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Losing Scrabble
I must reclaim my scrabble championship title...notice the plethora of three letter words like CAR? Yup, those are mostly mine. I left Queenstown in beautiful weather with the two kids from the hostel and drove to Wanaka on a tiny winding road that ridiculously claimed to be two ways. How people have enough courage (or perhaps false bravado) to attempt this in winter conditions is beyond me. Well actually, if the snow condions on the ski hill were good enough I could be convinced to try some incredibly silly things myself...
I nixed the plan to stay in Wanaka due to an oversaturation of ski town mentality. So, after dropping off the ski kids I'd met in the last hostel, I said goodbye to the Xanadu of the ski world and continued driving north. There wasn't much for the next 200 kilometers, but I knew I could at least make it to a small town called Haast with one hostel before dark.
Suspiciously, it didn't say anything about Haast in any of my travel brochures. I realized, as I pulled into the empty hostel parking lot at dusk, that this is because there really isn't much to say about Haast. I got out of my car in a light drizzle, and pondered the validity of the
Fox Glacier
If I was a Yedi, I would live in a cave like that one...sadly he was out when I called on him today. OPEN sign in the window. Not surprisingly, on my way to the front door, a man opened a window informing me that the heating was broken and the hostel was closed. If I wanted to stay somewhere I would have to go to the motel across the street. The motel looked sterile at best, and probably would look pretty creepy once it got dark. I wasn't going to hang around long enough to find out, and instead politely asked where I could find the nearest petrol station. I hadn't been planning on driving another 200km to the next town, and definately wasn't going to make it there with a quarter tank of gas. One thing I've noticed about New Zealand is that when the road signs say: "last petrol station for 150km", there's pretty much nothing but beautiful scenery and maybe a farm for the next two hours.
Life has a funny way of adjusting your plans for you with interesting and unexpected results, therefore I filled up my car and drove out of Haast "expecting nothing and everything".
I think New Zealanders know better than to drive these roads in the pitch black rain because
Pool of Reflections
I stopped for a coffee break while driving, and this picture looks like those photoshop postcards where you paste your face over the background. As you see...the snow's still creeping down the gullies. there wasn't another set of headlights on the road. I started to look forward to being blinded by anybody's brights because I'm really good at scaring myself alone in the dark. I kept checking the review mirror for crazed pshycos that somehow snuck into my back seat while I was filling up. I had to remind myself that tall, gaunt silouettes along the roadside were most likely street signs and not apparitions that would cause me to swerve into a haunted town and suffer a gruesome death. Sometimes I wish I had no imagination. Or, at least I wish I could pick up something other than static on the radio.
Perhaps unwisely I speed up, hoping to reach the town of Franz Josef before I could star in any more horror films in my head. As I came over what appeared to be just another dark hill, I saw a small fury animal sitting dead center in the left lane. It started to turn its head towards me but I hit it before I even caught a glimpse of its eyes. I'm not sure why, but I imagine they would have been yellow. I can't even take my
Pot of Gold
It has a habit of raining while I'm driving, but now I'm convinced this is so I that I can find a pot of gold under one of these rainbows. foot off the accelerator as I hear a crunch, followed by scraping along the pavement. I realize that this is the first time I've ever killed anything, other than mosquitoes or spiders, which don't quite count in my books. I had wanted to see what a possum looked like, but not smeared along the road so I checked my speed but not the review mirror. I'm a bit shaken just thinking about how quickly things come to an end. I hope the rain washes the blood off of Mark, my car, and I grostesquely imagine that I'm driving down the highway with a possum head somehow wedged into the front grill.
Great, I see a small highway signpost and realize I'm on highway number six. I don't really believe in the devil, but I remember those late night shows about "mysterious occurances on highway 666". Stupid television, I knew there was a reason why I didn't bother to get one in my new apartment.
I had planned on stopping in Franz Josef, but 30km from the town I ran into Fox Glacier, apparently a quieter version of Franz Josef. I wanted to keep going because quiet wasn't exactly what I was in the mood for, but it was pouring and I needed to get out of the car. So when I saw a sign for a hostel I thought I would stop to ask what the rest of the drive would be like just to have some human contact.
Ironically, in the hostel lounge, I ran into Edd, a character from England that I'd met at a hostel in Christchurch. New Zealand's a pretty small place, so although I wasn't totally surprised to run into someone I knew on the opposite side of the country, I thought it was a cool coincidence. After trading traveling stories, I decided to stay the night and wandered off to find a grocery store. A man I interrogated on the porch told me not to bother getting soaked because the small town grocer was definately closed, but kindly offered me a glass of wine and some interesting New Zealand history. After an hour or so, Edd wandered out asking whether or not I'd be interested in the curry he was making. I think he felt bad that I was so shaken about killing a possum.
Fox Glacier wasn't really a town to go out in, but I wanted to be exhausted before trying to sleep, so we played boardgames until past midnight. I wasn't on top of my game because I lost at Scrabble, although I maintain that had something to do with drawing four A's and three U's.
The next day the sun shone as I drove off. I stopped at the glaciers, wishing there were more snow on the surrounding mountains. I neglected, however, to stop at Pete's Possum's Pies despite that it had been recommended to my by the possum hunter I'd met while camping. I just couldn't stomach the thought of eating possum at that moment. I realize he also told me there's a bounty on possum skins and chuckled at the macabre thought of collecting my road kill.
So, the moral of this very long tale is that it's best to expect everything and nothing...also to drive safe kids and watch out for those possums!
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Graeme
non-member comment
Do you know why there's a bounty on possum skins? Are they a serious nuisance? How?