So we parted ways with our Canadian friends outside our hostel in Dunedin, exchanging numbers with the promise of meeting up. J, the driver, had told me en route that he lived in a dilapidated old bus with a superb view. I was intrigued – this is the kind of authentically bohemian existence I dream about – and I arranged to hang out with them the following day, and have some delicious food, and crash the night on this crazy bus they spoke so highly of. My wallet gave a little sigh of relief.
That evening A and I went for a stroll round the town, to check out the cinema and find somewhere to get dinner. We managed to strike up a rather fiery debate; A was dismissive of the Scots’ call for independence and, as a half-Scot with a father deeply in favour of – as Mel Gibson put it – FREEDOM, I found myself arguing against accusations of pettiness and nationalism bordering on/paving the way for racism.
3 hours, 2 curries, 2 Devils Advocates and maybe a bucket of saliva later, we both collapsed (exhausted) into bed.
Next day the Canadian boys were predictably relaxed about timing, and I spent the morning haunting the kitchen/TV area of the Central Backpackers, the ghost of a former customer. Someone thought Black Hawk Down would make appropriate breakfast viewing, and so we endured severed limbs with our muesli, as Somalia throbbed on screen in violent shades of blood.
There’s something about watching DVDs in the daytime – especially before noon – that makes me feel utterly nauseous. Perhaps New Year’s Day (or any significant hangover) can be the exception. One is generally already feeling nauseous.
Anyway, I ventured again onto the streets of Dunedin, leaving my stuff at the hostel, to enjoy a stroll in the sunshine and keep out of mischief. On the far side of town was a grassy space called the ‘Oval’ where a Gypsy Fayre was set up. It was like a utopia of trinkets and caravans, with a sign saying ‘Wooden Things’ and a band of Rastas playing bluesy folk numbers.
I got a text from J saying they’d be at the hostel shortly, so I headed back. I was lugging my case down the hostel stairs just as they pulled up and pip-pipped.
We went to the beach, where the guys donned their wetsuits and went for a surf, while I enjoyed the excessive attentions of a wet dog brandishing a branch of seaweed, and read my book during seaweed-lobbing intervals.
Dinner was totally vegetarian in honour of A (I eat seafood and bloody loves it) who had been invited but (and I obviously kept schtum on this, er… until now, I guess) wasn’t interested for fear of ‘wine and seduction’. I was not deterred from embarking on my adventure – pah! – and felt like old friends with the lovely Canadian lads within 5 minutes.
When we got up to the bus, the sky was all colours of summery sweetness and flowers, and the mist hung low in the valley (the next morning I realised that it was actually the sea down there). C and myself set to work on the ‘fire bath’, which I quickly learned was a bath with a fire beneath it to heat the water, and J had made us a scrumptious dinner feast by the time we had got the fire going. It took a good half an hour for the water to reach bathing temperature, which was enough time to eat, drink and be merry. J hopped in his bath, and C and I played some guitar indoors before deciding it would be awesome if you were having a fire bath and some people came to serenade you. It was a balmy evening by New Zealand standards, and we sat on the wooden step outside the ‘Emergency Exit’, singing to the sky, the moon, the clouds, the stars, the possums, and each other. I have never seen so many shooting stars in my life; they would grow hot and quiver, and then blaze through the still, sparse clouds; it was quite beautiful.
The next morning I found out that A had been texted and agreed to join us for a trip to another beach, where there might be sea lions and penguins. Allans Beach, perhaps? Argh, I forget…
So with A and a picnic on board, we set off. The boys surfed (surf, surf, surf – it’s a way of life apparently) and we went off looking for wildlife. Saw 2 penguins snuggling between some rocks, thanks to an old, dribbly local (an old ‘bocker’ as they say in Somerset) who pointed them out, and a sleeping fur seal a little further along.
A was easily persuaded to join the bus community for the evening – we were awesome, how could anyone not? – and spent the night in the camper van. We were supposed to leave the following morning and hitch our way to Christchurch but J & A’s excursion into town to recover A’s belongings before the 10am check-out turned into a total disappearing act, so I gathered we were stopping another night. That was fine by me, I was quite at my leisure; the view was almost too beautiful to bear, and free accommodation is not something I’m inclined to turn my nose up at.
I took this opportunity, while people were off making and doing, to experience a wash in a hot tin bath. It was bliss. I couldn’t hear a thing, except the crackling of the fire beneath me, the lapping of water on my skin, and the wind blowing my wet hair into curls. And all the time, stretched out in front of me as if purely to be marvelled at, was the most exquisite panoramic view, over hills and ocean and sky.
After a few hours of abandonment (“back in an hour” they’d texted almost 2 hours ago!) C and I got bratty, ate all the chocolate, and walked down the road to see the (only) neighbour for a cup of tea. He had a 5-month-old Golden Labrador and a gorgeous wooden house he was building himself. Quite enough to merit stopping an hour or so. Leisure.
When we got back to the bus, J & A had returned to find a spotless kitchen (yes, I was bored) and the empty chocolate wrappers. So ner. They were sorry, though, and we all hopped in the van to visit [insert place-name when you remember what it was...] and do some daredevil yoga atop a steep cliff, with tangled masses of seaweed writhing in the rocky waters below. I did the only headstand. And handstand. And cart-wheel. Go ME.
The next morning, Tuesday 6th, although I wouldn’t have been able to tell you that, we had lush garlicky scrambled eggs on toast with spinach from the garden, before a last trip in the van to be ditched outside a petrol station on the road to Christchurch. Time to move on.
We were first picked up, after devouring a few sickly biscuits bought at the gas station, and a trip to the loo each, by an Israeli man and a woman who was probably his wife, his mother, or his sister. Or all three…? Who knows. They took us as far as Oamaru, where we had a spot of picky-lunch (i.e. houmous and carrots and nuts and rice crackers). After about 20 minutes of thumbs out, we were then picked up by a very sweet chap from Alicante, called Carlos. He said he’d take us all the way to Christchurch. Not realising I’d heard him through the open boot, A relayed this information to me as, “he’ll take us as far as Kraicha, wherever that is…”
Well, we made it there safe and sound.
