Due to interesting visa rules in Australia, it was necessary for me to leave Australia briefly. The destination of choice was New Zealand, which at ~2300 km away is the closest country available. Not wanting to just fly there and back, and having very fond memories of New Zealand from the last visit, I made a weekend trip out of it. What follows is an editorialized account of the 55 hrs I spent there. This may be of interest to very few people, if any at all. If reading is not your thing, link to pics is at the bottom.
Things have started out promising enough - a thunderstorm in Sydney closed all ground ops at the airport for about 45 min, so all we could do is watch the inbound flight wait 30 m away from the gate, but unable to 'dock' due to lack of ground crew to guide it in. Combined with a backlog of departing flights by the time the weather cleared, we took off more than 1.5 hrs late. Hardly the end of the world, I agree, but that made my rather late 10 pm arrival to NZ into a VERY late 11.45 pm one.
I was given temporary possession of a pretty new Mazda3 and a GPS unit to go with it, and after admonishment of severe financial repercussions in case of damage to either, I was set loose. The GPS did a fine job of guiding me out of Chrischurch, so 15 min later I was cruising comfortably towards Banks Peninsula. In the remaining 80 km of the drive I only encountered 3 other vehicles. NZ lacks the Australian danger of hitting large animals on the road (sheep are typically fenced in), so other than the incessant complaining of the GPS that I was exceeding 100 km/h (I couldn't figure out how to disable the warning) things were going smooth. With about 20-30 km to go, the roads got narrow and twisty, and my disagreement with the GPS deepened, since it deemed the route given to me by the owner of the backpacker's where I was headed to pass through unpaved roads, and so refused to give directions. Thing were getting late, and going on the assumption that the owner of the house gave me the right way, I put the GPS in the "just show me where I am" mode and pressed on. Sure enough, I got to the place right around 2 am.
I have pre-arranged the late arrival, and the owners were supposed to leave me a note as to where the available bed was, and other such details. However, since a quick look around the living room / kitchen revealed no such note, I was left to find things out by myself. Luckily, the room were labelled, and a guess that the 'Dorm' would be the one with the free bed was accurate. Amazingly, I managed not to wake up anyone in the process.
Places like this are not conducive to sleeping in, but even an 8 am wakeup meant that I was one of the last people up. My appearance in the living room was greeted with a more than a few surprised looks, as apparently they have waited for me until 12:30, and since I didn't show up, they figured I wasn't coming. I, in the meantime, was absorbing where I was - this was the view from the bedroom window:
Weather was still kinda cold / cloudy, so I bummed around the place for a while and chatted with the staff (staff are usually people on a year long working holiday style visa, who are helping around the hostel in exchange for food & stay). The staff consisted of a German girl named Mira, Taiwanese girl Coco and a 59 year old Frenchwoman named Nadine. It was very unusual to see someone from older generation working this sort of deal, but more on that later. They have helpfully informed me that the place is owned by a guy named Gary, who went to Akaroa (the nearest town) and was to come back later in the day. More importantly, for a modest fee of $14 and help with the dishes after the fact, one could partake in a dinner cooked by Gary. Needless to say, I signed up. Since the staff looked busy, and there was nobody else around, I went for a drive around the area and took some pictures.
Coming back about an hour or two later did not turn up anyone new so I decided to go see the town. Mira, having finished her chores, wanted to come too so she came along. The town, Akaroa, had a distinctly French influence to it, down to flying a huge French flag and have all streets labelled as Rue something or other. I never did find out how this French influence materialized half the world away. The real star of the town was really the harbour though - the bright blue water and the hills surrounding it made for an awesome scene.
We sat down for lunch, where I found out more about Mira. She was a legal assistant in Germany for a few years, but got bored with her job, and saw that there were a lot more opportunities available if she were to improve her English. New Zealand was then the choice due to easy availability of the working holiday visa. Having already been at the hostel I was staying at for 2 weeks, she was actually planning to move on to a different hostel that day, but was persuaded to stay one more night by Nadine.
Back at the hostel, quite a few more people arrived. I ended up spending most of the time with Yanni and Eleni, a Greek couple, and Nadine joined us later in the evening as well. Yanni, as is turned out, owns a taverna on the Greek island Skiathos, which he only runs 8-10 months in the year, so while as he put it, "i'll never get rich", he has lots of time to travel.
The dinner was really the highlight - not only Gary's cooking was spectacular, with dishes ranging from steamed crayfish to pumpkin pie, the gathering proved international indeed - 10 countries were represented at the table. (Greece, Canada, USA, Denmark, New Zealand, Singapore, France, Germany, England, and Taiwan) What was even more interesting is that people's professional backgrounds were as varied as the geographical ones - from students to financial consultants. The conversations ran late into the night, topics ranging from US politics and smoking to singing the alphabet song in French, courtesy of Nadine. Nadine was really the entertainment star of the night, a 59 year old retired school teacher from a small town in the south of France. What she lacked in English skills, she made up for in enthusiasm. Overall, I definitely remembered why I loved New Zealand the first time I was there - it seems to attract interesting, friendly, adventurous people that you can really spend hours with in animated conversations over a completely unexpected range of topics. At the end of the day I had invites to 3 different countries from people I have just met, yet would be totally happy to see again.
Being in New Zealand and not going for a hike is tantamount to treason, so next morning I joined the Greeks for a hike in the nearby valley. What we did not quite plan for is that the trail was covered with up to waist-high grass, which combined with overnight rain made sure that we got soaked from waist down in a matter of minutes - all electronics have quickly migrated in the highest available pockets. On the other hand, since we got the getting wet part over with quickly, and it was warm, we happily continued for the rest of the 1.5 hour loop wet. (1 week later update: my shoes STILL smell like a swamp, even after 2 washes with strong detergent - I have now declared them contaminated beyond recovery, and bought a new pair) The hike was nice enough, although perhaps not as spectacular as some others I have done. After changing into dry clothes, we followed it up with a nice lunch in town.
Knowing that I had to go back to Christchurch for the 6.45 am flight the next day, I nonetheless stayed at the hostel as late as I could. A particularly amusing scene was played out by 2 sons of Gary's. They were playing with a small boat in the middle of maybe 10x10 m pond. The younger kid, in the boat, got stuck in the middle of said pond, and apparently having a penchant for dramatics, started to yell for help. The older kid ran off, ostensibly to get help, but instead returned with a folding chair, set it up on the shore, and sat down to enjoy the show. At this point, all adults within view were laughing hysterically.
Time eventually came for me to head off so I reluctantly said my goodbyes and headed back to Christchurch. I stopped a few times along the way to take pictures and ponder whether it's better driving the steeps roads at night when you can't see the dropoffs and aren't distracted by the views.
The hostel in Christchurch was quiet, so I struck up conversion with the owner, an Swiss man named Markus, who has moved to New Zealand nearly 20 years ago after working in electronics engineering (how's that for a career change?). He was actually quite fond of the hostel, as he said it provides him with enough income to be happy, and keeps him busy with building and fixing things. We talked for a while about the hosteling business in general, as he seemed to know quite a few details, and I was quite interested to hear them. A surprising part came when I mentioned the placed I stayed at most of the weekend, and he immediatedly went "oh, Gary and Heidi's place, yeah I know them, cool place, ya?" It is definitely a smaller world within an already small one (NZ population is only about 3 million). Talking about travel later one, I was surprised to find out that he has travelled across Russia and Ukraine, having been to placed as remote as Vladivostok in the Far East of Russia and Irkutsk in the North. Without even noticing it, we ended up talking for over 2 hours. I was forced to reflect on my initial impression of Markus, as he was one of the few hostel owners to keep his front door locked, and perhaps did not come across as very friendly on first meeting. Sometimes first impressions are just that...
A quick nap later, I headed to the airport at the ungodly early hour of 5 am. An uneventful flight later, Sydney customs have given me a new 3 months visa, and I was at work shortly thereafter, my sanity restored by a short but sweet vacation.
The rest of the pictures, with comments, are at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/olegace/NewZealandWeekendP.S. Sheep your ask? Yes there were sheep.
Lots of sheep:
