Ok, I promise that once we make the US, we'll give you the skinny on the rest of our Aussie adventures (and subsequent escape). But yesterday provided us with a momentous event that touched our hearts and nearly killed my wife, so I thought it only fair to share.
The scene for this story is the rather damp country known as New Zealand. I don't think we've had a dry day since we arrived, but it's not that bad - I'm British, and this is typical weather, rather than that terrible 'sunshine' the Aussies seem so proud of (oh how they laugh through their melanoma-covered faces).
We spent part of the morning in the Waitomo Caves, a rather short but enjoyable walk through a cave system, surrounded by 600 tourists (the bastards). My wife complained that the cave floor had been paved to prevent people falling over (didn't help - some granny at the back still went A over T) - she prefers the adventure of a South African cave, where the floor is covered with dirt and snakes and death, and there are no safety barriers preventing you from wandering into 60m deep holes. It was a bit too busy, as the caves had been partly flooded which meant that the end section, a boat tour through the glow-worm caves, had to double back and dump all its patrons where they started, which resulted in a massive bottleneck, which is fine if you're a dwarf (Japanese/Chinese/old) but not if you're over 6ft tall and walking doubled over through the gaps the dwarves have left on the path. Sigh.
Nevertheless, the glow-worm tour is great, and ends up with 20 of you heading silently into a cave onboard a boat, with no lights at all, and just staring up at the roof of the cave which looks like a starlit sky. It's beautiful, and a really magical event, requiring revered silence so as not to disturb the sheer beauty of nature itself.Except for that idiot from the Netherlands and his bloody wife, who simply will not shut up. They finally collapse after about 5 minutes, once they've managed to use every single word in their vocabulary (I swear I saw one of the little bastards reaching for a dictionary to prolong my misery).
After the exhausting trek back beyond the Hobbity hordes, we make our way to something I mentioned in passing to Cat, and she became fixated on - The Shearing Shed. You can't really come to New Zealand without seeing someone shear a sheep. But we're not normal, and so we come to the only rabbit shearing shed in New Zealand (and I pray, the world). It's a tiny little tourist trap, but a deadly one. We wander into the rabbit holding area, where the poor little blighters are caged, awaiting their fate. They seem happy enough. A couple want to say hello (the signs make it clear that they can't be trusted with fingers), the rest are ignoring us. They all have one thing in common - they are unquestionably the most stupid looking animals in the world. Totally idiotic - if you could picture them (we will put pictures up), they look like a rabbit shagged a feather duster.
Once we enter the shop, we are approached by a mad old duck who's been there for about 20 years, providing the talks on the rabbits and the shearing process. Apparently they have to be shorn regularly, otherwise they overheat and die. This is not natural - they have been bred to get fluffy by the Germans (they're German Angora Rabbits), possibly the least natural collection of words ever put together in a sentence.
We are then given a 20 minute tour of the goods made out of rabbit fluff (hats, gloves, coats, cravats, jerseys) and Cat also gets a personal tour of the handpuppet possums, made from real possum fur (they really hate possums over here). This genius divide and conquer sales technique doesn't work that well because (a) we're penniless and (b) there's only so much time my brain will allot to listening to weaving and dyeing techniques before I simply shut down, start dribbling and fall to the floor. Cat reboots me shortly after and we get our pictures taken with Milly, one of the many miserable looking furballs from next door. Tacky does not even begin to describe this experience.
Then the end of the world starts. Two other hapless travellers join us for the 12.45 shearing (we've been there for about an hour by this point, truly it is a Twilight Zone of furry horror), which begins in front of a table last seen by the Spanish Inquisition (ironically name-checked by the mad little granny during her talk). Granny 2 arrives from the back room with today's victim. They don't name him/her, perhaps to spare our feelings. The rabbit is laid out in a groove on the table, then his/her rear paws are tied to the back of the table, and his/her front paws are then tied to the front, stretching Mr/Mrs Rabbit prone across the table. Mr (let's just go with Mr for now) Rabbit is not in the happiest of positions, though to be fair to him he only struggles once with one of his front paws, but he knows resistance is futile, and the battle is soon over.
Vanquished, Mr Bunny does not realise the position he is in. Granny 2's contraption is fiendish, and as she spins the wheel at the back of the table, Mr Bunny rotates 180 degrees onto his back. Mr Bunny did not realise he was being tied to a spit. "Look how he relaxes almost immediately," says Granny 1, oblivious to the fact that Mr Bunny appears to be the least relaxed entity in the universe, suspended above a table and stretched out for all the world to observe, then spun in circles for ease of access. "You couldn't do this with a pet Angora, they'd die of shock." No shit, you dwarven freak. What the hell are you doing to that rabbit?
The rabbit is then put at a 90 degree angle to the table and the defurring commences with an electric shearer. As Granny 2 mows Mr Bunny, Granny 1 goes through her warped speech about the separation of male and female bunnies, the males being kept in a 'bunny monastery' and taught to make wine. This is supposed to be amusing. All it succeeds in doing is scaring the hell out of me. Cat just looks astonished, and the other 2 tourists appear to be eyeing the door nervously. It takes a strong man to watch this scene - Mr Bunny now resembles Christopher Reeve in Superman as he is swung from side to side, stuck in Superbunny mode with legs fore and aft.
We are then invited upto the table to stroke the bunny, who is now about 60% shorn. A tour bus has just arrived, so Mr Bunny's misery is extended so the next victims/tourists can be ferried in, but we have to get out of the way first, so we are hurried around the table. The other two tourists (American lads) are then forced to do the same degrading bunny picture that Cat and I did earlier (say cheese, no screaming) before we leave.
It is only outside, in the cold light (rain) of day that we realise this is the single greatest tourist event in history. This place is great - nowhere on earth can you see this done to rabbits on a daily basis, and it slowly dawns on me that the quivering wreck next to me (aka Cat) is not crying but laughing uncontrollably. It takes about 5 minutes for her to calm down from this laughing fit, the tears streaming down her cheeks. If we see nothing else in New Zealand, the entire trip will have been worth it for this - my wife slowly dying of laughter in the front seat of our dodgy campervan. Bless you Shearing Shed, but more importantly, bless all the bunnies that give their dignity to amuse the tourists of the world.
