Keep driving

 Biggmont just south of Ohura a small settlement boutique or quaint are suitable adjectives. The morning had its own overpowering beauty. Huge broad hills green and inviting along the narrow but well maintained highway. My wife and I were driving through when we spotted a petrol station with an old orange colored popsicle sign with a popsicle being held in a hand out the front of what looked to be a gas station connected to a house, on the sign the paper was a little ripped showing a tiny space of blue lining underneath. I gathered it must have been an old and abandoned town, for the fact that kind of popsicle hadn't been sold in decades.
we pulled into the gravel driveway running parallel just to have huge stones kick up and hit the underside of the car chasis at the same time as a slight skid gave off as I braked.
we got out and the morning summer sun was pleasantly warm, a slight wind waving in the huge sorrowful eucalypt's thick long leaves leaning over the road just north of the petrol station.
Noone came out for about 10 minutes, then an old lady appeared as if she had been there the whole time with two very small hairy dogs. She looked up first almost accusatory then a smile burst onto her face as if she knew us. But she didn't know us and New zealanders are friendly but that was the most friendly someone had been with us for about two weeks on our travels.
She spoke to us with an eery wandering in her voice, as if she was searching for something else about us. Inquiring glances.
"How can I help you you young ones?" she asked. we said we had only wanted to stop for some gas and maybe an icecream, this was before my wife became lactose intolerant, giving me the benefit of hogging anything dairy.
She pointed to the edge of the building where I suddenly saw there was a gas pump. I got back in the car and drove it over. As my wife followed the old woman to the opposite end of the building, through a side door obscured by thick flowering wisteria. I finished filling up and she came back with a bag of snacks and an ice cream.
I went around to pay for the gas, pushing the low hanging wisteria away from my head as I entered the shop part of the building. It was a light green color, exactly as the inside color of my parent's first house had been.
it seemed  for a horrible split second I was an infant crawling uncontrollably on the floor, aware of my awkward attempts to move. yet in less than a second I was with it again, my body normal, yet my senses rowdy and intense. The old woman looked at me as I gave her my card her head straightening from a sympathetic side position her wide smile narrowing slightly. 
I paid and told her thank you. She went into the room behind the bench as I headed back to the car.
I was just about to head out of Biggmont's only gas station, when my wife perked up, "Oh I need to use the bathroom." I almost scowled but thought better of it. I turned the car off. You'll probably have to ask the old lady around the side there." She nodded and went around the side, just to see no wisteria vines or flowers, a middle aged woman by a small pond and the same two dogs standing infront of it.
she said what happened to the tree that was here, the woman turned slowly and said "time passes so quickly here, they must have been here a few days ago to cut it down."
Perplexed my wife just went directly for her original question, "where is the bathroom?"
"Around the back" the middle aged woman said. Shocked at seeing the exact eyes as the old lady who had been there minutes before.  She quickly use the bathroom behind the building.
Moving back to the car a little more hurriedly now she burst inside quickly flinging the door open. She spoke nervously "The old woman must have a daughter, there was a middle aged woman by a pond there, except I didn't see the pond there the first time I entered the shop. What a strange place." I agreed with a nod of the head reversing the car to aim it toward the exit.
Looking up at the popsicle sign, no longer was there an ad for a popsicle but a deep blue sky on it with an aeroplane in the foreground. An ad for a local cafe that was built inside a small passenger plane.

I turned back as we pulled out of the small countryside gas station to see that a line of tall scantily foliated pines were in the same place as the eucalypt was. It gave me the shivers.
The first grassy verge rising up on our left side presented two hitchikers sitting legs almost fully extended, dressed in clothes that resembled the 70's, my wife looked at me. I said, "I'll just keep driving then".
She nodded happily, as we both had the incredible sensation those hitchikers would pose some form of overwhelming surprise we might just not have the wits for.