Kiwi Tracks by Lonely Planet

when they walked through the forest to reach the foot of the glacier, which they climbed with ropes and crampons. Remarks in the visitor’s book reflect the awe and fascination that early tourists had for the glacier. It is cheapened now; it’s almost a fabricated Disney World. Witnessing this magical and spectacular experience rendered mundane by modern technology leaves me with an even emptier feeling.
    The bus arrives. I climb aboard to be confronted by a stocky woman in slacks and a brooch with ‘IYQ’ in big gold letters pinned to her blouse. She smiles at me and says loudly: ‘Hi!’
    I look at her as if she were a toad belching. I ask: ‘IYQ?’ and fall into her conversational trap.
    ‘You do? Well IYQ too and so does Jesus,’ she replies, in a southern United States drawl. She sits down next to me and insists on talking, especially when the driver speaks over the intercom to impart information.
    ‘Could you repeat what you just said?’ she asks him. Even before he has repeated it for her sole benefit, she is already asking me: ‘So, where do you come from?’
    Don’t these types ever stop to listen? I tell her: ‘Yi yam from Peru,’ pretending I cannot speak or understand English.
    We hurtle down an empty ribbon of road pressed to the sea by mist-shrouded mountains. I rest my head passively against the windowpane as New Zealand streaks by. A helicopter has landed
in a paddock, blades still rotating, the pilot in a jump suit taking a leak. On the other side of the helicopter, two hunters stack the floppy carcasses of magnificent red deer stags into the back of a utility truck. The sight depresses me.
    I am having a bad day and accept it as such. I have to learn that not every day can be a high.
    Greymouth was a hive of activity during the gold rush. Now its main industries are coal mining, fishing, sphagnum-moss collecting, farming and tourism. A huge man with a walrus moustache and a beer belly talks with several others, all festooned with long scraggly beards. If they had tried to look like goldminers from the last century, they could not have succeeded better. The town, despite its unprepossessing name, is authentically colourful.
    The train to Christchurch is delayed, so I ask a woman walking by: ‘Could you tell me how far it is to the nearest supermarket?’
    ‘It’s a five-minute walk that way,’ the woman replies, pointing down the road.
    I follow her directions, and half an hour later I am still on my way to the supermarket. It is not the first time a helpful Kiwi’s assessment of how long it takes to walk somewhere is out of whack. I don’t think they’ve ever actually strolled these distances: the supermarket is a five-minute drive and a forty-minute walk.
    On the wobbling little narrow-gauge train to Christchurch, the conductor holds up a camera: ‘Does this belong to anyone?’
    ‘It’s my Nikon,’ I say, when he sashays close enough for me to recognise it.
    He hands me the camera. ‘You left it on the platform. Someone found it and handed it in to the ticket station.’
    Kiwis tell stories of how New Zealand is not as crime free as it used to be, that now you cannot park your car in a parking lot at one of the hiking tracks without having it broken into. My own experience has been truer to the clich�: that old-fashioned New Zealand is as honest and na�ve as North America was a couple of generations ago.
    The train wiggles its way through mountains and dense forest, affording an occasional glimpse of snow-capped peaks and long
stretches of open, bouldered rivers. Dense mist steams out of the thick vegetation like smoke. On the other side of the pass is a deluge of heavy rain. I am very happy I decided not to get off en route to take on another waterlogged track.
    Return to beginning of chapter
AKAROA
    Arriving back in Christchurch for the second time, I am more aware of the town’s distinctive appeal – for one thing, I can see the sun. I join a walking tour and recognise