The Order Of Things

With the southern hemisphere summer underway I took an earlier flight to New Zealand then the one that I had scheduled. I'd heard so many good things about the country that I decided to extend my time there. Landing in Christchurch I jumped aboard the shuttlebus that would take me to my accommodation. I was soon joined by an elderly British foursome who spoke so poshly, I was wondering if I'd got onto the wrong vehicle by mistake. I counted their use of the word 'lovely' six times and 'wonderful' twice as they talked about the dinner parties they'd had with Quentin and the upcoming dinner party with Hector, and that was even before we'd left the car park. They used other big words which I couldn't later recall as I didn't really understand what they meant. I was stunned when we left them at the YMCA and they had only added another dozen 'lovely's.
I had chosen to stay at the Kiwi House hostel. The name turned out to be somewhat of a misnomer. It was run by a Japanese lady and as such about 80% of the guests staying there were Japanese. She must have her marketing strategy sorted out for back home. It wasn’t the worst hostel I'd stayed in and it was just about the cheapest, but it wasn’t the best for a lone Brit to socialise in or the most practical for anyone over six feet tall. It didn’t take long to get claustrophobic in the tiny six-person dormitory and I felt I should have taken a picture of any floor space should I have spotted some. It was harder to see then a duck-billed-platypus. My feet would dangle from the end of the bed at night and I was risking concussion if I was to stay longer then the few nights I had initially reserved.
I became fascinated by the obsession that the Japanese girl staying in the dormitory had with moisturising cream. She had huge bottles of the stuff and seemed to be travelling with very little other luggage. One of the many bottles she had must have been the only thing she would be able to cram into her tiny handbag as she went about her day. Maybe she was a sales person for the stuff. That or her daily ritual was an addiction and it belied her age, she looked like she was in her early 20s but maybe she was actually 82.
Christchurch was a beautiful, calm, tranquil place with a small town feel despite it being New Zealand's third largest city. It's billed as ‘the garden city’ and it's not hard to see why. The botanical gardens rival the city centre in size and the Avon River meanders between the two, overlooked by the start of the southern mountain ranges.
It really was lovely.
It was hard to imagine the problems that the city centre was to supposedly have with crime. The problem with Christchurch as far as I was concerned, was that the attractions were so spread out, a bus journey was required whenever you wanted to do something unlike the Australian towns where most stuff could have been walked to. I plumped for the Christchurch Gondola, a sky lift up into the hills that were formed from the first volcanic activity in the area. I was glad that I'd brought along some tuna sandwiches, hungrily devouring them on the journey up, though next time I wouldn’t be buying the cheap oily stuff with onion - carriage number ten would have smelt for hours afterwards.
The views of the city were nice enough, though paled into insignificance when compared to what I'd seen before. I must have been getting spoilt and after eight months travelling complacency could well have been setting in. There were some nice walks around the extinct volcano rim and a nice museum called the Time Tunnel that give the background history to the region in just about the right bite size measure. It was a pleasant day all round I thought on the way back down, though I did notice that carriage ten was strangely vacant despite the number of people milling around.
There are numerous options to get around the country, though none of them are cheap. One of the backpacker bus companies, Stray Travel, laid on a free city orientation in an effort to sell themselves to the backpacker community. I dragged along Caroline from Cambridge who had arrived at the Kiwi House and doubled the British population of the hostel. She had more then a passing resemblance to Tara Palmer-Tomkinson with her accent. She was suffering from the same jet-lag that I had experienced from the modest distance crossing over the Tasman Sea from Melbourne. The guide for the tour was named Grant whose friendly nature, sun-bleached skin and bulging muscles went to show how much he enjoyed the outdoorsy, adventure-activity lifestyle. I was convinced that part of his stocky build was down to him having some Maori blood. There was an element in his wide, staring level eyes that I’d seen in a Maori guy I’d met in Melbourne. Caroline and I soon got chatting to him as the tour got underway.
"It's so idyllic here," Caroline said, "I bet you get loads of people coming here."
"Actually no. The backpacker population is falling," Grant replied. "There's less backpackers coming through nowadays and the average age is going up. It used to be 20 year olds that had just finished Uni, but now the average is 24. Dorm beds are lying empty all around New Zealand, the demand now is for single and double rooms as the older crowd demand more comfort."
“I bet there’s loads of people that would want to come here to work though. Or it would make a great place to come to retire to, its such a quiet relaxing place,” said Caroline.
"The problem is that New Zealand only has a population of four million and that pushes up the cost of living. It's such an expensive place to live now, and yet the average wage is only 20,000 dollars a year. People just can't afford to live here. The travellers work in Australia and come to New Zealand for a holiday - much like you’re doing - there’s much more money to be made there compared to the cost of living. Look at the cost of houses now.” He gestured to the very pretty and yet unspectacular dwellings we were passing along the sea front. “These can be between 175 thousand dollars and half a million, just a few years ago there wouldn’t be any less then 100K. The government is trying to help by giving people their deposits. That’s been going on in Australia for years but it's too little too late. All our skilled workers go to Australia or the UK to make any kind of money."
"So there hasn't been any development in the last few years?" I asked.
"Oh yeah loads. The guys in construction or with any trades have done well, the worldwide house boom saw to that. But it can't go on, there's no great demand anymore, it’s only the few rich buying holiday homes around here now. The locals just can’t afford it. It's gonna come crashing down sooner or later."
I reflected later on this. I thought it would be a shame should New Zealand become a place for executives to have their holiday homes. The country has a charm due to it being unspoilt and relatively free from commercialisation. The people of New Zealand that I met saw that there was more to life then chasing money and seemed perfectly content with their modest laid-back lifestyle.
Grant took us all around town and across the seafront, stopping for a walk along the pier and for a stop to appreciate some of the coastal rock outcroppings before we headed back to the centre.
“So, what do you think of Christchurch?” I asked Caroline.
“Actually, it’s just like Cambridge,” she said, referring to the river and gardens.
“Well, I guess that’s saved me one trip.”

Grant had done his job well; I was sold by the Stray travel pass. It wasn’t my first choice way to see New Zealand, but I was on limited time and they covered most of the country that I wanted to see. Mainly though, it was because I was in Christchurch in the week before Christmas with no plan and at the start of the holiday season when tourists would start flocking to the country. Stray had the bonus of guaranteeing accommodation and having precedence on some of the activities as the silly season got underway. I liked the independence that I had travelling so far and I was uncertain that a backpacker bus would be for me, but Stray were known to cater for the more mature crowd and I didn’t want to risk spending Christmas sleeping on a beach. Or worse.
I was looking forward to getting underway as the first bus picked me up. The driver was a big Maori guy named E-Haka. It was easier for me, Adrian, and the Dutch couple, Denis and Liz who were there for the journey to use his nickname – Chopper – that he’d picked up from his previous job as a logger and a testament to the two digits I noticed he'd lost when we shook hands. I guess he got out at the right time. It may have said something about his navigational skills with an axe as he threw the map to Denis and with it, the responsibility to guide us to our destination. Fair play to Chopper though, he was new to the job and showed lots of enthusiasm as he told us what lay ahead for us. To pass the time as we headed northward along the east side of the south island, he taught us some Maori words. Though the only word I got the hang of was 'Kia-ora' from the avalanche of tongue twisting words he tried on us and that's only due to the similarity to the fruit juice drink and that it was written everywhere as a greeting. More fun though was the introduction of the tractor game that he taught us.
“What you have to do is shout out whenever you see a tractor. But you have to shout out its colour. If it’s red you shout out ‘tractor red!’ and you score a point. ‘Red tractor’ would be wrong, it must be ‘tractor’ and then what colour it is. If the tractor is moving shout out ‘tractor red, working’ and you get an extra point.”
It sounded ridiculous. But with the size of the agricultural industry in New Zealand, our conversations were frequently punctuated with the yells of the variously coloured tractors, and it was certainly more fun then playing ‘I spy’. Denis built up an unassailable lead as we passed through a small town and he shouted out ‘tractor dealership!’ as we passed a yard full of them. I was sat the furthest back in the coach and as such was still to get off of the mark in the tractor game.
“Come on Dave,” said Chopper, “Are you anti-tractor or something?”
The almost deserted roads took us toward the sea where we hugged the coastline as we approached our destination. It was a gloriously pretty part of the world, rolling forested hills, shingle covered beaches and cliffs giving way to the open sea. We spotted a pod of dolphins off in the distance and huge seals lounging about on the rocks below. Our stop was Kaikoura, Maori for 'meal of fish' from the abundance of crayfish in the nearby waters. Beautiful mountains that were unfortunately covered in cloud for much of the time I was there overlooked the small town. A coastal walk starts at the opposing end of the bay with a board posing the boastful question ‘Is this the most beautiful view in New Zealand?’ No, not with those clouds. On a clear sunny day? Maybe. It was too early in my New Zealand trip to say so.
The bay had a long stony beach that stretched for a good few kilometres off of which was a war memorial. I counted 96 names listed that had made the supreme sacrifice in the two world wars and the conflicts in Korea, Borneo and Vietnam. In contrast, the memorial in Melbourne had a display with hundreds of medals, each one representative of ten men from Victoria who had been killed. There in Kaikoura, the losses were much more palpable in a town with a population of just 2500. The must-do activity in Kaikoura was to swim with wild Dolphins. Denis, Liz and I were all geared up for it especially after seeing the pod that we’d seen from the bus on the way into town. Chopper was up for it too and was as excited at the prospect as us, Adrian singing the praises having already done it when he passed through Kalkora earlier in his trip. At the 11th hour, almost literally, the expedition was called off when the centre rang us just before midday as we were dropping our bags at the hostel and getting ready to leave. Gale force winds were blowing in from the south which would make any boat trips too dangerous and so the excursion was off. It was hard not to feel massively disappointed especially as my chance to swim with Dolphins back in Australia had also fallen through. I just hoped I would get the opportunity again. It would have made a good present so near to Christmas - maybe I hadn't been good that year.
The homeliness of the Dolphin Lodge hostel where we were staying offered some comfort, with a free evening meal of tasty vegetable soup. The common room was a great place to relax with a good book or watch one of the hostel’s movies, and the hot pool out in the rear must be a great place to hang out during the summer. There were few excuses to be bored, seemingly every wall was covered in amusing cartoons and captions, only a selection of which I got through. Because of this, the time people would take in the bathroom would be just a little longer in the Dolphin Lodge when compared to elsewhere.
Chopper joined us at a couple of the bars we hit in the evening. He was still in work mode, introducing himself to the bar staff to get his face seen and familiarised with on the Stray route. In one bar, another Maori saw him and they locked gazes, something he'd told us about as the beginning of a ritual to determine dominance. They shook hands calling ‘hey bro’ to one another never taking their eyes off of each other as they touched noses in a Maori show of greeting and mutual trust. The newcomer broke off first - Chopper had 'won'. They went on to compare the tattoos that covered their arms which told their life stories of where they came from, to who their tribe and parents were.
"He was only a little fella," Chopper said later. Yeah right, I'm tall, yet the ‘little fella’ could look me squarely in the eye and must have had at least a dozen kilograms on me from the look of his build. The Maori are certainly made to be a warrior race.
The bouncer who was also of Maori descent came over a little later in what appeared to be another test. He was very softly spoken as he asked us politely about where we were from. But he had such a huge presence about him that even Chopper fell silent and his exaggerated movements and the over-use of onomatopoeia in his speech that was common in many Maori people was subdued. It was fascinating to watch.
“I’m a New Zealander first and foremost bro,” said Chopper, “Most people feel the same. Being Maori, the tribe you come from, it’s all secondary to being Kiwi, and those of European descent feel the same. It’s totally different here to how the Aborigine’s are treated in Australia. I feel so sorry for them. But here we all get on.” The scary looking bouncer gave a slight nod in agreement before wandering off, having established his hierarchy in the order of things.

* * *
It was hard to muster up any enthusiasm for Christmas especially when my plans for it involved a bus journey to the tiny town of Picton for the last available beds, a ham and cheese sandwich for lunch and a dinner of pasta with a tomato with garlic and herbs sauce. I don't even like garlic. And I bought more condensed Heinz soup by mistake. Why don't they print the word 'condensed' bigger? It should have a prominent warning on the label like the 'smoking causes cancer' warnings on cigarettes.
The highlight in the build up to the Christmas season for me was a news report I caught that involved a riot of people dressed up as Santa Claus. I thought it was a Monty Python sketch at first but it seemed to be genuine as even the newsreader struggled not to smirk.
To be honest, the holiday period was going to be a non-event for me and I was happy for it to pass me by, probably due to me already being on a holiday of sorts. It was actually nice to have a year off. In fact, I think it would be a good idea for there to be an island somewhere for people that want to opt out and get away from it. Heck. New Zealand would do nicely. Ignoring the Slade and John Lennon Christmas songs from the bar over the road from the Dolphin Lodge, I was just about there.
Having stayed in Kaikoura an extra day for another failed chance to see if the weather would clear enough for another crack with the dolphins, we boarded the next bus leaving Adrian behind as he’d elected to spend more time in Kaikoura. I was hoping we would have picked up some more passengers in the hope that the extra numbers would lower my chances of sharing a dormitory with Denis and Liz again. She really must have had the patience of a saint with his snoring which was of the deep nasal, slurping, drawn out type. It was made worse by him having the ability to fall asleep almost as soon as he would lay down with the snoring starting and running unbroken until he would wake up. Waking him up would be of little use, Liz’s efforts in vain as a few minutes later the snores would spark up once more.
Our driver to Picton was nicknamed Noddy, originally from the UK he was the opposite of Chopper, with ten months experience in the job he had a much mellower attitude.
“He’ll make a good driver,” said Noddy about Chopper, “That’s if he doesn’t burn himself out first.”
Whilst Chopper would be chatting away throughout the drive, Noddy was far more subdued, playing us chill out tunes from his CD collection and only occasionally getting onto the microphone to tell us useful information for pub quizzes.
"Think of the biggest road in your home country," he said, "Probably be the M6 if you’re a Pom? Well this is the main freeway in New Zealand." We were just passing over a rickety bridge made from decaying wood that was only just wide enough for one vehicle to pass along at any one time. We hadn’t seen another vehicle for many minutes. New Zealand really is a small country.
We arrived at the Picton Lodge, an opened planned affair with the rooms, kitchen and common area off of a large landing area. It had a holiday park feel to it, but the guys running it made us feel at home by laying on a simple but much appreciated Christmas lunch of salads, nibbles and cakes. A great atmosphere was generated with the other guests and a few of us took an afternoon walk through the beautiful fjord-like hills that stretched along the harbour.
As well as an older English couple that were dive fanatics, there was a quiet Israeli guy on the walk that I tried talking to. His was short and of slight build and his face was partially hidden by his dark beard. After the usual conversation about where we were from and where we had travelled to respectively he began to open up to me. He told me he’d recently finished his national service and was glad to be done with it.
“Did you see any action?” I asked.
“I saw some things,” was all he hinted at. We did go on to talk more generally about the problems that his country had. He seemed to know his stuff and he gave me a detailed background to the history of that part of the world.
“I’m hopeful for the future,” he continued, “But the big problem will always be what to do about Jerusalem. I don’t have a problem giving the Palestinians their own land and state, and most other Israeli’s don’t have either. But there are parts of Jerusalem that are sacred to both sides. Neither one would be willing to give it up.”
After a pause in the conversation he asked me my age.
“I’m 27…” I answered, a little puzzled as to why he would be interested, “What about you?”
“I’m 26…today…”
“Oh well, happy birthday!” I said, and then without thinking added, “Oh and happy Christmas too!”
“Thanks. But I am Jewish…”