What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? I’m not really sure, but I would imagine that the meeting would be similar to my Saturday morning in Christchurch. At about 4:30 in the morning I was thrown from my bed by a 7.2 magnitude earthquake. To put that into perspective, the earthquake that struck Haiti on January 12, 2010 was slightly smaller. The Haitian earthquake affected the lives of three million people, and took the lives of an estimated 230,000. The Christchurch earthquake, known as the Canterbury Quake in the media, seriously injured only two people. One man suffered a heart attack during the chaos, but his death can’t be directly linked to the earthquake. The Canterbury Quake did, however, affect hundreds of thousands of lives that day, ruining businesses, destroying homes, and more. Out of those hundreds of thousands lives affected by the quake, I give you the story of one.
When I fell asleep on the night of September 3rd, my only concern for the following day was catching the shuttle to the train station. Adrenaline had been continuously surging through my veins for the past week, and all I was looking forward to was some peace, quiet, and a good night’s sleep in my bed back in Wellington. Fate, as usual, was not on my side.
The first thing I remember about the quake was the sound of church bells. I didn’t hear just one, or even a couple, but every single bell in the city. All of the bells clanged in chaotic cacophony of ringing metal, waking every soul for miles around. I had just opened my eyes when I felt the first tremors. And what tremors they were. I watched as a painting on the wall of my hotel room jumped from the wall with a spectacular crash. Over the din from outside, I heard the water in the bathroom’s toilet bowl sloshing around. I could even feel my own teeth rattling around in my jaws. A freight train may as well have been running through my room. My bed shook like one of those Magic Fingers massage beds, but cranked up to eleven. I smacked against the carpet with a muffled thump.
“You have got to be kidding me!” I groaned.
I have a knack for attracting disasters. The destruction of Hurricane Ike marked my first semester of college at Rice University. I grew up in the heart of Tornado Alley, so I’ve seen more than my fair share of cyclones. I was even born during the greatest blizzard to hit my hometown in over a century. As you can see, I’m no stranger to natural disasters.
Maybe it was past experience, maybe my adrenaline had all been spent, or maybe I was just too damn tired to care, but whatever it was that guided my actions, I didn’t panic. Instead I moved to the window with a sort of bemused detachment to look out over Cathedral Square from my fifth floor room window. Hundreds of people filled the square below wrapped in hotel provided blankets and quilts. They milled about the square either searching for their companions or to fight off the cold. I felt myself cock my head to one side. Why should I join them? Tiny as they appeared from high vantage point, I could still see that they looked cold and miserable. Even though the earthquake had cut the city’s power supply, including the power to my hotel, I at least had a bed and some privacy. So with the floor still swaying beneath my feet, I rubbed my eyes and stumbled to my bed to sleep until my alarm clock sounded. Ah hour and a half later, it did.
I rose from my bed and made my way to the window. The crowd outside had doubled. I wondered if this was what the Pope felt like before he gave mass. Probably not. I sighed and decided that if I were to join the throng outside then I would at least be showered. So grabbing my trusty flashlight from my backpack (Dora the Explorer would have been so proud), I went to test the hotel’s water supply. I was in luck. Aside from the small flicker of light from my flashlight, I showered in complete darkness. It was not an experience I would like to repeat. The dim lighting made me feel as if I were in some bizarre version of a slasher film. Still, I wasn’t to be dissuaded. Freshly scrubbed and with my bags packed, I dragged my luggage down five flights of stairs and into a candle-lit lobby.
Those hours in the lobby I count as some of the longest in my life. News trickled in at a painfully slow pace. The airport was closed. Schools were closed. All trains were cancelled. Christchurch was closed. There was no way I was leaving the city that day. But worse than my travel plans being cancelled, worse by far, was not being able to contact my family. I can’t even begin to describe how badly I wanted to tell them that I was safe. Bored out of my mind, but safe. I tried to solve both problems by calling home on my cellphone. I may as well have tried using a graphing calculator. I gave up.
Luckily my mother is a stubborn woman. Out of all the cell phone traffic no doubt clogging the city of Christchurch, my mother managed to get a call through to me. I don’t believe in the slightest that this was luck or anything like that, not at all. Instead, I like to think that her call was as persistent as she is. After assuring her and the rest of my family that I was unharmed by the quake, I felt considerably better. I resigned myself to people watching.
From what I could tell, there were few families. Those that were in the hotel lobby tended to cling to each other and look the most worried. The most populous group of the Camelot Hotel was the couples. Like the families, they tended to cling to each other. They did talk, however, but mainly to each other, and only about how they were going to flee the city. The final group, my group, was the people travelling Han style: solo. We seemed to be the least worried. In fact, most of us were pretty relaxed. Between reading my latest Bill Bryson book and eating the cornflakes provided by the hotel staff, I made friends with an amicable, elderly software developer from Darwin, Australia. He and four of his friends had been attending a meeting in the city, and he had decided to stay an extra day. I had found a brother in terms of luck.
When he asked me about what brought me to Christchurch, I told him that I was a student and, among other things, a writer (I am probably being a little too generous with the term).
“Is that so, my boy?” he asked with a grin, “Well then you should be pleased as punch, shouldn’t you?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Like you said, mate,” he replied, “You’re a writer. Don’t you lot thrive on chaos?”
I smiled. He was right. In every disaster, there is a story waiting to be told. I was inspired. The city was ripe for exploring, waiting for me to chronicle the tragedy that had befallen it. My new friend wished me luck and asked me to bring back some pictures. If my life were to be made into a movie, I hope his part goes to Michael Caine.
Dawn was only just settling upon the city when I strode out onto its streets. I hadn’t shaved in almost two weeks and was wearing wrinkled clothes, yet I was still one of the least disheveled wanderers in Christchurch. From the looks on the faces of the people around me, I thought I had stepped into a zombie movie. And like any scholar of zombie movies, I knew what I had to do. First, assess the destruction. Second, find fellow survivors. Third, find food and other resources. Finally, kick some ass.
My camera came in handy for step one. I kept in mind my old Aussie friend’s request as I walked down the streets looking for destruction. Turns out, it wasn’t all that hard to find. Every corner I turned revealed some rubble or broken glass. I saw a Mexican restaurant with its entire front wall missing, like some sort of diorama. I passed a glassworks store, its entire inventory decimated. Worst of all, I saw a liquor store filled with broken bottles, precious spirits saturating the linoleum. An old couple looked inside shaking their heads and ready to weep. I wanted to as well. After that, I had seen enough. On to step two.
Since breakfast I had been communicating with my Wellington friends who also happened to be in Christchurch that fateful night. I was eager to hear if they had found a way out of the city because finding fellow survivors with similar objectives to one's own is a crucial step in living to to see the final credits roll in a zombie movie. None had. A few had been stranded at the airport without lodgings, so being the gentleman that I am, I offered them my hotel room. I figured pooling our resources (read: getting some money to help pay for a second night in the hotel) couldn’t hurt. They passed out within seconds of arriving at my hotel. I decided to let them sleep while I moved onto foraging.
I tried my best to recall any store or restaurant that looked as if it might have been open from my earlier wanderings. At least three survivors die in your typical zombie movie from trying to forage for food too late in the game. The key is to get your food early, while the zombie infection is still contained. The other commodity I needed was money. The main character usually finds himself in a situation where he needs to bribe some checkpoint guard to get his family or himself across the quarantine zone line. I felt I should be prepared for this eventuality. Apparently half the population had the same idea. Not until I slipped through a fair number of alleys and crossed a few bridges did I find a working ATM. The feel of a full wallet in my coat pocket was comforting. I would soon come to miss that feeling.
My errands complete, I decided to wake my friends and forage for food. Through all the numerous city blocks I explored, I found only one available food source: a small convenience store, apparently one with its own generator. The shop was jam-packed with fellow refugees. I found myself moving shoulder-to-shoulder through scared, confused customers in order to get my food. The cheap sandwiches I made back in my hotel rank among the best I have ever had.
But all was not well (aside from the obvious). As soon as I had finished my sandwiches, my companions and I were evacuated from my hotel (not before giving some photographs to a certain Australian). The hostel next door (thankfully I didn’t stay there) was at serious risk of collapsing, so all nearby buildings were emptied out into the streets. I was homeless. At least my appearance now matched my status. At least the receptionist was kind enough to book my group a reservation at a motel further down the road. We walked down the rubble-strewn roads with bags in tow to our new lodgings. Police officers questioned our story as we crossed through lockdown barriers until finally we found the Avenue Motor Lodge. It was there that I realized with horror that I no longer had my wallet. Throughout the entire ordeal of the earthquake, this was the first time that I panicked. I spent the rest of the night calling every location that I had visited in the past six hours with no success. I’ve never slept so poorly.
I awoke early the next morning to catch a bus out of the city. With a little luck, a lot of pleading, and some of my old acting skill, I managed to convince a travel agent to switch my reservations to the following day. I counted myself as one of the lucky few who managed to get out of Christchurch in a timely manner. I was happy, but the loss of my wallet still weighed heavily upon me. I slept nearly the entire bus ride to Picton and for the entirety of the ferry ride to Wellington. I was too drained to care about the scenery. My fatigue must have shown on my face when I arrived home to my flat, because my flatmates looked as if they had seen a ghost. I mean, I knew I looked like hell, but seriously? I guess I had been through hell, though. As I sat back in my desk chair, I wondered to myself: How was I to write about it? I had felt the full wrath of nature. I had seen a city in full lockdown. For a brief day, I had been a refugee. The problem was where to start. I decided to begin with a question. What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Friday, September 10, 2010
The South Island Saga: For Queenstown and Country
“Yeah, he’s a hair-sniffer,” Sarah, one of the Aussie girls, told me casually when I inquired about the eccentricities of my Dutch roommate in Queenstown, Jack.
In addition to being a hair sniffer, Jack was an odd guy (although I believe that hair-sniffing alone would put him in that category). If he wasn’t drunk or hungover, he was sleeping. I had heard that he had been a banker back in the Netherlands (it would certainly explain his extremely nice clothes) but only through hearsay. Within the first ten minutes of moving our bags into our room in Queenstown, he casually informed Eric, the other American male, and me that he was on this trip because his girlfriend had died recently. Whether the trip was out of mourning or celebration for her passing away (I never did learn the circumstances of her demise either), I never did discover, but he enthusiastically showed us pictures regardless. I don’t think he caught on to our discomfort. In fact, he never seemed to catch on to any of my discomfort. I don’t consider myself easily embarrassed or anything like that, but Jack made me call that ability into question. Not once, not twice, but THREE times did I have to stop him from creeping up behind me and stroking my hair. I’m pretty sure he got a good whiff of it as well. Damn my use of fragrant shampoo and conditioner! I believe he tried to make up for his earlier displays of affection toward my hair by offering me a seat on his knee in an otherwise chair-less bar. I politely declined. That’s why the morning after my foray into bungee jumping I tried to leave my room as quietly as possible so as not to wake the crazy Dutch bastard in my living room.
I found myself feeling surprisingly relaxed as the little van rumbled down the road to Shotover Canyon. My new friends from my tour were of a similar state, but due more to being hungover or still drunk than the Zen-like state of mind I was experiencing. The drop from Nevis Jump was 134 meters, and the drop for the canyon swing was only 90 meters. The swinging arc, however, totaled 200 meters and reached speeds of over 150 kilometers per hour. The real difference, to me at least, was in the takeoff. For bungee jumping, I had no choice but to be strapped in by my feet in order to dive off of the platform headfirst. The canyon swing allowed for over ten different release styles. I could sprint off of the edge. I could fall backwards. I could do a handstand walk off of the ledge. I could be strapped to a chair and pushed off. With two turns on the swing, I had to consider carefully. I eventually settled on a release called “Gimp Boy Goes to Hollywood” and a backwards tandem jump.
So what is a “Gimp Boy Goes to Hollywood”? Other than a great and colorful name for a cocktail, the “Gimp Boy” (as it is known to the employees of the canyon swing) involves the participant being strung up by his feet and hung over the edge looking straight down at the canyon. On the company’s scale of scariness, the style is rated 5/5 pairs of soiled underwear, the most frightening of the frightening. I asked why the reference to a gimp in the title and, ever the wiseass, queried whether the jump involved wearing a gimp mask. The man strapping me into my harness gave me a big smile, thanked me for asking, and pulled a gimp mask over my head. To top off my disturbing appearance, the jumpmasters attached a gimped out teddy bear to my harness. I had so, so many questions, but the last time I asked one I ended up being put into a piece of S&M gear. Besides, the time for asking questions was over. It was time for action.
I stepped to the ledge and had the two jumpmasters string me up over the lip of the canyon. I closed my eyes. There was no way I was going to open them until the release. I heard one of the men tell me to have fun and then heard the soft purr of a sliding rope. My eyes shot open. Imagine looking through the lens of a camera and zooming in on a canyon floor. Now imagine that instead of just looking, you are experiencing the zoom. My eyes watered with the speed of my descent. Then suddenly I was flying like Superman, if Superman were into leather, whips, and chains. I felt like I could break the sound barrier. Just when I was about to reach the other end of the canyon, I started moving back. I moved like a pendulum until I was hauled back up to the platform. Once again, I was grinning like a maniac as I was taken out of my harness.
The grinning stopped when I was strapped in again, this time for my tandem jump. I had jumped less than twenty minutes ago, but I was still nervous. Falling from the edge of a chasm in the earth makes most people nervous. It’s healthy. Plus, this time I wasn’t going to be able to see where I was falling. I waddled to the platform with my Aussie friend Sarah, grateful that she was more nervous than I was. The men at the canyon swing are notorious for toying with their customers and once they saw me come back for round two, they made no exception. They chatted with us amiably about our lives, the weather, and everything in between while we leaned back over the edge suspended by a single rope. Mid-question they dropped us. Bastards. The flying feeling returned. I could get used to this. Alas, my flight stopped all too soon. We were pulled back up to my now sober colleagues, and I braced myself for the biggest jump of my life.
My first thought upon walking to the headquarters of the skydiving company, N-Zone, was that I was hungry. I knew I couldn’t have taken one bite, though. The idea of jumping from a plane tends to kill the appetite. I signed my life away for the umpteenth time as I sat in a waiting room watching an instructional DVD with about twenty other terrified looking individuals. I rode out to the company’s airfield with two of the Irish lasses (and rather comely ones might I add) from my tour group and resolved to be a man and hide any sign of fear or anxiety. When we arrived at the airfield I squinted into the sky and could just barely make out the tiny outline of a plane and an even tinier human. The whole showing no anxiety thing wasn’t going well.
After an eternity of waiting, we were eventually led into the hangar to jumpsuit up. The full regalia made us look like the henchmen of a James Bond villain. For some odd reason, this comforted me. I was then given a brief, but thorough run-through of what to expect in the plane with my tandem master, Marius. Marius was an experienced skydiver with over eight years of experience and at least 5000 jumps under his belt. I was in good hands.
The moment of truth arrived. Our tandem masters grabbed us by the belt (maybe they are afraid we would bolt?) and led us into a plane a little larger than a boiler room. Miraculously, all three customers, the three tandem masters, and three photographers managed to fit. With a labored effort, the plane managed to take off. My anxiousness rose with our elevation. I wanted to jump, but I couldn’t stand thinking about it. Fortunately we had preparations to take my mind off of things. Unfortunately, this involved me sitting involved on Marius lap while he secured our harnesses. The other two gentlemen tandem masters seemed pleased to have two bonny babes on their laps. I felt that I should have apologized to Marius. Something along the lines of, “Sorry for being a dude, bro,” or possibly something more eloquent. Neither of us enjoyed the experience.
Before I could come up with the words, I looked up to the plane’s door and noticed that one of the Irish girls was gone. By the time I registered the fact that she had jumped, the second one was out the door. I was next. I dangled outside the plane, looking at the ground 12,000 feet below as my photographer took a picture from the wing of the plane. “Wow,” I thought, “I’m actually jumping out of a-“
I didn’t have time to complete the thought. A surreal feeling overcame me as I looked back and saw the plane fly on without me. The thought of panicking briefly crossed my mind as my ride flew off without me, but I quickly dismissed it as pointless. I was soaring through the sky like Icarus before his fall. I’m pretty sure I turned red and started sparking because of the speed at which I was descending. Cold air streaked off of me snapping all my senses to attention. After thirty seconds of freefall, the thought finally hit me that I was actually skydiving, that I was rocketing toward the ground crotch-first at over 200 kilometers per hour. The thought made me smile, or it would have had the air blasting against my face not forced it into one expression. And after forty-five seconds, the parachute deployed, and I was upright.
This was my first chance to look at the land below me as the freefall had otherwise occupied my mind with other thoughts. I am going to see if I can get credited for discovering paradise, because that is what I saw. From snow-capped mountains to sparkling rivers and lakes to lush green forests, every treasure of this little planet of ours was spread out beneath me. I was all at once detached from the land and yet never felt closer to it. There was something profoundly Zen-like about the moment. Apart from my harness straps cutting off the blood supply in my thighs and the fact that I was attached to a dude, I don’t think I’ve ever felt so relaxed.
Marius and I spiraled lazily toward the ground while he gave me a tour of Queenstown and the South Island from the air. The whole time I wondered if he still felt the thrill of skydiving when he jumped. Was every trip into the sky a thrill or just another day at the office? For his sake, I hope it was the former. I may have started my descent in what would have been the largest recorded pelvic thrust in history, but I ended up landing square on my ass. A few hundred yards from the ground, Marius told me to lift my legs so that he could take the brunt of the impact. There was no way I was going to get a sprained ankle and ruin the rest of my time in this majestic country, so I dutifully obeyed. We slid more than landed onto the soft grass of the airfield, and I somehow ended up sitting cross-legged in front of my smiling cameraman. Even the French judge would have given that landing a 10.
As I was escorted back to the hangar with my two Irish companions, all we could talk about was the jump. I was tempted to go into the reception area and sign up for a second jump. Alas, time and my wallet were against me. The girls and I were only allowed a few minutes to relive our experiences before the company van whisked us back to Queenstown. My adrenaline adventures were over, and I still had all my limbs and vital organs. It was time for a celebration.
I might have been understating what happened that night when I said a celebration was in order. I celebrated. My new friends partied like fucking Caligula. I estimate that about half of our group showed up at the bus wearing sunglasses and the previous night’s clothes. Among other things that happened, my friend Eric kicked down a door (because that’s what America does), one of the Australian girls almost ended up in a fistfight with a man who looked like a Miami Vice extra, and Jack the Dutchman took a “nap” in the local cemetery. I’m positive that Queenstown was glad to see us leave when we did. She certainly did give us a grand farewell. The weather, however, was not so kind.
As we departed the adrenaline capital of the world and made our way toward Mt. Cook, we experienced the first snowfall I have seen in New Zealand. Now I had seen a lot of snow on top of mountains and literally tons of ice (an entire goddamn glacier’s worth), but aside from a few scattered flakes here and there, this was the first flurry. Some of the Australians had never seen snowy weather, and were remarking on its beauty. Meanwhile, I was marveling at the fact that I was experiencing snow in September. Normally I would associate Labor Day weekend with BBQs and such, but there I was standing in the middle of a September snowfall. Before I had time to further ruminate on my situation, I was whisked away to the bus.
The last stop of tour was a little place out in the country called Morelea Farm. Apparently no tour of New Zealand is complete without a trip to a family owned sheep farm. The owner of the farmer, a man named Stan, met us outside of the barn. The man looked an awful lot like what one would expect a sheep farmer to look like: gray hair, sheep dog following him, a hybrid cowboy/farmer’s hat, a way of moving that was more moseying than walking. He was even wearing a wool sweater from the wool of his sheep. He guided us into the barn and explained his family’s history in the sheep farming business, and how the industry has changed. As a result of Stan's conferred wisdom, I no longer wanted to be a sheep farmer (not that I actually ever had the desire to be in the first place). He did, however, enthusiastically show us one of the newborn lambs and let us pass him around the group. I am willing to sacrifice some man-points to admit that it was adorable. After everyone had their turn cooing, Stan brought out one of the adult sheep for a shearing demonstration. That part was graphic. I think Guantanamo Bay interrogators are gentler than Stan was. Then again, the sheep didn’t seem to care about the manhandling. Less than half a minute later, the sheep was shivering and Stan was grinning over a big pile of wool. We concluded our tour of the farm with scones (pronounced like the “sc” in scald and “awns” in dawns) and jam with Stan’s wife Angela in their farmhouse. So with full stomachs and the resolve to not eat lamb again (at least for a while) after holding a baby lamb, we departed for Christchurch.
My holiday had been a pleasant one, a marked success in my book. No lost luggage, no hospitalizing injuries, a trip free of major disasters. I was so pleased with my vacation that I decided to order a steak for dinner that night to celebrate my good fortune and the end to my adventures in the South Island. It would take me another day to learn a valuable lesson: don’t celebrate until you’re out of the woods. I can really be a fucking idiot sometimes.
In addition to being a hair sniffer, Jack was an odd guy (although I believe that hair-sniffing alone would put him in that category). If he wasn’t drunk or hungover, he was sleeping. I had heard that he had been a banker back in the Netherlands (it would certainly explain his extremely nice clothes) but only through hearsay. Within the first ten minutes of moving our bags into our room in Queenstown, he casually informed Eric, the other American male, and me that he was on this trip because his girlfriend had died recently. Whether the trip was out of mourning or celebration for her passing away (I never did learn the circumstances of her demise either), I never did discover, but he enthusiastically showed us pictures regardless. I don’t think he caught on to our discomfort. In fact, he never seemed to catch on to any of my discomfort. I don’t consider myself easily embarrassed or anything like that, but Jack made me call that ability into question. Not once, not twice, but THREE times did I have to stop him from creeping up behind me and stroking my hair. I’m pretty sure he got a good whiff of it as well. Damn my use of fragrant shampoo and conditioner! I believe he tried to make up for his earlier displays of affection toward my hair by offering me a seat on his knee in an otherwise chair-less bar. I politely declined. That’s why the morning after my foray into bungee jumping I tried to leave my room as quietly as possible so as not to wake the crazy Dutch bastard in my living room.
I found myself feeling surprisingly relaxed as the little van rumbled down the road to Shotover Canyon. My new friends from my tour were of a similar state, but due more to being hungover or still drunk than the Zen-like state of mind I was experiencing. The drop from Nevis Jump was 134 meters, and the drop for the canyon swing was only 90 meters. The swinging arc, however, totaled 200 meters and reached speeds of over 150 kilometers per hour. The real difference, to me at least, was in the takeoff. For bungee jumping, I had no choice but to be strapped in by my feet in order to dive off of the platform headfirst. The canyon swing allowed for over ten different release styles. I could sprint off of the edge. I could fall backwards. I could do a handstand walk off of the ledge. I could be strapped to a chair and pushed off. With two turns on the swing, I had to consider carefully. I eventually settled on a release called “Gimp Boy Goes to Hollywood” and a backwards tandem jump.
So what is a “Gimp Boy Goes to Hollywood”? Other than a great and colorful name for a cocktail, the “Gimp Boy” (as it is known to the employees of the canyon swing) involves the participant being strung up by his feet and hung over the edge looking straight down at the canyon. On the company’s scale of scariness, the style is rated 5/5 pairs of soiled underwear, the most frightening of the frightening. I asked why the reference to a gimp in the title and, ever the wiseass, queried whether the jump involved wearing a gimp mask. The man strapping me into my harness gave me a big smile, thanked me for asking, and pulled a gimp mask over my head. To top off my disturbing appearance, the jumpmasters attached a gimped out teddy bear to my harness. I had so, so many questions, but the last time I asked one I ended up being put into a piece of S&M gear. Besides, the time for asking questions was over. It was time for action.
I stepped to the ledge and had the two jumpmasters string me up over the lip of the canyon. I closed my eyes. There was no way I was going to open them until the release. I heard one of the men tell me to have fun and then heard the soft purr of a sliding rope. My eyes shot open. Imagine looking through the lens of a camera and zooming in on a canyon floor. Now imagine that instead of just looking, you are experiencing the zoom. My eyes watered with the speed of my descent. Then suddenly I was flying like Superman, if Superman were into leather, whips, and chains. I felt like I could break the sound barrier. Just when I was about to reach the other end of the canyon, I started moving back. I moved like a pendulum until I was hauled back up to the platform. Once again, I was grinning like a maniac as I was taken out of my harness.
The grinning stopped when I was strapped in again, this time for my tandem jump. I had jumped less than twenty minutes ago, but I was still nervous. Falling from the edge of a chasm in the earth makes most people nervous. It’s healthy. Plus, this time I wasn’t going to be able to see where I was falling. I waddled to the platform with my Aussie friend Sarah, grateful that she was more nervous than I was. The men at the canyon swing are notorious for toying with their customers and once they saw me come back for round two, they made no exception. They chatted with us amiably about our lives, the weather, and everything in between while we leaned back over the edge suspended by a single rope. Mid-question they dropped us. Bastards. The flying feeling returned. I could get used to this. Alas, my flight stopped all too soon. We were pulled back up to my now sober colleagues, and I braced myself for the biggest jump of my life.
My first thought upon walking to the headquarters of the skydiving company, N-Zone, was that I was hungry. I knew I couldn’t have taken one bite, though. The idea of jumping from a plane tends to kill the appetite. I signed my life away for the umpteenth time as I sat in a waiting room watching an instructional DVD with about twenty other terrified looking individuals. I rode out to the company’s airfield with two of the Irish lasses (and rather comely ones might I add) from my tour group and resolved to be a man and hide any sign of fear or anxiety. When we arrived at the airfield I squinted into the sky and could just barely make out the tiny outline of a plane and an even tinier human. The whole showing no anxiety thing wasn’t going well.
After an eternity of waiting, we were eventually led into the hangar to jumpsuit up. The full regalia made us look like the henchmen of a James Bond villain. For some odd reason, this comforted me. I was then given a brief, but thorough run-through of what to expect in the plane with my tandem master, Marius. Marius was an experienced skydiver with over eight years of experience and at least 5000 jumps under his belt. I was in good hands.
The moment of truth arrived. Our tandem masters grabbed us by the belt (maybe they are afraid we would bolt?) and led us into a plane a little larger than a boiler room. Miraculously, all three customers, the three tandem masters, and three photographers managed to fit. With a labored effort, the plane managed to take off. My anxiousness rose with our elevation. I wanted to jump, but I couldn’t stand thinking about it. Fortunately we had preparations to take my mind off of things. Unfortunately, this involved me sitting involved on Marius lap while he secured our harnesses. The other two gentlemen tandem masters seemed pleased to have two bonny babes on their laps. I felt that I should have apologized to Marius. Something along the lines of, “Sorry for being a dude, bro,” or possibly something more eloquent. Neither of us enjoyed the experience.
Before I could come up with the words, I looked up to the plane’s door and noticed that one of the Irish girls was gone. By the time I registered the fact that she had jumped, the second one was out the door. I was next. I dangled outside the plane, looking at the ground 12,000 feet below as my photographer took a picture from the wing of the plane. “Wow,” I thought, “I’m actually jumping out of a-“
I didn’t have time to complete the thought. A surreal feeling overcame me as I looked back and saw the plane fly on without me. The thought of panicking briefly crossed my mind as my ride flew off without me, but I quickly dismissed it as pointless. I was soaring through the sky like Icarus before his fall. I’m pretty sure I turned red and started sparking because of the speed at which I was descending. Cold air streaked off of me snapping all my senses to attention. After thirty seconds of freefall, the thought finally hit me that I was actually skydiving, that I was rocketing toward the ground crotch-first at over 200 kilometers per hour. The thought made me smile, or it would have had the air blasting against my face not forced it into one expression. And after forty-five seconds, the parachute deployed, and I was upright.
This was my first chance to look at the land below me as the freefall had otherwise occupied my mind with other thoughts. I am going to see if I can get credited for discovering paradise, because that is what I saw. From snow-capped mountains to sparkling rivers and lakes to lush green forests, every treasure of this little planet of ours was spread out beneath me. I was all at once detached from the land and yet never felt closer to it. There was something profoundly Zen-like about the moment. Apart from my harness straps cutting off the blood supply in my thighs and the fact that I was attached to a dude, I don’t think I’ve ever felt so relaxed.
Marius and I spiraled lazily toward the ground while he gave me a tour of Queenstown and the South Island from the air. The whole time I wondered if he still felt the thrill of skydiving when he jumped. Was every trip into the sky a thrill or just another day at the office? For his sake, I hope it was the former. I may have started my descent in what would have been the largest recorded pelvic thrust in history, but I ended up landing square on my ass. A few hundred yards from the ground, Marius told me to lift my legs so that he could take the brunt of the impact. There was no way I was going to get a sprained ankle and ruin the rest of my time in this majestic country, so I dutifully obeyed. We slid more than landed onto the soft grass of the airfield, and I somehow ended up sitting cross-legged in front of my smiling cameraman. Even the French judge would have given that landing a 10.
As I was escorted back to the hangar with my two Irish companions, all we could talk about was the jump. I was tempted to go into the reception area and sign up for a second jump. Alas, time and my wallet were against me. The girls and I were only allowed a few minutes to relive our experiences before the company van whisked us back to Queenstown. My adrenaline adventures were over, and I still had all my limbs and vital organs. It was time for a celebration.
I might have been understating what happened that night when I said a celebration was in order. I celebrated. My new friends partied like fucking Caligula. I estimate that about half of our group showed up at the bus wearing sunglasses and the previous night’s clothes. Among other things that happened, my friend Eric kicked down a door (because that’s what America does), one of the Australian girls almost ended up in a fistfight with a man who looked like a Miami Vice extra, and Jack the Dutchman took a “nap” in the local cemetery. I’m positive that Queenstown was glad to see us leave when we did. She certainly did give us a grand farewell. The weather, however, was not so kind.
As we departed the adrenaline capital of the world and made our way toward Mt. Cook, we experienced the first snowfall I have seen in New Zealand. Now I had seen a lot of snow on top of mountains and literally tons of ice (an entire goddamn glacier’s worth), but aside from a few scattered flakes here and there, this was the first flurry. Some of the Australians had never seen snowy weather, and were remarking on its beauty. Meanwhile, I was marveling at the fact that I was experiencing snow in September. Normally I would associate Labor Day weekend with BBQs and such, but there I was standing in the middle of a September snowfall. Before I had time to further ruminate on my situation, I was whisked away to the bus.
The last stop of tour was a little place out in the country called Morelea Farm. Apparently no tour of New Zealand is complete without a trip to a family owned sheep farm. The owner of the farmer, a man named Stan, met us outside of the barn. The man looked an awful lot like what one would expect a sheep farmer to look like: gray hair, sheep dog following him, a hybrid cowboy/farmer’s hat, a way of moving that was more moseying than walking. He was even wearing a wool sweater from the wool of his sheep. He guided us into the barn and explained his family’s history in the sheep farming business, and how the industry has changed. As a result of Stan's conferred wisdom, I no longer wanted to be a sheep farmer (not that I actually ever had the desire to be in the first place). He did, however, enthusiastically show us one of the newborn lambs and let us pass him around the group. I am willing to sacrifice some man-points to admit that it was adorable. After everyone had their turn cooing, Stan brought out one of the adult sheep for a shearing demonstration. That part was graphic. I think Guantanamo Bay interrogators are gentler than Stan was. Then again, the sheep didn’t seem to care about the manhandling. Less than half a minute later, the sheep was shivering and Stan was grinning over a big pile of wool. We concluded our tour of the farm with scones (pronounced like the “sc” in scald and “awns” in dawns) and jam with Stan’s wife Angela in their farmhouse. So with full stomachs and the resolve to not eat lamb again (at least for a while) after holding a baby lamb, we departed for Christchurch.
My holiday had been a pleasant one, a marked success in my book. No lost luggage, no hospitalizing injuries, a trip free of major disasters. I was so pleased with my vacation that I decided to order a steak for dinner that night to celebrate my good fortune and the end to my adventures in the South Island. It would take me another day to learn a valuable lesson: don’t celebrate until you’re out of the woods. I can really be a fucking idiot sometimes.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
The South Island Saga: The Iceman Cometh and The Fall from Grace
The morning was cold and bitter when the Topdeck tour bus departed from Cathedral Square of Christchurch. Spirits were high, however, among the 22 souls embarking on the South Island trek. A good half of the group had already been on the tour for the past seven days, and had already started bonding. Meanwhile, us newbies shuffled awkwardly into empty aisles on the bus and nervously avoided eye contact. Thankfully, we went through the familiar song and dance of name introductions, countries of origins, and such. Out of the entire group, we had about ten Aussies, five Irish lasses, three Americans (including yours truly), one Polish girl, a Brit, and one crazyass Dutchman (more on that later). With pleasantries exchanged, we made our way to the pounamu capital of New Zealand.
Pounamu, called greenstone by the first European explorers to reach New Zealand, is known more commonly as jade. The Maori people valued pounamu more than gold, thus it became the lifeblood of the Maori economy. Apart from its beautiful green coloring, jade is a hard substance that can hold a razor sharp edge. It was used in everything from basic tools to tribal weapons. Pounamu artifacts are passed down among Maori families growing in value with every generation. The Maori people believe that the soul of the previous owner of a piece of jade inhabits the piece when the owner passes away. Even if the owner isn’t dead, a piece of the owner’s soul still inhabits the piece. A gift of pounamu is therefore considered semi-sacred because the giver entrusts the receiver of the pounamu with a piece of his or her soul. It’s a lot like a non-evil version of a horcrux.
The little town we visited seemed composed almost entirely out of jade shops. If a building wasn’t an actual jade vendor, then it had some reference to jade in its name. I puttered pointlessly or ambled aimlessly, I forget which, around town and ran into some friends from Wellington roadtripping around the South Island. This would soon become a common occurrence on my tour, but the first time was nonetheless jolting. Out of an entire island and about twenty Australearn people, and I manage to run into two of them within the first four hours of my tour. New Zealand should be a key feature of the Small World ride.
With basking in the glorious green glow of jade out of the way, our ragtag team of travelers departed for the base of Fox Glacier. New Zealand is home to over 3,000 glaciers with Tasmin Glacier (named after Abel Tasmin, the Dutch dude who “discovered” New Zealand) being the largest. Fox Glacier, our destination, is New Zealand’s third largest. The ice would have to wait until tomorrow, however, because the sun began to set as our bus rolled into the inn at Fox Glacier’s base.
Our first priority was scoping out the local bar and enjoying a pint and each other’s company. Life doesn’t get much better than enjoying an ice-cold glass of Tui’s and discussing the various cultures of this great world. I found it slightly comforting to know that bro culture is not exclusively American, but found in pretty much every English speaking country out there, albeit under different names (in Australia they are called lads, and referred to as chavs in Ireland and Britain). Guidos, unfortunately, are solely an American phenomenon. Explaining Snooki to our English-speaking cousins was no easy task. Thanks a lot, Jersey Shore.
We continued bonding when night fell upon the land, and we embarked on a glowworm tour through a nearby forest. Other than the soft bluish-green glow of the glowworms, we were in total darkness. We walked single file through the forest, hands grasping the coat of the person in front of us and shuffling through the dirt. Nervous whispers flew through the night air with each breaking twig as our little group blindly marched on through the night. Most people found the experience of walking through a pitch-black forest unnerving, but my only thought was the possibility of me breaking off from the group to empty out the beer in my bladder. I had seen enough glow worm clusters (they look like hotel bed sheets under a black light) to last a lifetime by the time we emerged from the woods, so without hesitation I found a nearby woody copse to relieve myself. I practically skipped back to the hotel out of relief.
Our lodgings didn’t exactly inspire confidence. I’ve stayed in worse, but not by much. Two beds and bunk beds were the sole furnishings of the room. I placed my bags on the bottom bunk and tested the mattress. Not half bad. Eric, one of the other Americans, climbed up to the top bunk. The beds gave a deafening groan. Very bad. Fortunately, our resident Dutchman, Jack, decided that he would pay for his own room rather than stay in the little boiler room. I wasn’t going to have to lay awake in my bed waiting to be crushed like a bug. Hooray.
When morning descended upon Fox Glacier, 22 intrepid travelers followed it. The glacier in morning light was nothing short of remarkable. Imagine an entire valley almost filled to the brim with ice as if a flood had stopped halfway through its course.. Shades of gray, white, and blue sparkled in the sunlight, inviting us to explore its craggy terrain. We started our hike at the base of glacier’s ice where it trickled out into a freezing stream. In a single file line we walked up the valley’s sides until we reached an accessible edge of the ice. Our guide distributed crampons (a delightful word, in my opinion) for the coming portion of our journey. Crampons are essentially steel spikes attached to the insteps of a pair of hiking boots. Not only do they help the wearer retain firm footing on slick, icy surfaces, but they have the amusing side effect of forcing them to waddle bow-legged as well. And in that fashion our party began to make its way up the glacier. Our guide led the way, stopping intermittently to hack out a more stable step with her comically large pickaxe. After one hour of hiking, we had barely made a dent in the path to the top. We had never planned on it. Fox Glacier is several kilometers long, so it was out of the question. We did hike high enough, however, to take some nice photographs on the ice, the mountains, our crampons, and anything else we lighted upon. I felt like an astronaut on a different world atop the glacier. Surely, this was not Earth. Or at least not the Earth that we know. I may as well have been standing on Pluto. But when touchdown brought me round again, I was assured that I was still on my home planet by the familiar feel of a café and a chicken sandwich. I had barely put down my napkin (called serviettes here) when we were hustled back on to our bus to depart for Queenstown.
Queenstown, New Zealand is widely regarded as the adventure capital of the South Island, New Zealand, and in some circles, the entire world. Would you care to throw yourself out of a perfectly good plane? You can do it in Queenstown. Perhaps I could entice you to leap out of a metal pod above a canyon and plummet 134 meters while attached only to a rope? Queenstown specializes in that. How about hang gliding? Parasailing? Canyon swinging? All of the above? Queenstown has it all. If you like jumping off of really high shit or just enjoy the thrill of hot, nasty badass speed, then Queenstown is the place for you. And for the next few days, it would be all mine.
My first priority was bungee jumping. When you go to New Zealand, you bungee jump. If you didn’t, it would be like going to China and not going to the Great Wall. It is just something you do.
I figured that if I were to throw myself off a ledge headfirst, I would jump off of the highest ledge available. The Nevis Jump, measuring an impressive 134 meters, is the highest bungee jump in New Zealand and one of the highest in the world. Compared to the original site of bungee jumping, AJ Hackett Bridge (named after the undoubtedly suicidal inventor of bungee jumping), a meager 47 meters, Nevis is a monster.
I arrived at The Station, the headquarters of AJ Hackett Bungy (the world’s oldest and most respected bungee jumping company in the world), early on the first morning of my stay in Queenstown. I had been plagued by dreams of falling and hadn’t been able to stomach breakfast, so I am positive that I looked like hell when I reached the counter.
“I’d like to do the Nevis Jump,” I said to the man behind the counter. He barked out a quick laugh and gave me a wry grin.
“Do ya’ now?” he asked, “Good for you.”
After ensuring the man of my slightly wavering resolve, he presented me with multiple forms asking for my height, weight, next of kin, promise not to take legal action in the event of tragedy, etc. This would be the first of many times that I would sign my life away. He peered over my signature and gave a nod of approval before handing me my ticket. On top of the ticket, in large bold letters read the words “TOE TAG”. Comforting.
I tried to keep my eyes glued to the horizon and sky as the company van took us up a winding gravel road to the bungee site. I didn’t want to know how high we had gone. The van eventually pulled up in front of a clean, sleek metal building where we were outfitted with harnesses and given one last chance to use the bathroom. They had obviously foreseen the very real possibility that I might soil myself.
The Nevis Jump is situated in the center of a large canyon. The jump station is suspended in the center of the canyon by several steel cords, giving it a levitating appearance. We jumpers were ferried into a gondola and sent along one of these steel cords to the little hanging pod in the sky. I could feel the wires sag under our combined weight as we made our way across. I’m pretty sure I have a few white hairs because of it. The jump station itself was thankfully more stable. The stability came with a catch, though. I could see every jumper. There was essentially no partition to block the view of those waiting to jump and the current jumper. I did my best to steel my nerves, but found it exceedingly difficult when I could plainly see the nice Australian man I talked to a couple of minutes ago vanish with a scream from the platform.
“Maxwell?” a voice asked.
I jerked my head up. I meant to say something along the lines of, “Yes, that’s me. I take it that it is my turn to participate in this activity?” Instead, a barely audible squeak sufficed. The jump master led me to a dentist chair (they really do their best to inspire all kinds of fear, don’t they?) and instructed me to sit while he attached my bungee cord and explained when to pull the ripcord that would pull me upright when I was ready to be hauled back up after the jump. I’ve never listened to instructions so intently in my life. With a few testing pulls on my harness and cords, he deemed I was ready to jump.
I swung my feet and literally inched (my feet were bound) to the edge of the platform, my eyes fixed on the mountains in front of me. Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Repeat. I smiled nervously in the general direction of flashing cameras, but nothing in the outside world was registering in my head. The countdown started.
Three.
My heart is hammering.
Two.
I’ve started questioning my sanity. Why the fuck did I want to do this in the first place?
One.
I’m going to kick myself for the rest of my life if I don’t. Need to stop thinking! I just need to bend my legs and jump when he says…
BIG DIVE, MAX!
I launched into the air, my muscles taking control over my body. “EEEEAAAGGGLLLEEE!” I roar as I reached the top of my dive with my arms outstretched like wings. The nervousness, the anxiety, the fear, they all left me as soon as my feet left the platform. Then I plummeted. I plummeted for 8.5 seconds. That’s a long time. Count it out to yourself. Now imagine your stomach being left about a football field and a half above you as you hurtle towards the ground. Then I stopped. I felt myself being hauled back up, like someone had hit the reverse button on my life’s remote control. I bounced a couple more times before giving the cord on my ankle a mighty pull and flipped myself upright. Small bits of snow floated past me as I took in the serene canyon around me. Wow.
After what seemed like an eternity, I was hauled back up to the jump platform. I was cold. I was hungry. I needed a beer. I needed a tequila shot. I needed ten tequila shots. I needed to piss, shit, whoop for joy, laugh like a madman, call my parents and tell them I love them. I settled for a contented sigh and my first genuine smile of the day.
I forgot much of the drive back to Queenstown. I was lost in my own little world, reliving the jump over and over again in my head. Bungee jumping is not something I would try again soon, but one day, one day far, far away, I might take up the harness again. I celebrated my achievement that night at Queenstown’s Minus 5 bar, an ice bar that is constantly kept at -5° C. My mother would have hated it. The hostess gave us big, warm parkas and gloves and escorted us into what was essentially a giant freezer. There were ice sculptures everywhere. Horses. Penguins. Kiwis. A delightfully inappropriate statue of a man with a strategically placed ice chute in place of his manhood. With the exception of the floor, almost everything in the room was made of ice. Our drinks were served to us in cups of solid ice, chilling every drink perfectly. We were allowed thirty minutes to cavort around in our winter wonderland before we were forced to move on to another bar.
As we sat around the fire (a welcome respite from the ice bar) at the next bar, I couldn’t stop smiling. I had just checked off bungee jumping off of my bucket list. And the next day, I would add two more: canyon swinging and skydiving. My Queenstown saga was only just beginning.
Pounamu, called greenstone by the first European explorers to reach New Zealand, is known more commonly as jade. The Maori people valued pounamu more than gold, thus it became the lifeblood of the Maori economy. Apart from its beautiful green coloring, jade is a hard substance that can hold a razor sharp edge. It was used in everything from basic tools to tribal weapons. Pounamu artifacts are passed down among Maori families growing in value with every generation. The Maori people believe that the soul of the previous owner of a piece of jade inhabits the piece when the owner passes away. Even if the owner isn’t dead, a piece of the owner’s soul still inhabits the piece. A gift of pounamu is therefore considered semi-sacred because the giver entrusts the receiver of the pounamu with a piece of his or her soul. It’s a lot like a non-evil version of a horcrux.
The little town we visited seemed composed almost entirely out of jade shops. If a building wasn’t an actual jade vendor, then it had some reference to jade in its name. I puttered pointlessly or ambled aimlessly, I forget which, around town and ran into some friends from Wellington roadtripping around the South Island. This would soon become a common occurrence on my tour, but the first time was nonetheless jolting. Out of an entire island and about twenty Australearn people, and I manage to run into two of them within the first four hours of my tour. New Zealand should be a key feature of the Small World ride.
With basking in the glorious green glow of jade out of the way, our ragtag team of travelers departed for the base of Fox Glacier. New Zealand is home to over 3,000 glaciers with Tasmin Glacier (named after Abel Tasmin, the Dutch dude who “discovered” New Zealand) being the largest. Fox Glacier, our destination, is New Zealand’s third largest. The ice would have to wait until tomorrow, however, because the sun began to set as our bus rolled into the inn at Fox Glacier’s base.
Our first priority was scoping out the local bar and enjoying a pint and each other’s company. Life doesn’t get much better than enjoying an ice-cold glass of Tui’s and discussing the various cultures of this great world. I found it slightly comforting to know that bro culture is not exclusively American, but found in pretty much every English speaking country out there, albeit under different names (in Australia they are called lads, and referred to as chavs in Ireland and Britain). Guidos, unfortunately, are solely an American phenomenon. Explaining Snooki to our English-speaking cousins was no easy task. Thanks a lot, Jersey Shore.
We continued bonding when night fell upon the land, and we embarked on a glowworm tour through a nearby forest. Other than the soft bluish-green glow of the glowworms, we were in total darkness. We walked single file through the forest, hands grasping the coat of the person in front of us and shuffling through the dirt. Nervous whispers flew through the night air with each breaking twig as our little group blindly marched on through the night. Most people found the experience of walking through a pitch-black forest unnerving, but my only thought was the possibility of me breaking off from the group to empty out the beer in my bladder. I had seen enough glow worm clusters (they look like hotel bed sheets under a black light) to last a lifetime by the time we emerged from the woods, so without hesitation I found a nearby woody copse to relieve myself. I practically skipped back to the hotel out of relief.
Our lodgings didn’t exactly inspire confidence. I’ve stayed in worse, but not by much. Two beds and bunk beds were the sole furnishings of the room. I placed my bags on the bottom bunk and tested the mattress. Not half bad. Eric, one of the other Americans, climbed up to the top bunk. The beds gave a deafening groan. Very bad. Fortunately, our resident Dutchman, Jack, decided that he would pay for his own room rather than stay in the little boiler room. I wasn’t going to have to lay awake in my bed waiting to be crushed like a bug. Hooray.
When morning descended upon Fox Glacier, 22 intrepid travelers followed it. The glacier in morning light was nothing short of remarkable. Imagine an entire valley almost filled to the brim with ice as if a flood had stopped halfway through its course.. Shades of gray, white, and blue sparkled in the sunlight, inviting us to explore its craggy terrain. We started our hike at the base of glacier’s ice where it trickled out into a freezing stream. In a single file line we walked up the valley’s sides until we reached an accessible edge of the ice. Our guide distributed crampons (a delightful word, in my opinion) for the coming portion of our journey. Crampons are essentially steel spikes attached to the insteps of a pair of hiking boots. Not only do they help the wearer retain firm footing on slick, icy surfaces, but they have the amusing side effect of forcing them to waddle bow-legged as well. And in that fashion our party began to make its way up the glacier. Our guide led the way, stopping intermittently to hack out a more stable step with her comically large pickaxe. After one hour of hiking, we had barely made a dent in the path to the top. We had never planned on it. Fox Glacier is several kilometers long, so it was out of the question. We did hike high enough, however, to take some nice photographs on the ice, the mountains, our crampons, and anything else we lighted upon. I felt like an astronaut on a different world atop the glacier. Surely, this was not Earth. Or at least not the Earth that we know. I may as well have been standing on Pluto. But when touchdown brought me round again, I was assured that I was still on my home planet by the familiar feel of a café and a chicken sandwich. I had barely put down my napkin (called serviettes here) when we were hustled back on to our bus to depart for Queenstown.
Queenstown, New Zealand is widely regarded as the adventure capital of the South Island, New Zealand, and in some circles, the entire world. Would you care to throw yourself out of a perfectly good plane? You can do it in Queenstown. Perhaps I could entice you to leap out of a metal pod above a canyon and plummet 134 meters while attached only to a rope? Queenstown specializes in that. How about hang gliding? Parasailing? Canyon swinging? All of the above? Queenstown has it all. If you like jumping off of really high shit or just enjoy the thrill of hot, nasty badass speed, then Queenstown is the place for you. And for the next few days, it would be all mine.
My first priority was bungee jumping. When you go to New Zealand, you bungee jump. If you didn’t, it would be like going to China and not going to the Great Wall. It is just something you do.
I figured that if I were to throw myself off a ledge headfirst, I would jump off of the highest ledge available. The Nevis Jump, measuring an impressive 134 meters, is the highest bungee jump in New Zealand and one of the highest in the world. Compared to the original site of bungee jumping, AJ Hackett Bridge (named after the undoubtedly suicidal inventor of bungee jumping), a meager 47 meters, Nevis is a monster.
I arrived at The Station, the headquarters of AJ Hackett Bungy (the world’s oldest and most respected bungee jumping company in the world), early on the first morning of my stay in Queenstown. I had been plagued by dreams of falling and hadn’t been able to stomach breakfast, so I am positive that I looked like hell when I reached the counter.
“I’d like to do the Nevis Jump,” I said to the man behind the counter. He barked out a quick laugh and gave me a wry grin.
“Do ya’ now?” he asked, “Good for you.”
After ensuring the man of my slightly wavering resolve, he presented me with multiple forms asking for my height, weight, next of kin, promise not to take legal action in the event of tragedy, etc. This would be the first of many times that I would sign my life away. He peered over my signature and gave a nod of approval before handing me my ticket. On top of the ticket, in large bold letters read the words “TOE TAG”. Comforting.
I tried to keep my eyes glued to the horizon and sky as the company van took us up a winding gravel road to the bungee site. I didn’t want to know how high we had gone. The van eventually pulled up in front of a clean, sleek metal building where we were outfitted with harnesses and given one last chance to use the bathroom. They had obviously foreseen the very real possibility that I might soil myself.
The Nevis Jump is situated in the center of a large canyon. The jump station is suspended in the center of the canyon by several steel cords, giving it a levitating appearance. We jumpers were ferried into a gondola and sent along one of these steel cords to the little hanging pod in the sky. I could feel the wires sag under our combined weight as we made our way across. I’m pretty sure I have a few white hairs because of it. The jump station itself was thankfully more stable. The stability came with a catch, though. I could see every jumper. There was essentially no partition to block the view of those waiting to jump and the current jumper. I did my best to steel my nerves, but found it exceedingly difficult when I could plainly see the nice Australian man I talked to a couple of minutes ago vanish with a scream from the platform.
“Maxwell?” a voice asked.
I jerked my head up. I meant to say something along the lines of, “Yes, that’s me. I take it that it is my turn to participate in this activity?” Instead, a barely audible squeak sufficed. The jump master led me to a dentist chair (they really do their best to inspire all kinds of fear, don’t they?) and instructed me to sit while he attached my bungee cord and explained when to pull the ripcord that would pull me upright when I was ready to be hauled back up after the jump. I’ve never listened to instructions so intently in my life. With a few testing pulls on my harness and cords, he deemed I was ready to jump.
I swung my feet and literally inched (my feet were bound) to the edge of the platform, my eyes fixed on the mountains in front of me. Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Repeat. I smiled nervously in the general direction of flashing cameras, but nothing in the outside world was registering in my head. The countdown started.
Three.
My heart is hammering.
Two.
I’ve started questioning my sanity. Why the fuck did I want to do this in the first place?
One.
I’m going to kick myself for the rest of my life if I don’t. Need to stop thinking! I just need to bend my legs and jump when he says…
BIG DIVE, MAX!
I launched into the air, my muscles taking control over my body. “EEEEAAAGGGLLLEEE!” I roar as I reached the top of my dive with my arms outstretched like wings. The nervousness, the anxiety, the fear, they all left me as soon as my feet left the platform. Then I plummeted. I plummeted for 8.5 seconds. That’s a long time. Count it out to yourself. Now imagine your stomach being left about a football field and a half above you as you hurtle towards the ground. Then I stopped. I felt myself being hauled back up, like someone had hit the reverse button on my life’s remote control. I bounced a couple more times before giving the cord on my ankle a mighty pull and flipped myself upright. Small bits of snow floated past me as I took in the serene canyon around me. Wow.
After what seemed like an eternity, I was hauled back up to the jump platform. I was cold. I was hungry. I needed a beer. I needed a tequila shot. I needed ten tequila shots. I needed to piss, shit, whoop for joy, laugh like a madman, call my parents and tell them I love them. I settled for a contented sigh and my first genuine smile of the day.
I forgot much of the drive back to Queenstown. I was lost in my own little world, reliving the jump over and over again in my head. Bungee jumping is not something I would try again soon, but one day, one day far, far away, I might take up the harness again. I celebrated my achievement that night at Queenstown’s Minus 5 bar, an ice bar that is constantly kept at -5° C. My mother would have hated it. The hostess gave us big, warm parkas and gloves and escorted us into what was essentially a giant freezer. There were ice sculptures everywhere. Horses. Penguins. Kiwis. A delightfully inappropriate statue of a man with a strategically placed ice chute in place of his manhood. With the exception of the floor, almost everything in the room was made of ice. Our drinks were served to us in cups of solid ice, chilling every drink perfectly. We were allowed thirty minutes to cavort around in our winter wonderland before we were forced to move on to another bar.
As we sat around the fire (a welcome respite from the ice bar) at the next bar, I couldn’t stop smiling. I had just checked off bungee jumping off of my bucket list. And the next day, I would add two more: canyon swinging and skydiving. My Queenstown saga was only just beginning.
Sunday, September 5, 2010
The South Island Saga: By Land and By Sea
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I have divided my chronicles of my trip to the South Island into multiple posts in chronological order. I know that many of you are eager to hear about my experience in the Canterbury Quake (that is what the news called the earthquake that hit Christchurch while I was staying there), but for the sake of my memory, that particular incident will have to wait. I have a number of posts saved up that I will post throughout this week, and hopefully by the end of the week I should have the events of the great earthquake immortalized in print. I also recognize the irony present in the ending of this particular post (I wrote this particular one a week before the earthquake).
Christchurch is the largest city of New Zealand’s South Island. I currently have a perfect view from my lodgings of the huge cathedral in the city’s center. I don’t know if it is the eponymous church of the city, but it is still impressive. When I woke up this morning, my mind was flooded with thousands of possibilities of how my trip here could go wrong. I could have lost my passport (possible), my baggage could have been lost (more likely), I could have been robbed by gypsies (less likely), or the train could have been rigged to explode had it decelerated below 55 mph (since I am, thankfully, not Keanu Reeves, well outside the realm of possibility). None of these things happened. But here’s what did.
The morning started out cold and brisk in Wellington with an ATM run and a quick nutritional investment (a Cadbury chocolate bar tucked into my inside coat pocket for later) before my cab showed up at good ol' 11 Landcross Street. I pressed my forehead against the window as we approached the docks in the hopes of seeing my ship, Arahua. The Arahua is one of two ferry boats that takes passengers between the straits of the North and South Islands and to Picton in about 3 hours. What a ship she was. Among the many facilities included on the ferry were a bar, a cafeteria, a movie theater, a salon, and an anti-gravity chamber if I recall correctly. But out of all the places in the ship a young man could choose to spend his time (not the bar mainly because morning drinking didn’t seem especially appealing… and their selection was pitiful), I found the observation deck to be the most entertaining. The wind in my hair and the smell of the ocean, it was all terribly exciting. I felt like I imagined my ancestors did crossing the Atlantic, headed for the New World with packs on their backs and a pocket full of dreams. Then, unlike my ancestors, I was smacked in the face the by a wind-blown pink hat belonging to a nice lady from Pennsylvania. She took my picture for me as an apology.
Three hours, several hundred pages of a Bill Bryson book, and one fish and chips later, the Arahua greeted the shores of Picton. My fellow passengers wordlessly formed a mindless herd and milled towards a stairwell. Out of lack of any sense of direction, I followed them. The cattle drive eventually brought me to a lower deck that I imagine would have made a pleasant home for Plague-carrying rats. I gingerly stepped over pulleys as large as infants and great rotting wooden beams littering the floor, instantly regretting my decision to follow the horde. This was probably how my ancestors actually felt.
Unlike my ancestors, I managed to get off the boat and enter the new land without having to change my last name or anything like that. In fact, as soon as I got off the gangway, I was pretty much forgotten about. I stared helplessly up at the numerous signs indicating all manner of services, railway station not included. I swallowed my manly pride (I would have preferred a beer) and asked for directions. Apparently the railway station was literally next door to the ferry dock. Way to go, Max. So three minutes later, I was tucked away in car U of the Tranz Scenic with minutes to spare.
The train departed from Platform 9 (3/4 more and a boyhood dream would have been fulfilled) at 2:00 for a five-hour journey down the South Island’s scenic eastern coast. I often promote myself as a cynical optimist or sometimes an optimistic cynic (there is a subtle but distinct difference between the two), but there is something about train travel that brings out the romantic in me. In the literary sense at least. I pictured myself right in the middle of Murder on the Orient Express as the train rumbled along, just waiting for the conductor to call upon my sleuthing prowess to solve a ghastly murder in the first class compartment. The next moment I was James Bond dodging assassins in train cars while hightailing it out of Russia.
Meanwhile, back in reality, I sat in a bright blue seat, my focus alternating between my book and the landscape. Watching the scenery blur by like it did, I could have easily been in a very advanced Disneyworld ride. Certainly this wasn’t reality. The landscape would change from luscious beaches to rolling pines straight out of Yellowstone, and then back again with some jungle ferns in between. I am pretty sure we went straight through Narnia.
I would have asked the young Indian couple sitting directly across from me if they had seen any lions, witches, or wardrobes, but thought better of it. They were actually very pleasant travelling companions. They had been living in New York for the past two years where the woman (I never got her name) was studying to be a dentist (she had been one in India and was getting her degree Americanized) and her husband Ahmed was attending law school. They politely asked me about myself, but due to their incomplete grasp of English, I’m pretty sure that they walked away with the impression that I was a PhD student. I was too flattered to argue. We spent most of the time in contented silence, however. Normally I am not a supporter of public display of affection (I have been known to use a water gun to make my views known), but I had to make an exception for these two. The two of them seemed so happy together, so happy to be in New Zealand, so happy in general. Also the fact that they we would be sitting within five feet of each other for five hours forced us to accept the situation. They had each other and me…. well, I had my book. A little sad, yes, but definitely not the most pathetic event of the evening.
The train creaked into Christchurch at about 7:00 to the general relief of all. I caught a shuttle to my hotel and settled in without problems. An apologetic smile and a slightly befuddled, yet still earnest, expression works wonders over here. The concierge even gave me a voucher for a free drink at the hotel bar (I guess I looked like I needed it?). For frugality’s sake, I decided to eat there to save some much-needed money. Remember when I said that the saddest part of the night was yet to come? It showed up at dinner. I was literally the only patron in the entire restaurant. I think the maître de was embarrassed. As was the bartender. Pretty much every employee there felt awkward as I shuffled over to one of the several dozen empty tables. The redeeming feature of the meal, if you could call it that, was the style of the food. The place was a Scottish restaurant, and Scottish food, like all of Scottish culture, was created based on a series of escalating dares. So when my eyes came across fried Haggis balls on the menu, the Braveheart theme started playing and my vision went tartan. And so my first act on what promises to be a weekend of daring and adventure was eating fried sheep innards. My Celtic forbearers, though they wore skirts in freezing weather and played an instrument that looks an awful lot like a handheld vacuum my family owned when I was kid, made a pretty decent dish. Maybe it was the combination of haggis, a margarita, and penne pasta (some food connoisseur is rolling over in his grave right now), maybe it was the five-hour train ride, but whatever it was, it had me exhausted by the end of the meal.
Tomorrow morning begins my odyssey into all that is awesome in southern New Zealand. With the picturesque cathedral outside my hotel room window looming over me like a sober judge, the idea of cavorting about town suddenly lost its appeal. An omen, perhaps? God, I hope not.
Christchurch is the largest city of New Zealand’s South Island. I currently have a perfect view from my lodgings of the huge cathedral in the city’s center. I don’t know if it is the eponymous church of the city, but it is still impressive. When I woke up this morning, my mind was flooded with thousands of possibilities of how my trip here could go wrong. I could have lost my passport (possible), my baggage could have been lost (more likely), I could have been robbed by gypsies (less likely), or the train could have been rigged to explode had it decelerated below 55 mph (since I am, thankfully, not Keanu Reeves, well outside the realm of possibility). None of these things happened. But here’s what did.
The morning started out cold and brisk in Wellington with an ATM run and a quick nutritional investment (a Cadbury chocolate bar tucked into my inside coat pocket for later) before my cab showed up at good ol' 11 Landcross Street. I pressed my forehead against the window as we approached the docks in the hopes of seeing my ship, Arahua. The Arahua is one of two ferry boats that takes passengers between the straits of the North and South Islands and to Picton in about 3 hours. What a ship she was. Among the many facilities included on the ferry were a bar, a cafeteria, a movie theater, a salon, and an anti-gravity chamber if I recall correctly. But out of all the places in the ship a young man could choose to spend his time (not the bar mainly because morning drinking didn’t seem especially appealing… and their selection was pitiful), I found the observation deck to be the most entertaining. The wind in my hair and the smell of the ocean, it was all terribly exciting. I felt like I imagined my ancestors did crossing the Atlantic, headed for the New World with packs on their backs and a pocket full of dreams. Then, unlike my ancestors, I was smacked in the face the by a wind-blown pink hat belonging to a nice lady from Pennsylvania. She took my picture for me as an apology.
Three hours, several hundred pages of a Bill Bryson book, and one fish and chips later, the Arahua greeted the shores of Picton. My fellow passengers wordlessly formed a mindless herd and milled towards a stairwell. Out of lack of any sense of direction, I followed them. The cattle drive eventually brought me to a lower deck that I imagine would have made a pleasant home for Plague-carrying rats. I gingerly stepped over pulleys as large as infants and great rotting wooden beams littering the floor, instantly regretting my decision to follow the horde. This was probably how my ancestors actually felt.
Unlike my ancestors, I managed to get off the boat and enter the new land without having to change my last name or anything like that. In fact, as soon as I got off the gangway, I was pretty much forgotten about. I stared helplessly up at the numerous signs indicating all manner of services, railway station not included. I swallowed my manly pride (I would have preferred a beer) and asked for directions. Apparently the railway station was literally next door to the ferry dock. Way to go, Max. So three minutes later, I was tucked away in car U of the Tranz Scenic with minutes to spare.
The train departed from Platform 9 (3/4 more and a boyhood dream would have been fulfilled) at 2:00 for a five-hour journey down the South Island’s scenic eastern coast. I often promote myself as a cynical optimist or sometimes an optimistic cynic (there is a subtle but distinct difference between the two), but there is something about train travel that brings out the romantic in me. In the literary sense at least. I pictured myself right in the middle of Murder on the Orient Express as the train rumbled along, just waiting for the conductor to call upon my sleuthing prowess to solve a ghastly murder in the first class compartment. The next moment I was James Bond dodging assassins in train cars while hightailing it out of Russia.
Meanwhile, back in reality, I sat in a bright blue seat, my focus alternating between my book and the landscape. Watching the scenery blur by like it did, I could have easily been in a very advanced Disneyworld ride. Certainly this wasn’t reality. The landscape would change from luscious beaches to rolling pines straight out of Yellowstone, and then back again with some jungle ferns in between. I am pretty sure we went straight through Narnia.
I would have asked the young Indian couple sitting directly across from me if they had seen any lions, witches, or wardrobes, but thought better of it. They were actually very pleasant travelling companions. They had been living in New York for the past two years where the woman (I never got her name) was studying to be a dentist (she had been one in India and was getting her degree Americanized) and her husband Ahmed was attending law school. They politely asked me about myself, but due to their incomplete grasp of English, I’m pretty sure that they walked away with the impression that I was a PhD student. I was too flattered to argue. We spent most of the time in contented silence, however. Normally I am not a supporter of public display of affection (I have been known to use a water gun to make my views known), but I had to make an exception for these two. The two of them seemed so happy together, so happy to be in New Zealand, so happy in general. Also the fact that they we would be sitting within five feet of each other for five hours forced us to accept the situation. They had each other and me…. well, I had my book. A little sad, yes, but definitely not the most pathetic event of the evening.
The train creaked into Christchurch at about 7:00 to the general relief of all. I caught a shuttle to my hotel and settled in without problems. An apologetic smile and a slightly befuddled, yet still earnest, expression works wonders over here. The concierge even gave me a voucher for a free drink at the hotel bar (I guess I looked like I needed it?). For frugality’s sake, I decided to eat there to save some much-needed money. Remember when I said that the saddest part of the night was yet to come? It showed up at dinner. I was literally the only patron in the entire restaurant. I think the maître de was embarrassed. As was the bartender. Pretty much every employee there felt awkward as I shuffled over to one of the several dozen empty tables. The redeeming feature of the meal, if you could call it that, was the style of the food. The place was a Scottish restaurant, and Scottish food, like all of Scottish culture, was created based on a series of escalating dares. So when my eyes came across fried Haggis balls on the menu, the Braveheart theme started playing and my vision went tartan. And so my first act on what promises to be a weekend of daring and adventure was eating fried sheep innards. My Celtic forbearers, though they wore skirts in freezing weather and played an instrument that looks an awful lot like a handheld vacuum my family owned when I was kid, made a pretty decent dish. Maybe it was the combination of haggis, a margarita, and penne pasta (some food connoisseur is rolling over in his grave right now), maybe it was the five-hour train ride, but whatever it was, it had me exhausted by the end of the meal.
Tomorrow morning begins my odyssey into all that is awesome in southern New Zealand. With the picturesque cathedral outside my hotel room window looming over me like a sober judge, the idea of cavorting about town suddenly lost its appeal. An omen, perhaps? God, I hope not.
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