Kiwi Tracks (9 page)

I labour down the road to catch the bus to Greymouth, my backpack seeming heavier than ever. A team of sightseeing helicopters circle noisily overhead, carting passengers to the glacier and back. ATVs (All Terrain Vehicles) bounce away full of tourists and a light plane takes off with skis attached to its wheels. The
Franz Josef village is a staging point for an army of tourists on manoeuvres.

I had really looked forward to climbing on this glacier. For five years I took groups of people up the glaciers in Norway. The magic of the glaciers was awesome, without intrusive sounds. All you could hear was the trickling of meltwater, the crunching of crampons on granular ice and the occasional almighty crack as a piece of glacier moved or dropped. No ATVs, planes or helicopters distracted from the intensity of the nature experience.

In the bushes by the main road is a hut decorated with hobnailed boots, iron cooking utensils and initials carved into bunk beds and walls. This museum was the original shelter, now transplanted, where visitors overnighted when they walked through the forest to reach the foot of the glacier, which they climbed with ropes and crampons. Remarks in the visitor’s book reflect the awe and fascination that early tourists had for the glacier. It is cheapened now; it’s almost a fabricated Disney World. Witnessing this magical and spectacular experience rendered mundane by modern technology leaves me with an even emptier feeling.

The bus arrives. I climb aboard to be confronted by a stocky woman in slacks and a brooch with ‘IYQ’ in big gold letters pinned to her blouse. She smiles at me and says loudly: ‘Hi!’

I look at her as if she were a toad belching. I ask: ‘IYQ?’ and fall into her conversational trap.

‘You do? Well IYQ too and so does Jesus,’ she replies, in a southern United States drawl. She sits down next to me and insists on talking, especially when the driver speaks over the intercom to impart information.

‘Could you repeat what you just said?’ she asks him. Even before he has repeated it for her sole benefit, she is already asking me: ‘So, where do you come from?’

Don’t these types ever stop to listen? I tell her: ‘Yi yam from Peru,’ pretending I cannot speak or understand English.

We hurtle down an empty ribbon of road pressed to the sea by mist-shrouded mountains. I rest my head passively against the windowpane as New Zealand streaks by. A helicopter has landed
in a paddock, blades still rotating, the pilot in a jump suit taking a leak. On the other side of the helicopter, two hunters stack the floppy carcasses of magnificent red deer stags into the back of a utility truck. The sight depresses me.

I am having a bad day and accept it as such. I have to learn that not every day can be a high.

Greymouth was a hive of activity during the gold rush. Now its main industries are coal mining, fishing, sphagnum-moss collecting, farming and tourism. A huge man with a walrus moustache and a beer belly talks with several others, all festooned with long scraggly beards. If they had tried to look like goldminers from the last century, they could not have succeeded better. The town, despite its unprepossessing name, is authentically colourful.

The train to Christchurch is delayed, so I ask a woman walking by: ‘Could you tell me how far it is to the nearest supermarket?’

‘It’s a five-minute walk that way,’ the woman replies, pointing down the road.

I follow her directions, and half an hour later I am still on my way to the supermarket. It is not the first time a helpful Kiwi’s assessment of how long it takes to walk somewhere is out of whack. I don’t think they’ve ever actually strolled these distances: the supermarket is a five-minute drive and a forty-minute walk.

On the wobbling little narrow-gauge train to Christchurch, the conductor holds up a camera: ‘Does this belong to anyone?’

‘It’s my Nikon,’ I say, when he sashays close enough for me to recognise it.

He hands me the camera. ‘You left it on the platform. Someone found it and handed it in to the ticket station.’

Kiwis tell stories of how New Zealand is not as crime free as it used to be, that now you cannot park your car in a parking lot at one of the hiking tracks without having it broken into. My own experience has been truer to the clich�: that old-fashioned New Zealand is as honest and na�ve as North America was a couple of generations ago.

The train wiggles its way through mountains and dense forest, affording an occasional glimpse of snow-capped peaks and long
stretches of open, bouldered rivers. Dense mist steams out of the thick vegetation like smoke. On the other side of the pass is a deluge of heavy rain. I am very happy I decided not to get off en route to take on another waterlogged track.

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Arriving back in Christchurch for the second time, I am more aware of the town’s distinctive appeal – for one thing, I can see the sun. I join a walking tour and recognise quaint scenes depicted in coffee-table books. Our guide, a retired schoolteacher, leads us into Christ Church Cathedral and proudly points out a stone plaque dedicated to the memory of one of the original ‘Canterbury Pilgrims’, who arrived in 1850. She pulls her frame up to its full diminutive size and says: ‘I was fifteen years old when that original pioneer died.’ The anecdote puts the short history of New Zealand in perspective. Even the Maori, in their giant canoes, arrived in these islands from Polynesia as recently as a thousand years ago, which is nothing compared to the Australian Aborigines’ claim to be the oldest living culture at fifty thousand years. The Maori named their new homeland Aotearoa: the land of the long white cloud.

I look forward to starting another track, hopefully one not thoroughly soaked with rain and snow. In the late afternoon, I step aboard the Akaroa shuttle bus.

The driver greets me: ‘How you going, mate?’

I show him the brochure. ‘I’m about to do the track across the farmers’ fields.’

‘Your name Stevenson?’ I nod. ‘Well, somehow they’ve cocked that up. Got you booked on the wrong track. It’s going to be a bit of a case sorting that one out.’

He starts the engine. There are no other passengers.

‘Is there a big difference?’

‘They copied ours.’

‘Ours?’

‘Yeah. I’m one of the owners of the land that the track goes through. The other track people phoned me up to see if you were coming on the four o’clock shuttle. If so, I was to drop you off at the church in Little River.’

‘Can I get on your track still?’ I want the original, not a copy.

‘Sure, but you’d better sort it out with them first.’ He smiles as he puts the bus into gear.

We drive out of Christchurch towards the volcanic hills to the south-east. All the instruments, dials and instructions on the bus are in Japanese. A ‘new-in-NZ’ used bus.

‘How’s your Japanese?’ I ask the driver. ‘I mean, how do you know what knob does what? Everything’s in Japanese.’

He looks at the dashboard. ‘Tell you the truth, I don’t. My wife usually drives this bus. I’m a farmer.’

‘Your wife can speak Japanese?’

He laughs.

I am dropped off at the church in Little River. The church door is open and I walk in. A woman vacuuming the carpet sees me, turns the machine off and smiles radiantly. ‘Andrew!’ I smile and nod encouragement. ‘We were expecting you at one.’

‘Well,’ I say, pleased that someone should actually know who I am, ‘I think there’s been a mistake. You see, I was in Te Anau when I booked and they didn’t know that there are two tracks around here.’ I am prepared to walk this one even if it is a copy, all things being equal. ‘Have the other trampers already started?’

‘There are no other trampers.’

Bad sign. I was hoping to break out of my solitary routine and tramp with a group of others. ‘Would it be terribly disappointing if I cancelled?’ The thought of doing another track on my own has lost the appeal it had weeks ago.

She almost looks relieved. ‘No problem.’ They are not going to charge me a cancellation fee. ‘What are you going to do instead?’ she asks.

‘See if I can still get on the other track. Is there a phone here?’

She points. ‘There’s a phone booth in the village, that way.’
She packs up her vacuum cleaner, then asks: ‘By the way, when did you find out about being on the wrong track?’

‘On the bus on the way over here,’ I answer, not appreciating the internecine politics of competing private tracks.

‘Ah yeah, well I sussed that one out correctly,’ she says abruptly. The smile gone, she ushers me out of the church like a chicken out of the coop.

I walk the few hundred metres to the phone booth, look up the telephone number on the brochure and dial. When a man answers, I explain: ‘I was in Te Anau about two weeks ago and thought I’d booked a four-day trip on your track. Unfortunately, I’ve just discovered that there are two similar tracks here, and the travel agency booked me on the wrong one. I’m in Little River now and they don’t mind if I cancel. Do you have an opening for the four-day track, starting this evening?’

‘No worries, mate, we’ve got room for one more.’

‘I’d like to sort out the payment situation first, though. I’ve already paid the full amount to the travel agency. I’m sure that when I phone to explain, it’ll be no sweat for them to transfer the payment to your outfit instead.’

‘No problem, just get yourself over here, mate. We can sort it out.’ He sounds like another easy-going, laid-back Kiwi bloke. ‘You’re going to miss the shuttle bus to the first hut, leaves Akaroa at six sharp. But I can send a taxi down to get you for twenty bucks.’

‘Thanks, that’s very thoughtful of you.’ I look at my watch. ‘I might make the bus; I’ll start hitchhiking now.’

As soon as I stick my thumb out, a red van stops. The driver gets out to help me hoist my pack in, and when I explain my predicament, he accelerates. It is a few minutes past six when we arrive in Akaroa, just as the shuttle bus is about to pull away. I scramble out of the van into the bus, to be driven the very short distance to the first hut, which is situated on the sloping curve of a hill, overlooking the harbour. The exorbitant offer of a twenty-dollar taxi ride must have included an open bar in the back seat.

Arriving at the hut, I discover that the rest of the group is comprised almost entirely of Kiwis. Perfect, a chance to mix with the locals. I find myself a room with a couple of empty bunk beds. The man on the phone’s line about there being only one place left was either wishful thinking or a good marketing ploy.

Not yet fully recovered from the flu or recurring malaria or heartache or whatever it is I am suffering from, I put my sleeping-bag on a sofa on the covered porch and crawl into it. I hear the pop of champagne bottles inside. One of the Kiwis comes out to ask: ‘Would you like to have tea with us? There’s heaps of food.’

I’d definitely like to get to know these Kiwis, but I don’t feel up to it right now. There will be lots of time as we do the track together, staying in the same huts each night. ‘Lost my appetite, but thanks anyway. Maybe tomorrow.’

They sit down to eat. A loud English woman dominates the conversation. She is celebrating her new Kiwi citizenship and I overhear her mocking the formal ceremony, in which she swore allegiance. The story is told as if the whole thing had been a bit of a lark: she ridicules herself and the ceremony. She tells how there was also a family of five Vietnamese at the ceremony, and I wonder if the Vietnamese family’s reaction to finding a new home, so peaceful and tranquil compared to their war-torn country, was as flippant as her own.

I ignore the conversation and study a pair of nesting swallows with baby chicks just above my head. The parents twitter around busily as the sun drifts lower over the surrounding hills. We are perched on the edge of a gradient overlooking the filled-in caldera of an ancient volcano and the open sea, surrounded by green fields. The setting could not be more bucolic.

Over the Kiwis’ conversation, I hear what sounds like a dirt motorbike without a muffler approaching. A man steps noisily on the covered wooden porch into the hut and says ‘G’day!’ to everyone. ‘I’m the owner of this hut,’ he announces. Then he asks: ‘Is there some single foreigner here?’ They point in my direction. He sees me lying in my sleeping-bag on the porch and struts up, reaching a hand out. At first, I think he is extending it in greeting
and reach out in return. But he is not extending a handshake. ‘I need $120 off you,’ he demands.

His jeans are ripped, his sweater is shredded in several places, he is covered in grime and his hair is uncombed. Even backpackers do not look as threadbare as this guy. He reminds me of a cartoon character after a stick of dynamite has accidentally exploded in its hands. He keeps his upturned palm extended, waiting for me to fill it with dollars.

I shift to an upright position, uncomfortable talking to him while lying prone in my sleeping-bag. ‘As I explained to you on the phone, I’ve already paid. I’d like to get the payment I made to the other track transferred to you.’

‘I don’t care what you’ve got to do. It’s nothing to do with me.’ He has an unmistakably aggressive look about him. ‘I don’t want a fight with you.’ He spits out the word ‘fight’, spraying phlegm onto my upturned face.