Day 28 Wanaka to Queenstown Continued

Day 28 Wanaka to Queenstown Continued

It turned out although I could see Queenstown it was further than I imagined. After Arrowtown we followed a forest trail, up and down and in the wrong direction. The signage was hopeless, it appeared at the Frankton bridge some wag had deliberately changed the arrow to take us over to the other side so we would end up seeing Queenstown but not get there. I stopped for refreshments at a brewery on the waterfront with a dazzling display of beers with silly names. I just pointed vaguely and said I'll have that one. Bad choice. It turned up in another thimble so I took a carafe of water, bowled it and the beer and moved on. Krystal and Paul had organised a lovely convenient motel with lake views run by an immigrant who was also a petty bureaucrat. The owner lived off shore. Could I do some washing. My most pressing concern. He refused to let me charge it on a credit card and give me coins but dangled a bag full of coins in my face. Harsh words were exchanged and he relented. Traipsing up town to find a cash machine in my state wasn't an option. I got to my room, tipped everything out and had a shower. The lake was sparkling then there was a knock on the door. He told me I couldn't do any washing because it was now after 6 and he was going home. He took me down to show me the laundry and explained I would disturb the guests, (who all appeared to be in cafes and bars quaffing drinks or swimming and sunbathing. He was inflexible and wouldn't let me stay in the room until I had finished. I admit I may have raised my voice but the main reason to stay there was to wash clothes. In the manner of all small minded people with the keys to the manor I knew he had the whip hand and I was defeated. We both knew it. I mumbled about staying somewhere else and he encouraged me to. Defeated and dejected I found the 24 hrs laundromat and did it myself but at least I won't be getting boils on my bum and the view was superb.

There is plenty of time to think when you are pedalling all day. The world appears to be rolling past me and I am on a gigantic treadmill when the country is wide and open, or the tar seal is a smooth weir and I am approaching from below; looking down the road water speeds up and blurs and seems to burst into spray and bubbles, an optical trick I know but weird, like how the wagon wheels always spun the wrong way in movies.

You can think and observe the country if the surface or just hang on for grim death and concentrate on staying upright on the tricky gravel or gnarly tracks, or concentrate on getting left when vehicles roar past, or count down on the long, slow stretches and you are tired and want to finish. How many powerpoles on the straight in front: 19 at 80 metres apart?. You know that because you've already worked that out on the tacho.

How many lots of 10 kms, or 33 is a third of 100, so you are coming up to 50 kms which is halfway on a 100 k day. My best place is thinking of home and family. That helps the miles tick by..

Dad was quirky. He would wear a shirt inside out if he put it on wrong. He hated crossed knives. He snapped the big newspapers like a whip cracking to iron out the wrinkles and would sit with his feet nearly in the fire studying the paper, horn rimmed glasses perched on his nose, studying it for hours. He sneezed so loudly you could hear him on Ward St which embarrassed my sisters because the two spinsters in charge of the girls college lived on our boundary and their windows must have rattled. If the fire siren went off he bundled us into the car and we were off looking for excitement.

He was very gentlemanly and treated women with respect and blew Carolyn and I up once because I called her a mole. He muttered darkly and told us to look it up in the gigantic Websters which had pride of place in the sitting room. Mole, moll...a gangsters moll. What was wrong with a gangster having a girlfriend I wondered? He was a crackshot and had won a cup before the war scoring a 'possible' the highest possible score, in a shooting competition. When the starlings got too bad in the roof he would get the .22 out and shoot them out of the walnut trees which would get you arrested nowdays. He would take us to the RSA and we would sit in the car waiting and he always brought out a glass of lemonade. He loved a good burn off and would make a huge bonfire and we had a stuffed effigy of Guy Fawkes on top. Bad form really. His mother was a protestant and father a Catholic, rare in those days, and the boys in the family were baptized as Catholic but the girls Anglican.

He invited the JW caller in and they had religious discussions and there were always Watchtower magazines lying around and ministers from different denominations spoke at his funeral. He subscribed to Reader's Digest magazine and abridged books, and Time Life magazine and National Geographic and so we learned what was going on in the world. He recited facts from the AA strip maps when we went for Sunday Drives and roared at us if we talked while the BBC news was on as we were eating.

One sister said she didn't realize how nice fathers could be until she went on a school trip to Wellington and saw how gentle the father was with his kids. That had never occurred to me. My overall impression was of him always working but carrying a quiet, unspoken sadness and reserve.