Between a sock and a hard place.

Part 1
This week has been a bit shit. There I’ve said it.
There are no two ways about it, sometimes in life things roll along and don’t hit the extremes, sometimes however terrible things happen and great things occur. This week it has been the turn of the former. It was my intention to end a week of solitude with a bit of sightseeing, I use that word lightly. What I mean is that I had a road trip in mind, a bit of kiwiana if you will. I had the car packed, topped up with fluid, and the route sorted. Thomas Hardy would probably describe this particulary fine morning as;
“an egg laying day in May.”
Well I would, but it’s November over here, and I’ve still not got my head round the fact that it’s spring! To cut a long drawn out tale short, 17km from my first destination the arse fell out of the car…Literally. With a capital A. The engine had completely seized, I was going nowhere, well actually I’d already arrived in..nowhere. Fortunately,
(As they like to do in New Zealand,) some guys were digging up a perfectly fine piece of road quite nearby, and were able to tow me to a decent stopping point. I proceeded to ring the garage for a tow truck…Just as the nearby farmer released about 20,000, bloody sheep. You can imagine the din.
“Hello there sir could you tell me your exact location please”
“Well I’m near…”
“Are you on a farm or something I can hear..”
“NO NO I’ve actually broken down right outside an outdoor cinema, which is showing a re run of ‘Wallace and Gromit’s A Close Shave’, that’s the racket you can hear”
“Oh well that must be near to...let’s see..”
“Of course I’m near a bastard sheep farm I’m in fucking New Zealand!”
Is how the conversation should have gone, instead I ummed and arrd for ten minutes until she knew where to send the tow truck. That hiccup certainly put my plans on hold, but if that was the start of the week, there was more to come. Fortunately I had helped out on a farm in Kerikeri the week before and the owner gladly put me up for a few nights, what’s more the volunteers that had taken over from me, were still there, and seeing my plight duly rolled out the beers. In fact, the next day they postponed their plans to run me into town, we did a few things and returned to the car only to find it broken into, and Christopher’s camera stolen.
I felt like a walking bad luck charm, a two and a bit leafed clover. A kind of anti-Midas, anything I touched got the plague or turned into Noel Edmonds. It was terrible, all I can say was that in the aftermath the real Kiwi spirit came out, the shopkeeper where the car was parked, offered his car to use as a replacement, during the window repairs. A passer by even offered to take everyone out for the day. It certainly helped make an awful situation easier to swallow, we got back….
and got pissed.
The beer was still fresh in my mind the next morning when I was told the car would cost 900NZ to fix, depressed I accepted the terms and booked a bus to continue my travel itinerary. I had gained a lift as far as Auckland and reluctantly booked a night in a backpackers, and another bus ride south to my next stop in Hastings. Ah well, it had been a crappy week but I was in a relatively sunny Auckland for bonfire night, it could have been worse.