6 February 2016
As I am belatedly realizing, it is much easier to write a blog post in theory than in practice. In theory, I can dash off a thousand words before breakfast (all of them, of course, beautiful, poetic, funny, and inspiring); in practice, I have been finding myself hard pressed to come up with a hundred words that I feel are worthy of sharing – and this despite the fact that I have spent the last week or so since I last wrote driving through some of the most beautiful country I’ve ever seen. Unfortunately, this phenomenon (common name: Writer’s Block) is exceedingly typical among anyone, ever, who has attempted to write anything at all – and so after another week in New Zealand, all my brain is supplying most of the time are things like “it was cool” and “lots of plants” and “wow.” Otherwise known as: nothing anybody wants to read. However, I am going to do my best, because I am dedicated to the Art of Blogging, and also know that there are definitely several family members waiting on an update.
So – on February 1st we started our drive to the South Island, and aside from the few drawbacks of traveling so quickly from place to place (missing out on those cool little side roads you want to explore, stiff back from sitting in the car all day, never being able to unpack, etc.) it has afforded me an amazing slideshow-type view of North Island landscapes.
Everything about the land I have seen has felt magnified and intensified – bigger and wilder and brighter than anything I have experienced in California (this, admittedly, could be because everything here is new to me, but there’s really no denying the drama of the North Island). I have never seen so much green in my life: huge, wide, idyllic, sweeping valleys of rich farmland dotted with houses and lined with old fences and horses and sheep tucked away in little grassy swales; the outer foothills of those neat little valleys that bleed back into dense and wild canyons absolutely stuffed with foliage – pine trees and massive ferns and various leafy bushes and a huge variety of fragrant and unusual flowers.
The entire first day’s drive to Rotorua from Auckland was filled with this and more – looming mountains in the distance, blanketed with thick greenery and shrouded at their peaks with heavy mist, marked every so often by white ribbons of waterfalls; a strange short valley of dry grass and little hillocks scattered around, steep and grassy with tall stone pillars sitting right at the top, as if the stone had grown straight up out of the ground like something from a Dr. Seuss book; and, of course, the hum of cicadas throughout it all, sounding like an army hundreds of thousands strong singing their war songs (this is actually not too far off the mark – cicadas sing for a double purpose: to attract mates, and to repel hunting birds; the relationship between sex, death, and defense is probably more than I should get into while writing a blog post that is largely about scenery).
Rotorua itself seemed to be predominantly a tourist town, but with the special distinction of sitting right on a geothermal hotspot – i.e., smelling of rotten eggs and featuring roads, parks, and houses built around the various hot springs and geysers. It is very odd to be driving through the middle of town past the local supermarket and look to your right and see a billowing cloud of steam coming up from an innocuous-looking pond in the middle of a quiet park; I’ve never seen anything like it before. Outside of Rotorua, we found a smallish creek tucked back into the bush (“found” = Googled rapidly because it was getting dark and we wanted to hot tub) that looked like any other creek until you noticed its telltale sulfurous scent and felt the heat of the water. Just above this creek is a lake which has definitely made my list of Most Amazing Natural Bodies of Water, simply because the entire lake was a hot spring. It was not a small lake, either, and the whole thing was literally steaming hot. Emerald water, emerald hills surrounding it, cooling twilight air; it was this lake more than anything I’ve seen yet that made me understand the magic of New Zealand – it was impossible (for me, at least) to look at that steaming lake and not imagine a sleeping dragon curled at the bottom, scales muddy, the fire in its belly heating the water to boiling and causing it to rise off the surface in curls of vapor.
In sharp contrast to that, however, is how strangely familiar I’ve found parts of the country – it looks a hell of a lot like California (stunning coastlines, redwoods, Monterey pines, big swathes of agriculture, etc.) just greener, and more. This sort of vague sensation of place recognition was strongest in a town called Hastings, on the southeast coast of the North Island. It looked, honestly, exactly as I would imagine the Salinas Valley to look half a century ago; Steinbeck would have felt right at home. Despite the fact that it was right on the coast, it had the look of inland California – big, rolling, golden, grassy hills, acres of orchards and fields below, quiet neighborhoods, and fruit and vegetable stands lining the main road. It even smelled like California, a combination of overripe fruit, fertilizer, the pungent, steamy scent of livestock, and a hint of salt in the air. I felt so at home in Hastings that I found myself actually forgetting for short moments that I was in New Zealand at all. I would start idly thinking (not even thinking, really, just slipping into old routines) that home was just a 40-minute drive away, right over those golden-green hills studded with those familiar white three-pronged windmills, only to mentally shake myself and reorient; to have to remind myself that I’m actually half a world away from California is without a doubt one of the strangest sensations I’ve ever experienced.
After a ferry ride, a night in Picton, and another day’s drive, I am now in the town of Kaiteriteri, in the Golden Bay on the northernmost part of the South Island. For the next two weeks I will be living and working in a hostel that is located about 100 feet from the beach; in exchange for 15 hours of work a week (making beds, cleaning the kitchen, etc.) I get to live in this beautiful little town free of charge and spend all my free time lying on the beach in the sun and hiking up to one of the few lookouts over the bay. It feels, honestly, a little too good to be true, but after a week and a half of constant activity and motion having this much time to relax and stay still is exactly what I needed.
In about ten minutes I have to go clean up after an entire bus full of backpackers that landed here last night and subsequently moved through the kitchen like a swarm of locusts, leaving congealed pasta and smears of jam in their wake – but after that I’m going to spend the rest of the day at the beach, so I really can’t complain.
So, until next time, as always: safe travels.
-Sierra
SGBRSH 