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29/12/99 We're in Dunedin, depressed. The weather is grey, our planned Millennial stop of the Moeraki Boulders virtually useless - the camp site is an hour's walk from the beach, plus the wind is blowing up a European-standard gale - and... well, the weather is grey. Nice accommodation, though - cheers Olivia's mum! All this talk about which town on NZ's east coast will be the first to see the New Dawn. At this rate, they'll be lucky to see the sun rise at all. Spoke to a nice lady in the Coordinator's Office earlier, who informed me that Dunedin will be celebrating the fact it has a 120 year old town hall clock with a piper, a blast on the cannons, and some fireworks at dawn... no, not sun rise. They're too canny to bank on that here. We don't mind Dunedin, actually. Earlier we took a 90 minute drive to discover a fish'n'chip shop (one that wasn't run by Chinese, and hence had its fish battered way beyond submission). Toying with the idea of asking a policeman, who was questioning a pizza café owner over an incident, what was the best chippie he knew, we drove on, to ultimate defeat. No matter. The TV channels here all show five year old re-runs of antiquated British shows, mostly Last Of The Summer Wine (a program featuring geriatric chuckle-mongers in the countryside), or bad early 90s US sitcoms. Like, there were any otherwise. We survive by eating remaindered Christmas cake, and massive bags of cheap unshelled peas we pick up on the roadside. But no, we don't mind Dunedin. Earlier, I discovered a couple of second-hand record stores where it's still possible to buy Jasmine Minks and June Brides LPs like it's the mid-80s, and where I sobbed tears over the amount of unloved Dexys albums lying around, all available for less than two quid. What is wrong with you people? Bought a tape of 'Grease' for eight bucks... approximately seven more than I'd be prepared to pay for the album, but we need something to sing along with on these grey car journeys. Plus, Charlotte makes a great Pink Lady! Aside from all, it's nice to be in the hometown of so much cool music (Flying Nun - Chills, Bats, Straitjacket Fits, Sneaky Feelings, Chris Knox). Someone else I spoke to on the phone mentioned he saw Shayne Carter on a street last week, which impressed me and him, if no one else. Ah, but aren't we all unsung heroes? The lady was so incredulous, because I wrote for Melbourne AND New York papers... It's like being someone, all over again. We like New Zealand. The people on the South Island may well be intermittently racist, but they are our kind of people. Like the England we'd like to imagine - green, friendly and filled with little sheep. We can't wait to visit the 'world's steepest street' tomorrow... |
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