After a solid two hours of sleep I board the ferry in Wellington. January 2nd. Caroline is tired. Behind the steering wheel, a T-shirt and shorts and glasses. It is good-bye once again and then the tail lights fade into the city streets. Empty. Into the dark.
I board the Ferry as a walk-on. Find a booth. And sprawl full length along the wooden bench on one side. With my backpack beneath my head I conk out before the boat leaves the harbor. To twist and turn on the wooden pew. To nap on and off for three hours as the ferry does the slow sway through the open ocean. Through the Cook Straight.
Jump up once we pull into Picton. Speed walk down the gangway, past the other passengers and into the sunlight. Side step down Highway 1—south—with a cardboard sign and a thumb outstretched. This is my introduction to hitchhiking.
The first ride with a young couple from Scotland who have started a business in Wanaka based around a giant air-filled crash pad. A landing pad for “whatever you want.” Extreme sports enthusiasts, these two, who still use terms like “rad” and “far out.” They drop me off fifty K from Christchurch, and wave out the window. Goodbye.
The second ride with a sun-bleached surfer dude in a Winnebago who keeps telling me that I’ve got to get down to “Oz” for the “gnarly waves.” I keep saying “I don’t surf, man,” and he keeps responding, “Yeah, but you got to get down to Oz for the waves, man.”
Back into the city proper to bus my way to 312 Greers Road. Where Carl and Chester are ready and waiting. The Fish and the Character lounging in the living room. In the living room amongst everything that all of us own. The debris of our collected lives exploded in nylon and leather, in neoprene and nalgene, in Gore-Tex and webbing and wool. And the two of them sprawled amongst it all. Gear-heads ready and waiting. And ready to go. Let’s go.
A snap into motion at 312 Greers Road, and--in under an hour--we are headed south to the Sintenie House to pick up Simon.. South. Speeding south and renaming aloud what we’ve packed. Renaming everything to make sure we haven’t forgotten anything. Repacking with the mind, and mentally it is all there. Speed south.
Only to stop at Anna’s parents house for the night. The forecast having changed in the time it took to drive from Christchurch to Geraldine. One hour.
In one hour we are sucked in to the comfort of the finer things. Magazines on the coffee table, running water, and the crystal clear internet. The crystal clear internet that keeps telling us there is rain forecast in Fijorland tomorrow. So.
So at the invitation of Anna’s father Ad, which is really less an invitation than it is an assumption, we stay. For: A feast. A feast at the Sintenies’. Potatoes, beans and baked zucchini. Beet root and a roast basted in homemade gravy. A Salad chopped fresh from the garden, and the garden veggies soaking up juices from the meal devoured. Then fresh fruit and yogurt to finish it off. Fresh fruit from the farmer’s market and fresh yogurt from Ad’s own Clearwater company. “The most natural Yogurt in New Zealand.”
Full bellies and the wave of exhaustion beginning to sweep again. But first it is beers sipped while sofa-sitting. Vagabond conversations spanning the gap of generations. Cathy and Ad well travelled and well versed in the art of travelling. They are the predecessors. They are a couple of links in the chain. And a couple linked forever in the travelling chain. Respect. And we sleep soundly in the house that yogurt built.
To wake ten hours later. To wake to a spread of fruit, muesli, and yogurt on the kitchen table. And we cannot say thank you enough. Re-pack the Corolla to accommodate Simon’s gear and we’re off.
For me it is a venture backwards down short-term memory lane. Tracing south the route that the sisters Holcomb and I took north. Just a few days ago. Past Lake Tekapo—the frost-flavored Gatorade lapping at the tree-lined banks. Past Mt. Cook invisible. Curtained behind a brand new wall of gray. Past Lake Pukaki and on toward the town of Twizel.
And past Twizel. Mispronounced all this time and laughed at by the boys in the car.
Not Twizzle, Dumb Duzzle,
Take a chisel to muzzle
And carve out the name of the town.
It is “twice,” to begin,
“el” like Elwood, the end,
Get it right you American clown.
Past Twizel and through the brown hills. The rolling hills. The golden hills. Through the desert land. A California-like country spread on either side of the Corolla rocket. But a land, says Chester, “ravished by the cattle crews.” The damage almost invisible to the car-confined passer-by. But the damage done nonetheless. There are irrigation stains. And these irrigation stains, when viewed from above, polka dot green the valleys flat. Pollution pollution on four legs walking over green stains meant to be brown.
But what is to be done? It is all about capital. Dairy farms more lucrative than sheep farms. So convert. Convert for capital, and complete the simple equation. Chester rants. He raves. An environmental patriot. Through the gold-rolling hills, the green coronas hidden at eye level. Chester ranting. And the pollutants staring back with a bleary eye and a boring “moo.” O! You money making money makers. You are the pilots, and the world is a sinking ship.
Drive away.
Out of the brown fields and on to Cromwell and on to Queenstown. On to Queenstown to pick up emergency blankets, climbing tape, and tat—tat which is webbing to leave behind in the clouds.
A grocery stop before we leave. And packed to the brim we hit the road south, southwest toward Te Annu and Milford Sound. South, southwest toward Fijorland. South, southwest toward the Darrans.
And the promise of fine weather…
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