Night before last, Stacy and I pulled into a "campsite" part way between the cities of Blenheim and Nelson. The area was an old motel-tavern combo called the "Trout Hotel," just off the main highway. Over fish 'n chips, Stacy went through in some sort of order of all the amazing highlights of our journey thus far. Penguins, a castle, edgy sea lions, snowball fights on top of a mountain, the world's only alpine parrots, and a trip to Stewart Island, to name a few. Part of me wants to tell of every little bit right now, but that would either make for too long of a post, or too few details to share.
I think I'll just dive in and try and find a middle point.
To pick back up where I really left off... Way back in December, we had a Kiwi Christmas in Golden Bay with some of the nicest and most generous people we've ever met. We worked on their dairy farm most afternoons, helping with the milking of their 270-something cows, doing 40ish at a time. There were some days where we got to drive their quad-bike over to the milking shed and help with rangling the cattle up from some far off paddock. Don't think of lassos when I use the word rangling--though they did take us on a horse trek to see the Farewell Spit, the world's longest natural sandbar. Sorry, that last bit may have come off as really cheesy. Let's continue.
We always had plenty of amazing food and lots of great laughs, and it was pretty easy feeling like part of their family in their tight-knit community of the chillest Kiwis we've ever met. A month was spent in beautiful Golden Bay much in this way. During our fourth week we hiked through Abel Tasman national park. In the words of one of my best buds, "It looks like you road ponies from Middle Earth to Hawaii." It was gorgeous and the weather never let us down. Our mutual highlight was probably walking a kilometer through waist-high water during (almost) low tide in order to get to the other side (sorry, I just thought of all those terrible chicken-crossing-the-road jokes).
The majority of the West Coast looks like Jurassic Park. If you stray more inland, it's pretty much tropical rain forest, which amazes me because it borders along the Southern Alps, which are home to several glaciers and rather permenantly snowy peaks. That doesn't seem possible to me, but I didn't pay much attention in my science classes and I dropped out of my college Biology class. So. That might have something to do with my way of thinking.
Even if it was raining though, you just can't help but stop and pull off the side of the road into the gravel at 60 mph in order to stop and run down to a pebbly beach and take pictures of other-worldly rock formations and spires that jut out of the water at high tide and look even crazier but often more explainable at low tide.
Sorry, that last paragraph was just a huge sentence.
Our drive out of the West Coast and into the Southlands was halted one late evening by the only road going down being closed due to landslides and the road itself crumbling apart. I think dinosaurs had a part in this, but I've been told that's not possible. We were forced to wait it out till the next morning. The night was filled with wonderings of when the dinosaurs would get us. For the first time, I understood the two kids in Jurassic Park, when the water in the cup is rippling and they're getting ready to freak out.
The next morning, the sun shined as a goodbye present from the rainy West Coast, and we made our way to Queenstown for the first time. And little did we know we would go back five or so more times and that it would be a pivitol thread in the unravelling yarn of our tale. I'm gonna stop there for now before I embarass the English language again.
Next time--because I know exactly what happens for right now--the deep South where we live in a gymnasium, Stewart Island and the search for kiwis (birds), and the interesting hilarity that was Takaro Lodge!
That is all, for now.
No comments:
Post a Comment