h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Moondancer, very nearly my favourite short story is "The Swimmer", by American writer John Cheever. It hares off on a single terrific idea: the main character, Neddy Merrill, is relaxing beside a swimming pool owned by friends when he realises something momentous. "His own house stood eight miles to the south ... it occurred to him that he could reach his home by water." He maps it out, charts his course. There are exactly 14 other swimming pools, as well as one public pool, which he can dive into and paddle home: "He seemed to see, with a cartographer's eye, that string of swimming pools, that quasi-subterranean stream that curved across the county."

You could do it in New Zealand. You could chart a stream, braided by lawns and streets, that curves across the land - you could follow a line of hot pools and thermal springs. A typically fulsome article in New Zealand Geographic maps out 107 hot springs, from Lake Omapere in the Far North, to Henry Burn in Fiordland. Go west, to Arawhata, near New Plymouth; go east, to Morere, down the road from Napier; and hoof offshore, to Great Barrier Island, Whale Island and White Island.

Is there one explorer who has navigated their way to the whole wet, steaming lot? Which wrinkled soul holds the record? Have there been new and secret discoveries where magma has boiled the jug, and sent up all that delicious heat to an obscure hole in the ground? And does New Zealand get more New Zealand than the simple-minded pleasure of dipping your ass into a hot spring?

Everyone who scoots off to a hot pool - and there can be few of us, rich or poor, mad or boring, sick or gymnastic, who have never visited these sensational puddles - returns to brag. You hear them go on about Ngawha, Tokaanu, Maruia, the Polynesian Pools in Rotorua, the feel of the night air cooling their face as they float down Mt Te Aroha after a good, long soak in a private tub. Fair enough. Good luck to them. As such, I can boast that I recently visited hot pools in both islands in the same week.

On Tuesday, I lowered myself into the Palm Springs hot pools in Parakai, near Helensville, about 30 minutes out of Auckland. This is such a brilliant place. They do a bloody good toasted sandwich. My friend could smoke in peace, (she's giving up tomorrow) and take your cold beer or your pot of tea out to the pool. There is a friendly dog and an even more friendly cat; there is peeling paint, and a sign saying someone called Captain Cash once killed his wife on the premises; an old bloke goes there every day and talks to you about his kumaras. The more excitable go across the road to a hot pool which has slides. Palm Springs is probably very good for your bunions and has a soft, quiet, exquisite kind of gentleness about it.

Three days later, I got very excitable at Hanmer Springs, in the pleasant Hurunui region north of Christchurch. You have of course heard of Hanmer Springs. It has to be the most famous hot pool in New Zealand. It's also become a swept-up and very commercial operation, with sauna and steam suites, and therapeutic massage rooms - my pampered friend spent an hour up to her pretty ears in creamy, fizzing mud, and emerged docile, shiny as a whistle, and most pleased with the lightness of her being. Meanwhile, I shot down a pitch-black waterslide and felt perhaps as close as I've ever come to death. Most definitely I felt I had made a dreadful mistake. Talk about blind panic. The thing seems endless. You travel at incredible speeds. It twists left, it twists right, it twists the straightest of minds. It threw me from side to side like a peanut trapped in a cocktail shaker; witnesses remarked on the awful clattering I made as I bounced off the walls on my horrible descent. In short, it was tremendous fun, and too right I went unsteadily back for more.

As well, there are seven open-air thermal pools, some in the shape of streams nestled among rocks, and three sulphur pools, stoked by the very fires of hell. A lot of water, a lot of people - dramatic Japanese in pink bikinis, hobbling coots, the fat and the painfully thin who clatter down waterslides. Couples canoodled in what a friend leeringly refers to as "cuddle puddles". And although there was much whooping to be heard, the atmosphere was restive, admirably content, as all that flesh dozed in all that vaporous goodness.

Cheever's story "The Swimmer" ends in tragedy. No such unhappiness when you voyage the string of hot pools curving across New Zealand. The steam and the minerals subtract any kind of soreness in your bones; all seems well with the world, as you - I love the way this sounds - take the waters.

Ladies and gentlemen - in the spirit of the best meaning of both terms of endearment - I am working on a topical yarn entitled Melbourne Cup - Big Tuesday. Your input and comments would be most appreciated. It lives at http://www.h2g2.com/A461053

There is no rush of course. The glacier-like system of getting things accepted in to the h2g2 Edited Guide, means we have 12 months to get it right.

I notice we beat you in wheelchair rugby the other day Loony

BTW a few of us over here are in the process of organising a h2g2 Australian, or at least Sydney, meeting for early next year,with plans to have a bigger one later on. Given that you guys are closer than say Kes in Perth i'm quite happy to make it Antipodean...

Tell me what you think...

Sounds marvellous Linus. The reason I put "Kiwi From Napier" in my name was to see if I could track down some NZ h2g2 users for a meeting. Not much luck so far.

You would have to give me plenty of notice to attend an Aus meeting. My dodgy lungs, emphaseama and asthma, mean I am not allowed to fly (I could die) so I would have to arrange sea transport. Not as easy as it sounds alas.

I think everyone will need a bit of notice given the cost/distance involved but i will keep you posted.

I found my first Sydneysider only about 2 weeks ago and then another one on the same day

Exciting news. NZ horses ran 1st, 3rd and 4th in the year 2000 Melbourne Cup.

I may have mentioned elsewhere how it is hard to be humble sometimes

I've got one thing to say to that Loony:


Martin Crowe

Talking about cricket. This comes from "The Pavilion" the Sydney Morning Herald's cricket site

More than just a dasher
Michael Slater has never been accused of doing things by half. Full blooded, full-bore, in full cry, that's him. But half-hearted, half- baked? No way.

I suggest the author is full of ..it

I saw that Loony, and not a mention of Martin Crowe in it anywhere...

Martin Crowe is getting more flack in NZ about his dodgy new hairpiece than anything to do with dodgy curry-munchers.

Oh, So he's innocent but certain Australians...

Linus, let's get real. Even an Indian wouldn't be stupid enough to waste money bribing a NZ cricket captain to throw a match.

"Martin, I'll give you $10,000 if you play badly against Australia."

"Gee thanks, Ravi". "Shall we make this a permanent arrangment on all Test matches."

Yeah right.

Gentlemen, wearing my h2g2 Scout hat, I have until Wednesday 22nd to select three articles from the Peer Review page. In the spirit of Oceanic togetherness - I hate the word Australasia - it mentions Australia, Asia and even the US, but not the powerhouse nation of New Zealand - if you have a gem I should look at please post its name and serial number here.

Loony, a caring sort of guy.

You mean apart from everything i have written

Linus, have you got something mouldering away in the Peer Review forums? If so, post a link to it here so I can go and have a look at it.

I've never used peer review to be honest Loony.

The only articles i seem to write at the moment are for the Post.

I wonder which New Zealander will win Bathurst this year?

Probably one of the All Slack test cricketers - they have to be good at something, maybe it's driving.

Interesting article on the front page of the SMH today by an expat kiwi about NZ. I'd be interested to hear your comments.

The article is called "Sick at heart across the Tasman"