Kiwi

There are no photographs in this post – you might want just to skip it. It’s mainly a rather long and rambling thank-you letter.

Three years ago, when I planned to visit friends in Melbourne after leaving Amsterdam, that trip grew like Topsy and turned into a three-month, round-the-world adventure.

It is likely that I would have included New Zealand on the itinerary on the basis of possibly never being as close again. Most probably, I would have flown from Melbourne to Auckland and based myself in the city for 4 or 5 days and then moved on – that was my general pattern.

However, several years before that, I had come across a series of stories written under the pseudonym of Kiwi. I can’t, now, remember why I clicked on the first one, or even what the first one I read was, though I think I know, but I do know that I was instantly captivated by the simple, naïve style of the writing that mirrored the main characters.

Those characters were mostly teenagers who lived in a little town on the West Coast. In New Zealand, “The” West Coast always refers to the South Island, incidentally. The town was called Westpoint but it and its streets are all copied more or less directly from the town of Westport. After figuring this out, you could follow the kids around on Google maps if you so desired.

Over dozens (hundreds eventually) of chapters, we learnt the history of the town and even something of its future. It is somewhat of a fantasy, of course. The town exists and is, indeed, charming, but it’s not the perfect place described in the tales. Nevertheless, something about the stories captured my imagination and looking out for new postings became something of an obsession.

As well as Westport there are tales set in Kaikoura on the east coast, and in Greymouth, as well as the odd “orphan” story that just happened. The newest series is set in Okarito – well, an Okarito that might have been had the town not largely disappeared with the end of the gold exploitation.

And so it was that,  when New Zealand was added to the trip three years ago, it was not to the capital, Wellington, or to the largest (by far) city, Auckland, but to Christchurch and thence to the West Coast that I came. And I can never thank Kiwi enough for that inspiration.

The word “awesome” is vastly overused these days, but its close cousin “awe-inspiring” is entirely apt for the West Coast. In the south, you have the glaciers reaching almost to the sea, in the north the coastal plain is wider. All of it is isolated from the rest of the South Island – itself something of a “poor cousin” to the much more populous North Island.

Here, there is a beach, a few kilometres of Holland-flat plain, and then, wham!, a 2000m mountain rises more or less vertically – trees clinging on for dear life. Here the sea is always there – hammering away at the coast, creating bays and stacks and caves. Here there are long, empty (in winter, anyway) roads – ruler straight across the plain and then impossibly tightly wound as they struggle to get over the ridges that come down to the sea. Many is the time when the road “ahead” is actually only visible through the side window.

When last here, Kiwi and I tossed around the idea of meeting, but it didn’t happen. This time, we made a point of it. At last I could meet the author whose writing had brought me here in the first place. He lives in Greymouth and that’s where I spent a night – parked in their driveway having been simply absorbed into the group of people who seem to live in the house. It’s a house where people come and go – relatives, friends, hangers-on, people who just need somewhere to stay.

Having met him, and seen the house, the stories make a little more sense – I can see where some of the inspiration came from. I can see how he understands teenagers as well as he does.

I said “thank-you” of course, when I left. But it wasn’t just a 'thank-you for letting me park in your garden'. It was a thank-you for hours of pleasure following an ever-growing group of people around a fictionalised coast. It was a thank-you for opening the door to this magical part of the world – quite possibly one of the most beautiful places on the planet. And I’m going to say it again now.

Thank-you.