Not Being There Yet

Today was to have been the next Kiwi Experience.  Beyond Coromandel Town are the mountains, a small road twists through them offering stunning views of peaks and bush, not to mention the exciting prospect of falling off the road - like bungy jumping without ropes.  The sense of romantic mystery is intensified by the layer of fine mist covering the peaks.

Unfortunately the fine mist has thickened. A bit.  The first ridge is just visible as a hazy outline but the rest of the mountains are quite gone.  Chance of dramatic views, zero; chance of rope-free bungying much improved.  Rain begins to fall steadily. Then it gets harder, and harder, a 24 hour deluge.  The Kiwi experience they don't advertise.

A brief lull and we walk into town to buy a few things.  It may rain for forty days and nights so we buy rather a lot.  Jokingly, I ask the cashier if I can borrow the trundler (NZ for 'trolley') to carry it all.  "I don't have a problem with that", she says, "just bring it back later."  Imagine Tesco saying that.  Taking it back is more of a problem.  The rain has paused for long enough to get people onto the streets.  I push the trundler round and through bare foot boys on bikes, hikers sorting their packs on the sidewalk, chatting friends, giggling school girls, silver ponytailed bikers and an old Maaori guy singing Midnight Train to Georgia.  I feel a bit silly.

The rain starts again.  The groundsman looks worried. He's cordoning off more and more of the site with the sort of tape you see at crime scenes.  "It's the gloop", he says,  "Grass forms a mat, but when it rains the gloop gets everything."   I had a silly thought - maybe vans could be absorbed whole: glooped.  Maybe it wasn't gloop but 'The Gloop', like The Beast, The Old House, The Shining.  The Haunted Campsite - an idea for a horror story.   "What about our pitch?"  He looked, I thought, a bit nervous. "Should be OK" he said, uncertainly, and hurried off to get more tape.

Our pitch was fine, a few inches higher than the rest.  We were on a tiny plateau about three or four inches above the surroundings.  Perfect size for a van - might have been measured for it.  Maybe the Gloop had swallowed one and we were parked on top.  A silly idea.  Except for the mushrooms.

They'd appeared with the first rain. Unurprising except the colour.  Flesh pink.  Grouped like obscenely swollen fingers trying to drag themselves from the ground.  What weird, unholy eldritch horror was this?  What unspeakable chthonic force, could it be?

Then the rain stopped and the sun came out.  It was time to leave, I turned off the Kindle leaving H P Lovecraft's classic "Camping in the Mountains of Madness" unfinished.  I've always wanted an excuse to use 'eldritch' and 'chthonic'.    











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