Put The Coach Before the Horses (Apr. - May)

Most nights in Lawrence (home of the Lemon Tree Cafe) were pretty quiet for us, but we spent a number at the local pub, the Coach and Horses Inn, with Andrea (the most senior wwoofer, having been here for almost a year), who couldn’t get enough of the place. Apparently they don’t have bars with pool tables, jukeboxes, and people dancing around in Germany. Who knew?

Andrea, the senior most Wwoofer at the Lemon Tree and Cam (sous chef at the Lemon Tree cafe and a Lawrence native), who really looks like he is enjoying himself

The Coach and Horses seems to be a lot like any small town NZ pub, full of boisterous locals on the weekends and after big local rugby matches, and with plenty of cheap beer on tap, trophies and mounted animals on the walls, and rugby on the telly. Most of the locals could be called Kiwi rednecks, and if you’ve been to a bar in the sticks anywhere, you get the picture.

Though we have to say we even were a bit surprised when one of the local rugby players, full of beer after a big win over a local rival, began to use the bar as a urinal, and no one so much as batted an eye or told him to maybe take it to the bathroom 15 feet away. Luckily, Andrea was able to capture it as she took a video with her camera. We’re sure her friends in Germany will be really impressed. I have friends who genuinely would appreciate a bar with rules like this, though; Eric, you’ve got to come to New Zealand, man!

We enjoyed a round with fellow Wwoofers James and his girlfriend Vickie

We did have one great time at the pub, on the night of the local duck-calling competition. We thought it would probably be some good fun, but it turned out to be even better, a hilarious display of drunken antics. The event was MC’ed by the ‘local expert on all matters regarding duck-calling’, who dressed, looked, and spoke like an English professor, albeit one who must’ve been a few sheets to the wind, who repeatedly referred to the bartender as ‘Lusty, busty, Dusty the Barmaid’, and carried a toy ray-gun to zap any hecklers.

Even after the MC introduced himself, we thought it might be a semi-serious competition. But then the competitors came forward to play the duck-calling kazoo, one by one, and it wasn’t clear whether any of them really knew how to call a duck, with some playing the wrong end. We, and the rest of the audience, thoroughly enjoyed the competitors trying to one-up each other with their hammy, drunken duck calls. We also thought their nod to sanitation was a nice touch, with the kazoo being dunked in beer between competitors. If any ducks were shot that weekend, it was probably due in very small part to their skill in calling the ducks.

Towards the end of the competition, some of the locals managed to pry Andrea up to the front of the bar to play the kazoo, so she could show them what a ‘German duck’ sounded like. She was mortified at first, but was a good sport and got up and played along by herself. Then, in a run-off to determine the winner, she played again in a bit of a duet with a local bloke, it what can only be described as a bizarre and hilarious combination of duck-calling, mating dance, and small-town inebriation that had the entire bar roaring with laughter for minutes. It was definitely a highlight of our trip so far. Needless to say, they won the competition handily.

Steffi and Thilo, fellow Wwoofers at the Lemon Tree

We had a few other memorable nights at the pub, including one where one of the locals, a middle-aged bloke named Ross, recognized Andrea and started chatting with us. At first it wasn’t clear why his companions at his table were grinning as he came over to our table, but we figured it out pretty quickly, as Ross was pretty sloshed. It wasn’t bad at first, as he was somewhat entertaining, but after about 15 minutes we learned that Ross was from the genus repeating drunk. So by the time that we heard him twice bring up his recent trip to China, how much he liked America, and how he thought George Bush was a great president, we were quite happy to leave him to his Speight’s. He did inadvertently give a great line that night, however. He had told us he had three children, so Becky asked him “So what do you have?”, to which he responded “One of each.”

So if you ever find yourself in Lawrence, we wholeheartedly recommend The Coach and Horses Inn, as it’s pretty much the only option for weekend night entertainment. That is, unless you’re invited to a woolshed party, where the local kids are known to throw back a few late at night in the mud. In either event, gumboots are optional, but if you have them it certainly wouldn’t hurt to bring them along.

Phillipa (Cam's sister and a Lawrence local), enjoys a jug at the pub. She also spent a summer working at Lake Dunmore in Vermont!