But first we had to get there, or at least to Mannipouri the nearest town. We have got used to long drives across country and in NZ they are very easy. The main roads (Southern Highways 1-99) are single track each way with overtaking zones every 10kms or so. They are well surfaced, often straight for long distances and empty. You often meet two or three cars an hour, one of which at least will be a camper van. Even away from passing places, in the rare cases where the view ahead isn't clear, cars going slowly will pull over to let you overtake.
For the first couple of thousand kilometres you can just go "ooh" and "aah" at the scenery
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and make comments on the odd names on signposts. The first destination here isn't very encouraging
while "Hopeless Creek" and "Dismal Flats" probably hide lifetimes of misery. Next you can play spot the road kill. It's usually possum. I have a theory that, feeling guilty about all the damage they have done, depresson has set in and they've started throwing themselves under cars. Which is very depressing if you have to wait an hour or so for one to come along and even then they are going too slowly to do more than give you a headache.
Next stage, when you've counted 100 possum, you foolishly try the radio. Near posh places like Dunedin and Christchurch there are even Radio 3-ish stations. Even Invercargill has a station playing non-stop 60s classics. But in Dead Horse Gully you get Radio Pacific (aka Radio Pathetic) phone ins, golden hits of 1953 and the odd religious program.
We listened to a bit of a phone-in but had to stop after ten minutes. Do you remember my theory that those totally lacking communication and inter-personal skills as well as interest in or empathy with humanity worked at Information Bureaus in Australia? In NZ Infomation Bureau staff are friendly, helpful and knowledgable, the otherwise unemployable work for Radio Pacific. And if your speech sounds like "Well .... err .... hello to ... err ... every.... errr I .... um .... mean ... listen .... errr .... s" then you've got it made.
Then we had a few minutes of how Jahweh smote the Abhimeleks or some other bunch who'd upset him. It occurred to me that a story of how a bunch of poor sheep farmers living in tents get the better of all those smart city folk would appeal to lots of poor sheep farmers living in places like Hopeless Gully.
Journeys were getting a bit desperate when a second-hand book seller gave us a tape he'd found in a box of books. It was unlabelled but anything's better than nothing. Unless it turns out to be the Silver Strings Hawaiian Guitar Umpah Band playing pop jingles like "Tie a Yellow Ribbon to the Old Oak Tree". Personally I'd suggest a noose rather than a yellow ribbon and the arranger for the Silver etc would get first use. I didn't think you could make "Tie a Yellow Ribbon" worse. And even worse than the that, someone thought it was worth copying the original album onto a tape!
Eventually, at a very strange road-side cafe (lock your car doors, don't stay after dark and count how many fingers everyone has) we found "Rock and Roll Paradise" with tracks by Carl Perkins, Elvis, Gene Pitney, Guy Orbison, ..... We've been singing along ever since. Which, to an outsider, is probably worse than listening to Radio Pacific.
Finally we are in Mannipourri where we experience two of NZ's unsung tourist features. The first we didn't even notice we are experiencing, the second we haven't stopped noticing ever since.
One thing rarely mentioned in tourist propaganda is that there is an earthquake a week out here. Apparently we had one while eating supper in a little campsite over looking the lake (all usual adjectives apply to lake). It was quite a big earthquake, 6 or so on the Richter scale, but it didn't even rattle the tea cups. The epicenter was below an island about 20kms away but no-one noticed. How very New Zealand-ish not to make a fuss. There have been a couple more since, papers duly report them: "It was a dry warm day, max temp 25. min temp 12, small earthquake at about 20:15 (about 6.3)". It think earthquakes have taken on board the Kiwi approach to life.
The second feature, which is never mentioned, are sandflies. Give me earthquakes any day. The sandfly was named by Captain Cook who should have stuck to sailoring and steered clear of entymology. The sandfly has nothing to do with sand specifically and is just as partial to urban lawns. A better name would have been the "evil blood-sucking crazed monster fly" (or whatever that is in Latin). It bites people. The bites grow into bumps about 1/2" across which turn purplish. They itch - if you are very sensitive to them you may decide to apply a power sander to an afflicted point or maybe saw off a limb with a rusty tin can. And then they itch some more. And more. They can keep itching for a couple of weeks I'm told.
We haven't been as badly affected as some people. Eleanor bought some super-strength insect repellant. Wear it walking down a crowded street and people leave a space for you. There is a rumour that NZ made Agent Orange during the Vietnam war, now I know what they made next. Sandflies are however cunning creatures. My worst bites came in a space of about ten seconds walking across a stretch of grass. I didn't think it was worth the full body armour and ended up being pebble dashed with tiny vampires.
Now I don't want to be accused of blanket anti-sandfly-ism. The males are quiet inoffensive creatures. Vegetarians even. They probably practise meditation and support charities and good causes. It's the females that are the problem. Even they have apologists. "The sandfly doesn't want to bite you! They don't really like human blood. They prefer bird blood but sometimes, well you know how it is, there just isn't time for a proper meal and you grab what's going." Which is a great consolation: you aren't chef's special just a quick Happy Eater road-kill burger. I feel better already. I'll put the radio on, perhaps that will soothe me.
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