Topic: TN: The glacial pillow (
Author: Thor Iverson (Boston, MA)
Date: 20030423125145

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Los Angeles

Darth Vader and the pelvis

New Zealand

Waiheke and the malbec fetish Five wines with penguin All in the family Heaven at the Green Dragon Inn High, fast, and stupid

Morning buzz

Queenstown has the world's most active sky. It's yet another brilliant blue morning, our fourth and final here, and the adventurous are out in full force: dangling from swirling parachutes, speeding down winding mountain tracks in wheeled torpedoes, racing across the water in levitating missiles, banking high above the fray in helicopters, and soaring through the mountaintops in tiny little planes. The breezes carry the buzz, engine roars, and the screams of fear and delight.

But for some, the adventure is clearly in the evening. Our breakfast hostess, while still smiling, looks to be at the end of a four-day binge – perhaps we've driven her to drink, as we're still the only guests at the Mountvista – and just barely staggers away after our final bites of yet another too-large meal. She returns, briefly and sleepily, for our checkout, and soon we're on our way. A six-hour drive awaits.

Aspiration

Though it's hard to imagine a drive more beautiful than the one to Milford Sound, the road from Queenstown to Franz Josef may just surpass all others. Now-familiar winding roads climb into the mountains above town,

The building The contractors

clinging to riverbanks that flow from valley to valley. Before long, we're descending into Wanaka, which would be a surprisingly unattractive tourist town were it not settled on the shores of the spectacular blue jewel that is Lake Wanaka. We stop for gas, then for a brief leg-stretching detour to Stuart Landsborough's Puzzling World, a bit of a geek retreat in the heart of paradise. A front room full of hand-held brain-teasers (all for sale in the large gift shop, which is its own sort of paradise for Escher devotιes) leads to two main destinations: a lengthy hedge maze (which we eschew) and a confusingly twisty museum of optical illusions. We have a half-hour of fun distorting our perspectives, and then it's back to the road.

We shift eastward to skim along the banks of Lake Hawea before bending briefly back again to touch the northern tip of Lake Wanaka; two stunning aquatic twins twinkling their crystalline blue depths at the traveler, enticing him into a stroll along mirrored shorelines adorned with multicolored lupin necklaces. The road turns difficult, winding and wheeling and slowing at every precarious twistback and one-lane bridge, climbing inexorably into the wilds of Mount Aspiring National Park. Dramatic slopes, tree-lined valleys, thundering waterfalls; it's all nearly routine at this point, and yet it never sheds its jaw-dropping wonder.

Abruptly, on the misty tail of yet another cliff-side spray of water, the road straightens and starts a gentle descent. The treeline smooths, gracefully curving towards a flat horizon. And on that horizon, there's a twinkling turquoise and blue glint, sparkling and expanding with each passing moment. This is a view that needs a soundtrack, a rushing swell of strings and voices, but as we turn northeast at Haast, there's naught but the gentle murmur of the Tasman Sea to provide it.

We park at a rather busy spot along a stretch of beachfront road reminiscent of the Florida coastline, though despite the number of cars and buses there are few people in evidence. Before us is the horizonless expanse of the sea. Just offshore, dolphins merrily chase each other in airborne loops and spins, while waves gently caress a bright, sandy beach. Behind us, a riot of rainforest vegetation carpets humid river banks. And still, rising up over every landward horizon, there remains the jagged mountain razorline, capped with snow and shining in the spring sunlight. It's the most dramatic view on a day that has been full of them, and after a relaxing barefoot stroll along the beach, dipping our toes in the surprisingly warm water, we decide that it's a perfect spot for a sunny picnic.

Hi, Hawea? Haastle territory

Chard Farm 2001 Pinot Gris (Central Otago) – Full-bodied pear and a bit of spice, fairly thick thanks to flirtations with lees contact and malolactic fermentation. Despite this thickness it's got enough balancing acidity for food, though it finishes rather quickly.

Salmon on ice

Irritating swarms of black flies eventually decide that our liberally-applied repellent is of little concern, and so we escape to our car and continue along the coast. The road turns inland, vegetation changing from tropical to arid and back again. A brief stop at a salmon farm near Lake Paringa supplies the main ingredient for dinner that evening – does such a remote operation really have enough drop-in business to support its gift shop and full-service restaurant? – after which the road oscillates back and forth from the Tasman to the foothills of the mountainous Westland National Park, into which we're soon climbing. This is glacier country, and mountains reassert their stern control over the eastern horizon.

Fox Glacier and Franz Josef – the towns, not the glaciers – look close on a map, but the twisty and busy little road that connects them provides a perception of some distance. Just to the north of the latter, we locate our lodging, and have a quick scheduling chat with the proprietors of the Glenfern (and their fluffy, friendly cat "Tiggah") before checking into our spartan but eminently comfortable villa. As with everything we've encountered in New Zealand, there's a lot here for a rather absurdly low price, including a nice kitchen and a wonderful view from our patio; Tigger squirms inside the moment we open the patio door, and within seconds is searching for a comfortable position on my lap. I put the cat aside and eventually convince him to vacate the premises, then we return to Franz Josef for more shopping in its tiny little grocery store. Back at the villa I improvise a tasty dinner of salmon and kumara, then turn in for a fairly early night. Tomorrow is going to be the most difficult day of our entire vacation, one that will test our stamina at something other than swirling and spitting. Though there will be drinking involved.

Iversons on ice

The world's largest "slushie" Georgia (O'Keeffe) on my mind

The day dawns cloudy and wet, with rain coming in spurts, then receding to a tense humidity. With our morning free, we drive to Okarito Beach and take a brief warm-up hike through the forest; along the way we pass a Kiwi Control Officer's truck, but we fail to see both the elusive nocturnal bird (unsurprising) and any other of the much-promised native avian life (surprising). Nor is the Tasman Sea particularly beautiful today, in its gray and windy expanse. We stop for lunch at a table on Lake Mapourika, but soon it's back to town to meet our icy fate.

Franz Josef Glacier Guides offer a number of different ways to explore their namesake iceflow, but as out-of-shape oenophiles we choose the lowest-impact option: a half-day ascent of the lower end of Franz Josef Glacier (and as it turns out, our backup plan – a helicopter/half-day option farther up the glacier – would have been cancelled due to poor visibility). We strap on incredibly heavy boots and thick jackets, then trundle to a waiting van for a bumpy ride to the glacier's base. With us are a friendly Australasian couple and a pair of Swedish girls who have managed to endure rain nearly everywhere they've gone in New Zealand; sadly, today is no different, as the precipitation picks up again as we approach the glacier. A long, rocky path along the retreating glacial bed is more tiring than we expect, and by the time we actually reach the ice and strap on our special ice-adhering boot attachments, all but the most fit are a little fatigued. Along the way I chat with Astrid, our blonde, sunburned and pillowy-lipped guide, who blithely notes that she and the other guides climb the glacier two or three times each day.

But now we're ascending, and the dirty and rock-infused base eventually gives way to a compressed, brilliant blue and somewhat hallucinatory landscape that even the monochrome of a dreary cloud-covered day can't diminish. We squeeze through ravines and ice tunnels, drink the best water we've ever tasted from trickling glacial rivulets, and eventually call it quits after a few hours of sweaty and careful ascent. What we don't realize at the time is that the descent is twice as exhausting as the ascent, and the long and weary walk back though the shredded valley of rock and to the van is a blistery hell, especially for Theresa. We return to the villa, and while Theresa prepares dinner I rest my throbbing ankles on the sofa, my ankles surrounded by ice. Tigger scratches at the patio door, but I'm too tired to get up and let him in.

Chard Farm 2001 Chardonnay "Closeburn" (Central Otago) – Lightly oaked but very leesy and somewhat dead on the palate. There's grapefruit, but not much else.

Just a few glasses of wine are all it takes to put me quickly and soundly to sleep. I dream of cavorting dolphins, of glacial streams, of Astrid's succulent, pillowy lips. And then I dream of Theresa stepping on my neck with ice-taloned hiking boots.

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