Matariki

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Matariki is the Maori New Year and winter solstice; a time when a unique cluster of stars can be seen on the horizon of the southern sky. Looking back on our time in New Zealand we see 8 months of adventure, awesome landscapes and most important… lasting friendships. A life experience we will never forget.

During this retrospective time it is impossible not to ponder all the things we’ve missed back home in Canada. Everything has a cost and the opportunity cost of our trip includes missing weddings of good friends, the birth of new babies, nieces and nephews birthdays, a brother’s fortieth and an uncle’s passing. People have moved and houses have been renovated while some renos remain works in progress. Careers have changed, seasons have passed, grey hairs have multiplied and everyone (well most everyone . . .GMW) has grown at least a little wiser. There have been many miles between us and our friends and families but you have always been close to our hearts.

Quick Facts about our time in New Zealand:

Total time of visit: 8 months
Kilometres travelled over land: 35,000
Places visited: The eight corners (four corners of both islands!)
Favourite Towns: Raglan, Bay of Islands, Ahipara, Taranaki, Ohope, Te Aroha, Coromandel & Otago Peninsulas
Favourite Accoms: Jailhouse - Christchurch, The Bug - Nelson, Raglan Backpackers - Raglan, Little Earth Lodge -Whangarei, The Quadrant - Auckland, Maraehako Bay Retreat - East Cape, Endless Summer Lodge - Ahipara
Worst Accoms: Tairua Beach Villa - Tairua, Henderson Bay Backpacker - Henderson Bay, Haast Beach Holiday Park - Hasst, The Pines -Queenstown
Vehicles Purchased: 2
Breakdowns: None

Other tidbits . . .

The people of New Zealand are proud of the block buster Lord of the Rings trilogy and still speak regularly of it. I think the move to rename Wellington “Middle Earth” may be pushing it but part of the film was shot in the neighbouring hills and the obvious resemblance was exciting to us as owners of the extended versions of each film. The biggest gouge we saw may have been that of Hobbiton. The brochure showed the movie set version of the farm where the scenes were shot. In small print there is a disclaimer which states the movie dressing was no longer there. At $100 per head even Jordan wasn’t keen to see over grown Hobbit holes years after the make-up was removed.

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One of the unique characteristics of NZ is the diversity. One moment you are cruising along a rocky wind blown coast reminiscent of Newfoundland, an hour later white sand Thai beaches with limestone towers included, next the semi dessert of Kamloops. The North Island has a softer complexion and beauty to that of the South. The North has rolling green hills, classic NZ postcard vistas while in the South we felt very at home and remarked at the similarities to the Columbia and Okanagan valleys of BC. Also on the South Island there are fewer palm trees to remind you that you’re not in Canada; the million of sheep kept us from forgetting where we were.

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The Tongariro crossing is one of NZ’s most popular tramps (hikes) and for good reason. The spectacular route winds past “Mount Doom” and crosses some highly varied volcanic terrain, complete with active steam vents. A pretty stout day, the 18 km route with some 1000m of elevation gain, passed us by in 6 hours.

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Our NZ travels introduced us to backpacker hostels. These come in all imaginable shapes, sizes, colours and character. While each hostel has unique character, it is typically the characters that stay at hostels who provide the real stories. We met a variety of people from the first grumpy Kiwi, to long term residents whiling away the days until the surf picks up to broke travellers who hover around the free food shelf at check out time, to a drunken toothless hotelier who told us to “piss off if you don’t like the rooms, you are becoming a real pain in the ass!” to an agent for Her Majesty’s Secret Service or she was just cuckoo.

My favourite of all was a paranoid American who was hanging in NZ fearing for his life. Seems the people he “put away in California had friends who are looking to erase him”. The evening I chatted with him, he had just finished having heated words with another hostel resident. He wanted to let me know what was happening so that if he was found dead in the morning someone would know what went down. It was then he rooted through a cutlery drawer and pulled out a potato peeler and stuck it down the back of his pants. “If he tries anything, I’ll give him a big surprise with this!” he told me in all earnesty. I strained to hold back the laughter as I dug deeply for a witty remark but all I could come up with for was “Have a good night I’ll see you in the morning.”

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Wouldn’t it be funny if you got pulled over by the cops right after surfing? Maybe it doesn’t sound that funny. Perhaps more detail is probably warranted. Picture yourself in a Proton Saga with a 10 foot long-board that runs from the floor of the passenger seat and sticks 4 feet out the end of the hatch back. The licence plate is not visible because the hatch is wide open . . . still not that funny? Ok now imagine you are naked, save for a worn beach towel. You have just remarked to your fully clothed wife who seemed to have no trouble at all putting her clothes on after the session and who is sitting in the back seat right behind the driver because the surf board takes up the rest of the car, “I drive home from surfing naked because I am waiting to get pulled over by the cops when I’m not wearing any pants.” I did say that to Ange one day and we did get pulled over by the cops on the way home that very day. Best part of the story . . . woman cop!

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All Blacks 64 - Canada 13 . . . We were proud of our Canadian team for even getting on the score board since some sportscasters had predicted 100 to nil. The atmosphere in the stadium was electric and when Kiwi fans do the “wave” not only do they stand up, they throw half empty (or is that half full?) plastic beer bottles into the air. From a distance it looks incredibly like a stadium sized hot- air popcorn popper.

We wore conservative Canadian outfits, compared to many, with small maple leafs painted on our cheeks and whatever red clothing we had. Marc, our neighbour in Ohope and French Canadian friend, suggested red clothes but All Blacks underwear. “In case we get beat up we can show that underneath it all were are NZ fans!”

Quin wore a phantom of the opera type mask half black, half white. He painted a silver fern on one side and a maple leaf on the other, just to be safe. He topped off his look with a red construction hard hat we “nicked” on the way to the stadium from someone’s front porch. For those that have played rugby you’ll know that “trophy” collecting is a big part of the rugby road trip. (Note to any law enforcement types reading this, we returned the hard hat after the game!)

Walking home from the game we heard some great banter. One young kiwi, named Cam, who wouldn’t look out of place hanging at Charleston staff accom’s in Lake Louise, was shouting “Yeah Canada!” Then he says “Oh sorry” like we were going to be offended.

Cam was very jovial and quite intoxicated and for some reason he decided to join us for the walk home. He told us his life story and at one point asked why we were walking so fast? We told him it’s because we were cold. “Cold?! But you’re from Canada I thought you would be used to it!”

Then randomly out of the crowd, “Yes cold! We come from Canada where homes have central heating that blows heat through vents to all parts of the house!”

“Right mate, this is NZ” Cam replied, “we live in the dark ages!”

As we carry on with our walk Cam shared more details of his life, moving on from his past to his future aspirations. He shared with us that he himself is planning to move to Canada as soon as he finished his construction ticket. He really wanted to work on his snowboarding and he figured he’d move to Winnipeg. “There are good slopes there aren’t there?”

The conversation ended with him inviting us over for “brewskis” as if we where old pals, as if it was his turn to host. We thanked him but declined his generosity since it was past our kid’s bedtime. He was aware that we were actually a family but his perspective was more that we were a group of university pals on the way home from an event. As our final gesture we gave him our email address. We figured he needed some advice on the better ski destinations in Canada!

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There are many more tales and especially stories of the friendships we made in NZ that remain unwritten. These will most certainly come out in conversation in the months and years to come.

Did we even tell you the story of when we were stalking the Dahlia Llama in Auckland . . .

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