Funny story. I once camped on Garth McVicar’s land after a friendly chat with him.
I’d just cycled through Te Urewera, in snow, and was feeling pretty damn intrepid. I’d then cycled to Taupo via some beautiful backroads, and was making my way down to Napier to head home. About two thirds of the way to Napier I was hunting for somewhere to sleep and biked down a gravel road which promised a campground at the end. An hour later, no campsite, I was standing at the edge of the road, looking down at a beautiful river framed by stony ravine, eating handfuls of chocolate raisins. A bloke on a tractor drove up.
Giddays exchanged, I asked him if it would be alright to just camp by the river. Of course he said, and pointed me upriver a bit, to a better spot.
A day later, I caught the bus back to Wellington, driven by the same man who I’d taken me up ten days earlier. He had swapped his shift because he wanted to hear if I’d actually done the trip I’d planned, so we spent several hours talking about land and weather, places he’d fished and I’d cycled through.
I told him the story of the friendly tractor driver, and where it was.
“Oh, that will have been Garth McVicar. That’s his land, down that road.”
When I got home I did a google image search. Turned out my friendly tractor driver was Mr Hang ‘Em himself. I felt like I’d got away with something, a radical bisexual lefty anti-racist feminist. I was pretty sure I wasn’t Mr McVicar’s idea of a pleasant social companion.
And just today, turns out how right I was, because if I get married to a woman lover, Mr McVicar is worried it will lead to crime.
Garth, Garth, Garth. Such a shame I didn’t realise in time. We could have had such a chat by my portable gas cooker about what really causes domestic violence and child abuse. I am kinda surprised you didn’t immediately recognise my crime-causing potential. Maybe the dust and grime acted like heterosexual camouflage.
LudditeJourno 