Rest Day Part I: It’s Nothing, Mate

Well, I got my rest day. One and a half, really. Plus I got to hitchhike! When’s the last time you got to do that?

I flew too close to the sun. Too many days in a row setting new personal records for distance. Two days ago, 69 kilometers. Yesterday, 72. Today, I awoke to grumbles of complaint from my left hip. (Uh oh. That’s the good one.) But I figure maybe it’s just because I slept funny. All my camping buddies will rejoice at this: my bedroll has developed a leak. They all this thing. It sounds like I’m sleeping in a giant pile of empty Doritos bags. Anyway, my patch kit has been unequal to the task of fixing the pinhole puncture in it, so once or twice a night I wake up sleeping on the ground and have to re-inflate it. Maybe that’s what set off my hip, right? Maybe a little biking will warm it up and calm it down.

Fifteen kilometers in, the hip seems mollified but my right knee says no more hills. No problem. As slow as I am biking uphill, hike-a-bike isn’t much less efficient. Just more time to spend with the cows, who, no matter how I’m making my way up all these hills, give me the same doubtful looks about which one of us is the intelligent species.

Twenty kilometers in, the right knee says yeah, no walking either. Both hips chime in shouting “hear hear.” The next two days were supposed to be restful, forty K’s or so, but it’s clear I’m going no further.

Enter the care culture of the kiwis. A quick google search shows me a nearby Airbnb. They even have a hot tub, which is what I need most in this world. I call, she wonders how I got this number because they close the business years ago. But then she says, “My husband uses that room as an office now. I’ll ask him if he can move. May I call you back in five minutes?”

Of course she’ll ask, because New Zealand. And of course he’ll say yes, because New Zealand. But just in case—and to not inconvenience them—I keep sticking my thumb out.

Not two minutes later, a big dude in a giant pickup truck towing an even gianter trailer sees me and Booster sitting on the side of the road. “What happened, mate?” I give him the short version. “Where you headed?” Anywhere I can find a hot bath, I tell him. “Oh, you want Parakai, mate. Nowhere better.”

He’s right. Parakai is hot spring heaven. Two resorts, and one hotel boasts a mineral bath in every room. The town even sits right on the TA. It’s another thirty kilometers, and this dude just came from there. But as it turns out, he’s just unloaded a bunch of topsoil, so his big-ass trailer is conveniently empty, and after a busy morning landscaping he’s knocking off work early. “Throw your bike in the back, mate.” I said let me buy you lunch. “Nah, mate. It’s nothing.” Your gas, then. “Nah, mate. It’s a company truck.” A beer, then. Something cold to drink. “Nah, mate. It’s nothing.” So is buying you lunch. “Nah, mate. No worries.”

He says this is just what kiwis do because they want visitors to know they’ll always be welcome here. Exactly the opposite, I fear, of modern American culture. But so many things are polar opposites here. In another post I’ll have to say something more about this, but one of the great unseen tragedies of covid is that a years’ worth of American study abroad students were suddenly called home without ever getting to really absorb what it’s like to live without fear all the time, and the following year all those opportunities were closed to our students again.

I don’t think most Americans think of themselves as living in fear every day, but that’s because it’s background radiation to us. We don’t think of the increasingly obsequious and apologetic scripts for customer service representatives as symptoms of fear culture, but they are. Ditto the “drink responsibly” in small print on the beer can, the “remove child before folding” label on the collapsible stroller, the word FREEDOM on T-shirts and ball caps and bumper stickers. Kiwis and Australians have more freedoms than Americans have, but none of the T-shirts. Why? They’re not afraid. The conspiracy theories so many of us buy into haven’t taken hold here.

I wish more Americans could spend a few months in a place like this, where the only injuries a foreign bicyclist has to worry about are the self-inflicted variety. 95% of drivers give me a wide berth. Those who come close, other kiwis find obnoxious. No one texts and drives here. No one. Believe me, I’m on the lookout for it. But of course that’s my fear culture talking. Meanwhile, their care culture says hey, we’re not going to expose each other to that kind of avoidable harm.

And look, I know not everyone gets the kind of treatment I’ve enjoyed. I’m no expert on kiwi culture, but I’ve learned enough to know if I were a big Māori dude, there are plenty of pakeha drivers who would keep on driving. The more tattoos, the more drivers speed up. If I were a single woman, add a whole different set of problems. I get that. But those problems exist in a fear culture too, and fear makes them worse.

The end of the story is the Airbnb host texts me back and asks if I can get there on my own or I’d like her to pick me up. I tell here I managed to catch a ride south, she says no worries, I hope your knee comes right soon. Then the landscaper drops me and Booster in hot spring heaven and just will not accept a few bucks for lunch or even a cold drink. He told me if I really want to pay him back, tell my friends this story. So here’s me, paying him back.