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Published: November 22nd 2008
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The ferry across Cook Strait takes two hours and you come down Queen Charlotte Sound through forested narrows and islands to Picton. I didn't stay here as the bus picked me up and drove straight on to Nelson, a couple of hours away. This part of the South Island is less settled than the North Island, so we drove through forested hills and occasional grazing land.
Nelson is quiet and you feel the small-town aspect very clearly lurking behind drawn curtains in its houses, most of which are small and nicely-kept with neat gardens and trim lawns. Few people out and around. I was here to visit Abel Tasman park. Yes, that's the same Dutch explorer for whom Tasmania is named, as well as the Tasman Sea lying between Australia and New Zealand.
A bus took me from Nelson to the park, where I caught a boat filled with hikers and day-trippers. It dropped me on a nearly empty sandy beach along with a handful of others. Abel Tasman park has some great hiking trails and I wanted a day out in nature. Fortunately, it was sunny and warm. In the bay a motorboat pulled a wakeboarder around and
around while a couple of sailboats sat at anchor. I sat for a moment on the warm, coarse yellow sand before setting off on a much-walked trail. Most of the way the path was broad, well-worn and sand-coloured. At first the vegetation was low scrub as I climbed up from the beach to hills above. Here it turned to forest with plenty of silver ferns everywhere, New Zealand's national symbol like Canada's maple leaf.
I followed the trail under a thick roof of leaves, skirting the seashore all the way. It was an easy four-hour hike and I encountered or overtook 25 or 30 people along the way. I lunched in a small sandy bay beside a boulder creek flowing clean and clear into a turquoise sea. Towards the end of the hike I came down onto a beach with the sea at low tide and a long way off over mudflats. The tide rises and falls about four or five metres here.
It was a good day of walking, alone with my thoughts and at the end I sat in the shade of a cafe enjoying a coffee and waiting for the bus to carry me back
to Nelson. A woman of 45 or 50 years came in with her dog. The dog had a red bandana around its neck and it trotted here and there sniffing everything. It wasn't the dog but the woman who was remarkable. Big blonde hair, orange lipstick like it had been put on with a paint roller, a kilo of silver bracelets on her arms, she obviously worked at maintaining her figure. She was dressed in black with a plunging neckline and one of the most massive silicone jobs I've ever seen, a really big pair that would make Swiss dairy cows envious.
She reminded me of the character Robert Pirsig creates in his book, Lila, which is the follow-up to his earlier work, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. In it, he asks the question: does Lila have quality? He asks this because first judgement leads many to think Lila is low class and cheap and therefore without quality. When this woman came in the others in the cafe smirked. The men eyed each other with masculine understanding while the women eyed her condescendingly. The overall effect was...well, what it was. Some would call her cheap but I
admired her boldness, her willingness to put her so obvious boobs proudly on display and to make herself gaudy with flashy jewellery. In what way is this different from birds with elaborate and colourful plumage designed to attract a mate?
I think part of the condescension involved envy by other women who aren't bold enough to display their sexuality in such an evident fashion. Survival is our primary instinct but reproduction is clearly the second. Why would her behaviour and manner of dress inspire such a negative reaction in other women? I think it's that she's a potential threat to their relations because there probably wasn't a guy in the place who wasn't thinking he'd like to get his hands on those for just a few minutes, see what they feel like.
In the end, does Lila have quality? Pirsig says Yes, but you'll have to read the book to see why.
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Jim Skinner
non-member comment
Wahaaaa
Dennis, I love your very candid comments! The "color", in this case orange, that you gave your commentary while having coffee was priceless.