Memories of the Otira Tunnel.

By H.T.R. Williams.

Passing through the Southern Alps, on the Trans-Alpine Railway, watching my shadow ripple over sidings of gravel, fence posts and fields. These mountains are sobering. Millions of years old, but the result of a constant faulting and folding. The Australian and Pacific plates crush together, moving at the speed of fingernail growth. Forcing the land upward with slow-motion violence. The mountains cast their shape for millennia, but continually erode. Thousands of tons’ worth of rock calving off and grinding away down river.

The rivers wash the rocks to smooth stones. Lying in beds meters deep, they wait, eventually get filtered out to sea and polished to sand. On the ocean floor, they stratify as silt, compact down. Minerals solidifying back into sheets of rock. Buried under further layers, returning to the core, liquefying in furnace-like heat – then the whole cycle repeating.

A life-span seems insect-like in comparison. Here I’m a mayfly, tempted to believe it’s all without meaning. The sidings spring up from the ground, become sheer walls. It grows darker, then black beyond the electric light of the viewing platform. The train’s now entered the Otira Tunnel.

The wheels punch in the blackness, the erratic gangway between carriages squeaks like a tui. Over the tannoy, a tour-guide explains that the tunnel was once the longest in the British Empire. It was a marvel of engineering back then, but now there’s little more to say, except that it will take about fifteen minutes to get through to the other side. Darkness always fascinated me. Perhaps because there are no more outer forms to project onto. No more mountains in the dark. No more trees or faces, or even stars.

I remember how as a child in Wales I went on a school trip to the Big Pit Mining Museum. They gave us helmets with lamps, then lowered us down in a cage lift. The darkness seemed crushing, but I found myself somehow bigger than the limits of my own skin, expanding in that continued moment of imagined pulverization.  

We followed the miner-tour-guide’s instructions and turned off our lamps. The disembodied voice told us to put our hands in front of our faces. Raising my hand, I saw nothing but the sheerest blackness. Felt the cold air of the draft against my wide open eyes.

When the lights and faces returned, I allowed the group to walk on without me – just a few yards around a corner was all I had the courage for. But the mystery of that darkness was irresistible. I had to be further from the irreverent noise of their tramping feet, the long bouncing shadows they cast in desecration of that purity of stillness.

New Zealand darkness seems different, unnerving and prehistoric. Or perhaps it’s because I’m no longer fresh like a child, corroded by time and the world. A mayfly destined for a graveyard, where headstones melt as obituaries shift to Facebook timelines. Like tracks with stations marked, so go the journeys of individual lives, mapped-out in hindsight. Childhoods and possibilities that can never be revisited. One direction only. Every line must terminate somewhere.

But then comes a rush of air, the sounds changing suddenly. Sunlight pops back, the landscape unfurling from the mouth of the tunnel. Fields of yellow tussock. Massive blue skies. The colours all brighter upon return, lancing through my nostalgia.

Mountains may dissolve, but these moments of rebirth occur too. Marvelous things really can be achieved. Aotearoa continues to offer new futures to thousands of immigrants each year; freshness and optimism are hallmarks of the Kiwi spirit. The Otira Tunnel reminds me.

Some Thoughts on Welsh Idioms.

Lately in Learning Welsh . . . I’ve been looking at Welsh proverbs. Previously, I only knew a few of these sayings from childhood, the ones repeated more commonly in Wales; Y gwir yn erbyn y byd – “The truth against the world,” for example. I always remembered my high school motto, Goru arf, arf dysg – “learning is the best weapon,” and for years I’ve tried to reanimate my Welsh language learning with the old chestnut Dyfal donc a dyr y garreg – “constant blows will (eventually) break the stone.” However, a comparable, sneaky English idiom about banging one’s head against a brick wall can often prove just as effective in undoing my determination.

The wisdom in some of these stock Welsh phrases is sometimes questionable and at other times outdated, lost in a modern-day urban context. To say that the best utensil in a house is a good wife might be seen by some these days as a tad on the sexist side. And if you really believe that milk and butter make up two-thirds of the healthiest diet, you might actually die from dairy overdose.

There are quite a few sayings about farming and Welsh weather, which are all well and good if you’re a shepherd living on the slopes of some mountain in Gwynedd, but not so applicable if you’re a writer sitting in a library in sunny New Zealand. One of these sayings did seem to have a wider application though. It came to mind when I was queuing at the crowded local WINZ (government welfare) office the other day:  Gaeaf gwyn, ysgubor dynn – “a white winter, a tight barn.”

        Questionable wisdom? What about the wonderfully rhymed Perth hyd fogel, perth ddiogel – “a hedge up to the navel is a safe hedge?” Unless this is a really obscure metaphor about chastity, it’s little wonder the Welsh got invaded by the Romans, Normans, and English, and frequently raided by Vikings and Irishmen.

      Stating that a fool blames everyone but himself, that long sleeps increase lifespan, that good beer is the heart’s key, that there’s no beauty without women and that a person should take their time getting to work, only seems to confirm my growing suspicion that it’s my ancestors who are entirely responsible for any lazy, work-shy, semi-alcoholic and promiscuous behavior on my part. As I already told my last fifteen employers, it’s genetic. People don’t tend to accept that as a legitimate excuse, but how about Gwell hwyr na hwyrach – “better late than later.” Can’t argue with that, can they?

Here’s my personal favourite: Gorau Cymro, Cymro oddi cartref – “the best Welshman, a Welshman away from home.”  Makes me feel slightly better about daily being peeled between the lingering caricature of a formerly more solid Welsh identity and the true-blue New Zealander I can never really become.  

Kiwi Beer Commercials

 Kiwi Beer Commercials: A trip down Memeory Lane.

Wine drinkers are a fickle bunch. They have no loyalty, either choosing whichever  bottle is on special down at the supermarket, or travelling the country in search of the latest  medal-winning vineyard. There are some among them, no doubt, who would drink vinegar  --  provided it was bottled and labeled appropriately, and Michael Cooper told them it was  nouveau chic.

            Beer drinkers, on the  other  hand, are  a  different  breed. It  seems  that, like  smokers, they  often  remain  loyal  to  the  same  brand  for  years. Is  this  because  making  a  choice  at  the  supermarket  is  too  complicated  for  them? Is  it  easier  just  to  grab  for  the  familiar, a  product  that’s  been  tried  and  tested  on  many  a  merry  occasion  before? Have  they  killed  too  many  brain  cells  to  think  outside  the  regular  box  of  beers?

            The beer  companies  certainly  seem  to  think  so. They  obviously  view  their  customers  as  a  horde  of  unintelligent  morons – or  at  least  they  used  to. When  it  comes  to  beer, advertisers  have consistently  aimed  for  the  macho  blue-collared  bigot, the  work-a-day  average  kiwi  bloke  who  remains  proud  of  his  political  incorrectness  and  happily  chauvinistic. He  -  it’s  never  she  -   may  go  to  raging  beach  parties  full  of  brainless  bikini  babes, or  alternatively, stay  at  home  drinking  with  other  males  of  a  similar  IQ  and  dream  of  Swedish  volleyball  chicks  instead.

Dreaming  about  women  seems  to  be  a  more  viable  option  for  these  types. The  Speights  bloke  for  instance found  it  more  comfortable  to  drink  with  his  old  crusty  mate  rather  than  actually  going  on  a  date  with  a  hot  barmaid  who was  willing  to  pay  for  everything. Or  maybe  the  Speights  bloke  was  just  too  dense  to  realise  she  was  asking  him  on  a  date  in  the  first  place.  

            You  have  to  wonder  though, is  this  the  only  demographic  in  New  Zealand  society that drinks  beer? Of  course  it  isn’t. Lion  Red  realised  this  a  few  years  back, and  tried  to  appeal  to  a  more  sophisticated  customer. Their  ‘Red  Men’  add  campaign  showed  beer  drinkers  a  New  Zealand  which  was  way  too  cosmopolitan  and  progressive  for  the  ‘typical’  kiwi  customer  to  swallow. These  adds  were  set  in  pubs  and  nightclubs  that  looked  more  like  circuses  or  the  Moulin  Rouge. They  were  populated  by  midgets, Asians, intelligent-looking  women  and  old  men  in  leather  and  PVC.

           The  working  man  was  still  represented in this campaign, but  this  time  by  a  gang  of  road  workers  who  looked  more  like  the  Village  People. One  line  in  particular  stood  out: “We’re  Red  Men, Red  Men, extremely  well-read  men.” This  was  clearly  too  much, too  soon  for  the  more  traditional  majority  clientele, and  the  add  campaign  was  quickly  dropped. The  Red  Men  were replaced  by  the  kind  of  lager  louts  found  in  Tui  commercials. Lion  Red  were  still  progressive  enough  to  feature  Asians  though, albeit  Japanese  stereotypes  who  couldn’t  pronounce  ‘Rion  Led’  properly.

            A  similar  deviation  from  the  comforting  ‘norm’  spelt  disaster  for  the  DB  breweries  through  the  nineties. They  made  the  fatal  mistake  of  allowing  their  rugged  ‘man  alone’  Clydesdale  bloke  to  show  human  sensitivity. The  adverts  became  way  too  sentimental  when  the  Crumpian  hero  was  almost  reduced  to  a  blubbering  mess  by  the  ill  health  of  his  beloved  horse. You  can  imagine  the  reaction  of  macho  beer  drinkers  across  the  country: “What  a  sook!”  

           As  if  this  wasn’t  bad  enough, the  DB  guy  began  to  foster  a  love  interest. The  whole  thing  degenerated  into  a  soap  opera, and  beer  drinkers  were  left  feeling  awkward  and  psychologically  scarred. DB  kept  a  low  profile  for a while after that, but  slowly  climbed  the  ladder  of  public  approval  again, hoping  to  resuscitate  sales with  a pseudo-heroic,  idiotic, vacuous  fireman.

            Don’t  get  me  wrong. I’ve loved  my  beer  as  much  as  the  next  man  (or  person). But  does the  average  kiwi  bloke  still  need  to  adopt  a  Crumpian  philosophy  and  don  a  bushman’s  hat  every  time  he  enjoys  a  cold  one? It  would  be  easy  to  laugh  and  say  the  advertisers  have  got  it  all  wrong. I’d  like  nothing  better  than  to  insist  that  the  beer  drinkers  of  New  Zealand  are  really  not  that  stupid. But  just  consider  the  amount  of  market  research  advertisers  do. They  know  their  customers, and  they  know  what  appeals  to  them. Beer  adverts  are  therefore  a  worrying  indication  of  what  many  beer  drinkers  value, and  how  little  we’ve  been progressing.

           Advertisers are still totally hammering the insecure masculinity angle today. Consider the goals and intentions behind All Blacks-endorsed moisturiser, the ‘Mantrol’ safe-driving campaign, and adds for ‘man-food’ snacks and cave-man-esque ‘man dip,’ for example. It  seems  to me  that  those  who  lament  and  ridicule  ‘P.C.-gone-mad’  have  little  to  get  upset  about  after  all: a  large  portion  of  Kiwis  are  obviously  still  just  as  bigoted, narrow  minded  and  un-P.C.  as  they  were  twenty  years  ago, and  for  this  we  have  commercial  advertising  to  thank  in  no  small  measure. If  things  don’t  improve  in  fact, I  might  even  consider  becoming  a  wine  drinker.

            Yeah, right!   

At Siloam: Moana Pools, Dunedin.

At Siloam: Moana Pools, Dunedin.

Nerd the ageing Viking comes flexing and big-chested. He is positively Bjorn Borg-ing with Nordic sporting brilliance – until he enters the pool. In the water, all the poise, self-possession, and science are lost. He goes hard-out, with furious splashing, and gasping, and grunting . . . at a rate of approximately three lengths and hour. Sending waves to the far lanes, he is only a hare of the sunny season, come to challenge the weekly or daily tortoises. In less than ten minutes he rests. He hangs from the lip of the pool’s gutter, his arms outstretched either side of him; a beet-faced Jesus, crucified in defeat.

Nerd sulkily watches a woman, who is grim and horse-toothed with age, but who has probably been using swimming pools most of her life. She is prim and Kiwi, in a black one-piece swim-suit with silver swim-cap yanked down over fleecy steel curls. She fits her goggles with matriarchal no-nonsense, an elderly Mary Poppins eliminating a daily chore with assured but invisible enjoyment. She moves easily through the water, gathering distance in twenty-five metre lengths (the life guards have set the movable bulkhead to bisect the Olympic-sized pool since the pre-dawn elite swimmers left over an hour ago).

Next comes a white-haired old man, tanned and hunched over in navy board shorts, stiff and dry as sandpaper. Easing down the chrome-railed ladder, his bones still hold some flame. His eyes spark with it, wasted muscles might crackle with static desires. Prior to entering the water, a thick tuft of chest hair stands erect between his deflated breasts, like mould in the cleft of a decomposing peach. Ill-fitting skin, blighted with liver-spots, drinks. He finds the relief of relative weightlessness, and sprawls in the water like a croc, gliding, almost imperceptibly, upon his back.

The old man strays in the lane, perhaps deliberately causing that fleeting touch of a frictionless collision; the heat of human contact diluted to the more manageable tepidity of the water’s twenty-eight Degrees Celsius. Then he takes a squeaky tablet of foam, grasps it and holds it out in front, and kicks along like a paddle steamer. He offers everyone a questioning face in passing: Do you see me? Do I still count? Do you have some answer? Or directions to the fountain of youth?

Then a pair of slender, Aunt Sally-doll sisters arrive. In lilac Lycra, they enter the pool together. Perfumed hair is safely crammed under face-lifting swim caps, which give them a look of permanent astonishment. Their green eyes are cat-like. They cut the water, scissors leaving a scented wake. They close together again at the shallow end to giggle and chatter.

Next, an Amazon steps out from the women’s changing rooms, as though from the wardrobe leading to Narnia. She is a walking celebration of human will-power, the antidote of Nerd. Striding poolside, she is blockish, animated marble. Her heavy body is a marvel of two things in one – a profane mystery of nature shaped by culture, shaped by habit, shaped by discipline. The broad face under her swim cap and goggles becomes the mask of an androgen. A navy swim suit cuts across her chest, complementing a centaur-like quality; she has the head, shoulders, and arms of a muscular man; the breasts, hips, and thighs of a curvaceous woman. She looks almost impossible, a creature from a dream – until she dives. In real time, those disparate, stony limbs flow molten into repeated, well-practiced motion. She wriggles along, alligator fashion, before settling into the rhythm of her stroke.

Above them all is the recently installed portrait of Danyon Loader, Olympic medal-winning son of this proud city. There is also the black Perspex square of the clock. At its centre, the second hand sweeps a circle, like the turning sword of the angel, blocking the way back to Eden. But Moana Pools has been a paradise of sorts on any given day of the week since it opened almost half a century ago on November 14^th, 1964. There is an ethereal, metaphysical dimension too; the atmosphere steeped in something greater than any individual’s concerns, layered with several generations’ worth of Dunedinite comings and goings. It leaves an indelible reassurance with the citizens drawn to use it repeatedly, this place of community, oasis where mundane and sacred can intersect without distinction, if only you believe that you really can find heaven’s double here, like a reflection of early morning sunlight on the water, a mystery breaking in like a teenage jumper bombing from the highest board.

In spite of all the synthetic materials and the sinus provoking chlorine, the fallen flesh of young and old, the lonely, the hale and athletic, or the floundering, or the sick and disabled, will always discover the same cool embrace. The spirit of water still works tiny miracles, even in an artificial context. It whispers of healing, of an amniotic surrender that is perhaps not so terrifying after all. It promises something akin to a hypnotic amnesia, induced through the submission to muscle memory and rhythmic movement. In this pool’s communion, all find the calibration of body, breath and heart. And for some, maybe even the soul, too.

 <---- It's set in Dunedin, partly.