14 February 2011

157 Miles in Lucy

With no more movies left to see in Greymouth, it was time to move on to Arthurs Pass.  This was essentially the only road crisscrossing the South Island’s spine that we had not yet covered.  The plan was to stay the night in Arthurs Pass Village, but these days our plans change as often as our knickers, so of course that wasn’t what happened.  Instead, we ended up all the way back in Christchurch and what did happen en route was a little loving, a lot of steamed milk, and one steamed bee.

First the loving.  Courtesy of this old fella.

Then the steamed milk.

At this wee cafe/hotel/bar = entire village at the base of Arthurs Pass, it was time for second breakfast.  Second breakfast is a habit we began years ago on our bike tours and it always washes down better with a coffee.  Plus we were driving, a feat best supported by a little extra caffeine.  Stopping at the only cafe sign within 50 miles, we were buoyed by the visual of another customer’s creamy, frothy cup, in spite of the grizzled old barrista behind the counter who looked like he might know a bit more about bartending than bean-grinding.  The ordering of two flat whites lead to our eager anticipation of similar creamy, frothy cups.  This was dashed moments later when Gina informed me that this was not looking good.  Apparently the first round of steamed milk went awry, leading our grizzled old barrista to pull another jug out of the fridge (a fridge back in the kitchen that looked suspiciously like it might be his own personal milk stash), take notice of its expiration date, and try again.  Indeed, this was not looking good.  The final product was a tall cup of primarily hot, steamed, unexpired milk, with only the slightest hint of a coffee bean.  Ah, a tall cup of hot steamed milk – exactly what we needed to wake ourselves up.

What we couldn’t know at the time was that the universe had its own plan for keeping us awake and alert on the road.  Enter the steamed bee.  During our travels here we have observed that New Zealand is full of bees.  There are regular size bees that you would find in your Northern Hemisphere garden and then there are gigantic Southern Hemisphere bees, nearly the size of a fist, that we have dubbed “A380s”.  “Hold your pattern, there’s an A380 approaching from the West” is what we say, only in our panic, this comes out as a shouty “A380!!” and we run, duck, bob, and weave.  Based on their sheer numbers, Gina decided several weeks ago, out loud, that it would be a miracle if she got out of New Zealand without getting stung.  Well, there would be no miracles today.  On a straight stretch of road with no shoulder and nowhere to pull over, an unexpected scream from the passenger seat informed me that there was a BEE BEE BEE and it was STINGING STINGING STINGING.  It seems that as Someone laid her head back next to her cracked-open window for a wee snooze, a bee came crashing into said head, fell between the seat and that Someone’s back as she jerked awake to see what smacked her, and then realizing the direness of its situation, began self-defensively stinging Someone’s back.  To her credit, Gina did not completely panic, saving the worst of the screaming and jumping and general freaking out until I had the van safely pulled over on the side of the road.  And she did have a rather large and angry welt forming on her back of which there are photos that are not, under any circumstances, allowed to be posted on the blog.  The only allowable photo from the event is this one, of the bee.  I think his life was better before landing in our front seat.