Running Down the Rest Days

Sadly, we cannot climb all day—everyday—like our chimp fore-fathers, like the primitive primates peopling the trees and rock gardens of the world’s Edens.  But the hours of rest have afforded excellent exploring time.

We’ve journeyed to the Waikoropupu Springs: a fresh water sanctuary in the hills above Takaka.  Gravel trails lead from the parking lot into the forest.  A forest in different stages of growth—most of the native bush having been hacked down during the massive gold rush of the early 20^th century.  Young Rimu and Totara trees reaching up to the sky, leaving the thick underbrush behind, for these, like their mothers and fathers before them, will be the wood-giants of the island.  We pass some of the ancient trees on our way to the springs, their trunk columns holding up the ceiling of the sky, the whole forest seeming to bow before their outstretched limbs. 

The springs are an agglomerate of ground openings several meters under the clearest water known to man.  The water fools you into thinking that it’s not as deep as it is—but there, printed on a plastic placard and nailed to the fence (keeping human hands out of the spotless springs), are the measurements from rock bottom to glassy top.  This is the “clearest spring water in the world,” a pulsing counter-top, revealing below a craggy bottom threaded with colors citrus.  And, according to the color-coated placard, Pupu pumps out 40 bathtubs full of water every second.  How novel: bathtub as measurement.  Though even I, in my limited years on this planet, can be quite sure that his unit will never be standardized.

There are half baths and full baths, antique porcelain and jet-streamed Jacuzzi-tubs.  There are television series galore (I’m thinking specifically of Home and Garden Television and the Antique Road Show)  chronicling the evolution of the bath. I could even imagine a cartoon series about a kiddy pool who wants to grow up to become a “real bathtub.”  The loveable protagonist “Splashy” would adventure episode after episode through the lukewarm waters of the bathing world, battling evil plumbers, naked bottoms, and his arch-nemesis “Uncle Rusty” the wash basin, a tub with a penchant for rendering innocent bathers lock-jawed and silent through a mysterious tub-spell called tetanus.

As for Chester and myself, our only bathtub since leaving Rotorua has been the river and the sea.

A swimming-hole ranked by the authors of the Payne’s Ford Climbing Guidebook as “the best in New Zealand” lies 20 meters from the climbing parking lot on bend in the  _____ river.  Sprint across the road and duck into the bush.  Follow the sound of laughter down a dirt path stamped with wet footprints and: voila: the path opens onto a small rug of sand and what appears to be an ever-expanding expanse of clear blue water below a limestone cliff.  The optical illusion created by the river running one way and the wind blowing ripples across, opposite. 

There is a ledge that runs the length of the cliff that is capped by stone.  A long alcove open to te water and running back into the cliff at an acute angle.  Always perched along the ledge are hippies, shirtless and dread-headed, with bottles of booze lounging within the cliff side.  High-as-a-kite troglodytes watching sunny day after sunny day sift between their dirty fingers. 

Climbers, too, converge on this watering hole, and it is probably they who first scaled the rock face and fixed a line to the jagged point overhanging the river.  The line that would eventually become the rope swing to beat all rope swings.  This yellow wire—terminating in the upside-down T of the wooden handle—is the only way to become a true initiate of the swimming hole, retrieving the line being a bit of a mission.  But after one far-flung yelp into the air SPLASH into the water, a body feels free to lie in the sun, wading into the water, or diving off of theledge whenever the heat-bug bites.

And then there is the sea.  The sea. 

Close your eyes and picture paradise.  Feel the sun through your eyelids, the fire-balloon drifting loose and lazy in a cloudless sky.  Listen to the waves lapping at the sand—the waves kissing the shoreline—the rhythm dance of the changing tides.  Lean back against a driftwood trunk, sand-blasted and smooth, washed as clean as a bone for the king of the sea.

Yes.  Picture paradise and open your eyes: this is it.  The water blue-green and dimpled, sunshine glitter thrown down in huge handfuls from above.  Across the crests of waves.    

Pohara.  Tata.  Ligar.  Wainui.

The backdrop is mountains.  Endless.  Sillouetes through the heat-haze, they ring round the bay.  They are the undying lands.  There across the blue, tangible only through the funnel of a dream.  In the foreground: an island: rock faces rising vertical from the choppy water, an afro verdant sprouting green across the top.  The cut of the land throwing shadows into the angles of the rock.  Birds: swoop dive and splash like kites with cut strings.  The flocks feasting in a whirling dervish at the base of the cliff. 

And at the base of the painting is this: the golden beach on which you lay.  Supine and supple, brown beneath the watchful eye of the setting sun.

And, try as he might, Bob Ross ain’t got shit on that.

Our last rest day was a marathon of sight seeing.

First to the Labyrinth Rocks: a maze of limestone where it is all too easy to loose yourself when diving down hobbit-holes, shuffling down ally-ways, or navigating the switch-backs between sharp rocks.  There are plastic dwarves perched in rock pockets, rubber mice bating in the dirt pathways, and the myriad skulls of fauna long departed set lengthwise along a shelf of shale: all of them watching to see if you can find a way out.

Then to the Grove: a sanctuary in the farmland, past sheep and cattle and into the shade of massive rata trees, beneath the bloom of fire-flowers.  The trunks of these trees sprout from limestone outcrops, their roots cascading over the stone and into the ground—alive like veins—like wood-veins wrapped around the ageless rock.  The rock the inanimate pedistool holding the tree toward the sky—toward the sun and glory.  Hallelujah.

And finally to Wainui Falls.  We wind around the Wainui bay, the southern most beach of the Golden bay, and turn inland.  Inland, inland to the gravel parking lot, to the DOC signpost.  Then it is up a steep track, over cattle crossings and wooden bridges, up and up into the hills—the river babbling nonsense below, across a swinging bridge: maximum capacity: one person.  Beneath the bush and climbing until at last the track spits us out above a deep-blue pool.  The falls deafening.  It is a cascade brilliant: white-water free falling and the spray is a widening cloud.  Rock-hop to the other side and we are cloud-walkers, the loyal laymen of Cloud City and flying free under the banner of Landau Calrissian. 

Chester scales and embankment in his swim-shorts and throws himself off of a ledge.  A tourist beside me at the base of the falls wondering aloud and distraught “Why?  Why is he doing this?”

This morning Chester set off alone.  After two more days of climbing we needed rest.  I dropped him off at Totaranui in the early morning—a ride by the seaside, around the curve of the coast and up into the hills.  Only to cruise, half-hung-over down the dirt to the other side.

He aims to walk the length of the Abel Tasmin track in a day and a half.  Down the sand, under the sun, while I chill: laid-back and cool with the Southern Divas Eva and Caro.  Will we see him tomorrow night?  If not then what?

He tossed me the keys over the hood of the car as we said our good-byes and I stepped into what would normally be the passenger-side door.  Observe the car in opposite.  It is the mirror image, and it feels all wrong.  This is to be my second attempt at driving in New Zealand, my first running afoul on a rainy day last week when I ran off the road and into a concrete drainage ditch.  “Gotta watch that passenger side, son!”

But today is different and I am ready.  Up the mountain road, dust covered and drifting.  One foot on the clutch and one on the gas.  One hand on the stick and one on the wheel.  The flip-flop.  But it is a smooth transition today, and I’m on a road to nowhere: the Talking Heads singing through the static between radio stations, the sun a solid beam at my back.

When my partner returns, there is no more time for rest.  We climb.

Turkey Day the South Island Way

Thanksgiving come and gone.

Chopped veggies, rice, and two jars of “Chicken Tonight.”

Trademarked and registered “Chicken Tonight.”

It is friends around the fire ring.

It is bowls filled and spoons rooting through.  Food-diggers all.

It is the fire light golden on smiling faces.

Three Americans and a Kiwi.

It is wood Cackling.  Ka.  Ka.  Ka.

Flames dancing like the souls of Natives dearly departed.   

The Maori, the American Indian, the Bondels, the list goes on and on.  Tip out some beer for the downtrodden, for the massacred masses.  Say a prayer.

A group around the fire re-defining family.  Though we all know where we’d rather be.

But remember the Diggable Planets.  Despite being absent at the home-cooked southern slog, 

Remember the Diggable Planets who have always said, “It’s good to be here.” 

And it is.

It is bowls licked clean and the metallic click of can tabs popped.  Each like a liquid sigh of relief.

It is red cans and blue cans.  It is gold cans empty and crushed, haphazard and winking.

The feeling is fat and happy in the clearing off of Rameka Creek Road.

Chester and I.

Two girls I haven’t seen in years, brown and beautiful before the flickering.

White smiles in the gloaming.

And who could not be thankful?  

Bums in the Bay: Climb On

Finally, after two days of travel—broken by one night of debauchery—Chester and I wind our way up to the crest of the hills above Golden Bay.  Through the dripping rain forest to stop in the sky, the Toyota Corolla skidding over gravel.  And the sun shines down on the shoreline.

Here we are: after three hours of sleep in the car, after a nap on the ferry and a split second decision to stay on the northern end of the island rather than wind our way south, after a blazing ride east under the red-hot glare of the sun, after a stop in the town of Nelson, a jog along city streets in search of climbing gear, after a direction faux pas remedied just in the nick of time, turn north and drive, after a clutch-rattling climb into the mountains baring outsiders from the heart of the parks: Golden Bay: Kahurangi and Abel Tasmin.

And here we are: “Would you like a tuna sandwich?”  “Yes, please.  And one for yourself?”

Fine dining in a gravel parking lot with the heavens open above us, and paradise spread wide below.  Isn’t that how it always goes?  And go.

Down Highway 60: steep cutbacks descending, falling in zig-zags down to the valley.  One hundred kilometers an hour and rising, and the flat land never felt so good.  At least to the wheezing Toyota Corolla, the breaks burning black in the wheel wells.

Zoom Zoom between the rails of one way bridges, the right-of-way marked by red arrows on the roadside.  Zoom Zoom through pasture land that runs up the hillsides, sheep perched precariously on the slopes high above us.  Zoom Zoom down the tarmac to the town of Takaka, and we have arrived.

The climbers’ campsite “The Hangdog” is closed due to renovations.  “Gutted.”  But we hear about a free campsite via an acquaintance of Chester’s named Pete.  Pete hanging out in a field beside the “The Hangdog,” down from Christchurch on a week-long holiday.  The campsite is located 25 kilometers back up the Cob Valley—back the way we came.  So off we go, retracing out tire tracks and ready for sleep. 

Pete mentions that sand flies are prevalent at the campsite, but fails to relate to us the epidemic proportions that would be waiting for us on the other side of the car door.

Swarms of biting no-see-‘ems buzzing.

Up from the ground, everywhere at once,

A plague upon every exposed bit of skin.

Slap at your ankles.  The dance of the dunce.

From annoyed to angry to writhing to “FUCK!”

Dive for the car and shut yourself in,

But they’re falling like rain on the windows outside,

And you know that the tent will not set itself up.

So you put on some sox and you pull fast your hood,

And step out to the blood-sucking black-crawling storm.

Not to be dramatic… “Bravery!  Bravery!"  This is our cry…but really, there were heaps of them.

Around nine o’clock each night—when darkness finally settles into the tree tops—the sand flies retreat to their stagnant pools, to their shallow eddies on the banks of the river to scheme about blood-sucking plans for the morrow.  And at long last we can relax beside the fire.

We stayed at the campsite from Thursday through Sunday—kickin’ it in the afterhours with a troop of climbing bums.  There was the aforementioned Pete: the walking-talking guidebook from Christchurch with big plans for the summer and bigger plans for life.  There was George (pronounced Hor-Hay): the father figure and technique specialist, hailing from Spain with a P.H.D. in climbing physiology and built like a tempered plate of steel.  There was a couple whose names I never caught, and who retired early to their shared tent on the nightly.  And of course there was the guy from Zimbabwe who had a broken collar bone and a soft way of speaking, who may or may not have introduced himself as “Scooter.”  I never could quite understand him because of: 1) his whispering, 2) the fire-smoke foiling any attempt at lip-reading, and 3) the fact that I was at all times half-delirious from the bites of the sand fly.

Those first three days we spent like this:

-          Jump out of the tent and sprint to the car, hopping over patches of knee-high wet grass and hoping that your feet were moving faster than the flies

-          Speed down the highway and swerve into the Paynes Ford parking Lot with the sun just beginning to halo the hills

-          Scarf down peanut butter banana sandwiches and head for the double track dusty road, the walking path leading to climbing

-          Choose a sidetrack through the tall-grass.  Into the bush and up the hillside, each one leading to a different limestone crag.  (To date we’ve hit the Slave Wall, the Carnage Wall, the Tenuite Wall, The Creese Wall, the Red Wall, the Globe Wall, the Rat Trap Wall, and the Stone Symposium Wall)  Hard work, and always more to do.

-          Pick a climb.  Harness up.  Tie in.  And enter into the vertical world.

Black and white streaked limestone, as featured as a pimpled teenager’s face:

Pull down on the pockets,

Smear a toe on the nose,

Throw your hand toward a tic,

If it’s there, then it goes.

There are heel hooks in sockets,

There is bridging through gaps,

And if the pump’s burning bright,

Throw a top-rope.  Run laps.

That’s enough.  Sport lingo has never made much sense to someone who doesn’t participate in the sport.  And it never will.  It is a coded message meant only for those in the know.  A brotherhood or sisterhood of chitter-chatter between stone-cold look-a-likes.  While those looking in from the outside world are usually wondering, “Why don’t those two Rock Jocks just get it over with: whip out their wieners and rub them together?”  Or, if you substituted the term “Soft-ball-Sandies” for “Rock Jocks,” you might be questioning “cooters” rather than “wieners.”

It’s all relative, right?  And it can be applied to almost any sport at all.  Call down your rock climbers and kayakers, your ballerinas and baseball players, call down your luge lackeys and bobsledders, your high jumpers and pole vaulters:

            Round them up in a square full of jocks of all sorts,

            And before the day’s done: segregation by sport.

            For they each speak in tongue, native only to those

            Who can move the same way, who can strike the same pose,

And now this digression has widened so loose that I’m starting to sound like a mad Dr. Seuss.  So Stop.  Once again: that’s enough.

In the afternoons it gets too hot to climb, so Chester and I have wasted the days away at the swimming hole or down at Tata Beach.  We’ve hiked into the rain forest—the sun hanging low over Kahurangi National Forest—the greens jumping out in the golden time as if to bite the eyes—dark-dense and as vibrant as sound.  Can you hear the colors shining?

We moved from the fly-infested campsite to a backwoods bum-basin, its existence “known only to a few,” according to the mystic man in the orange swim trunks who happened to be climbing on the route next to us a few days ago.  He drew a map on the back of our climbing guide, complete with arrows, bridges, side streets, and creeks.  Quite the cartographer, this shirtless enigma. 

Down dirt roads and into the tall grass.  Cut back behind the bushes and stash the car.  Teeter-totter over the round-rock pathway of a dry river bed, and slump into the clearing beneath a circle of sky. 

Thus far Chester and I are yet to see a soul.  We have built a fire ring with smooth stones from the riverbed, fixed seats around the ring, amassed a huge pile of firewood, and pitched the tent beneath a flowering bush.  The secret solace of a woodland haunt.  Though our routine remains basically the same, we no longer have to worry about the dreaded sand fly.

It has been drizzling off and on since we moved to the new campsite but the tent has held true.  A nylon roof stretched taut over our heads during the dark hours.  Safety from the elements.

It has been drizzling, but dry rock is abundant.  Climb on, climb on.  Acrobats on the rock, swinging and snagging, levitating upwards—always upwards—to the tower-tops.  Monkey men on the limestone, looking for love from above, hoping for a high in the patterns cycling through.

Sing to the blue.  Sing to the blue.

Rotorua Rambling

It is our first rest day at the Golden Coast.  For three days we have been climbing along the limestone cliffs of Paynes Ford, just down the road from the coastal town of Takaka.  But before diving headlong into the greasy waters that constitute the life of a climbing bum, I thought I’d write a bit about my time in Rotorua.  My introduction to the Country that is New Zealand.  I’ve broken the account of my stay into four separate days.  So here it goes:

1. The Drive and the Night:

The first several hours of my time on the North Island of New Zealand were spent with a couple of strangers.  I enjoyed a pleasant automobile ride through the rolling hills of the fertile island valley with Chester’s “mum” Jo and her partner Murry.  They picked me up at the international arrival station of the Aukland Airport after I placed a payphone call from the terminal.  Chit-chat conversation about the country of New Zealand, Rock and Roll music, the Industrial Food Chain, etc., flowed soft and subtle from the front seat of the gas-efficient SUV to the backseat, from the top of the north island on down to the belly-button center that is Rotorua.

After three and a half hours we turned from the highway and headed into the farmland, aiming for Paul’s house, Paul being Chester’s father and the guest of honor at his own birthday party, a birthday party which is in full swing as we arrive.  Greetings all around and a goodbye to Jo and Murray, promising, as they speed away, that I’ll join them for dinner the following evening.

Good Old Chester Boyes.  A teller of jokes, a dreamer of dreams, a climber of rocks.  The Bastard child of all my New Zealand day dreams and my native guide for the next three months.  What a “Good Cunt” (this being the most endearing term of respect one can bestow on a respected peer here in New Zealand).

Into the fray, the party full of middle aged friends and family.  Gobble Gobble Sip Sip.  “Hello, yes, I’m from North Carolina, and how are you.”  And I retreat to a back-bedroom with the Boyes brothers and friends to sip on bottles of beer until a friend named Cam shows up, already having drunk nine beers on his way from Taupo.  He walks through the door with three cases of beer stacked in his in his arms.  A gift.  He sets them down like a load of bricks, and we all get the picture.  Seventy-two bottles in front of us, and we “sink piss” by the fireside until it’s gone. 

Taxi to town called and confirmed and we stumble to the Maddox—the sheep field—to wait.  A troop of buffoons sporting Gumboots and laughing past the fence line.  One by one we vault over the wooden gate, Chester’s Brother Nick entering through the turnstile and toting a pail containing several rolls of toilet paper, each with one strip of duct tape wound about its length and one piece wound about it’s width.  These have been soaked for several hours in “petrol,” or what we in the states would call good old gasoline.  We break ranks and take our places in a loose circle forming.  “Light the rolls, Nick.”  And suddenly we are soccer players from hell, punting meteors across the thick grass at one another.  One, two, a flick of my shoe and a flame shoots high in the sky.  Crash and burn, balls of light.  We are tribal and dancing with fire.

The taxi arrives after a bit and we pile in, beers in back pockets and opened immediately.  Pop Pop Pop fizz.  "Get 'ur down ya'."  Before we hit the lights of the town.

Half of the crew is banned from the Lava Bar, so we settle instead for the Brass Donkey.  We Pay the cover, they stamp the hand, and we begin to tear it apart.  Sink!  Hundreds of dollars thrown at the bartenders.  Rounds all around and around we go.  Sink!  Dance music pulsing through the light columns and the drum and base has replaced my heart beat.  Sink!

Until the bar closes and we are released like a plague upon the town.  An inebriated army marching from their Copper Donkey Fortress toward God knows what.

We commandeer a street corner and proceed to make sport: there is arm wrestling and slap boxing and a game called bo-something-or-other, which is a two person performance, played by coupling the duo’s belts together, each contestant on all fours and facing his opponent, the large loop of leather placed behind each contestant’s neck, their eyes focused and fierce in the lamp light, now pull backwards, pull with all your might, pull backwards and make that bastard pay for challenging YOU.  The first to pull the other past an imaginary line wins the game.  Hurrah!  Hurrah!  Hours we spend at this corner—forcing anyone and everyone who wants to pass to play a game. 

Hours and afterward we are bruised and bloody.  Hours, and we are ready for another feed.  The band of hooligans limping down the sidewalk shouting and singing until a streetside linoleum counter-top sparkles into view.  Greasy spoon godliness at the Rotorua landmark: Joe’s Diner.  Eggs and toast, bowls full of mushrooms, bacon, steak and beef brisket.  We watch the sun come up while stuffing our faces and waiting for a taxi to take us home.

This was my first impression.

2. Hung Over but Happy:

I wake three hours later to a breakfast of French Toast, “Bacon” (equivalent to Canadian Bacon) and Fried Bananas.  Good God!  Pinch me.  I’m drifting in a delicious dream land, and down the throat it goes.

There is sheep chasing in the Maddox afterwards.  As a first time visitor I must prove my worth.  Let loose the red-neck and see how he does.  Now picture me barefoot and blazing through the grass, my hair whipping out behind me, it is the motion reel of a Disney Movie gone terribly, terribly wrong.  The sheep are frantic, bolting this way and that, jumping over each other, squirming into and out of corners, kick and screaming, and each up for grabs.  This is surely the best training there has ever been for a sport not yet invented.  Huffing and puffing and I drift back to the house back to a bedroom where I can sleep: Grubby and Grinning.

In the afternoon Chester and I investigate the gully behind his father’s house, descending into the cavernous trench on what appears to be red yarn.  Hand over hand—like real men—until we reach the dry-bed bottom of a rushing river long forgotten. 

Rain forest bound.  The birds are rampant about us.  Some sound like helicopters above.  Others beckon to each other from the heavily vegetated sides of the gulley—mechanical beeps and twitters—electronic sound effects—accented only by a rustling fern, a shadow in the sunlight.

We spot a crack in an open book dihedral.  Moss covered walls, the crack filled with dirt, and we reason that maybe—just maybe—it could be climbable.  This “maybe” will soak up the hours of the following day like a sponge or a SHAM WOW. 

But we leave optimistic: hand over hand out of the gully up a red thread of yarn and into the Toyota Carolla.  Down the road to Jo’s house where I will have my first lamb eating experience.  Divine.  Literally—the body of Christ—the lamb of god—presented on a platter and melting away in the mouth o a sinner.

3. Mud Covered Dummies:

The next day brings sunlight and the promise of glory.  We drive back out to the country, back out to Paul’s house to warm the muscles by once again chasing sheep.  I’ll be honest.  I’m the only one chasing sheep at this point.  But shit!  It is about as addicting as any activity can be.

Then, harness buckled, wire brushes in hand, Chester, Nik, and I rappel over the gulley’s edge—down along the crack one at a time, kicking and scraping and brushing and digging—trying to find a way.  After a couple of hours one of the Boyes brothers gets the bright idea to water blast through the under growth, to baptize the rock with a stream powerful enough to draw blood.  Amen.  We threee ascend out to the rain forest and into the house.

Gobble Gobble Cook Cook 

Gobble Gobble Swig.   

Get it down your gullet fast, 

Feeding like a Pig.

Another bought of sheep chasing in the afternoon Sun.

And then there was the water blasting fiasco.  Which involved cutting new taps into water tanks, splicing wires, digging trails through the bush, hose running, extension cord running, rappelling with water blasting machine in tote, goggle and rubber wet suit wearing, etc.  And which resulted in a ruined rock, filthy climbing gear, and three mud-covered dummies staring agape at their debacle.  Oh well.  “Gutted.”

Another big feed, this time provided by Tracy, Tracy a native Texan who married Paul and made the big move south.  Smoked fish, and stuffed pasta.  Scrumptious.

4. A Change in the Flow:

We wake the following day with every intention of hitting the road.  We have the car registered and inspected in the morning, we toss our belongings in the back seat and in the “boot” (trunk), we say our goodbyes, and then…and then we decide against the drive south to Wellington in favor of boogie-boarding down the Kaituna River.  

Horrifying.  Helmet and flippers.  The Velcro crunch of the leash around the wrist.  And hop into the white water, we’re going through the void.  Uncontrollable.  Amidst the leg-flailing and water-swallowing there was joy in the almost-drowning.  Pure joy in the head tuck.  Into the rush.

Besides the abrasions, the bumps, bruises, and open wounds that I exited with at the end of the day, I also had a sore ass-hole, earned as a badge of honor during a pull off river-right where, after climbing an embankment and hucking myself off of a tree stump, I forgot, regrettably, to clench my cheeks.  All in a day’s work.

Beaten and battered, I participate in the Happy Meal Challenge on the way home—a tradition here in NewZealand that I’m unaware of existing in the states.  Competition simple: eat a happy meal in under a minute.  I beat the pants off the brothers Boyes with a time of one minute, three seconds.  And I’m 100% confident that on my second showing—sure to happen sometime this trip—I will break the 60 second barier.

A quick tennis match, a jaunt around the lake, barefeet in the grass and the sun setting silenty.  Time for another big feed.  A pattern emerges?

This time Jo has outdone herself.  She has teemed with a neighbor to treat two families and a few guests to heaping helpings of gourmet Mexican.  Ole!  And the food coma gradually gives way…

To the sun rising over Rotorua.  Muted beams streaming through the steam of sulfur pools, of boiling mud pots, of hot springs.  Steam rising over the city, the hot-spot city that has welcomed me to this island nation.  The sun rising ripe over Rotorua and it is time to go. 

Let the adventures begin…

Notes from Highway 1 South

We left  at 11:30 today: Wednesday November 17th.  Down Highway 5 to meet Highway 1.  South.  South.  Out of the Sulfuric city:  Rotorua Goodbyes!

Down the Road to Huka Falls.  A torrent of aquamarine water rumbling down rock-carved alleyways.  Ice water rushing insatiable to the falls... and over the falls, the vloume enough to fill five olympic sized swimming pools every minute.

Through the town of Taupo to the lake below bearing the same name.  We roll around the eastern rim, the car a microwave oven and we are melting into the upholstery.  Pull off the highway and slip into swim trunks.  Black sand and gravel.  Bite your lip as you tip-toe into Lake Taupo.  Crystal clear and shining, dive into the cold. 

Round rocks cover the bottom as if the lake was the wet-nest of some behemoth long forgotten.  And we, the shirtless snatchers, are slip-sliding among the fossilized prehistoric eggs.  A few  minutes in the frigid water and we exit shivering, shaking the water from our heads like dogs after a bath.  Back past the black sand, the gravel beach, and into the Toyota Corolla.  Hatchback to freedom.

Ruapehu--the mountain of the north looming behind the lake--snow covered and catching the sun it its icy net.  In front, like guardians cloaked in white bed sheets are Tongarero and Ngauruhoe, two peaks connected by the Tongarero crossing: the most sought after footpath in all of New Zealand.  Babes in short britches and boots and seamen stains the mountain tops.

Road work.  Road work.  Through the mountains.  Road work on Highway 1 South.  And in between stoppages it is a slick rock river, a million pebbles clink-pinking into the wheel wells, flooding the roadway, making metal music on the floor boards.  Stop-and-go into the sparse hills.  Down the Desert Road, and we are desperados, stopping at a shady grove fro tuna sandwiches.

Back onto the road and past the work crews--the crews no different from those in the U.S., content to stand stationary with cigarettes slanting from their chapped lips, no tools in sight, just vacant stares and a series of nods.    Away.  Away.

And into the green again.  How aesthetically pleasing: rolling hills blanketed in green and spotted with either sheep or cattle.  A story book unfolding on both sides of the highway.  We are riding along the inside of the spine, the open pages spreading, ever spreading into the horizon. 

A quick stop for ice cream where neither of us can pay because of credit card complications, and the globes of ice cream sitting in their cone-podiums drip in vibrant colors onto the glass counter top.

A coat of wool covers the sky as we take off, and this is truly the land of the long white cloud.  The mountains rise lush and dark with native bush to our left, and to our right signs point to the sea coast.  An alabaster statue of a cloaked woman stares down from a ridge.

Nate:  Is that Mother Mary up there?
Chester: Yeah.  She's watching over the town.
Nate: Really?  What town is this?
Chester: Don't know.  Some shit hole."

We round a bend and the land falls away to the Pacific Ocean: a choppy plane pulsing.  Into the weathered coastline, the sunlight an island bursting bright our there: in the great saltiness.  And on to Wellington we go, where we will "sink piss" until we can't see straight and sleep for three hours in the car before hopping on the Blue Bridge Ferry at seven o'clock in the morning. 

South Bound.

Seventeen Hours and two days later...

I awoke amidst the engine roar.  A tequila sunrise over the pacific--viewed through an oblong window filling up like a shot glass.  Above the cloud reefs, and we are nearing our destination.  Tip the wing down and sunlight pours into the cabin--a champagne shower--rosy and washing over us all.  "Please return your seats to the upright position and stow your tray tales."  We're swinging in.

This after seventeen hours in the air.  XOXO LA, and we have lift-off.  I was seated in the very last row of the pot-bellied flying machine, the cabin sized double or triple anything on which I'd flown before.

We economy-class shifties were seated nine across, an aisle between every three seats.  Nestled among a crew of bearded and mustachioed Auzzie bad-boys who had just completed a Harley Davidson tour of California was the Mother Goose of flying fortresses: Marjoram Bigsby, and the bright-eyed southern-fried ding-a-ling Nate Dixon.  We were seated together--between two aisles--on the very last row of the plane, as I said before, the only empty seat on the whole flight wide open in the middle of us.

Margie was a plump 50-something-year-old woman who sat with her hands crossed one over the other in her lap, making it appear--for some reason--that she was nesting atop a batch of eggs.  As we took to the skies she proceeded to plan our seventeen hours together.  When to eat, what items of food I should save for later, what time to sleep, what beverages to take advantage of, what movies to watch, and so on, and so forth, right down to a schedule of when we would trade off using the empty seat between us.

And how was the epic air time?  How did the seventeen hours tic-toc away?  How was the flight into the future?

Like butter in a skillet.  Slide into the groove.  Two movies to start, after dinner with Marge.  The cabin aglow with the digital squares set into the back of each carpet-covered head rest.  Pale faces washed in the otherworldly light.  Stare into the nothing, all of us adrift in that digital sea, boring holes into the back of the heads in front of us.  The constant thunder of the engines on the other side of our earphones.  The reverberations trembling through to our toes.

Then a six hour nap.  Mask the eyes, plug the ears and it is good-night to the world as I dash at high speeds over the open ocean.  Sporadic wakings, shift the head, uncross the legs, Margie wants a turn at the open seat between us.  Etc. Etc.  Until a bit of turbulence shakes the sleep from my eyes, and the pillow from beneath my head.

Now time for another flick.  I decide to go with the unlikely classic: The Color Purple.  I mention this one specifically because of the two awkward interactions that it brought about with the flight attendant.  Just for the benefit of those that haven't seen The Color Purple, here is the beginning of the synopses from IMDb: "This film follows the life of Celie, a young black girl growing up in the early 1900's. The first time we see Celie, she is 14 - and pregnant - by her father. We stay with her for the next 30 years of her tough life..."  Needless to say, this is not a "feel-good" film.  Well... the flight crew began the breakfast service when I was about three-fourths of the way through the movie.  With tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat, I graciously accepted my eggs and potatoes.  The flight attendant asked me what was wrong three times before she finally caught sight of my movie screen and realized what was going on.  She walked away smiling, surely to tell the rest of the flight attendants about the "sensitive boy at the back of the plane."  She walked away, only to return ten minutes later for another bout of embarrassment.

You see, there is a scene in the movie where a Jezebel jazz-singer who has been estranged from her preacher-father because of her flashy-ass-shaking lifestyle, marches to the church, with her crew of less-than-savory characters, singing a gospel anthem which they heard leaking out of the church windows.  The re-uniting of father and daughter takes place amidst a welling up of soul-filled singing, and just at the climax of the scene, the flight attendant taps me on the shoulder and asks me to please stop tapping on my tray-table, as several other passengers have complained about the noise that I'm making, not to mention the orange juice that I've spilt all over the floor.  FAIL.

Another nap--dreaming of the south--and then the tequila sunrise out of oblong windows.  A round of shots for everyone.  Welcome to the bottom of the world.  Rubber wheels squealing, a jolt on impact, and we are safe in Sydney.

I am here only to wait for another flight, seven hours later.  But the long-haul is over and done with.  Goodbye Margie.  I'm headed to the land of the long white cloud.

I'm going, going, back, back, to Cali, Cali

I saw a shooting star in the smog-filled sky.  Natty-Ice gulping in a Garden Grove backyard.  And it is all bright tips of cigarettes burning, dancing through the dark in arcs of orange.  Crisp in the streetlight glow, we are each and every one hiding behind concrete walls.  Block after block of concrete walls.  One story adobe houses painted in pastels.  Light posts eerie in the night time. and there is traffic on the other side.  Houses stacked down the street. Block after block.  Block after block. 

Let the Santa Anna winds blow down from the hills, blow down from the California sky.  Belligerent and waiting on the sunrise.  Bike rides in the dark.  But there is no dark.  Electric daytime all night long.  Fast-food feasting for days on end.  And it is a blur of constant motion.

For two days I've hung half-hooked on rollies with my climbing comrades J.P. and Albert.  Pure punk with the Garden Grove crew and it has been sunny California all day, everyday. 

Right now I'm planning an exit strategy.  Got to make it to LAX before six o'clock for the old pat-down outta-town send me on my way.  Seventeen hours on a plane bound south, and I'm flying into the future.

Peaches.

The Diaspora of the Educated Young-uns

I am fleeing from an invisible pursuer.  Down back-alley ways, through abandoned buildings, and into the wild.  Over snow capped mountains in the land of stone, though deserts in a mini-van, and back to my city-side origins: only to run again.  I am running with a million like-minded individuals.  Or more?  Who knows?  Because the herd scatters in every direction.  There is no unity.  No unity except in the idea that movement will cleanse us.  That only the traveler is pure.  A heard scattered over the globe in ones and twos and threes.  Fleeing, always fleeing from that invisible pursuer.  Because to put down roots is to fall victim, is to give up.  So, on we run, run on, run on.  A global village of vagabonds, gypsies glimpsed for an instant only, and then?  We are gone, off to the next destination.

And forever pursued by that invisible monster that bounds after each and every one of us on velvet feet.  Creeping closer, every year creeping closer, until one by one we we slip into the rhythm of the dream.  A house, a car, a wife, a family.  Responsibility takes us in her firm suburban grasp, and we smile back at her in family portraits snapped after church on Sunday.

It is a trap.  It is a prison.  But this is not to say that I don't one day want the "finer things in life."  A house?  I'll build it myself.  A car?  How about a truck and a motorcycle.  A wife?  Yes, please, I'll take a couple.  Children?  Sure.  Sure.  In fact, I've probably already got a couple running around this wide wonderful world.

But when?  When can I see myself settling into this comfortable groove?  I'm 25 and staring down the gun-barrel of 30.  I can hear the velvet footfall of responsibility padding behind me in the dark.  But I cannot turn toward her yet.  Not yet.  There is too much to do.  There is too much to see.  And there will always be too much to do, too much to see. So I run.

It was Robert Lewis Stevenson who said: " I travel not to go anywhere, but to go.  I travel for travel's sake.  The great affair is to move."  And how many today can agree with this?  How many ten years ago, or ten years before?

So I run.

Along with my colleagues: the college educated masses who don't see exactly how they will fit into the world wide web of work.  Together we run, in different directions, the spider legs of responsibility tip-toeing toward us.  It is a diaspora of the educated young-uns.  Like a gumball machine shattered with an axe, shattered as the commencement speaker salutes the gown-clad graduates and wishes them "godspeed and good luck."  Now run, goddamn it, run.

We are a new generation nameless.  We want to reject the ideas of our mothers and fathers, but what the fuck do they believe in, anyway.  Were they as open-minded as we?  Back in their hay-day, back when there was something worth fighting for.  Don't we reject the same ideals as did they?  Interesting questions, but surely we are different.

We are a new generation nameless.  And there is not yet a buildings-roman, a coming of age story, that describes us.  For we have not yet come of age.  It does not happen now in your teens or early twenties.  It is a process that unfolds over the following years.  And I pray to God that this coming of age is the most intricate masterwork of origami ever produced.  May the unfolding never cease.  May the growth continue ad infinitum. 

I will run, I will flee.  Until finally, snared by the lovely hand of that invisible monster, I take my wanderings in a new direction.  And that path may very well lead to the greatest adventure of all..  But for now I drift aloft, a proclaimed member of the diaspora.  I will spread myself thin so that the wind can catch me.  There is purity in movement, and away we go.

Now run, goddamn it, run.

T-minus One Week.

6:20 pm, and again the sky is liquid fire on the 540 freeway, the sun a molten globe melting out of the halogen-bright immensity.  I watch it in the rear view.  If you or anyone you know has never seen a beautiful sunset, then drive west on 540 between the hours of six o'clock and dark.  Oh yes, you will be traveling along an industrial-asphalt river full of  carbon-monoxide-spewing chug-a-lug machines.  But the sky is painted onto the firmament above.  And if you can manage to tear your eyes from the monotony of the eight lane freeway--car accidents be damned--then you can soar into this neon wonderland on wings of gold.  The longer you look, the better it gets.  So go on.  Forget the concrete world around you, escape from the metal, glass prison of the automobile and burn into that great beyond.

Horrible advice.  Someone will surely die in a blazing ball of wreckage.

But the underbellies of planes twinkle there in the failing light.  The arrivals and departures roaring in-to and out-of the painted sky.  Silver birds making constellations in constant motion.  But they, too, are chug-a-lug machines, humming over the ideal suburban landscapes of North Raleigh.  And I wonder where they are going.

RDU is one of the two international airports in North Carolina.  Just off of 540.  Just off of I-40.  Planes, planes and automobiles.  We guzzle gas like there is no tomorrow.  But tomorrow looms forever closer.  And, though I'm sure everyone has heard plenty about "the end of oil," I wonder how long we really have before air travel as we know it becomes obsolete?  Or if it will at all.

I've heard more and more about an "Aviation Apocalypse" forecasting the end of mass air travel.  And, according to Bradford Plumer, in an article he wrote for the New Republic, this will mean many things to our world which is "increasingly accustomed to its frenetic, globe-trotting pace."

But how relevant will it be to me?  Comes the question from the self-centered arrogant asshole sitting on a strange couch in a strange house with strange dogs.  Yes, how relevant will it be to me?  Perhaps I am part of the last generation that will be able to pack up a backpack after college graduation and trek on over to Europe to ride around in trains and stay in hostels.  The youth must broaden their horizons somehow.  Though these days we are just as likely to go to China or Africa, South America, or--in my case--New Zealand.

And what should we do?  This last generation with wings?  Take the fast track to responsibility, and conserve what we have left.  Abandon the vertical transit system?  It is surely helping to reek havoc on the world's climate.  We do not need airplanes to communicate with the rest of the world.  We are living in the global age.  In the digital age.  We could live vicariously though skype-pen-pals in other nations rather than going to visit these places ourselves.  And should we do this?  Should we become more grounded in our own communities?  Place a greater focus on our neighbors, and being neighborly?  

Yes.  Surely, we should do all of these things.  But if I'm not on that flight in one week, someone else will take my seat.  And that would be a travesty.  So I will fly.  With the time that I have left--the oil-clock ticking--I will fly.  I will guzzle gas with the rest of the lot.  I will see as much of this shrinking world as I can.  And I will become a part of this strange group--a group that we will all be a part of when history looks back at us--a group that took to the air.  That flew over continents and oceans.  A group that traveled for myriad reasons.  For business, for pleasure.  For love.  As fast as fire.  And away we go.

T-minus one week.  And counting.