Tag: South Pacific

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Taming the Beast

Melbourne, Vic, AU

Leaving Melbourne we found ourselves with the same situation we faced in Auckland.  How the heck do we get around?  Additionally, Australia is a vast and for the most part barren place devoid of human habitation…much less hotels.  Those hotels and hostels that are around charge exactly what you’d think they would when they are the only bed for the next 200 or so miles.

We found that, like New Zealand, long term travelers in Australia tend to purchase cheap cars or camper vans to get around and have a place to sleep at night.  Wanting to have the genuine Australian backpacker adventure and having just come off a very positive used car experience in New Zealand, we decided this was for us.

Our Kiwi car never got a name.  It just never seemed like it needed one.  However, the second we saw the 1988 Mitsubishi Triton that would become our own wheels down under we both looked at each other and knew this “ute” (Aussie for “pickup truck”) had a name,

Say hello to ‘The Beast’

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So, have you seen a kangaroo?

Melbourne, Vic, AU

Yes, yes we’ve seen a kangaroo…

As Americans, Australia is fascinating in a completely different way than any other country in the world.  Because of all the other countries out there, Australia is the one where we can look at what they have done and say, “but for a few key choices, that could have been us.”

Our mainland is similar size, we have the same parent-nation and defacto common base language.  Most of both of our neighbours are from a different culture (US is beside Latin / Spanish influence while Australia is right next to Asia.)  Australians came, in large part, from prisoners while the US got started, at least in the eyes of England, as basically a bunch of armed insurrectionists.  After declaring independence, we’ve both maintained close ties with the motherland, we both had to resolve conflict with a native population, we both face similar issues on fronts of economics and immigration…we could go on.  Our two countries had a lot in common starting out and face many similar challenges to this day.

Like slurpee brain freezes

Which is why it’s so fascinating how we have both developed along slightly different paths.

Wow, Kentucky cricket…who knew!?

Unlike the other countries we’ve been to, the fascinating thing is not how massively different life here is from what we’re used to.

With Oz, the interesting things are in the details of living.

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Our Original Plan

Enroute Melbourne, AU

So ends our time with Dan and our adventures in the land of the Kiwi.  But New Zealand isn’t the kind of country that goes out on a sad note or at least without some final amusing antidotes.  A fact they made sure we realized as got ready to board a plane and fly to our next destination.

“Wait, what!?  A plane!?  You guys use those!?”

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Christchurch, New Zealand

Christchurch, NZ

We have, to a degree, made light of the titanic forces that shaped and continue to mold this tiny island nation within the South Pacific’s ring of fire.  We don’t do this out of lack of respect; simply out of acceptance of how very small we as humans are before the fury of Mother Nature.

As people who have lived in Northern California and Southern Florida we have learned to live with the fact that a natural disaster could just up and kill us at any given moment and there is, in the end, precious little we can do about it.  Coming from the San Francisco Bay people ask Greg what they should do if there is an earthquake.  His response,

“The truth of it is that if you actually have enough time to realize that an earthquake is what’s happening, you have more than likely already survived it.”

What he doesn’t say is that conversely, by the time you realize you’re in danger from an earthquake you’re probably already dead.

Christchurch Cathedral
Before the 2nd quake – taken by us
After the quake – thanks to wikipedia

That knowledge, mixed with our unapologetic and absolute love of this country, made the fate of Christchurch weigh heavily on our minds as we prepared to depart New Zealand.

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Blizzard of Independence

Jindabyne, New South Wales, Australia

So a quick jump ahead and a bit of a preview of what’s to come:

We spent the 4th of July in Australia which worked out really well being as our Australian friends had access to things that light on fire and we, as Americans, could provide them with an excuse to use said things that light on fire while consuming beer…all in the name of international friendship.  It should be noted though that this ain’t the Australian outback you’ve been expecting.

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A Teaspoon of Concrete

Mt. Aspiring National Park, NZ

[fgallery id=7 w=450 h=385 t=0 title=”Mount Aspiring Descent”]

After a week of enjoying the excellent company and stunning views provided by living on a mountain surrounded by glaciers and waterfalls from, most importantly, behind the protective barrier of a New Zealand hut, the day finally came for us to depart.  Unfortunately no one decided to tell the rain.

Now seems an opportune moment to discuss a little saying, a philosophy if you will, that we’ve found is said down here when things get a little tough:

“Take a teaspoon of concrete and harden up!”

With that little nugget of Kiwi wisdom we depart our shelter and remember that “Kiwi Moderate” cliff face we crawled up a few days ago?

Now it’s a waterfall…and our only way down:

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A Hut Warden’s Life

French Ridge hut
Mt. Aspiring National Park, NZ

Notices posted on the kitchen wall of French Ridge hut:

Seriously, we freaking love these people.

By now we’ve mentioned it enough that you’re probably asking “Hey guys?  What are these huts and wardens and whatnot you keep talking about?”

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Kiwi Moderate

Mt. Aspiring National Park, NZ

Another aspect of friendship is the joint lexicon a group develops over time.  Shared experiences become stories, stories become jokes, jokes become catchphrases and so on until it gets to the point where simply mentioning the last name of a high school teacher will bring smirks, smiles or groans of anguish from the right circle of people while making absolutely no sense to anyone else.

The longer one stays with a given group, the more detailed this secret language becomes.  By extrapolation, one can easily concede that in 11+ years of exclusive relationship (8+ of actual marriage) quite an expansive vocabulary would develop.  We bring this up, dear friends, to issue you fair warning:

Hiking in Sheep PaddocksIf either of us ever describe an activity you are about to join us on as “Kiwi moderate” run away quickly.

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Tramping in New Zealand

Mt. Aspiring National Park, NZ

We live among titans.

We have no other way to describe it.  “gods” seems too presumptuous for monotheists and “demi-gods” too second-rate.  “Champions” too sporty and “giants” too dependent on physical proportions.

Google software engineers, F-16 fighter pilots, world-class preachers, property barons, lawyers and teachers, real-life Coast Guardsmen rescue personnel that make Kevin Costner look like a pansy (and the guy who actually did the stunts for him in the movie), freewheeling gypsies, ivy league college grads & PhDs, internet millionaires, global circumnavigating sailors, national level speakers and coaches, songwriters, sales directors who spend their free time climbing the ice encrusted peaks of Colorado, proud parents of beautiful, intelligent children the list goes on…

These are not people who we hope to someday become, or observe in awe from a distance and pray might deem us good enough to network with.  These are the people with whom we drink beer and play Dungeons and Dragons. (Well, some of them.  The rest are more into video games.  We mix it up.)

Of course, they aren’t all those things to us.  Usually they have first names and are, in general, rather humble about it all.  Nonetheless when we stop to think about it the people around us are quite the collection.  If we are indeed the product of those that surround us then we are grateful for the excellence of those we call friends. (That would be you all, in case you were checking.)

So as you might guess when we get an invite from one of these exceptional people for an amazing adventure, we do our best to make good…

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Regarding the Locals

Enroute Mt. Aspiring, NZ

We would be remiss to recount our many adventures in New Zealand and never once mention the Maori.

The “native” people of New Zealand are themselves settlers from a foreign land.  Polynesian in origin, the Maori trace their roots back to the people of the South Pacific who used their…

“mind-bending supernatural powers of badass navigation so awesome it took the West hundreds of years and a satellite network to replicate what Polynesians could do in their heads around the time the rest of us were learning that fire was hot” 

…to locate, land on and settle these islands a few hundred years before Europe came on the scene.

Massive authentic Maori war canoe : 75 feet long & able to carry 100 warriors to battle.

Eventually the West did show up and to make a long story short we colonized New Zealand and eventually claimed her for England.  The nation retains its card-carrying status as a member of the “Empire on which the sun never sets” to this day as a member of the Commonwealth.

So where did this leave the natives?

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