New Zealand: Stories from the Road

Part 6

Road fatigue (and I didn’t even have to drive)

I was warned before we went to New Zealand that we had to prepare ourselves for the roads. Having spent the last seven months in Australia where one bend in 50km is classed as a winding road and potholes don’t exist because it never gets cold enough, we had become very much pampered in terms of road condition. We had a very harsh jolt back to reality pretty much straight away as we came to realise that every single stretch of road in New Zealand was positively riddled with steep slopes, hairpin bends (often at the same time), steep sheer drops, a million potholes, and the occasional land slip that either blocked the road with rubble or took half of it away altogether.

Driving little Cheap Charlie through Southwestern Australia was an infinitely more relaxing experience. You could drive all day and feel as though you’d only just set off (which was lucky as you often have to do just that in Australia just to get to somewhere different to where you started from). Driving nifty little Jucy Brenda around New Zealand could not have been more different. It required the utmost concentration and after about two hours you were exhausted. Even in the passenger seat I often found myself holding my breath and pressing down on the imaginary brake I’d had fitted.

To make matters worse we were often plagued by treacherous weather to make the driving that much harder. The day before we left the North Island we drove from Martinborough to Wellington along the steepest and most winding road thus far. Only the day before that very road had been closed due to high wind and we were unsure whether it would actually be re-opened in time. I can only imagine how bad it must have been the day before for it to have been deemed safe the day we drove along it. The road crawls up, through, and back down a large mountain range, often running along the edge of the hillside with sheer drops all the way to the valley floor. Even after being deemed safe to re-open the sudden gusts often blew us off course and, safe to say, it was one of the most stressful couple of hours of my life. It didn’t even get much better when we made it across to the South Island and journeyed along Queen Charlotte Drive to discover the roads were, in fact, much worse here than they had been on the North Island. By far the steepest and most winding of the steep and winding roads we had driven along. We were sharing the road with one solitary cyclist with whom we struck up a friendly competition as to who would reach the end first. Every time we were going uphill we would easily overtake them, but the bends were so sharp that when we were going downhill they would fly right past us again. In the end the cyclist won.

After a glorious first full day, celebrating mine and Cam’s four-year anniversary of all things, our time in the South Island very quickly became plagued by bad weather. When we reached Blenheim, a town supposedly famous for its sunny climate, with a large sign rather ironically boasting ‘the sun always shines on Blenheim’ I was just about at my wits end. I tried to make the best of the situation and enjoy a pleasant walk through the town on a quiet, sleepy Sunday morning before the rain started up again, only to find that absolutely everywhere was closed on Sundays. I had had enough. Funnily, that was just when New Zealand realised it had gone too far, and, by way of apology, sent me to a carpark to camp in for the night just down the road from an ‘English style pub’. On a cold, wet, blustery day, just at the moment when I was about to lose it, New Zealand sent me a little slice of home. What could be better on a grey afternoon than a warm and cosy English pub in which to while away the day, nestled into a corner watching the bubbles rise on a cold pint and the flames flickering in the grate. It was so close to the perfect English pub, so close but just not quite there. For that day, that afternoon, however, it was absolutely perfect.

Escape from Goat Mountain

The most eventful hike of the trip, and I can assure you there are quite a few strong contenders, has to be Mount Takorika. Nestled in the heart of mussel country at the top of the South Island, Mount Takorika boasts stunning views of Marlborough Sound as well as the small town of Havelock just beneath it. What is lesser known, however, is that Mount Takorika is home to a population of goats so secretive that no one truly knows how many live there. It wasn’t long after we began the hike that I started to notice little hoof prints in the mud and the small, telltale piles of raisins scattered hither and thither. The brief glimpse of a little tail disappearing round the corner, little teeth marks in the bark of the trees, was that a faint bleating I just heard? I couldn’t shake the feeling I was being watched. When we reached a signpost marking out the ‘goat trail,’ my suspicions were confirmed.

We didn’t make it to the top of the mountain that day. Although, at the time, I claimed it was because I was tired and not really interested, as I could already see the spectacular view and didn’t see how it could get much better, the real reason was that I was simply too scared of what, or who, may be waiting for us there. I felt we were trespassing on enemy territory and was very much eager to get out before we found ourselves completely surrounded. As we descended the mountain the activity seemed to be increasing, as was the pressure to escape. The hoof prints in the mud were denser and, in their haste, some of the goats had clearly begun to slip as long skid marks littered the path. We too began to lose our footing in our eagerness to escape and Cam, unfortunately, did finish the hike with a dirty bottom. As we returned to the van and to safety I couldn’t help but allow my mind to wander and began thinking ‘what exactly do goats do all day?’ Any animal for that matter, what do they do all day? What exactly goes through their heads? Was there truly a whole network of goats living on the mountain? Where did they go? Did they ever walk all the way to the top just for the hell of it? So many questions I fear I may never get the answers to.

There’s always one

Just as there is always one weirdo on the bus, there is always one weirdo at the campsite. The carpark in Dunedin we remained in for a few blissful days, entirely unbeknownst to us beforehand, appeared to have a resident DJ living in a rather rusty old van just one space over. We can never truly know what was happening inside that van but it sure smelled like fun, and they played an astonishingly wide range of genres. I must admit I hadn’t taken them for such cultural people. Another car park we stayed in, after visiting the site of the famous Windows 10 screensaver, also appeared to be home to a rather unsavoury bunch of characters. Throughout the course of the night, I witnessed a couple of arguments and, alarmingly, a brief visit from the police (after which the doors of the van remained firmly locked, a fact which I re-confirmed roughly every 10 minutes). I also witnessed a man spend around 30 minutes combing and re-plaiting his incredibly long rat tail and another man, at regular intervals, emerge from his van to spend a few moments honing his impressive nunchuck skills before retreating to recoup his energy and begin the cycle again.

Unfortunately, if you can’t find the weirdo on the campsite that means it must be you. One particular night it most definitely was me, or, more specifically, me and Cam. For many years now me and Cam have been cutting each other’s hair in order to avoid the extortionate prices that hairdressers charge nowadays. The upside of this is that we save a lot of money and have a lot of freedom to experiment. The downside of this is that our haircuts are, more often than not, somewhat less than professional. After growing out his beard and his mullet for a good few weeks Cam finally decided it was time for a trim. Wet and blustery weather had forced us to delay the appointment by a number of days until, one fateful night at a campsite just outside of Lake Wanaka, it was finally time.

I had hoped that Cam had forgotten and was peacefully reading my book, stretched out on the bed, warmed by the sun streaming in through the windows of the van. Alas, he had not forgotten and, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted him looking at me, waving the comb and clippers expectantly. ‘Fine, Olivia’s Salon is open, but I’ve nearly finished my book so you’re going to have to read it to me while I do it.’ We set up the chair in a spot that was just right to allow the gentle breeze to carry strands of shorn off hair away into the distance. ‘What will it be for you today?’ I asked.

‘A skullet please’ he replied.

‘A skullet? Are you sure?’

‘Very.’

As Cam began to read aloud to me I got work. First taking my clippers to the top of Cam’s head to create an aggressive buzzcut that would seamlessly fade into a flowing mullet at the back. It was to be my finest work so far. Immediately after finishing work on the top of his head, I stood back to take a look and immediately burst into hysterical and unstoppable laughter. This is the point when people really began to take notice of just how strange we were being. The soft orange glow of the setting sun did precious little to improve the appearance of the chaos I had just unleashed on Cam’s head. Understandably he was more than a little unnerved when his hairdresser descended into fits of laughter at the mere sight of his head. Luckily, my laughter was contagious and Cam, as he always does, was able to see the incredibly funny side of the situation and it was quite some time before we were able to resume the haircut. Although, arguably, not much better, the finished product was at least a finished product resembling (however loosely) something that can actually be called a hairstyle. I was rather pleased with my work, presenting it to the gathered crowd with a humble bow to rapturous applause.

Lib Howden