Wanaka reporter Marjorie Cook went wild for a weekend and encountered a fruit bowl, quince jam and feathers.
The tune of the Old Crow Medicine Show song Wagon Wheel was looping through my head as I slipped out of sunny Haast yesterday at 10am.
But after two nights of singing I still couldn't remember the words, despite the best efforts of Bucket (aka Sheri Wright).
I tried. I really tried. It was no fault of Bucket, a 38-year-old mother of many and now possibly my mother as well. Or at least, a sorority sister.
I must learn the words before I return.
Haast is exactly the kind of place where a visitor could be put on the block and made to sing. Or pluck ducks. Or act like a stag.
But it is also exactly the kind of place where, should your feathers fall off for whatever reason, the local women would pick you back up and put you on your feet.
They were the reason I was there in the first place.
A dozen women had got together to put together a nude calendar to raise money for the Saxton Appeal Trust - an organisation supporting court appeals against the two-year-plus jail sentences of father-and-son helicopter pilots Dave and Morgan Saxton for stealing greenstone.
Bucket and Tasha Jones, a 28-year-old real estate agent, came up with the calendar idea and it seemed in no time they had a willing local photographer, Neroli Nolan (51), and a model for every month.
Understandably nervous about revealing themselves to a curious nation, the calendar contents were a closely guarded secret until the launch at the annual Haast Hunters' Evening on Saturday.
The identity of Miss December in particular was causing plenty of head scratching.
Was it a man? Was it one of the Haast family matriarchs?I was to be the lucky one, allowed a sneak preview at a girls' only wine and cheese evening at Neroli's tourist lodge, Collyer House, on Friday night, while everyone signed their photographs.
The wine and cheese was in full swing and Neroli's phone was ringing off the hook as people called to ask why the ladies weren't at the pub.
Musterer Annie Nolan (51) said she shouldn't be at the pub or the party (she was at both, as it later transpired) because she was supposed to be mustering and she also had friends staying at home and she was trying to cook a roast (she was too late home to eat it, as it happened).
The women don't get to see each other very often. I'd thought with just 200 or so people, they would see each other all the time. Not so.
People are so busy and so remote, a monthly catch-up takes an effort. And amazingly, before the calendar, not all of the women knew each other that well.
A monthly catch-up is now a promise.
The calendar has lessened their isolation, made them feel stronger through doing something they never thought they would have the courage to do.
Importantly, all the women loved Neroli's work and were thrilled with the tasteful presentation.
I went to bed that night with ears ringing with random conversation snippets. Lipstick or chapstick? (Lipstick). To pluck or not pluck the ducks for the cameras? (Yes. No. We'll see.) Most exotic location? (A bowling green.) What? Why? (It seemed like a good idea).
What a night. What happened to all that fruit in the fruit bowl? I don't think I want to remember.
One has to participate in Haast's social scene without texting or making a cellphone call.
On Saturday morning, I spent a couple of hours looking for people who were out, walked on the beach and had lunch.
In the afternoon, a plane landed, so I went along to that. I met some people and got invited to Betty Eggeling's for afternoon tea.
Aunty Betty's home near the Turnbull River was filled with family catching up: her four sons, Cliff, Peter, Roger and Kerry, nephew John Buchanan and their school friend David Glubb, who had arrived on the aircraft.
Aunty Betty (87) held court in her armchair and we looked at self-published history books and photographs by family friend John Breen.
We talked of Haast until it was time for everyone to get ready for the Hunter's Evening.
The 7.30pm calendar launch at the Hard Antler Bar and Restaurant went according to plan, at 9pm, as soon as duck and stag competition compere Mike King had enough names on his lists.
More than 200 people were jammed into the bar - locals said it was bigger than a New Year's Eve crowd.
The women's nerves were in tatters as the black and white slide show of their semi-naked bodies began.
But the warm applause and congratulations soon put them at ease.
The women were keenly aware their images would be hanging in garages and on toilet doors around the district for the next 18 months.
But the worst of their ordeal was over and they were singing Wagon Wheel, again, with Bucket's son James on guitar.
The duck feathers really hit the fan after that. And that, truly, is about all I can remember.
Oh. You want to know who was Miss December? Neroli, the photographer.
- The calendar ($20 each) has already raised $1500 for the Saxton Appeal Trust. About 900 copies are still available. An auction raised another $2200 for the trust.
