Crop Dusting with Alistair and Louise

You don't seem to need guidebooks when you're touring the southern part of the South Island. Someone friendly will invariably give you tips, information and recommendations as you go.

So by our fifth day here, our inner New Yorkers have been beaten completely out of us by New Zealander charm. We find ourselves striking up conversations with anyone, and smiling spontaneously at everyone.

So when we stopped to sit and watch a small propeller plane buzzing the trees along the road, repeatedly taking off and landing, it wasn't even surprising to us that an older man appeared out of nowhere, sidled up to the car, leaned on it and started talking to me. Pretty soon his wife materialized on the other side of me. Alistair and Louise.

"Betcha don't see a ploin like that every day! That's a fertiloizer ploin.... they drop feriloizer down on the staypest faylds where the trucks can't goi."

And few minutes later, he said, "Brian theh, he's a groit pilot. I used to hire eem when I was fahming. 'e can stop on a sixpence!"



We then heard all about what a couple of long-time Caitliners think of Auckland ("We don't care for it t'all"), crime rates, all the "Asian immigrants" as they phrased it, and even some quite specific thoughts about South Island west coasters ("Oh, they're a quoit a bit deeferent--don't ever say anything against the west coasters, they'll jump on ya!").

We'll be sure to mind our manners--we're heading that way next.



And finally, we got a great recommendation for lunch: The Stirling Tides Cafe ("it's roight at the intersection in Fortrose on the roight. You can't miss it!").

Actually, you can easily miss it if you didn't have help like this. There's no sign (unless you count the "Open" sign as a sign, which we don't), but they served Laura the best bowl of seafood chowder she's ever had.

The Stirling Tides Cafe
Fortrose, New Zealand
Phone: 03 246 9888