The June bug

Recommended second hand shop on the way to the coast.

I broke my camera while I was away. So there will be fewer photos until I resolve this. It's great to be back in Motueka even though I miss my Auckland buds. If you are reading this...I Miss You!

Lou's antennae detected something rather strange in Haast that I'll tell you about...

The west coast and Otago country on the 18-hour Motueka to Dunedin trip was simply spectacular.

We were entranced by mountains, glaciers, high cliffs, bush and sea, in quite different combinations to any we’d seen before. There were tantalising glimpses of cunningly secreted cribs close to the coast, each with its own little bit of beach. One in particular had many nikau palms surrounding it.

The lights of Jade town Hokitika at nightfall were pretty and welcome. We’d driven down the coast in the dusk to our first night’s stop, having left Motueka late, stopping off at an out of the way and very atmospheric, second hand shop that was once yet another old church. 

Lily was allowed to stay at the motel, so no subterfuge was necessary. We stepped out to the recommended bar Stumpers to find it in full rugby mode with cheers and beers. We stayed maybe 20 minutes. Hokie was a pretty dudie sort of a place; not many women were out on the town that night.

We left early after chatting to some blue-uniformed (not of the police kind) female card players from Nelson who’d come to play Hokitika. Pretty staunch folk. Then it was on to glacier country. OK, so we didn’t helicopter onto the ice, but the view from the short walk was enough. Franz and Fox are spectacular. Hmm, already used this ‘s’ word in the third paragraph. But this is the South Island - OK?

Haast in the late afternoon was a curious business. Firstly, where exactly was Haast? It didn’t seem to be where it was supposed to be, but we finally located the lodge we’d booked through Wotif. This former luxury lodge was deserted because it was about to be turned into a Top 20 Motorcamp. The new managers turned up in a luxury caravan the same time as Lou and me. No dogs allowed inside.

It was “just us” in this empty lodge. A bit like The Shining.

Two stags' heads presided over the fireplace in the luxurious lounge. While Lou was busy on wireless, the manager told me the sad story of the original owners of the lodge. After the wife was killed on the highway by a runaway trailer, her husband never got over it. The place went into receivership and hadn’t been used for a while.

(On the way to Haast, I’d spied a Whitebait for Sale sign at a house and bought 200 grams of the little fish for $20, so there were two lovely fritters for me and none for Lou now a vegetarian.)

We snuck the dog inside as she was freezing in the car. In the morning, Louise told me she’d seen a female with long dark hair and wearing a little cap standing by the window in the middle of the night. When she realised what she'd seen, the figure disappeared. I then repeated to her what the manager told me before bed. 

The third day was flat out driving, apart from a brief stop at the Wanaka recycle shop where I was so thrilled to buy a red thermos that I went and left my wallet behind and we had to backtrack to recover it. Wanaka folk and their visitors seem to dispose of a lot of quality stuff; check out the skis and the boots!

We hotfooted to Dunedin through Otago’s large spaces and small towns, Clyde looked especially interesting with old stone buildings set in a forbidding beige landscape.

And so, to Dunedin! City life, everything within easy reach. The supermarket and medical school just a block away. But first, we have to meet Mr Brown. The first meeting does not bode well for the peace of mind of Claire, Gilbert, Louise and Liz. The much-anticipated encounter between the two antagonists, Lily and Bosco Brown, goes off with a lot of low, brown Burmese growls and apologetic Peke-Chin shivering. All we can do is keep them apart. That sort of farce gets old very quickly in a tiny flat that is Bosco’s territory.

I was so happy to be at Claire's exhibition, knowing all the effort that she and her friends have put into the gallery. http://www.odt.co.nz/entertainment/arts/165959/art-seen.

Sad to leave Dunedin, the dump shop, the farm, Port Chambers and so, to the wonderful Leigh, The Bimbles, Violet and Malcolm, Clara and the lost mouse and her sister Emerald, Kate and Rory, thank you. And of course to my darlings who won't be reading this! Nor forgetting the Christchurch honeys too and the little green fingered one in Hanmer.

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You can never have too many salt and pepper shakers.

Apropos of nothing, I’m going to set up as a punctuation consultant, specialising in apostrophes. There is just so much potential business! Below, from the Seeya cheap fares site:

FIJI - Auckland to Nadi only $218ow

This great deal is on Air Pacific. This is a full service airline. All economy class fares include a meal, alcoholic beverages and 23 kgs of check-in baggage - thats a lot of bikini's!

When you speak to the world like that, it’s like being naked without realising it.

Further down the road from us at Riwaka: "Life is to (sic) short... to kiss slowly".

If you incline your head to the side you will see the Hokitika town memorial through the wrecked camera lens.

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Of cream cakes and a white marble road

The cream cakes and doughnuts scarf before it is felted.

I started making merino felt again after visiting Ann-Marie at the Retrotonic shop on the corner of our street, School Road. I had previously made a pig’s nest of trying to make some felted slippers off an internet site. But AM is such an inspiring soul that I rushed home and knocked out two scarves. One is supposed to be like a moth’s wing, it’s all twisty and brown. The other is a concoction of cream-cakes and doughnuts. I’m really pleased with the final result and can't wait to make more.

The last leaf.

Today, walking past orchards rapidly undressing for winter, I saw a ‘last leaf’ hanging on a tree and remembered the story of the woman determining her fate by something as flimsy as a leaf. 

Did you ever read the short story by O. Henry about a young woman with pneumonia who lost her will to live and vowed to die when the last leaf fell off the tree outside her window? The rain and wind did their best to dislodge it but the leaf held on stubbornly so that the young woman lived, at least till the end of the story. By what star – or leaf - do we live?

Louise and I took a step into the unknown when we decided to drive through the rain to Harwood’s Hole… a large sunken hole on Takaka Hill. Oh my goodness. The skinny up and down road was mostly marble and slick. We got as far as an old festival site on Canaan Downs and a bit of beech forest. All part of the Abel Tasman National Park. 

After this, the white marble path steepened with some larger chunks, so, to save the trusty wee Nissan Pulsar possible damage, we set off back down the hill, stopping to coo at a trio of highland cattle perfectly suited to the ambiance of this place. I hope to return soon in a four wheel drive.

A couple of days later we helped make a ‘compost cake’ of green and brown layers. The ‘cake’ ended up being a large brick-shaped object about four foot high. The ingredients – fruit and vegetable waste, horse manure, fresh grass clippings – had been gathered over some time and were waiting nearby. Bio dynamic concoctions were added the composting process. This task was a satisfying experience and not as smelly as you might think. You just don’t think twice about smoothing horse poo over grass clippings with your hands.

We took Dad to Mapua and he took a great fancy to the fish and chip woman there. He so loved the pub on the Mapua wharf he refused to leave so we buggered off to the cluster of crafty wee shops in old corrugated iron sheds. I met a woman called Helen running a design shop. She’d been there for a year or so, from London, to keep an eye on her parents in Dunedin. The climate there was too cold for her so she perched at the top of the island. She stayed on when they died.

When we got back to the pub, Dad had scarpered. He’d gone back for more fish n chips and a chat with the woman. Incorrigible!

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L and I are leaving for Dunedin tomorrow. We are going to drive down the west coast.

A protected persimmon tree - overripe fruit falls off in globules.