Christchurch in photos

Sometimes the photographs tell much more than words ever could. I wish I had a better camera here, and I wish I was a more practiced photographer, so I could do these places justice. Especially Christchurch. But no matter. The beauty and devastation of this city were eerie and moving, and I would like to share them.

Photographs of my second Great Walk: Routeburn

Thankfully, I did not accidentally delete my pictures of my second Great Walk on the Routeburn Track. This walking track is also in Fiordland National Park, but it does not wind around Lake Te Anau like the Kepler Track did. The Routeburn track is through the moutains, but because it is not around the lake the views are very different. So, if any of you are considering hiking in Fiordland, expect that all three of the Great Walks there--Milford, Kepler, and Routeburn--look very different.

I am obsessed with all kinds of water: oceans, lakes, rivers, and waterfalls are always my favourite to photograph. The mountains and plants in New Zealand are amazing, so I have pictures of them too. But my heart is always with the water (I blame it on those 15 years of swimming back in my childhood). Since the Kepler Track wound around the lake, I mourned my lost photos and thought sourly, "The Routeburn track can never compare."

Luckily, I was wrong. The Routeburn track is very diverse. We walked through forests, crossed old and new bridges, crossed open streams, saw dozens of waterfalls, and had views of a lot of the other mountain tracks in Fiordland including the most challenging Rees-Dart Track, which is a range of gorgeous snow-capped mountains (and though I love photographing snow-capped mountains I will not be hiking this track because I do not hike through snow if I can help it!).

The beginning

 My beloved water. All of the rivers I've seen on the South Island look like this. What have we done to our rivers in the U.S. to make them look so unlike this gorgeous sea green color? 

The beech forest, draped in a neon green lichen called old man's beard

The Routeburn Track takes hikers through a bunch of different valleys and breaks in the forest line or "bush line" as the Kiwis say. It's nice because you get to see the mountain lakes and rivers up close, as opposed to the Kepler Track, where you were always looking down on the water from great heights.

Night one: in my mummy sleeping bag on my bunk

Day two: the day of waterfalls!

There were a few lakes like this up high in the mountains. It is so cool to see these; I fell in love with them. The hut we slept in on night two was right next to a lake like this called Lake Makenzie. Sadly, it was much too cold to swim.

Day three!

On the Kepler Track, Abe and I were too exhausted to do any of the side trips except one waterfall walk. But on Routeburn, we decided to climb Conical Hill summit. It was extremely icy, and we had to get down on our hands and knees to climb some of it, but we made it!

At a couple points on the track, we were so high up that we could see the Tasman Sea!

This is the "orchard." It is just a huge clearing with trees that look like fruit trees, but sadly, they aren't. I was amazed by how many different kind of shrubs and ferns could be in one valley!

We saw many waterfalls that day, but the largest and most spectacular waterfall was Earland Falls.

On Lost Photographs

When I finished writing my lengthy blog post about surviving my first Great Walk tramping trip, I felt good. I thought I had adequately described the challenge this walk was for me, and I was excited to share my accomplishment with the world. But as I scrolled through my picture folders to find a few of my favorite shots to add to the post, my stomach sank. The picture folder I had named "Kepler Track" was empty. I frantically searched through other folders hoping that the photos were dropped in the wrong one by mistake. But they were nowhere to be found. I checked my camera's memory card, but as I suspected, I had deleted the photos from the card and somehow forgotten to paste the pictures to any folder on my computer.

I gave myself a few days to get over the loss of about 300 pictures that I took over those amazing three days. But even now, I am crushed. I'm not just upset because I had some beautiful shots--which I did since I was 1400m or 4600ft high in the mountains above beautiful Lake Te Anau. I am upset because I lost all documentation of my great accomplishment: my first Great Walk and multi-day hiking trip. I walked 37 miles in three days, and as I mentioned in my post about the track, taking pictures on narrow paths through the mountains where I was so physically exhausted that I more closely resembled Frodo or Gandalf than myself was my favourite part of the trek. Those photos were my trophy, my reward, for surviving.

I know many other people who have lost treasured photographs on trips, and I feel a kind of solidarity with them now. It is devastating that I misplaced some of my trip photos because I learn so much more about different places and about myself when I am travelling. I feel like losing those pictures robbed me of the memory of myself in a period of significant growth. And yet, I know I will always have my memories, and the evidence that I have changed is right here for everyone to see.

Let me blow your mind: the drive from Franz Josef to Wanaka

We had to pull over many many times on this drive to take pictures of the mountains and lakes. I would be so content to live here, as I can imagine most people would.

Seasonal Work in a Small Town

About one week after coming to New Zealand I got an offer to work as a seasonal worker in the small town of Franz Josef Glacier. I have now worked in Franz as a waitress in the hotel’s tour group restaurant--meaning my life consists of phrases like “Soup or Salad?” “Lamb or Fish?” “No, Hari Hari is a small town in New Zealand, not a type of farming,”--for seven weeks. Working at a hotel in a small town is like working at an even smaller town within the small town. Everyone works together in the 2 hotels and lives together in 3 different staff houses, so there is no such thing as separation. Since I have only lived in a large suburb and cities, when I first arrived, I was excited to try small town life. When I first got here, I felt very important because true to the small town, word got around I was coming before I arrived, and people were excited to meet me. Most people wanted to know everything about me. I quickly learned though that the downside of the small town is also true: anything you say or do is known by everyone instantly: dating habits, your past, that time you got way too drunk. And if you piss off the wrong people in the small town, you will very quickly feel excluded from everything.

Since Franz Josef Glacier is a tourist town that most tourists only stop in for one day and night--they see the glacier, have dinner, have breakfast the next morning, and they’re gone—it makes this small town feel even more prosaic. The majority of the businesses here are targeted toward those 1 day inhabitants: the gift shops, the adventure tour places, and the entire strip of hotels. No one in the world seems to think this town is worth spending more than one day of their lives in, and yet, we live here. When I first moved to Franz, I thought I would love talking to the tourists that came through about their adventures; after all, I am a fellow traveller. But I soon realized that talking to the people who come through here is awful because it’s the same routine every time. When I walk into one of the two bars in town, Monsoon or Blue Ice Café, and am immediately approached by at least one guy who wants to “hear your story.” They then launch into their story about backpacking around New Zealand and possibly a few other countries in Southeast Asia, or maybe they’re even on a “world tour” visiting some odd 15 countries or more. They wanted to see the world, do something different, or have an adventure. They are really missing everyone in their hometown or everyone at home is missing them. They’re just looking for a good time for their one night in Franz. But I live here now, and even if I was single, I wouldn’t want to be their good time for one night.

Living in a small town, there is no anonymity. I always know the people in the bar, not just the bartenders and bouncers but all of the patrons. One of the first weeks we were here, a few of my friends and I chatted up a waiter we thought was cute at The Landing, the more popular of the two restaurants in town, and in the next few days following we realized why you can never do that in a town the size of Franz. We saw him at the bar, Monsoon,  one of two bars young people go to in town, at the supermarket, and every time we wanted to go back to The Landing. A few weeks later we found out he also worked at the Kayaking Tour place, so we couldn’t go there anymore either.

When I first arrived in Franz Josef, the HR Coordinator at the hotel was conversationally telling me what kinds of cars people who worked here drove. I thought it was very odd at the time, but I quickly realized why she would recognize everyone’s car. Any time you walk anywhere in Franz Josef you will have at least one car pull over next to you to make sure you don’t need a ride somewhere. Even on a nice day when you want to walk or really don’t want to run into someone, there will always be a friendly face pulling up beside you to say hello, what you are doing and to find out if you need a lift.

I think what surprised me the most about working a seasonal job here was how close you can get to people. Since everyone who works at the hotel lives together and works together, I was expecting to be really sick of everyone here in a short amount of time. It seemed like too much exposure to each other. But I really found the reverse was true. Living in such close proximity to people allows you to form close relationships really quickly. You cannot live in the same place and work the same long hours with someone without finding out all of the weird intricacies of their personality. I quickly learned who liked the same music as me, who told great stories, and who made the best Chewbacca impression. I developed weird jokes that wouldn’t make sense to anyone not working in this hotel in this small town because you need to laugh a lot to work in a town this small and in the tourism industry.

My co-workers and I all joke that a person does not have to work here long to go crazy, and that “Everyone does go crazy eventually.. look at you, you were so normal when you arrived here,” my co-worker Luke teases me. But I think we all secretly love how crazy we’ve gotten. I have known the people here for less than two months, and we have no inhibitions with each other anymore. When else can you say that? Although I really miss the amenities—and the sunshine since this small town happens to be in the middle of the rain forest—of city life, I will miss the family that I have started to develop at the hotel in Franz Josef. I don’t think I could have hoped to get to know people this well on my vacation, but I’m so glad I do.

My town:

My people:

On beauty: photos of Wellington

The city of Wellington from the hill at the Botanic Gardens

Wellington, close up :)

The beach at Oriental Bay (which is walking distance from the city center and from my hostel!)

Oriental Bay on a week day. You could tell people were totally tanning on their lunch breaks!

I love the waterfront in Wellington. They have a few little parks and cafes right off the water and tons of benches and little seats, so people can sit by the water. The breeze off of the water is amazing, and everyone is outdoors here. You can sit here and watch the sailboats and kayaks for hours.