ABOUT TOWN CATLINS
In a small Catlins cafe, in the kind of one-horse town where even the horse is on holiday, a man with an elaborate neck tattoo is telling me about his dog. And how he once rode on the back of a whale. The further south you go, it seems, the bigger the tales get.
“Just don’t use my real name, eh,” he says, in the kind of voice that may or may not enjoy taking the mickey out of gullible North Islanders. I agree to refer to him as Snake Man, thanks to the tattoo of a snake that encircles his neck like a grapevine; he likes the nickname.
The rump end of New Zealand is a
