You Can Check Out Any Time You'd Like

By Tom

Granity, New Zealand

I’m standing on the side of the road with my thumb out on a lonely stretch of highway, trying to get a ride to an end-of-the-road town over one hundred kilometers away.  My wife-to-be is doing a good job staying cheery as the sun is starting to sink low over the Tasman Sea.  I’ve just been dropped off by two teenagers who drove 160 kph down the middle of the road.  I am the proud owner of a non-functioning, twenty-year-old station wagon sitting on a lawn half way across the country with a buy-back guarantee from a man who, tragically, may or may not still be alive in a city that no longer exists.  Half of our possessions for the trip are now in the care of a singer/songwriter named Panda and his French girlfriend who are slowly moving up the West Coast in a van full of sound equipment.  How did it come to this?  Funny you should ask.

 

            It all started with an embarrassing pull-in to a crowded road-side café driving a car billowing black smoke from the hood.  Everyone stared and some people actually pointed out that our car was billowing smoke from the hood, as if we didn’t notice.  No worries, we thought, because our car dealer Henry had told us he would come from Christchurch with a trailer and once again trade us for a new car if this one died too.  As we walked inside to call Henry, we noticed that everyone in the room was glued to the breaking news report on the television.  The city of Christchurch had been completely leveled by an earthquake just minutes before.  It was a terrible tragedy and seemed like a bad time to call Henry to ask for roadside assistance.   

Instead, we quickly gathered our things and hitched the hour back to Wanaka, where Bernie picked us up and let us stay for another night under what he referred to as “refugee status.”  Within only a few hours of our tearful goodbyes and thank-yous to people we thought we might never see again, we were back to walking the goats. 

            The next morning, with the help of Anne and Bernie’s friend Panda who was staying at their house, we set out to bring the car back to town.  Our attempt to fix a radiator hose leak using only Scotch tape was actually successful for most of the way to town, after which we towed the car back using Bernie’s truck.  Clearly it was time for Julia and I to come up with a new plan for our time in New Zealand.

 

            The plan: we were due in a few days at our next farmstay in Karamea, a tiny town on the northern dead-end of the West Coast highway.   We could make it half way there with Panda and his girlfriend Marylynn who were headed that direction in their van, after which we would hitch the rest of the way to Karamea.  At the new farmstay, we would wait a week or two to see if things in Christchurch had improved any.  If Henry was still around and in business, we would hitch back to the car in Wanaka, hope that a new radiator hose would allow us to limp back to what’s left of Christchurch, and resell our car.  If not, we would be out of luck with selling back the car. 

            So we stuck our thumbs and caught some fun rides up the West Coast and have made it most of the way in only two days.  We spent a night with Panda and Marylynn soaking in some hot springs at Franz Joseph Glacier (the film location for the lighting of the beacons in Lord of the Rings) and spent the next afternoon touring the sites on the lush West Coast and eating ice cream cones with two fun American girls. 

Fueling up Panda's van

Everywhere we stop, though, people have been watching the news from Christchurch, and clearly our troubles are nothing compared with what’s going on there.  Nearly one hundred people have been confirmed dead but several hundred more are missing and presumed dead, making it the greatest tragedy in the history of New Zealand.  Thousands have lost their homes and are sleeping on the streets and in the parks.  We’ve already met people who have lost friends in the quake or whose families have lost their homes.  It is similar to the level of devastation felt by Hurricane Katrina, but unlike New Orleans, Christchurch is one of only three cities in the country.  For now, Julia and I are anxious to see if our transportation issues will be resolved, but we are happy that we are both safe and sound.