(Sub-Antarctic New Zealand, 24 March 2020) – Sai Kung cycling legend Don ‘Doc’ Holliday has discovered a real-life ‘end of civilisation as we know it’ – on his latest epic road trip to the windswept sub-Antarctic British colonial outpost of New Zealand.
Embarking on his first adventure since retiring as the South China Morning Post’s most admired sports guru, the iconic long-distance rider was anticipating a traditional colourful, warm welcome to the remote South Pacific island supposedly famous for ‘friendly tribal hospitality’.
He was also excitedly looking forward to joyously celebrating his niece’s wedding in the embrace of a family re-union with his long-lost brother.
Instead he has dejectedly found himself shunned, isolated and alone! “It turns out that no-one wants to go near me!” he said, morosely.
‘Doc’ had suspected something was not quite right from the moment he flew-in to New Zealand’s eerily quiet Auckland air strip – when a surly immigration officer ordered him in barely discernible ancient English: “Ye best keep yerself to yerself, laddie!”
Initially, he dismissed the churlish reprimand as textbook immigration official attitude – a dismissive rudeness encountered worldwide by travellers venturing to foreign lands.
But even greater disappointment loomed to weigh sadly on his heavy heart.
On arrival for his long-awaited family re-union, ‘Doc’ was not greeted by hugs, kisses and conventional affection of nearest and dearest – or even so much as a spare bedroom.
Instead he was kept distantly at arm’s length before being bluntly despatched to a made-up bed in a garage – where he was advised to “leave us alone”.
“To say the least, I was hugely disappointed,” he said gloomily, holding back tears of rejected grief.
“To make matters worse, they even cancelled the wedding! I’m not sure if that was simply because I turned up, and they were worried about me having a little too much to drink. But it really was the weirdest imaginable welcome I have ever experienced.”
Not surprisingly, his first reaction was to ‘get the fuck out of Dodge’, as his infamous Wild West sheriff namesake would say, and high-tail it back to his beloved Hong Kong, soonest.
Alarmingly, however, he was next notified that New Zealand had shut –indefinitely closing itself off from the outside world!
“Talk about ‘double whammy’ – now I’m pretty much stuck here in solitary confinement and can’t get the hell out of this lonely country for the foreseeable future!” said the reluctant recluse, despairingly.
“The world seems to have gone mad,” he added, wondering what on Earth he had done wrong to deserve such inexplicable rejection.
And so for now, hapless ‘Doc’ remains alone, downcast and sorrowful; finding introverted solace only on his brisk daily walk along a desolate nearby beach.
“I don’t think I have ever felt so lonely in my entire life,” he said, striding despondently along the deserted shoreline, under dreary, chilly and persistently lingering clouds of the appropriately-named ‘Land of the Long White Cloud’.
“My only company is the occasional humpback whale, breaching menacingly through the icy waters offshore, as passing icebergs worryingly remind me of being a mere stone’s throw away from Antarctica, with the eternal darkness and sub-zero iciness of winter closing in.
“The only good news, frankly, is that in compensation for enforcing my isolation, my brother Richard has mercifully agreed to bring essential survival provisions to my new refuge in his garage.
“Among other things, this means he has to buy me crate loads of beer every day! What a result!”
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