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Published: January 7th 2012
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Exclamation point!
I can't help but kind of get excited rather than feel warned at this sign!!!! LEFT KEEP We’re renting a car in New Zealand. We’re about to drive on the wrong, I mean left, side of the road.
Kristy drives first. We’re caravanning with Jill, Katie, and Angee. I’m navigatress and I hold the map(s) firmly and keep them in my lap or in my hands throughout the entire driving time.
There’s some major stress, confusion, and even one near mishap. But otherwise we get into the groove, more or less. When Kristy makes a left turn and goes on the right of a car in the middle lane instead of on the left, she justifiably declares she’s done and turns the wheel over to me. (Don’t worry, it wasn’t as scary as it sounds. It was into a parking area anyway.) I admit I’ve been a bit excited-nervous to drive on the wrong side of the road and so I’m ready for it.
The biggest problem is actually the windshield wiper vs. turn signal. They’re switched and that throws all of us. You can spot a tourist a kilometer away if their wipers are thonking back and forth on a non-rainy day! Traffic circles are common here, more common than lights
Purty...
I think these may be non-native...ah well! I can still admire them while shaking my head in most places but for larger cities. And then there are the signs. Oh, how I love signs in foreign countries!
They use an exclamation point for a warning sign. They have signs that say keep left and we start reminding each other to “left keep.” A co-pilot is essential here… They have a sign that urges people to “merge like a zip” which we all agree is a very good visual simile. There are tons of signs all about don’t drink and drive but often with cute cartoon animals narrating them. And the Kiwis are very cognizant of the dangers of falling asleep on the road. With all sorts of phrases, varying from funny to deadly serious, the signs point drivers to rest stops and warn that a micro-nap can kill.
We’re headed down south to Rotorua for our first day of camping. We drive through bucolic scenery for much of the way, cow paddocks (where are the sheep?!), small villages, nondescript little homes. But then….
We round a bend and there’s
forest, green, lush, no ground to be seen. Decadent tree-ferns, palm/yucca-type crosses, pines, firs, all mixed up in a startling jungle mishmash. There are
tall purple foxgloves and yellow-masked myna birds (non-native!) who run cheekily alongside of the road, in true starling fashion. Occasionally, the strikingly elegant Australian magpie wings across, flashing its dapper black and white pattern.
Lake Tarawera After some hours of driving, we reach our destination: a Department of Conservation (DOC) campground at Lake Tarawera. We wind down a narrow road and gaze avidly at the wide grey lake expanding before us. Denuded green hills roll around far on the other side. There’s a narrow cleared strip where we are with a toilet and covered eating place and some marked spots for parking. We get a small culture jolt when we realize there are no numbered spaces for camping though. You just park in the one row and put your tent down in an open space, paying for the site via a dropbox system. New Zealand definitely has a distinct camping culture and along with the unmarked camping spaces, there’s the novelty of compact camper-vans. People just rip the seats out of small, snub-nosed vans and put in a bed with storage space underneath, hang some curtains in the back windows, and voila! Camping made easy.
Some of
us go back into town to get food for the coming week while the others finish setting up and start lounging. Along the shore are regal black swans (non-native) with their vivid orange beak and then little flocks of grey ducks (native) and mallards (non-native) and mixes (identity-crisis). Angee and I try to guess the percentage of native to non-native in the mixes we see. Evan (a NAU student who is hitching around with us for a while) and Katie play a Frisbee-beer game that involves way more precision with a Frisbee than I have ever attained. We make a brief excursion into the forest to scout out a potential jump-in spot. The trail is hemmed in closely by forest and we stop to constantly ooh and ah at the diversity of ferns. We snack, play cards, and then, as night falls, we take a night-hike.
Glow worms Katie is super-excited about glow worms. I don’t really know anything about them, but I'm soon enchanted. Turns out this area is known for its glow worms and they are something quite special. Along the same close path we traversed in the light, we tramp along and head toward a
small cave overhang we had seen earlier. And sure enough, there they are. We sit underneath the overhang and gaze up. The glow worms are lined up like a curved spine on the underside of the overhang, pinpoints of blue-white, fairy-stars. They hang delicate white, sticky membranes down around their glowing ends to catch the prey that’s been lured in by their will-o-wisp light. We don’t turn on our headlights anywhere around them because they will dim their light in retreat and then will have a harder time luring in the unsuspecting.
Glow worms on our first night of our travel adventure? A very good omen.
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