NZ redux

I went surfing last evening, searching via google items like "tourist death" + "New Zealand" and extreme sports + injury + "New Zealand" and the like. Well, firstly, I discovered that there's a lot of blogs out there and everyone has stories of having some adventures in New Zealand. If it's not troublesome room-mates, it's ruptured gas tanks, or hikes from hell, or running out of money, and on and on. Gawd, some people's blogs are really boring. :-)

However, there's information out there that validates my overall impression that more should be done to warn and protect tourists. Recall that there's no personal injury lawsuits in NZ, as described previously in Liz's account. Here's a brief excerpt. Those of you who are interested can Google amongst yourselves. I'm not going to post all of the links that I looked at. But, here's one on the safety of the hang gliding industry. A trusting tourist might assume that something so skilled would provide a modicum of safety as SOP. Here's an excerpt.

'A "culture of extremism" had developed in Queenstown, Kenny said.

"It's not that others have had accidents, it is just that there's a very visible culture in some of them that they're not particularly interested in regulations or having any operating restrictions placed on them."

The key to the problems is that while commercial tandem hang-gliding has flourished in recent years, the regulatory side has failed to keep up. The hang-gliding and paragliding association, essentially a voluntary organisation intended to look after the interests of recreational pilots, issues certificates for pilots. But commercial companies are not required to be certified, do not have to provide proof of safety systems, training and supervision, and do not face a regular auditing regime.

They are told by the association to have standard operating procedures and risk-management plans, but with no resources to police them, no-one is sure how effective they are. And while individual pilots can be suspended or have their licences revoked, the same cannot be applied to companies, even if they are seen to be seriously failing to maintain safety standards.'

End of excerpt.

No exaggeration - I saw 3 people with their arm in a sling, 2 young men in motorized wheelchairs, and 2 people on crutches while I was in the business district of Queenstown for 2 days. That seemed more than usual. It was not skiing season, by the way. And, apropos of nothing, I've heard accounts of jet boats zooming through tight canyons with peoples' heads very close to the wall rocks. My point is, even if you don't hang glide, ski, or jet boat, or bungy jump, there seems to be a loose collar on regulations overall.

Ever since the Dune Rider driver exhorted us to 'embrace our fear' and slide down the sand dune in the rain on boogey boards - barefoot - that phrase has stuck in my craw. (He actually told us that the boarding was best in the rain.) I'll be damned if I'm going to embrace my fear and do stupid things. I'm almost 54 years old and I gotta trust my instinct that scraping the skin off my toes by using them as brakes on a boogey board is a demonstration of stupidity, not something I would brag about in the name of embracing my fear.

Sure enough, one of the other older guys on the trip came back to the bus with a really good scrape on his knee and skinless toes. Most of the youngsters loved it. Some of the youngsters walked up a little ways and turned around. I guess their fear had embraced them instead. There's a part of me that feels like many poor schlubs will convince themselves that they had a good time, after they've plunked down good money in return for crapping their pants or seeing the cliff up close, no matter what they really get from the experience.

First of all, here's the trip up.



And, here's the trip down. Don't even get me started on the idiocy of flying off the edge, head first into a shallow river bed.



That same shallow tidal river, is in the path of busses and other sorts of 4 wheel drive vehicles touring the area. They cannot go slow through this section, lest they get mired in the sand. And, they must go through this section to get back to the highway.

Oh! That reminds me that this stream was billed as the 'quicksand stream' in the brochure. When I asked if it was really quicksand, the driver said, "Oh, no. It's not really quicksand. That's just what we call it in the brochure because it's easy to get [the vehicles] stuck in if they don't go through fast enough." That's our wise driver in the dark clothes. He went down the dune twice. I was hoping that one of us could have figured out how to drive our vehicle back home if he'd injured himself. But, that's just me always planning for the worst.



And, speaking of not driving fast enough. This next picture is probably one of the most photographed views on the 90 mile beach. We all got out of the bus, risking our cameras in the misty rain, to snap away. It's a Mercedes or some expensive car. The Dune Rider driver snickered that there's at least 4 or 5 cars per year that get stuck on this beach. I was at my peak of exasperation with these jokers. Is there no signage that warns drivers EFFECTIVELY to stay off the beach without 4 wheel drive? And, then, I go off on how all the signage in New Zealand is exclusively English and Maori. Yes, how culturally sensitive that signage by law has to include Maori! I've been to Japan. I know that signs can be designed in 5 major languages. They understand that tourism is a major industry in NZ. There's something not right about the signage. God help you if you can't read English in New Zealand.

Back to the abandoned car issue... As a comparison, I had to pay for a license, take an hour's course, and prove that I had a shovel, jack, tow rope, and a special tire gauge before I could take my Pathfinder on the Cape Cod oceanfront ride. There's limited access and pumps for adjusting tire pressure at all access points. Granted, we overdo some of the liability issues in the US. But, really, to laugh at folks who don't understand that their cars will sink in sand, just underscores how you better be able to take care of yourself in New Zealand.



And, sure maybe the owner of that car was a stupid jerk. One of my favorite quotes from the tech world: "As soon as you idiot-proof something, they'll invent a better idiot." Maybe they're just another example of survival of the fittest. Or, maybe he was just some drunk trying to 'embrace his fear'. Most of the hostels we stayed at heavily, heavily, heavily, promoted alcohol. Free drink offers. Locations in bar districts. Posters advertising ladies' nights and the like. But, that's another essay.

To round out the story, here's what happened on the rest of the Dune Rider trip. (Cost $90 NZ) It began to rain harder after the dune sledding. The view from Cape Rienga, the 'spiritual' location where the Atlantic and Pacific oceans meet, was not visible in the pouring rain. Instead of digging for shells and swimming as mentioned in the brochure, we went to a smokey pub, which was not offered in the brochure as the inclement weather alternative. There was a great buildup to see the old tree 'museum', which was really a gift shop where the dune rider was hosed off and customers had the chance to buy more food. Then, we stopped at a fruit stand, where an ancient old farmer and his wife looked very sad when we didn't buy much of their sad looking fruit. Liz and I didn't eat the fish and chips when the tour stopped there for dinner because I had caught fish the day before and we were cooking it back at the backpacker's hostel.

I was really hoping for a good day to end our New Zealand trip, to prove to myself that I was being a whining worrisome wimp. I really tried to have a good time. I really tried to convince myself that it was worth the money. The driver was all apologetic and blamed the weather for not having such a good time. Bad weather was a part of it, for sure, but a bright sunny day would not have made silk out of that sow's ear. Buyer beware.

Even folks with money dislike the commercialism.