Welcome to Middle-earth
My poor father decided he wanted to drive first. Shortly after landing in Queenstown we sped off in our Kia Sportage towards Glenorchy. Just 45 minutes out from Queenstown airport, it seemed like a benign enough drive for dad to take a first crack at driving on the left side of the road.
Clenching the door handle, I focused on my breath as much as I could between berating my father for his poor driving. It wasn’t his fault. It’s quite possible that the road to Glenorchy was the narrowest and curviest road we traveled on. Dad kept veering dangerously close to the shoulder.
Meanwhile, the view was absolutely stunning as we drove along the shore of Lake Wakatipu, the longest lake in New Zealand. It felt as if we were driving through a movie. In fact, portions of the Lord of the Rings trilogy were shot in and around Glenorchy.
Earlier in the day we had stopped for lunch at the Fork and Tap in Arrowtown, a historic gold mining town 20 minutes outside of Queenstown. Dad had fish and chips and I had a pork belly sandwich. And a couple of pints taboot.
Walking around town after lunch we almost felt like we were in an old western film, except for the fact that almost every store is some sort of souvenir shop selling various sundries. We popped into one that was hawking possum pelts. Possums had been introduced to New Zealand in the 1830s for the fur trade, but they have since become a tremendous pest wreaking havoc on the native ecosystem.
That afternoon we head over to check out some of the Rockburn Track. Throughout New Zealand there are numerous walking tracks that you can spend multiple days “tramping” through. There are huts along these tracks that you can sleep in. Given I was traveling with my 70-year old father, we opted not to overnight on any of the tracks, but we did get in a great many hikes.
Strolling through the forest we barely saw another soul. Much of the forest floor was carpeted in moss, and the trees were lined with lichen.
To dad’s chagrin we had to cross a suspension bridge to get into the forest where the walk began. Dad, not a fan of heights, held firmly onto both sides of the rickety bridge as we crossed the pale blue waters rushing below.
Midway across the bridge he turned to me with a smile on his face and blurted, “Fuck!”
Shortly thereafter we encounted a small white-chested black bird. He was quite friendly dancing up close to us. He seemed to take a liking to my father. Inching closer and closer to dad’s shoe until finally he was standing atop it pecking at dad’s shoelaces.
“He wants those worms,” I said.
“What worms,” dad asked?
“Your shoelaces. They look like worms.”
“This is like a blast. We’ve met a friend bird,” declared dad.
Later on I asked my buddy Darus to ID the bird for us. Turns out it was the endangered black robin or Chatham Island robin. There were only five of them left in 1980, but thanks to conservationist, Don Merton, the bird was nursed back from the brink of extinction. You can read more about this heroic story here.
