This is Raw: Director Shane Meadows' This Is England. 
so the "simple" job i was supposed to do for ms. rhownyn has lost the plot (that's kiwi slang for gone wrong). i not only haven't managed to get rid of these maori flax artifacts, but now i'm being hunted by a maori deity calling itself whiro who seems to have its heart set on getting the baskets for itself... ms. rhownyn warned me this would be a bad thing. so i've tried my best to lose it not once, not twice, but thrice so far on my new zealand wide trip (i haven't even made it north of dunedin yet though!).
i don't handle paranormal things at the best of times, but of course ancient maori deities rank up there with dragons and ghosts as among the worst one can run into!
(Production Note: Picture from Traditional Maori Legends by Warren Pohatu)
first thing i couldn't help but confirm was that i was definately dealing with something maori!!! one look at the art in the book, and there was no doubt...
having had a close encounter with a living, moving, and well not sure if it was breathing though(?) version of one of these the artist sure nailed what these deities look like...
at first the book didn't have much on whiro or the kete o te wananga... till i suddenly found the entry on the ketes. suddenly the connection between the two came sharply into focus...
In the beginning times Tane the god of the forest looked upon the newly created world, and its population of humans and saw it fit to seek the te Wananga or ultimate knowledge to gift upon humanity. In order to do this Tane would have to ascend the outer plains of reality to gather these knowledges.
He was not alone in seeking the te Wananga however. many darker powers and deities sought them as well. Among these one of Tane's many brothers, the god of evil and darkness, (you guessed it)... Whiro.
Tane embarked on a perilious journey through many of the outer realms in his quest to acquire the ultimate knowledge, and had many side adventures. Finally he discovered the highest of the dimensions where the te Wananga were native. He found there to be three distinct types of knowledge, and possessing no other means to transport their essences back to the corporial realm Tane placed them in three flax baskets or kete (oh man... starting to sound familiar?).
By placing the pure essence of these Wananga in the baskets they were transformed into the ultimate vessels of these forms of knowledge... The kete aronui was of matters that were beneficial to humanity and the whole of creation. The kete tuauri was knowledge of benign magics and the occult. Finally the kete tuateu was knowledge of harmful "black magic" or makutu.
It was when Tane had finally found and secured the kete te wananga that Whiro struck. As Tane made his return to our reality Whiro ambushed him. An army of Whiro's servants; bats, lizards, mosquitos, and sand flies attacked Tane and attempted to overwhelm him and steal the baskets. The battle was furious, and Tane nearly fell before the massive force, had it not been for the knowledge he'd gained from the baskets.
As a finale to this victory Tane used magic from the baskets to send a final mighty attack against his brother. Whiro was hurtled not just into the Earth but right through and into its depths to the underworld or rarohenga. Whiro's minions were hit by shockwave of this blast, and were scattered about the world of man. Despite being banished from the corporial world Whiro was not entirely cut off from it. He still sends his blight of diease, famine, and suffering from his new prison in the underworld.
okay whiro accused me of being a champion of tane's... that is beginning to make sense now. the three baskets are making sense too. finally ms. rhonwyn warning of "The FATE of New Zealand's spiritual and mystic fabric rests in your hands" is really starting to make sense now!
i also now know whiro's servants here in the real world. i even read back at the southland museum how the tuatara was the messenger of whiro, but i didn't make the connection of what that actually meant till right now. that explains how whiro was able to figure out i went south from dunedin... "he" found out from the tuataras i saw in invercargill. the sand flies statues at milford i wonder if they somehow talk to him... have i mentioned lately how much i HATE magic?!?!?
when i pulled up into queenstown on the shores of lake wakatipu it was a nice little breather from all the heavy mythic issues of the past couple days...
the lake and the surrounding mountains were really pretty. the whole area reminded me of the okanagan valley. though nice i wouldn't quite call these mountains actual mountains. their more like BIG hills compared to say the rockies of canada.
there were an awful lot of boats in the lake around town. maybe i'd like this place i thought. i do like boats a lot...
sadly it wasn't quite as nice a town as i'd hoped...
it was very touristy trappy. it was so bad at trying to get outsiders money it took me 30 minutes just to find a non million dollar parking spot! everything and everywhere in town cost, and the prices were high... even for new zealand!
as queenstown wasn't on ms. rhonwyn's list of specified stops i decided this would be a momentary pit stop to take a break, and more importantly swap cars.
remarkably Ridger's suggestion of pretending nothing was wrong with the car worked! (i actually had rented, or sorry "hired" in kiwinese, a SUV but whiro tried to possess it, and so i stole his car... look i know it sounds crazy, but just click the link and you'll see!). so now i have a nice spiffy new car which has no magic residue or signture or whatever whiro has been using to follow me...
despite my relative not liking of queesntown on my way back to my new car i did find two coolish things. showing that had i been allowed to wander the place FREEly there was probably much to see.
first was a statue of william gilbert rees, the first settler to set up a farm in the area (notice the sheep beside him in the statue... ah kiwi's and their sheep LOL). he also was a real stand up guy feeding the first ill supplied gold miners when the gold rush of new zealand began in the area. click on his name to get the full story and a close up of the plague of the statue.
my other find was a WW1 monument. the monument itself is like many throughout the south island, but the slogan on this one reminded me of my current responsiblity and duty
"service above self".
indeed this museum quest was definately now asking me to put a bit on the line now that the maori god of darkness was on my tail... and who knows how many other maori mythic beings?
with that in mind i hit the road again.
as i reached the end of lake wakatipu the sun came out from behind the clouds and reveiled the best part of queenstown. the amazing blueness of the lake... see people of the innerweb i told you it was an amazing blue!!!
it was nice to have had a little breather like this one. not every stop on the trip had of course been so uneventful, and neither were many of those to come...
to be contuined...
right so the situation brief. after foolishly answering a phone call from my special talent agent peter bond, i'd quite possibly given away my location to the maori deity whiro. as you'll remember its been chasing me to try and get the 3 ancient (at least i think their ancient... old in any case) flax baskets my boss ms. rhownyn has entrusted me to escort around new zealand... the purpose of this heading around new zealand is beyond me at moment other than to make them "disappear".
to be honest it's not ms. rhownyn's fault i haven't got a clue what whiro is or the baskets are or were. rather my own. not taking this mission seriously till recently i didn't bother to look these things up. next thing on the agenda once i've made sure i'm in the clear again is to get on that info tracking pronto!
sadly central otago is very similar to the fiordland. once your in it, its kinda hard to get out of. the roads here are very long and isolated with few places to turn off and lose pursuers. my only hope was to make it to queenstown where highways and junctions were plentiful...
an hour after peter's call though my hopes of making it to a road junctions died. in my rear view mirror a eerie and alien yet all together too familiar green glow was catching up to me...
even if i was to go max speed in this SUV (again not a type of transport i'm proud to be using, but what choice do i have now?) i was no match for speedier car whiro.
despite this, i tried foolishly for a few minutes to try and keep ahead of it. quickly it became apparent it didn't care. it knew that while i was driving it couldn't get me. sooner or later i was going to have to stop (if even just to sleep, not to mention things i like to do like eat, stretch, and uh go to the little dinosaur room... okay i don't like going to the dinosaur room, but it feels good after you've been there...), and when i came to a halt that was when it was going to get me...
cheeky little deity!
realizing this strategy of its after the few minutes of playing the game i had an idea...
i pulled over to the side of the highway. i was even nice and indicated my attention with the signal light, and cruised to a stop gently on a designated pull off...
whiro seemed weary of this move on my part, and slowed down well before it closed in on me.
which wasn't good. it scratched my idea completely...
than suddenly something i hadn't anticipated happened... whiro peeled himself off his car (well i actually think it was someones car he'd stolen in either dunedin or milford sound).
as the scary supernatural being cleared the safety of his metal host body a new bolder plan popped in my brain the size of a peanut (i'm going to level with you people of the innerweb i didn't have a plan when i pulled over, but once whiro was in the open a plan did occur to me!).
whiro meanwhile proceeded to walk straight for me in a manner that gave me the wigging's... more so than simply his being a monster ghost! (i really don't like ghosts people of the web wide world!).
i threw my truck into reverse, and flew backwards as quick as i could. the whole time whiro creepily kept coming at me, and didn't seem phased by what i was doing one bit.
i thought nothing of this, and enacted my somewhat simple, but devastating seeming plan...
i swapped to the drive gear and poured on the gas. hurtling my huge *BEEP* SUV right into the maori demon.
the SUV shuttered at the impact of what felt like a giant rock (which considering whiro's appearance of organic jade makes this seem logical... man i need to read up on this stuff!). a loud screech came from under the truck as i could hear the spark inducing friction of whiro being dragged against the concrete.
there was no way it was going to survive this i thought to myself!
suddenly there was a new thump from the front grill...
whiro had dragged itself from under the car onto the front of the SUV, and a strange hum seemed to vibrate the cab around me...
the hum was being made by whiro... not sure how best to describe it... melting, uh well sort of. gooifying i guess... gooifying over the surface of the SUV, and merging with my ride!?!?!?!
that had been its plan all along i think. to wait till i'd stop long enough for it to take over my car, and thus have me and the baskets trapped inside...
i panicked... i'd played right into the monster's hands... i hit the breaks...
it was about that moment that whiro had finished taking over the car. i know this because the steering wheel suddenly ripped out of my claws on a hard turn...
the only problem was i hadn't released the breaks yet, and this being a big top heavy SUV meant we had nothing to do but flip...
meaning we were a wreck within another 10 seconds. i nearly passed out from the spinning and impacts. the only reason i was probably alive and in one piece was my seat belt... all at once people of the webwide world the morale of the story is... i can't hear you one more time ;p
whiro on the other hand didn't seem to have fared as well through the accident. between the various hissing and creaking of the broken machine around me i heard whiro quiver and vibrate as though twitching or convulsing. i think the crash knocked him out. what with his taking the burden of the car flipping this seems a pretty fair guess to me...
in any case i wasn't about to find out for sure what would happen staying "inside" it. i grabbed the envelope that the baskets were in, and ensured they all were still inside... lucky dinosaur that i am, discovered they had all miraculously stayed in this flimsy container (i was going to have to buy something better to carry them around in).
i lept out of the smoking wreckage of my SUV/whiro. what was i going to do? how could i possibly get away from the monster now? that alone get the baskets around new zealand?
looking around in desperation i could think of nothing... that is till the speck way down the road from where we'd come from sunk in. whiro's old car was about a km down the road sitting idly, and was free now...
i didn't need to think twice. bolting as fast as i could, i headed straight to my ticket out of here...
as i drove past the smoking wreck of my rental (sure hope ms. rhownyn got some ancient god insurance on it!) i let out a breath of relief. despite some visible ripples on the surface, whiro hadn't recovered from the crash yet, and more to the point he was merged to a useless piece of rubbish now. even if he woke up now he wouldn't have any means of following me!
with that slight bit of relief i decided a bit of speeding couldn't hurt at moment. i had escaped certain failure once again, but i didn't delude myself. i wasn't out of danger yet. knowing how relentless whiro had been i probably hadn't seen the last of him yet... that alone any other ancient maori spooks looking for me out there...
to be continued...
okay as of right now i really wish i hadn't taken this promotion at work. sure being a security guard was kind of dull. sure i did technically want more adventure and excitement. i did NOT want to be chased by supernatural entities though!!!
so where does that leave me? well my course is taking me up straight through the spine of the south island of new zealand. the southern alps.
their quite remarkable (though as far as being mountains their just okay compared to say the rockies in canada) and pretty.
my main reason for travelling here is a stop requested by ms. rhonwyn at the gold field historic site.
okay maybe a i spoke a little soon when i said long forgotten sources of wealth. seems someone had the clever idea of developing this into a tourist attraction... so the old becomes the new. at least in the sense of income generation.
having just been driving through the alps this whole time, i was much more impressed with them now that i'd stopped the car and started wandering around them.
the first thing i couldn't help but notice was how different and nifty the water colour was around here. the picture only sort of captures the bright blue...
through my fav geologic process of erosion the river's walls were pretty cool with the weird blue water rushing through them.
than having crossed the river i hit the historic site.
at the same time the presence of only the artifacts and buildings, minus the people, gave it a sad and depressed feeling. i've been to a couple ghost towns (worst name ever i might point out... i freaked out big time the first few times i visited a "ghost" town. a whole town inhabited by nothing but ghosts NO THANK YOU!), and this one was the same. i didn't feel like i should be here in a way...
still it was neat seeing how they used to do things in the olden days. heck if you black and whited my life at that moment it'd have felt natural!
up on the hill you could see the husks of the former miners huts. the last testament to those intrepid souls of long ago desperately trying to dig up their destiny...
my destiny on the other hand won't tie into this place. after half an hour of checking it out the baskets, like usual, hadn't done anything...
so back to the road i set. the mountains gave way to a strange, almost alien landscape. one i thought was nothing short of ubber cool!
they were fuzzy almost furry mini mountains. the grass or bushes (i couldn't figure out what they were) were like botanic tribbles scattered across an otherwise barren landscape...
i veered my SUV off the road (i hate SUV's for the record, but when i switched vechiles after opening one of the baskets i thought i'd make it a huge change!), and got on my phone...
"traumador, baby where were you? you silly little dinosaur," came the jubilant voice of my special talent agent peter bond.
"what?" i found myself asking on every level. i hadn't even imagined peter would call me during this quest. i'd been expecting it to be ms. rhonwyn...
"you missed your own party traum. where have you been?" peter said clearly a little disappointed.
"missed my own what?" i asked confused.
"the email i sent you. the one i sent you two weeks ago you peanut brain!" peter cheerfully said while being obviously very annoyed.
"i've been a little busy on something more important peter," i tried to explain.
"more important than, oh let's see, the annual surfers blogger awards?!?" peter forcefully retorted.
"the what's?" i again found myself asking. why is it people always confuse me so much on the phone?
"you didn't get the email than?" peter sighed, and than built his voice into a pitch/promo style voice. "well traum your efforts, and my hardwork on your behalf, have brought the tyrannosaur chronicles to the attention of the greater blog sphere. people are starting to take notice of your prehistoric ordeals my friend. as of such you were chosen to receive an award at this years surfers blog awards."
"i won an award?!?" i asked astonished. never in 65 million years did i think my blog would be that big a deal...
"oh yeah traum," peter said satisfied. "not only that you were double nominated for it! a flying trilobite and someone wearing a greenbelt both gave you the nod for it."
"the excellent blog award," peter's voice seemed to echo... in fact on second thought it did echo!
"are you using an echo machine?" i asked him.
peter awkwardly laughed. "yes. yes i am... its a feature on my phone."
okay that was a little weird. peter in typical him stride brushed that aside and got back to the business at hand... well okay his business. i had no idea where he was going to go.
"now as much as i don't mind accepting your award, as your designated agent of course, it still would have been nice for you to have acknowledged your public with an appearance or something," peter stated. "so what's so important that you couldn't be bothered to check you email?"
rather than try to lie or cover up my current predicament i decided to just level with peter...
"wow we have to sell the movie rights on this one!" peter mused to himself out loud when i'd concluded. "well that changes everything traum... to be frank you didn't miss much. the surfers blogger awards are a bit too commercial and over the top for you anyways. besides they were giving these awards out by the handful."
"oh speaking of which you're supposed to nominate 10 people for next years ceremony," peter informed me. "part of the requirement of accepting this one."
well that was pretty easy i just nominated people on my sidebar. Laelaps, Palaeoblog, When Pigs Fly Returns, Self Designed Student, Tetrapod Zoology, The Ethical Palaeontologist, Peter Bond's Blog, Prehistoric Pulp, and right back at The Flying Trilobite and The Greenbelt.
"the one big thing we got from this traum, aside from an award, is some major networking," peter paused and chuckled. "get it networking? anyways networking with other bloggers, and some great ideas for your blog."
"oh yeah?" i said with anticipation.
"the big one you need to get on is REPLYING to all the great comments you've been getting big guy," peter instructed me. "it'll show your readership you value their input, and could give them new insight into that fantastic tiny brain of yours."
"okay," i responded eagerly.
"don't know what you've been doing lately traum, but the blog is slowly catching on. you're close to having 10, 000 hits. not much by big blog standards, but it's a start. let's try and double that by the end of the year!" peter said all motivationally. than suddenly peter mumbled something to himself aloud that snapped me back to my mission...
"man my ear is tingly all of a sudden..." he complained out loud. why would his ear be so tingly he's complain out loud like that my brain started to wonder... than it hit me...
mystic gradient radiation! oh no!!! ms. rhonwyn had warned me to stay off the phone because the magic from both the baskets i carried, and the mystic energy i'd dosed myself in opening on of them, would flood through any electronic connections i made...
i was dosing peter in the energy... which causes tingly feelings i've noticed... more to the point. i'd just announced my location to the whole magical world!!!
"peter i can't talk anymore. have to go! i'll be in touch... if i make it through this!!!" i stammered into the phone as i started running back to my truck...
oh man oh man... why was i so stupid??? why did i answer the phone!!!
hopefully whiro had taken a really off path in its pursuit of me, and wouldn't be able to catch up till i'd hit several more junctions...
of course as i've come to learn in my life, especially since being fired from the tyrrell, i just don't have that good of luck...
on the upside people of the web wide world i pledge to respond to comments from here on in...
if i survive that is...
to be continued...
(Production Note: Due to complications in the lives of Prehistoric Insanity's creative team there will only be a few posts made on the Tyrannosaur Chronicles during March. However posting should hopefully be prolific come April. We applogize for the delays, and appreciate your stopping by to keep up to date on everyone's favourite tiny theropod.)
