Chapter Seven

"Breakfast at Cook's, Narcissus, lakes devouring the sky, labyrinths and fish soup"

It has been a freaking cold night. Yes, Fox Glacier is a cold place. So waking up and getting out of the sleeping bag is just as hard as it can be. We force ourselves to do it though, because the invisible hounds of time that keep chasing us southwards. Almost a week has gone since we left now, but it feels like we've been on the road for ages. So we do tighten up our frozen arses and pack the car. We won't eat a croissant in front of a jewelry today though: our breakfast will be far more fancy.


Hansi walks in front of the small row of half-asleep us, the shoebox with bread and cheese under one arm, a bottle of orange juice in the other hand. We cross a bridge and there we are, in the middle of a forest whose trees and bushes are having the greatest time playing with the early morning sunbeams. We walk along the path on the sides of Lake Matheson, Jesper and I stopping every five stepst to get a picture, Hansi veeeery patiently waiting.




And enough is enough. When pictures have been taken, what remains is to stop in a spot and devour the food in a far less gentle way than what Audrey's mouth would have done. High level pissed-off aggressivity can be really fun to both watch and live between us. Our getting way too earnest and way too angry at any time and person in the car is a sort of big joke that will continue til the end of the trip. Here below you can observe J & H practicing.





Waterdrops fall from leaves and spiderwebs play the morning rays of light. Narcissus tries not to drop her camera in the lake, for any small wave from such a splash would turn the perfect reflection of Mount Cook into an impressionist painting.



Cotton candy on the bushes, light games all over the place. I never get enough, at after a short while I realize even my OM10 isn't enough. It's the same as Pancake Rocks or the Abel Tasman, or as a perfect sunny autumn day in Hamilton. You capture a detail of it, than you put away the camera and let the warmth (or the coldness) of the air, the sounds, the smells in as all the missing pieces of a perception puzzle.



The road, again. It's like a child you leaving playing with the colored plastic balls pool when you have to shop at Ikea. It's there, waiting to drain you for energy and you, you adore it. The big adventure continues every second, for every turn of the wheels.


And it's simply perfect, the way we can push the break down every time we see a sign that leads to something that could be amazing. Most of the times it is, amazing. We blend in with the other tourists, or we discover isolated spots, where we feel like Colombo in a Gulliver's world. Mini-universes to discover sitting down on the sand and showing our teeth in distorted smiles to the clouds, rivers on which we can jump around like elegant frogs, we're a first-class brand of aliens monkeys catapulted into the next galaxy.



The grass straws keep on swinging in the wind, indifferent to our passing by. But nothing is indifferent to me, when the sun decides to be so kind and slide down on the earth, lighting up all the existing colors. The road is like a solid jelly river, reflecting colors and creating its own.



We stop in a Puzzling World in which we get our perception distorted by illusions and in which we run like madrats through a labyrinth. Up and down, the feeling of getting lost and found makes the heart beat like your next drumset, supposed you wanna be a drummer, aey. We leave the solid behind, keeping the feeling, the memory, letting the world floating inside the head.
The sun starts sinking, shutting down almost all the colors, leaving a few, burning, behind. We drive down the mountains towards Queenstown, and stop in Arrowtown, to have dinner in a really cool and quiet place. Fish soup, maroccan soup. Than it's time to get to the hostel.


Jesper and I try to go out in Queenstown, having forgotten a tiny detail. It's Good Friday. No entry in any pub unless you buy something to eat with the drinks. Weell. We'll save the energy to run around tomorrow. 'Cause we're in Queenstown now, and a few of the Lord of the Rings sets are just around here! Aaand, we're planning a bit of an exploration on our own, tomorrow!