Kiwi Tracks (14 page)

‘Git yer helmets on!’ she yells at them. ‘Going to do themselves an injury one day,’ she says to me. ‘Ever since they tar-sealed the road they think it’s a slalom course.’ The kids are barefoot and so is their mother. Everyone is. I feel conspicuously dressed up wearing sandals.

‘Where’re you staying?’ she asks me.

‘At the motel up the road.’

‘What you doing tomorrow?’

I shrug self-consciously.

‘Don’t know what we’re doing either, but if we get a barbie going, would you like to come?’

‘That’s kind of you.’

At any backpackers lodge I would have been with other homeless travellers and we would have made our own Christmas cheer. I walk back to the motel realising I have made a mistake booking into this more expensive accommodation. The few guests there seem unhappy and intent on forgetting Christmas. At least, I console myself, I do not have to cook. But sitting alone in the almost empty restaurant that night is a sad affair. In Norway, the Christmas Eve dinner would be the focus of Christmas. I try to
forget that, but it reinforces the fact that I am alone in a desolate corner of this isolated country.

I escape to the lounge, where I watch television in the hope of catching something that might instil some seasonal cheer. But just as Christmas carols are about to be broadcast and my spirits are primed to perk up, the staff close down the main building of the motel. I am unceremoniously kicked out and the doors are locked.

I morosely close the door of my room, a prefabricated concrete cell without toilet, sink or television. It is a few minutes past midnight on Christmas Day. There are two minor consolations in this, I conclude as I undress, feeling sorry for myself. Firstly, it is twelve hours later in Europe and even later in Canada, so Christmas has not really begun back home. Secondly, it is the first occasion in two months that I have slept in my own room, in a real bed, with clean sheets. That must count for something.

It is hot and stuffy in the room and the windows, for some unknown reason, are cemented shut in their frames. Reluctant to sleep all night with the door ajar, I switch on the ceiling fan. Then I slip under the smooth, fresh-smelling sheets and lie restfully on my back. I turn off the bedside electric light, another luxury, and cradle my head on a feather pillow covered with white linen. The overhead fan picks up speed, wafting a comforting breeze over my body. I focus my mind on these small luxuries as the rhythmically circling blades rotate faster and faster.

Something flies off one of the fan blades and rudely flops over my face. I peel the rubbery, fishy-smelling thing off my nose, sit up and turn on the light. Hanging limply between my forefinger and thumb is a well-used, sticky condom.

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Credit on the hundred-dollar telephone card disappears within minutes; I call my father in Toronto, my mother in London and
Kirsten in Norway. For several minutes I am Superman, flying from New Zealand to Canada, then England and Norway. Then there is silence, and I am back in my Clark Kent suit on a sunny day in a phone booth, a world away from the dark, snowy Christmas of those I love.

It has been snowy and cold since I arrived in New Zealand. Now it is hot and sunny and I am complaining. I am not sure I could get used to having Christmas in the summer season.

Perhaps home is not so much a place in space as a place in the heart, I muse as I head down the road to church, dressed in my backpacker’s best. I enter the chapel and self-consciously slide into a back pew. The congregation, all couples or families, appraise the newcomer in their midst. An elderly woman in a colourful dress formally welcomes me and the warm reception chokes me up with memories of Christmas church services in Norway with my adopted Norwegian family. Those Scandinavian Yuletide images seem so confusingly idyllic now; the darkness countered by candlelight, the epitome of Christmas. Unlike Norway, where we would be bundled in overcoats and wool, the men here wear light polyester shirts, belted trousers tucked under ample bellies and worn, but polished, shoes. They must be farmers, judging by the backs of their necks, which are weathered and creased like elephant skin by the sun’s searing rays. The women are resplendent in flowery cotton dresses. As if on cue a single bird sings vigorously outside the church.

A member of the congregation hesitantly begins to play a hymn on the organ. She finishes too soon, but we carry on, reading from the hymnbook before we stop, one by one. We wait for her to lead us again and she flips the music score back to the beginning. Her head nods up and down a couple of times as she mentally plays through the first few bars. We give it another try with better success, but halfway through she loses it, and we have to start from the beginning once more. By comparison, we sing ‘Silent Night’ almost flawlessly, although I have to reduce my voice to a whisper when I become emotional, remembering previous Christmases.

As I exit the church, nodding my head to acknowledge the friendly greetings, a younger woman smiles and asks: ‘Where are you from?’

‘Canada.’

She introduces herself. ‘Carrynne.’

‘Where are you from?’ I ask.

‘Here. Karamea.’ She introduces me to her husband, Evan: ‘From Norway.’ I greet him in Norwegian; he replies and we carry on conversing in Norwegian. ‘If you’re Canadian, why do you speak Norwegian?’ Carrynne asks, surprised.

‘Lived in Norway for five years.’

She asks: ‘What are you doing today?’

‘Nothing,’ I reply, scratching my forehead. The other invitation was vague, just a possibility.

‘You’re welcome to spend the day with us. We’re going back for Christmas lunch and there’s more than enough food.’

‘Are you sure?’ I ask.

‘Most definitely.’

That afternoon, Carrynne and her husband treat me like family at their cosy but magnificent wood-furnished house, which is on a hill overlooking a river. Two visiting Norwegian guests keep me happily chatting in Norwegian, making me feel slightly closer to ‘home’ in Norway. It is well into the evening before they drop me off at the motel.

When I return to my room there is a note pinned on the door. The caf� lady had come to collect me so as I could join her family for Christmas too.

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Eager to move out of the depressing motel, I catch a ride to Westport just down the coast from Karamea, and on the way back to Nelson. I find myself at the traditional Westport Boxing Day races. Here the Kiwis come in all shapes and sizes: weathered
farmers whose portly bodies no longer fit too-tight, worn tweed jackets; their white-haired wives in print dresses, with wide-brimmed straw hats; bare-chested studs with tattooed biceps, shaved skulls and drug-dealer sunglasses. The latter guzzle jugs of beer in the back of flashy utes. Their women lie on their stomachs, legs displayed like barbequing Bratwurst sausages, with splotches of white skin on their lobster-red backs marking precisely where fingers covered in sunscreen have ranged. Other punters are more authentic, with shaggy beards, long hair, missing teeth and home-made tattoos.

The loudspeakers crackle, barely audible: ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, there are only two minutes before the start of the next race, please make your investments.’ Not bets but investments.

The scratchy recording of a trumpet heralds the start of another race. My ‘investment’ doubles.

Another announcement: ‘A sum of cash has been found. If you have lost some money could you please come to the information booth to collect it.’

I check my pockets. Anywhere else in the world, that proclamation would be met with derision, especially at a racetrack. It is refreshing, this old-fashioned honesty on the West Coast of the South Island.

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Outside Nelson, one could be forgiven for thinking one was in North America: whole hillsides have been clear-cut and replanted with Montana radiata pine. These trees grow faster in New Zealand than anywhere else; any vestige of native New Zealand on these hills has been lost through the widespread introduction of this imported pine species. Whole ecosystems are shrinking as whatever is left of native bush is chomped on by introduced species, particularly possums, deer and goats. Indigenous birds, reptiles, frogs and larger invertebrates fall victim to other introduced
species like stoats, rats, cats and dogs. New Zealand looks green and beautiful, but beneath the surface is an ecology that has been either destroyed or made insidiously vulnerable.

Arriving at St Arnaud in the late afternoon, I walk down to Kerr Bay and stand on the beach of Lake Rotoiti. Jet boats, skiers and motor boats zip backwards and forwards speedily in front of me. The scene, the sounds of engines and the drifting smell of petrol remind me vaguely of summers spent in cottage country in the lake district of Ontario, Canada.

Later in the evening, after dinner at my lodge, I head back down to the same beach. This time there are no boats on the lake and the overall effect is quite different. Instead of focusing on the water sports, I am more conscious of the wilderness, the snow-covered peaks on either side of the lake reflected in its still waters, the sounds of birds and the smell of fresh air. It is quiet and serene, in direct contrast to the activities earlier in the day. It reminds me now of Norway, where no motor boats are permitted on lakes, and especially not in national parks.

In the morning, I climb for hours. The views are spectacular, the temperature is perfect, the day being sunny but cool; yet I cannot escape the annoying buzz of the motor boats on the lake below. I am alone with no one else on the track, but the wilderness experience is diminished by the unrelenting hum of engines, just as that last day on the Milford Track had been. I feel old-fashioned and grouchy, but I cannot help imagining what it would be like if the only boats allowed on the lake were sailboats or canoes. I try to ignore the audible irritant but it bugs the hell out of me. It is only when I am over the crest of the mountain ridge and at aptly named Bushline Hut that a semblance of solitude pervades at last. I console myself with the fact that they have at least outlawed jet skis on the lake.

A solitary kea comes to pester me in the evening, strutting about looking for trouble. I rescue my boots and place them out
of his reach inside the hut. He emits a plaintive cry before sulkily flapping away, presumably as pissed off with the day as I am.

Leaving Bushline Hut, I enter a high alpine desert of brown rocks and patches of snow left behind from winter. The views from the top of the ridgeline are spectacular, with jewel-like coloured lakes at the bottom of steep scree slopes, resembling elegant turquoise necklaces. Ascending one last snowdrift to a saddle, I unexpectedly overlook Angelus Hut, which is set beside a semi-frozen, shimmering sapphire lake encompassed by a glacial cirque. I scramble down towards the lake, the semi-circle of snow-covered ridges reflecting and concentrating the sun so harshly that I can feel it burning into my skin.

Later, as I sit below a window in the shade of the hut, out of the searing sunlight, I overhear the conversation of two English couples inside. They had emigrated to South Africa a decade ago, and have now re-emigrated to New Zealand.

‘Kiwis are unassuming compared to the English,’ one of them comments.

‘There’s not the same stultifying sense of hierarchy here. If you make it, you make it and good on you,’ another says.

One of the women adds: ‘True, but I wanted to go back to South Africa when we first arrived in Auckland. The weather here still bothers me. It’s so cold. Can’t get used to doing all the housework either. Used to complain about the help in South Africa, but I’d be happy to have it now.’

A husband backs up the argument. ‘Materially we were better off in South Africa, with good housing, swimming pools, fancy cars and tennis courts. The quality of life wasn’t anything like we have here, though. We don’t live in armed compounds any more, don’t have walls, guns, dogs, guards or burglar bars. I used to worry every time she drove to the supermarket to buy groceries, in case she got carjacked. It’s no life for children there, either. Here it’s great, our children can go out and play and we don’t
worry about them. You can’t measure that freedom in material terms. Besides, we’ve got the same great outdoor life: rugby, cricket, barbies. Just don’t have the problems.’