The rest of the journey passes uneventfully. The Mojo Webb CD is ok, but not a patch on his live show. The Stellar* CD is ok, although the highlights are the first two songs. They’re all I listen to for the next two hours.
In Ohakune I get directions to Napier. The guy in the shop points to a little country road that wriggles over the Ruahine Range. He says it will knock about 2 hours off the journey time compared with the A roads, but a long stretch in the middle is just gravel. Am I ok with that? I reassure him that I’m fine driving on gravel and it will be worth it – there’s bound to be some pretty good scenery, and I’m an intrepid adventurer. The customary cheery farewell, and I’m back on the road. About 40 minutes later I’m at the junction. Napier is about 140km away, and this twisty road will take me there. The sign warns that 27km of it is unsurfaced gravel!
But first (almost immediately), this road turns into a motorbike paradise – nicely twisty but good visibility. The surface is excellent and I’m already thinking about doing this route again on two wheels. The only problem is trying not to be too distracted by the scenery. But those sentiments soon change when I finally hit the gravel. Initially it’s ok, but after about 5km, and with another 22km to go, I start thinking it would just be frustrating and tense on a bike. Especially a nice one. It would be fun on something that you didn’t much care about – something where you could accept the risk of dropping it and the certainty of stone chips. But a lot of the most spectacular scenery is in this stretch and, on two wheels, you’d be too preoccupied to see it. For the gravel stretch, I decide that 2 wheels are too few.
Once past the gravel, and descending into the Eastern side of the North Island, the scenery is a bit more mundane. Or maybe I’ve just become accustomed to the spectacular. But it starts to feel like a hell of a long way to Napier. Still, with Stellar* accompanying me, I make it eventually. I’m finally here! Thank heavens! But the relief and elation are short-lived. I drive around a while, catching occasional but disappointing glimpses of why Napier calls itself the Art Deco city. I'm trying to find out where the night life is, and find some accommodation that’s an easy walk away. I ask a few locals where the bars are, and they all direct me to the same street. Each time, I drive along it incredulously. I’m afraid to make too much noise in case I disturb the tranquility. There seem to be 2 bars (possibly 3, but one is so quiet I’m not even sure whether it’s open). I can’t stay here. I head to Hastings, about 20km down the coast. On arrival, I ask a local where the bars are in Hastings, lamenting that Napier was like a ghost town. He laughs mightily and says I won’t find anything better in Hastings. This is getting desperate. 8:30pm and I have nowhere to stay and can’t find anywhere that has anything happening. I ask if he can suggest anything else. “Havelock North. That’s only a small place, but it has quite a few bars all in one street. That gets pretty lively.”
20 minutes later, I enter Havelock North. Completely unlike the other places – you couldn’t call it quaint, but it does have ‘something’. I find a motel (really good room) and stroll off to the strip. The Irish bar (every NZ town seems to have one) is large but empty. A band is just starting but they seem under-prepared – still sorting out their sound levels. So I go round the corner to the Loading Ramp. There I meet Ayla.
It’s Ayla’s second night behind the bar. It’s still fairly early (about 10:30) so it’s fairly quiet, and we chat. Ayla is young, quite tall, dark haired (although apparently she’s a natural blonde), extremely pretty, with a smile that lights up the whole room – and it’s a big room. Her conversation is filled with warmth and sunshine. She tells how she spent some time teaching in Hong Kong, and enjoyed it but it was hard being there all on her own. Now she's back in NZ doing occasional work while she figures out what to do next. I tell her about my New Zealand experiences so far. Every so often she goes off to serve other guests and then comes back to chat some more. She tells me about returning to New Zealand and how, one day, an old man in the street said to her "It's a beautiful day, isn't it?". She says how happy that made her feel, and suddenly that smile comes back and fills the room with light again. There’s something very special about Ayla.
The same can’t be said for the bloke who starts talking to me. I understand roughly half of the words he says, and I learn that:
In Ohakune I get directions to Napier. The guy in the shop points to a little country road that wriggles over the Ruahine Range. He says it will knock about 2 hours off the journey time compared with the A roads, but a long stretch in the middle is just gravel. Am I ok with that? I reassure him that I’m fine driving on gravel and it will be worth it – there’s bound to be some pretty good scenery, and I’m an intrepid adventurer. The customary cheery farewell, and I’m back on the road. About 40 minutes later I’m at the junction. Napier is about 140km away, and this twisty road will take me there. The sign warns that 27km of it is unsurfaced gravel!
But first (almost immediately), this road turns into a motorbike paradise – nicely twisty but good visibility. The surface is excellent and I’m already thinking about doing this route again on two wheels. The only problem is trying not to be too distracted by the scenery. But those sentiments soon change when I finally hit the gravel. Initially it’s ok, but after about 5km, and with another 22km to go, I start thinking it would just be frustrating and tense on a bike. Especially a nice one. It would be fun on something that you didn’t much care about – something where you could accept the risk of dropping it and the certainty of stone chips. But a lot of the most spectacular scenery is in this stretch and, on two wheels, you’d be too preoccupied to see it. For the gravel stretch, I decide that 2 wheels are too few.
Once past the gravel, and descending into the Eastern side of the North Island, the scenery is a bit more mundane. Or maybe I’ve just become accustomed to the spectacular. But it starts to feel like a hell of a long way to Napier. Still, with Stellar* accompanying me, I make it eventually. I’m finally here! Thank heavens! But the relief and elation are short-lived. I drive around a while, catching occasional but disappointing glimpses of why Napier calls itself the Art Deco city. I'm trying to find out where the night life is, and find some accommodation that’s an easy walk away. I ask a few locals where the bars are, and they all direct me to the same street. Each time, I drive along it incredulously. I’m afraid to make too much noise in case I disturb the tranquility. There seem to be 2 bars (possibly 3, but one is so quiet I’m not even sure whether it’s open). I can’t stay here. I head to Hastings, about 20km down the coast. On arrival, I ask a local where the bars are in Hastings, lamenting that Napier was like a ghost town. He laughs mightily and says I won’t find anything better in Hastings. This is getting desperate. 8:30pm and I have nowhere to stay and can’t find anywhere that has anything happening. I ask if he can suggest anything else. “Havelock North. That’s only a small place, but it has quite a few bars all in one street. That gets pretty lively.”
20 minutes later, I enter Havelock North. Completely unlike the other places – you couldn’t call it quaint, but it does have ‘something’. I find a motel (really good room) and stroll off to the strip. The Irish bar (every NZ town seems to have one) is large but empty. A band is just starting but they seem under-prepared – still sorting out their sound levels. So I go round the corner to the Loading Ramp. There I meet Ayla.
It’s Ayla’s second night behind the bar. It’s still fairly early (about 10:30) so it’s fairly quiet, and we chat. Ayla is young, quite tall, dark haired (although apparently she’s a natural blonde), extremely pretty, with a smile that lights up the whole room – and it’s a big room. Her conversation is filled with warmth and sunshine. She tells how she spent some time teaching in Hong Kong, and enjoyed it but it was hard being there all on her own. Now she's back in NZ doing occasional work while she figures out what to do next. I tell her about my New Zealand experiences so far. Every so often she goes off to serve other guests and then comes back to chat some more. She tells me about returning to New Zealand and how, one day, an old man in the street said to her "It's a beautiful day, isn't it?". She says how happy that made her feel, and suddenly that smile comes back and fills the room with light again. There’s something very special about Ayla.
The same can’t be said for the bloke who starts talking to me. I understand roughly half of the words he says, and I learn that:
- He’s just driven back from Hastings, completely inebriated
- The police are cracking down on drunk drivers but they’ll never catch him because he has an XR8 and if they try to chase him he’ll be gone. (He expresses this with such vigour that nearly falls over.)
- Everyone in the bar is queer. Especially that bouncer over there!
Pretty soon his sentences are no more than a haphazard combination of vowels and, thankfully, I understand no more. I escape and manage to avoid him the rest of the night. But I'm still amused several times, watching the faces of people that he talks to.
Anyway, the place itself plays loads of cool oldie songs until about 11:30. It then goes into more general modern club stuff. The young guns arrive around midnight and the place goes off. Music is pulsating with appropriately hedonistic throbbery but, unlike in the UK, the volume is set to “trouser-flapping” instead of “Armageddon”. Bravo! (as we say in Havelock North).
Ayla is way too busy for me to ask how things are going. As far as I can tell, her night is hectic, but under control. My night, on the other hand, is chilled and under no control. I want to request “Hey Boy Hey Girl” but I don’t want to risk spoiling a good night with a faux pas. Anyway, the music is fine as it is. So I absorb & enjoy until I eventually leave, having a quiet wander back to the motel. Tomorrow brings a long drive back to Wellington on long boring roads, back to interviews and back to urban reality. But I'm not really thinking about that now. As I stroll, I realise that today turned into a great day. Sometimes, life is that simple.
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