Episode 3: Mount Doom
Bonjour, tous les monde.
Phwoar. Okay. So. Remember that dinner I was having with Amy and fam? Before my expensive evening of hedonism really revved up? Well, lots of interesting stuff arose from that dinner. Politically, I thought it was fascinating that in the wake of Jacinda Ardern’s departure from premiership, her party - Labour - has a lower share of the popular vote than their right wing counterparts, Nationalists.
Neither has a share large enough for a majoritarian government - this is an electoral tendency in more consensual political landscapes like NZ - but I thought it noteworthy that the smaller of the two was the one to secure executive power through a coalition with the Green party. Such is the nature of centre-left politics in modern democracies though. My generous hosts had plenty of insight which I personally thought was interesting, on this admittedly rather dry topic. They had much more material on the juicier subjects though. Shall we crack open one of those ourselves?
I have arranged to stay a few nights with Jim Bruty, who is a family friend of Felix, one of my closest muckers from Sixth Form days. Jim lives in a suburb of Auckland called… Tittisomething. Tittystrangler? Tittywrangler? Titirangi! Gosh, I struggle with Māori language. Anyway, I didn’t want to crash him too permanently, so I was on the lookout for other opportunities in the meantime.
Remember that bloke Sean I mentioned before, who was going to play an important role? Good. I took him up on his kind offer of a week’s maintenance work for board and lodge in his… country estate? in the quiet rural town of Taumarunui. He also offered to drive me to the start of the world famous Tongariro Alpine Crossing, which circumnavigates Mount Ngauruhoe, more commonly known as Mount Doom. Incidentally, Word of the Week is Waitangi, as in the Treaty of. This was the peace agreement Sean taught me about established between the Māori and the Crown, shaping New Zealand as we know it.
We set off on Monday afternoon in Sean’s blunderbuss Land Rover, me still recovering (ie snoozing) in the passenger seat. It is a four hour drive. Sean regales me with his seemingly limitless understanding of New Zealand’s agricultural system, Māori culture and hydraulic brake and gearbox engineering. This is largely engaging, although he has a habit of repeating exactly what he just said if I fail to verbally acknowledge having heard him and respond appropriately. Sean, if you’re reading this entry; I apologise if it came across as rude, as I may not have always mustered the effort to match the output of such a talkative fellow.
We arrive in Taumarunui - which, as dear David gleefully noted over text could scarcely have been further removed from the fine wining and dining of Auckland and its Scandinavian au pair population. We turn away from town and up a steep driveway for a while, the dense New Zealand vegetation clutching at the wingmirrors of the Landy like tentacled ocean menaces.
Then out of the semi-darkness looms the house, shrouded in foliage, as if the forest around it has claimed it as its own. My companion, who I had met yesterday, and I approach the house. It is twilight, and utterly silent, but for the shrill orchestra of the cicadas which, despite being deafeningly loud, you can only hear if you’re listening for it. There is not another soul for some distance. The house is in a mild state of disrepair, Sean explaining he hasn’t had the time to maintain it for some years. There is no wifi. Avoiding the holes in the floor, we enter the bare and decrepit building. I am loaned the room that belonged to Sean’s mother before she died and, encircled by old lady’s memorabilia and a statuette of Cupid grinning down on me through the gloom, I pull the covers up to my chin. Only one light in the room works, flickering slightly. As I lie there, I reflect that this is how most horror films begin. And end.
But the night is darkest just before the dawn. My concerns that Sean is a mad axe murderer are soon allayed, and over the next four days we become close friends. We do battle with vines, pull nails from floorboards and make frequent trips to town to fix garden tools and to pick up fast food meals. This forms the backbone of Sean’s diet, but he has succeeded in maintaining his lissom Irish shape. It is also worth noting that I misjudged the house as well; by light of day, it’s got the best view going, and has a kind of charm.
At 5 on Friday morning, we rise and make for Mount Doom and the Crossing. Again, I ignore the advice of the local expert - this time on hiking gear - but this time I get away with it. Furtively pretending to be Gandalf, and that the 3000 other hikers are my Fellowship, I embark on the 20km hike. A surprising number are French, so I wheel out my “Salut mes amis! Ça va? Oui, ça va bein merci”.
It is utterly extraordinary up there. The scenery goes from moorland, to Mordor, to Alpen box, to Windows Desktop, to Mirkwood, all in the space of the best 7 hours I have ever spent walking. I attach a huge number of pictures below which will not do it justice whatsoever. You simply have to do it yourself. I am unsarcastically blown away.
Presently, my long suffering friend Sean picks me up and drives me to Tittymangler, from where I now write, lying on the plush carpeted floor of the Bruty household. The door was unlocked, and for some reason there’s absolutely no one in the house, even though it’s nearly midnight? I cannot begin to imagine what will befall me here. For Frodo, for Gondor, and for Middle Earth!
A plus tard, mes chers.
