Stalker

Short Version:
The best of NZ heralds our arrival in a small town, where we find long-lost new friends, and see some sights, including the passage of Uranus

Long Version:
On the radio as we drove towards McBride we heard the cheesiest radio ad in history - the chap hides the engagement ring in the hole on the golf course for his belle to find when she finishes three-putting for a double-bogey*. The company the ad was for?

[dramatic music]

Michael Hill, Jeweller.

Scary.

Then when we hit McBride and wandered into the wifi-enabled Beanery cafe the Feelers were being played on the radio. It's a wonder anyone deigns to speak with us once they find out where we're from if those are the cultural representations they have of NZ over here.

Still, speak to us they do, even when my conversation-starter is "You seem to know everybody."
Beanery Donna admitted the charge, and when I said we were looking for an old friend of my mother's who lived in the McBride area 25 years ago, whose name is Stefi, she knew instantly who I meant, and phoned her for me, despite my scraggy beard and (probably) malodour. Stefi, in turn, picked who I was as soon as I spoke, and we arranged to meet at the Beanery in a couple of hours, which gave Janine and I time to do some walking around the town:
- To the bird-watching gazebo, on the end of the eastern arm of horseshoe-shaped ex-river segment Horseshoe Lake. There were some birds at the far side, but they were far enough away that we couldn't see what kind, or what they were doing
- To and along the Dominion Creek walkway, where we saw several tiny frogs, ranging in size from Nene's smallest toe to my second-largest. They were wonderfully camouflaged in brown and black, and we only saw them when they moved, which made me wonder how many had NOT moved, and been trampled underfoot
- Along the highway to the start of the River Trail. A trucker on the highway tooted appreciatively at Janine, scaring both of us, then we in turn spooked a deer on the trail.
- Back into town along Main St, past the orbits of Neptune and Uranus, past fire hydrants painted as farmers and dalmatian dogs and eagles and Thomas Edison, the orbits of Jupiter and Mars, Earth, Venus, and Mercury and eventually to and past the sun (a streetlamp) and back to the Beanery

Stefi and Archie joined us in the cafe, where coffee and water were drunk, and a Skype call to Ma was cut brutally short by an incredibly long freight train thundering past, containers stacked two-high. The four of us ate delicious foods at the local Chinese restaurant, then we headed out to the farm, 45km or so southeast of town. We drove over a slightly sway-backed wood-surfaced Bailey bridge, past a big black bear on the roadside, and past where the ferry once ferried travellers across the Fraser River. The bell which once sounded arrivals and departures now lives at Stefi and Archie's, on the gate between the machinery zoo and what once was the home paddock and is now an extensive orchard and garden area surrounding house, studio, and various other buildings. Dogs and cats and horses and sheep and chickens mingle (mostly) good-naturedly, and we went to bed wishing we'd arrived earlier so we could have seen more of the place before dark fell. Still, there's always tomorrow...







* = For non-golfers: more than two putts is bad; and a double-bogey is just cause for a tantrum (no foot-stomping on the greens, though). Good time for a proposal? Maybe not so much