The wheels of the van are turning faster than their minds. Their eyes are ravished by the sea and by colors they thought they'd only see in paintings.
It's late afternoon, and it's friday. There are infinite hours of adventure waiting for them.
They get to Colville, where the race is gonna start. The racer keeps on laughing loud, spreading a mad joy around. The mud isn't scary, and it probably doesn't matter how many hours he's (not) gonna sleep tonight.
Papa Aroha, a few hours later. Camping their own way, the racer, Natalie, Jesper&Hansi and Jackie Onassis lie down in the same tent, opening one side of it and looking up at the stars. Some strangers walk by, looking at all the the faces and lifting their eyebrows. Everybody start laughing again.
The morning comes with grey clouds, and right after the start of the race some real bastard up there starts pouring down rain. While the racer fights the mud, Natalie, Jesper, Hansi and Jackie Onassis take a train up a mountain to see the Eyefull tower. Than they walk through a saloon, eat a pie and finally get back to Colville, right in time to meet a muddy racer at the arrival.
The rest of day sees a van transformed into a Tullamore Dew limo, a bunch of fools running on the beach, miss Onassis crossing a river and discovering too late that the tide is high, somebody getting thrown on and over the van and some really good deepfried food in the middle of the night. Or late evening. When it's dark and your watch is lost somewhere under everybody else's stuff you start caring less and less about what the time is.
Everybody falls asleep. And everybody manage to get up again in the morning, in time to leave Papa Aroha and get back on the road.
What follows is something that can be barely described. To see it you'll have to close your eyes and imagine the strongest and brightest blues, greens and reds, accompanied by sun, wind, and random explosions of wild laughter from the diver's seat.
Castle Rock is an old volcano. Castle Rock is a twenty minutes walk through a deep forest and up some steep rocks. Castle Rock also feels like the top of the world, when you at last get there. Jesper climbs to the farthest rock, Jackie Onassis observes the two sides of the Coromandel peninsula and makes her Olympus OM10 go mad taking pictures. On one side of the Coromandel the sky is cloudy and the sea is grey. On the other the sun is shining and the sea is a weird mixture of blues and greens.
The water that comes down the Waiau falls is pretty cold, but nobody's scared, heey. Everybody jumps into the little lake at the end of the waterfall, and it feels just like an icy eden. Hansi, Natalie, the racer, Jesper and J.O. manage to scare away all the tourists around the Waiau. The only sounds that are floating in the air are water falling, and laughter.
The van reaches the end of the Road 309, and there are loads of tired eyes there in the back. Jesper and Steve the racer point the van towards Hamilton, sometimes driving and sometimes flying on the road (scarying to death the poor guys in the backseat).
The Coromandel peninsula is now behind their shoulders, and when Jackie Onassis takes her shades off she gets back to just being me. Natalie gets on her bus, and the rest of us get home. With some unforgettable colors, some salty water and some fall water in the head, and total road addiction in the veins.
Now (and always) playing: Dire Straits.
Quote of the day: "I've got everything for everything" (Steve Kane)
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