When we were planning our spring vacation (that's now, for you boring Northern Hemisphere types) she told me that we would be going to see rocks. Yup, that's right. New Zealand is filled with stunning mountain vistas, exotic birds, gorgeous pastoral countryside, charming villages, intriguing Maori culture, and of course lots and lots (and LOTS!) of sheep. But would we visit any of those? Hah! Not when there are rocks to be seen.
“I get it!” you're thinking, “His wife's a geologist.” Nope, sorry, not even close. She's just strange. She read about these rocks in a guidebook, and she's determined to see them.
“They're round!” she says. I yawn. “But they're ROUND ROCKS! They're boulders!”
You can imagine my excitement.
Whenever we go on vacation, I wind up driving. This is because my wife is so afraid of the highway that she drives with her eyes closed; I can only let her go for four or five miles before I get nervous and take over. So when we got to the place where the rocks were, I was in control of the car. All I had to do was to keep going straight and we'd handily miss another boring tourist attraction. And there was beer in the next town.
Naturally, we went to see the rocks.
I'm a big boy, so I can confess that I was wrong. I had expected to see a few boring round boulders. Instead, I saw a lot of boring round boulders, surrounded by tourists eagerly snapping pictures. For this I'm paying $150/night to stay in a hotel?
A couple of days later, we explored the Vanished World Trail, which is mostly a scenic drive through towns so small that the only business is the local pub (that's MY kind of town!). Occasionally you'll spot a sign that's keyed to a guide brochure that you buy for an outrageous price (I think it was $20 NZ, which is about the same as the cost of a pack of gum over here), stop, get out, and hike to see something that's usually not worth the walk. Then you get back in the car, try to wipe the sheep dung off your shoes, and do it all over again.
One of the stops was called the Elephant Rocks. Hoo, boy, here we go again. This is gonna be like one of those tortillas with Jesus on them: some random rock formation that drives enthusiasts wild while the rest of us roll our eyes.
Since I was in control of the car again, I had no choice except to stop. There was nothing around except sheep pasture, not interesting enough to be worth even the blink of an eye. So off we hiked.
Well, when we got there the view was pretty impressive (note the person at center right):
One of the rocks looks just like me:
And okay, one kind of looks like an elephant:
Yup, I'll admit that it was pretty cool. But I'm still not letting my daughter bring any of those danged rocks home in her luggage.
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