Jacquie Phelan's Weblog

I’m staying in the deluxe “Rosehill” motor coach–a blue city bus from the 1960’s that looks like it was tornadoe’d off of the Black Rock Desert (see “Burning Man Festival”)  earlier this month and plopped down in New Zealand, among a dozen tiny caravans and a handful of charming log cabinettes. When Gloria, the proprietress of Waihi Motor Camp said I could stay in it rather than the pequeno “Colonial” (room made of glass on two sides, filled with a bed and a little fridge-box), I leapt at the chance. No clue how to upload pix here, so imagine a blue and silver 30-foot bus flanked by puny caravans on a carpet of velvet green, in a manicured garden with streams, fields with sheep (some ofwhich I ‘dagged’–well, helped to dag. Watched being dagged. That’s when the strong young guy clips the poop-smeared wool from the sheeps butt.  Then they were “drinched’ (given a squirt of vitt-amin), mani-pedicured, and got pink ear tabs. All while looking semi-comatose held up supine. I guess they go limp when on their backs?
There is a minefield of duck-shit that helps with the greening grass, and a fine black pig suitable for head-scratching.

Just outside the piggy slope (mostly grass, some wallowmud) a huge box of kiwi fruit sits…I’ve been secretly hi-grading some, plus enjoying the worlds tiniest tangerines, delicious. The grapefruit around here looks like a flattened valencia orange. Bit of a shock when you peel it, and expect sweet….I’d found a pile of THEM on route 2 (“Pacific Coast Highway”) and carried them 20 km before I learned they are ‘only’ grapefruit. Making myself eat them…

OK< Waihi is famous for its gold mine, the Martha mine. It was a series of tunnels until the 1950s, and horses lived in the mines about 10 months of the year (ugh!).There are some cute Victorians here, and the coolest buildings in town are semi-seedy hotels, the Rob Roy and some extremely sad ‘backpacker’s hostel’ with tired old smelly men. I truly thought I was open-minded, but turned into a major princess after checking those both out, feel lucky to have found Gloria’s little ten acre fief….

Tomorrow I’ll head further north away from the cars…Rhoda Morrison (aka Offrhoda, the fleetest kiwi girl (on fat tires) in the world in 1984~85)just rang up–I’ll see her for the first time in 20 or more years. Yah, thirty like…either I go to her farm, or she tries singlespeeding for laughs, at Rotorua’s championship.

~ by jacquiephelan on September 25, 2010.

Posted in sswc2010
Tags: Offrhoda Morrison, Waihi, Waihi Motor Camp