At about 0900 on Saturday 27Aug05 Mowenck hopped in the Suberuby, picked
up my co-worker Mark from his flat and hit the road. Destination: Dunedin.
It is a pleasant 4-5 hour drive from Christchurch down to Dunedin passing
through the heart of rural Otago with its green paddocks speckled with
sheep and the Southern Alps rising up out to the West. As you approach
Dunedin the main North-South road hugs the Pacific Ocean before climbing
the volcanic hills that surround the city proper. It was a fine, crisp,
clear, cool morning and the Suberuby was firing on at least three of her
four cylinders. I settled into the drive, listening to Amy and Mark in
their ramble on conversation or zoning them out and falling into a
meditative state--sometimes concentrating on the road--but usually
drifting off over the distant mountains to some picturesque glacier fed
alpine lake.
As we approached Dunedin Amy announced her desire to catch a tour of the
hometown brewery, the pride of the South, Speights. Mark had already done
the tour on an earlier visit to the city and was very keen to do it again
and I figured, ‘as long as there is time, why the hell not?’. So Mo rang
the digits in the guidebook and learned, much to our consternation, that
the remaining tours for Saturday were booked out. Damn! Anyhow, we figured
once we got to town that it shouldn’t be to hard to find a cold tall glass
of Speights before the big match. Our reason for going to Dunedin for the All Blacks/Springboks Tri-nations rugby match that evening. It promised to be a great match—the Springboks could claim back-to-back Tri-Nations championships with a win over the All Blacks on their home turf—and the All Blacks wanted nothing more than to crush their repeat dreams. It would be my first international rugby test match experience and I was pretty amped. We made our way into Dunedin at about 1400. The game was scheduled to kick off at 1935 so we had plenty of time to settle into our hostel and find a liquid meal before making our way out to Carisbrook STadium for the match.
We had reservations for a dorm room at the centrally located (half way between the city center and the stadium) YHA hostel. We claimed our beds by dumping our gear on them in the room and made immediately for the city center and a beer. Dunedin is home to the University of Otago and is famous for—amongst many other things—having the world’s steepest street and a city plan based loosely on that of the Scottish city of Edinburgh. The Scottish influence is not limited to the city plan and is evident in much of the city’s
architecture. We made our way to the Octagon or city center where the
streets were already coming to life. The outdoor bars were overflowing
with supporters from both sides waving flags and sporting their respective
team colors (Green and South Africa flags for the Springboks and Black for
the AB’s). The beer was also flowing. Dunedin is a university town and as
such it has some classic university style pubs the most famous (infamous?)
being the Captain Cook. So of course our wonderings ended there.
Shockingly, Speights was not on drought at the Cook but the Monteiths was
cold and cheap and they even served up a large portion of fish and chips
for a reasonable price. You have got to love university towns for the
cheap eats and beer.
After Mo handed Mark his arse in a game of pool we decided it was time to get moving back towards the stadium—we all needed to make a pit stop at the hostel to get some warmer clothes. Of course we also decided to stop off for another beer at the Octogon. After a quick stop at the YHA we joined the masses heading out to the stadium. The atmosphere was becoming tense as Kiwi’s take their rugby very seriously and an All Blacks loss was not an option. We got to Carisbrook, aka 'the 'brook or 'the house of pain' depending on who you ask, about 30 minutes before kickoff. After some agonizing we managed to locate the will call window where our tickets were awaiting our pick up. Much to our shagrin there was a que of no less than 200 people. To make matters worse, there were only two people working the window. D'oh! We hopped in the line full of nervous energy. We all seemed to know that we were likely doomed to miss the pre-game festivities and part of the first half of the match waiting to collect our tickets. The 'brook erupted with fireworks that were quickly followed by national anthems. There were still about 50 heads in front of me in line and I now realized we were definitely going to miss the haka--something I longed to experience even more than the rugby. Suddenly the stadium fell dead silent except for the low shout of a Maori chant. The haka was on. Shit! Damn! Fcuk! The will call line was becoming violently impatient with peeps shouting obscinities at the poor souls stuck behind the glass. We held our ground and I finally made my wau to the front of the line and quickly snatched up our tickets. It was a five minute jog to the gate that would allow us to find our 'seats' on the terraces. By the time we found a spot where Mo and Mark would be able to see the field (they are of equal stature) the game was 10 minutes gone and the score was 10-7 Springboks. We had missed 2 trys and a penalty kick. Damn! The atmosphere inside the house of pain was awesome. We were in the cheap seats on the terraces with the students. Needless to say it was a little rowdy. The students were further juiced with beer sold in cans (six packs none the less). I've never seen anything like it. The crowd started doing the wave and as it approached our section I noticed some people ducking for cover. The wave rolled past and I learned a valueable lesson: when the locals duck and cover you do too. I was soaked in beer. The custom is to throw your beer (can and all) as the wave passes. Nucking futz! No sooner did we settle in so did the All Blacks scoring two quick trys to take a 21-10 lead. However the Springboks answered back with another penalty kick and just as the half ended a fantastic try. 21-20 All Blacks at the break. The second half was stuffed up by the French official trying to take control with the whistle--with the obvious result being a donneybrooke on the pitch. Amazingly no players were ejected. The AB's did manage to score a quick couple of penalty kicks to go up 27-20. The Springboks countered with a kick of their own. 27-23 with about 10 minutes to go. You could cut the tension in the stadium as the AB's were not playing well and the 'Boks were sticking around. Then the unthinkable happened. Springboks TRY! 30-27 'Boks with 9 minutes to go. The crowd let out a collective groan as the Springboks crossed the try-line. Oooof! Now it became really intense. The AB's turned it up and the Springboks responded by playing their typical control, grinding game. 5 minutes to go. 3 minutes to go and the AB's mount a push from 20 meters. The AB's shoot themselves in the foot and turn it over in the ruck 5 meters short of the line. The Bok's quickly knock-on but the French ref doesn't see it (he sure heard about it). 2 minutes to go and the AB's get a line out from 35 meters. Before I know what is happening the AB's have the ball 10 meters out and are pushing the ruck towards the line. T-R-Y! Holy Shite! Praise the lord, beers are flying and the stadium is bedlam the AB's did it! 34-30 AB's lead. Oh man it was crazy and we were all soaked in beer. The final whistle blew about 2 minutes later and we quickly made our way for the gates and the city center celebrations.
What can I say? It was great that the AB's won 'cause if they had lost the Kiwis would have been crying in their beer all night long. Instead the Kiwis were drinking them like there would be no tomorrow. The Cook was slammed and after one beer we were all ready to head to quieter environs where we would not have to worry about some APeed (alcohol poisoned) student spilling his beer all over us--or worse loosing his dinner on our shoes. We made our way back to the Octagon and Mo and I decided to call it a night but Mark was in Englishman drinking mode and joined the que of some pub. Amy was hungry so we stopped off for late-night kebab. While Amy ate some Springbok fans came in and started talking with the AB fans in the place. The loud mouth was obviously Affrikans and completely racist. I had to listen to this pig headed idiot tell these poor Kiwis that South Africa should "export" a million blacks to New Zealand. A Kiwi asked what would they all do in New Zealand? and the Apparteid jackarse said "oh you know, steal your car, rape your women, whatever." I was seeing red. I am a pacifist but it took every ounce of energy I had not to walk over and clock that SOB! Ugh!
We made it back to the hostel without further incidence. Mark didn't get back until the wee hours of the morning but managed to drag his arse out of bed in time to leave Dunedin by 1000 in the morning. We had been there less than 20 hours and we were already back on the road headed north back to Christchurch. It was quite an uneventful ride back home and we dropped Mark off at his flat around 1530. All is well that ends well. It wasn't until we got back to our house that I learned the full extent of what we had missed while we were waiting in that will call line. Apparently the haka we missed was no ordinary haka. For the first time in over 100 years the All Blacks had performed a new haka prior to the match. Damn, again! It was all over the news (it was a big deal down here in New Zealand) and I finally got to see it. It was intense and ended with this throat cutting gesture that sent shivers running up my spine. Double damn!
A couple of weeks later we had tickets for a trip on the Tranz-Alpine scenic railway from Christchurch up over Arthur's Pass to the West Coast city of Greymouth. The plan was to take the scenic train over on Saturday morning, spend the night in lovely Greymouth and catch the shuttle bus back to Christchurch on Sunday. Well, come beer-thirty on Friday evening my boss took the office across the road to the pub for drinks. One drink led to another, Mo joined us and before we knew it we were back at my bosses house eating dinner and drinking tequilla. Yikes! At about 2300 Stephen slipped me a twenty and Mo and I grabbed a cab back to our place. We had to catch the train at 0815 the next morning which meant an 0700 wake up call. Ouch! My mouth was like a desert when I rolled out of bed and into the shower. Thankfully I had packed a lunch and snacks the night before. We made our way to the station on foot (only a couple of blocks) and stumbled onto the train that pulled out of the station at 0815 on the dot. It was a cold grey day as we left the city limits and made our way out onto the fogged in Cantebury Plains. It is not a very scenic train ride when it is so socked in with fog and your head is pounding with hangover. After a while we burst out of the fog and into the sunshine in the Eastern foothills of the Southern Alps. The scenery the rest of the way was amazing. Following one of New Zealand's many "green" rivers (the rocks are green) into the alpine high country past lakes, through tunnels, and over tressels. It has been a mild winter in New Zealand (what hole in the ozone?) so the peaks were not exactly snow-capped. After Arthur's Pass you are on the Western slope of the alps with completely different vegetation--the East is arid and dry, the West is wet and green with forest. All in all it was a swell train ride with great vistas. We rolled into Greymouth and quickly found our way to Noah's Backpackers a unique hostel with animal themed rooms. That afternoon we wondered around the city of Greymouth where apparently people know people. One guy introduced me to his wife and sister and there was only one woman standing there. Kissing cousins means something in Greymouth. But seriously, it was a nice enough little city and the weather was amazingly good. We had a rather uneventful evening and made the 4 hour bus journey home without a hitch on Sunday. Good times.
Maybe you are wondering, what else has MoWenck been up to during our 3 months in Christchurch? Well, we both have day jobs. We have been studying spanish. I play basketball on Wednesday evenings. We have made arrangements for our forward travel: look out Tahiti here we come! A nice little break on our way to Lima, Peru. The last couple of weekends we have been going out with coworkers and friends we have made here in Christchurch. We finally got the Suberuby running like a champion (the clutch cable snapped on me one day, d'oh!). Of course, last night the Suberuby was stolen from in front of our flat. This afternoon the joy-riders slammed into another vehicle and took off on foot bail. The police did not catch them. No we do not have insurance so the whole car is a waste of our time and money. The police are investigating but it is unlikely they will catch anyone but if they do...well, we might recover some $$$. Other than that we are eagerly preparing to start our travels around the South Island. This Sunday we head North up towards Abel Tasman National Park where we have a four day tramp starting 09Oct05. We hope to stop off in Hamner on the way for some relaxing hot springs and maybe in Blenheim for a little wine tasting before we get up to Nelson and the tramp. After that we plan to head down the West Coast to Franz Joseph and Fox Glaciers on our way to Queenstown for Holloween. Then it will be on to Milford Sound for another 4 day tramp on the Kepler Track in Fiordland. Then on to Dunedin and back up through Christchurch on our way to the North Island. That is the plan but many slip twixt the cup and the lip, eh? we shall see, the Golden Bay is certainly calling to me for an extended stop over. That is all for now but stay tuned as we start to travel again there will be more pictures, stories, and adventures for you to live vicariously through us.
As Tyler does the phone beat, I finally received my long awaited working
holiday visa. I started work straight away, relieving preschool
teachers. Not very glamorous nor well paid but was quite fun at times.
How much I enjoyed myself depended on how nice the preschool. Less
kids=nicer preschool. In two weeks I worked at three different
preschools, and they ranged from kids running amok to pleasantly busy to
eating cake. Even if there is the same ratio of adults to kids at each
preschool, less kids still meant more adult attention, especially
positive attention. Even if there are more adults present for more
kids, each adult still need to be relieved for breaks, and there is more
paperwork to do for each teacher. So the head teacher is doing
paperwork rather than being with the kids. But she is still counted
into the adult to child ratio. Generally the atmosphere is higher
energy, more going on, more hectic. More kids = more messes to clean
up. Some adults are assigned to clean up after snack times and lunch,
but that number doesn't increase if there's more to clean up. More kids
= more conflicts between kids. There are more conflicts and less
teachers to properly deal with them because the teachers are constantly
alternating for breaks, clean up duty, or paperwork duty. So anyways, I
enjoyed all the preschools, but some were more stressful than others.
I worked with the under 2's at my first preschool job. And that was
truly cake. Plus I didn't have to do sit ups that week from the ab
workout I got from laughing so much. With the under 2's, there are alot
less behavior problems to deal with. The main issue with under 2's is
separation anxiety. And while I was working, we only had one boy who
suffered from that. He was new to the preschool, and he did not trust
anyone yet. He cried the whole time, and nothing would appease him
except occasionally the toy cars. Good thing his crying didn't infect
any of the other kids. It's a funny thing with kids. Emotions are even
more infectious than the flu. He eventually got over it though.
Under 2's will also put anything in their mouths. There was a painting
station, and it was good if paint got onto the paper half the time since
most of the time the paint brush was in their mouths. It's a funny
sight to see a kid grinning at you proudly at his paint work while a
paint brush and green goo was hanging out of his mouth.
I had the most laughs in the sand pit. In a corner of the playground,
there was a shell inlaid into the cement concavely and collected mud
whenever it rained. The kids were fascinated by this and would stomp on
it, poke at it, pick up leaves from it and put it in their mouths. One
cute blond boy decided to try something new. He went into the sand pit,
leaned over, and pushed his face into the sand. He emerged with a big
mouthful of gritty sand, walked over to the corner with the shell, and
spat the wet sand into it. I didn't know quite what to do. Should I
stop him? He wasn't hurting anyone or doing any harm. When I asked the
teachers about them eating paint, the general consensus is it doesn't
hurt them and if you told them no, they just keep doing it anyway. He
walked back to the sand pit, spitting the whole time of course, and did
it again. I couldn't stop laughing. It was such a funny sight. I
asked him if it tasted good. He didn't reply with his mouth full of
sand but only smiled at me. He did it one more time before I had to
stop him because he got sand up his nose and sneezed. Another favorite
sand pit moment - this boy kept stepping on the rakes surrounding him,
flicking them up and hitting his shins, just like Sideshow Bob in The
Simpsons. Except he didn't utter "heuhhh" after stepping on each rake.
Ha ha ha
The best part was getting to know the kids. Every kid is so different,
and it is easy to see the uniqueness of each kid's personality. Even at
such a young age, it is apparent they are individuals with different
temperaments, preferences, attitudes. I wonder how different I actually
am to the kid I used to be.
There was Daniel and Li Xing, the two Chinese boys, both very different
from each other. One is boisterous and mischievious while the other is
watchful and follows everything the other one does. There was one girl
who would always whine, another girl who liked to play by herself or
with only one other kid, and another girl who always wanted your
attention. There was the bully and the ones who got bullied. There was
a boy with a sweet smile who didn't talk very much and was content to be
in his own world. There were ones that asked permission and ones that
never did.
There was Leah the little girl who looked Indian, or her family is from
Central Asia. And the way she dressed, wore her smooth brown hair, and
carried herself was just like a little woman. It's amazing how the 4 to
5 year old girls were already preparing to be in the adult world. They
tried very hard to mimic an adult or teenage female, talking on the toy
cell phone, playing house, totally disregarding the toys that are
supposed to be for boys.
Despite all their mimicking it was obvious they were still kids. They
all loved a good game of tag. If I showed any sign of willingness, they
instantly picked it up and would yell, "Chase me, chase me!" Sometimes
it was "I'll chase you!" And half the playground would be chasing after
me. Good times. Occasionally I'd let them catch me, and they would all
dog pile onto me, wrestling and pulling at my limbs...with their grubby,
germy hands. I think I had a slight sore throat the whole time because
of those germ infested children. Gotta love 'em anyway.
Now I'm thru with all that fun unfortunately and work in an office, much
better pay and much less snot. But that will be another blog.