Freaky In Waiheke
Trip Start
Oct 15, 2007
1
50
97
Trip End
Aug 24, 2008
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Waiheke Island,
New Zealand
Thursday, February 7, 2008
As we rode round the island, it became apparent that the driver was communicating with everyone in the same fashion. We had though that maybe our accents had marked us out as foreigners, and possibly therefore non-expert English speakers, and that was why the driver had been so unforthcoming in bothering to explain anything (ticket prices, that sort of thing) vocally. Nope. He was mute.
Our only source of information regarding where to get off the bus was physically incapable of speaking. Hmmm.
We reached our stop, by this time watching the driver like hawks for any sign he may have given us. His large scary eyes found ours in the rear view mirror, and he nodded. That'll do us. As we collected our bags, the driver scribbled something on his pad about which of the cluster of unsigned roads by the bus stop was the one we'd requested, and off we got.
Mike's directions didn't help much, so we phoned him. His further directions didn't help much, so as we eventually set off up the most likely of all the unlikely streets, our continued delay had prompted him to come looking for us, and he emerged round the corner to walk us up to his place. His lovely, big, surrounded-by-jungle place. Saskia, another Couch Surfing guest was working in his Tarzan-themed garden, and after a brief greeting, we went in, dumped our bags, and were told a few brief bits and pieces about what there was to do on the island, followed by an insistence that we accompany him to the beach, for a swim, as after a couple of hours of travel, we must want to cool off. Quite right too.
As we made to leave, we asked what we'd need with us. Mention had been made about grabbing a bite to eat afterwards at Mike's favourite pie shop, so we weren't totally sure about how long we'd be out. Plus the fact that he didn't appear to be taking anything with him besides his towel. "Ah, yes, it's a nudist beach. Some people wear costumes, you're obviously quite welcome to if you want, it's just that it's the best beach on the island". He hadn't been intending to tell us, it seems, until we inadvertently enquired about dress code.
He was right about it being a really nice beach though. We wandered over to where his girlfriend's stuff was piled, as she emerged from the sea with India, their infant daughter. As we were introduced to the naked Angie and the naked little one, Mike got his kit off and made for the sea. When in Rome, thought Jacob, and did likewise. Kirsty then decided the same thing, but unfortunately timed her decision a little badly: Ange struck up a conversation. Kirsty then found herself in the rather surreal position of standing naked in public, making small talk with an equally naked stranger, but without it all turning out to be a dream.
'Liberating', say the people who routinely do the naked thing. 'Casting off the unnecessary shackles of prudish society'. Well, fair enough, maybe that's the case for some, but after the thick end of thirty years worth of conditioning, a degree of awkwardness comes before liberation. Neither of us are prudish, both of us accept that given the fact that we all have bodies with similar bits and pieces it makes no logical sense that seeing each other's bodies should be problematic...but as soon as we're weaned off our mother's nipples, we're all taught that genitals and female nipples are only to be viewed for the purposes of titillation. So to speak.
Saskia remained resolutely clad, which, if anything, served to emphasise just how very naked the rest of the party were. As did her constant reminders about applying plenty of sunscreen to the neon white bits which normally would be covered.
Anyway, once in the sea, we set about the process of embarrassing ourselves through the medium of entirely failing to body-surf. Mike would catch a wave and go rocketing off towards the shore, and we, having 'caught' the same wave, would emerge about a foot away from where we'd started. A couple of pointers from Mike though, and we were soon grazing our uncharacteristically unfettered bits on the shore.
Unfortunately, one of the usual sights to be seen at this beach was not present that day: a former member of Frankie Goes To Hollywood who now lives on Waiheke and regularly struts about the beach, naked but for a large tattoo across his back bearing the legend 'Butt Cowboy'.
Next came the pie shop. Pies are an extremely popular delicacy in New Zealand - Jacob was aware of how revered they were in Australia, but was not of their status here. Sure, the British have been known to enjoy a pie or two, but their status in the nation's consciousness is as nothing to that of the Kiwis. Jacob has a particular fondness for the pastry-clad end of the culinary spectrum, so was quite excited at the prospect of a visit to a Kiwi pie shop.
An excitement which was tempered with disappointment at actually eating the things. They were OK, but nothing to write home about. We realise that writing home is exactly what we're doing, but allow us a little artistic licence, eh? You know how a cheese and onion pie isn't just cheese and onion, because that just wouldn't work? You need some potato to prevent it becoming a sticky greasy mass of cheesy napalm. Well, a steak and kidney pie would work without needing to be steak and kidney infused mashed potato. Tasty enough, but just not what a steak and kidney pie should be. Alright pies, but not worthy of their build-up.
Having said we both enjoyed cooking, Mike suggested we sort out getting provisions for a meal that evening, suggesting also that it be something reasonably uncomplicated, as there were plans afoot for going out, and we wouldn't want to be mucking about with all manner of preparation and such when we got in. He gave us the keys to his moped, and off we popped (and snapped and crackled a bit too: it wasn't a great moped) to the local supermarket, disturbingly called Woolworths. Woolworths is a low grade department store to anyone who lives in the UK, but in Australasia, it's a chain of supermarkets, which is more unsettling than it should be. Something to do with upsetting the familiar trappings of home.
Replete with the makings of a stewy soupy thing, we headed back to Mike's place. We figured we could chop everything up before going out, then just whack it all in a pan upon our return and boil it till it was done.
The aforementioned plans for the evening centred around attending a 'workshop'. Some of you may know the raw, seething animal hatred with which Jacob regards anything not involving light engineering but which is nevertheless deemed to be a 'workshop'. For those of you who don't, Jacob has a raw, seething...etc.
"You two are musicians right? You sing and play various instruments?" said Mike, rather tying us in to this 'healing Haka spiritually therapeutic music workshop' thing to which he was ostensibly just inviting us. He explained it wasn't a war Haka (like the All Blacks do before a match), but a gentle, healing Haka, more akin to yoga. There would be singing and music, and apparently these people can "produce tremendous energy" from a group. Right then.
Along with Saskia, we arrived at a large, beautiful, Tuscan-villa style house out in the hills overlooking the vineyards of Waiheke, inhabited by a couple who could afford to be opulently bohemian. As we made small talk in their enormous kitchen ("Oh, yes, we knocked through more rooms than you had in your entire house to make this...kitchens are sooo important as part of your living space"), obviously the subject of our trip came up, and our having recently been to Easter Island was mentioned. Kirsty began a badly calculated anecdote about the crowd of worthy, pretentious, pseudo-spiritual cretins we had seen swaying, twirling reeds and being led in dancing and wailing by one particularly daft example when we went to watch the sun rise one morning over the statues.
Fortunately, they weren't paying enough attention.
"Easter Island! Oh, our friend was there...probably at the same time as you!"
Uh-huh.
"She leads groups of people on voyages of discovery around these amazing spiritual sites, and teaches them to take part in the traditional rites and rituals. She's a really amazing person; she has incredible energy, what she's doing is just wonderful!"
She's a berk.
"Yes, we saw her, wow, she's your friend you say, no, didn't think she was a pillock at all, wow, small world, etc, etc."
We can sell out our principles for the sake of not offending the evening's hosts if necessary. Of course, the accurate response is "Yes, we saw her. She's your friend is she? That explains a lot. What she's doing, in our opinion, is somewhat ludicrous and not even slightly wonderful." But you don't say these things, do you?
We went through to the studio of Gabrielle, who (naturally) is an artist. We wandered around looking at her artwork, which (naturally) was quite modern and abstract and (naturally) had a series of unduly high price tags discreetly attached to the various pieces. It was accompanied by reviews from some sort of critic, who was waxing lyrical about the "wonderful grouping of related artworks" and how "even the spacing between the pieces is of the most incredible importance in the overall message that is being communicated by the artist..." Oh, please.
A large (probably staggeringly expensive) dish on a (probably staggeringly expensive) stand by the French windows was used for people to pay $10 a head for their attendance, with nobody really paying attention to who had and hadn't paid. Our somewhat sceptical attitude led us to hold fire, figuring we'd maybe chip in later if it seemed to be worth paying for.
Mike had left us all to go and collect a fourth Couch Surfer, a Czech girl by the name of Gabriela, from the ferry terminal. He arrived back with her just as we were all settling down on a variety of scatter cushions in the studio.
A chap called Michael, something to do with the organising of the evening, said a few words of thanks to the gathered crowd, then the man of the house, whose name escapes us but whom we think was called Peter, stood up and began to annoy the hell out of us. He took deep breaths, smiled, paused, breathed deeply again, seemed deep in thought about what he was about to say, then spouted a load of drivel about the wonderful experience we were about to have, interspersed with plenty more deep breaths, very long pauses (Kirsty was about to ask him if he was alright at one point) and supercilious beams of smugness of a level which defies description.
During this, the couple who were clearly to be leading the workshop were sitting cross legged at the front, a white woman and a Maori man, smiling dreamily at each other, he occasionally twitching, grimacing and exhaling sharply through his nose. In any other situation, you'd have offered him a glass of water and called an ambulance, or maybe established whether or not he had Tourette's Syndrome. Apparently, he explained later, this is because Maoris are very linked with the Sun, and are so susceptible to it that they accumulate a lot of wonderful light energy, sometimes so much so that they shake uncontrollably - not to worry though, it's just that they are full of light.
Maori bloke stood up, launching directly into a lengthy speech in Maori. He then thanked us for our indulgence, saying he couldn't possibly express himself properly in any other way. Talking a language you know your audience doesn't speak is not, by any stretch of the imagination, 'expressing yourself'. Moreover, he then translated it for us. It was a load of predictable generic sounding stuff about the beliefs of ancient cultures being perfectly valid and relevant in modern society (by virtue entirely of their having been around for a long time) despite their inability to withstand any sort of logical or scientific examination, with, of course, no reasonable argument being offered to back up such an assertion. "Some of us know we're not really from this planet anyway," for example. You're probably right there sunshine.
His companion then performed the same ridiculous charade of claiming to be unable to express herself in anything other than her own language, delivering a long and rambling speech in Swiss German, which, surprise surprise, she then translated. This time it was a load of bits and pieces offering thanks to the trees, the sky, the leaves, etc, etc, etc. Did someone get the Little Book of Hippy Cliché s for Christmas then? Really, it was the least imaginative load of ersatz pagan earthchild nonsense imaginable.
Incidentally, whenever they communicated with each other, they did it entirely in English, she not speaking Maori and he not speaking German...
They then, after a bout of further loved up gazing at each other, burst into song. A Maori ditty, which he had written, with words about the sun's setting rays making his heart warm set to a tune which had been 'gifted to him' as he sat in the back of a car in France, unable to join in the conversation as he didn't speak French. A lot of things, we learned as the evening progressed, had been 'gifted' to them. Not given. They hadn't got, gotten, received or found anything, everything they had had been 'gifted' to them.
She took us through a series of limbering up movements, to warm us up for the ensuing Haka. She wasn't content with it just being a warm up though. Sway your hips, sway your whole body, you're a tree swaying in the wind, our bodies love this movement, it's tremendously beneficial because it's like being a tree, and we're all connected to nature. Nothing to do with stimulating blood flow and working muscles in a non-impact activity then.
During a particularly big, swaying, upside down head type movement, Jacob became aware that his sinuses were still full of salt water from the afternoon's body-surfing. Salt water which was now being sloshed back towards the nostrils in through which it had made its entrance. The nostrils out through which it made its copious exit onto the organic free range scatter cushions. Kirsty, fortunately, managed to suppress her giggles. In fact, she'd been trying to do so since long before Jacob's head began evacuating.
We were then taught the 'Healing Haka' which went with the song. Sorry, he gifted us the precious movements. Ugh.
We began to suspect that they were making it up as they went along. We were right. A song he had written less than a year earlier was unlikely to have very traditional actions to accompany it, and occasionally they'd stop and look at each other and mutter "No, hang on, why don't we make a little grasping movement there, swoop the arms round...yeah, that's good...everyone, stop, do it like this instead!" Load of nonsense.
A lot more rubbish ensued about the importance of all this deeply cultural stuff, and how her Celtic origins were an ideal counterpoint to his Maori ones, and more dance steps and chants and things were gifted to us, outside in the courtyard, with the mozzies. The constant biting was explained, with a completely straight face, as being part of the Maori twilight Haka ritual experience. The other one, if pulled, may have bells on.
Everyone got confused and banged into each other as they stamped barefoot on the flagstones, all trying to remember far too many changes of direction and different bits of movement. Those of you who have been to Ceilidhs, imagine the caller just shutting up after the first dosey-doe and leaving everyone to get on with it. The differing steps in this Maori scented line dance fiasco were given different names: e.g. the 'Celtic', the 'Indian', reflecting the cultures from whose traditions the movements had been scrounged. The interconnectedness of all cultures was supposed to be represented by all this, which is quite a nice idea, but really, it was all very twee. All very simplistic, school assembly level stuff.
Eventually, we sat around with a load of percussion instruments which had been tantalisingly laid out in the middle of the floor all night, and which had been, of course, gifted to them. We had been wondering when we were going to get to play with them. We had quite a nice time clattering about in the dark whilst Mike swung a bull-roarer (one of those blade shaped things on a bit of string that you twist around before whirling it round your head, making a...well, a whirling noise), taking care not to bash it into the walls. Maori bloke then announced that now was the time of the evening when they like to share. Anything which we wanted to say, we could just share. Hmmm. Very tempting, but no, time and place and all that.
There was a bit of "Whenever I hear and learn about Maori culture, something inside me just switches on, I know what you mean, it must be to do with us all being connected" sort of gushing from a ginger Caucasian woman who was clearly no more Maori than either of us, followed by lots of earnest "Mmm, yes, quite, me too, wish I'd thought to say that" mumblings.
Therein is a huge part of the problem we have with all of this. There should be no shame in admitting that you're a white Caucasian and not a member of the flavour-of-the-month minority group. It's OK to find things interesting on an anthropological level, and not feel you have to be an intrinsic part of them just because they're different from your own cultural background. You don't have to be 'proud' of your background, it is just an accident of birth: you haven't done anything to be proud or ashamed of. Just accept that it is what it is, and so is everybody else's; it doesn't need to have any positive or negative connotations.
Having been the global bullies for so many centuries, people of a white European background now often seem sadly to think that every other culture and belief system is more valid than their own, simply because of its minority status and history of being repressed. Hence the spurious claims of differing ethnicity from many of the assembled throng: "I understand you, because I'm Indian. Well, half Indian. Well, my husband is. Ex-husband really. Well, ex-husband's adopted cousin. By marriage. So you can see, Mr. Lovely Maori Man with your lovely Maori Shirt, that I must understand you far better than all these other plebs."
As the evening drew to a close, Swiss bird made a great show of being uncomfortable having to mention getting remunerated for the workshop, how they usually had someone else to deal with such material vulgarities for them, and, umm, could you all...I think there was a price agreed...er...
We'd have been happy to let her stew to be honest. If she's too uncomfortable to ask for money, then maybe she won't get paid, but someone piped up that we'd all taken care of all that before we began, so not to worry. That's alright then. At least we'd only wasted our time and not our money.
Our now larger party headed back to Mike's; on the way Mike (a believer in all the mystical energy stuff around which the evening was pretending to centre) said that he'd been a bit disappointed. We didn't quite feel the time was right to be completely honest about our feelings, but we concurred as whole-heartedly as we dared.
The conversation moved onto the fifth Couch Surfer, who was a no show. She and Gaby had been in a hostel together the previous night, and Gaby hadn't liked her. Gaby had been given a message to give to Mike about the fact that she wouldn't been coming after all, as she'd got a message at short notice that she had friends who would be in Australia, and there was a flight leaving imminently which she therefore needed to get. In addition to Gaby's bad impression of her was the fact that she'd apparently been messing Mike around throughout the arrangement process, flitting between intending and not intending to come. Seemed we were not missing out on much through not meeting her.
We went via a couple of pubs which were closed; this detour costing us the opportunity to get to Woolworths for stock for the stew we were intending to make, which we hadn't bought earlier, assuming Mike would have some. No matter, back at his place we set about improvising with Marmite, Vegemite, salt and pepper. Gabriela occasionally poked at it approvingly: being an Eastern European she appreciates paprika laden goulaschy casserole things. An appropriate amount of time later, we all sat down and chomped through our steaming bowls of stuff, then Kirsty and Gaby quietly but vehemently agreed over the washing up that the workshop had been a load of old bollocks. We then began the process of becoming suitably inebriated, and giggled off to bed.
The following day, we went off a-tasting the produce of the local wineries. Although there are quite a few, there is a small district where three or four are clustered together on the same stretch of road a couple of miles from Mike's. We walked: two up on someone else's Vespa should not be attempted after a succession of wine tastings. One of them offered, oddly, in addition to their wines and beers, archery. On this almost completely still day, they weren't running the archery due to excessive wind. Oh well, more booze then.
Next door at Stony Ridge winery, the offerings were much better. Due to a mistake by the staff, we did pretty well out of Stony Ridge. It wasn't a 'cellar door' tasting arrangement as they have at some places where you just turn up and get free samples, you had to order a tasting selection thingy of four glasses from the restaurant bar. We did, saying we intended to share the one between us. They brought us two, along with a selection of bread, dips and olives which came as part of a higher level tasting package thing you could order if you were feeling more well heeled. Our protestations that we hadn't ordered all this stuff was met with an apology and an assurance that we would only have to pay for what we had asked for, but we might as well have it all as it would just go to waste otherwise. So, we sat on the veranda, overlooking the olive grove, sipping our very good, very cheap wine and nibbling on our nibbles. Top.
The next vineyard along was closed for tasting, but offered us a job picking. We turned them down, but it was nice to know we'd probably be able to pick up some cash in hand work should we need it. Finding the fourth winery a little too far off to be bothered walking to, we made a brief detour via the pie shop from the previous day, which was being locked up as we arrived, so we went to Woolworths for provisions for the evening. Mike had told us of his intention to host a Greek themed dinner party, with all invitees being required to provide a dish. There were some nice looking chick-pea rissoles in a Greek recipe book in his kitchen, and Jacob remembered a Mushrooms à la Grecque recipe he'd made a few times.
Woolworths had no mushrooms, which was a bit of a handicap. We phoned Mike, he said he'd pick some up while he was out, so we walked back to his place and began cooking. Gradually, the house filled with people and their attendant parcels of Greek (or Greek-ish) cuisine. Mike's friend Catherine wore a very 1970s dress and some Nana Mouskouri glasses to complement the food, but as no-one else was dressed up, it was a touch peculiar.
All went pretty well, the food was all pretty good, and soon the evening descended into merriment and daftness as more drinks were poured and little paper rolls of exotic herbs were lit and passed around. Mike's friend Jason made some fairly potent cocktails, which he called Liquid Ecstasy, based around vodka and Red Bull and other indeterminate bits and pieces. Quite nice, but maybe not quite the rocket fuel Jason seemed to suggest. People gradually made their excuses and left, leaving Mike and the Couch Surfers (and Jason, who had his eye on Gaby) to party until dawn. Mike has a collection of drums, and although Jacob is the only drummer in the party, they received a fair amount of attention from Saskia and Kirsty.
Jason continued his advances on Gaby, which she didn't reject quite as emphatically as maybe she should have done for someone as uninterested as she was...but then he probably shouldn't have made his advances so emphatically for someone as married with children as he was.
Jacob took over the DJing after a while, and eventually, after much dancing, singing, drumming, flashing the lights on and off at Gaby and Jason when they migrated to the deck outside, more dancing, singing and laughing, we realised it was six o'clock and we really ought to make an attempt at sleep.
Kirsty emerged, brighter of eye and bushier of tail than seemed appropriate, and set about the washing up. Saskia emerged a bit later and helped finish it off. Gaby made a brief appearance, grunted, collected a glass of water and sloped back to bed. Kirsty took Jacob a cup of tea, and Saskia took a bus to the beach, where Mike had already gone, as the Waiheke Island horse races were being held there that day. We had fancied going, but the circumstances rather conspired against us. Well, against the possibility of Jacob moving anyway.
The restorative wonder that is tea worked its magic, and we phoned Mike to see if there was any point trying to get to the races. There wasn't, but he was intending to head, along with his friends from the mainland who were over for the day, to the nudist beach again for a swim, and we could borrow his car and join them. Gaby, less susceptible to the healing powers of tea, wasn't up for moving beyond the confines of the house, but we felt a swim would be a good thing.
Kirsty was glad Jacob was feeling better enough to drive. She didn't particularly fancy reversing Mike's Hilux round the bends up the narrow 45° driveway, out into the dirt road. We stopped for some fairly uninteresting pies (hopefully the pie experience was due to improve) and some fairly interesting ice-cream: a scoop of bubblegum flavour, a scoop of hokey-pokey. The latter was tried more out of curiosity than anything else - turns out hokey-pokey is Kiwi for honeycomb (like you get in a Crunchie, not the stuff bees make).
Mike failed to join us at the beach, but we had a good time splashing about on our own, before getting a text message about joining him and his friends for curry. We just managed to suppress our disbelief at the names of the children who were present. In addition to India, there were such delights as Poppy and Oceana ("Oshe" for short). The curry was pretty tasty, but we were starting to get the impression that Kiwis do not really have a taste for the spicy.
After the meal, we went to watch the sunset from a particular aspect which Mike enjoyed, which involved scrambling through various overgrown shrubs and trees and through dry riverbeds, by which time the sun had pretty much set. It was still quite pretty though. We left the lookout by the more conventional method of following the damn path, rather than the 'shortcut'.
Back at the house, Mike, the consumate conspiracy theorist broke out the David Icke books. The usual Kennedy assassination, Moon landing, Princess Diana claptrap is but small fry to this man who believes in all manner of fanciful rubbish: 'the Aztec calendar says the world will end in 2012 and the major powers are all in on it', 'the founding and growth of the USA is all just a front for a major European organisation who are controlling the course of global development so secretly that even the Americans don't know it' and 'George W. Bush and Bill Clinton are great friends who go out hunting together for brainwashed cult members who are released onto a reserve as prey for an exclusive high level gun club, so says a member of the cult who managed to escape'.
"It's all in here man, he's done his research! There's no arguing with these sources!"
Bollocks.
We were all due to leave fairly early the next day, the Couch Surfers departing and Mike heading for the South Island to view a piece of land on which he was hoping to build a property and set up a self sufficient commune...so we all retired quite early to pack and get our heads down, ready for the trip back to Auckland.
The following morning, loaded down with baggage, the four of us bid Mike thanks and goodbye, and walked to the road head. Saskia was going to meet a friend on the island, so off she went, after an exchange of e-mail addresses, leaving the three of us to get our bus to the ferry, and the ferry back to Auckland. Gaby had plans to hitch south, so we said our goodbyes, and then there were two...
