For:
JH, who taught me to soar
NH, “It cannot happen again, but it happened once”
SR, who understood what was happening before I did
Picture this: it’s the wee hours of a Sunday morning and the rain sounds like gravel being tipped on the iron roof of the haybarn, lashed by a screaming southerly gale. You’ve dashed, underdressed, into the darkness, trying to de-rig the wing of a microlight trike before the wind rips the machine from the tethers that peg it to the ground. Holding the right wing strut, and invisible in the tempest, is a tall, striking blonde that you met a dozen hours ago, and a few paces away a couple of others are engaged in a similarly hectic battle with their trike in the elements...
This story starts over a beer, because no story worth the telling begins with a salad. It was in a bar, a long time ago, when Steve and I decided that we should make an epic cross-country flight; one that we would recite to our grandkids at bedtime.
"I just need a few days' pass from Joanna and the kids", Steve tells me as he drains his pint. "Can you get some time off?" I assured him that I could. Being an underemployed bachelor has its advantages.
"Sounds good", he says, pushing his empty glass my way. "Your round."
We made extraordinarily detailed plans over the next few beers: we'll take camping gear, enough kit for passengers in case some landowners whose property we'd turned into an impromptu airstrip or campground cared for some aerial repayment, and, uh, I guess some maps and stuff. Planning done. Another beer?
-0-
Day one, Saturday. For a couple of guys who'd talked for months about a multi-day trike flying adventure, we were remarkably unprepared. After faffing around at the hangar for hours, arguing, shoving camping gear, clothing, spare helmets and headsets under seats and into borrowed saddlebags (cheers Doug), Steve and I discovered that we were equally gifted in organisation.
"What about plates?"
"Bugger. I forgot."
"Cutlery? Wine glasses? Corkscrew?"
"Ah... bollocks, no."
"Lighter? Matches? Flashlight?"
"I've got a flashlight... here, see! No, wait - the batteries are flat."
By the time we'd cleared the supermarket and petrol station (and we were proud owners of a complete set of plastic cutlery and paper dinnerware) it was mid-afternoon, and obviously we weren't going far that day. Steve beat me into the air by half an hour as I finished packing and fueling up, with a loose arrangement that we'd meet at the Culverden airstrip. On the ground, I think I can find the strip. Once airborne I'm not so sure. Perhaps I'd better consult the GPS. Argh! The air is quite rowdy, and the GPS batteries are flat. Nothing for it but to change the batteries in mid-air. I can do that, no worries. Well, not too many worries. Oops. Where'd that battery go? Ah well, I've got some spares in my pocket. Bollocks, this in-flight battery changing is harder than you'd think… might have to land in a paddock somewhere and sort this out.
Chance, they say, hangs on slender threads. We both landed at Waikari after rejecting Sam Mahon's sheep-infested strip in favour of a soft grassy field next to the main road. Next to a couple of hitch-hikers, in fact. Apparently Jill was enjoying a break from lecturing at Canterbury University; her brother, Neil, was looking after Big Sis.
"Hi, I'm Bryan, sometimes known as Tussock, and the shambles untangling himself from his headset is Steve. Oops - sorry - I wondered where that battery went. Where are you going, and why are you giggling?"
Two pilots, two flying machines, two spare seats, and… two hitchhikers. We all say yes. And so an adventure for two became an adventure for four.
-0-
We made Hanmer Springs that evening - hardly a milestone in aviation, but there's a comfy hay barn plenty big enough for four travelers right on the airstrip, and hot pools and restaurants and beer a bit of a walk away. Steve, keen to play the part of the seasoned aviator and master navigator, assured us of a shortcut into town that he found on his GPS; half a mile later we were wading through a "little" river that AirNav Pro had somehow neglected to inform us of.
Jill and I discover that we have a hatful of mutual acquaintances ("She's your ex-girlfriend? Really? I went through Med School with her in Dunedin, and flatted with her for a couple of years while I wrote my PhD..."), and that we had opposing views on running barefoot (in fairness, her qualifications as a high performance coach for Olympic-level athletes is almost as meaningful as my I-read-a-book-about-it- then-tried-it-twice experience, I have to admit.) Steve and Neil discovered a shared penchant for bad jokes, and seemed to bond like long-lost brothers. We swapped tall tales of past derring-do over a curry and pint - Steve's martial arts prowess, honed over decades, in dojos around the globe; Neil's foreign diplomatic skills, practiced in war-torn countries on behalf of the United Nations; Jill's extensive international sporting career in a multitude of disciplines; and my famous ability to recite Monty Python lines while belching. We chased dinner, yarns and humour with a soak in the thermal pools.
Now clearly, seeing your new mate's sister in a rented swimsuit that’s slightly too small for her slender but tall figure is an occasion that calls for discretion, tact and decency. Steve and I, of course, had none.
"Neil, mate!!! Your sister's better than a 10!"
"No wonder you're a zero. Jill got all the good looking genes!"
“Got any other sisters?"
"Ever considered having a sex change?"”
“I'll pay."
Neil assured us that revenge is a dish best served cold. In the pool, we talk a little about ourselves and make really bad jokes. Après soak, Neil and Steve looked all set to paint the unsuspecting town of Hanmer Springs some indiscreet shade of red, so Jill and I chose to leave them to it and wandered the long dry way back to warm sleeping bags in the luxury suite of the barn at the airfield.
Steve's 2 a.m. shout had us all awake, up, and running. WIND!!! With rain, too. A front is coming through from the south, and we need to protect the trikes. Hence, the near-naked scramble in the dark gale to get the wings down... A brief blast as the front rolled through, and then all was calm again. Amidst the rustling of nylon and straw, we climb back into our sleeping bags in the darkness.
-0-
Day two, Sunday. Dawn. A cloudy, cool, calm, post-frontal day. I'm awake - wide awake, and there's a tradition to uphold. After the usual struggle to align the mast and wing, ZK-DGR (known to his mates as Penrod) is ready for flight. Before the first rays of the rising sun kiss the cheeks of the clouds over the Amuri Plains, the barn is quaking to the tune of a Rotax engine. Heh! After the customary beat-up, I land and taxi back to the barn to find Jill has already left for an absurdly early morning run with Neil, each awoken prematurely by Steve's sonorous snoring which continues to echo around the valley.
-0-
Steve keeps up a constant chatter on the radio.
"What do you reckon, big boy... ah, this rain must be wearing our props out... hey, Neil wants to know if Jill is warm enough... I think there's too much cloud to get through the pass..."
"Jill wants to know if you ever shut up?"
"Yeah, but this rain's getting worse. We'll have to land somewhere soon."
I want him to shut up as well. I'm aware that we're going to have to land or turn back, but there's a happy team in my trike and this reality business is an unwelcome intrusion. Jill and I are singing Neil Young's 'Thrasher' over the intercom, accompanied by the crackling Rotax and whistling propeller. We had left the Amuri basin shortly after taking off beneath a solid overcast, nursing a dwindling hope that we'd find a way to get above the cloud and fly over the high mountains in this area - I really wanted to see again the summits of Gloriana, Faerie Queen, Trovatore and Mt Technical; peaks I knew from climbing - but the prospects were slim. Instead, when we turned into the Waiau Valley we were confronted with lowering cloud and intermittent drizzle which turned to light rain as we flew north.
I wish we could fly - not in a trike, but really fly, like Peter Pan and Tinker Bell; for us to be able to extend out arms and soar through the falling rain, climbing and swooping and diving and rolling, and go above this rain and murk and into the sunlight. I want to walk among the billows of the cloud-tops and lounge in the sunshine on their vaporous domes.
But it's not to be. A quick conference on the chat channel has us picking a paddock on the river terrace below; a low pass confirms the choice and we're soon setting down on the soft wet grass. The tents go up, and given Steve's incredible nocturnal performance the night before (his snoring repertoire includes plausible imitations of chainsaws hard at work on tough trees, trains leaving stations during the blitz, and spectacular aircraft collisions with rugged granite cliffs), the tents are located some distance apart and I'm feeling sorry for Neil. By midday a steady rain has set in and my tentmate and I are snuggled into sleeping bags, co-reading 'Puckoon' and giggling like kids. For the rest of the day we trade stories, ideas and dreams, while the primus keeps up a steady supply of chicken soup which we drink from plastic cups bought from the Rangiora supermarket. Nightfall settles on the Waiau Valley and I am supremely content. By midnight there are stars punctuating the night.
-0-
Day three, Monday, brings a crisp, clearing dawn and the promise of wonderful flying. Ribbons of cloud are wrapped like skirts around the surrounding summits; the sky above is a perfect vault of blue. No one stirs until the sun warms the tents and soft billows of vapour rise from the paddock.
Day three is also the day the day Steve's engine refuses to start. After a battery-threateningly long R-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r we try hand starting. I manage maybe a dozen modest tugs on the starter cord before gasping and stepping aside. Neil looks sideways at me, grabs the starter handle and gives perhaps thirty solid pulls without puffing. I rub my left shoulder and mutter about it not being right since that time in Botswana when I had to fend off a lion from my cook.
"It might be damp from all that rain. Let's give the plugs a wipe, dry off the ignition leads and check the carb bowls for water."
"Perhaps we can get Steve to fall asleep facing backwards. A couple of his snores should get us a hundred miles or so."
"Or we could be repelled from here by one of your Python jokes."
It takes until late afternoon, and a battery swap, before getting started.
-0-
Jill and Neil have the front seats today. We're underway at eight thousand feet on a bluebird afternoon.
"Relax, take a deep breath, Jill; you're doing fine. Hey, see that little tarn on the ridge to our right? I camped next to it a month ago. Wow! Look at the light on Lake Christabel - isn't that something? So blue! That's the Freyberg Range and Cannibal Gorge in front of us, isn't it beautiful in this light? And that's the Spencer Mountains to the right. Let's fly over th..."
"Tussock?"
"Yes?"
"Shhh…."
She’s doing a pretty good job of flying straight, making gentle corrections with an athlete's touch; and I’m giving no more than the occasional nudge on the training bars.
“Tussock?”
"Yip?"
“What’s the name of the mountain just to our right? The one with rocky spur running down towards us?”
“That’s Duessa Peak.”
“I’d like to climb it. Can we climb it? We could sleep on the summit and watch the stars unwind through the night, and give our own names to the constellations and eat chocolate covered raisins until dawn, then…"
“Jill?”
“Yes?”
“Shhh….”
We fly over the Main Divide, not shhhing at all but singing Wish You Were Here. Jagged rock summits flecked with snow rise above tussock basins beneath us. Narrow valleys flanked with forests that taper down to deep gorges slide under our wings. I love this. This is my home.
Murchison is a short grass paddock dotted with cows. It takes a couple of passes to clear enough space for a pair of trikes to land.
“How’d you go, Neil old sport?”
“Bloody amazing. Fantastic!” Big grins.
“More fun than burning your sister’s toys, eh?”
“Almost! Brilliant! And easy! No wonder even you two can do it. I'll shout everyone dinner tonight!”
“Aw mate; you have no idea what you've just committed yourself to. Steve eats about as much as a small African nation. You could take us to Beachwoods if you’re prepared to peddle a few of your body parts to some back-alley Angolan surgeons. Tell you what, we'll lock Steve in the public restrooms and let him out at closing time…”
And no tents tonight - we’re staying in the height of rural New Zealand salubriousness - cabins at the campground. Yay!
-0-
Day four... Tuesday, and I’m feeling a little guilty. We’ve got two passengers who were going to go to Motueka, and after four days we’re STILL an hour’s flying away and now we're trapped in a solid blanket of fog. We're going nowhere, slowly. Neil isn't concerned.
"Look, Motueka was never important - it was just an idea for somewhere for Jill and I to go for a sibling bonding holiday. Things are different now. Different dynamics, new adventures. Steve and I are a team now anyway, God help me. This is brilliant fun, in spite of the company."
"So do we keep aiming north for Motueka, or head for the West Coast and home over the Alps? Better flying, amazing scenery, big mountains, somewhere different? There's a definite risk of being trapped by bad weather, but it's not a bad place to be stuck…"
-0-
Jill and I go for a long run, up the Matakitaki Valley to the gorge. We swim in the river as the sun dissolves the fog. We lie on the granite boulders, basking in pools of sunlight. Then we fly west.
-0-
There were kayakers all over the white-water of the Buller - O'Sullivans, Ariki Falls, Jetboat rapids and Earthquake Run had paddlers bouncing their kayaks in the froth. Jill was inspired.
“Picture yourself…"
I catch her thread:
"…in a boat on a river…"
We chorus over the intercom:
"…with tangerine trees and marmalade skies…"
So we Beatled our way down the forested flanks of the gorge, with me casting slightly anxious glances to the side, searching for non-existent places to put down should the engine quit. Motorcycles are parked by the Iron Bridge, and others are riding towards us on the gorge road. Neither Steve nor I can resist a flyby, so we swoop down low over the road. A forest of arms bending to an unseen breeze wave to us as the bikes slow. We're cut from the same cloth, trikers and bikers.
We follow the Grey River downstream, easy now with a narrow strip of paddocks between the forested valley walls. Sewell Peak and Mt Davy announce that the coast is near, and the township of Greymouth soon appears. For one of a handful of times in my flying life we land on a sealed runway. There's the satisfying chirp of the mains on asphalt… hold off the nosewheel… a bit more… and... we're down, and taxiing to the buildings. We watch Steve and Neil land, tether the wings, and dinner is fish and chips on the beach. Surf rattles the stones, and it’s warm in the west coast sunshine.
-0-
It's late in what is a perfect West Coast day, still and cloudless, and Jill wants to make the twenty-odd mile flight down to Hokitika in the last of the light. Why not? Steve and Neil choose to stay in Greymouth for the night, swayed by the temptations of a post-fish and chip dessert from the local all-you-can-eat buffet, and will join us for breakfast tomorrow. We take off, Jill in the front seat, and she takes the controls as soon as we are airborne.
The short journey south is nothing short of magic. Mt Cook and Mt Tasman stand tall and proud, dominating the view to the south, and the expanse of the Alps between here and there is clear and magnificent. We're flying right along the coast, a mile high, with a long strip of beach beneath us and the swells of the Tasman Sea breaking on the sandy shore. With the hand throttle set I have no need to touch the training bars and I'm free to soak everything in, to wring the greatest joy from the sweep of scenery from the sea to the mountains, the expanse of ocean nudging forested plains and rolling hills that yield to the majestic glaciated stretch of the Alps beyond. The sun is close to the horizon now, and the alpine snows have a full blush of evening alpenglow. We're not Peter Pan and Tinker Bell, but we're close.
But the strangely intimate tandem seating arrangement peculiar to microlight trikes - Jill’s ribs are nestled between my knees - lets me know that there’s some restlessness in the front seat. “Jill? You okay?”
I run through the possibilities that come to mind, but I can’t guess. Instead, I watch the world beneath us. The lower limb of the sun is almost resting on the horizon, and it casts a yellow ribbon over the turquoise sea. A soft pink hue settles on the snows of the Alps. Jill speaks up:
“Remember when we took off from Waikari? I thought we were going to have an afternoon of adventure, and adventure just meant a new perspective on the countryside, some uncertainty and fun and some scary moments. I had no idea that I’d be here, days later, or that adventures were about connections and emotions too. Look at us, in this place! It’s as if we’re halfway between heaven and Earth. We’d all like to have a lucky shooting star fall into our laps, even though we don’t believe it will happen. But now we almost are the shooting star, and it’s… it’s almost magical. I didn’t know that I could love a journey or a place or an experience so much. This is the best day of my life.”
I try, but can’t think of a reply that doesn’t sound trite, so I rest a hand on her shoulder and stay silent. Jill wriggles around in her seat, and behind her visor I can see her eyes glistening. Then the world blurs, and we have a little plane to land.
-0-
Day five, Wednesday. We watch Neil, in the front seat, following Steve's pointed arm from the back, taxiing their trike up to the Hokitika Airport terminal building - close behind an Air New Zealand twin turboprop. Steve and Neil get out as the Dash 8 disgorges its passengers, and there's mutual bemusement. Jill runs up to her brother and crushes him in a hug. Steve looks around and bleats. Bah-h-h-h.
"I was pretty nervous about its prop wash", Steve says, pointing to the Dash. "We were well clear of it in the air, but it took ages backtracking and taxiing. I didn't want to park anywhere near it in case it starts its engines again while we're on the ground. Where are you parked?"
Jill grins. "We've got a hangar. Tussock has friends in high places. The airport manager, Drew Howat, saw us land and he's done us proud. Apparently there are only two commercial flights a day into here, and the rest of the time this building is locked. Drew gave us the keys to the entire terminal building, and we had the place to ourselves last night. We slept in his office upstairs. We're welcome to stay here as long as we want, and we've got free use of a car. C'mon, we'll get your trike into the hangar and go for some breakfast."
I chime in. "Drew is a trike pilot too, but in spite of that he's a decent bloke, not like us at all. I've only met him a couple of times before, on previous trips here. He's been good to us. We've got fresh gas, too."
We could fly home today if we choose, but no one is keen. Steve and Neil opt for a morning flight south along the coast to Franz Josef. Jill and I take Drew's recommendation: we fly up the rugged Whitcombe Valley, around Mt Evans and the Bracken Snowfield. I know the area from previous visits on foot, and it's every bit as dramatic, stunning and awesome from the air. It's big country: precipitous rock faces, deeply crevassed snowfields clinging to anywhere flat enough for snow to stick, jagged skylines. I feel humble, tiny in the little trike. The air is beautifully smooth on the western side of the Main Divide, but as we cross to the east above the Ramsay Glacier the turbulence becomes extreme - a couple of weightless moments and involuntary ninety degree turns soon has us in retreat. We're hammered as we go back to the western side, but it turns perfectly smooth again as we follow the Alps south. We hear Steve and Neil on the radio, and meet them and a B20 3-axis microlight above Harihari.
"Looks like we've got ourselves a convoy."
We fly together back to Hokitika.
With the trikes tucked away in the hangar, we take Drew’s car to Hokitika Gorge for a picnic lunch. Rainforest drapes over grey granite boulders in a sheer ravine; turquoise water flows like a benediction beneath. We dive into the river, our shrill protests about the water temperature echoing from the canyon walls. The attempt at thawing in the sun rapidly dissolves into an extended sandfly squashing session.
This has to be our last night here; the perfect weather cannot last. No one wants to talk about tomorrow. Steve and Neil have taken the two tents ("A tent each! I can sleep in peace tonight!") and they've gone in Drew's car to the campsite at Lake Mahinapua for the night. Steve has family duties; they will fly straight back to Rangiora in the morning. Jill and I will take our time.
Night falls. I want to be alone for an hour, and go for a run along the beach under a nearly full moon. When I get back, Jill unlocks the doors of the Hokitika Airport Terminal for me. She's wearing an airline captain's cap she found in Drew’s office, and a shy grin. She presses an eight-page letter into my hand.
-0-
Day six, Thursday.
It’s late morning, and Jill and I are lying on a sunny patch of grass in the Rakaia valley. The Tussock luck has held and the manager of the Glenariffe sheep station, Alistair Ensor, has offered us a room in the empty shearers' quarters for the night. I've taken him for an aerial tour of his domain. Our crossing over the Alps this morning was spectacular, and life right now is perfect - why chance wrecking it by flying through remotest NZ in a little trike at night?
“My God, Jill, haven’t you had enough? We’ve flown for an hour or so every day so far. We flew over Mount Cook this morning, and being this radical is hard work. A moonlit flight tonight would be awesome, but how about some contrast: why don’t we find a swimming hole, or run up a hill to watch the sunset, or curl up here in the tussocks and call it a day instead?"
"Because we will be able to do those things when we’re old and toothless. I’ve sat in tussocks and seen sunsets and swum in rivers before I met you. A few days ago I was hitching to Motueka with my brother, and that’s more or less what he and I would have done. Now I’ve had an experience that goes far beyond anything I could imagine. I don’t want to miss doing something truly extraordinary because I’m watching a sunset, and we can curl up in the tussocks all afternoon. Look, if it’s not safe, then we shouldn’t consider it. If it’s safe enough, though, then I guess I’m saying that I’m keen if you are. I’m not asking you to take risks and I don’t want to put you in a difficult position. So maybe what I am asking is: would you fly by moonlight if you were alone?"
"Perhaps... yes. And I’d love to share it with you. But we both need to be aware that it’s less safe than flying in daylight."
Jill smiles. "I accept that, and I have no way of assessing the risk. But I’m curious: how do you go about balancing risk and reward? You’ve said that there’s a difference between being prepared for a risky activity, and just going for it and hoping for the best. But there must be some middle ground. And you must be prepared to take a higher risk when the rewards are greater. In sports like mountaineering and whitewater kayaking, don't you go for the finest line you can - the closer you cut the corner, the greater the reward?"
Now there's a question. How do you slice the pie?
My answer sounds inadequate, even to me. “Sure, but it’s different when you assume the risk for someone else. My first priority must be to get us safely home, and my second goal is that we’re still on good terms at the end of the trip. After that comes fun.”
She chuckles. “I know you mean that, but If those truly were your priorities you’d have never taken me into the air with you that day at Waikari. You take some sort of risk on my behalf with every flight. And I think that you would say that there are times when the pleasure or wonder or novelty of whatever you’re doing is so intense that you'd be willing to risk all your future happiness for the joy you feel in that brief moment. Aren’t there some minutes that you would sacrifice years for?"
"Yes, that’s absolutely true. It's the old saying about having more life in your years, not years in your life. But I might be prepared to take a risk that you wouldn’t take. And in a situation like a night flight, It’s not me that you’d be trusting – you’d be putting your faith in God and an Austrian engine manufacturer called Rotax.”
There's a long pause. The warmth of the sun is exquisite. The river is reciting its gradient, chuckling to the boulders of its bed. The peaks are sharply etched against a cobalt sky. It’s worth absorbing everything that this point in time has to offer. And time, obligingly, slows.
Jill breaks the silence. "Do you know Joni Mitchell's song 'Night Ride Home'?"
I laugh. I don't know the song, but the title gives a hint of Jill’s thoughts. She sings the first verse:
“Once in a while, in a big blue moon
there comes a night like this -
like some surrealist Invented this First of July
night ride home…”
More laughter from me. What chance does safety have against an opportunity to touch the stars? How do you mesh your greatest loves?
“Jill, I get it – this is your Big Blue Moon. Okay. We can get an early night tonight. So long as there's no fog and the sky stays clear, we can wait until the moon is near its highest and its light is filling in the valleys. We can do a loop around the Bracken and Gardens, and then come back here for some more sleep. How does the rest of the song go?"
“Hula girls and caterpillar tractors in the sand…”
We lie in the tussocks beneath the warm sun for hours, reading more 'Puckoon' and giggling, eating cheese and crackers. Later, on a perfect alpine evening, we walk up Double Hill to watch the sun set behind the Alps. I can’t imagine life being any better than this.
-0-
Day seven, Friday, midnight. It's cold, and the ground crunches beneath our feet as we walk to the trike. We're wrapped in every item of clothing we can manage. Moonshine floods the valley with a soft yellow glow, and there's magic in the air. It feels as though the moonlight makes a faint distortion of distances when we leave the ground, but it may be my imagination. We follow the Rakaia, climbing steadily, and then fly over the Bracken Snowfield to Erewhon Col.
We’re in an ethereal other-world, a movie set come to life. The mountains have dark, sinister faces where shadows fall, and snow-speckled grey slopes where they're touched by moonglow. From a distance the snowfields look like white blankets draped across the crags to soften their contours; up close the appearance is of billions of diamonds, their crystal faces catching and returning the moon to space. We spin around Mt Whitcombe and Snow Dome, a wingspan away from the rock walls. We can see blocks of ice in Vane Stream that have tumbled down the slopes from the Essex Icefall. The Evans River flows in a catacomb between the truncated spurs that flank it.
The Sapphire and Radiant glaciers are just that, glowing and dazzling in contrast to the valleys they flow into. From a low pass over the Heim Ice Plateau I can make out the spot where years earlier Geoff, Doug and I had pitched our tent.
Clouds are boiling up on the western side of the Alps. Pillows of grey vapours that catch our moonshadow and turn it into faint halos; Saturn's rings around an umbra of black void. Delicate cobwebs and spun silky threads of moisture span the gaps between them, luminescent in the reflected light from the snows. We drag our gloved fingers through the clouds.
Malcolm Peak is a spire in the night. I recall that I found an aluminium film canister that had been blasted by lightning in a cairn on the summit, presumably left there by Ebenezer Teichelmann a century earlier. We cross over the top of the Lyell and Frances Glaciers and into the sublime world of the Gardens.
The Lambert Glacier and the Garden of Eden and Garden of Allah are three expansive ice plateaus that cloak the peaks of the central Alps. Beneath us the plateaus are timeless and still, studded by peaks that keep them apart, and in the distorted distances the moonlight gives we seem close enough to almost touch.
We are Peter Pan and Tinker Bell. We are a shooting star.
We trace a final circle around the Arethusa Icefall and swoop through Angel Col. The little rock rounds at Adams Col and Icefall Lookout are dark smudges in the night. We fly along the Devil's Backbone to The Great Unknown, and turn east over to the safety of the Rangitata Valley. The McCoy Glacier slides beneath our wings, and soon we’re lining up on the short grass paddock near the shearer’s quarters. Touchdown gives me a little shock. We're shivering when we climb from the trike.
-0-
Saturday evening. We're standing in Steve's kitchen while he puts the finishing touches on a couple of pizzas. Steve's daughter is bounding around with the unquenchable exuberance of a puppy with a full bladder, clearly enjoying having her father home and guests to bounce off. Joanna is pouring drinks while Neil regales her with epic tales of our journey without taking his eyes off the pizza. Jill looks like a million dollars in a skirt and blouse, fingers around the stem of a wine glass as she follows Neil's chatter. Steve gives me a big wink, and tells me a lie:
"Jo says I don't snore."
“Bullshit!"
---The End---
Bits of deleted scenes:-
“Christ, Steve – was that a joke? I’ve heard better banjo solos.”
-0-
Neil delivers the punchline with the perfect touch – the delivery, the timing, the pathos is exquisite. Steve and I roar with laughter. Somehow, as sometimes happens but no one knows why, the laughing gets out of hand, and we’re rolling around on the sand, and the combination of fish, chips and jokes is unbearable. We have tears rolling down our cheeks; we’re clutching our stomachs and holding our sides in a perfect blend of agony and ecstasy. Slowly the gale of laughter abates, and we regain some semblance of control. Wiping the tears from my eyes, I manage to get out:
“Maybe tomorrow we should swap crews, and I fly with Neil tomorrow.”
Well, that broke the spell. The laughter dies in an instant. Neil looks softly at Jill, who turns away, blushing and embarrassed. Steve shakes his head at me and rolls his eyes.
“It’s a good thing that you’re a hotshot pilot, Tuffnell, because you’re a complete idiot otherwise.”
Oh. Oops. “Sorry Jill. I fell asleep in class the day this boy-girl stuff was covered.”
“Just hold still for a minute while I try to imagine you with personality.”
-0-
And seeing it through her eyes, it hits me : this is an unbelievably precious gift; a coincidence of time and space to be cherished and milked for all it's worth. All the sensations and experiences of the past few days are just a petri dish where something immeasurably more important can come to life. Somewhere beyond the clouds and mountains and oceans and surf and Dual Exhaust Gas Temperature gauges and sunshine and tussock is what really matters, and life will never be the same after this moment.
-0-
“It’s all about feel and timing. Flare too soon and you climb into a stall. And he who hesitates shall inherit the Earth. Ha! I’ve been wanting to use that line for ages.”