It's been wet lately. We've sought out farms to get us out of the rain and we've had to leave farms because the rain spoiled any work they had in mind for us.
From the top of the south, we made our way onto the West Coast, where water shortages are unheard of, and the population density is low, even for NZ. More people aim for self-sustainability down there out of necessity rather than choice. It's relatively remote and most of the work is in mining or tourism. Greymouth was the site of the recent disaster that I'm guessing everyone's heard of where 29 miners died in an underground coal mine explosion. This was driven home to us when we hopped in a car with a guy who had been in the mine that very day, but had decided to take off early, coincidentally saving his life.
It's a strange mix on the west coast. You've got the rain-soaked, hard-to-find work, boondocks, and you've got the tourist towns interspersed. One of our hosts mixes bio-dynamic (read: astrology-driven gardening) with selling glass beads to tourists. Strange mix and a stranger business plan. We saw a similar situation in Chicken, Alaska where a lady essentially owned the town and was 100% reliant on Holland-America, possibly the world's biggest cruise-ship company, sending tour buses her way. Which sounds like a decent money-maker, except that was down at dirt road in Alaska and the highway was washed out most of the summer. Personally, my sympathy with remote dwellers relying on tourism for income is: LOW. This was the first place I've ever been where they burned coal for heat. It's understandable because it's super cheap and way less effort than burning wood, but whether it stands up to the ethics of the times is another question. Still, when something that costs $400/yr heats your house, cooks your food, and provides hot water, you're bound to be a little biased. Either way, her place had a good view:
From the west coast...
we went into the mountains across one of the higher passes in the country.
My research led me to a free hut that was only a 15 minute walk form the highway and gave us shelter for the rain for a few nights and time to finish a few books. The used bookstore situation in this country leaves something to be desired, so we spent a day hitching into Christchurch just to stock up on readable material. They have a chinook-ish wind on the east side of the island, so when it's pissing rain on the coast and in the mountains, as it had been, it's a hot dry wind on a sunny day on the east coast. Land of contrasts. Christchurch has been very slowly recovering from a 7.1 earthquake, with thousands of aftershocks, including a 4.9 tremor a few days after we were there.
With our Christmas tramping plans spoiled by the rain, we decided to meet up with my friend Kyle and his girlfriend and do an easy walk into a hut for Christmas back on the West Coast...
It really didn't feel like that time of year prior to that, what with it being barbeque and summer holiday season, but with a few friendly faces and a tiny little wood-burning stove, we did our best. They're on a working visa trip and bought a cheap van, but otherwise our trips aren't to dissimilar. We did some comparing and contrasting as to our travel methods, but at the end of the day, fuel costs seem to be the clincher for us. Sure we can't stop at every roadside waterfall and snap a picture with the dazed masses, but our budget is a third what we saw quoted as the bare minimum in a guidebook, which goes towards explaining why we're staying 4 months instead of the average 2 months or less.
New Zealand has over 3000 glaciers, but Franz Josef Glacier and Fox Glacier are a few of the only glaciers in the world that descend into rainforest and within a few hundred meters of sea. A few others are in South America and Alaska, but those ones don't get up to 400 people per day walking on them, a few of whom may never have even walked on a dirt track before. On a clear day, the sound of helicopters is non-stop. We stopped here only to do some housekeeping at a resort in exchange for room and some board. We lucked out being able to score a room because it rained 300-400mm in 36hrs and closed about 4 different highways. Housekeeping was also a healthy reminder to think about the future. Nothing like cleaning toilets for 5hrs straight to get your priorities straight. I actually think everyone should be forced to do some housekeeping in their life, just to see how silly the whole accommodation industry really is, when viewed from the bottom up. These reflections led us to a discussion question: What is the best way to travel? Couldn't really come up with a perfect answer, but it helped pass the time, surrounded by bus-loads of hop-on, hop-off backpackers. "Contiki buses: The world leader in tours for 18-35s". Good grief.
For New Years, we ducked into Wanaka, which is to Queenstown what Lake Louise is to Banff, but looks more like Penticton.
But Wanaka was mental. Between Christmas and New Years, it's party central for high school kids and foreign families. Luckily, we were able to get our groceries, get out, and be on our way up on our first proper alpine hike (but not before I clumsily left my walled on the ground and had it returned to me later on).
The hut was nearly full, but was a good bunch of people, including a mountain guide who guided up Mt Everest, in Mongolia, and Canada, and up Mt Cook, the highest in NZ. Luckily, the partiers stayed in the towns, and those wishing a bit quieter of a celebration went into the alpine. Case in point: we were all in bed long before midnight.
-Dan
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