To Fox Glacier and Greymouth

   Tired and still a little sick, I couldn’t help but want to be home, wishing that I had a greater attentiveness and appreciation for all the wonder around me. But there comes a time while traveling when one becomes jaded, and I had reached my low while in Auckland’s Ponsonby neighborhood when I found myself thinking, “If I see one more ‘funky, hip, back-from-the-brink’ inner suburb populated by skinny yuppie mums and their precious children strapped into expensive German-designed strollers, shopping at stores with minimalist interiors that sell minimalist clothing, with maximalist price tags, I will lie down on this sidewalk and shit myself.”
   About 15 minutes later, Herman-the-German and I booked this final two-week extravaganza through the country.
We stopped here along the way … I think it’s Thun
  So I hopped on yet another coach on what was shaping up to be a fabulous Queenstown morning, destination: Fox Glacier Village where I would see one of the glaciers that still exists, but is in gradual retreat, and has been since 1750. Incidentally, its retreat has sped up since 1950. I’d like to impart a whole lot of local color and info about the drive and what I saw, but honestly, I can’t remember much. I know only that my head ached, and that I kept coughing for no good reason and felt like I was constantly trying to swallow an acorn. The drivers were quite nice, chatted quietly at intervals about the countryside and its rich history. They did their job. I did not do mine.
   We were about an hour away from Fox when the driver played a DVD about Fox Glacier helicopter tours and offered to call in a flight reservation at our next stop if anyone wanted to take one. I approached him when we stopped and asked some questions about the flight, and he assured me that it was well worth the money. But when he called, he was told that the didn’t have another person who wanted that tour at that time, and flights only take off with two or more paying passengers. That saved me from myself, although I do believe that’s the way to see a glacier.
Yes, that dirty snow is indeed Fox Glacier.

   I did have a driver reserved to take me out to the glacier observation point. Murray has been driving for quite a while, I think, if the potent cigarette smoke/body odor combination in his van is any indication. Joe, the coach driver, had pointed out Murray where he was parked by the curb. I popped my head into the van, giving him a start, I think, and informed him that I was his four o’clock date. He said he’d be at the hostel to pick me up.

   I dragged my suitcase and my acorn-swallowing self up the street to the Ivory Towers Lodge Hostel which, oddly, was neither ivory nor towering. In fact, the hostel was a yellow weatherboard house? Old hotel? With blue trim. Ivory Tower Lodge Hostel is the sort of place that someone might call funky, or unique, or full of character. After checking in and walking down a hallway on carpeting that might once have been a color, and opening the door to Room 2, I called it time to check out. I had reached the point – actually remain at the point – that if I smell pasta cooking in a hostel kitchen, I gag. No pasta was cooking here, but the room was approximately 10 X 12 and contained three sets of bunk beds. The last free (top) bunk was for me. None of my roommates were there, but their stale hiking boots and damp towels were. I’ve become a creature of smells, I guess, and since I was not congested with my ‘flu, I could smell everything entirely too well.
   Before I could turn around and walk out, Murray had arrived. He provided commentary all the way out to Fox Glacier in an impenetrable Kiwi accent, which is a cross between Australian (she’ll be right, mate!) Scottish (oh, there’s a wee car park) and Cockney (well I says to him I’d do it meself). Anyway, he pointed out where the glacier was in 1750, where it was in 1850 and where it was in 1950. Now, it’s a good kilometer back from that point. I hiked along the trail up to a point where the photo cutout of a ranger and a word bubble said, “If you’re not with a guided hiking group, you have to stop here.” Okay. I got my photographs and walked the 20 minutes back.
   One expensive dinner later, my quest for different (better) lodging began. I found a place next door to Ivory Tower. The room needed airing and smelled faintly of mildew and mustiness, but it was my mildew and my mustiness for the next few hours and I planned to enjoy it. Never mind that I coughed nearly all night because of the mildew and mustiness – I was not sharing a room with smelly hiking boots and young girls with the pong of wet puppies. I even got a free continental breakfast in the morning – and they had peanut butter! Things were looking up.
   The next leg of the journey was from Fox Glacier to Greymouth, where I would catch the Trans-Alpine train to Christchurch. Steve the coach driver was a ringer for Willem Dafoe, if Willem Dafoe was skeletal, had wavy reddish hair, wore aviator shades and had receding gums.  But Steve had a great speaking voice and a lot of knowledge about the area and its history. I happened to overhear that he studies Medieval England in his spare time, and has figured out information about Antarctica that he was told by government officials to keep to himself. “we’re not from here; that’s all I can say.”
Here are some highlights:

·        Whatarea, a widening in the road called a town. Public toilets, a convenience store with some sort of chocolate chip and herb muffin, a farm supply, and a gallery that was voted best in New Zealand. It is in possession of 4,000-year-old sperm whale bones and incredible jewelry carved by Maori.  Steve praised the older couple who purchased earrings as being wise to buy there where they were assured of quality and a fair price.

   The Bushmans’ Centre (a steal at $1.8 million if you’re interested in buying) sports a giant sandfly and a sign on the door: “If you can’t laugh, you’re in the wrong place.” The entire place is about game, and not Monopoly. Heads on the walls, deer in an enclosure out back, ‘possum pie on the menu. But the Australian Brushtail Possum is not the same as our North American large rat-looking possum. In fact, it was introduced to New Zealand in 1837 to establish a fur trade, with disastrous results. There are no predators in NZ. None. So the varmints have over-run the islands. You can’t order a ‘possum pie, either, because New Zealand government requires restaurants to purchase ‘possum meat only from a government approved source. Such a source does not exist. The edict is in place because of the wide-spread aerial poisoning campaign to rid the country of the scourge that destroys forest habitat and eats bird eggs.  Brief Digression: New Zealand has NO indigenous mammals. None. Most native birds are flightless (the kiwi, for instance) so are defenseless. The Brits brought over bunnies, because they’d be good food and fun to chase on their pretty horses; they also brought deer, which were fun to chase, too. But although chased, many deer and bunnies got away, so they proceeded to reproduce like, well, bunnies, and eat away at the bird’s habitat. Solution: bring stoats and weasels to take care of the rabbits. When the stoats and weasels arrived they reached the consensus: why eat a rabbit that runs away when you can get a bird that’s never seen a predator? The kiwi, NZ’s national bird, is endangered now.
·         We stopped to pick up a 94-year-old man who raises goats, and were warned that he might smell a little bit like his cloven-hooved friends. He did. A little old thing, barely bent, and still had a frizz of white hair. His sweater had goat hair woven through it. Immediately, the woman across the aisle from me placed a small package in the seat next to her. “Where is he going to sit? He might sit by me!” she hissed. As it turned out, he did the next best thing and sat right in front of her. I have smelled goats before and found his odor pungent, but not as offensive as, say, the bouquet of a co-ed hostel dorm room. He got off the bus at the next stop, and the odor dissipated soon enough, but not before the same woman could confide that she “could smell that man.” I pointed out that at 94, he was doing great to be catching a bus anywhere, and when I’m 90 and raising goats, I hope to sit in front of a person just like her.

·         A stop in Hakitika and the Jade Factory, where carvers can be observed from a platform outside their glass-enclosed workshop. Since we arrived around lunch time, only one was at his post. Instead, I walked into a store called The Possum People and chatted with a woman about the ‘possums. As I mentioned above, the possum in New Zealand is not the same as our North American over-sized rat ‘possum. These guys look like an Ewok crossed with a raccoon. Problem is, they are munching their way through the two islands and destroying the habitat of native wildlife. They also spread bovine tuberculosis. She said that about 1 million are trapped each year for the fur trade, and 2 to 3 million are killed with 1080 poison, mostly in remote parts of islands. The government insists that there are around 70 million in the country, but the woman scoffed: “If that was the case we’d be tripping over them in the street.” While the fur trade decreased in the 1980s, due mostly to PETA folks spattering fake blood on fur coats, commercial value has recovered with China being the biggest buyer. I was tempted to buy a pair of gloves or a hat, but then remembered that I live in Death Valley with golf courses. Instead, I hurried over to a pharmacy and spent $11.20 for 24 ibuprofen tablets in an effort to reduce the size of my throat acorn.
·         New Zealand’s natural resources: Steve said that New Zealand is really a gold nugget with a little dirt thrown over it. Talk about opening up the National Reserves for mining has been met with a resounding “NO!” from the people, so the government has done the next best thing and started to build oil platforms off the South Island shore. Steve said that NZ has the second largest oil reserves in the world and has agreed with Saudi Arabia to cap the wells for 150 years to keep the price of oil inflated. When the wells are in production, they will be using the frakking method of extraction. I said a prayer for the marine life in the area.

   And by the time we got to Greymouth, the drugs were working.
View from my room at the YHA Hostel in Greymouth.

   When I walked into the Greymouth YHA Hostel, I smelled … nothing. Air. Fresh air. No cleaning agents, air fresheners, backpackers, food cooking … nothing. Come to find out that the hostel is cleaned with only three natural ingredients – coconut oil, lime and orange. The windows were open. A cool breeze. Faint scent of the sea. And although I was booked into a four-bed dorm, there was only one other person and only one very neat suitcase sat at the end of one bunk. Downstairs, a common room had comfortable furniture arranged around a fire place. The sun porch was set up as a TV room with a selection of (free!) DVDs. In the kitchen, no fewer than five bins were arranged against the wall for recycling plastics, paper, shopping bags, landfill waste and compost. The kitchen was spotless. I was sure to tell the girl at the check-in how nice that was.

   Downtown Greymouth is not extensive, and is typical of most small towns. A few cafes, bars, outdoor equipment outfitters, hotels down by the train station, a couple galleries, and a book store. More bakeries that concoct chocolate chip and fruit muffins. A couple notable stops: Jade Boulder Gallery, which really does have a jade boulder inside. The artist, Ian Boustridge, started getting interested in jade when he was only a kid, and has been carving since 1976. His work is inspired by pre-Columbian, Asian and Maori art, and his work is widely collected. Although the items at the gallery were a little bit out of my current price range, the work was stunning. Unfortunately (but not surprisingly) photography was prohibited.  The Left Bank Art Gallery housed in the restored New Zealand Bank building also has a stunning collection of jade by artists of national/international repute. In New Zealand, jade is a stone of particular importance to the Maori (indigenous) culture, used for knives and ornaments for thousands of years.

   Then, at 1:30 p.m. I got on board the Trans-Scenic Kiwi Rail train to cross Arthur’s Pass and spend a night in Christchurch, yes, the city that has experience 10,000 quakes since the 7.1 quake on September 2010.

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