since we last spoke i've been spending a lot of time around chchch in a meager attempt to save up for the upcoming farewell tour. this includes mistaking terrestrial shrimp for real bugs (who ever heard of such a thing, i ask you. is this any more believable then the land shark candygram?), chasing bees with comically oversized nets to the amusment of many japanese tourists, counting and measuring tree girth and meandering from social circle to circle goin to those same old dives. aside from a particular gem of an eve in which posh spice, straight shooting mexican, french minstrel and a yank saught out a fabled spring equinox field celebration everything has been running close to as per normal. as i was saying, we trecked for hours. i drove a blue station wagon with wood panels down all the wrong roads, each so right on. our only direction was based on the memory of a flyer and gas station attendents. at one point, we nearly called it quits and sat on the roof of the car down a dirt road that seemed so familiar but couldn't have been further away. swatting at faries, the frenchman sang a sad song about love lost and a lamb cried out from the trees. ...............................ok that was a meager attempt to update from about a month ago. things were rad then, but the real meat of the matter is what's been the haps over the past few weeks. First, with the rabbit ears in one hand and a tuna sandwich in the other, i watched on our fuzzy little black and white kiwi tv our man address a sea of our nation's own big toothy smiles and tears and babies wearing campaign shirts and oprah. remember remember the fifth of novemeber, where at long last i can say with a gleam in my eye and a feather in my cap that i'm american, dammit. and not like those awful post 9/11 country songs proud, but proud of my generation, stoked on democracy and voter turn out and new voices being heard and revolution to come. giddyap.
in other news, class has ended and i have officially like three weeks left in treasure island. that's one week here to pollish off exams and then 2 up in the north island, trying to lap up as much sweet nz juice as i can before shipping out. now, my two or three loyal readers, you may have noticed that travel fell by the wayside for ol' mollykins over the past semester. funds were scarce, oatmeal and beans for every meal... dishsoap as shampoo...and not owning a single pair of functioning trousers. however, all that changed about a month ago as i realized that as long as a year seemed initially i really had to get my act together and make my final pilgirmages to those further corners. so after some hasty ebay deals involving kiwi birds and unicorn blood (did you ever doubt there were unicorns here?) i hit the road.
First and possibly most noteable stop was to hike to the meuler hut on a mountain neighboring Mt. Cook, New Zealie's highest peak. possible one of the most intense physical undertakings i've attempted, although i think this is just the memories for cross country fading, the hike to the summit was a doozie. We were there on the first weekend the trail opened, which to the DOC office ultimately meant: 8 over-eager under-qualified collegiates+over 3 feet of fresh powder=untimely doom. Going against their decades of experience and stern advice we strapped on our cramp-ons and picked up our ice axes and made our way up up up for four hours to the snow line and beyond. Needless to say, the hike was a rough one, often miss stepping and ending up buried in snow up to my neck or just sliding fifteen feet back down the mountain to where i was twenty minutes ago. Alone with the seven dudes i came with miles ahead of me, hearing the roar of avalanche before seeing them tearing down neighboring valleys. But yes friends, boy was it worth it. Indescribable 360 degree views of snowy mountain peaks, a navy sky and a halo cloud over Mt. Cook itself. The colors were so fierce at sunrise my mind couldn't quite perceive them, no bugs or birds or trees and the only sounds are our own and the wind. Our surroundings were untouched and we were erased from behind.
about a week after I took off with my charming english counterpart to the Catlins, which i believe to be nz's best kept secret. they are the most comfortable beauty here and no busses pass through so penguins go unnoticed. we were greated at our first hostel with a sealion in the front yard, 700 lb meat sack that sneezes at you and your heart skips a beat. A land of a gazillion waterfalls and land so fertile that tree trunks are covered with lush green mossies, this place was so untouched (one road only) that wildthings still have the run of it. Our second night we crouched in a prehistoric forest and waited for the penguins to come. Only 6000 in the world so believe you me i was a happy camper when three waddled up just as the sun was setting. We sat like statues for close to two hours reacting to them as they reacted to us reacting to them. At nights, sitting on the back porch musing and humming and whatever else you do on porches at night I was delighted to hear the gutteral wretching of a nest of little blue penguins under our house. The atmosphere there was warm and easy, and i felt like i was trusted.
We then continued to arrowtown, a little slice of heaven outside of queenstown where we worked for a salty matured horse girl and stayed in her hobbit hole. we shoveled manuer and pruned hedges and worked up a sweat every morning to earn our feed. home made aoli sauce and chutney, blistered hands and sunburned faces. provided us with an opportunity to hitch hike (check another one off the list) and pan for gold.
From here we met up with a couple friends from chch and set out for our shot at one of the fiord's great walks, the Routeburn. packing our bags at the emergency shelter at the start of the trail in horizontal rain and thunder, which i've only heard once before here. packing 3 too many cans of beans into my sack, i realized we were really in for it this time. my compatriots were good eggs, always with a smile and joke even as we ascended to the saddle without a fiord to be seen through the white out conditions no ranger thought to warn us about. as we climbed in deeper and deeper snow drifts one foot in front of the other on a westerlie facing mountain ridge we begin to accept our fates. andy proclaimed his undying love for the packers will live on long after his thawed body is pecked apart by eager kea beaks. we ducked into an emergency shelter on top of the peak equipt with only the essentials, the flares provided and the whiskey we packed along in an old orange juice bottle to weather the storm. the snow only worsened, so we kept on feeling pretty bear gryllzy and seven hours later found our capsite for the coldest camping of my life. we awoke to a tent flap frozen solid and an angry warden encouraging us to get a move on before conditions worsened. skipping down a track made entirely of greenstone, we were quite pleased to call this one a wrap feeling a little older, a little wiser and stankier then i had in a long while.
i think that wraps it up for now, foks. i am so so eager to get back stateside to my plant water drinking kitty cat and warm smiling faces of family and friends and changed nation. take it sleazy, over and out.
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