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Polly Evans
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Book
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Publisher | Bantam | ||
ISBN | 0553815571 | ||
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Reviewer
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Jayne
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Synopsis
When Polly Evans read a survey claiming that the last bastion of masculinity, the real Kiwi bloke, was about to breathe his last, she was seized by a sense of foreboding. Abandoning the London winter she took off on a motorbike for the windswept beaches and golden plains of New Zealand, hoping to root out some examples of this endangered species for posterity. But her challenges didn't stop at the men. Just weeks after passing her test, Polly rode from Auckland's glitzy Viaduct Basin to the vineyards of Hawkes Bay and on to the Southern Alps. She found wild kiwis in the dead of night, kayaked among dolphins at dawn, and spent an evening on a remote hillside with a sheep-shearing gang. As she travelled, Polly reflected on the Maori warriors who carved their enemies' bones into cutlery, the pioneer family who lived in a tree, and the flamboyant gold miners who lit their pipes with five-pound notes, and wondered how their descendents have become pathologically obsessed with helpfulness and Coronation Street. The author of the highly acclaimed It's Not About the Tapas reaches some unexpected conclusions about the new New Zealand man - and finds that evolution has taken some unlikely twists.
Polly Evans in 2007 by Victoria Warren
Review
Polly Evans certainly knows how to research her books and in Kiwi's Might Fly not only does she go out to New Zealand to see the how the real Kiwi man lives - but she learns to ride a motor bike and passes her test before she goes to visit New Zealand!
This book had me laughing at the escapades she has with the bike she rents in New Zealand. Not only is the bike she hires extremely powerful a 650cc bike when she had only learnt on a 125 as all British bikers do, but then when she arrives she finds she has hired a monster machine that she can't stand up on her own when it falls over !
I can imagine the faces of the people in cars when they are stuck behind her because the bike is so big and throatie that she is just a little scared of it when she first goes on the road, but she was not going to let that stop her.
This book is an amazing history lesson of the people of New Zealand and also the friendliness of its people. How this person knows that person in the town where she is going next on her journey - so not very often is Polly in a place where she cannot find someone who knows someone who she has already met.
I loved this book and found it was just a great read from start to finish. I just wanted to know what was around the next corner and what she was going to encounter. When she finally got the courage to ride the bike at the speeds it was meant to ridden at Wow did she have fun.
Well done Polly I wish I had the nerve to do what you have done. A Great Book and a great read. You can listen to Polly in Spoken Interview.
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