Rigid Flexibility

Oct. 26, 2024 (Saturday)

This is the town of Murcheson, New Zealand—a real going concern. Population 513 since Twig, Harry, and I arrived.

We’re not supposed to be stopping in Murcheson, but when the charming policewoman explains that there are wash-outs in “the gorge” and two very large boulders up high looking like they’re thinking about coming down…then you pull over and wait ‘em out.

“Is there another way to get to Reefton tonight?” Twig asked.

The policewoman just shook her head. “Nah,” she said.

I fished out my phone and consulted The Google. There ARE other ways to get to Reefton without proceeding on the now-thoroughly-shut Route Six. You could, for example, find someone with a helicopter to rent. You could hike inland until you got so far above the wash-out that a canoe or kayak could race down the now-rushing river and attempt to leap out at just the right moment in passing. Or you could turn around, drive all the way back to the west coast and head down to Christchurch.

Either that or find a hotel in Murcheson and succumb to the inevitable.

It’s been raining for the last 24 hours. All the rivers are swollen, and the hillsides are lush and dark with green. Either low clouds or high mists are lacing the coves and hollows we’ve been passing, and the sheep (many sheep), cows (some cows), horses (occasionally), and one very bored looking herd of reindeer have that long-suffering tilt to necks holding their faces in the rain. It’s really quite lovely—and who’s to say the Lamplighter Court Hotel in Reefton would be a better stopping place than the Grand Suites Murcheson?

By tonight we were supposed to be about an hour closer to Arthur’s Pass and our three-day stay at a wilderness lodge on a sheep ranch, which is supposed to begin tomorrow, but the driving has NOT been terrifying so if we can get through tomorrow, we should get to our planned stopping point without any real trouble.

In fact, the driving has been mostly very easy. Unlike driving in Ireland, there are only fifteen people in all of New Zealand’s South Island—and while they do like to tear around these (perfectly nice) highways at enormous rates of speed, there are always places to pull over and let them pass.

I drove for well over an hour and only had to find a place to pull over twice. The roads are fast and un-pot-holed; very nicely maintained besides being empty…but oddly, there are countless one-lane bridges where you have to take turns going over. Everything else is lovely except those bridges. But as noted—no one else on these roads, so wheee! Me first!

Before we left the wine region, we stopped at a WWI/WWII airplane museum largely backed by Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson. Of the three of us, there isn’t one who was longing in a deep and itchy place to stare at Fokker-Wolfes or Sopwith Camels, but we’d been told that the museum was really very good, so off we went.

And damned if the Peter Jackson Wingnut Productions team hadn’t been all over those two buildings! The displays were totally gripping. Instead of showing two planes parked on the concrete behind a rope, the planes were suspended on wires in the middle of a dogfight. Ultra-realistic dummies made me blink twice—real guy? One of those Times Square dudes who can hold a pose for hours at a time?

And the provided information was appropriately nerdy for aeronautical types, but every now and then there would be a story worth reading—like the two Allied pilots who suffered a midair collision in WWI. One pilot had a damaged tail and was able to bring his plane down safely. The second couldn’t work his wing controls. So he climbed out onto his own wing, hoping he could find a way to jump into something soft and survive. But once on his wing, he found that he could actually control the wing with his left hand and left foot…

So he flew the plane with his right hand, controlled the wing by hooking his foot under the wing and flipping parts up and down, and managed to just skim over the top of the trenches to land behind the Allied lines. He landed, walked back to the trenches, asked to use the phone (“I beg your pardon, I seem to have lost my plane. Could I borrow your telly?”), got a ride back to the airfield, took another plane up, shot at a few bad guys, landed safely, and never bothered to report the event until the next day.

THAT is a dashing hero!

I took a bunch of photos because I couldn’t help myself. This was a purely fascinating display, and my father the aeronautical engineer would have loved it. Here's the first plane you see when you walk in, and I think it's a vast improvement on the way you'd expect a plane to be displayed:

You'd think I'd be able to tell you what kind of plane that is, would't you? Besides being an Etrich, I mean. But I can't. I didn't notice. I just saw how much the wings looked like a bird of prey on bicycle wheels. Wow.

A photo from the front, with another (smaller) plane coming in behind it to shoot at the glorious bird of prey. Fly, Etrich! Fly! Can you see that the gunner is swiveled backwards, almost shooting over the pilot's shoulder to get the bad guy?

This was the first display. It occurred to me that I needed to dial back the photo-taking--but the next display featured huge wings on something small enough to enter in the Pinewood Derby and I had to take one more shot...

There was a display of poppies sewn, knitted, and crocheted by people from all over New Zealand to honor those who died "so we in New Zealand can live in peace." I can appreciate that sentiment, even if I have this suspicion that (and I'm sorry if this offends you) wars would be a lot less violent if guys didn't just fucking love coming up with new ways to mount guns on progressively bigger and bigger things in order to slaughter people. But then I got to this line in the information:

"You will also see one purple poppy on each of the panels. This is in remembrance of the animals, mainly horses, that died in the line of duty in World War I."

Yep. That got to me.

After that I restrained myself from endless photos--until I came to a display of propaganda posters. Man, I just LOVE this art. What do you think of these?

The World War II exhibit, in a different building through the rain, was just as well done. PeterJackson had made an immersive "experience" in which museum visitors sit in what's designed to look like an exploded building while two huge screens overhead show an air battle over Stalingrad; it was very impressive. (And concluded with the jaw-dropping costs of war in human lives. The war would NOT have been won by the good guys if Russia hadn't sacrificed 8.7 million troops. Seriously?! Jeezum.)

I was unable to resist a few more propaganda posters from that era--one in English and two (which I can't translate but love anyway) in Russian. Love.

I don't know what that woman is saying, but I know that attitude. It means DO AS YOU'RE TOLD, I HAVE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS. And I'm very glad I took the photo, since I'm already out of photos from scenic Murcheson!