Dear readers, if there's one thing I can guarantee about life, it's that I will fail miserably at all things sporting and athletic. I fear the liftees at Cardrona may have a Wanted poster of me for causing chaos and knocking everyone in the vicinity over each time I tried to get off the chair lift, but the bottom line: I did it! I skied down a mountain!
I was lucky enough to spend the week at a ski resort on the South Island with my host family, plus the grandparents and two other Devonport families. It was such an incredible experience; I could just sit and stare out at the Southern Alps for the rest of my life and not be satisfied, I think.
I skied a few days, but even just taking walks along the tracks and looking down from sugared peaks into a caramelized valley was delicious. I adore how these mountains drape: their bald ridges ripple across the horizon, snow dripping from them like frosting. We stayed in apartments on the mountain, so access to these views were 24/7. (Just like in Rarotonga, I'd wake up in the middle of the night and look out the window to marvel at the STARS-impossible numbers, millions of dots littering the sky in unfamiliar, but no less lovely, constellations).
When we first landed and began our drive through the Alps, Keira observed how she both loved and feared looking up at the mountains, and how it made her tummy stir and heart beat faster. I told her I knew exactly what she means. It's a tingling, an adrenaline rush just looking up, up up.
When we first landed and began our drive through the Alps, Keira observed how she both loved and feared looking up at the mountains, and how it made her tummy stir and heart beat faster. I told her I knew exactly what she means. It's a tingling, an adrenaline rush just looking up, up up.
One particularly blustery day I escaped down the mountain with my host mom's dad to Wanaka, a small lake town about an hour from the mountain (although half that time is spent navigating the twisty gravel road from the ski lodge-a road that would NEVER exist in its current non-guardrail form in the US). I spent a day in Wanaka back in April, and it was neat getting to visit a NZ spot more than once. Visiting one time makes me a tourist, but twice means I'm simply a visitor, here on holiday like other Kiwis, able to find the grocery store and the good cafes and the hostel.
I went on a walk around the lake, which was perfectly gloomy and mysterious. I loved being there in the "wrong" weather, it inspired some more silly poetry!
I went on a walk around the lake, which was perfectly gloomy and mysterious. I loved being there in the "wrong" weather, it inspired some more silly poetry!
Wanaka in Winter
Wanaka is lazily lapping lakes and boats abandoned, overturned in the grey
it is fiery trees protesting hotly against the mist, willows and pines gazing up at
wrinkled mountains
it is blue horizons calling back a long lost heritage:
lochs and Celts and the Motherland's love
and tussock-ridden peaks insisting No, this place is its own-
determinedly forlorn at the end of the world
Wanaka is lazily lapping lakes and boats abandoned, overturned in the grey
it is fiery trees protesting hotly against the mist, willows and pines gazing up at
wrinkled mountains
it is blue horizons calling back a long lost heritage:
lochs and Celts and the Motherland's love
and tussock-ridden peaks insisting No, this place is its own-
determinedly forlorn at the end of the world
We all went back to Wanaka towards the end of the week, foregoing a day of skiing in favor of a sunny day in town and a trip to Puzzling World, the NZ equivalent of Ripley's Believe It or Not! It was lots of fun, actually: the girls had a blast, which meant we all had a blast, haha!
On our plane trip back to Auckland I was granted a window seat, and proceeded to completely ignore my book for the longest time, so unable was I to tear myself away from the insane views. I wish I could accurately convey what it is to look at New Zealand. It's not just pretty, it's not just unusual and interesting to observe; it's a story more than an image. It's like looking inside my brain, where my thoughts and joys and fears and everything are represented by color and topography and depth and contrast...I've never experienced anything like it.