D'YOU DIG THIS?

I've just been watching Coast New Zealand on TV One On Demand.

This is an excellent documentary series (the second one) on coastal history and living in New Zealand. It's a spin-off from a multi-series Scottish documentary using the same presenter and I assume some of the original producers, directors, writers and technical people. The quality is amazing and it is well worth watching.

In tonight's episode there was a segment on archeological digs on Greater Mercury Island off the Coromandel Peninsular (the island privately owned by one of New Zealand's greater rip-off merchants). The digs were an exploration of Maori agricultural practices over the last millennium and involved using deep digging tools to bring up soil samples that dated back over a thousand years.

Now while this isn't intrinsically interesting per se it had a sort of resonance for me.
In the 1970's while I was at Victoria University one of the most important pursuits I and my friends had was the pursuit of young women, "Getting the sex" as lyrically-challenged Richard (of RBB) used to say. Needless to say "Getting the sex" didn't come easily to repressed ex-Catholic school young men so we would jump at any opportunity no matter how spurious.

The occasion that Coast New Zealand reminded me of was when one of our band, I can't remember who but it was probably Tony who knew a weird lot of people at Victoria University, excitedly told us on our Friday night's libation at The Grand Hotel in Willis Street that he had signed us up for a Sunday jaunt with the Victoria University Archeological Society. After lots of groans, protests and physical assaults on his person he said that there might be women on the jaunt. Women! "Getting the sex" Richard expostulated at which we had to hush him as there were lots of other randy and unfulfilled students in the pub - we had to keep this intel to ourselves.

On the Sunday morning  we loaded up in my Hillman or Tony's Humber - I can't remember which, and headed off to the rendezvous point in Wainuiomata halfway down the coast road to Cape Palliser.
Now I can't remember who was in the car but there was definitely Tony, me, Noel, Mike and one other. I'm not sure if it was Richard (of RBB) as in these circumstances we would normally have skived off leaving him behind but he might well have caught us and latched on. Maybe he can tell us as he has a better memory than I have.

At the rendezvous point there was a busload of Victoria University Archeological Society members all kitted out and ready to go. I remember this at least - quickly checking out the group for eligible females. There were a lot of hairy blokes (and hairy legged females) but there weren't a lot of what we Catholic boys would have said were Mary Magdalene types. After all assembled though I noticed that there were a couple of nice looking young women of the type that I was used to admiring from afar so it wasn't too bad.

We were ready to go, preening ourselves and looking debonair ......


..... until the leader of Victoria University Archeological Society handed out equipment to us. It seemed that Tony's explanation of our involvement whilst cadging free drinks from us in the pub on the Friday night was a bit lacking in specifics. We were there as it turned out to hump (not the women) but all the bloody heavy equipment - spades, picks, shovels and weird digging tools.

The digging tools were exactly as I saw tonight on Coast New Zealand being a sharp and narrow spade with telescopic additions so as to dig out core samples of earth. Bloody heavy and very awkward to carry. As good strong lads though we did what was necessary - we loaded up Noel with as much stuff as we could make him carry. Noel was and I assume still is a bit of a short-arse but with about 3 hundredweight of kit on his back he was virtually scraping the ground.

We headed off up hill - UPHILL! - over rugged farm land and every now the leader of Victoria University Archeological Society would call a halt and we would have to assemble the gear and dig holes. We did this on numerous occasions and dug out lots of incredibly interesting and historically important core samples dirt which theVictoria University Archeological Society nutters fussed over and stored away in packs.

After hours of plodding we went up over the hills and down the other side to the beaches where the Wahini survivors (and victims) washed up. There was evidence of terraces which apparently were Maori gardens from several hundred years ago which could have been interesting but by this time we were knackered - especially Noel-  so we just flopped down and sunbathed on the cold and Southerly exposed beach. Kind of like a UK Summer holiday.

It was quite evident that the couple of delectable women were already involved with some of the hairy nutters so that was a no go. Tony had the good sense to keep away from the rest of us at this stage detecting the dark looks we were giving hime and also noticing the big rocks and throwing stones we were gathering.

After lunch which I think that the nutters provided we headed back up over the hills to our vehicles and made our way home. Another failure at picking up women or "Getting the sex" but in a funny way another nice memory of our youth to have. It's funny too to think that Richard (of RBB) doesn't live far from there nowadays. I wonder if he is still looking for Maori gardens? Nah, he's still trying to "Get the sex" probably.