Serpo
12th May 2010, 06:55 PM
By Frosty Wooldridge
5-3-10
"What a privilege to know the profound stillness and the peace of the land, to see star spangled skies, and to listen to the pulse of the universe." Jill Tremain
Even the dogs don't bark at bicyclists in New Zealand.
If ever there was a paradise for a touring bicycle rider, ﾃつ*New Zealand takes the cake. The South Island with its 12,000-foot ﾃつ*glacier covered summits possesses extraordinary mountain vistas. ﾃつ*But it doesn't end there. Animal life abounds along the rockyﾃつ* seacoast including countless shorebirds. On the domestic front, ﾃつ*sheep, more than 21,000,000 of them, outnumber the human ﾃつ*population seven to one. Four million year old Meroki Boulders ﾃつ*"hatch" out of the sand along the coast on the east side of the South Island. Kiwi birds hide in theﾃつ* darkness while penguins and sea lions frolic in the surf.
Doug and I spent three days in Christchurch. That lovelyﾃつ* Victorian City features characters like the Wizard and the Bird Man. The former is a self-proclaimedﾃつ* theologian who walks into the city center daily and preaches aﾃつ* sermon on most any subject that catches his fancy. His "sermons"ﾃつ* cause wild reactions among tourists. More mild mannered, theﾃつ* Bird Man provides a walking perch for hundreds of seagulls that inhabitﾃつ* the city. His avian friends trust him and fight for the honor of ﾃつ*perching on his cap.
But paradise sometimes exacts a price. We rode south out ofﾃつ* Christchurch with a brisk tailwind. Being blown down the road feels like a free ride. You get to laugh and sing and sit in the ﾃつ*saddle with little effort. A hundred miles south, we headed west ﾃつ*on Route 79 toward Mount Cook National Park, into the heart of ﾃつ*the highest mountains in New Zealand. We pedaled with side winds ﾃつ*blowing us across the highway, but that wasn't too bad. We made ﾃつ*our way through a valley until we reached Route 8 in Farlie. A ﾃつ*wide open plain covered with brown grasses brought us to a vistaﾃつ* overlooking the turquoise waters of Lake Tekapo. We cut acrossﾃつ* its lower end and coasted for the next few hours on a tail wind ﾃつ*that whipped along at 50 miles per hour. We loved it until we hit Route 80 at Lake Pukaki, headedﾃつ* directly into a 50 mile an hour zephyr. We pedaled into the granddaddy ﾃつ*of headwinds. Sixty mile per hour gusts thundered down from the canyons in front of us.
Twenty-four miles separated us from the camping area in the ﾃつ*park. It might as well have been a 10,000-foot climb with 16 percent ﾃつ*grades. We stopped for a drink at the intersection.
"You sure we want to do this?" Doug asked.
"No kidding man," I said. "This is an inland hurricane. ﾃつ*We're gonna' be blown off the road. I don't know how we'reﾃつ* gonna' make it."
"We'll be in Granny gear the whole time," Doug said. "Let's ﾃつ*get it done."
From there our five-hour ordeal began. With the mountains ﾃつ*in front and to our left, and the white caps on the lake, weﾃつ* cranked into a savage wind. An invisible force ripped at our ﾃつ*bodies. Normally, we hammer out 24 miles in two hours. Not inﾃつ* that wind. We cranked along, heads down, hands gripping the barsﾃつ* and fighting for balance. Blasts of wind howled in our ears. ﾃつ*For the first hour, a narrow canyon directed a cyclone at us. ﾃつ*The road pointed straight for three miles, but looked like ﾃつ*forever. We pedaled in the Granny gear the whole time even onﾃつ* slight downhill grades. After six miles, we reached the storm ﾃつ*whipped waters of Lake Pukaki.
The wind intensified as it exploded off the flat surface of ﾃつ*the water. We rode side-by-side, but one blast sent me ﾃつ*crashing into Doug. After that, we kept a short distance between ﾃつ*our bikes. On we cranked into this brutal gale-force wind. Up ﾃつ*ahead, swirling clouds played wildly in the mountains at the endﾃつ* of the lake. We saw the birthplace of this raging tempest. It ﾃつ*thundered and howled at us. It ripped violent patterns into theﾃつ* surface of the lake. That wind did everything in its powerﾃつ* to keep us from our destination. Hour after gut busting hour, we ﾃつ*fought our way into this tempest of sound and fury.
Near sunset, we dragged our weary bodies into the camp area ﾃつ*of the park. Doug decided to take a rest. I pitched my tent;ﾃつ* tossed the panniers inside and grabbed my camera. The sun set high over the peaks. Shadows moved up the west face of the mountains to my left. Glaciers hung to craggy peaks above ﾃつ*me. I wanted to catch the sun making its final lighting assault ﾃつ*on the glaciers for this day. I ran along a huge glacial moraine ﾃつ*with my pack bouncing on my shoulders. At the end of the campingﾃつ* area, it turned to bush and moss-covered rocks. I followed aﾃつ* primitive trail that meandered upward along a ridgeline. Itﾃつ* climbed steeply offering me a glimpse of five large glaciers. ﾃつ*Further up the hill, a gray glacial river came into view below ﾃつ*me. In front, an enormous canyon stretched into the distance-the result of a receding glacier whose foot was barely perceptible under the south face of 12,500 foot Mount Cook. Theﾃつ* clouds broke momentarily giving me a full-blown view of its southﾃつ* face. Brilliant mountain energy! Along the canyon, back toward ﾃつ*me, on sheer vertical cliffs thousands of feet high, four glaciers clung to their rocky perches.
Nearer my location, about a mile on the right, a largeﾃつ* gravel avalanche shoot, now still, cut its way through dark green ﾃつ*vegetation. In front of me, where I stopped to sit on a rock, I enjoyed a grandstand view of the merging of two glacial canyons. ﾃつ*The one closest to me sported 300 foot high banks that resembled aﾃつ* canal trough that featured gray rockﾃつ* overlapped with ice which protruded like broken glass shards on a ghetto sidewalk. Along the rock fields, sinkholes made indentations and 500-ton boulders lay around like broken eggﾃつ*shells. On the left side of the canyon, nine glaciers in various formations poured like cake batter out of the mountains. Beneathﾃつ* each glacier and mingling around the base the ice floes-dozens ﾃつ*of waterfalls cascaded down jagged rock.
Above this grand mountain scheme, white and gray twisting ﾃつ*clouds folded into changing formations ghosts in a Disney movie. ﾃつ*The wind thrash and thundered all around us. It ﾃつ*rushed through the canyon to my right with the deafening roar of ﾃつ*cannon fire. Each volley blasted the ridge where I sat. The blasts bellowed over the water of the glacier lakes below me and ﾃつ*ripped up the ridge and roared by me at 60 miles per hour. The wind nearly blew me over the ridge at one point. I dropped to myﾃつ* stomach to save myself. The raging wind blew the grasses so hard-they looked like water running over a dam.
As I watched this drama, wonder crept into my soul. I letﾃつ* out a yell. At times like that, when the wind blows and the ice ﾃつ*cracks and rumbles, and rivers roar, and the mass of nature's ﾃつ*moving parts unite to create a natural movie with a screen thatﾃつ* stretches across the sky-it's at those times I know my life moves inﾃつ* delicate perfection. Living feels right and good. No doubts as I sat there in a howling wind with my spirit soaring ﾃつ*and my eyes full of blue, gray, aqua, white, ice, water and ﾃつ*mountains rising to collide with the sky.
Upon returning to camp, a Kiwi couple invited Doug and I into their van for dinner. We talked for two hours before the ﾃつ*wind died. We walked out at 11:00 o'clock just as a full moon ﾃつ*broke over the summit east of Mount Wakefield. A slight drizzle ﾃつ*fell west of us across the Seffron Glacier, which we could see ﾃつ*from our location. What we witnessed, I've never seen before nor ﾃつ*since. It's existence requires the most exceptional ofﾃつ* circumstances to occur. That night, we saw one of the rarest ﾃつ*wonders of the world.
"Would you look at that!" Doug said.
"Holy catfish," I said. "What do you call something likeﾃつ* that?"
"I don't know," Doug answered. "It's not a rainbow, so it's ﾃつ*got to be a...moonbow, yeah, that's it, a moonbow."
Across the sky to the west, created by the blazing light ofﾃつ* a full moon, and a clear sky to the east-a fully arced rainbow ﾃつ*swung from the ground, up over a mountain, into the night sky, ﾃつ*back down into the white glacier field, and touched down again onﾃつ* the rocky ground in the distance. It shown in green and yellow, but red and purple glistened in the drizzle, ﾃつ*too. Within the arc, a white mist curtain brightened the darkness.
"That is a once in a lifetime happening," Doug said.
"You know, this makes everything we suffered today worthﾃつ* it," I said. "This is so amazing that I can't even believe it!"
My friend and I stood there watching the moonbow. In the ﾃつ*silence, we heard other things-the heartbeat of the universe...
http://www.rense.com/general90/even.htm
5-3-10
"What a privilege to know the profound stillness and the peace of the land, to see star spangled skies, and to listen to the pulse of the universe." Jill Tremain
Even the dogs don't bark at bicyclists in New Zealand.
If ever there was a paradise for a touring bicycle rider, ﾃつ*New Zealand takes the cake. The South Island with its 12,000-foot ﾃつ*glacier covered summits possesses extraordinary mountain vistas. ﾃつ*But it doesn't end there. Animal life abounds along the rockyﾃつ* seacoast including countless shorebirds. On the domestic front, ﾃつ*sheep, more than 21,000,000 of them, outnumber the human ﾃつ*population seven to one. Four million year old Meroki Boulders ﾃつ*"hatch" out of the sand along the coast on the east side of the South Island. Kiwi birds hide in theﾃつ* darkness while penguins and sea lions frolic in the surf.
Doug and I spent three days in Christchurch. That lovelyﾃつ* Victorian City features characters like the Wizard and the Bird Man. The former is a self-proclaimedﾃつ* theologian who walks into the city center daily and preaches aﾃつ* sermon on most any subject that catches his fancy. His "sermons"ﾃつ* cause wild reactions among tourists. More mild mannered, theﾃつ* Bird Man provides a walking perch for hundreds of seagulls that inhabitﾃつ* the city. His avian friends trust him and fight for the honor of ﾃつ*perching on his cap.
But paradise sometimes exacts a price. We rode south out ofﾃつ* Christchurch with a brisk tailwind. Being blown down the road feels like a free ride. You get to laugh and sing and sit in the ﾃつ*saddle with little effort. A hundred miles south, we headed west ﾃつ*on Route 79 toward Mount Cook National Park, into the heart of ﾃつ*the highest mountains in New Zealand. We pedaled with side winds ﾃつ*blowing us across the highway, but that wasn't too bad. We made ﾃつ*our way through a valley until we reached Route 8 in Farlie. A ﾃつ*wide open plain covered with brown grasses brought us to a vistaﾃつ* overlooking the turquoise waters of Lake Tekapo. We cut acrossﾃつ* its lower end and coasted for the next few hours on a tail wind ﾃつ*that whipped along at 50 miles per hour. We loved it until we hit Route 80 at Lake Pukaki, headedﾃつ* directly into a 50 mile an hour zephyr. We pedaled into the granddaddy ﾃつ*of headwinds. Sixty mile per hour gusts thundered down from the canyons in front of us.
Twenty-four miles separated us from the camping area in the ﾃつ*park. It might as well have been a 10,000-foot climb with 16 percent ﾃつ*grades. We stopped for a drink at the intersection.
"You sure we want to do this?" Doug asked.
"No kidding man," I said. "This is an inland hurricane. ﾃつ*We're gonna' be blown off the road. I don't know how we'reﾃつ* gonna' make it."
"We'll be in Granny gear the whole time," Doug said. "Let's ﾃつ*get it done."
From there our five-hour ordeal began. With the mountains ﾃつ*in front and to our left, and the white caps on the lake, weﾃつ* cranked into a savage wind. An invisible force ripped at our ﾃつ*bodies. Normally, we hammer out 24 miles in two hours. Not inﾃつ* that wind. We cranked along, heads down, hands gripping the barsﾃつ* and fighting for balance. Blasts of wind howled in our ears. ﾃつ*For the first hour, a narrow canyon directed a cyclone at us. ﾃつ*The road pointed straight for three miles, but looked like ﾃつ*forever. We pedaled in the Granny gear the whole time even onﾃつ* slight downhill grades. After six miles, we reached the storm ﾃつ*whipped waters of Lake Pukaki.
The wind intensified as it exploded off the flat surface of ﾃつ*the water. We rode side-by-side, but one blast sent me ﾃつ*crashing into Doug. After that, we kept a short distance between ﾃつ*our bikes. On we cranked into this brutal gale-force wind. Up ﾃつ*ahead, swirling clouds played wildly in the mountains at the endﾃつ* of the lake. We saw the birthplace of this raging tempest. It ﾃつ*thundered and howled at us. It ripped violent patterns into theﾃつ* surface of the lake. That wind did everything in its powerﾃつ* to keep us from our destination. Hour after gut busting hour, we ﾃつ*fought our way into this tempest of sound and fury.
Near sunset, we dragged our weary bodies into the camp area ﾃつ*of the park. Doug decided to take a rest. I pitched my tent;ﾃつ* tossed the panniers inside and grabbed my camera. The sun set high over the peaks. Shadows moved up the west face of the mountains to my left. Glaciers hung to craggy peaks above ﾃつ*me. I wanted to catch the sun making its final lighting assault ﾃつ*on the glaciers for this day. I ran along a huge glacial moraine ﾃつ*with my pack bouncing on my shoulders. At the end of the campingﾃつ* area, it turned to bush and moss-covered rocks. I followed aﾃつ* primitive trail that meandered upward along a ridgeline. Itﾃつ* climbed steeply offering me a glimpse of five large glaciers. ﾃつ*Further up the hill, a gray glacial river came into view below ﾃつ*me. In front, an enormous canyon stretched into the distance-the result of a receding glacier whose foot was barely perceptible under the south face of 12,500 foot Mount Cook. Theﾃつ* clouds broke momentarily giving me a full-blown view of its southﾃつ* face. Brilliant mountain energy! Along the canyon, back toward ﾃつ*me, on sheer vertical cliffs thousands of feet high, four glaciers clung to their rocky perches.
Nearer my location, about a mile on the right, a largeﾃつ* gravel avalanche shoot, now still, cut its way through dark green ﾃつ*vegetation. In front of me, where I stopped to sit on a rock, I enjoyed a grandstand view of the merging of two glacial canyons. ﾃつ*The one closest to me sported 300 foot high banks that resembled aﾃつ* canal trough that featured gray rockﾃつ* overlapped with ice which protruded like broken glass shards on a ghetto sidewalk. Along the rock fields, sinkholes made indentations and 500-ton boulders lay around like broken eggﾃつ*shells. On the left side of the canyon, nine glaciers in various formations poured like cake batter out of the mountains. Beneathﾃつ* each glacier and mingling around the base the ice floes-dozens ﾃつ*of waterfalls cascaded down jagged rock.
Above this grand mountain scheme, white and gray twisting ﾃつ*clouds folded into changing formations ghosts in a Disney movie. ﾃつ*The wind thrash and thundered all around us. It ﾃつ*rushed through the canyon to my right with the deafening roar of ﾃつ*cannon fire. Each volley blasted the ridge where I sat. The blasts bellowed over the water of the glacier lakes below me and ﾃつ*ripped up the ridge and roared by me at 60 miles per hour. The wind nearly blew me over the ridge at one point. I dropped to myﾃつ* stomach to save myself. The raging wind blew the grasses so hard-they looked like water running over a dam.
As I watched this drama, wonder crept into my soul. I letﾃつ* out a yell. At times like that, when the wind blows and the ice ﾃつ*cracks and rumbles, and rivers roar, and the mass of nature's ﾃつ*moving parts unite to create a natural movie with a screen thatﾃつ* stretches across the sky-it's at those times I know my life moves inﾃつ* delicate perfection. Living feels right and good. No doubts as I sat there in a howling wind with my spirit soaring ﾃつ*and my eyes full of blue, gray, aqua, white, ice, water and ﾃつ*mountains rising to collide with the sky.
Upon returning to camp, a Kiwi couple invited Doug and I into their van for dinner. We talked for two hours before the ﾃつ*wind died. We walked out at 11:00 o'clock just as a full moon ﾃつ*broke over the summit east of Mount Wakefield. A slight drizzle ﾃつ*fell west of us across the Seffron Glacier, which we could see ﾃつ*from our location. What we witnessed, I've never seen before nor ﾃつ*since. It's existence requires the most exceptional ofﾃつ* circumstances to occur. That night, we saw one of the rarest ﾃつ*wonders of the world.
"Would you look at that!" Doug said.
"Holy catfish," I said. "What do you call something likeﾃつ* that?"
"I don't know," Doug answered. "It's not a rainbow, so it's ﾃつ*got to be a...moonbow, yeah, that's it, a moonbow."
Across the sky to the west, created by the blazing light ofﾃつ* a full moon, and a clear sky to the east-a fully arced rainbow ﾃつ*swung from the ground, up over a mountain, into the night sky, ﾃつ*back down into the white glacier field, and touched down again onﾃつ* the rocky ground in the distance. It shown in green and yellow, but red and purple glistened in the drizzle, ﾃつ*too. Within the arc, a white mist curtain brightened the darkness.
"That is a once in a lifetime happening," Doug said.
"You know, this makes everything we suffered today worthﾃつ* it," I said. "This is so amazing that I can't even believe it!"
My friend and I stood there watching the moonbow. In the ﾃつ*silence, we heard other things-the heartbeat of the universe...
http://www.rense.com/general90/even.htm