29 Dec 2003 - 9th day in New Zealand
0830 - Just talked to Sharon at home. Shocking news. She's come down with something called Bell's Palsy. Probably stress induced. A viral infection of the the seventh cranial nerve. The result is that the right side of her face is paralyzed. 80% of folks so afflicted recover. 20% apparently remain affected. I'm still pretty stunned at this news. It may mean I have to rethink my return on the Direct Tui. I could be home 15 days earlier if I collected my stuff from the ship in Tauranga on Jan 2nd and then flew home from Auckland. The cost would be very expensive for a one-way ticket to Seattle from Auckland and I'd be tossing half of what I paid for the Direct Tui as well. When we get to that point, we'll have to make the call.
We talked about a half hour. I've been out of touch for two days - a lot can happen in that amount of time. As it is, there's not much I can do about any of this from the other side of the planet.
Well, I'm at Herbertville on the east coast of the North Island. A nice motor camp with friendly people here. Very remote, though. Tonight, I should be in the Napier area. I'm going to write up some notes from yesterday and then maybe go down and have a look at the beach and then press on. The weather is gray and cool. Looks like rain could be coming.
0930 - Just finished writing up yesterday's doings. My stomach is stressed thinking about Sharon and how far away I am and how little I can do from here to help her.
Before I left Herbertville, I took another walk to the back of the camp. I wanted to get the name of the fellow I talked to so much last night and to take some photos of their batch - it was a very cool one.
When I got back there, Andy's wife (I think his last name is Bell but I may be wrong about that) was there and everyone else had gone out on the water. I asked her for Andy's name and if I could make some photos of the batch - she said the photos would be fine.
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| Batch right side | Batch left side | Batch from a distance |
After I shot the photos, I fell to talking with Gus who was also there last night and his batch is the one with the gray railing to the left of the distance shot, above. Last night, he and I talked a bit but most of my interchange was with Andy.
Gus and I talked for a bit about my trip and plants and trees and then I asked him what he did for a living and he said he was semi-retired but that he had several degrees and had taught Maths (in British countries, they always say Math in the plural form) at the college level. I asked him if he was still interested and if he followed many of the developments in science in general. He was and did, indeed. And a great conversation was off and running. In the next hour, we covered a lot of subjects like birds swooping and diving into the sea again and again. He's got a great memory. At one point, I mentioned some lines from Khalil Gibran's, "The Prophet" and he replied by quoting a whole long bit from that part of the book. He said that at one point, he'd committed most of the book to memory. I must remember to send him and E-mail and remind him to find Paulo Coelho's book, "The Alchemist".
He has plans for a book on how young minds best learn maths. That, of course, provoked a reference to the article by Hans Morzvec in The New Humanists, which I've just read. Well, that was it. I jumped up and said I'd return in a minute and I went and got the book for him to see.
During
our long and interesting talk, Andy's wife came over and presented me with a
package of seafood which they apparently caught in the last day or so.
I protested that I didn't know how to cook it but the said it was all prepared
and just needed to go into the fridge. I feel bad now that in all
the excitement, I failed to remember her name (and that I'm still not sure about
their last name). I remember her good cheer and friendly smile,
however - very nice. maybe, I'll e-mail Gus later and recover this
information.
Finally, it was time to hit the road if I was going to make some miles today. I regretted having to cut my talk with Gus short. I have the feeling that he and I could spend many hours from time to time tracing the webs of science and other subjects as well. We traded cards - perhaps we'll stay in touch.
When I left the camp (waving at Val), I drove up into town to see where the
road went and what the beach access looked like (which I had missed, yesterday).
That
curiosity satisfied, I drove back by the camp and looked for the road that I
suspected crossed the small river behind the camp. It wasn't hard to
find and soon I was driving on the other side of the river looking back at the
camp. The view is just here to the right.
The small road went around towards Cape Turnagain and I wanted to go over near the Cape and collect a small rock from this historic place for Gertraude. I did this and I have the rock now.
For those of you rusty of why Cape Turnagain is a historic place, it is because when Captain Cook was exploring New Zealand, he sailed south to this point and then decided to turn around and try to circumnavigate the island (if that's what it was) by going in the other direction. Later, after he passed through the Cook Straits, he once again came to Cape Turnagain thus proving the North Island was, indeed, an Island.
Along
this road, I saw some birds in a small estuary that looked to my untrained eyes
like swans. I snapped a photo.
Then I turned my van north and began to work my way up towards the Hastings / Napier area.
It is a sign of something significant that each day now when I leave a camp after having met people and made friends, I feel a sense of sadness and a longing to stay another day. There's something very appealing to the camp camaraderie I have shared in with these folks, I can see why they come back year after year. Today, with my worries about what's happening to Sharon, I think I felt and extra pang as I left.
The
sky had been gray all morning promising rain in the pebbled clouds and in the
feeling of the air. True to all of that, within an hour of my departure,
it was raining and proceeded to rain harder and harder all day. It has
pissed and sprinkled since I've been here but this was the first sustained
downpour. At times, I had to crank the wipers up to high speed.
I'd have to say that today was the first day since I've left home that I've felt anxious and a bit uncertain. I found myself thinking about Sharon and wondering what was the best thing to do - should I complete my trip as planned, should I collect my things off the ship on January 2nd and then return the van and go to the Auckland Airport and buy a one way ticket home, or should I just leave word for the Direct Tui folks to ship my stuff and go to Auckland now, directly.
Of course, I didn't have enough to go on to make a good decision yet but that didn't stop me from working the questions over and over. And the rain was a bit depressing as a backdrop. The empty wet country seemed to roll by very slowly even while it required my close attention to navigate the wet mountainous curves.
As it was yesterday, it seemed that there were few or no small towns along the highway. Twice today, I saw sheep on the highway. Perhaps the weather weakens the fences or excites the sheep to escape. When I passed them, the car terrorized them and they ran from the big white Tui Van monster.
I thought I would find Hastings and Napier interesting. Hastings did not impress me though I didn't get off the main highway to try to find its center. Years ago in 1982, I knew some people from Vancouver, B.C. who moved to New Zealand - Jake and Lorraine. She was a Kiwi already returning home and he was her Dutch husband. They'd been living in Vancouver for awhile. I remember, he was allowed to bring his American Jeep and he thought that he'd probably make a lot of money selling it there. I never heard any more of them after they left. When I knew I was coming to NZ, I imagined I might look them up but, now, seeing the size of Hastings, I knew it as an unrealistic idea. Impossible, really, since I've forgotten their last name.
I drove on to Napier. It was largely destroyed in the 1930's by an earthquake and given the period then, most of the town was rebuilt in the Art Deco motif. The highway takes you through town right by the water. I saw a lot of nice hotels and restaurants. There were few vacancies and fewer parking spots. I drove and looked but wasn't inspired to find a parking place and stop to walk around. Maybe the weather and my thoughts were driving me on.
On the far side of Napier, I needed diesel so I stopped. The lady who took my credit card was very nice and friendly. She was Maori and had tattoos on her arms and hands and fingers. I asked her if there was a good restaurant up the road and she said there was in just one kilometer but I must have missed it and Napier faded away and the green endless countryside returned and the rain never left.
After Napier, it got very empty again. The next town of any size was Wairoa. I was getting hungry and also thinking I needed to stop so I could call Sharon before 2030 her time. It rained harder and harder. Lots of mountainous ups and downs and curves and bridges. I found myself looking less that the terrain and thinking more about getting someplace and about talking with Sharon.
Finally, Wairoa showed up and it was a decent size. I thrashed for a bit looking for a nice restaurant like the Slow Food Cafe I found the other day in Masterton but I saw nothing. Then I found the old main street. It only had stores on one side. A long park and a river were on the other side. It was maybe three or four blocks long. It was still pouring unrelentingly. The only thing particularly good about the rain was that it was warm like Texas summer rain. I parked and got out and walked over to the stores and walked up and down the whole street looking for something that appealed to me. After one pass, I switched into "pick the least of the available evils" mode and had another go. I was hungry but I was also considering just moving on.
Finally, I settled on one called The Fish and Feathers which was basically a take-away place with some tables as well if you wanted to eat there. The menu, up on the wall, was pretty broad and I finally settled on the Scallops Dinner for $18NZ and a cup of coffee. The place had hard surface walls so it was noisy. The lady that ran it and the two younger fellows who I think may have been her suns, were Maori. She seemed serious unlike the lady at the gas station. The place certainly wasn't what I was looking for but it was what there was.
While I was waiting, I grabbed the local newspaper and began to read. That didn't make me like the Hawks Bay / Wairoa area any better. There had been a riot just the other day with 60 youths and some police had been hurt. In another story, three Maori youths had raped a girl as she walked home. As I read I remembered seeing a sign in front of another restaurant on the same street that said what was no admissible as attire and gang colors were out. And that it turn made me recall that before I came toNZ, I'd read their newspapers on-line on and off for awhile and I recalled that there was gang problems in the Napier area.
The food, when it came, was a nice surprise, however. The scallops were deep fried and tasty and I had a generous portion. I never did take a shine to the place, however. I felt like I was in a take-out lunch place in Los Angeles in one of the neighborhoods where it might pay to be a bit careful.
When I'd come into town, I'd noted a sign indicating where there was a motor park so I back tracked to there and pulled in. It was at the edge of town behind a residential neighborhood. The lady said she had a powered site and I said I'd take it and I gave her $11NZ cash. There was a public phone in the office but I could see from the sign above it that it wasn't going to work with my phone card. (There must be multiple competing phones systems here which seems a bit dumb). The lady told me that there was one in town which would accept my card. It was just beside The Fish and Feathers take-away, where I'd just come from.
I told her I'd be back for the site in a few minutes and I took off again to The Fish and Feathers. I got Sharon on the first try though I had to recharge my phone card first from my VISA as our long talk this morning had worn it down to .45 cents. That done, I placed the call.
Sharon's spirits were much better. Thank God. She said that she felt better because the condition had stopped getting worse. We talked for a bit and it seems she's convinced now about the need to really rest. She admitted that she does have a real problem running herself too hard and hurting herself. I ragged on her on the same theme for a bit. But, the net was that I felt a strong sense of relief that she feels better and her spirits are up. Of course, all of this can change any moment. I don't think the questions hanging over the rest of my trip will be resolved for a few days yet.
We rang off and I thought about going back to the Wairoa Motor Park and staying there and something clicked in me and I decided 'no' - I was going to simply drive on and leave my $11 as an offering - perhaps it was the price for paying respect to my feelings and intuitions about the place. So, I got into the van and headed up hwy 2 towards Gisbourne and left Wairoa behind me.
After a few minutes, I had another look at the map and I noted that there were beach motor parks coming up on the Mahia Peninsula. That sounded just like the ticket. Somehow, having the ocean nearby can make any camp seem better. I guess the empirical truth is that I like the rural motor parks better than the ones in towns. People living or spending time in the county just seem simpler and more genuine to me.
I came to one motor park, The Blue Bay, just before Mahia Beach but I had a feeling that there was a second one further on. There was and it was probably nicer but in spite of the pouring rain, it was full. I asked and The Blue Bay was the only other one locally. So, I returned to the first one and as I pulled in, I told a fellow who obviously worked there that I was looking for a powered site. He said he didn't think there was one but that I should go an ask at the office. I did and there was one. There was a lot of radio yak yak back and forth to make sure it was open and powered and it was so I took it. $26NZ for a piece of ground and a place to plug in and electrical cord. Quite a jump from last night's $7.
The camp, like the entire countryside, was been deluged with rain. There are huge puddles everywhere. Some folk's tents are in them. It is a mess. My piece has some water on it but I can get in and out and string my power cord without getting into the puddles so it is OK.
This camp has some classical batches in it but currently, it is overrun with folks on holiday. I have a strong suspicion that I may have a hard time finding places from here on out. Thus far, I haven't met anyone here and I suspect, given the tenor of the place, I probably won't with the rain and all. That's fine. I had a lot of notes to catch up on.