Rainbows
// June 28th, 2008 // New Zealand, cultural differences
“Look over there, those dark clouds, that’s the end of the world right? The apocalypse has reached south Auckland and now we’re mere miles from certain death?!”
“No it’s fine, look over to the north there’s bright streaks of sunshine up there.”
“How many different weathers can you count?” We both spin and count the weathers surrounding us from this elevated vantage point.
“233? 312?”
“Hum, could be.”
We’re standing on the rim of an extinct volcano, call Mt Eden. I had never stood on top of a Volcano before, so I was pleased to place another tick against this activity on my mental to do list. Like any hardened couch surfer, I had dressed appropriately for climbing a wet, grass covered extinct volcano by putting on my flip flops. This meant I wouldn’t actually be doing a great deal of standing, and that tick should really have been demoted to a half tick as I spent the rest of the time slipping down the volcano on my ass as this picture will testify:
It’s here that we first noticed just how amazingly versatile the weather is in Auckland. In front of us as far as the eye can see invisible deitys were hosting a gigantic weather battle. The elements are fighting for supremacy, “I’ll see your overcast and raise you hail.” “Hail? Ha! Bring forth the thunder.” “Thunder? That all you have?! Time for my trump card – the rainbow!”
Hang on a minute, rainbows? When was the last time I saw a rainbow? I thought only children could see rainbows. I thought it was a skill just they had, like not feeling self conscious when naked ie something we all grow out of. Rainbows are little more than weather unicorns aren’t they? Now I know that to be false. If I had a New Zealand dollar (worth about 3p) for every rainbow I’d seen since we moved here I wouldn’t have to go trying to locate their end to be in the possession of a pot of gold.
Surrounding us were Korean tourists, whose agendas must be packed tighter than my overdraft, as their tour bus drove them all the way up to the top of the mountain, delivering them to the knockout views which they had 3 minutes to enjoy before being herded back on to the bus. Watching it is a little reminiscent of a tourist sheepdip, albeit with a very pleasant volcanic backdrop. I felt like running round and stapling all their eyelids shut, for they had not earned the pleasure of these views by getting lost and walking several miles around, and around, and around the volcano before walking slowly up. Cheats!
When Crowded House sang about experiencing “four seasons in one day” I always thought they were talking about England, an observation they probably made on a wet monday, on a ringroad, in Wolverhampton. But it cannot have been that which inspired such a sweet slice of 90’s pop. Now I know better. It can only have been about New Zealand weather. The weather here changes its mind faster than a woman, no wait, faster than an army of women all attempting to navigate from one map.
One minute it’s beautifully clear, with bright sunshine then a blink or two later the heavens have not opened, they’ve erupted! But these rain eruptions, despite being some of the heaviest I’ve ever seen only last about 5 minutes and then it’s fine again, bright and sunny like nothing happened. I’m used to this from Asia, where it would last for 30 minutes or so a day and you got the feeling that if it didn’t people would probably die, so it was fine. Here, we can have 12 or more of these 5 minute torrents a day. At an absolute minimum 2, as there’s always one on my walk to work and one on my walk back. It’s as if we’re plumbed directly in the pipes of some higher power, and whenever he turns the taps on to wash his hands or prepare a caesar salad he unwittingly, temporarily, floods Auckland.
I’m used to rain, I’m English, I have an MA in rain. But in England you know where you are with rain. When it rains, it rains and then it rains, when it’s bored of raining, it breaks the tedium with – rain, like that non-stop for two weeks. You make a plan, you open the curtains, you see the rain, you close the curtains, you make a new plan starring the indoors this time. Here I don’t even know if you can let the weather stop you doing anything, as it’s not cold, and only rains for about one hour a day. But if you get caught in any of those five minute mini floods, you’ll be wet until the next one.
“It never rains, it pours” he says, “It never pours, it floods would be closer to the truth” I reply. I was talking to a guy at work, as we watched the latest downpour drown a few of the weaker swimming pedestrians who left home without their umbrellas lifejackets. He said that the best thing to do is prepare to go out whilst it’s raining, then by the time you’ve left it will have stopped and you have a good 15mins to do whatever you wanted to do before the next onslaught. Weather strategy huh, time to update that MA.
The other thing I find strange, is not how changeable the weather is, but how different all our experiences are of it, within such a small place. Because of Aucklandians backgrounds (it’s not actually that easy to find Kiwis here, almost everyone in CBD seems to be immigrants – Korean, Japanese, Spanish, Irish etc) Talk to a Kiwi and “oh, the winter’s here now, horrible and cold” they moan. But that’s about it, another jumper and they get on with their business. For our Singaporean friends, it’s a different story “you don’t want to do anything when the weather’s this freezing” they say. Geez, no wonder we can’t get them out of their house, this is a hibernation worthy winter to them. For us, its a perfectly pleasant but endlessly fascinating 17′c hourly lottery….
