deja Vu all over again

As Yogi Berra says: “It’s déjà vu all over again.” We’ve wound up doing quite a bit of backtracking in the past few days. Because I wanted to attend a big league rugby game here in New Zealand. It is the national passion, and although American football has its roots in this game and while there are many similarities, it is a very different game. Non-stop action without any real breaks in action and no pads or helmets…the game is a bruising, bone-jarring athletic contest where heads are banged and whipped about like they’ve been hit by a vicious left hook. The big league of rugby is called the “Super 15,” with teams from NZ, Australia, South Africa and England. I had learned that a game would be played in the general path of our travels and so I adjusted our schedule a little to make sure I could be in Dunedin for the match. Our Servas hosts in the area live just north of Dunedin which is convenient, but we found that there is far more to do on the south coast, the area known as The Catlins, and so we are headed back to the area from whence we have already come when we leave here. In addition, Carol discovered that there was a place where she could buy the fiber blend she wanted to spin which is also back south of Dunedin…so all this meant a lot of retracing and going over roads several times. Luckily, the distances are not great and to get from our host family to the wool vender was about an hour and a half and to get back to the Catlins is about 2-3 hours. Not the most efficient routing, but one that allowed us to do what we all wanted to do.

Carol was delighted to find the possum/merino blend that she has wanted to find…she had bought some straight possum fiber and some already spun possum/merino/silk blended yarn but she wanted to spin her own yarn and so finding this has been one of our quests on this trip. On the way there we passed a delightful little town named “Lawrence,” which reminded me of one of my all time favorite students, Amy Lawrence, of Berkeley’s Lawrence Livermore Lab lineage. It has the distinction of being the first town in NZ to offer free wi-fi in the entire town. Now this was certainly manna from the gods for me…Any town that offers that in this country of limited connectivity is placed among the pantheon of sacred places in my heart. We passed three kids hitch-hiking in the opposite direction and started our quest to find the wool carding business at “Raes Junction,” the Tally Ho Wool Company. Tally Ho?...I kept envisioning English fox hunts and Jerry Jeff Walker’s song where he “took myself down to the Tally Ho Tavern to buy me a bottle of beer.” Turns out that the junction is merely a meeting of two roads and there are no buildings let alone a town. We drove a few kms with no sign of anything resembling anything other than the constant sheep grazing on the hillsides as we plied our way up and down the hills and around the constant bends in the road. After seeing so few sheep in the north island, I think I’ve seen about 35 million of the 60 million here in the south. We stopped at an old hotel with the inviting chalkboard sign at the open door which read: “Not a hotel, private residence, no toilets.” Never the less, I poked my head inside and saw a woman and asked directions…looking slightly annoyed, she told me that it was over the hills and around a few curves and had a big pole with a bright red flag hanging from it. Now, telling me it was over the hills and around the bends could be a description for an area about the size of the Malaysian plane they are currently looking for. Undeterred, we continued past more sheep, a sign that read: “pet ducks for sale,” (how does one tame a duck?) and a house here and there. After driving over more hills and around more bends than I thought necessary we stopped at a farmhouse and asked where it was. The lady said that it was back in the direction we’d come. “They have a sign out in front reading: Ducks for sale,” she told us. So we retraced our steps back to the duck place where there was a pole but no red flag. A closed gate is not designed to deter a fiber lady from, nor was the second closed gate. A half mile on a dirt road led us to a house with barking dogs but no people. Music blared from a corrugated tin barn and we found a lady who wanted to know with a welcoming smile how we snuck up on her. A typical New Zealander, she was bright and cheery and as friendly as a cat wanting milk. She did indeed have exactly what Carol needed and the purchase was made along with much fiber conversation. I petted the two red cats while all this took place. With mission accomplished, we retraced our steps. Over another hill and around a few more bends, there were the three hitch-hikers still looking for rides. Since this was the one day we didn’t have luggage filling Stan, we stopped and gave them a ride. They were heading to Dunedin and counted their blessings to have a ride to their destination. They were two German girls and an American boy working in the apple orchards. Like so many young kids we have seen they were here for varying amounts of time and working to pay for their travels. Back through Lawrence where we stopped for lunch and opportunity to connect on wi-fi since our hosts don’t have internet. The kids sat on park benches and were busy on their phones since the town also advertises “free international phone calls.” After lunch we all piled back into Stan and headed back to Dunedin. Great kids all of them, we chatted and told stories and they made our return trip enjoyable. The evening was topped off with the rugby game which was just what I had hoped it would be, exciting, fast paced and I loved being in the middle of an enthusiastic crowd having a rousing good tine. When we returned to the house in the country, the sky was clear and the stars seemed extra bright. The southern cross loomed high in the sky and the milky way streamed its way across the heavens. All in all, it was a wonderful day. One that was just about perfect in all respects. Sign of the Day: “A bartender is just a pharmacist with a limited inventory.”