New Zealand memory #4: Blair Lodge

After a three hour bus ride (courtesy of Daryl) from the Auckland International airport, we pulled in to the car park (parking lot) of Blair Lodge for the first time. We were all brimming with excitement and jet lag as we unloaded our over-sized luggage and ran off to claim chalets and roommates. I ended up in #5 with Amanda, Meg, Hannah, Shannon, and Laura and I wouldn't have chosen to have it any other way. There were two bedrooms, a very small kitchen (with an extra bed in it) and a spacious but chilly bathroom. The window in the kitchen was nailed shut, but looked out into a pig pen. I went outside to check out our back door neighbors and found 5 little pigs, three donkeys next door, a few cows, and some horses in the distance. Within a few days, we had them named. The pigs were ginger (1-5) and speckles, and the donkeys were Ted, Badass, and loner. They loved to eat our apple cores and leftovers. (Photo left; from foreground to background; me, Ted, Badass-he has a mohawk, and Loner-he was always distant.)
Our experience at Blair Lodge could be summed up by two words; cold and wet. It rained at least one out of every three days of the two weeks we spent there in Kati Kati, which was counterproductive for laundry. The humidity there was such that it took about three days for an item of clothing to line dry. There was one small dryer there, but it cost four dollars to use and didn't work very well... or at all. I only had four pairs of work socks, so I had to wash them everyday if I expected to have clean dry socks in three days. I had a portable clothes line that I hung in my bunk bed (I had the bottom half, so I strung it from the bottom of Hannah's bed above me.) Before we got to Blair Lodge, we had been warned that there would not be indoor heating. We're talking winter, here in New Zealand. It wasn't like winter in Utah, but winter none the less. We had some cold nights, but nothing a sleeping bag couldn't weather. The worst were the cold, wet, early mornings when I would wake up to take a shower. The windows generally had to be open so the humidity wouldn't build up inside, so it got pretty chilly.
Let me tell you about this bathroom in our chalet. It was not small, and that was about the only thing it had going for it. The shower was a corner of the bathroom, sectioned off by two curtains that met in the middle of the room. Naturally, this meant that water got everywhere no matter how hard you would try to contain it. Furthermore, the window was within the curtains, and things really worked out better for everyone if we kept the windows open. Fortunately, it was the kind that swings open from the bottom, and it was at about head level, so it wasn't so bad. It kept things nice and cold, though. The water pressure of this shower was lack luster at best. One of the hardest sacrifices of my life was here in this shower, where I had to give up heat for pressure. I would let it run cold for just long enough to rinse the shampoo out of my hair, then I would crank the heat and hug up to the dribble. Before we learned that we had to mop up the water after every shower, we discovered the joy of stepping in cold puddles with once-dry socks when we went in mid-day. We had socked feet because we were asked to not wear shoes inside, and sadly, no one had enough pairs of dry socks.
Not only were the chalets chilly, but so was the dining hall in the morning, and at night. It was usually a little warmer in there than in the chalets, despite the zip down plastic walls. There was a fireplace in there, and when Lou was there cooking dinner it was warm with the ovens and stoves going. (Lou cooked delicious dinners for us, she was an amazing chef who made monumental apple crumble!) The dining hall had hot chocolate, tea, instant coffee, instant soups, and hot water for our use. There were also some interesting 3 minute noodles (a little different than Ramen noodles, but mostly the same thing. These had a vegetable sachet!) It had about 8 big wooden picnic-type tables with benches. When we had our meals, they were self-served from a few 8 foot tables, and we separated our garbage into bins labeled: food, non-recyclables, and recycleables (the food scraps went to the pigs.) The TV room was usually alright, there was a space-heater in there that heated the room fairly well. There were some couches and foam pads in there that made the TV room cozy. It was an adventure every time we tried to fit all 40 or so of us in there. The game room was always cold. Those walls must not have been very well insulated. It wasn't very exciting either, a couple matresses and a foosball table or something... There was a trampoline outside of the game room, where I lay the first or second night and gazed at the stars (bundled in my sleeping bag). It was really cool to see a completely different set of constellations than I had ever seen before. It was also a little unnerving to not see any familiar things, the north star, the big or little dipper, seeing the southern cross for the first time, it was all very surreal.
They boys chalet had a problem with the water heater. They had no hot water. There was another shower down by the cow shed where they would go in hopes of a slightly warm shower. The shed was where we kept and cleaned all the work tools we needed for conservation; loppers, rakes, shovels, and spades (not the same thing, it turns out...) There was also a very ecclectic and often mismatched collection of past ISVer's used gloves, wet weather gear, and gumboots. The shed was also where the washing machine was. Two dollars for a load. Well worth it. This washing machine would virtually spin your clothes dry, just hang them for a day or so inside and you were good as.
The view from Blair Lodge was incredible. We had multiple breathtaking sunrises over the Bay of Plenty with Mount Manganui on the horizon (photo right.) There was also a really neat waterfall about 15 minutes away from the lodge, around some pastures and down a winding slope. I visited the waterfall when it had been dry for a couple days and the water wasn't raging, and took a wade across the water (photo left.) Everyone thought I was crazy to get in the cold water, but it was nothing compared to the canal in Logan Canyon.
Things were sometimes pretty boring at Blair Lodge. There wasn't really much TV worth watching, and it was usually cold enough that curling up in bed was the best option. I ended up going to bed around 8 or 9 almost every night. There was a group that would stay up and play cards in the dining hall. I learned that outside of Utah, people play cards as an excuse to drink. Everything was a drinking game, but these people weren't allowed to have alcohol here at the lodge. I remember a time one night after only a couple of days at Blair Lodge, when I felt so alone. I felt like I would never be able to connect with people who had such a different lifestyle from mine. The thought crossed my mind that I wouldn't be able to make any friends, and how would I survive the next four weeks of my life? I didn't want to hate my experience in New Zealand. Soon, I got over it and taught them one of my card games (threes) which turned out to be a hit for the rest of the trip.
I think everyone grew to love and hate Blair Lodge. We had some good times there, but definitely came to appreciate things we have always taken for granted, like warm showers and indoor heating.