After all these years, I’ve finally met someone who appreciates a sunrise, has the same juvenile sense of humour, lust for life, isn’t clingy or demonstrably insane, has their own stuff going on. So, what’s next? It’s been a year, and we still live three and a-half hours’ drive away from each other, petrol isn’t getting any cheaper and we ain’t getting any younger.
Autumn is a good time to visit the Gold Coast, with temperatures in the mid-20s and the sea warm enough to swim in. On this trip, I took some time to sound out the environment. Yes, there are huge spiders, snakes, and plenty of sharks, but the main thing about Australia is that it is full of Australians.
Everyone is blonde on the Gold Coast. They probably wouldn’t let you in otherwise; I’m surprised they don’t check inside your knickers at passport control to see if you’re faking it. They advertise themselves as laid-back barefoot beach bums but drive like crackheads - unless they have a Queensland plate, then they drive like they’re suffering a slowly unfolding cardiac event.
Just like Wānaka, the locals go around with a face like a slapped a***, despite owning a house worth $2.5 million. Nobody smiles at you on the street, in the supermarket, on the cycle path, but the men openly stare at your tits.
It’s super white. It’s super racist. Nazis booed the "Welcome to Country" (like our mihi whakatau but hugely resented by the general population) on Anzac Day. People use racist slurs in everyday conversation, teenagers regularly say the N word and no-one slaps them upside the head.
There’s no culture, unless it’s beach culture, which is actually a religion. Also a religion: sound healing, kinesiology, and taking magic mushrooms to block electromagnetic waves.
Tell you what I do love, Aussie camping. Camping here is hard core. Australians cram literally everything needed for human comfort into a huge rig towed by a massive sand dune-hopping monster truck. It knocks shivering in a tent and eating burnt snags into a cocked hat any day.
Petrol is cheaper, taxes are lower, it’s easier and cheaper to build a house, groceries are less expensive, and the salary for the same job I have now is $30,000 more. If anyone knows a thing or two about cost benefit analysis it’s me, but is this enough of an incentive to outweigh the racists, the nutjobs, the teenage drama and ongoing resentment of some of his late wife’s friends?
The fact is, he misses his sons, and a hundred rainbows won’t change that. They need their father, but he can’t afford to live there on his own. The only way it could work would be if we did it together, but the cost would be the end of the nice, safe, predictable life I’ve built for myself.
While I was thinking about all this, it stopped being sunny and rained for three days straight. Sudden pummelling tropical downpours that would just as suddenly stop like a tap turned off, only to start up again 15 minutes later. It reminded me of the West Coast, except it was warm, and I felt quite at home. The creeks rose ruddy brown and flooded the sugar cane fields. The sea smashed into the beaches, clawing away the dunes and scattering rocks of pumice like oversized hail, leaving blue bottles dotting the tide line and coughing up a huge turtle with a shark bite cracking his shell.
It gave the place a bit of much-needed character, blowing away the pristine blonde to show the savage beneath. Maybe it wasn’t so bland here after all, I thought, as the locals shivered in puffa jackets and I strode the beach like Boudicca in a bikini top, ears pricked for bigotry. Nothing like a good smashing to sort things out.
