Full Circle

We went to the Wild Foods Festival in Hokitika which was... sort of like a county fair but with large grubs, costumes and NZ's equivalent of the Blue Angels. We saw people dressed as Waldo, the power rangers, giant grubs, ballerinas (male and they had their own travelling barre - get it?), also a lot of people in camo and I got pictures of several overpowering mullets that shone out from the crowd like beacons of follicle abuse. People were eating these huge white grubs left and right which tasted "like peanut butter" "like chicken" "I didn't taste it, I just swallowed it whole". I declined to try them but there were guys at the entrance to the festival chopping apart rotten logs to peel these fat suckers out of them and putting them in a tin for a guy with a bullhorn to try to auction off to people watching. you could also get them cooked for the 'I'm-still-willing-to-eat-a-grub-but-for-some-reason-this-makes-it-a-better-idea' people. There were also the requisite um, how do I say this... bull testicles. But apparently people who sell testicles for a living are unanimously unable to spell (shocking, I know). We saw signs for "Testicals!!" or "mountin oysters- here!!!". Clearly the only reason I didn't try these is because I am such a good speller that I really can't condone these sorts of mistakes. Otherwise who knows. We ended up getting pretty well drunk, I got proposed to and we slept in our van with drunken people walking by all night banging on it or peering in or singing etc. When we woke up we realized we had been parked and drunkenly asleep in a Church parking lot. Good times. Anyway, I really enjoyed the hell out of the wild foods festival but honestly, I think it's probably the only reason to ever go to Hokitika.

Can you guess why we slept in the van?

Go Go Power Rangers!!

The delicious Hu hu grub...

I found Waldos!

The next day we drove up the West coast because I had found this flyer that advertised a place where you could make your own knives (!!!). We pulled in to a tiny family farm on the coast and proceeded to forge our own knives from these iron bars pounding them with hammers until I seriously thought my hung-over arm would probably just drop right off in the dirt where it would be eaten by the tiny fluffy used to be white dog. After a 9-4 day we now both have beautiful wooden-handled knives that we forged, ground, shaped and sharpened all on our own. Amazing. And don't mess with me.
After that it was off to Franz Josef Glacier, one of the fastest moving glaciers in the world. It can move up to 5 meters a day in the summer and at minimum about 1.5 meters per day year round. The only reason it is still there is because of the massive amount of rainfall they get on the west coast. We hiked up part of the glacier in the half day tour which was amazing and quite enough time for me to be lugging those prehistoric looking crampons that weighed about 20 pounds each. But we got some good fashion show pictures of our really delicate and feminine glacier couture.

No crampons yet, but giant boots

Margaret in the crack we had to squeeze through

Then it was down to Queenstown for Saint Patrick's day!! Queenstown was oddly reminiscent of home because it's a ski town and it seems like almost no one actually lives there, it's only tourists and adrenaline junkies searching out one of the many bungy jumps, sky dives, river boarding whatever adventures.

Us and Elvis Costello? on St. Paddy's

Now, I had been debating whether I really wanted to bungy jump since Wellington and I had not come to a decision until I saw the one outside of Queenstown off a bridge into the gorgeous turquoise glacier fed Kawarau river. Apparently it is the "original" bungy jump but who knows, it could be about as original as the original taco house. Anyway, I decided that I wanted to do that one because it was big (43 meters) but not the biggest in which you freefall for more than 8 seconds. I figured the less time that I had to pee my pants, the better. It. Was. Amazing. bizarre feeling of total lack of thought and then complete rush. But I am pretty sure I never want to do it again.
Ok, here comes the weirdest part of the whole thing. It wasn't the dubious decision to throw myself off of a bridge into a cold river on a windy day with a glorified rubber band strapped to my ankles. No, that was the sane part. The crazy part came when I was waiting for my photos and video and who should I see walking towards the exit from the place but my old high school Algebra teacher Mrs. Stiffler! I'm not even kidding. I was still all hyped up and shaky from the jump and that about made me pass out. So I ran over and talked to her, she had been thinking about doing it and decided against it but apparently I was the jumper she watched! I can't get over how weird it is to see someone like that in the middle of nowhere NZ. I mean really, the place just looks like a dusty rest stop until you actually park and walk down and see the bridge and all the crazies throwing themselves off of it. How sad is it, actually, that a bungy jump was really amazing and all but just let me catch a glimpse of a math teacher and - god help me- my heart about stops. You're reading the confessions of a true nerd here.

The bridge!

Next stop: Invercargill which is, well, not much to speak of. I liked it but it was pretty much a nondescript sort of town. However, when we got down to Bluff I really really enjoyed it. This might seem weird as it is about the smallest place we've been to here besides perhaps Hick's Bay on North Island and Margarett's been fiending to see a huge mass of people somewhere anywhere. Nevertheless we both really felt comfortable there. We took our requisite pictures at the sign at the end of highway 1 and then went for a walk along the coastline where you could see Stewart Island to the South. It cleared up to become a beautiful day and we spent a really nice night there.
Now we're back up in Dunedin and we're going to go see a movie about gangsters at 11 in the morning. Should set a nice tone for the day.

Oh, P.S. I forgot to say about Milford Sound which was amazing. We did an overnight cruise and saw some seals and about a googolplex sand flies as well as another glacier and other things. pictures maybe later I'm out of internet time and coins...

Excerpts from Molly and Margarett's Big Book of Kooky Stories

Abel Tasman in a sentence: Complete and total perfect beach overload. The place is a super tourist-y destination but I can see why and it was totally worth all the people. As far as backpacking goes, this was maybe the most civilized camping excursion I've ever been on including flush toilets, a maximum of maybe 3.5 hours of hiking per day and endless perfect beaches only broken by short forays into amazing woods and over some hills that gave you perfect views of the perfect beaches. That's 4 times if you were wondering how many perfects I fit into that paragraph (5). However, that said, we managed somehow to turn this luxurious jaunt in nature into a study on blood loss and near starvation. If there were any insect borne disesases in NZ Margarett would have them all and be dead. twice. Our ridiculous natural hippy "insect repellent" worked fabulously for me but Margarett looks like a leper from the knee down. We did manage to build a camp fire all on our own that lasted all night and we saw a tiny morpork owl that chastised us for being up late at night. We left from Bark Bay and took the boat back up to Totoranui where the car was parked. On the way they showed us a little island where fur seals have their pups and they were completely unafraid of the boat and swam right up next to it and showed off for us. Apparently they cool down by sticking their flippers up out of the water and waving them around. Like elephant ears. The pups make noises like a seal throwing up.
Afterwards we went back to Nelson and I had the best shower of my life. We went out for beers later and met Drew, a Texan who just finished mechanic school in NZ and his mechanic friend Chris from Australia. Apparently we're only able to meet mechanics here. And not hot ones. Or ones with teeth. We went back to Picton to retrieve Rupert finally, but we had a day before we had to return the rental car so we went to the Flying Haggis for some beers. Margarett wanted to just sit in a nice pub that afternoon and finish her book but it wasn't meant to be. We walked in to the pub only to be almost blasted back out onto the street again by the sound of a small Jewish-looking guy belting out Love Shack on karaoke. This was just tthe beginning of maybe our weirdest 24 hrs in NZ so far. We had walked in to the middle of a cruise ship group doing karaoke which was soon joined by a bachelor party all wearing these ridiculous fake tattoo arm bands and proceeding to get ridiculously drunk.
Anyway, I am really tired of typing and the weirdest parts of the night happened later to Margarett involving James Carter's younger clone and a spider in some salad and some really really nice and adorably polite swiss boys. Now we're going to go watch people eat really weird food in Hokitika.

Well, It's been a long time since our lat post! After Rupert's last convalescence and revival we settled in and stayed in Wellington for over a week which was wonderful. In a fit of bitterness about rupert's last tantrum we posted an ad trying to sell the cranky breadbox "van" and had three half-hearted responses. One guy wanted to know all the details about rupert including "how many kms on the clock, any problems, any rust, condition of the tyres, how economical it is with fuel, what kind of stereo eg cassette/cd, and anything else you can think of that might interest us." Well, my first response was laughing in this guys face because, honestly, if he is that concerned about the details of the van he does not want this van. We finally decided to stick with the barely-motorized wreck that is our van because in his own difficult way, he's exacted a kind of wary attachment from us. He's currently resting safely in a car park by the ferry dock in Picton while we enjoy the hell out of the extra days left of Margarett's dad's rental car which has, among other incredibly novel attributes, functional brakes and the ability to accelerate. Amazing.

Our Cuba Street Carnival decorations

Margarett has come to terms with her fundamental non-outdoorsiness after being rescued by a thirteen year old boy after drifting a surprisingly far distance down the Wanganui river without her boat. She also lost her shoes, sunglasses, shirt, and dignity, but gained some very clean fingernails and a healthy fear of trees. I, on the other hand, had a lovely float down the river IN my kayak and had a delicious cup of coffee with an old lady who owned a lavender farm where I used the phone to summon the thirteen year old hero. We had a long conversation about Obama while I waited for Margarett to catch up.

Rainy day kayaking

After our little jaunt down the river we went back to Wellington where Margarett's dad met us and we began our light-speed tour of the South Island in order that he saw as much as possible in 6 days. We made it all the way down to Dunedin by Tuesday seeing the Christchurch Antarctic Museum, penguin feeding, the Moraki Boulders, and the Albatross Colony along the way. I don't think we stopped anywhere for more than 30 minutes except to sleep and drink wine. Thoroughly enjoyable and we are considering this to be our preview for the trip we will now take at a crippled snail's pace.

First though, we are going to do the Abel Tasman over this weekend which is going to be absolutely amazing.