The bus crawls through the city. We are crammed into the narrow aisle, which is too narrow for tourists with luggage.
A French girl next to me has too much hair growth on her face, a beard stubble, a thin mustache, and sideburns. The father does not interfere with the family. He stands at the front and looks worried. He consults his phone to ward off the danger of delay on the itinerary.
At Nara station, a photographer sits huddled against a wall. Concentrated, he tries to make something of the legs passing by him. I am trying to make something of how he is trying to make something.
Raetihi is apparently in the process of shutting down. At least half of the stores and business premises on the main street are boarded up, and the population doesn’t seem to believe in it anymore.
The engine light on the dashboard flashes red. Go to the Toyota dealer as soon as possible, says the booklet. Damn.
I called Snap rental help, which turned out to transfer to the AA, the ANWB of New Zealand. I was in the queue, but I was helped.
A technician comes in an hour. The cars race by, and each is hopeful at first.
A motorcycle stops in a recreational parking lot. A man with a vast mustache emerges from under the helmet. Despite the dense cloud cover, his sunglasses remain on. He drives off, unsuccessfully.
I fight boredom with a little photo project: photographing crap in the parking lot. Make a collage of it later.
An hour later, the AA technician is still not there. ‘Op zijn elfendertigste’, A says, which is untranslatable. The best guess would be ‘in the dead of winter.’
A stream flows. A car stops and drives off. Crickets crunch, and a fly buzzes around my head.
People poop and drink beer in all corners of this place: I find wipes and crushed cans.
Beyond, a meadow, crammed with sheep Beneath an electricity pylon that slants over the hills.
Occasional bleating. Then another car. But still not the AA technician. AA of the Automobile Association, not the alco-AA.
A hotel has stood here, after a wayfarers sod cottage of 1857, Way Otaraia hotel was placed here. A changing station for horses between Dunedin and Invercargill. Just like in the movie.
Our cottage in Carters Beach is a kind of mobile home with attached covered porch. Looking toward the beach you see Donaldos, a restaurant, cafe, snack bar, store where the locals and the tourists who don’t feel like driving to Westport get drinks, food and breakfast.
In the foreground are two large ferns, which grow like trees here. You can’t see it but a seagull squawks, a dog barks. In the distance the sea murmurs.
It should close behind us as we leave. The knobs on the poles are the Bakelite insulators for electricity poles. The fence is made of railroad sleepers stacked on top of each other.
A friend recommended I check out Ans Westra when I told him we were going to New Zealand. Ans Westra is Dutch who moved to New Zealand in 1957. She is a documentary photographer.
In Wellington there is a gallery, called {Suite}, that exhibits and sells her work. The owner manages her archive.
Yesterday I visited the gallery, a small space on Wellington’s famous Cuba Street. I spoke briefly with the owner, who miraculously identified me as Dutch before I had spoken a word. Very nice guy.
I the gallery also hung work in color by Ans Westra that I did not know. Very good too. I bought the book Our Future by Ans Westra, with only work in color.
