Road trip IV: Encounters with the dead, the un-dead and the soon-to-be-dead in Napier

Something we Euro-descendant antipodeans suffer from is a lack of our own, tangible history.  Sure, we have indigenous history, but no one's really happy about our claiming that as our own, and these days, harking back to tales of the ol' country's not considered all that PC either.  So we meander through life not really sure of ourselves; who we are, where we've come from, and when it comes to vacations, rather than head 'out back' to see the natural wonders which are the envy (and desired destination) of our kindred in the northern hemisphere, we take off to Europe every few years to get all aroused and drooly over 14^th century gothic churches.

Apart from history and natural beauty (the latter often combined with outdoor adventure sports), the other main thing that travellers are looking for when they hit the road these days is excellent, modern cuisine.  Unusually for any single place in the world, New Zealand's Hawke's Bay has managed to land the Trifecta, boasting fantastic, rolling green foothills, sweeping, misty sea views, fine wines and dining and, thanks to a fatal natural disaster eighty years ago, an intriguing history which has resulted in a fascinating anomaly of town-planning such to induce rare, south-of-the-equator stirrings in the gussets of architecture aficionados.

Coming down off the putting-green foothills to the plains was pretty lovely; the bright blue, sweeping bay views were spectacular and the abundance of vineyards gave that whiff of promised fun over the coming days.  But as we got closer to the town, we ended up on a highway bypass, looking at the high back fences of new housing developments such that you'd see from any such arterial, anywhere in the world ... except that these fences were really, really high.  "What are they hiding from?", I enquired of my colleague and former Napier resident, Madge Q, shortly after my return to work.

"Everyone visits Napier and spends their day walking around marvelling at the lovely art deco streets, taking happy snaps and joy rides in 1930s motorbikes with side-carts; buying Old English Toffee and pretty bags of lavender-infused potpourri from the souvenir and gift shops," responds Madge Q, "and they head-away in the late afternoon thinking that Napier consists of only two square blocks sitting on the shore.  But," she adds, now very animated, "Napier's a big centre, eh?  And beyond those few, sculpted streets, there're a lot of people living in pretty poor conditions; unemployment's at 462% and rival gangs go each other with clubs and chains in supermarket carparks every night.  That's what the glossy tourist brochures don't tell you about, but there's a lot to be read in the heading, 'Visit Napier; one of New Zealand's great day trips' – get out before dark, everyone!".

Useful words of warning, Madge Q, but delivered two weeks too late!  T'was true enough, though.  With the exception of the tourist-industry bolstered, main thoroughfare, every second store-front in Napier was empty, and those that were occupied comprised charity op-shops, Chinese import stores selling an array of brightly-coloured plastic household 'essentials', and a surprising number of employment brokers (each handily located just a few short steps from the unemployment benefit office).  Napier was truly a down-and-out town!

But this message hadn't really hit home to us until our second day in Napier, when at about sunset (as always, Madge Q was spot-on), we went searching for some fish and chips - what's that? ... Oh, alright ... some fush 'n' chups - for dinner and ended up driving down streets now deserted of traffic, but along which entire households had emptied-out onto the pavement where they lounged on tattered sofas, drinking from brown paper bags while their dirty kids played in the gutters.

Our dinner was bought from a grubby, back-street store sporting a peeling, once-white art deco facade, and we adjourned to the grassy playground by the beach to sit and eat.  Here, even dirtier children hovered at the edge of our vision like (and with) a pack of marauding sea gulls intent on our steaming dinner, while their parents sprawled beneath windy branches shouting and swearing at each other.

Now, one likes to think one's all very equitable, inclusive and understanding of the various ways of the world, with all its different walks of life and so-on, but I can now attest to this generosity of nature; to this enlightenment going completely out the window once you've got a wee-one in tow.  "Not in my bloody backyard!".

So, scared shitless for our safety, we began scoffing our deep-fried goodies with huge, burning mouthfuls, and shoving steaming-hot morsels into our screaming child's maw in an effort to get out with our lives as quickly as possible.  Only half-finished, and with the slavering kids circling closer, Mrs D and I agreed it was time to get clear.

As we stood to clean-up and get moving, the vacant, starving kiddies looked over and started limping towards us like a pack of mindless zombies out on a feeding frenzy.  As Mrs D quickened towards the car and I picked-up Hambones in an effort to move with a bit more pace, the said pack of marauding urchins responded with a similarly accelerated, instinctive lurch in our direction.  Openly running now, all I could hear were my pounding blood booming in my head, Hambones' frightened whimpers and the hungry moans of our slavering pursuers, hot on my heels ... I was losing my grip on Hambones as I got close to the car, and I realised it was either him or the dinner; I threw down the greasy package and dived for the car as Mrs D dropped the gas and screeched off past the pink and beige, art deco arches of Marine Parade.  Through ragged breaths I glanced back and shuddered to see the young kids throwing punches and scratching at each other's faces as they ripped open the greasy white paper and gorged themselves on the fleshy remains of our ill-omened dinner.

But it wasn't all Dickensian soup kitchens and sinister run-ins with The Undead - just as long as you were in and out before dark.  As I mentioned earlier, Napier's fame as an internationally recognised art deco capital is a positive outcome of a devastating earthquake in 1931, which completely wiped-out the town, leaving the land clear and ready for a stylish re-building to reflect Napier's prosperous, industrial reputation, and to communicate the 'only way is up', great expectations New Zealand had for the beach-side holiday destination.

Within a year or two of the quake, award-winning town planning had been issued and heavily regulated, structured building was well underway on a fashionable, 'golden mile' stretching down Tennyson Street from the beach to picturesque, Clive Square.  It was all about style; it was all about image; and it was all about wealth. 

And into this building boom wandered a young Frank; our landlord for a couple of nights while in town.  I had caught Frank in a difficult circumstance the day before; turns out he wasn't quite the potty-mouth I had experienced on the phone, but rather a clean-living Baptist Minister with an eye for a real estate bargain.  So in the 1940s, once building authorities gave the 'all-clear' for the new coastal land that the 'quake had thrown-up just to Napier's north, Frank took out a subsidised building loan and built a fantastic, art deco mansion directly opposite the beach.  Nowadays, with his family grown and moved away, Frank rents out the bottom floor to savvy tourists such as ourselves, and it was here we spent our first, fantastic evening in a stylish house, with modern bathrooms and awesome kitchen facilities, kicking-back with some great micro-brews, a glass or two of Hawke's Bay Syrah and chomping on a succulent NZ lamb roast while gazing out over blustery, foaming waves.  What a find!

So after a great night's sleep in luxury surroundings, we took-in a lazy breakky and played on the windy beach before heading into town to see what all this art deco guff was really about.  While I will admit that I was pretty impressed with the stylish, two-toned architecture upon our first whip-around, after having done the two-block circuit in two minutes, my interest was starting to flag. There were a couple of key buildings which we went and posed for snaps in front of, but as buildings, well, that's all they are without a good story behind them to make 'em interesting.

Did someone ask for a good story?  As I said before, Napier's mass embrace of all things art deco in the '30s was all about style; all about image; and all about wealth.  Amongst the booming economy of post-depression New Zealand, Napier was at the forefront of showy displays of industrial might, and as big business clamoured over itself to secure newly appeared port access (thanks to the 'quake throwing-up about three metres of terra firma), the largest, best-positioned plot was secured for the stunning Rothmans (National Tobacco Company) Building; a sprawling, flawless, gargantuan demonstration of classic art deco fit for communicating the awesome industrial might of The Empire's tobacco subsidiaries.

The Donkeys stopped for a pose outside this celebrated monument to the furtherance of New Zealand's oncology industry.  The fine structure retained pride of place amongst the nation's collective consciousness for decades, long after millions of Kiwi smokers began expiring with sinister, black fluid dripping from their autopsied lungs.

In the name of celebrating New Zealand Industry, Napier's Rothmans factory became the preferred destination of field trips for primary school students across the length and breadth of the North Island.  The venue offered a great, three-in-one learning opportunity for an increasingly under-resourced, post-baby-boomer education system, combining lessons of Napier's tragic seismological history with the art deco movement of the '30s and, most importantly, an impressive display of national industry.  What better way to convince the young of New Zealand's impenetrable, economic robustness than to expose them to the production of tobacco products?

And so, through they went ... for decades.  I am assured by my informed correspondent, Salmon (Madge Q's long-suffering companion and former favourite son of Napier) that there is a not a single North Island citizen over the age of twenty-three who, as a child, has not visited Napier's Rothmans factory, and been given as many cigarettes as s/he can carry in their little hands to 'take home to their parents'.  Not surprisingly, New Zealand's tobacco industry was one of the last of its global peers to experience declining output ... in 2009!

It was shortly after this stop on the art deco trail that we went searching for fish 'n' chips.  Needless to say we refused Frank's offer the next morning for a free, additional night's accommodation.  We hightailed-it out of crazy old Napier that morning, heading for stinky Rotorua, and, as it turned out, another potential opportunity for a serial-killer thriller.

Napier's stunning Rothmans (National Tobacco Company) Building; servicing the nicotine addiction of New Zealand's primary school children for over half a century.  Pic: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/new-zealand/

Road trip III: Sex is everywhere, but no where around me

Like the TV series, MASH, which ran three times as long as the Korean War in which it was set, this Road Trip story is reaching Cecil B. DeMille-esque proportions, greatly out-distancing the actual trip upon which it is based.  I'll see what I can do about wrapping it up.

My last waking act before leaving Windy Wellington was to return to one of the hundreds of coffee outlets I'd been churning through over the previous few days, to buzz my brain a little more while I sorted out some onward accommodation using the free Wi-Fi.

After many false starts, bogus postings and rude landlords refusing a two-night stay, I eventually got onto Frank, a beach house property owner from Napier who answered the phone with, "Awwr shut! ... ah, hello?  Frank speaking...".  Frank's engine had exploded moments before I'd called, and he was swearing blue, kiwi murder as he stood stranded on a country road.

"Yeah, thut should be no worries ... fuck ... just come up and we'll sort everythung out when you get here [boom!] ... shut, nooooooo... [click] beep beep beep...".

So with a gullet full of caffeine, a well-rested Hambones and Mrs D wrestling with a plethora of chords as she tried to get the sexy Kiwi GPS navigator working, we started on our way out of Welly ... just after a final supply run to the ironically-named 'New' World.  In no way is New Zealand more like 1980s suburban Melbourne than in its supermarkets; when I was a wee one, Coles supermarket was known as Coles' New World, and walking through the doors of the Wellington New World, the surroundings immediately had me reminiscing about climbing into one of those hard plastic trolley seats, and taking a massive dump in my daks.

The setting was flawless 1980s; tins of food were stacked in precarious, delinquent-child-attracting pyramidal displays, the trolleys were massive, deep and without the modern child-safety straps, and there was a tobacco counter up front at which stood four or five old ladies in plastic shower caps trying to buy cartons of ciggies with loose change.

Mrs D and I went crazy with the nostalgia of it all and filled that stretch-limo trolley with all kinds of stuff you haven't been able to buy in Australia for 25 years.  As we approached the checkout, we were more than a little sheepish in anticipation of the expected whack this was going to make in our savings.

The first pleasant surprise we received at the checkout was a surprisingly pleasant young man ringing-up each item with a smile, a laugh and a generally amiable disposition (something we haven't experienced in Australian supermarkets for at least two decades), and the next wonderful gift was that the African-famine-saving haul of 1980s groceries we'd just procured totalled exactly what it would have back in the '80s!

Are you kidding me?  All through our trip in NZ, all we ever heard from people we met, or on the radio, TV current affairs programs or in the papers was that Australians' salaries were 40% higher than Kiwis', and that economists were tipping this inequity to rise in the next year by 20 - 437% (depending on the disgruntlement of the person relaying the story – "Err, it's not fair.  You Australians get it easy.  We're thinking of leaving and going over to live in Aussie 'cause it's just too expensive here").  And yet there we were, with the biggest hoard of groceries since Henry VIII decided he was going to up-size Christmas dinner, costing only about 40% of a regular grocery bill back home!  Get some perspective, Kiwis!  We might get paid more than you, but it costs you nothing to live, eat, own a vehicle or an ocean-view property.

So with that warm feeling one gets from having a wallet still full of cash, and with our mouths full of pineapple lumps and 'chocolate fush', we nudged out of the New World car park, and thanks to the seductive, dulcet tones of 'Dulcie', the sexy Kiwi GPS, we were on the highway and heading-off on the Road Trip proper with some classic Black Seeds dubbing it up on the stereo to help us on our way.

Within moments, sophisticated, windy old Wellington was behind us, replaced by stretches of farmland dotted with periodic communities of New Worlds, McDonalds-es and Bunnings Warehouses.  The suddenness of the city's disappearance reminded us just how small this country was, and while musing over this, as if to hit the point home, we emerged from a deep valley and were looking out over a spectacular, sun-swept bay with dramatic, mountainous islands shooting-up out of the sparkling water.  The road along the shoreline was as tight and spectacular as our own, much-lauded Great Ocean Road, with the adrenaline-pumping bonus of no safety barriers, and we were thoroughly pumped as the dramatic views and Salmonella Dub's Dancehall Girl created an expectant air of exciting adventures to come.

As we passed through Palmerston North, university town to many of our Kiwi friends, I exhaled a deep sigh of relief that I had stuck to my guns and refused Mrs donkey's demands that we book a night's accommodation here.  Apart from Massey University, the only other thing Palmy is famous for is that at least one of its residents features on the evening news each night, usually for having beaten, killed, raped, eaten or been practicing polygamy with a neighbour and/or family member.  I quietly locked the doors as we cruised down the main drag, and gunned the Epica through the red lights to ward-off University pranksters and/or armed car jackers.

As with Wellington, we were through Palmy in a jiffy, and before long were hurtling along a windy, barrier-less road through a spectacular gorge at ridiculously dangerous speeds thanks to a massive cattle truck balling down on our arse.  This deep canyon seemed to be the sluice via which inland communities emptied their refuse into Palmerston North, and before long we were cruising though the quaint little town of Woodville, where we stopped for a break, a leak and an ice cream.

The latter was sourced from a wonderfully, 1950s-looking dairy in the main street, and we took our 30 cent (!) treats a block down a side street to a magnificent local park.  What I have failed to describe to date is the great contrast between the colour of the Australian countryside and that of North Island New Zealand – NZ is so spectacularly green!  And this public park was just incredible.  Reverently we each took off our shoes before tiptoeing onto the fluffy, emerald carpet, and then grinning guiltily, we stood waiting for some old Kiwi, Mr McGreggor-type to come running over to us waving a shovel and shouting, "Git off the grass, wull yous!".  But we soon realised that this lush, well clipped and rolled public lawn was fair game for all, and judging by the indifference being displayed by the bike-riding teenagers wandering across the furry floor over yonder, such facilities appeared reasonably commonplace.

We stuck around in that park for about two hours, lounging back on the soft grass beneath the swaying oaks, and watching Hambones amuse himself on the gravity-defying, 1950s safety standard play equipment.  After a while we also came to take a little interest in the other park users, and to notice certain behaviours and circumstances that bound them.

Firstly, over the course of an hour, a gathering of young teens swelled from three to about twelve, comprising tough, fit, young white boys in low-slung daks, and similarly-conditioned girls in cut-off denim shorts and crop tops.  They would move from one set of play equipment to the next, flirting and laughing together, almost touching and then breaking away again.  They seemed intimately familiar with each other and ... well, bored. 

From time to time, one would call out to similarly-aged citizens walking along the park's periphery, or through the middle on the immaculately curated paths as they pushed prams containing wee, crying babies.

The original group continued to wander from the swings, to the slide, laughing and flirting and occasionally splitting off in couples to hold hushed conversations beside the thick oaks, before outing a shrill laugh and re-joining their friends.

As we packed-up and headed-off to join potty-mouth Frank in Napier, I reflected that despite the lush surroundings of Woodville, like so many small towns the world over, there was very little to occupy young people such to prevent the kind of boredom which can rapidly slide into circumstances which may ultimately anchor them in the very place which offers them so little stimulation.  I had no doubt those swinging teens (no pun intended) would soon be joining their park-traversing compatriots during infant-sleep-inducing perambulations.

Fine green grass might keep the mid-week golfing ladies busy, but for the youth of Woodville, it's not quite enough to steer 'em clear of the rough.  Pic: http://www.hickerphoto.com/putting-green-shot-oliva-nova-golf-course-valencia-12635-pictures.htm

Road Trip Part II: The Real Wellington

Walk into any travel agent in the land, or log onto a myriad of travel webs and one is invariably faced with multiple images, mostly falling into one of the following three categories;

i)                     Beach scenes with hot young guys and girls in fashionably skimpy swimming costumes; aqua-blue water, sparkling white sand, azure skies and horizons punctuated with coconut palms and/or sailing vessel.

ii)                   Ancient ruins with groups of grinning young girls and guys decked-out in funky threads; all looking like they're having the time of their lives, partying their way through all the attractions of Europe and the middle east.

iii)                  Mountain-top vistas in front of which pose fit looking young women and men, all decked-out in the latest, brightly-coloured outdoor trekking gear, beanies and cool sunnies reflecting the bright sun and deep blue sky of the upper Himalayan atmosphere.

Obviously the pony-tailed marketing executives have done their homework and decided that of all the things that people want from their travels, these three scenes strike a strong chord with the geographically bored, and offer hope and excitement enough for people, regardless of their physical appearance, fitness, fashion sense or ability to party, to sign their hard earns away and take to the skies.

Interestingly, the common element of the three scenes is age; everyone in these pics is young, regardless of the location or the activity, suggesting perhaps that they are designed to make people feel young, or to think that going on a trip might make them young again.  Of course this is ludicrous, and anyone with half a brain would be able to see right through this cheap marketing stunt in an instant.

Fortunately, between Mrs Donkey, Hambones and myself, we manage to come-up with just over half a brain, and this type of manipulative marketing has no effect on us, whatsoever.  Quite the contrary, in fact; past experience has demonstrated time and again that Mrs D and I are much more likely to visit an attraction if it is the recreational choice of octogenarians with hearing aids and colostomy bags, rather than young people with iPods and stubby-holders.

For example, many years ago we slipped-off early one Sunday morning to try out a different Samoan beach from our usual, idyllic locale, and spent a delightful half-hour alone together beneath the swaying palms.  Shortly afterwards, however, a tour bus pulled up and within moments the water around us had taken-on the appearance of the set of Cocoon; the beach became crowded with tanned, leathery, old German men and women in skimpy Speedos and rubber bathing caps – a greasy slick from sunscreen and tanning oil oozing in their wake.  They were joined by more buses, and we subsequently made our way home.

On another occasion, we left Glasgow with raging hangovers from a week with friends, and decided to see some of the English countryside on the way back to London.  First stop was Lake Windermere, where the white and purple hair brigade had booked-up every poky English accommodation option in the whole district.  Despite the grumbles from Mrs D, I kept my chin-up and pushed on to The Cotswolds, where the sights may well have been pleasantly quaint, but where there was nary a place to sit on any of the public lawns due to their having morphed into jammed parking lots for wheelchairs and walking frames.

We can't miss a trick, really.  But this was going to be different.  This was NZ!  Home of extreme sports and by all accounts, fine food and wine.

And by mid afternoon on day 2, I'd had about 13 cups of ball-tearing New Zealand coffee, and was having a little trouble getting to sleep during a scheduled afternoon nap.  The same seemed to go for Hambones, who must have been breathing-in the caffeine which was seeping out of my pores in great, brown droplets.

So after much tossing and turning, up we all got, and tooled-up for a jaunt around Wellington.  It's a little known fact that, contrary to popular misconception, the English name for gumboots does not derive from Field Marshall Arthur Wellesley, the First Duke of Wellington, but rather from the only appropriate footwear to be worn in the city which bears his name.  As we walked out of the hotel, there was so much horizontal rain beating down upon us that we made a dash across the road to the only dry tourist attraction within sight – the Wellington cable car.  Within moments we were safe from the elements, and making our way up above the city to the botanical gardens, encased in glass with thirty or so others, all of whom were over the age of 94!  Here we were again – the Real Wellington.

And they were all white, too (not just their hair, but their skin) ... mostly Australians taking advantage of cheap airfares and seniors' discounts to cross the pond and immerse themselves in the world of their collective childhoods; where dark-coloured skin was only read about in His Majesty's Colonial School Readers.  And what better way to relive the Glory Days of the Empire, than by a jolly outing up the hill to the beautiful, English-inspired botanical gardens.

Grumpy, cold, wet and defeated, we waited out the storm and travelled back down the mountain as the sun started through the clouds.  We bailed out of the train, crossed the road and piled into the first pub we could find with an open fire.  To our pleasant surprise, we found that a left turn in the rain, rather than a right, would have brought us to the other half of the population; here were the people from tourism propaganda photo number ii (see above), all singing and dancing and having a great old time.

So despite the cold and our depression at having been yet again exposed to the 'waiting for God' travelling circus, we kicked-back our heels and got stuck into some fine Sauv Blanc and about two dozen Mac's Sassy Reds – now this is what I call a town!  Sure, it may be small, and it may be the destination of choice for aging white supremacists, but the food and drink is superb ... and cheap.  It's not for nothing that Lonely Planet named Wellington an extremely "liveable small city" ... however the caveats around that award were starting to show through the cracks – it is small, and it was time to get out before we became completely water-logged.

Load-up the boot, Mrs D ... it's time to hit the road, Kiwi-style...

This scene is reminiscent of Donkey and Mrs D's romantic, early-morning visit to a secluded tropical island beach in 2000.  Pic: http://www.homevideos.com/freeze-movies/Cocoon/Cocoon24.jpg

Road Trip

We're off on a road trip.  So we load-up the massive boot of the brown Kingswood with chips, biscuits, bread and sauce, an Esky full of beer, Coke and sausages, fishing rods and cricket bat, ball and stumps, strap the boards to the roof racks, load the tape-deck with the best mixed tapes of the year, throw the guitar and some cushions in the backseat, pick-up the girls (tight denim shorts, tans and bikini tops) and hit the highway in search of sun, sand, surf and who knows, maybe the odd bit of sex?!

Whoo hoo!  It's summer, I'm 19 and I'm off on a road trip with my best mates, some smokin' hot babes and a boot full of piss...

Hang-on, I'm not 19!  I don't drive a Kingswood anymore ... is this some kind of memory throw-back to the mid 80s? 

Hang-on, there were never any smokin' hot babes in my car when I was 19 ... is this some kind of morphing of my memories with youth-targeted TV and U-Toob advertising for clothes/mobile phones/flavoured-milk/pre-mixed vodka drinks?  Exactly what the hell is going on here?

Road trip?  What? ... now? ... at this age? 

Oh right.  Yeah, New Zealand ... North Island ... just me (no mates), smokin' hot Mrs Donkey (tan and denim, but a bit light-on in the bikini-top department – mind you, Wellington was only 2 degrees in the sun), Hambones strapped into the child safety seat in the back (no guitar, no cushions ... barely enough room as it is for the bairn and a folded-up porta-cot) and the boot of the respectably suburban Epica (a far cry from the Kingswood aesthetic) full to bursting with suitcases, stroller and jars of baby food (not a chilled beer or aorta-blocking sausage in sight). 

Road trips have indeed changed since I was a young buck hitting the road full of adventurous anticipation ... or at least since I was a young, luckless, awkward, acne-ridden virgin, sitting down in front of the TV and watching advertisements featuring beautiful young things looking cool and sexy at the beach and on country roads up and down the east coast, and realising the closest I was gonna get to that lifestyle was buying a carton of chocolate milk and drinking it on the bonnet of Dad's station wagon.  But I digress ... New Zealand.

New Zealand?  What would I wanna go there for?  It's exactly the same as here, only thirty years behind.  Let's get this straight - I grew-up in the outer suburbs in the 1980s, and I've spent the last thirty years decisively getting as far away from it as I could, both in time and space.  So why the hell would I want to return to orange Laminex tables, mission-brown carpet tiles, culinary home delights such as "beef and noodles", vegetables boiled to denture-friendly mush and tinned "two-fruits" for desert, or for that formal family occasion, the local "Chinese" specialising in sweet and sour pork, prawn toast and steamed dim sims (considerably more exotic than their less-authentic, fried compatriots available from the fish 'n' chip shop next door).

And while we're at it, I have to say that nostalgics are definitely the stereotype which I find the most irritating (next to New Zealanders, of course).  They bang on and on about milk bottles, 6-o'clock closing, hot chips served in newspaper and about how everything was simple, and tasted better and was cheaper "back in the old days".  How bloody ridiculous?!  Who wants to wake up at 5am every day to the sound of some arthritic old bastard with a smoker's cough tinkling bottles of curdled, unpasteurised milk outside your front door, or to rush like an idiot after work on a Friday to buy bread from the shops before they close for the weekend, or to have permanently tattooed hands and tongue from the combination of scalding chip-grease and lead-based newspaper ink?  Nostalgics are dishonest scumbags who can be annoyingly self righteous as much as they like, smug in the knowledge that no one will ever be able to call them on their wistful reminiscences because no one ever wants to go back there ... 'cause it was shit!  So again I ask the question ... why would anyone want to go to New Zealand?

But as is so often the case, despite my concerns at the idea, my machismo behaved true-to-form and I quickly caved to Mrs Donkey's "suggestion" that a trip to New Zealand to catch-up with some long lost friends would be just what we needed.  So one lovely, warm, spring afternoon, we set off in blinding sunlight for bleak, bleak Wellington, where the sky sits two inches above your head, where the shrieking rain falls sideways and where the trees don't sway in the breeze; they shatter in the sleet.  "Urgh", my stomach sank, "who'd live here?".

The answer to that is our good friends, E, J and G, who were waiting excitedly for us in the arrivals hall, their thick woollen coats, scarves and beanies a comical contrast to our shorts, t-shirts and chattering blue knees.  But their embraces went some way to warding off the forbidding chill as we headed off to see what this country was all about.

However, as would become a reliable feature of our New Zealand road trip, there were delays.  Donkey had been defeated in yet another round of persuasion from Mrs D and had forked-out a hundred kiwi dollars for a so-called "NeverLost" navigation device.  Unfortunately, the helpful instructions don't start until you can get the thing switched on, so we sat in the airport car-park for an hour with the howling wind threatening to blow the car into the adjacent concrete wall (like so many in NZ, decorated with a local artist's lame attempt at a life-sized scene from Lord of the Rings) plugging chords into various sockets and pressing buttons here and there to try to get the thing started. 

Upon achieving success, we started out on the highway towards the city.  In days to come, this device would signal a new era of ease and argument-free road travel, but during that first twenty minutes on Wellington's hectic motorways, our enthusiasm for GPS technology was dampened by Pythagorean feats of concentration in order to decipher the irritatingly grating whine of the Kiwi computer geek's wet-dream - a digitally-generated, sexy female voice with an accent straight out of West Christchurch; "Orr yup, Baybee, tiern luft ut mai luft nupple.  Orr yup, thut's ut.  Thut's toatully Choice, Bug Boy!".

By the time we rounded the point into Oriental Bay, however, things were starting to look a little more promising.  The sun was shooting down through the clouds in gorgeous, golden shafts onto the silver water, and a hip, cafe-lined promenade wound along the shore, along which, despite the wind, people lounged at tables mounted with tantalising, steaming mugs and glasses of chilled white wine.

By the time we'd made it to the hotel, I had passed a large proportion of the 17,000 cafes which contribute to Wellington's reputation as having more coffee outlets per capita than New York.  Add to that a tonne of cool-looking bars and restaurants, and our trip was starting to look up – perhaps New Zealand wasn't quite the 80s suburban throwback I'd been expecting. 

But tasting some of this coffee – the real proof of a nation's developing status – would have to wait just that little longer 'cause breakfast was near E, J and G's digs in Lyall Bay, and to get there, we were forced to get all Lord of the Rings and "...journey beside the silver bay before passing through the dark tunnel beneath the Mountain of the Old Queen, and there you will find the Bay of Gold".  Honestly, New Zealand, the sooner you get over this Peter Jackson crap, the better for all of us – call it what you like, but Mt Victoria is merely a hill, and a road over the top would have been a piece of piss – alright, Im just sayin'. 

While not quite golden, Lyall Bay was very pretty, and we wandered through its lazy streets, past white-painted, weather-board dairies which could well have passed for the suburbs in 1985, down to a rickety-old boat house with beaten-up, peeling wooden walls reflecting a century of sand-blasting, au naturel.  Definitely not the most promising locale for a decent feed, but my casual, and (let's face it) hilarious enquiries of our friends about where a bloke could get some smoked kippers for breakky, "Just like back in the Ol' Country" were being met with daggers from Mrs D, so I decided to put a sock in it and see what New Zealand was going to serve-up.

The building's forbidding exterior was merely a mask for what we found upstairs, however; a bright, warm, furious cacophony of rushing waiting staff weaving through laughing crowds of über cool Wellingtonians packed into tables, benches and onto bar stools as the hissing shoots of steam from the espresso machine and the shriek of frying bacon punctuated the gut-trembling bass of the Kiwi dub booming out over the sound system.  Everyone was happy and chatting to each other, and even the cheerful staff seemed in on the joke.

But the real winner for Donkey was not so much the convivial air, but rather what was being lumbered across the floor in shiny white crockery, and landing in front of the salivating sophisticates; possibly the finest, punchiest organic coffee this increasingly sheepish chump had ever tasted, followed immediately by Martian-transport-sized plates of tasty, organic, eggy goodness atop thick, sourdough toast, plump, juicy baked tomatoes and garlic-bloated mushrooms, with mouth-bashing basil pesto on the side.

By now ol' Donkey was supplementing this fine fare with a considerable serving of humble pie, and while this would have convinced a better man to re-assess his perceptions about what to expect from New Zealand, it should be understood that there are few lumbering hulks more difficult to rein-in than the irrationality of an egomaniac trying to avoid embarrassment.  Sure, others might have suggested that the throng of hip and the platefuls of yum in the room were undeniable proof of a progressive, culinary culture, and yet my ill-placed dogma continued, "But this might have been just a bit of luck; and perhaps E, J and G have deliberately guided us to the best place in the city for our first feed". 

More coffee was going to be required before any definitive conclusions could be drawn ... and beer ... wine'd be good, too.  Ice cream anyone?  Yeah.  I'm no soft target to be won over with a single, outstanding breakfast.  I grew up in the suburbs in the 80s.  I know what I'm in for ... let's get out of this funky cafe ... it's time to check out the real New Zealand.

Next stop ... the 'Real' Wellington.

Donkey's expectations of modern-day New Zealand ... stay logged-in to find out just how canny he is.  Pic:  http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~jdumas/berendo/berenfot.html