Hmm.
South Island is super sweet. I'm not really sure what the difference is exactly, but it's like, is both Islands were salsa, then North would be Mild and South would be one of thoes crazy kinds called something like "Uncle Tom's Ass-kicking Whoop-and-holler" that has warning labels all over it. That's as close as I can come to conveying how awesome South Island is. When we got to Lewis Pass today, we had to pull over so I could slam my head onto the hood of the car, repeatedly, as a form of self-inflicted punishment for wasting (and I do mean wasting) so much time up North. Oh well though.
After saying goodbye to everyone in the Bay (including a near-tearfull parting with Glen)...which ususally concluded with my being advised "don't freeze to death", I headed down to Wellington, where I spent one last weekend with Buzz. Good times. The next day it was pouring rain with gale-force winds as the ferry set sail out of Wellington Harbor. Woohoo. The skies cleared up once we got out into the Cook Strait, which was super. Coming into Queen Charlotte Sounds absolutely blew me away...green, rolling hills with fijords winding thier way around...sweet. I enjoyed the scenery until the wind picked up to a speed where babies were being swept up and flying overboard (almost) and then retreated inside.
Picton was boring, so I hit the road and stuck out my thumb. About half an hour later, I got a ride into Blenheim with a drug-dealer from Greymouth. He was really nice, showed me pictures of his home, family, and town (including a nive video of a rainbow) and left me with instructions to crash on his sofa when I'm over that way. Blenheim was, excuse me, a total shit hole. It may have been that everyone staying at the hostel was waiting for vine pruning to start up, which depressed me on thier behalfs.
The next day I broke down and bussed to Kaikoura, which was pretty nice. Good beaches, mountains, and thousands of seals. I beat the living jesus out of a Danish guy at pool and called it an early night.
The day after that (I would use the names of days if I knew what day it was, or is), I hitched to Hanmer Springs with a pair or French-come-New Caledonian nurses, who were lovely. Hanmer Springs is a really beautiful town up in the mountains, and the backpakers was amazing! Raw wood everywhere, clean, new pans (!!!) and a nice cat that made hilarious noises. Chatted to an Austrian couple and thier baby for a while (to be fair, the baby didn't contribute to the conversation too much), then went out an experienced the teeming Hanmer night-life with Jill and Niko (British and French couple)...where we met up with the French Nurses and an Indian chick who was living is Las Vegas...of all places. There were about 3 other people at the only open pub (at 9pm)...so entertainment consisted mostly of listening to Las Vegas, now on her 9th glass of wine, telling rambling stories. I laughed until I cried. Then we cruised back to the hostel, Niko, Jill and I watched some Weeds and crashed.
Today I hitched with Jill and Niko as far as Springs Junction, just across the amazing Lewis Pass (northernmost pass through the Southern Alps)...which was gorgeous and snowy. After farewelling them, I got a ride into Westport with Mick, an ex-gold mining consultant. After a mandatory stop for pies and tea, he put on some Bob Dylan, and we cruised through the Buller Gorge, with him pointing out plenty of history along the way. ("and just over there, my dad was working on the railroad and got sandwitched between two freight cars and was keps alive by the local farmers who brought out hot-water bottles in the snow until the ambulance arrived." or (while on the State Highway) "when I was learning to drive this was an unsealed road - one way. it took about 11 hours to get to Christchurch, when the river wasn't flooded"). He gave me his number, again with instructions to call if I ran into trouble.
So yup. Tomorrow I'm headed up to Little Wanganui, near Karamea to do some WWOOFin'...which should be pretty cool. After that it's down the west coast, then off home in what seems, increasingly, like not too long of a time away!
Until then!
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Sunday, May 10, 2009
I'm Walking on Sunshine, Ohhh, oh oh oh! (or: Misinterpretations of Signs from the Universe)
Yee Haw!
Having recently sold my car (well, arranged to, anyhow. the deal goes down tomorrow when I get the loaf of cash itself) I'm headed down to Wellington this Friday, then to Picton on Saturday! I have some 3 or 4 or 5 WWOOF places lined up, and with the better part of $400 in my pocket, I'm going to be doing lots of hitching, and eating plenty of rice and potatoes. But I couldn't be happier.
The new flatmates are settled in, Rene and Kaoru...and they're good fun. Yesterday they caught a bunch of fish, Kahawai I think, and today we're headed out into the boondocks of Omahu to get some fresh venison off thier hunting hook-up...so tonight is a venison barbecue with sashimi hour d'ourves (...sp?).
Swine Flu (hahaha) has recently been usurped in the news by this drug-raid fiasco up on Hospital Hill (obnoxiously blocking off my morning walk). A couple of biker gangs got in a shoot-up over drugs, then a cop or two got shot and they (what appeared to be the entire police force of NZ, with some Army back-up) had the drug cartel holed up in a house. Except the "drug cartel" consisted entirely of one fifty-one year old guy. With no hostages. The police stand-off, that closed 2 or 3 schools, had neighbors evacuated in tanks, and closed off the entire hill for 4 days seemed a little silly to me, and I kept wondering why they didn't just rock in there and kill they guy, like, when he was sleeping (which you know he did over a period of 4 days) for example. But then I figured that Kiwi police probably don't get to see excitement like this very often, and they were probably loving every minute of it (aside from the ones who got shot, with all due respect). I was painting the hallway and wishing I wasn't, and every 15 minutes or so they'd have news updates on the radio. At first, it was just normal stuff, but at the point where they started sending in Kamikaze robots to blow up the garage (of the house the guy was holed up in) I started laughing. It was a good bit of entertainment, and I haven't heard a mention of the damn pig flu since. Ha!
Well, the next post will certainly be from South Island, as I now know the Universe is flowing with me. You see, last week (where I had infamously bad luck, culminating in nearly getting robbed blind by Chinese Internet Pirates) my radio station of choice, Hauraki, was playing unusually good music. I thought, incorrectly, that this was a good omen. It turned out to be, however, God's form of hold music...a sort of consilation prize for nothing else working out for me. However, this week is the debut of Green Day's new album, so I've had to listen to "American Idiot" over, and over and over. So this must be good news, and it also makes me spend a lot more time out of the house and relish the idea of being on the road, vagabonding around South Island.
Hooray!
Having recently sold my car (well, arranged to, anyhow. the deal goes down tomorrow when I get the loaf of cash itself) I'm headed down to Wellington this Friday, then to Picton on Saturday! I have some 3 or 4 or 5 WWOOF places lined up, and with the better part of $400 in my pocket, I'm going to be doing lots of hitching, and eating plenty of rice and potatoes. But I couldn't be happier.
The new flatmates are settled in, Rene and Kaoru...and they're good fun. Yesterday they caught a bunch of fish, Kahawai I think, and today we're headed out into the boondocks of Omahu to get some fresh venison off thier hunting hook-up...so tonight is a venison barbecue with sashimi hour d'ourves (...sp?).
Swine Flu (hahaha) has recently been usurped in the news by this drug-raid fiasco up on Hospital Hill (obnoxiously blocking off my morning walk). A couple of biker gangs got in a shoot-up over drugs, then a cop or two got shot and they (what appeared to be the entire police force of NZ, with some Army back-up) had the drug cartel holed up in a house. Except the "drug cartel" consisted entirely of one fifty-one year old guy. With no hostages. The police stand-off, that closed 2 or 3 schools, had neighbors evacuated in tanks, and closed off the entire hill for 4 days seemed a little silly to me, and I kept wondering why they didn't just rock in there and kill they guy, like, when he was sleeping (which you know he did over a period of 4 days) for example. But then I figured that Kiwi police probably don't get to see excitement like this very often, and they were probably loving every minute of it (aside from the ones who got shot, with all due respect). I was painting the hallway and wishing I wasn't, and every 15 minutes or so they'd have news updates on the radio. At first, it was just normal stuff, but at the point where they started sending in Kamikaze robots to blow up the garage (of the house the guy was holed up in) I started laughing. It was a good bit of entertainment, and I haven't heard a mention of the damn pig flu since. Ha!
Well, the next post will certainly be from South Island, as I now know the Universe is flowing with me. You see, last week (where I had infamously bad luck, culminating in nearly getting robbed blind by Chinese Internet Pirates) my radio station of choice, Hauraki, was playing unusually good music. I thought, incorrectly, that this was a good omen. It turned out to be, however, God's form of hold music...a sort of consilation prize for nothing else working out for me. However, this week is the debut of Green Day's new album, so I've had to listen to "American Idiot" over, and over and over. So this must be good news, and it also makes me spend a lot more time out of the house and relish the idea of being on the road, vagabonding around South Island.
Hooray!
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Buy My Car, Please (or: On The Avoidance of Swine)
It's a great deal, let me tell you! A new (and here, by new I mean 20 years old, so essentially ignore that) Toyota Corolla...pristine mechanical shape with only minor cosmetic damage...!!! And for $800 US? Damn! I'm really dumbfounded as to how so many people are passing up a great offer like this, but it's obviously a crazy world so who am I to comment.
Anyhow, that's essentially what I'm up to at the moment. Sarah and I went to her "work do" (a kiwi tradition of getting together with all your co-workers and having a great big barbecue and get intoxicated) and no one, not even the 3 year-old daughter of her boss was buying. But it'll move. At the moment, I have (let me count, hold on) $23.80 so I don't have what you would call a jam-packed schedule. I've been doing house painting (which would be lovely if I didn't have to have all the windows open in the cold weather) to pay the rent, and Glen's been out of the house for most of the past couple of weeks with a new flame in Waihi, so I've spent more evenings that I would like to admit to sitting around talking to the cat. But today we have two new flatmates moving in, a German/Japanese couple with near-unpronounceable names (Glen calls them "Zeig Heil" and "Ruv You Rong Time", respectively) so that should add some flavor to life.
But to catch up...
After the gentlemen took off from Auckland, I had a lovely, caffiene fueled midnight drive home to Napier. When I got home, Glen and I had some dinner (or breakfast, what have you) and he told me that our flatmate, Sue (who moved in to take over from Keller and Noah) hadn't been home for a couple of days. The next day, while I was out golfing with Buzz, I got a text from Glen saying that he needed me home at 5:00 that evening to be a witness, and act as backup, when Sue tried to move out withour paying rent ($185). I showed up early, and was thus, luckily, present to witness Glen jumped, yanked out the front door, and beat on the sidewalk by Sue, and a pack of her friends. To pay me back for calling the police and saving his life, Glen bought me beer.
The other weekend I headed down to Wellington with Buzz and Chris, and got to meet Buzz's brother, Kevin (and his (married) flatmates, Fred and Melissa). Kevin is a tax attorney and Fred is an acountant, so they have a lovely apartment in a high-rise building in the city, with a balcony and a view of the bay. We had a lovely night, and I had a political/automotive discussion with Fred whilst Kevin honked a duck-call at passers by down on the sidewalk and Melissa banned Buzz from her apartment for the forseeable future after some rather off-color remarks were made about the potential attractiveness of her and Fred's future children. Kevin and Fred showed me the Wellington night life, and I got bounced from my first pub after I started pretending to be a US Marine and making fun of all the ANZACs (NZ army...it was ANZAC day so I guess they all got let out of the barracks for the evening).
Other than that, I don't think there have been any too exciting happenings down here. I'm headed down to South Island to do some WWOOFing, vagabonding, romancing of beautiful farm girls and general adventuring as soon as possible (i.e. WHEN SOMEBODY BUYS MY DAMN CAR)...and I'm looking foreward to that like nothing else! Aparently I'm coming home around the 25th of June...I got a little teary-eyed today driving past the old Taradale house and re-living all the old memories, but I suppose that all good things must come to an end...and I'm really, really (I cannot express this enough) ready to get back on the road!
Anyhow, with any luck the next post will be made from a drastically different landmass from the one on which I currently reside, and I hope to have thrilling tales of daring and adventure to share!
Yippee Ki Yay!
Anyhow, that's essentially what I'm up to at the moment. Sarah and I went to her "work do" (a kiwi tradition of getting together with all your co-workers and having a great big barbecue and get intoxicated) and no one, not even the 3 year-old daughter of her boss was buying. But it'll move. At the moment, I have (let me count, hold on) $23.80 so I don't have what you would call a jam-packed schedule. I've been doing house painting (which would be lovely if I didn't have to have all the windows open in the cold weather) to pay the rent, and Glen's been out of the house for most of the past couple of weeks with a new flame in Waihi, so I've spent more evenings that I would like to admit to sitting around talking to the cat. But today we have two new flatmates moving in, a German/Japanese couple with near-unpronounceable names (Glen calls them "Zeig Heil" and "Ruv You Rong Time", respectively) so that should add some flavor to life.
But to catch up...
After the gentlemen took off from Auckland, I had a lovely, caffiene fueled midnight drive home to Napier. When I got home, Glen and I had some dinner (or breakfast, what have you) and he told me that our flatmate, Sue (who moved in to take over from Keller and Noah) hadn't been home for a couple of days. The next day, while I was out golfing with Buzz, I got a text from Glen saying that he needed me home at 5:00 that evening to be a witness, and act as backup, when Sue tried to move out withour paying rent ($185). I showed up early, and was thus, luckily, present to witness Glen jumped, yanked out the front door, and beat on the sidewalk by Sue, and a pack of her friends. To pay me back for calling the police and saving his life, Glen bought me beer.
The other weekend I headed down to Wellington with Buzz and Chris, and got to meet Buzz's brother, Kevin (and his (married) flatmates, Fred and Melissa). Kevin is a tax attorney and Fred is an acountant, so they have a lovely apartment in a high-rise building in the city, with a balcony and a view of the bay. We had a lovely night, and I had a political/automotive discussion with Fred whilst Kevin honked a duck-call at passers by down on the sidewalk and Melissa banned Buzz from her apartment for the forseeable future after some rather off-color remarks were made about the potential attractiveness of her and Fred's future children. Kevin and Fred showed me the Wellington night life, and I got bounced from my first pub after I started pretending to be a US Marine and making fun of all the ANZACs (NZ army...it was ANZAC day so I guess they all got let out of the barracks for the evening).
Other than that, I don't think there have been any too exciting happenings down here. I'm headed down to South Island to do some WWOOFing, vagabonding, romancing of beautiful farm girls and general adventuring as soon as possible (i.e. WHEN SOMEBODY BUYS MY DAMN CAR)...and I'm looking foreward to that like nothing else! Aparently I'm coming home around the 25th of June...I got a little teary-eyed today driving past the old Taradale house and re-living all the old memories, but I suppose that all good things must come to an end...and I'm really, really (I cannot express this enough) ready to get back on the road!
Anyhow, with any luck the next post will be made from a drastically different landmass from the one on which I currently reside, and I hope to have thrilling tales of daring and adventure to share!
Yippee Ki Yay!
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