Leaving Wellington city going East involves traveling through about 30 minutes of slow, tedious roads curving around a large mountain range. The mountains themselves are rather breathtaking, as they are completely covered with nothing but bright yellow flowers. This was breathtaking until about 10 minutes into the curvy roads when the combination of left-side driving, intense curves and the reading-in-the-car that I had been engaging in while reading the map all combined to make me the most nautious human being in the history of time. I remember mumbling something to Fabien to pull over, and we all took a breather. I remember not even being able to feel my feet. After sitting still for about five minutes and doing some jumping jacks (they're called "star jumps" here, haha) to get the blood going, we continued on.
I'm in the process of running in place here.
'
This was a great road experience. It was a nice, peaceful Sunday (although not the nicest weather day). The weather actually added to the great atmosphere of the isolated, geographically intense area that we were going to. I actually forgot to bring my camera, so I'm going to use other people's facebook photos. A few wrong turns led us to discover a very cool beach area with a fish and chips place close to the shore. It was sort of a bed and breakfast type of place, very isolated on the beach front. It was a beacon of warmth and shelter in an otherwise humanless area. We ended up going back to this place after our cape experience was over, and it was the best part of the day. Everything happens for a reason. In any case, the beach was really unique looking. It sort of had an inlet where the sand bar reached around both sides in front of you and started to come back together in the distance. Surrounding the coastline to the right was the tall, green mountains that you see in the road pictures. To the left and behind the coast were tall, intimidating desert-like mountains that stretched back inside of themselves with gaping caverns and strange erosion-based rock formations. This was the shooting location for the Dimholt Dale and the Paths of the Dead. We didn't end up having time to check it out, but I'll be going back before I leave. We skipped rocks here for a while and then moved on.
This is right before the beach, so you can see the mountains that I was talking about. It was such a cool location, sort of a hybrid of the mountains, the rolling greens, and the ocean.
On the way to the cape we stopped at a few places...just because we HAD to. Every turn had amazing coastal rock jutting into the ocean. Due to the rather windy and slightly windy day, the waves were crashing onto the coast, leading to excessive wetness that nobody could care about in the least. It was a blast.
We were big on the triumphant arm-raising motif that day. It's a sure winner.
The sand on Cape Palliser is very unique and different from any sand I'd seen. It's still granular, but the grains are a bit larger than sand from home. The grains are just large enough that they don't stick to your hands, so none of the handfuls of sand that you pick up stays on your hand. It feels like holding water and being able to watch it slip through the palm of your hand in stone-form. Amazing.
The second car was ahead of us a fair distance, mostly due to our habit of stopping every twenty feet to take in the sights. It was ahead of us, I should say, until we passed it on the side of the road with a spare tire being newly installed. I guess Kevin swerved near a one-way bridge as a dog jumped into the road. Nobody knew how to change a tire and so they had to wait until a local help then. Don't know how to change a tire. Psh. Learned how to do that the second day after getting my license. Because I popped a tire, of course.
One of our last spontaneous pit stops took place as a result of our casually looking out our side window and seeing at least ten seals just hanging out several feet from the road. It was very surreal, because you're so used to seeing seals in a self-contained area such as a zoo. I'm going to psychoanalyize these seals and say that they were, on the whole, a pretty content bunch of creatures, but they had problems with intimacy. We took it really, really slow and approached them as if we didn't notice them in the slightest. These were New Zealand seals, you see, and we weren't sure whether or not they were prone to spontaneous attack and/or possessed razor sharp seal claws/teeth. No such luck. They were, as far as I could tell, fairly normal seals. However, as we approached closer and closer and began to let our peaceful vibes go by talking at normal volumes, the seals seemed to become agitated. They did that seal-noise where it looks/sounds like they're sneezing but they're really just annoyed. I backed off, but a few of them stayed near the seal and kept taking pictures. Next thing we know, they were getting a full court press from like three seals moving faster than I ever knew seals might be able to move. They basically chased us off. So now, added to the peril of mighty wind, splashing water, and often difficult roadwork on the coast of the ocean was a coordinated seal attack. Not a bad time at all. Something else to check off my list of "things I've never done before", I suppose.
So finally we all got there, to the lighthouse and Cape Palliser. The lighthouse is built alongside a tall, long rocky mountain that continues up into unseen heights long after the lighthouse itself. However, the steps involved to get to the lighthouse numbered well over 200. It was ridiculous, took us about 15 minutes to climb up. At this point, the wind had become ridiculous and it was really starting to feel like an epic adventure novel. Our first goal was to scale the stairs. More motivation would follow. Observe the ridiculous amount of stairs:
Upon reaching the Lighthouse, I took a few hazardous liberties with standing on the brink of the abyss that I found before me. Because why not? It was basically an untold drop into the rocky ocean, and It was exhilarating to feel the powerful wind attempt to push me from my precarious balance and throw me off. I suppose it was a small taste of what it must feel like to go skydiving or bungy jumping, one of which I will definitely cross off of my list before I leave here. It was like surfing, but instead of water there to catch you, it's just the air. Lots and lots of air.
You know the feeling when you stick your head out of a car window and the wind makes your cheeks flap? It was like that, but you didn't need to be moving at 70 mph to get the wind. Fantastic.
The adventurous mood is easily discontented. Upon reaching the lighthouse, I just wanted to climb higher. Four others joined me, and we decided to climb the rocky peaks as high as we could. Into the clouds, if necessary. Because why not? The wind was fierce and ocean was violent and we were having a fantastic time. I wasn't even wearing hiking shoes. It was a very spontaneous mountain scaling experience.
We began to climb so high that the low-flying cloudy mist enveloped us. The houses looked like ants and we could see the clouds swiftly creeping up the sides of the mountains around us. It was very, very quiet, save for the soft crashing of the ocean somewhere in the distance. I felt very happy up there. I felt very connected with the world and society didn't seem as important or pressing as it usually does.
Yes, there was a palm tree on top of the mountain. Don't ask me why. I don't know.
As we got higher we began to feel a collective achievement, and posed for some triumphant photos. I have to take a moment here to thank my Uncle Jim for the fantastic, extremely high quality rain jacket that he got me for my trip here in New Zealand. This excursion to the coast is a great example of how invaluable it's been to me in my journeys and everyday life in Wellington. I don't think a drop of water so much as touched my upper torso. Except my head, but that's only because I took my hood off for the thrill of it. You look cooler and more world-weary with a wet head.
When one climbs a mountain, one obviously desires to reach the summit. Otherwise it wouldn't make a great story. The thing about this particular mountain is that it always created the illusion that you were "almost there". It always looked like the summit was just over that ledge there, just beyond your line of sight. We climbed for about an hour and never actually got to "the top". Somehow, it never got old or tiring. We figured we should get going in order to get back down before it was dark. I only got tired on the way down. It was probably the exhilaration of being inside of a low-flying cloud. Quite an experience.
Getting down as a lot harder than climbing up, probably due to the slippery, wet grass that we were using for footholds on the upward climb. It ended up being mainly a half-climb half-sit/slide descent, and all of our pants were very dirty when we got to the lighthouse. Worth it.
The car ride back home was absolute exhaustion. You know the feeling when you're driving home from the beach? I felt like that but twice as tired. We stopped at the fish and chips place that we had accidentally ran into on our way there. It was a very warm, welcoming place with a pool table and a large piano in the corner. I'm a big fan of fish and chips, if I haven't already said that. It needs to be more popular in America. I also got the most delicious hot chocolate that I've ever tasted in my life. It came with a Cantebury fish, which is basically the standard New Zealand candy. It's strawberry marshmallow dipped in milk chocolate, and obviously shaped like a fish.It was, in fact, the same candy that I was given in "The Deep Places of the World" back in early July. It's all coming full-circle, friends.
We were all pretty cold and wet, and there was only a space heater warming the large room. This resulted in us taking turns warming our feet above the space heater like a fire. Space heaters need to be more popular in America. I've grown fond of them for some reason.
You can almost see the space heater
We put it on self-timer and rested it on the piano.
Hanging out in a warm, home-y environment after scaling a mountainside in the toiling in the mighty wind and rain all day long was extremely cathartic and I don't think it gets much more enjoyable than our dinner experience there. The beach where we had skipped stones earlier in the day lay right outside the window, and I would've skipped some more if it wasn't raining so hard.
The ride back consisted of mainly napping, and the path back to Wellington seemed much longer than the one away from it. Due to the fact that we had a car and we still had a few hours on the rental, we drove to Pak n' Save, the cheapest grocery in Wellington, usually inaccessable due to its distance. It was fantastic not having to worry about what I was going to carry, and I bought about 3 weeks worth of groceries. Successful ending to a great day.
I went to the Rivendell shooting locations this last week as well, so I'll be putting another post up on that soon.
Hope all is well with everyone,
Bill
