Waiting for Godot and The Wind Strikes Back

From Dunedin to Tuatapere (01/02 – 13/02)

I stared incredulously at the flyer on the counter. After being captivated by the Lion King, and in particular its soundtrack, I had taken a real liking to Elton John from a very young age – 8 or so. I knew about his 2-year-long farewell tour and had been rather disappointed to find out I would still be in the United States by the time he would bring the whole caravan to a halt in Belgium. Now he was playing in the same city I was in, on the other side of the world. Well, not exactly. He would be here on Tuesday, and today was only Friday, and I had just decided I wanted to be at least 200km away by then. I shrugged and went back to drinking my coffee, but I still texted my friend Yannick back home to tell him about this unlikely turn of fate. His reply was what I supposed was a rhetorical question: “do you really have to leave?”

Of course, I didn’t. No one was waiting for me anywhere and I had all the time in the world. That was the point of this whole journey. And it’s not really a great story to tell one’s grandchildren one day: “Hey, you know I once was in the same city as Elton John?! Pretty awesome, right?”, so I bought a ticket (I know it’s hard to believe, but apparently there were still a few tickets left) and went on to try and find accommodation for a further 3 nights. I figured all hostels would be fully booked, and I didn’t really like the one I had checked into the previous night, so I tried my luck at a campground a little out of town. Even they were complete, but New-Zealanders’ kindness was proven once again and they found me a small spot on a talud, which wasn’t meant for camping, but there was no way you could’ve known. It was perfect.

So I started waiting for Sir Elton. I killed the time by drinking coffee, watching the Chiefs win the Superbowl on the other side of the Pacific, drinking some more coffee, walking around Dunedin and finally drinking even more coffee. It appears Dunedin had been a small and poor Scottish settlement, until the discovery of gold in the region around 1850, leading to a crazy goldrush. The city’s population expanded exponentially and the money started flowing in, resulting in the building of a whole range of fancy buildings still present today. One of them is the railway station, supposedly one of the most beautiful in the world – certainly in the category of railway stations without trains (2 touristic lines going absolutely nowhere don’t count). It should have reminded me of home, because I learned it was built in Flemish Renaissance style, but the only thing really reminding me of home, was a small remembrance plate at the entrance, in memory of those fallen at the Battle of Passchendaele during WWI. New-Zealanders had always kept a strong emotional bond with the British nation – until WWII at least – so a lot of young kiwis travelled to France and Belgium to fight, and unfortunately, die in the trenches on the Western Front. I had seen memorials all over Otago in the previous days and a big city as Dunedin had certainly shared in the loss of young lives.

In the days leading up to the concert, the weather changed. It started raining on Sunday and it didn’t stop until after Elton John’s concert on Tuesday. I don’t know how many other concert-goers woke up in a swimming pool rather than in a tent for 3 days in a row, but I certainly belonged to that exclusive little club. I didn’t care. I was about to go and see Elton John and nothing in the world could temper my good humour, not even arriving at the venue 4 hours early and being soaked to the bones already.
I watched the Forsyth Barr stadium fill up with people, young and less young, all with an unmistakeable good mood of expectation about them. Elton John walked onstage at 8 pm sharp and without even saying a word, began hammering away at the keys of his shining black Yamaha piano to produce the intro to “Bennie and the Jets”. The audience jumped up from their seats and wouldn’t return to them for quite a while. It was great, simple as that.

Sir Elton and his band of soon to retire rock-n-rollers played for almost 3 hours non-stop and as many fan favourites as possible were crammed in. It was a big, spotlessly planned show, with matching pictures showcasing Elton John throughout his career. I wondered why he was doing it. The man is 72 and wants to spend more time with his family. Why engage on a double world-tour, playing 300 concerts in front of hundreds of thousands of people? His reputation was forged a long time ago, as was his fortune. He could have easily announced his retirement, played half a dozen shows in Britain and the US, and that would have been the end of it. Why this grand, emotional, all-encompassing world tour? The answer has to be: because it’s Elton John. He wouldn’t have had it any other way. It’s a goodbye for him as much as it is for his audience. He has been touring since he was 18. He loves to be onstage. It’s in his blood. I sat there looking at him and I truly believed he had a great time, even if he was playing the same concert for the 168th time since September 2018. As I watched him greet the crowd and walk all over the scene between songs, pointing at people, I realized this was so much more than just an artist performing a live version of greatest hits from a long foregone era. We all found ourselves looking at a human end-product, if I can call it that way. His gigs in the eighties were certainly more provoking, improvised and innovative than this show, but the dynamic of his earlier performances hid the shame, even the hatred, he felt about himself (his own words). This man doesn’t hate himself though. He has accepted who he is, a man with flaws, and regrets, like all men, but also a man who has made music history, who has touched millions of souls with his voice, his songs and his persona. This farewell tour is an acknowledgement of all that. It shows Elton John in the way he wants to be remembered, at ease with himself, happy to be onstage and grateful for the career he has had. He wants to depart from his global audience on the best possible terms and with a proper goodbye. He certainly gave Dunedin one, and I felt a strange feeling of satisfaction for having been there. It felt like a soundtrack to my journey.

I could finally begin my overdue discovery of the Catlins Forest Park the next day. I woke up to a blue sky, so everything seemed perfect for riding as many kilometres as possible until the gateways to New-Zealand’s southern-most district. Perfect except for the wind. I couldn’t help but notice it blew in the wrong direction, which means straight into my face. By the time I had reached Tahieri Mouth and had to climb a steep hill towards Balclutha, my legs felt like pudding, as if they hadn’t the slightest idea what to do with these weird pieces of metal, also called pedals, underneath them.

I somehow managed to get over the top and dropped down to State Highway 1, which I needed to follow for the next 40km or so. I saw a female cyclist, about my age, on the outskirts of Milton, and we both stopped at our side of the road. I wanted to cross over, but all trucks, buses, campervans and Imperial TIE fighters in the world seemed to have decided to be on State Highway 1 at that moment, so I stayed where I was and we settled for some back-and-forth yelling. The whole scene was just sad, but between two wood-logging trucks, I understood she was telling me something about roads being closed further on. What the hell was she talking about? It sure had rained a lot over the last days, but I couldn’t believe that leading to such drastic consequences. We yelled our goodbyes and I continued to Balclutha, where I found the campground packed with people. They were all stuck there, because all roads into the Catlins had been closed, because of flooding. This area does not only have to cope with its “own” rain, but all rivers coming from higherup the country pass through here as well, and they were also swollen with rainwater. The fields couldn’t absorb the water to the point I first thought they were lakes, and more than one road was washed away.

Luckily for me, by lunchtime the next day, the road into the Catlins was declared open again. There were still problems around Queenstown and Te Anau, but I didn’t have to worry about them in the near future. What I did have to worry about, was the wind. The south coast is known for getting strong westerlies, which combined with a cold and wet local climate enable a stunning rainforest to thrive in this region – the Catlins Forest. I took a day off the bike to see some more of it along a 24-km walking track, following the Catlins River up to a point called “The Wisp”.

Over the next couple of days, I made my way around places called Kaka Point, Owaka, Papatowai and Curio Bay, but wherever I went, I had to battle strong headwinds. Every rolling hill (and there were lots of them) became more discouraging, and even the descends were disheartening. Not steep enough meant having to push your pedals even downhill, and on the steep sections it seemed like the wind would get a grip on all your panniers and pull at them in all possible directions at the same time. Once in a while, you would be treated to a nice and cold rainshower to top it all of. So didn’t I enjoy the Catlins? Of course, I did. The cycling was hard, but this is a rough region to be living in. Your fields and roads get damaged and your cattle are put at risk – I heard about one farmer apparently moving his sheep to drier land with a kano. Confined to the relative luxury of a campervan, you might not realize this when you just get your head out to look at a thundering waterfall or to photograph a resting sea lion on the beach. On a bike, I can assure you will take note. It’s part of your discovery of the place. And roughness often translates to natural beauty. There was a lot to look at. On the hilltops, there were some panoramic views to marvel at, and down at the sea, there were countless beaches to explore. On the sandy ones, you could spot some penguins, sea lions and even the “genetically” extinct Hector dolphins (I only saw a couple of resting sea lions) and on the rocky ones, you could look for hours at powerful waves smashing themselves into oblivion against the dark cliff edges.

To my slight surprise, I also met a whole bunch of fellow cyclists during my time in the Catlins. Nina and Isabelle, a French couple, had been stuck at Balclutha together with me, and we kept running into each other all the way until Invercargill on the other side of the Catlins. In Curio Bay, I talked to 2 Dutch girls, who had cycled & hiked together for over 3 months and had been to all the places I still have to go. They had climbed the steepest passes as cycling hurricanes and mastered the busiest highways with real bravado. I admired them. We were able to exchange some tips since we were travelling in opposite directions. I also spent some time talking to Peter, a chemical glassblower from Freiburg who is on a working-holiday-visa and travels around in a van he built himself, for the biggest part. He had an interesting theory about learning how to take control of one’s dreams (I need to test that one out) and usually walked around the campground barechested early mornings, having gone for a swim in the sea when I had run out of clothes to wear in a futile attempt to shield me from the freezing wind.

It was only when I rode out of Riverton, exactly a week after having left Dunedin, that I suddenly realised I was actually going forward at an acceptable speed. The wind was gone. I gently pedalled on, the contours of Fjordland’s mountains appearing on the horizon. I smiled at the prospect of seeing them from a little closer up in a couple of days. For now, I just saw thousands of sheep staring at me while I drove past them, and I greeted them all with a cheerful “Hey Merinos!!!”