New Journeys

February 10, 2002-Old Friends
(photos:Auckland,
Paiahia,
Waitangi Meeting Hall)


We watched the opening ceremonies for the Winter Olympics last night. I was almost overcome with emotion when it began. The country has come such a long way since 9/11 & this was a very courageous event. As the Native American tribal representatives came together for the first time, I knew we were in for a spectacular evening. Being in Australia now, everyone was comparing it to the Sydney Olympic ceremonies. Unfortunately, in my mind, the show went downhill from there. I’m sure you all saw it & may feel differently, but the sight of the dancers in those exquisite costumes gyrating to rock & roll seemed ludicrous. I was embarrassed for them. It didn’t matter to me that Robbie Robertson was half Mohawk & half Jewish. With the geniuses in Hollywood, I thought they could come up with something better. The staging didn’t seem to use the space to the best advantage either. The coup de grace was when the Native Americans left the arena & were followed by the pioneers. That was a nice touch. The annihilators following the annihilatees.

We went to meet Karen & Ron, friends from Akron, at the airport this morning along with thirteen Japanese tour guides. They weren’t meeting the our friends, but they were meeting the same plane as we were. Everything went off without a hitch until we got lost on the way to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. David tried to back up after passing a turn & backed into the car behind us. Being an American driver, he looked over his right shoulder before backing up. Being a left side driving country, the car was in his blind spot. Damage was minimal, but David was very upset. The insurance companies will handle it all. When we spoke to Syd Bruce, he said that’s what they’re for & no worries.

The best things the Karen and Ron brought us were an ultra sound of the new baby & videos of Alex, Vikki, & Daniel. I understand that the ultra sound is a limited edition copy. We will cherish it & return it to its rightful owner via Karen and Ron. With the help of Karen, we were able to distinguish between the head & the tusch. Alex sent us a great drawing of the present goings on & the future with the new baby & possibly a new home for them all. We only got to see one of the videos they made with greetings from them, a dance & song by Alex, & pleas from them all for us to hurry home so that they can stop going to the soup kitchen & start going out to eat with us again.

February 12, 2002-Land Of Big Cloud

Our travel day started smoothly enough & our plane was even early. We’re in Auckland, New Zealand now. The only reason we know this is that the signs say so. But as we landed an unheard of hour early, there was no question that this was the “land of the big cloud.” We’re now convinced there was no need for special effects in the filming of Lord of the Rings. Every cloudbank, mist shrouded mountain, & fog blurred landscape was authentic. There’s an ethereal beauty about this place that may be best appreciated when seen through a surreal haze.

The first hint that the stars were not lined up in our favor was when we sought out the Thrifty Car Rental kiosk. It wasn’t in the row with Hertz, Avis, & Budget, but was off site. We were picked up by shuttle & hauled to their office along with our combined luggage. At last inventory there were three suitcases & seven carry-ons. The full sized Holden (GM here) Commodore wagon we’d reserved was nowhere to be seen. We were shown to a sedan & flatly refused to even try to get into it. We ended up with a bright red Toyota van into which we settled with a permanence formerly seen when squatters claimed land in the Oklahoma land grab.

It was 7 PM when we headed north for Paihia in the Bay of Islands. That’s the area where the Maoris first settled. It’s one of the closest points to Hawaiki where they thought the souls of the dead would return. It was a 3-4 hour drive, but we were slowed by rain & fog. Leaving Auckland was lovely. The harbor is wall-to-wall masts with marinas crammed with sailing boats of all sizes waiting to set out. The topography gently rose until we were climbing small mountains lined with lush pine forests that also managed to support towering palm trees & tree-sized ferns. Karen kept exclaiming at the variety & intensity of the greens & we tried to recall the words to “this is the forest primeval.” Ron thought we’d found Brigadoon. At one point I rolled down my window to see if the tinted glass was enhancing the colors. It was not. We cruised past marshes barely visible through the shroud of low hanging clouds & climbed to heights that looked down on fjord-like crevasses.

Plagues

As the day grew shorter, the drive grew longer, our hunger mounted, & our boredom increased, we resorted to tried & true methods of staying awake. Karen was anxious to see a black sheep, so we sang “Baa Baa Black Sheep” as an enticement. We got a bit punchy when the paved surface of the road disappeared without warning & we found ourselves in the fog, in the dark, in the rain, & in the middle of a cloud encapsulated gravel mountain road. That was the first time that David invoked the “F” word. Just as Ron wondered whether we were keeping up with our “pestilence schedule,” the major road on which we were traveling crossed unmarked railroad tracks. That was the first time that Karen invoked the “F” word. Immediately after the tracks was a cow crossing sign. If the train don’t get you the cows will. In keeping with the pestilence theme, we didn’t recall that the plagues visited upon the Egyptians during Pesach including anything about cows. We were desperate for food & all the restaurants were closing, so we stopped to ask for a suggestion. In keeping with the mood, we ventured into Killer Prawn. It turned out to be excellent, lifted our spirits, & gave us the energy to plow ahead through the murk. I must mention that in a stroke of brilliance Karen ordered a plate of assorted chocolates & candied fruits as dessert. We packed it into a “to go” box & went.

Why did we even imagine that at 11 PM with only 67 kms to go, we were home free? The first indication of a problem was a sign indicating that the only way to Paihia was by ferry. No one had mentioned a ferry. How late did the ferry run? Why couldn’t any of us read at this hour? The next sign clarified things. We didn’t need the ferry. We rolled up to the hotel at 12:30 AM & feared there would be no way into our rooms. We couldn’t find the office & David was frazzled. The manager was looking out for us & we finally settled into an amazing set of rooms for six hours of sleep. We had to be at the boat for the dolphin cruise at 7:30 AM.

Soaked and Snubbed

It was a dark & rainy morning as we trudged to the boat. The weather hadn’t cleared, the seas were moderately high, & we doubted that the trip would leave. We were optimistic & had worn our swimmers under our clothes. Fortunately, or not, Tammy, our skipper, & Floppy (I’m serious), our dolphin expert, told us that the boat had radar. No worries. We hummed the theme to Gilligan’s Island as we embarked for a 4-hour cruise through pea soup. True to its name, Bay of Islands is just that. We passed isles of all sizes & shapes that skulked behind the mist. It was an eerie game of hide & seek as they lurched into view & then vanished as quickly. Several dolphin watch boats were out at the same time & worked co-operatively in locating the pods.

Dolphins are a fickle bunch & swap pods at will. Females control their ovulation & thus procreation, but that doesn’t mean sexual abstinence. Oh no! Those little lumps of libido spend 60% of their time enjoying social sex. They don’t care if their partner is male or female either. The dolphin could be the new symbol for the bi-sexual community. The first pod we spotted had babies swimming along so we couldn’t get into the water with them. The mothers were fiercely protective. What we could do was strip to our bathing suits & crawl onto the foredeck in the rain.

Because the water was choppy, holding the handrail was not enough. When we got to the edge of the bow, we laid on our stomachs with our heads suspended over the edge. Since the boat was a catamaran, the dolphins could swim under it. That’s exactly what they did. They made sport of racing us, coming up from the rear under the boat, rolling to their sides so they could look up into our faces, & squirting us with water from their blowholes. The more of a reaction they got from us, the better they liked it. I had a theory that there is a “human watch” that dolphins pay to go on. Do you get the picture? We were half naked, spread on our bellies on a wet deck of a rolling boat, getting rained on from the top & splashed from the bottom. It was cold, we were wet, it was amazing fun! Some people were shivering so violently their muscles visibly quivered in spastic jerks. Is it any wonder since Ron was lying next to me that I asked him to lie on top of me? Being the gentleman that he is, he just rubbed my back to get the circulation going again.

We moved on to another pod in hope that we could get into the water with them & I sandwiched myself between David & Ron for warmth. By this time, several people were making good use of the plentiful seasickness bags. Karen said she was ready to be dry. It was only 10:30AM. We didn’t find the pod until 11:30 AM. In the interim we saw some fairy penguins at sea & a thrasher shark. It was comforting to hear there has never been a fatal shark attack in New Zealand since that Europeans had come. I wonder what the Maoris used to do to provoke the sharks?

David was the only one of us who put on the snorkel gear & got it on with the pod, as it were. The pod found the humans uninteresting & swam away. David had such bad leg cramps from the cold water that he didn’t stay in long at all.

Gods and Goblins

We got as dry as we could, put on our damp clothing, & headed for Waitangi, the site of the signing of the treaty with the Maoris. The grounds were lush & the orientation movie was beautiful, candid, & informative. They refer to the Europeans as “white goblins.” We plodded across wet lawns to see a war canoe & toured a cathedral sized meeting house with walls covered in woven grass mats. Each mat had its own complex geometric pattern. The rafters, pillars, & entry were carved with elaborate “tiki-like” gods that were graphically sexually explicit.

We made the uneventful cloud enshrouded drive back to Auckland where we’re staying the night. Along the way we found out that the only sun they have had in months was from Xmas to New Years. In the daylight, the North Island of New Zealand reminds me of the Alaska we saw in summertime. Everything is a little shabby & looks as if it’s dressed in castoffs.

Karen did see her black sheep. In fact there were several of them. The fields are speckled with sheep & cows. And we learned that this was the chosen home of a Viennese artist who we enjoyed while we were in Austria. The hand of Hundterwasser is apparent in much of the decorative tile work that crops up in unlikely & mundane spaces. For those of you who are familiar with him, yes, there are Hundterwasser public toilets in New Zealand.

Toby