Charlie III

Another Charlie introduction. However, this Charlie is not a dog. Like the previous two, this Charlie (short for Charlize) promises to be obedient, reliable and good-natured.

Born in 1997 in the land of Subaru, Charlie is already a Legacy. Dark blue, with a 2.2L stomach and station wagon capacity, she can carry me and all my stuff (incl. friends) over the back roads of New Zealand with little fuss, especially with her (as yet unused) 4x4 function. She's not without blemishes. I inherited her with a slightly wonky passenger door, a wee dent in the bumper and - something I didn't discover until later - reverse lights that don't work. These don't seem to have detracted from her retro beauty though, as, soon after coming under my ownership, a beast of a 4x4 tried to take her from behind. She fended him off very well, however, and emerged from the ordeal with only her pride dented and boot(y) decoration smashed. Otherwise no other physical damage.

1,297km later and we've started to know each other and our odd quirks better and all bodes well for a lasting friendship.

South with the doctor (group email)

Comfy sofa in a living room, good music, log fire, cup of liquorice tea before heading to bed with a hot water bottle. Nope, not home prematurely. This is the South Island winter backpacker standard. Excellent!

Dr Mizen and I have been on the road on the South Island in Charlie the car for just over a week and all is going well apart from the weather. Unfortunately, low clouds and driving rain have meant at times we've had to simply take everyone's word for it regards the gorgeous views. Other than making us feel more at home, the weather HAS, however, made the west coast beaches even wilder and more beautiful than they are normally. Luckily we've had clear days for crucial things like glacier hikes and hopefully it will be good tomorrow for the Milford Sound.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Christchurch provided me with my first couchsurfing experience, which was great. Fred looked after us brilliantly and we're looking forward to seeing her again when we pass back through. After buying my car and picking up Lindsay, we headed to Arthur's Pass via the Castle Hill giant boulders, which I'm reliably informed had a bit-part in the Narnia film. Literally washed out of Arthur's Pass, we abandoned a hillwalking attempt and took a cold shower in the streets of Hokitika. Which we're assured is lovely in nice weather. A grump and a half later and we trundled up to Barrytown to carve our own NZ-design necklaces from a cow's shin and took a tour of the incredible pancake rocks and blowholes. Finally we were starting to get an idea of the South Island we'd heard about!

South to Fox Glacier. I tell you, driving with fingers crossed for the weather is not that easy. But it paid off, and we had a glorious day up on the glacier. A helicopter dropped us off 7km up it. We then crampon-ed around for a couple of hours, enjoyed the ice caves, crevasses, mulans (not Disney characters but plug holes in the ice) and blue blue ice. The glacier's actually growing and is one of the fastest-moving in the world. We made the most of the clear day and also took in Lake Matheson, one of the most famous reflections in the world because it's so flat.

Haast Pass and more great west coast beaches brought us to Wanaka, where my old pal Philippa kindly put us up and put up with us for a couple of nights. Yesterday we hit Queenstown and depleted our bank accounts for a total of 33 minutes of madness. Half an hour on a jet boat careening through the Shotover canyon and doing 360 degree turns and then 2 canyon swings. For a canyon swing, you basically throw yourself into a gorge at the end of a wire, freefall 60m at 150km/hour then it goes into a huge swing when you hit the bottom (of the wire, not the gorge).

And now we're in Te Anau. We've tasted some of the fine Pinot Noirs of the Otago Valley along the way and tomorrow head along the road to Milford Sound.

While I'm still mixed on how I feel about NZ, the South Island is truly stunning to travel around and I can't wait to come back and see more after my stint working on the North Island.

No inspiration

I've not written anything for this blog in almost 2 weeks and I wouldn't have realised had my sister not pointed it out. I still don't really feel like I have much to write about, and I feel like any time I pick up pen and paper, it comes out as a rant or moan.

It's not that I've not been doing anything. I've bought a car, I've been joined by a good friend from home, I've driven over 800km halfway around South Island, I've carved a necklace from bone, I've walked on a glacier, I've been rear-ended by a 4x4, I've been offered a job at a ski resort, I've seen many stunning views and NOT seen many more because of godawful weather...

Thing is, I'm not feeling either inspired or interesting and I can't quite put my finger on why. Part of it is definitely that New Zealand, which although beautiful and friendly, seems to me to suffer a bit from wee-man's complex and is not as personally inspiring as Asia just now. But I don't think it's quite that simple. I'm being a grumpy guts. And being somewhere so similar to home has triggered old habits I thought and hoped I'd at least improved if not got rid of - trying to plan too far ahead, overanalysing everything, etc etc.

Come on New Zealand, inspire me!

South for the winter (group email)

Well, Wellington is amazing. I can definitely see myself heading back there to temporarily 'settle' for a while. It's got a great vibe, green stuff within easy walking distance, lots going on etc etc. I saw prettymuch all the touristy stuff there is in and around the city, as well ass eeing a LOT of shows - 2 in the comedy festival, a NZ-made maori 'musical', and the cinema 3 times (the human rights film festival was on).

I also caught up with some Edinburgh friends who are now back home in Wellington. One of those friends played in the Edinburgh Samba Schoolwith me, and she invited me along to a party held by the Wellingtonversion. And then I ended up joining them for a rehearsal too. Ooooh, that felt good.

A couple of days ago I stalked Magde, the poor girl I lived in the caravan with on the orchard, on to a big ferry and sailed to the South Island. It's a world apart. It's beautiful. I am SO excited to be here, I can't describe it. All these hills, mountains, glaciers and green places just waiting for me to tramp through and over them. I went for an 8-hour walk around Picton yesterday and it felt so good. I learnt a lot about the different NZ birds in Wellington, and it's so nice recognising the different pretty songs and knowing how to get close to them. It's a whole new dimension added to my walking experience.

Now I'm in Christchurch. I've started 'couchsurfing' to get a New Zealander's view on NZ and to save some money. Tomorrow I'll buy a car,my guitar, and pick up Linds from the airport to start our 3-week South Island adventure. Hurrah!

Extended samba family (written for TESS newsletter)

After eight months travelling, I'd started to feel a serious drumming twitch. Perfectly timed, a series of events (set in motion by the lovely Emily 'Kiwi surdo' Efford') led me to be standing earlier today with a caixa at the hip, sticks in hand, waiting for Wellington Batucada (WB)'s weekly rehearsal to start. Just like remounting a bike, all it took was the opening 'Dah-grrr, dah-grrr, dah-grrr, dah-grrr' from the leader and... well, let's just say the swing is definitely still there.

My first proper samba venture outside the secure embrace of Edinburgh Samba School (TESS)-landwas just what I needed. Just as with TESS, WB welcomed and accepted me, no questions asked. The whole vibe is so similar to TESS. I found myself closing my eyes and on opening them being very confused to see silver drums instead of the familiar red/orange/yellow ones.

I was going to write a long and tedious list of comparisons, but for once decided to restrain myself.

Instead:

I've been told about the 'samba family' effect by veterans, but this is the first time I've experienced it myself. I went to two hours of a WB party, a 2-hour rehearsal and an hour in the pub. Those 5 hours have strengthened my view that Wellington could become a definite candidate for temporary home for me (and presented me with at least 3 projects I had to resist getting involved in and a personal challenge to lighten up the WB caixa/snare section, and find a decent Brazilian DJ for them).

When I picked TESS over the university choir a year and a half ago, little did I know that, not only had I joined something that would give me so much enjoyment and great friends, but that, more than almost anything else I've been involved in, I'd found something that enables potentially any city in the world to so quickly feel like a home from home.

If I've now gone too soppy on you, well, tough. I wasn't wearing earplugs so my head's probably gone a bit weirder than usual. Oh, and if anyone's interested, they play samba way too fast too. Just as it should be!

Photos: Hawkes Bay

For my shenanigans in and around apple picking, look here (or click on the photo):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/oddballproductions/sets/72157600199291995/

Wee comment

I really like Wellington. It's not brilliant like Glasgow or Edinburgh, but it definitely can be classed a 'great'. I like it here.

There are second hand bookshops open late, gift shops that sell interesting things that are not made from greenstone or paua, theatres, a proper range of CD and DVD shops, nice wee cafés, lovely botanical gardens, some buildings with a sense of real history to them, the excellent Te Papa museum.

To me it doesn't have quite the character (yet) of my favourite cities - it feels a wee bit like a chunk of London lifted up and shipped over to New Zealand.

It's good, I like it.

Back to the arts

See, this is why I need to have access to the performing arts. When I see a show, it always leaves me ITCHING to talk and talk and talk about it until I fall asleep.

Tonight's been a double whammy, so let me give you the Odds version review of my first real exposure to kiwi-created arts.

1. Hunting the Snark

I went to see this at a little studio theatre called BATS (NOT the shit theatre society I was in when I was 9). A nice small world experience was bumping in to one of the box office guys from St George's West there and catching up. Anyway, the show, it's based on Lewis Carroll texts, references to the Jaberwocky and Jub Jub bird etc. Described as a 'black theatrical comedy', it tells the story of a hotchpotch of characters who go on a hunt for the 'snark'.

There were some giggle-inducing moments but most of it was a bit too random and obvious, although members of the audience who were clearly cast members' mates seemed to find it the funniest thing they'd ever seen. It was a production by a group of actors my age and had more of a drama school feel about it than a pro production. A nice show though, no complaints.

2. Maui

Imagine Andrew Lloyd Webber meets Michael Flatly, but with less proficient dancing and a maori spin on it. Kind of Phantom of the Lord of the Haka. That might give you an idea of this show. It's a huge production by NZ standards, PR'd to the hilt, glitzy, commercial. And a bit of a let-down for me. The last thing I saw that I'd put in the same box is Matthew Bourne's Edward Scissorhands, but Maui is only about half as technically proficient. And doesn't have dancing topiaries.

Maui is very important in maori culture - he's the legendary character who fished the north island of NZ out of the sea (the south island is his boat), and there's a whole bunch of stories about him. This show tells his life story using maori chants, song, rap (yes, as in hip hop), maori-inspired dances and aerial acrobatics.

The combining of ALW style songs with maori chants was actually quite inspired, if a little painful on the classical musical ear at times. The people flying through the air was not very well done and highly repetitive, unfortunately, and for cheapskate Odds up in the gods, partly invisible.

The end result is a series of fairly disjointed scenes with random songs and dances, but pretty costumes.

The locals seemed to love it though, which is the most important thing, although I suspect the male lead is some kind of maori celebrity, which would explain a lot of the female whooping and shrieking throughout.

Windy Welly (group email)

I've ditched the apple bucket, said goodbye to my new friends in Hawkes Bay and departed hicksville having picked almost 50 bins of apples in 3 1/2 weeks. That's almost 20 tons of braeburn, fuji, pacific queen and pacific rose. Blimey...
I was staying in a cosy caravan with a lovely French girl, and there were a total of 6 of us living on the orchard forming our own orchard family. 12 of us worked together picking the apples and there were some great characters amongst them. Although it was one of the hardest and horriblest jobs I've ever had, it was very good for me, if not so great for my back. Photos will hopefully follow soon.

Being there also gave me the chance to see art deco Napier, Cape Kidnappers' gannet colony, and other pretty sights in the Hawkes Bay area. On our last night, we all drove up to Te Mata Peak overlooking Hastings and Havelock North and got some incredible views and sunset.

During one of our quiet evenings on the orchard after a hard day's work, I got a text from one of my longest-standing friends Philippa asking me where I was. When I replied 'Hawkes Bay, apple-picking', her response was 'me too!'. It was the biggest treat ever to be able to spend two good chunks of time catching up with her. It's the most we've seen of each other in one go in almost 7 years!

Now I've just arrived in Wellington and I'm having my first experience of an antipodean backpackers. It's a world of difference from the SE Asian guesthouses is all I can say at the moment. I need to try out a few more to be able to 'generalise'. It's the NZ international comedy festival and NZ music month at the moment, and Wellington is culture capital of NZ, apparently, so I'm very excited about topping up on culture and arty farty stuff, which I have been missing very much. I should also be catching up with a couple of mates here before hopping on the ferry south to begin my South Island adventure. It'll be good to talk to someone without apples, picking yields, packhouses,... being mentioned once.

Right, dinner time. Pasta, pesto and sausages. I'm back to the old faithfuls.

Unidentified fruit

At the orchard where I was picking apples there was a plant (bush) growing through the fence from the neighbours' property. On this plant was a yellow coloured fruit, about the size of a mango and with a waxy peel. We couldn't for the life of us figure out what it was. Can anyone help us out? We don't think it was ripe when we picked one, because it was very hard. Check out the photos and if anyone can shed any light on the mystery fruit's identity, a team of apple pickers would be very grateful!

A night out in Hawkes Bay

A night out in Havelock North is quite an experience. They have no nightclubs, simply 5 bars/pubs/places to dance combined. So in all 5, the music is at nightclub levels, rendering a quite night drinking and chatting with pals impossible. But there's no real dancefloor either - just tables pushed aside and, if you're dead lucky, a disco light or two. The DJs in all 5 are shit, each playing different kinds of music, but none really knowing even the basics of mixing or good ordering of tunes. One of them is of the most despicable variety: the DJ who loves the sound of his own voice over a mic more than the music he's playing.

There're not actually enough people in 'the village' to fill all 5 pubs/bars/etc and provide any kind of atmosphere (except, I've been assured, when the students are home for the holidays). Those who do come out are mostly either young and green around the ears trying to look old and cool, or crumblies trying to look young and cool. All of them, without exception, are dancing only to make sure everyone is watching them. My pet hate. They're betrayed by the 'subtle' glances around the room to check their well-rehearsed Michael Jackson/Beyoncé routine didn't go unnoticed.

The result is always feeling as though you're at the party that's never quite got going because everyone's somewhere else. I tell you, these people would be in for one hell of a shock if they ever made it to a jumping nightclub in the city.

Which generation?

A rant.

Telecommunications cost a fortune here.
Public transport is thin on the ground. I tried to book a bus to a major tourist destination, only to discover no buses go there on weekends.
Watching TV is excruciating, almost as bad as the USA at peak times with 5 minutes of programme alternated with 5 minutes of adverts.
On Saturdays, many shops close for the afternoon.
CDs and DVDs cost a lot, there is no Fopp equivalent.
Newspapers dedicate very little space to world news. The world news covered includes important stories such as a Cambodian man being kicked to death by a cow he was trying to shag.
The last two points could arguably be addressed by the internet. Except internet access in many places is fairly dismal.

In a few weeks I reckon these could be things I find charming about New Zealand. At the moment I simply find them frustrating and irritating.

Now I've got that off my chest, I can move on to learning to enjoy NZ whilst still missing home and SE Asia.

Pride

As usual when anything comes to an end in my life, nostalgia is kicking in early. Only 2 days of apple picking left and, while I'm looking forward to moving on, I feel a bit sad to leave this orchard and the lovely people I've spent the past 3 weeks with.

The biggest thing for me with this apple picking job is that it is the first time in a long while that I've done something that I'm not particularly good at. I'm not a terrible picker, but I'm very slow and I find it one heck of a challenge. That has been so good for me.