TOWED AGAIN

Feb 17th, 2010
The rains keep coming, but have tapered off to a slow drizzle. We are still coming up short on surf or WWOOF stays on the east side so we decided to move west to the Taranaki region. We both need a shower and a change of scenery anwyay. We stopped along the way to call a few potential WWOOF stays and one was able to host us! It is so strange that we have been on a lush island where sheep outnumber people, and we cannot find surf, fresh fish, or lamb meat (but plenty of ocean chop, fried fish, and beef).
The highway around Mt. Taranaki follows the coast about 2km away from it, so there are no ocean views. On our first impression, the rain clouds hung so low there weren't many views of anything except fog! Pretty much every road you can take toward the coast will lead you there, so we turned on a couple to check out the surf. One road lead to a gated end so we turned around. And the van got stuck, spinning out on a slight slope covered in wet grass! This seemed like a perfectly fine place to turn our hunk-o-junk around, and would have been if it were not wet (or if it had an ounce of power). We were in front of a house so I walked up to see if I could use the phone (we have AA coverage, kind of like AAA). The door was open and the place was cluttered with trinkets and lace. A little terrier started barking before I could knock and was followed by a lean, middle aged man limping on a prosthetic leg with a large scar in the middle of his forehead. He quickly told me, with forced annoyance, that he’d seen us get stuck and that he had no phone, no cell phone, no tow rope and couldn’t help because of his leg. I said OK, no problem, sorry to bother you, and headed back to the car, but he had more to say. “And that’ll teach’ya for drivin’ all crazy!” Followed by other choice phrases. Whatever, this was the last yokel we wanted to deal with. Then he follows with, “Rodney might help you, he lives next door.” I thanked him for the tip and went next door. Rodney was just waking up after a "late-night" and his wife let us use her cell phone to call AA. Rodney was more accommodating than his neighbor, even excited to help because he just bought a little RAV-4, the 2-door kind, and wanted to see what it could do. That little thing was just enough to pull our piece-of-shit van out and get us back on the road. And then the freaky neighbor yelled at us again to stop drivin’ all crazy-like. Rodney offered us to clean up at his place, but we needed to press on. Many thanks to another kiwi savior!