A journey into the heart of New Zealand.
It was a quiet Friday morning when about a dozen city-slickers from the Sri Chinmoy Centre in Auckland hopped in their cars and embarked on a journey into New Zealand's pristine native forest reserve on the Wanganui river.
| The Flying Fox |
What was meant to be a 5 hour journey turned into an all-day affair as we stopped in small town cafes to have a laugh and a cuppa, or played roadside frisbee as we fed our cars at the service station. We finally descended down into the Wanganui valley, surrounded by lush, green flora on all sides. We passed through the occasional village, with names like Jerusalem and Atene (a Maori transliteration of the word "Athens"). With dusk fast approaching, we finally reached the destination and made our way in groups of two across the river in a makeshift flying fox, which also happened to be the name of the place we were staying at. We arrived at an oasis of civilisation hidden in the mountains. There were three homemade cottages on the banks of the river, like little hobbit-homes. The friendly couple who lived there occupied one of the houses, and the other two were rented out to travellers like ourselves, including backpackers from all over the world. We settled down in the peaceful depths of the night, and awoke to the sound of roosters heralding the dawn.
| Say Cheese! |
We started our day bright and early with a communal meditation at 6 am, and then launched into a much-anticipated breakfast of first class gruel. After wrestling and playing frisbee with the local dog named Billy, most of us decided to explore the surrounding area. We ran up the valley from our riverside cabin and through the thick, dark bush to the top of a ridge. We continued running along the ridge for another 20 minutes. The more adventurous among our crew decided to bush-bash our way back down to the river which we could see snaking its way through the valley below, making sure to keep well away from any tracks. The four of us raced down the slope through thick foliage, immersing ourselves in the sea of vegetation as we darted like primeval deer through this half-forest, half-jungle paradise; scrambling over fallen logs, sliding down cliffs, jumping across streams. Often we came across twisted networks of vines. These proved to be both friend and foe, as they sometimes threatened to trip us up or entangle us; but at one point we had to rely on them to swing across to the other side of a narrow ravine!
| Billy the Kid |
Early on in our downward descent I held on to a 30-foot Punga tree for support. But appearances were deceptive, and the fragile arboreal beast toppled over in front of me. "Timber!" I cried, trying desperately to alert my comrades up ahead who fortunately escaped my inadvertanent felling unscathed. "Never trust a Punga" became our motto from then on in.
There is an indescribable joy and freedom of being lost in the New Zealand bush, coming face to face with the wild, the uncivilised, the savage beauty of nature in its raw and untamed splendour. This bush lay as a testament to the vigilence of nature, having proudly resisted the relentless empire of man and machine. The babbling brooks, the ancient bird-song and the silent wisdom of the trees; those gentle life-giving beings who breathe in our waste in order to give us pure air, all spoke of timeless wonders which called forth a part of us half-buried ,the call of the blood, the call to the wilderness. Had this been our birthplace, this mystical cauldron of colliding and flowing life-energies? Is this the womb where we crawled from our animal slumber in long ages past, awakened by an urge which beckoned us out into the open plains, to the high seas, and finally to build our own vast jungles of concrete and steel? Were we not a creature of the woods too, driven onward and inward by the relentless pursuit of new frontiers?
Despite its wild and rugged appearance, the New Zealand bush is almost as soft and friendly as that iconic local animal, the mild-mannered sheep. Unlike our slightly larger neighbouring island across the Tasman, our wilderness is empty of snakes, lethal spiders, reptilian man-eaters and poisonous fish. Nevertheless, we had taken a plunge into the unknown. Our controlled fall down the cliff took us finally to a stream. Our clothing splattered with mud and sweat, we rejoiced at having found our bearings. Our journey now became harder, as we navigated the slippery banks of the stream. Often the only thing stopping us from plunging down into a watery abyss were a few vines and tree roots which we clung desperately to for support. We embarked on this journey for what must have been about an hour, before finally catching up to the glorious Wanganui river. I was the third to reach the river; entry was via a small trickling waterfall. In my eagerness to launch ahead I slipped on the mouth of the waterfall and starting sliding on my back all the way down. There was no stopping my downward momentum so I simply surrendered to the flow, before plunging unceremoniously knee-deep in the river, looking like a stunned mullet, just in time for a photo op from the enthusiastic paparazzi member of our crew. I stared into the murky brown depths of the river. A spider stared back, while waltzing like an eight-legged magician on top of the water.
| Negotiating the Creek |
We surveyed the landscape ahead and plotted our next maneouvre. Here we were in a deep valley. Bare, forboding cliffs of slippery clay rose up for yards on either side of the waters. There was only one way out, and that was into the river. We waded hesitantly into the water, not quite prepared for the icy cold immersion. The tallest member of our pack was the first to test the depths. He lay himself out flat with hands and feet on either side of the cliff-face, in a vain attempt to stay dry. But the river soon widened out and he too had to face the deep freeze.
We trekked onward, the path ahead of us beginning to ever-increasingly resemble an Amazonian river. Would great big eels and ravenous piranha rise up from the depths to tear us asunder? Might some prehistoric beast be lurking in these nether regions awaiting its next meal? Or had we nothing to fear but fear itself? The river stretched on endlessly ahead. Would we be forced to spend the night out here? Would we ever make it home? What if we were heading towards a great big waterfall? As dehydration started to kick in, I found myself drinking from a natural faucet caused by a small creek meeting its end at the riverbank. Hopefully it wasn't too polluted. Fortunately, we were closer to home than we thought. About an hour later we rounded a bend and came out into the open, with the road in sight. The flying fox cable which we had travelled across the day before was only half a kilometre away in the distance. We made our way back.
Later that day we returned to the same spot for a game of frisbee in the mud. The surface we were playing on was basically quicksand, which made running around difficult to say the least. I coated myself thoroughly in mud to keep off the sandflies. I also invented a game called "mud-diving", which was like long jump but you have to plunge belly-first into the quicksand. An excellent time was had by all, and we returned to basecamp thouroughly exhausted.
| Mark cooks up a storm! |
One of the cabins was dedicated to an iconic Kiwi bard who had lived in the area during the latter part of his life. His photographs and portraits decorated the walls. He spoke to us from beyond the grave, his writing scrawled on the wall in dark green ink:
Alone we are born
And die alone
Yet see the red-gold cirrus
over snow-mountain shine.
Upon the upland road
Ride easy, stranger
Surrender to the sky
Your heart of anger.
- James K. Baxter.
The next day we packed up and took the flying fox back across to our vehicles, returning to the life of responsibility and duty and leaving paradise behind.
| The mist shrouded hills of the Wanganui River |
Visit the Flying Fox Photo Gallery