Later That Afternoon

28 December 2015

I woke up from a late afternoon nap feeling mildly disoriented. I decided to go to the pub and get some dinner.

Looking around at all the ramshackle buildings and signs of family life in the town gives one the impression that Otira is falling apart and thriving at the same time.

To get to the pub you have to use the pedestrian subway running under the train tracks.

Above the entrance to one tunnel is the date 1922. During that time the town would have been thriving with its little school, tea rooms and tidy houses tenanted by the rail workers and their families.

On the tunnel walls is some half-hearted graffiti. I say half-hearted because there is really no pride of ownership in the tagging. There is one message of love, the words “kia kaha,” a rough sketch of two people and the word “bitch.”

There isn’t one single representation of a penis anywhere. This disappointed me somehow.

You can tell that those who felt compelled to leave their mark were in a small town state of mind. 

Why use a patina of rich colours or explore the true depths of profanity when your audience is less than 100 townsfolk and they aren’t really bothered in the first place?

I had my first whitebait patty at the pub. It was good but it took a bit of concentration on my part to not think about eating whole tiny fish.

I met Ian, a man who works at the pub, lives in a bus behind it and has a healthy respect for kea.

He was kind enough to show me where the town’s rubbish tip is so I can go there and look for kea at some point.

There is a mama kune kune and three piglets by the pub. There is also an extremely tall and very exotic looking goat which I’m told is Namibian. I will look this up later to confirm.

I managed to feed an apple to one of the Clydesdales earlier and I tried to make nice with the neighbour’s giant dog (named Turbo) but while I was petting him I hit a sore spot and he snapped at me-not in a close call sort of way but in a way that let me know he had been hurt. His owner apologized and I decided it was time to get on with my exploration of the area.

My other neighbour Philip told me there was a path to the river behind our houses. I had on my Muck Master boots and I walked toward the back paddock until I was confronted with some flimsy looking wire. I crawled over it (in my summer dress, flashing panty once again) and immediately came across a dead Weka. I thought it would be nice to have some of its feathers but when I tried to pull some out the whole bird came with them. I left it alone.

I walked through a small wooded area and a kereru flew overhead into a nearby tree. They are very large birds and very noisy flyers.

On the other side of the woods there was a rocky ledge which I climbed up to find a gravel and grass road. I climbed down another rocky bank and reached the stony bed of the Otira River.

To my delight I found a natural pool just out of the river’s current where I can go for a dip in the hot afternoon.  At least, I mean to try. The water is very cold and it would mean walking over there in my swim suit and risking becoming a meal for thousands of sand flies.

On the way back through the wooded area I thought I would take another look at the dead Weka. I bent over it to study its state of decay and then glanced up to see a couple of people watching me from their back porch.

That’s when I realized I had probably become Monday night’s entertainment and Otira’s official “weirdo in residence.”

I fumbled quickly over the paddock wires and made a B-line for the house.

I’m sitting in the living room now watching Turbo’s owner talk to his neighbour over the fence. A little while later a man with a long grey beard and two tea cups walks through his back yard and into Turbo’s back yard.

Tea and a chinwag seems like a nice way to spend the evening.

I hear the roar of KiwiRail engines across the street.