What came first? The chicken? Or was it the egg? It is the question of our time, the question that has plagued philosophers for thousands of years. Know the answer to this, and you could possibly know the answer to the mystery of life itself. With that in mind, I am going to make the most preposterous assertion that I may have actually found the answer. And found it in the where-the-hell-is-that?-ville called Waitetuna Valley of all places. So here it is. Out in this odd new locality I was about to call home, the chickens definitely came first. And they were not ready to relinquish their hard fought place at the top. In preparation for the influx of these prized birds into my life-I had been thoroughly forewarned by the online advertisement-I did at little research into the life of the humble fowl. My main source of information was a kid’s picture book called Fun Facts about Chickens-obviously a good place to start. I thought I would share a few of these fun little anecdotes with you. Did you know that the fear of chickens is called is alektorphobia. My little book illustrated this fact by showing a pale man being chased by two angry looking chickens, both about the size of VW Beatles. One of them was carrying a cleaver. Both were wearing balaclavas. To be fair, I think anyone in this situation would be a pissing themselves a little bit. I once had a friend who suffered from this curious little oddity. He was so neurotic about the creatures that even a visit to the KFC drive-through would cause the whites of his eyes to gain a few extra inches, and make him to curl up into the fetal position on the backseat of our car. The last I heard of him he was working at the Tegal Factory in Te Aroha, which needless to say, I found very ironic. Another interesting fact about chickens is that they are apparently very easy to hypnotize. The book showed a chicken on a tight rope juggling half a dozen eggs (slight exaggeration I’m thinking). It also gave the step by step method on how to actually do it, which, of course, made me immensely happy. First, you hold the poor animal’s head to the ground. Then you draw a line in the dirt starting from its beak, outward. And then, hey presto, it is under your complete control. Supposedly the record time for a hypnotized chicken stood at 3 hours and 47 minutes. It quickly became my summer goal to beat it. One rather disturbing fact about the species is that they can live happily for quite some time –18 months in one peculiar case- without a head. I will you leave to imagine what the illustrator drew in my picture book. Also, this macabre attribute is, unsurprisingly, the leading cause of alektorphobia in human beings.
****
I opened the driver’s door and immediately a sea of golden yellow feathers was lapping around my ankles. I was carefully picking my steps through the clucking melee when suddenly a brown object flew out from under the carport, ploughing its way through the squawking mess toward me. With feathers flying, a chocolate brown purebred Doberman erupted out of the carpet of Gallus Gallus Domesticus (as there are known in Latin). With a series of aggressive barks, loosely translated as “Who are you? Why are you here? And you had better not be inappropriately touching my chickens!” it proceeded to lunge at me, and unexpectedly started sniffing my bottom. I have never really understood this odd little greeting activity our canine friends seem to enjoy. Instead of simply saying ‘hurrow’, or shaking paws, they go and put their nose in places a nose should just never go. You can only imagine what the conversation must sound like. “Hey there. I’m Bruno. You smell, er, nice today.” Or after, when he is hanging with the ‘boys’. “Bro, that bitch (an entirely appropriate word in this instance), smells like, um, crap.” If you saw two humans doing that to each other, it would be a very strange sight to say the least. However in this particular scenario, which could have been potentially dangerous, the attention, though cringe-worthy, was preferable to being attacked. Knowing that the animal was not going to take a bite out of my ass, I relaxed my sphincter a little, and continued to wade through the brooding bunch. Like Moses, the red- (and white and yellow)-sea parted before me and I ventured out into the promised beyond, dog in tow, its nose seemingly glued to my anus.
“HigoodtoseeyoufoundyourwayiseeyoumetChilliPepperhopeyoudontmindthechickens”
And then I met Anita.
Anita was a little bit larger than life. My phone conversations had already given me a bit of an insight into her personality. And here she was, the voice personified, loping up the driveway in a pair of gumboots, carrying what looked like a bucket of milk in her hand (it turned out that’s exactly what it was). She was slightly shorter than me, and had a slight frame that screamed exercise and hard work. She looked young, but the laugh lines around her eyes indicated that she was in her late thirties or early forties. Possibly the most striking part of her appearance were her facial features. They reminded me of a hawk and this matched her nature perfectly. She fixed her green eyes on me as if I was a rabbit and shook my hand quite energetically, managing to slosh milk all over both of us.
“Well, let me show you around the place.” Anita’s rate of speech had apparently slowed down. I’m not sure if she was actually speaking at a more leisurely pace, or I was just becoming used to the way she communicated. Not surprisingly she was very expressive, using body language I had never seen before. I think it was this attribute that helped me to understand what the heck she was talking about.
She led me around behind the house, along with the over-friendly Doberman and half a dozen chickens. “And here is the chicken coop,” she pointed out. And indeed, so it was. What lay before me was about a quarter acre of grass fenced off with wire mesh. The only little problem with this scenario was that it was completely devoid of chickens. It seemed they were everywhere except where they were meant to be. Even the most unlikely places had a fowl or two clucking about. On the drive. On the deck. In the garden. On the dog kennel. In the dog kennel (except when Chilli Pepper–or just Chilli for short-knew about it. She had a tough-love approach when it came to managing the flock.) On the trampoline. Under the trampoline. One poor guy even had his head stuck between the trampoline springs. Though I was sure he would survive the ordeal (remember Fun Fact #2). If the need ever arose to get letters from the mailbox, you had to take a broom to bang it with. More often than not a cloud of feathers would explode out, followed by their rather bemused looking owner. The beauty of this was even if there were no letters, at least there would be at least a couple of freshly laid eggs, maybe even enough for an omelette.
As if to exemplify the point, two fluffy little chicks popped up out of a lone gumboot that was lying next to the fence, and started chirping away happily. Chilli gave a motherly growl, picked them both up gently with her teeth, and lobbed them back over the wire. And there you have it, a breed of dog better known for attacking small children, acting as a parent to a literal mob of chickens. I had only been in Waitetuna for ten minutes and already it was becoming decidedly bizarre.
“The chickens manage to get out sometimes,” Anita said somberly, as if this was some kind of revelation. Talk about understatement. It probably didn’t help that there were holes in the fence the size of a human head, or that the mesh didn’t exactly span the entire perimeter of the coop. I decided against pointing out these minor details to Anita, and the philosophical idea that for something to ‘escape’, it had to have spent a fair bit of time locked away to begin with (the flock clearly did not fall into this category). Instead, I decided to inquire about the keys situation.
“Um, I don’t have enough spares right now, so I’m just keeping a set in the chicken feed.” Considering the last few minutes, this absurd response did not surprise me in the slightest. I should have guessed really. She opened the feed box, and in about a nanosecond, every single chicken, from all parts of the property were clucking around us in all directions, expectantly awaiting an early dinner. About three of them were trying to climb into it, and soon we were flinging chickens into the air at an alarming rate. It would be quite unfortunate, for both the bird and ourselves, if it swallowed the only set of spare keys. The minute we saw their shiny glean, Anita slammed the feed box shut, nearly decapitating one of the chickens (in the event, though, this would not have been a huge issue, again, remember Fun Fact #2).
With the newfound ability of opening the appropriate locks, I followed her toward the house. The house itself looked rather well worn-in from the outside, and had that pioneer/settler air about it. She led me through the side door, which was also had a small gate attached (to keep out the wildlife I guessed). One of the hens managed to slip through between our legs. As soon as Anita saw it, she gave it a hefty kick with her gumboot causing it to sail back over from whence it came. Maybe the chickens didn’t come first around here after all.
“They aren’t allowed inside”, she noted, quite unnecessarily. The quiet fact that she had just placekicked one of them like a rugby ball had hammered home the point quiet forcefully. I felt like blowing an imaginary whistle and shouting ‘goal’, so wondrous was the projectile motion that had just occurred. It certainly put a spin on the term ‘free range chicken.’ Because that’s exactly what these critters were. Chickens cannot fly very well. And if they do, they barely leave the ground for more than a few metres. I learnt this fact from the claymation film ‘Chicken Run,’ which was also part of my pre-trip research list. However, giving them a good kick, or throw-I had just been party to both methods-could get them airborne, flying free- for at least three seconds anyway.
We wandered into the house. The interior had obviously been restored sometime in the previous few years and bore little resemblance to the rough, weather bent exterior. It had beautifully polished timber floors, on which Chilli was skittering about arthritically, and an old iron stove which added to the rustic feel. The walls were covered in various art pieces, and there was a statue of a bronze pig in the corner of the lounge, an interesting addition to an already intriguing place. However, the most amazing feature was the breath-taking view from the kitchen table. And I mean it was stunning. The house stood on a small hill that faced north up the valley. The house was designed so that the living room windows faced outward onto the amazing vista. They spanned the entire wall, and when they were swung wide open they would reveal a picturesque scene that out-rivaled the art pieces that decorated the walls either side. No artist in the world could ever capture the beauty of what lay before me, and in the next few weeks I would spend many hours entranced by it. I think the thing that struck me most was the green-ness of it all. The scene was literal patchwork of different shades of the colour, each little square cordoned off by age-old barbwire fence. An abundance of trees were dotted about in no apparent pattern throughout the landscape, which rolled about lazily in the general manner of the area. Various cows and sheep mooed and baa-ed their way across their respective paddocks, and in the distance, two ancient volcanic cones-now smothered in grass-stood brooding, sentinels guarding the valley. On the horizon, the bluish mountain ranges surrounding Waitetuna whispered mystery, a heavy contrast to the golden pre-summer glow of the afternoon sun which gleamed off everything it touched. Every colour was so exuberant it was almost as if you could reach out and touch them. The energy of it was inspiring, and one could easily get lost in its magic.
All of a sudden an orange blur scanned across the corner of my vision and I immediately snapped out of my paranoramic-induced trance. An overweight ginger cat stood at my feet peering up at me making the most bizarre noise I had heard in a while. It sounded like the cross between piece of malfunctioning farm machinery and, well, a choking cat. I was genuinely concerned for the health of the feline, and inquired to Anita about the curious sound it was making. “Oh, that’s just Ginge, he’s alright.” Though not convinced, I decided to take her word for it. Ginge: what an absurdly unimaginative name, no points there. Ginge’s raucous ‘meow’ added another part to the quickly growing animal orchestra-which already included the barks and clucks of Chilli and her feathered family. It was clearly a musical company lacking a conductor of any kind. Or else, had a conductor with a fetish for avante garde music, because for the life of me, I couldn’t find rhyme of rhythm in any of it. Though I guess I wasn’t supposed to. They were simply farm animals after all. After making this reasoned assumption I started humming Old Macdonald Had A Farm, and waited for the appropriate animal to make its solo. (‘And on that farm he had a ________’) It worked remarkably well. Though it was to get more complicated as my time in Waitetuna went on, due to the ever-increasing list of domesticated farm species I would meet on my way.
One of the only inhibitions I had had about moving to the Valley was the fact that there was not internet (dial-up is not internet), and no cellphone reception to speak of. The place was a technological desert. I suppose the isolation of it would be quite appealing to some people, however to this tech-savvy outgoing twenty-something the outcome could easily become completely disastrous. Only time would tell. However, despite the non-existent communication channels, there was a certain feature of the place that would fill the void left by not being able to continue my online social life. The house was a veritable library, with books stacked wall to wall in both living areas. It would turn out to be the only thing keeping me from going outright insane over my time spent there. Books of every imaginable genre, topic and author lined the numerous shelves. Even browsing through all the titles could take hours. It seemed someone around here was a science fiction geek. About a quarter of one of the shelves was full of titles like ‘The Magic Sword That Might Get May Get Our Hero a Social Life’ and ‘Virgin Fanboy Finds a Lightsabre’ (I don’t think it helped him!). I cringed a little, my sphincter once again clenching uncontrollably, and quickly moved on to the next section, which turned out to contain all the titles of romantic dramas ever written. I dubbed it the Fabio Factor, due to the worlds most overexposed male model-in both meanings of the word-gracing the cover of nearly every novel. I flicked through them and saw him posing in every possible position-some of which I wished to have remained ignorant of-and dressing up in garments that you wouldn’t even find at your local costume. Fabio the pirate. Fabio the innkeeper. Fabio the firefighter. You name the profession, and Fabio would somehow fill the required role. Some of the more interesting ones included a male nurse (or murse, as they are better known), a paleontologist, a wandering gypsy who was secretly the advisor to the King of Spain, and a soap-maker. It seems some people can’t get enough of Fabio. I certainly was, and moved on to the rest of the library. The various topics were in no particular order, and included everything from spiritual gardening to the history of pickup trucks, from Finnish architecture to the mating rituals of Portuguese geese. Given enough time, I could, if I so desired, become that annoying, somewhat socially awkward guy who is full of useless information. So the only way to stay sane was to possibly become a social retard. I would have to tread carefully to make sure this wouldn’t happen.
Anita then led me to the room I would be sleeping in for the next little while. It was all pretty typical. The one thing that did get me excited however was the double bed. I had never owned one before and tt was to be a new experience. I spent the next ten minutes finding out how many angles I could possibly sleep on it without falling off. Every way except side-on it turned out (it was a queen size, you need a king to do that). After that pointless exercise I then went back to Sarah Palin to begin unpacking my things. Then it dawned on me. This was home. This was real. The adventure was beginning.
It took me all of fifteen minutes to decorate my room. It would have taken me about ten if every chicken in the place hadn’t kept on trying to run through my legs as if I was part of some kind of obstacle course. I found that if I swung my surfboard around in a circle it would cause the chickens to form this feathered vortex, much like one of those outrageous fight scenes you see on old cartoons. As the room was fully furnished there was no need for me to bring any of my own furniture, however there was one piece that I did bring, and this was the last thing I carried inside. There is a bit of a story behind my beloved bedside table. It happened early last year. For some time I had been employed as gardener/labourer/lackey for a bazillionaire doctor/lawyer duo who lived in a restored historic mansion in Mt Eden. I won’t tell you the exact address, as one of my jobs there involved me installing a $100,000 bronze statue, and I don’t want anyone else planning on nicking and selling it to pay off their exorbitant student debt. Anyway, this particular job was not actually at the villa but in a derelict shop at the southern end of Symonds St in the central city.
The story behind the story goes like this. Apparently the uncle of the lawyer had leased the shop for about three years. He didn’t actually use it as a shop, or any particular profit making enterprise for that matter. What he did do was accumulate ‘three years’ of ‘stuff’ and store it all in there. The doctor described him has as ‘a bit of a hoarder’. This was an absurd understatement. The shop front was completely boarded up-as so much of them are on Symonds-and the moment we opened the front door we were met by a literal wall of the ‘hoarding’. We quickly realized that the ‘three years’ was more like half a dozen lifetimes. Once we managed to tunnel our way in, we found that the entire room-which was literally the size of a small town hall- was packed wall to wall, roof to floor, with every imaginable item under the sun. I don’t have the time or energy to even remember all the items, but to give you an insight into the absolute surrealness of the situation I will list a few of the more interesting of this man’s possessions. There were about 200 dress-up costumes, all of which no one in their right mind would be seen dead in. A ‘phonogram’-the ancient precursor to the MP3 player-which was about the size of kitchen table. There was also a ginormous stamp collection, which documented a brief history of nearly everything, pictorially depicting the evolution of man, right through to the coronation of Princess Leia. There were also lots of mundane items. What made their presence absurd was the sheer quantity he had of each. For instance, there were twenty-five ironing boards, four excer-cycles, and in all honesty about 15,000 rolls of toilet paper (insert potty humour here). In short, there was a shitload of stuff, an inventory of which would fill a hefty tome, heavy enough to use as a deep-sea diving weight, or a weapon to kill a man.
Our job in all of this was to completely clear every last item out of the place, saving the poor befuddled man (apparently he had a mental illness that led to the compulsive hoarding) about $40,000 per year, the amount he was paying to lease the shop. The job took us over month to finish. We used a variety of methods to try and make the monstrous task a bit easier. These included organising a massive inner city garage sale. We easily made $500 in the first hour. Another effective measure was soliciting the moving services of the homeless men we found sleeping in the doorway one morning (in return they could take whatever crap they wanted). Demolition and destruction-always an enjoyable form of work-was employed on a fair bit of broken stuff to fit it into the skip that sat idly on Symonds Street for at least a month. I also roped in as many friends (and friends of friends) as I could to lighten the load. As well as getting paid thirty and hour cash-in-hand (it turned out there was an illicit money printing press in the secret attic) we also got to take whatever item tickled our fancy. Amongst other things I acquired a set of drawers, a clothes rack, about thirty tubes of toothpaste, the aforementioned cigars, and of course my polished oak bedside table, which was now sitting happily next to my oversized bed in my Waitetuna bedroom.
****
Dinner was fried chicken and eggs. I wasn’t surprised really. We washed it down with more than one glass of wine that Anita was so liberally pouring. Over the meal, Anita told me a little more about the place, how she was creating an organic farm that would eventually becoming self-sustainable-an admirable ambition I have to say. I asked what other creatures could possibly be living on the property, and she told me about the second paddock that, until that point, I had not known existed. In it lived a couple of goats, which disguised themselves as lawn mowers. One of the reasons I had been accepted so readily as a tenant by Anita in the first place was due to us having a mutual friend, Brian, who was to be my new workmate, and incidentally, was an ex-flatmate of the Waitetuna. Zoe was one of the goats, apparently Brian had undergone an interesting experience with Zoe. Anita was vague on any detail and told me mysteriously to ask Brian about it. Later on I would, and it would turn out to be hilarious. As well as a couple of vegetation-destroying goats there was a kunekune (a somewhat native pig), simply named Henry. Henry was the size of a sofa, and I was to have a very odd experience later on with my porky friend.
It was a fairly late dinner. Being close to mid-summer, the sun was only beginning to set even though it was nearing 9 ‘o’ clock. After reading a couple of ‘heartwarming’ (read: soppy) stories from ‘Chicken Soup for the Soul’ (the whole series was included in the library) I decided that it was time to retire to bed, as I would need to get up early the next morning. It was to be my first day at work, and I had no idea about travels times living out in the wops and all. To be on the safe side, I set my alarm to 6am, curiously enough the witching hour in most cultures. The exercise turned out to be completely futile, because at 4am I was promptly woken up with a start by the fucking rooster.
All rights reserved by the author. 2009.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Friday, May 29, 2009
Chapter Two. The Road to Waitetuna
The drive home was rather uneventful. My Dad is a talker. It is a trait that I, myself, have inherited. However in this situation Dad took Alpha Male role, and I just nodded and smiled, and finally nodded off to sleep. We reached the Kopu Bridge, the historic one-laned crossing that links the Hauraki Plains to the Coromandel Peninsula. It is the bane for the multitude of Aucklanders that invade our sandy beaches every summer. With queues literally fifty kilometres long or more, and a car full of sicking-up kids, the blistering hot journey must be utterly intolerable. The faint hope of sharing a beach with literally ten thousand other visitors must be the only thing keeping one from jumping out of the car and into the mud-brown water of the Waihou River, the barrier that created the problem in the first place. As a youngster our family would avoid the veritable onslaught by packing up half a houseload of tents and tennis rackets and bicycles, and take off to some other lesser-known part of this beautiful country. For most of the year my homeland is a pristine and under-populated paradise disturbed only by the occasional Israeli cyclist or disorientated pelican. However, for the two weeks that encompass Christmas and New Year, the tranquil beauty is despoiled by schools of red-faced boaties, and the orgiastic tendencies of a horde of prepubescent children, having managed to swipe the half-bottle of vodka from their heavily made up, and very passed out mothers. In response to this horrid situation my parents would take us on the most amazing adventures. I haven’t stopped adventuring since.
My heart always leaps a little when I come back to Thames after a stint away. The small town is nestled between the Coromandel Ranges and the Firth of Thames, and serves as the gateway to the peninsula. Some people write Thames off as ‘boring’ or other such nonsense. All I have to say is this. In my whole time spent in Auckland I have yet to find a river. I mean, seriously, where the heck are they? Where I live in Thames there are about four rivers within five minutes drive from my house. One of them runs right through our property. If you parked your car in the middle of town and looked east you would see the bush clad, and often romantically misty mountains. To the north lies the winding yet very picturesque Thames Coast. To the southeast lies the historic Kaueranga Valley with its bush walks, swimming holes and old logging artifacts. Take a hop to the left and you are in the ocean. Thames is not boring. It is an inviting playground waiting to be explored.
We chugged up the last hill and pulled into the driveway. I was home. Well, for a day at least. I had only the weekend to regroup before making the journey to the West Coast. The afternoon was spent trying to get hold of Anita. I still didn’t have the address for the house at Waitetuna. I still didn’t really know if this place actually existed. Apparently Anita was up the Thames Coast at Colville, about fifty kilometres the wrong way from Raglan. She was visiting her very sick partner, who was at some voodoo medicine place up there. Organising her new tenant was the least of her priorities at this point of time, and considering the situation, I don’t blame her. However it was all becoming increasingly awkward for me, as I started work in Hamilton at 9am the following Monday. After much text-message-tag I finally got an address and description of the place. ‘982 Waitetuna Valley Road, the green gates.’ ‘Oky doky,’ I thought, ‘we’ll find out when we get there won’t we?’ I was still a bit nervous about the whole thing, but it was nearing eight ‘o’ clock at night and I had a party to go to. In my experience, partying is a great way to forget about things.
It was the 21st for an old school friend, which basically fronted as a big family reunion for my high school year group. I spent the evening catching up with people I hadn’t seen in years. It is always interesting to see where people have ended up. I only really remember one of the conversations. It was with one of my oldest friends. We talked about the awesome history we shared and where we were heading. As it turned out, we were both about to embark on adventures into the unknown. He was two days away from boarding a plane and flying to Canada for a winter of snowboarding, then heading on to the States to carry on his adventure. His point of difference from any other young kiwi doing the stereotypical OE thing was that he was going to film it. I have been watching the results, and am impressed with his escapades that have so far included partying with sorority girls in a Mexican mansion and somehow managing to commandeer ‘Tony Sapronos’ super-yacht (insert lame Lonely Island/T-Pain joke here). It made my little foray to Raglan almost boring in comparison. I said almost. Please keep reading.
We were interrupted by the call for speeches. After about half an hour, and a half dozen highly inappropriate friend-speeches, (along with a couple of emotional/boring family ones), it was time for the Yardie. The Yardie is a time-bound tradition in Thames, (and probably most other booze-saturated New Zealand towns). It involves the victim having to scull a glass of beer that is literally a yard in length. There is enough alcohol in the bastard to drop an elephant. If you actually absorbed it all into your bloodstream you would soon be heading straight to the accident department at your local hospital to have your stomach pumped out three of four times. The truth is, this is never a problem (as far as I’ve heard anyway), as there is too much liquid for even the fattest person to keep down. And that is why there is always a bucket the size of an oil drum close at hand during the exercise. In all my days I have never seen it left empty. I left the birthday boy to empty his stomach (and other assorted organs) and wandered outside. The party was being held at the Tararu Yacht Club, which is situated right on the waterfront just north of Thames. It was nearing 9 ‘o’ clock, and being near the equinox the days were at their longest, which meant the sun had not yet gone down. I watched its steady descent past the Hunua ranges, and pondered the next few months as the sea began to light up with golds and hues of fire. I had no idea where I was going or what was going to happen. I knew deep down, however, that it was going to be incredible.
****
A day passed by, and once again I found myself entranced by the western horizon. The van had been packed, and all my worldly possessions barely made a dent in its spacious interior. My parents had given me lease of the vehicle for the summer, and it looked just like a van should, when driven by someone’s mother. It was one of those space-ship-shaped bubbles, that looked as though it should be busy taking kids around on soccer trips, which, incidentally, it had done many a time over its life. The machine had the charming factory name, ‘Emina,’ which is very similar to another word. You’ve got to hand it to the Japanese; they really make a hash out of naming things. This summer, I would be driving what sounded like a discreet cleansing maneouvre. Put more bluntly, the process that literally blasts the shit out of you. Something had clearly been lost in translation. That, or some cheeky summer student with a good knowledge of English wanted ToyotaCorp to get caught with its marketing trousers around its ankles. The gaffe had been a running family joke since the day we had bought it. (Note to reader: sticking the nozzle of the waterblaster up the exhaust pipe may be a clever attempt at high-end humour, but it is unlikely to leave you with any brownie points from your dad. You may find yourself mowing lawns for the next two years. And you are far too old to be getting a smack on the bottom from your father.) Obviously she, (yes, this make and model was most definitely a she), was going to need a new name. It was about that time leading up to the US presidential elections, so I re-christened her Sarah Palin, in homage to John McCain’s politically awkward running mate.
I travel light. I always have. Too many possessions weigh you down. All I needed was the essentials. Clothes, guitar, surfboard, laptop, cigars. All of which would be extensively used on the trip (apart from the last, which are still sitting in my drawer, and which I have future designs for). One thing I had opted out of taking was my bicycle. I had owned it since I was about seven and it was certainly showing it. It had led a very interesting life and was standing on its proverbial last legs (read: wheels). Everything that could be wrong with it was. The front wheel was rather bent, and both tyres were as bald as a busload of granddads. The ‘Rock-Shocks’ had stopped absorbing anything heavier than a couple of hapless snails and the silver sheen of the handlebars had been discoloured by a bad case of rust. The seat had been ripped apart by a couple of cheeky keas at the Fox Glacier on a family trip, a few years earlier. And it now acted as a sponge, which would absorb the Auckland rain, and then redistribute it into your pants when you sat on it, leaving you with a very soggy bum. I managed to temporarily remedy this issue thanks to our society’s addiction to the plastic bag. Both the brakes barely worked, and when it rained, not at all. I clearly remember one time cycling down Symonds Street and actually having to hug a traffic light to stop myself being run down by the stampede of cars trying to get onto the motorway. The gears were also a problem. I had twenty-one of them, but only about three seemed to work. Both the chain and the cogs were completely corroded, which meant every pedal created this embarrassing graunching noise that would cause dogs to go off with frenzied barking, and young parents to hide away small children. The chain used to fall off constantly, and you could audibly hear me mutter ‘shithouse piece of shit’ every five metres (too hot and too pissed off to get creative with my cursing). I must have looked a sorry sight. In its younger days the bike used to have a bell, which I would ring at every pretty girl I passed. It would always get a smile and would, for the record, make me feel like the absolute man. But alas, the top part of the bell has since been lost, leaving my bike with no flirting capabilities whatsoever. The bike was in such a bad condition that for a year, I never locked it once at university. If anyone had wanted to steal it I wouldn’t have worried, because I knew the minute someone took it, the law of the universe would make sure the whole thing fell apart then and there. When I was at home, I left it outside in the front garden, where it had to endure the Auckland region’s temperature climate, which no doubt helped in its deterioration. The helmet that came with it was so useless that I have given up wearing one at all. Just the other night I had a transvestite inquire into the whereabouts of my head protection unit. It was a fair question. And it did leave me with a small measure of comfort knowing that a street worker with identity issues held my road safety in such high regard. All in all, the bicycle was highly un-roadworthy, aesthetically displeasing, and downright dangerous to myself and those around me. There was no way I was taking it to Raglan. To be honest I didn’t really care what happened to it.
I jumped into Sarah Palin. There was enough legroom for a Chinese basketball team, so I fiddled around with various knobs and levers till my feet could reach both pedals comfortably. Ah, the joys of an automatic gearbox. No need for your hand to get distracted from steering, or any use of rational thought whatsoever. Push. And go. Driving for dummies. I opened the window and went to say a goodbye to my beloved family, but was cut off by my mum, who was clucking away as only a mother can. She asked if I had an umbrella, the five different map books for the region, and my slippers, amongst other things. My response was an emphatic ‘no’ to most of them, so she hurried inside, and came back with the offending items. The side door was slid open and an assortment of rather unrelated belongings was heaved into the van. One’s mother is always right in such situations, so I just sighed a little, before giving her a big hug. I turned the ignition, and the behemoth lunged up the drive and onto the road. This was it. I was off. The unknown was waiting for me.
Like a sea captain, I steered the ship-like machine as it sailed across the Hauraki Plains westward. In less than an hour I was at the entrance of Hamilton, self-described as ‘the city of the future’, a phrase which causes light mocking nationwide. We passed the Pink Flat, which sits adjacent to the first main roundabout. My mind drifted back two years to the flat warming that I had once attended there. The thing that drew me to the flat in the first place, (other than the people of course), was their swimming pool. What they don’t know, is that I used to skip lectures and swim in it when they weren’t home. Hamilton is unbearably hot in summer. Anyway, this particular party was a complete cock-fest, with only about three scared-looking girls present. Someone had brought enough sparklers to light up a small village and the perpetrators were building ‘sparkler bombs’, which I believe are the same devices used by terrorists to blow up grounded aeroplanes. The buggers were then placed into old plastic bottles, which were taped to bricks. The incendiary device, (simply another sparker that protruded from the rest) was lit, the cap screwed onto the bottle, and the whole contraption thrown into the aforementioned pool. What happened next was a surprise for everybody. There was silence for about ten seconds, enough time for people to believe it was a dud. A deep groan dispersed from somewhere in the watery depths, and suddenly, a dull, muted explosion shook the entire property. I actually thought the pool was about to crack and cave in, causing the flooding of half of Hillcrest, the city’s only suburb on a hill, (genius naming I have to say), but luckily, for those downstream of us (ie the whole city), no such disaster happened. In the event, a large stream of bubbles erupted out of the water, along with a plume of thick, blueish smoke. There was a moment of stunned silence, immediately followed by the crowd sending up a great cheer. Those were incredible days. Come to think of it, Hamilton wasn’t so bad after all. But things have changed. People have moved on. All that remain are the photographs and memories. Only a few months after that party, the pool and back garden were demolished, leaving only a great pile of mud. The flatmates have since moved, and that pink little townhouse now serves as little more than a monument to an outrageous first-year filled with fun and friends.
****
I indicated left and passed through the city of Hamilton, the towering buildings at the university, the beautiful city gardens, and across the mighty Waikato River. Then finally onto the bypass that would take me to the city’s western limit, and the road to Waitetuna. Well that was the plan anyway. I took what I thought was the correct turn, and ended up in the countryside. So far, so good. Suddenly an ominous white object appeared in the distance. It grew closer, and spookier, until I found myself staring upward at a bizarre monolithic structure. Then it registered. I had taken the wrong road and ended up in Temple View, home of Hamilton’s inexplicably large Mormon population. Mormonism is a religion that is largely foreign to me, however I do know one thing about this curious little settlement, nestled in the idyllic western Waikato farmland. Apparently when Jesus Christ (of the latter day saints) returns to earth, His first choice of destination is Salt Lake City, Utah, (which, coincidentally is the Mormon capital of the world, no surprises there). However, one little known fact is that if, for whatever reason, Jesus decides that the climes of the Midwest are not really his thing, the tidy little suburb of Temple View will be his second choice of call. Of all the places in the world, the Son of God may quite possibly stage His Second Coming in the dirty old ‘Tron’ (local slang for Hamilton), an insignificant town, in a little known country. In the occasion, His greeting party will most likely consist of a herd of curious diary cows on their way to their morning milking (or evening one, ‘no one knows the day or the hour’ etc), and the elderly, and rather deaf Temple caretaker. I personally would have chosen the Mardi Gras in Rio Janeiro, or anywhere in the Mediterranean, but as I am not the redeemer of all creation, that call is not up to me. As they say; God works in mysterious ways.
Realizing my error, I went to pull the van around in a U-turn. As the beast had the turning radius of a Boeing jumbo jet, I ended up doing a three-point turn on the busy highway. Slightly bemused, I said a silent ‘good riddance’ to the landscape-dominating tower, along with the entire cultish enterprise it represented, and thundered back into town in search of the correct turn-off.
And there it was. The five-armed roundabout, along with its familiar petrol station, (which I hastily made use of, due to the ‘E for Empty’ light screaming ‘feed me’). I had been at this intersection many times before, but this was the first in nearly two years. It was a joyful re-acquaintance and sparked many nostalgic memories. I first learned to surf at Raglan, in the chilly waters of mid-2006. The place had immediately taken a unique hold of me. This journey had been a long time coming, and I was looking forward to experiencing the beauty of it all over again.
‘Raglan 45km’ read the sign. And I crossed the invisible border that divides surburbia and the rolling western Waikato. Suddenly everything changes. The air is sweeter. The landscape is more colourful. Life is simply different. This was the road to Raglan. State Highway 23, the road on which I would spend many waking hours over the next three and a half months. It would actually begin to define my life. But right now the newness of it all was leaving me a little heady. Like most centres in New Zealand, the suburban sprawl was encroaching onto the countryside, the so-called lifestyle blocks marching off westward into a war with what was once the wild west coast (there was a ridiculous amount of words starting with ‘w’ in that sentence). This continued for about ten kilometres until I reached the small blink-and-you-miss-it settlement of Whatawhata, which basically serves as the crossroads for Taranaki, Auckland, Hamilton and Raglan. And for this reason, it is a surprisingly busy intersection. I crossed the bridge that spans the murky waters of the Waipa River. This particular waterway finds its headwaters deep within the Rangitoto Ranges, and flows through both Otorohonga and Pirongia, before joining the Waikato on its slow moving journey to the ocean. It also acts as the border between the somewhat civilised classic-farmland-look of the Waikato Plains, and the ruggedness of the West Coast.
It is here that I must note some of the history of the road on which we were driving. The previous day, my mother had strategically place a book called Baches in Raglan or something similar next to my morning coffee, and from it I had gleaned a fair bit of information. Apparently merely fifty years ago the road from Hamilton to Raglan was nothing more than a dirt track. Nobody went to Raglan, except for a few hearty souls who were willing to make the trek over the harsh environment. Then all of that changed. The coast became cool and people were more and more interested in making the trip. Since then the road has been upgraded and hundreds of people use it daily, with those numbers swelling into the thousands over the summer months. However, because the terrain is so rugged, the road is in constant need of upgrading. There are several parts on top of the range that are actually slumping and beginning to fall down the hill. And there is nothing anybody can really do to stop it. If a mountain wants to take off somewhere, it will do so despite your best wishes or whatever million dollars the authorities are willing to throw at it. There has been talk of actually building a new road through the valley to avoid the problem completely, but that solution, if, indeed, it actually happens, is eons away. In the mean time we will all just have to cope with the never ending fix-up jobs, lazy lollipop men, and the annoyance of crawling at 30kph for no apparent reason.
I blinked, missed Whatawhata, and trundled on towards the approaching mountain range, the final barrier separating me from the magic that lay beyond. The incline steepened dramatically, and I planting my foot firmly on the accelerator. Sarah Palin had a motor that seemed as though it originally had been meant for a mobility scooter. To call it gutless would be an understatement. My foot was trying its darndest to push the pedal through the floor and into the undercarriage, and the toy-mota (see what I did there?) whined away like that annoying child actor from Jerry Maguire (you know, that spiky, wimpy one, with glasses?). It was no use. I could literally feel the petrol being drained away at a rate that I had no desire to inquire about. I felt better knowing that I had an income to foot the exorbitant gas bill. Well, only slightly better. I looked in the rear view mirror and noticed the small queue that had begun to form behind me. Just ahead was the slow lane, which had somehow anticipated my arrival, and told me in no uncertain terms that All Slow Traffic Must Use This Lane. I surrendered defeat, and made Sarah slip into the Lane of Shame, tail squarely between her legs. What passed was the most unlikely group of ‘vehicles’ I had ever seen. First, a tractor passed, with a trailer in tow. On the trailer was the most terrifying contraption I have ever seen. There were nasty looking blades, as tall as a man, protruding at all sorts of bizarre angles. In it centre was some kind of rotating wheel-me-bob thingy, also silvery sharp. The trailer hit a pothole in the road and the monster started swaying about, threatening to leap off and decapitate me. In reply to this I did the near impossible job of making Sarah drive even slower, bringing her to a near crawl. The sunlight glinted evilly off the metal objects and there was a red lining on each of them. I hoped to God that it was just paint. It was hard to believe that this medieval-looking torture device was simply a means to harvest grain.
Next in line were two obviously European (probably German) cyclists. I have never really understood people who attempt to travel the world by pedal power. I mean, it just looks like hard, and rather unnecessary work. Cyclists the world over seem to pack just about everything onto their two-wheeled sweat-machines. The first of the pair was carrying a tent, twenty pots and pans; a fold up bicycle (go figure) and a queen sized mattress. The second had about 37 individual bags tied firm to any and all conceivable areas of his bicycle. Goodness knows what he was keeping in them (I’m guessing overdue library books). He also had a cage holding what appeared to be a scared looking pet ferret, and to top it off, he had a fucking double bass strapped to his back. Well not really, but you know what I mean. The bus fare from Hamilton to Raglan is $4.60 (which, incidentally, is less than the price of your average bike-over-a-mountain energy drink). I wasn’t sure if pedaling half their household items up this bastard of an incline was really worth the effort. In saying that, they were doing better job of it than the Sarah Palin was.
Next to pass in this curious little troupe was a middle-aged woman riding a middle-aged-looking horse. I gave her a forced smile and bottled both my inward fury at the situation, and the urge to give her a rude hand gesture (it is simply wrong to give the finger to what could potentially be someone’s grandmother). This made her reaction even more unexpected. She rolled up her fist and gave me ‘the bird’, the same one that I had so politely restrained myself from giving her only moments ago. The nerve of it, and then she yelled at me: ‘Get off the road you (expletive) moron’. Lovely. As if to somehow exemplify this point, her mount then lifted its tail and proceeded to unload its well digested lunch onto the bonnet of my poor van. I was at my breaking point.
And then it happened. The last straw. With my new favourite jockey trotting off into the distance, the last in the queue began to pass me. You are not going to believe this, but a family of ducks waddled their way past. One mother, followed by about six little fluff-ball children. They were all quacking away in a rather congenial manner, and I listened intently to their banter, trying to decipher what they were saying. This is what I managed to translate:
Fluff-ball #3: “Mumma, why is that man driving so slow?”
Mother: “Don’t stare little one. It is quite rude.”
Fluff-ball #5: “Mumma, that man is pulling the fingers at me.”
Mother: “Well be the bigger man son, he can’t help it that his car is a piece of shit.”
And so on and so forth it went. One by one they waddled past, quacking incessantly about the shortcomings of my ‘ride’. I felt like running the little buggers over. With Fluff-ball #6 bringing up the rear, I slipped back into the lane for normal people, my male ego utterly deflated.
****
I made it. After much huffing, and puffing, and cursing, and flipping of the ‘bird’, I made it to the summit, known locally as the ‘divvy.’ Situated there is a rest area (much needed for both of us), a picnic table, and oddly enough, an old rooster (more about him later). It also serves as the entrance way to a myriad of bushwalks in the region, and more importantly, it was the point that indicated to Sarah that she could ‘take it easy’ and ‘chill out a little bit’. It’s all downhill from here baby! As if to make up for lost time, she shot over the crest and down toward our destination at a health-endangering rate. As well being quite steep, (the western incline was even steeper than what we had just experienced), the road has a series of badly centred hairpin corners, the type that have that endearing lets-get-all-the-kids-to-throw-up quality to them. Did I mention that Sarah Palin had handling that could not exactly be described as ‘amazing’? I would be fair to say that even a hippy campervan (of which there are many in the region) could have taken these corners better than her. At every turn she would just about tip up on two wheels, and either nearly throw me into the solid rock wall to my left, or down into the vertigo-inducing ravine to my right. After about five minutes of this (though it seemed much longer), we managed to make it to the bottom with both our lives intact. We didn’t have far to go now. Earlier on, during my little scenic tour of the bizarre universe that was Temple View, I had fished out two of the five maps my mother had most helpfully supplied me. Using these, a compass, scale rule and sextant, I went on to determine the correct route to the Waitetuna. It turned out that all the study had been unnecessary, because, looming in the distance, was a sign the size of a house. It read: ‘Waitetuna Valley. To Your Bloody Left. If You Can’t Read This Massive-To-The-Point-Of-Comical Sign, You Should Not Really Be Driving’. I turned left.
So here it was. The final stretch before I started my new life as Old Macdonald’s apprentice. It was all a rather pleasant setting. With farmland rolling in all directions, surrounded by brooding distant mountain ranges that spoke of hardship and adventure. I passed through the settlement of Waitetuna, which was about one kilometre off the main road. It consisted of a school, an art/pottery gallery, and a sprinkling of 1950’s townhouses. Anita’s text message had read 5km, so I still had a little way to go yet. Thus far the road had been sealed and was in generally good shape. That was about to change as all of a sudden the van jolted heavily, and we were skimming along over gravel. We were going far too fast for the conditions and the van started losing traction at the most inconvenient times (ie on a corner, or a hairs-width from a power pole). I slowed down and brought her under control. There was no point coming this far, after all that we had been through, to end up side-on in some farmers paddock in the middle of nowhere. On the hill ahead of me was a cute little cottage, which looked suspiciously like the one in the Trademe photos. This was it! And there they were. The green gates, as per the text message. I was still going far too fast and had to plant my foot firmly on the brake. This caused Sarah to swing around wildly in an unintentional power slide, leaving a trail of dust and a perfect, almost artistic arc on the gravel road. The near accident lined me up perfectly with the driveway. I rolled through the gates, up the drive, and was immediately smothered by an avalanche of chickens.
All rights reserved by the author. 2009.
My heart always leaps a little when I come back to Thames after a stint away. The small town is nestled between the Coromandel Ranges and the Firth of Thames, and serves as the gateway to the peninsula. Some people write Thames off as ‘boring’ or other such nonsense. All I have to say is this. In my whole time spent in Auckland I have yet to find a river. I mean, seriously, where the heck are they? Where I live in Thames there are about four rivers within five minutes drive from my house. One of them runs right through our property. If you parked your car in the middle of town and looked east you would see the bush clad, and often romantically misty mountains. To the north lies the winding yet very picturesque Thames Coast. To the southeast lies the historic Kaueranga Valley with its bush walks, swimming holes and old logging artifacts. Take a hop to the left and you are in the ocean. Thames is not boring. It is an inviting playground waiting to be explored.
We chugged up the last hill and pulled into the driveway. I was home. Well, for a day at least. I had only the weekend to regroup before making the journey to the West Coast. The afternoon was spent trying to get hold of Anita. I still didn’t have the address for the house at Waitetuna. I still didn’t really know if this place actually existed. Apparently Anita was up the Thames Coast at Colville, about fifty kilometres the wrong way from Raglan. She was visiting her very sick partner, who was at some voodoo medicine place up there. Organising her new tenant was the least of her priorities at this point of time, and considering the situation, I don’t blame her. However it was all becoming increasingly awkward for me, as I started work in Hamilton at 9am the following Monday. After much text-message-tag I finally got an address and description of the place. ‘982 Waitetuna Valley Road, the green gates.’ ‘Oky doky,’ I thought, ‘we’ll find out when we get there won’t we?’ I was still a bit nervous about the whole thing, but it was nearing eight ‘o’ clock at night and I had a party to go to. In my experience, partying is a great way to forget about things.
It was the 21st for an old school friend, which basically fronted as a big family reunion for my high school year group. I spent the evening catching up with people I hadn’t seen in years. It is always interesting to see where people have ended up. I only really remember one of the conversations. It was with one of my oldest friends. We talked about the awesome history we shared and where we were heading. As it turned out, we were both about to embark on adventures into the unknown. He was two days away from boarding a plane and flying to Canada for a winter of snowboarding, then heading on to the States to carry on his adventure. His point of difference from any other young kiwi doing the stereotypical OE thing was that he was going to film it. I have been watching the results, and am impressed with his escapades that have so far included partying with sorority girls in a Mexican mansion and somehow managing to commandeer ‘Tony Sapronos’ super-yacht (insert lame Lonely Island/T-Pain joke here). It made my little foray to Raglan almost boring in comparison. I said almost. Please keep reading.
We were interrupted by the call for speeches. After about half an hour, and a half dozen highly inappropriate friend-speeches, (along with a couple of emotional/boring family ones), it was time for the Yardie. The Yardie is a time-bound tradition in Thames, (and probably most other booze-saturated New Zealand towns). It involves the victim having to scull a glass of beer that is literally a yard in length. There is enough alcohol in the bastard to drop an elephant. If you actually absorbed it all into your bloodstream you would soon be heading straight to the accident department at your local hospital to have your stomach pumped out three of four times. The truth is, this is never a problem (as far as I’ve heard anyway), as there is too much liquid for even the fattest person to keep down. And that is why there is always a bucket the size of an oil drum close at hand during the exercise. In all my days I have never seen it left empty. I left the birthday boy to empty his stomach (and other assorted organs) and wandered outside. The party was being held at the Tararu Yacht Club, which is situated right on the waterfront just north of Thames. It was nearing 9 ‘o’ clock, and being near the equinox the days were at their longest, which meant the sun had not yet gone down. I watched its steady descent past the Hunua ranges, and pondered the next few months as the sea began to light up with golds and hues of fire. I had no idea where I was going or what was going to happen. I knew deep down, however, that it was going to be incredible.
****
A day passed by, and once again I found myself entranced by the western horizon. The van had been packed, and all my worldly possessions barely made a dent in its spacious interior. My parents had given me lease of the vehicle for the summer, and it looked just like a van should, when driven by someone’s mother. It was one of those space-ship-shaped bubbles, that looked as though it should be busy taking kids around on soccer trips, which, incidentally, it had done many a time over its life. The machine had the charming factory name, ‘Emina,’ which is very similar to another word. You’ve got to hand it to the Japanese; they really make a hash out of naming things. This summer, I would be driving what sounded like a discreet cleansing maneouvre. Put more bluntly, the process that literally blasts the shit out of you. Something had clearly been lost in translation. That, or some cheeky summer student with a good knowledge of English wanted ToyotaCorp to get caught with its marketing trousers around its ankles. The gaffe had been a running family joke since the day we had bought it. (Note to reader: sticking the nozzle of the waterblaster up the exhaust pipe may be a clever attempt at high-end humour, but it is unlikely to leave you with any brownie points from your dad. You may find yourself mowing lawns for the next two years. And you are far too old to be getting a smack on the bottom from your father.) Obviously she, (yes, this make and model was most definitely a she), was going to need a new name. It was about that time leading up to the US presidential elections, so I re-christened her Sarah Palin, in homage to John McCain’s politically awkward running mate.
I travel light. I always have. Too many possessions weigh you down. All I needed was the essentials. Clothes, guitar, surfboard, laptop, cigars. All of which would be extensively used on the trip (apart from the last, which are still sitting in my drawer, and which I have future designs for). One thing I had opted out of taking was my bicycle. I had owned it since I was about seven and it was certainly showing it. It had led a very interesting life and was standing on its proverbial last legs (read: wheels). Everything that could be wrong with it was. The front wheel was rather bent, and both tyres were as bald as a busload of granddads. The ‘Rock-Shocks’ had stopped absorbing anything heavier than a couple of hapless snails and the silver sheen of the handlebars had been discoloured by a bad case of rust. The seat had been ripped apart by a couple of cheeky keas at the Fox Glacier on a family trip, a few years earlier. And it now acted as a sponge, which would absorb the Auckland rain, and then redistribute it into your pants when you sat on it, leaving you with a very soggy bum. I managed to temporarily remedy this issue thanks to our society’s addiction to the plastic bag. Both the brakes barely worked, and when it rained, not at all. I clearly remember one time cycling down Symonds Street and actually having to hug a traffic light to stop myself being run down by the stampede of cars trying to get onto the motorway. The gears were also a problem. I had twenty-one of them, but only about three seemed to work. Both the chain and the cogs were completely corroded, which meant every pedal created this embarrassing graunching noise that would cause dogs to go off with frenzied barking, and young parents to hide away small children. The chain used to fall off constantly, and you could audibly hear me mutter ‘shithouse piece of shit’ every five metres (too hot and too pissed off to get creative with my cursing). I must have looked a sorry sight. In its younger days the bike used to have a bell, which I would ring at every pretty girl I passed. It would always get a smile and would, for the record, make me feel like the absolute man. But alas, the top part of the bell has since been lost, leaving my bike with no flirting capabilities whatsoever. The bike was in such a bad condition that for a year, I never locked it once at university. If anyone had wanted to steal it I wouldn’t have worried, because I knew the minute someone took it, the law of the universe would make sure the whole thing fell apart then and there. When I was at home, I left it outside in the front garden, where it had to endure the Auckland region’s temperature climate, which no doubt helped in its deterioration. The helmet that came with it was so useless that I have given up wearing one at all. Just the other night I had a transvestite inquire into the whereabouts of my head protection unit. It was a fair question. And it did leave me with a small measure of comfort knowing that a street worker with identity issues held my road safety in such high regard. All in all, the bicycle was highly un-roadworthy, aesthetically displeasing, and downright dangerous to myself and those around me. There was no way I was taking it to Raglan. To be honest I didn’t really care what happened to it.
I jumped into Sarah Palin. There was enough legroom for a Chinese basketball team, so I fiddled around with various knobs and levers till my feet could reach both pedals comfortably. Ah, the joys of an automatic gearbox. No need for your hand to get distracted from steering, or any use of rational thought whatsoever. Push. And go. Driving for dummies. I opened the window and went to say a goodbye to my beloved family, but was cut off by my mum, who was clucking away as only a mother can. She asked if I had an umbrella, the five different map books for the region, and my slippers, amongst other things. My response was an emphatic ‘no’ to most of them, so she hurried inside, and came back with the offending items. The side door was slid open and an assortment of rather unrelated belongings was heaved into the van. One’s mother is always right in such situations, so I just sighed a little, before giving her a big hug. I turned the ignition, and the behemoth lunged up the drive and onto the road. This was it. I was off. The unknown was waiting for me.
Like a sea captain, I steered the ship-like machine as it sailed across the Hauraki Plains westward. In less than an hour I was at the entrance of Hamilton, self-described as ‘the city of the future’, a phrase which causes light mocking nationwide. We passed the Pink Flat, which sits adjacent to the first main roundabout. My mind drifted back two years to the flat warming that I had once attended there. The thing that drew me to the flat in the first place, (other than the people of course), was their swimming pool. What they don’t know, is that I used to skip lectures and swim in it when they weren’t home. Hamilton is unbearably hot in summer. Anyway, this particular party was a complete cock-fest, with only about three scared-looking girls present. Someone had brought enough sparklers to light up a small village and the perpetrators were building ‘sparkler bombs’, which I believe are the same devices used by terrorists to blow up grounded aeroplanes. The buggers were then placed into old plastic bottles, which were taped to bricks. The incendiary device, (simply another sparker that protruded from the rest) was lit, the cap screwed onto the bottle, and the whole contraption thrown into the aforementioned pool. What happened next was a surprise for everybody. There was silence for about ten seconds, enough time for people to believe it was a dud. A deep groan dispersed from somewhere in the watery depths, and suddenly, a dull, muted explosion shook the entire property. I actually thought the pool was about to crack and cave in, causing the flooding of half of Hillcrest, the city’s only suburb on a hill, (genius naming I have to say), but luckily, for those downstream of us (ie the whole city), no such disaster happened. In the event, a large stream of bubbles erupted out of the water, along with a plume of thick, blueish smoke. There was a moment of stunned silence, immediately followed by the crowd sending up a great cheer. Those were incredible days. Come to think of it, Hamilton wasn’t so bad after all. But things have changed. People have moved on. All that remain are the photographs and memories. Only a few months after that party, the pool and back garden were demolished, leaving only a great pile of mud. The flatmates have since moved, and that pink little townhouse now serves as little more than a monument to an outrageous first-year filled with fun and friends.
****
I indicated left and passed through the city of Hamilton, the towering buildings at the university, the beautiful city gardens, and across the mighty Waikato River. Then finally onto the bypass that would take me to the city’s western limit, and the road to Waitetuna. Well that was the plan anyway. I took what I thought was the correct turn, and ended up in the countryside. So far, so good. Suddenly an ominous white object appeared in the distance. It grew closer, and spookier, until I found myself staring upward at a bizarre monolithic structure. Then it registered. I had taken the wrong road and ended up in Temple View, home of Hamilton’s inexplicably large Mormon population. Mormonism is a religion that is largely foreign to me, however I do know one thing about this curious little settlement, nestled in the idyllic western Waikato farmland. Apparently when Jesus Christ (of the latter day saints) returns to earth, His first choice of destination is Salt Lake City, Utah, (which, coincidentally is the Mormon capital of the world, no surprises there). However, one little known fact is that if, for whatever reason, Jesus decides that the climes of the Midwest are not really his thing, the tidy little suburb of Temple View will be his second choice of call. Of all the places in the world, the Son of God may quite possibly stage His Second Coming in the dirty old ‘Tron’ (local slang for Hamilton), an insignificant town, in a little known country. In the occasion, His greeting party will most likely consist of a herd of curious diary cows on their way to their morning milking (or evening one, ‘no one knows the day or the hour’ etc), and the elderly, and rather deaf Temple caretaker. I personally would have chosen the Mardi Gras in Rio Janeiro, or anywhere in the Mediterranean, but as I am not the redeemer of all creation, that call is not up to me. As they say; God works in mysterious ways.
Realizing my error, I went to pull the van around in a U-turn. As the beast had the turning radius of a Boeing jumbo jet, I ended up doing a three-point turn on the busy highway. Slightly bemused, I said a silent ‘good riddance’ to the landscape-dominating tower, along with the entire cultish enterprise it represented, and thundered back into town in search of the correct turn-off.
And there it was. The five-armed roundabout, along with its familiar petrol station, (which I hastily made use of, due to the ‘E for Empty’ light screaming ‘feed me’). I had been at this intersection many times before, but this was the first in nearly two years. It was a joyful re-acquaintance and sparked many nostalgic memories. I first learned to surf at Raglan, in the chilly waters of mid-2006. The place had immediately taken a unique hold of me. This journey had been a long time coming, and I was looking forward to experiencing the beauty of it all over again.
‘Raglan 45km’ read the sign. And I crossed the invisible border that divides surburbia and the rolling western Waikato. Suddenly everything changes. The air is sweeter. The landscape is more colourful. Life is simply different. This was the road to Raglan. State Highway 23, the road on which I would spend many waking hours over the next three and a half months. It would actually begin to define my life. But right now the newness of it all was leaving me a little heady. Like most centres in New Zealand, the suburban sprawl was encroaching onto the countryside, the so-called lifestyle blocks marching off westward into a war with what was once the wild west coast (there was a ridiculous amount of words starting with ‘w’ in that sentence). This continued for about ten kilometres until I reached the small blink-and-you-miss-it settlement of Whatawhata, which basically serves as the crossroads for Taranaki, Auckland, Hamilton and Raglan. And for this reason, it is a surprisingly busy intersection. I crossed the bridge that spans the murky waters of the Waipa River. This particular waterway finds its headwaters deep within the Rangitoto Ranges, and flows through both Otorohonga and Pirongia, before joining the Waikato on its slow moving journey to the ocean. It also acts as the border between the somewhat civilised classic-farmland-look of the Waikato Plains, and the ruggedness of the West Coast.
It is here that I must note some of the history of the road on which we were driving. The previous day, my mother had strategically place a book called Baches in Raglan or something similar next to my morning coffee, and from it I had gleaned a fair bit of information. Apparently merely fifty years ago the road from Hamilton to Raglan was nothing more than a dirt track. Nobody went to Raglan, except for a few hearty souls who were willing to make the trek over the harsh environment. Then all of that changed. The coast became cool and people were more and more interested in making the trip. Since then the road has been upgraded and hundreds of people use it daily, with those numbers swelling into the thousands over the summer months. However, because the terrain is so rugged, the road is in constant need of upgrading. There are several parts on top of the range that are actually slumping and beginning to fall down the hill. And there is nothing anybody can really do to stop it. If a mountain wants to take off somewhere, it will do so despite your best wishes or whatever million dollars the authorities are willing to throw at it. There has been talk of actually building a new road through the valley to avoid the problem completely, but that solution, if, indeed, it actually happens, is eons away. In the mean time we will all just have to cope with the never ending fix-up jobs, lazy lollipop men, and the annoyance of crawling at 30kph for no apparent reason.
I blinked, missed Whatawhata, and trundled on towards the approaching mountain range, the final barrier separating me from the magic that lay beyond. The incline steepened dramatically, and I planting my foot firmly on the accelerator. Sarah Palin had a motor that seemed as though it originally had been meant for a mobility scooter. To call it gutless would be an understatement. My foot was trying its darndest to push the pedal through the floor and into the undercarriage, and the toy-mota (see what I did there?) whined away like that annoying child actor from Jerry Maguire (you know, that spiky, wimpy one, with glasses?). It was no use. I could literally feel the petrol being drained away at a rate that I had no desire to inquire about. I felt better knowing that I had an income to foot the exorbitant gas bill. Well, only slightly better. I looked in the rear view mirror and noticed the small queue that had begun to form behind me. Just ahead was the slow lane, which had somehow anticipated my arrival, and told me in no uncertain terms that All Slow Traffic Must Use This Lane. I surrendered defeat, and made Sarah slip into the Lane of Shame, tail squarely between her legs. What passed was the most unlikely group of ‘vehicles’ I had ever seen. First, a tractor passed, with a trailer in tow. On the trailer was the most terrifying contraption I have ever seen. There were nasty looking blades, as tall as a man, protruding at all sorts of bizarre angles. In it centre was some kind of rotating wheel-me-bob thingy, also silvery sharp. The trailer hit a pothole in the road and the monster started swaying about, threatening to leap off and decapitate me. In reply to this I did the near impossible job of making Sarah drive even slower, bringing her to a near crawl. The sunlight glinted evilly off the metal objects and there was a red lining on each of them. I hoped to God that it was just paint. It was hard to believe that this medieval-looking torture device was simply a means to harvest grain.
Next in line were two obviously European (probably German) cyclists. I have never really understood people who attempt to travel the world by pedal power. I mean, it just looks like hard, and rather unnecessary work. Cyclists the world over seem to pack just about everything onto their two-wheeled sweat-machines. The first of the pair was carrying a tent, twenty pots and pans; a fold up bicycle (go figure) and a queen sized mattress. The second had about 37 individual bags tied firm to any and all conceivable areas of his bicycle. Goodness knows what he was keeping in them (I’m guessing overdue library books). He also had a cage holding what appeared to be a scared looking pet ferret, and to top it off, he had a fucking double bass strapped to his back. Well not really, but you know what I mean. The bus fare from Hamilton to Raglan is $4.60 (which, incidentally, is less than the price of your average bike-over-a-mountain energy drink). I wasn’t sure if pedaling half their household items up this bastard of an incline was really worth the effort. In saying that, they were doing better job of it than the Sarah Palin was.
Next to pass in this curious little troupe was a middle-aged woman riding a middle-aged-looking horse. I gave her a forced smile and bottled both my inward fury at the situation, and the urge to give her a rude hand gesture (it is simply wrong to give the finger to what could potentially be someone’s grandmother). This made her reaction even more unexpected. She rolled up her fist and gave me ‘the bird’, the same one that I had so politely restrained myself from giving her only moments ago. The nerve of it, and then she yelled at me: ‘Get off the road you (expletive) moron’. Lovely. As if to somehow exemplify this point, her mount then lifted its tail and proceeded to unload its well digested lunch onto the bonnet of my poor van. I was at my breaking point.
And then it happened. The last straw. With my new favourite jockey trotting off into the distance, the last in the queue began to pass me. You are not going to believe this, but a family of ducks waddled their way past. One mother, followed by about six little fluff-ball children. They were all quacking away in a rather congenial manner, and I listened intently to their banter, trying to decipher what they were saying. This is what I managed to translate:
Fluff-ball #3: “Mumma, why is that man driving so slow?”
Mother: “Don’t stare little one. It is quite rude.”
Fluff-ball #5: “Mumma, that man is pulling the fingers at me.”
Mother: “Well be the bigger man son, he can’t help it that his car is a piece of shit.”
And so on and so forth it went. One by one they waddled past, quacking incessantly about the shortcomings of my ‘ride’. I felt like running the little buggers over. With Fluff-ball #6 bringing up the rear, I slipped back into the lane for normal people, my male ego utterly deflated.
****
I made it. After much huffing, and puffing, and cursing, and flipping of the ‘bird’, I made it to the summit, known locally as the ‘divvy.’ Situated there is a rest area (much needed for both of us), a picnic table, and oddly enough, an old rooster (more about him later). It also serves as the entrance way to a myriad of bushwalks in the region, and more importantly, it was the point that indicated to Sarah that she could ‘take it easy’ and ‘chill out a little bit’. It’s all downhill from here baby! As if to make up for lost time, she shot over the crest and down toward our destination at a health-endangering rate. As well being quite steep, (the western incline was even steeper than what we had just experienced), the road has a series of badly centred hairpin corners, the type that have that endearing lets-get-all-the-kids-to-throw-up quality to them. Did I mention that Sarah Palin had handling that could not exactly be described as ‘amazing’? I would be fair to say that even a hippy campervan (of which there are many in the region) could have taken these corners better than her. At every turn she would just about tip up on two wheels, and either nearly throw me into the solid rock wall to my left, or down into the vertigo-inducing ravine to my right. After about five minutes of this (though it seemed much longer), we managed to make it to the bottom with both our lives intact. We didn’t have far to go now. Earlier on, during my little scenic tour of the bizarre universe that was Temple View, I had fished out two of the five maps my mother had most helpfully supplied me. Using these, a compass, scale rule and sextant, I went on to determine the correct route to the Waitetuna. It turned out that all the study had been unnecessary, because, looming in the distance, was a sign the size of a house. It read: ‘Waitetuna Valley. To Your Bloody Left. If You Can’t Read This Massive-To-The-Point-Of-Comical Sign, You Should Not Really Be Driving’. I turned left.
So here it was. The final stretch before I started my new life as Old Macdonald’s apprentice. It was all a rather pleasant setting. With farmland rolling in all directions, surrounded by brooding distant mountain ranges that spoke of hardship and adventure. I passed through the settlement of Waitetuna, which was about one kilometre off the main road. It consisted of a school, an art/pottery gallery, and a sprinkling of 1950’s townhouses. Anita’s text message had read 5km, so I still had a little way to go yet. Thus far the road had been sealed and was in generally good shape. That was about to change as all of a sudden the van jolted heavily, and we were skimming along over gravel. We were going far too fast for the conditions and the van started losing traction at the most inconvenient times (ie on a corner, or a hairs-width from a power pole). I slowed down and brought her under control. There was no point coming this far, after all that we had been through, to end up side-on in some farmers paddock in the middle of nowhere. On the hill ahead of me was a cute little cottage, which looked suspiciously like the one in the Trademe photos. This was it! And there they were. The green gates, as per the text message. I was still going far too fast and had to plant my foot firmly on the brake. This caused Sarah to swing around wildly in an unintentional power slide, leaving a trail of dust and a perfect, almost artistic arc on the gravel road. The near accident lined me up perfectly with the driveway. I rolled through the gates, up the drive, and was immediately smothered by an avalanche of chickens.
All rights reserved by the author. 2009.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Chapter One. Leaving Jungle City
This story will start the way stories of this type normally do. Somewhere near the middle. More often than not in a particularly vague situation, which is then used as a platform to explain how, the main character had got there. My current setting could only be described as a Swedish Spa. Cheap cask wine had escaped from various glasses into the water and there seemed to be legs everywhere. It was very, very late and I could feel a body part that was definitely not my own stroke my chest. As I slipped in and out of consciousness only one thing ran through my mind.
‘This is something I will never tell my Mother about.’
****
Somehow I had managed to land a summer job in Hamilton. Which was great. As a student money is this sort of glowing substance that you only ever see on music videos or very briefly as it swoops from some magical government bank account into your own and then immediately into that of your landlord (who you will never, ever meet). This job would mean that I could finally have some of my very own. Which I could then stuff in my anemic looking wallet and use to embark on another student myth, known as Spending Money On Stuff That Isn’t Rent. However there was a slight problem. I had vowed to never live in Hamilton again. It was with this issue in mind that I had left my cosy Mt Eden flat to walk for some reason or another down to the city. Over the course of the forty-minute plod a very attractive solution had worked its way out of the bowels of my mind.
I would move to Raglan.
I mean why not? The place was fantastic. At least it sure beat Hamilton. The waves. The sun. The parties. It would be the summer of my life!
I didn’t know the half of it.
As it was only mid-year and very much still winter I pushed the idea back into the mind-bowels and continued doing whatever the hell I was doing back then. It wasn’t until the middle of exam season that I gave it another thought. It was then that I realised I had barely one week left until I would be effectively homeless in a strange faraway town. I had a friend who once stayed in a cave north of Auckland. He told me it was the way to go. I tend to pace when I get excited about something and after four laps of my flat I eventually laid the idea to rest. It would have been amazing. But firstly I didn’t know if there were any caves in the area and secondly, four months is a long time to live underground with no electricity, sanitation or Facebook. I desperately needed somewhere to live. So I did the sensible thing and began trawling around online until I found an option.
“Waitetuna Valley Road: we are situated on a beautiful organic lifestyle property half way between Hamilton and Raglan. $60 a week. We also share the land with 20 chickens, 4 goats, 2 pigs, 1 dog and 1 cat” the advertisement stated.
Old Macdonald had a farm. And it was in Waitetuna. I was running out of time. It was dirt-cheap. I took the number and left a message.
A couple of days later I found myself at an acoustic gig at the Wine Cellar on K Rd. I was busy admiring the Blonde Brigade that for the last month, for some reason had been stalking my every social movement (I wasn’t complaining). Suddenly my unstealable cellphone (more on that later) started titillating me through my right pocket. The combination of skinny jeans and phones seem to have that effect on me (I’m not complaining about that either). I scampered out of the darkened bar and took the call. What I met was more high-speed car chase than conversation.
“Hiitsanitayoucalledaboutthehouse.”
“Er. Pardon?”
“Yeahitsanitafromwaitetunayouleftamessage.”
“Um. It’s quite loud in a here. I’m having trouble hearing you.”
There was nothing wrong with the sound level. She just had that annoying way of speaking that reminds you of a barrage of machine guns. Not unlike the sound that comes out of the rooms of my nerdy Hobson Heights flatmates. Every single night. (Poor guys.)
After about five minutes of conversation with Ms Gunfire I extracted the information I needed. I had a place to live. One email and one phone call and I had a place to live. I really, really hoped it was going to work out. With that weight off my mind I sat my last exams and prepared to leave Auckland for my big adventure.
****
With all my earthly possessions packed into the car I took one last wander around the Jungle Flat. The run down house just outside of Mt Eden Village had been my home for the better part of a year and I was a little sad to be leaving. It was one of those flats that develop their own legend due to their inherent awesomeness. In this case the Jungle Flat is known for its general quirkiness and the sheer amount of interesting people that have flowed over its rotting porch over the years. The reason it is called the Jungle is simply because it has one. Twenty years ago the back yard was a beautiful, albeit typical Epsom villa garden. Twenty years ago people stopped caring about it. It is now its very own urban-tropical rainforest. You can go so deep into it that all you see is trees and foliage and the occasional chimpanzee. At the edge of the forest is a cottage, which is reminiscent of the one in Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, or the Gingerbread Cottage in Hansel and Gretel. Whatever your take on it, the outdoor portion of the Jungle Flat could be found in any typical fairy story. If you go in there at night there is a good chance some kind of witch/troll/other mythical creature will kidnap you and steal your clothes. That would just be awkward. Don’t go in there at night.
The house itself is just as unique. I would suggest that every single part of it is either broken or has had a recent fix-up attempted on it. Either way the chances of it working properly for you are about as high as outrunning the centaur that lives in the far corner of the garden. Before you even get inside you’ll find the sensor light will not light your way (which actually led to stalker problems), the old fridge that grew a layer of mould while in the kitchen (it certain didn’t keep your food fresh) and the door knob that would fall off the second you touched it.
Once you had managed to trick the flat into letting you in, it just got even crappier. There was no carpet in the hall, which is really great in winter, and if there was wallpaper it was threatening to join the rest of it, which had peeled off and disintegrated some fifty years earlier. From there you went through the make shift door (an old bed sheet) and into the living room. There you were confronted with this bizarre piece of ‘art’ which was apparently ‘very expensive’ but to me it looked like a depraved toddler had been let loose in the supply closet of a high school art class. Again the wallpaper was spiraling toward the floor and the furniture consisted of three very ratty looking couches. And by ratty I mean a colony of rats could very well have been living inside them.
From there you stepped down into the kitchen/dining room area (through a real door this time). The kitchen was all you would expect. If there were cupboard doors, they would fall off when you tried to open them. The drawers would be touch-and-go to as whether they would open for you or not. I have already mentioned the ‘fridge’. Directly across from there lies the bathroom. I would probably puke a little if I tried describing it to you so I will save us both the horridness of it. The dining room was in a similar state to the lounge, with a couple of interesting additions. Firstly it had a revolving table which seems classy. Of course it wasn’t due to the fact that the tabletop was in no way connected to its base. Any attempt to use it would result in your spaghetti bolognese blending into the already stained carpet. The only way to overcome this difficulty was to have an even number of people eating at it to balance the forces of your respective dinners. Even this didn’t guarantee anything. The other amazing feature of the dining room was the ceiling. It was bright green and at nighttime the little critters would positively glow. If you end up having dinner in there (after navigating the logistical nightmare of the table) whatever you do, don’t look up. We have now reached the rear of the house. From here you must attempt to get through the ranch slider door, which will of course be stuck, and end up on the deck which overlooks the forest. The deck and adjoining stairs are made of pieces of rotting timber, if, indeed, they are actually there. Many ankles have more than likely been snapped over the years due to the missing boards. Also, never try and go down the stairs in slippers when wet. Tried that. It isn’t worth it.
At the bottom of the stairs lies the Dungeon, which stored the washing machine, other miscellaneous crap that has been accumulated over the last two hundreds and oddly enough, caked in a thick layer of dust, a lone bottle of ancient Corona (which disappeared about mid way through the year.) The Dungeon is also home to a grumpy gnome who was banished from the Jungle by the other fairies. Just kidding. Anyway, despite the complete shittiness of the place, the Jungle Flat was my home and I loved it.
And that’s because the physical attributes of the flat were only half the story. It’s always the people that make a place and I definitely shared the Jungle with a few characters. There was Anna, who was an advertising guru and also doubled as my relationship consultant. Ben was my roommate who had been there at the Jungle as long as anyone can remember. He studied jewelry, and to be honest, he was rather quirky. Jono was a television news personality. He lived in the Gingerbread Cottage and gave me some of my best laughs over the year. Romelli was from Peru; artist, musician, filmmaker and very good friend. Last but not least was Michelle. Michelle looked like Amy Winehouse (but unlike Amy, is a well functioning person). She studied right next door. Because yes, once you put on your David Livingstone boots and macheted your way through the undergrowth, the University of Auckland lay just across what remained of the fence. (It took me almost six months of sweaty exploration to obtain this information.) At one point we even had a cute, but very smelly ginger kitten, which would entertain us with her antics. With this little band of characters I journeyed through the experience that was the Jungle.
I could tell a thousand stories about my time there. In fact I could write a novel about the experience. But since this story is about my wonderful summer and not The Jungle Book (I went there) I will just tell a couple. I have entitled them The Untheivable Phone and The Stairwell Strikes Back and in their own way they sum up what the Jungle Flat was all about.
I was wandering home one night from late night drinks at Circus, an Eden Village café. The road I lived on was poorly lit, and since it was a murky winter night the area was near black. About halfway down the road it bends in a z shape and in the corner there is a dodgy park that is frequented by various half-lifes who go there to smoke weed and P or whatever with their douchebag friends. I wandered past and heard a yelling in the distance. I stopped and looked into the darkness. There seemed to be nobody there so I put it down to my imagination. I was about two hundred metres from my house when a car careened around the corner and stopped abruptly about twenty metres in front of me. A guy about my height wearing a hoodie swaggered toward me. It took me about three seconds for my brain to register an important piece of information, I was about to become a mugging victim. The little shit grabbed me with one hand and held his other arm behind his back.
“Give me your fucking phone” he demanded.
If my throat hadn’t completely seized up from the shock of the situation I would possibly have laughed a little bit. I have one of those crappy phones that were made light-years ago. It couldn’t connect you to the internet, start your car, or wash your dishes. The only ‘extra’ it had was quite a powerful torch function, which has come in handy many times over the years. Anyhow it certainly wasn’t going to get these guys rich after they had flogged it off, if indeed they could trick anyone into buying the bugger. I handed it to him. He still had his hand hidden behind his back and I wasn’t going to take any chances. This cheap piece of plastic and electronics certainly wasn’t worth losing my teeth over. And anyway, fighting would have been pointless. Criminals are inherently cowards and travel in packs. There were three others in the car. I wouldn’t have stood a chance. He grabbed the phone and scampered back to the car, which screamed off, past the Epsom Bowling Club, and into the night.
Okay. So here I was, minus one phone, but otherwise completely untouched. I quickened my pace back to the safety of the Jungle. I was about one hundred metres from home when I heard a roar behind me. They were back. Only one thought rang through my mind:
“Fuck. I am about to die.”
I nearly pooed my pants. Nearly, because I knew that soiling myself would not help the situation. I clenched my butt cheeks and readied myself for whatever was about to happen next. This is when the story gets good.
The rolled about fifty metres ahead of me and stopped. A big brown dude with an afro leapt up off the drivers seat and yelled at me, and I quote:
“Bro, your phone is too shit.”
Then the guy in the passengers seat opened his door, placed my phone gently on the road, and the troupe once again sped off into the distance. I waddled up to where they had placed it and picked it up. I couldn’t believe what I was holding. I had my phone back. And like myself it was completely untouched.
With adrenaline pounding through my system I ran back to the Jungle and called the cops. They only took about forty-five minutes to come around. Which meant the criminals could have already driven it to Huntly. I guess it’s the thought that counts, and for the Auckland Public forty-five minutes is a dream run. There was a loud rap on the door causing one of the art-pieces in the hall to hastily come off its hinges. I opened the door and two burly policemen stormed inside, radios blazing. I led them through the darkened house into the dining room. I go to switch on the light and nothing happens. That was odd. I looked up and noticed that the green/pink-tinted bulbs had disappeared. I was later to found out that one of the flatmates (who shall remain unidentified) had nicked them and put them in her own room to set the mood for a romantic evening with her latest crush. So here I was, standing in the dark, with two bemused armored cops. One of them, obviously the thinker of the pair, took his torch (which looked liked it could kill a deer), and placed it upright on the trick-table. With a click he turned it on and the room was filled with a glaring light that filled every crack and corner. Those things have some serious kick. With the newfound ability to see what we were doing, the police could now finally begin to take my statement. Apparently I was attacked by a gang of six-foot Mob members, who were armed to teeth with knives, and guns and all sorts of horrible devices of death and destruction (my imagination tends to get the better of me). With the i’s dotted, t’s crossed, ‘facts’ all taken down, and offers of tea and/or coffee turned down, my two new law-enforcing friends disappeared into the night, probably already at least an hour late for their next assault call-out.
The second story has less to do with me, and everything to do with the very real personality of the Jungle Flat. One particular weekend a group of friends had come up from Wellington and were using the house to eat, sleep, shower, all the general necessities. It was Saturday morning and a few of us were bantering in the dining room. Suddenly there was a crash from elsewhere in the house. Seconds later Toby, (or was it Craig?), wandered in with what looked like a serious case of dandruff coating his head and shoulders, and carrying a large piece of plaster. He then sat down next to me in the rickety-fluffy-pink-chair and starting a conversation with me as if the situation was anything but ludicrous. I dusted some of the plaster off his shoulder and asked him what the hell had happened. Apparently as he was walking under the stairwell a square metre chunk of it had fallen off and straight onto his head. A freak accident? Or something more sinister? I think that the Jungle is mostly benevolent, but does have a bit of a mean streak. If it doesn’t like you, it will fall on you. I guess the Jungle didn’t take a liking to him. I don’t know why. He’s a top guy.
****
“Have you got everything?” my Dad asked.
I snapped out of my nostalgic daydream and replied, “To the best of my knowledge”. It later turned out that my knowledge had some gaping holes in it.
I was going to miss the Jungle Flat, and Auckland in general. My time spent there had been incredible and both the place and its people have been burned into my heart forever. With a teary eye I got into the passengers seat and my father drove us out of the city. I said cute little goodbyes to the familiar places and landscape as we drifted by. We hit the Southern Motorway. This was it. The start of a new adventure.
All rights reserved by the author. 2009.
‘This is something I will never tell my Mother about.’
****
Somehow I had managed to land a summer job in Hamilton. Which was great. As a student money is this sort of glowing substance that you only ever see on music videos or very briefly as it swoops from some magical government bank account into your own and then immediately into that of your landlord (who you will never, ever meet). This job would mean that I could finally have some of my very own. Which I could then stuff in my anemic looking wallet and use to embark on another student myth, known as Spending Money On Stuff That Isn’t Rent. However there was a slight problem. I had vowed to never live in Hamilton again. It was with this issue in mind that I had left my cosy Mt Eden flat to walk for some reason or another down to the city. Over the course of the forty-minute plod a very attractive solution had worked its way out of the bowels of my mind.
I would move to Raglan.
I mean why not? The place was fantastic. At least it sure beat Hamilton. The waves. The sun. The parties. It would be the summer of my life!
I didn’t know the half of it.
As it was only mid-year and very much still winter I pushed the idea back into the mind-bowels and continued doing whatever the hell I was doing back then. It wasn’t until the middle of exam season that I gave it another thought. It was then that I realised I had barely one week left until I would be effectively homeless in a strange faraway town. I had a friend who once stayed in a cave north of Auckland. He told me it was the way to go. I tend to pace when I get excited about something and after four laps of my flat I eventually laid the idea to rest. It would have been amazing. But firstly I didn’t know if there were any caves in the area and secondly, four months is a long time to live underground with no electricity, sanitation or Facebook. I desperately needed somewhere to live. So I did the sensible thing and began trawling around online until I found an option.
“Waitetuna Valley Road: we are situated on a beautiful organic lifestyle property half way between Hamilton and Raglan. $60 a week. We also share the land with 20 chickens, 4 goats, 2 pigs, 1 dog and 1 cat” the advertisement stated.
Old Macdonald had a farm. And it was in Waitetuna. I was running out of time. It was dirt-cheap. I took the number and left a message.
A couple of days later I found myself at an acoustic gig at the Wine Cellar on K Rd. I was busy admiring the Blonde Brigade that for the last month, for some reason had been stalking my every social movement (I wasn’t complaining). Suddenly my unstealable cellphone (more on that later) started titillating me through my right pocket. The combination of skinny jeans and phones seem to have that effect on me (I’m not complaining about that either). I scampered out of the darkened bar and took the call. What I met was more high-speed car chase than conversation.
“Hiitsanitayoucalledaboutthehouse.”
“Er. Pardon?”
“Yeahitsanitafromwaitetunayouleftamessage.”
“Um. It’s quite loud in a here. I’m having trouble hearing you.”
There was nothing wrong with the sound level. She just had that annoying way of speaking that reminds you of a barrage of machine guns. Not unlike the sound that comes out of the rooms of my nerdy Hobson Heights flatmates. Every single night. (Poor guys.)
After about five minutes of conversation with Ms Gunfire I extracted the information I needed. I had a place to live. One email and one phone call and I had a place to live. I really, really hoped it was going to work out. With that weight off my mind I sat my last exams and prepared to leave Auckland for my big adventure.
****
With all my earthly possessions packed into the car I took one last wander around the Jungle Flat. The run down house just outside of Mt Eden Village had been my home for the better part of a year and I was a little sad to be leaving. It was one of those flats that develop their own legend due to their inherent awesomeness. In this case the Jungle Flat is known for its general quirkiness and the sheer amount of interesting people that have flowed over its rotting porch over the years. The reason it is called the Jungle is simply because it has one. Twenty years ago the back yard was a beautiful, albeit typical Epsom villa garden. Twenty years ago people stopped caring about it. It is now its very own urban-tropical rainforest. You can go so deep into it that all you see is trees and foliage and the occasional chimpanzee. At the edge of the forest is a cottage, which is reminiscent of the one in Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, or the Gingerbread Cottage in Hansel and Gretel. Whatever your take on it, the outdoor portion of the Jungle Flat could be found in any typical fairy story. If you go in there at night there is a good chance some kind of witch/troll/other mythical creature will kidnap you and steal your clothes. That would just be awkward. Don’t go in there at night.
The house itself is just as unique. I would suggest that every single part of it is either broken or has had a recent fix-up attempted on it. Either way the chances of it working properly for you are about as high as outrunning the centaur that lives in the far corner of the garden. Before you even get inside you’ll find the sensor light will not light your way (which actually led to stalker problems), the old fridge that grew a layer of mould while in the kitchen (it certain didn’t keep your food fresh) and the door knob that would fall off the second you touched it.
Once you had managed to trick the flat into letting you in, it just got even crappier. There was no carpet in the hall, which is really great in winter, and if there was wallpaper it was threatening to join the rest of it, which had peeled off and disintegrated some fifty years earlier. From there you went through the make shift door (an old bed sheet) and into the living room. There you were confronted with this bizarre piece of ‘art’ which was apparently ‘very expensive’ but to me it looked like a depraved toddler had been let loose in the supply closet of a high school art class. Again the wallpaper was spiraling toward the floor and the furniture consisted of three very ratty looking couches. And by ratty I mean a colony of rats could very well have been living inside them.
From there you stepped down into the kitchen/dining room area (through a real door this time). The kitchen was all you would expect. If there were cupboard doors, they would fall off when you tried to open them. The drawers would be touch-and-go to as whether they would open for you or not. I have already mentioned the ‘fridge’. Directly across from there lies the bathroom. I would probably puke a little if I tried describing it to you so I will save us both the horridness of it. The dining room was in a similar state to the lounge, with a couple of interesting additions. Firstly it had a revolving table which seems classy. Of course it wasn’t due to the fact that the tabletop was in no way connected to its base. Any attempt to use it would result in your spaghetti bolognese blending into the already stained carpet. The only way to overcome this difficulty was to have an even number of people eating at it to balance the forces of your respective dinners. Even this didn’t guarantee anything. The other amazing feature of the dining room was the ceiling. It was bright green and at nighttime the little critters would positively glow. If you end up having dinner in there (after navigating the logistical nightmare of the table) whatever you do, don’t look up. We have now reached the rear of the house. From here you must attempt to get through the ranch slider door, which will of course be stuck, and end up on the deck which overlooks the forest. The deck and adjoining stairs are made of pieces of rotting timber, if, indeed, they are actually there. Many ankles have more than likely been snapped over the years due to the missing boards. Also, never try and go down the stairs in slippers when wet. Tried that. It isn’t worth it.
At the bottom of the stairs lies the Dungeon, which stored the washing machine, other miscellaneous crap that has been accumulated over the last two hundreds and oddly enough, caked in a thick layer of dust, a lone bottle of ancient Corona (which disappeared about mid way through the year.) The Dungeon is also home to a grumpy gnome who was banished from the Jungle by the other fairies. Just kidding. Anyway, despite the complete shittiness of the place, the Jungle Flat was my home and I loved it.
And that’s because the physical attributes of the flat were only half the story. It’s always the people that make a place and I definitely shared the Jungle with a few characters. There was Anna, who was an advertising guru and also doubled as my relationship consultant. Ben was my roommate who had been there at the Jungle as long as anyone can remember. He studied jewelry, and to be honest, he was rather quirky. Jono was a television news personality. He lived in the Gingerbread Cottage and gave me some of my best laughs over the year. Romelli was from Peru; artist, musician, filmmaker and very good friend. Last but not least was Michelle. Michelle looked like Amy Winehouse (but unlike Amy, is a well functioning person). She studied right next door. Because yes, once you put on your David Livingstone boots and macheted your way through the undergrowth, the University of Auckland lay just across what remained of the fence. (It took me almost six months of sweaty exploration to obtain this information.) At one point we even had a cute, but very smelly ginger kitten, which would entertain us with her antics. With this little band of characters I journeyed through the experience that was the Jungle.
I could tell a thousand stories about my time there. In fact I could write a novel about the experience. But since this story is about my wonderful summer and not The Jungle Book (I went there) I will just tell a couple. I have entitled them The Untheivable Phone and The Stairwell Strikes Back and in their own way they sum up what the Jungle Flat was all about.
I was wandering home one night from late night drinks at Circus, an Eden Village café. The road I lived on was poorly lit, and since it was a murky winter night the area was near black. About halfway down the road it bends in a z shape and in the corner there is a dodgy park that is frequented by various half-lifes who go there to smoke weed and P or whatever with their douchebag friends. I wandered past and heard a yelling in the distance. I stopped and looked into the darkness. There seemed to be nobody there so I put it down to my imagination. I was about two hundred metres from my house when a car careened around the corner and stopped abruptly about twenty metres in front of me. A guy about my height wearing a hoodie swaggered toward me. It took me about three seconds for my brain to register an important piece of information, I was about to become a mugging victim. The little shit grabbed me with one hand and held his other arm behind his back.
“Give me your fucking phone” he demanded.
If my throat hadn’t completely seized up from the shock of the situation I would possibly have laughed a little bit. I have one of those crappy phones that were made light-years ago. It couldn’t connect you to the internet, start your car, or wash your dishes. The only ‘extra’ it had was quite a powerful torch function, which has come in handy many times over the years. Anyhow it certainly wasn’t going to get these guys rich after they had flogged it off, if indeed they could trick anyone into buying the bugger. I handed it to him. He still had his hand hidden behind his back and I wasn’t going to take any chances. This cheap piece of plastic and electronics certainly wasn’t worth losing my teeth over. And anyway, fighting would have been pointless. Criminals are inherently cowards and travel in packs. There were three others in the car. I wouldn’t have stood a chance. He grabbed the phone and scampered back to the car, which screamed off, past the Epsom Bowling Club, and into the night.
Okay. So here I was, minus one phone, but otherwise completely untouched. I quickened my pace back to the safety of the Jungle. I was about one hundred metres from home when I heard a roar behind me. They were back. Only one thought rang through my mind:
“Fuck. I am about to die.”
I nearly pooed my pants. Nearly, because I knew that soiling myself would not help the situation. I clenched my butt cheeks and readied myself for whatever was about to happen next. This is when the story gets good.
The rolled about fifty metres ahead of me and stopped. A big brown dude with an afro leapt up off the drivers seat and yelled at me, and I quote:
“Bro, your phone is too shit.”
Then the guy in the passengers seat opened his door, placed my phone gently on the road, and the troupe once again sped off into the distance. I waddled up to where they had placed it and picked it up. I couldn’t believe what I was holding. I had my phone back. And like myself it was completely untouched.
With adrenaline pounding through my system I ran back to the Jungle and called the cops. They only took about forty-five minutes to come around. Which meant the criminals could have already driven it to Huntly. I guess it’s the thought that counts, and for the Auckland Public forty-five minutes is a dream run. There was a loud rap on the door causing one of the art-pieces in the hall to hastily come off its hinges. I opened the door and two burly policemen stormed inside, radios blazing. I led them through the darkened house into the dining room. I go to switch on the light and nothing happens. That was odd. I looked up and noticed that the green/pink-tinted bulbs had disappeared. I was later to found out that one of the flatmates (who shall remain unidentified) had nicked them and put them in her own room to set the mood for a romantic evening with her latest crush. So here I was, standing in the dark, with two bemused armored cops. One of them, obviously the thinker of the pair, took his torch (which looked liked it could kill a deer), and placed it upright on the trick-table. With a click he turned it on and the room was filled with a glaring light that filled every crack and corner. Those things have some serious kick. With the newfound ability to see what we were doing, the police could now finally begin to take my statement. Apparently I was attacked by a gang of six-foot Mob members, who were armed to teeth with knives, and guns and all sorts of horrible devices of death and destruction (my imagination tends to get the better of me). With the i’s dotted, t’s crossed, ‘facts’ all taken down, and offers of tea and/or coffee turned down, my two new law-enforcing friends disappeared into the night, probably already at least an hour late for their next assault call-out.
The second story has less to do with me, and everything to do with the very real personality of the Jungle Flat. One particular weekend a group of friends had come up from Wellington and were using the house to eat, sleep, shower, all the general necessities. It was Saturday morning and a few of us were bantering in the dining room. Suddenly there was a crash from elsewhere in the house. Seconds later Toby, (or was it Craig?), wandered in with what looked like a serious case of dandruff coating his head and shoulders, and carrying a large piece of plaster. He then sat down next to me in the rickety-fluffy-pink-chair and starting a conversation with me as if the situation was anything but ludicrous. I dusted some of the plaster off his shoulder and asked him what the hell had happened. Apparently as he was walking under the stairwell a square metre chunk of it had fallen off and straight onto his head. A freak accident? Or something more sinister? I think that the Jungle is mostly benevolent, but does have a bit of a mean streak. If it doesn’t like you, it will fall on you. I guess the Jungle didn’t take a liking to him. I don’t know why. He’s a top guy.
****
“Have you got everything?” my Dad asked.
I snapped out of my nostalgic daydream and replied, “To the best of my knowledge”. It later turned out that my knowledge had some gaping holes in it.
I was going to miss the Jungle Flat, and Auckland in general. My time spent there had been incredible and both the place and its people have been burned into my heart forever. With a teary eye I got into the passengers seat and my father drove us out of the city. I said cute little goodbyes to the familiar places and landscape as we drifted by. We hit the Southern Motorway. This was it. The start of a new adventure.
All rights reserved by the author. 2009.
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