The Black Page
Making an ash of it
by Joanne Black
Without savings, my dream holiday destination will be out of reach.
Lonely Planet’s description of Golden Bay as the hippie epicentre of New Zealand (Inbox, January 20) is probably accurate. Although, having just returned from two weeks there, I am not sure whether Golden Bay lures hippies or attracts regular nine-to-fivers who gradually turn into hippies. There is something about the place that says “chill” – though not in the way that Wellington does. When Golden Bay says “chill”, it means stroll along the beach after dinner, pour a gin and tonic when you get back and go to bed not knowing the time. When Wellington says chill, it means that no clothes have yet been invented that can keep the wind from reducing your core body temperature.
I have returned home from my holiday with a suntan, a large ceramic seagull and a bagful of real estate brochures that I continue to pore over, even though I know them off by heart, misplaced apostrophes and all.
Whenever I go on holiday I hanker after the local real estate, perhaps in an attempt to secure that relaxed, sunny-seaside feeling forever. At other times of the year I can recite ministerial press releases and President Bush’s latest pronouncements on Iraq, but all that seems to have disappeared and instead I feel as if I know every cute two-bedroom bach and piece of bare land on the market in Golden Bay. And there is a lot of it for sale. Driving back to Picton via Queen Charlotte Drive, I noticed many properties for sale there, too. Is it a sign that the coastal property boom is over? Or is it simply that anyone wanting to sell does so at this time of year because the property’s at its most alluring? It certainly tempted me but, since my favourite was The Headland at Patons Rock, with its 8.1ha almost encircled by sea – on the market for about $3 million – my dream holiday destination will remain just that, a dream.
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One of the signs of a good holiday was that I even managed to get into some books. One, Robert Harris’s Pompeii, had me looking suspiciously at every cone-shaped hill in case it was a dormant volcano ready to burst into life and bury us under two metres of pumice and ash. Then I read Gareth Morgan’s Pension Panic (required reading for work, I hasten to add) and realised that a penniless retirement – my having made almost no allowance for superannuation – is far likelier than a volcanic eruption. I now understand that to get investment properties, bonds, shares and interest you need to have saved money first. Damn. Holidays often prompt a re-evaluation of your life and so it is that I probably need to give up the dream of a little holding in Golden Bay and instead, when retirement approaches, rent as high up as possible on the slopes of Mt Ruapehu and let nature take care of my twilight years.
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Just as we were settling down for the last night in our rented bach, the next tenants arrived in their laden stationwagon. Naturally, we had togs and towels strewn all over the deck, and sand, felt pens and children’s games all over the floor.
I had messed up the dates. Numbers are my weak point, not only when they have dollar signs in front of them but also when they are days of the month. But the new tenants could not have been nicer. So, while we went on a typhoon-like cleaning-and-packing mission, they generously went off to spend a night with family who were also staying in the bay. Somehow it is never as much of a chore to clean someone else’s place as it is your own. Friends house-sat for us and we arrived back to such an immaculate home that we are hoping we can make this a weekly event. Surely there is potential here for a successful website: families willing to swap homes in return for a mutual cleaning binge. You heard it here first. Hmm, something about the word “cleaning” does not make this idea sound like a money-spinner. In the meantime, I’ll keep planning for the eruption.
