Steve Braunias: A Rolls-Royce road trip from Auckland to Wellington

'The Rolls really opened up. It flew." Steve Braunias, on an Auckland-to-Wellington road trip. Photo / Getty Images

Steve Braunias

And then there was the time I took a road trip from Auckland to Wellington in a big white Rolls-Royce driven by a Communist. His other car was a Toyota Corolla. He used it to evenly distribute himself around the city. But the Roller needed a proper airing and it made for a good excuse to get out of town.

"Be ready," he said, "at dawn." I was ready at dawnish but he didn't mind waiting the 20 minutes. Both of us minded waiting nearly an hour, though, for the other passenger, who evidently was having a lot of trouble not just getting out of bed but also the next, important challenge, of getting dressed. He was a laconic kind of rooster and there was considerable charm in his slow, measured talk. But the driver and myself were surprised when he finally emerged from the room in his weatherboard boarding house. He had very long legs and neither of us had ever seen him walk so cautiously and kind of dubiously. Usually, he swung his legs like swords.

He got in the back seat, lay down, and fell asleep.

"Okay," said the driver, and began the epic journey south. South, from the isthmus and its two placid harbours to the edge of the turbulent Cook Strait; south, over plains and then plateaus and down over plains again; south, Auckland to Wellington, one of the classic New Zealand road trips, maybe the most classic classic. The two biggest cities in the land, bridged in a day. Eight hours and 640 kilometres, the car like a dagger through the heart of Pig Island. SH1 runs parallel a good part of the way with the railway line and a southbound car, too, feels like an express train, like it's on important business.

We had no business to attend to. We stopped for petrol at a BP station at the top of the Bombay Hills, the big white Roller gleaming against the brown fields. There were a lot of cars at the pumps. It's a popular petrol station, set up for trucks, too. Our mate rose from the back seat and stretched his long legs. His face was very pale. His hair was black and sleek. He attempted a smile, and then he got out a packet of cigarettes and lit one on the wet gasoline-stained forecourt of the petrol station until we screamed at him to please immediately and carefully extinguish his burning pyre. "Oh," he said, "right."

And then he got in the Rolls and fell asleep again. It looked very comfortable back there. The leather upholstery was firm but giving, however, the real sense of comfort came from the engine: it spoke in a low, soothing voice, which sometimes dropped to a whisper. We drove in a hush alongside the Waikato River, past the dark and dense forestry towns, inside the low clouds of thermal steam at Wairākei. We rounded Lake Taupō. We were about to enter the Rangipo desert when the driver felt a sentimental need to visit an old address: the prison. It was getting on to midday and the air was cold up on the plateau. Prisoners were out working a hard piece of earth. They waved their rakes in the air as the big white Roller rolled on by.

We had lunch in the tearooms at the military museum in Waiōuru. Our mate slept on. Weak sunlight touched the yellow tussock on the Desert Road. Our mate slept on. It rained heavily over the green lowlands alongside the Rangitikei River. Our mate slept on … His face was damp with sweat. Now and then he shivered.
We kept our voices as low as the murmuring engine.
"He's back on junk."
"Looks like it."
"That's a shame."
"Bloody stupid."

We also spoke of love, politics, sex, society, women, and music; the Communist played a mean fiddle and there had been many evenings at a bar when I watched him play, often alongside our friend now shivering in the back seat. The mood of our conversation ebbed and flowed. Both of us were familiar with various states of unhappiness but that was no match for the joys of a road trip with its freedom and its innocence. Certainly the spirits of all travellers heading south are lifted on that flat exhilarating table of arable land between Sanson and Foxton, also known as the Foxton Straights. The Rolls really opened up. It flew. It was a big white jet approaching the Kāpiti Coast and all the seaside towns beginning with P: Paekākāriki, Pukerua Bay, Plimmerton. Our mate woke up and shared in the loveliness of the sun setting on the Tasman Sea. He was quite animated, back to his old charming self.

We got into Wellington at twilight. Our mate went to a party in Island Bay. He died three years later of Hep C. He was never the same after that road trip and I think now of the Rolls as his hearse – a long white limousine taking him on a farewell ride. He went out in style.