Musings of an Idiot

We met up with the person from Thames-Coromandel Council in Thames, which is a buzzing little town and he was really helpful. We headed off to Coromandel and started doing the location hunt based on the location list we had and the first day was really really successful as we found a dairy, a pharmacy shop, a cafe, a car workshop, a tow truck, a gas station, several other smaller locations. We also knocked on a few houses and asked them if we could film in their house and were absolutely surprised when people would let us into their houses and let us take photos. Full credit to Richard who did all the hard talking. The trust and the warmth that we got in Coromandel was humbling and uplifting.

We got to taste some gobsmakingly great tasting vegetable pies from Coro Pies. Everyone kept pointing us to Coro Pies and when we went to the shop - Richard couldn't find the pie he wanted, so Rob - the owner of Coro Pies let us taste their special vegetable pie, which they had invented recently, for free and asked us for feedback. I have never ever tasted such tasty vegetarian pie ever and I would highly recommend that you drop them a visit if you are in Coromandel. It is on Wharf road - tucked away besides Coromandel Automotive Repairs.

We went back to our cabin at the holiday park and sat down for some solid script analysis for a good four hours. Inbetween we witnessed an amazing sunset - the photograph below doesn't do it any justice but it was magical and spellbinding.

After a really busy and productive first day - both Richard and me crashed into bed by 8.30 in the evening. We started the day early on Saturday in our effort to try and find more locations and scenic spots we could use for the movie. We decided that we would go upto Colville because a fair few people mentioned about a cafe and a store run by hippies. The drive up was pleasent and found Colville to be a sleepy town.

We stopped at the Cafe and had our breakfast. During that time we got a call from Tom Look - the editor of Coromandel Town Chronicle - the local newspaper, since Richard had rung him the day before without luck. It so happened that Tom lived in Colsville and he drove down with Jennifer Greene and we had a long chat over breakfast about possibilities of covering the movie and giving us some much needed publicity in Coromandel. He invited us back to his home-office, which is set in an amazing location. It ultilizes solar energy and Tom has also set himself a dish for internet connection, which he then also distributes across to the town. It was amazing seeing people live off the land in a way - they are more prepared for an energy crisis than any of us living in the cities and towns.

After the briefstop over at Tom's house we procceded to come back to Coromandel to search for more houses but took the 'loop' on insistence from Jennifer that it would take the same amount of time. The loop is supposed to be the circular route to Coromandel by going through Cape Kennedy - man what a trip it turned out to be. The first thing we did was give a lift to a hitchhiker: Kate - a 18-19 year old american girl who had been hitchhiking across NZ for the past 6 months. She was going towards Sandy beach and we dropped her off after a short ride as our ride went in a different direction after a particular point. Our trip back to Coromandel took almost triple the time from Colsville through the loop and to compound our misery the road wasn't solid - it was gravelled all the way. So by the time we got to Coromandel we were pretty drained out from the travel.

We knocked on a few more houses to get permission for filming, ate a few more smoked fish, completed the script analysis and we were pretty exhausted by the evening - all we could think of was hitting the bed. We woke up today morning to the most horrendous weather that one can imagine and we took our trip back to Auckland after grabbing some breakfast and buying some more orange roughies and garlic marinated smoked mussels to have for dinner in Auckland. The weather is the same here in Auckland as I write this update but I am thrilled about the progress that we made on the movie over the past 3 days.

I think I will stop typing now and wash my clothes - otherwise will have nothing to wear this week -which wouldn't be a good sight. I will upload the location reccee photos over the next couple of days.

For now,
Amit