4 - Aoraki, West Coast and Abel Tasman

I left my bike and some of my stuff at Oamaru, at Swaggers Backpackers, under Irene's guard. She was the funny, chatty, craggy-faced woman who ran it. A very open and friendly person. I'd collect my things when I returned from Mount Cook (I didn't expect to be doing much cycling there).

Everyone on the bus noticed how much colder it felt being a bit higher up.

I could still smell Joe - or maybe it was the smell of Simon's flat - on my jumper.

The first morning at Mount Cook, there was low fog that only began rising a little in the afternoon. I wandered out onto the YHA's driveway at about 10am, and the white blanket was stained an almost inky blue as I looked up the valley. I did a disappointing short walk (the Glencoe path), then wandered back and used the YHA's bouldering wall until my hands and feet were thoroughly frozen.

Plenty of time to sit in the Mountaineers' Cafe doodling and reading about Abu Ghraib and other horrors. It was warm and comfortable on the cafe's leather sofa by the log fire. As I finished the drawing, I looked up and saw blue sky outside. I packed up and left, looking up at the gaps in the cloud, and the fog just as thick further up the valley, with the same dark blossoming ink spreading from it.

The flight I'd been hoping for went ahead. It was a 12-seater prop, with hardly enough room to lift a camera. The plane shook too much for taking pictures anyway, but we all tried. 'We' were mostly Japanese tourists staying at the Hermitage.

Those glaciers then - we did the 'Mini Tasman' flight - Fly alongside the Liebig Range and Murchison Glacier, then over the Tasman Glacier and past the towering Hochstetter Icefall. We'd been hoping to land on the glacier but it proved too windy. Still, I wasn't disappointed - the flight was great, with amazing views.

- the intricate braiding of the Tasman River

- the gigantic tractor-track patterns stretching down the glacier - massive but neat, muddy trails

- precarious snow full of deep cracks and wrinkles. An American I overheard at the Hermitage cafe described this effect as similar to the chocolate cake he'd had in Dunedin.

- More blue-glowing ice and snow

- More high-contrast wood-cut black and white rock and snow peaks

- Aoraki itself, still grand and towering above us

We were lucky to fly at all. They'd not had any flights in the last week because of the weather.

One day, in a fine drizzly mist under an overcast sky, I walked up to Kea Point, and even saw a Kea from a distance. A huge heaped grit wall (a lateral moraine, the sign said) crossed the valley, and before it, in the flattened path of the glacier, was a small lake, ranging from grey to bright, milky blue.

What did the bus driver say this milkyness was? Rock flour? Stone flour? Very fine rock dust, anyway, ground down by the glacier. Looking up at Mount Sefton, I could see more thick cracked cake snow disappearing into the cloud whiteness. Every minute or two there was a distant thunder, of avalanches, I assumed, but I watched the cracked ice-ledges for movement and saw none.

I sat in the drizzle, my gloves providing a dry cushion, and ate some of my tuna, cheese and tomato sandwiches.

Then I started up the Sealy Tarns track, a more energetic route, zigzagging steeply up the mountainside past huge boulders and scree. Many more steps - New Zealand's old railway network recycled again, the sleepers making a million steps for mountain walkers. Many were blackened and wet-shiny. I had to clamber in a few places, my trainers providing surprisingly good grip. The wind tugged at the hood of my anorak, and the waterproofing failed on its arms. I could see back down the valley to the village, in sunshine now, a rainbow turning Mount Sebastapol peculiarly colourful.

I went on, and looking down, some resilient snow patches survived the rain. The path narrowed, and looked dangerous - some had eroded down the steep scree. I turned, finished my lunch in the rain, and walked back down. I debated with myself as I walked, whether to finish my Cadbury's chocolate now or save it to go with a cup of tea back at the hostel. I lasted until I reached the bottom of the mountain, then scoffed it. Then I passed a really cute guy. I said hi, and he said hi and flashed his big bright eyes at me and smiled. I hoped he was staying at my hostel.

Well, the chocolate gods rewarded me - it turned out that he was at my hostel, and I spent some of that evening chatting with him, the bright-eyed Julien from France, as well as Ramona from Germany, 'Tim' (his adopted anglicised name) from South Korea, and an Aussie guy.

Ramona, Julien and I used the sauna. Ramona and I had been in the previous night, me in my cycling shorts, having left my swim shorts in Oamaru. Another German girl joined us, and two English girls. I sat and watched the sweat on Julien's pecs and thighs, and dripping down his neck [jeez I really did spend the whole trip ogling guys!]. The German girl (not Ramona) described the naked mixed saunas in Germany.

We cooled off sat on the plastic chairs in the quiet darkness outside, and received a few odd looks from folk walking past in thick coats and woolly hats.

There's a fascinating gallery in Oamaru: the Grainhouse Gallery, full of weird masks, giant face and eye paintings, and some slightly quirky photos. I felt as if I'd stepped into Wonderland. It looked as if the artists really had fun in their work.

Watched Once Were Warriors on video at the hostel; burst into tears when it was clear Grace was dead. Great film.

Later on, I chatted some more with Irene, the proprietor at Swagger's. She talked about the different people she'd met while running the hostel.

Irene had met a Japanese boy and a Korean girl, who met at the hostel and later married. They write to her still and call her Mum. She enthused about her line-dancing, remembered going to a barn dance as a kid - her and her brothers going into the smart do dressed scruffily and bedraggled after a day swimming in the river. The organisers didn't appreciate the kids' reasonable action of bringing a bale of hay to a barn dance, and asked them to leave. They took the bale's binding with them, but left the disintegrating bale itself.

All this time sat on buses. I dozed between Oamaru and Christchurch, involuntarily listening to the DVD the driver put on - some worthy effort with Denzel Washington about how an American football team overcome racism and win the championships. Remember the Titans. Coming up from Dunedin I heard the movie Angel Eyes as I stared out at the flat fields and very brief towns.

Tiny towns. The previous night in Oamaru, I'd chatted with Linz on the phone. I'd mentioned to her the familar names I'd been seeing: Princes St, Portobello, Corstorphine. The bus rumbled through St Andrews.

That night a trailer for Angel Eyes on TV confused me for a moment - I had a strange, imagined memory of those scenes - surely they were from my dreams?

Phoned Amanda the next morning. She was still sleepy in bed at 10am, having been up late drinking with her hosts at the bar they run in Westport. I felt tired just thinking about catching the bus to Greymouth at 6.50am the next morning. Actually I just felt tired. I'd not been sleeping too well the previous few days - I'd probably been thinking too much about life back home.

In the afternoon, I sat writing my diary at some cafe in the Art Centre. I wondered if I had some sort of tea and muffin dependency, sat there writing and sipping and eating. Then I realised I'd eaten half the paper cup my muffin was in.

Saw some galleries I missed last time I was here, but nothing especially exciting or surprising.

Had lunch at a Japanese noodle bar. Had 'udon' - noodle soup, with seaweed. Very tasty.

Walked about town for a while in the evening, looking for somewhere reasonably priced for a meal. Heaps of expensive swanky restaurants. Passed by BJ's Massage Parlour, and smirked at the name and the neon. There's plenty of these massage places, plus strip clubs etc., seemingly scattered randomly about the town.

Bumped into Tim, the Korean guy I'd met at Mount Cook. He had to shout my name about ten times before I registered that somebody was trying to catch my attention. I hadn't expected to meet anyone I knew.

Visited a $10 haircut parlour off Cathedral Square. Looking through the glass door, at first I saw a young woman with shoulder-length red hair straddling a bristle-chinned dark-haired guy on the barber's chair.

I waited for a minute or two, out in the alleyway, sheltered from the persistent rain by the shops' awnings. People hurried by, past internet places, sushi bars, burger joints, manicurists, souvenir and T-shirt shops. Japanese gentlemen in suits, whiskery Kiwi businessmen, dred-locked baggy-trousered skate-board dudes, trendy under-dressed teenage girls with braided hair and designer T-shirts. The man left, in a surprisingly smart dark suit, and I went in.

Back at the hostel, I read some more (Dirt Music by Tim Winton) and wrote some more (diary)... The lounge was very quiet. Just the hum of the computer in the corner, the sound of one Japanese girl turning pages of a magazine, and the sound of another Japanese girl sniffing. Someone walked past in the corridor with squeaky shoes. The Japanese girls stood up and left.

To go to Greymouth on the west coast from Christchurch on the east, you have to cross the ridge down the centre of the south island. It was still dark when I caught the bus from Christchurch, with everywhere still damp, still shiny from overnight drizzle. Drivers beating the rush hour, headlights making the road sparkle.

As we drove towards the mountains, the sky lightened to dull grey. An inane phone-in on 'Canterbury's Only Easy Listening Station' irritated me.

As the road rose, I dozed, and we passed into fog and more greyness. We reached Porter's Pass, and gaps in the cloud revealed improbably high piercings of rock. Behind, a wall of mountain topped with snow, and everywhere a scattering of dirty rag clouds, their pale colourlessness contrasting with silhouetted crags and pine trees. After the unremarkable Arthur's Pass itself, we came into bright sunshine, the cloud disappeared, and we began down to the west coast. Looking up at the green-brown ridge to my right, itself facing into the sun, I saw the faintest line of white dividing ridge from sky. It was snow, just a whisper of it where the sun hadn't reached.

I liked the exotically themed hostel in Greymouth, 'Global Village'; lots of African masks, curtain designs, paintings, sculpture. There were flags of African countries on the ceiling. Even better, I had the dorm to myself.

Chatted for ages with a guy in an art gallery here about world travel, politics, the effects of tourism.

In the early evening, I looked out from the hostel's balcony at the playing fields beyond the little canal-like river. Somebody was pushing a mower or a roller, a golden-edged silhouette in the setting sun. Long shadows stretched across the grass toward me. Trees reached up with glowing fingers, quietly. Everything had more depth, but was less solid.

I made myself an omelette with free-range eggs bought at the hostel. The two folks running the hostel, whose names I've forgotten, were very friendly and shared their wine and invited me out to join them at the fire they'd lit outside.

We sat out and chatted for a while, swapping appallingly bad jokes and tales of travel and adventure - they'd both worked at a kayak tours place. The quiet Japanese girl sat in the corner of the fire's windbreak, silently listening to improve her English, or petting the cat.

It was a starry night, but the surf was up. A sound like heavy machinery roared across from the sea. From amongst the trees and bushes, spa steam rose into the pure sky.

I had perfect weather for the ride to Punakaiki. The cool morning air soon warmed under the sun; the sky was blue and very clear. I rolled along little bays and tiny towns.

I phoned Amanda - she was still with Jonathan and Rochelle at Carter's Beach, Westport. Amanda had met Jonathan's previous wife in Christchurch, and had been invited to stay at Jonathan and Rochelle's.

The next day, Thursday, Amanda came down to Punakaiki in the car. We did a walk up to a nearby river that threaded about and below the limestone ground, sometimes winding down gorges and around gigantic greenish sugar-lump boulders. Despite the river-bed being dry in places, all the trees had a moist mossyness, and the stones were dark and sinily damp. Little direct sunlight reached the ferns and calm pools down here.

We saw a memorial to a dozen students who fell to their deaths when a viewing platform collapsed some years ago. We stood in silence for a few minutes, and I watched the dripping and dewy undergrowth, the damply bearded rockface, the rough heap of scree, rocks and fallen trees beneath the eroded cliff. Something like a balloon or a buoy was in amongst the mess, a glowing orange in so much subdued watery green, brown and grey.

Out of the gorge and back in the warmth of the sunshine, we walked along another part of the river, sandy and pebbly but also dry. Here, the river bed was flat and wide, with tall grassy banks, and young bulls shouted hoarsely to each other. We joked they were rehearsing a bovine opera.

Walking back from where the above-ground river gurgled down through the limestone under the surface, we saw two bulls butting each other, a crowd of other adolescents watching. These were stood in the river bed, the stones clacking and dust rising around them in smoky swirls. What a noise of grunts and wails! We kept our distance.

We went to the tavern. Jonathan and Rochelle were meeting us there for a meal. We drank and chatted, returning to our relaxed casual friendliness. A poster advertising beer invited people to see how well they matched the ideal 'Southern Man'. The picture showed a square-jawed guy squinting beneath a hat and wax jacket.

Jonathan and Rochelle arrived, full of smiles and laughs and warm friendliness. Rochelle is 35; I think J was a year or two older. They're both Maori, Rochelle with longish black hair pinned back, Jonathan with short black hair. Both have a roundness to them without seeming fat. Rochelle is very extrovert, laughing and playing about, giggling and matching Amanda very well. Jonathan, like me, was quieter, still joking, but less loudly, more reservedly. Amanda and Jonathan flipped beer mats.

We ate. They compared Punakaiki's tavern with the Denniston Dog in Westport, the bar where Jonathan and Rochelle both work.

Amanda and I went back to Westport with Jonathan and Rochelle, Amanda describing the beautiful scenery as we drove along the dipping, winding roads in the dark.

I stayed four nights at their house at Carter's Beach, Amanda and I sharing a double bed, spooning to keep warm despite pyjamas and heavy duvet. I'm not sure how I feel about that now, but I was comfortable with it at the time.

In Westport -

- wandering the shops and galleries

- constant bad weather

- walking the fine dark sand on the beach, and drawing in the sand

- Cape Foulwind walk - did a little of this, to where the path overlooks a seal sanctuary. Stood watching the seals in the driving wind and rain, both of us with our hoods well up

- watched Scooby Doo 2. Shouldn't have bothered

Had breakfast with Amanda, and Jonathan and Rochelle, and their friends Peter and Tracey and kid Jordan at the Bay House, a cafe/restaurant that did indeed overlook a wild, windswept bay. Jordan was concerned about the sock-like tea bag emerging from the pot of tea I had. At Jonathan and Rochelle's house, Tracey leafed through Rochelle's book of portrait photography called Love, and grimaced at two shirtless guys in embrace. 'That's just not right, that, is it? Ewww!' Amanda disagreed. I didn't bother. Tracey and Peter were more traditionally Christian than Jonathan and Rochelle. There was more talk of God and church.

Hung out at the Denniston Dog, playing pool with Amanda, and chatting with her, Jonathan, Rochelle, and other patrons, including a guy called Case, who was off his. On a bookshelf, Amanda found a health guide for pubescent girls, and read some of it to two older guys in the Dog. They looked petrified. Case said something about my woman getting out of hand. Case dubbed me 'Axel', and Amanda 'Wilma', and invited me outside to smoke some gear. I declined, despite this - the west coast - supposedly being the dope capital of NZ. Later he said, 'Axel, I like you, you're cool,' and he pressed his hand into mine, and I had a fist full of grass.

Later on, I had chance to smoke some of it - the first time I'd ever smoked dope. I'd expected to explode in a fit of coughing and tears, but felt very comfortable with it. Unfortunately, I felt almost no effect at all. I was happy and relaxed, but I didn't feel especially different.

Back at the house, Rochelle put some jazzy Blue Note-style dance music on, and we slipped about, dancing in our socks on the polished wood floor.

We went to an art gallery - Brian somebody, with a great selection of paintings - landscapes and townscapes, plus some great abstract works drawn drom found objects. He showed us around his house/studio/gallery, a glass of whiskey in his hand and his fly unbuttoned. He was fresh back from Nelson, he said, and apologised for his house's coldness. We admired his paintings, his music collection, his friendly, playful young labrador. He used to be an art teacher. He did quite a few commissions. He enjoyed abstract art far more than his other stuff. He enjoys painting big, wants to paint bigger. Needs music to paint, is sure the music influences, even dictates, how his paintings appear - they set his mood, and his mood sets the picture.

Amanda and I were there half an hour. In that time, he offered us whiskies, and the rain stopped and started several times outside.

As we drove out of Westport, the rain stopped, and a rainbow fragment hung in the clouds.

Amanda and I talked about sex on the night drive to Nelson. My stomach went round every dark corner and over every black hill as we followed the Buller River out of town. Amanda asked me what, as a gay man, I liked in bed - so she can improve her technique. Licking? Ball play? Nipple play? My opinion on anal sex. How do I like oral sex?

I had a headache and my stomach churned

Nelson has a fine selection of bars. Spent several evenings playing pool, dancing, drinking...

Remember Julie who Amanda and I befriended in Queenstown? In Nelson, I phoned Julie's parents, June and Graham. On Julie's recommendation, Amanda and I were invited to stay with them in Motueka.

We stayed two nights with Graham and June, Julie's parents (Julie who Amanda and I met in Queenstown).

Graham kindly showed us some of the local beauty spots, and explained some of the local culture and industry. June and Graham were both keen to make us feel at home.

Graham took me along to his Lions Club meeting, a rather bizarre experience. The Lions Club seems a bit like the Round Table, with small local groups organising events and sales to fund local causes and generally Do Good Deeds. The club members were exclusively male (women joined the Lionesses Club), and the meeting was a drawn-out affair that achieved little, but had plenty of protocol and ritual that gave it an air of importance. The chairman reported on current projects, and mentioned a previous recipient of funds. This charity had failed to write a thankyou letter - 'so we won't be giving any more money to them!'.

Amanda and I sat in Hot Momma's cafe and drank tea and coffee. I read about celebrity nosejobs by proxy via Amanda. She also told me about Methven's historical monopoly on plumbing fittings, and the resulting toilet shortage and number of very small wash basins around NZ. We went on to talk about wanking ('inspecting the lizard', which I said innocently about the die-cast gecko I bought at a Nelson bead shop to go on a key ring, before realising how it sounded like a euphemism for something).

We left Motueka to do a Southern Exposure kayaking trip from Maruhau up to Anchorage

Before setting off in the kayak, the bunch of us had walked down to the water's edge (a few hundred metres from the road at Marahau, me wearing Dennis the Menace red and black leggings, and paddling through pools and rivulets of icy cold water.

The water as we kayaked across it was smooth and glassy, with sunshine and no wind or swell. We saw cormorants (shags?) and seals sat relaxed on the rocks, unfazed by the three bright yellow kayaks drifting past so close

We stayed overnight on the Aquapackers boat at Anchorage; walked up to Bark Bay and took a water-taxi back to Marahau.

In the morning, the tree-fern covered headlands glowed in the low sun.

We walked further around the coast. Aww, it was great walking. In warmer months, it must be wonderful to walk the whole track, camping out each night and swimming in the picturesque little bays. Even as winter approached, it still looked beautiful, with bright blue sky, shags sunbathing on the sand - sand that was so clean and golden that the trees in the hillside were lit from below.

The walking was easy but interesting, with gentle dips and twists and some tide-dependent bay crossings. We walked across a bay we'd kayaked the previous day. Then, Chris had pointed out the oiliness of the salt water mixing with fresh water from the river, but now we walked gingerly over shells and dead crabs and mud with frozen bare feet, gritting teeth at the painful numbness of the rivulets we had to ford.

I wondered if Inspecting the Lizard would be a good book title...

Sat in the lounge with heavy eye-lids. The loudness of Barefoot Backpackers continued, so we decided to a different hostel, despite the very good spa. Amanda and I sat in it and drank scrumpy.

Amanda and I went to see a local artist we were both interested in, Niki Jimenez. I'd phoned her the previous afternoon to see if it would be okay, and I think she was a bit surprised by that. While we were there, she said a few people visit her studio over summer, but none over winter usually.

I liked her work. Very imaginative abstract screen prints reminiscent of Miro, some abstract paintings, some sculpture, and a lot of work that crossed over - paintings incorporating glass, wood, acetate; painted objects. Niki was very friendly and enthusiastic for her work and for our interest. I said I would email her so she could see my work too.

Did the Grove walk - through gigantic veined lumps of limestone and towering primordial ferns and palms. Vines clambered the rock faces in places, and a thousand dusty white hand-sized cobwebs grew like mildew on the shaded stone.

Cinema: Pieces of April and Secret Window, both in Takaka. There was a slideshow of local attractions while the audience took their seats.

Ah yes, another town, another wine tour! This one included a free trip to Blenheim rubbish dump (now an industrial museum) as well as the usual copious drink (and lunch). Slight concern with Amanda driving to Picton in the evening, but all was safe.

The Villa in Picton was my favourite hostel of the five months I was in New Zealand. For $20 I had a bed in a quiet dorm with its own basin, and I could stay in a place with free hot apple crumble every night, a spa, free breakfast, and - one night - free popcorn while watching Donnie Darko on DVD.

Friday morning I said bye to Amanda. She was staying in the area to go on a spiritual retreat, and we'd catch up later in Wellington.

I cycled through heavy rain to the ferry terminal. Before boarding, I had to wait whilst rail bogeys with hulking corrugated freight boxes rolled on ahead. I stood there in the rain, my bike helmet offering little shelter, and thought about not much, and looked at the guard's little cabin with its light and kettle, and at the InterIslander terminal building, and the road suspended above me, over which cars were driving onto the ferry.

The crossing was unexciting. The rain made the outside decks unappealing, so The Dominion Post, a cup of tea and a muffin kept me entertained. My trousers had dried out nicely by the time we reached Wellington, at around one - in time for me to cycle across Wellington to the YHA, the rain still pouring.