“Bush” is Kiwi talk for “forest.” I have to say, I love Kiwi
talk. I picked up three words I need to work in my vocabulary:- “Fiddley” – a little unpredictable or wonky, as in “if the bike acts a little fiddley, let us know and we’ll check it for you to make sure it’s safe.”
- “Flash” – impressive, as in “When Peter Jackson saw the area, he knew it was flash enough to be in his film.”
- “Smash” – get it done quickly, as in, “It’s going to rain, so let’s smash out tomorrow’s lunches before the skies open.”
The last one is my favorite. I’d really like to work it into
daily usage. “On Friday, I smashed out the annual budget.” It just sounds so
cool.
NZ in general was just amazingly cool. I’d never really
camped before (twice at Disney), and I have to say NZ does it right. I’ve no
idea of their tax structure, but they’ve spent a fortune putting in trails
everywhere, plus facilities left and right. It seems everywhere you drive,
there’s a hike available, and all the paths are clearly marked. If there’s
water or swampy land, they’ve built boardwalks, complete with chicken wire on
the boards to make it non-slip.
There are also campsites, some with showers, on the public
property and some spots also have these really big dorms that you can rent.
Like, not a hostel-sized one, but a hospital-sized one. And they also have
private campsites, which have a better chance of having showers.
There are no campsites on the glaciers, thankfully, but they
offer day hikes via helicopter. I’d done heli-hiking in Alaska, but it was on a frozen tundra and
not a glacier. The glacier hikes are different, because the glaciers shift
daily. What was safe yesterday might not be safe today.
My group of 18 didn’t all do the heli-hiking, but I think
8-10 of us did. Once we got up there, we were so bundled up I really couldn’t
tell who was who.
The glaciers are really amazing, and to walk on them, you
had to wear boots with these cool massive spikes called “crampons,” I think
they said. It was sort of a roller skate frame you laced over your boots and
had these mean teeth – like 2 inches or something like that. We were advised to
keep them in the ice at all times, otherwise, we would have slipped down the
glaciers.
And it really was that slippery. In one of the ice caves, I
was trying to scoot along on my back (this was how you were supposed to do it,
pulling yourself along with a rope) and I slipped down to the foot of the cave,
even though I was still hanging onto the rope. It was just that slick.
There was a waterfall up on the glacier, too, and it was
pretty amazing. Just the amounts of snow and ice were incredible. More than North Dakota!
 |
| This is me on my back, sliding through. My version of a selfie. |
We hiked for a couple of hours, and it was quite fascinating
to watch the clouds. The weather turns quickly, and we’d been warned that the
trip might not go due to low clouds. We got up there and the clouds came in,
but we were able to still hike the whole time. By the time we went back down,
the clouds looked like they’d shifted, but it was raining on the way down, so I
don’t really know for sure.
New
Zealand is probably the fifth place I’ve
gone to where I’ve heard the line, “If you don’t like the weather, just wait 15
minutes and it will change.” The funny thing is, everywhere I’ve heard it, the people think it’s unique to them.
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