New Zealand Part One

When we landed in Christcurch, New Zealand, the camper van we had reserved wasn't available until the following day, so we took a shuttle into town and found a hostel. It was a short walk "downtown," if you can call it that, where there were a few blocks of bars, restaurants, cafes and shops, a little old train car-turned-restaurant going around, a small cathedral, and some barely-past-puberty skateboarders showing off their tricks in the town plaza. We found a cozy restaurant with heated outdoor serating for the smokers in the group and ordered a few coffees to warm our chilly bones while we planned our itinerary for the week ahead. It was an early night, I think we went to bed around 8 in the evening, just after two stinky Frenchman joined us in the room at the hostel. One of them snored loudly and unevenly, providing the only obstacle to a night of sound slumber.

We rose before dawn as Mexico's second match of the World Cup was being played at 6:30 a.m. New Zealand time and we had found a bar the night before where we could watch it. So as unbelievable as it may sounds coming from me, we watched Mexico beat France over a good coffee, a glass of milk, and a big English breakfast at a bar in Christchurch, NZ at 6:30 in the morning with a small bunch of Mexican and French nationals. We left right after Mexico's victory and convinced a shuttle driver to take us back to our hostel, wait for us to pack up our bags and then drive us back to the airport where we could pick up our camper. Turns out the shuttle driver had an ex-girlfriend from Mexico City and he'd been all over Mexico. He even spoke pretty passable, Kiwi-accented Spanish!

Lupe was the bravest of the bunch and was the first to get behind the wheel of the camper. We had a slight mishap due to the inexperience of driving on the left side of the road and one of the rearview mirrors was nicked, causing a bit of a shake-up. It took about five hours to get to our first stop, Lake Tekapo. It's a glacier lake near Mt. Cook in Mackenzie. We arrived shortly before dusk with enough of a chilly breeze that the lake was covered in whitecaps. Posed for numerous pictures and wandered over to investigate a little old church on a point jutting out into the lake. A tiny, stone church built in the 1930s which in my opinion could qualify as being the church with the most stunning views on the planet. We left at dusk and decided to sleep near Mt. Cook so we wouldn't have to drive much in the morning, so the dark scenery zoomed by in a black blur, hiding itself from us in order to be discovered the next morning.

I put on my boots the next morning to go outsie and turn on the gas so we could use the stove for breakfast and immediately had to return for the camera. We were surrounded by jagged mountains, covered in snow and a mossy, green carpet of trees. Nestled between the mountains was another glacier lake, grey in the light of a cloudy dawn. It had rained all night which made for a restless sleep as you can hear all the droplets falling on the metal roof of the camper. After breakfast and showers, we headed to Mt. Cook.

We had been informed the night before that due to heavy snow and freezing conditions, some roads and most of the tracks were closed, but because of the rain overnight and a mild morning, about a foot of snow had melted and things had opened back up.

We hiked through Hooker Valley with the intention of getting all the way into the valley to see Hooker Glacier, but everywhere we looked and every corner we turned gave us such midnblowing scenery that we were a bit slow on the trail. We passed a little, stone monument with dozens of copper plaques left in memory of adventurers and mountaineers who had died on the mountain due to accidents, falls and avalanches. There was a hanging suspension bridge (another one further down the trail that we didn't get to), an almost entirely frozen-over lake with jagged pieces of ice covering the entire surface like a jigsaw puzzle, and rolling hills covered with a spongy, soft green moss and freckled with dark boulders. We debated whether to finish the track or to head back to the camper for lunch and get to Queenstown by nightfall. Lunch it was, which we prepared on the side of the highway overlooking another glacier lake. We had a late lunch of pasta with bottled tomato sauce while the sun went down over the lake.

It was a long drive to Queenstown. Lupe and I watched Fatal Attraction in the back while Aleja drove and Nea co-piloted. We got to Queenstown around 9:30 p.m. and went to sleep shortly after setting up camp. I slept in my pajames, jodded sweatshirt, fleece jacket, nestled inside my sleeping bag and under the duvet that came with the camper. Warm and toasty like a hot down in a warm bun.

Queenstown, named as such because the first European settlers decided that, being nestled on the edge of a lake with a majestic backdrop of New Zealand's Southern Alps, the place was fit for a queen. The founders were two families of goldminers, still amongst the wealthiest families in NZ. The city gave us a gray and rainy welcome, well-deserved I suppose after the luck we've had so far - sunny every single day. We spent the day walking around the town, exchanging money, booking our outing for Milford Sound the next day, had a bento box at a Japanese restaurant for lunch, and then went down to an ice cream placed called Patagonia for dessert. I had a delicious lavender hot chocolate, warmed me up right to the core.

We sat at a table where there were two other people on their laptops, talking about how we should be careful what we talk about because people could understand Spanish and going on and on. After an hour, I said something about wishing I had hair like the girl at our table and she glanced up at me and I knew instantly that she had understood every word we had said. My face was burning and I'm sure I turned purple with embarrasment. At least I was caught paying her a compliment...she was from Argentina.

We came back to the camper to watch a movie, a laughably bad one, and then started cocktail hour with boxed wine called Goon. After a few litres of Goon and a dinner of sliced-in-half hot dogs, sprinkled with cheese and heated up in the microwave, we went into town to try and find a decent bar. What we neglected to realize is that it was a Sunday night and it was a bit of a ghost town.

Monday morning we got up at 5:30 to go to Milford Sound in Fiordland. We had debated about whether we should go with a guide on a bus or just do it ourselves, but we were warned repeatedly about the drive being NZ's most treacherous highway and cars constantly going off the road. The highway didn't actually end up being as bad as it was made out to be, but it was a good six hours there which would have meant twelve hours of driving in one day. The driver also spoke the better part of the drive there, providing us with a wealth of information that we would have otherwise never known.

Milford Sound is considered by some to be the 8th natural wonder of the world. The Fiordlands are a World Heritage Site, which means it's virtually a locked safe, nothing can be taken in or out, so our children's children can visit and it should be entirely and completely unchanged. Most of the drive is through a lush, temperate rainforest and beech tree forest. The ground is covered with giant ferns and a pale green moss called "gorilla snot" by the locals hangs from the tree branches. The area gets 200 days of rain a year, meaning it gets ten times more rain than London, and we were lucky enough to be there on one of the rare days of sunshine.

Duty calls and it's my turn to shower, so I'll continue the next time I get a chance to use the internet. Hasta pronto!