When an opportunity to get out of town while simultaneously still getting paid arose, therefore, you can imagine my enthusiasm in taking it. When the schoolboys are in 4th form (grade 9) they are given the chance to go down for a weeklong stay at the school’s private ski lodge in order to hike the Tongariro crossing (arguably the most famous day-hike in the world), spelunk some nearby limestone-y depths, and white-water raft to their hearts’ content. Each trip has space to two staff members to go along (at slightly more than their usual wage), and essentially perform a bit of crowd control while getting to lounge in the lodge spa/be catered to/do all the activities noted above for free. Fantastic, I thought.
So it was I found myself on a bus full of excited punk kids winding through the hill country on the west side of lake Taupo en route to the hamlet of Ohakune, where the lodge is located and (perhaps more famously) the carrot capital of New Zealand – which in true NZ style is celebrated with a 30 foot high metal carrot on the outskirts of town. After a few hours of hill and curve-induced nausea due to NZ’s reliance on building up old country roads rather than making nice straight highways, we spilled out of the bus to unpack and meet the lodge’s outdoor instructors. They were both young guys equally nice, in an inane kind of way, who immediately set the boys doing a series of near-impossible tasks involving ropes/wood/swearing as a way to suss out who should be group leaders while standing inside a heated porch. As our charges went through their paces in the surprisingly cold alpine air (I had thoroughly adapted to the sub-tropical Auckland climate by this time), they wistfully informed us that the camp’s caving quotient had to be regrettably canceled due to flooding in the cave area. It was a slight disappointment, but nothing to sink my spirits; I was happy to have gotten out of Auckland, regardless of activity, and would be happy enough with the epic hike and rafting expeditions to come.
A couple days of preparatory dayhikes and telling the boys to be quiet/listen to the instructors later, the instructors had a bit of unwelcome news. As the boys were off washing up/getting ready for dinner the other teacher from AGS and I discovered, to our mild annoyance, that despite the weather being glorious we weren’t going to be able to do the famed Tongariro crossing. The group was, apparently, too large to walk along a well-defined path for 8 hours…but not to worry, as some other mountainous walk would be found. My crest assumed its natural fallen position (my drawing card now essentially having vanished), though not in an outwardly-visible way so as not to tip the boys off. There was about an hour before that night’s massive dinner – to carb the boys up for a walk they weren’t quite going to take – which meant it was time for the nightly touch rugby competition.
One of the only things that people know about the Kiwi population is their love of rugby, which isn’t an exaggeration at all. They all grow up playing it, in one format or another, and thus are all mostly quite awesome at it by the time they are 13/14 years old. The boys badgered me into playing on one of the teams (the other teacher was a bit more older/fragile so it fell to me), which proceeded to unfold in predictable fashion: I kept getting thoroughly faked out/passed around by the stars of the opposing teams while barely keeping up my own part on offense when it came to distributing the ball. My high moment came when I craftily used some low-hanging branches as a screen and ran, unopposed, into the undefined “end zone” area…and then apparently a bit further. By the time I touched the ball down I was apparently past the end of the zone (helpfully unmarked by any line/laid down garment/etc), and thus not scoring a try. “Ah well,” thought I, as my team rotated out to await our next turn.
Dinner was about 15 minutes away by this point, which got me to thinking I could beg off in some faux-administrative capacity. This, I was told by the boys, was unacceptable, and so I stayed on for one more round of play; truth be told I was starting to ‘get it’ a bit more, which was leading to better plays/defence and the occasional long run out the back of the end zone, so I only semi-reluctantly agreed to play one more cycle. The boys were loving having a teacher in play at any rate, and that it was one you could outfox with even a modicum of rugby acumen was just that much better.
They also had found a juicy target to aim kickoffs to, and kickoff they did time and again. One such kick wobbled in a bit low as I moved forward to take it, hitting the ground right in front of my outstretched low hands. I managed to bring it up but not my diving momentum, which sent me sprawling forwards as I do most things: awkwardly. If there is nothing to run into this just means an embarrassing flop onto the grass and likely turnover, after which you dust yourself off and get back to your line; when there is, however, something to run into (in this case a Samoan teen), the standard move – which I performed beautifully – is to collide with an overdeveloped calf and break your collarbone. I walked off the field in some duress to a waiting icepack, and proceeded to experience shock for the first time: I sweated, shivered, tingled, and felt nauseous while I reflected on my 28-year run of not breaking a major bone.
The upshot of this was I didn’t have to go on the underwhelming nature hike the next day. The downshot (if that’s a word) is that I was also never going to go white-water rafting on the way back to civilization during the camp’s last day. I contented myself with studying Japanese while making the best rock stacks I could using my one fully functional arm, and piled the boys back onto the bus after their big splash with a tinge of regret and a fuzz of painkillers I’d garnered after a doctor had examined me for 45 seconds in order to confirm my asymmetrical clavicles.
The boys unironically began to sing a complete round of ’99 bottles of beer on the wall’ as we left the rafting access road, a process only interrupted by loudly yelling “Baaaahtya!!!”, the name of one of the 7th form leadership boys that had come on the trip, like so many brainless gulls. I exchanged a knowing nod with the other AGS staff member as we plugged into our ipods and endured a long-feeling ride back to Auckland. On arrival I piled everything I had brought onto my right (uninjured) shoulder and made my way back across the street battered, broken, and a little bit defeated. Ah well, nothing an imitation Heineken couldn’t halfway fix.
