Greetings from a Dunedin internet cafe. I just returned (by bus) from two days/night out on the Otago peninsula, which is an old-fashioned oasis of wildlife refuges and sheep farms, on a bony finger of green land that juts out into the ocean from downtown Dunedin. I stayed at “Bus Stop Backpackers” which included an old-fashioned cottage with several shared rooms, a private double bed in an old caravan (actually, a converted “cattle trailer” permanently parked out behind in a pleasant landscape of cottage gardens), or a private double in an old green bus, permanently perched on the hillside just meters up from the sheltered harbor shoreline. For $23 NZ, the place came with an indoor kitchen, garden seats for dining, an antique radio that picked up an eclectic mix of jazz, r-&-b, and blues, and a snuggly cat (Georgie).

Obviously, I enjoyed it a great deal. Picturesque and peaceful. The hillside ran straight up, above the hostel, to a high pasture where sheep grazed and bleated softly throughout the mornings and evenings.

As soon as I arrived, I hitched a ride out to the farthest tip of the peninsula, to the head where the Royal Albatross center protects and interprets the only mainland colony of albatross found anywhere in the world. These albatross, I was told, tend to their nests this time of year, but on of the pair will usually get active in late afternoon, and start fishing. Not a sight I wanted to miss! Adult Royal Albatross have wingspans of 8 meters, and are so aerodynamically efficient they rarely “flap” their wings at all — all they need to do is adjust the angle of the wing, or tilt a set of feathers this way or that, and they lift or lower or bank accordingly. At the head of the peninsula, tour-buses and cars pull up, and most don’t want to pay the entrance fee to view the colony up close — they just stand in the parking lot, looking hopefully up into the air. The air is full of gulls and shags and a hodge-podge of other sea-birds, and a lot of tourists point hopefully at this or that large bird, getting it wrong.

The albatross may not be in the air at all, for hours — but when they are, they are not mistaken for something else. They appear suddenly, soaring clockwise around the conical stone head of the peninsula, not moving their giant wings at all. The albatross look like hang-gliders, or ultra-light cargo planes, more than birds: one is awestruck as they glide overhead.

A few minutes later, the same bird drifts by again, still moving clockwise. It merely hangs in the wind, effortlessly riding circularly in currents where the other seabirds struggle and pitch and whirl and flap and screech. After an hour or two looking through the interpretive center and watching the birds from the patio, with a cup of coffee, I bought a ticket for the last tour of the day, and went up with a few other tourists. The walking route is a steep zigzag with a tour guide, to reach the pinacle of the peninsula, which includes a “hide” shelter with mirrored glass, for viewing the birds on the other side. The closest bird was only a few meters beyond the hide! A huge bird, it was resting over a recently hatched chick. Several other nests were visible, but the albatross nests are well spaced. By contrast, the shag nesting area just below (on the steepest bare-rock-and-guano bank), resembled a condominium complex, with bird-by-bird-by-bird.

Albatross, after mating for life, fly off alone to circumnavigate the waters of the Southern Ocean, off Antarctica. Most, it is understood, fly all the way to the waters between Antarctica and South America. They are at sea for a year at a clip, resting only on the surface of the water. When they are about 8 years old, they fly back to the same colony where they were born, and reunite with their mate, and if their reunion is successful, produce one giant egg. After a very long incubation period, they (hopefully) produce one chick. After raising the chick, they fly off in different directions again, completely exhausted by parenting. They take a year off, and return the next year. Albatross live to be very old – perhaps 60 years old – but their reproduction rate is low, so they are specially protected. It was truly fantastic to view them – dozens of them in the air, and on nests.

With one day of “exploration time” remaining, I woke early the next morning wishing vaguely that I had a car for one day. So much to explore! I set off walking with a map, a bottle of water, some dried fruit, a book, and my camera. One little by-road led to another — I walked the back side of the peninsula, on graveled roads that wound and curved in and out of bayside coves where the map showed them going straight around, and only straightened out to climb “straight” up and over more steep hills.

Finding a walking route (Nyhon Track) I followed it up into the steep hillside where flocks of sheep where grazing, oblivious to the incredible views beneath them. Emerging back onto Sandymount gravel road on the other side of the ridge, I walked around to Ridge Road, and down through more sheepfarm fields into sand dunes until I came at last to Sandfly Bay. It was blisteringly hot, and I cooled my feet in a freshwater stream where it flowed down to the sea. That wasn’t cold enough, so I went out to walk in the waves. Further down the beach, there was a “hide” constructed for viewing the elusive yellow-eyed penguin, which I spent several hours in (without luck). These penguins are very shy, and sneak out of their nests in the grass and dune scrub very early in the morning, and spend the day at sea, fishing. Sometimes (this time of year they have hungry chicks in the nest) they come back ashore during the day, but I was not lucky enough to see this phenomenon. Below, a great sea-lion basked in the sun. Having been chased off a beach by a sea-lion in the Catlins, I gave him plenty of room when I walked back down the beach. I sat in the sand, and finished speed-reading a short strange novel by D. Adams (Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency) – author of Hitchhiker’s Guide… which included, among other things, time travel, some very early models of Macintosh computers (!), and the albatross of Ancient Mariner fame. Then I walked (by now, trudged) back up the steep sand dunes and sheep pastures to reach the “Highcliff Road” back down into Portobello.

I tried my luck at hitching a ride, as I was getting weary (it was still very hot and I was down to a few sips of water) — but did not get a ride until I was about 2 kilometers from Portobello. A woman picked me up and said I could ride in the back of the car, with her son. I asked him what he’d done today, and he kept me entertained with a litany of all the various errands on which he’d accompanied her, the names of his pets, etc. She dropped me in Portobello, where I decided to celebrate my long day with a liter of ice-water and a small cold beer at the Portobello pub. I sat under the shade of an umbrella, and was soon joined by a couple from British Columbia. We got along quite well, and had a lovely conversation about our various impressions of New Zealand. They love it so much they are coming back in November to spend “5 MONTHS” — a notion which left me completely envious. They gave me a lift back up the harbor to my hostel, just to be nice.

Now I am heading to Christchurch on the Atomic Shuttle bus, for a final night’s stay at the Windsor Hotel, since they were so wonderful to me when I was heading to/from Antarctica. I leave for CONUS (Continental United States — an Antarctic program acronym) tomorrow afternoon (1-25-06). Sniff. Tomorrow afternoon I’ll pick up my Antarctic duffel from storage, and then — well — it feels like I should be getting my orange ECW bags and suiting up in my parka, and catching the next transport plane back down to the Ice!

At the risk of sounding greedy: I’m not really ready to stop traveling! At every hostel, I seem to meet 20-year-old girls who are heading off to see the world, with “working visas” to spend a year in New Zealand alone. I could keep going, letting each day unfold as it wishes. This time of travel has been so incredible — so good for my spirit — and so mind-expanding — in short, I have felt truly “alive” during the last several months.

A few photos snapped during my serendipitous tour of the Palmer research vessel… including a diagram for use of rescue equipment, a view from the main bridge of the ship, a view from the ice tower (high above the ship), and a photograph by my friend Stuart Klipper — displayed in the stairs leading to the Captain’s quarters!

Next stop for the Palmer: ANTARCTICA.

Views of the research vessel as seen from downtown Lyttleton, firing up her engines, and later, from the overlook above Sumner Road, while driving towards the Summit Road — we see the Nathaniel B. Palmer below, heading for the open sea, and eventually Antarctica.

View the Flickr set: Leaving Port

http://www.flickr.com/photos/orebody/sets/72157594586672574/

Yesterday I hooked up with two lovely folks from Britain — Anna and Dan, who are going around the world (!) and are currently in New Zealand for two months. They’ve already been through Russia, China, Thailand, Nepal etc — they’ve been on the road for over a year. We met at the hostel in Lyttleton, as we took advantage of the fantastic kitchen facilities to cook up lovely food for ourselves. I’d spent the whole day hiking up the Port Hills, taking various tracks to walk out to Godley Head and down to Sumner, and was famished. I bought some groceries and returned to the hostel to make dinner.

Nothing brings strangers together better than a nice meal — we had a great time, talking and discussing things that we hope to see. Turned out we all wanted to head from Lyttleton to Akaroa. I was figuring out bus options, but they had just bought a car, so I went with them. We left via the rim of an ancient volcano that created the Port Hills about 12 million years ago. The Lyttleton Harbor itself is the ancient “center” of the crator, open to the sea. As we packed the car, I watched the Nathaniel B. Palmer pump black smoke from her stacks, then it started moving: within moments it had reversed engines and was turning to leave the dock yard. A few minutes later, driving up to the Summit Road, we stopped and I got some lovely photographs of the NBP as it headed through the neck of the harbor, heading for the open sea and, eventually, Antarctica.

In the center of the Lyttleton harbor, visible from every direction, was Quail Island, where Shackleton and Scott quarantined dogs and trained ponies while they outfitted their ships for Antarctica. The island is historic now, and parts of the ruined buildings are still visible.

After a terrific drive along the rim of the Lyttleton volcanic formation, we dipped briefly into the plains, detoured south around some hills, and popped back into the volcanic remains of the larger Akaroa volcano, which overflowed above part of the Lyttleton formation. The Summit Road continues here, wrapping around sheer S-curves and unprotected hairpins with scenic drops in all directions! Glad there was an opportunity to see it with Anna and Dan (the bus does not take the scenic highway, but hugs the valley instead).

The crator of Akaroa is long gone – it blew itself away, and the sea rushed in. Now the water is impossibly blue, the color of that blue-green crayon in the box that never seemed quite right for colouring anything, unreal. Suddenly I know what that color was for: a long sea-green harbor full of dolphins.

We are staying at an eclectic hostel near Akaroa, which is perched high up on a tangle of tropically vegetated ridges, which drop down sheer ridges to the sea. The hostel is located on a goat farm, and was built, over the last several decades, by the father of the current owner. One brother runs the sheep farm, and one runs the hostel. The hostel buildings include outdoor showers cobbled together from scraps of old wood and corrugated tin, with old showers installed inside, and artsy combinations of old sinks, old mirrors, etc. There are outdoor and indoor kitchens, on a breezy patio, with lots of travelers to chat with (if one speaks German). The hostel main building is the old farm house; there are also cheaper bunks in strange huts built on the hill behind the hostel — unheated bunkhouses shared by multiple folks, with their own shared kitchen building, and sites carved out of the hill for tents. Because Dan and Anna already had a place reserved, I am lucky enough to be sharing it with them — we have a brick cottage, built approx 1850, very rustic and tidy. Onuki Farm Hostel also rents out “skygazer” shelters, tentlike spaces with roofs of corrugated plexi. Remarkably, given the strange hodge-podge of buildings, the whole thing is neat as a pin. The vines grow in under the roof of our cottage, and I feel I am sleeping outdoors!

I went for a long hike today, along a ridge overlooking the harbor, and sketched from a stone with a terrific lookout view of the length of the harbor, an historic lookout which was used by Maori and then by the French settlers of Akaroa. The hills are deforested here… but there are great weathered stumps.

Tomorrow we are going to go kayaking in the morning with dolphins (I saw them from the lookout today) — then I am heading north. Actually, Dan and Anna are also heading north, so we may travel together for a couple more days. I will let them decide. Otherwise, my plan was to catch the TranScenic train up the East Coast. Serendipity will toss a coin!

After a fantastic tour of the Nathaniel B. Palmer — thanks Leighton in USAP Travel! — I met Captain Mike, and his son (who seemed blissfully happy that his pa was the big kahuna of such a vessel). The ship is huge, and I was pleased beyond words to find there are framed photographs by my friend Stuart Klipper hanging inside the stairwells, and in the hallways. It felt like a great connection — I can totally understand why Stuart loved his time on the NBP. It is a floating city of curiosity, and the mission of this town is Science. More on this later, when I figure out a place to download the images.

I’m staying in the lovely harbor town of Lyttleton, in a Backpacker’s hostel which reminds me of places in Greece. Met two other single women, one 28 and one 31, tramping alone throughout the South Island themselves. One is Australian and one is German, but we got along like sisters in the dorm as we talked until we fell asleep.

Word in the local pub is that the Palmer is taking on extra crew. I must say it crossed my mind more than twice! Also, I keep thinking about the advertisement for crew, quite possibly apocryphal, but attributed to Ernest Shackleton, as he organized his Antarctic Expedition:

“Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in event of success.”

This morning I repacked my pack, and decided to leave several things behind in Christchurch, rather than haul them all over New Zealand on my back. One item which caused some agony was my laptop — but I decided to ditch it. From now on, I’m relying on internet cafes, bus schedules, and two feet.

I took a city bus back out to the International Antarctic Centre by the Airport, so that I could dump the extra baggage into the duffel bag I’m already storing at CDC (all my personal items from Antarctica). While I’m out here, I decided to put out some feelers about the Nathaniel B. Palmer — how can I talk to the captain, is there a number where I can call the ship, etc. I got the name and number of the MPC onboard, Alice, and called her — explained that I just got back from the Ice, and asked about a tour (said I knew I couldn’t just show up on the dock and expect to see the ship).

After a few questions, she let me know that a group of CDC staff will be departing for a 2 PM tour, and suggested that I talk to the Antarctic Program staff, to get added to their van. Leighton, the very helpful fellow who manages the Travel Services office, did just that! What a terrific break. I am headed in to Lyttleton with their shuttle soon.

Gorgeous sunshine today — perhaps NZ’s recent streak of gray rainy weather is breaking for the best. My old pal, the full moon, paid me a visit last night. Such a sight for sore eyes! Felt like I haven’t seen the moon in forever. I spotted it, rising like a giant egg through thunderheads, over downtown Christchurch, and I became quite ecstatic!

Having learned that the Nathaniel B. Palmer is in port, about to leave for the ice, I can’t get it out of my head. Part of me considers becoming a stow-away…..!

Photographs from my day trip to Lyttleton have been posted — look closely, and you’ll spot the historic Lyttleton TIMEBALL, which used to be dropped daily at a certain hour (a visual, manual method by which all the ships in the harbor could set their clocks). Also present in many of the shots of the harbor: a red ship named the Nathaniel B. Palmer, a research vessel used in the Antarctic Program. As I typed this, I discovered that the fellow checking his email next to me at the Windsor Hotel (Sasha, from Italy) will be heading out aboard the NBP on Saturday. He is going to be studying plankton, he tells me, and if he’s lucky, he’ll get to stop in McMurdo. Small world. Plankton-sized, really!

View images of Lyttleton, including a tour of the Nathaniel B. Palmer in harbor:

This afternoon I caught a bus to the edge of town, to a parking lot where tourists pay big bucks to ride the Christchurch Gondola to the top of the Port Hills ridge (then ride back down again). It’s like a ski lift, minus the snow – and the skiing. From there, a modern (dark, choking) tunnel now cuts straight through the stone, and spits vehicles out at the Harbor of Lyttleton.

Instead of the tunnel, I hiked the Bridal Path Trail, which cuts up the hills through stark, lichen-covered ridges of weathered rock. This is the original route used by pioneers to New Zealand in the 1800’s — they got off the ships in Lyttleton and carried all their possessions on their backs over the hills, then hired wagons into Christchurch. The hiking path is steep, not an easy hike. There are benches for breathers, some of which are dedicated to the historic ships — Cressy, Raymond — on which the pioneer families arrived. It was a terrific way to stretch the legs.

Lyttleton is more recently famous as a port supporting historic expeditions to Antarctica — both Scott and Shackleton used Lyttleton to repair and re-outfit their expeditions before they left for the Ice. Modern expeditions to Antarctica continue this tradition.

I can’t tell you how excited I was to see that the NATHANIEL B. PALMER is currently in port at Lyttleton! This is the vessel that my friend Stuart Klipper sailed on, during one of his Antarctic Artists & Writers stints — taking fantastic photographs of icebergs, penguins, and brooding, brilliant seascapes.

View Stuart Klipper’s work:

http://www.mocp.org/collections/mpp/klipper_stuart.php

After hiking to the far end of Lyttleton, where the historic tower of the TIMEBALL still stands, I stopped for a beer in downtown, at a pub with a great deck view. Ran into some older fellows who apparently know the new captain — the NBP is going to set sail on Saturday, they said, and the captain will be in the pub for a drink tomorrow night. I made reservations at a backpacker’s joint down the street, then I hiked back across the Port Hills, to Christchurch.

Behind me now, in the lounge of the Windsor B&B, there are folks discussing today’s flight to McMurdo — they got halfway to Antarctica, then flew back, ran low on gas, stopped in Dunedin for more fuel, then returned to Christchurch. Sigh. They are set to try the same flight again tomorrow! Ugh. This is what ice-bound travelers call a “boomerang” flight.

An evening of brilliant moments — NIGHT! DARKNESS! I went out for a beer at the Dux-de-Lux, in the Christchurch Arts Centre — we sat outside without coats or gloves — no frostbite! ; )

Others from the ice (scientists from South Pole, retrograding ASTRO telescope) were also there. A sparrow sat on the edge of my table, begging for crumbs from the appetizer. We walked to a Thai restaurant (Mythai), and discovered there were others from the Ice there as well — including John Priscu and Mark Wells. Ordered seafood and it arrived clearly fresh, not frozen-and-fried. Then, believe it or not, the sun — gasp — set. Really. It went down, the light got dim, and then it disappeared entirely.

I am tempted to stay up, and peek outside occasionally to see whether the sun pops back up while my back is turned. Rumor has it that it will return by breakfast time! I’ll keep you posted…