Guest writer Matt Johnson is in good form a week out from the Rugby World Cup playoffs. But the toll of four weeks on the road is showing on his campervan.
Week four and I continue to shun lucrative sponsorship deals.
Every morning I simply get up, drink my high-protein Up & Go, count out my Weet-Bix cards, slip on my Air New Zealand Koru Club dressing gown, spray myself with Rexona and get on with my day.
I've hit the
mainland, and everywhere our track south is cut through with kindness.
In Blenheim, Angela Collins makes us pikelets. Refuses to hand over the recipe.
Nelson, and we watch a girl from Appleby give a boy from Buenos Aires her spare ticket to Italy v USA.
The warmth of it all softens you like the inevitable after-effects of erectile dysfunction medication.
Life is simpler here. Past Maruia, anybody driving a new car is a flash mob.
At the Hurunui Hotel, a stone has gone through the front door while Val the publican was doing the lawns. It ricocheted off the bar. People gather around to look at it.
Somewhere between the Lewis Pass and Linwood is that one-way bridge to a lost childhood; the one you'd tried to hold your breath on forever. The view out the window is still doing its part. Breathtaking.
Don't forget the rugby. Samoa are going home. To make their own mouthguards. Fiji have packed their bags too, this World Cup a Pacific Paradise Lost.
Despite the IRB telling them to stop, England continue to tamper with their balls.
Canada and Japan can't beat each other - agree to join forces next time, their separate pieces forming a giant, flying rugby-robot known as Japanada.
Then there are the voices. I crash the Kea campervan. The lamppost involved drives off without stopping.
They are in my head, these murmurings. Whispered elimination. We are approaching the business end of the competition, as commentary teams love to call it. Australia have knocked us out. France have knocked us out. Twice. Those of us who've been to all-boy schools and been good at Dungeons & Dragons have been knocked out almost every day.
And we don't like it.
Near Shirley Boys High School, I meet Ben & Terry. They are making driveways, not ice cream. Say it is hard watching the rugby sometimes - the more excited you get, the further away it all feels.
On the banks of the Avon, I spot Quake the cat - he refuses all interviews. Simply appeared at No 912 one day, his own home no doubt gone. Despite being sprayed with water and shooed away, he keeps turning up every morning.
Just like Christchurch.
But people here are bored with the "resilient" tag. Quake Brain, a kind of collective short-term memory loss, has taken hold. Everything up in the air. The fractures a giant sifter, some people landing with everything; others with nothing. Basket-cases on both sides.
My own basket weaves a little tighter. Quarter-final schizophrenia has taken hold. I want Argentina or Scotland crushed. Or at least hit by a big lamppost. I want Israel Dagg's troublesome hamstring recast in steel.
Back in the lounge of No 912, Quake walks in. He is the colour of memory, all black. With little white booties.
* Follow Matt across New Zealand at his RWC Road Trip blog or on twitter @KeaKaharoadtrip.
* Bid on Trade Me for your chance to win pieces of the Kea Kaha-Mobile, with our WHEN KEAS ATTACK auction.
