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!)