Ohakune

Is a place.

To be fair Ohakune

is a place I have spent some time

albeit when I was under 10.

My memories of Ohakune are

visiting my Pop at his house

where he lived with my Nana.

They moved there because Nana's sister

Aunty Nola lived there with her family

and they owned the service station/garage

My Pop had worked for the railways

so they had never really settled anywhere.

Ohakune was as good as anywhere.

I remember pasting PVA glue on my hands with my cousins,

waiting for it to dry and pealing it off.

We had stolen my uncle's model glue to do it.

My cousins where older and bad influences.

 I remember being dragged up the mountain to Whakapapa

when it was just a snowy field

that much older 2nd and 3rd cousins

worked at grooming the field ready for skiing.

Back then you drove as far as you could then walked.

I hated that cold, cold walk.

I spent that time imagining myself as a Russian princess

escaping across the steeps,

through blizzards and hip deep snow

and not in a Doctor Zhivago way.

There was hip deep snow but

I wasn't very tall at the time

or now.

Anyway enough about parental neglect.

On Sunday Shauny and I went to Ohakune for lunch.

I had to drag him out of the house

so he took his revenge by taking the back road home.

Funtimes in the ute with Shaun.

He did try to scare me on the gravel road

but I was talking at the time

and kept doing so

and he didn't notice that I was less than impressed.

I did wonder that if we came off the road in a grizzly crash

who would find us.

And came up with no-one.

On the way we stopped at Shaun's dad's place

in a valley where most of the family still live.

And of course I can't remember the name of.

We had a pleasant chat about neighbours, logging gang things,

broken machinery, forestry, theft, renegade sheep, theft,

probably rugby because THE RUGBY WORLD CUP final was that night.

Then we headed home,

with a stop for final game supplies.

By the time we got home,

there was enough time to cook and eat dinner

(parmesan crusted chicken breasts)

and then it was all on.

I had forgotten how tormenting final games were.

The All Blacks against France.

Scrappy, fraught game but a win none the less.

All Blacks 8-7.

Phew!

I don't think Shaun would have liked me crying on his couch had we lost.

Happiness and peace descended upon New Zealand

as the audience in Eden Park erupted into flames

with excitement.