Meet the Neighbo(u)rs

The speed with which I moved to Arthur's Pass did not allow me to do much preparatory reading, something I always find useful when I travel. Other people's reactions to the news of my move were all I had to develop my expectations of the place, and none of them mentioned this area's most unique feature: the kea.

Kea are the world's only alpine parrot, doubtless a result of this country's unique geographical development. They are also endangered, having been seen as a danger to livestock in previous years. I am lucky enough to be in a place with lots of them, and they are certainly more interesting than most birds I've seen in Wellington or Central Otago.

But I'm not a birdwatcher. New Zealand is known for its wide variety of unique bird species, but I've only heard most of them. What makes kea unique is their behavior. Having evolved in a mountainous habitat with no mammals (all but one of New Zealand's mammals were introduced), kea have developed an inquisitive, fearless nature. The scarcity of food in the mountains means they must leave no stone unturned when feeding, and the lack of predators means they have little to fear in doing so. Wording it as such makes me sound like a biologist, but I borrowed that description from informational signs around town. For those not patient enough to read such signs, meeting the kea can be quite a surprise.

Some might consider the kea a pest. A coworker compares their mentality to that of a monkey (which makes me think of the winged monkeys in The Wizard of Oz). They tend to hang around the deck of our café and force customers to decide whether or not to obey the “don't feed the keas” signs attached to every table. And if the patrons do as the sign says, the kea frequently take it upon themselves to deprive people of sandwiches, fruit, or small snacks. But it isn't just food – remember, they are “inquisitive,” and have also been known to fly away with empty packaging, plates, car keys, and even passports. Before anyone starts thinking of a certain Alfred Hitchcock movie, be aware that none of their behavior is malicious: they have never been known to attack people, no matter what interesting possessions they might gain by doing so. But rather than “inquisitive and fearless,” some of our customers might say “annoying and shameless.”

The interaction between kea and tourist is always fun to watch. Being unique and brightly colored, kea attract attention just by being nearby. Most people, it seems, cannot imagine that such a beautiful animal would think of tearing out the rubber strip from a car's rearview mirror just to get a better look at it. When the kea begin doing exactly that, the reaction tends to be one of complete amazement rather than anger. The stories are endless: tourists distracted by a kea's antics, only to find that their food has been stolen as they turned to take photos; tour buses being delayed because a kea stole the keys; astonished yells of disbelief coming from the deck, where it is made quite clear that food will not be replaced if the birds take it. Although the tourists might be expected to react negatively to the kea in this area, many see the experience as special enough to warrant a photo. It is the kea's audaciousness (and endangered status) that keeps it safe: no one expects them to be so bold, and thus it is a special memory, rather than a special annoyance, when they reveal the full extent of their curiosity.

A kea hanging out on our deck. Not an unusual occurrence.

Kea at the top of Avalanche Peak.

As if it wasn't enough to remind us that they can fly up to a peak that took us hours to walk to, they try to take our lunches too!

A common reaction to a kea's presence. Hands on the camera means hands off the food, and a free lunch for a kea.

My New Backyard

Although not a dedicated hiker, I cannot ignore the possibilities presented to me by my new location. I decided to use my first day off to head up to Avalanche Peak, a lengthy but accessible trail that has apparently made it into the Lonely Planet guidebook for this area. As I ascended, relatively uninformed, I passed numerous groups of hikers. None of them passed me, I'm happy to report. It was not an easy track, however – I was occasionally required to use my hands both on the way up and the way down, and it would have been a real challenge in adverse conditions. I was lucky to have a clear day with fairly light wind, allowing me to complete the estimated 6-8 hour walk in 3.5 hours and enjoy fantastic views at the same time.

Settling In Again

Two weeks ago, I could only have guessed where Arthur's Pass was. After a quick job application and a two-day journey, it has become my place of residence (“home” is too strong a term for now). As easily as the pieces fell into place, a smooth transition to a new life was not guaranteed. But I can happily report that I have settled in quite well here, something that has become a trend since I've been in New Zealand. I have been experiencing some serious technical difficulties: my computer has had problems accessing the internet in Arthur's Pass, and my attempts to solve it have only made it worse. Meanwhile, my cell phone decided to get stuck in headset mode, meaning I can't make calls or hear incoming ones without wearing headphones.

This general breakdown of communication with the outside world and the geographic isolation of Arthur's Pass have allowed me to focus on learning my new job, which is much more involved than the similar one I had in Wellington. Not only am I working more hours, but my duties include a much broader range of tasks. Despite having worked in hospitality multiple times before, I remain a fairly unskilled employee – that is, I am not a barista, bartender, or cook, all of which are positions that require specific experience despite being dismissed by many people as fairly menial jobs. It seems that is about to change, as my new job requires me to be part cook, part baker, and soon, part barista. People might wonder how anyone could stay in Arthur's Pass without getting bored; it looks like I'll be able to do so just by turning up for work.

Despite having a barely noticeable number of permanent residents, Arthur's Pass attracts a fair amount of business due to its location. I estimate at least half of our customers are internationals (as well as several of the staff), and they tend to come in bunches via bus tours. Even cruise ship passengers make it up here, as Arthur's Pass is only about two hours from Akaroa, the port used to access Christchurch since the recent earthquakes. There are Kiwi tourists as well, and some people do stay longer to take advantage of the hiking trails. But hearing American tourists navigate New Zealand's coinage out loud as they pay for their ice cream is enough to make me feel like a local after less than a week. 

Not the Beach Boys' West Coast

Finding a job to follow apricot-picking was quite easy, as I mentioned in my previous post. Getting there, however, promised to be an adventure in itself. Arthur's Pass is a village of less than 100 people on the eastern side of the mountain pass for which it is named, well within the boundary of the national park of the same name. And I would be approaching it via the West Coast, one of the wildest areas of New Zealand, without my own transport.

Despite the formidable journey ahead of me, I spent one day in Alexandra tying up loose ends. Without really thinking about it, I was making the third major move of my time here; despite staying in a variety of places, I had been in Central Otago for almost two months. As I packed my bag, I remembered why I enjoy having a job to keep me in one place – my pack is gigantic, and its contents don't like to stay put. I don't mean it's bursting, but if I stay in one place for more than two nights, necessity will empty at least half of it and spread it throughout my living area. So as I packed to leave Alexandra, I could look forward to being able to empty the bag again in two days.

The bus connections to Arthur's Pass were, predictably, not the smoothest. Central Otago is not on a well-worn tourist track, and the West Coast's massive size and winding highways make it difficult to pass through quickly. Rather than try to make an inadequate bus schedule fit my needs, I decided to hitchhike all the way if I had to. I gave myself two full days, and it all began outside Alexandra at around 8.45 on Tuesday morning. After about 15 minutes, I was picked up by two women working for a franchise of Crest Cleaners on their way to Cromwell. It wasn't quite the distance I was hoping for, but putting Alexandra behind me was good enough.

After almost no time waiting in Cromwell, I was collected by a couple from Edmonton who are also on working holidays. They both worked north of town, and were able to drop me at a spot about 20 kilometers outside Cromwell. As I waited next to a sheep pasture and listened to their bleating in the intervals between passing cars, the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou? came into my head, as it tends to do. I remembered the scene where the main characters pull over to pick up Tommy in the middle of a vast stretch of farmland. Despite the racial inaccuracy, the line that kept popping into my head was, “Pull over, Everett, let's give that colored boy a lift,” Southern drawl and all.

It was not a long wait, however, and before long I was riding next to a blinds salesman on his way to Wanaka. He clearly made the drive frequently, as he was talking on his phone as he picked me up, and was quite willing to find ways to distract himself while driving, including looking up Arthur's Pass village on Google maps. Although he was good company, I was glad he was only going as far as Wanaka. That stretch of road is not particularly tricky to drive, but it would have been a nightmare riding with him through the Haast Pass.

After being dropped at the turnoff for the West Coast to join about four other hitchhikers in the same spot, I was soon picked up by a Danish pilot on a two-month holiday. He was heading through the Haast Pass in a rental car, and we got along very well. Far from being in a rush, he was taking full advantage of being on such a scenic route. We made three stops for photos, some of which required small hikes, and he was even generous enough to provide me with lunch. I would have happily ridden with him to Jackson Bay (literally the end of the road, southwest of Haast), but I felt obligated to continue north and so began hitching again in Haast.

Haast was...well, it barely was. It's actually a group of three settlements that are all several kilometers apart, and from where I hitched I could only see a roadside café, a gas station, and a regional tourist office. But maybe my opinion of it was worsened by the wait I endured there. Haast is either the last or the first town on the West Coast highway, and it seems that few tourists make time to stop there. The Fox and Franz Josef glaciers are well to the north, and Queenstown and Wanaka are all the way over the mountains to the southeast. Many people seemed reluctant to even slow down as they passed. Very few of the cars that passed me were driven by young tourists like myself; most were rented camper vans, which I have found to be disinclined to picking up hitchhikers, as they are often occupied by families. So I waited. The time passed fairly quickly, as each car could have been the one to stop, and one hour passed almost without my noticing it. I also knew my Danish friend would be headed north later in the evening, so a ride would come eventually. But I was thrilled when one of the campers finally stopped, a rental driven by a middle-aged English couple. They took the time to provide me with a seat belt in the rear portion of the vehicle, and said they were heading to Franz Josef, the further of the two glaciers.

Once again, I was lucky to be riding with a cautious driver for an extremely difficult stretch of road. The West Coast is filled with one-lane bridges, hairpin turns, and winding ascents and descents. I had been thinking of hitching even further that evening, but as we passed mile after mile of uninhabited scenery, I began to think further progress unlikely. There is almost nothing in the way of human settlement between Haast and Fox Glacier, about 100 kilometers apart. I began to worry that I might not be able to find a place to sleep, but once we reached Fox Glacier, I knew I was back in tourist country. Fox and Franz Josef are two towns that exist solely because of glacier tourism, and every building seems to provide either accommodation, food, or tours (some have all three). When I arrived in Franz Josef, I had my pick of at least ten different places to stay, which must be a record for a town of its size.

After such a long day of hitchhiking, and thinking that I should probably get to Arthur's Pass fairly early in the day, I reexamined the bus schedules and found that hitching would not be necessary. Although tickets were not cheap, I had saved money the previous day and felt the need to be fairly exact about my arrival time; I was heading to a new job, after all. So I made the necessary purchases (about 10 minutes before departure) and soon found myself cruising towards Hokitika. We made a very entertaining stop at the Bushman's Centre in Pukekura, a welcome reminder that quirkiness exists in even the smallest towns. And the small town of Hokitika, of which I had high expectations for some reason, left a very favorable impression on me. I couldn't stay to find out why, however, as I was quickly headed off to Greymouth and then inland to the mountains. Within three hours, I was in Arthur's Pass and getting acquainted with my new surroundings. 

Lake Hawea.

At the Blue Pools in Mt. Aspiring National Park.

Thunder Creek Falls, also in Mt. Aspiring National Park.

Outside Haast, where I waited almost two hours.

A small portion of the Bushman's Centre's character.

  

Me and one Pukekura's locals.

The Otira gorge, just below Arthur's Pass.

After the Gold Rush

After the events of my previous post, I returned to Alexandra to begin a job as a cherry picker. Since then, things have been fairly uncertain, so I figured I would wait for some concrete developments before posting anything (a lifetime of supporting the Boston Red Sox has taught me not to tempt fate).


I had originally not planned to do any farm work during January, as Kiwi students on summer holidays would make competition for jobs even steeper. But during my time thinning apples in Roxburgh, I heard about the "red gold" that is Central Otago's cherries (oddly enough, an area with a history of gold mining). So I lined up a job in Alexandra and showed up for my first day on January 4. About one hour into the day, I was asked to pick apricots instead of cherries. Happy just to have a job, I accepted. But there's a reason they don't refer to apricots as "orange gold."

Apricot harvesting is more difficult than cherry harvesting, as you carry more weight at a time and receive less money per bag. Pickers are guaranteed more work because apricots are hardier than cherries, but the work is much more intense than thinning was. While thinning, I was generally left alone to work and received two or three visits per day from my supervisors. Picking requires everybody to work in the same area so as to fill bins (about 30 bags' worth of apricots) more quickly, and the supervisor is an almost constant presence. Harvesting is more time-sensitive than thinning, and the pressure to get the job done quickly passes all the way down from the orchard managers to the pickers. Pickers, being the bottom rung of the ladder, hear constant complaints about the color, size, and firmness of the fruit they pick. And even if every bag is perfect, there will be good fruit left on the trees that must be removed, and of course, constant pressure to earn minimum wage (if you're not earning minimum, the orchard is forced to top up your pay and gets fewer apricots from you). I found earning minimum very challenging, meaning I did not feel very secure in my position. It was also discouraging to watch a group of 20 pickers dwindle to about 8 in less than a week. When I realized how far I'd wavered from my original plan for the month of January (not only was I doing farm work, I wasn't even doing the farm work I'd hoped to do), I decided to move on.

Luckily, right when that occurred to me, Central Otago received its first serious rain since I've been here (late November). That gave me two days off to plan, and a quick job search found a café in Arthur's Pass looking for a general kitchen hand. In a reminder of why I love New Zealand so much, I sent off a fairly speculative job application, which got me a reply by phone within an hour. Within two hours of sending the application via email, I had a new job.

Arthur's Pass is a small village on the train route between Greymouth and Christchurch, in the heart of the Southern Alps. The train that passes through it is considered one of the most beautiful train rides in the world, and tourism continues throughout the year (the scenery is better in the winter). Although this job will prevent me from seeing Southland during the summer, it will hopefully allow me some stability over the next few months. As I need to renew my passport, having a consistent address will be useful. And as much as I enjoy the simplicity and exercise of seasonal farm work, I've had much better experiences working in cafés.

Spending 9 hours per day picking apricots doesn't leave much time for photography. But a couple coworkers and I found a creative way to release the stress and frustration of hearing "too green!" every time we dropped a new bag. See below.

Surviving the Holidays

Despite spending three of the past five years overseas (give or take a few months), I have always made it home for Christmas. Not so this year. New Zealand is simply too far and thus, too costly to return from for such a short visit. So for the first time, I faced every traveller's greatest challenge – I was on my own for the holidays. The idea had scared me a bit in previous years, and I would not have done it if not for the distance, but I can happily report that things worked out rather well.

Once I had arrived in Wanaka, I set about making plans to stay occupied on Christmas Day, when all the shops would be closed. As I was expecting to be alone, I decided to embrace it and do that most solitary of activities: fishing. Wanaka is a popular fishing area, and it was easy to rent a rod and buy a 24-hour license on Christmas Eve. Saving those for the next day, I spent that evening in the Cinema Paradiso, which is unique enough to merit an entry in the Lonely Planet guidebook to New Zealand. Every film is presented with an intermission, at which there are freshly made cookies for sale. The theatre seating is varied, with couches, standard cinema seats, and an antique car all squeezed in front of the screen. The film selection seems to be mostly second-run features, and every day's schedule is completely different. I was caught between Midnight in Paris and The Guard, but feeling that a bit of a distraction might not be a bad thing given my situation, I bought tickets to both (there was a free cookie in the bargain).

On Christmas itself, I spent about two hours walking to a recommended fishing spot. As it turned out, it was along a walking trail, and Christmas is a lively day for outdoor activities here. I don't think I ever went 30 minutes without someone passing by and asking how the fishing was. Unfortunately, it was not a lively day for the fish, and I only managed one bite, after which a large, smug trout jumped about three feet above the surface. It was nice to be reminded that there were fish in the river at all, but my day's tally was unbalanced, with no fish taken out and two rented lures left in. I bought fish and chips to account for the freshly caught trout that I wasn't eating, and went to bed satisfied that I'd filled up what could have been a long, lonely day.

With Christmas behind me, I hitchhiked back down to Alexandra and settled in for the start of my cherry-picking job. It was only at 6 AM on my first day that I learned my first day had been moved back a week. It seemed I would be stuck waiting in Alexandra over New Year's, but coincidence worked in my favour. One of my pub quiz teammates from Wellington happens to be from Dunedin, and also happens to have a family cottage not far from Alexandra. We also happened to be close to one of the biggest New Year's parties in New Zealand, about an hour away in Queenstown. So on the last day of 2011, I found myself enjoying a beautiful ride along the Kawarau Gorge, on my way to the “adventure capital of the world.”

Queenstown is Wanaka's older, more extroverted brother. It draws huge amounts of tourists for a variety of reasons: its beautiful location; its skiing in the winter; and its bungee jumping, skydiving, and parachuting in the summer. Needless to say, it was packed for New Year's Eve. The campsite is allowed to expand to the rugby field in the center of town to handle the overflow of visitors. Many of them were young Kiwis from the surrounding area, but a few were international travellers such as myself. Our tents were pitched next to those of some young men from Saskatchewan, of all places. We spent our afternoon hiking up Ben Lomond to get one of Queenstown's most famous views (and a bit of a workout). Although it was busy at the top, my aversion to crowds did not spoil the scenery. Back at the campsite, we tossed a football around with the Saskatchewan boys before joining up with some other friends from Wellington to ring in 2012. Despite the crowds, there was no trouble, and the fireworks display was fantastic. We rode back to Alexandra on New Year's Day, tired but satisfied with our brief excursion.

In the end, the holidays were fairly easy to handle on my own. It is important to point out, however, that the holidays in New Zealand feel nothing like those I'm used to. I still have not adjusted to the complete reversal of the seasons down here, and I only knew it was Christmas because stores kept posting their holiday hours. While North American Christmas happens just as winter is really setting in, Kiwi Christmas happens just as summer is heating up. That makes Christmas back home a bit of a relief from the snow and the cold, something to look forward to during the year's shortest days. Here, my mood had already been lifted by the heat and the sunshine, and the Christmas decorations in store windows just confused me. New Year's was the same – the weather made me think of Independence Day or Canada Day, not New Year's. The time difference between here and home also reinforced the oddity. For the first 18 hours of 2012, my family was still in 2011!

One of the seats in the Cinema Paradiso.

The Clutha river, near where I went fishing.

Looking down at Queenstown from Ben Lomond.

Parachuters over Lake Wakatipu.

A small part of the tent city on the rugby field.