A Wander Westward
When Attila the Wife gets an idea into her head it is seldom dismissed as mere fanciful whim. When she mooted the idea of a trip to the West Coast camping I knew I was doomed to jaunt westward to primeval forest, rain, sandflies (see other page) and associated camping discomfort. "Oh Jono, you bastard," you say, "... harden up. Camping is fun!" Well let me dispell that erroneous supposition there. No it isn't fun. You remove yourself from an environment of deliberately created comfort to one where you sleep on the ground, eat off plastic plates at the mercy of the elements and, in this case, other campers. There is another good reason why I find camping a chore: I was in the Army and going out into the field meant hypothermia, filth and performing tasks irrespective of season, weather or terrain (read in sleet, in heat and without sleep). Camping - I would rather have my arse sandblasted clean at a later date. Whatever I felt about the issue, we were going camping anyway.

So we bid farewell to you, Greymouth, Monaco of the West.

We departed Christchurch in bright sunlight and in heavy traffic on Thursday afternoon for a pleasant drive through Arthurs Pass toward the sunset arriving in Greymouth at our motel, Luftstalag XIIIB. The lady on the desk was very nice: "First, here are ze rules. Rule vun - no escaping. Rule two - no escaping. Rule tzree - see rule two. I trust you vill enchoy your stay. Ve haff all ze conveniences. Nice comfy betz, hot und cold running vater, guards viz machine guns and barbed vire. For you, ze war iss ofver." We planned our escape for early the next morning with a bit of sight seeing and minutes after we started doing that, we were off.

South Island Short-billed Kiwi. Not a weka.

"The thing I don't like about your driving..." began Attila the Wife gracefully not including the long list of things she doesn't like about my driving even though it is perfect and I am the most even tempered, courteous and patient driver not to don F1 overalls, "... is that you don't like to stop on the way." This is quite correct. I don't like stopping as it is counter-productive to the overall aim of getting to where we are supposed to be going expediently and directly. I also find it frustrating that her walnut-sized bladder dictates we have to stop within minutes of being able to overtake a string of campervans, logging trucks or hippies in housebusses on a road where there is only one overtaking opportunity.  Being mindful of the effort she put in to organise this trip (as she had no hesitation in reminding me all along), I promised to stop as and where she wanted. First stop - Punakaiki. Punakaiki is a one-trick pony. Fortunately this one trick is a rather spectacular formation of rocks that has baffled scientists and delighted tourists. Punakaiki is also the home of several wekas which cruise the carpark looking for gullible tourists to give them food. One such gullible European tourist asked me what sort of bird it was. My answer of a short-billed kiwi, very rare to see them out in daylight actually, seemed to surprise and delight her. I too was surprised and delighted that she chose to believe me. And so on that duplicitous note, we say farewell to Punakaiki, town of mendacity.

I have a friend from Westport named Greg. Greg is justifiably proud of Buller's rugby team which punches well about its weight. What is also rather inspiring about the performance of the Buller rugby team is its success is in inverse proportion to the dull depression that existence in the town must incur. Greg's decision to live anywhere but Westport must be some kind of commentary and it is easy to see why he does. Westport's most notable feature is the amount of old pubs it has. Sadly most of those old pubs succumbed to commercial survival of the fittest long ago. I was also surprised that the rest of the town hasn't succumbed long ago either as our arrival coincided with Good Friday, a day where Christian churches have forced society to close most of its shops and forbid the sale of alcohol on a long weekend, making Westport seem even more forbidding, dire and closed than it otherwise would have been. This had not changed when we drove through on Easter Sunday.  What Westport does not seem to be lacking is a plethora of fundamentalist churches. One of them is "FULL ON FOR CHRIST!". This seems to be the only thing full-on in Westport except for our accelerator as we charged thankfully out of Westport. And so we said farewell to Westport, town of flatulence. 

The road to Karamea is a long and windy one. It passes through a number of towns whose only saving graces include a country music museum, crystal shop (and not crystal glassware or sculptures either) and bloody great lump of coal. They also have a succession of weathered looking pubs. You may be noticing a theme here. I like weathered looking pubs and the West Coast has a lot of them. I like them so much that we actually visited one, but more on that later. We arrived in Karamea which is a country town with a sort of mystic ethereal quality that suggests that magic still exists here if only in the mind of local cannabis enthusiasts. It has no cellphone reception and does not suffer as a result. It is so remote that it suggests to me that it is the end of the earth, similar to Golden Bay at the other end of the Heaphy Track. Indeed, the Heaphy Track was our overall destination as it was Attila the Wife's intention that we run the first leg of it the next day. I told you I wasn't wildly enthusiastic didn't I? We arrived at our campsite which was as different to our digs in Greymouth as it could get. Not a shred of barbed wire in sight, no guards and only a few South Island short-billed kiwi patrolling in search of thrown tidbits of food. We got our tent up easily. I say easily, the instructions were written by the script writer for the Teletubbies and in our deliberations as to which way around the tent actually went there were mutterings of divorce, murder and imprecations through gritted teeth not to get upset with me and yes I know we're being watched. In fact all eyes in the camping ground we on us. This is one of the great camping ground spectator sports and a pastime we indulged in when other couples went through the same. We didn't disappoint our public either. Also of note, campsites tend to attract a particular kind of animal. One who is in their element dragging a lump of aluminium filled with flammable 1970's vintage plastic, rubber and velour behind their cars at 45km/h before it reveals itself in its full majesty in the campsite as their home away from home - the caravan. The owner will invariably come over to talk at you, holding a monopoly both on opinion and the conversation in general. They are always in the plot next to yours. Fortunately, our one seemed friendly enough and helped pass a few pleasant hours in the sun with some beer when otherwise there was none to be had. His knighthood is in the post.

The campsite provided a few peripheral entertainments such as the appearance of a rat running up the outside of the kitchen chimney, who we'll hear more of later, and an extremely suspicious tubby red-headed American who brushed up against Attila while she was filling water bottles at the sink. "Hullow... I'm just going to wash my plate here." he leered oblivious to the fact that Attila was already using the tap and he should have bloody well waited his turn. I would have intervened but for the fact it was obscenely comical and I can only estimate that he is the chair of his local wife-swapping society and a deacon of his church. The rest of the evening was uneventful and marked only by the inadequacy of our bedrolls: they were less than an inch thick and only served to make the ground seem harder than it was. The morning inevitably brought back-ache and the feeling that there are communal kitchen facilities in hell and they are being used by a gurning Japanese lady and her kiwi husband who cannot eat their enormous breakfasts with their mouths closed. It was with suitable disgust that we prepared for our run up the Heaphy track.

Some bastard pointing to where he's just been.

Anyone contemplating running the Heaphy would do well to heed my advice. Don't. Walk it instead. Walk it armed with a drum full of kerosene to fend off the sandflies when you stop, make sure your camera is armed and ready and enjoy the spectacular views. Running the Heaphy is all very well but it makes you sweat off your insect repellent and when you stop you'll be eaten alive. This is what happened to us and I tell you, there aren't enough swearwords in the world. When we got back it was with a sense of relief and another thing ticked off Attila's bucketlist. Also, the beer never tasted sweeter. When the beer tastes sweet, you become willfully blind to other things around you that sink below the usual standard and so it was in this spirit that we went for dinner at the local. Tired and happy we enjoyed the dag surroundings of the pub which was tastefully decorated in a style typical of 1980's country pubs that I actually rather like. The beer was expensive* and the menu provided hot comfort food at mildly horrifying prices. This was offset by the portions being enormous and the high standard of people-watching. Of particular interest was observing the local lads when a couple of local girls came in. We were extremely amused to see one of the boys' idea of a pick-up line being to kick one of the girls up the arse. It didn't work but it was worth the price of admission. We left happy campers.
*I would like to mention that Karamea is the end of the earth and thus incurs transport costs of sending beer there. While it was expensive, I'm satisfied that I got what I paid for.

We returned to our campsite for a game of cards and so I had to get some beer from the fridge. I turned on the kitchen light and saw my old friend the rat staring at me from the kitchen counter. It might have been the beer, but I missed when I swatted at him with the frying pan and he buggered off behind the fridge. I resigned myself to being unable to sort out this problem and with an unexpectedly brilliant display of delegation and cunning, I got my beer and toddled back to the tent via the camp trampoline. The trampoline had been the focal point for the children of the camp-goers and they were clustered around it fending off boredom. I gave them an offer of a five dollar reward for the kid who could bring me the carcass of the rat and an evening of brilliant entertainment ensued for them and me and Attila who watched the delighted screaming and crashing coming from the kitchen as the group of juvenile hooligans set about the futile task of bringing the rat to justice. Needless to say, the five dollar reward sits unclaimed in my wallet.

It's marble and archlike and this is just the beginning.
It actually extends 200m and is worth a look.

The hunt was still in full swing when we decided the next day to cheese it early via a quick visit to the marble arch. If you are inclined to wend your way into the depths of the Kahurangi National Park, travel through Oparara into the hills on a track that four wheel drive enthusiasts might view with trepidation until you lose hope and you'll find yourself in an incongruously large carpark at the head of a two kilometre track into the bush where there is a bloody great marble arch. It was at this point that it started to rain and our decision to bugger off home a day early was vindicated. As nice as Karamea is, there is no point in hanging around needlessly for another day of rain-avoidance no matter how entertaining it is watching a horde of children attempt to murder a rat. And so we bid farewell to Karamea, town of dreams. 

Now all we have to do is clean the (fucking) tent, clean our clothes, wash the car and put everything away.