Topic: TN: Training day (New Zealand, pt. 8, img)
Author: Thor Iverson (Boston, MA)
Date: 20030529114859

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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 The glacial pillow

Jaded

Step. Pause. Step. Pause. It's a hell-scene directly out of Dune, and it's only the walk from the bedroom to the bathroom.

The day after our glacial ascent, our muscles – the known and the newly-discovered – are crying out for something, anything, to numb them. A few aspirin fail to help, but it turns out that nothing is quite so massaging as the lingering pride of our accomplisment. We climbed a glacier!

Unfortunately, we're on a sort of schedule, and we quicken our dragging pace a bit. Soon the car's packed, and we're once more inching our way north along one of those endlessly curvy roads that web the South Island. Forest and valley, mountain and forest, stream and mountain…the road roller-coasters along for hours, until we can take no more and must stop for a leg-stretching moment. The quaint historic gold town of Ross provides some brief diversions of the walking and pointing kind, with its preserved mining buildings and a rather evocative old-style frontier bar, after which the remainder of the drive is a short seaside cruise along the shockingly straight and flat road to Hokitika, the jade capital of New Zealand.

A town that can't seem to decide if it's a strip mall or a maritime destination, Hokitika is a bit abuzz, as some sort of large-payoff lottery ticket has been purchased within its borders. But the buzz is mostly confined to awninged street corners and cafés, as a sheeting rain drifts in and out of town, buffeted by coastal winds whipping across an eerie driftwood-covered beach. We duck into a few nearby stores, fufill the last of our Christmas shopping obligations, and quick-step (as best we can on aching legs) back to the car.

Driftwoody

North of Hokitika, it's not only the isolating dimness of the weather that keeps the road from being like any other beach house drive. Abandoned railroad cars rust on isolated beach spurs, far from visible tracks, and neat little houses climb the gentle slopes on the landward side of the road, nestled into wind-bent trees and shrubs. A persistent feeling of remoteness grows; for all its apparent roadside population, this and the glacial area to the south could easily be the distant end of the earth, and the feeling of isolation and distance from civilization grows more and more palpable as we continue on to Greymouth.

Landscraping

Defended from the waters of sea and river by a jagged system of flood barriers, Greymouth is service-industrial and, unsurprisingly, a little depressing in the misty grey gloom. We find its tiny train station and drop off our rental car, already a bit shocked at the luggage growth (by both weight and volume) we've experienced after just two wine regions and very few actual winery visits. The station itself is one long room with a snack bar, a few rental car desks, and an overworked woman issuing tickets and barking orders at an even more overworked baggage handler. We're early, and consider a brief walk around town, but having been considerably less than impressed on our arrival, choose instead to partake of a stationside picnic. On a corner bench, we spread out the last of our Queenstown comestibles – mostly Gibbston Valley cheese and green-lipped mussels – and draw a few jealous glances from our fellow passengers.

Mt. Difficulty 2002 "Dry" Riesling (Central Otago) – They don't lie, it's dry. And underripe, too, with lime rind, grapefruit, and quartz in a short, slightly bitter package.

The train we're taking is the TranzAlpine Express, lauded as one of the more beautiful train rides in the world, and also a transparent attempt on our part to avoid driving the Arthur's Pass road across the breadth of the South Island. The Pass has been a name of fear ever since the early days of our trip planning – "the most precarious road in New Zealand" blares guidebook after guidebook – and having seen what New Zealanders consider to be normal, everyday byways, we're of little mind to test the outer limits of their vehicular adventurousness.

Wining the rails

The train, however, is nearly an hour late.

Sharing our platform are pacing European and American tourists and many tightly-bunched groups of feverishly-smoking Japanese men, along with a few relaxed Australians toting backpacks and well-hiked-in boots. The jittery smoking and pacing only increases as the train fails to show. Finally there's some rancorous tooting and chugging, a train pulls into the station, and we're on our way eastward.

Unfortunately, the delays continue all the way across the South Island. The worst of the stops is inside the Otira Rail Tunnel, high inside a mountain not far from the dreaded Arthur's Pass, where we stop for a good fifteen minutes, spewing oil fumes into an unventilated tunnel; a brief glance around shows that the nausea we're experiencing is shared by many of our fellow passengers. However, this is all largely mitigated by the hilarious intercom annoucements of our conductor. For instance, a stop in Otira itself (to drop off supplies) is heralded with a brief verbal essay on the "wonders" surrounding us.

"There you see the Otira Hotel," – a paint-stripped, over-weathered multi-story wood structure clearly one good windstorm away from collapse – "the crown jewel of a local real estate investor's luxury hotel chain." Cars and broken-down farm equipment litter the weedy, unkempt yards of a row of houses in varying states of disrepair. "And as you can see, the residents of Otira take great pride in their landscaping skills."

Arthur's Pass itself, where we briefly stop to exchange a few passengers, doesn't look all that dangerous from the platform, but the visible road to and from it is another story. We're well-satisfied with our decision to ride the rails, though the regular and lengthy delays are nudging us towards missing our dinner reservation. As for the view, its wonders are unfortunately hidden by low-swinging clouds and occasional sheets of blinding rain. What we can see, however, is a true wildnerness, populated by a few scattered sheep and very little else that bespeaks human habitation, of tufted and rocky mountains and pristine, grassy valleys. It's yet more majesty on a trip that's seen an awful lot of it.

Finally, we're descending from the mountains – the sheep count increases, then falls victim to suburban farmland sprawl, and then the actual suburbs – into the flat Canterbury Plain. Our lateness makes the end of the journey seem longer than it probably is, but eventually we pull into the sleek, modern Christchurch train station and wait, patiently, for our luggage. Which, since we arrived first in Greymouth, is the last to exit the train. Worse, they've managed to soak the bottom of one of our wine shipping containers in water; a few brief moments of panic over possible breakage soon becomes gentle aggravation, though I suppose the box is preferable to the luggage.

Where are all the sheep?

To the Manor borne

It would be very easy to overuse the adjective "friendly" in reference to New Zealanders. Almost to a person, they are unfailingly polite, outwardly nice, and always actively interested in four things: where we're from, where we've been, where we're going, and how we like their country. The reflexively private and brusque must no doubt find this a massive irritation. We find it incomparably charming, and it suffuses our entire three week vacation with a warm, welcoming glow.

Thus, it's no surprise that a friendly taxi driver is able to calm our fears of lateness as he whisks us to our bed and breakfast. "Don't worry," he remarks in an easy accent that is just as British as it is Kiwi, "you'll have time to walk to your restaurant." Theresa, always the more tense when it comes to matters of scheduling, relaxes.

The Manor plays Christchurch's quasi-British theme to the hilt; it's as much a period movie set as it is a functional B&B. We're briefly introduced to our corner room by an affable assistant manager; it's full of natural light streaming through expansive windows onto period furniture, all carved wood and embroidered quilts and ivory-handled armoires in the classic style. Lavish and comforting at the same time, with courtyard gardens and incomprehensible vertical discontinuities in the hallway, it's a surprisingly quiet setting considering the fairly major local artery it fronts.

Get a load of Annie

Our driver was wrong about having time to walk to dinner, and so a quickly-flagged cab takes us to the beautiful, straight-outta'-Oxford, Arts Center. We spend a few puzzled moments looking for and not finding further direction, but it's the smell of food that eventually guides us to our destination. Through a series of lovely courtyards, with fountains and grass and floating multi-hued origami sailboats in placid pools, we're led to a bustling and somewhat noisy site that looks like it could be any university hangout on the planet.

Otira: the other building's the real estate office

Which, in fact, it is. Annie's Wine Bar has the clientele one would expect: groups of students, students out to dinner with their parents, post-academic hipsters, and mismatched adult study groups out for post-activity suds and noshing. It's hopping with energy, and a busy waitstaff skips and twists through the crowd and the quaintly mismatched furnishings in a vain attempt to keep up with it all. There's an active bar to one side, and a somewhat more subdued atmosphere in the adjoining courtyard, but we're interested in the lively interior, and are soon shown to the only remaining empty table.

A short menu of largely uninventive but well-prepared dishes makes decisions fairly easy, and leaves more time to page through a somewhat haphazard wine list. Plenty of by-the-glass selections are featured with helpful explanatory text, followed by several pages of wines by the bottle. The balance of the rather thick, page-laminated book is taken up by pasted labels and scribbled comments (purportedly from happy diners) on the pictured wines. It's all very relaxed and inviting, though securing multiple glasses of wine from the harried wine staff is a continuing challenge.

With some meaty and rather excellent fried oysters – something I don't often choose, as I almost always prefer them raw – I sample a series of South Island whites.

Waipara Springs 2000 Riesling (Waipara) – Somewhat shy, showing limestone-flecked lime and grapefruit with a light, but balanced, sweetness. Delicate, perhaps too delicate, and with a little life ahead of it.

Grove Mill 2001 Sauvignon Blanc (Marlborough) – While there's a light herbal grassiness here, everything is soft and ripe and full without the biting capiscum of so many Marlborough sauvignons. Gooseberries abound in this balanced and very gluggable wine.

Lawson's Dry Hills 2002 Gewürztraminer (Marlborough) – A lightish raw peanut nose, showing medium-light cashew and spiced pear on the palate. Turns distressingly watery on the short finish, however.

Next is a delicious ostrich filet resting on a crispy potato cake and drizzled with a beet emulsion. It's a fine canvas on which to draw just about any red wine, and this time I look to the North Island.

Mind your Manor

Voss 2001 Pinot Noir (Martinborough) – Stewed vegetables. Really quite awful, though I suspect that this might have been open too long. A passing waitress agrees, which leads to a substitution.

Voss 2001 "Waihenga" Cabernet Franc/Syrah (Martinborough) – Tart cassis, dark plum, and black cherry graced with rosemary and thyme notes; an interesting blend that I don't believe I've ever had before. It tastes decidedly New World in its conception, though it is neither overoaked nor under-acidified (on the contrary, it could perhaps use a little less acid), and it's so interesting I go for a second glass. Which, from the same bottle, is virtually identical.

As with all our New Zealand dining destinations, everything seems underpriced and an excellent value, and we leave satisfied and finally having shed the larger portion of our glacial malaise. The walk back to the Manor on a lovely spring evening is quiet and uneventful, and though there are a few too many bugs in our room when we return (what do the Kiwis have against screens, anyway?), we can't find the energy to care.

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