Days 4 and 5--Invercargill

Travelogue Day 4 and 5

Day 4 was a comparatively uneventful day. After cramming in a considerable amount of what there is to do on the South Island (not considerable compared to what there actually is to see but considerable because we’d only spent three days doing it), Day 4 was pretty relaxed. After waking at the latest time possible to get us out of our hotel by the 10:00 check-out time, we traveled south from Te Anau to Invercargill, where the Loves live.

At this point it goes without saying that the trip down was very scenic, filled with more mountains (well, mountains by my central United States standards but probably they were only hills by most standards) and pastures and heaps and heaps of sheep. Another common site in the pastures was deer—and I don’t mean the occasional, frolicking herd as we might sometimes spot back home if we’re lucky. The market here for venison is considerably more developed than it is in the States (and there is a market for it abroad as well), and along with sheep, cattle and other more traditional livestock, we’ve seen several pastures filled with grazing deer and even some elk. Not surprisingly, deer are a bit more difficult to raise than cattle or sheep, and I’ve heard they have no qualms with kicking teeth in whenever they feel hassled.

Hearing this made me think back to the days of working cattle when I was growing up. It was the standard for the younger of us, who invariably were stuck in the “chute” pushing and prodding the animals up to where they would be worked over however we were working them over that day, to get the crap kicked out of us by the animals. More than once I had the extreme displeasure of knowing what it’s like for a couple hundred pounds of irritated animal to personally—and I think maliciously—try to end my chances of creating offspring. Remembering this, I felt a little sorry for the people who would have to do something similar with a flightier and more dangerous animal. And then I laughed a little inside because it wasn’t me and in many ways I’m a very petty person.

We only stopped once on the road in Winton where we had lunch at another great little roadside café. . It’s really great how every small town along the road has so much to offer. I imagine it’s a lot like the towns here in the States were before the major highways diverted all drive-by business to the bigger cities. Probably there were more sites we could have visited on the way, but we were still in a dozing state whenever we were on the road and I think we managed to sleep for most of the trip

In Invercargill we found our hotel, checked in and met up with Libby’s two youngest brothers, John and Pete. Of course, both of them were overjoyed to see us because we have that effect on people. John and his partner Sara also live in Invercargill and later, when Sara got off work, she joined us at the house. Mostly we spent the rest of the day chatting. Also, not surprisingly, the wine was broken out. Since we were still pretty travel-worn, though, we ended the night pretty early back in our hotel.

Travel Note: Earlier I briefly discussed the nature of the weather and heating here in New Zealand, but a few more days have offered me a few new perspectives on the subject. I can’t stress enough to bring cool weather clothes and keep them handy. I’ve been told that, even in the warmer months, people will still dress in layers because the temperature can switch quickly and rain can crop up about any time.

Remarkably, even though the temperatures, even in the warm parts of the year, are likely to get cool, I have not yet been in a house or establishment with central heating. This is a foreign concept to nearly everyone here. John noted that it was because of electricity and burning fuel availability, which makes some sort of sense.

Electricity, since this is a small, pretty much self-contained island (from an energy perspective at least), would be in fairly high demand and the prices would reflect that. On the other hand, there seems to be an abundance of coal on the island and, obviously, no shortage of trees to burn. During the building booms that have happened in previous decades, it made more sense to include fuel burning stoves that could heat good portions of the house than to use electric heating of any sort, and, despite many obvious advances in the field of central heating, New Zealanders have stuck to this idea. More often than not, rooms are individually heated—using electric radiators or space heaters wherever necessary. Nearly every room in a house has a door so that it can be isolated from the rest of the house and the heat can be trapped.

This is a great idea, unless you have any intention of being in more than one or two rooms in your house and you like to be warm. Among the most uncomfortable experience that I’ve had while here happened in one of the earlier hotel rooms we stayed. The bathroom had no heat and it wasn’t close enough to the heater to receive any of the heat. It was freezing in there. In some ways it made me feel like a rugged explorer, expelling my hard-earned waste or showering away the remains of a back-breaking day of running off the natives or whatever. In most ways, though, it made me feel clammy and cold (and then blind when the fog rose from the shower and filled the non-ventilated room) and when I stepped out onto the cold floor or sat down on the toilet seat that maintained the same temperature as a playground flagpole in the dead of winter (I totally should have dared Libby to press her tongue to the seat to see if it would stick, I’m sure she would have done it in the name of good fun), I spent a good deal of time cursing the backwards planners who allowed something so horrible to happen to me at 6:00 in the morning.

John and I were discussing the lack of central heating and he told me that the typical Kiwi response to such an observation would be to “toughen up” and deal with it. This seems like exactly the response I would expect from many of the people in this country, and it’s not surprising since most of them have never experienced the benefits of central heating and/or a working thermostat (another drawback is that rooms often get too hot or too cold because the settings on the heat sources aren’t terribly responsive—the one room we’ve been in that had an honest-to-god thermostat in it was exactly as unpredictable as all of the ones that didn’t). I was also told that new construction was adopting a sort of central heating that did a little better job of keeping the house as a whole comfortable, though I doubt I will get to experience first-hand how they were able to muck this up too while I’m here.

Invercargill

Invercargill, I’m sad to report, is awfully dull by the standards of the rest of the cities we’ve visited so far. That’s not to say that there is anything particularly wrong with the city. Invercargill is located in the flattest part of New Zealand that we’ve been in so far—it is at the southern end of Southland and quite near to the bottom of the whole country. This means that, from a scenic perspective, Invercargill is about as dull as our towns in Kansas. The difference, of course, is that Invercargillians (or Invercargilites or whatever they call themselves) can hop in a car and be somewhere stunningly beautiful in an hour or so, which is a pretty fair shake, I suppose.

The town itself is smallish, and, as such, the people have a very distinctive small-town attitude. They are friendly and very considerate, in a way that reminds me of how people used to act (in my memory, at least) in the smaller towns back when I was growing up (which is not how they act so much anymore). Just around the corner from our hotel, there is a small grocery and convenience store where we had planned to do much of our shopping to stock our room and buy all of the amusingly-named and amusingly-conceived foods that we were planning to bring back to the States as half-hearted souvenirs for friends and family (sorry friends and family if this ruins the surprise). I went in there and gathered up an armful of product and took it to the counter.

When preparing for this trip, we were informed that New Zealand is a mostly plastic country—meaning it was theoretically possible to never use cash to purchase things. Libby and I ran with this idea and I personally swore to make this trip without pulling out a single dollar of New Zealand money (which is colorful and funny, like most foreign currency—which obviously suggests that American money is, in fact, the funny money by international standards). My first trip to the store, all I had on me was our credit card. After swiping the card, the lady behind the counter informed me that they didn’t take credit cards. “Oh,” I said, a little confused how a store would take debit but not credit cards since this was, I believe, the first time I’d ever been anyplace set up like that. “I’ll run back to the hotel and grab our debit card then.”

On my second trip in, I had the debit card. She swiped that and I entered my PIN number, which brought back an “invalid card type” error. “Balls,” I said under my breath. I’d thought about breaking out a “bollocks” to test my vernacular but figured that would sound silly and pretentious coming from an American mouth (which doesn’t stop me from saying it when I’m home—“bollocks” is a great word, as are most of the British expletives that I try to use as often as possible). “Let me run back and get some cash, I guess.” To this she said something very surprising to me. “Just take the groceries with you and come back once you’ve had a chance to get some cash.”

This flustered me immensely. Under no circumstances that I could conceive would something like this happen to me in the States. Well, unless maybe I knew the shop-keep or something, but then I would have known what form of payment would be accepted. “No, no,” I dithered. “I will be right back.” But she kept insisting, so Pete, whom Libby had sent to be my grocery boy, grabbed the groceries and we went back to the hotel. I walked back to our room and put the groceries away, still a little shocked and surprised but mostly impressed that an act showing this magnitude of trust and consideration could still take place somewhere in the world of business. Then I borrowed some cash from Molly and JF and went back and paid the bill.

Whether or not this is typical behavior from the people in this city is beyond me. Maybe it was just an individual action by a young woman who, perhaps, had an undo consideration for Americans and wanted to make some sort of impression or maybe she was clinically insane and would be shortly fired because she kept giving away free groceries. Either way, I found it a most inspiring moment.

I do also have one story pertaining to Invercargill’s international reputation. Almost never does Invercargill make an appearance on the international stage. It has, really, only two claims to fame. The first is that Burt Monro, the character portrayed in The World’s Fastest Indian, a recently released movie starring Sir Anthony Hopkins, came from Invercargill. The movie, in fact, was also filmed here in the city and the back of Pete’s head even makes an appearance (they had a general casting call for extras and the back of Pete’s head was the only family member to make the cut).

The second happened in the late 60s when the Rolling Stones toured the area. After the concert, for reasons I haven’t been curious enough to fully find out because I can’t stand the Stones on any level, Mick Jagger referred to Invercargill as “the arsehole of the world.” Though I don’t think the city ever elected to put this on their signs coming into town, this was the reputation Invercargill had to live down for a very long time. In fact, the story is still circulating, so they might not have lived it down yet. I don’t think I agree that it is the world’s arsehole. I don’t think it’s anywhere’s arsehole, really. It might be a bellybutton or man-nipple by anatomical standards, but not an arsehole. I’ve been far worse places.

At any rate, our first full day in Invercargill was the first travel-free day that we had. Jamie, the second oldest in the family and the eldest boy, and his partner Ami joined us around 8:00 in the evening.

“Partner” is an interesting terminology used here in New Zealand. It can be used to describe people who own a business together, as it is used in the States, but it also means any two people who have chosen to “be together” in a significant, monogamous relationship. People who have been married for years are called partners. People who have been together for a much shorter time but who have not been married are called partners. Naturally, any relationship variations in between also fall into the category of partnership. Two people who live together for a certain amount of time (I’ve heard two years, but I haven’t been able to verify this in any significant way) are, as far as the government is concerned, just as “partnered” as people who have been legally bound through marriage. In recent years, and much to the chagrin of the religious right here in the country, homosexual couples have been extended the same partnership rights as heterosexual couples. The extent of the official nature of this partnership I am not entirely sure either—if gay marriage is official as well as partnership or if the partnership is the extent of what is allowed. Either way, the rights seem to be pretty much the same as far as the government is concerned, whether one is married or “common law” married. To make matters slightly less confusing, people in a partnership are generally introduced as one or the other’s partner and it is left simply at that. This, it seems to me, is a rather progressive way of dealing with the problem—eliminating the terminology associated with the religious rite of marriage. As such, the States will probably never adopt anything of the nature, no matter how many problems it might alleviate.

With Jamie and Ami arriving, and Sara still scheduled to work, we kept the day’s events relatively low-key and mostly focused on, thank god, shopping. This was fantastic (the low-key, not the shopping, shopping is never fantastic) because it finally allowed Libby, the Canadians and I the chance to catch up on some sleep in the morning (though, not surprisingly, I was still up at 5:00, backtracking from the landmark 6:30 I had made it to the day before). It also afforded us a little time to nap in the afternoon (though I found myself compelled to work on this damn travelogue instead of napping). In between, we managed to hit the main drag of shops downtown and visit one attraction of some interest (of some interest to me, at least, this one might not be everyone’s cup of overpriced coffee).

First the shops. What is there to say about entire streets of small stores that greatly range in nature that can’t easily be imagined by anyone who has ever visited such a row of stores before? It is possible to find some neat little items, of course, but it is also entirely likely that the same items will be equally available back home, and probably at a much cheaper price. Supply and demand is such in New Zealand that prices for just about every item one can imagine are higher than they would be in every English speaking place in the Northern Hemisphere. It is, after all, an island located on the opposite end of the world from most of the manufacturers who supply it, and the prices for goods are gauged as such. This actually ties in quite nicely with the one attraction we visited today as well, but I will get to that in a minute.

As an example of pricing, consider this book that I found in a bookstore along the strip. There are several authors that I have discovered over the past few years that I have a bugger of a time finding in the States. They are British satirists and fiction humorists mostly, and, for some reason, our bookstores don’t keep their work in stock. Usually I end up finding them on Amazon because even the used bookstores on Ebay don’t carry them (because they don’t stock the books normally in the States to buy new so, duh, there won’t be any used ones available either). I was, however, able to find a few of these authors on the shelves of a bookstore here in Invercargill. However, the prices on the books were pretty over the top compared to what I would pay to buy them new on Amazon. Even though the back of the book would clearly state the Canadian price at $11, and the Canadian dollar is only slightly higher than the New Zealand dollar right now, the New Zealand sticker on the back of the book was for $23—for a paperback. Now, there are many things in this world that I am willing to be bent over for, but a paperback book is not one of them. Even if Jesus Christ himself came down from on high and put his “X” on the title page, I have a hard time believing that I would shell out nearly twice the asking price for a paperback book. If, and this is a big “if,” the book were to open itself, read me the opening passages, share with me the meaning of life, and offer to pick up a second job on the side to help pay me back for my expense, then I might consider paying twice cover price for a book.

And so on and so forth.

Things are pretty much the same for everything down here. This is why Karen and Darrell paid to have us pick up a Kitchenaide mixer and ship it down. It’s just that much cheaper, even with the high cost of shipping, to buy it in the States. Someone with business ambitions should really be establishing a toehold down here right now, because I expect there will be a real chance to make a buck once all the kinks are worked out.

Or maybe not. Which brings us to the other stop we made.

Demolition World

There was actually some debate as to the name of this place before we arrived. It was alternately referred to as Salvage Land and then Salvation Land and then Deconstructionists Realm because John, the only one who knew where the place was located, wasn’t sure what it was actually called. But visiting there confirmed that it was, indeed, Demolition World. And, interestingly enough, the picture on the wall by the entrance includes a picture of the WWF tag team Demolition. How or if this pair is associated with the salvage yard I have no idea. Possibly someone will get in trouble for this infringement on a mediocre, at best, copyright. I am, however, a little sad that I even knew who the people in the picture were. It proves that, at one time at least, I knew enough about wrestlers to know who these two comically dressed athletes were.

Demolition World is a quite entertaining way to dress up the concept of salvage. Any and all demolition in and around Invercargill is fair game for this company, and they can prove it with the multitude of windows, doors, construction materials and assorted bric-a-brac they have to choose from. In this way, they are not that different from a standard salvage yard. They have many bargains available to those who have enough patience to sift through the rubble. The thing that is different, however, is the way they present much of the materials.

The owners and the other people who work there have gone to the trouble of using much of their construction materials to piece together a facsimile of a village. There is no set time period, but most of the props and costumes seem to fall in the late 19^th to early 20^th century range. There is a school house and a church and a few bars and a few houses and any of a number of other types of buildings presented. Each of these buildings, then, is filled with mannequins that have been dressed up (actually, it’s a truly creepy number of mannequins living there—I’m reasonably sure I would be far too creeped out by all of the human shapes always looming around me to ever work in the place) and who are living in fully furnished worlds. All of the materials were salvaged from one place or another and all of the items are for sale.

In addition to the Demolition World that they have created, there are a number of animals—mostly of the farm variety, but including a building of more exotic birds—to entertain those who have little exposure to such animals. The people working there are happy to supply visitors with some bread to feed to the llamas, donkeys, chickens, roosters and ducks, and all of the animals were friendly enough. They also had two very fat pigs of a local breed. These pigs had small tusks and sleep apnea because they were so morbidly obese. Fat Sheep would have been quite at home with these real life animals who seemed too large to do much more than waddle their way to and from the food trough. I laughed outwardly, but not inwardly, at their absurdity.

From an economic standpoint this brought up a very interesting issue which John and JF were debating on the ride downtown. John observed that this type of facility stemmed from a desire to follow “conservationist” principles in New Zealand. JF, however, pointed out his feeling that this was a “bullshit,” after the fact, observation, and that people only used salvaged goods because they were cheaper and that, until recent decades, getting anything down here was an ordeal. As such, people conserved out of necessity, not because they gave a particular damn about not wasting the world around them. I found this debate, between two idealists on opposite sides of the same coin, quite interesting. Being somewhat jaded, I suppose I probably agree most with JF’s observation. However, I have noted that the attitude down here, whether fueled by necessity or a more “in tune” relationship with the environment, is, in fact, more conservation-minded, and I think people do take far greater pains to keep things nice here than people in the States do.

I don’t think I need to offer any examples to back JF’s side of the coin. People offer plenty of examples on a daily basis to prove that this way of thinking is pretty standard, at least in our part of the world. But I will offer an example that helps John’s case somewhat. Back in the 60s and early 70s, government officials planned to raise the level of Lake Manapouri nearly thirty meters. The idea was to maximize the output of the power plant that was being built between the lake and Doubtful Sound. Naturally, the area dumps an impressive amount of water from the higher altitude Manapouri to the Sound and hundreds of thousands of families’ worth of hydroelectric power is harnessed from it. More water in the lake meant more power that could be produced.

When word got out around the south island, many people rallied around the cause to save the lake, which is a gorgeous natural treasure filled with small islands that would have been completely submerged if the water would have been raised. Around 260,000 signatures were acquired and given to the elected government, who chose to ignore the clear desire of much of the population and press on with their plans despite popular demand. All of these government officials were quickly voted out at the first opportunity and replaced with people who were willing to save the lake. A significant boon for the nation’s energy supply—and any subsequent inconveniences—were deemed less important than saving a beautiful natural occurrence. Now the lake has to be maintained at a certain level and cannot fall below that level due to hydroelectric processing. I don’t know if I’m just jaded or what, but I have a difficult time believing that Americans would choose this course of action. But that debate is for another time.