Dad and Jamie: Wanaka

I'll let the stories come later, but here are the 4000 words of images. Bonus points for anyone who figures out the last one...

Dad and Jamie: To the mountain

It felt almost like we had engineered a slowly-unfolding New Zealand experience. The way to Mount Cook/Aoraki was, as the day before had been, gray and solemn. The mood in the car was bubbling, though, as we all searched through the clouds for the mountains we were off to see. Dad joked about New Zealand going easy on him, acclimating his eyes to the scenery in the near black-and-white of an overcast day before blinding him with both the shapes and the colours in the full sun.

The road from Twizel was perfection itself. We meandered along a beautiful lake, nestled in hills. We found ourselves in an unexpected traffic jam along the way—only four cars but ten times that many cows, spreading out over the road. The cows were being controlled by skilful dogs and cowboys (because they’d have to be actual cowboys right?), who were crossing them from one pasture to the next. We watched, enthralled with the show of nature in the water and hills and cows on the road, until the cows took a sidestep off the road and onto greener pastures.

Eventually, the delight of the ride was over and the actual mountain was before us. The visitor centres at Mt Cook are modern and sleek, designed to appeal to the many international tourists who show up in regular buses. It is an international scene, with Japanese women covered head-to-toe in merino, Germans looking sleek and blonde, Americans a little over-coiffed for the setting. The lodge could have been anywhere with its soaring ceilings, enormous plate glass windows, posters advertising this or that activity. The mountains, however, were pure New Zealand.

And once we began to walk, crossing paths with French and Dutch and Australian fellow explorers, we were united in our love for this country at this moment. The mountains decided Dad and Jamie had been patient enough, and soon there was blue sky around the peaks, and everything was blue and white and grey and green. We passed a motley collection of people: from everywhere, of every age, wearing everything from parkas to tank tops and flip flops. All of us gaping at the mountains around us. All of us swinging on the swing bridge. All of us baking in the newly hot sun.

This is a merciful country, though, and so once the mountains had been seen and admired, and it was time to turn our back to them and walk back to the car, the clouds closed in again and a misty rain began to fall—not enough to annoy but enough to cool us off from what had begun to be uncomfortably hot.

Dad wanted to sleep after the long walk—and he was still jetlagged after all—but with scenery shouting like this, it was too loud to close his eyes. And so we made our way through landscape that Dad and Jamie kept trying to identify. Were we in Provence? Now in Vermont? Now Africa? And then the Lindis pass and we were on the moon (or anyway, not on earth at all anymore).

It’s not a surprise to me how many different forms of beauty New Zealand can manage to produce in such a small number of miles. But hearing the oohs and ahhhs from the back seat somehow changes everything. For me, it wasn’t just that there was beauty all around me—this I am getting blissfully used to. It was the company. Finally here I was with Dad and Jamie. Our eyes were all seeing the same sight at the same time, with no need to describe it later, my hands uselessly drawing out shapes in the air as I talked on the phone. Here my hands waved at a mountain, and we all saw it. And when Jamie saw a bird take off or a particularly wonderful shade of azure, we all saw that too. Language is a beautiful thing, my favourite medium. But sometimes it is most wonderful when we don’t need any at all.

(pictures today are mostly from this Mt Cook day: the drive in, various mountain shots, the triumphant post-hike picture. The last two are a hint of the day to come: Wanaka in the swim!)

Dad and Jamie: The Beginning

It’s true that I’m not sure there’s enough of interest in this settled kiwi life of mine to keep up a blog as regularly as I could in the early days. But there are events that will happen which may necessitate a blog or two, just to let those who might be following along see the highlight reel of our lives. These last days belong on that reel.

It began on Friday the 15^th of January, when Dad and Jamie stumbled off the plane and into our arms. It had been a weird week of coming and going. Michael left for a workshop in the US on the Tuesday, Naomi came home from 10 days at camp on the Thursday (missing our fantastic WWOOFers who left that morning), and in a burst of delight and exhaustion, suddenly Dad and Jamie were there as well. Rob, who came back from his cool bachelor pad in Wellington to help out, was the perfect host as we tried to keep our weary travellers awake the requisite number of hours (my theory is that if you make it until bedtime on the first day, you’ll be fine from then on out). But up they stayed, eating the amazing food Rob was preparing and soaking in the Paekakariki life. I have been waiting for them to stand in front of my house since we first moved here, have been anxious for the surprised inhale that comes from seeing the sweeping Tasman Sea which is our constant companion. And, while sometimes great expectations lead to grave disappointments, this moment was better than I ever expected, and their speechless delight in our life felt in every way like a dream come true.

The weekend was spent in Paekakariki gray, Jamie reading on the new green loveseat and taking endless walks on our endless beach, Dad sitting in the living room with me and talking and talking. We celebrated birthdays and Christmas past. Monday dawned perfectly clear and they headed into Wellington while I headed into work. The overwhelmingly busy work day was a blur, but the evening walk through the Botanic Gardens, the dinner on the restaurant on the harbour—those are in slow motion. Slow motion too was coming home to a Perry whose leg injury had gotten infected, who was a sick and unhappy dog. Tuesday at work was an agony of worry as beautiful Melissa took Perry to the vet and Dad and Jamie looked after him while I was at work. And on Wednesday, the rush of the work days, the anxiety over a healing Perry (now safely housed with Keith for the next couple of days) the endless housework of the working-mom-on-her-own, the pre-trip preparation—all of it was over and we were off.

We met Michael—newly back from the US—at the airport and we all flew to Christchurch to begin the journey (Michael now in airports or airplanes for 18 hours). We rented a van in Christchurch, and we were off. The first part of the trip was as boring as NZ scenery gets, but we were still so excited to all be back together again that we hardly noticed. And by the time we were ready to sit back and watch the country, the country had begun to dress up for us, getting our eyes used to a little beauty, and then a little more, and then a little more. Finally we were in Lake Tekapo, a magical glacial lake with waters brightly turquoise even in the misty gray afternoon. We marvelled at the colours and shapes—rough blue lake hurling against gray stone, green hills draped with gray clouds, spires of soft lupines alongside the hard stone of the tiny old church.

Onward to Twizel, a town we had heard was good only as a rest stop and not much for that. But our hotel (the Mountain Chalets Motel) was perfection and the little restaurant where we had dinner was unexpectedly delicious. We sat in the town square and drank New Zealand wine in the evening gray and hoped that in the morning the sky would clear enough to go visit Mount Cook. And in the morning, the visit to the local DoC office (where we said hello to one of the participants in my leadership development programme) ended with his walking outside to see if the mountain was out. And it was. We were off to see the highest mountain in the Southern Hemisphere. It was an auspicious beginning.