Cycling in Goat Country :: Dunedin, New Zealand
I spent 3 days in Dunedin, two in the city and one cycling the Otago Peninsula. On the peninsula, a person with good luck, divine intervention, or enough money can see elephant seals, little blue penguins, yellow-eyed penguins, royal albatross, black oystercatchers, Hooker's sea lions, pukeko, fur seals, sheep, shags, and black swans. I saw only the latter three, but the ride was beautiful. It began on the western shore and ended with a jaunt up and over ridiculously steep hills to the opposite side. To spend the day riding without my panniers was complete freedom.
In Dunedin, cars struggle to get up the hills. To stand on a street corner and listen, one hears a chorus of grinding and groans. In fact, Dunedin boasts the world's steepest street, Baldwin St.
To carry the load on my bicycle, I have it set up with gearing that is somewhere between traditional mountain bike and road bike gearing. What this really means is that it is not particularly good at going up hills easily or down hills fast. But the compromise is perhaps the perfect thing for touring New Zealand.
With my mindset of a professional athlete, walking the bike is not allowed. At home, I would never walk a bike unless it was up a loose, steep mountain trail after several attempts to ride, or it was broken. Have I thought about walking my bike in New Zealand? Absolutely! Usually I am too stubborn to do it.
On my last night in Dunedin, I dismounted to look for the driveway of the Manor House Backpacker's Hostel, and as I turned in, I continued to push the bike. The tree-covered driveway was so steep that all I could do was take a step forward, slide halfway back, push the bike up slowly and with both brakes firmly applied, try to take another step, pulling myself up with the bike. As I reached the top, I turned to see a car pull in, squeal the tires for 15 seconds in a thick cloud of rubber and moss, and roll back down.
The next morning, I packed the bike at 9:30 AM in the rain, slid down the driveway of the Manor House, and started out of town. Within five minutes, I had lost my route and stopped at a dairy (the shop, not the farm) to ask for directions. I stated where I was trying to go and the route I intended to take. The shopkeeper said, "Oh, you can't go there, that's goat country! You can hardly walk up those hills." Because this was a challenge I could not ignore, and because I am slightly wary of taking directions from a person whose only idea of a bike ride is a roll down to the beach, I listened politely, thanked him kindly, and was sure to note my own route on the map as well as his.
My route and his began the same. Then mine veered off into 'goat country'. It was more stubbornness than hubris that sent me to see what it was this man considered impossible to ride. In fact, it was a residential street with no farm animals at all, quite steep, but rideable. When I got to the top, I found it looped around, went downhill, and ended up back where it began. So then I rejoined his route. After a few slightly less impossibly steep hills, I was exactly where I wanted to be - on the Southern Scenic Route out of town.
A Wee Violet Crib :: Papatowai, New Zealand
I left Papatowai early yesterday to reach the Cathedral Caves at low tide. I made it just in time and as I stood in the caves for several minutes each wave brought in a bigger rush of water, slowly sealing off my exit.
It rained intermittently throughout the morning as I rode short distances through the Catlins between walks, waterfalls, and various other seaside and rainforest attractions. By mid-day the weather had turned for the worst.
I barely made it to Porpoise Bay in what was nothing less than a hideous wind, a howling, dangerous wind. I would call it laughable, if it were not so dangerous. I considered it laughable anyway. I had no better way to cope. I fought this wind head-on mostly and struggled to move downhill. Uphill was a cruel joke. Sometimes the road would bend and a stiff side-wind would blow me directly off of it.
I reached the backpacker's hostel, unloaded the bike, and lied on the floor. I could not move. I didn't want to. I listened to the wind tearing at the small house, raging, threatening to take the whole thing right into the bay. Out the window, I saw surf crashing against the beach nearby and against the rocks across the bay. Flax grasses were tugged at their roots. I might have seen Hectors dolphins out swimming or yellow-eyed penguins nesting around the point in Curio Bay. But I was not ready to move, not yet.
Late in the afternoon, another cyclist arrived. She was a Kiwi from Wellington who just finished a seasonal job in Papatowai and today began a bout of 'winter cycle touring.' It made me a bit uneasy to hear her say so, as I thought it was still autumn. When she saw me she said, "Oh, you were in Papatowai last night. Did you sleep in a wee violet crib?" Though I thought I knew what she was asking, the language was too much. I responded in confusion, "yeah...um...well...I don't know." She laughed, "Did you stay in Keith and Diana's cottage?" This question I could be sure of, "right, yes, I did." Papatowai has a population of thirty, and a solo female cyclist is a rare creature in town. My reputation preceded me.
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A little background... at home, it took over two months to get my passport and visa details sorted before coming to NZ. Just prior to that, I spent a month in Patagonia in South America. For all of this, I quit my job and left my apartment in Milwaukee. I packed up my entire life and set it in storage.
When I returned from Patagonia, a friend asked me, "Did you figure anything out while you were gone?" As if I were somehow confused or lost. He prompted me to think about why I would travel so far.
I am not on some fool's errand in search of myself. Nor am I an arrogant explorer seeking to summit an unknown peak and name it after myself. I simply go out every day and let the landscape break me open: my legs, my lungs, my eyes, and my heart. Every night my body grows stronger, and if I am lucky, when I wake, my eyes and heart remain open.
When riding on the Otago Peninsula, I stopped to take a photograph and found myself in tears. I was overwhelmed by the awe and beauty of this whole experience - all that I saw before me, and all that I left behind.
To look up the word awe in the dictionary shows that it is a combination of wonder and fear. But, our cool-kids generation of 'dude, awesome!' has taken the fear out of it. I would like to put it back in. Not because I think we need to live in fear, but because I think without learning to recognize fear, we never really learn to feel.
With all that said, when I saw the weather report this morning and still hoped to get to Invercargill today, I took a bus.
Ambition :: Wanaka, New Zealand
Beginning the climb over the Crown Range from Queenstown to Wanaka, I was laughing. The road travels to an elevation of 1080 meters and is the highest highway in New Zealand. The weather was perfect, and we were on a staircase of switchbacks, going up. It reminded me of Colorado. It felt like home. I was riding with Scotty from Milwaukee and asked him to remind me of this laughter in 20 minutes up the mountain. But in 20 minutes, we were kilometers apart.
I had met Scotty in the storm near Porpoise Bay. He was on a round-the-world cycling trip. His bike was much heavier than mine, but he said he needed everything he carried. He complained constantly of knee pain but continued to pedal. Still, it was a much greater weight of weariness and loneliness that seemed really to slow him down. I told him it would be ok to go home. He said he wanted to go to Africa. I don't think he really wanted much to do with Africa at all, only his goal of cycling 40,000 unique kilometers. His voice spoke of strength, but his eyes cried for help. I could not help him. I could see him inside, trapped, and I knew him all too well. I told him the hardest challenge I had ever met was learning it is ok to say no to the next greater challenge. Ambition is so easy to hide behind, until the day you realize you have nothing else.
From a lookout point about 2 km from the summit, I watched Scotty snaking his way up the mountain. When he reached me, sore knees and all, we looked down to Queenstown, 40 km away. It seemed so close.
Where the Wild Things Are :: Knight's Point, West Coast, New Zealand
I rode from Haast to Fox Glacier in an almost continuous downpour. I could clear the water from my face by the handful. Still, everyone here knows that it always rains on the West Coast. I could not expect to pedal through the rainforest, without the rain.
The West Coast is huge ferns, moss-covered trees, and a thousand shades of green. It is 'Where the Wild Things Are'. If you know Maurice Sendak's children's book, the West Coast needs no further description.
Climbing to Knight's Point, visibility dropped to 50m. I knew the ocean was to my left, but I saw only a wall of white. At Bruce Bay the rain stopped and I dare say the sun almost came out. By that I mean there was a subtle change in the density of cloud in one part of the sky. Then the rain began again.
I mean not to be complaining, only telling. I signed up for all this. The wind and rain make these islands what they are and keep them wild. I would ask for nothing else. And a morning sun, a tailwind, the Southern Cross on a clear night; these come like exquisite gifts to make a thousand days of suffering worthwhile.
About 20 minutes from the village of Fox Glacier, riding under fat drops of rain that seemed to come all at once, an amazing thing happened. I stopped. When I looked ahead, I saw the sheet of rain I had just been moving with was now moving away from me. Behind me was sun, real sun. Then I felt a sudden breeze, which I caught like a surfer catches a wave, and it pushed me straight into a rainbow. This is all true.
Gilit :: Fox Glacier, New Zealand
I walked on a glacier today, a guided walk. I have been hearing talk of its splendor since I arrived in New Zealand. On the walk, I met Gilit, from Israel.
She told me that most young people in Israel have to serve in the army. When they are done, they work to save money and then travel. Then they return to university. I have a feeling these are the lucky ones.
Since she had studied Arabic, Gilit was placed in an intelligence unit in the army. She would have nothing of it. She struggled to be reassigned to the air force where she was trained to launch missiles at an enemy. She never had to.
At the backpacker's hostel, we watched the movie 'Scent of a Woman.' Gilit nibbled on cookies while onscreen Pacino pieced together a .45. She leaned over to me and whispered, "I can do that too."
Later, she giggled with embarrassment while confessing that she likes to read women's magazines, the articles about makeup, the multiple-choice quizzes, 'How Do You Know He's the One?'
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When I arrive in a town, most people that I meet say they saw me on the road. Then they comment on my fitness or craziness, or both. I won't admit to either in their hyperbolic proportions. They see I am cycling alone and they ask, "Don't you get tired, bored, lonely?" Tired, yes. Bored, never. And loneliness has more to do with connection than company. Cycling alone cannot cause it.
As I screamed (not literally) down the mountain to Franz Joseph this morning, I was laughing out loud (literally). I am prone to irrepressible giggles, but this edged on hysteria, for two reasons. First, I am tired. Second, I was feeling no longer bulletproof. The beauty here is a barrage, and I am daily bombarded. Sometimes it is more than my poor heart can take.
Rescued :: Greymouth, New Zealand
Have you ever slipped or stumbled and begun to fall? Then without enough time for your brain to step to consequence, but just enough for a dark dread to cloud your consciousness, you catch yourself. With an empty sense of buzz kill you stand, heart racing and body prepared for disaster, with nothing wrong. That is how I felt in Greymouth, having so quickly escaped catastrophe that I can't be sure whether any of it really happened.
NZ has countless varied and spectacular bridges constructed in all manner of material and design. Almost without exception they share one characteristic, a single lane. The bridges on my route this morning were not only shared among vehicles, but trains as well. I am not certain when, how, or if trains cross them anymore, but the tracks do.
Riding in a light rain, I looked ahead as I approached the second such bridge. I saw the tracks continue straight onto it, while the road made a sweeping bend to meet the tracks. So I had to cross the tracks at the apex of the curve. I thought, "be careful, this is a situation where people crash." Other people, not me. I am too good at keeping my bike upright. Wrong.
I remembered too late that the bike was loaded and I could not ride lightly over the tracks as I normally would. When my rear wheel hit the tracks, it slid sideways until it fell into the groove of the track, perpendicular to the direction I was heading. Body estranged from bike, I hit the guardrail, before I hit the ground.
I heard a loud hissing and felt a strange weakness is the bike as I detangled myself from it. Standing and having determined that my body was intact, I saw that my rear wheel was not. The spokes were bent at severe angles. The rim had seared completely apart in one place and partially apart opposite that spot. It was nearly broken in two.
I hardly had time to look at it with dismay when a car stopped and three men jumped out. Before I could stammer a word, they had flagged down the next vehicle, a truck with an empty bed. Two men hoisted the loaded bike (which I could hardly lift off the ground) into the truck. They whisked me into the back of the car with a British hitchhiker named Martin and the headless carcasses of five sheep, cleaned and gutted (not Martin, he was ok.).
In little more time than it took to introduce ourselves, we were in Greymouth at a backpacker's hostel with a bike shop down the block. Then my rescuers sped out of my life as quickly as they had swept into it.
The Big OE :: Christchurch, New Zealand
Kiwis in their twenties regularly go away on "The Big OE," their Overseas Experience. Having spent their lives on two small islands in the middle of the ocean, they want to see the world. Most often they go to the UK and Australia, London and Sydney. Many also go to the US, particularly New York and Los Angeles. Some go to Canada. Others wander the globe.
I knew this in coming here. In fact, in large part, it brought me here. The knowledge that travel is so integral to their culture made them interesting to me. I thought they would understand and embrace a traveler like myself. Yet when I arrived in Christchurch with the intention of staying, I received many confused looks and responses, as if to travel to another country to live for a period of time is a very strange thing to do. They didn't seem to understand me, and I didn't understand them not understanding me. I guess the idea of an American going on an OE to New Zealand just didn't seem right, or at least uncommon.
New Zealand lives in large part off of tourism. But so much of what they see in the way of travelers is a stream of flighty, wealthy young revelers, partying their way around these islands and the world in a hedonistic frenzy of sex, drugs, and adrenaline. They burn hot and fast, and then they disappear. They flock to locations like Queenstown where the reputation for skiing is great and the nightlife even better. They go where they are told to go by the Kiwi Experience tour operators and the Lonely Planet guidebook with their wallets open and their pant undone. They hand their bodies over to extreme sport guides, to each other, and to chemical alteration - anything for a thrill.
So maybe a girl riding into town alone on a bicycle carrying everything she owns, saying she wants to stay and live, is a bit outside the box. But I think we all spend too much time trying to be square just to fit into other people's boxes.
The reason I meant to mention the OE is to say that because of it, I have discovered that a large portion of the Kiwi population in their twenties and early thirties are simply not here. As a result, most of my friends here are either under 23 or over 35. I am in the awkward position of trying to balance the idea of maturity and responsibility that someone my age might be expected to have with the idea of freedom and lawlessness that someone in my position might be expected to have. I am never sure whether to act my age, or hide it. I can't escape the burden of expectation, even if it is only the thought of it that weighs on me.
I am 27 years old, living half a world away from home with no semblance of being settled. I am working a retail sales job well below my capability and certainly below my education. But I am happy. I have learned to find meaning in life's smallest things. The daily smile of a workmate has been enough to carry me for months.
I have learned to be alone and to take care of myself so far from my friends and family. I am house sitting and cat sitting, and the house and the cats are fine. But the plant that I forgot to water for three weeks probably won't make it back, and my friend fell down the stairs on a Saturday night and put a hole in the wall with her head. I get to work on time each day, and I do my job well. But I can also tell stories of staying out all night and then watching the sunrise over the sea, savoring those last precious minutes of night when the surf shimmers pink and dances in, before the sun breaks over the horizon and in the flash of that instant the night before is suddenly lost, its events etched into the Kodachrome of memory.
Why We Travel :: Christchurch, New Zealand
Often people travel alone to discover who they are on their own, with roles and definitions removed. They are no longer sister, brother, daughter, son or friend. They are not defined by a job title, a particular interest, or family reputation. They learn how they might respond in situations without being guided simply by expectation. They are alone. The world around them becomes something to bounce off. Life is boiled down to action and reaction, cause and effect, behavior and consequence.
I am the opposite. I know who I am alone. I have been alone so long, I don't know how to be in relation. I don't know how to reconnect.
I Done it Before :: Takaka Hill, New Zealand
Before my sister arrived here, I arranged for us to buy a 1994 Subaru Legacy wagon with 173,000 kilometers for $3000 Kiwi dollars. After grilling everyone I know about their Subarus (apparently everyone has one) and how much they paid, we seem to have done quite well.
We have since driven it from Christchurch to Hokitika via Arthur's Pass, then to Picton via Kaikoura and Blenheim, then from Picton to Christchurch via Motueka, Murchison, and the Lewis Pass, then to Lake Clearwater and back to Christchurch, then to Diamond Harbour and Akaroa, then back to Lake Clearwater, and back to Motueka via Arthur's Pass this time. Today we drove it back to Christchurch from Golden Bay. It has run beautifully, until this morning when we got a flat tire. I pulled over at the bottom of Takaka hill, and we began taking everything out of the car to get to the spare.
When I asked a mechanic friend Daryl to check out the car for me before I bought it, one of the worse problems he mentioned was that it was missing the wheel brace (a.k.a. the wrench for the lug nuts on the wheels). Though we often thought about it, my sister and I never bothered to actually remedy this problem. So we were lucky to have only a short distance to walk to a service station to try to borrow one.
The man at the servo looked us up and down in our singlets (tank tops), shorts, jandals (flip-flops) and sun-tinted hair and skin. He handed over the wheel brace and wore a classic Kiwi smirk when he asked. "Do you modern birds know how to change a tire?" Naturally, and to my greatest surprise, my sister put on her best American country accent and immediately replied, "I done it before." I struggled to hold in my laughter as we walked away.
To hazard a generalization, I would say that Kiwis are cheeky by nature. Often the only thing they take seriously is the pursuit of a good time; at this they excel. Everything in their lives points to this: their interactions, their toys, even their language. Kiwi-speak is the linguistic equivalent of a mischievous grin that takes them straight to where the fun is. In a private wink is the wit that brings them home again.
We put on the spare and drove the flat tire back to the station, leaving our mom on the side of the road with all the gear: 2 tents, 3 big backpacks, 3 duffle bags, 3 sleeping bags and pads, 1 mountain bike in pieces, helmet and other bike gear, about 10 pairs of shoes, boots and sandals, a chilly bin (cooler), the camp stove and its various accessories, bags of food, bags of rubbish, bags of dirty laundry, etc. I dared her to stick out her thumb.