one of the problems with only having one earth year in a country full of cool places to see is that often, second tier attractions get put off in favor of more pressing matters. by the time you get to them, sometimes it's a suboptimal time to visit. case in point: my hike with alista fow up mount karioi.
when i first went surfing in raglan many moons ago, i got to take a drive along the coast with one of the other denizens of the raglan backpackers. on one side of the mountain road was the ocean and beautiful stretches of beach and on the other was mount karioi, an old volcanic cone with AMAZING views of the coastline. as i tried to picture just how it good it would be to see everything from the top, i promised myself that i'd get back up there to see for myself before i left the country.
well, june rolled around and my time left in the country was growing pretty short. most of the weekends had filled up so it was now or never for hiking up karioi. i made plans for that weekend to go with alista fow and when i went to go pick him up the morning of, it was.....pissing down rain. but that's okay, right? i mean, perhaps it would let up by the time we got out to raglan (those few of you familiar with the west coast of new zealand realize that my previous statement was fraught with (in the immortal words of ashley leeds) 'unbridled optimism'). but hey, we'd made the plans, so we may as well try. sure enough, we got out to where we would park (calling it a parking lot is a stretch. it was basically at a fence outside someone's farm) and it was still raining and the entire top of the mountain was covered in clouds. no matter. hiking in the rain still beats sitting around at home, so up we went.
the hike up was largely uneventful, save our being passed by a large number of off road motorcyclists out for a good time in the mud. you know your knobby tires are finding no purchase when the two hikers are consistently passing you, but hey, they seemed like they were having a good time. the rain and wind also meant that it wasn't hot as balls like it had been when alista and i went up to the pinnacles, so i wasn't hearing nearly as many muttered "bugger"'s as i had before.
it took us about two hours of slipping and sliding to get to the top where, sure enough, we couldn't see much more than about 50 yards in any direction (i'm writing this from back in the US now, so it's yards, dammit). the wind drowned out any sound of the ocean. but we had our lunch and explored the broadcast tower and the world's smallest (and therefore kinda most impressive) helicopter landing pad until it got to be too cold and windy (and if i got cold, you know it's really cold). we made it back down without a) breaking anything or b) re-creating that scene from 'romancing the stone' where they slide all the way down the mountain into the pool.
the view from the top really is supposed to be impressive, but i have a feeling that i'd need to be spending a good long time in the country again before i'd devote a day to that hike, since there are just so many other places to see.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Thursday, July 2, 2009
there and back again
well, the important news is that i made it back home. i haven't updated the blog recently, because all my free time towards the end of my year in NZ was spent packing, making arrangements and visiting with people that i won't see again, or at least not for a while. my plan for this blog is to post this update now, then go back and fill in all the missing pieces of the last few months so no one misses out on anything. the order of everything will be...vaguely coherent and sort of follow the actual chronology of how things wrapped up. hope you keep reading and keep enjoying.
the actual last day in new zealand kinda sucked, although this is not new zealand's fault. i'd gone to bed late the night before and my packing was just about done. all i'd need to do the next day was get up, finish putting the last few items away, go in for morning tea to say goodbye to everyone, figure out how i'd kill time and have lunch, then have jan kilmister (former next door neighbor; she and her husband mark are all around great folks who invited me to watch all blacks matches and have dinner with them a lot, plus they gave me this kick ass waikato chiefs jersey as a going away present) drive me to the airport in auckland in jamie and sally's (thanks jamie and sally!) minivan. no problem, right?
well, everything would have been okay if i'd been able to find my goddamn passport. the whole year i was in NZ, i kept my passport in my desk drawer so that i wouldn't lose it and the night before i left, i took it home. somewhere between work and home, it got lost. and i discovered this at 8:30am the day i was scheduled to leave at 7:30pm.
so after searching through some of the packed luggage and not finding it, i called the american consulate in auckland to find out what my options were (note for those who are about to ask why i didn't search all the luggage: i had 4 seventy pound bags that i intended to check in addition to my carry on luggage. it had taken me the better part of two days to pack all this and keep it under weight and packed in such a way that the luggage could be closed. plus, there were about a thousand (literally) brochures and other papers i was bringing back (research material, mostly) that it could have gotten stuck in. if i spent all the necessary time searching through the luggage and had NOT found it, there's no way i could have gotten everything done i would have needed and still made the flight). basically, i'd have to file a police report and get two passport photos made, then take those items, a current ID and a photocopy of my passport (which, thankfully, i did have) plus 100 USD to the consulate in auckland (waaaaay north in the city from where the airport is, mind you) to get a new passport.
so, without further ado, i got the police report, got the pictures, went to campus, said my goodbyes, ran back home, finished the packing, met up with jan, hopped into the car and tore off to auckland. we got to the consulate (23 customs house way in the citibank building, third floor, in case anyone ever needs to know), i filled out the necessary paperwork, paid my fee, and waited. and waited. and waited some more. i got my passport after about two hours and then went tearing back off south to the airport. i made it there by 5 for a 7:30 flight, so i was basically okay. the line was short but took forever anyway (there was a nice lady who handed me a little timestamped card for a 'let's see how long it takes people to make it through our line' survey they were doing (answer: too damn long)) but i got all four bags checked in (i got all three bags plus the rather large bike box on a single luggage cart, which was no small feat) and they didn't charge me nearly as much as i'd expected based on the fees i had previously been quoted, which was nice. i made it through security with no problem, headed for my gate, and then finally had breakfast.
the trip home was basically uneventful. for the SF leg, i had the middle of three seats (awesome!) and for the DC leg i had the window seat of the VERY BACK row (also awesome!). got to see 'eagle vs. shark' (NZ movie that stars jemaine from 'flight of the conchords' and is pretty funny), 'monsters vs. aliens' (very funny) and 'i love you, man' (could have been funnier), plus the first half of a 1997 all blacks vs. south africa match. at customs, they took my silver fern and pohutukawa seeds (another case of the Man keeping me down). ultimately, i arrived safely with nearly all my luggage (the bike box didn't make it until the next day) at about 1am in DC where stephanie picked me up at the airport (so i wouldn't have to face taking a cab with all my shit at that hour. THANK YOU), got home and crashed. finally.
the actual last day in new zealand kinda sucked, although this is not new zealand's fault. i'd gone to bed late the night before and my packing was just about done. all i'd need to do the next day was get up, finish putting the last few items away, go in for morning tea to say goodbye to everyone, figure out how i'd kill time and have lunch, then have jan kilmister (former next door neighbor; she and her husband mark are all around great folks who invited me to watch all blacks matches and have dinner with them a lot, plus they gave me this kick ass waikato chiefs jersey as a going away present) drive me to the airport in auckland in jamie and sally's (thanks jamie and sally!) minivan. no problem, right?
well, everything would have been okay if i'd been able to find my goddamn passport. the whole year i was in NZ, i kept my passport in my desk drawer so that i wouldn't lose it and the night before i left, i took it home. somewhere between work and home, it got lost. and i discovered this at 8:30am the day i was scheduled to leave at 7:30pm.
so after searching through some of the packed luggage and not finding it, i called the american consulate in auckland to find out what my options were (note for those who are about to ask why i didn't search all the luggage: i had 4 seventy pound bags that i intended to check in addition to my carry on luggage. it had taken me the better part of two days to pack all this and keep it under weight and packed in such a way that the luggage could be closed. plus, there were about a thousand (literally) brochures and other papers i was bringing back (research material, mostly) that it could have gotten stuck in. if i spent all the necessary time searching through the luggage and had NOT found it, there's no way i could have gotten everything done i would have needed and still made the flight). basically, i'd have to file a police report and get two passport photos made, then take those items, a current ID and a photocopy of my passport (which, thankfully, i did have) plus 100 USD to the consulate in auckland (waaaaay north in the city from where the airport is, mind you) to get a new passport.
so, without further ado, i got the police report, got the pictures, went to campus, said my goodbyes, ran back home, finished the packing, met up with jan, hopped into the car and tore off to auckland. we got to the consulate (23 customs house way in the citibank building, third floor, in case anyone ever needs to know), i filled out the necessary paperwork, paid my fee, and waited. and waited. and waited some more. i got my passport after about two hours and then went tearing back off south to the airport. i made it there by 5 for a 7:30 flight, so i was basically okay. the line was short but took forever anyway (there was a nice lady who handed me a little timestamped card for a 'let's see how long it takes people to make it through our line' survey they were doing (answer: too damn long)) but i got all four bags checked in (i got all three bags plus the rather large bike box on a single luggage cart, which was no small feat) and they didn't charge me nearly as much as i'd expected based on the fees i had previously been quoted, which was nice. i made it through security with no problem, headed for my gate, and then finally had breakfast.
the trip home was basically uneventful. for the SF leg, i had the middle of three seats (awesome!) and for the DC leg i had the window seat of the VERY BACK row (also awesome!). got to see 'eagle vs. shark' (NZ movie that stars jemaine from 'flight of the conchords' and is pretty funny), 'monsters vs. aliens' (very funny) and 'i love you, man' (could have been funnier), plus the first half of a 1997 all blacks vs. south africa match. at customs, they took my silver fern and pohutukawa seeds (another case of the Man keeping me down). ultimately, i arrived safely with nearly all my luggage (the bike box didn't make it until the next day) at about 1am in DC where stephanie picked me up at the airport (so i wouldn't have to face taking a cab with all my shit at that hour. THANK YOU), got home and crashed. finally.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
chumming with vomit
new zealand is an island nation. just thought i'd throw that out there in case anyone had missed that little fact.
the reason i bring this up is that, as an island nation, they are big into fishing. since i'm big into experiencing the real new zealand, i had been bugging co-worker greg (he of the cattle auction extravaganza and a self-proclaimed fisherman) to go fishing with me for months. finally, several weeks ago, he relented.
and so it was that bright and early on a saturday in early may, greg and i hopped in the car and headed out to tauranga for a day of charter boat fishing (a new experience for me). now, the last time i'd gone fishing was probably with eric smith from scouts when i was 15. it involved a placid lake and a small aluminum boat with a trolling motor and a car battery to make it go.
our charter experience was a far far cry from that. we climbed aboard the 'chundering american' and headed out to sea through some sizable swells. i started off at the bow, riding the huge waves and basically was okay until i went back to the stern. it took about 45 minutes to an hour to get to our first fishing spot and we had been stopped for no longer than 2 minutes before i lost my entire breakfast over the side.
it was bad. really bad. i'd never gotten seasick before, although i've gotten motion sick on a helicopter and on those VR amusement park rides where the whole room moves. and i learned something about seasickness: it doesn't go away real fast. certainly not at all while you're still on the boat. the absolute worst was when you go to the bathroom that has no windows, so you can't even use the horizon as a stable focal point. unlike lonely island, i was not was not heartily proclaiming to the world, with t-pain singing back up, that i was on a boat. and i was certainly in no shape to fuck a mermaid.
but i'd paid for all this, dammit, so i was going to try to make the most of it. and i have to say, the charter company is really good. the captain had one of those fish finders and it really did work. basically, every time i threw the line in, i would catch something very quickly. it was just a matter of whether or not the fish i caught were large enough to keep. i spent WELL less than 1/4 of the available fishing time actually fishing (the rest of the time i spent trying not to throw up again and adding/removing clothing in a losing effort to regulate body temperature) and still caught 2 red snapper and 2 trevallys big enough to keep, plus about 8 other smaller snapper that weren't.
one of the stranger looking things that people were catching were john dory's, with huge mouths and lots of spines. the way you catch them was to bait the hook with a small live red snapper and use it to catch the john dory. things from the deep can be disturbing.
if you're not prone to seasickness, it's a great day. not terribly much money for 9-10 hours of charter boat fishing, although you need to bring your own lunch (not that THAT was an issue). the captain moved around a lot to make sure you always had a good chance to catch something and nearly every time you threw a line in, something would bite. i'd love to try it out again some time.
i'll just make sure to wear a band of dramamine patches around my bicep like a celtic tattoo.
the reason i bring this up is that, as an island nation, they are big into fishing. since i'm big into experiencing the real new zealand, i had been bugging co-worker greg (he of the cattle auction extravaganza and a self-proclaimed fisherman) to go fishing with me for months. finally, several weeks ago, he relented.
and so it was that bright and early on a saturday in early may, greg and i hopped in the car and headed out to tauranga for a day of charter boat fishing (a new experience for me). now, the last time i'd gone fishing was probably with eric smith from scouts when i was 15. it involved a placid lake and a small aluminum boat with a trolling motor and a car battery to make it go.
our charter experience was a far far cry from that. we climbed aboard the 'chundering american' and headed out to sea through some sizable swells. i started off at the bow, riding the huge waves and basically was okay until i went back to the stern. it took about 45 minutes to an hour to get to our first fishing spot and we had been stopped for no longer than 2 minutes before i lost my entire breakfast over the side.
it was bad. really bad. i'd never gotten seasick before, although i've gotten motion sick on a helicopter and on those VR amusement park rides where the whole room moves. and i learned something about seasickness: it doesn't go away real fast. certainly not at all while you're still on the boat. the absolute worst was when you go to the bathroom that has no windows, so you can't even use the horizon as a stable focal point. unlike lonely island, i was not was not heartily proclaiming to the world, with t-pain singing back up, that i was on a boat. and i was certainly in no shape to fuck a mermaid.
but i'd paid for all this, dammit, so i was going to try to make the most of it. and i have to say, the charter company is really good. the captain had one of those fish finders and it really did work. basically, every time i threw the line in, i would catch something very quickly. it was just a matter of whether or not the fish i caught were large enough to keep. i spent WELL less than 1/4 of the available fishing time actually fishing (the rest of the time i spent trying not to throw up again and adding/removing clothing in a losing effort to regulate body temperature) and still caught 2 red snapper and 2 trevallys big enough to keep, plus about 8 other smaller snapper that weren't.
one of the stranger looking things that people were catching were john dory's, with huge mouths and lots of spines. the way you catch them was to bait the hook with a small live red snapper and use it to catch the john dory. things from the deep can be disturbing.
if you're not prone to seasickness, it's a great day. not terribly much money for 9-10 hours of charter boat fishing, although you need to bring your own lunch (not that THAT was an issue). the captain moved around a lot to make sure you always had a good chance to catch something and nearly every time you threw a line in, something would bite. i'd love to try it out again some time.
i'll just make sure to wear a band of dramamine patches around my bicep like a celtic tattoo.
her majesty's a pretty nice girl (thoughts on being a royalist for a day)
so we had a national holiday this past monday in new zealand for the queen's birthday. i'll give everyone a moment to let the chortling subside.
now, i had been waiting rather impatiently for the queen's birthday to roll around since last july 4th, when mike asked me "so what are you doing today? oh, that's right, you're WORKING." i figured i would finally get karmic retribution. and i would have, had the US not just had a day off the previous week for memorial day. and i couldn't even cancel THAT out in the arms race of holidays with ANZAC day because it fell on a saturday and we didn't get a day off for it this year. but i digress.
anyway, as any good colonial knows, the queen was not actually born on june 1 (this particular queen was born on april 21), but nevertheless the date has been designated as the queen's official birthday. or at least here in NZ. in other commonwealth countries, they have it on other dates.
now, i was all about the day off. but i'm also all about the local experience, so i asked around to find out what cool awesome queen's birthday events and so forth were going on. high teas? corgi tossing? anything?
as it turns out, it was pretty much just sales. kinda like president's day, but with the actual day off. harvey norman's (sorta like circuit city) had their annual queen's birthday sale ("THAT'S 30 MONTHS INTEREST FREE! ROYAL SAVINGS STORE WIDE! DEALS FIT FOR A MONARCH!!") as did a few other stores, but basically, that was it other than the queen's birthday honors. and for the record, no, i was not making up the quotes from the harvey norman's ad.
the queen's birthday honors, though, are pretty significant. they consist of all the royal honors given out each year, from knighthoods on down. a complete list of the 2009 NZ recipients can be found here. basically, it's a very long list of people who have served the greater good to varying degrees. commendations are given for "service to the arts", "services to sport", "services to the community", "services to maori", etc. among other notables were one knight and two dame companions of the order, an honor of which i'm still unsure of the meaning. but it's a big deal. the knight companion honor was given to john george walker, a middle distance runner from the montreal olympics who broke the 3:50 minute mark for a mile (although when i looked him up on wikipedia, the only entry i got was "john george walker (july 22, 1821 – july 20, 1893) was a confederate general in the american civil war...." and figured that either i had the wrong john george walker or the queen has a bizarre sense of humor. or humour, even). the new dames (insert quotes from 'south pacific' here) are jennifer barbara gibbs and iritana te rangi tawiwhirangi, for services to the arts and maori education respectively, but i couldn't find anything more specific about what those services were. and, sadly, "nothing connotes service to maori education like a dame" just doesn't roll off the tongue.
so that was about it. i enjoyed my queen's birthday holiday, but it's not like i did much to honor her sovereignty or anything.
regardless, some day i'm gonna make her mine, oh yeah.
some day i'm gonna make her mine.
now, i had been waiting rather impatiently for the queen's birthday to roll around since last july 4th, when mike asked me "so what are you doing today? oh, that's right, you're WORKING." i figured i would finally get karmic retribution. and i would have, had the US not just had a day off the previous week for memorial day. and i couldn't even cancel THAT out in the arms race of holidays with ANZAC day because it fell on a saturday and we didn't get a day off for it this year. but i digress.
anyway, as any good colonial knows, the queen was not actually born on june 1 (this particular queen was born on april 21), but nevertheless the date has been designated as the queen's official birthday. or at least here in NZ. in other commonwealth countries, they have it on other dates.
now, i was all about the day off. but i'm also all about the local experience, so i asked around to find out what cool awesome queen's birthday events and so forth were going on. high teas? corgi tossing? anything?
as it turns out, it was pretty much just sales. kinda like president's day, but with the actual day off. harvey norman's (sorta like circuit city) had their annual queen's birthday sale ("THAT'S 30 MONTHS INTEREST FREE! ROYAL SAVINGS STORE WIDE! DEALS FIT FOR A MONARCH!!") as did a few other stores, but basically, that was it other than the queen's birthday honors. and for the record, no, i was not making up the quotes from the harvey norman's ad.
the queen's birthday honors, though, are pretty significant. they consist of all the royal honors given out each year, from knighthoods on down. a complete list of the 2009 NZ recipients can be found here. basically, it's a very long list of people who have served the greater good to varying degrees. commendations are given for "service to the arts", "services to sport", "services to the community", "services to maori", etc. among other notables were one knight and two dame companions of the order, an honor of which i'm still unsure of the meaning. but it's a big deal. the knight companion honor was given to john george walker, a middle distance runner from the montreal olympics who broke the 3:50 minute mark for a mile (although when i looked him up on wikipedia, the only entry i got was "john george walker (july 22, 1821 – july 20, 1893) was a confederate general in the american civil war...." and figured that either i had the wrong john george walker or the queen has a bizarre sense of humor. or humour, even). the new dames (insert quotes from 'south pacific' here) are jennifer barbara gibbs and iritana te rangi tawiwhirangi, for services to the arts and maori education respectively, but i couldn't find anything more specific about what those services were. and, sadly, "nothing connotes service to maori education like a dame" just doesn't roll off the tongue.
so that was about it. i enjoyed my queen's birthday holiday, but it's not like i did much to honor her sovereignty or anything.
regardless, some day i'm gonna make her mine, oh yeah.
some day i'm gonna make her mine.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
a point of clarification
recently, several of you were told (with much merriment) about a recipe found in a new zealand grocery store for "spaghetti and baked bean pie". it turns out, on closer inspection of the recipe card, that it actually contains two recipes: one for spaghetti pie and one for baked bean pie. we apologize for any confusion our previous claim may have caused.
--sincerely, the management
--sincerely, the management
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
he's a hard dog, he's a workin' dog, he's a hard workin' dog
okay, folks, you’re going to have to bear with me, as this post will be a little longer than most. the reason is that blog entry length correlates positively with awesomeness, and several weekends ago, i went to the sheep dog trials out in cambridge. it’s hard to get more awesomer than that.
trialing in new zealand isn’t quite as much in the mind of the public as it used to be. there was apparently an old show called ‘country calendar’ in prime time on weekends that featured all things farming, including sheep dog trials. it featured a man named john gordon who would ‘call the game’ and was apparently so good at it he’d have you on the edge of your seat. for sheep dogs. i tried like hell to find some old video of this, but was unsuccessful. there was nothing for it but to see it all for myself.
i met up with fellow waikato university employee and all around great guy ian honey early on a saturday morning and we headed for the hills. literally. the sheep dog trial qualified in more than one way as a redneck activity, not least because directions to its location included the phrase “turn off the paved road”. i’m glad ian knew where he was going, because i sure as hell didn’t. anyway, about half an hour outside of cambridge in the seeming middle of nowhere, we found a group of vehicles of which the overwhelming majority suspiciously carried multiple dog crates. we piled out of the car to investigate.
now, for those of you out there who have never attended a sheep dog trial (which i’m assuming is, well, all of you), let me break it down for you: each competitor can enter as many dogs as he likes in each of several different events: the short head, the long head and the huntaway (each described below). each event features the dog herding three sheep and is judged on time and points. each competitor starts with max points and loses some for infractions. don’t ask what would constitute an infraction, because i couldn’t tell (other than the obvious “the sheep went out of bounds” or “the dog is taking too long”). for the weekend’s trial, there are no ‘playoffs’ of any kind. after all competitors get their chance, the dog with the highest score wins. the top five finishers get points (5 for first place on down to 1 for fifth place) towards a spot in the national championships. five points gets you in to the national championships, so if you win one event, you’re in, or you can collect points from several different sheep dog trials. got all that? good.
the first event we watched was the short head. in this event, the dog and sheep dude start off at the bottom of a pretty big hill, with the sheep at the top of the hill (a few hundred yards off). when time begins, the man sends the dog up the hill, giving commands (using either a shepherd’s whistle or by yelling things like “LEFT, YA DAFT BUGGER!”) to guide the dog all the way to the top of the hill above the sheep. the dog then settles down and waits for the sheep to get calm (sheep are very skittish in each of these events and skittish sheep are highly unpredictable. more on that later). upon command, the dog then slowly comes towards the sheep and gets them to move downhill toward the shepherd. he’ll go side to side to make sure the sheep take a straight line down the hill (the straighter the better, points-wise). once they all reach the bottom, the guy has to get the dog to lead the sheep through a large U-shaped course that includes a gate and then ultimately into a pen (the man is able to use his body to get the sheep to go where he wants, but once he touches the gate to open the pen, he can’t let go of it until the sheep are in). this whole section is where things tended to go pear shaped for our furry (but not wooly) heroes. at least half of the teams that i watched washed out and never got the sheep into the pen. adding to the difficulty is the fact that the holding area for sheep that were finished was about 100 yards beyond said pen (as in, WAY outside the course) and some sheep took off to rejoin their brethren once they saw them. regardless, a number of teams were successful into getting the sheep into the pen. success, when achieved, usually took a little over ten minutes.
after watching several of the short head events, ian and i walked over to the next large hill for the huntaway. totally different event with a totally different type of dog. whereas the heading events use the traditional black and white (but not necessarily border collies, though these looked similar) dogs that silently stare down the sheep (giving them ‘the eye’), huntaways look like overgrown bloodhounds that CONSTANTLY BARK THEIR GODDAMN FOOL HEADS OFF. christ, they never shut up. anyway, the event runs as follows: the man, the dog and the three sheep all start off at the bottom of a large hill. the man directs the dog to maneuver the sheep up the hill through a series of three gates. sort of like a reverse slalom. the man isn’t allowed to move. once they begin, the dog starts barking at the sheep to get them up the hill, which, i was led to understand, is something they don’t like (going uphill, that is). the event ends when the sheep are successfully through the gates to the top and is much shorter (usually about 2-3 minutes) than the short head when it all goes well, as it did for the first contestant that we watched.
not so much for the other ones. after the first guy got it and made it look pretty easy, i figured “well, hell, this one must be a piece of cake”. wrong. the next FIVE entries all failed. usually, failure would entail the sheep deciding to bolt halfway through the trial around the side of the hill, never to be seen again by man or beast. some contestants suffered the further indignity of having their dog chase after the sheep and thus having to go walk over the hill (remember, we’re not talking, like, grassy knoll here. this is a small mountain) to go find his dog who, of course, is no longer paying attention to him. i have to say that this was far more amusing to the spectators than the competitors.
a strange thing i noticed is that the guys (and they were exclusively men; more on this later) that were doing the huntaways were mostly younger (many younger than i am) whereas in the heading events it was all retirees. not sure what to make of that.
anyway, the last event of the day we watched was the long head. this consists of the sheep once again being at the top of a HUGE hill (like, half a mile away, easily) and the shepherd (who can’t move out of the circle at the bottom) sending the dog up to the top to get them. the dog then brings them down to an area near the shepherd (no gates or courses or anything). in principle, it sounds easier than the short head, but trust me, we saw ONE GUY do this one successfully and it took him about 15 minutes to do it. and more on him later.
the difficulties are many. first, the dog can’t see where the sheep are for the majority of the time that he is running up to get to them, so he has to be well trained to follow directions. also, there are many times when you lose track of the dog. this isn’t so much a problem when he’s tearing off at breakneck speed up the hill, because he’ll come out from whatever little gully he found pretty fast. but on the way back down with the sheep, when it’s all much slower, the dog and sheep may get lost and move around where you can’t see them. on one of the trials, the judge actually asked the guy “excuse me sir, but do you know where your dog is?”. he said no. those of us in the peanut gallery were tittering like the french soldiers in monty python when john cleese tells king arthur that they already have a holy grail. another guy had to go after his dog who, as it turns out, had decided to take a bath in one of the streams he had to cross. it was a difficult event and, i’m sure, very frustrating.
nearly every part of sheep dog trials comes from real needs of real farmers herding real sheep on real farms. the huntaway comes from the fact that sheep love going downhill and hate going uphill and you don’t want to have to go down into a gully to get them out. the long head comes from when you’d want to have a sheep for dinner, so you’d send the dog out to get you one and then stare him down so you can come up behind him. the impetus for the short head is obvious. the point is, all these guys competing are working farmers and these dogs are all working dogs.
as you’ve probably already guessed, i was COMPLETELY fascinated by this. i met a very nice older couple, barbara and ian, who explained a lot of this to me (ian is a competitor and barbara, well, barbara i’m guessing has spent a significant portion of her life at these trials. bless her heart). as i stated above, it was all men on that day, but barbara assured me that there are women who compete. perhaps the paucity of female competitors is linked to women’s diminished ability to swear like sailors at the animals (i keed! i keed! but mostly i keed in that swearing is actually not allowed in the competitions. ian mused that perhaps that’s why some dogs don’t do as well; they aren’t receiving instructions in the manner they’re used to). ian (the other ian, not the guy i work with) took part in both heading events and, even though i was pulling for him, it was not his day.
the man whose day it was, however, was hamish richmond (don’t be too concerned if you’ve never heard of him). he is a past president of the new zealand sheep dog trials association and is (if such a thing exists) a fucking sheep dog trialing badass. yeah, i said it. he’s the michael jordan, the joe dimaggio, the…the…TIM TEBOW of sheep dog trials (take that, tonster!). he’s the only guy i saw finish the long head and he had more than one dog finish the short head. didn’t see him do the huntaway, but i’m sure he would have rocked that, too.
the sheep dog trials were awesome and i had an absolute blast. we were there for at least four hours and the time flew by. which brings me to,perhaps, the point of the day: every day, and certainly every weekend, there are all kinds of activities and events going on in this world that you have no clue about. fans and aficionados of these activities gather in places you’ve never been to watch, discuss and compete. they practice all the time to get better at something you’ve never tried or even heard of. and that, my friends, is one of the things that makes this world so very very interesting.
trialing in new zealand isn’t quite as much in the mind of the public as it used to be. there was apparently an old show called ‘country calendar’ in prime time on weekends that featured all things farming, including sheep dog trials. it featured a man named john gordon who would ‘call the game’ and was apparently so good at it he’d have you on the edge of your seat. for sheep dogs. i tried like hell to find some old video of this, but was unsuccessful. there was nothing for it but to see it all for myself.
i met up with fellow waikato university employee and all around great guy ian honey early on a saturday morning and we headed for the hills. literally. the sheep dog trial qualified in more than one way as a redneck activity, not least because directions to its location included the phrase “turn off the paved road”. i’m glad ian knew where he was going, because i sure as hell didn’t. anyway, about half an hour outside of cambridge in the seeming middle of nowhere, we found a group of vehicles of which the overwhelming majority suspiciously carried multiple dog crates. we piled out of the car to investigate.
now, for those of you out there who have never attended a sheep dog trial (which i’m assuming is, well, all of you), let me break it down for you: each competitor can enter as many dogs as he likes in each of several different events: the short head, the long head and the huntaway (each described below). each event features the dog herding three sheep and is judged on time and points. each competitor starts with max points and loses some for infractions. don’t ask what would constitute an infraction, because i couldn’t tell (other than the obvious “the sheep went out of bounds” or “the dog is taking too long”). for the weekend’s trial, there are no ‘playoffs’ of any kind. after all competitors get their chance, the dog with the highest score wins. the top five finishers get points (5 for first place on down to 1 for fifth place) towards a spot in the national championships. five points gets you in to the national championships, so if you win one event, you’re in, or you can collect points from several different sheep dog trials. got all that? good.
the first event we watched was the short head. in this event, the dog and sheep dude start off at the bottom of a pretty big hill, with the sheep at the top of the hill (a few hundred yards off). when time begins, the man sends the dog up the hill, giving commands (using either a shepherd’s whistle or by yelling things like “LEFT, YA DAFT BUGGER!”) to guide the dog all the way to the top of the hill above the sheep. the dog then settles down and waits for the sheep to get calm (sheep are very skittish in each of these events and skittish sheep are highly unpredictable. more on that later). upon command, the dog then slowly comes towards the sheep and gets them to move downhill toward the shepherd. he’ll go side to side to make sure the sheep take a straight line down the hill (the straighter the better, points-wise). once they all reach the bottom, the guy has to get the dog to lead the sheep through a large U-shaped course that includes a gate and then ultimately into a pen (the man is able to use his body to get the sheep to go where he wants, but once he touches the gate to open the pen, he can’t let go of it until the sheep are in). this whole section is where things tended to go pear shaped for our furry (but not wooly) heroes. at least half of the teams that i watched washed out and never got the sheep into the pen. adding to the difficulty is the fact that the holding area for sheep that were finished was about 100 yards beyond said pen (as in, WAY outside the course) and some sheep took off to rejoin their brethren once they saw them. regardless, a number of teams were successful into getting the sheep into the pen. success, when achieved, usually took a little over ten minutes.
after watching several of the short head events, ian and i walked over to the next large hill for the huntaway. totally different event with a totally different type of dog. whereas the heading events use the traditional black and white (but not necessarily border collies, though these looked similar) dogs that silently stare down the sheep (giving them ‘the eye’), huntaways look like overgrown bloodhounds that CONSTANTLY BARK THEIR GODDAMN FOOL HEADS OFF. christ, they never shut up. anyway, the event runs as follows: the man, the dog and the three sheep all start off at the bottom of a large hill. the man directs the dog to maneuver the sheep up the hill through a series of three gates. sort of like a reverse slalom. the man isn’t allowed to move. once they begin, the dog starts barking at the sheep to get them up the hill, which, i was led to understand, is something they don’t like (going uphill, that is). the event ends when the sheep are successfully through the gates to the top and is much shorter (usually about 2-3 minutes) than the short head when it all goes well, as it did for the first contestant that we watched.
not so much for the other ones. after the first guy got it and made it look pretty easy, i figured “well, hell, this one must be a piece of cake”. wrong. the next FIVE entries all failed. usually, failure would entail the sheep deciding to bolt halfway through the trial around the side of the hill, never to be seen again by man or beast. some contestants suffered the further indignity of having their dog chase after the sheep and thus having to go walk over the hill (remember, we’re not talking, like, grassy knoll here. this is a small mountain) to go find his dog who, of course, is no longer paying attention to him. i have to say that this was far more amusing to the spectators than the competitors.
a strange thing i noticed is that the guys (and they were exclusively men; more on this later) that were doing the huntaways were mostly younger (many younger than i am) whereas in the heading events it was all retirees. not sure what to make of that.
anyway, the last event of the day we watched was the long head. this consists of the sheep once again being at the top of a HUGE hill (like, half a mile away, easily) and the shepherd (who can’t move out of the circle at the bottom) sending the dog up to the top to get them. the dog then brings them down to an area near the shepherd (no gates or courses or anything). in principle, it sounds easier than the short head, but trust me, we saw ONE GUY do this one successfully and it took him about 15 minutes to do it. and more on him later.
the difficulties are many. first, the dog can’t see where the sheep are for the majority of the time that he is running up to get to them, so he has to be well trained to follow directions. also, there are many times when you lose track of the dog. this isn’t so much a problem when he’s tearing off at breakneck speed up the hill, because he’ll come out from whatever little gully he found pretty fast. but on the way back down with the sheep, when it’s all much slower, the dog and sheep may get lost and move around where you can’t see them. on one of the trials, the judge actually asked the guy “excuse me sir, but do you know where your dog is?”. he said no. those of us in the peanut gallery were tittering like the french soldiers in monty python when john cleese tells king arthur that they already have a holy grail. another guy had to go after his dog who, as it turns out, had decided to take a bath in one of the streams he had to cross. it was a difficult event and, i’m sure, very frustrating.
nearly every part of sheep dog trials comes from real needs of real farmers herding real sheep on real farms. the huntaway comes from the fact that sheep love going downhill and hate going uphill and you don’t want to have to go down into a gully to get them out. the long head comes from when you’d want to have a sheep for dinner, so you’d send the dog out to get you one and then stare him down so you can come up behind him. the impetus for the short head is obvious. the point is, all these guys competing are working farmers and these dogs are all working dogs.
as you’ve probably already guessed, i was COMPLETELY fascinated by this. i met a very nice older couple, barbara and ian, who explained a lot of this to me (ian is a competitor and barbara, well, barbara i’m guessing has spent a significant portion of her life at these trials. bless her heart). as i stated above, it was all men on that day, but barbara assured me that there are women who compete. perhaps the paucity of female competitors is linked to women’s diminished ability to swear like sailors at the animals (i keed! i keed! but mostly i keed in that swearing is actually not allowed in the competitions. ian mused that perhaps that’s why some dogs don’t do as well; they aren’t receiving instructions in the manner they’re used to). ian (the other ian, not the guy i work with) took part in both heading events and, even though i was pulling for him, it was not his day.
the man whose day it was, however, was hamish richmond (don’t be too concerned if you’ve never heard of him). he is a past president of the new zealand sheep dog trials association and is (if such a thing exists) a fucking sheep dog trialing badass. yeah, i said it. he’s the michael jordan, the joe dimaggio, the…the…TIM TEBOW of sheep dog trials (take that, tonster!). he’s the only guy i saw finish the long head and he had more than one dog finish the short head. didn’t see him do the huntaway, but i’m sure he would have rocked that, too.
the sheep dog trials were awesome and i had an absolute blast. we were there for at least four hours and the time flew by. which brings me to,perhaps, the point of the day: every day, and certainly every weekend, there are all kinds of activities and events going on in this world that you have no clue about. fans and aficionados of these activities gather in places you’ve never been to watch, discuss and compete. they practice all the time to get better at something you’ve never tried or even heard of. and that, my friends, is one of the things that makes this world so very very interesting.
Monday, April 27, 2009
angela thrasher's trip: arrival and pasifika festival
on march 14th my old william and mary buddy angela thrasher arrived. i hadn't actually seen her in person in about 16 years. so when a black girl came out of biosecurity that had sorta the right height and hair, i was cautious in my approach. turns out that my caution was justified, as angela was the OTHER black girl to come out of biosecurity a little later (as an aside, she counted the number of black people she saw in this country while she was here. she hit double digits the day before she left). anyway, we reconnected just fine and headed off to breakfast in auckland and a stroll through albert park before the major event of the day, the pasifika festival.
pasifika is the largest pacific islander themed festival in the world (held annually in auckland, which is the largest polynesian city in the world). it celebrates the food, culture and music of (full points if you have heard of all of these countries already; bonus points if you can give their locations more specifically than "uh, somewhere in the pacific..."; YOU ARE INELIGIBLE IF YOUR NAME IS PETER SURSI) tokelau, the maori, fiji, samoa, tuvalu, niue, the cook islands, tonga, tahiti and kiribati. each nation had a set of tents selling food and...[insert local islander word for] 'tchochkes', and a stage with cultural performances. each area was staffed with locals wearing all manner of very colorful traditional dress (note: do NOT ask the 400 pound samoan dude in the lava-lava about his 'skirt').
angela and i decided early on that we'd experience the world's cultures primarily through their food. as we walked around, we ate anything that looked good. and lots of it did. mussel fritters with sweet chili sauce, fry bread, a sorta lovo style fijian dish with meat and palusami...it was all good. lots of booths also sold ice cream in watermelon bowls, but angela refused to have one because doing so would perpetuate the stereotype.
the cultural performances were really good, too. there were a number of kapa haka groups at the maori complex, which we watched because angela had never seen one before. several of the groups were school aged kids, which was cool to see. there were individual recording artists from around the pacific performing at the venues of their country of origin. but what i liked most of all were the older kids and adults doing the traditional dances. one thing you realize very quickly in watching these is just how different the maori are from other pacific islanders. the maori have no drums in their songs, for one thing. any percussion comes from stomping and beating on their chests. but a number of islander dances are accompanied by incredibly fast drums and the full on hula skirt/hippy hippy shake kinds of dances that make westerners gawk.
we took a quick break at lunchtime to take in some of the rugby that accompanied the festival. then it was on to more souvenir stalls. then it was on to more food. how many variations on taro root are there in world cuisine, you ask? well, plenty. when it was all said and done, we made our way back to the car and headed down to hamilton, discussing the day's sights and sounds all the way.
what made it all really cool was just how foreign and different everything was. i can totally see a nearly exact copy of this kind of festival taking place in miami, with all the caribbean nations featured. but because of where i currently am in the world, i get a peek into a whole group of cultures about which i knew almost nothing previously. and now, of course, i have to go visit them in person.
pasifika is the largest pacific islander themed festival in the world (held annually in auckland, which is the largest polynesian city in the world). it celebrates the food, culture and music of (full points if you have heard of all of these countries already; bonus points if you can give their locations more specifically than "uh, somewhere in the pacific..."; YOU ARE INELIGIBLE IF YOUR NAME IS PETER SURSI) tokelau, the maori, fiji, samoa, tuvalu, niue, the cook islands, tonga, tahiti and kiribati. each nation had a set of tents selling food and...[insert local islander word for] 'tchochkes', and a stage with cultural performances. each area was staffed with locals wearing all manner of very colorful traditional dress (note: do NOT ask the 400 pound samoan dude in the lava-lava about his 'skirt').
angela and i decided early on that we'd experience the world's cultures primarily through their food. as we walked around, we ate anything that looked good. and lots of it did. mussel fritters with sweet chili sauce, fry bread, a sorta lovo style fijian dish with meat and palusami...it was all good. lots of booths also sold ice cream in watermelon bowls, but angela refused to have one because doing so would perpetuate the stereotype.
the cultural performances were really good, too. there were a number of kapa haka groups at the maori complex, which we watched because angela had never seen one before. several of the groups were school aged kids, which was cool to see. there were individual recording artists from around the pacific performing at the venues of their country of origin. but what i liked most of all were the older kids and adults doing the traditional dances. one thing you realize very quickly in watching these is just how different the maori are from other pacific islanders. the maori have no drums in their songs, for one thing. any percussion comes from stomping and beating on their chests. but a number of islander dances are accompanied by incredibly fast drums and the full on hula skirt/hippy hippy shake kinds of dances that make westerners gawk.
we took a quick break at lunchtime to take in some of the rugby that accompanied the festival. then it was on to more souvenir stalls. then it was on to more food. how many variations on taro root are there in world cuisine, you ask? well, plenty. when it was all said and done, we made our way back to the car and headed down to hamilton, discussing the day's sights and sounds all the way.
what made it all really cool was just how foreign and different everything was. i can totally see a nearly exact copy of this kind of festival taking place in miami, with all the caribbean nations featured. but because of where i currently am in the world, i get a peek into a whole group of cultures about which i knew almost nothing previously. and now, of course, i have to go visit them in person.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
