Mar

Diving Deep Into the Sea of Travel Memories

by Joyce McGreevy on March 31, 2021

A movie theater marquee comments during the pandemic, the epic wait when visions of normal life, travel memories, and other dreams kept hope alive. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

Worldwide, many people replied to the epic wait with quick wit.
© Joyce McGreevy

Our Epic Wait Reveals What Matters Most

As our voyage back from quarantine nears the shore of normalcy, vaccination sparks anticipation. What are you waiting for? To see friends and loved ones? To return to school or the workplace? To make new travel memories or simply to regain your memories of “ordinary” life? Given our epic wait, we’ve all had time to ponder such questions.

How much time? By my calculations: 2020 to the nth degree, x number of months + the square root of insomnia, minus hours binge-watching gazillion seasons of “Law and Order,” carry the 1 = A LONG DANG TIME.

Doubtful Sound, New Zealand inspires an American’s travel memories throughout the epic wait of lockdown during the pandemic. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

Would quarantine pass quickly, we wondered? Doubtful as Doubtful Sound, New Zealand.
© Joyce McGreevy

The year 2020 had barely taken its first steps when the pandemic knocked it down. Lockdown followed and the Worldwide Wait began. Early estimates predicted that a “return to normalcy” could take up to eight weeks.

“Eight weeks!” we cried in dismay. Surely, we couldn’t wait eight whole weeks! But we did—seven times. Roughly 56 weeks later, our waiting’s become a many-faceted thing, a collective composition with more nuances than the Goldberg Variations.

We’ve waited for re-openings: schools, nursing homes, businesses. We’ve waited for the return of live events: sports, theater, concerts. We’ve waited for toilet paper to be restocked and groceries to be delivered.

Paterson’s Inlet, Stewart Island, New Zealand revives travel memories during the epic wait for an end to quarantine and lockdown. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

But, but—my plan! I was supposed to be in Stewart Island, NZ.
© Joyce McGreevy

The Evolution of Waiting

In pre-pandemic days, waiting meant tapping our fingers while a barista made our coffee and then apologized for the 45-second “delay.” We were amateurs then and maybe other words that begin with A.

Then came the real waits. Anxious waits, for medical supplies and economic relief. Agonizing waits, for news of loved ones. Anguished waits, when even funerals had to be postponed.

But because the human spirit has had so much practice at being resilient throughout world history, we took this stuff called waiting and fashioned it into a billion-trillion remarkable things.

A glowing sky in Stewart Island, New Zealand inspires travel memories and dreams of a return journey during the epic wait from “quarantine to vaccine”. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

If I couldn’t be in the “Land of Glowing Skies,” I could help lighten the mood where I was.
© Joyce McGreevy

We sewed masks, made donations, sang from balconies, hosted drive-by birthday parades, adopted pets until the shelters were empty. We became compulsively creative: Posting song parodies with the spouse and kids. Building tiny picnic tables for backyard chipmunks. Opening up long-neglected cookbooks, jigsaw puzzles, and unfinished manuscripts.

Unable to go out, we went online. Virtual space became the place for kitchen concerts and get-out-the-vote campaigns; quarantine proms and graduations; family board games and friendly book clubs across time zones. Our universe had contracted, but our neighborhoods kept expanding.

Even as we waited, we depended on those who could not wait, who kept showing up to save or sustain lives. We also discovered that some things should never wait, from appreciating a moment of respite to standing up for justice in our communities.

Sunset over Stewart Island, New Zealand inspires travel memories, during the epic wait for vaccines to make such journeys safe again. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

Sunsets will still be there when New Zealand re-opens for travel . . .
© Joyce McGreevy

Sunset over Mirror Pond, Bend, Oregon during the pandemic promised the chance to make new travel memories after an epic wait. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

Meanwhile, sunsets keep happening everywhere. (Mirror Pond, Bend, Oregon)
© Joyce McGreevy

Our Return Journey Is Personal

Over time, this epic wait has personalized our return journey. We each have places we yearn to see, things we’re passionate to do. The college student who’d looked forward to life on campus. The actor cast in his first Broadway musical. The worker bee who’d finally landed the corner office.

Some of us are waiting to travel. Lockdown cooled our jets—literally—as airports shut down.

Mt Ruapehu in Ohakune, New Zealand inspires travel memories, as vaccination sparks anticipation after an epic wait. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

Mt Ruapehu, NZ, where Edmund Hillary climbed as a boy, will still be waiting.
© Joyce McGreevy

In 2020, my sister and I were this close to making the journey we’d planned all year. Several weeks in New Zealand. My third visit, her first. We researched, we conferred, we counted down. With just 29 days to go, we were so giddy our phone calls went mostly like this:

“How many more days? I can’t wait!”

“Not many. I can’t wait, either!”

Then pandemic slammed on the brakes. Seems we could wait because we had to wait. Waiting led to phone calls about all the places we had gone. If we couldn’t travel the world, we’d travel in words.

As we spoke, those places came back to us in vivid detail. Socially distant, we were somehow there together. Sipping birra rossa under a full moon in Bologna. Walking among holiday crowds on a winter’s day in Leipzig.

Oh, I see: Waiting to travel helped us explore past travels in more depth.

An old tree on New Zealand’s North Island revives travel memories and evokes the patience needed during the epic wait for the resumption of normal life. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

Oh, to wait with the patience of a tree on New Zealand’s North Island.
© Joyce McGreevy

Waiting for Each Other

The thing about places we miss the most? In our travel memories, they’re all about people. The dinners with new friends and friends we’ve known forever. The office camaraderie, the neighborhood block party.

Above all, we miss the home places, wherever our loved ones live. The son and daughter-in-law we never imagined being apart from this long. The newest little arrivals, nieces and nephews we’ve been waiting to meet in person. Grandparents we’ve waited all year to hug.

As vaccinations increase, we’ll move from travel memories to actual travel. Travel that closes the gap of social distance. We imagine ourselves across the world or across town, away from home, or at home with our doors thrown open. Our epic wait has also been a journey, a navigation toward unexpected understandings. We’ve seen what matters, and what doesn’t, discovered what’s worth waiting for, and what must never wait.

So tell me, as we arrive, what will you carry ashore?

Auckland Harbor, New Zealand evokes travel memories and promises new journeys after the epic wait for a Covid vaccine. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

Steadily approaching Auckland Harbor, New Zealand.
© Joyce McGreevy

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Art of Travel/New Zealand

Jun

The Wondrous World of Steampunk New Zealand

by Joyce McGreevy on June 17, 2019

Parade goers cheer the arrival of Queen Victoria (Pinky Agnew) at Steampunk Festival NZ, which reflects the Victorian cultural heritage and creative thinking of Oamaru, New Zealand. (Image © Liz Cadogan)

As an airship hovers nearby, Queen Victoria rolls into town for Steampunk Festival NZ.
© Liz Cadogan/@LizCadogan

Victorian Cultural Heritage
Meets Kiwi Creativity

Queen Victoria was there, celebrating her 200th birthday. Festivities included a parade, teapot races, parasol duels, and a wedding. The bride wore purple, the groom a metal samurai hat.

What is this?

Oh, I see: This is Oamaru (pop. 13,000), where Victorian cultural heritage and Steampunk creative thinking are a marriage made in heaven—a.k.a. New Zealand.

Parasol duelists and crowds enjoy Steampunk Festival NZ, which celebrates the Victorian cultural heritage and creative thinking of Oamaru, New Zealand. (Image © Janet Doyle)

Like “Rock Paper Scissors,” parasol duels involve three moves: Plant, Twirl, Snub.
© Janet Doyle

What is Steampunk?

By definition, it’s a sub-genre of science fantasy set in an alternative Victorian era. By practice, it’s an art inspired by 19th-century steam-powered machinery. By Jove, it’s jolly good fun!

A steampunk spaceman, bagpiper, and crowds enjoy Steampunk Festival NZ, which celebrates the Victorian cultural heritage and creative thinking of Oamaru, New Zealand. (Image © Liz Cadogan)

No Steampunk Victorian deep-sea diver ever forgets his top hat.
© Liz Cadogan/@LizCadogan

In Oamaru, the Victorian setting is real. Built on gold rushes and grain booms, Oamaru was once New Zealand’s 9th biggest city, burgeoning at the same pace as San Francisco.

Then the boom went bust.

The limestone architecture of Oamaru, New Zealand site of Steampunk Festival NZ, reflects its Victorian cultural heritage. (Image © Brenda Mueli / OamaruCaptured)

With its Victorian limestone architecture, Oamaru is a popular location for filmmakers.
©Brenda Mueli @OamaruCaptured

But a national treasure was hiding in plain sight—New Zealand’s most intact Victorian architectural landscape. With 70 heritage buildings on the historical register, Oamaru proved the ideal Steampunk Capital of the Southern Hemisphere.

A couple in “full steam” costumes reflect the Victorian cultural heritage and creative thinking of Steampunk Festival NZ in Oamaru, New Zealand. (Image © Malcolm and Annette. Whyte / M&A Whyte Photography )

In the steampunk retro-future, whimsical fashion is all the rage.
© Malcolm & Annette Whyte / M&A Whyte Photography

Imagining Yesterday’s Tomorrow Today

“Steampunk is as rich as your imagination can possibly make it,” says Helen Jansen, a.k.a. sky pirate La Falconesse. She and Iain “Agent Darling” Clark organize Steampunk Festival NZ for visitors from around the world.

ain Clark (“Agent Darling”) and Helen Elizabeth Jansen (“La Falconesse”) launched Steampunk Festival NZ, which celebrates Victorian cultural heritage and creative thinking in Oamaru, New Zealand. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

Clark and Jansen have been widely praised for making NZ steampunk welcoming to all.
© Joyce McGreevy

They attribute steampunk’s appeal to its inclusiveness and creativity. “It lends itself to the creation of a personality as an extension of yourself in that alternative time,” says Clark. “You’re not being somebody else, as in LARPing [live action role play], where you’re playing the part of, say, Captain America.”

“In steampunk you get the opportunity to become the person you imagine yourself to be, and that may be an airship captain, an inventor, or a secret agent who travels through time.”

A man in glowing beard and costume reflects the Victorian cultural heritage and creative thinking of Steampunk Festival NZ in Oamaru, New Zealand. (Image © Malcolm and Annette. Whyte / M&A Whyte Photography )

Steampunk’s popping of personality lets us be more than we appear to be in our everyday lives.
© Malcolm & Annette Whyte / M&A Whyte Photography

Delight in Discovery

Says Jansen, “We’ve seen people develop their confidence and create the most incredible devices and outfits. Some people who were very shy are now going on stage. They’ve found the wonder.”

A girl in steampunk costume reflects the Victorian cultural heritage and creative thinking of Steampunk Festival NZ in Oamaru, New Zealand. (Image © Annette and Malcolm Whyte/ M&A Whyte Photography )

“Every year as people come to Oamaru you see that delight in an inner discovery,” says Jansen.
© Malcolm & Annette Whyte / M&A Whyte Photography

She and Clark delight that fellow Kiwis are discovering Oamaru, located in the Waitaki District of New Zealand’s South Island.

“I was in tourism and came here because of the penguin colony,” says Jansen. “Oamaru was known in the international tourism market as a place to see penguins, but people I met in other parts of New Zealand would look at me quizzically and say, ‘Where?’”

Steampunk Festival NZ changed that. Today, wherever Clark and Jansen travel, people ask, “Oh, are you from Oamaru?” It’s become a point of pride.

Iain Clark and Helen Elizabeth Jansen, organizers of Steampunk Festival NZ, pose in “full steam” to celebrate the Victorian cultural heritage and steampunk creative thinking of Oamaru, New Zealand. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

“We always travel in ‘full steam,’ ” says Jansen of their garb. “It’s too heavy to pack.”
© Joyce McGreevy

All for Love and Fun

When Clark and Jansen launched the steampunk movement in Oamaru, he was a captain in another movement, ALF’s Army.

“All for Love and Fun,” explains Clark. ALF’s Army was founded by a university lecturer in the 1960s when tensions over the Vietnam War were a regular feature of campus life.

“The idea was to get rid of aggression in a peaceful way.”

Groups formed regiments of pacifist armies and did battle, using paper swords, flower bombs, and cold porridge.

“The nurses would revive everybody with whiskey and jellybeans,” says Jansen.

The rules of tea dueling are elaborate. One should “dunk as if one’s life depended upon it.”
© Tourism Waitaki

Today ALF’s Army is New Zealand’s “largest pacifist warfare organization” with regiments in several towns and cities. Another delightful fact: In 1990, ALF’s founder was appointed The Wizard of New Zealand by Prime Minister Mike Moore. Yes, officially.

Wizardry Was Just the Beginning

One evening as Clark, a renowned jeweler, celebrated with his Oamaru regiment, he brought along a beer mug embellished with fanciful gadgets. This inspired the formation of the League of Victorian Imagineers, which led to an exhibition—which drew thousands of visitors to Oamaru’s Victorian Heritage Celebration.

Two steampunk mugs created by Iain Clark, manufacturing jeweler and organizer of Steampunk Festival NZ, which celebrates the Victorian cultural heritage and steampunk creative thinking of Oamaru, New Zealand. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

A steampunk gadget must look as if it works, says Clark. “Oh, it’s got a wee boiler
and high-voltage electricity. What could possibly go wrong?”
© Joyce McGreevy

Soon all these different parts—steampunk, Victorian heritage, history, fantasy, love and fun, creative thinking, local neighborliness, and worldwide interest—clicked together, like one exquisitely embellished gadget of possibility.

Craft is key. As a music video explains, you can’t just glue on gears and call it steampunk.
© Tourism Waitaki

The Steampunk Festival NZ steamed gloriously forth, a gathering of be-gowned, be-goggled, and be-jeweled ladies and gents amid a gleaming array of gizmos, gauges, and gears.

A group of costumed steampunkers enjoy Steampunk Festival NZ, which celebrates the Victorian cultural heritage and creative thinking of Oamaru, New Zealand. (Image © Janet Doyle)

“Everybody who comes is also contributing to creating the festival,” says Jansen.
© Janet Doyle

Ten years on, Steampunk Festival NZ is the crown jewel of a town that’s increasingly rich in tourism treasure.

Better still, the Festival’s richness is not about making money, but all for love and fun. One more reason to visit Oamaru, NZ, where Victorian cultural heritage and Steampunk creative thinking fit together, hand in gadget-embellished glove.

A steampunk glove belongs to La Falconesse (a.k.a. Helen Jansen, organizer of Steampunk Festival NZ, which celebrates the Victorian cultural heritage and creative thinking of Oamaru, New Zealand. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

Does this glove let La Falconesse teleport between places and times? One imagines so!
© Joyce McGreevy

Follow Steampunk NZ here. Plan Oamaru/Waitaki travels here.

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Cultural Heritage & Traditions/New Zealand/The World's Art & Design

May

Five Minutes from Antarctica: Amazing Places on Earth

by Joyce McGreevy on May 13, 2019

The International Antarctic Centre, in Christchurch New Zealand is the only specialized Antarctic attraction in the world. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

Christchurch is home to the only specialized Antarctic attraction in the world.
© Joyce McGreevy

A Cool New Zealand Experience

Arriving at Christchurch Airport, I overhear a family discussing one of the most amazing places on Earth.

“We should stop by Antarctica.”

“Do we have time? It’s almost 3:30. Mum’s expecting us.”

“No worries. It’s only five minutes from here. A waddle, really.”

“Kids, do you want to go to Antarctica? We’re just popping in for a bit.”

It’s the most matter-of-fact call to adventure I’ve ever heard.

Intrigued, I roll my suitcase past waiting taxis, hang a left, and tag along on the the World’s Most Casual Expedition.

Funny, it doesn’t look Antarctic! Christchurch is the logistics center for the
Antarctic research expeditions of NZ, the U.S., Korea, and Italy.
© Joyce McGreevy

What’s It Like to Travel Antarctic Terrain?

Minutes later, we’re staring at what look like giant tractors. Hägglunds are all-terrain amphibious Antarctic vehicles designed to clamber over the roughest, iciest terrain. A driver calls, “Last run of the day, lovies!”

A Hägglund outside the International Antarctic Centre, in Christchurch New Zealand shows visitors what it’s like to navigate the coolest place on Earth. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

As our suitcases rest comfortably in a locker, we discover how it feels for scientists to travel in Antarctica.

Bones shake, brains rattle, and stomachs flip. We picture the real thing: going up and down steep icy slopes. Through treacherous water. Across flat land that may hide a deadly crevasse.

Somewhat wobblier for the experience, I approach the main building. A sign says “Gateway to Antarctica.”

Extreme cold weather clothing on display at the International Antarctic Centre, in Christchurch New Zealand shows visitors how to dress for the coolest place on Earth. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

Why Is the Antarctic Center in Christchurch?

One of five official “gateway” cities, Christchurch has designed the International Antarctic Center to let the public experience what life is like in the coolest place on Earth.

A replica of an ice cave at the International Antarctic Centre, in Christchurch New Zealand shows visitors what it’s like to explore the coolest place on Earth. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

Instead of just looking at exhibits, you explore them. These range from a full-scale ice cave to an explorer’s hut and its surroundings, complete with changing weather and visibility.

It’s so immersive that afterward, says a guide, some folks feel “exhilarated and a bit bedraggled.” That’s probably in keeping with the effects of an actual Antarctic sojourn.

A replica of Robert Falcon Scott’s Terra Nova hut at the International Antarctic Centre, in Christchurch New Zealand shows visitors what it was like to live in the coolest place on Earth. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

By honoring New Zealand’s cultural heritage of Antarctic science and stewardship, the Center has attracted many prominent visitors, from prime ministers to presidents. But none have been more warmly welcomed, says our guide, than “Ed.”

Who Was “Ed”?

Our guide says: A shy Auckland city boy and beekeeper who secretly dreamed of adventure.

Mt Ruapehu, New Zealand shows what inspired Edmund Hillary to climb Mt Everest and explore the coolest place on earth, Antarctica. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

As “Ed” later wrote in his autobiography, “I returned home in a glow of fiery enthusiasm for the sun and the cold and the snow—especially the snow!”

Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary embodied the spirit of exploration to some of the most amazing places on Earth. (Public domain)

In 1953, Tenzing Norgay and “Ed”—a.k.a. Edmund Hillary—reached the summit of Mt Everest, the world’s highest mountain.
© Joyce McGreevy

Five years later Ed Hillary led the New Zealand contingent of the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic expedition. His team became the first to reach the South Pole overland since Robert Scott’s tragic journey of 1911–1912.

Hillary’s enthusiasm for snow had, in the understated words of our guide, “turned out rather interesting.”

So folks must have been “rather pleased” when Hillary stopped by the Center, especially when he praised the realism of the world’s first indoor Antarctic Storm.

How Do You Create the Perfect Storm?

Designed to simulate a blizzard on the South Pole, this snow and ice experience takes place in a special room complete with icy surfaces, wind chill machine, stunning lighting effects, subzero temperature drop, and authentic Antarctic blizzard audio.

The Storm Room at the International Antarctic Centre, in Christchurch New Zealand shows visitors what it’s like to experience the coolest place on Earth. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

As visitors don parkas and boots, eagerly awaiting their chance to be blasted into human ice cubes, I question my own eagerness. After all, I’ve lived in Chicago.

The Storm Room at the International Antarctic Centre, in Christchurch New Zealand shows visitors what a blizzard is like in the windiest place on Earth. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

Even the Windy City can’t top Antarctica’s record as windiest place on the planet.
Winds exceeding 198 mph have been recorded.
© Joyce McGreevy

Why Does This Continent Captivate Us?

Author Jon Krakauer says Antarctica has “mythic weight. It resides in the collective unconscious of so many people, and it makes this huge impact, just like outer space.” But I think that’s only part of it, because Antarctica—our most vulnerable continent–also registers the huge impact we humans make.

Uniquely lacking in permanent residents, this continent models the cross-cultural heritage of protecting our global home.
Isolated from other continents, it connects to every continent through its oceanic and atmospheric effects.
Farther than most of us will ever travel, this continent connects the water we drink, the air we breathe, and the daily choices we make.

Oh, I see: Antarctica is even closer than I realized.

A replica of the C-130 Hercules interior at the International Antarctic Centre, in Christchurch New Zealand lets visitors imagine what it’s like to make to the long flight to the coolest place on Earth. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

Discover one of the most amazing places on Earth in a new podcast series, “Antarctica Unfrozen,” here.

Explore New Zealand’s heritage of Antarctic science, here.

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Adventure Travel/Cultural Heritage & Traditions/New Zealand

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Diving Deep Into the Sea of Travel Memories