The Fine Art of Getting Lost

Alas the fine art of living also involves the art of getting lost. Today getting lost brought us fresh picked vegetables, a bottle of kiwifruit wine, four tires full of sheep shit, and to celebrate all this, a stew fit for the hardiest of colons. And to think, I woke up thinking today would be just another New Year's eve.

Perhaps we should re-think our method of finding a place to live. It's taken a nose-dive since the USA. Now we more or less just wing it, hoping to pull off somewhere before dark. We haven't gone sleepless thus far, but why tempt fate? Looking back I laugh at the fact that I worried about this in the States. With a camper-van we could have stopped anywhere. Often we laughed at the poor slobs setting up tents in the dark. "Sure glad that's not us," John would say. Now those poor slobs are us, cruising aimlessly for a place to call home, who look longingly at the campers, converted buses and truck houses we pass on the way.

Today began in Peel Forest, a quiet scenic reserve where we'd spent two nights. We dillied and we dallied the morning away and it wasn't until noon that we pulled out toward a new destination, Pioneer Park. We'd noticed the park on the DOC campground brochure. The woman at the gift shop in Geraldine gave us detailed hand-waved directions and we set off. But somewhere between the right hand wave left and the two fisted curve right, we got confused.

"Hey, there's a sign," I yelled.

"Where?" John asked.

"Just back there. It said fresh veggies. Let's get some."

So our mission was temporarily deterred while we hand selected vegetables as the woman selling them plucked them from the ground. Dirt and all cost only NZ$4. What a find.

Our next find, though still not Pioneer Park, put us in the holiday spirits, wine tasting at Barker's Winery. We sampled kiwifruit wine, strawberry wine, elderberry port, apricot sherry and followed them with tastes of apricot mustard, champagne chutney and lemon sauce. We left with a bottle of kiwifruit wine and a jar of fruit mince to have with our fresh veggies should we ever find a place to eat them that night.

Onward over sheep covered hills, gravel roads of sheep shit and sign after sign pointing everywhere except to Pioneer Park we finally stopped at Hanging Rock Bridge to ask directions. The man we asked didn't know, but he had a local map. "You can have it," he said. "I never go anywhere anymore."

Now we knew. We took Goat Pass Road to Totara Valley Road. Turned right toward Raincliff. Took Home Bush Road through the iron gate, down a quiet road followed the river and there it was. Since it had been so hard to find, we were surprised to find it filled with families and tents. Locals I'm sure.

We'd made it. We'd found a home for the night. But the true test of camping came when John tossed two heaping tablespoons of Metimucil into our fresh veggie stew. "Mmm, beef broth," he mumbled. "This is gunna be good." Well, 'good' isn't exactly the word I would use to describe the thick mass of goo that instantly developed in the pot.

"Oh No! What is it?" John yelled.

We spent half an hour fishing what we could from the slime, rinsing it off and beginning again. I handed John the real jar of beef broth. "Here try this."

Try two ended up being delicious and we rang in the New Year sipped wine and toasted the 'fine art of getting lost'.