A Ferry, a Coach and a Feijoa Frenzy

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Early next morning we boarded the big inter islander ferry for the several hour journey to the South Island. Not being the best ferry passengers in the world (due to a propensity for nausea, not because we’re antisocial or disobey all the rules – although it was me who got shouted at – twice – over the loud speaker on the Sydney Harbour ferry for standing up on the top open deck to take photos) (what do they expect? It’s Sydney Harbour and all I could see were people’s heads…). Anyway, we found we could upgrade to the “executive lounge” for the same price as they were charging for a breakfast and midday scones and coffee in cattle class – and in the “special lounge” you got comfy seats and breakfast, coffee and scones and muffins and cold drinks al for free. And no children. And newspapers and 2 year old copies of Top Gear magazine. And you got to look like posh people to all the poor people outside on the deck. A few of them looked in at the windows and I waved and thought that their lack of response was because they are classist and objected to our comfy seats and free Top Gear mags. No one responded at all. Not to little furtive waves or even grander ones. Halfway through the trip I went out onto the deck to mingle with the poor and saw that it was one way glass in the windows. You,could see out, but not in. They’d been looking at their own reflections and couldn’t see in to the luxurious innards of the “luxury lounge”. Probably just as well as a riot may have ensued if they saw the decadence in which we wallowed.

After a pretty voyage and duly fortified by a lot of free scones – though not really proper scones, more like biscuits but they were free, the ferry dropped us at Picton, a place as picturesque as a sneeze.

Fortunately, a coach was there to jump onto and travel down the coast to Christchurch.

There is a fairly random list of things you are allowed and not allowed on this coach. It’s displayed prominently on the walls and the driver also helpfully read it through to all of us before we set off. Among many other things, you are not allowed to have any hot drinks and nor are you allowed any form of hot food. You are, however, allowed cold drinks and cold food. So I’m wondering if it’s OK if you have hot food and wait a while…

You are allowed sandwiches, but you are not allowed fruit. And no milk shakes.

I’m not sure where they stand on feijoa smoothies – for I have bought one by mistake. I got it in Picton, so maybe it was getting me back for insulting it. A feijoa is a fruit much grown in New Zealand. I think its name is Maori for “Yuk.”

I mistakenly bought a bottle of Feijoa Frenzy because it looked to all intents and purposes like it was cloudy apple juice. It comes to something when you have to imitate something else in order to sell your evil foodstuff to an unsuspecting public.

I would never have bought one knowingly. We were first fed feijoas at the monastery. I”m sure they thought they were being kind: I thought I must have done something terribly wrong for which they were punishing me.

Have you ever had a feijoa?

You would remember.

They look innocuous enough – they are small and green and soft, a bit like Kermit the Frog. But imagine Kermit the Frog’s psychotic evil twin who has a taser gun and a mallet. Sure, he’d look just like Kermit, and just like Kermit he’d be all green and small and soft and friendly – but as soon as you took a bite out of him….

That’s the same with feijoas.

(I just woke Ella up to tell her I’d spotted a sheep. I thought it was funny. She didn’t.)

If someone was fed only on toenails and mud – if that was their sole diet and all they had ever eaten and then, say, after ten years of that diet they were given bread to eat I’m sure they would devour the loaf or bun or bap or French stick and ask for more, amazed at having a different flavour to savour. Now imagine the same initial scenario, but after ten years of toenails and mud they were given a feijoa to eat.

They would spit it out.

I cannot see how people eat them – they taste of something between Ralgex and Deep Heat. You eat them and you are eating a rugby changing room.

I think they are only endured in New Zealand as the small print around the bottom of the label reads: “One day the world will recognise the glory of the feijoa. Until then, they’re all ours.”

Please, please keep them.

All of them.

 (The offending article)

If a barman ever offers you the choice of a feijoa juice or a smack in the head the correct response would be: “Hit me.”

If he then starts pouring the juice: “No. I meant hit me!”

Opt for the punch.

A flurry of punches if need be.

We’re heading down to Christchurch where we’ll be picking up the camper van. The man three seats ahead of us needs to learn how to put things properly on the overhead shelf. In the last ten minutes first, a coat fell down onto his head, (picked up and put in between him and the lady traveling with him). Then a drink bottle (hope it’s not contraband – if it’s a milkshake the driver’s going to duff him up). And just now a smart phone with an emergency charger attached (I know what they look like now as we bought two of them and then accidentally rendered them useless by throwing away the leads that connect them to our phones and iPads). Right onto his head. A little bit painful and a little but funny for everyone else. Every time we go round a sharp right hand bend something else comes down. Stuff must be balanced up there like those coins in the arcade machines. Why doesn’t he re-pack it all – or bring it all down?

The reason for the sharp bends and cascade of possessions is that we’re zig zagging through stunning mountainous passes. I want to look out of the window, but I also don’t want to miss what’s going to fall next. (Ella’s being my “spotter” while I write this.)

As I got off the coach I confessed to the driver that I’d been in possession of a contraband item. He said what sort. I said fruit. He said what fruit. I said a feijoa smoothie. He said that was fine.

It’s not though.

Ngatiawa River Monastery

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I know everyone said that New Zealand would beat most other places hands down for the sheer beauty of its countryside – they also say that seeing is believing. Well, lordy, I believe! Especially South Island. (Sorry, north island! but you totally know it.) North and South Islands are like twins, one of whom got the brains and the other got the looks. Over time they drifted apart. Northy was industrious and clever and cultured and Southy got by by being drop dead gorgeous.

There are loads of those mountains that look like they’ve been concertina’d together – as if God had been designing bits of the world while driving in the back of his parents’ camper van and when he was making New Zealand they went over a cattle grid.

Or like those Chinese Shar-Pei dogs, wearing a hand me down skin from a far fatter older brother and who’s then run into the wall face first too many times. Not a good look in dogs, but a brilliant look in mountain ranges.

New Zealanders seem to be happy enough and their accent is almost the same as English except for an inability to pronounce a short e so that seven is pronounced sivn, heaven is hivn and Dennis is dinnis.

And it seems obligatory that once in every sentence they say a word which sounds like it’s taken them totally by surprise. The word itself fits in with the meaning of the sentence – it’s just a regular word among other regular words, but the way they say it it sounds as if they’ve no idea where it came from not what it’s doing coming out of their mouth.

But apart from that they seem pretty normal. And they don’t seem to have regional accents. Nor, thinking about it did the Aussies which, considering the massive distances between some Australian cities seems incomprehensible, or, in New Zealandish, incomprihinsibil.

Anyway, to backtrack to our month spent in the new monastic community on North Island….

Having got ourselves, via gallant middle-aged hitch hiking down to Waikanae (small town about an hour north of Wellington, down in the southern end of North Island) we were picked up by John, one of the full time members of community at the River Monastery and driven up the valley to the remote and beautiful Ngatiawa (pronounced Nattyarwa), nestled in the mountains with a river running by although, on the day we arrived there had literally been a river running through it as it had been raining hard for a few days, the rivers were swollen and a pallet had become wedged in a culvert at the top of the property and caused an overflow that washed much of the drive away.

We would be there for 4 weeks and at the outset had very little idea of what went on, who the people were, what we were going to do and whether there’d be any strange rituals we might have to join in with. (We’d come armed with the words to On Ilkley Moor Baht ‘At just in case we got engaged in a cultural sing-off so felt pretty well prepared.)

Ngatiawa is permanent home to about 16 people and temporary home to anywhere from a few to a dozen extras and up to 60 or more for some weekend church groups or camping parties. People are constantly coming for a couple of days or so to reflect, to pray, to talk things through, to have space. And it’s a perfect place for all those things.

In the main building is a large communal kitchen where most of life takes place, a lounge area and a largish hall space which fulfils various uses. The permanent residents either have their own small houses on site or else rooms in the main buildings and there is a variety of other accommodation for those staying short-term. They are self sufficient in many vegetables and fruits and occasionally the number of cows decreases by a factor of one and this tends to be followed shortly by the freezers becoming full. There is an excellent verandah for sitting on, a large prayer labyrinth shared with sheep and a big trampoline which Ella and I had a very unsuccessful attempt at an Olympic-quality synchronised doubles routine.


(The trampoline at Ngagiawa – excellent item for feeling like you’re getting closer to God)

The day is based around and given its rhythm by three services in the small chapel. Morning prayer at 8.15, Midday prayer at noon and Evening prayer at 7.15. The singing is all unaccompanied and there will be 5 or 6 short songs sung at each service, which are intended to be easy to lick up; Taize style chants and Ngatiawa’s own penned hymns and a fair number of Maori songs. There is no talking in the chapel (apart from the liturgy) and shoes are removed at the door – it feels a very special space and the times within (especially the singing and the extended silences) were definite highlights for me.

Apart from the regular pattern of services the large kitchen table is often where stuff happens. Meals will be for between 14 and 30, usually, and those preparing will often have limited idea as to how many will actually be there in the end. Most things are organised on a rota basis and it seems to work incredibly well. The people here are committed to live out a calling of hospitality, “for the lost, the last and the least” but they’ll also take in anyone who thinks they’re outside any of those categories too.

It was so good to be there for a month and to see behind the scenes, as it were. There is a genuine spirit of caring and generous and gracious sharing. Put a request up on the chalk board and it will be answered! “Anyone got a car we could borrow to go into Wellington tomorrow?” Boom – a choice of three. “Anyone fancying putting up fences tomorrow afternoon, help would be appreciated.” And there were volunteers. The magical chalk board always seemed to get results.

Every Thursday evening they have “tea party”, a tradition that stretches back many years – when Ngatiawa welcomes members from a local L’arche community with whom they have strong ties. L’arche is an international federation of homes and small communities in which able bodied and those with intellectual disabilities live, sharing life together and building community.

I had one of those moments in chapel the first Thursday evening when, in the candle pierced darkness, an effort-filled, determination-fuelled, almost strangulated voice began reading the next part of the liturgy and in a shameful slap to the cheek moment I realised my surprise at hearing that one of the ladies with whom I’d shared a meal just minutes before was able to do far more than my ignorant stupidity and lazy pre-judging had assumed. She has cerebral palsy and until you become tuned in to it, her pattern of speech is very difficult to understand.

In chapel I understood the words she was saying because I knew what the words were: they were written down in the liturgy. Conversation with her at the table had been difficult because there were fresh sentences coming from her and I couldn’t find enough words in them that I could understand in order to interpret the whole – (not, I’m ashamed to say, that I tried too hard) but my response to not being able to understand was to lazily assume she had the mental ability of a young child rather than a much more able minded adult whose verbal messages just happen to get hijacked by a bastard disease on the journey between brain and the muscles of her mouth and tongue.

One of the songs we sang that evening is from the L’arche Community song book and has the words: “Broken, all of us broken, all of us loved, all of us loved. Travel, each of us travel, companions together walking the way. Beauty, discovering beauty, lighting the darkness surprising us all.”

I had made wrong assumptions. Bad assumptions. Assumptions which showed more brokenness in me, than in her.

While we were there there were youth groups, church groups, a school 5th and 6th Form and maybe 20 – 30 families, couples or individuals who spent time there too.

I’ve been hoovering round my mind trying to think of things to take the mickey out of about the River Monastery for I occasionally accidentally do that – but there really isn’t anything to latch onto. This, to me, probably speaks more loudly than anything else of the genuineness of the people there.

People who deeply cared for one another and also gave out to those who came in. We need very little to have enough. We all too easily convince ourselves we need more.

Of course, there was a variety of other people who came in and out of our lives over those 4 weeks as they stayed for a night or two. Lots of wonderful people, among them a smattering of the mad and the sad and the lonely and the lost. Some very self-contained and some who were, to put it mildly, pastoral black holes and the people on community tag-teamed looking after them because, well, sometimes you’ve just got to do that.

It was a profound time. For Ella and for me. A profound space and place. At times the curtain between heaven and earth was very very thin.

It will remain a place with which my spirit rests softly and closely.


(The view from our room, a little hut on the hill. Perfect.)

Tasmania II

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Long time no post………      Lots of blank space where blog posts should be. 

Apologies if you were hanging on in eager anticipation of another post, and major apologies (and awed congratulations) if you have been holding your breath, but I have simply been woefully tardy – so, in order to catch up with where we are now, I’ll add some catch-up  snippets – otherwise I’ll just fall further and further behind.
Think of it as a smorgasbord, or at least a snack buffet. 
Hope there’s something you like and that it’s not all tomato and celery (foods of the evil one) 
There will probably be three or four posts put on together rather than one hoolying great big long one.
Tasmania II
So, we were in Tasmania. And we were realising that a lot of Australia is stolen. Certainly a lot of the place names are swiped from the UK, maybe out of some strange sense of nostalgia for the country which banished them forever to the other side of the world. We stayed a week not far from Derby and St Helens, neither of which look much like their UK namesakes. The Sheffield in Tasmania has palm trees – and when we stayed the night in Swansea (tiny coastal town – all the restaurants close at 8pm and the town’s free wifi gets switched on and off by the lady in the local Information Office each day “in case the internet gets used up”!) we noticed a large sign proudly celebrating that it won the title of “Australia’s Tidiest Town, 2007”! There, Welsh Swansea, beat that!
I like it that Australia has a tidiest town competition. Brits have “Village in Bloom” and “City of Culture” whereas the Australians are happy so long as it’s tidy. 
Quite a few of the towns in Tasmania seem to have a particular “specialism”. There’s Railton, which is known as Topiary town on account of its many sculptured hedges: there’s Sheffield, the “Town of murals” and the awesome “Town of the painted poles” (Lilydale). You have got to wonder what kind of town meeting they had that ended up deciding that this would be the best thing they could become famous for.
“OK everybody, we all know people are flocking to Railton to see their fancy-dancy topiary, and the murals are all well and good for “Look at us, we paint on walls” Sheffield, I’ve seen scarecrows appearing in the gardens of some of the towns – so we need to get creative – we need an edge – something that sets us apart. Think, everybody think harder than you’ve ever thought before. We need something that will catapult us to the top of the “reasons to visit a small town that’s not necessarily on the way to anywhere we were actually going to” list.
(Sound of the occasional chair scraping and people heavy thinking) 

(Finally…..) “Well, I’ve got three bits of fence post I could paint.”

“Ooooohhhh” “like it!” “Yes!” “We could use different colours” “Brilliant – let’s do it people!”

We drove through Lilydale, town of the painted posts – but we didn’t see any. Come on Lilydaleites, get your poles out.
There is also a tiny village called “Nowhere Else”. What an awesome name.
Not sure, when you think about it, why they didn’t just call it “Here”.
Finally, the famous (around these parts) Doo Town in which most of the houses are named with “Doo” names. In the 1930s someone started the trend when they called their house “Doo I” and then a neighbour changed their house to be called “Doo We” and, perhaps because there is not much to do in the evenings, others followed suit so today there are “Doo” names for most houses. “Doo Little” “Gonna Doo” Doodle Doo” “Love me Doo” and many more adorn the gate posts. (One killjoy has called theirs “Medhurst” but I don’t think they get invited to many parties.)
We didn’t get across to Doo Town, but we did see a duck billed platypus in the wild in a pond, which was nice. 
We spent a few nights in Hobart (second deepest natural harbour in the world, if you’re interested) and while there we managed to drive up the wrong mountain while trying to find the awesome viewpoint which looks down over the city and surrounds. The proper view point is on Mount Wellington, but the mountains weren’t labeled and we headed off, under my skilful navigating, to find it. We drove out of the city and saw a sign for a lookout post and followed the road up and round and up and up and at many of the corners we caught glimpses of another mountain which Ella kept on saying looked higher than the one we were driving up. I am male and therefore my sense of direction and correctness is unerring so I confirmed that we had agreed that whoever was driving had to listen to the navigator and we ploughed on. 
We got to the top of Mount Nelson and couldn’t see much – mainly trees and, if we turned round, a massive mountain towering behind us. So Ella turned the car round and we eventually found the road which led up Mount Wellington. from the top the view was stunning.  
When we flew back from Tasmania to Melbourne it was via JetStar: Jetstar is what the ugly love child would look like if Easyjet and Ryanair had an affair. 

An Argument

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Ella met a lady in a cafe and, in the time it took me to stand dithering at the counter deciding what it might be that Australians call a normal filter coffee she had had a lovely conversation in which it transpired this lady had been on holiday with her husband for 2 weeks and was ready to kill him. At that precise moment he wasn’t there because she had sent him off to look round some gardens as she figured they needed a bit of breathing room. Hearing that we were 10 weeks in to a trip she wondered how on earth we were still talking. 

I guess you can never be fully sure how you are going to get along sharing the same space almost every second of the day for so long. We hit a bit of a barrier last week and had the closest we’ve come to an argument. Some couples argue a lot and shout and make up and get along that way. We tend not to. We don’t really argue. That’s not to say we always see eye to eye and always get on – we just don’t seem to have the necessary pieces to our personalities that would combust when brought together. Sometimes I’m sure that if we both flew off the handle about a particular thing, then made up, we’d end up resolving the matter far quicker than our normal method – our normal method is second guessing the other person. We were probably second, third and fourth guessing one another last week before I let slip with a comment that hadn’t been passed through my normal set of several filters first. So Ella went for a walk to figure what hadn’t been said. (Most people “say” stuff – we more often “don’t say” things which makes it much more tricky but allows for far more wiggle room.) When she came back and made sure I’d eaten – always wise – we figured we were going a little stir crazy and needed to stop trying to think what the other person wanted to do all the time and instead, when asked what I or she would want to do, to say what we actually want to do rather than what we think the other person wants us to say we want them to think we want to do.
It was good to get that cleared up. 
Two months in – one blip. Still learning after 29 years. 

Melbourne

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Melbourne

We flew from Tasmania to Melbourne for a week after which we feel we can scientifically compare the great rival cities of Melbourne and Sydney.
I thought people from Sydney were called Sheila and Wayne, but apparently they’re called Sydneysiders. And one thing that many of them do is to over-exaggeratedly swing their arms when they walk. It was one of those things that, when you point it out you then see all over the place. 
Melbourne had a very different feel. It doesn’t have the wow factor that Sydney has with the harbour, bridge, opera house (and people there keep their arms sensibly close to their bodies), but Melbourne feels much quirkier and characterful. Better cafés and better coffees. And there are free trams in the city centre! 
We went to the cathedral in Melbourne for a Good Friday service – Stainer’s Crucifixion was being sung, primarily by the choir but we were allowed to join in a few hymns. I read that Stainer himself didn’t think much of what he had written. Say what you want about him, he was a good judge.
Watching the news on Easter Day was a little odd compared to the UK as they had quite a long news report on church services and the meaning of Easter and they showed a fair number of interviews with people about why they were at church. It was all done in a relaxed and very natural way – it wouldn’t have been reported nearly so openly in Britain.
On Easter Monday I went to my first Aussie Rules Football game. It’s a sort of cross between rugby, soccer, basketball and a punch up outside a night club. 
I enjoyed it.
It was at the Melbourne Cricket Ground which housed the cricket World Cup final the week before in which Australia beat New Zealand to much antipodean joy and despair. It had been transformed from a cricket pitch to an Aussie Rules pitch by taking the stumps out, drawing a big square and two big semi circles and sticking quite a few goal posts here and there. It was the first game of the season for Hawthorne Hawks, last year’s league winners, against their arch rivals the Geelong Cats. Nearly 80,000 were watching and it seemed a pretty good, if massively one sided game with the Hawks whupping the Cats 123 to 61. 
Basic rules as far as I could make out: you have to try and kick the ball through the middle two of the four goal posts and if you do that you get 6 points but if you only manage to get it between one of the middle and outer posts instead then they give you a point for trying. That’s the encouraging Australian way.
There was a lot of dropping the ball and fumbling after it on the floor and people ran into one another fairly frequently and someone got a bit knocked out. It looked like a Scotland rugby training session. 
I was supporting the Hawks so I can hold my head high. “Go Hawks”.
Teams in various sports often take to the field to the sound of a particularly rousing and emotive song. “We are the champions” or “We will rock you” or something similarly inspiring… If you get the chance, please, please listen to the youtube clips of the anthems for the Hawthorn Hawks and the Geelong Cats. These were what the rough, tough, Aussie rules players came out to on Monday, I kid you not.
For the Hawthorns go to
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cfy4LFWn5Rg

For the Geelong song go to
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukW4VVCV9LQ

Honest – these are what the crowds sing and the players get pumped up to – it was like some bizarre Monty Python sketch. Each of the main league teams have a song of the same ilk. Let the English Premier League take note!!
And, in passing, is it only in Australia that they get to rename the global phenomenon that is McDonald’s? Here, it’s called Macca’s. 

Gotta love Australia. 

 

Hitch Hiking

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Hitch Hiking.

Having flown from Melbourne to Auckland we stayed the night in the 38th different bed since leaving the Rectory in November! And in the morning we set off bright and early to start a three day trip down to the south of North Island. Looking to save money we decided to try our hand at hitch hiking. We had arranged people to stay with for the following two nights in a sort of zig-zag across the country we just needed to get to them using our thumbs.
A brief “How To” guide for getting lifts by standing at the side of the road in New Zealand.
How do you entice people to stop their comfortable cars while they’re driving along and invite two total strangers who might well, for all you know, have issues, fleas, weapons, really irritating laughs or possibly all of the above? Well, being two middle aged would-be hitch hikers (just typed that and the iPad rewrote it as kitsch hikers which is kind of sweet) we thought the best way of getting lifts would be to carry awesome signs.
We had all sorts of signs planned but the practicalities of having too much writing were difficult to overcome. “Sorry, all the young good looking ones have already gone – just us left now” or “So far today has gone without a hitch : (   would, I’m sure, have worked but we only had two small bits of card we managed to borrow from the people we were staying with in Auckland – so we made do with “South” on one and “Please” on the other. 
 

And by jingo they worked! Day one: Auckland to Tauranga which is across on the east coast.

Lift 1. We spent the first 6 minutes “debating” whether we were better off standing at the top of the slip road which had no real stopping place, or before the traffic lights on one of the two roads leading to the slip road. This had better stopping places, but only half the traffic. I was just telling Ella how misguided her views on the  matter were and how we should move to the other place when a van stopped and picked us up. The old Maori lady and her daughter
In the cobbled together camper van took us 10 kilometres, to just outside of Auckland and dropped us off. I think that was as far as they were going rather than that we had done something to offend them (I am sure it’s good Maori manners to rub noses….) but 10 km is all we got.

We were just getting into a discussion as to whether we would have been better off where we were in the first place as this slip road didn’t look like it would have much traffic on it when (3 minutes waiting time) a guy in a well named pick up truck stopped. He was going to Tauranga which was where we were hoping to stay that night, which was handy, but he was going via Hamilton where he had half an hour’s work to do in his office, but he could drop us off for a coffee while he went in to work and if we didn’t mind the wait he could then take us all the way.
En route he decided to take us to see Hobiton, the setting of Bilbo Baggins’ village in The Lord of the Rings and now a bit of a tourist attraction seeing as we were passing 5 km from it. As he got to the car park he announced: “Well, we can’t go in as it’s 75 dollars each and we haven’t got time, but anyway, it’s over that hill and looks pretty much like it did on the film so you get the picture”, and we turned round and drove off.
When we got to Hamilton we were left with an awkward choice. He dropped us off at a coffee shop and said he would see us in half an hour. We had been in the car with him for 90 minutes and he seemed like a really nice guy, and he had, to his credit, almost taken us to one of the main tourist attractions in the area. So, is it impolite to say that you will get your bags out of the back and sit with them while he goes off (subtext – cos we don’t trust you you Bilbo Baggins tease you). Being British this was tricky. We had passports, wallet and iPads on our persons, so we figured it was politer to leave the bags in the truck and he drove off. Just after he turned the first corner we wondered whether we should at least have taken a photo of the registration plate….
“Yes, that’s right officer, we did indeed just get out of the truck of a total stranger and deliberately leave our entire luggage in there and wave him off. What did the truck look like? Well, it was white. Any other distinguishing features? Umm, well, it’s got our bags in the back. What? Yes, we know – it was a bit, wasn’t it. Pardon? Oh no, don’t be silly; this wasn’t our first ever lift. No, no, no.
It was our second. Well, you see, he had taken us almost to Hobiton….”

With not much else to do we had our coffee. We waited. An hour passed and we began to get just a teensy bit concerned. Another half hour passed and we thought things were getting worryingly suspicious so we had some cake. Just under the two hour mark (which we had agreed would be the police calling point) he returned.
OK, chalk one up to experience – we wouldn’t make that mistake again. (At least, not until about 20 hours later…..)
Still, we got all the way to where we were headed and had a good evening nattering to our hosts, who the folk at the River Monastery had put us in touch with.
Next morning we were heading down to Turangi, a few hundred kilometres south west. So our “south” and “please” signs were still good. And so were our finely honed thumbs. Before our hosts had even turned the car round having taken us to the main road out of town a car had stopped. It took us a few km more to a main road and this led to an entire two minute wait for the next lift. (This hitch hiking lark is a piece of cake.) The lady (Greeta) took us a good chunk of the way and turned out to be fascinating company. She is the widow of the only New Zealand Formula 1 world champion, Denny Hulme and was full of wonderful stories of life on the motor racing circuit back in the ’60s and ”70s. She threw in a guided tour of her home town of Rotorua and even took us to lunch! (It was here that we got out of the car and left her to find a parking space, leaving our bags in the boot….. But we totally haven’t done that again since.) We then got a lift from two American students, one of whom lives in Boston and the other in New York, two of the cities we’ll be going to when we’re in the U.S, and who invited us to stay with them when we get there. They dropped us off at Lake Taupo where we grabbed a coffee, wrote a new sign for Turangi which was still 30 km away and had literally only just got to the side of the road when the first car passing stopped and asked where we were going. Not being sure how to pronounce it I looked at the sign and said “This place” and the driver asked who we were staying with there. We told her and she said “That’s Uncle Sam: jump in!” and took us to his door. I may never get another coach or train again!
The people we were stopping the night with, Sam and Thelma, live with 4 generations of their family in a former hospital. It’s a warren of corridors and rooms all on one level, stretching hither, thither and over yonder. Sam is well known in New Zealand for his work over many years with the Mongrel Mob, a hard as nails group whose gang members make up over 10% of the entire New Zealand prison population at the moment. Sam works with groups of gang members who want to get back on the straight and narrow often having been through rehab and has an amazing attitude to life and to restoration and to working with people who have been cast out from society and looked on with equal measures of fear and loathing.

(One of the members of the Mongrel mob)

Sam and Thelma have, for decades now, run an open door policy and welcomed in all sorts. Living with them, befriending them – seeing lives turned around and others wandering off in a destructive direction. Knowing jubilation and heartbreak – seeing hospitality and trust at times ripped up and crushed and yet offering more with an open hand and open heart. We spent the evening talking with Sam about his whole philosophy of how he sees his Christian mission. It is very hard to fault what he does and why he does it – and it is immensely challenging.

He and Thelma stand where most people would be far too concerned for their own comfort to stand. They offer a listening voice, practical help, acceptance, time and have gone without much while reaching out to thieves, addicts and murderers. He has a bunch of the Mongrel Mob living next door to him in a house he secured for that very purpose. Christ can be seen in people of many different shapes and sizes: he can definitely be seen in a certain big 20+ stone Maori called Sam.
The final leg of our three day hitch-hike came in the rain the next morning when a half hour (much of which was spent singing and dancing to songs with rain in them) wait led to someone taking pity on us and taking us a few hundred km closer to our goal. from there it was but a two minute wait for the final lift right down to Waikanae, the closest town to the “in the middle of nowhere” community in which we’ll be staying for 4 weeks.
Zig zagging from Auckland to just north of Wellington over three days, 8 lifts and an average wait time of under 9 minutes per lift. Lots of interesting people and stories. Hitching is the way to travel in N Z.

Tasmania – comfort, convicts, compliments…

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Comfort. That’s a lovely word, isn’t it? Comfort. What things do you associate with it I wonder. Granny’s all enfolding hugs where, as a child, you’re lost to the world in a heady wave of lavender oil and the colour purple. Or a big mug of steaming soup beside a raging fire on a winter’s evening. A big, fluffy bath towel. No – bath sheet – they’re bigger.

That’ll do for starters – granny’s hugs, big soup mugs, fluffy towel. Definitely things of comfort. 

I’ll tell you what comfort is not. Comfort is definitely not two nearly 50 year olds sharing a thin single mattress that’s laid out in the back of an old station wagon in a lay by next to the main road on the East coast of Tasmania. 

We’re in Tasmania. And that’s wonderful. We’re sleeping in a car. And that’s — uncomfortable! 

When you’re of an age where you have got wonderfully well used to your own, old, familiar bed. And if you’re the sort of person who, when you set out round the world, seriously consider if there is room in your one bag to fit your three pillows from your own, old, familiar bed. And then you’re lying in the back of a car on the very edge of Tasmania and count up that you’ve had 22 different beds since leaving the UK just 9 weeks ago. And now you’re sleeping in a car and your body is adopting positions that God probably didn’t have in mind when he designed them.

In the middle of the night I was a little concerned to realise that I couldn’t feel my legs. Nor my left arm. Nor the left side of my face. Fearing I’d suffered a stroke it was a relief when I discovered that I couldn’t feel the car door either, nor the roof. I couldn’t feel anything because my fingers had gone totally numb. I bashed my anaesthetised hand against the car door in amusement until it woke Ella who thought we might be being attacked. 

If you do have to sleep in a car, at least this one is cool. It’s a very beaten up station wagon with dents and dings all over: war wounds from run ins with bush life and wildlife. It has bits hanging off it and its spare tyre is pretty much just as useful as mine. The car is old and full of character. This car is what Tommy Lee Jones would look like if he was turned into a Mitsubishi.

We’d had two nights in an AirB&B in Hobart, so this was to help balance the budget.

And it has its compensations – we awoke looking out over probably the Indian or the Pacific Ocean. Almost certainly one of them, or possibly the Tasman Sea. Geography is not my strongpoint. Anyway, it was a long beach, a lot of water and very pretty. Looking out of the other window there was a highway with trucks rumbling down it.

 

We’ll have to find out some time if it’s legal to spend the night in a lay by in Australia. But for now I’d rather rely on a healthy dose of ignorance. Ignorance is, after all, bliss – and it’s also cheaper than knowledge sometimes.

It wouldn’t surprise me if it was illegal, as Australians seem obsessed with laws. I’ve never seen anywhere with so many signs telling you what you can’t do.

And this doesn’t surprise me as modern Australia was invented by convicts, so they were used to having lots of rules.

On our way down to Hobart we stopped in a place pretty much in the middle of Tasmania called Campbell Town. One of the features of the town is the long lines of bricks set into the pavement and stretching either side of the main street. On each brick is engraved the name of a convict sent out from the UK, it gives their age, their crime and their sentence, and often one line to include any subsequent detail known about their later life. Reading them was humbling and sobering. 7 years for a 14 year old boy for stealing bread. Life imprisonment for a 22 year old for burglary. Sarah Brame, age 23, stole 2 brooches, sentenced to 14 years. She was shipped over with her 2 daughters. 

Many thousands of convicts came to Tasmania to serve their sentence. To the South East of the island, on the end of what might be an isthmus (spell check hasn’t objected to that so it might be the word I’m thinking of) anyway, a lump of land connected to the mainland by a narrow strip less than 100m wide is the site of Port Arthur, where we spent the day. It was set up in the 19th century as a prison and housed over a thousand convicts at the height of its popularity. A dumping ground for the overflowing prisons of the UK – conditions were often brutal and escape was infrequent.

One of the documented escape attempts involved a prisoner getting as far as the narrow stretch of land just mentioned (called Fisheagle Neck) which, as it was effectively the only way off the peninsula and was easy to guard, had a permanent group of soldiers stationed there. Our intrepid escapee had come across a dead kangaroo, skinned it and sort of climbed into the skin and then, just as night fell he hopped past the guard post and off down the narrow strip towards the mainland. It was an excellent plan given the fading light and the soldiers’ lack of intimate knowledge of kangaroos. 

However, they were hungry. They fancied a steak. And there was a pretty slow moving meal hopping away from them. One of the soldiers ran after the kangaroo and raised his gun. History didn’t relate exactly what the soldier thought when the kangaroo screamed: “Don’t shoot!” and proceeded to skin itself. 

Although, if the guards were anything like the Tasmanians of today, they would probably have congratulated the prisoner on his escape attempt: “Truly excellent escape attempt Mr Prisoner. Absolutely awesome try!” for Tasmanians, we have discovered, are the most wildly enthusiastically encouraging people on the planet. Just ridiculously so. We all know that the first words an Australian baby speaks are “No worries” – and continues having to say it at least 8 times an hour for the rest of their life. But Tasmanians combine that with over the top encouragement. For example – I conduct a simple exchange at the local supermarket. I place my purchases on the conveyor belt – the assistant beeps them, I hand over cash. “Well done. Outstanding job!” comes booming out from him. I, being British, assume he’s being sarcastic. Look for signs of irony or even mild contempt. No. Pure unadulterated encouraging positivity is dripping down his countenance and all over his counter. And this is magnified all over the island. 

“Way to go!” upon my achieving the impressive feat of buying a newspaper. “Aw well done, beautiful job!” on Ella totally buying a bus ticket. 

I’m not sure how they would react to our doing something actually truly clever: maybe their heads explode.

We mentioned this trait to a couple with whom we’re staying and they laughed it off saying that they hadn’t ever noticed but were then amused when we pointed out 5 occasions they went on to do exactly that during the meal. It must just be so ingrained in their psyche that it becomes unconscious habit.

Australians certainly seem a lot happier in general than Brits. Maybe it’s that they feel so amazingly affirmed when completing even the simplest task.

I think they should change their national anthem and have instead the song from the Lego Movie. It would be brilliant to see at the medal ceremony at the Olympics, or before a rugby match, or at the state opening of parliament – everyone standing proud and then: “Everything is Awesome, everything is cool when you’re part of a team” blares from the speakers. Who wouldn’t get up and dance along to it? 

This level of constant unremitting encouragement just doesn’t happen in the UK.

I’m still a little suspicious of why the Tasmanians compliment the simplest achievement. Maybe it’s just done to Brits. Maybe they have such a low expectation of us that when we manage to walk and talk at the same time without banging into something they are genuinely thrilled. 

Which is better to be? Typical Tasmanian person complimenting everyone and everything in the same over the top manner, or a Brit who compliments far less frequently but, when it happens, far more meaningfully?      I know full well that a large chunk of my personality that should be devoted to encouraging people, or building them up, is missing. It’s not something I deliberately don’t do – it just doesn’t cross my mind to do it at the time. 

I definitely do not encourage enough. What about you? Do you easily say “well done.”  If you do then, “that’s amazing! Awesome job!”

Should you be a little more Tasmanian?

I think I should.

 

 

A night at the Commune……..

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(This is a little longer post than usual – and there will be some photos and thoughts appearing soon on the  Photo Gallery page – just so’s you know.)

 

Oo-err, we left you on a cliff hanger…..   Sorry for all the sleepless nights you’ll have endured – but to continue….

Outside of Sydney – linked to the city by a train track life line lies an innocuous little suburban town with an unprepossessing station. Across the road from the station is a German Social Club. It is the home to, among other things many of which are probably good and lovely, a German folk choir – and we had been invited to hear them rehearsing, and following the rehearsal to return with our Couch Surfing host to his “paradise” on earth.

For those of you for whom the term “couch surfing” is new and merely sounds like something doomed to failure no matter how Australian and macho the person surfing with a couch might be, Couch Surfing is the term given to an internet based initiative whereby people who have a spare room, or a spare couch, or a spare floor space which they are happy to have someone use for the night at no charge, advertise said room/couch/space and people traveling and looking for cheap accommodation can get in touch and see if the potential host is happy/able to host them for a night or two.

When we saw Rowan’s profile on the couch surfing web site it looked “interesting”. He said his ambition was to build the ultimate fairy-tale kingdom with a new community free from the constraints and shackles of the modern world. A self-sufficient community living among nature.

Well, you can’t pass up an opportunity like that, can you?

We had exchanged a few emails and arranged to go and stay for a few nights. He told us that he was singing in a German folk choir on Wednesday evening and if we could get to the venue he would give us a lift back to his home/community from there.

So, that’s how we came to be sitting amongst a misshapen mixture of Germans, Austrians, French and Brits on a Wednesday evening in an innocuous Sydney suburb.

I don’t exactly pride myself in this ability – but I don’t mind saying I am pretty good at not laughing at someone or something when it’s not appropriate. This comes in handy in my line of work. And it came in handy several times during an evening in which we felt like we had drifted into a parallel universe at times. 

The choir were the kind that any conductor would find a tad challenging. No one could fault their enthusiasm. 

One might find fault in their pitch, tone, volume, musical interpretation, proclivity to reading novels at the same time as singing, musical interpretation – maybe. But you could not fault their enthusiasm.

They practised for 2 hours. 

It wasn’t enough.

But, finally and thankfully it ended and we piled into the back of a small 2 door car along with Rowan, Rowan’s dad Manfred, Rowan’s Canadian girlfriend and their dog. 

To take a brief step back: when we arrived at the singing club we were early and the first person there was Manfred – and during the first ten minutes of conversation we had with him, as he sat reading “A Jewish Guide to Adultery”, he had only really referenced sex, and the words for toilet in each language he knew. He looked to be in his late 80s so it’s probably good that he had a hobby. The only thing we ever learned about Manfred’s wife was that she had twice accidentally run over their dogs.

On the journey back Rowan decided it would be best if he unleashed his personal philosophy of life onto us. 

He began with: “My plan is to build a brand new civilisation! Nothing less!” He proceeded to drive at break-neck speed, looking occasionally at the road but mainly, and very scarily, back over his shoulder at us, studying our reactions to his “revelations”. 

Basically, he sees himself as a sort of saviour and prophet and teacher. He operates on a higher plane than anyone else and has been impregnated with knowledge of how we are exactly halfway through a 26,000 year cycle before the end of the earth (currently in a 40 year changeover period between the two 13,000 year “halves” and we are currently passing through the blue light of the sun in its binary star system which NASA know all about but refuse to tell us. It’s illegal to use most of our brain and all governments and monetary systems are tools of total suppression from which we should free ourselves. 

So, you see, some of what he said made sense. But most of it was stark staring crazy. And, disappointingly, it was just run of the mill, boring sort of crazy. If he had been merely extremely eccentric, that would be OK, but he was just unhinged.

Apart from anything else he was wearing a Tyrolian cap and short shorts and he couldn’t have looked more German if you had stuck a dachshund on his head and covered him in sauerkraut. I like Germans – but this one did not do the rest of them any favours. 

The community he is hoping to build is nothing more than a bit of a tax dodge and his permanent followers number approximately zero. I have to approximate because I’m not sure his girlfriend is a follower as she goes away in a few months when her visa runs out and she didn’t seem to follow what he was saying. 

I don’t think any of us followed what he was saying. Lots about the well trodden prophecy from the Mayans (they didn’t get 2012 wrong so much as it was speaking about him, apparently).

The journey flew by. At least, the countryside flew by. He drives like he talks; rapidly and with no concern for others. I have only ever been truly scared by two drivers: one of the guys in the rugby club I played for when we were in Scotland who was known as “The Pope” – not because he was particularly religious, but because when you had been driven in a car by him you kissed the ground when you finally got out. The Pope was the first truly scary driver – Rowan was the second. Also, it being a two door car, we couldn’t even jump out on the few occasions he slowed down. 

I also made the mistake of arguing with him. 

There are several types of people you should not argue with. Gunmen, airport security guards, your mother. And some people it is truly pointless arguing with. Drunks and certifiably mad people being two. Applying logic against his rant against religion was like handing a lettuce leaf to a charging lion and hoping it would make him vegetarian. 

When we arrived at Rowan’s commune and the car finally became unfamiliarly stationary, we emerged into his “wonderland”. A couple of portacabins, a mobile home, a tepee, a communal area of covered seating attached to a lean-to housing a kitchen zone and a couple of shed-like dwellings placed next to one another with what looked like doorways linking them. All this within a large, sloping area of countryside with a river running through it.

We were told that we would be in the tepee. On unlashing the door flap we were faced with spartan accommodation. Which was fine. The bed was strangely moist for such a warm night – we left it to hopefully air for a while and went to the communal seating area to see who our fellow inmates might be. 

There were 6 or 7 gap year students there that night, passing through, and an older guy from Wigan who was “fighting the system” which, it transpired, meant he lived with his girlfriend and they both claimed unemployment benefit, child benefit for her child and child maintenance from the ex-husband. This way, he said, he was avoiding “putting back into the system”. Ella asked him if he had thought about trying to live a self sufficient life and he looked dismayed saying: “That’s really hard work! Growing food and stuff, I’d rather not do anything at all and live out my ideology.” He was not pleasant to talk to.

The students were mainly European and seemed to stay there for between one night and a couple of weeks, occasionally helping to  build new shelters and generally living rent free and enjoying freedom from parental rules. They seemed a nice bunch. None of them were devotees of Rowan’s “vision”.

We were thankful that the saviour had turned in for the night having struck out on his unsubtle hints about the benefits of free love. (Having asked Ella and me if we were ‘together’ or just friends and being told we’ve been happily married for 29 years looked Ella in the eye and slimed: “that is such a pity for all the men out there.” Not a good line. If you think it is, ask a woman and listen closely to the answer…..) His father did appear, uttered some probably unintentional racist comments about some of those gathered and went off to check that none of the dogs had been run over. Ella and I went to the tepee to compare levels of unease. 

Sleep came easily.

To Sleeping Beauty in the fairy story. 

To us – it didn’t, really. 

Ella and I weighed up our options. They seemed to consist of: 

A.) stay on site and hide from people who were wanting some free love and/or might for all we knew get some crazy ideas and go all Jim Jones on us.

B.) bravely and heroically run away.

C.) evangelise our host with the news of an altogether more complete saviour. 

After a sleepless night we went for B.

And so  next morning, in the 40 degree heat of a cloudless day we grabbed our (thankfully, singular) bags and sneaked out of the compound to hitch a ride to the nearest town.

Everyone knows Aussies are friendly and helpful and likely to stop and give lifts to people. 

Well then, everyone….. you’re wrong.

After an overly long passage of walking and earnestly waving our thumbs at anyone who passed, (our admittedly unpolished technique included, at times, exuberant dancing and using a variety of “winning smiles”, all to no avail) we were getting a tad disappointed. Also a tad dehydrated. We were in the middle of nowhere somewhere out near the Blue Mountains. We weren’t definitely certain we were even going in the right direction for the nearest town. Cars, when they appeared, were not stopping: most seemed to actually speed up when they saw us, and a few drivers gave little waves which might have meant “we’re turning off soon so we’re probably no use to you” or more likely “I don’t want to let any hot air in as the air con is having to work overtime to keep me deliciously cool in here”. 

I was, it must be said, getting a little ungenerous in my thoughts by this stage.

Luckily I had picked as my hitching buddy someone who, when she sees an old man in the distance on a ride on lawnmower cutting the grass at the back of his farmhouse will jump the fence and chase him to ask for water and directions.

Having nearly scared the life out of him (he was old, heading away from us and hadn’t expected anyone to be running after him out here in the middle of the day in the middle of his private land) he was kind enough to take us into his entirely ancient tumbledown farmhouse and offer a mug of water from the sink, next to which his teeth sat (“darned things need grinding down: still don’t fit right”).

He told us that it would be an “awful long” walk into town and then he wonderfully and heroically offered us a lift, though it would be a bit of a squeeze. The only transport in evidence in the yard was the ride on mower but even if he had meant riding all the way on that we would still have said yes please. As it was he took us to an old barn and drove out a beat up pick up truck into which we happily squeezed and he drove us into the nearest town. It took about 20 minutes so I’m not sure what that would have been in hot on-foot minutes.

We took the next train out of town – which, thankfully, was heading into Sydney and we spent the afternoon at the harbour, generally giving thanks that we were alive and wondering where we should spend the night as we’d been due to stay on the commune for a few days and hadn’t made other plans. 

We walked up to an area called The Rocks, not far from the harbour, and booked into the youth hostel there. With our youthful looks and ready cash we secured the last available room for that evening, according to the receptionist. I doubt that there are many better youth hostel views than from the rooftop terrace of the Sydney YHA building – overlooking the harbour, bridge and Opera House. It looked good in the day – even better at night.

We decided to try a little high-end Aussie dining that evening and so went to The Australian Bar and ate kangaroo and emu pizza.

Happy to have done it.

Happy not to do it again.

We spent the next day on the quayside at Sydney Harbour. 

A huge cruise liner had parked and disgorged hundreds of happy cruisers and a sponsored walk by several hundred foursomes was making its way round the quay and it all added to the buzz of life in one of the world’s iconic venues. 

As we sat and sipped our credit-card-worrying coffees and enjoyed seeing all the life passing by with all the stories they held, the snippets of conversations heard, we reflected on the disappointment of the trip to the commune. We’d hoped for a quirkiness, an insightful lifestyle philosophy, something to make us think deeply, but instead got a worryingly sleepless night in an airless wigwam in the stomping ground of an unwanted self-proclaimed messiah.

I have spared the dear reader from the majority of the rantings of Rowan for the sake of brevity and sanity and knowing it’s often hard enough to follow my sentences anyway – but I have to admit that throughout his ranting about the church and how it has acted through the ages (though I’d happily but fruitlessly argue with him over his interpretation of who he thinks lies behind it all), his attack on religion and religiosity was probably his most cogent line of thought.

I wonder how people responded when Christ said he was the saviour and stated that history would pivot around his incarnation. For those hearing it fresh it must have only left the choice of madman or messiah. Having experienced the real thing, and a Germanic/Australian mimic, I’m happy to stay where I am.

I’m not joining the commune.

 

Johannesburg to Sydney

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The flight from Johannesburg to Sydney was our first encounter with Qantas airlines. I only know them from adverts in my youth which featured Dame Edna and a koala bear. 

 

The adverts didn’t say anything about allowing you a much lower weight allowance for your carry on bags than any more civilised carrier. As we only have carry on bags and no luggage going in the hold it doesn’t seem overly fair that an overly-zealous book-in lady decided to weigh our bags when we checked in. 

 

Ella was, of course, just under her 7 kg allowance as she had bothered to read the blurb and had come prepared in case they adhered to it. My bag was a mere 13 kg. (It seems to have got heavier as we’re travelling but I really don’t know how as I don’t think there’s any more in it.)

 

The lady told me I would have to get my bag down to 7 kg. Ella tried not to give me an “I told you so” look. I’m not sure she fully succeeded. I helpfully made the point to the lady that if I checked my bag into the hold it would be free and would also have the benefit of the added excitement of wondering where it would end up when we were looking forlornly at an empty baggage carousel in Sydney. She reminded me that for carry-on the weight restriction was 7 kg and could I please make my bag lighter.

 

There then followed a wonderfully pointless exercise in moving things from inside the bag to outside the bag in order to make the bag weigh less just so that I could put all the things back into the bag as soon as we were through the check in. So, out came a sweat shirt that I tied round my waist. Slung another top over my shoulder. I stuffed tee shirts and shirts into the arms of my jacket and carried that over my arm (although this made the arms of the jacket stick out as they were stuffed solid and it looked like I was carrying a torso). Bag back on scales – just under 8 kilos. Need to get to 7. I asked her if there was a bin into which I could throw my least wearable shoes and she said: “oh, don’t do that, just put them on top of the bag – it doesn’t really matter that much.”

 

Through check in. 20 yards down the corridor: stop, stuff everything back into bag. Proceed to boarding gate.

 

We had booked the rearmost seats on the plane. We thought they looked like a good choice when we had selected them during the online booking process because there were two of them alone, together – and it looked from the diagram that you’d get a bit more space and wouldn’t have anyone pushing past you to get out to the loos. And the theory was good. You did get a little bit more room. 

 

Well done us, we thought. 

 

Til we were way out over the ocean and at the mercy of the winds in the roaring forties (if that’s where they are, I think they are) and every single one of them roared.  

 

A whole torrent of turbulence that threw the plane around for what seemed like an age. The heavy food serving trolley went flying during one severe dip and fell onto one of the passengers. Fortunately the arm-guard took the brunt of it or his legs would have been squashed. As it was the stewardess who hadn’t secured it properly had egg on her face and the passenger in seat 74E had egg absolutely everywhere.

 

Way back in the tail we seemed to be suffering the worst of it and in recognition of that the chief steward came along during a slightly calmer moment and asked if we would like to move closer to the middle of the plane for the remainder of the journey. Promotion to the dizzy heights of Premier Economy! Only a flapping curtain’s width from Business Class!  Near the wings – a lot smoother ride – with far more fancy seats and stuff to play with and way superior plastic cutlery with which to breakfast.

 

We felt like royalty. 

 

Albeit slightly minor royalty from an obscure East European country with too many consonants.

 

Touching down in Australia we had jumped forward 9 hours and although we hadn’t slept at all and to us it was 5.30 in the morning it was actually mid afternoon in sunny Sydney.

 

Our hosts for the first night were Steve and Grace. Grace is Korean and we were taken that evening to an amazing restaurant where we battled with chopsticks and had a traditional Korean spread of about 20 small dishes of food which gave some palate punching combinations of flavours. We sat next to some black-belt chop stickers who made us feel a little inadequate. Strange cabbage stuff that’s normally stored underground to keep it tasting funny and what can best be described as a crab which had recently stepped on a land mine were two of the stand-outs. Very tasty. 

 

We spent the next morning exploring Sydney and the early afternoon sleeping in a park trying to catch up on the jet lag.

 

Must mention the exceptionally excellent trains they have – double deckers with air conditioning and seats that you can move to face both ways! The upright back section has cushioning on both sides and it pivots (the seat bit you sit on stays where it is) and you move the upright to instantly turn a three seater bench from forward facing to backward facing. Handy indeed if you are the sort of person who likes to travel facing forward. The trains are clean, air conditioned (did I mention that already – and are you listening Transport for London), with excellent communications and less than half the price of London Underground too.

 

Anyway, that afternoon we embarked on what will most likely be one of the most scary and memorable evenings of our whole trip…… 

 

Johannesburg – the Kruger National Park

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Back in the relative safety of Johannesburg (relative safety being defined by the fact that the people we’re staying with in Jo’berg know less people who have been killed than the people we stayed with in Zimbabwe) it’s hard to miss he fact that apart from the sprawling shanty towns, every other property is surrounded by electrified fences, high walls, razor wire and dogs.

 

As the town was not dangerous enough, we were taken on a camping safari to the Kruger National Park. (Many more things that could kill you.)

 

The Kruger National Park is a huge area of nearly 20,000 square km to the northeast of South Africa, criss-crossed occasionally by tarmac roads and sand roads that you drive along through mainly shrub land and grassland and alongside rivers. There are occasional campsites which are fenced to keep the animals out, giving a safe haven for the night – with the roar of lions and the scavenging of hyenas at the fence giving you something to count as you drift off to sleep…..

 

……For an hour or two before getting up at crazy o’clock in the morning to be in the camper van and in the queue at the exit gate before 05.30am. Stephan was, well, let’s just say “keen” to be in the first 2 or 3 cars in the queue because the gates open on the dot at 5.30 and you really want to be the first car on one of the roads leading out through the park to have the best chance to see the lions, leopards and wild dogs that often walk the roads early morning, enjoying the feel of the retained roadheat from the previous day and avoiding the dewy grass. 

 

So, if you’re, let’s say, third in the queue on the first morning, the done thing (I offer this Kruger Park etiquette lesson free of charge to you) is to drive out after the first few cars shouting “turn off left, turn off left” to get rid of the first one and then pleading with the next one to carry on straight because the road we really wanted to go down is a few km from camp and off to the right. Worked like a charm.

 

Having successfully rid yourselves of the hindrance of cars ahead of you (it’s very bad form to overtake another person unless they are stopped at the side of the road and if they are stopped you’re likely to want to stop too because they’ll only be stopped because there’s something to see), you are free to enjoy an unencumbered view of the road ahead as you embark on a futile game of “leopard spotting”. Let’s face it, there could have been a troupe of 9 leopards in day-glo spandex leotards doing a Buzby Berkley routine and I wouldn’t have seen it at 5.30 in the morning.

 

However, over the 4 incredible days we spent in this amazing place we did see 42 different species including the Big 5, so named because they were the most prized hunting trophies in days gone by: loads of elephants, 4 different pairs and triplets of rhino, several groups of lions including one lucky chap and his harem of 10 ladies who were all relaxing by a water hole when a large bull elephant decided to walk through them and wanted them to move out of his way. They obliged. Quite a few buffalo and 2 leopards (or rather one leopard, twice – though not in the early morning). 

 

Apart from the big 5, favourites were probably the packs of African wild dogs we saw sleeping a couple of feet from us on several occasions – one or two would then get up and dopily meander about and flop down again looking incredibly docile and tame, a million miles away from the extraordinary raw power and aggression they show when they hunt with military precision in formation, running their prey, up to buffalo size, into the ground or taking it in turns to take chunks out of their moving dinner as they run alongside. 

 

And my personal favourite: one of nature’s real thugs – the honey badger. Nearly a metre long with a lovely two-toned light and dark grey coat. Prefers to attack rather than defend and will do so with no provocation. It has no real predators because nothing is stupid enough to take it on.

 

Apart from having a worse than skunk like excretion from the back end, its powerful teeth and claws do a good job at the front end. It has a tough, loose skin which, if a larger animal were daft enough to get its jaws around it, enables the honey badger to twist and give a good smack to anyone who’s grabbed it – same principle as a Glaswegian in a shell-suit, really.

 

Why are honey badgers so aggressive? I don’t know. Possibly it’s down to pure embarrassment over its name.

 

A honey badger sounds like he or she should be chums with Winnie the Pooh…..

 

Chapter 7. In which Winnie the Pooh meets the Honey badger.

 

The sun beamed its happy rays over 100 Acre Wood as Winnie the Pooh awoke, did a few uppy and downy exercises while thinking of his favourite jar of honey and then sallied forth, skipping off toward Piglet’s house. Along the way, whom should he meet but a 90 cm long block of muscle wrapped in a loosely fitting two-toned grey pelt.

 

“Hullo,” said Winnie, the bear with very little brain. “I am Winnie the Pooh. I’ve not seen you around here before. Who are you?”

 

“I’m a honey badger.” 

 

Winnie was everso exited. “A hunny badger! ” he exclaimed. A badger made of hunny? Hunny is my very favourite thing. I am going to see if you taste of hunny.”

 

“I don’t think so, pal!”

 

Chapter 8. In which Piglet and Roo stumble into a scene of unimaginable slaughter.

 

Chapter 9. In which Eeyore hits the anti-depressants pretty hard.

 

Chapter 10. In which Christopher Robin gets a new best friend. 

 

If Winnie the Pooh met a honey badger – it would not go well for the bear with very little brain. Honey Badger could take on Winnie, Tigger, Eeyore and the heffalump with one arm tied behind its back. Christopher Robin would need more than a couple of plasters and a visit to nursey in sick bay. 

 

 

I shall not be trying to take a honey badger home in my bag, but there were a number of other animals we saw that looked like they would have made awesome pets. 

 

The usual patten of the day was to drive from 5.30 am to about 11.30 am, stopping somewhere to cook a breakfast. Then return to camp and rest during the worst heat of the day and head out again about 3 til 6.30 when the camp gates close. A braai for supper and then hit the hay between 8 and 9 pm. 

 

It’s an exhausting, but exhilarating way to see animals in the wild.