3am-4am: Night Fever

By SUZANNE McFADDEN

An affliction known as White Line Fever affects at least 10,000 New Zealanders every night.

Probably better described as an addiction, it is suffered by truck drivers the world over.

There's nothing sinister about it - in fact, the country relies on it. It is an obsession with driving big rigs along highways and motorways in the dead of night.

Truckie John Foote, who drives a Kenworth rig called the Black Baron, is a self-confessed road addict. "I love the white line - you're always searching for the end of it, but you never find it."

Truckies who have tried to quit the road say they have found it almost impossible to relinquish the serenity of driving at night.

While most New Zealanders are asleep, around 10,000 line-haul trucks rumble down the highways.

Like red blood cells gushing through arteries, the trucks carry vital supplies down the main lines to every corner of the country.

Every morning Mr Foote delivers bottled milk from Auckland to Tauranga. His truck has been on the road all night. When he jumps into the seat at 3 am, it's still warm from the last body that sat at the wheel.

You see a kind of brotherhood on the open road.

Drivers share a greeting - unique to truckies - as they pass. It is a single flick of the right indicator light - a brief red wink in the darkness.

Often, halfway through their long hauls, they stop to eat together.

The most famous truck stop is Stag Park, a 24-hour diner on the Taupo-Napier Highway.

The truckies take over their own half of the restaurant.

"They can just be themselves here. They swear and smoke and they don't have to be tidy," says waitress Amanda Hyde.

"They like a joke. But you don't treat them nicely at all, that's my theory. And they keep coming back."

About 50 drivers pull up during the night - most devour a steak.

Farther along the line, there are inconspicuous truck stops, like the one at the top of the Bombay Hills.

There, in the silence of roadside, rigs carrying monstrous logs or hefty diggers park up in the dark and drivers nap in their cabs.

Falling asleep at the wheel is the ultimate nightmare.

In the United States, over 5000 people die each year in sleep-related driving accidents. One in five people fall asleep while they are driving.

In the couple of hours after 3 am, the body has its strongest desire to sleep.

That is when body temperature is at its lowest.

But it is also the time of night when we use the least electricity.

At 4 every morning, New Zealand's power supply from the national grid drops to its lowest point - less than 3000 megawatts.

It starts climbing again around 5.30 am when early risers put the kettle on, and doubles by 6.30 in the evening.

Power still pumps in the city at 3 am, when the neon keeps flashing and the music blaring at dance clubs and bars.

On Queen St, teenagers moving from club to club stop to dance on the footpath, where three young women are belting out their own tunes.

The middle of the night is rehearsal time for the Black Pearls.

Jack Marsters, proud father of two of the songbirds, stands at the sidewalk, watching over them.

"They used to practise at home in Mangere, but the sound control came and took their equipment away. So this is where we come now."

He introduced music to his daughters - Donner, 22, and 16-year-old Marion - after their mother died 11 years ago.

"Their mum was a good singer, so I knew they had it in their blood."

Passersby drop coins in a can at their feet while they sing songs they or their rap brothers have written. They often don't pack up to go home until 4 am because the crowds spill on to the road.

Just as in the city, life is booming in the forest around 3 am.

A good chunk of New Zealand's native animals and birds are creatures of the night, so it's the best time of day to sneak up on threatened species like the tuatara.

Dr Graham Ussher, a lecturer in restoration ecology at Auckland University, follows the little dinosaur-like creatures when they are awake.

He wanders the forest with a spotlight on his head until 4 am.

"On these islands, the day life is dull compared to the night life," he says. "So most of us miss it all."

Dr Ussher has been working on reintroducing tuatara to their old habitats on places like Whale Island in the Bay of Plenty and Red Mercury Island.

There are about 100,000 tuatara on islands off New Zealand.

The stress-free night life appears to agree with them - most live beyond 100 years.