The People Upstairs and the Green Belt

They must have wooden floors up there; no brown, one-millimeter-thick, industrial carpet softens the noise. It’s a couple living above us. The wife worked for Imelda Marcos and stole half her shoes: tap shoes, golf shoes, combat boots, a pair of cleats, steel-toed construction boots, ballet point slippers and some wooden clogs. At least I assume some such footwear magnifies the pounding of her feet. Her husband has two peg legs, obviously. They have nightly square dance lessons and step aerobics throughout the day. Some times they go to the store, buy a bag of apples and bring them home to drop, over and over again. There’s an awful lot of vacuuming too.

Chris and I went on a day hike through “Happy Valley”, along the North Downs Way and back up through another valley to the train station. The London green belt is in zone 6. This means you can swipe your tube card and take a commuter train out to a valley, where there are cows and birds and wide-open views. The walk was lovely, just long enough to tucker us out, but not so long as to make anyone (Chris!) grumpy (“I hate hiking!”). We had perfect weather, warm with long periods of sun. Chris got to pet a lot of dogs out on their walk, and he even got to pet three horses. We walked past a field and called the horses over. The enormous beasts eagerly trotted over and looked for apples in our hands. Chris held out his hand and let the horse’s big lips cover his whole fist. Chris didn’t have an apple. Then we pet them. I was nervous that the horse would bite Chris’s hand off, and then we’d have a problem. So I took pictures to distract the horse, and myself. They were sweeties though, and did not bite off Chris’s hand, or his face. They just waited patiently to be stroked. Horses are big.

Our guidebook was very detailed. “Walk one meter, turn left and walk fifteen meters, pass to the left of the cattle-guard. Walk 200 meters with the field to your right and a wood to your left”. Our guidebook was so detailed we got confused. We assumed that the cattle guard in front of our face must not be right, or else it wouldn’t require such precise directions. Soon though it turned the hike into a scavenger hunt! We eagerly sought out the table with two benches, or the metal cattle barrier, we knew what sort of landmarks waited for us up ahead. I suppose because we were just in the suburbs of London, the hike did not follow a single path, instead a trail was cobbled together from all of the green spaces. We passed through an old village and stopped at a church that was written in the Domesday Book. The parish was founded in 1076. America was founded seven hundred years later. Woah.

The Newcastle

We rode the Megabus to Newcastle. What’s so mega about a Megabus? Not much, perhaps the length of the journey, or the mega-deal of the unmegacious prices. We left at four, after Chris finished his shift, (and after we loaded up on the café's goodies). The bus lumbered through the dusk, past the suburbs of London, into night, and we swayed to a wheezing halt in downtown Newcastle at eleven pm. There we had a fabulous visit with the fabulous Gerry and Adele. On Saturday we clambered aboard the train to Durham (a ten-minute journey) and enthusiastically showed Chris our old streets, shops and homes and investigated the new development (restaurants and bars) down by the river. The day was beautiful and mild; we admired the architecture, the cathedral, the castle, the bridges and the cobbled streets. We glared and scoffed at the unfortunate university buildings that came into the world in the sixties, a decade of concrete, clunky shapes and no respect for natural light. Gerry and I argued is the Union building the most hideous, or the library? I guess the library at least has beautiful books inside; you should never judge a book by its library!

Chris had to head home to London the next day to be back in time for work, but I got to stay a little longer—it was my “reading week” and I had no classes. After hanging out in downtown Newcastle, Adele and I flung ourselves about the room as we perfected every Wii challenge. The Wii is the first video game thing since Tetris to claim my attention for more than fourteen seconds. The next day we wandered along the coast, to the end of a nearly endless pier, through the mud to a Collingwood monument, and had a perfect cup of tea before going to the cinema.

If you haven't seen "True Grit" you should, unless you don't like movies. In that case, I'm sorry, there's nothing we can do for you. Then watch it again, because it is beautiful and extremely re-watchable. On Wednesdays Chris and I can go to the cinema--that's what we call it here in Engerland--for half price (a mobile phone deal), and a couple of weeks ago we saw "Black Swan". The music swirled around my head for the next ninety-nine hours. I'd like to thank my brother for shattering my be-a-ballerina dreams, and my parents for never signing me up for ballet lessons.

This is a test

Not the sort of test that comes with a grade and disappointed red comments (those will be in May), rather it’s to test the brokenness of a system. I’m not sure if a website can break. Does a website even exits, really? But if the stock market can crash, like a train or a truck, then a website could crack. Has my blog given up its bloggy ghost, or will it exist, forever, somewhere…And does it exist if nobody reads it? Well, you’ll read it right, dad? Hi.

We live in Queen’s Park. Not in the actual park, that closes at sunset and would be a daily annoyance, but in a “studio” across the street. We have a wall of rattley windows that look out over the peaceful, green park to the brick houses beyond. Our studio is one room posing as three rooms. Under the windows we have a bed and a nightstand, and across from the bed slumps a slack-jawed wardrobe. This is the bedroom. At the foot of the bed we have a table with two chairs and across from them a very impressive fireplace. Three times a day this is the dining room; the other (infinite?) times of the day it is a study. A foot-wide strip of wavy linoleum delineates the third room, the kitchen, from the living areas. Our cupboards are hideous, but our oven is hilarious, and the fridge makes a gentle snoring noise. It has a little cold. Ha Ha. The bathroom is down the hall, it barely warrants a mention.

Chris makes sandwiches for a massive café in Leicester Square. He also gets to eat these sandwiches every day for lunch. I read seven thousand books a day and don’t get to eat any yummy sandwiches. Peanut butter does not compare to smoked salmon and cream cheese, or a hummus salad wrap. The museums in London are free, so Chris and I have visited quite a few. Maybe we will see them all by the end of our year. We have already learned about dinosaurs, the history of medicine and space travel, we’ve admired statues, paintings and someone’s bust made from his own blood. I hear the London Transport Museum is quite good.

Auto Shop

Our car has oil in the cooling system. From what I've learned a greasy, brown sludge is not supposed to appear alongside the water in the radiator. In fact, it is a very bad sign. Some phantom "head gasket", with a crown and scepter, is leaking. He lays on the his deathbed, surrounded by underling gaskets and leaks his lifeblood into our radiator.

We hoped to sell the car for a cool $1700(NZ), but after a few test drives and impartial examinations under the hood we know that our Mazda's head gasket is porous. This happens with Mazdas. It explains the exponential increase in over-heating incidents. Eleven months ago it took four hours of reckless hill driving and day time temperatures of 80+ to get the engine to over heat. Now it takes nothing more than a fifteen minute drive at a reasonable speed on a flat road in a chilly drizzle.

I suspect this is not a new problem, you may remember a post many months ago about our first overheating, it is just a worse problem. Chris and I are naive and trusting, this is something else I've learned, and thought the seller was honest and helpful. We did not wonder at his impatience to sign the papers and be rid of the car. I thought maybe he was late for Church, or his volunteering session at the Red Cross. It turns out he wanted to get out of sight before our car burst into flames.

On Sunday we took Hank to a Car Fair. This is where we learned his dirty secret. After a couple of people diagnosed the leaky head gasket and explained, sympathetically, that the fix costs more than the car is worth, I did not have the stomach to sell it. Should we lie to some poor unsuspecting backpackers, a couple guilty only of car-ignorance? We had sunk a substantial portion of our NZ savings into the car, and cursed the name (whatever it was) of the schmuck who sold us the car. Could we want to just turn around and swindle another group. No. We have saved lots of money by living in the car, not to count the bus-fares saved, and even budgeted our living expenses with the assumption that the car would be sold for scrap.

I felt a knot in my stomach when customers wandered over to our shiny red car. He'd had a wash and a vacuum and, together with the bed made up and all of our stuff piled on the ground outside, Hank looked sharp. Roomy. Cosy. Conveniently equipped with a Road Atlas and crockery. Go Away, don't buy this car!! It will only cost you thousands of dollars in repairs! He won't get you out of Christchurch! Run!

A nice, older gentleman, who moved slowly and smoothly like a ship in a calm, came up to the car. He asked me how many Kms on the odometer. I replied, "157,000, but you don't want to buy it it has a leaky head gasket". Hmmm, "can I take it for a test drive?". What? Chris looks at me and says, "sure". The gentleman climbs into the driver's seat and carefully, with years of experience, eases the car out of the parking lot. I stayed behind to watch our piles of stuff and chat with an 11 year old Kurd about WWE (wrestling). When they returned Chris and he are laughing. Chris has told him all about the car's problems but John (that is his name) wants to buy it for his grandson who's coming in a few weeks for three months. We agree on a very low price (but one that we both feel good about) and he is happy to let us carry on living in it till we hand it over when he'll take us to the airport.

So many times strangers have been kind to us, in this faraway land and it's nice to leave the country without screwing some new arrivals.

St. James, the Protector of Cows

We got back yesterday from another hike--the St. James Walkway--it was beautiful, calm, easy and in a bowl of good weather, whilst rain continued to fall in Christchurch. We met another couple in the first hut, and since we were the only two couples walking on that day in that direction we were together in each hut, every night for five days. They are an interesting pair; Dominik from Scotland is a researcher at Edinburgh University who examines FMRI scans of autistic, bi-polar and schizophrenic patients' brains; Shelley is a kiwi currently employed as a "professional traveller", who funds her explorations with nanny jobs and ski instruction.

The St. James Walkway starts at Lewis Pass, in the middle of the Southern Alps, and wanders through scenic reserves and private farm land for 67 km. We had one of four rushing, winding rivers as a companion the whole time, and herds of cattle to watch over us. Beef cattle are large, and when worried they stand still and stare down the danger. We are little, but apparently unnerving, and a couple times a day we approached a line of fierce, immovable cows. I whisper to Chris, "they're right in the way, I can see the next marker, should we edge around?". Gulp, what if they trample us. We'd carry on, timidly, and suddenly the ranks would break apart and gigantic cows would stumble over each other in their desperation to flee. Every time this happened, and every time I was sure they'd hold fast and kill us. The only brave cows, it turns out, are the mothers with their calves. These cows we would avoid, not because they seemed more aggressive, just more determined, but because you have to respect the cow-calf bond.

We saw wild horses too. I'm suspicious of the "wild" label, but this is the term we were handed, and it certainly sounds more romantic than mere "horses". Horses are cooler than cows, they hold themselves with poise and dignity, toss their hair and move with grace. The herds of horses usually kept to themselves, off on the side away from the clumsy cows. But sometimes they'd all feed in the same area, the horses absentmindedly swishing their tails against the ubiquitous sandflies, and the cows rigid with terror at our approach.

Before that hike we enjoyed my dad's company for two weeks! We saw it all: cities, tiny towns, farms, mountains, beaches, glaciers and a rainforest. We traveled by train, plane, car and dinghy (Chris and I were in a kayak). We walked through Botanic Gardens, along city streets, around the French town of Akaroa, through rain and fog to the silent face of Franz Josef glacier, up and over the "pancake rocks" of Punakaiki, across dark sand and past the pounding ground swells of the Southern Ocean.

Our diet was even more varied than the sites! After months of car-food (nothing too perishable, nothing too colourful or interesting) and tramping our little stomachs had shrunk, but we stretched them back out to post-Christmas levels in two weeks.

Now is the final month. We've got more tramps planned, and a general route south. We've also got the fidgety departure details to work out--sell the car, cancel the phone, get to Auckland, buy Christmas gifts, get some luggage from the Salvation Army to carry all of our Christmas gifts ...

Time Travel

Here are some photos from the start of our post-Papamoa travels (including the famous first Great Walk). There are a few duplicates, sorry we're new to Flickr, and technology as a whole.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/37421672@N02/sets/72157622545459432/

Queen Charlotte Track

We took to the hills once again last week. The Queen Charlotte Track from start to finish covers 71 km, but our version did not quite take us to the end, nor did we start at the very beginning. All in we still walked 76 km, but instead of strolling along the gentle slopes of the start, or the coastal flats of the end we spent six days walking up and along and over a ridge and then back again. Though the most arduous portion of the tramp is on these 600 m. heights, the views are also definitely the best. Instead of paying for the water-taxi (like everyone else does) which would drop us at the road-inaccessible start and then carry our packs to each campground each evening, we parked at the second campsite, made that our start and finish, and we carried our packs ourselves. Each of our hikes has had a flavour, and this hike tasted heavy! My backpack has straps for carrying a tent, Chris' does not. So I carried the 5kg tent, and he carried all of the heaviest food. I feared my straps would rip off of the pack it was so heavy. To complete the look I had a rolled up bright-blue mat strapped to the top of my pack, so that the whole mess stretched up from my knees and towered over my hat.

Have I mentioned the birds in New Zealand? If not my blog-rights should be revoked. The soundtrack to our life is like a Discovery Chanel special on birds. They fill the morning air with their cheerful chatter. The variety of sounds combine in such a way that it sounds like we're in a forest of wind chimes. In the afternoon the sounds thin out a bit, and you can hear the distinct pure notes. I wish I knew the names of the birds. I wish I could whistle.

We had two days of blustery winds, horizontal rain and see-your-breath cold. Other than that the weather was gorgeous, and if we had done the trip only one way, we would not have seen the turquiose waters and the green hills in all of their beauty. The hills claw directly into the water like tree covered fingers, and beyond each hill is another hill and another and then a mountain, and then further in the distance are more mountains covered in snow.

We rewarded ourselves with a hot, hearty meal at the local RSA (Returned and Services' Assoc.--the NZ version of the VFW). Armed with a full shaker of salt we enjoyed some stunning roast veg, roast beef and unlimited salad bar. Chris was particularly pleased...but he'll probably give you his perspective in his blog. On his blog. At his blog. What sort of preposition sticks to "blog"?