Wellington and Walking

An early morning flight - which I nearly missed - took me from Gold Coast, Australia to New Zealand's capital. I was excited to be reunited with some friends I had made in Auckland before starting a month long hitchhiking adventure with Marion. Marion and I met up with Keven, our German Kamerad as well as Abigail - a friend from a long long time ago. We also ran into Romina, our Uruguayan amiga from the first week in New Zealand.Finally, we cruised back to our flatmate, Leighton's house for the night. We spent the weekend catching up on some much needed Zzzs and getting a taste of Wellington.

REUNIONS! Clockwise from top left: Marion and Keven; Abigail; Sleepy Leighton; Romina

Monday came, and we boarded an early morning ferry across the Cook Strait to Picton. Absolutely gorgeous day and stunning views. Marion slept through all of it though, I'm sure. We hadn't really planned anything out... maybe just decided in the general direction we wanted to go - so after lunch we formulated a plan;  let's walk the Heaphy track. So, my little hitchhiking apprentice and I got our first lift south-west-ish after less than half an hour. Marion was very excited about getting picked up! A few more lifts gave us

Lars makes three

another friend, in the form of the heavy-laden Lars from Germany, who was to become a long-term fixture. By the following morning, we were a trio on the way to the four-day Heaphy track. Actually for about three
hours we were a quartet. It took us eight hours that day to get to the start of the track. On the way we rode in a post van! So we walked about three hours - until it got dark and set up camp.
     Over the next three days we walked the remaining 70 km (50ish miles) through forest, Savannah, jungle and seashore, sleeping in our tent and trying to eating enough to replenish the calories we'd lost. It was beautiful and actually an easy walk by all accounts, but made exceedingly difficult by the weight of our packs. I have no idea how Lars did it with his 35 kg (77 lb), ill-fitting bag. The Weka were ever-present - greedy, cheeky little birds. We finished, exhausted and sand-fly bitten on the afternoon of the final day and a Dutch lady named Kathline took us to the thriving metropolis of Karamea, where some crazy hippy did a weird light treatment thing on my Chacras. I'm not sure whether it was the pseudo-science or the 6 bananas I ate that gave me bundles of energy.

Various faces of the Heaphy track.

    To end the walking chapter, we made it to the next bit of civilisation called Westport where it began to rain and we sought shelter in a hostel that charged us far too much to pitch a tent. Tomorrow was to be a new day, but tonight was to be for sleeping.

And back again

Opera house as viewed from ferry

After enjoying some quality time with the family, I decided to enjoy some quality time with some strangers for new years! I got to Sydney on new years eve eve and slept off the jetlag. I celebrated the new year by getting sunburnt in a park with about 100 couch surfers watching the famed fireworks, and making friends. For some reason, cities and me don't work so well. Especially in 40C heat. So, I thought I'd escape to the serenity of Manly beach on new years day. Ha! I've never been to a noisier place. My second attempt at finding somewhere peaceful took me to the blue mountains where I hiked for the day.

Backpackers on the beach

    After five days in the city I started on another hitchhiking adventure with my friend Devon from the internet. The plan was to head north together to the Gold Coast so I could catch my flight back to New Zealand. He has tonnes of hitchhiking experience under his belt. We started out of Sydney on the train in the evening aiming to find a place to camp on the edge of the city before sticking are thumbs out in the morning. Well the trains had a bit of a mishap so we spent our first night in a roundabout. A couple of lifts took us to South-West Rocks where we ate copious fruit, swam and camped on the beach. There were heaps of
      We took it slow the next morning and made it to Coff's Harbour where we were offered a trampoline to sleep on by Paul. Unsure whether to simply take up the offer or to keep going, we sat at a highway on ramp and played our harmonicas. Three different people pulled over to us half-hearted hitchhikers - the first two weren't going very far, but Kimberly offered to take us to her house in Woolgoolga to stay. Of course we said yes.

Stacey's house

     Well-fed and well rested, we set off again in the morning. I had three days left to get to Gold Coast and only about 200 km left... as such we ventured off into the woods and found a self-sustaining hippy community close to Grafton. We ended up staying on Stacey's land, and chilling out with her and her kids. She sent her on our way the following morning with fruit from her garden and feathers in our hair. After going inland to Nimbin with a funny Quebecoise called Alex, we were pushing it a little bit for getting to the airport by the following morning. Devon eventually left me so that I'd have a better chance of getting a ride. I arrived well after dark and camped outside the airport, ready to start the next chapter in my adventure.

Friends made on the way: Couchsurfers, Kimberley (+Devon), Stacey and the fam (+Devon)

The long way home

For my next installment, we hop across the Tasman sea to the land of shrimps on the barbie, Fosters and all
the animals that wanna kill you. I left from Auckland at the beginning of December, at ridiculous o'clock in the morning and arrived in Melbourne in the afternoon. I promptly spent too much on a bus ticket, made

Scenes from the great ocean road

myself feel ill with too much peanut satay and then rode a bike to my hostel. The city was pretty cool, but a massive shock after being in the wilderness in New Zealand for the past few days. I spent the next couple of days recovering to be honest. I also saw my friend Vilte from Lithuania who I met in Germany about four years ago. Ooooh and I met some penguins in St Kilda's!

      But after three days, I was ready for adventure to begin. I had some less than encouraging words from several people on my way out - "You'll never get a lift", "Ever seen wolf creek?" - but undeterred I took a train west, and stuck my thumb out. Literally the second car that passed me pulled over. Tatted up to the eyeballs, and swearing like a sailor but a lovely chap - this was my first lift  in Australia and my hundredth overall. My plan was to get at least some of the way along the great ocean road. On my way I encountered some policepersons just out of training (who gave me a lift) and about 10 cockatoos who tried to steal my lunch. By evening I got to the twelve apostles and had dinner with my ride - an Aussie and his Taiwanese lady friend. We feasted on chips and camped by the apostles.

Glimpse of Sydney

     For some reason I ended up in a hotel the following night - I'd made my way back east through Sydney. I woke up very confused. I think the staff were too. It was Friday now, 700 km to Sydney and a flight on Sunday. After a few rides, I was almost there! In Ulladulah, a car pulled over with two girls my age, "Are you a serial killer?" asked one. I reassured them that I was pretty harmless and hopped in. Due to inclement weather, I ended up staying at Tamika (remember this name) and Melissa's place... which I had to break into after a night in Ulladulah. I enjoyed having a bed, but was out of there by 8 the following morning.
     Midday on Saturday brought me to Wollongong, where I found Michal - the chef from Snails! I was now about 80 km outside of Sydney and was excited for my second reunion of that day... I found Sarah from school. We adventure-swapped and explored the city that night. After less than 24 hours in Sydney, I was on a plane to the cold winds of Oklahoma. All in all, traveling from Auckland to my parent's house took over a week. Adventuring was to take a break for a couple of weeks as I visited family, recovered from jet-lag and getting ill.

Old friends, new friends

East coast shenanigans

Good morning folks!

I've been terrible at updating, four months terrible in fact. So, there's a lot to say but I'll divide it up so you're not plagued with a big old wall of text.

Ron's kiwifruit orchard

I left my dear readership on the precipice of my hunt for fortune in Napier. Being the ridiculously lucky geezer that I am, i did not have to ask for a job but was offered one at a kiwi orchard not 5 km away. The next hurdle was for car-less me to get there in a timely fashion. This was provided in the form of Tjade and Katie, two friendly Germans who got the same job. So, up at the butt-crack of dawn for the next week at least. The work was exhilarating... I jest of course, but my paycheck made it bearable. Towards the end of the week, I realised that I should probably go about finding further employment... the Germans, again came to my rescue - the following week I would be thinning apples. Again, this is not nearly as interesting as it may at  first appear. I resorted to re-teaching myself some french in order to relieve the monotony. Weekends and evenings were spent at the beach and jumping into waterfalls with more Germans. The toad hall backpackers was mostly populated by these lovely Europeans, and as a result, much of my conversation was not in English.

The open road

After two and a half weeks in the glaring sun of Napier, I quit work and started making my merry way north, up to Auckland... but the long way around. On the first day of hitchhiking I intended to make it to Gisborne and was about three hours away by five that evening. This was facilitated by the kindness of some four parties of kiwis - including a truck driver! It was empowering to be so high up on the road trailing a few tonnes of manure which swang like a giant, putrid tail behind us on the winding coastal road. Three hours later, I was still in Wairoa, still three hours away, hungry and grumpy. I started walking along the road with my thumb out, scouting out somewhere to put up my tent. Within minutes, I was picked up by a hunter who had started in Christchurch that morning (a good 13 hours south, on the south island). After a few hours of chatting, he offered me a place to put up my tent in Gisborne at his friend's house... this patch of grass quickly became a queen size bed in their newly renovated historic home by the river.


Well rested and eager to move on, I left for the town at around 10 and met up with Alice - a local who I'd met at Uni last semester. She showed me some lovely sites on the coast, we had a swim, and then I was on my way. My destination this time was East Cape - the easternmost point in New Zealand and the first spot to see the sun. Lifts were a bit slow again that day as I was really leaving civilisation, however by four in the afternoon I had made it about half way. I was picked up by a Filipino lady who wasn't able to take me very far but asked if I'd like to have a drink at her house. There, I talked to her husband for a couple of hours about hydrogen fuel cells and he asked me to work for him, developing a method of using hydrogen from a process that he uses at his wood mill. He doesn't wish to patent or sell the idea, but simply to use it in his own home for power. So there's an opportunity I suppose.

Joseph and his truck

     It was getting late, and I really wanted to see the sunrise the following morning so I decided to continue.
Joseph picked me up in his beat-up old van and took me to his home-town of Tikitiki, where he introduced me to to his home, his animals and various members of his family. This left me still 70 km on gravel road away from the East Cape lighthouse - and Joseph, out of the kindness of his heart took me all the way there... where his battery died. He told me to by a tiki necklace, which I'm still wearing and I have promised to get him a classic black cowboy hat. After climbing the stairs up to the lighthouse I collapsed in my tent, finally at my destination.

The sunrise... was slightly disappointing, but nonetheless I've seen it. I was woken up by the excited chatter of some Chinese tourists and had breakfast there. So then it was down the stairs, and back along the unsealed road in hopes of catching another lift. My load was far to heavy for this sort of thing... but I

Pohutakawa in Te Araroa

survived and after two hours got picked up by a dutch couple who took me to the oldest Pohutakawa tree in

the world at Te Araroa. Nice shady spot to hichhike from. I got back to civilisation, a bit away from the coast. A very rainy civilisation. After mosying about a bit, I ended up getting my second ride in a truck, for which I had to run. He took me as far as Rotorua, and gave me beer. The rest of the trip was pretty simple. I stayed the night in Tauranga, right by the highway and got to Auckland by the afternoon to catch Marion at the market. There, I rested up before the start of the next adventure... we'll stop there for now, kiddies.

Mountains of things to say

Lou and I in Hamilton Gardens

Gah! I meant to finish this off sooner, but ah well, I've finally gotten round to it... ish. I think I'll condense 4 adventures into one wall of text. Happy reading!

Lou!

The weekend following my adventures in Whirinaki, I elected to spend some time with the lovely Louise who happens to be a friend from Cardiff. She was a lovely guide and showed me around Hamilton gardens, Port Waikato and various members of her family. It's nice to have a connection with home, and I'll certainly be back in Tuakau!

Stunning

Mordor

And then... more tramping! 11 of us did the famous Tongariro crossing, which passes between mounts Tongariro and Ngauruhoe (otherwise known as Mt Doom). And indeed, this is where various scenes from the Lord of the Rings were filmed. Dave and I hitchhiked down, while the nine others drove. We actually beat the conventional travelers to Turangi - a town close to the start of the track - proving the efficacy of kiwi hitching. The first day was Liam's birthday, and we celebrated in style by doing the 5 hour tramp in terrible visibility, piercing rain and blustery wind. We truly felt that we had conquered mordor by the end, with Haylee and I bringing up the rear - no one died! On the way back, however views were stunning. On the first day we had completely passed by towering mountains and blue lakes and thermal springs without realising - survival was more important than beauty. We even conquered mount Ngauruhoe in a hail storm!

 North

Jono and his home (oh and Clement)

The weather liked us the following three day labour weekend and so we took full advantage and drove up north. If you've looked at a map of New Zealand, you'll be aware that the northern bit is a long skinny bit with just 1 road. On the first night, we had the hospitality of Jono's family in Whangarei who hosted all 12 of us and showed us some pretty stunning scenery.  I hadn't actually heard much about northland and so I was pleasantly surprised! I suppose the message is that New Zealand is just beautiful.
     The following day was a full day of driving, taking us via Paihia to the tippidy-top of the island called Cape Reinga. The cape is actually very biologically interesting as it's soil is quite unique in its hostility meaning that there are a lot of unusual plant species found there. Save for the tourists, Cape Reinga was very peaceful. We camped a few km down the road that night at Spirit's Bay, had drinks on the beach, made the most hilarious attempt at dinner and crashed in our tents.
     The following morning I woke up while most people were still asleep and decided to take a wee wander to a peninsula where I got to watch dolphins play for about half an hour! That made me very happy. We then started our amble back to Auckland to complete our final week of study, but not without visiting the sand dunes and the oldest Kauri tree in New Zealand.

Coromandel

On of the campsites

My most recent adventure took place right before the start of my final exams, because screw studying. A corsican girl who doesn't want her life on the internet and I went to "where kiwi's go on holiday". We hitched to the Cormandel peninsula there without much plan apart from to camp where we landed! On the way, we found a hitchhiking buddy by the name of Freddy and travelled with him up to Thames.

Cathedral Cove

     We enjoyed the scenery, did a bit of tramping and swapped philosophies. The final night, however was the best. Hot water beach is an interesting beach on the east coast of the Coromandel where a certain area of the beach is 'heated', but is only accessible at low tide - one of our rides had informed us that low tide was at 1am. Excited by this prospect, we set up camp by the beach and waited... and waited and waited, until my companion woke me up at around 12 and we ran to the hot pools. About 20 people were already there and had dug pools of various degrees of scalding in the sand. We stole the best one and looked up at the full moon and bright stars for who knows how long. Unfortunately I didn't really get any pictures of this. We headed back the following day to study for finals.

 

... and now for something completely different

So exams are done, and I've said TTFN to Auckland. I hitchhiked yesterday to the town of Napier to seek my fortune in fruitpicking and got a job at 10am today picking kiwi fruit - hope I get to eat some! I start in the morning. I've got lots more adventures planned in New Zealand, Australia, Oklahoma and possibly somewhere else. I don't have to be back in school until March 2nd, so yeah... lots of things will be done.

Sweet as bro!

Spring adventures

Kia Ora! it's been a long time since I've updated this and a lot has happened. I mean heaps! I haven't been home for the weekend in I think 5 weeks? I'm not really sure - it's kind of a blur. But this time I have pictures! In the mean time and between time I've been doing school... but that's almost done with now - kinda crazy to think that it's been a whole semester.

I think the best way for me to do this is to do a brief summary of each weekend... so here goes! (In chronological order)

The Mount

So, after my very successful hitchhiking tour over spring break, Ben (who's blog you can peak at here) decided he wanted to try his hand - I was so happy to get to share the hitchhiking love. Plus it makes waiting a helluvalot less boring. So, we skipped class on the last Friday of September and set off for mount Maunganui- a popular surf destination  and mountain on the east coast. Funnily, the hitchhiking failed! After 2 hours standing in the spot where I got picked up on my way to Taranaki we started thinking about buses to Bombay (a renowned 'spot' just outside of Auckland)... turns out the bus to the mount was $10 cheaper!

Ben and I on top of the mount

So, we arrived late at our hostel at the base of the mountain (hill), having made friends of Siri the Swede and Oreet the American on the bus. Which is good as we would have never found the hostel otherwise! Our new-found companions accompanied us for the following day as we hiked up the mount, tanned at the beach and explored some rock pools - the final activity resulting in a hilariously soggy but undamaged Ben.

Ben looking the part

Unfortunately, due to this terrible thing called school, we had to start making our way back on Sunday afternoon... but we got to hitch! Ben especially looked the type as he had no wearable shoes. Our three rides allowed us to see the towns of Tauranga, Bethlehem, Waihi and Paeroa, and safely home.

 Whirinaki Tramp

You may remember that I am a member of the tramping club at the University. As such, the weekend following my adventures by the seaside I and about 12 others undertook a tramp involving a lot of river crossings (164 according to Emily, in fact), meaning that we got our feet a bit wet. Now, despite this area being beautiful, almost no one has heard of it!

Lambs are much more photogenic than I

To start the weekend off, we drove to Anna's family farm near Rotorua where we were very much pampered by her parents with lambs and food and beer. The first day was very, very wet and so we took the short way to the hut where we found plenty of dry firewood and whiled away our time roasting marshmallows and eating burritos. The way back took 8 hours (and the aforementioned river crossings) to complete. Stunning views as usual! We went back via Anna's house for warm soup and more lamb feeding... to start another week in school.

Whirinaki forest!

I think that'll have to be all for now. I'll finish the rest of the stories later as I need to get some good sleep tonight before heading off to the Corommandel peninsula in the morning.

On being a vagabond

Pertty Mountain

So, someone really ought to tell me to bring my fully charged, memory-card accompanied camera with me. So yeah, now I have a lot of pictures on various mediums over the last few weeks. Sooooo... what's happened? The All Blacks beat the Wallabies 51-20. That was pretty cool, then the following weekend I set off hitchhiking to Taranaki which contains the mountain of the same name, so that I could undertake a help exchange. Clearly the mode of transport lends itself to some stories, so many of which, in fact that I've had to include 'appendices' to this entry.

I have never hitchhiked before. My mother was just a little bit worried when I mentioned the notion to her about an hour before I left, but undeterred I set off with a cardboard sign and a backpack to a petrol station right before the exit for SH1 south out of Auckland. Actually I started in a terrible place, but some lovely man told me to go further up the road. So, after about 20 minutes, I started my first lift from Auckland

How I've been rolling

to Hamilton - in a taxi nonetheless! Four lifts later, and not a single penny paid, it was getting dark and I was in the middle of nowhere. Another lift got me to Te Kuiti - about halfway to where I needed to be. It was 8pm, but it was warm. After sitting at a park bench for a while contemplating my situation, I decided that rather than pay for a place to stay for the night I should do as the homeless do and sleep under a bridge. Unlike the homeless do, I had a 4 season sleeping bag with me.
     The following morning, I set off to try to make it to my destination. Three more lifts got me there around 12pm. Soooo... clearly this took a lot longer than it would have if I'd paid for it (24 hours versus 4). And yeah, being by the side of the road with loads of cars passing by your can kinda suck. However, I met 7 sets of people through it, and stopped in places that I would not otherwise stop. For example, I saw Mokau where I got stuck for about an hour (not much traffic), which is beautiful.

Vance and Kathryn's garden

     Anywho, I made it to where I was supposed to be and promptly crashed out before work started in the morning. Contrary to popular belief, I was not picking asparagus but instead helping at a garden, so that meant painting, planting and pulling up seedlings for the wonderful Vance and Kathryn. These few hours of morning work left me with afternoons to hitchhike around the mountain and the beaches and finish the day off with a hot meal. Highlights of this were climbing mount Taranaki (a dormant volcano), and Paritutu rock (a big rock), the former of which resulted in me thigh-deep in snow and thoroughly off the beaten path a couple of times.

The motel

Next big trip I took was a week later, to the small town of Karewau, near Rotorua. I again hitchhiked there, starting with a guy hauling a 1964 (?) VW bug who again dropped me off in the vicinity of Hamilton. I'd been advised not to try hitchhiking all the way, so when I got to Rotorua I took a 10 minute bus, which lead me to meeting my first hitchhiking 'buddy', who we shall call Jamie as that is his name.
     Again, I undertook a help exchange, but this time working at a motel for Raewyn and Peter. I had plenty of time to do things but unfortunately the weather turned a bit sour so my second week was slightly less eventful - though I did see some geysers with the other help exchange Fionahula (yes that's a real name). The second week is also currently slightly picture deficient - I forgot my camera charger - but this will be fixed when I get the pictures from my disposable developed.

So, that about sums it all up! I may go more in depth at some point - probably not. But there will be more pictures! It's back to school now for me. Oh, and although it is unlikely that any of the 43 people who gave me lifts will ever read this, I'd like to thank each and every one of them. I met so many people - from gangsters to grandfathers and from farmers to financiers. It does kinda show you that people are alright, really.

Pretty Mokau

The approximate route. Around 1000 km, not including day trips.