Politics as (un)Usual

Did you know that New Zealand had the first transsexual elected to Parliament? (Well, maybe the first known transsexual…) Anyway, Georgina Beyer was elected to Parliament in 1999 in the Wairarapa region on the North Island. Her website describes her life as “the story of a Maori transsexual and former sex-worker, who was voted into the New Zealand Government by a largely white rural electorate." Incredible! In 2002, Georgie Girl, a documentary about Georgina's life was released and won 5 international film awards.

I would like to think that the United States would be as open-minded as the Kiwis are when it comes to electing lesbians/gays/bisexuals/tansgenders to a top political position. However, our track record proves otherwise. To date:

• Only two members US House of Representatives are openly gay: Barney Frank (D-MA) and Jared Polis (D-CO)


• Only one member of the US House of Representatives is openly lesbian: Tammy Baldwin (D-WI)


• No members of the US House of Representatives are openly bisexual or transgender


• No members of the US Senate are openly lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered

*Sigh*

The Barfies are Back!

Fall is upon us here in New Zealand and another school year is underway at the University of Otago which means the students are back in town. In a big way. Here in Dunedin, Uni students are known as "Scarfies" due the traditional blue and gold scarves worn to rugby games during the freezing winters. However, I like to call them Barfies, due to their drinking habits.

Compared to the States, New Zealand takes a very relaxed attitude toward drinking, with 18 the drinking age and drinking allowed in most public areas. From what I've seen, Barfies definitely take advantage of this freedom and take partying to a whole new level, a scary one. On any given night you can see hordes of young drunk students stumbling out to the pubs or find a couch burning party at some one's flat. On Saturday and Sunday mornings, Dunedin streets are filled with trash, broken furniture and smashed bottles, sidewalks are splattered with puke, dark corners smell like urine, bikes lie vandalized in bikes racks, and sometimes, even store fronts and cars are vandalized.

Now, I'm familiar with partying in college, but I have never seen a University involuntarily encourage it or a community so accepting of its negative consequences. Most people seem to have the attitude that it's "just kids having fun." Cleaning up puke for the hundredth time: Fun? Hmmmmm.

The front page of the freshman orientation activity guide published in a weekly paper advertised sales on cases of beer. This years annual "Freshman Toga Parade" (think Animal House) down Dunedin's main street turned into a violent riot with vandalized cars and broken store-front windows after older students living above the stores began throwing trash, food, vomit, and feces (yes, you read that right) down on the new students below. Shop owners were outraged and posters went up all over campus asking students if this type of behavior is what they wanted their degree to represent. However, no other steps have been taken to curtail student partying and only 3 out of over 2,000 students were arrested. Furthermore, the legal, cultural and psychological consequences for bad behavior are not very harsh or severe here so why should anyone care?

OK, I just have to ask, who in their right mind would allow thousands of drunk teenagers to have a toga party in the middle of the city??

Shrek

This is an old story but I just can't get enough of this guy!

Shrek is a Merino sheep that managed to evade his farmers for 6 years until he was found in 2004, hiding in a cave in Central Otago on the South Island. Normally, Merino sheep are shorn every year, and after 6 years without a shave, Shrek's wool was incredibly long and thick. He was finally shorn on National Television, his wool weighing over 60 lbs!!!


Shrek is now a national icon. In 2004 he was taken to Parliment in Wellington to meet then-Prime Minister Helen Clark. Two years later Shrek celebrated his 10th birthday by having a shave on an iceberg floating off the coast of Dunedin.

Anyway, I just think this is a hilarious story and the pictures of Shrek after he was found hiding are even funnier!

Road Trip #2

Got your map ready? Our second road trip trip took us from Duendin to Te Anau, up to Milford Sound, back to Te Anau, down to Invercargill, out to Stewart Island and back, and through the Catlins on our way back to Dunedin.

The drive to Lake Te Anau was uninspiring, although we did pass through Gore, country capitol of New Zealand and a trout fisherman's paradise. The small town of Te Anau lies on the edge of of Lake Te Anau and mostly caters to tourists preparing for the famous Milford walking track or those heading up to Milford Sound. We were in the second group, but our first evening was spent taking a trip to the Glow Worm Caves on the edge of the lake. Apparently this extensive cave system (it takes 3 DAYS to travel through) was known to the Maori but it's location was kept secret from the Pakeha (white foreigners) until some guy finally found it in the 1940s after 4 years of searching.

We took a boat across the lake, watched some short videos about the cave, life if the glow worm, and the rare Takahe bird that lives in the mountains near by. Finally it was time to enter the cave! We followed our guide as he pointed out special features of the cave and then loaded into a small boat that took us into the pitch black grotto that was full of glow worms. It was breath-taking! You are not allowed to take photos inside the cave but you can check it out online at http://www.realjourneys.co.nz/main/glowwormcaves/

Lake Te Anau

Ok, I have to mention our accommodations at Te Anau. We booked 2 nights in a cabin at the Lakeview Holiday Park, which sounded luxurious. However, our "cabin" was a corrugated metal box that measured 10 ft x 10 ft for 3 people and their stuff. The bathrooms and cooking facilities were shared with about 50 other people. Now, I don't need a penthouse suite, but I prefer not to sleep in a claustrophobic and cob-webby shipping container. Oh well, I survived.

Our second day in Te Anau took us to Milford Sound in Fiordland National Park. We decided to take a tour bus up to Milford, the tiny town where the boat departed for our day out on the sound. And it was a good thing that we weren't driving! The Milford Sound road is incredibly scenic but is often crowded with tour buses and camper vans this time of year. With our pokey driving and sight-seeing, we would have pissed off some the more aggressive drivers. The road is also very narrow and windy, especially the closer you get to Milford. Because it was raining (Fiordland gets about 250 INCHES of rain a year), hundreds of waterfalls spontaneously cascaded down the sheer mountains that rose up on either side of the road.

Mirror Lakes, on the way to Milford

The boat trip on Milford Sound was windy and wet but it was amazing! Shear mountains, covered in beech forest and moss, drop off into dark water. More waterfalls thundered into the sound, although the high winds caused many of the falls to cascade diagonally. Unfortunately the photogenic Mitre Peak was shrouded in mist so we couldn't get that famous Milford Sound photo. But I did get a postcard! We ended the day with an absolutely delicious dinner at the Redcliff Cafe in Te Anau. I recommend the pork belly!

Milford Sound

The Disappearing Waterfall


Milford Sound (Mitre Peak in the clouds on left)

On day 3, we awoke to rainbows galore and headed south along the Southern Scenic Route on our way to Invercargill-the launch point for Stewart Island. We stopped for a beautiful walk near the Borland Lodge in Fiordland National Park. The walk took us through mossy beech forest and has become one of my favorite walks to date! We continued on the Scenic Route, passing through rolling green sheep pastures and tiny dot-on-the-map towns. We stopped to investigate the Clifton Caves, but without the advised 2 hours to explore and extra torches (flashlights), we instead promised to go back in the future. In Riverton, we visited some arts and crafts galleries with beautiful wood bowls, wool sweaters and paua jewelry.

Rainbow over Lake Manapouri

Mossy Beech Forest, Borland Nature Walk

We stayed the night in Invercargill and prepared for our 3 days on Stewert Island, a large island that lies roughly 25 miles south of the South Island. We took the 1 hour ferry from the town of Bluff, apparently the oldest town in New Zealand. It was a bumpy ride across Foveaux Strait, which is often said to be one of the roughest crossings in the world as it lies directly in the roaring 40s. We landed in Oban, the tiny (and only) town on the Island and were quickly whisked away in a van to our Bed and Breakfast in order to avoid the soaking rain that the dark sky began to pour upon us at that moment. It was a sign of things to come!

Stewart Island has a long Maori and European history. Today, most of the island is National Park, filled with bizarre birds and dense, lush rain forest made possible by the incredibly frequent and intense rains. It is said that on Stewart Island you can experience all 4 season in 1 hour. And we certainly did!

We took the first day to explore Halfmoon Bay around Oban and discovered beautiful golden beaches and emerald green waters. Stewart Island certainly is beautiful! The second day we took a quick boat ride out to Ulva Island, a forested island managed by the Department of Conservation as an Open Island Sanctuary. It is one of few predator-free sanctuaries for native birds and plants in New Zealand. We spent about 5 hours meandering our way through the forest, looking for birds that we would not see elsewhere in New Zealand. We managed to see the rare Saddlebacks, Robins, Kakas, Rifleman, Parakeets, Wood Pigeons, Weka, Tui, Bellbirds, and even the elusive Kiwi!

The Kiwi spotting was incredible, we never expected to see one of these flightless, nocturnal birds in the wild! We watched her poke around the leaf litter, unaware of our presence, sniffing out worms with her long thin beak until she lumbered off into the dark forest. Kiwi feathers look more like long brown hair and they have big, muscular legs. What a strange bird!

Around Halfmoon Bay, Stewart Island

Dead Man's Beach, Stewart Island

The elusive Kiwi, Ulva Island

We left Stewart Island early on a freezing cold morning, collected our car in Bluff, and drove east to Curio Bay in the Catlins. The Catlins, situated along the Southern Scenic Route, contain breathtaking scenery that actually reminds me of northern California. The cliffs are buffeted by crashing swells and roaring winds from Antarctica and the ancient podocarp forests march into the sea. We stayed in an amazing place on the beach in Curio Bay that actually had a heated floor in the bathroom! We spent the evening at a beach with a Jurassic-age petrified forest and watched the rare yellow-eyed penguins come ashore for the evening after a day fishing at sea.

Our last day on the road was spent exploring sites in the Catlins in the pouring rain. We visited the spectacular Cathedral Caves at low tide, explored beech forest, checked out a reed-filled estuary, and even managed to find our car surrounded on the road by a flock of sheep moving paddocks! I couldn't resist taking pictures, of course.

Wind swept trees at Slope Point, the Catlins

Petrified Forest, Curio Bay, the Catlins

Cathedral Caves, the Catlins

Sheep on the move!

Finally, we headed north to Dunedin, sad to end our wonderful adventures around the South Island, but happy to be back home!

Road Trip #1

I'm back from a whirlwind of 3 weeks of exploring the South Island with my partner and his mom while she was visiting us. It was absolutely fantastic! If you have a NZ map handy, you can follow along: Road trip #1 took us from Dunedin up to Christchurch, across Arthur's Pass to the West Coast, up to Punakaiki, down the West Coast through Hokitika, Franz Josef and Fox glaciers, Haast, east across Haast Pass and the Southern Alps, to Wanaka, Queenstown, through Central Otago via Clyde and Alexandra, and back to Dunedin. Phew! Details below.

Christchurch is a hustling-bustling city that seemed a bit overwhelming to us after pokey Dunedin. We explored the beautiful Botanic Gardens, had a delicious dinner, and then spent the entire night listening to drunk kids outside in the central square below our hotel windows. Instead of staying another (sleepless) night, we got our money back and headed west. Arthur's Pass is an incredible drive through braided river valleys and alpine forest. We stopped at Castle Rock where there are hundreds of immense limestone tors that look like ancient city ruins (or a bunch of giant's teeth). We did a short hike through beech forest to a thundering waterfall and spotted the playful Kea, a large, alpine parrot that likes to pull the rubber off your windshield wipers and door seals.

Somewhere along Arthur's Pass

Limestone Tors, Castle Rock, Arthur's Pass

Once across the Pass we headed north to a little coastal settlement called Punakaiki. This area was one of my favorites and I can't wait to go back and explore more! Punakaiki is known for the famous pancake rock formations and they are incredible. Although there are also some amazing hikes through coastal rain forest and even some limestone caves to spelunk around in. We cautiously explored the dark recesses of the caves until I freaked out and decided to turn around. We stayed the night in an amazing cabin tucked into the nikau palms and rain forest and saw our first Wekas! These flightless, Jurassic-looking birds are very curious, one even mooched around in our car boot (trunk), looking for nibbletts!

Pancake Rocks, Punakaiki

Paparoa National Park, Punakaiki

Weka!

We then headed south to Hokitika, which is known for arts and crafts, especially jade carving, and the wild foods festival that serves rose petal beer, wasp larvae ice cream, and huhu grubs. Yum! Hokitika was rather un-inspiring, although we did stay at a very nice beachfront cabin that had great water pressure in the shower (a rare thing in NZ)! The next day we explored ancient Kahikatea and Rimu forest along the beautiful Lake Kaniere just inland from Hokitika. Despite reports of a storm over the Tasman Sea, the weather was incredible and we soaked up the sunshine! We also made a quick stop at Okarito Lagoon, a peaceful estuary that was the setting for the book The Bone People by Keri Hulme.

Lake Kaniere

Okarito Lagoon

It was then onto the glaciers and Southern Alps. Wait, that's "glass-ears" not "glay-sures" if you speak Kiwi (sorry, it still cracks me up). Both Franz Josef and Fox glaciers are incredible, although you can't get too close to them, especially since 2 boys died at Fox glacier earlier this year when they were buried in ice when the glacier calved. Yikes! You can pay top dollar for a guided hike on the glaciers, or have a helicopter land on them, but we settled for independent hikes to wonderful viewing platforms. After a surprisingly good dinner in Fox, we drove on to Haast, a tiny town at the mouth of the Haast River and the furthest South you can drive on the West Coast. It was late when we finally pulled into town and we couldn't believe how dark it was. I mean pitch black! There is absolutely no ambient light from a city to light up the sky and the stars were insane.

Franz Josef Glacier


Fox Glacier

After a short detour through the UNESCO World Heritage Forest near Haast, we left the coast and headed inland on Haast Pass through the Alps. It was another incredibly scenic drive, with waterfalls, ancient forests, rivers and SAND FLIES! The West Coast is known for the pesky sand fly and though we had been fairly lucky so far, we encountered them on Haast Pass. For whatever reason, they liked me and I unwillingly donated my blood to more than a few sand flies. Man, do they itch!! We arrived in the resort town of Wanaka, on the south shores of lake Wanaka. We had some delicious Thai food for dinner and ended the night early in our teeny tiny room (we were beginning to notice a shrinking trend in our accommodations...).

Haast UNESCO World Heritage Park

Fantail Falls, Haast Pass

The next day, after an exhilarating hike up Mount Iron for a 360 degree view of the entire area, we made a quick visit to the quirky Puzzling World. Built by some eccentric man, Puzzling World houses a maze and some illusion rooms just outside Wanaka. We didn't do the maze (it can take up to 2 hours) but we did take some photos in the Roman bathrooms! We drove to Queenstown via the Cardrona Pass through tussock-covered mountains and gold mining country. Once in Queenstown we marveled at the madness of it all and declined to sky dive, bungy jump, sky swing, jet boat, or river raft. Although we plan on doing the Luge at some point. The next day we went on a beautiful hike through beech forest that we had hiked just after New Years. This time we found the historic tunnel that miners built through the mountain rock to access the river better. Good thing we're not claustrophobic!

Roman Bathrooms, Puzzling World, Wanaka

Tussock-covered hills, Cardrona Pass

From Queenstown it was on to Central Otago, which is very much like California's gold-mining country turned wine country. We stopped along the way to watch the bungy jumpers at AJ Hacketts famous bridge and sipped wine and tasted cheeses at Gibbston Valley Winery & Cheesery. We stayed the night in Clyde, a cute little town with historic stone buildings. Our bed and breakfast had a resident dog, a cat and a tiny kitten who was happy to play with me (I miss the family pets back home)! After some scenic drives, purchases from the local fruit stands and a failed attempt to photograph Merino sheep, it was back to Dunedin for some much needed rest (and laundry).
Stay tuned for Road Trip #2!

Out of the Office

I have been out of the office, so to speak, traveling around the South Island with my partner and his mom. We've already had a fantastic 8 day trip up to Christchurch, across Arthur's Pass to the West Coast, down through coastal rain forest and glaciers, and through Haast Pass to Queenstown and Central Otago. We leave for a 7 day trip tomorrow to Lake Te Anau, Milford Sound, Stewart Island, and the Catlins. I will update the blog with all our adventures when we get back. Big thanks to all my devoted readers!