Transvestite Sherpas and Possum Pies

On friday, January 18th, we got on a bus with driver Jugs and drove to Barrytown. barrytown is this tiny blip of a town on the west coast of the south island. basically, it shouldn't even be called a town. i don't think it even qualifies by maine standards as a township... it consists of about 4 houses and a hostel/bar. this hostel/bar is called all nations hotel, and it is legend in the stray bus book. basically it all started because driving from abel tasman to franz josef would just be too long for drivers to do (although i did do that route a few days before christmas with ali barbar, emma, janelle, silvia, helen, jessica, and denise). so they needed a place to stop off. and barrytown it is.

the deal with barrytown is that you can get super cheap drinks all night long... but only if you dress up in crazy outfits. so there were about 14 of us that were game for the night (pretty lame numbers really, but we turned it out anyhow), and there were abour 3 boxes of wild articles of clothing and accessories underneath the pool table. so we all got dressed up in our wild regalia and kicked off a steady night of drinking and dancing. the thing that sucked, however, was that the bar music ran on a jukebox system, so you had to pay for music all night long. bummer. but anyways it was all good times, and though it wasn't the wildest night i've had in nz, it was a load of laughs. i was particularly impressed with joel, who was really reluctant to get dressed up in the beginning ("no. i am NOT wearing a skirt.") but eventually let me talk him into an amazing sherpa-transvestite get-up, bright green satin skirt included.

the other great thing about that night was meeting a really cool british couple, clare and chris, who are super super sweet and a lot of fun. we ended up seeing quite a bit of them, and they really made the night at barrytown worth it.

so after the madness ended around 2 in the morning (super super super early by nz standards) joel and i retreated to our tent, which was set up on the fluffiest, most amazing lawn ever. i slept SO well. the sand flies were nuts in the morning, as they always were, but that just comes with the territory.

the next day were drove to barrytown, which was a surprisingly long drive. we stopped in hokitika, a coastal town that i definitly want to revisit in march when they host the wild foods festival, a rad little party that involves loads of weird food cooked up (sea creatures of all kinds, wild pig, hare testicles, chicken legs, fungi of various varieties, etc). they are also known for their jade stone factory. jade (or greenstone as it is called here) necklaces are a very new zealand thing. they come in all gorgeous shades of green and carved with maori designs resembling fish hooks, spirals, figure eights, figurines, and stone tools. they are absolutely stunning. i haven't committed to getting one yet, since they are super expensive, but do have a little green jade necklace (no carving, just a chunk of polished jade).

we also stopped by a glacial river-- the rivers in this part of the country are amaaaaazing. they are chock-full of minerals and therefore appear opaque and an eery icy blue-green-gray color. we stuck our feet in and the water was icy cold, but surprisingly not as cold as some high mountain streams i've jumped in up in new hampshire. but still pretty brisk. joel was the only one out of the whole bus (40 or so people) to jump in, which was quite a spectacle. so well done, mountain boy.

our next stop was an amazing museum called the bushman's museum, which is out in the middle of who-knows-where. its run by this crusty old hunter man who has the driest and sharpest sense of humor. entry is 4 bucks, which is totally worth it just for the movie you watch in the first 20 minutes. its a movie about the deer farming industry in nz and how it all began. basically, the settlers brought over deer and let them run wild in nz. in the mid 20th century, venison became quite popular and they needed a way of gathering deer meet. so at first, guys would take helicopters out and shoot deer, string them up beneath the heli, and fly home. then somebody decided to start up deer farms, so these guys decided (here is the best part) that a good way of capturing live deer would be to fly the helicopter low enough over the animal so that a man could jump out of the heli and tackle the deer. so hilarious. the footage they have is just ridiculous, these dudes are really going for it. so they would do this, attach the live deer to the bottom of the heli and take them for a wild ride back to the farm. eventually they stopped tackling deer and invented a net gun, which proved less dangerous. but holy shit, only new zealanders would come up with tackling deer from helicopters.
also at the bushman's museum are a few possums, a live wild pig, some stuffed deer and things like that, and various practical jokes strung throughout the museum (such as pull this door and a possum skin will fly at your head, or press this button and look in the window and a water gun will squirt you in the eye, aka the "weta experience"). at the end of it, joel and i shared a possum pie, which was gamey and reminded me so much of guinea pig (which i ate in ecuador, before anyone goes and calls the pet police).

that night we stayed at chateau franz, a gloriously named but rather mundane hostel. but they did have free soup with sweet potato in it, which was delicious. and a giant tv, where i watched lord of the rings and that thing you do. on the 20th (sunday) joel did a 1/2 day glacier hike, and the weather was absolutely gorgeous. i can't wait to see his pics. when i did it on christmas eve, it was 8 hours of tramping in complete sheets of rain. as the kiwis would say, the weather was custard. so i was wicked jealous that joel got the good weather. oh well, atleast hiking in pouring rain on a glacier makes me more bad-ass, right? right?

On the 21st we drove to makarora, a place much like barrytown minus the drinking. joel and i decided to bunk up in a double room and ended up getting one with 5 beds in it, one double and four singles. it was freakin sweet and i got the best sleep of the trip while a rainstorm roared outside. the next morning we took off for queenstown, stopping briefly in wanaka to check out the place. we also stopped at kawarua bridge, the birthplace of bungy, and watched two of our bus mates jump off in the pouring rain.

and of course, the first thing we did in queenstown was get fergburgers. mmmmmmmmm. AND joel agreed that they are the best burgers on the face of the planet.

cheers!!
alli