New Zealand 2 - Christchurch

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Greetings!

I’ve been here over two weeks and things have gone as well as I could possibly imagine. My luggage came in about 24 hours after I arrived and, frankly, I slept about 16 of those hours anyway. There is a first time for everything, including westbound jet lag. On arrival, I picked up my wheels, ate my first pies (one beef and cheese, the other rabbit), and visited Bank of New Zealand to get an ATM card. Then I passed out.*

I was still pretty jet lagged on the second day, but I walked about Christchurch. Traveling an English-speaking country always strikes me as surreal. Going to Peru or Bolivia is going somewhere foreign, New Zealand is very, very similar to the U.S. Do you know the Multiverse concept? Out of quantum physics comes the idea that every time two different things could possibly happen, no matter how minor their difference, both things do, in fact, actually happen and two Universes are created. In a way, it’s not that much different than the Butterfly Effect. In the Enzed Universe, about half of the brand names you know survived, and half were replaced by something you’ve never seen before. What if, say, KFC was more popular than McDonalds? Or, I don’t know, maybe pies have meat in them, plugs don’t fit in the outlets, and your slang doesn’t make sense to people. How about the indigenous population was not only not wiped out, but they are assimilated and their preexisting culture is revered? And everyone is incredibly nice (including the servers who don’t work for tips!), prices are multiplied by two, and left is right and right is left. Oh, that last one is the kicker. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve signaled a turn by flipping on my windshield wipers. No catastrophes yet, but driving on the wrong side of the road is hard to get into your head. I have had to drive over one median and the way that van handles bumps, it was a borderline catastrophe (think about having everything you need to live in a set of cabinets that are all suddenly opened and shaken). Anyway, this whole interlude was a roundabout way of plugging the “Multiverse” episode of Family Guy. I caught it just before I left. Possibly the best episode of the funniest television show ever, period.** Catch it.

Christchurch, as much as any city I’ve been to, may be accurately described as “nice”. The people are nice, the parks are nice, the downtown is nice. Nothing really outstanding, but it is all nice. Actually, the Botanic Gardens were really beautiful. I didn’t have my camera, though (still with my luggage), so I have no evidence. My third day didn’t start promising was one for the ages. I woke up early and had the hostel bathroom to myself. I had set my clothes on the tank of the toilet. Like most toilets here, this one was flushed with a button on top. When I pushed it after peeing, my hand brushed my clothes, knocking my socks off the surface directly into the toilet and—within the space of a second—down the pipe. My favorite pair, too! Short black ones.


Anyway, later on I went to this place called Adrenaline Forest. Holy God, what a place! There are a series of six obstacle courses between 15 and 70 feet up in the trees. You walk on wires, climb through barrels, zip line, move over rotating logs, swing on ropes, climb nets, etc. You’ve got to check out the pictures on my Picasa page although as with most pictures they give only such a tiny bit of perspective. The different attitudes toward risk in New Zealand and the litigation-obsessed US is comical. I arrive and there is a box office (unmanned, cash register in plain sight) and a group of about a dozen kids getting a lesson in zip lining. I watched and listened for a bit when a woman who worked there approached me. “All right, let’s get you going right quick so you can get in front of these kids.” Literally two minutes later, I am saddled up and ready to go. Mind you, you’re not part of a group and they don’t go with you. You have two “O” clips that you detach and reattach yourself - about 100 times on each course, again, up to 70 feet high. “You unclip and then clip it on again where it is painted red,” she told me, “Then you unclip and clip on to the wire for the next obstacle. You have long arms, though, so if you want to skip the wire in between, go ahead.” Lord knows I’d like to live in a world with 95%!l(MISSING)ess personal injury attorneys, but New Zealand has trimmed the fat down to the bone. I’ve now spent a cumulative hour and 15 minutes listening to safety precautions on zip lining. ‘Sit down when they say so, and break by lightly squeezing the wire behind your head. Make sure you don’t come into the landing too fast.’ Imagine hearing that for another hour, fourteen minutes, and 50 seconds. Hell, at Adrenaline Forest, the last instruction isn’t even relevant. There is no possible way to avoid plowing into cushions that are tied to the trees at the end of zip lines. Every 15 minutes or so, you hear a “whap”, and you look over to see someone hitting a second time off the bounce. The first course is a warm up, just a meter off the ground. She recommended that I skip it. The second one was borderline terrifying for this acrophobic young man, and they are arranged and ordered based on intensity! The later ones were even sketchier. And just when you think you’re getting used to it, they throw out an obstacle that is difficult as hell. Let me make a comparison. Besides maybe a military obstacle course, the closest likeness to the experience of Adrenaline Forest is still zip lining. Let’s say that zip lining is analogous to shooting a gun at a gun range; this shit was like being in a firefight. Five separate firefights for that matter, with volleys of bullets coming from all angles~. Anyway, awesome, awesome experience.

Adrenaline Forest is in a suburb of Christchurch and I drove back with a rush of adrenaline (as advertised). I would have been bored if not for the mundane but incredibly important and difficult assignment of keeping on the left, and then—what’s this? A Buddhist temple? I turned around and drove up the driveway. Sure enough, a Thai Buddhist temple, with multiple statues, multiple gardens, even waterfalls. A 17 year old monk named Bipu came out to greet me almost immediately. He would later explain, “It is our duty to be hospitable to Westerners.” I spent the next hour and a half with him walking the grounds, eating fruit directly from the vine, barefoot in the temple (where a monk was meditating on the side of the altar), drinking tea, and learning about Buddhism, Thailand, and persecution of Buddhists in Bangladesh. It was wonderful, an odd but perfect balance to Adrenaline Forest. Bipu and I made vague but sincere plans to meet in Thailand some time later this year.

But the day wasn’t over yet. The evening before, I had mentioned in the hostel kitchen that I was going to the rugby game the next night and that I was looking for someone to go with me. I like rugby; I’m liking it more and more, in fact. Don’t get me wrong; I will say that American football is the best and the toughest sport in the world until I die. Non-Americans just can’t appreciate how fast and strong these guys are, and how the sport is designed to have hundreds of vicious collisions each game. Nevertheless, what these guys do without pads is damn impressive. They really knock the crap out of each other, and they fight like hell in those piles. They even had two injury breaks, one of which required a stretcher. Just like real football! And I was in luck because the local team, the Crusaders, was playing their biggest rival, the Blues from Auckland@. It’s worth noting that Auckland has a reasonable large Moslem population. Safe to say that the rugby fans among them get pumped up for a game against the Crusaders, huh?

This particular match was even more important because it was in the Super 14. This is a league that takes the top clubs from New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa. And “league” is the right word; they play a 13 game schedule, plus playoffs. How cool is that? Anyway, when I returned from the monastery, I found out that a dozen people were going to the game. We had a blast. The fans were drunk, obnoxious, and funny (sometimes purposefully and sometimes not). One guy decided to rip the vest off of an usher and run off with it through our row. Another threw up. A third one peed into a cup and then dropped it. I think a few of them even watched the game. An old guy next to me did, and he helped me understand some of what was going on. I still don’t get why they ever punt it, though. When you get tackled you just push it back a yard or two to another guy on your team. Why the hell do they ever kick it? I don’t get it.

Day’s don’t get much better than that. I even fit in a nap on the way to Adrenaline Forest. The ability to nap whenever you feel the desire is a greatly unappreciated aspect of driving a camper van. I nap most days. Lord, if you’re out there, thank you for letting me nap the way I do.

Well, I was initially planning on writing about my hikes in the Fjordland region but this entry has proven long enough. Thank you for reading this far. I realize that we are all used to reading short pieces, particular since Twitter and Facebook took over. Not to mention that you are at work. This is the way I’m doing it, though. I’m not permanently dialed into the system to make “at this moment” entries, and I wouldn’t want to anyway. Got to let it percolate a little bit, and clean up bad grammar (don’t be smug, everybody else caught one, too)^.

Before I go, though: The following day, I left Christchurch and drove South and across the country. Driving with music and without traffic is always fun for me, particularly in new places with open views. The real highlight of the day was the Moeraki boulders, featured here and on the Picasa page. Really unique. All right, then. Cheers!

Greg
- I posted my second set of pictures here. Will write about them soon.


*The bank thing has turned out to be a great call—a wonderful way to save money when you travel for any length of time (say, a month or more). If you open a bank account in the country where you are going, you’ll save tons on the exchange rate, which is the best you’re going to get when you wire funds from one bank to another. After that, no ATM or credit card fees for usage or foreign transactions. And believe me your bank will get you good on foreign ATM fees.
**based on a survey of white American men aged 31 to 45.
~for purposes of this metaphor, skydiving is like shooting a high caliber shotgun and bungee jumping is like firing a bazooka.
^but it really is “Botanic” Gardens.

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Comments

[Da]

sounds good
loved the pictures and commentary. Keep on enjoying yourself in this super sized Disney World.