Wednesday, January 18, 2012Cental Otago, New Zealand
The world is indeed a mysterious realm. Coincidences happen in ways that make so very clear that there is so much more at work in the universe than we can comprehend. Consider the following (true story in all respects).
Tonight I was sitting in the bar of the infamous White House in Wanaka on the South Island of New Zealand drinking a Monteith's Dark (if you're ever in NZ, try it and remember that it was a surfing philo-thriller writer who steered you straight) with my friend Bruce Hopkins (who played Gamling, General of Rohan, in two of the Lord of the Rings movies). I was listening to the tales of flyfisherman who'd come down from the mountains and to the hopes and aspirations of the bartenter who was eight months preganant with her first child. It had been a long day, all the way from the Franz Joseph Glacier (where it was snowing lightly) to the wine country, stopping along the way for a swim at Bruce Bay (in the Tasman) and a quick, cold dip in the Blue River that comes down from the mountain peaks. I was ever so slightly in a dream as I sipped and listened and told tales of my own.
Peter, the owner of the most infamous bar/restaurant in New Zealand (ask the locals...or Peter...they'll tell you all about it!), magically appeared at my side. We started to talk about the first book in the Q Trilogy then he asked about the second book to be released next year, Q: Apocalypse. I told Peter, without giving too much away, that soon I'd be headed to Chennai, India (formerly Madras) to do research for the book since important parts of it will be set there among the Christians who trace their lineage to St. Thomas. Peter smiled then disappeared behind the bar. A moment later, he returned with the placard shown in this photo. It was taken from a hotel in Chennai during Peter's last visit there only a few months before. And so we ordered dinner (a wonderful smoked fish with a fine NZ Pinot) and talked of India and of other stories I'll save for another blog.
Now you tell me--I'm sitting in one of the most remote bars in the world, a stranger in a strange land, working on the plot for book two in the trilogy, drinking a beer and thinking about Chennai, India. A man magically appears at my side with a placard from that very town and a Gladstone bag full of stories of his adventures there. Coincidence or destiny? You decide.
