Kiwi Tracks (11 page)

The settlement of Kaikoura is asleep. In the pre-dawn light I wander down to where fifteen other dolphin spotters have assembled to put on heavy wetsuits, flippers, goggles and masks. The wetsuits are still damp from yesterday’s use. We are shivering and cold even before we board a vintage bus. As we drive to the boat, the sun flops lazily over the horizon, colouring the sea turquoise; the nearby snow-capped peaks of the Seaward Kaikoura Mountain range are cast in the warm light of dawn. It is an impressive setting even by New Zealand’s high standards.

Our guide stands at the front of the bus, spouting her prepared speech: ‘The visual splendour you see above water matches the opulence under the sea. Just off the coast is an ecological wonder, a marine-biologist’s dream: easy access to whales, dolphins, seals, bird life and of course fish. All congregate in this area to feed off the phytoplankton, krill and other life forms rising with the deep ocean currents. Fifteen different species of marine mammals feast here, from giant sperm whales to tiny Hector’s dolphins.’

Sitting silently in damp wetsuits, we wait for our boat to be launched. It is on a trailer, which is lowered by tractor down a ramp into Kaikoura’s harbourless water. A fishing boat is in the process of being pulled out, a hapless man-sized shark draped over the bow. We all stare open-mouthed but no one says a thing.

Within twenty minutes of setting off into the South Pacific Ocean we reach a pod of dusky dolphins. They are easy to locate even from a distance; the ocean surface is roiling with their activity. Some are jumping high out of the water and landing on their backs with a splash, somersaulting forwards or backwards.

Our guide says: ‘Although they are creatures of the wild, they are actually executing these acrobatics for the sheer fun of it. These are the awake dolphins, on the leading and lateral edges of the main pod. The main group of dolphins is calmly swimming, surfacing to exhale and inhale – in effect sleeping. There are probably four to five hundred dolphins in the pod at this time.’

We drift into their midst and the engines are switched off. The dolphins swim slowly by, the younger dolphins close to their mothers. The puffing of their collective breathing is the only sound. We could reach over the side of the boat and touch their backs. The boat circles in front of the pod again and this time we slip overboard as the dolphins come closer.

It seems unnatural jumping into the middle of the ocean like pre-packaged shark bait, with hundreds of wild dolphins swimming towards me. The cold water and the frenetic activity of the dolphins are startling. The first to make contact are the awake dolphins as their pale streamlined shapes torpedo past. We have been told that if we want them to stick around and play, we must do something unusual to arouse their curiosity: sing to them underwater, make squeaky sounds to communicate, dive beneath the surface, or swim around in circles after them.

Finally getting used to the cold and the ghostly shapes hurtling by, I dive underwater, not easy without weights to counteract the buoyant wetsuit. I submerge a couple of metres and half a dozen dolphins surround me. They move effortlessly and quickly, with the grace of underwater ballet dancers. One manoeuvres closer, curious, and stares long enough for me to make eye contact. It is so near I could hug it. There is an unmistakable sense of connection between us; two species with a higher level of intelligence. This experience is not like staring a cold-blooded fish in the eye.

Others advance, studying me as intensely as I examine them.
Their eyes reflect humour, accentuated by the upturned smile to their mouths. These warm-blooded animals have a presence about them; they seem almost cuddly, even if they are hairless and denizens of a totally different realm. Out of breath I surface, then plunge again, kicking my flippers in unison to imitate a dolphin’s tail. The dolphins slip by with barely a propelling movement as I struggle to stay underwater in the wetsuit. At a depth of two metres, I twist upside down to see the surface of the ocean like a silvery waterbed mattress, with above me the dark shapes of swimming dolphins. They seem to beckon, inviting me to join them. Then, as if frustrated as much as I am by my ungainly physical limitations, they disappear into the depths with a flick of their tails.

I surface and remove my mask and snorkel. The other swimmers sing through their snorkels, as the guide told us, to keep the dolphins amused and hanging around. The high-pitched inflections are both muffled and strangely amplified by their snorkels. The ocean is alive with hundreds of dolphins playing, jumping and somersaulting around us. A six-foot blue shark swishes its tail languidly as it drifts through the pod.

Returning to shore, we sit shivering in our wetsuits with broad grins despite our frozen and purple noses. Back in warm, dry clothes again, I leisurely eat a colossal hokey-pokey ice cream with a couple of home-made chocolate biscuits, while perusing the local newspaper. An article on the front page catches my eye:

SHARK BITE ON DOLPHIN SWIM TRIP ‘UNUSUAL’

An incident last Thursday, in which a German tourist was bitten by a shark while swimming with the dolphins, was reported to be highly unusual. A company spokesman said the man was swimming with the dolphins some four kilometres off the coast. He was swimming a little away from the main group when … a small blue shark bit him.

‘The man felt something but didn’t realise he had been bitten until he got into the boat and saw the blood,’ the spokesman said. ‘The doctor said it was a very clean cut, there was no flesh missing.’ The man did not require hospitalisation and continued with his trip around the South Island after receiving medical attention and stitches to his right arm.

Good thing it was him. If I had been bitten by a shark, I would have noticed for sure.

From the guidebooks, Nelson would seem the ideal place to settle in New Zealand. It lives up to its reputation, being a quaint town with one of the highest amounts of sunny days in the country. For the first time since arriving in New Zealand, it’s beginning to feel warm. I register at a popular backpackers lodge.

Around the swimming pool, half a dozen young lager louts in their early twenties, skinny bodies contrasting with budding swollen stomachs, recline languorously, partially anaesthetised by the contents of the empty beer cans lying in a mound at their feet. Medical researchers would be hard pressed to locate two synapsing neurones amongst the lot of them. They obviously don’t care about the hole in the ozone layer, nor the burn factor, and their normally pale bodies are fried a nut-brown, tinged with radiation red.

My roommate, a pale Englishman in his early thirties, wears a polyester shirt buttoned to the neck, tight-fitting polyester slacks frayed at the pockets, black patent-leather shoes and a wide-brimmed perfectly white sun hat. He hugs a cheap plastic bag close to his hip, its strap wound securely over his head and shoulder. Other than the plastic bag, he seems to have few other possessions besides a pocket-sized computerised chess set.

Kiwi news is read on television. Behind the two newscasters is a map of the world from a New Zealander’s perspective, with New Zealand at the centre of the world. Why not? But it is also magnified out of proportion so that it is – comfortingly – as big as Australia. At the end of the news, the weather forecast includes ‘burn times’: how long the average person needs to be exposed to the sun’s rays before his, or her, skin begins to fry. Eleven minutes. You don’t have to be exposed to nuclear radiation to die here. Mowing the lawn for fifteen minutes in the sunlight will get those free radicals going too, and with the ozone hole over the
Antarctic growing larger every year, those burn times are just a hint of what is coming.

My roommate is on his bed, knees drawn up to his chin, distractedly watching television while playing chess. He looks shrivelled, as if the television were sucking the life out of him. We talk without him taking his eyes off the telly. He tells me: ‘I always travel light. Before checking in at the airline baggage counter, I fill my bags with plastic bottles full of water so I’ve got the maximum allowable luggage.’ He smirks.

‘Why?’ I ask. Rather than being interesting, sharing a room with such strange people only intensifies my feeling of loneliness.

‘Read the small print on your travel ticket,’ he says. He turns to rummage in his plastic carrier bag, pulling out his airline ticket. ‘The airline companies only compensate for lost luggage according to its weight. The heavier it is, the more you get back in compensation.’

I imagine him travelling the world, sitting in the aircraft cabin, fingers crossed that his bags stuffed with plastic bottles of water will get lost. He idly points the remote control at the television and channel surfs to a Maori-speaking programme. ‘Why don’t they speak English like they’re supposed to,’ he says, offended. I leave him huddled on his bed, channel surfing with a flick of his wrist.

Return to beginning of chapter

In the morning, psyched to start another track, I prepare a hot breakfast. I turn on the grill in the oven and place several slices of bread with cheddar cheese and tomato on the top rack, then quickly pack. My roommate is already immobilised in front of the television. Full of anticipation and also fully loaded, I wobble around the corner to pick up my mail from the Nelson post office. I prop my pack against a bench outside, sit in the sun and read my Christmas correspondence, which includes a gift from Norway, cards, some letters and a fax. It is strange to read how dark and miserable it is
in Norway, Canada and London. How easy to forget, and a nice reminder of how lucky I am to be here. A Danish couple next to me open a package and pull out four candles for Advent, as well as home-made Christmas biscuits. When the girl sees these reminders of home, she starts to cry. Her boyfriend puts his arm around her shoulders to console her. A few minutes later, she is laughing and happy again as they read their correspondence together.

On the bus to the Abel Tasman National Park, I feel pangs of hunger and belatedly recall the toasted tomato and cheese sandwiches. In fact, I had not even taken them out of the oven. Being chronically impatient, as is my bad habit, I had even closed the oven door to get the cheese melting more quickly. What if the oven caught fire? What if the hostel went up in flames? Will the police be on the lookout for me? I slide back down into my seat and hide, just in case.

I distract myself from these twinges of guilt by glancing through the DOC brochure. Abel Janszoon Tasman, a Dutchman, was the first white man to ‘discover’ New Zealand in 1642. He saw no riches or trading opportunities in New Zealand and the Dutch authorities showed no further interest in developing the new territory. Imagine discovering a place like New Zealand and figuring it wasn’t worth declaring ownership over. It was not until Captain Cook arrived, 125 years after Tasman, that any real exploration by the colonising European powers took place.

The path into Abel Tasman National Park is so well manicured that you could practically cruise the track on roller blades. Anchorage Hut is located in the bushes just off the end of a long curve of golden beach. Several kayaks are pulled up on the sand and more paddle in. The hut is almost full of kayakers and trampers. I find one of the few spaces left on the communal bunks, pull out my sleeping-bag and spread it on the mattress, claiming my spot for the night. Next to me a blonde, clad in a minute bikini, rummages through her pile of belongings. Her bikini is about as small as she could wear without redefining it as a G-string. I have a piece of disposable camera-lens tissue in my pocket which would be more effective as a bathing suit than both
parts of her bikini combined. She has a perfect hourglass figure, the kind us guys are wont to fantasise about. She unfurls her sleeping-bag next to mine and then looks at me, her dark brown eyes contrasting with her long, curly blonde hair.

‘Do you snore?’ she asks. I deliberately keep my eyes on her nose, which in contrast to everything else about her is angular and freckled. ‘Do you snore?’ she repeats.

‘No,’ I gurgle. Why are men like this?

‘Good,’ she says. ‘I don’t like snorers.’

‘Do you?’ I enquire, my mind not wondering about her snoring at all.

‘Snore?’ she repeats.

‘Yeah,’ I manage to say, choking on the syllable. Men are so visual. I wonder if she can tell what I am thinking.

‘No,’ she replies.

‘What’s your name?’ I ask, on an articulate roll.

‘Candy,’ she answers. I wonder what she is thinking. ‘What’s your name?’ she asks.

‘Candy,’ I repeat, the logical side of my brain finally packing it in. ‘I mean, Andrew.’

Nice recovery Andrew, but you’re losing it fast and about to short-circuit big-time. Get a grip.

More trampers with backpacks arrive at the hut, but all the bunks are taken. Ten trampers are without an allocated mattress on the communal bunks and the DOC warden pulls out more stored mattresses and puts them on the porch. Several young boys staying in the adjacent campsite sway around the place with litre-sized soft-drink bottles on which they suck suspiciously frequently. One of them abruptly passes out in the bushes, having totally miscalculated his system’s capacity for alcohol.