The Trash Heap and the Sanctuary--First Day in NZ

NZ—Traveling, Day 1

I made friends with an older lady almost instantaneously—I asked her how to use the bus system and she decided that we should be best friends. This was a good thing, because she turned out to be a natural tour guide through Christchurch.

Consider the Following:               

Here is something you should not say when you meet a nice lady who helps you figure out the bus system and gets you on the right bus and is pointing out the sights:

 “What Earthquakes?”

A photo of the original damage of the Christchurch Cathedral

    Instead, you should wince and say, “Oh gosh, yes, I heard about those. So terrible. Tell me more about them.” Any type of natural disaster is terrible, no matter what. If she had said, “The flood, the infestation, the dinosaur masterminded-takeover,” you could have bet your bottom dollar that “Oh, yeah, I heard about that,” would have worked like a charm.

The cathedral now, but maybe not the same angle.

    Instead, I had to go be a doofus and say, “What Earthquakes? I didn’t hear about those. Oh, 6.1 on the richter scale doesn’t sound so bad—when was this--ten years ago? Oh, TWO years ago? Why, that’s recent! No, I didn’t hear about them at all! That’s so bizarre!
Yeah, well, we heard about the tsunami in Japan, I guess that was really big, and this wasn’t so big in comparison!”
 *hangs head* American Fail.

more rebuilding and earthquake damage around town. 

I digress. The nice lady looked at me like I was some sort of uncultured, unknowing swine who she regretted getting to know.  Here is the pertinent information:
 --On the 4th of September, 2010, a 7.1 magnitude earthquake hit Christchurch,

 --22nd of February, 2011, a 6.3 magnitude earthquake hit, killing 185 people.
--13th of June, 2011, a 6.3 magnitude earthquake hit, injuring 46 and killing one.

 --the 23rd of Dec, 2011, Christchurch was again hit with a 6.0 magnitude earthquake, which redamaged the buildings and structures being rebuilt from the other earthquakes.

     The February 2011 Earthquake killed so many people because of structural damage exacerbated by previous earthquakes. Over half the deaths incurred in the Canterbury Television Building, which collapsed and caught fire.  The famous Christchurch Cathedral turret fell, and initially police thought that had killed 22 tourists, but after searching through the rubble,  confirmed that none had been actually killed in the fall.  (My tour guide lady told me that everyone who died in the earthquake died in that cathedral, but a quick trip around the internet dispels those rumors.)

    I had like, five minutes in Christchurch to snap some photos of the damage, and then I had to board my bus—a rickety old thing with a cracked windshield that looked like it had been taken directly from the USSR circa 1974. I immediately fell asleep (anyone who has lived or traveled with me will know that I am a particularly accomplished car/bus sleeper), and all to the good too, because our driver was hurtling along the road, starting and stopping, zooming at unprecedented angles and speeds only achieved by neutrinos and other taxi drivers.

     Also, we were on the wrong side of the road, the left side of the road, because New Zealand drives on the left, like Britain. Several times I imagined myself gently taking the wheel and steering us back to the right.

      In fact, I have driven in the car with my host parents several times since then and every single time I think, “ah, maybe now we’ll go on the right—no, no. still on the left. Still on the left.”  It’s not that I don’t know that they drive on the left, it’s that I instinctively feel better on the right, instinctively lean towards the right.

               

      We stopped for lunch/tea/the bathroom in Omaru. We had a half hour and I bought water and an orange juice. Christchurch had been warm, but Omaru was cold and windy. I went to the bathroom in a bizarre public toilet, the kind that they have at public beaches—concrete blocks with no doors, just openings on each side. And I was like, “maybe NZ just provides bathrooms everywhere.”  I looked down the street, once I had woken up a little, towards the end of the street, towards the train tracks.

      And oh—there was the sea. The sea! The ocean! I could just see it, a little, just a glimmer of it, and the raise of a hill with houses on top. So I walked down the street, crossed, and tried to get over. But there was a fence, and beyond the fence train tracks, and beyond the train tracks a hill and many more obstacles.

      But still. The ocean! The Pacific, from the other end!

               

       I headed back to the van. In the van an old man had taken my seat, so I sat in the place where my backpack had been, before.  

       The old man, Ralph, was chatty, and was quite excited (in the most calm way possible) to find out that I was from America. We got to talking and I said something about America’s misnomer being “the land of opportunities.” I even used quotation marks around that phrase.

        A small face pushed its way in between Ralph’s seat and mine. It was a boy, maybe 9 or 10, who had been listening in from the seat behind us. “What does that mean?” he asked.

        So I gave a short (probably terribly untrue) history lesson on immigration to America in the 17-1900’s and what it meant to think you were getting a great deal only to find out that actually you were going to be starving in the streets. I used Antarctica as an example. “What if you were looking for a job, and someone said, ‘come to Antarctica!’ but then you got there and you found out it was freezing, and you didn’t have the right coat, and you didn’t have any money, and you may have a job but it was a crappy job—‘” etc.

       Ralph interjected every once in a while, trying to get the conversation back onto something that he wanted to talk about so that the small boy didn’t hog all the air waves. Every once in a while the small boy would sigh in boredom and flop back into his seat, but then, magnetized as he was by the American, squish his face back in between the seats to listen to us talking New Zealand’s misnomer—how green and untouched and virgin it all is—and about New Zealand’s new laws about chicken coops (they have to be bigger than they have to be in America. Recent development. Pressure from the EU to keep image of NZ consistent with pristine and undamaged frolicking wildlife all organic etc etc).

        At one point the boy said, “at least you were born somewhere interesting.”

        And I blinked and said, “you were born somewhere interesting too,” but I don’t think he bought it. I don’t think he would have bought it if I had said, ‘you don’t know how much people want to come to where you are.’

       This went on for quite a while, until the NZ countryside got hillier and hillier, and the road started to resemble the highway in Northern California. Two lanes, up and down large hills, sort of swervy.

       Ralph said something about me being put off by the rickety old van when I first saw it. The truth was that I was trying to take pictures of Christchurch, find my bus, talk to the lady, make sure my bag wasn’t stolen and see if there was anything for breakfast (there wasn’t) so when I first saw the bus I merely registered it as the right bus, the right company, and there was an element of relief. 

      So I shrugged and said, “I wasn’t shocked or anything. I wasn’t dissuaded. It wasn’t what I was expecting, I guess. But now that I think of it it’s probably good that it’s smaller so that it can manage some of these curvier roads.”                

       Ralph laughed. “This is a motorway! A two lane road! Bet you don’t see these where you’re from!”

       I blinked and said, “Actually, this is very similar to the terrain in Northern California. Obviously no where’s exactly the same, but Northern California has a two lane highway like this, and a curvy, up and down highway like this—yeah. It’s similar.”

       Ralph was not happy to hear about that. Or maybe he just didn’t know what to say.

       But actually with the lack of sleep, and the lack of water, and the lack of food, except for a salty egg/cheese/mushroom thing earlier that morning, the talking and the swerving and the driving on the wrong side of the road has got me feeling a little ill. So every time Ralph said something I was encouraged to speak less and less, because every time I opened my mouth I was slightly worried that something else would come out of it.  So I let Ralph talk all about that one trip to Fiji he took back when he was 20, and how he hasn’t left New Zealand since, and the farm he has, and all kinds of things.

       The bus stopped in Dunedin, (which is pronounced DunEEdin, not doon-eh-din, like I was saying it. Everyone, say it out loud. DunEEdin. DunEEdin. DunEEdin. I admit that the other way sounds more svelt, but I have gotten so much flak for pronouncing it wrong. So I’m passing that on to you. DunEEdin. DunEEdin), which Ralph tells me is the nesting and breeding ground for a colony of albatrosses, so if I get the chance to come back I’ll have to figure out how to search them out.

me with the Cadbury bunny! 

    In the meantime, I had only a short time, and immediately out of the bus stop I spied the Cadbury factory Logo.

      Ralph delivered me to the factory, we shook hands, and then I took the tour. I couldn’t get any photos of the choco-fall because they charged 10 dollars for them, and you had to wear a hat, and in general it was sort of awkward. But it smelled lovely, and I did get chocolate out of the deal.

               

      The next bus (the bus to Invercargill, where my host parents would pick me up) was a more substantial, greyhound like bus), and there were no old men in this one, so I immediately fell asleep, again.

       I woke up probably ¾’s of the way to Invercargill, and there really were just sheep and sheep and sheep. Rolling green hills and sheep. The pastures are separated by tall, long box hedges, maybe thirty feet tall.

                                                                                                                                                                      
Place of Note:

                The Town of Gore, The Heart of New Zealand’s Country Music Scene. So says the signs out front.
                                                                                                                                                       

When I got into Invercargill, the southernmost city in New Zealand (hello Antarctica!) Gay, my host mother, was waiting for me. I was able to get a couple toiletries I’d left behind (Deodorant. Comb. Hair ties. Shampoo. Body wash. Razors. You know. Just a couple things) at a supermarket and then she had a community meeting to go to that she took me to.

                Gay is part of the environmental coalition in Invercargill. She organizes and supports group hikes, tree plantings, talks, lectures; whatever she can get her hands on. She knows everyone and everyone knows her.  The other day she referred to herself and Ron as hermits, here on the farm, and I would have to disagree with her. 

                So we drove out to an estuary and met up with John, the lecturer, dressed in the best hiking pants and gear, who has been trapping stoats and possums and other introduced predators and animals which harm the natural and indigenous creatures of the estuary with the help of his dog, Rusty. Also gathered were several others, including Lloyd, who had a great circlet of white wirey hair on his head and a giant bulbous nose, and who turned out to be very good with plants and was very patient while I peppered him with questions. I forgot most of what he told me because my brain was mush at that point.  I also met Chris, a woman I would meet again in a couple days time (for an exciting Penguin Counting event! Stay tuned!). Rusty was excitable but quite nice, and liked to walk around to everyone while people are talking, asking for pets.

          John took us on a short hike around the Estuary. We stayed mostly on the hillside, in the thick grasses that were springy underfoot, and though there was a cold wind, and though there were clouds and the sun was going to be setting soon, I thought—yes, this is exactly how I want to be spending my first night in New Zealand. I stretched out my arms and caught rye grass in my palms, and I took a deep breath and looked out at the estuary, at the water coming in and the sandpipers digging around for clams or shellfish or whatever they were looking for. The wind was constant, but I had my coat, and I felt the airport funk and the bus funk and the slightly nauseous Subway funk slip away.
      And I thought, Oh, Right. I'm in New Zealand. Right. Half a world away. Right. This is good. This is Really good.
      And I kept walking through tall grasses that came up to my waist, all green and plush because it's summer time here. Summer. There were many thistle plants, but also foxglove, poking out above the thicket, in deep pinks and whites. And there were buttercup flowers, and purple things that I don't know the name of, and the thick, healthy richness of it all was just so pleasing.
     Once, John and Rusty sent up a great clatter and Rusty went off like a shot, going after a rabbit or something. “He’s not so great at bringing them back, yet, but we’ll get it. We’ll get it,” John said. Rusty looked at him hopefully and John rubbed his head.

        We came to a place with less vegetation, just some brittle grass hay like tufts called tussock, a native New Zealand plant, in a recently mulched hillside. I could see plastic bottles and tarp material poking through the mulch, but sometimes tarp material is used to keep the soil in the right place, and also, in the U.S., litter is the type of thing where you actively have to decide whether or not to turn a blind eye or not, and all of us have had some amount of practice turning a blind eye, and I didn't want this good feeling of I'm-here-in New-Zealand to end. So I didn't stop to think about the tarp material. 

          But Gay pointed directly to it. She said “See that, yes, we’re standing on an old rubbish dump. We’re reclaiming an old rubbish dump. So first we put the mulch down and put the plants in, and then nature can take over.”

          I was equal parts excited and horrified. Excited that that sort of giant step was being taken to revitalize and rejuvenate, and horrified that this place I was standing on used to be something so awful—is something so awful, that the view I was looking out on, the mud flat and the water and the clouds and the softly blowing grasses—underneath all that was garbage and waste and goodness knows what else.

          We came to a stopping point not long after, looking out over a mini raising peninsula and at several birds poking around in the mud. We were standing on unfinished asphalt (we had to step over a pile of it) with wooden beams rising up around us without a roof. Gay told me this would be a bird watching hut area. We could see the town of Invercargill in the distance, and a little way to the right a smoke stack.

          John, our guide, started talking about the hospital being torn down and then rebuilt, and how right underneath us, at that very moment, were radioactive needles that they dumped without proper care. They tried to look for them later but couldn’t find them. And then they tried to take down the old X-ray room in the hospital but the room was lined with lead and the men working in the room got more ad more haggard looking, after only a couple hours, and John thought to himself—where does all the radioactive material go? Not out the window, probably right into that lead—so those two men got rid of about a ton of lead without any protective gear before they were taken away, and then they hired two more guys to come in with full space suits, etc, to haul out ten more tons of lead.

         And the mini peninsula in front of us isn’t a natural peninsula, it was originally built up to be a causeway between towns, but then the project was abandoned. And those pillars out there supported the pipe to pump sludge and sewage right out into the estuary.  Rusty jumped into the brush just down from the asphalt where we were standing, nosed about, curled up, and then sat, watching us and watching the birds, panting.

               

         On the walk back to the car I caught back up to Lloyd and I asked him what some of these plants are. He told me about the foxglove and the rye grass and a bunch of other plants I have not remembered. There’s buttercup and thistle—those I know on my own. I asked him why they hadn’t used native New Zealand plants to secure the mulch, to hold the soil on top of the landfill. Why import other plants, non native species? “They work better,” he said. He kicked at the New Zealand tussock. “This just doesn’t hold as well. It doesn’t have the staying power,” he said.

          “But won’t the non native species—aren’t you worried you won’t be able to control them, and they’ll just get into everything?” I asked this because the point of this whole hike was John’s trapping of stoats and cats and rabbits and other animals that aren’t native to New Zealand so that native birds can start flourishing again. I don’t know anything about birds but I know a little about plants, and I know that an indigenous species from a remote island like New Zealand is probably not as hearty as say, thistle, and if one thistle seed gets into the wind it will take off and blow everywhere it can go. You will never get it back, like those Zebra mussels in the Mississippi river.  

          “Well that’s our problem, isn’t it?” Lloyd said, laughing without laughing. At first I thought he meant that I shouldn’t worry because he was the one who would have to deal with this land after I left, but I realized the “our” was more universal. He meant New Zealand’s problem.

           Another woman on the hike leaned over to me and said, “People brought all the plants in because they remind them of home.”

           And I suddenly remembered that Australia was a penal colony, and that New Zealand—I don’t know what it was, but people had to travel a long distance to get here, and that everyone here speaks English, and that I had seen British Christmas decorations in town, Frasier fir boughs, red and gold baubles, etc, and those things didn’t just come from nowhere. These things come from traditions and culture and history. And there was the foxglove just next to us, and thistle, and rye grass, and buttercup, and rabbits, and stoats, things from a whole hemisphere away, and it seemed so insurmountable. The hospital and the sludge; and even if the  landfill will be reclaimed, one day, by nature, it will still be reclaimed by foxglove, it will be reclaimed by England, which shouldn’t be there, rather than by the New Zealand tussock, which can’t really hold its own.

           And I was just so tired.

               

                Gay took me home. She tried to feed me, but really what I wanted was a shower and to sleep. Sleep sleep sleep.

                I met Simon, another volunteer, briefly.  Before I went to bed Ron said, “don’t be frightened by the Peacocks, they make more of a racket when there’s moonlight.” 

                As I got ready for bed I could hear several birds calling E-roOW, E-roOW! chiming out together, harmoninzing, almost, calling back and forth from various parts of the yard and around the house, sounding like a cross between a baby and a cat. 

                The peacocks.