Where Does The Time Go?

It's crazy to think that our flight out of NZ is just 2 and a half weeks away. Time, which moved so slowly at the beginning and felt infinite, is now squeezing our trip short and rather than lazily flowing from one place to another without any solid plans nailed down, we are now focused on getting to Christchurch to sell our van. Our beautiful beautiful piece of shit van. 

We just hiked out of an incredible overnighter camped at the base of Mount Olivier in Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park. Most national parks here have a Maori and an English Name. Aoraki is the Maori name for Mt. Cook and means "Pierces the Clouds" which seemed so fitting as during much of our stay in the park there was a horizontal cloud running about two thirds up the mountain with the peak bursting through against the clean blue otherwise cloudless sky. On this trip we woke up without an alarm clock in our cozy van. We made a cup of coffee. Then two. Then three. "Why rush?" We asked ourselves, "we have all day." 

We then hiked diligently and carefully up the 1000+ stairway to the first look out at Sealy Tarns because we were in no rush. No agenda. No reservations. No daylight concerns since it is visible outside until 9pm. I took each step carefully and consciously so as to make sure each placement of my left foot landed exactly flat on the stair. Any curved, angular or uneven landing causes my Achilles to scream a short angry yelp and then subside to a dull ache. With flat diligent steps the pain is a mere annoying 2/10 ache that I can handle. I used trekking poles to balance myself and took more water breaks than usual. Why rush? 

 

An aside about New Zealand trails. Switchbacks : a novel and wonderful invention that I think the kiwis only discovered maybe five years ago. Most trails go up if they want to go up. No time or trail work wasted on sideways trail work. Stairs are often built into the trail to help with erosion. These also go straight up. 

I also was wearing new shoes for the first time. I had lost my ostentatious bright blue solomons about a week prior after I absentmindedly left both mine and Bills smelly mildewed shoes on top of the car to sun dry out. Of course Bills guardian angel of lost and forgotten things allowed us to find his shoes but some lucky soul in Wanaka likely chanced upon my beaten and worn sneakers and scored. I actually am not terribly heartbroken as I'm quite sure these shoes are the reason my Achilles is suddenly causing me inordinate pain but I was planning to put up with the pain until we at least returned to the USA. I wasn't quite ready to part with them. 

After the stairs were the semblances of an attempt at switchbacks straight up through skree and boulder fields. Once on the plateau to the northwest of Sefton peak we could see the large glacier that carved the valley below it and had a front row seat to the magestic snow covered Mount Cook. From my vantage point I counted 13 waterfalls. The slate steep rock faces were coated like thick frosting in the whitest white of glacial snow. The kind of white that is blue.  The skyline on every side of this plateau was jagged sharp with knife edge ridges smeared with crumbling snow and ice. Every 15 minutes a slab of glacier breaks. You can't hear the break but a second later the boom like thunder of the avalanche echos through the canyon and everyone within earshot is swiveling their heads looking for the fall. A particularly fragile area of frequent slides had a large horizontal glacier with a narrow chute at the base of a steep cliff. As the glacier slipped it would crumble down the cliff face then funnel into the chute. At the base of the chute was a pile of snow that looked like the sand at the bottom of an hourglass or a pile of sugar slowly tipped out of a teaspoon.  Later that night the every 15 minute avalanche show would be an interesting albeit irritating assault on our sleep patterns. So was the hoar frost on our eyelashes but that's for later. 

 

Since we were in no rush, no rush at all we found the perfect tent site and the perfect kitchen rock and kitchen chairs with the best view in the whole neighborhood. We thanked our real estate agent profusely for the grand find! And then we basked in the sun and read books for close to 3 hours.  We had appetizer pumpkin soup and then creamy macaroni and cheese for entree. We endulged in 2 squares of chocolate each and watched the sun slowly slide behind the mountains to the west and illuminate Aoraki in a fine display of the peachy warm alpinglow that only alpine mountains can get. 

 

 

All night we wrestled with the never ending battle between the urge to breathe and the other urge to keep ones nose warm. At 15 minute intervals the avalanche team sent their snow flying in explosive thunderclaps reminding us to change positions and to be reminded again of the moon's powerful lamp that seemed to be shining directly onto our tent. The alarm went off at 5:30am and the moon had passed behind the mountains. Still absolutely dark black and the sky still covered in the most unimaginable display of cosmic Jackson pollock artwork. The stars here are even more dense and impressive than in the darkest parts of Southern Utah. There are round cloud like galaxies visible beneath the Milky Way that I've never seen in my life. Grand shooting stars that trace the length of the sky and bright green and pink and orange planetoids that I cannot identify. The southern cross illuminates the southern sky so obviously like a perfect diamond kite flying in the night. 

We turned on our headlamps and began the steep but short hike up to Mount Olivier. We arrived by 6:15 am just as the first light was glowing over the eastern horizon. Bill boiled water for coffee and we snuggled under his sleeping bag as we watched sapphire blue turn to green and purple and finally Navajo sandstone orange and pink. An Arizona sunrise. 

 

At 9am we arrived back to our tent. Still crunchy with frost and lackadaisically waited for the morning sun to reach us on the plateau and dry us off. We had breakfast and read for 2 more hours watching the light show change the color of the snow and listening to the avalanche circus in the background. 

The course of these last two days was so leisurely, so slowed with so very little to force into the day it's hard to share that feeling with the new one that greeted us as we arrived back at our parked car: that we have 2 weeks to sell our van in Christchurch and get back to Auckland for our flight.

So it's time to shift gears.  From a mindset of infinite possibilities without timetables to that of a sense of urgency and one with definite time tables and due dates. The perception of time is an interesting human habit, I finally got comfortable with the stressless, endless holiday feeling but it's back to reality. Any least for 2 weeks. Then we can go back to that serene timeless void as soon as we land in Sydney.