Day 48 – Christchurch to Arthur’s Pass

I flew back to Christchurch and stayed again at The Jailhouse hostel.  In the morning I expected to catch a city bus to the edge of town and start hitching, but it turned out I needed even a bit more walking to get into a good hitching spot.

Eventually I was picked up by a young German named Niklas, taking a gap year between high school and college.  We had an enjoyable time chatting about jobs and school.  Too enjoyable, perhaps, because as we passed through a town, a police officer passing the other direction flipped on his lights and pulled us over for speeding.

The officer did not seem inclined to be friendly or forgiving, and had an inordinate amount of trouble with Niklas’ German accent.

“What’s your home address?”

“26 Rotzeestrasse.”

“Spell that please.”

“Arr oh tee set…”

“Set?  What’s set?”

“A letter, the last letter of the alphabet.”

“Set?  There’s no such letter.”

Of course he was saying “zed,” and I felt like the officer was being purposely obtuse.  Still, when he came back from writing up the ticket he was surprisingly kind.  He explained that if Niklas didn’t plan on returning to New Zealand, he could simply disregard the ticket, but if he returned the ticket would be waiting, with fines tacked on.  Then he said “If you’ve got room, there are a couple of very nice young ladies up the road with their thumbs out, you may want to pick them up.”

This was hilarious to me, since hitchhiking is illegal in most of the States, so to receive advice on hitching from an officer seemed very unusual. At any rate, down the road we picked up Hilary and Raissa, a lovely pair on their way to pick apples in Alexandra after a brief tour of the West Coast.

The road over Arthur’s Pass is exceedingly beautiful, and following a river valley and twisting between mountains and lakes.  One of the most remarkable sights is Castle Hill, a jumble of weathered limestone rocks that calls to mind a ruined castle or walled city.  Raissa mentioned as we drew close that the Dalai Lama had called this place a “Spiritual Center of the Universe,” so naturally we pulled over and had a picnic.  As cool as it appears from the road, the front rocks of this formation hide an even more fantastic garden of shapes behind it.  This is a bouldering paradise, with all sorts of interesting shapes to climb on and crawl across.

It was evening before I reached the beginning of the trail, but it was a day well spent.  I had a short roadwalk that just used up the last of the light.  I stopped at a roadside shelter intending to camp, when a huge bird circled low over my head.  At first I thought it was a hawk, but after it circled twice, it landed gracelessly on the ground and I recognized its bright green plumage as that of a kea.  It hopped sideways around me to get a look from all angles while a companion arrived and sat on the shelter behind me.  The birds were the size of a large cat, beautiful, and completely unafraid.  One of them came within arm’s reach of me.  They say keas are extremely intelligent (like most other parrots), and watching them watch me I certainly felt their intelligence.  I sat and watched them hop around the shelter picking at crumbs left there during the day.

I would have enjoyed communing with the keas all night, but they are also known for their destructiveness.  They are so inquisitive that they frequently rip apart backpacker’s gear out of pure curiosity, generally in the middle of the night.  These birds clearly felt that this shelter was their territory, so I moved on – there was another shelter only a few kilometers up the road.

At the next shelter I cooked dinner alongside a quartet of French girls.  Their English was rudimentary so we only exchanged a few words, and they mostly talked French among themselves.  I have no French, so to my hearing their conversation went “blah blah blah blah shitty shit!”  I couldn’t suppress a giggle at the creative swearing. Then the girls realized the first word I had understood all night was a cuss, and everyone burst out laughing.  I should have asked what the Academie Française would have thought of their using an English loanword.