Excerpts from Molly and Margarett's Big Book of Kooky Stories

Abel Tasman in a sentence: Complete and total perfect beach overload. The place is a super tourist-y destination but I can see why and it was totally worth all the people. As far as backpacking goes, this was maybe the most civilized camping excursion I've ever been on including flush toilets, a maximum of maybe 3.5 hours of hiking per day and endless perfect beaches only broken by short forays into amazing woods and over some hills that gave you perfect views of the perfect beaches. That's 4 times if you were wondering how many perfects I fit into that paragraph (5). However, that said, we managed somehow to turn this luxurious jaunt in nature into a study on blood loss and near starvation. If there were any insect borne disesases in NZ Margarett would have them all and be dead. twice. Our ridiculous natural hippy "insect repellent" worked fabulously for me but Margarett looks like a leper from the knee down. We did manage to build a camp fire all on our own that lasted all night and we saw a tiny morpork owl that chastised us for being up late at night. We left from Bark Bay and took the boat back up to Totoranui where the car was parked. On the way they showed us a little island where fur seals have their pups and they were completely unafraid of the boat and swam right up next to it and showed off for us. Apparently they cool down by sticking their flippers up out of the water and waving them around. Like elephant ears. The pups make noises like a seal throwing up.
Afterwards we went back to Nelson and I had the best shower of my life. We went out for beers later and met Drew, a Texan who just finished mechanic school in NZ and his mechanic friend Chris from Australia. Apparently we're only able to meet mechanics here. And not hot ones. Or ones with teeth. We went back to Picton to retrieve Rupert finally, but we had a day before we had to return the rental car so we went to the Flying Haggis for some beers. Margarett wanted to just sit in a nice pub that afternoon and finish her book but it wasn't meant to be. We walked in to the pub only to be almost blasted back out onto the street again by the sound of a small Jewish-looking guy belting out Love Shack on karaoke. This was just tthe beginning of maybe our weirdest 24 hrs in NZ so far. We had walked in to the middle of a cruise ship group doing karaoke which was soon joined by a bachelor party all wearing these ridiculous fake tattoo arm bands and proceeding to get ridiculously drunk.
Anyway, I am really tired of typing and the weirdest parts of the night happened later to Margarett involving James Carter's younger clone and a spider in some salad and some really really nice and adorably polite swiss boys. Now we're going to go watch people eat really weird food in Hokitika.

Well, It's been a long time since our lat post! After Rupert's last convalescence and revival we settled in and stayed in Wellington for over a week which was wonderful. In a fit of bitterness about rupert's last tantrum we posted an ad trying to sell the cranky breadbox "van" and had three half-hearted responses. One guy wanted to know all the details about rupert including "how many kms on the clock, any problems, any rust, condition of the tyres, how economical it is with fuel, what kind of stereo eg cassette/cd, and anything else you can think of that might interest us." Well, my first response was laughing in this guys face because, honestly, if he is that concerned about the details of the van he does not want this van. We finally decided to stick with the barely-motorized wreck that is our van because in his own difficult way, he's exacted a kind of wary attachment from us. He's currently resting safely in a car park by the ferry dock in Picton while we enjoy the hell out of the extra days left of Margarett's dad's rental car which has, among other incredibly novel attributes, functional brakes and the ability to accelerate. Amazing.

Our Cuba Street Carnival decorations

Margarett has come to terms with her fundamental non-outdoorsiness after being rescued by a thirteen year old boy after drifting a surprisingly far distance down the Wanganui river without her boat. She also lost her shoes, sunglasses, shirt, and dignity, but gained some very clean fingernails and a healthy fear of trees. I, on the other hand, had a lovely float down the river IN my kayak and had a delicious cup of coffee with an old lady who owned a lavender farm where I used the phone to summon the thirteen year old hero. We had a long conversation about Obama while I waited for Margarett to catch up.

Rainy day kayaking

After our little jaunt down the river we went back to Wellington where Margarett's dad met us and we began our light-speed tour of the South Island in order that he saw as much as possible in 6 days. We made it all the way down to Dunedin by Tuesday seeing the Christchurch Antarctic Museum, penguin feeding, the Moraki Boulders, and the Albatross Colony along the way. I don't think we stopped anywhere for more than 30 minutes except to sleep and drink wine. Thoroughly enjoyable and we are considering this to be our preview for the trip we will now take at a crippled snail's pace.

First though, we are going to do the Abel Tasman over this weekend which is going to be absolutely amazing.

Mechanics of New Zealand

When thinking back over the last couple of weeks, the most salient mileposts aren't the spectacular beaches or cozy pubs, but the memorable mechanics of New Zealand. There was Roger, of course. You never forget your first. But you know all about him. Then there was the tow truck driver who veered out of traffic and all the way onto the sidewalk to answer his cell phone. There was the Duran Duran fan who told us all about his annual motorcycle pilgrimages to the south island on the Queen's birthday weekend. And then there was Rob.
Rob was summoned during our latest breakdown, which occurred last friday in the town of Dannevirke. Rupert lurched to a shuddering halt at about 5:05 pm, just after the rigidly enforced closing time of every garage, mechanics, and junkyard in the country. A call to AA prompted the arrival of a truck bearing the ominous words "Rob's Salvage," and a little, round, gnomelike man emerged. After a few minutes of quiet grumbling he discovered that our distributor cap was full of shards of shredded metal (!) and advised us that we were going nowhere fast. Molly caught a ride with Laura and Anni to Wellington for the start of the super 14 while I, being far less excited about rugby, remained to keep Rupert company.
Despondency set in around 7. If New Zealand had tumbleweeds, they would have been rolling down the main street of Dannevirke. I ate terrible chinese takeout in my motel room while watching a british comedy that made it look nice to be old.
As instructed, I called Rob at 9 the next morning. He hadn't had any luck finding a new distributor the day before, and I didn't have much hope that anything would have changed overnight. He told me to come over, so I drove down the freeway in third gear with my hazards on and coasted down the driveway of 14 Makiriki lane, closely watched by two lazy-looking cows. A woman answered the door.
"Oh, you're here about the van. Come in, Rob's gone to get your distributor." I felt awkward at first. It seemed apparent that she'd only recently gotten up; she wore slippers, and was making a pot of coffee. "Would you like some breakfast? Toast? How about coffee?" She poured me a cup and I asked her if Dannevirke was her hometown. "No no, we just moved into town about ten years back. We farmed out in Hawke's Bay, sheep and beef. Over four thousand head of 'em. I'm from the Coramandel myself." It felt good to be in a home again, and we chatted while I played with the cat and she ate toast. Rob appeared shortly, sneaking through the back door with a single red rose and an impish, toothless grin. His wife's back was to him and he made an elaborate shushing gesture as he reached around and presented it to her in a surprising flourish. "Happy valentine's day darling!"

So it turned out he did find a distributor, but it didn't come from just any junkyard. "High School demo model. From the auto shop. They'll give it to you for 60 bucks but only if you give them your old one so they can inspect it in class." Deal. I waited while he consumed two turkey sandwiches and most of a two-liter bottle of Coke, fortifying himself for what I feared might be a lengthy process. 45 minutes later, though, we were cruising smoothly down the road on a test drive and talking up a storm, mostly about his six children. When we got back, I mentioned in passing that my dad liked old cars, and Rob got a funny look on his face.
"Wanna see something?"
"Sure"
"Wanna bring your camera?"
"Do I need it?"
"Yeah."
We walked to the shed on the back corner of his property, and he peeled the tarp off of a 1914 Model T Ford. "My Grandad bought it new here in New Zealand. Never drove it in the rain. All original. Last thing that happened to it was a repaint in the thirties when my dad backed it into a tree. Still runs too! You gotta crank it. I'm fixing it up for my daughter's wedding. It's in a year-should give me just enough time." It was extremely beautiful. The top was this rich brown leather, the headlights like tiny hurricane lamps you had to light by hand. There was no gearshift, but three different pedals which all did strange and counterintuitive things. I cooed appreciatively and he told me how he'd been offered 200,000 US dollars for it but would never sell it. "I don't owe anybody anything. I don't need the money. It's the kind of thing you wanna hang on to."

He undercharged me and I overpayed, though the whole thing came out costing less than 50 bucks in the states. I can't wait to show the pictures to pops.

Breakdown, Mt. Manganui, East Cape and Napier

We finally made it to Thames by the skin of our teeth and camped in a beautiful valley campground outside of town. They had bikes for free and we rode around on the beach and down into the town to watch the Wellington sevens tournament in a bar. The couple of days we spent there were mostly recovering from the epic van experience but nevertheless we decided to brave the drive across from Thames to the East Coast. Everything went more or less as before with the van but we had some kind of serious lapse in judgement and decided to just push through to Whakatane. We got SO CLOSE but as we were going up a hill to get on the expressway outside of Tauranga the van had a final tantrum and died. We tried to start it. We tried again. Nothing. We put on sunscreen, ate all the remaining fruit in our cooler, and called AA, New Zealand's version of the AAA but its members bear a certain resemblance to what you might think of in the American version.

Our Rupert-enforced rest stop outside Mt. Manganui

A brief hour later a truck pulls up and out leaps Roger in his fashionable lime-green reflector vest. He tears open our front seat and between questions about Obama and Minnesota (the only state he hasn't been to, apparently) begins to jab screwdrivers into our engine. He pokes around and periodically tells Margaret to turn the key or not turn the key while he generates a lot of sparks. In the end he calls us a tow truck and tells us not to worry because he's told the guy to tow us to a car park that is near a pub and a liquor store. We are no longer worried. It turns out we stalled out on the very last hill before we could have gone cruising down into the resort hotspot and surfing capital of New Zealand, Mt. Manganui.

Not such a bad place to be 'trapped'

The car park turns out to be a campground swarming with hordes of shrieking children a mere 5 km from the town itself. We set off down the blazing sidewalk and made it not five minutes when we were surprised by a cheerful honk. I guess Roger must live in the neighborhood, because he picked us up and took us to town, inquiring thoughtfully about the 40 minutes we had been apart.
The episode with our attentive rescuer Roger and his screwdriver technique inspired us to finally name the van. Previously we had thought about naming it Rupert, but after the breakdown we decided that Rupert was a whiny hypochondriac with serious asthma and our fixed up van needed a new name to match its new ability to actually drive us places. So we named it Roger Sparks and we have decided that Rupert is now a kind of derisive insult like "stop being rupertish" or "you're ruperting". Roger Sparks is a very flamboyant German or Eastern european van. Possibly a body builder with a strong maternal instinct.

Anyway, turns out Mt. Manganui is a little...boring. Like Santa Cruz with no hippies. Everything closes by about 7:30 (a disturbing pattern in New Zealand in general) and the only people who really talk to you are overly friendly and sunburnt men named Brett. There was a large gathering of people all watching a game which can only be described as "lie down in the sand and then run towards a stick while wearing a speedo and cap." Fortunately the car was cheap and easy to fix and we were on the road after the long weekend.
Our route took us around the East cape towards Gisbourne on a twisty mountain highway lined with pohutukawa trees and dead possums. There are no big towns on the way, just tiny, predominantly Maori villages and endless empty beaches. Margarett collected enough shells that she has to ship them home to her mother for safekeeping because we ran out of room in the van.

Now we're in Napier, we've had too much coffee and we need another glass of wine. We're going to go get Art Decoed. You figure it out.

SPEED XI New Zealand: the search for Keanu

Written in the car by Margarett last week sometime on the way to Thames on the Coromandel Peninsula:

How to begin? All is well, sort of... We have our van, the wind is flowing through our hair and the Paul Simon is blasting. Then we hit the freeway (which is not as scary as it could have been considering our newfound driving skills). The van starts jerking spasmodically as we hit 5th and stalls out on the on ramp. I intrepidly start it up again while still rolling and sort of urge it forward wondering if we should even be anywhere near a freeway in this breadbox of danger when we realize that suddenly the van has decided that any time we try to shift gears, it will commence with an awful lurching seizure. I spend several minutes cursing alternated with kind of helpless laughing and eventually through a lot of coaxing (and many people passing us looking curiously at our ridiculous heart-painted van sputtering along) we figure out that the van's preference is for an RPM comparable to a jet engine. 90 kmph in 4th gear seems to be ideal. Who knows how long the "new" radiator will hold out. Also, hills and stop and go traffic are not included in the van's repertoire. We hope to make it to Thames by nightfall or at all, really. Every now and then I peel my eyes off the odometer and I think "Shit, I'm in New Zealand, this is some of the most beautiful countryside I've ever seen hands down" but then the van gives a warning lurch and maybe trries to stall out again and I have to try again through the force of my glare keep the damn thing going. I have no idea the actual speed limit out here but regardless of what it is we can't go any slower or faster than 90 kmph and we are gaining a serious caravan of about 15 cars behind us. As of writing this we have 80 km to go.

Update: turns out we can also go about 2 kmph ok when traffic inexplicably stops in the middle of nowhere. It's a traffic light (??!?!?!) holding up about 8km of cars.

The illustrious Rupert

Graceland

So we've got our van now, and I'm still waiting for my heart rate to come down from the harrowing journey across the city. We decided to take only surface streets from pleasant tropical suburbia to downtown because the freeway just seemed too intimidating, a decision which, in retrospect, may have been poorly conceived. The first five minutes were sheer joy. Our van comes complete with Paul Simon tape, which incidentally is the single most perfect soundtrack one could ask for while careening dangerously through roundabouts and accidentally turning your windshield wipers on when trying to turn left. The weather was perfect, the directions seemed clear, and Molly only missed third gear a couple of times. A combination of extensive construction and an absolutely terrible map I took from a third-tier car rental company, however, led to many u-turns, parking lot surveys, and taking of the round about all the way round. Eventually (and it took that whole goddamn tape and then some) we made it back to where we'd stored our stuff and we could breathe deeply into paper bags.

Superbowl Monday and Van Quest 2009

Our first day in Auckland we went out to get phones but instead we found the Superbowl. It took us a bit to figure out if it had already happened and we were still debating time zones and watching buggy racing when it came on. 4 beers later and I am arguing with an english guy in a suit over Palomalu's hair and general awesomeness over the cheers of a bar full of inexplicable Kiwi Cardinals fans (?). We asked them if they even knew where Arizona was. No answer. In the end we got incredibly beermotionally involved in the game and rooted for the Steelers for about as much reason as the Cardinals fans were rooting for the cardinals. I.e just to make it exciting.

Auckland from Mt. Eden

The next day we went on a van-finding odyssey and our first stop was trying to buy a camper van from this guy: http://www.totaltravel.co.nz/travel/north-island/auckland/auckland/transport/car-hire/downtown-rentals. The first sign that things were a little off was the unmarked junkyard with no cars or vans that appeared functional even to the most radical imagination. I think only about 2 had all their wheels and/or engines or doors. After calling him up and waiting for a couple of minutes a dilapidated white car pulls up and out leaps a man in posession of about 23.8% of his teeth and some amazing denim "shorts" that were so full of holes they were more air than shorts. He kept wondering out loud and muttering about who had left the cars on so they wouldn't start or who had broken the doors etc. when it was pretty clear that no one else ever came there let alone messed around with the cars. Needless to say, we didn't commit to anything right away.

After that singular experience we caught a ride with Laura and Annie to the other van we had looked at online. It had no picture online though but we were pleasantly amazed. This van was cherry red and had a huge heart painted in the back window. It has a leaky radiator and no power steering which makes it approximately 5 million times better than the previous vans. So we decided to buy it from Trevor and his wife (who clearly wears the pants in their relationship). He's replacing the radiator and we're picking it up tomorrow afternoon, christening it, and heading for the beach!!

This morning we took a ferry teeming with old people to Waiheke island off the coast of Auckland (don't ask us how to pronounce anything down here because it's definitely not ever how it looks). By 11 AM Magaret had seared the outline of her shirt onto her decollatage (she's a LADY, dammit!) and covered it in a horrible, chafing paste of sand and sunscreen while I accumulated a sun 'reaction' on my legs akin to the color of a boiled beet ("It's not really a burn, it's just a 'reaction'"). After a lot of supremely satisfied sighing, collecting shells and finding sweet tide pools and getting shrimp pedicures we set out for the nearest booze hole. This 'hole' happened to be a cluster of swank vineyards that were only slightly less packed with old people. The world-renowned Stonyridge vineyard had an ancient black english lab and some incredible Malbec all from grapes grown on the island but too many people so we walked over to the nearby Te Motu vineyard which is smaller, younger and didn't have too many people. There we experienced an awesome Sauvignon Blanc from Marlborough and a small Jack Russel mix.


That's all for now, we need to go ice our sun reactions, sort our sea shells and repack our individual luggage explosions in our rooms.
Cheers,
Molly and Margaret.

P.S. we're considering getting mumus tomorrow to avoid more of this sort of daily self-roasting.