And what a land it is, the South Island of New Zealand, blanketed by snow-capped mountain peaks, dense tropical rain forests, deep blue lakes the size of inland seas, huge lush sheep and cattle farms, and hordes of extreme sports enthusiasts, including JSG and me, and eighteen other emboldened cyclists for eight days last month.
As for the kiwi, it is first of all a plump earthbound bird endemic to New Zealand and its national symbol, with neither wings capable of flight nor a sternum strong enough to anchor the requisite musculature were it to evolve. Relieved of weight constraints, it lays the largest egg relative to its body size of any of its class in the world, but apparently not enough of them, as two of the recognized species are vulnerable to extinction, and three endangered, having been depopulated and driven into daytime hibernation by imported predators. While gift shops and clothing stores are overrun with stuffed and imprinted facsimiles of these curious fuzzy creatures flaunting their long pointed bills, spying a live one not in a darkened cage minus an admission fee is a rarity.
More plentiful is the non-indigenous and nutritious kiwifruit, originally the Chinese Gooseberry, named for its country of origin, but so birdlike in its color and texture that exporter Turners and Growers chose to rebrand it as such in 1959 in order to avoid the high duties imposed on berries.
As a popular and endearing demographic label, the term has its roots in World War I, but it is unclear whether it derived from the bird's appearance on military badges -- which dates back to 1886 -- or from the Expeditionary Force's diligent application of the boot polish so trademarked by its developer William Ramsay as a tribute to his wife, a native of the country. Once the national Rugby League team adopted the Kiwi nickname in 1938, and servicemen were deployed worldwide a second time, it was only natural that its reference would become universal and inclusive of all New Zealanders.
It takes about twenty-six hours to get from Lynchburg -- via Charlotte, Los Angeles, and Auckland (on the North Island) -- to our final destination, Christchurch, the longest leg of course being twelve hours over the Pacific Ocean. In spite of sitting in coach -- much to the chagrin of two frequent flier friends and my mother, who berate me so mercilessly for failing to upgrade, either by accumulating the necessary mileage or by simply writing a check, that I'm tempted to lie rather than defend myself -- I don't find the trip nearly as tiring as I anticipated, thanks in part to some tiny yellow relaxation (not sleeping) pills JSG has obtained.
In fact, is it any surprise that the most harrowing moments are the forty minutes we are delayed leaving Lynchburg -- we have only one hour to make our connection -- and our subsequent precipitate dash through the Charlotte Airport (if such a thing is possible, dragging three bags in our wake)? JSG orders me to hop aboard one of those motorized handicapped-carrier carts, which speeds us through the notorious "E" commuter terminal while dodging obstacles like an Olympian slalom skier.
Once en route -- by the slimmest of margins -- I am entertained by the non-stop chatter of my hyperactive seat mate, a ServPro franchisee, to whom the frigid East Coast temperature this winter has been a windfall. He's been in Virginia and Maryland for five months with a crew of twelve (they're driving back), plus extras hired as needed, cleaning up the damage from burst pipes and flooded basements. He's made $250,000, and he can't wait to get home to spend it. "You'll never see lights like that," he exclaims upon our approach, leaning across my lap, and indeed they glitter as far as the eye can see. "There are so many beautiful women down there," he says. "The first thing I'm going to do when we land is get in my car and ride around LA." That will burn some gas, I think to myself.
American-based airlines need to take a few lessons from their New Zealand counterpart, which actually tries to accommodate and please its customers rather than annoy them. Drinks are complimentary, and there are plenty of friendly folk around to serve them -- and our meals -- with an unfamiliar alacrity. Passengers board not by those ridiculous zones but logically from the rear forward, and, once liberated from U. S. regulatory insanity, they can deplane through doors fore and aft.
It would never occur to our own stodgy corporate wizards to inject any humor or irreverence into a safety video and create something mildly entertaining. Like a royally attired Cate Blanchett impersonator issuing this greeting to a planeload of goblins and elves: "Welcome aboard your Air Middle-earth flight."
Finally, swiveling around in the cockpit, the hoary pilot delivers his own bon voyage: "Now sit back, relax, and enjoy the journey. May the road rise up to meet you and your beard grow ever longer. May the sun shine warm upon . . . Fly, you fools!"
I understand, however, that the Hobbits have been displaced -- by four bikini-clad beauties whose cavorting on the beaches of the Cook Islands on the fiftieth anniversary of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue adds a whole new meaning to "Safety in Paradise" (and aboard Air New Zealand).
Just don't miss that LA plane to the Cook Islands, since it goes only once a week -- requiring a disgruntled fellow and his family to take a eight-hour detour by way of Auckland.
Fortunately, no such inconveniences mar our own long night over water. JSG has a panic attack when a three-hundred pound perspiring wide-body plants himself next to her and warns that his bigger daddy is right on his heels; miraculously, she locates an empty seat in another row, then settles in to watch three movies -- Gravity, Whale Rider, and the tear-jerker The Butler, which has her sobbing into her cocktail when I amble back to check on her.
Meanwhile, I draw a talkative Brit from New South Wales, a retired research pharmacist who, when I'm not engrossed in 3-D Golf, Sudoku, or my mindless Wilbur Smith novel, humbles me with a breadth of knowledge ranging from American health care to Scandinavian television. He is especially proud of his countryman, Frank Whittle, the acknowledged single-handed inventor of the turbojet engine. Repeated rejections by the British Air Ministry failed to deter Whittle, who was on the verge of bankruptcy and a physical and mental breakdown before selling the government a prototype which successfully flew on May 15, 1941.
Having crossed the International Date Line and lost one day (Tuesday), we don't want to squander another, despite our debilitated sleep-deprived condition. After a speedy check-in and change at our Christchurch Hotel, JSG and I set out on a run along the serpentine paths of Hadley Park, which lead through playgrounds and athletic fields to the conservatories, rose beds, mini-lakes, lawns, and woodland of the Botanic Gardens -- all nestled in the meandering loop of the Avon River. It's a lovely setting but so much of a maze that I opt for a more circumferential route the next morning.
A few near misses on the busy walkways alert me that I am now in territory where people, bicycles, and automobiles are all moving on the wrong side of the road, and that I need to keep to the left and pass on the right -- even on foot. On the other hand, the steady, loud, persistent whir of a thousand circular saws proclaims that a Virginia plague has tracked me half way round the globe: cicadas.
Moving beyond the tranquil beauty of the Park, we discover a city struggling to regain an identity shattered by the devastating earthquake which struck it with a magnitude of 7.1 on September 4, 2010, causing $3.5 billion worth of damage. Minor debris litters a handful of vacant lots. Scarred, cavernous structures loom in a state of limbo, while others are framed with restorative scaffolding, including a slowly-reviving cathedral. We walk several blocks through a deserted commercial district just to find a cafe to rest our weary bones and enjoy a lunch of soup, salad, and espresso. On our way home we are enchanted by a topiary menagerie of giraffe, elephant, and whale sculpted for an upcoming festival, and treat ourselves to a genuine milk shake which is not quite as creamy as advertised.
A good night's sleep galvanizes us for the New Zealand Day of Independence; whereas in the United States merchants celebrate holidays by putting their wares on sale, here they impose a fifteen per cent surcharge, as if to discourage consumption.
In our case, the perverse strategy works; except for a ham and cheese panini and a sushi roll -- which we resort to when my patience wears thin waiting for a more appetizing falafel -- no purchases are made, maybe because this is some of the strangest shopping I have ever done. We are in a container mall, a warren of streets and alleys bordered by rows of large steel storage or shipping boxes -- some stacked two or three high, painted red, orange, green, and blue, their fronts and sides cut away to accommodate glass doors and windows -- a cheap replacement for demolished and abandoned stores conceived by some shrewd real estate entrepreneur.
Our brief (about six miles) inaugural bicycle ride takes us through the splendid Mona Vale plantation, past flowering rhododendrons, camellias, and begonias, to its famous Rose Garden, home to one hundred varieties, and, just opposite, a lily pond, where the proliferation of another species, Asian tourists, makes it impossible to get close to the water.
Friday morning we board the TranzAlpine Express for what is reputedly one of the world's most scenic railway journeys -- from Christchurch one-hundred-forty miles west to Greymouth on the Tasman Sea (although we won't be going that far), on a narrow-gauge single track that twists and turns above steep river gorges, crosses high spindly viaducts, and passes through nineteen tunnels. Kiwi Rail has earned design awards for its glass-encased carriages, which provide the sensation of floating above the landscape as if in a bubble.
Rising from the Canterbury Plains, we enter the mighty Southern Alps, which stretch almost the entire length of the island. Our eyes are as confused as they were watching Cirque du Soleil's "O" in Las Vegas a few days ago; with so much happening simultaneously, we can't absorb it all. Beside and above us, the majestic mountains soar into the billowing clouds, their slopes alternately draped with evergreen forests, deeply-eroded stony escarpments, fresh snow, and glacial ice formations. Below us, the sinuous strands of the Waimakiriri River parallel our course, changing from blue-green streams to sandy shallow flats to dry rocky channels in a matter of minutes. Except for a solitary fisherman, a distant kayak, and a lost flock of sheep, one can imagine himself in a time warp going back millions of years.
We disembark at the hamlet of Arthur's Pass, the highest point on the railway and only a few thousand yards before it enters the seventeenth and longest tunnel, which descends at a 33% grade five miles to the town of Otira. We are advised to hold tight to our wallets and hats, lest they be filched by one of the pesky, precocious mountain parrots, or keas, lurking about the station.
One would think this would be an ideal spot to begin cycling -- a misconception soon corrected by our thirty-minute van transport through the Otira Gorge over a narrow road featuring hairpin turns, switchbacks, and roller-coaster inclines. Along the way our guide points out an abandoned village one can purchase in its entirety for a relative pittance.
What we are about to ingest is the stunning diversity of the South Island -- which one can devour in a motorized vehicle in several hours -- at a modest cycling pace of about twenty miles in the morning and twenty in the afternoon, during which each day's landscape and weather conditions are fairly consistent -- if not monotonous -- yet very different from those of its predecessor and successor.
Today we ride through broad fields and dairy farms -- against a stiff headwind -- to the Stationhouse Cafe on the shore of Lake Brunner, where we sample lamb pie, fish and chips (but with too much batter, says JSG), Speight's Ale, Monteith's Beer, and a long black coffee (espresso and water). Further on, where the area becomes more forested, we pass the site of the 1896 Brunner Coal Mine disaster, an underground explosion that killed sixty-five workers, the deadliest industrial accident in the country's history.
Our destination is the seaport of Hokitika, once a mid-nineteenth century thriving commercial center invigorated by the discovery of gold in the region, now a sparsely-populated curiosity for tourists and students on vacation, the latter of whom seem to have all been recalled to their universities. A quick perambulation of the quiet streets reveals their three major -- or minor -- attractions: a mile-long beachfront sculpture garden, composed of pieces of burnt driftwood crafted into a profusion of plant, animal, human, mechanical, and unidentifiable statuary, the most striking of which is a graceful ballet dancer precariously balanced on one leg; Fat Pipi's Pizza, which honors its world-renowned reputation (so we are told) not in the quality of its cuisine, which is pedestrian, but in the full house which necessitates a forty-minute wait; and the Mountain Jade Factory, where one can not only shop for necklaces, earrings, rings, and charms, but also matriculate a crash course in the history, geology, and manufacture of this precious mineral.
Nephrite jade, known locally as greenstone or pounamu, is found only on the South Island. Its incredible toughness, smooth glowing luster, and waxy surface made it highly prized by the native Maoris, who shaped it into tools, weapons, and jewelry, and who attributed to it, their "god stone," life-enhancing spiritual powers. In 1997, the British Crown returned ownership of all naturally-occurring pounamu to the Ngai Tahu tribe as part of a larger claims settlement in which it also received land and cash compensation.
Most of the items on display are rather pricey, yet JSG, exhibiting her well-honed bargain-hunting savvy, ferrets out a rough-hewn triangular pendant as a suitable memento.
The next morning, Saturday, we shuttle to Ross, founded during the 1860's gold rush, where an active mine still exists, ready to extract $700 million worth of wealth, provided the town's 315 residents give their unanimous consent, which they stubbornly refuse to do. JSG and I do yield to each other's entreaties to have our faces photo-shopped as a couple of pathetic period caricatures -- her as a burlesque barmaid, me as an optimistic prospector.
Our ride exposes us to more spectacular scenery -- verdant flatland sprinkled with rainbows of wildflowers, dense forests from which tree branches reach out overhead to embrace one another, sapphire blue lakes extending to the horizon, snow-covered mountain peaks close enough to touch. We pull over for refreshment at the historic Pike Pub in Pukekura -- where we smell, but do not taste, the possum pie (Our guides have prepared a sumptuous picnic a few yards up the road.), browse the store's unique product line, which includes furry nipple pads and insulated willy warmers, resist the urge to yank out our cameras, strictly forbidden, and peruse a petition protesting governmental restrictions on the sale of possum -- part of a campaign to exterminate all thirty million of these pesky parasites, a scourge to vegetation, wildlife, and cattle.
Our cycling regimen presents its share of challenges. There is one highway along the west coast, and we are on it; it's narrow, with hardly any shoulder outside the little white line we have been instructed to keep our tires glued to. When we cross a bridge -- about ten or twelve a day -- two lanes merge into one, requiring one direction, as indicated by signage, to "give way," in the local vernacular, to the other, even in the case of an automobile confronting a bicycle, or so we hope.
Fortunately, traffic is scarce, but when it comes, barreling along at fifty to sixty miles an hour, it's usually a beastly tour bus, which brushes me aside as if I'm a pesky gnat, or a racing duo, one behind the other, whose commingled warning sounds lure me into a false sense of security when the first speeds past, but leave me shaken to the core when a partner materializes from his exhaust. Motorcycles can be even more frightening, especially when they come shrieking by two or three abreast. And every time I see a hidden curve up ahead, I imagine two cars coming around it, one swinging wide into my lane to pass the other, with no room for error.
Why am I not surprised to learn that the only fatality in the forty-three-year history of Vermont Biking Tours occurred in New Zealand? Or that a Back Roads cyclist right behind us gets clipped by a crazed Chinese motorist overly enamored of his rental maxi-van and his inferior driving skills?
As for the terrain, it's mostly categorized as gently rolling, except for three notable climbs, the first two labeled appropriately Mount Hercules and the Triple Bypass, but neither as imposing as the Haast Pass which rises 1800 feet in crossing the Southern Alps, and is not conquerable by this novice, even at the lowest of twenty-four gears, without a couple of dismounts and wobbly walk-ups. With our guides constantly reminding us that all rides are optional, I choose to bypass the Triple Bypass, not because of the hills, but because it will extend the day's mileage from fifty to sixty-five, which is more punishment than my nether parts can endure. After an hour in the saddle, the burning ignites and spreads like a gasoline fire out of control; I try stuffing a pair of socks in my shorts for extra padding, but to no avail.
Thus, our Sunday layover at the Franz Josef Glacier (named after the Austro-Hungarian Emperor by German geologist and explorer Julius von Haast in 1865), sans cycling, is a welcome respite.
This is a strange and unique part of the world. The mountains surrounding us -- forced upward at the rate of thirty-three feet every 1000 years by the collision between two major tectonic plates along the Alpine Fault line, which also earthquakes every 300 years -- are the only barrier to the great windstorms that blow from Australia and the Tasman Sea across the Pacific to South America. Depending on their altitude, the rapidly cooled air dumps huge amounts of snow and rain on the land masses, creating the juxtaposition of rainforest, where I run that morning, and glacier, where we tread that afternoon.
As heavy snow accumulates in mountain basins or depressions, called neves, its weight squeezes the air out of the buried snow, converting it to extremely dense ice. When the neve overflows, pressure, gravity, and acute declivity draw the ice downhill to an equilibrium or melting point, called the terminus. Irregular bedrock beneath the glacier causes the ice to move at different velocities and crack into deep crevasses. When snowfall declines, the supply of ice being fed into the glacial trunk dwindles, so that it melts faster than it advances, which gives the terminus the appearance of retreating.
Coining a trio of vivid metaphors -- frying pan (neve), handle (downhill flow), and Milky Way caramel (gluey ice) -- our sprightly guide Sam (who hails from India, foiling my Filipino guess when he broaches the question) not only elucidates the science, he validates his degree in Adventure Management and his resume as a Himalayan mountaineer.
Yes, JSG and I volunteer for the heli-hike, a ten-minute (each way) aerial surveillance of the Franz Josef via helicopter (worthy of more of the usual superlatives) followed by a gentle touchdown, a perfunctory lesson in the attachment of crampon to boot (Try explaining that to a family of Japanese.), and ninety minutes of shadowing Sam as he carves stairways in the ice, tests treacherous ice bridges before waving us on, pokes his way under dripping ice tunnels, leaps across frigid meltwater streams, and leads us like a Pied Piper up the icy slope to a shimmering waterfall and back.
"Just remember to plant your foot firmly, and never turn sideways, unless you want a broken ankle," he says with a sly grin. At JSG's behest, he lends me his ice ax, demonstrates the Franz Josef launch (ax on shoulder, knees bent, eyes forward), and pushes me up on a promontory for another phony pose.
One would think that by now JSG would have had her fill of thrills for one day, but no sooner are we back on terra firma than it's time for the ultimate. I'm sure there are many places back home where one can skydive (such as Charlottesville, I just heard), but, as a person who likes nothing better than escaping planes, as long as they are on the ground, the thought of doing it never crossed my mind -- until our guides started handing out brochures several days ago, the hook of course being one's panoramic view of mountain, glacier, forest, and ocean from thousands of feet, assuming his eyes are not tightly clenched in terror. Momentum from my peers -- as Carolyn, then her husband Tom, then Paul, then Ashley, and finally JSG herself sign on -- entices me closer to the edge, until sanity, or cowardice, snatches me back.
"Why would I want to jump out of a perfectly good plane?" I ask, playing the straight man. "Wait until you see the plane," quips a comedian in the crowd.
Indeed, it looks like a mail-order self-assembly relic incapable of levitation as it sputters down the runway, its cramped fuselage packed with JSG, three other hardy souls, and the four jumpmasters to whom they will be strapped as they plummet through inner space. ("How many times have you done this?" I ask JSG's human lifeboat. "About 3500," he replies. In other words, it's just another day at the office.) So slowly does it climb that JSG has to be restrained at 6000 feet, because there are 6000 more to go. Even there, she's at the lowest (and cheapest) of the three altitude options, from which she will free fall for thirty seconds, compared to forty-five seconds at 15,000 feet and sixty seconds at 18,000 feet, before her chute opens.
"I'd do it again in a heartbeat," she says afterward. "It was quiet, awesome, with hardly any sensation of falling," and certainly the week's least dangerous activity. As for me, a mere vicarious spectator to these lofty antics, my charge is to record them for posterity. Having been advised she is first out of the box, I gaze upward, shielding my eyes from the sun, frantically searching for a meteorite, when suddenly it appears, a white speck, gradually expanding until it's blotted out by an arching red balloon, which glides through a u-turn into a perfect two-point landing.
Alas, it's not JSG -- she's the next one down -- nor is any object distinguishable in my heavenly portfolio, other than vacant blue and white serenity. I happily relinquish the camera to JSG for her more polished picture-taking, including one of Englishman John Birdsall, a well-traveled paraplegic whose twenty-fourth consecutive day of skydiving will be chronicled on his blog.
The next morning, Monday, after shuttling over the Triple Bypass, we forge ahead into the South West New Zealand World Heritage Area -- over one million acres of magnificent primeval vistas: fiords, glaciers, cliffs, lakes, rivers, waterfalls, tussock grasslands, fecund wetlands, wilderness coastlines, and temperate rainforests unmatched anywhere in the world in their composition, extent, and intactness.
Only traces of human influence are evident, and then mainly on the periphery -- like at the busy Salmon Farm and Cafe, where I am mesmerized by thousands of fish segregated by size in four huge tanks racing in circles like furious NASCAR drivers. Further along, we pause at scenic Bruce Bay, site of a seaside rock garden of memories, where JSG can transcribe our presence and leave a message for her children, should they ever follow in our footsteps.
We are bound for the singular Wilderness Lodge, an ecological resort situated on the peaceful shore of Lake Moeraki, only two miles from the sea. It is the brainchild of visionary Dr. Gerry M., who nurtured its transformation from the one-room pub he and his wife purchased thirty years ago into a sprawling eco-tourist and adult camp playground.
Dr. Gerry is a chubby, chipper environmentalist whose enthusiasm for all manner of flora and fauna is, frankly, exhausting. As we gather in the humid shadows of the main building for a nature trek, he scolds me for not wearing socks, then plucks a can of bug spray from a hidden pocket, which is about effective as perfume against the swarms of sandflies that attack my bare legs and ankles like piranha. He spies a rare wood pigeon fluttering in a nearby bush, all but invisible to me. He scoops from the water a bucket of whitebait, tiny immature fry fish prized for their delectable taste, especially when rolled into fritters, as we can already attest to.
We follow him into the forest, home to 103 species of ferns, and many trees, including the one thousand year old kahikatea, the tallest, which sustains 101 plants of its own, and the matai, whose intricate branch system was replicated by director James Cameron as the ideal nesting place for his avatars. Gerry wades into the lake, where he has entirely too much fun feeding lamb chops to a school of long-finned eels (The females grow to ten feet.), another valuable delicacy. Ever on the lookout, he points overhead, where a heat seeking falcon is zeroing in on an innocent white heron. Later that night he will prove that the Southern Cross and glowworms really do exist, unless he has secretly strung Christmas tree lights deep in the woods.
Tuesday is a leisurely day at the Lodge. JSG and I walk to the beach, which is covered with white, brown, black, and green quartz and sandstone -- and millions of sandflies. Huge tooth-like volcanic rocks line the coast, hard enough to have resisted erosion for sixty-five million years. My clothes dry out from a morning run just in time for a wet kayaking circuit of the lake, where we flush out a few black swans (the title of a book, says Tom, about man's presumptive knowledge of all things, since for centuries Westerners were certain all swans were white) and work up an appetite for one of our best meals of the week, prepared by Gerry's chef: pumpkin soup, lamb shanks, and a berry-topped pavlova.
Wednesday we are in the Haast Valley -- a land of dense forests nestled between mountain ranges peppered with ninety foot waterfalls crashing down rocky cliff faces. Rainfall here is some of the heaviest in the world, 230 inches a year, compared to New York City's 44 inches. Once we scale the tortuous Haast Pass the air dries out, and tussock growth, green meadows, and grand lakes creep over the countryside; we glide pleasantly downhill toward an afternoon rendezvous with our homestay, the highlight of our trip.
All twenty of us will be divided among four local families, who will host us for the evening and overnight. At the urging of some Lynchburg friends, who took this tour a few years ago, we have requested -- and been assigned to -- Penny and Taff, whose spontaneous warmth and graciousness would be extraordinary even if their closest neighbors were not twenty miles away. Obviously none are in sight during the ten minute ride by Land Rover from their property's entrance to their farm complex -- through paddocks stocked with sheep (9000) and cattle (1400) and turnip plots cultivated for winter feed along a waterfront as extensive as Smith Mountain Lake, except one has it all to himself.
Not wanting to appear too awestruck, I wait a few hours before posing the inevitable question: "Just how big is this place?" It's 20,000 acres, a mere shell of its former self, since the government, through some perverse exercise of eminent domain, reclaimed two-thirds of it some years ago.
Before we have time to catch our breath, we are shepherded to a barn for a shearing demonstration. Supported by a harness, each member of the five-man crew grabs a sheep from a stall, upends it, and in fifty-five deft strokes shaves the fleece from the body, at a blistering and backbreaking pace of about twenty an hour, for which he receives a net $1.30 a head, after paying forty cents to his contract chief.
Separating the wheat from the chaff -- that is, sweeping aside the inferior droppings -- and supervising the wool gathering into huge bales are Penny and Taff's youthful mirror images: Briar (I keep wanting preface it with "Sweet"), a statuesque blond with sparkling blue eyes and shiny white teeth right out of a television commercial, and Digby, a stocky florid fellow whose slightly tilted gait is the residue of a horrific automobile accident.
Out in the yard, it's supper time for a dozen restless border collies. At Digby's command, Mick, Sally, Boss, and their siblings hop onto a truck flatbed and are driven to their cages, locked in, and pacified with slabs of raw meat. The two breeds are their owners pride and joy, and essential to their livelihood, the huntaways trained to scour the hills for grazing sheep, the headings to herd them home.
The residence is simple yet refined. The kitchen glows with colorful inlaid tile, wall hangings, containers, and utensils. The living and dining rooms display an exquisite collection of original art. One side of the house looks out at a grass tennis court, rarely used, we are told; the other on a stone patio, a flourishing vegetable garden, and a sweeping lawn dotted with lambs and calves which, being weaned, wander by for bottle suckling. In the background are the lake and a six thousand foot mountain so clearly delineated and fanciful that I imagine it to be computer generated.
For a person entrenched on the outskirts of civilization, Taff is quite the charming cosmopolitan. He waxes prolifically on politics, economics, history, agronomy, animal husbandry, climatic conditions (He meticulously records daily rainfall on a desk chart.) international commerce, investments, and even cycling, as he brandishes a handsomely-bound photographic chronicle of his and Penny's decade-ago romp through Cognac, France. "He's so brilliant we call him Dr. Google," says Briar, flashing a mischievous smile.
Dinner that evening is a masterpiece, for twelve -- including six from our tour group, Gus, a handyman in training, and Tony, Briar's boy friend, a New Zealander whom she actually met in Colorado, where they now spend the Northern Hemisphere summers building fences, and then follow the sun south to work the farm, "livin' the dream," as he inscribed for her on a varnished wooden panel resting conspicuously atop a decorative sideboard. So are we all, as we feast upon a homegrown cucumber salad with garlic cream dressing, tender rolls sweetened with manuka honey, braised lamb, baked chicken in a stewed tomato sauce, yellow, russet, and blue potatoes, and a soft pavlova.
After more of the same for breakfast -- fried eggs, pancakes, bacon, sausage, pastries, and wonderful coffee -- we must wistfully take leave of this bucolic setting and its delightful proprietors. It's Thursday, our last day, and we will be cycling through the land of the Merinos, the hardy strain of sheep whose dense fleece yields the world's finest wool. Before our final loop -- a paltry twelve miles, which, inexplicably, seems the most painful of all, despite the absence of any obnoxious motor vehicles -- we visit the only museum established to honor a single sheep, the legendary Shrek, who was found in a cave after six years outside captivity burdened with a fluffy coat of arms weighing sixty pounds, six times the norm.
For lunch and a wine tasting ritual, we shuttle to the Wooing Tree Vineyard -- named after, what else, the shelter of many a courtship, and the sole survivor of a bulldozer only after a vigorous campaign by the local citizenry. Gathered around the long banquet table are twenty-one mates with whom we have shared fun, laughter, learning, amazement, suffering, and overindulgence for the past week:
Two energetic sixty-nine-year-old companions, Marj, an interior designer whose fourth life partner, Tom, a former Congressional speechwriter now a contractor, couldn't make the trip because of a bad fall he took pouring concrete for a horseshoe pit, and Betsy, a psychiatric nurse with whom I start off on a sour note by arguing about physician salaries, but who wins my undying admiration when she bungy jumps;
Chip, a nephrologist, the only masochist in our group courageous enough to attempt -- and complete -- the Triple Bypass; his wife Dori, who's trying to acquire a taste for the coffee her daughter brews in her newly-opened cafe back in Louisville;
Tom, an economist whose firm does research for the Department of Defense and who can always be counted upon for some astute observation, like the one he makes in our first conversation reproaching UVA students (including his own son) for their "elitist superiority attitude"; his wife Carolyn, a writer for a Washington, D. C. niche publication (like my son), who is the first to throw down the skydiving gauntlet;
Their friends Valerie and her husband Paul, with whom my close encounter has its own supernatural elements: his remarkable resemblance to my son-in-law Nate, aged thirty years, and his career evolution from engineer to patent attorney, which mirrors that of my children's stepfather;
Dave, a former computer science professor at Florida State University ("Its weakness," he says, "is academics. I'm a witness, because I almost lost my job for flunking the star of the girls' basketball team."), now making fiddles in Santa Fe after being enticed there by a start-up venture that failed; his wife Steffie, the only person I've ever met who plays the boudhran, a framed drum, I know, because I saw them being manufactured in Ireland two years ago;
His brother Rick, who ran away from home at the age of sixteen to play the guitar in night clubs (and never looked back), but defers to Dave as the better musician, and who bemoans the high cost of health insurance while soaking up six weeks of the good life here in New Zealand along with his girl friend Ann, a mathematics professor;
Another Ann, a textile artist, who sadly contracts mold poisoning at a hotel a few days before our trip commences and is unable to cycle ("That may not be all bad," I tell her, trying to be cheerful.);
Leanne, an actuary for a reinsurance company, whose multiple sclerosis doesn't slow her down for a minute, nor prevent her from joining Betsy as the only other member of our troupe to brave the bungy, the A. J. Hackett original, a 140-foot plunge off a narrow bridge that leaves her dangling just above the shallow waters of the Kawarau River, for which we have a cliffside seat;
Craig, a Washington, D. C. attorney with Australian roots, a keen wit grounded in a good-humored cynicism ("I went to law school for five years; I'm a highly-educated man," he says with a feigned pomposity.), and a sedentary disposition that belies a youthful tennis prowess of championship caliber and a stint as a semiprofessional footballer; his wife Vicki, a former teacher, now a ballroom dance instructor who took up the vocation because, she says, "Craig wouldn't dance with me," and whose principal goal on this trip is to defeat him in scrabble, which they play nightly on their i-pad;
Michael, also an attorney, now working in Charlotte for Wells Fargo, in a department that evaluates and manages tax credit investments in low-income housing, whose associates were heavily involved with the infamous Lynchburg Bluffwalk project, or as it was affectionately known to them, "The Red Shoe Legend"; his partner Ashley, a registered nurse hoping to set up a wellness practice, who was introduced to Michael by an ex-girl friend who knew he had broken his leg and needed someone to walk his dog;
And finally, our three guides, who keep us on the road, on schedule, and well nourished during timely rest stops with wafers, cookies, chocolate, fruit, cheese, and crackers: Ritche, snowboarding instructor, kidney donor (to his father), bungy jumper in tandem with LeAnne, and cycling instructor, whose opening day lesson on keeping to the straight and narrow little white line was oh so prescient; Broni, an adventuress whose skiing skills have taken her to Japan, Europe, and Colorado, but apparently the rookie here, as she was delegated the task of accompanying Chip through the Triple Bypass; and Josey, the leader of the pack, who studied engineering back in Ireland so she could emigrate to New Zealand, from whose lips words gush like cascading waterfalls as she descries from her driver's post every "cool" landmark, including the lake where she snagged her one and only fish when her boy friend waded in to grab it.
Our own terminus is Queenstown, a bustling and picturesque settlement snuggled between the curve of Lake Wakatipu and the rugged slopes of the Remarkables range that surround it like an amphitheater. A paved waterfront pier links a small park on one end to a quiet garden of fir trees and rose beds on the other, past which a gravel trail offers a scenic course for a morning run. The town center is a grid of restaurants and shops, most of them purveying expensive wool clothing (including my first ever grandfatherly purchase of a pair of baby socks), serious sporting equipment, and assorted ticket packages for the adrenaline-pumping recreation the area is famous for: paragliding; parasailing; wilderness, thunder, or shotover jet boating; white-water rafting; and the relatively sedate gondola excursion.
Needless to say, our forthcoming thirty hours of travel, including non-stop trans-Pacific turbulence, will quench our thirst for excitement. Friday, February 14th, is like going "Back to the Future"; we depart Auckland at 9:30 PM and arrive in Los Angeles at 9:30 AM the same morning. I guess if there is any day one might want to stretch into two, it would be Valentine's, although opportunities for romance are severely limited on planes and in airports, despite the proverbial fantasies.
Besides, we've checked the weather reports, and, as we bid farewell to the glorious Land of the Kiwi, headed for snow, ice, wintry mix, and some unexpected lifestyle upheavals, why would we not imagine our Hobbit captain to be signing off with this stinger: "You're flying home? You fools!"
