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23/12/99 Wanaka (Glendu Valley Camp Site) Blustery wasn't in it. If it wasn't for the fact I'm so damn lazy, I would've been up half the night checking the fly-sheet hadn't blown away, in the winds and rain. But as it was... Spoke to a family from Gore, who seemed most annoyed at our description of their town's centrepiece (a 15-foot brown trout) as 'plastic'. (It's not, it's fibre-glass.) Nonetheless, they invited us over for tea and warmth and conversation and the odd nip of vodka. (The latter wasn't offered to Charlotte, as everyone here seems almost defiantly patriarchal... what would all our friends down here say, I wonder, if they knew I couldn't drive?) Like everyone, they seem surprised at our choice of Moeraki as a New Year's Eve venue. Unlike most, the father (in shorts, despite the bitter cold) was most dismayed - letdown, even - upon discovering my occupation. 'What do you want to do that for?' he asked, upset. His daughter, meanwhile, HAD heard of the Chills from Dunedin. 'Ugh, heavy metal,' she cried, before running off to cover her embarrassment at my poor judgment. Earlier, we stopped at Wanaka's Puzzling World: a building all lop-sided, with a room which slants upwards, a whole gallery of faces which follow you everywhere you move, and some fine old-fashioned holograms. We stopped for a while, pleased - and bought a puzzle. |
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