Friends & Family, Festivity & Fervor — HaffsWay Around The World

First off, a belated Fleece Navidad and Happy New (Zealand) Year! Somewhere between rockin’ around the (mini) Christmas tree and cozying up to the familiar friend – and foe – of a service industry work schedule, it suddenly seems more difficult to locate a block of time to provide a quality update for you, faithful reader. This may feel as counterintuitive to you as it does to me since being stationed in one place would seem to free up a world of time and energy, 40-hour work week be damned. One byproduct of this change, however, is that our days off become near-mandates for exploration of the many reaches of wilderness wonderland we’ve chosen to locate ourselves smack dab in the middle of (convenient, right?). Nonetheless, we hear your cries for more (shout out to Uncle Brad and Aunt Yvonne), and it would feel unfair not to provide more context into our new ‘temporarily settled’ lifestyle and the joys it bestowed upon us this holiday season. Better yet, it sure would be something to encapsulate this first quarter of our journey within the context of what we could call a… turbulent year for the world. The illumination of one tiny snowflake light on a shamefully haphazard Christmas tree, if you will. Well, as we told ourselves before we set out on this crazy quest, we’ll just have to see how that turns out. I might need a second glass of my first batch of homemade eggnog for this.

As you’ll know from our last post, we are hunkered down for the summer, happily employed at the Cardrona Hotel as contributors to the stellar bar/wait/kitchen staff team. How’s that going for us? Well, whether it’s been due to our experience in stressful work environments, generally upbeat positivity, or innovative dance moves and beer pong skills at the staff Christmas party, we are fitting in quite well in fact, thank you for asking! Hotel notwithstanding, the bar and restaurant - which serves up some of the best ‘pub food’ in the country, second best in Wanaka according to TripAdvisor - has been amidst the perfect storm of circumstances for being outlandishly busy over the past few weeks (like, 350+ lunches busy… with three chefs and two fryers).

The aftermath of what a busy season week looks like, on the bar side. Eat your heart out, State Street Brats.

The first reason for this is the most basic geographical consideration of being the only real pit stop for coffee/food/drink between Wanaka and Queenstown, i.e. central Otago’s two most frequented tourist destinations. Second and third, there’s the whole historical charm and massively picturesque beer garden, as Laura detailed. Lastly, there was a large music festival about five miles down the road from the 29th-31st, sending a number of thirsty/hungry/hungover festgoers on a path already very well-traveled in this popular vacation season. All this backstory to say that it has been a quite interesting and challenging few weeks of work for us, but that the immersive experience of living here as a whole has brought about quite a few interesting side effects:

1) Probably the least surprising anecdote to anyone who knows either of us (so basically all of you): a friendly and fun rapport with our co-workers (and bro-workers). The collective team would struggle to maintain sanity without the essential back and forth words of encouragement and sly jokes about obnoxious customers that make even the most grueling shifts fun.

2) Conjoined with the above, it meant we got to spend Kiwi Kristmas (sorry) with family away from family, which involved poolside barbecue, crude shortcut attempts at homemade eggnog, viewings of Elf and Home Alone 2, and a cheese spread that could make a Wisconsinite blush. All of this made possible by Jemma, one of our fearless leaders here at Cardrona, whose name sounded out backwards is “a gem.” And that’s exactly what Christmas was for us, and is for all, right?! There’s some of that aforementioned cheese for ya- and you can ‘keep the change, ya filthy animal’.

Deck the Halls with well-packed Yetis, Falalalala-lala-lala!

Although it's been said, many times, many ways- Merry Christmas to you

3) Quality cooking/meal planning/food utilization on our part. By this I mean very little throwing away food we buy, and creative cooking galore to make that happen (thanks for passing that skill along, pops!). I would guess this has something to do with living 25 minutes from one oft-hellishly overcrowded grocery store, and/or involves osmosis learning from the kitchen we work so closely with- one that often makes us our ever-changing staff meals applying the classic “what needs to get used up now” logic that I’ve adopted to a greater degree. Either way, it’s not something either of us have been particularly great at in the past, so… yay new skills!

4) The simple joy that comes with improving one’s ability to draw things in the foam of a Guinness. Having mastered the shamrock, the next project has been attempting to recreate the outline of the Hotel façade. You'll just have to come judge the artistry for yourself, eh?

5) Increasing our fitness levels, both incidentally and intentionally. Incidentally, since we spend our shifts constantly moving at a brisk pace and lifting everything from dishes to tables to kegs. Intentionally, since this relative isolation means it’s easier for me to force myself to run- or as of a week ago, bike! (I bought a mountain bike for myself for Christmas). By our collective logic, it often doesn’t make much sense to drive into Wanaka unless we need groceries- especially when our shifts don’t align. What better way, then, to spend idle hours than out in the summer sun, right?! Sometimes you accidentally run all the way up a mountain! For me, I’ll admit there’s an ulterior ‘get back in racing champ shape’ motive. Speaking of which, I um… won an off-road Duathlon (run-mountain bike-run) two days after Chrismas. Were many of the participants in the race children? Perhaps. Did I still defeat at least a few adult males? Yes. Is a win still a win? Damn straight!

6) Making (and saving) enough money to justify normal people things, like going to the movies! There’s a really neat classic-themed theater that serves beer & cocktails and even throws in an intermission (my kind of place!). Solid reviews for both Rogue One and La La Land from these two easy-to-please critics. We do find ourselves slightly disoriented as we leave, though. Like, oh yeah- this is not Marcus Point Cinema, AT ALL! Where are we again?

7) In a situation that hints at what readjustment to real life back home may mean, the loss of tenuous schedule and addition of commitment has revealed a few growing pains of return to ‘normalcy’. Never was this made tougher than fighting work schedule and time zone difference to stay updated with family regarding my Grandpa Norm, who passed away a week and a half ago, shortly after being transferred to hospice care.

To expand on that last one, this situation was one of the few things I legitimately feared about making the move down here- missing out on something truly important. In this case, it was being there for family during a time of loss (still very thankful to live in the facetime era, at least.) In the opposite case, it will mean being regretfully absent at a friend’s wedding (I said push it to August, dammit Davey!). Either way, situations like these are made that much tougher being helplessly far away. If I find any solace in being here for this, it’s that a travelin’ man like my Gramps -U.S. Geological Surveyor and explorer of all states that aren’t Hawaii from the pilot’s seat of the BornFree camper- would have loved this place. As the tearful icing on the cake, I was proudly plagiarized in his obituary: Norm Haffield ‘was seemingly always on the verge of laughter- that is, if he wasn’t already laughing. We will always remember his joking nature and positive attitude (even as a Bears fan). The world could certainly use more of his type of joy and love.’ If simplification is the key to successful New Year’s resolutions, then I’ll let the task of attempting to echo those words be my most basic one for 2017 (not that simple means easy, considering those are big shoes to fill!).

This not-quite-football-shaped rock traveled almost as much vertically as it did horizontally with me to rest atop The Pylon in Mt. Aspiring National Park. See you on the other side, Gramps!

Now then, as I did with the nice bottle of scotch I bought, I’ll dedicate this next bit to you, Gramps! This is that inevitable part of the post that gets inundated with pictures of the ‘weekend’ adventures we’ve embarked on over the past few weeks (‘weekend’ for us is often Wednesday-Thursday, etc.). After heading Northwest to the Fox Glacier area on our first roundtrip, we headed down the opposite direction to the rugged and windswept South Coast, where our friends William and Lucille were WWOOFing at a holiday park near Invercargill.

Just some super casual, perfectly candid beach stretching. Typical Kiwi stuff, really.

After hanging out with them for a few days near the beach, we decided to brave gale force winds to see the Catlins, an area known for its craggy rocks and wild coastal rainforest. We can now also officially say we’ve been tip to tip on New Zealand, which sounds cool until we start to remember encountering people who are doing that same journey, but walking or biking the entire distance. Yeesh.

The Southernmost tip! Laura is less posing here and more holding on for dear life against the intense winds

If the wind and intermittent thundershowers hadn’t driven them to duck and cover, we likely would have seen penguins and dolphins along the coast here too. Instead, we were mesmerized by waves exploding over rocks probably 30 feet into the air- still pretty cool. Of course, what would any trip be without a charming stay in a quaint AirBnB gypsy wagon, too (I’ll let you guess who did the planning on that one).

Winner of most unique AirBnB experience in my book. Can finally cross 'sleep in gypsy wagon' off the bucket list

Pictured top center: Antarctica (if you squint hard enough)

Just another massive cave, with arm signals to match

Our other noteworthy excursion was an impromptu journey into the relatively close Mt. Aspiring National Park (take notes, visitors!). The adventure for this one actually begins before you even park the car, as the “road” in to the carpark crosses about a dozen streams, ranging from 1-2 feet deep and 5-25 feet wide. Taking notes on the heels of other backpacker vans, we studied how to navigate around deep areas and large rocks, all the while using that invaluable knowledge gleaned from hours of playing Oregon Trail decades ago. Big Red made it through unscathed… well, almost. The front part of her bottom plastic cover may or may not be getting some help from rope and duct tape at the moment.

As for the walk itself: we felt pretty comfortable going in, as the hike to Aspiring Hut was a mostly flat five-miler through the valley. Our original plan was to head back on the trail the next day and check out the side jaunt to Rob Roy glacier (which apparently has held up a bit better than the other glaciers we visited when it comes to the…ahem… MAN MADE GLOBAL WARMING… perhaps because it gets a lot of shade from sharp peaks on three sides, but I’m no scientist).

Anyway, about 100 meters into our trek back from the hut, we unwittingly embarked on what would become much more than “45 minutes or so, just to see how far we can get” up a mountain called the Pylon. First, it was ‘let’s get to the tree line’. Then it was the bush line. Then it was the snow line. Then at that point, we might as well just scurry on up to the top quick, right?! Here, maybe the pictures will explain our thought processes a bit better.

Then the trail started to look like this

Eventually we found a sign previously unseen anywhere else we've been.

Diving for the Pylon, or simply collapsing from exhaustion in style- prior to the arduous climb back down.

Hard to argue with our own questionable logic upon seeing the other side of the mountain.

We were both hesitant at times, but did a great job of encouraging each other to push ourselves. Go with the flow, even when the flow is making your legs shake. Cut to six hours later, nearly as much distance travelled vertically as horizontally, and a severe distaste for the energy required for downhill hiking especially, and we were back at the hut. Only five more (blessedly flat!) miles to the van from there. And then only an hour and a half drive, a dozen more stream crossings, and about three ‘New Zealand traffic jams’ on the way back! Needless to say it was one of our most draining days, but so absolutely well worth it!

As the cumulative mass of all the above might suggest, the last couple weeks of the year were as hectic as ever. It turns out you can’t escape the pandemonium and emotional intensity that can mark the season, for better and worse, even haff a world away. I can safely say that being able to chat face to face with many friends and family members was an enormous boost to both my mood and sanity. On top of all that, as if summoned to poetically to bookend our first quarter here, our Auckland-American friends and former hosts David and Grayson chose to vacation in Wanaka for New Years, allowing us to pay off a sliver of our hospitality debt to them. A fantastic evening on the town began with a glass of real, handmade eggnog (I may never go back to carton) and culminated in fireworks by the lake at midnight and Irish gentlemen at the pub sternly reminding me to take good care of Laura and her “Irish smiling eyes” over a pint of Guinness. I promised.

The tedious homemade eggnog process. Note how all incredients are unhealthy and calorie-dense. Well, you can't spell OMG, YULETIDE GREETINGS! without EGGNOG, YUM!

Fireworks over a non-frozen lake. January first (real top-notch photography. Of fireworks)

Lost somewhere amongst the chaos of the last few weeks was time set aside for reflection on 2016 as a whole. I suppose some of that is being forced upon me right now, like it or not. I don’t mean necessarily reflection on the glaring newsworthy events that dominated screens everywhere, from political quagmires to celebrity deaths- those certainly have received plenty of attention on their own. What I mean is, in the micro sense, what did the year mean for me (and for us?) What have we learned? Hopefully this platform itself can be its own relic someday in that regard, but even stretching back long before our adventure began… We got engaged. We got to spend quality time with all our living (and loving) grandparents. We spent the better part of a year contemplating and then planning this crazy idea. We left quality jobs that we were good at- not out of boredom or dislike, but to seize one more chance at venturing into the complete unknown- typical career and life arc be damned. Toughest of all, removing ourselves – albeit temporarily- from a loving and supportive web of friends and family to spend hours upon hours in a van together? It bordered on naive insanity thinking back to it now, but one conspicuously recurring theme is that somehow our time here has managed to bring us closer together. Our quarrels (eventually) led to better cohesion and compromise. We learned that love sometimes means encouraging each other up and down a mountain and other times means teaming up to murder sandflies that somehow infiltrated the van. Each challenge we faced ends up manifesting opportunity for growth, whether mentally, physically, or spiritually. Insert your own favorite cliché here, and let positive momentum reign in 2017.

As for the year’s reflection in the macro sense, in spite of any negative consequence the past year (or any year) has brought, what have we learned from it? What can we do about it? Where do we go from here? Whether it’s grief regarding political landscapes, or global terrorism, or even a celebrity death- what action does that passion extract from us? It could be supporting a cause, or beginning a difficult dialogue, or taking concrete steps to be more like that person who passed away that you respect so much. The broader enemies we face consistently wear the masks of negativity, bigotry, and isolation. I would like to think that the pains of 2016 have opened many eyes (mine included) to the largely media-fueled battle of divisiveness vs. open-mindedness. My hope for 2017 is that peace, love, and understanding can make gains to that end- I understand this may fall somewhere in the spectrum between foolish and childish, but an optimist has no choice but to hope.

With that, I’ll get off my long-winded high horse and tie in my broader resolution for 2017: No Shortcuts. Maybe it’s the mountains talking there, but with the challenges I face in bettering myself as a person, the challenges Laura and I face together, and the challenges we collectively face as humanity… There’s one way up the mountain, and no there’s not an app for that. Lace up those boots and start walkin’.