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…
meen as
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