"Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need - a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends, worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you, a cat, a dog, and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough to wear, and a little more than enough to drink; for thirst is a dangerous thing."
Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat
Our boat of life, as Jerome K Jerome advises, is sadly lacking. Our little van boat does not contain a cat, though we do seem to have adopted some flies, which, with hindsight, I can reveal remained with us for the rest of the journey and became rather loved companions. (You can't fit a sheep in a van and ducks make a mess).
Most importantly though, we lack beverages. By which I sometimes mean water, (when we stay on unmanaged sites in the middle of nowhere, potable water become previous, and the supply is only as much as we can fit in the tank in our van), but on this occasion I mean beer and wine. Horror of horrors, we neglected to realise that Easter weekend in New Zealand does not mean reduced hours in supermarkets and shops, it means Nothing Is Open. This means we are scratching about to make meaningful meals out of our current supplies, encased in a cooler box without ice in the hope of slowing the mouldering process, but far more worryingly, we can't have a nice glass of something in the long, cozy evenings after everything has gone pitch black and hole up by candlelight in our van. A middle class problem, if ever I heard one. And clearly not actually a problem at all.
What is more interesting, is why it feels necessary. In South East Asia, often we drank little or no alcohol, though Gemmy was a bad influence in Langkawi (not that we resisted much), and we have no excuse for Cambodia. Is it the weather? The society, placing emphasis on drink as synonymous with celebration, relaxation, consolation and most other 'ations'? Is it our arrival again in a western style civilisation, falling back into old habits (though the non Muslim countries of South East Asia drink perfectly freely). Is it the long dark evenings?
I don't know. Perhaps a mixture. Either way we rush to the nearest supermarket as soon as Easter is over, and fill our little boat to sinking point.
"That the boat did not upset I simply state as a fact. Why it did not upset I am unable to offer any reason. I have often thought about the matter since, but I have never succeeded in arriving at any satisfactory explanation of the phenomenon.
Possibly the result may have been brought about by the natural obstinacy of all things in this world. The boat may possibly have come to the conclusion, judging from a cursory view of our behaviour, that we had come out for a morning's suicide, and had thereupon determined to disappoint us. That is the only suggestion I can offer."
Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat
In these few days we are winding our way, quite literally but thankfully at a far more leisurely pace than before, towards Queenstown and the famous Milford Sound. By far the highlight of this is our speedboat trip in the Bullet Gorge.
And, rather like the three gentlemen quoted above, it seems, before we do it, more likely that we would die horribly, than survive and have a fun experience. This dread is mostly generated by a few mixed messages. For one thing, the first thing I see on the wall of the office of the friendly man who owns the holiday park, are a variety of photos of people apparently going over waterfalls in their kayaks. It is extreme to say the least. If you couple this with him telling us that the kayaking club and staying at the moment, that the visit to the burning forest I have been considering is 'probably a bit tame for youngsters like you' (Oil of Olay. It must be.) and then going on to enthusiastically recommend us the speedboat trip, the driver of which is 'just insane - it's brilliant', then I end up basically convinced that the speedboat will be hurtling off the edge of Niagra Falls, my screams of abject terror mingling uselessly with the shrieks of pure joy emanating from my fellow sailors, about 20 years old between them, and all of them named Brad.
"I don't know if I want to do a speed boat ride" I say to M as we serve up dinner that night.
"Oh," he says and the look on his face is a heart wrenching mask of disappointment.
I melt. Rather tremvlingky I examine the leaflet more closely. It does not actually say we will be driving off a waterfall. But it doesn't say we won't be. And I distinctly remember a billboard as we drive into town which had people going over a waterfall. In a kayak, admittedly. And you couldn't see the end of the fall so it was hard to tell how tall it was. But still. If that's the thing here, how can I be sure? Even more worryingly the leaflet boasts 'at least five 360° turns, 'because why not?!' In my mind a 360° turn involves turning upside down and rolling the boat. How does that work? Do you get dunked and the speed of it stops you falling out? Do they warn you? What, worst of all, if the 360° turn is somehow combined with the waterfall?
Eventually, unable to bring myself to refuse M something outright, I come clean about exactly what it us that scares me.
To my relief M laughs, and shows me TripAdvisor reviews to prove its tameness. The turns are more like the kind of turn you make in a Waltzer, which I rather enjoy, and definitely don't involve going upside down.
"Unless it goes very wrong" says M. I go a little pale, "which it won't" he adds quickly.
As for the waterfall, M points out that the pictures were of kayaks, that a speedboat costs money, and in the case of this guy, it is his livelihood. There's no way he is going to throw it over a waterfall.
Even so, when we go to his office the next morning, to book it, I just double check. The lady looks at me as though I am mad,
"No, no waterfalls" she says, laughing a little.
I relax.
In the end it is incredible. We arrive, having walked across a fantastic shaky wooden bridge over the canton, which would normally scare me, but for some reason doesn't. (I have long since stopped trying to find reasons for my random responses to fear stimuli, or lack of it. It just is what it is. I am crazy but at least I accept it). The gorge is beautiful, steep rocky banks, dripping mini waterfalls and hanging greenery, and foaming, twinkling water over smooth shiny pebbles. I have adopted my usual stance of covering my remaining fearfulness with a sort of gung ho 'Brad' performance which is not quite true to myself but works quite well for its purpose, but as we get in the boat, M and I in front, and our driver, who is insane but in all the right ways, has done his first 360° - I am gleefully shrieking with the others, exhilarated and hoping next time he'll go faster. And the gung ho pretence becomes a gung ho reality. I grin my head off throughout the while ride. And it's actually much more interesting that just a bit of thrill seeking. We go fast over rapids, our driver steering us what seems to be dangerously close to the rock edge, but it is so clear he is perfectly in control that the associated chill really is that, and not a frozen panic. But we also drift leisurely through the landscape, gazing at deer prints at the edge of the water and at birds flying overhead.
It's fantastic. And the experience is made all the better by the attitude and charisma of the driver, and by the fact that we almost didn't do it at all.
"But who wants to be foretold the weather? It is bad enough when it comes, without our having the misery of knowing about it beforehand."
Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat
Our next night is on another free site, next to a beautiful lake. It has all the usual draws that the more natural sites have, in that it feels like much more of an adventure, but in this case that sense of adventure is heightened by an absolutely torrential downpour, of epic proportions, which goes on all night. We cook, rather thrillingly, from inside the van, with the back door open (we usually cook from outside) and then settle in and enjoy that comforting feeling of being warm and dry when outside it is cold and wet.
Nothing so smug can be said for the campers in tents, who I very nearly go to find and invite in, in the early hours of the morning, because I cannot imagine that rain which can fall so forcefully and loudly on the roof of our van, cannot have speared holes into their canvas. (It turns out they were fine). The other victims were the poor little wekas. Having spent some time garnering the will power to don raincoat and dash outside to the toilet, I open the door just in time to see a poor drenched brown thing scuttling for shelter beneath our van. I make a mental note to check tomorrow before we drive off.
"The case was becoming serious. It was now past midnight. The hotels at Shiplake and Henley would be crammed; and we could not go round, knocking up cottagers and householders in the middle of the night, to know if they let apartments! George suggested walking back to Henley and assaulting a policeman, and so getting a night's lodging in the station-house. But then there was the thought, "Suppose he only hits us back and refuses to lock us up!"
We could not pass the whole night fighting policemen. Besides, we did not want to overdo the thing and get six months."
Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat
That day does eventually stop raining, and we drive more or less straight down to Gillespies beach, our next overnight stop. The weather is still a little grey, but Gillespie's beach is on our route and free. We have heard that it is very popular, but are still surprised when we arrive, relatively early, at how many vans are already squeezed in. We squeeze ourselves in casually, beside another van, congratulate ourselves on our prudence in getting here in good time, and walk over to the beach. The beach is fantastic, its too grey for sunbathing but this isn't a beach on which to sunbathe. Its a beach on which you sit and marvel. The sea, like some kind of art installs performs for us majestically. There is some sort of accident of coastline, or rocks, which means that the waves, already substantial, crash and fold and roll over each other, like a sort of cold boiling, making an impressive amount if noise, and bursting with white foam and the edges, the very tip of the wave before it breaks, suddenly gleaming a deep torquise. People are essentially standing in silence, awed, just watching it. It's mesmerising.
When we finally pull ourselves away, and walk back to the van, there is a miniature drama unfolding. A group of very young, very sweet people, (and I don't mean that patronisingly - they are sweet in all the nice ways), the owners of the van next to us, are worried because it seems that some part of their van is a tent, and the need room at the side for it. Room we are now taking. The explanation is confused and peppered with their worry, an underlying sort of panic which I recognise and understand, and their repeated apologies, which are unnecessary. We go and have a chat with a nice French couple further down, who, if they were to move their van along a little, to fit more smugly with their neighbours, would allow the tent van more space, if we also moved over a little in the opposite direction.
"Oh thank you so so much", say the group, as though we have cured a disease rather than shifting our vehicle a bit.
In the end, everybody realised, that there's actually loads of space opposite where we have all parked, which, as yet, no new people have parked in. (When we wake up in the morning it is packed). The group move over there and it turns out their tent perches on top of the van, but they need room at the side for the ladder up to it. There is much good natured giggling and wearing of tiger print onesies and I really, really warm to them. I don't know what it is, except that there is a marked lack of arrogance and arrogance is something we keep on encountering in other travellers. Lets face it, we probably are it ourselves. But in its place, in these people, is simply an innocence.
Hooray for innocent fun and heart felt thank yous to people who did you the slightest good turn. The youth of today aren't that bad, really. I may even be thawing out a little in my crotchety, disapproving old age.
I bet not a single one of them was called Brad.
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