Old ones
Topic: Writing
If you're interested in what I have written one year ago (I was so innocent back then). Here are two things:
Mount Cook RecountAll people who haven’t gone into the depths of lunacy have had good reasons to keep their minds from giving in to this uncontrollable state. Us?... We had one reason to survive the seven hours in the car seat. And that was our destination: Aoraki Mt Cook, New Zealand’s highest mountain and saviour from craziness.
To form this majestic mountain you need a massive force, some say volcanoes, the religious type think that God created everything, a specimen of babies would rather believe that it’s Play Doh. But the most popular belief is the Maori legend, which goes like this: four brothers return across the great sea from a visit of their Mother in a Waka. Somehow along the way they find an omen and he gladly decides to join them on their journey back across the great sea. But the omen gets bored (now here’s the cool part of the story, the twist!) and like every other bored omen out there, tips the Waka upside down into the freezing sea. You can just imagine what a mess it would have been, four brothers stuck in the middle of the sea on a flipped over Waka, while the evil omen doggy paddles to safety, laughing at the struggling brothers. So, soon after, the brothers and the Waka froze. The Waka formed the South Island of New Zealand and the brothers became the Southern Alps.
Coincidentally, thousands of years later on Monday 8th September we were slowly travelling along the Waka only to find that we had reached our destination: Glentanner, a local village in the Mt Cook area.
First things first though, the regulations; we were rushed from the beautiful view into the indoor dining room to be told what not to do. But the wasted minutes quickly paid off as we realised (to our surprise) that the gorse bushes do sting if you sit on them, and that if you jump from trampoline to trampoline, you’re bound to get your foot stuck in one of the springs.
So the day went by (much faster than the car rides) and we found ourselves tired and willing to sleep. Wait, stop there, I need to make a correction, I found myself willing to sleep, the rest of my cabin unfortunately didn’t. So every five minutes, just as I was feeling more tired, a friendly teacher or parent barged in, pleading. We weren’t talking that loudly. Were we?
A five hour sleep later, I woke up to find myself surrounded, just like James Bond, not by the Germans, but by the mountains. We all clumsily dressed up, found out that someone had not flushed the toilet, slowly but steadily had breakfast and packed our bags for the time to come.
Unfortunately a visit to the Boredom Master 8000 (the car) was necessary, but this time our driver found some cool backseat games for us to play while travelling along.
Here we were, 30 minutes later, in the Blue Lakes car park waiting to be taken to Boredom Master 8000’s worse nightmare, the jet boat. But, to get a ride on such awesome equipment we would have to complete a walk. So up the lateral moraine of the glacier we climbed, down we went into the (not) Blue Lakes. Into the water a boy fell, twice.
So, to top up our walk, we ended with the ‘piece de resistance’ the boat trip to the glacier with our fearless driver Kylie. I don’t think any real word can represent how awesome the boat trip turned out to be, so I’ll use Mary Poppins’ expression. It was supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!
We donuted our way along to see, stand on and eat the icebergs. Oh yeah, how could I forget we learned about how they were formed too. Snow falls into the neve and accumulates to form ice. When all of the ice reaches a certain weight, the glacier starts moving along, very slowly, leaving a river behind it.
Afterwards we stopped at the Department of Conservation, where a lady named Angie taught us about the Mt Cook National Park and how it was a very popular tourist location. Then, we went behind the scenes, into the Search & Rescue building. We still had Angie teaching us, here is what we learned: when you leave to climb any mountain in the area you have to sign in and write down all your details, where you’re heading and when you’ll come back. So if you get in trouble they’ll have an easier time identifying where you are. Also you can take radios and GPS devices that you pay for, just for that extra bit of safety.
Another night passed in Glentanner, and yet again we got frequently visited by the adults. But thankfully, less often, and their vocal chords were less used for loud noises this time.
The next morning, we woke up, earlier than usual, ready to attempt the Hooker Valley walk. But halfway there (yes we did travel by car) we stopped at Mt Cook’s only hotel, the Hermitage, we got taken on a tour and saw the restaurant, the kitchen, the cheapest room ($210 per night) and the most expensive room ($720 per night). In size, they didn’t vary too much, but if you consider the view, you’ll understand the price difference.
So, off we went to the Hooker Valley, to do the, you guessed it, Hooker Valley walk. It was quite long, but it was fun. We had to cross two swing bridges, and stopped at various locations, the end of the walk was awesome, we saw Mt Cook very close up. On our way back we could choose between the fast group and the slow group. So I went in the fast group. One arm injury later we arrived back at our starting point. We had heaps of spare time, so what could we do? Well… Yoga was a possibility. It must have been a very strange sight, 12 panting people attempting Yoga.
As the walking group arrived we drove back to Glentanner, our last night at Mt Cook, we were getting used to it. But because it was the last night we decided to do something special, we stayed up until 5am, as you might guess we slept quite a bit on the car ride back.
So now here we are back in Christchurch, leading our normal lives after a wonderful camp at Mt Cook. We’ll all remember this camp forever, who could forget all the funny moments, the fights, the talking in the middle of the night and the famous “Indian Styles”. But what was there that could keep us sane on the way back?! Lunacy is, after all, an untamed force.
--------------------------------Indian styles was what this guy in our cabin was doing, the best was that I can think of to define it would have to be this: humping the bed.
For the next piece we started off with
this and had to rewrite it.
Here it is:
The HighwaymanAs the drinkers began to collapse on each other, darkness crept closer and closer to the old pub. The pub, that went by the name of ‘Twinklecherry’. And who else lived in that pub, who else but, well, me. The bar manager’s daughter, Bess, the bar manager’s daughter.
As I was watching ‘Charmed’, I squealed with excitement, I squealed for I heard the sound, not just any sound, but the sound of Frank’s pet rock on the cement below.
I quickly opened the window and who did I see? Frank himself, of course, Frank, my one true love. I stuck my puny head out of the window and yelled, “Oh my sweetheart, my little, bony sweetheart, will you come inside? It’s freezing out there.” He looked passionately into my eyes and replied “Oh I would come inside Bess, I really would, but Rocky cannot cope with quick changes of temperature, you know what he’s like.” I did know what Rocky was like, actually, I doubted there was anyone who didn’t. And Frank went on: “But even if Rocky could put up with extreme changes of temperature, I still wouldn’t come in, I wouldn’t come in because I have time left but for one more kiss, one more and I shall go, they might have electric fences, they might have attack dogs, but they don’t know I’m coming, they don’t, and they won’t!” He then looked around, lowered his voice and said “But I think someone is watching, so I must go; if I’m not back by the time ‘Friends’ are on, then watch it without me, don’t think, just watch, and smell the scent of chicken, mmmmm, nicely cooked chicken.” A small tear fell from his eye, but it might have been the rain. He put his head through the window, he could fit nothing else, and we kissed for a couple of seconds. He then left.
A while later, I heard a sound that made me jump, not squeal, I heard a thousand foot-steps, on the concrete below, and I stuck my head out of the window, only to see five hundred and sixty four FBI men outside the pub. They knocked down the door and came in, I heard them order a Cola, and say my name, Bess. They mumbled something and Daddy replied “Oh she’s upstairs all right, now where’s my twenty dollars, you know I do want it tonight”. They came into my room and said something that was muffled by their gas masks. I didn’t reply; they went berserk, they even tied me up to my cat’s scratching pole. They placed the barrel of one of their many guns underneath my breast and said something, but I couldn’t understand that either. One of them pointed a finger at me, and I made out one of the words that they were saying, I made out the word, Frank. Suddenly they all hurried out of the house, and all hid in a nearby farm.
Frank, the only word I made out, I began crying, I suddenly understood, they were going to kill my beloved Frank. It was unbearable to even think of, my Frankie, he was going to die. Suddenly, something happened, something very unusual, I had an idea! Isn’t it great, I had an idea! My idea was that, when Frank would come I would squeeze the trigger to warn him, ha, I’m so smart, he’ll thank me for it. So, when I thought I heard Rocky, Frank’s pet, I squeezed the trigger, nothing happened, I squeezed again, still nothing. Then, suddenly, I heard a click, and felt no more.
***And when darkness creeps over my Father’s pub, I can still hear Frankie coming with Rocky by his side, he sits outside my window and talks about nothing else, but an overcooked chicken, that’s all, just an overcooked chicken, really, nothing else.--------------------------------Now that I read these again, they seem so immature. I have definetely grown since then (yeah right!)
Au revoir
Posted by Junior Mint
at 3:11 PM NZT
Updated: Sunday, 27 February 2005 3:16 PM NZT
chatty
lazy