Over the last four weeks I have driven roughly 4000km down and back up State Highway 1, from Tāmaki Makaurau to Bluff and back, taking in roads both loved and unknown. I had to get some writing done and after lockdowns in close quarters with a loud husband, I needed some gosh darned quiet. Throwing myself off course, I headed south – really, properly south – to research and write. With a clear head and spousal goodwill I was doing what Joni Mitchell would call “running away with honour”.
I’ve driven through the city of my birth, past the church where my auntie got married, down the gravel road to my grandparents’ old farm and through Sanson, where Dad ran over a duck in 1978 and
