The Great New Zealand Road Trip: Diary, Day 1 - the burning issues

Editor at large Shayne Currie is on a two-week road trip, to gauge the mood of the nation and meet everyday and notable Kiwis making a difference in their communities and wider world. Today, he meets a remarkable young man on an extraordinary mission - to play every golf course in New Zealand - to mark the memory of his brother who died at age 18. We have Nine Questions With... Nadia Lim and below is the second of a daily trip diary.

Otago and Southland enjoyed one of those stunning South Island bluebird days on Monday, where even the tractors were overheating.

While Auckland and many parts of the North Island were swamped again, summer teased itself in the Deep South - although the thick, black smoke on the horizon of State Highway 1, just north of Invercargill, signalled that this was not your usual springtime burn-off.

A couple stood 100m from their burning tractor in a paddock alongside the highway, watching the machine engulfed in flames. Luckily, it was in the middle of a green paddock with no vegetation in danger of catching alight.

A tractor is completely destroyed in flames, one of the events of the day on the Great New Zealand Road Trip.

A couple could only watch as the tractor burned.

Seconds later, a sole fire engine roared into view. The firefighters extinguished the blaze but nothing could save the tractor.

No such problems for an electric vehicle of course. This was the first longish-distance test for the VW ID.5 - it got me to Invercargill with still more than 200km spare on the charge counter. The vehicle has stayed true to form, although I’m sure I took a little bit extra out of it, as I whizzed it up the World’s Steepest Street* Baldwin St, in Dunedin. It tackled the hill with no issues at all.

Further up from the tractor fire on State Highway 1, at Milton, Doug Davis was walking with his dog Fred on Monday afternoon.

Doug Davis with his shih tzu maltese Fred in Milton.

I stopped and chatted - Doug pointed across the street to a renovated villa that had recently sold for $500,000. In Milton!

The property prices had gone “absolutely nuts”, he said, with others in the area selling for similar prices.

He’s now mortgage-free, having moved to Milton about nine years ago with his wife. They owned a cafe down the road for a while, but they’re now semi-retired after a lifetime in hospitality, including venues in Twizel and Kingston.

He held up the Great New Zealand Road Trip mood board.

He scribbled down one word: ‘Hopeful’.

The Great NZ Road Trip heads to Queenstown on Tuesday.

He’s one of the many in rural New Zealand pleased to see the Government turn blue, and he’s also delighted Luxon’s getting on with coalition talks, and not buying into media games.

He’s not too impressed with the media all-round - he made that pretty clear, and didn’t seem ready for a debate. As Fred barked away, Doug pushed his argument about the media being bought off by the previous Labour Government.

Shayne Currie is travelling the country on the Herald’s Great New Zealand Road Trip. Read the full series here.

But his mood was otherwise bright, and he spoke kindly of living in Milton.

I had noticed his one leg, not that that was slowing him down on his afternoon walk. He lost the limb in a motorcycle accident in 1990. “Shit happens.”

He and Fred walked off into the summer-like sun.