A long hike with the domestic fauna of New Zealand
Staying in Wellington with Zoe and her parents for three days was very nice, relaxing and uneventful. I spent most of my time going to the museums and drinking white wine and cappuccino on the street outside restaurants. On Friday, after a morning visit to the beautiful Botanical Gardens, a glass of Sauvignon at the Matterhorn, then another at Plum of Cuba, I opted to miss out on Friday's nightlife and hop on the InterIslander Ferry to Picton. It was a very nice trip, although the rolling ship made me a little seasick at first.
I arrived in Picton at 9:30 p.m. and Robbie (more Couch Surfing!) picked me up. We slalomed through the incredibly windy roads in the dark. Robbie and his wife Kandy work on a dairy farm in Linkwater. Their three kids are all under the age of eleven. Zak, Josh, and Lenora(?) were very pleasant. We all watched a little CSI (Vegas), then talked about America for a bit before heading to bed. I keep getting the impression that much of Kiwis' ideas about America come from our TV. Uh. Oh. Zak was kind enough to give me his room, so I had a nice double bed to sleep in.
I woke at 7:30, opening the shades to a lemon tree absolutely covered in ripe lemons, and the mountains in the distance. Leaving my room I could see through the other windows what darkness had hidden the night before. We were in a huge valley filled with farms. The mountains around were partially covered in timber forests in various stages of growth. Absolutely beautiful. The kids, somewhat oblivious o their fantastic location, were watching Spongebob Squarepants.
When Robbie and Kandy returned from the morning milking at 8, I was fed bacon and eggs with toast. The eggs were sunny-side-up and the bacon was from their pig. It was like nothing I had ever seen or tasted. This was the filet mignon of pork. I may never buy supermarket bacon again.
I wanted to go to Blenheim for the wine country, so they suggested a track through the mountains South. On the map it looked to be about 30 km (20 miles). I set off with my pack. Zak escorted me on his bike to the trailhead, narrating the entire way. After a wrong turn up the river that cost me an hour, I found the main track. It was built by gold miners from 1888-1892. It hugged the right side of the valley and went up and up until I was hundreds and hundreds of feet above the valley floor. Often the trail narrowed to about five feet, a wall on my right and a long drop on my left. Lucky I'm very coordinated, ha, ha.
By 3 p.m. I had climed at least 2000-3000 feet and had reached the saddle. I entered an old forest. I was thankful to finally be in the shade after the intense sunlight of my climb. I tightened my boots and began the descent, walking carefully as my left knee was acting up a little. I passed old gold mines and miners' camps from the early 1900s. At first I enjoyed the scenery, but as the hours went by I was really hoping for the downhill part to end. By this point I was looking only at my feet to makes sure I didn't stumble, so I didn't notice the wild goat until he started and ran away from me. I stopped and stood absolutely still. He quit running and turned his head to look back at me. He stared at me intenselty--this was soon to become a theme--and then he bolted down some very steep terrain.
Continuing on, the trail finally leveled off and I entered somone's farm at the bottom of another valley. Through a large gate I went, with talll wire fences on either side. I felt like I was in Jurassic Park, or maybe the Island of Dr. Moreau. I imagined that packs of velociraptors were peering at me through the fences, creeping myself out. I love doing this when hiking alone for hours and hours.
The land on the other side of the fences looked exactly like a golf course, except hundreds of clusters of bright yellow flowers dotted the intense green grass, which was very short. Who had eaten the grass, but left these flowers? Sheep? Cows? Brontosauruses? I hadn't been wondering long before I came alongside a massive herd of deer. (Does here in New Zealand are raised for their meat, while bucks are held onto much longer. Every year their antlers are sawed off under local anaesthesia and sold to Asia where the ground-up product is used as a medicine and aphrodesiac).
There were absolutely hundreds of these creepy creatures to my left. As I approached, each and every one, all does and fawns, turned their heads and stared directly at me in an accusatory way. I could feel their evil tension blasting at me. I picked up speed, hiking up my pack to transfer more weight to my shoulders. The deer freaked, bolting for the other side of the paddock and making some very bizarre noises. I swear one barked at me. Others tittered, whimpered, and made all kinds of weird noises. I never knew deer to make any sound at all--maybe it's just captive deer, like how the killer whale in that movie had a curled dorsal fin. Anyway, it was really creepy.
It wasn't long before I was alone. Up ahead I saw in another paddock a large four-legged creature. What the devil? At first I thought it was a bull--it was easily 800 pounds. When I got closer, I realized it was a massive stag with its antlers recently harvested. He was as big as a moose!
I hiked on through the paddocks, passing huge herds of sheep, then cows. While not as eerie as the deer, they still stared and made me feel quite unwelcome. Cows have a way of staring at you like they've never seen such a specimen before. I tried yelling at them, but they didn't budge or even blink. "YOUR FOOD IS HANGING OUT OF YOUR MOUTH! CAN'T YOU SEE?! YOU LOOK LIKE A FOOL!" Nothing.
The feeling persisted that I was hiking through Jurassic Park, only now I was in the section where they raise food for the dinosaurs.
By this point, I was very tired. I had hiked at least 10 miles in the burning hot sun, half of it uphill on switchbacks (they tend to increase actual distance travelled quite a bit from what the map may say). My knee was aching and swollen, and I was nearly out of water. When I got to the farmhouse I was a little excited, thinking that maybe someone was heading into town and could give me a lift, but no. When I saw the first moving car half an hour later as I walked down the dirt road, I thought the same thing for a second. I then realized that the car was headed in the wrong direction. Finally, after two more hours on the road, I was absolutely exhausted, so I tossed my pack over a fence, dodged a crazed sheep, and set up my bivy sack in the trees. I ate four slices of bread and a can of sardines with tomato sauce (tip: never, ever, ever buy sardines ever again, even if you think they might look good). At dark, tired of fighting off mosquitos, who by sucking my blood were only going to make more mosquitos, I fell asleep.
I arrived in Picton at 9:30 p.m. and Robbie (more Couch Surfing!) picked me up. We slalomed through the incredibly windy roads in the dark. Robbie and his wife Kandy work on a dairy farm in Linkwater. Their three kids are all under the age of eleven. Zak, Josh, and Lenora(?) were very pleasant. We all watched a little CSI (Vegas), then talked about America for a bit before heading to bed. I keep getting the impression that much of Kiwis' ideas about America come from our TV. Uh. Oh. Zak was kind enough to give me his room, so I had a nice double bed to sleep in.
I woke at 7:30, opening the shades to a lemon tree absolutely covered in ripe lemons, and the mountains in the distance. Leaving my room I could see through the other windows what darkness had hidden the night before. We were in a huge valley filled with farms. The mountains around were partially covered in timber forests in various stages of growth. Absolutely beautiful. The kids, somewhat oblivious o their fantastic location, were watching Spongebob Squarepants.
When Robbie and Kandy returned from the morning milking at 8, I was fed bacon and eggs with toast. The eggs were sunny-side-up and the bacon was from their pig. It was like nothing I had ever seen or tasted. This was the filet mignon of pork. I may never buy supermarket bacon again.
I wanted to go to Blenheim for the wine country, so they suggested a track through the mountains South. On the map it looked to be about 30 km (20 miles). I set off with my pack. Zak escorted me on his bike to the trailhead, narrating the entire way. After a wrong turn up the river that cost me an hour, I found the main track. It was built by gold miners from 1888-1892. It hugged the right side of the valley and went up and up until I was hundreds and hundreds of feet above the valley floor. Often the trail narrowed to about five feet, a wall on my right and a long drop on my left. Lucky I'm very coordinated, ha, ha.
By 3 p.m. I had climed at least 2000-3000 feet and had reached the saddle. I entered an old forest. I was thankful to finally be in the shade after the intense sunlight of my climb. I tightened my boots and began the descent, walking carefully as my left knee was acting up a little. I passed old gold mines and miners' camps from the early 1900s. At first I enjoyed the scenery, but as the hours went by I was really hoping for the downhill part to end. By this point I was looking only at my feet to makes sure I didn't stumble, so I didn't notice the wild goat until he started and ran away from me. I stopped and stood absolutely still. He quit running and turned his head to look back at me. He stared at me intenselty--this was soon to become a theme--and then he bolted down some very steep terrain.
Continuing on, the trail finally leveled off and I entered somone's farm at the bottom of another valley. Through a large gate I went, with talll wire fences on either side. I felt like I was in Jurassic Park, or maybe the Island of Dr. Moreau. I imagined that packs of velociraptors were peering at me through the fences, creeping myself out. I love doing this when hiking alone for hours and hours.
The land on the other side of the fences looked exactly like a golf course, except hundreds of clusters of bright yellow flowers dotted the intense green grass, which was very short. Who had eaten the grass, but left these flowers? Sheep? Cows? Brontosauruses? I hadn't been wondering long before I came alongside a massive herd of deer. (Does here in New Zealand are raised for their meat, while bucks are held onto much longer. Every year their antlers are sawed off under local anaesthesia and sold to Asia where the ground-up product is used as a medicine and aphrodesiac).
There were absolutely hundreds of these creepy creatures to my left. As I approached, each and every one, all does and fawns, turned their heads and stared directly at me in an accusatory way. I could feel their evil tension blasting at me. I picked up speed, hiking up my pack to transfer more weight to my shoulders. The deer freaked, bolting for the other side of the paddock and making some very bizarre noises. I swear one barked at me. Others tittered, whimpered, and made all kinds of weird noises. I never knew deer to make any sound at all--maybe it's just captive deer, like how the killer whale in that movie had a curled dorsal fin. Anyway, it was really creepy.
It wasn't long before I was alone. Up ahead I saw in another paddock a large four-legged creature. What the devil? At first I thought it was a bull--it was easily 800 pounds. When I got closer, I realized it was a massive stag with its antlers recently harvested. He was as big as a moose!
I hiked on through the paddocks, passing huge herds of sheep, then cows. While not as eerie as the deer, they still stared and made me feel quite unwelcome. Cows have a way of staring at you like they've never seen such a specimen before. I tried yelling at them, but they didn't budge or even blink. "YOUR FOOD IS HANGING OUT OF YOUR MOUTH! CAN'T YOU SEE?! YOU LOOK LIKE A FOOL!" Nothing.
The feeling persisted that I was hiking through Jurassic Park, only now I was in the section where they raise food for the dinosaurs.
By this point, I was very tired. I had hiked at least 10 miles in the burning hot sun, half of it uphill on switchbacks (they tend to increase actual distance travelled quite a bit from what the map may say). My knee was aching and swollen, and I was nearly out of water. When I got to the farmhouse I was a little excited, thinking that maybe someone was heading into town and could give me a lift, but no. When I saw the first moving car half an hour later as I walked down the dirt road, I thought the same thing for a second. I then realized that the car was headed in the wrong direction. Finally, after two more hours on the road, I was absolutely exhausted, so I tossed my pack over a fence, dodged a crazed sheep, and set up my bivy sack in the trees. I ate four slices of bread and a can of sardines with tomato sauce (tip: never, ever, ever buy sardines ever again, even if you think they might look good). At dark, tired of fighting off mosquitos, who by sucking my blood were only going to make more mosquitos, I fell asleep.
posted by Sean at 20:13
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