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11/12/99 - 13/12/99 Gisborne/Hawkes Bay/Te Puke Instead of visiting New Zealand's only active volcano, on White Island, we opted to stay in Gisborne - a rough old tourist trap if I've ever seen one - so I could work more on the damn Spin article. (In case anyone's interested, it should be appearing in Spin's March 15th Anniversary issue. The article itself is about the rise and fall of Grunge, and I was that keen to write it because (a) I'd be chasing them for a commission for six months, and (b) they pay a US dollar a word.) Gisborne isn't the ideal place to spend a day - let alone the better part of two - but we amused ourselves, watching all its citizens puff themselves out with an inflated sense of self-importance because it so happens to be the first city(-ish) to herald the New Sun Rise. All the roads are in chaos, being hastily tarmac'd over, and we listened to our vaguely racist female host boast about how even her back porch is being let to campers come the Eve. The tiles on the wall by the goods railway line are all painted over with tiny self-portraits of the town's children. We sat by the wharf and ate the sort of fake hamburgers that you could last buy at British fairgrounds in the early 70s and discussed the decline of Western civilisation. It's depressing considering our current position sometimes. Everyone asks us where we live - standard questions at campsite, (a) where are you from, (b) where are spending New Year's Eve, (c) can I borrow some washing up liquid? We're confused as to the answer, and reply as to where we might be living in two years' time. Current odds are: Melbourne 4-5, London 2-1, Brighton 10-1, Christchurch 15-1, Vancouver 50-1, anywhere in America 1,000-1. Te Puke boasted a campsite owned by the Southampton parents of a sheep-tormenting boy. (The boy had a remote-controlled car. The sheep was tied to a post. The sheep kept butting the boy, knowing who was its tormentor, but that didn't stop it from leaping into the air every time the car came near it.) On the way there, one of C's fillings came out on (some rather delicious) toffee - necessitating a visit to the dentist's in Gisborne. Before we arrived in Gisborne, however, we called into the snappily named Kiwifruit Country, where we rode on the 'world-famous' Kiwi Carts and visited the Magical Kingdom (not). The highlight? Er, there wasn't one. (We only visited Hawkes Bay again, incidentally, so we could stay at the Grange again. And no, I'm not going to say any more about that place. It's our secret and a secret it shall remain.) |
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