Not Fake News. Urban LegendsWhangare Parkrun #493 barefoot. Well, almost.
After a 2-week break, I came back today with a 29m effort, comfortably inside my 30m00s goal.
The reason for the socks? Protect the toes, rather than the soles, from the early winter cold.
Looks pretty odd, but it works.
Despite radio reports of an Orange ( gasp! ) rain alert, not a drop fell this morning.
A wee-hours wakeup led to a late morning start with an amble around familiar parts.
Here looking South-west across the Whangarei harbour.
These bad sleep habits of late are making worse the usual figurative cold feet about travel….
Which Is scheduled for late May. For now.
This is a day to wheel out the old adage “progress, not perfection”.
A lazy day after over-sleeping.
I guess all of us slip up occasionally.
A view of Pukenui Wharf on the routine morning exercise outing.
Some fishermen are already at play with the high tide, and I run across a local walking her dog.
Weather is good, and a repeat of yesterday’s afternoon swim is on the cards.
I’m back in the Far North – briefly – and this morning scene is probably the thing I’ll miss most.
I always had a repulsive need to be something more than human. I felt very puny as a human. I thought, ‘Fuck that. I want to be a superhuman’David Bowie Rolling Stone Magazine,1976
Given the choice, would you go for superman, or average Joe?
I ask because few people have that choice. It’s bestowed upon some by dint of natural ability or talent, on others by happenstance, and still others by dynasty.
A member of my extended family had that choice from natural ability, but has chosen not to follow its call. He’s chosen average Joe.
His natural ability is in a sport which New Zealand has a long and proud history in. It’s not rugby. It’s an individual sport, which in some ways is more brutal and primal than the gladiator sport which is rugby.
I’m fudging the sport to avoid further embarrassing my nephew. So this isn’t a criticism – it’s his life, and I’m just interviewing my keyboard here.
His natural ability is such that he’s left a string of records behind him at age-grade level, at least one of which was taken from an Olympic silver medallist. It’s top-tier.
I know a lot about the sport from being halfway good at it during my teen years before retiring to sloth and decadence for 30 years. “Halfway good” means winning some school and city titles, but nowhere close to national level.
I’ve followed the sport since my teens. I’ve read widely about it, and now plod along at the Geezer Games ( parkrun.co.nz ) on many Saturdays.
So I understand that it’s brutal, and involves pushing to and through physical limits, not to mention mental ones.
For my nephew, following the call would have involved 10 or so years of training, and single-minded dedication. That’s a basic requirement, on top of tonnes of physical ability.
Then there would be the gut-wrenching pressure of performing as a pro on Big Stages. It takes nerve, self-belief, and a fierce determination to win. Boffins call it a ‘Type A’ personality.
It’s a rare beast which meets all of those caveats, which is why the air is thin at the top.
In moments of grandeur, I like to think that given the option, I would have followed that call.
My wrinkled self would, but he may have a skewed vision of my pimpled self.
So I’m left wondering whether my mid-20s nephew sometimes ponders the receding Fields of Glory, not to mention money and fame. Somehow, I doubt it. He’s ( apparently ) happily married and making his traditional way.
Clarke Kent is fine with him.
In the spirit of tinkering and because I’m basically unemployable, I’ve begun to dabble in yet another “enterprise”.
Yes, I’m the millionth person to start a Youtube channel. Or was, since I posted The Howling five years ago.
The idea is basically to see how far minimal but consistent effort will take me in the uber-competitive sport of youtube-ing.
Having been a half-decent runner back in the day, my “training” at age 60 is a morning walk of 2km +, and a Saturday parkrun.
The idea is to use that morning walk time to babble and ramble about whatever comes to mind.
Since I’m doing it anyway, it’s no skin off my feet, right?
Do visit. You might even leave a comment.
“Never say never,” they say.
With that mind, it’s pretty unlikely I’ll go back to Fiji for anything more than a short holiday.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved my time there. It’s warm, and the beaches are good ( enough ).
But as someone a little long in the tooth and saggy at the jaw, I’m looking for somewhere liveable for longer stretches – months at a time, and maybe years at a time.
That’s not Fiji, and here’s why, for me;
So, for me, it’s Moce ( “goodbye”, or literally ‘good night’ ) to Fiji. It was nice getting to know you, but let’s leave it at that.
As a kind of Hail Mary, I decided a drive around the main island, Viti Levu, was in order.
But not before dealing with every shyster rental agency I could find by phone. I was quoted prices mostly around $120 – $130 a day, with one comedian asking for a $1000 bond.
They turned out to be tourist prices, as I discovered when Jone – the AirBnB host – started ringing around, and finally got a $70 / day deal.
However, the strings attached were that young Jone was along for the ride. Which suited me fine – it meant another driver on the 500km jaunt, all packaged with a local guide.
We left on time at 7.30 a.m., and the spirits were high up to Ba, where a quick coffee set the mood for the morning nicely [ all trip videos ]
Then the sailing started becoming slightly less easy at Rakiraki, with the first of Jone’s stops. He’s a bailiff, and this was a work trip for him. On the upside, I did score some huge papaya ( mangoes ) for $3, but waited 30 minutes or so while Jone hunted down some unfortunate with bad debts.
The next target was near Volivoli peninsula, at the northern tip of the island, where I was plotting a refreshing dip in the briny. But the tides were against me, and the dip turned into a cold salt-water bath instead.
Abuzz from the dip, I scoffed down a lunch of three boiled eggs, before we hit a spate of super-cheap roadside stalls. Jone picked and chose carefully, while I grabbed a delicious tuna roti for later.
The came the long haul down to Suva. This is the greener side of the island, where rainfall is high, and the bananas and other fruit are plentiful.
Further down we passed through Fiji’s dairy country, Rewa, north of Suva.
But not before a brush with the law.
The road is dotted with speed cameras. Except in Fiji, they actually forewarn you with prominent signs.
That, and the car’s digital speedo, meant that I got through them all with an intact wallet. Despite the fact that our rental car had yellow LR plates, alerting the cops to a potential victim, I managed to drive unmolested through a manned checkpoint.
Not so Jone. He’d either ignored or not heard my bleated warnings, and got pinged with a $60 fine at a manned speed-check. Muttering about the injustice of it all, he didn’t say so much as we neared Suva to the south.
From there, the mood and the car went south. First, there was a stop of almost an hour in Nausori, a satellite town of Suva, while Jone did his business.
I wandered around for a while trying not to get lost, before taking an awkward refuge in an air-conditioned department store across the road from our meeting point. Barefoot, I feigned interest in the wares and made small-talk with the salesman.
I’ll avoid Nausori in future – true, it was a Friday afternoon, but heat, noise ( taxis ), and dust give it that Mad Max feeling.
We hit the capital around 4pm, where I got more practice in the arts of waiting while Jone did this & that. A little detour to shore up my vape supplies followed. Suva central city is a pleasant and pretty place, without the dust and noise of its outskirts. I just wish it rained less there.
Then it was the homeward leg to Nadi, with the aim of meeting the 7pm deadline for the return of the 24-hour rental.
Not so fast, it turned out. There was, says Jone, a short stop in Navua. Yes.
That turned into an expedition 5kms or so off the main road into Sandro , on the tail of a bad debtor. The dirt and gravel road, late on Friday afternoon, was scattered with people, many possibly returning from work at Grace Road Food Company, a major player in Fiji’s produce sector.
We stopped and talked into most of the local population, probably getting the Fijian version of “the first house on the left after the green barn”.
An hour or so later, papers served, we were back on the main road, and up against the clock.
As it darkened, I discovered that no-one here bothers to dip their lights. Blinded and tired on the unfamiliar roads, I gave the wheel back to Jone on the winding roads south of Sigatoka.
By then I was over the trip, but there was still more 90 minutes left.
Late anyway, Jone talked me into going halves in renting the car for an extra day, rather than futzing around in Nadi returning it in the dark.
What did I learn?