New Zealand

One of my first days out of Antarctica I met up with three other Winter Overs and we attempted to kill New Zealanders. In fact we were trying to golf, but when you get four people together who haven't stepped on grass in nine months or swung a club in as long, were more like Charles Whitman on the top of the University of Texas Tower trying to pick off students and less like Tiger Woods trying to get a ball into a hole.

The golf course we found in downtown Christchurch could be the worst laid out course in the history of golf. Instead of it being a "golf course" it was a public park--with golf. Kids on bicycles rode in front of the tee boxes, families had picnics in the grass and seven of the 18 holes were the exact same hole--you just played them twice. The second time around you aimed at the red flag instead of the yellow one, and there were different bicyclist and dogs on the course, but otherwise it was an 11 holed course.

Once I shook the icicles from my veins, I was able to get a 20 yard (I mean) 20 metre chip shot to land in the cup, a 10 meter putt to sink in for a birdie and I missed hitting several people by mere centimetres.

The next day I hit the road for a small town called "Blackball." There is a haunted house looking hotel there called "Formerly the Blackball Hilton." This place was quaint to the point of being uncomfortable.

I was the only person staying there and the main heat in my room came from the two hot water bottles I stuck in my bed. It was like staying the night with Laura Ingles and a homecooked meal by ma. The New Zealand dialect in sheep hearding country of Blackball would kind of be like a deep south or New England accent. Sure these are the extremes, but I couldn't understand what was being said. The best I could figure out the weather is so cold somehow or another the lambs have little testicles so boil water and stick it in your bed for a good night's sleep.

After trying to sleep the night, wishing I'd boiled enough water for three water bottles, I got out of bed at 6:30 a.m. (note: I did not wake up at 6:30, because I'd been awake most of the sheep freezing testicular night) and headed down to Greymouth to go on a glowworm cave tour. The tour was excellent, but the photos were an extra $40 so until a family from Australia emails me some pictures, you'll have to go to the link (that's free).

Dressing up in spelunking wetsuits and hard hats, we descended into a cave with waterfalls, stalactites (the one's you hit your head on) and stalagmites (the ones that when you sit down on them, they "Mite" go right up your ass--for some reason I could never keep the tites and the mites straight--until I sat down without looking).

Inside this cave are one of the most fascinating little creatures I've ever seen. When we turned off our lights, the cave looked like the Milky Way with little glowing worms. Excuse me for getting all biological (my version), but these worms have a pretty interesting eleven month lifecycle.

At first 40 eggs are laid. The first three or four larvae to hatch, eat the other 36 or 37 eggs. And, because of infanticide, this makes them glow in the dark and then they drop dangly webs to catch bugs flying around in the cave. Get this: There are really no other bugs in the cave--except the blind glow worms.

Once they've eaten their share of food, the glow worms make a cocoon, and emerge as an ugly gnat. They are blind with a great sense of smell and what they are sniffing for is sex. For two days or four weeks (I can't remember which) they have mass amounts of sex until they create their required 40 eggs.

Once they are sexually spent like a three dollar whore on a 2-4-1 night, they get their eyesight. And guess what the first thing they see is? A glowing light. They fly to the light, get stuck in a glow worm web and so goes the circle of life. X-Rated Disney Movie soon to be released.

Now I'm in Wanaka. I'll stay here for a few days, until I go sailing on the Doubtful Sound.

Posted by phil at October 12, 2006 03:29 PM