Be Gentle Annie, you too Ruby Bay
December 2, 2005Ruby Bay, New Zealand
10:01pm
“Well, that was fun”
This was Hud’s satisfied summary of the evening we just spent in Moteuka at their version of a Santa Claus parade. People in shorts and slides being the only difference from Toronto’s version. Not that the Santa Claus parade at home always had snow, being they hold it in the middle of November, but it is was 24 degrees and sunny today. Santa’s jingle bells must have been a bit dewy.
We made it. Our place is wonderful.
All anxieties are dashed. Our bags are actually close to empty. Dresser drawers are bursting.
The fridge is full of green vegetables. Our car weighs less than a hay filled rhino. The sun sets over an olive grove we overlook from our patio.
The beach is seven minutes away. Sigh.
We arrived yesterday, after a slight detour up to Karamea to retrieve my wallet, which some angel like man found in the middle of the road and turned into the police. Humanity, it’s me Jason, I believe. I also believe my wife’s glass is always full because it was her who never gave up hope that my wallet was out there waiting to be recovered. Oh, and not a dime of the money was missing. Of course if you are reading this first without reading the last entry you have no idea what I am talking about. Of course if this were a real diary I would not be talking to the people reading it. Of course if I were as a real writer, I would not use these silly repetitive sentences to try and be funny. Tough guys don’t dance.
To summarize. My wallet was lost and found and now sits bulging out of the top of my right buttock, with less cash in it only because we had to buy vitamins and q-tips and probably coffee. I loved New Zealand people before, I love them more now.
So we drove, 300 kilometeres from the west coast to 45kilometres north of Nelson, the third largest city in the south island. Our cottage is a two storey, two bedroom converted barn with totally enough room to not drive each other crazy, and even can house two wayward parents and one wayward Italian, although thankfully, not at the same time. Our host, David, is a former committee member of the Nelson tourism board and has provided us with amenities that only being close to a city can offer. The most important being of course, Broadband Internet.
Yesterday we chilled mostly, the town closest to us, Moteuka, pop. 10,000 is about 12 kilometres away and has everything we need in regards to groceries, sundries, cafes, bars, etc… It feels very odd and a little bit nice to be this close to civilization again. The last five weeks was a mish mash of absolute isolation and faux crowds that appeared and disappeared with the flash of a camera bulb.
Today we spent infiltrating the town of Moteuka. We registered Hud for Playcentre, the same organization Hud and Steph attended in the North Island, allowing Hud to make friends, allowing us to make friends with the parents. I went today and scanned the mothers to see if there were any Germans, no luck. Oh how I miss the Germans. So Hud and Steph have two and a half weeks to make relationships as Playcentre shuts down for the holidays until after we are gone. Pressure’s on Steph, work that charm, flash those Chiclets, fake that laugh. Same with you Hud..
The library was next as I needed something to read besides Guns, Germs and Steel, which I almost got interested in again. We signed up and I took out the last book by Michael Cunningham, the man who wrote The Hours and At home at the end of the world, the latter of which I loved, if only for this description: “He was big and inevitable, like a tree”.
We drove home and ate lunch and almost did nothing until Steph decided we had more towns to see, more things to register for. So we hit Mapua and Richmond, one small and one quite big, the latter where we went to a mall for vitamins and q-tips, did I mention that already?
So the novel writing starts again on Monday. I am terrified. In the last five weeks I looked at it exactly no times. And my confidence is shot because I happened to read two great books, Middlesex and A Fine Balance. What a mook I am to think I can write a novel. I will finish it though, so it can lay covered in dust on a shelf somewhere in the studio apartment we all will be living in upon our return.
It’s still all worth it.
Every last playground.
Every last small town café.
Every waterfall.
Every grain of beach sand.
Love to all,
J.
The drive from
November 30, 2005
Gentle Annie Beach, 45 kilometres north of Westport, New Zealand
9:06pm
I lost my wallet. And this place, no matter how beautiful, and what a nice, simple quiet time we had here, will always be, the place where I lost my wallet. $350. Credit cards. Original birth certifcate. Drivers license. Picture of Hud wearing my basketball shoes when he was two. Gone. Bummer. Guess what I miss most? The cash of course. I may be a sentimental doofus, but I now have over two thousand pictures of Hud. It was kind of ripped in the corner anyway. It was cute though, he put my shoes on and looked like a giant L.
Gentle Annie. It’s where we are now. North of Westport. South of Karamea, the beginning of the Heaphy Track, a world famous four-day tramp. From icy pints, zinc lips, hiking boots and talking to familiar strangers to endless raw beaches, driftwood graveyards, rock pools with black crabs and red beaked oyster catchers squawking at us to get away from their nests. Not that Franz Josef was huge at all, but where we are now makes it look like a booming metropolis.
Other than that, it’s the place where I lost my wallet.
How did someone as smart as me lose my wallet? It’s honestly what I was thinking. It was easier to think that instead of wondering how I could be so stupid. I left it on the roof of the car and drove away. Leaving us to look for it on 60 kilometres of the windiest, steepest stretch of highway you could imagine. Needle? It’s me haystack. Needless to say the moment I realized it was gone, I knew it was hopeless. Steph remains positive and will until we depart this location and make the four-hour drive to Nelson, our home for the next eight weeks.
So that was day one here, not including travel day where we arrived to find our host Ellen doing the last bit of cleaning on the beach cabin we rented very reasonably for the last three days. It is about 100 metres from the Tasman Sea. It puts us to sleep. Its aggressive waves are easily mistaken for cars driving up the unsealed road in front of the cabin. The cabin itself actually is the first place that reminds me of cottages back home. Minus the palm trees on the front lawn. It is rustic enough to feel cozy. And not so pastoral that we are boiling hot water for our baths. It’s a three bedroom, but one room is single bunks and about eight inches of room to get into bed. Hud sleeps in the double across the hall from us. We have a double as well, which has only proven to be too short, where I thought it would be too narrow.
The end of day one did give us the opportunity to climb to the other side of the point and mess around in the rock pools.
The difference in the coast line from high to low tide here was about 100 feet. I walked here in the morning and took pictures of the waves crashing into the rock formations. When I came back with Steph and Hud, the waves were not even touching the rocks. Why I continue to be amazed by the tides I will never understand. Especially from someone who loves routine so much.
Day two, today, was spent here at the cabin, up the road to a beautiful walk along an old railway line, through a tunnel and over bridges, right beside the Mokahanui River.
Good stuff here. At the end of the day we went to the beach. I swam and Hud dug as Steph wondered out to the sand bar to watch the waves and contemplate her simple yet complicated life. After we came home and ate chicken fajitas. All of us quiet, eager for tomorrow to arrive to see what the next place will look, and feel like.
Our host Ellen is an American who came here 32 years ago to teach. She met her husband in Auckland and moved here a couple of years later. They raised four kids here, some of which have left, others have left and come back. It’s about 1000 acres of both bush and beach, including Gentle Annie point, which they lease from the government. It is pretty spectacular.
But what wasn’t in the last five weeks of adventure (for us). Between the stoked jet boating, the lazy seal swimming on our doorstep, the yellow train chugging along on viaducts built 140 years ago, the couple of drunken nights hunkering down and remembering how to talk to people again, to watching Hud adjust to life like a gypsy with the excited smile of a blue eyed monkey.
Everyone says he will forget everything he will have seen and done by the time we come home. He probably will. My hope is it soaks into his alabaster skin. Making him remember for no reason that life can be full of opportunity and adventure.
A new soap opera begins tomorrow.
I am ready,
Love to all,
J.
posted by Jason @ 2:04 AM
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