TASHY TRAVELS

Every Sunday, I am going to upload a post about the different countries I have visited and/or lived in since 2002.

I can assure you of some interesting stories.

POTTYED NEW ZEALAND, SOUTH

We arrived in New Zealand in March 2005. In May 2006 we finally set off on our fact-finding journey around that country. We divided New Zealand into eight regions and spent time in each. Each region had a separate section on the website. During the three months we spent travelling, I wrote a rather obscure, some might say surreal, piece for each region. I will upload the pieces as they were when I wrote them but divided between the south and the north island. It was actually called a Pott(y)ed Guide to New Zealand. No photographs so use your imagination.

You know, it’s a strange job. Four or five days spent experiencing a place, its people, its culture and then two days of full-on driving. I drive along listening to a CD or two and trapped in my own, somewhat strange thoughts. Then, sometimes, I see a sign or something and it gets my little old mind working overtime.

There are certain things about New Zealand road signs I really like. For example, normally roads that are off the main highway have a sign with their name on, opposite where they are and pointing perpendicular to the main highway. Bit of geometry for you there. Don’t say this isn’t an intellectual column.

Another example is when they write the warning, or advice on the road itself. In England, if you approach a road junction, you may find written on the road,

GIVE
WAY

with the way under the give, just like it would be in a book.

Fine, but when you are reading a book, you don’t approach it at 30 miles an hour from the bottom and so the New Zealand idea, and maybe in other countries too, is to write it so you reach the words in the order you should read them. In other words

WAY
GIVE

Now of course to see the full effect of this you need to squat under your computer screen and leap up at about 30 miles an hour reading as you go. Easy isn’t it. Oh I know, but my knees crack too, don’t worry.

Anyway, as Keith Potger, singing about Good Friends, and I are leaving Christchurch, I saw a sign saying ‘Sockburn Overbridge’ and that got me thinking. How can you have an underbridge? Surely a bridge should go over. Yes, you can go under a bridge, but it’s not an underbridge is it? Maybe you could have an ascending hill? Or an under tunnel? Or a circular roundabout? There’s no end to it.

Just as I write this, I am starting week two and I have just crossed over a bridge which was shown as somewhere halfbridge. Now that is worrying. Was it the first half in which case I should stop immediately or the second half in which case…. well how did I get there. Just as a final point on bridges nearly all of them in New Zealand seem to be numbered. Who did it? Who went out and looked for each one and gave it a number? I’d like to meet him because maybe he could be more interesting than Steve Davis.

A little later, just as Keith was drinking from liquid crystal fountains, I was driving he was drinking, I saw a sign saying Rolleston – Town of the Future. I then drove on and as far as I could see, there was nothing. No town, so maybe no future. Could it be that sometime in the future Rolleston will be here, but again, wherever you live you want it to be a town of the future don’t you? It’s no good moving in and discovering the town won’t be there in two years time. Just imagine it, you come home one night and the whole town has gone. Nothing left, except possibly bridge 4573 or maybe just half of it.

Then, with Keith telling me I’d made impossible dreams come true, I was trying, I drove into Ashburton and there in the middle of the town was, and if it wasn’t Ashburton I apologise but driving and writing notes is so tricky, a signpost. Nothing strange there but the sign said to the right was the Catholic Church and to the left the Presbyterian Church and another church, the denomination of which I forget. No street names, just directions to get to church. I think this drive around New Zealand could be quite entertaining sign wise so watch this space.

By the way, for those of you too young to know who Keith Potger is, or those of us too old to remember, senior moment experiencers, Keith was a part, a quarter to be precise, of the Australian pop group The Seekers. I met him in 2005 when I was in Western Australia and despite being part of a legendary Australian pop group, and a bit of a superstar in my book, he took time to talk to us, even encourage us and help out when he could. One of life’s really nice guys and, for any sins he may have, my companion, CD-wise, on some of this journey.

Have you ever wondered how places got their names? No, well you should. When I drove from Dunedin to Queenstown, right across the bottom of the South Island, I came across a place called Clinton. Immediately, it reminded me of the American President. Actually it was quite empty so not many people seem to go down there, which reminded me once again of dear old Bill. And, if I got away with that, I have to tell you that not far from Clinton was Gore. To me this was an amazing coincidence. Clinton and Gore almost next to each other. Now, if what I have recently read is true, Mr Al Gore may be thinking about running as a candidate for the next President of the United States. And here again is one of those little amusing things in life. Clinton and Gore, in the South Island, are separated by some incredibly thick bush. Need I say more?

There is another link here as well because apparently dear old Bill came once, only once I believe, to Queenstown. The air down there is incredibly crisp and clean and I’m sure he broke the habit of a lifetime and actually inhaled while he was there. Not only that but he went down on the Broadwalk, you can never have too much of a good joke, and tasted, or maybe swallowed, the food in the local restaurant there, conveniently called the Broadwalk.

But enough of this fun with American presidents, would-be president’s etc. This week I have been in Queenstown with the thrill seekers. I thought I would have a look and see what was the most frightening thing I could find. There is the canyon swing, the original bungy, a couple of later-than-original bungys or even a fly-by-wire. The strange thing is that they are all incredibly safe. Hardly anyone ever gets hurt. So obviously the thrill is not a fear of danger. Doing something when you know you won’t be hurt but you’re getting a thrill (oh dear I’m thinking of dear old Bill again) seems to be popular.

For those that don’t know, in my youth I did a bit of rally driving. Now some of you may think that the thrill I got from this was the danger of flying through the forests of the dear old UK and the danger of smashing into a tree or two. Wrong, in my case anyway. The thrill I felt was the ability to control the car, to make it do what I wanted and to do it quicker, sometimes, than anyone else. I didn’t think about danger and when I did, I quit. So are there two distinct types of people out there. I once read, and as I read it there may be no truth in it, that Alain Prost, four times world motor racing champion, hated roller coaster rides. Was he scared? And if so why did that scare him but not driving a Formula 1 car faster than anyone else?

So what gives the thrill. Is it just falling down at speed? Is it flying through the air with the wind in your cheeks? That reminds me, some people have bungyed naked. Is it because someone else told you it was great? Hey I just jumped off a ledge 50 metres above a river with a rope tied round my ankles, it was great. Aha, now I may be getting there. Let’s try an experiment. Let’s tell everyone paying more tax is a thrill because you know you will have to work more hours to replace the money you’ve lost.

I’m getting so confused about things I think I could probably be the next President of the United States. Although, they’re not that confused are they? George once said that most of the US imports come from abroad. Only most, please note. No, I think the most scary thing this week is the long time it takes to get through the bush from Clinton to Gore and all that can happen if you get lost and can’t find things you thought were there or think you don’t have to stay as long as it turns out you do because you didn’t understand what you were doing. Oh yes we all need bush skills, except perhaps the bush itself. But that’s scary. Some might say it was pretty scary to go through the bush and find you come out into Clinton again. Clinton to Clinton, that sort of journey might make you go down in history or any other subject as well if you like. That’s what learning is all about and we can all do it together at the same time. Except dear old Bill of course. He learnt in turn, didn’t he?

Have you ever wondered how we discover things? I was sitting in a winery in Blenheim the other day and my girlfriend suddenly asked, ‘who discovered how to make wine’? OK, you grow a grape, you pick it, you eat it and wow, that’s nice you say. But who on earth thought now let’s squash it, add a bit of yeast or whatever and wait and then drink it and wow, that’s even better. Now I have enough food and liquid from one plant. Except, of course, if you drink too much of the liquid, you tend to eventually forget for what else the grape could be used.

Then again, who said ‘I can grow grapes in New Zealand’ and gave birth to the New Zealand wine industry. Why had no-one done it before? If you drive around certain parts of the South Island all you can see for miles and miles are vineyards, all with row upon row of vines. However one thing hasn’t changed and that is the names of the wines. Sauvignon Blanc is pretty good here but the words are French. Maybe Sauvignon White doesn’t have the same ring to it. Pinot Noir sounds better than Pinot Black especially when it is a red wine anyway. Sometimes the British do change words to suit their pronunciation ability. Sherry is sherry because they couldn’t say Jerez, the place in Spain where it came from.

You see discovery is a strange thing. Sometimes you wonder about the brains of people who do it. Who first discovered you can get milk from a cow and what the hell did he think he was doing to find out? Who said if I rub two sticks together I will get fire and did he know the flames would be hot? Who said let’s eat this berry and not that one and how many lives were lost because it was the wrong one?

Going right back in time, after discovering what they could and couldn’t eat, I bet the first people around had one hell of shock a few hours later. Can you imagine it? Just sitting there minding your own business and an h arrives in sitting and you have to decide what to do with your own business. Oh I wondered what that was for?

I wonder if there is more to discover about the body. Some things seem obvious don’t they and yet they seem to be wrong. Your finger is just the right size to fit in your nostril but no, it shouldn’t go there; well that’s what my mum said anyway. You have ears at the side of your head and yet people stand in front of you to talk. That’s bad planning. Probably you should be able to listen to two people at once, one from either side. Why does your back always itch when your hands won’t reach there? Is this just a way of making friends? Maybe the belly button does have another use. Watch this space, well not this space, you can watch your own space.

I remember when I was young. Good that, isn’t it. People never ever say I remember when I was old do they? It can’t be that your memory goes as you get old otherwise you would never remember when you were young which was far longer ago. Maybe it’s just that things were better when we were younger. Anyway, what was I going to say? I can’t remember. Oh, yes, I remember when I was young. Now what do I remember? I remember when I was young, that’s a fact. Actually I don’t just remember it I can read it because I’ve written it a few times. So it’s not really memory any more.

Anyway, when I was young, I used to assume that all countries had just one landmass each. There were a few little islands off the coasts; you know Sicily off Italy, Majorca and a couple more off Spain and even Tasmania off the coast of Australia. In England we had the Isle of Man, with three legs and no tailed cats, the Scilly Isles, which weren’t, and a host more including the Isle of Wight, which was so obviously a spelling mistake. But, until I drove on to the ferry in Picton, I hadn’t fully realised that down here, at the foot of the world, there is a country, which is almost equally split into two landmasses. Obviously, immediately those first settlers discovered this fact, they had to think of a name for these two islands one to the north and one to the south.

Incredibly, they came up with the North Island and the South Island and by pure luck, the one to the north was called North Island and the southern one, South Island. Sometimes you look at an atlas and think how lucky we are. Eastern Europe is in the east. Both the poles are in the right place. Well, geographically speaking that is. Demographically speaking most of the Poles seem to be in London these days, which only goes to show you hard I was to replace. I left for Poland in 2002 and about 300,000 of them were needed to cover for me.

Returning to the other poles, the north and south ones, somebody told me that they may one day swap magnetic fields. Just let’s hope I’m not on a plane flying by instruments when that happens. Who knows where we’d all end up? This is one of those things that can really blow my mind; black holes, time loops and magnetic poles.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes remembering when I was young. It’s so long ago now I’m not sure I can but, here I am, travelling through a country made up of two islands. The problem, of course, is that you have to get from one island to the other. Many people fly, good trick if you can do it but Icarus had problems so I don’t go down that route if I can help it. I took my Eurocampers van and went on the BlueBridge Ferry. The problem is that ferries travel on the water and sometimes the water isn’t that flat, especially between the aptly named North and South islands.

Talking of ferry travel reminds me of an experience I had once on the Isle of Man ferry, three legs and no-tailed cats if you remember. I took the night sailing on a particularly rough day, or night, and when we reached Douglas, on the Isle of Man, we couldn’t get into the harbour. I only bring that up here because that is exactly what I did for most of that journey too.

However this ferry journey wasn’t that bad and I sailed out of Picton and about four hours later sailed into Wellington. Had it been daylight, I would have seen the Marlborough Sound. I would have thought I should have heard the Marlborough Sound but who I am to think that? By the way while the Marlborough Sounds apparently is, the Milford Sound, at the bottom of the South Island, is actually a fjord. Many people don’t know that. My first car was a Ford and that had a beautiful sound. I can remember that too. WLY 53G was the number plate, 1969 Escort GT and when I bought it who should be in the showroom but Timo Makinen. He was a big guy. Don’t know how he ever fitted in a mini, had lovely legs though. Oh, am I wandering a bit? Move across, if you like to my North Island muses.

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