Wanaka, New Zealand

Day 17

I obviously don't know it at the time, but the best times I've had so far will be in Wanaka.

My day starts out with a bus ride further south to a town called Wanaka.  It's an early bus and I'm tired, but I wait to sleep until the bus leaves.  I scan the incoming passengers for familiar faces.  Oddly enough, I see Hannah get on the bus right before it leaves, so our paths will cross yet again.  I close my eyes and sleep until our first stop for breakfast, a which point I wander over to the table where Hannah is sitting.  She is with with another girl; Sylvie from Canada.  Her primary language is French but speaks very good English.  The three of us are best friends on the bus to Wanaka.  We (mostly Sylvie) talk about traveling in Asia, and how it is a bit more difficult than traveling in New Zealand.  She tells me to imagine myself as a giant wallet filled with money.  "This is how the people in Thailand will see you. Get used to it.  Accept it." she says.

When we arrive, I immediately like the place.  It's right on a blue lake in the mountains.  Sylvie tells me she is going to stay at 'Wanaka Backpacka'. I immediately recognize the name because someone I've previously talked to said it was a great place, so we go together.  Hannah wants to camp somewhere, so we leave her behind.  The hostel is right on the lake, with great views.  In fact, it's the best hostel I've stayed in so far.  We settle in and work on a plan for the rest of the day; Puzzling World it is. It's a tourist trap, but it looks fun so we decide to go for the rest of the day.  They have holograms, a big outdoor maze, and other games/riddles/problem solving games to play around with.  

Sylvie and I set out to walk the 2k's to the infamous Puzzling World.  It takes about 45 minutes to get there, but it seems like far less because there is no break in the conversation.  I wasn't sure I liked Sylvie at first, but after the walk I decide that she's really cool.  We buy some cherries from a local grower on the street on the way.  It's cherry season in New Zealand and those were the best cherries I've ever had.  

Puzzling World is interesting and ultimately fun.  The best thing they have is a maze with bridges, towers, and over a km of paths.  The sign informs us that the maze has 2 versions; one is easy an takes 30 to 45 minutes to complete, the other is hard and takes 1 to 1.5 hours to complete.  We look at one another with an unspoken agreement that we should tackle to hard one.  

Fast forward an hour:  We've solved most of the maze, walked probably 4km, and begin to get frustrated.  We've done the maze very methodically, checking off all the "options" as we go; some are dead ends, some are future paths we need to take.  We must have missed something and now everything looks the same and we can't find the path we need.  Gahh!  We decide to grab a drink to replenish our energy, which works, and we complete the maze with a victory high-five (and a hidden sigh of relief).  There is no one else left in the place; everyone else has gone home.

This experience reaffirms my understanding that you have to make the best of situations, and the people you surround yourself with matter.  I had more fun doing a stupid maze with Sylvie than hiking up a glacier with people who I didn't really connect with.  We seemed to get in this groove where we both understood that we were only here for a short time, so we created a fun atmosphere for ourselves even under challenging circumstances.  We built it and maintained it. Teamwork at it's finest.

We take a goofy picture and head back to the hostel, make dinner, and plan what to do the next day.  There  is an understanding that after beating the maze, we will be a team from then on. We have many different "options" for tomorrow,which is lingo we carry over from the maze experience; an inside joke.   We make some tea and eat some chocolate as the sunsets over the lake.  I share my wifi, she shares her Lonely Planet, and we decide to sleep in and meet up between 10 and 11.  

Tomorrow we will walk around the lake to a winery for wine tasting, come back for lunch, then head out to a more aggressive hike up Mt Iron.  The stars are ridiculous tonight, and you can see the milky way perfectly.  

Goofy picture

Lake Wanaka

Bathroom in Puzzling World

Day 18

I sleep in for once which feels excellent, but I'm also ready to get up and enjoy the day.  I meet Sylvie in the kitchen around 10, we make breakfast, and take it outside to a picnic bench overlooking the lake.  It's going to be a nice sunny day for sure.  We review our plans and talk for awhile.  A German girl (Nora) wanders over to the table and says hi.  We all make small talk and invite her to come along to the vineyard with us.  More the merrier.  She tells us that she would like to come but has to do laundry first.  She will meet us later in the day for the Mt Iron hike.

We are almost ready to go (backpacks on, water bottles filled, sunscreen applied) when I run into my roommate from last night.  I haven't really met him yet, but ask him if he wants to join us.  He thinks about it for a couple seconds and says "yes, i would like to go" in a German accent.  It is a good decision because the three of us end up having a good time.  I find out his name is Philip and he has been traveling in New Zealand for 9 months now.  Sylvie adds in that she has been in New Zealand for only 3 days but has been traveling in southeast Asia for the past 2 months.  She is on a 10 month trip around the world.  At some point soon I'll also have some traveler street cred.  It's a funny thing that happens when people meet one another out here.  People kind of size one another up with 2 questions: where have you been and how long have you been gone.  The more (and weirder) countries the better and the longer away from home the better.  You gain a subtle amount of respect by answering these questions properly.

The three of us start out on the trail to the vineyard.  It goes along the lake and the willow trees on the side of trail create a shady, breezy walk which is nice.  We share stories, laugh, and generally have a good time on the way there.  The vineyard is on a hill overlooking the lake and when we get close, we see a couple hawks circling over the vineyard looking for rabbits.  The grapes are in long strait rows that seem to go on for miles.  A dog greets us as we make our way to the tasting place: an open air house on the top of the hill.    I begin to think that I could be perfectly content working on the vineyard picking grapes all day.  Better views than working in a cube, for example.     

           

We get to try 8 different wines and decide to buy a bottle to share for dinner later in the evening.  We make our way back to the hostel for lunch, relax, and wait around for Nora.  Philip decides that he is going to go fishing in the lake while we go hiking Mt. Iron.  Nora shows up a couple minutes later and we get ready to head out again.  Just as we are about to go, Philip walks in with a huge trout he just caught. He immediately gains the attention of everyone in the place and tells Sylvie and I that we are having fish for dinner.  We nod in agreement, give him a high-five, and head out.        

On the hike Nora tells us that she just graduated with her masters degree in social work.  At this point we realize that all of us have masters degrees, and thus have found a common bond.  It's important to find these with the people you meet.  The more common views/experiences/backgrounds you find, the better friends you will become.  And it doesn't matter if people are from different countries or backgrounds either...you can always find something.  We get to the top of Mt Iron and are rewarded with a 360 degree view of the area.

Back at the hostel Philip shows us a second fish that he caught which is almost as big as the first; a salmon this time. I make a pasta dish that I have perfected out here, Philip fillets and cooks the fish, and Sylvie pours the wine.  This teamwork creates the best dinner I have had out here so far.  We don't leave the table for another 3 hours.  Eventually Philip goes to get his guitar and plays softly as we continue the conversation until about midnight.  We are the last ones up.

At the end of the night we slowly realize that our time together is over.  We are all going separate directions tomorrow and it's a sad time.  In fact, saying goodbye to those you meet is the single hardest part about living out here.Tonight it's particularly hard.  You share your time together in a far off land, often doing crazy things together, and you develop friendships quickly.  There's a certain balance which always exists though.  The stronger the friendships you make, the worse the goodbyes are.  And if you are doing it right, this happens over and over again.  I think the correct way to deal with this reality is to simply realize that the next friend will come along, and you shouldn't hold back just because you know it will be hard to say goodbye.  There's a life lesson here somewhere I'm sure.

Rippon Vineyard

Mt Iron

Day 19

I decide in the morning to stay in Wanaka another day.  It's a nice day and I need a break from doing things and meeting people.  You almost never get any alone time out here.  You are around other people constantly; cooking, eating, drinking, even sleeping   I spend most of the day writing and sitting by the lake.  

As I’m walking back to the hostel, a guy waves over to me.  I say “hey, what’s up!” before I recognize who it is exactly.  Upon closer examination I find it is a German guy (yes, there are a lot of Germans out here) I was with in Franz Joseph.  I sit down for awhile and talk to him and his 2 new friends; an English guy and New Zealand guy.  They have been hiking for the past 2 days, just hitchhiked into Wanaka, bought some beer, and sat on the lake under a tree to relax.  I relax with them.  They offer me a beer, and we hang out for the next hour or so.  I really wasn’t expecting to see anyone today, but it was a pleasant surprise.      

The stars are the best I’ve ever seen out here.  I wandered out to the picnic bench and lay on top and look up for awhile.  My eyes slowly adjust to the dark and I see millions of stars; the Milky Way is bright.   I notice that some stars are moving at a constant pace across the sky.  Of course these are not stars at all, but man-made satellites tracking across the sky.  I guess the sun reflects light off them, kind of like the moon, which is why you can see them.  It’s kind of crazy that people are smart enough to build those things, shoot them up in rockets, and you can see them as tiny specs of light from earth.  

I look forward to going Queenstown tomorrow.

Hanging out on the beach

View from the hostel