Christchurch. Wasting away the first day. Lazy haze.
In the afternoon we take a trip to town. Pay for parking barefoot on the sidewalk. Greek food at Dimitri’s delicious. And then scuttling excursions into several outdoor stores where I realize more and more acutely my utter lack of gear and preparation for the upcoming trip to the fabled Darrin Mountains. A trip looming at the forefront of the New Year.
But for now I can put it out of mind. We are city boys.
A stop in the package store on the way back to the flat. Harrington’s:
Bring your own bottles, your jugs and your jars,
Fill them up with whatever you want from the bar.
Simply amazing. There are home-brewed beers and locally distilled liquors. All on tap: a delectable liquid buffet for alcoholics of all shapes and sizes. The customers standing in line with milk cartons and coca-cola bottles, licking their lips like fat cats stalking beer birds. Grab your booze and get out. Go. While outside the local underage hoodlums plot on the asphalt, all of them milling about hatching schemes on the getting of liquor.
Back at the flat it is all music and Mark William Daniel. My desert-dwelling buddy who lived with me in a sand castle outside of Bishop California way back in 2009. Already over a year ago. We spent a month together under the late summer sun with bleeding finger-tips and sun-burnt skin. Back then it was always canned beans in the fire pit in the evenings. It was Doritos and liquor and the Electric Light Orchestra blasting out of fist-sized speakers nuzzled into the sand. All of it under the shotgun blast of stars in the desert sky. Take me back. Take me back.
Tonight we drink whiskey and smoke cigarettes, nostalgic, listen to Neil Young and Joe Cocker. I drink too much and go to bed early. Only to wake up late for the climbing session in the Port Hills the following day. The Port Hills situated high on a ridge line, the city of Christchurch spread sprawling below on the one side and the port town of Littleton tucked away on the other, a cozy spider web of streets and houses by the harbor.
Traditional climbing in the almost drizzle. Up cracks: hand jam, finger lock—place your pro and move along—finagle through the weakness in the mist-flecked rock. The weather not enough to deter us from climbing. Just enough to wet the rock. Slime.
We are slip-sliding across the faces—shoes skating—looking for some sort of purchase: an edge, a nubbin, an awkward angle in the rock, anything, anything dry to propel us toward the darkening sky. Six climbs ticked off of the list, and already it is late. We swerve back down the cut backs and into Christchurch for night number two.
Devilled sausages in the frying pan, dark beer in juice jugs, and the promise of a poker game in which I’m sure to loose some dough. Another night under the cloud-covered sky of the University Town.
On Friday we wait. Lounging in the lounge. Waiting on the man with three first names. Mark William Daniel. Markey-Mark. Shit-of-a-man. He shows up at four thirty and we’re on the road by five. Out of Christchurch and on our way to Castle Hill—the legendary boulder field—hot spot for compression problems, slab sliding, and the notorious no-hold mantles.
Through Sheffield, Springfield, and we stop for pies. My second. The first being gobbled down mercilessly as soon as we exited the ferry in Pickton all those weeks ago. Back then it was all mince and cheese. The undisputed classic for the tourist, the slack-jawed American with a string of drool slipping from the side of his mouth. Hung-over and hungry at midday in the small-town bakery.
Now it is venison. This one from a bakery in Springfield after an argument among the boys about which town makes better pies. And, already, it is gone. In the time it takes to walk from the shop-door to the car, it is gone.
We drive over Porter’s Pass, the highest roadway in New Zealand. Over Porter’s pass, through the rain shield, the wall of clouds hanging low over the mountains, and into the sunshine on the other side. Behold. The Castle Hill Basin.
It is a dream-scape of rolling green hills peppered with huge limestone boulders. It is a Seuss Land, the rock sculpted smooth—concave to convex. The dancing stones. Dimples and pockets waiting for fingers, and the everywhere slopers, the everywhere slopers resounding always with the open palm SLAP. Joy.
We’ll spend all of next week here with Markey the Master and Guide, flinging ourselves willy-nilly at the boulder barrage. Today is just an introduction.
We don’t get back to Christchurch until after 11 o’clock. Worked. Heavy lids, we stumble through the doorway and hit the hay. Lights Out.
Worthless the day following. Stooping, I shuffle around the flat like an old man suffering from a life time’s worth of injuries. Ankle, lower back, shoulders, elbows, hands. Time to give the battered bones a rest in a bean bag seat on the back deck. Sunny Saturday. I am shirtless and sweating, flipping through the final pages of the Thomas Pynchon novel: V.. Talent. Pure gold between the paper covers. A hard book to read, yes, but—Good God—the man can write (And there, folks, is the extent of Nathan Bradford Dixon’s literary criticism. Thank you, and Goodnight.).
After a nap I re-activate my pre-purchased calling card via a computerized operator on the other end of the line. Credit card numbers typed through the land line. Then its time to give the old country-to-country ring-a-ding-ding to the Ma and the Pa before heading to a Cricket Match in the early afternoon.
Our host is one Kahu, a friendly fellow who “sinks piss” with us in the grass beside the field. Classy Red out of two-liter plastic bottles. Harrington’s best. “Get ‘ur down ya’.”
In the wind-swept city park it is a game of red ball bouncing. Bowled in an overhand arc toward the waiting wickets, or stumps, as those in “the know” call them. The slap of the bat and all of a sudden a springing into motion. Someone chasing the ball and both batters running opposite directions. Kahu’s team chasing 128 runs as they move to the offensive, and they win handedly.
Off to the pub for the celebration, and another night of sinking piss begins...
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