My brother brought up the topic of New Zealand and the subject of remoteness. Back in 2018, I made an 18-day swing through NZ, and came to a number of conclusions about life in rural areas, and living remote.
Let me describe how it is in NZ.
Imagine the scene in 'Castaway' (Tom Hanks on the island)....where at the end, there's Tom at the four-way intersection and asking the lady about directions. She says in a matter-of-a-fact way.....if you take the west road....you end up here. If you take the east road, you end up there. It's probably one of the most dramatic scenes of any movie made in the past thirty years.
So, here you are in NZ, at some four-way intersection in a highly rustic area. Now draw a 70-mile circle.
If you take the road west, the only civilization is 15 miles away, right before you hit the ocean. It consists of a gas station, a local pub, a church/cemetery, and a Co-Op/gardening shop. A hundred people make up the entire population. In the past twenty years, the biggest thing that has ever occurred....some tourist whipped into the gas station with his RV on fire. Everyone in town came over to watch it burn to the ground, and later offered up an open drink situation for the poor tourist at the local bar.
If you take the road north, it winds down through valleys and curves for about 45 miles....taking you about an hour at the safe speed limit to reach civilization. This town consists of three-thousand people. It's mostly known for the one border collie that has memorized one-thousand commands, and having three ladies all born in the same year with the name 'Ruby-such-and-such'. Six bars, two gas stations, a school, and a hardware store make up the bulk of commerce.
If you take the road east? You endear 22 miles of fairly dangerous driving, 16 bridges crossing creeks that often flood, and eventually reach some town of 1,000 residents. They've got a gas station and a community center mostly known for Friday night dances. They have the only public radio station in the region, but mostly run by four older ladies who discuss love-found/love-lost, and often depressing chatter over men's manners.
If you take the road south? It's a clear straight shot of non-dangerous driving, for about 42 miles....with mostly abundant roadkill. The town at the end of this trip? Around 14,000 and the only real point of real civilization. They have a clothing shop or two, plenty of bars, and a theater with two shows nightly.
So you gaze at the intersection, and look at the three neighbors you have within 2 miles.
Gus is the hobby-welder, hobby-carpenter, hobby-roofer, hobby-plumber, hobby-electrician, and seems to be the only neighbor who has ever left NZ for any length of time...spending four years in France. His wife (Monique, a former French gal) is some far-out hippy type gal who grows 150 varieties of vegetable/fruit in her massive garden.
Martin is the next neighbor, who is mostly a cattle/sheep rancher, and has enough knowledge to be a licensed veterinarian (if he'd ever taken this serious). He repairs tractors and cars on the side. His wife, Ann, is a bit crazy and reads around seventy-five books a year....mostly Doctor Bob-and-Nurse Ingrid romance novels. She has a library in one corner of the house with over 3,000 books in the room.
Karl is the last neighbor, who averages at least one near-death accident per year, and seems to be addicted to dangerous situations. His passion is the farm-ranch, with every single post on the fence line painted green. He claims that he average 88 hours per week on his work-schedule. His wife, Mona, is the only licensed nurse within 25 miles. Mona mostly paints on her spare time....mostly rural settings where one person stands in the midst of a huge valley.
Growing up in Alabama....I had this one single image of remote and rural....but after leaving NZ....I came to realize on the remote/rural scale (1 to 10)....I barely hit '4'. The NZ folks were a solid '10'.
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