Rugby World Cup Road Trip: Signs of the times

New Zealand was starting to look like a dead-end street. Photo / Matt Johnson

Opinion

In the heart of the North Island - from Foxton to Ngaruawahia - comes fear and dread, premonition and prophecy. But when all is nearly lost I find Hidden Glory.

Foxton Hotel, 3.43pm. Nearby beachfront property, $600,000. A Raspberry Coke, slightly less.

Above the leaners, a framed picture of the SS Wairau run aground at Rush Flat in 1911. History repeating itself. Going round and round, like the barmaid's koru bone-carving.

On the tote, Black Torpedo was paying $5.10. Was it a sign? Pure Envy $4.30. I stood in front of the automated TAB machine, a kind of thieving R2-D2, and remembered Bill Manhire saying the greatest poetry in New Zealand could be found in the racing pages.

It wasn't all about the oil on Bay of Plenty beaches though. One of the old-timers was talking about breaking out his shorts: muggy out there - it's our micro-climate.

At the bar, they were picking France. Or Wales. Dingo Deans by a baby-stealing nose. Out on Main St, only the kids kept the faith. Struck a pose: "We're gonna waste dem, bro".

In Sanson, I watched ancient tractors getting carted off to die - were our own workhorses about to be put out to pasture?

Passing the Kuku Dairy Co-Operative, a tattered black flag had blown across the tarseal. I'd been to Catholic schools. I knew what an omen was. It was a small child in a suit who just happened to be Satan.

Things were fine, I told myself.

No they weren't. Things were listing, badly. John Key came on the radio talking about substantial structural failure. Here was the wrong kind of blackness. Stuck to us; metaphorically and otherwise. Where had it come from, this terrible reticence?

Just 10km from Hunterville the mist moved in, Stephen King style; those other Kings - of King Country - lost in it. The land here speaking in tongues, undulating endlessly. Livestock leaned up against ancient sheds. The shelter of the lambs. New Zealand was starting to look like a dead-end street.

At Stormy Point lookout, big brother sent me a one word text from London: Believe.

Land Transport safety ads began to chip in too: High Crash (Tackle) Area. Road works: Stop at the white line. (Why not just drive over it?). The impact of 15,000 Jonahs?

Yes please.

In Waiouru, the gambling continued. Charlie Upham's medals laid out like a deck of cards. Two of a kind the best the poor bugger could do: VC & Bar.

Finally, large green billboards said: Auckland. But at the foot of the Bombays, I'd had enough. Overdosed on premonition and prophecy. Met one too many harbingers of doom wearing their Stubbies too high.

I walked barefoot out into the fields. Wanted to keep on walking. Get framed with the Hintons, Uphams - and Jerry the barman - on the walls of the Ngaruawahia RSA. For no reason at all.

Sign into the visitor's book at the Taumarunui Cossie club and never sign out. Have my heart buried there, under the table where Verna and Doreen hand out the raffle tickets.

Lying there on the wet grass, I felt it in my back pocket. Pulled out the ticket I had bought three days ago; dappled now by the rain. The best horse name you could find. I had put a dollar each way on Hidden Glory. Hadn't we all.

It was paying everything.

* Follow Matt across New Zealand at his RWC Road Trip blog or on twitter @KeaKaharoadtrip.

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