Up north (-ern hemisphere)

Posted on April 6, 2010 by Christina Kenny

Day 54: Sydney International Airport
Barbaric Striplit Holding Pen
01.00

It turns out that Sydney International Airport does not open its doors to travellers until 3 a.m. It also transpires that the airport provides nearly, but not quite enough seating for those passengers who are scheduled to check in during the early hours but who do not possess sufficient funds to hire a taxi to take them to the airport at that time. The result being that it is now one a.m. on Monday morning and I am sitting on a pile of dirty laundry on the floor beneath the departures board, as opposed to reclining on Denise’s sofa with a big glass of wine and the prospect of a couple of hours’ sleep.

At least the situation gives me a brief opportunity to blog. I’ve spent the week since my last entry in Sydney with Denise, a friend made in New Zealand. I travelled from Melbourne by train; a journey through uninteresting scrubland lasting 11.5 hours of which a goodly number were spent entertaining someone else’s under-tens. Zach and JJ were travelling with their grandfather, who explained to me between regular thwacks of his rolled-up newspaper that, while smacking children has recently been made illegal in Australia, it’s acceptable ‘as long as you don’t make any marks’. The boys were entirely unmoved by any of their grandpa’s remonstrations, and spent the first hours of the journey rolling around the carriage floor locked in combat and swearing fluently until they discovered that the British girl by the window objected to her feet being stood on.

There followed five hours during which the boys became considerably quieter and actually rather sweet. The six-year-old solemnly went through a woman’s magazine with me, picking out dresses that he would buy for me when big enough (we will meet in Canberra in ten years’ time to make the exchange). His brother, looking over my shoulder, informed me that he had met ‘that woman’ (Lady Gaga) and had in fact seen her in concert (for $10) where she sang Yellow Submarine for him. They fought viciously for the privilege of sitting next to me, and we played a succession of games, the surprise favourite of which being Let’s See Who Can Stay The Quietest And Most Still For The Longest Time (laughter rules apply). Not the brightest children you’ll ever meet. By the time the train disgorged the boys and their ineffectual grandparent at Canberra, I was exhausted but could feel waves of gratitude emanating from the other occupants of the carriage, who clearly felt that I had taken one for the team.

I could easily and for a similar price have made the trip to Sydney by plane, but decided against it: while travelling to the other side of the planet means that my personal carbon footprint is gigantic (and scarcely dented by a so-called eco-friendly insurance policy), I would still rather fly only when really necessary, given time restraints. Besides which, I think its important to experience the landscape you’re passing through in order to reach a destination, and flying diminishes our conception of distance. Widespread commercial flights have reduced the experience of travelling to entering a metal tube in one place and emerging hours later in another. This seems perfectly normal nowadays because being on an aeroplane, plugged into a personal entertainment system with the porthole cover down (I can’t understand people who do this) is such a sanitized, homogenizing experience that we even complain when a journey to another country, continent or hemisphere takes over 12 hours to complete. Well, frankly, it should. It’s a long way.

I think I might try to drape myself over my valuables and attempt a short snooze before they open the airport. But first, impressions of Sydney.

a) The city is very large with many skyscrapers, tourists, pregnant women, joggers, and people with broken limbs (too much jogging?)

b) The Opera House was pretty cool.

c) Bondi Beach was a let-down. Bronte and Clovelly beaches were better. Manly wins because the lifeguards all have ‘Manly Lifeguard’ written on their T-shirts.

That’s all you need to know for now. Next stop: Dubai.

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Day 44: Williamstown, Melbourne

Posted on March 25, 2010 by Christina Kenny

I started to write this post in the departures lounge at Auckland airport as I waited to board a flight to Melbourne. My pack was checked in and I was through security. I’d filled in my departure card. My Australian visa was ready. My walking shoes were clean. I’d been frisked for fruit and veg and was, according to Biosecurity, ready to go. But I wasn’t. Not really.

I felt genuinely distressed at leaving New Zealand. My instinct now is to write ‘my six week-long stay flew past’. This little cliché, while in many senses accurate, doesn’t quite ring true. My first, vaguely hallucinatory night in Auckland could have been a year ago. Those first days in the Bay Of Islands and on Metro’s bus are mired in the depths of history. I met my cousin Tessa for the first time in Picton on 21 February, barely a month ago, yet feel I’ve known her forever. Living in the moment apparently induces some unusual temporal phenomena. Einstein was a backpacker.

Still, onwards and upwards, and here I am in Australia. I haven’t detected, and therefore cannot report back on any radical cultural shifts since arriving in Melbourne, but this is mostly because I’ve been taking it very, very easy. Two weeks of coughing like the last surviving inmate of a sanatorium has tired me out.

My host in the delightful maritime municipality (their words, not mine) of Williamstown is family friend Heather. Heather is an osteopath by profession, and plied me with echinacea and manuka honey on my arrival. The walls of her beachside flat are decorated with pictures of unicorns, and uplifting quotations from a variety of osteopathic and philosophical sources adorn all other surfaces. Nevertheless, the Berry / Kenny cough, passed from mother to daughter, defeated even this healing environment. Yesterday morning a bleary-eyed Heather informed me in no uncertain terms that it was time to go to the doctor and ‘get some drugs’.

Three doses of expensive yet life-giving amoxycillin later, I’m a new (and significantly quieter) woman. I resented having to pay to visit the doctor. $60 spent on a 90 second consultation and a further $35 on antibiotics and Ventolin blew my budget for the whole week. I’m so used to thinking of free healthcare as a right and not a privilege that the very idea of paying for the service made me bristle with indignation as I sat in the spacious, clean, adequately-staffed waiting room. Still, I showed them. I stole a pen from the reception, which subsequently turned out to be Viagra-branded. Oh yes. The pen will sit proudly in my collection next to my Seroquel XL and Venlafaxine merchandise, as a testament to the NHS and all who sail in her.

In the afternoon I felt so much better that I travelled into Melbourne City for a recce. On Sunday I’m due to meet Liz, Wendy and Raymond for a post-Formula One evening of carousing, and I feel it incumbent upon me to locate appropriate establishments for our patronage. High on the list thus far ranks the City Wine Shop on Spring Street: a cellar-like shop-cum-bar that reminds me of Gordon’s and whose shelves, I was assured by the smugly handsome waiter, hide some refreshingly inexpensive treasures. Then perhaps on to Double Happiness, a bar serving ‘fusion cocktails in Chinese socialist propaganda surrounds’ (with tourist propaganda like this,who even needs cocktails?), and maybe dinner in Chinatown at the happily-named Yuriya restaurant. Kidneys, anyone?

I would have continued my research today but for my unfortunate decision to go to the beach in the morning. This marked me as a true Brit. We go on holiday to a warm place and, when the initial excitement of changing from pale blue to white has worn off, foolishly imagine we can go one step further and get ourselves a full-blown suntan. It’s with difficulty that I’ve managed to type anything at all today. One hour in the late morning sunshine effectively wiped me out. When I stood up, addled by heat and blinded by sun and sweat, I lost my bearings and was forced to wander the coastline consulting my compass periodically but with no conscious understanding of how the readings would affect my situation. When, eventually, I found my way back to Heather’s flat, I was compelled to stand under a cold shower for fifteen minutes until I could remember my surname. Three pints of water later I remembered why I should never sunbathe. Incidental tanning while walking about wearing sunglasses: yes. Sunbathing: no.

I had anticipated that the weather in autumnal Melbourne would be similar to that of New Zealand in late summer. Wrong. The heat here is of an entirely different intensity. You can feel the sun’s burning rays from noon to around four, even through a veil of cloud. I’d been dousing myself in factor 30 since hearing that one in three Kiwis and Australians will suffer from skin cancer. Nonetheless,with this morning’s brilliant blue sky lying heavy above the heat-hazed city of Melbourne across the bay, 25 year’s worth of life experience was thrown to the wind and I resolved that today would be my tanning day.

It wasn’t as ludicrous an idea as some of you might think. Despite the deathly pallor I am known and loved for in the UK, I don’t burn easily. However, I am possibly the only woman under 30 in the Southern Hemisphere who still wears a full swimming costume as opposed to the otherwise mandatory bikini. I haven’t bowed to fashion in this arena for a variety of reasons, the most important being that I do not wish to scare children when disrobing on the beach. In my heart of hearts, I long for a return to the days when everyone wore striped flannel shoulder-to-knee jobs that required the wearer to shake the fish out when returning to dry land: swimming costumes in the truest sense of the word.

My current suit, a retro 50s cut with some nifty support options, is a major contributing factor to my lack of an even tan. Even when I sunbathe with the shoulder straps removed, its complete (though laudable) opacity means that the expanse of flesh ‘twixt breast and thigh remains a luminous white. This is fine by me. Very few people ever see this area, and then, if I can help it, only in poorly-lit scenarios.

What I object to is the sometimes inexplicable discrepancies in hue between all other tannable areas of my body. After today’s session, even discounting the swimsuit zone, my colouring brings to mind one of Ed Gein’s more elaborate creations. While my face, or at least parts of it, has achieved a rather pleasing biscuity tone, my neck remains lily white. My upper arms have turned a mottled red-brown, while my forearms are a much deeper shade of wood stain. Both feet are a subtle coppery colour, interrupted by the unmistakeable lines of jandals. Knee to ankle is a similar shade to my face, while the thigh area, being less frequently exposed, is a pale fawn.

The chestal region, however, is a genuinely intriguing prospect. Geologists can tell stories of the birth of continents by examining sections of strata at the rock face. A trained beautician could tell you where I’ve been and for how long by detailed analysis of my décolletage. From the inexplicably pale base of my neck, the hue grows darker until we reach a band formed on Tuesday 23 February in Abel Tasman National Park. Moving southward, we come to the positively Mediterranean remnant of Friday 19 February (Tongariro). From here the colour tapers to the toffee tones of Queenstown beach (6 March) and fades to the last socially acceptable straps-down session at Tekapo on the eighth. Finally, we enter the alabaster zone of the swimmers.

I shouldn’t complain, as at least 60% of me no longer resembles a freshly-exhumed corpse. But I know from bitter experience that when I get back to the UK expecting friends to marvel at my exotic appearance, I will simply look a bit grubby. Still, if my biggest preoccupations are having a bit of a cough and some uneven tan lines, how bad can life be?

Have YOU been to Melbourne? What did you think? Where did you go? Text your answers to 40678. No, don’t, I just made it up. Write me a comment.

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Day 34: Nelson

Posted on March 15, 2010 by Christina Kenny

 

I arrived into Abel Tasman National Park for the second time two days ago and realised that the last D For Dalrymple missive had been written about the very same place. It has been far too long. To the fans, I’m sorry. Please, keep buying the merchandise.

In the intervening period, I completed my loop of New Zealand’s South Island; participated in a messy costume party in Barrytown (population: nine and one dog), climbed the Franz Josef Glacier, traversed the Haast Pass and Mount Aspiring National Park via Lake Matheson, performed competitive kareoke in Makarora, celebrated my birthday twice in Queenstown with dancing and cocktails drunk from teapots, sailed the Milford Sound, braved three-metre waves on the Stewart Island ferry and angry sea lions on the island itself, visited Dunedin’s chocolate factory and inflicted further kareoke on its blameless residents, had a curling lesson (of the icy variety), spent two further and altogether more sedate nights in Queenstown, stargazed at Lake Tekapo’s Mount John observatory, zipped in and out of Crimechurch as fast as possible, walked the beautiful Kaikoura peninsula, rested two nights with Tessa in Picton, and headed down to Abel Tasman National Park again where I did an 8-hour hike and, best of all, was reunited with the towel I left on a catamaran three weeks ago.

With a list like that you’d have thought I would have ample material for today’s post. Yet I’m struggling. The longer you leave writing, the harder it gets. I’m reduced to writing about writer’s block before even beginning to assault my store of experience. It doesn’t help that I have a cracker of a cough that rigorous exercise and two nights of drinking cheap boxed red wine around the campfire has done nothing to ameliorate.

In general, blogging conditions are looking good – not only because of the beautiful setting, but because of the lack of distraction. Yesterday I waved the southbound Stray bus farewell and made my own way north to Nelson, where I write from a balcony of a beautiful backpackers’ hostel at the base of the Cathedral. Thus far I’ve managed both to nab a bottom bunk – sweet as – and almost entirely evade contact with my new room-mates. The hostel is pretty quiet, but it seems unusual that I’m the only one taking advantage of the amazing balcony. Perhaps word has spread about the cough. I’m not particularly bothered. For one thing, I woke up this morning with no voice. More importantly, it’s really quite nice to have some time to myself.

It’s hard to believe that I could ever have been worried about not meeting anyone on my travels. With so many people travelling alone or in small groups on the buses and in every hostel, i-Site, bar, or tramp, making acquaintances or acquiring whole groups of new friends is a doddle and a pleasure. In my last post I mentioned the intense intimacy its possible to achieve with travelling companions you have known for a few days or even less. There are a few people – Wendy, Denise, Liz, Alex, Steve, Sheena – with whom I travelled for weeks one way or another, and whose friendship extends to the realm of Facebook and therefore to eternity. But it’s easy to make even more transient friendships.

Take my bus of two days ago. When I boarded at Picton, it was with the intention of travelling the short distance to Nelson. Then I got talking to Jerry (24, Tipperary) and Holger (46, Frankfurt) and within an hour decided to come along with them to Abel Tasman to walk a day’s worth of the track, something I missed out on the first time around. The next day, Holger and I teamed up with Kate (29, Liverpool) and Creepy Simon (approx. 15, Germany) and walked 22K from Bark Bay to Marahau. We left at 8.30 and by noon I knew Holger’s birthday and Kate’s preferred bikini-line maintenance habits. Creepy Simon spoke to Holger exclusively in German and unveiled an eye-wateringly skimpy pair of Speedos when we went for a swim at Anchorage, as a result of which I know more about him than I would strictly prefer. In the evenings we drank an unwise volume of the aforementioned boxed wine and stayed up until the early hours chatting with others staying in the farm hostel. Yesterday morning I hopped off the bus at Motueka with a parting warning about Barrytown and a couple of new names in my diary. Over the next couple of days faces will be booked and I’ll have a couple more locations on my mental map of places I can stay for free. It’s fantastic.

Although lately I’ve been spending more time away from the Stray route, it has been the easiest way to meet people so far. The bus attracts all sorts, but like any other company, seems to target a distinct demographic. While the youngest Strayer I’ve met was 18 and the oldest 72, travellers are generally in their late twenties and are predominantly British, Irish, German and Dutch. Most are professionals who are either taking extended leave from work or who have ditched their jobs to go travelling. Nearly all have money. D For Dalrymple feels rather left out in this respect.

The company’s marketing material depicts its customers hiking, relaxing in natural pools, participating in ‘cultural activities’ such as bone carving, and sitting around campfires. While outdoorsy, Stray isn’t as adrenaline-fuelled as Adventure Tours (whom the company owns), and while it pushes its social activities, it’s careful not to appear as outrageously 18-35 as Kiwi Experience (whom Stray’s founder used to run). It’s a safe middle ground.

Stray – and all who board her – exercise a pronounced snobbishness when it comes to customers of rival bus firms Magic and Kiwi Experience. The latter is colloquially known as ‘The Fuck Truck’ (or variations on that theme) and is notorious for catering to its gap-year clientele’s demand for binge drinking and casual sex. This is a running joke for Strayers, whose own drinking sessions (while just as extensive) tend to end with less vomiting and teenage pregnancy. Waddling onto the bus with aching muscles after a gruelling hike, for example, we compare our gait to that of the Fuck Truckers. Sex definitely happens on the Stray bus, but its generally not in a shared 9-bed dorm.

Yet different buses have their own dynamics. My North Island bus with Metro was a brilliant group. We got on really well, had the occasional few too many drinks but got up early the next day regardless and got on with exploring this incredible country. One of the buses I boarded in the South Island, however, was of a different bent. The bus was unmistakeably ruled by a clique of The Three Lads. These three, all in their mid-twenties, had met in Auckland and travelled south together. They were a good laugh during daylight hours, but come evening, they put on their fifteen-year-old hats and started to drink like there was no tomorrow. Additionally, and inexplicably, they were shagging their way around the bus. I wasn’t involved. Perhaps this is why I’m so sore about it.

It came to a head at the Barrytown costume party. This happens at a pub owned by Stray and run by two affable Maori stoners, who run five costume parties a week and greet each new busload of Strayers with the maxim ‘what happens in Barrytown, stays in Barrytown’. So far, so fun – until you get to midnight and one of the coven has collapsed, there’s young girls being sick into rucksacks and you fall asleep to rhythmic banging noises coming from the showers. The next morning when I got up to go for a walk, it was to meet a girl from the room next door who had woken up to find her five-bed dorm empty and devoid of mattresses. The room had been so lavishly decorated with vomit that its other inhabitants had been obliged to sleep elsewhere.

Still, what happened since Barrytown more than made up for it. You get out of an experience what you put into it, and I’ve generally been aiming for around 110%. This couple of days off from talking, alcohol, late nights, long walks, all the endless sex, is just whizzing past. My laundry should be just about cooked by now, so I’ll attend to that, then go and take a stroll to New Zealand’s central point. Perhaps this evening I’ll see if anyone wants to go and see Alice In Wonderland at the local cinema. If I’m lucky I could be in bed by nine thirty. Bliss.

By the way, I changed my flights to include a trip to Australia. I may never return.

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