooms, and she had Seth and me help her make a few beds and vacuum. Her husband, Michael, is out of town for a few days, so she has been working like mad keeping things in order (the hostel is fully booked three days in advance). Wilma is very nice and genuinely friendly, which is a huge relief. A kind owner or manager can make all the difference in a person’s experience of a new area, especially if working for them. We did light work until noon, but stopped 15min shy for tea and biscuits. If this is all we have to do every day in order to stay in a large double room in a peaceful town (with nice people), I will be very pleased!