New Zealand 12

Bourbon in Vinegar Hill

After spending five nights with my friend Perry Newburn and his wife Kathy it was time for me to move on. Three of those nights I commuted forward to their home in Fielding, once back and also a rest day. I'm so grateful for the wonderful  help and care my special friends  afforded me. 

However, before I started walking Perry took me to a phone shop as the relatively new phone I picked up in Sydney three months ago just stopped working. 

Well, I guess it was my fault as I hadn't bothered putting it in a protective case and when I had it in Karma's pocket it got a smack and the back cover got damaged. Then to hold the battery in I put a piece of duct tape over it. Once when I took the tape off to pull out the battery a plastic strip with an electrical connection peeled off, so I stuck it back with the duct tape! As you can imagine that didn't last too long and eventually, the phone stopped charging up! When I showed this mess to the woman in the phone shop I'm not sure how she kept a straight face when I asked her if the plastic strip was important and would a new battery sort it out! Well, they didn't sell batteries so there was no point going around looking for one, I had no choice but to buy a new phone and my tight budget took a 400 dollar bashing. Yes, I will take care of this one.

After Perry dropped me back to my previous days' finish I walked on for a couple of hours before making a lunch stop. Then a young couple from Berlin cycled into the large rest area at the side of the road where I had stopped. They had two low profile bicycles and a couple of carriages for their two sons aged 3 and 5. They were on an extended trip of about eight months through New Zealand and Australia. They had just come from south-east Asia and Indonesia where I'm sure they got a lot of strange looks. Just then a vintage car drove up and I wanted to ask the driver how old it was and what model etc but he didn't seem too happy with the flat tyre he had gotten, so I didn't bother him. I was getting ready to walk on just as a resident came out of his house and the expression on his face was priceless when he first saw the world walker, the strange bicycles and then the vintage car all at the foot of his driveway!

 

Amazingly, due to the wonderful help, I was getting, I had only carried my pack for two short periods in the previous 12 days. It was a hilly day walking and I wanted to walk more than the 17 kilometres I walked that day, but when I came to a beautiful campsite in a reserve called Vinegar Hill, well I just had to stop for the night. 

I walked down a gravel track which led to the campsite. It had toilets and a free shower, a rarety for a state-run site. I pitched my tent on the bank of the Rangitikei River with an imposing mountain which stretched high up into a slate-grey sky. 

An hour later I got talking to my camping neighbours Reece and Sharon. Even though they only live twenty minutes drive away they camped there a lot. I was invited over to their pop-up caravan which folded out to make another two rooms. He paid only a thousand dollars for it and the story was that it was put up for sale in a buy and sale website by an angry wife whose husband was having it off with his secretary! 

Reece and Sharon were only married just under two years, actually, they married on the day I started my world walk. It was her third marriage and his second. They met by accident when she somehow clicked on his profile by accident and called it a 'fat finger mistype. She liked his smile and after sending him a message he finally responded a month later. Sharon went on:

"We were texting and phoning each other so much and didn't meet up until a long time after as we lived far away from each other. Eventually, I said we should meet and as he was driving over to my place my brother was taken to hospital with melanoma. He said he would turn around and come back another day but I told him to come to the hospital and meet my family. That was our first date and my family loved him immediately and I haven't stopped laughing since!

Then a couple of their friends called Kevin and Mary came over for a chat.

"So, you picked the right time of the year to walk New Zealand!" Said Kevin.

"No I picked the right night to stop here!" was my reply.

Reece was generously sharing his home made bourbon and my goodness it tasted like the real thing! I asked him how he made it and it seemed like a simple and cheap process. The ingredients are just sugar, yeast and water. Key is a distiller machine which cost just seven hundred dollars. When I asked him who he got it from the jokes began and I was almost looking up Kiwi on Google translate! 

 "I bought it off a pommy prick in Rotirura And when you're in the lap of the gods so ya got to go with it...

Then he mentioned that he once bought the ex-wife flowers and she said  I suppose I have to keep my legs open all night... Well, we haven't we got a vase that big? And you will be sleeping on the couch tonight. 

Then his ex-wife's father who seemed to sympathise with him said on their 15th anniversary: "You know, if you raped and murdered my daughter you would have been out of prison now..  So you have to live with the torture instead!"

And he went on: "So my mum on her 80th birthday started telling jokes How many condoms does it take to make a tyre..  365 if you want a good year!"  

Eventually, we got talking about serious stuff. And I was unaware of this: Death by asbestos, which is often described as like dying with  a thousand needles as that's what it feels like, was once a raw material in brakes. Those brakes were great but so deadly to the environment because when the mechanic takes them  out there is a mess of dust, so what did he do he turned on the compressor and the dust went Into the air

In the morning Reece invited me to come over for breakfast and while we were eating the council woman came around to collect the camping fees. I produced my world walk business cards and was exempted from my $9 fee!

I was also invited into Kevin and Mary's motorhome for a coffee before I left and when I complimented on their rig he joked that's what you can have when you are a millionaire. 

He was once an investment manager and was obviously used to talking in millions. "Suppose you have a small amount of money, let's say a million dollars and then you put half of it into shares.."

Tonight just as I was finishing a man came along and offered me a lift, as so many do.. I asked this man where he lived and he said about twenty-five km up the road. So I asked him if he has a place for me to pitch my tent and he said

"Sure, i got a whole farm and we can give you a bed and a feed." 

So I said I would hitch a ride back but he said he would drive me back and I can stay another night and I won't have to carry my pack tomorrow.