I’ll bet you ten bucks you’ve never read a travel book like this before. A travel book written by a caravan? A lone van out in the wild? I wasn’t always an inanimate object. I know a thing or two about travelling. I have been hitched to the back of many a vehicle and pulled all the way from the Pacific Isles of Northland, down to the bleak township of Invercargill in the south. But no longer. We all have to retire someplace and here I am, a simple wagon perched on a small scenic hill far from the nearest town, in a place sometimes romantically and a little cryptically referred to as the ‘wop wops’.
Hang on, have I misled you already? I am not just a caravan. Let me offer you my dimensions. I am two caravans, one smaller, one larger, connected by a short umbilical corridor. As you can imagine I am not as mobile as I once was. My wheels have long since been removed and replaced with short stumps of tree trunk. I’ll admit, at first it was embarrassing. Whoever heard of a caravan without wheels? But I learned to live with the ignominy. What choice did I have? At least I don’t have to worry about getting a puncture and falling over.
Above me stands a slanted corrugated metal roof that valiantly attempts to protect me from the elements. It’s not a thing of beauty it must be said, but it keeps me dry. The rain bounces off it with a rat-a-tat-tat like the trigger happy gunfire in a Rambo movie. My roof is held in place by several wooden beams that plunge vertically and diagonally all around me. You might say they embrace me and hold me together.
Of my two caravans, the smaller one contains a simple kitchen, furnished with a pantry of spices and a temperamental fridge. There’s no oven. Instead there’s a camping stove with two electric hobs, and a microwave that might pre-date the Apollo missions. A small laminated formica table has seen better days, and is beginning to peel around the edges. Outside, sat on my tow cable sits a loud, clumsy washing machine that shakes and clatters whenever it’s used. Trust me, it’s an earthquake trapped in a white metal box.
My second van is a larger model, with panoramic windows from the bedroom through to the library. Whoever is staying with me can hardly complain about the view. There is an epic vista of forested hills and the grass is startlingly green. At night, the light of the Milky Way pours through my windows, our spiral galaxy as effective as a thousand 100 watt bulbs.
A small iron stove stands next to the double bed. Slapped on the chimney is a yellow post-it note that reads: ‘Do not use!’ The rusting chimney was blocked some time ago, and has not since been fixed. The useless stove is a constant reminder to any tenant that when winter approaches, my central heating is not so much inadequate as non-existent.
I did mention a library, but I’m no stately home, so don’t get any far fetched ideas. There’s little room to spare, but an entire wall is chocka with shelves and these shelves are stuffed with books. The contents make for an eclectic literary time capsule. A weathered volume of Brecht and Chomsky paperbacks stand beside the well-thumbed poems of Hafiz. The great Sufi master sits next to the collected works of Shakespeare. I absorb information when I can, reading over the shoulder of whoever is staying with me at the time. The radio is a pleasant distraction, but I have no such luxuries as a television, hot running water, internet or even a bathroom.
I do have a bath though. A bath in a caravan? Well, sort of. Let me explain. On the edge of a nearby stream, or ditch rather, stands a typical household ceramic white tub that’s currently half full of dead leaves and green stains. If you’re so inclined you can fill the bath from a hot water hose, or with a bucket of ominously green and cold stream water. The stream mostly consists of slimy algae, which isn’t an appealing prospect I must say. I wouldn’t be too impressed if someone tried to wash me with frog flavoured ditchwater...
Those of you paying attention may have noticed that I didn’t mention a toilet. Well, I don’t have one. But my tenant doesn’t have to make like a bear and bury his business in the woods each day. Instead, there’s a small building with a gas powered shower and hot water about five minutes walk away. Each call of nature requires a head long scramble down an almost vertical slope, only to meet the pine forest and trudge through the thick, pine needle strewn undergrowth. You have to traverse the hill like a, what do you call them, oh I remember, a slalom skier, a few steps left and a few steps right, cautiously sliding your way down. And yes, I have seen more than a few visitors slip and fall face first into a tree.
You have the measure of me, but I ought to introduce you to my latest resident. Jon is a young bloke, still in his twenties and standing a frustrating half inch below six feet tall. I’ll tell you now for nothing that he’s bound to bump his head on my door frame a few times, before he remembers to duck. He seems to have temporarily replaced Anne, who lived with me these past few years and then mysteriously packed her bags and left last week. We’d been together long enough that she’d learned to adapt and adjust to living here in the wild woods, but Jon looks more than a little lost. He’s got a lot to learn, to really understand what it takes to live in the wop-wops.
This story isn’t just the tale of a lonely van, but of this young man’s life here. I don’t try to imagine what is going through his head. I am not a psychic caravan. I leave that to the Romany caravans and their shiny crystal balls. Jon keeps a journal and every night he scribbles away in his erratic scrawl. I am not ashamed to admit that I intrude on his privacy and read over his shoulder from time to time. After all, there’s no telly so what else is a van to do for entertainment? I don’t think he’d mind if I shared the occasional diary entry with you. After all, this is his story too.
Saturday 1 March
What had I done? What is this place? I’m not sure if my jaw dropped, but my stomach certainly lurched sideways as I faced these strange surroundings. I actually felt nauseous. The truth of what I’d done finally dawned on me. When I’d planned to come here it seemed like an adventure, moving to this peculiar and distant caravan in the hills of New Zealand. I’d seen photos on email from the comfort of my own home in London, but nothing could quite prepare me for how rustic it was. No, not rustic, but primitive. Like a pioneer’s wood cabin, far removed from society, a place of almost absolute solitude. How on earth they’d ever managed to move the vans up this hill was a complete mystery. Looking around, I realised that I’m surrounded by forests, and not even the slightest sign of human life. I had no idea where the middle of nowhere was, but it looks like I’d not only found it, but I’d made it my home.
Getting to my new home was no simple task. On first arriving, I’d been collected from the nearest town, Paraparaumu, by my neighbour Jean. She collected me in a beaten up white Mazda and we quickly left town, crossing the train tracks and heading for the hills. The Maungakotukutuku road is a zig zag route with hairpin bends that cling to the side of the vertigo inducing valley. To our left a steep hill rose above us. To our right, a sheer vertical drop revealed itself with the road plunging into the distant forests below. Climbing up the valley, the road reached level ground and the tarmac soon turned into gravel. The Mazda bounced along the dusty unsealed track, giving off clouds of dust as it flew across the uneven slippery surface. My first feeling was absolute shock, followed by a dash of wonder and a great deal of near terror. Where on earth were we going? I’m clumsy by nature and I was none too confident about driving to my new home every day without calamity.
What bright idea had brought me here exactly? Well, I’d exchanged my one bed flat in suburban west London for a caravan in the New Zealand bush. I’d also swapped working for the government with working as a librarian in the small town of Paraparaumu. Living in a van might sound a bit desperate, but I’d decidedly rejected a comfortable life in favour of my solitary home in the woods. Other exchange offers had included a woman who had contacted me from Hamilton, further north towards Auckland. She’d offered me the use of her comfortable suburban four bedroom house, and was even willing to throw in her husband as part of the package. She figured that her other half could keep me company while she’s away, which struck me as odd to say the least. Unsurprisingly, a spell in surburbia complete with a househusband was not the slightest bit appealing. Other opportunities came in from the Australian outback, Canadian British Colombia - where the nearest neighbour appeared to be a bear, and a sunny spot near Bondi Beach in Sydney. I turned them all down in favour of living in the bush. Madness? Perhaps. But as soon as the photos of the rag tag lone caravan appeared in my inbox, I was hooked.
Reflecting on my primitive new home, I tried to remind myself why I was doing this. My intention at first had been simple enough. Escape. Working as a civil servant in London, I recall the feeling of restlessness in my job. I’d started to feel like a cog in the machine, staring into a PC screen all day long, tired of reminding myself that this was better than working in an asbestos factory or gutting fish for a living.
One month before I left London and chaos was all around. It was February 2003. London was preparing for a terrorist attack and the impending war with Iraq had left everyone nervous. The newspapers were filled with threats of poison gas being pumped into the London Underground or even a rocket attack over Heathrow. There was a palpable tension in the air. Only two weeks before my departure, I had returned home from work, shoes caked in snow, after another painfully slow journey battling through London’s paralysed tube, train and road network. Kicking my shoes off, I’d put on the kettle, sat down, switched on the television and watched a documentary simulating a radioactive dirty bomb at Trafalgar Square, promptly devastating central London, not a hundred yards from my office. Perhaps moving twelve thousand miles to a remote caravan in the woods wasn’t such a bad idea after all?
But if I’m honest, there was always more to this than escape. After all, I hadn’t met many people who’d willingly swap the comforts of their own home for what was essentially a hut in the woods. I’d always felt a connection to wild places, and as a child I had whiled away many a carefree hour swinging across rivers on rope swings. I have fond memories of my father building a shelter in the woods, using nothing but branches and vines. It was great fun enacting the Arthur Ransome and Enid Blyton stories that my mother had read to me, and far more exciting than the troubles of school. But playing in a forest for an hour or two before returning to my home comforts and loving family was quite a contrast to moving to a forest, some twelve thousand miles away.
End of diary entry