Riwaka Resurgence

Rachel and a few of her co-workers from the Playhouse invited me along on a roadtrip to Golden Bay.  I gladly accepted, and we headed out towards Takaka in the afternoon. The first stop was to see the Crystal Pools.  Two of the girls from the playhouse were told by a resident stoner that these pools were seriously amazing, but seriously hard to find.  He gave them some written instructions to follow, and we were confident in our navigational skills needed to find the pools.

The first bit was fairly straight forward.  We spotted the small sign that signalled the turn off the main highway. After that, "5.9 km Rd on left, Riwaka Valley Left Branch.  Drive straight ahead - DO NOT CROSS BRIDGE!" Sure enough, we saw the sign for Riwaka Valley Left Branch and turned onto it.  Here we hit our first obstacle.  Within ten metres of turning onto the road, we had to cross a bridge.  Another review of the note made it seem as though the directions must be referring to a bridge further along since we still had 8km to go. After a few hundred metres, the road changed to gravel.  We passed a few farm houses, then some grazing cattle, and then it was just us and the road.

As we chugged along in Nico's station wagon, the path started to get a bit bumpy.  There were fences on either side of the road with signs that showed we were surrounded by the private property of Riwaka Forestry Industries.  That didn't phase us, as there are heaps of hikes and points of interest in New Zealand that require you to cut across farmland.  We hit a few cattle gates that needed to be manually opened, but that was normal too. Further along, the road was so bumpy that the ground was loudly scraping the undercarriage of the station wagon.  It had also rained recently, and the puddles were fairly deep in some places.  At first, the off-road adventure was funny.  But the road kept getting worse, and the noises coming from under the car were awful.  We were also very aware that we were well out of cell service - if the car stopped running, we'd have to walk a long way back to the main road to get help.  Nico kept driving as the rest of us began hugging ourselves with pained expressions on our faces.  After the car had a particularly prolonged painful connection with the ground, we started to get out to lighten the carriage as Nico drove over the dips and hop back in on the other side.

We finally came to the first place we were able to turn the car around.  Rachel suggested we walk the rest of the way.  Nico looked at his odometer and said he didn't want to walk the last 4km, and was willing to keep driving.  So we kept going for about 400 more metres when the road abruptly ended.  We got out of the car to look around, and Rachel suddenly pointed out where the tire tracks continued- on the other side of the river.  Welp. A+ for effort. We tried. Time to turn back.

Nico had to drive in reverse down the narrow, horribly uneven road with mud and pools of water threatening to trap the car everywhere.  Once we got out of the forest, things started to become horribly funny.  We started to point out to eachother, with the clarity of hindsight, all the glaring signs we had missed or ignored.  These were things like how the road was obviously only made for tractors, or the multiple signs along the road with phrases like "Private property" or 'Multiple Hazard Areas".  We also had squeezed past a fallen tree that was laying across the road.  Best of all: we had crossed 3 bridges on our way to the middle of nowhere.

Rachel quietly pushed the paper with directions to the back seat to confirm that we had misread them: we hadn't realized that the directions only wanted us to use Riwaka Road Left as a marker.  We were supposed to continue past, driving, as the note says, straight ahead.

When we finally got back to the main road, we drove down the nicely paved path to the well-signed carpark full of other tourists.  The car-wrecking adventure was worth it. The water really was crystal clear, and ran over quartz rock that was surrounded by mossy green boulders and forest.  New Zealand, you've outdone yourself yet again.

Election Day

For the first time in decades, the provincial government of Alberta was not guaranteed before the citizens actually voted in the 2012 election.  Oh, Alberta.  The Texas of Canada. The land of the cowboy redneck.  The province that gushes money as readily as oil.  It stands for so many things I am against, but it is still home.

The only thing that could possibly take over the permanent PC conservative government here would be a MORE conservative government.  This ridiculous prospect has manifested itself as 'The Wild Rose Party'.  Early media reports showed that the Wild Rose was a joke - a party made up of fundamentalist Christians, climate change deniers, and supporters of removing rights from minorities.  So as the election drew nearer, it was very surprising (although it shouldn't have been) that the WRP was doing well in the polls.  In an election like this one, I wanted to make sure my vote was counted as a non-supporter of these principles.  So, a month before election day, I applied for a special ballot, had one sent here, proudly voted non Wild Rose, and sent it back to Edmonton. And then had to wait for the rest of the province to catch up. 

Today was election day, and Facebook was abuzz over the possibile outcomes. Normally when an election happens, I plant myself in front of the TV when the polls close and sit there for the rest of the night, watching the results come in and talking to my friends about our triumphs and failures in this lovely democracy. I obviously couldn't do that here, but at 2 PM I was refreshing election results on my computer and texting back and forth with people from Alberta. I probably would have done this all evening, but at 3, Rachel came into town and the pull of sunshine was too strong.  We headed to the beach while my friends continued to update me via text.  Rachel was playing a mix of happy music out of her portable speakers, and as we pulled into the parking lot, news came through on my phone: Wild Rose did not get a majority, they did not even get any seats north of Red Deer.   Even better, Edmonton was dotted with various parties other than the PC standby.  I was feeling amazing. The Flaming Lips “The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song" came on the mix, and we ran/danced up over the boardwalk to the beach, singing along and running to meet the ocean. I felt like I was in a movie.  The sun was shining, the temperature was perfect, I was splashing around in a tank and shorts in the middle of April, dancing like a mad woman on the beach, and politics at home weren't as depressing as usual. Life is good.

Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.

Victory Pose

My Sexy Ride

Jenny and Nick, as stereotypically generous Kiwis, let woofers borrow their van.  The van is quite large, and at first I was a bit intimidated by the double whammy of driving such a large vehicle on the other side of the road.  My fears were unfounded though, as my comfort in driving around Nelson makes it seem as though the van and I have been together for years.  I zoom around town in my sexy diesel ride and accelerate and deaccelarate with slothlike efficiency.  Heavy groceries? You just have to carry them out to the parking lot.  Want to go to the beach that is a 45 minute walk away? Drive there in 5 minutes! Your friend found a job a 30km out of town? Go ahead and see her!

But my time with the green bullet is coming to an end, which means all of you reading this in Canada should be very, very afraid for my return to driving on the right-handed side of the road.  Which side of the steering wheel is for wipers and which side is for signal light again?

Fruit Trees

If I ever own a house with a large yard in a temperate climate, I am going to fill it with fruit trees.  I really don't know how I'm going to cope this summer in Edmonton when the only fruit that grows in my backyard is apples.  And they only ripen in late August. 

Here in Nelson, I have been able to enjoy nashi pears, tangellos, feijoas, apples, lemons, avocados, and walnuts all straight from the tree. These in turn have been turned into gelatos, dessert crumbles, freshly squeezed juice, and guacamole.  On ground level, there is an abundance of spices like bayleaf, parsley, and rosemary growing everywhere.  It's also a nice treat that even though we're well into autumn, there is no frost and the garden in the back is still producing tomatoes, zucchini, and lettuce.

Buying these things in a supermarket is just not as fulfilling.  Edmonton, why must you insist on being so far north?! 

Shoeless

Sometimes I think I could have been born a Kiwi. I have fallen in love with their easygoing natures, love of the outdoors and being active, and do it yourself mentality. Of course, that doesn't even begin to cover my love affair with the country itself, with its rolling green hills, tropical rainforests, staggering mountain peaks, and boundless coastline. It also helps that the latitude in this country creates a climate that is a lot more forgiving than Edmonton. When it comes down to it though, I haven't felt a pull so strong that I would want to spend the rest of my life a 14+ hour plane ride from all my friends and family back home. So Canada still has my heart.

Despite all this, there is one thing I know I'm really going to hate going back to when I come back home: wearing shoes.

I have never particularly liked shoes or even socks, although winter forces me to keep my toes warm in them. In the summers, my feet are generally calloused and the skin is perfectly thick, ready to walk over anything without too much trouble. When I worked at Fort Edmonton, my bare feet were hidden underneath my floor-sweeping 1885 era dress. My co-workers shook their heads. When I was studying in HUB mall and got a bit peckish, I would head to the nearest food shop without bothering to put my shoes back on. The other students in the building did double takes all over the place. But here in New Zealand, sans shoes is the natural state of being—to the point where half the people in the grocery store are walking around the supermarket in their bare feet. This hasn't been practical for me since I generally have to walk at least 10 minutes to get to the nearest store, but today I was driving the van home and stopped at the supermarket.  I ditched my shoes under the gas pedals, and proudly walked into the store.  My conversion into a Kiwi is almost complete.