Am very aware it is some weeks now since the 8 went tramping the Heaphy Track.
Life has been busy for this blog author, as it has been for all of the 8, the consequence being that the continuing story of The 8 Go Tramping The Heaphy Track was put to one side.
Nevertheless, it is still imprinted in the brain and needs to be related as the other 7 on the tramp were rather keen to know in which light they may be highlighted or other as the story was retold.
And before other blogs can be posted, this previous one has to be completed.
However, there are glitches. For instance, this is being posted on a small notebook which is defying logic by not conforming as any normal PC would. There are clearly going to be repeated photos in the incorrect places - great gaps of white space that are not supposed to be here - and heaven knows what else. It would appear the words are there - but one just has to preserve down lengthy pages to find them.
This being
Day 2 (we were not going to actually begin walking the Heaphy Track until Day 5
– thus this could be a long and continuing continuum story!) … yes, being Day 2
there was much internal excitement of anticipation for the proceeding days
ahead. Fortunately this anticipation
remained high despite the day being one of rain, pain, train, refrain, gain and
devastation, ie; just another fun day on the Eight Go Tramping story
Rain: I had
put my running gear on the end of the bed the night before, with great plans of
taking an early morning jog around the earthquake environs of
Christchurch. That was until upon waking
I reached out and pulled back the curtain from the window and peered outdoors
with great anticipation to see a beautiful South Island morning, but … it was
wet. Very wet. Not nice out there. The curtain was placed
back carefully, the duvet pulled up higher and the resolution made that
‘tomorrow’ I would do an early morning run.
Of course,
I knew that my protégé in the adjoining room would be up and out running. I did write his Rotorua Marathon training programme
and knew he was assigned to do a medium paced 8 kilometre run on this day. Rotorua was to be his first marathon and what
first time marathoner would forgo any precious day of marathon training just
because of a little rain?
He
did. Not run, that is. This ‘protégé’
was just not taking his first marathon seriously enough.
Here we had
the case of ‘do what I say, not what I do.’
Clearly he thought it was the other way around.
As it was
we were to be up and packed early as Chief Organiser, Tour Guide, Power Point
Presenter, Katheryn, had arranged a shuttle to pick the 4 of us up (our numbers
had increased from 3 to 4 by late the day before as my tramping ‘room mate’
arrived on a later flight into Christchurch than we had on Day 1) to take us to
the train station for the next stage of our adventure, the Trans Alpine train
to take us from the east of the South Island to the west, Christchurch to
Greymouth .
Now to the Pain (as referred to earlier):
Whilst packing for the 7 a.m. arrival of the airport shuttle, I noted a text message had arrived on my cell
phone from elder son. It read something
like this: “Don’t panic Mum (three words
that instantaneously sends any mother into shock mode of panic), but I’m in
hospital, had emergency surgery at A&E last night, burst appendix, was operated
on yesterday, all good, had a great sleep”.
Thanks
Son. You just managed to lift the heart
rate, anxiety and blood pressure of an aging near pensioner to a level of
bursting, all in the very first three words.
Just as all sons manage to do between the ages of zero to twenty. But this one is forty-plus. My poor wee boy. In hospital, all on his own (except for the
other six hundred plus patients in the rest of the hospital).
Funny
how motherly instincts of caring and protectiveness never go away.
He had had
pain. His pain had been taken away by the emergency surgeons but seems it
transferred to me, not physically. It
was the pain of natural motherly instinct … sending me on the path of guilt. You see, it was only the previous day when
visiting his house I had mocked him about not being at work; he had left work
early due to his complaining about “feeling unwell”. I had looked at him, phuffed inwardly as
thought he looked absolutely fine and dismissed his complaint with a tossing
back of the head and eyes rolled upward (as us women so often do), as being
typical male who clearly had a standard masculine does of mere man flu. Oops.
Picture:
Danny’s appendixed view of the world in Ward 6
of Auckland Hospital.
Then There Was TheTrain:
The guilt was clearly only short lived as there was no mother rushing
back to Auckland. In fact, she was next
seen heading off to catch the Trans Alpine train.
It is a
lovely journey across the South Island on that train and one the four of us
certainly enjoyed, sick son so quickly put out of the mind. The actual journey maybe a tad half hour or
so too long, but it is pleasant, scenic, easy, relaxing and interesting. It did not rain at all for our journey which
meant our views from the carriages were splendid.
As To The Refrain: As
most will know, I am the epitome of diplomacy, tact and sweetness when
something or someone errs from being considerate or civilized to those around
them. Not that much ever irks or
irritates moi. Or is that a ‘yeah,
right’?
On this
journey maybe just a minor thing or two irked.
For instance, that Australian extended family sitting behind us; or the
rude Europeans pushing in on the food queue; then the poor customer service,
which in turn highlighted ignorant people, smokers and sniffers (Sniffers: you
know, those people who go around sniffing all the time when they should be
carrying a tissue or hankie to wipe away the bodily fluid dripping from their
nasal passage and being sniffed.
Sniffers REALLY bug me.)
These were a
few other human idiosyncrasies that irked me on the four hour journey and would
usual have me react, respond, retort or expletive depletive. However I was with friends and we were all in
good spirits, enjoying this second day of our Jaffas Go Tramping adventure, so
I refrained from reacting, retorting or expletive depletive.
I can sense
the sighs of relief the other three must have felt with my amazing self
control.
So we get on to Gain:
It was only a mere 26 hours from the beginning of our journey and
already the intake of highly calorific foods and fluids had been great. Stodgy muffins and ginger kisses for
breakfast at the train station; potato
chips and chocolates to fill in the train ride time. The night before at a Christchurch Mexican
café the nacho-burrito-type foods were irresistible. The buffet at the Koru Lounge. This trip was getting better and better. Being now partnerless I find no need to keep
my body irresistible, so had the devil-may-care attitude at whatever was put in
front of me. Which was a lot. Of bad things. It was fabulous.
Oh the Devastation: I have used that word many
times since we first hit the West Coast.
There is no other word to describe how badly the Coasters were hit by
the cyclone, Cyclone Ita, that greeted them at the beginning of Easter. We saw the post cyclone damage. It was immense. Beyond description.
Walls,
roofs, houses, trees, forests, bush, sheds, cars, boats – ruined or near
ruined. In fact, almost entire forests
of beech trees appear to have been ravaged by the anger of some Armageddon. The resultant damage had us all pondering on
the Jurassic Park-type movies where some alien beings had set out to destroy
anything in their path.
It gave us
continual miles of much to see, wonder and discuss and then eventually climb
over, under, around or be turned back from.
Westport
Well, the highlight on our arrival in Westport has to be the
accommodation our tour leader booked us into.
The Westport Cosmopolitan Hotel, in the main street, locally known as
The Cos. I know there is not a lot of
choice of accommodation in Westport and dear Tour Leader Katherine did want us
to immerse ourselves into the essence of being on the West Coast. The Westport Cosmopolitan Hotel, aka The Cos,
certainly gave us much essence.
It also
gave us eventual refuge, and a number of incidences to chuckle over.
It’s
benefits were: it was central; it served
meals; it served beer; it had wine; the rooms ‘appeared’ clean.
Its
chuckling benefits (aka non-benefits) were:
there were no luxuries, how could we have expected such? Luxuries defined as: shampoo; conditioner;
hair driers; tea and coffee making facilities in the rooms; cups; glasses;
hangers (or even cupboards or wardrobes) on which to hang clothes (and I guess
we were adventurers so why would we dare to think we would like to hang
something up?); hooks (on which to hang the things we had no hangers to hang
from); towel rails from which to hang towels; hooks from which to hang towels
from due to having no towel rails; face clothes; compendium; bible (it was
Easter after all); fridge; spare pillows; spare blankets; table on which to put
anything. However there was a bed, or
two, and electric lighting, which when considering the cyclone had cut power to
many places on the Coast, we were most grateful for.
As for the
shortage of many of those items, not too much of a problem for us smart
Jaffas. We merely went from other room to
other room collecting any of the goods we could find to help furnish our own
nest for the couple of nights we were to be there. We were merely ‘borrowing’
from the unused rooms.
Maybe that
was the reason why those empty rooms were all locked the next day?
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