Up Front by Emma Hart

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Up Front: The Home Straight

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  • Thrash Cardiom,

    I was recently driving through Canterbury. I had forgotten how dull and tedious the drive was with nothing to look at but flat farmland. When I moved to Christchurch many years ago I was shocked my first day there when I looked out the window and realised I had no idea where I was. There were no hills, no frame of reference. I was lost. In fact I used to get lost walking around Chch regularly in the first month or two there.

    During this recent trip I was also struck by the number of dairy farming operations. It's very similar to Hawke's Bay. Lots of conversions going on. However, I say if you have to use huge irrigators just to keep your grass green so your cows have enough to eat so they can produce milk then you are obviously in the wrong type of farming for the area.

    CHB • Since Nov 2006 • 55 posts Report Reply

  • Bart Janssen,

    ... indigo mountains velvet with distance

    Oh what a lovely line.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 4461 posts Report Reply

  • Bart Janssen,

    We'd driven for about an hour before I worked out why I felt so horribly claustrophobic. Everywhere was green: there were too many hills and way too many sheep in those paddocks.

    I have almost the exact opposite experience. When we moved to Texas it took me days to figure out why I felt so confused. My normally good sense of direction and place had abandoned me.

    It was the complete lack of hills. I had never realised that I navigate my home city by seeing volcanoes out of the corners of my eyes. From the window of the three story building I worked in I could see the horizon in all directions (except for where the football stadium loomed). I much prefer the lumpy skyline that is my home now.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 4461 posts Report Reply

  • Emma Hart,

    Oh what a lovely line.

    Thank you. I have to say if this thread is indicative of the head-patting I get, I shall have to be writerly more often.

    You ought to have been, Taihape is lovely.

    Giovanni, I love you and everything, but no it isn't, it's a hole.

    I say if you have to use huge irrigators just to keep your grass green so your cows have enough to eat so they can produce milk then you are obviously in the wrong type of farming for the area.

    Yeah, I have nothing against dairy farming in itself, it's just that running the most water-intensive type of farm in one of the most drought-prone areas of the country seems... batfuck crazy.

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2006 • 4651 posts Report Reply

  • Tom Beard,

    Your post brought back a lot of memories, but not a lot of nostalgia. I lived in Chch from the ages of 7 to 20, and my parents were more interested in fossils and hills than beaches, so we spent many a summer trekking across the endless plains to places like Mt Pleasant. However, I think the reason that I feel little nostalgia for that landscape is the same as Bart's:

    I have almost the exact opposite experience. When we moved to Texas it took me days to figure out why I felt so confused. My normally good sense of direction and place had abandoned me.

    It was the complete lack of hills.

    When I first moved to Wellington, I was thoroughly discombobulated by the topography (and even the topology) of the city. However, after 6 months I took a trip back to Chch and it already seemed like an alien landscape. So flat! Where are the hills? Such little buildings! I'd become so used to the (relative) compression and verticality of Wellington that the openness, flatness and sprawl of Christchurch rapidly became anathema.

    I guess that's one of the reasons that the Hutt freaks me out so much: it reminds me of Christchurch.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 1040 posts Report Reply

  • Evan Yates,

    Here is my Canterbury Plains driving story.

    We were driving from Dunedin to Picton overnight to catch the morning ferry after the closing "ceremony" (piss-up) of the 'Varsity Winter Tournament @ Otago.
    My four teammates crammed into our hired Fiat Uno were all in a drunken snoring stupor. I was a sober but tired driver. There was heavy fog. The only sign of forward progress was the white lines and roadside reflectors popping out of the gloom, flashing in the headlights and then disappearing behind. It was kind of hypnotic. No traffic. No conversation. Broken radio. You can guess what's coming, can't you?

    I distinctly remember being asleep and thinking to myself, "There is something I really should be doing..."

    Luckily the sound of the tyres going into the gravel on the right hand side of the road woke me up and I managed to return us to the correct side of the road.

    Through some amazing sheer blind luck I'm still here to tell my cautionary tale today.

    Hamiltron, Te Ika-a-Māui • Since Nov 2006 • 197 posts Report Reply

  • Bart Janssen,

    What is it about driving? It seems we all have very strong memories associated with the road and the cars.

    My father was a traveling salesman and spent one week out of every four on the road. I remember driving with him in his Holden station wagon during school holidays across the desert road. Such a strange landscape and I took it for granted until I drove literally thousands of miles in the US just to see that same landscape on a different continent.

    I have two really vivid driving moments from the US. The first was the incredible joy that I felt as we drove over the hills out of the Californian desert. We were towing a U-Haul with all our belongings, having just escaped from Texas. The journey had been great with fantastic scenery, Southwest USA is spectacular. But I hadn't realised just how much I had missed seeing green grass. The moment we saw the lush valley below us was magical.

    The other really strong memory of driving in the US was on one of our trips into San Francisco across The Bay Bridge. It's a nice bridge, I do like the tunnel in the middle, however it's not a quick journey, if you get out of second gear you are doing well. But on this one special trip we happened to put Mozart's Requiem in the CD player and the trip and music were both transformed. Now both the bridge and the music are forever entwined in my memory.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 4461 posts Report Reply

  • cindy baxter,

    thanks Emma - a very familiar road to me, too...

    The big difference for me these days are the dairy factories, and shelter belts disappearing, replace by irrigation systems. Dairy was never an industry across the Canterbury plains like it is now.

    Driving south from Christchurch, we turned off at the Moronan road, in Tinwald, heading inland to Mayfield and Ruapuna... The old Rangitata bridge was our link to the big smoke of Geraldine, where i was born. Remember the Arundel store? It disappeared when they built the new bridge.

    The closer I get to Mt Peel the more at home I feel... this last christmas was no different. Over the inland Orari bridge (with its passing bay, a constant source of fascination to us as kids, for some reason) then turn inland before Geraldine to Woodbury.

    Swimming in the Te Moana and Orari rivers hasn't changed at all over the years - the same waterfalls and pools only accessible through local knowledge... head out late on a hot summer's day to swim in water warmed by the sun ...

    auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 102 posts Report Reply

  • Geoff Lealand,

    ...and you just upgraded yourself on the creepy-meter there.

    Well, I can only justify myself in that it was quite some time ago, before matrimony and children and the internet.

    Screen & Media Studies, U… • Since Oct 2007 • 2562 posts Report Reply

  • jeff constable,

    Thank you Emma, that's a beautiful and evocative article.

    Now I'm desperately homesick.

    Sydney, New Zealand • Since Nov 2006 • 12 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown,

    What's superior to a Super Snipe? The preposterous Humber Pullman

    Heh.

    So we've now had one of those, the Snipe and both the Morris and Austin versions of the Landcrab 1800.

    Is this the big-assed British motor thread?

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • Megan Wegan,

    Oh, that road is in my blood too.

    Every weekend, between Ashburton and Christchurch, every family gathering, every funeral, and wedding, the boxing day races, in the searing Canterbury heat.

    I hated Christchurch this Christmas visit, with its horrible soulless shopping malls, and small-mindedness, but you just made me homesick.

    Welly • Since Jul 2008 • 1275 posts Report Reply

  • Joe Wylie,

    So we've now had one of those, the Snipe and both the Morris and Austin versions of the Landcrab 1800.
    Is this the big-assed British motor thread?

    There was a mention of the big D Citroen, which somehow avoided the landcrab nick despite its traction avant propulsion. While it may have been a mechanic's nightmare once the drive train eventually packed up, unlike the Landcrab 1800 it wasn't cursed with electricals by Joseph Lucas, aka The Prince of Darkness.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report Reply

  • Paul Campbell,

    Bart - I love that drive over I-80 between CA and NV too - but in reverse - I used to go out to the BlackRock desert in northern NV 3-4 times a year and that escape, away from the Bay Area and up out of the heat of the Central Valley into the Sierras, the way the landscape opens up into rocksand trees, and maybe still some snow is still a guilty pleasure even though I don't get to do it much any more - the sagebrush reminds me a bit of Central Otago in the heat of winter - coming home, in traffic down off the Sierras is just a chore and not as much fun (worse during ski season)

    Dunedin • Since Nov 2006 • 2623 posts Report Reply

  • Kerry Weston,

    mention of the big D Citroen, which somehow avoided the landcrab nick despite its traction avant propulsion.

    Ah! Le Citroen diabolique. Mine was a 1966 ID which was superb cruising down curvy hills with the suspension low. Power steering too.

    The stories that car could tell...

    Manawatu • Since Jan 2008 • 494 posts Report Reply

  • giovanni tiso,

    The stories that car could tell...

    This is one of my earliest memories, and possibly fallacious... but I think there was a tv series in the seventies when that very car could fly thanks to nifty retractable wings. So anyway a family friend had one and during a holiday together I insisted to be allowed to ride on it and was very disappointed when we stayed on the road instead of taking off.

    Still my favourite car. But hey, I don't even drive, so it's a very platonic love.

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report Reply

  • Hilary Stace,

    It could have been Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, a 1968 movie starring Dick Van Dyke, based on the book (which was much better) by Ian Fleming.

    Wgtn • Since Jun 2008 • 3229 posts Report Reply

  • Bob Munro,

    Is this the big-assed British motor thread?

    Our family had a Snipe. It ended it's days in a demolition derby. Victory over all comers.

    Christchurch • Since Aug 2007 • 418 posts Report Reply

  • Sam F,

    The oldest vehicle I've ever driven was a 1969 Beetle - precisely once, on a test drive around Te Atatu - so I can't claim any experience in that regard. Instead I'll tip my metaphorical hat respectfully towards my grandparents' Morris Isis, six-cylinder British road demon that it was.

    Our family's classic open-road weapon was a 1982 Honda Civic wagon, with vinyl seats that could burn the hairs off your legs on a hot day and frankly terrifying highway handling. Once you'd wrung the neck of its tiny little motor to get the big box up the hill, you'd be wrestling it all the way back down.

    When the clutch finally gave out in 2003 we discovered that the entire roof had rusted out, which explained the loud metallic 'whump whump whump' we encountered at motorway speeds.

    Just like Kerry's Citroen, that Civic saw a helluva lot and has become the source of many a family legend.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 1611 posts Report Reply

  • giovanni tiso,

    It could have been Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

    Found it! It was actually Fantomas contre Scotland Yard, 1964. And this is the image that so impressed my young mind.

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report Reply

  • Bob Munro,

    On Saturday, friends from Timaru up for the cricket reported roiling brown water seething under the Rangitata and Rakaia bridges. You may recall John Campbell trying to insist to power company executives that we were in a power crisis due to low lake levels last winter. Well already Lake Tekapo is being spilled
    and Lake Pukaki is a metre off full. And that was last week before the weekend rains.

    Christchurch • Since Aug 2007 • 418 posts Report Reply

  • Kerry Weston,

    Found it! It was actually Fantomas contre Scotland Yard, 1964. And this is the image that so impressed my young mind.

    Yep, that's the one, same colour too! If I remember rightly, it had a dome shaped button for a brake instead of a pedal. I bellied it once, on a hairpin bend on a steep gravel road - forgot to raise the suspension.

    Manawatu • Since Jan 2008 • 494 posts Report Reply

  • Bart Janssen,

    Paul

    Oh yes! That transition is great. We did that drive a few times as we drove friends from NZ around CA. And yes the drive back down the hill into the smog of Sacramento is not the most pleasing :).

    But when we came from Texas we came over the hills further south, into Bakersfield. Now there's an ugly town! But the green hills were so reminiscent of NZ...

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 4461 posts Report Reply

  • Joe Wylie,

    Found it! It was actually Fantomas contre Scotland Yard, 1964. And this is the image that so impressed my young mind.

    Now that is industrial-strength cool. While Fantomas may not have risen to quite the glorious heights of Diabolik, most vintage Eurovillains were seriously cool because they were portrayed as being heaps smarter than their law-enforcing opponents.

    And they had much better cars.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha,

    industrial-strength cool

    Reckon!

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

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