First, I should say that travel is expensive, especially in New Zealand, where "petrol" is $1.80 per litre and $10 in fast food gets you about half as much as it would in the States. Right off the bat, I'm poor from purchasing my necessary ski gear. A lack of funds means a couple of very important things while in a country that was built upon the economics of tourism. Namely, sleeping in a car, my friend Katie's car, to be specific. Don't worry too much, it's a station wagon, so things were reasonably comfortable...reasonably.
"LOOK WHAT I HAVE CREATED!!! I have made fire!"
The weekend began for us on Thursday. fortunately for a car-less Nathan Tramp, Katie and I have the same off time scheduled. We drove the approximately 3 hours that it takes to get to Ohakunae and then found the cheapest place to stay possible: a camp site. New Zealand is a very out-doorsy country and even the most deserted campsites are keep in descent order by the Department of Conservation. This particular campsite was not remote at all, so it had a working restroom with running water. Good deal for $4 a night.
First things first. We needed food, so we stopped at a grocery store. Basically, I survived the whole four days on a combination of bread, peanut butter, bananas, apples, pears, pasta, tomato soup, and the all-important cheddar cheese. Despite the fact that Katie has a camp stove, we thought we could save some purple gas by making a fire ourselves. But, yeah, everything is wet in NZ, so it took a while...a long while. After deciding to use the stove anyway, the fire provided us only 2 things: warmth and satisfaction for our sense of spite. I never thought that fire-making would be a skill for daily use, but here electric heating is expensive and bulky, so firewood is an industry unto itself. Katie and I put our survival skills to good use and, despite soggy kindling, concluded that Les Stroud would have been proud of us.
A car can trap alot of heat, but not enough to keep out a whole nights worth of cold, so we packed: 2 sleeping bags, an extra blanket, and 2 duvets. We were initially scared that that wouldn't be enough, but Thursday night proved to be quite comfortable. The evening's entertainment was a cheesy romance novel: Grand Finale by Janet Evanovich. From 7 pm to around 11, we burned right through that thing. In my memory, retrospectively, it was like watching a 5-hour-long movie...a really bad, semi-misogynistic, horribly written movie. All it really did was produce a few inside jokes, which came in handy, since we were about to be horribly disappointed, along with the rest of the northern New Zealand skiing community.
We awoke on Friday ready to head up the mountain, but it rained all day long, so everything was closed. Plan B was to head up North even further near Taupo. Lake Taupo was formed by rainwater that filled up this gigantic crater in the top of a mountain. It's massive and, apparently, still somewhat active. The last eruption was in...1993 I think; scary stuff. If you live in New Zealand, your odds of being evacuated at some point due to geothermal activity are very high; earthquakes, volcanoes, the occasional tsunami, it all just sort of happens every now and again. We headed East toward this road that runs through a desert. As you can kind of see in the picture above, "desert" means something very different in New Zealand. The whole country is green, so the "desert" still has vegetation, it's just brown vegetation. Moss and lichens grow on every available outcropping of stone and wood and the roads and...well everything. Apparently, the Australia New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC, for you uninitiated) conducts exercises somewhere out in that desert, so we saw alot of military vehicles.
See that picture above? That is the Skiwi. Someone actually took the time to go out onto this road and mark skis onto a kiwi road sign. It's dumb, yeah, but it's still the best and most endearing novelty that I've ever encountered. The road trip we took on Friday just to see this thing took up perhaps 40 minutes time. After that, it was off to the hot springs. Near Taupo, there are a number of places that allow visitors to come and bathe in the naturally heated pools around the volcano. Katie and I payed $6 for this and then proceeded to get our money's worth: A 2-hour dip, plus a shower. I felt good and clean for the first time in 2 days, then it started raining again. Oh well. I also got to see a small puddle of bubbling mud. "Oooh, Ahh!" Friday evening it was back to the campsite to polish off the last bit of our cheesy novel.
Saturday morning we were finally able to get some ski rentals and a lift ticket up the mountain. That's me in all my snow gear. Surprisingly, I'm a decent skier, even after like 3 years. We got to ski alright, but everyone on the whole North Island had the same idea. We bought a pass that only let us on the lower mountain (the busiest part). That, combined with alot of melted snow, equals one really crowded ski resort. Our day wasn't spent "skiing" so much as it was "merging with traffic on the freeway." At no point was I more than 3 meters from another skier or snowboarder. And there were a ton of injuries. On woman in particular had either gone over the cliff side of a run or been nailed by another skier, because she lie in the snow for about an hour bleeding from the face; oxygen mask and the whole nine. I think I personally saw 3 or 4 people being carried off the hill by ski patrol. Still, it was lots of fun, barring injury. It's only early in the season, so I think I'll go back when I get some more money together. For a country that's all about the outdoors, I think that skiing is my favorite activity. Just the feeling of skidding along at 50 or 60 or even 70 kph on your own two feet is pretty amazing, but hold on boys and girls, because the good times rolled on long into Saturday evening.
We went back into Ohakunae after skiing and met up with a volunteer assistant at Rangimarie house named Neele. She's one cool German in my book because she actually managed to hitch-hike all the way up to Ohakunae and she did it in a single day...safely. New Zealand is really laid back like that. I don't know why, exactly, but its nice to not have to worry about having your car stolen or your house broken into or being shot in the wrong neighborhood. It's not a license to be stupid. You still have to watch yourself here, but the NZ tolerance for violent behavior is much lower than the US. Local area pet deaths actually make a column in the newspaper here, murders are a HUGE deal, and safety is a priority. The roads are covered in about a million different signs and markers and I have yet to witness any kind of accident.
Anyway, after meeting up with Neele, we got tickets to Ohakunae's Mardi Gras block party. The whole town freaking exploded: alcohol and teenagers all over the place, filling the streets like ants to a rotten banana. People were dressed up like firemen, Smurfs, the 3 Little Pigs, Lady Gaga, Jacques Cousteau, whatever. It was nuts. Now I know why: carnival + block party + concert. Midnight Youth, probably New Zealand's most popular and current pop/rock band, was playing. They were pretty good too, sort of like a kiwi cross between Incubus and maybe Motion City Soundtrack. I think that they stand a chance of cracking the American market actually. Look them up if you've got time. Their set was heaps of fun and included songs from their first album, called The Brave Don't Run, as well as a rendition of "That's Not My Name" by The Ting Tings. Saturday night, we managed to get all 3 of us into Katie's station wagon, though I'm sure that Neele didn't get much sleep. I was missing veggie sandwiches and the ladies wanted cookies so we stopped off at a Subway on the ride home. All in all, I'd say that it was my best time by far in NZ and, probably one of the best long weekends I'll ever have.
Sunday was weird because it was the farewell party for our community leader, Michele. We just got back, not even showered yet, and we had to do this gala to say goodbye to our community leader. In addition, that long weekend is probably one of the last times that I'll ever see Neele. As an assistant, she's only here for 3 months and her time is up on the 1st of July. Making friends here is surreal. Hell, everything is surreal. I'm hitting the bricks again this week, patiently awaiting the arrival of our new leader, Alex. You'll get more later, including some theological stuff. Until then: Peace-out, girl scouts.
As a "descent skier," did you pass any "ascent skiers" on their way up?
ReplyDeleteForgive the bad pun -- it wasn't very decent of me, I suppose. :)
nice catch... although it is interesting to note that almost a year ago, I skied on that same mountain with Christian (another member of Nate's community) who did in fact ascend the mountain with skis. He's swiss... I'm sure that explains it.
ReplyDeleteNate, if you get a chance, tell him I said hi.
Tim M.