But where are the hatchlings…?

20/03/09

This morning we wake up in our immaculately decorated, bright room with its low ceiling and tall, old-gold betasseled bed and pack away our things for what really is the last time now. We are both a little thoughtful: we are leaving New Zealand behind soon, Andrew today and myself tomorrow. Today will be a little peculiar – I will be accompanying Andrew to the airport, where he will be flying home via Singapore. I will be heading on to America via Sydney, and probably sleeping in Christchurch airport on the way… Still, that’s later – today we are going to see a final bit of Kiwi oddity…
We enjoy a second delicious breakfast in the old stables – I start with porridge and cram a full English down on top of it (I don’t know when I’m next going to eat!) and Andrew has porridge and waffles with bacon and maple syrup… Not a logical combination, and I am not quite convinced by the simultaneously sweet and salty flavour, but both the bacon and the waffles are excellent so it kinda hangs together…
We finish packing up, pop things in the car and head back to the meander into the beautiful little lobby of the Lodge to pay for dinner and our second night. Francesca and Kate are also leaving this morning, and we swap emails and wish each other well on our various travels – they are quite a pair, fun and very good company. We wave goodbye to the castle, resplendent in its damp and glorious grounds, overlooking its little piece of Scotland, carved here in New Zealand from local life.
I drive on, wending back along the little ocean road with the shags perched on every available outcrop, and back through Dunedin to head out towards the Moeraki boulders. We drive along a completely straight stretch of road, now in the sun, and are convinced that the boulders must be here somewhere as we’ve passed the two towns they are supposed to be between… I turn.
And turn again.
Aha! We take a random little turning I didn’t notice last time and meander down towards a campsite… That’s not right…
We turn back a little and decide to park next to a little cluster of cars which are already there. The wind is getting up and the sky, while still mostly blue and sunny, has a little grey creeping in around the edges… I feel rather like that too…
We head down onto the beach and stare at the sea. There are, however, no boulders to be seen. We cast around for a moment and decide that we have too little time to walk along the beach hand in hand, much as we’d like to, so we head on in the car in the direction we believe the boulders to be and stop at another little car park… This one looks more promising; there are skinny tanned girls in shorts and jumpers with sea-tousled hair coming up some sandy steps, boyfriend in one hand, camera in the other (I think my paranoid imagination may have multiplied the actual number of tanned beach goddesses just a teeny bit). We head down the steps too, and onto the beach.
It is windy and clear and wisps of seaweed have clearly danced with the driftwood in the early autumn tides to make interesting patterns along the shore…
We look into the distance, into the sun, and see people. This must be the right way; it’s not your average tourist attraction (being as that there are no rides or people selling silly things on sticks) but it is popular with the more thoughtful and respectful kind of tourist… We who call ourselves visitors and travellers perhaps.
;)
Well, these things have been hard to find but, as we approach the cluster of people, we can see that it has been worth it.
They are odd.
Very odd indeed.
A cluster of boulders nestle together in the surf, huddling against one another as the waves slap into the side of them and break around their spherical hides to lap on the shore by our feet.
Spherical.
Round.
Globular.
They are all PERFECTLY round. Fat, black, glossy and wet, they lurk in the shallows like some gigantic clutch of huge eggs, left there by some antediluvian monster. In fact, Andrew and I wonder if perhaps they are cliff eggs, as one appears to have been laid n the not too distant past. It sits, untouched by the sea, on the dunes just beneath the cliff and the cliff sports a slight indentation from whence it may have came. This one is still fresh and cliff-coloured, an orangey, sandy colour, with gentle striations marking its spherical shell. Andrew and I peer over it and I pat its sun-warmed shell gently. This one clearly hasn’t yet made the journey to the sea – a young one perhaps, still in need of the cliff’s shelter.
Nearby is one which appears to have cracked open. I wonder what it hatched into-
And where its progeny went…
An embryonic new world perhaps? Set adrift into the sea to learn the old ways before leaving for fresh galaxies?
A baby continent? Ready to trundle off somewhere and start afresh, like the Galapagos?
A giant stone turtle?
A fossilised Roc?
The imagination is fertile here, New Zealand in general is so full of energy and myth already, that the mind leaps on the bandwagon and goes off to play with what it has found, particularly here where these giant stone eggs are incubating in the warm sand!
Next time you find a perfectly round stone, spare a thought for these grand boulders, lolling mournfully in the surf and the rolling waves, waiting to hatch…

Andrew and I wait for a few of the other visitors to dissipate and head up to the larger, sea-dwelling boulders. They are very big close to and we take many photographs of these great, solid beasties, from every conceivable angle. They look very impressive when a wave splits at their backs and spumes up beyond them in a glittering, scattered v of sparkling wet.
Eventually, most photos taken, we decide to clamber onto the domed heads of these inert creatures, just because, in that very human way of viewing the world, we can.
:P
Andrew goes first, and teeters upright on top of the closest blob.
King of the sea!
A passing, flip-flopped lady offers to take our picture and giggles as I try to join him…
I follow his path to the base of the rock, avoiding the first roll of sea around its base, and find that my little legs are too small to get me on top of the boulder before the next wave comes, so I retreat swiftly before the salt spray and wait for it to retreat before I try again – a run up and Andrew catches my hand, but I fumble and drop again, just avoiding the roll of surf by bounding backwards awkwardly.
A third time, and I’m there! Feet precariously on the stone, hand gripped safely in Andrew’s. I shift into a sitting position on this warm sphere and we hug tightly to avoid slipping off into the encroaching water.

The friendly lady takes our picture and I bounce off the boulder to retrieve my camera before the next wave crashes into the rock behind us. She missed me falling off and nearly getting wet feet, but Andrew makes up for that by taking a series of action shots of me leaping from the top of the boulder to the sand, hair flying, gravity a second thought.
Reluctantly, we begin to wend our way back along the shore to the car. We are both a little peckish and our separate impending departures weigh heavily over our heads like the sword of Damocles…

The next section of trip is melancholy, long and uneventful. We stop a couple of times to see if we can find food, but this area of the country is bereft of the tourist culture we have come to expect, and most of the café proprietors seem to be packing away or already closed in the occasional town we do come across…
Good grief the Canterbury Plains are dull! I wanted to go to Canterbury, just for the name, but I’m glad I didn’t. The entire area is flat as a pancake, grilling blandly under the hot afternoon sun. It is all but dead but for the farmland – everything closes at 4.30pm, the sun beats down on the empty streets and the flat, dusty miles between each place seem interminable.
But a bright spot appears in our edible future – a nasty-looking little roadside stop in Dunsandle (where old wilderness prophets go to retire perhaps?) turns out to be an almost Kentish café with wooden panelling, chunky wooden tables, fresh, homemade preserves and cakes, and –joy of joys– hot, tasty lasagne! We stuff our faces with the simple, filling fare and sit back for a brief moment to stare at the surroundings of handmade cards, baskets of apples, interesting bottles with interesting contents and decide what food to take away with us. Andrew plumps for a fat chocolate cookie for a snack and I get a nice slice of vegetable quiche as I’ll be staying the night in Christchurch and have no idea when I’ll next have a chance to get food.
I feel peculiar.
And rather miserable.
It is sunny and warm as we get back into the car, well-fed but very sober.
We arrive at the airport with just enough time to spare to sort the car out and divvy up our luggage correctly. My flight isn’t until the morning, so I shall be waving Andrew off on his flight home via Singapore. L
Christchurch airport is nice, though small, and we sit around waiting for Andrew’s flight to be called. It is late and we wait some more, toddling around the small shops near his gate. Security is, whilst clearly important to them, not a big deal here; the massive gates and scanners of the major airports in Europe are not here – just a metal detector arch and a small conveyor belt. You can see into the departure lounge through a small set of locked glass doors here. Eventually, Andrew’s much-delayed flight is called and we hug tightly before I watch him go through the arch and up the escalators to his departure lounge. It feels peculiar, waving him off like that, knowing that I will be in this odd, blue-carpeted limbo for the next few hours. I heave my bags onto my back, tug the small, wheeled case into its usual travelling position just behind me and trundle off around the airport to find a comfy-looking patch of carpet, or a sofa, sofa would be good right now…
*yawn*
We did spot a hotel on the way in but it looked square and nasty, and also very expensive… Though it is in the airport complex itself, so it’s nice and nearby!
No, floor is cheaper…
Comfort and thrift war with one another for a while. I call the square and nasty-looking hotel from a free phone panel on the wall and query with them their rates and availability for the night. It makes my hair stand on end (over £60, which looks even more horrendous in NZ dollars), but less than I expected for a conveniently located hotel. However, the receptionist is surly and practically unintelligible, which does not fill me with confidence, so I head back to my original plan of finding a cosy patch of floor. I feel a moment of fellow-feeling for another young chap who has already bedded down, rucksack as pillow, next to one of the unused information desks.
Then I realise exactly how vulnerable I will be if I fall asleep – no awareness of approaching creeps or thieves, no reliable wake up call, no extra warmth and shelter should I need it, and the certainty of a badly cricked neck and twisted back in the morning. None of which would be conducive to being able to tolerate my longest flight yet in the morning… Well, so early in the morning it might as well be tonight…! I toy with the idea of just not bothering to go to sleep, after all, the jetlag’s gonna be a killer anyway so what’s a couple more hours!
Eventually common sense and comfort win the unequal battle with thrift and I call another hotel on the phone board. They are $5 more than the nasty square one, but a couple of miles out, which concerns me a little. However, the delightful (comprehensible!) and reassuring receptionist assures me that they have their own airport shuttle bus which is pretty much on demand constantly throughout day and night and that an alarm call can be arranged… I sigh, wishing I could’ve saved the pennies, but happy in the knowledge that I will at least get half a night’s decent sleep! They pick me and my luggage up in the enormous executive minivan and I am plonked carefully in reception where I book in with a nice young chap who organises everything for me.
Sadly, the hotel is amazing, rather like the place I stayed at a couple of years ago with my dad in Ulǔru. There is a free swimming pool and spa, an enticing-looking frondy garden, a complementary drink at the bar and the promise of a fabulous breakfast – all included and I can’t take advantage of any of it because I have to go to sleep! Waaah! It also feels most peculiar to have theoretically roughed it with Andrew all the way around both islands, and to be splurging on a luxurious hotel I can’t even share with him seems rather pointless… I grow melancholy again, on my last night in glorious New Zealand, and decide to play on the internet (it’s not even 7pm yet and while I know I have to be up before 4, I know I’ll never sleep if I go to bed this early!) and have a bath before sinking into the soft, multi-pillowed bed. I open my quiche to investigate supper-time possibilities and look in mild dismay, but partial glee, at the enormous chocolate cookie I have in the bag under my nose. Not quite the tasty nutritious supper I was looking forward to, but very nice all the same. I munch chocolaty crumbs over my little laptop as I surf, feeling very executive-ish at the businessman table with the little leather bound folder of bumph and the phone to hand. Not that I’d use the extortionate phone with Skype to hand! I email a few people in a desultory way, but I think most of them are asleep… Still, when I get to Sydney to change, I should be able to catch Andrew online somewhere in Singapore… Both in different limbos but together in boredom!
I make myself a Milo from the kettle tray (careful not to use anything from the fridge except the milk I put there myself for breakfast!) and have it in the bath – If I’m on my own, I might as well have a girly night. The water is warm and soft and the bubbles smell divine – I use lots and soak away the wibbles with hot chocolate, and geranium and orange blossom scent.
*yawn* nyam, nyam, zzzzz…
I crawl into bed with my mp3 player and Andrew’s voice telling Terry Pratchett’s tall tales lulls me to sleep…