You are resting in a hammock in a place called Hammockville. It?s where they send burnt-out Antarcticans like you. You are a cocoon suspended between worlds. Last week you were a thousand miles from the nearest organism that produces chlorophyll, in a frozen land painted entirely with white and grey and blue. Today the world is green, and you might go deaf from the buzz and crackle of the cicadas in the forest around you. The murmur of the water lapping the stones a few meters away is the voice of New Zealand?s Queen Charlotte Sound telling you all is well. The punga people look on from deep in the fern forest.

Lochmara Lodge is used to seeing Ice People this time of year. The ten acre backpackers resort accessible only by foot or water taxi, is a perfect place to adjust your senses to leafy plants, and temperate climes. You feel like Sean, who runs the place, might be a good friend by the second day of your stay. He built Hammockville, the network of trails that meander up the hill connecting about three dozen sturdy hammocks each carefully strung for a different arrangement of forest, sea and sky. He says he also carved the punga people into the trunks of the fern trees, but you still believe the punga people were probably living here when he arrived.

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