Post 7:

An Aucklander by name of Canute,
had romantic liaisons most moot.
As he was never alert,
to a nice piece of skirt,
he became known as the "Kiwi fruit"

If you stop to think about it, there is much to be said in favour of the theory that man is resistant to the powers of natural selection; that we have become so technologically sophisticated as a society that the classical notion of 'survival of the fittest' no longer applies to us. Generally speaking (emphasising this, as I don't wish to be drawn into a sociological argument here), the unfit are just as likely to pass on their genes to the next generation as the Einsteins and Adonises of the world. It is also clear that our success as a species has had a profound effect on the selection process as experienced by coinhabitants of the planet. Although much is made at the moment of how our actions indirectly affect natural selection in the animal kingdom (via habitat loss, food chain disruption etc), we rarely hear about how our more conscious actions mess with Darwin's model.

Take the humble seagull. As any practiced pier promenader knows, seagulls will patiently shadow anyone who looks like they might produce some sustenance. Those identified as food carriers are stalked by large numbers of these seabirds, usually until said carrier gives in and is persuaded to donate some of their fodder to the greater gull good. In the wild, a scenario involving a large number of gulls and a small morsel of food will generally play out in favour of the strongest, fastest or fiercest bird. However where the munchies come from a human hand, this situation is turned on its head. Humans invariably go out of their way to feed the lame gull with one eye and a crooked wing because they 'feel sorry for it'. Thus it is that where humans are involved, the village idiot of the seagull population rises to the top of the pile, turning natural selection upside down.

It must be of some consolation to the avid Darwinian that while his or her fellow humans are pissing in the gene pool of some lesser species, that there are still some mechanisms which can apply the 'survival of the fittest' doctrine to homo sapiens. In Australia's Northern Territory, these mechanisms tend to be dark green in colour, up to 5 metres long, and tend to have oodles of teeth. No one is sure whether the crocodiles in this area have developed an acquired taste for German tourists or whether it is simply that the self preservation instincts imbued in the average hapless Kraut are of a similar calibre to their sense of humour. At any rate, no tourist season in the 'Top End' is complete without a large reptile being introduced to the nuances of central European cuisine. This year, the best case I heard was of a Belgian who lost a hand - in order to get a croc to come closer to his boat for a better photo op, he was leaning over the side, splashing the water. It is interesting to note that of all the lethal creatures in Australia (where seashells have mini-harpoons that kill within the hour, jellyfish have lethal stings initially so painful that you may be still screaming whilst unconscious, where there are snakes and spiders with some of the most potent venom in the world, and where there are sharks that can easily bite you in half), the average Aussie only ever talks about the saltwater crocodile with anything approaching trepidation. All the other murderous animals are acting out of mistaken identity or in self defence, whereas the crocodile will actively hunt you. We found quite a spectacular (if slightly intimidating) way to view these prehistoric killing machines in action was on the 'jumping crocodile cruise', where wild 4 metre specimens were persuaded to propel themselves bodily out of the water for a hunk of buffalo meat on a stick. You may notice the croc in the picture is missing a limb. The story goes that every crocodile in the estuary was missing at least one limb except for the aptly named Hannibal. Coming in at 5 metres. Hannibal was the daddy of the delta and had all his own limbs, along with at least one of everyone else's. Completely ruthless creatures.

A more family-friendly environment in which to view crocs doing their thing was the late Steve Irwin's 'Australia Zoo'. We approached this with some doubts; given how corny and commercial it was supposed to be. For all its failings however, it is quite a stimulating place; a zoo where the emphasis is on interaction, getting the animals to behave in their instinctive ways for the benefit of the audience, but going to great pains to emphasise how it is not a circus show. As it is a 70 (soon to be 500) hectare compound, it is rather remote and so necessary to set aside a whole day for the experience. Arriving early in the morning, the first species we encountered was the mosquito, but the visit got better, with the only other creature as annoying being down by the tiger enclosure, where we ran into a clucking Oirish mammy, authoritatively educating her brood as to the habitat range of the felines behind the glass: "Ah now, dey wouldn't be native to dis country, so they wouldn't". In spite of how engaging the place was, it still felt a little uncomfortable caught in a limbo where too much time had passed for it to be appropriate to actively grieve the loss of their founder, but where too little time had passed for it to seem appropriate to actively celebrate his memory. The awkward result was all the punters seemed to be thinking of what appeared to be a taboo subject (the exception being under one of the stands of the 'crocoseum', where all the tributes from 'gifted' members of the public were gathered). Steve's image was conspicuously absent from all the signage and information points; in his place, his strong-featured wife and his daughter Bindi who looks like Stig of the Dump.

Being, as we were, accustomed to the shorts and t-shirt weather of tropical Queensland, the temperature of New Zealand's south island in autumn was something of a rude awakening. Most travellers from the British Isles who have been to both Australia and New Zealand seem to sing the praises of one country over the other, I'm inclined to believe that of these, the Australophiles prefer a US-style way of life, whereas the pro-NZ faction are satisfied with the anglo/hiberno lifestyle. New Zealand appears to retain closer cultural ties with the old empire, with Australia making more of an effort to distance itself, drawing closer to the US as a result (although this does not stop her majesty from gawking at you from some Ozzie coins). In addition, New Zealand's scenery is much more akin to that at home (as is the weather, alas), the sole exception being their rather more spectacular mountain ranges. These ranges are sufficiently beautiful to be the source of much tourism in their own right, but it appears the NZ tourist industry has found it more effective and profitable to market them in association with Gandalf, Frodo et al.

There is little question that many people who have enjoyed the work of JRR Tolkien regret the fact that the man who dedicated his life to creating such a captivating imaginary world could only find the time to grace it with a handful of stories (and that some of the less popular of this handful read more like history lessons). Like junkies, readers who started off on the soft recreational stuff of The Hobbit often found the more hardcore Lord of the Rings the next logical step. Having come to the end of that story, these users would then be faced with the cruel reality that there was no other material to fuel their need for a further fix of fantasy. Going cold turkey was inevitable. So when Peter 'Pablo Escobar' Jackson decided to make 3 blockbuster films, he awoke a latent hunger in a generation of addicts. Almost everyone suffered a relapse, but this time - thanks to the fact that film is a visual medium - there was an alternative to cold turkey. Now Tolkien fanatics could visit the film locations in New Zealand. Middle Earth methadone had arrived.

It all makes Queenstown, the backpacker and adventure sports mecca set in the Southern Alps of the South Island a rather surreal place. A substantial amount of the trilogy was filmed in this area, and not only is there a dedicated store selling miniatures and various memorabilia from the films, but there are tours that revolve solely around film locations where customers put on costumes from the films and run around chanting gibberish. Furthermore, when you walk into any of the tourist offices (which are more numerous than pubs) you will find that almost every brochure deems it necessary to name check Tolkien's work, regardless of what they are actually plugging. This reaches farcical proportions when you are invited to 'come and experience with us...LORD OF THE RINGS' on a bright yellow powerboat that hurtles suicidally down a narrow gully at 80km/h.

It could be acknowledged, however, that even if the fictitious history associated with this terrain is a smidgen too fantastical, the factual history (of what little there is) is rather staid. The geographical features of much of the lower South Island appear to only have English names. Whether they have no Maori names because the Maori only occasionally passed through this region, because they were less obsessed with categorizing and 'discovering' than their European counterparts or simply because such names were never recorded is something I haven't bothered to find out, but what is certain is that many of the names we are left with leave a lot to be desired. It must have taken a particular breed of nutcase to decide in the first place that he or she wanted to brave Drowning, Freezing, Starvation, Avalanches and Falling From Great Heights just for the privilege of naming a rock or pond, but one would imagine that those who did would at least have taken the trouble to collect a store of decent names to dole out when required. Although many aspects of the landscape have perfectly acceptable titles, further features are designated in such a way as to cast doubt on the imagination, enthusiasm and more seriously, the aptitude of some of the pioneers of this region. Looking at a detailed map arouses suspicions of foolhardy amateur explorers whose most inspired monikers were based on ridiculously mundane descriptions (big creek, blue river, deep creek), random objects they could think of (mount balloon, spoon river), and when all else failed, their mates down the pub (joe creek, jerry river). It could have been that this lack of imagination was due to low morale, and further landmarks certainly hint at an underlying level of incompetence that would have been rather dispiriting (doubtful island, indecision creek, lake unknown, disappointment creek) and sometimes even alarming (mount danger, terror peak, starvation point)

Unbelievably, the spirit of such feckless frontiersmen lives on. Trekking/hiking is a popular national pastime in New Zealand and the country is covered in government-maintained tracks that wind through the wilderness for days on end. These tracks are dotted with huts at 10-15 kilometre intervals, where you can use the gas stove and get a roof over your head for the night. The emphasis along these walks is on self sufficiency; you carry all your own clothing, food, cooking utensils and sleeping bag. You alone are responsible for your own well being. It was in these circumstances that Grainne and I took on the moderately well known Milford Track (60km, 4 days in total, and so popular that it requires booking to use the huts 6 months in advance), and it was here that we found the legacy of reckless self-endangerment persists. 30 independent walkers are allowed to set forth from the Milford trail head each day, and these hikers all head off in their small groups, followed an hour later by a group of guided walkers who have paid a lot more money to do the walk in comfort (staying in fancier huts with central heating, hot water, cooked meals etc). Amongst our group of 30 strong intrepid independents was a 60-something Kiwi woman of small stature with a rattling cough that made the mountains shake. For the first 2 days, she would be one of the earliest to set off yet one of the last to arrive that the hut for that night. Many of her fellow independents expressed concern about her ability to complete the section of the track on day 3, which rose 500m up to a mountain pass and then down the other side. Her frail physical state did not inspire confidence, and the less said about her mental state, the better (when she could no longer force conversations with others, she had them with herself). Sure enough, on day 3 she was quickly overtaken by everyone. The mood in the hut that evening was subdued, with no sign of her and the light rapidly fading. Eventually, the park ranger/caretaker of hut 3 informed us that old Annie was safe and sound, after being found by the trailing guided walkers. In a ditch. It transpired that she was a recently diagnosed diabetic who had decided to try out self-medication using barley sugar sweets, and that a 4 day trek into the completely inaccessible wilderness was the perfect opportunity to give this technique a trial run. It may sound a little cold hearted of the independent walkers that no one did more to help her, but as I said, the emphasis on these walks is on self-reliance and people who set out with unreasonable ideas of their own capabilities are regarded as irresponsible, selfish and stupid. We also knew that if she ran into difficulty, she wouldn't be on her own, given that the guided walkers were bringing up the rear. We look back on those four days in the badlands with much fondness, but the experience has in some ways only become a positive one in retrospect; it says a lot that for me, the most memorable part of the journey was the shower I had back in the hostel, where I spent half an hour in a trance-like state, getting blasted by hot water and listening to 'the End' by the Doors on repeat. Many travellers we met along the way couldn't get enough of this multi-day all-weather trekking, but after a few other 'highly recomended' walks I began to question the logic of paying a lot of money to travel great distances by plane, only to spend our time traveling a tiny bit more by foot. It is great to do it now and again, but spend too much of your holiday doing this sort of thing and you may get hiker's fatigue (see photo below).

Prior to all this, as our first task in New Zealand, we had to buy a car. It was a rather rushed process, but we thought we'd found a bargain when we agreed to buy a large Mitsubishi sedan for NZ$1000. Two days later, it became clear that we hadn't spent our shrewd money on the car but on our AA membership, as steam was billowing out from the bonnet. What seemed at first to be a minor radiator issue ballooned into a monstrously expensive lesson in engine anatomy and how to deal with mechanics; we spent NZ$1,400 and 2 and a half weeks getting the car back on the road again. One thing this experience did resolve, however, was what we were going to call our car. We christened her 'Britney', as she was prone to expensive breakdowns.

After this initial 'hiccup', Britney behaved herself, taking us around both islands and delivering us on time to do fun stuff like bungee jumps, glacier walking and zorbing (where you get inside a giant plastic ball and roll down a hill). At the end of the road trip, we put up in Auckland for two weeks to palm the car off on some unsuspecting soul. One of the major selling points was supposed to be the full service history, which we were going to provide sans our $1,400 mechanic's bill. We justified this borrowing from the karmic bank as necessary due to our financial status. As it turned out, a young Czech couple fell in love with it as soon as they saw it. All four of us took it to a mechanic for a pre-purchase inspection and hilariously, the assessment was unconditionally damning, diagnosing Britney with the mechanical equivalent of tuberculosis, heart disease, CJD, and 3 types of cancer. She would not pass her next roadworthiness assessment which was due in four months and even if she held together that long, her value would effectively be zero. Not good for the sellers, you might think. Well, this couple had never bought a car before, were in a rush, and as I said, they'd already committed their hearts to Britney before the czech-up. Ahem. In addition, they might have felt some loyalty to us as we saved them from a ruthless mechanic who wanted to charge an extortionate price for the assessment and by bringing them to this pessimistic fella, saved them $65. Thus, after we reduced our asking price from $1650 to $1300, they bought it anyway. As soon as the money changed hands, the hunted expression, the darting, nervous eyes, and the generally stressed out mannerisms I'd assumed since Britney broke down all dissipated only to reappear on our Czech friend. Although we felt a little guilty taking so much money for a terminally ill automobile, we were happy that the buyers knew what they were getting for their money, and so we weren't incurring a karmic deficit. The new owners were even already talking about leaving the latest mechanic's report out of the service history when they try to sell it on.
We're leaving New Zealand behind in four days and are off to Santiago, Chile. As we're due home in the end of August, this should give time for one if not two more (hopefully less protracted) instalments of the travel blog.