"He appointed a general
Overseer who would, as time went on, transfer
All the pointless wealth from nation to nation,
From one family to another,
Beyond the interference of human hands."
Inferno (The Divine Comedy #1), Dante Alighieri
I admit that a quote from a book about a journey through hell is a little alarming, especially coning after such gentle choices as Haroun and the Sea of Stories or Peter Pan. I am perfectly aware that whatever this trip is, it is most certainly not a journey through hell. In fact my initial choice was based on the irony of a book about severe heat when this entry is about our descent into the frozen South, at a time when New Zealand is experiencing a few days of unusually inclement weather, for the season. Then I remembered that at least one of the circles of hell, at least in Dante's vision of it, is all about intense cold.
And then I saw this quote.
Because what characterises these few days, and the extremes of weather that populate them, is an enormous sense of value. Nor of wealth or money, but the joy we get from absolute simplicity. From being warm when it is cold, from the glitter of snow, or the crash of raging seas in high winds, from wearing a silly woollen bobble hat with 'New Zealand' stitched into it. From feeding ducks.
Of course we probably tempted fate as soon as we went to the glaciers. In the previous few days we had driven to the foot of both the Fox and Franz Josef glaciers. Both were stunning, gleaming white trail, wending their way down the mountain, looking suspiciously delicate, but in fact plunging down deeper into the rock face itself, than it is possible either to see or believe. Standing, awed, looking up at them, sun on my face, feels odd and unbelievable. I cannot fathom how something which has been caused by violent weather, and which, if the conditions are wrong, can still wreak a violent havoc itself, can be so very beautiful, and appear so benign.
With the sight of those still in our mind we depart Gillespie's beach and our sweet young friends in their onesies, and drive on down the scenic coastal road which will, we hope, allow us a glimpse of dolphins, and a chance to visit the Catlin's on the coast, famed for their coastal beauty.
We haven't gone far when the wind starts to whistle, or more accurately, to roar, so loudly it drowns out our music on the battered little stereo contained in our van. Not long after that we start to feel the van rocking, wind slamming into it with force, and making me grip my seat a d mentally calculate how likely we are to fall over. Do we have enough weight at the base, I wonder, would we really fall? If we did, would we be OK? It is, for once, just grass verge on the side of the road, and not the usual steep drop into a particularly scenic goodbye. Even so. I glance at M. We've been doggedly driving for a while now and the storm is worsening. He is gripping the wheel grimly and I know he can feel the power of the wind against his steering. We trued, at one point to stop at a scenic lookout, the idea of this route being to enjoy the view. We struggle out of the car, doors snatched from our hands by the wind and battle to breath, huddled up in our rain coats, looking out over furious white foam over rocks. It's hard to see much because the wind whips everything up and around and into our faces and because its begun to rain quite heavily, so our eyes are no clearer than the sudden windscreen, only we don't have handy wipers fitted.
The second time we try to stop is to take a picture of a sign to 'Monkey Island'. Anyone who has ever been old fashioned enough to play that computer adventure game of the same name, will sympathise. In fact we had hoped to visit the island itself or at least, look over it, but it is becoming clear that it will be hard to see anything, and a drive towards even more open coast land, with the wind blazing in from it, doesn't seem like an especially clever idea. We content ourselves with a photo, but as soon as we open the door the wind snatches anything that happens to be loose in the cabin, and there is a comedy performance of leaping to grab things and hold them down while we attempt, against the winds best efforts, to re-close the door. There remains a washing up sponge, somewhere out there in the sheep filled grassland of the southernmost part of the southernmost island, which we didn't manage to recapture. I apologise profusely to any sheep its presence may have offended.
We decide to press on to our campground for the night, but admit defeat as far as the coastal path is concerned. We're not going to be able to see very much anyway.
Our campground is 'Lignite Pit', an old mining ground now converted into a sanctuary for wild birds. By the time we arrive the games, though still strong on the coast, have abated somewhat as we move inland and so we are able to have a walk around. Its cold so we don our silly woollen hats with some pleasure, grab some bread for the ducks, and go for a stroll. The ducks are beautiful creatures, deep blues and greens and much larger than most duck species. They are very pleased to be given some bread and, as I squat down, chatting to them and tearing off pieces, I think how perfect are these moments, and how simple. And how free. (Unless you count the cost of the bread and I'm not that much of a pedant.)
That evening the ducks, newly emboldened, pad over to where we have parked our little van, quacking around M's ankles as he cooks and seriously considering hopping inside. Later, when we make trips to the little toilet hut which are our only facilities (though the ducks are worth more than a hundred hot showers), the ducks follow us, sneakily, taking a different route and rounding the corner on us, quacking delightedly, all of them padding around together.
We huddle up in our van, just about resisting the impulse to take a duck in with us, and send a cosy night, the sole human occupants of the sanctuary. It's worth more than any amount of money and in fact costs us only a token five dollars.
We wake to drizzle. We drive in the drizzle and watch it increase in volume until it is a steady stream of water. We don't think we're going to see much of the Catlins. We're pretty sure the dolphins have emigrated in disgust.
We drive straight to our next campsite, in a rather grey and wet Dunedin. It is around this time that it starts to hail. Hailstones, big and stubbornly unmelting, pound the roof and the windscreen mercilessly while we huddle, safe and a little excited, in our van, before racing out in a moment of vague calm, to have a drink in a pub, so we can say we have seen Dunedin. By the time we arrive back it is hailing again and there are more ducks, though we are forbidden from feeding them. If we do, says the sign in the campground, they are our pets and we have to take them home. I am quite enamoured of this idea but M is stern and so they stay strictly outside. They don't seem to mind. It is, after all, nice weather for ducks.
When I wake up in the night to make my usual pilgrimage to the toilet block, I finding myself walking in flip flops and little shorts, through snow.
The snow, predictably, is beautiful, but it presents something of a problem. Driving a van in it doesn't seem fun. Usefully though, by the time we have dawdled a bit over showers and breakfast, it is already melting, consigned back to the clouds to wait for a more sensible time of year.
As we get back on the road, heading up towards Christchurch, and our appointment to meet up with our friends from England, who are joining us in their own van for the rest of our trip, I am sad to see the end of our little bad weather adventure. It was fun, the ferocious of it, in violence and temperature, though it caused us to miss some of the more traditional beauty spots, it had an awe inspiring, intense beauty all of its own
And there's really no overstating the joy of wearing a silly woollen bobble hat.
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