Excellent Adventure (Part II)

A continuation:

Day 5:

So when I left off last time, I was in the Marlborough Sounds at Adam’s holiday home. The next day at his place we took out his boat and drove around the sounds for a good chunk of the day, checking out various beaches and such. Sometimes we’d just stop the boat and relax in the middle of the water. When we looked at the water surrounding the boat, we ended up seeing hundreds upon hundreds of clear jellyfish slowly swimming about. It was a very cool scene. We then went for another leisurely hike and just hung around and relaxed all day like we do best.

We left around 4pm where Adam dropped Justine off in Blenheim for her school fieldtrip, just an hour or so east, and dropped Kathleen and I off at a motorway intersection that would take us across the country to the west coast. The trio was officially broken up, and I’ll admit that we were scared to hitchhike without the bold Justine. But I guess that’s the thing about hitching, when you’re in the middle of nowhere without a car, there’s no other way to get around without freezing your ass off for the night along the side of the road…so stick out our thumbs we did. We got picked up within 5 minutes (a new record), but by an old truck containing an even older man with a thick white beard and probably a missing tooth in there somewhere. He could only take us a half hour down the road to a random place that isn’t even on the map called Marui; its “downtown” area consisted of a pub and supposed nudist colony (we didn’t bother finding out).

Well we got stranded there for a cold 45 min as nobody would pick us up and pure darkness was only a half hour away. Just as we were going to go inside the pub and ask about accommodation (I literally said “let’s go in after this last car”), that nice little last car pulls over. A lovely middle aged woman took us a couple hours west to a place called Murchison, where civilization is a bit more prominent and cozy warm hostels could be found.


Day 6:

We started off the beautiful day bright and early to make it to the west coast. We landed a hitch with a mom and her two toddlers. Like many who pick us up, she said she was paying back past dues from when she was young and hitching. She dropped us off at another motorway intersection because she was going a different way than us. Our next stop would be Buller Gorge, which was around 5 kms away from where we were. We thought it silly to ask for a 5 min drive so we just walked it out, which was immediately regretted because heavy packs make all the difference in our endurance of long walks.

I’ve been to Buller Gorge on my last roadtrip but it was still a nice site to see. We went across NZ’s largest swingbridge and took some bushwalks along the area. We didn’t stay too horribly long because the coast was waiting for us and it was always uncertain when we would make it there.

We found a good spot to stand at and managed to catch the 1st car that came our way (definitely a new record time). It was with this [cute] German boy travelling around right out of high school, so needless to say the conversation flowed very lively. He took us to yet again another motorway intersection. When we found a spot to set our stuff down at I was still putting some chips in my mouth, but decided to lazily stick out my thumb anyways with no expectations, and once again we scored the 1st car to come our way. As if our luck couldn’t get any better, this car had two really cute mid-twenties guys in it. They were two kiwis (once again picking us up to pay back past dues) who lived in Australia but came over to NZ again for a mate’s wedding, and decided to do a 4-day tramp in the meantime, which explained the funky sweat smell in the car. They took us along the gorgeous curving west coast road (rainforest on one side, ocean on the other), and over to Punakaiki, home of the infamous Pancake Rocks. We then found a hostel on the beach, uniquely named “Beach Hostel”. The ocean had some big waves that day, making me dizzy from looking at its windy chaotic ferocity. As we took a stroll along the beach, I spotted what I assumed to be a seal, but possibly a small hector dolphin. It was jumping up and down within the chaotic waves having a good old time, then actually got on top of a wave and rode it for a good 25 ft. I was so jealous; it looked so fun, and who knew they could surf?


Day 7:

The waves must have been messing with our heads, because we decided for some awful forsaken reason to wake up at 5.30am to do a 2-hr hike along a river. Although, we did get to rummage through the Punakaiki caverns, where we squeezed in and under through tight channels, saw little waterfalls and even a few glow worms. I got to wear Kathleen’s awesome headlight, so I felt like a cool spelunker. When we walked to a place to go hitch out of town, it started to rain, I mean just POUR down, which is one of the many times I wished we had a car. Fortunately, a middle-aged man from California picked us up. He was in NZ on holiday because 95% of the people at his company, including him, got laid off recently and he just wanted to clear his head and decide what to do next with his life. Poor guy. He dropped us off in Greymouth, where the only thing to do there is the Monteith’s Brewery Tour. We went ahead with the tour, granted I’ve done it before and it was only like 11am…

It was still pouring rain outside when we finished the tour, but our only real choice was to hitch. This is the point where we thought we hit rock bottom. We stood out on a busy street for over an hour, ourselves and our bags thoroughly soaked, shivering from cold, and about to cry. People must have thought we were nuts and quite frankly I felt nuts, and regretful of depending on strangers for transportation. As we stood there this cool hipster mum and her kid finally pulled over because we looked pathetic, but could only take us about 20 min down the road. Oh well, we’d have taken anything at this point, because 20 min of a heated car was like heaven to us.

We stood in the rain for another half-hour until this half-Maori guy picked us up. He had a beard down to his waist and a straggly wool sweater, but we were desperate. Kathleen always kept a pocket knife in jacket just in case of shady looking fellows such as this guy. But as soon as he opened his mouth he turned out to be one of the coolest and nicest guys we’ve talked to, just a genuine hard-working Kiwi. For work, he went gold-mining and greenstone-hunting in the mountains. Sounded like a sweet gig to me. He dropped us off about an hour south to a place called Hokitika. Since it was still raining so hard we didn’t bother to see the beaches or artsy culture of the town, but decided to get as far south on the coast as we could.

Another half hour went by waiting in Hokitika, and by this time we were exhausted and sick of hitching. A lovely Australian couple picked us up who had previously seen us hitching a couple hours back in Greymouth. They were supposed to take us down to the Franz and Fox Glaciers, but halfway there the road closed because of the weather. I remember before that as we were driving across a bridge, the water level was so high that it was starting to actually come over the bridge; I think it could easily have been taken out. The Australians however were in awe; they’ve never seen this much rain at one time. So the only road going south was closed, and we found out the only road going north had also been washed out. We got stranded in the middle in a random-population-200 town called Whataroa, along with a hundred other backpackers. When we realized the situation we looked for accommodation immediately but the only motel in town and their 5 rooms were filled up way before we got there. They were at least kind enough to let us use their showers and drink hot chocolate so we wouldn’t die of hypothermia.

There’s not much to do when stranded, so us and the other helpless flocks headed over to the pub. Hah, all of us must have done wonders for that town’s economy. Many of the locals offered there houses to us for the night, and even the pub and church were going to let us sleep on their floors, but that night we ended up at the local priest’s house. When we got there we found a half-dozen Canadian Bible School kids also staying the night. The priest was actually pretty young and hip (and is it wrong to say good-looking?), and the bible kids were weird in a hilarious way. We were playing a card game that I had no idea how to play, and eventually one of them just rounds up all the cards. I say, “Oh its over, who won?” He replies, “We all win in Jesus’ eyes…”

It was a very mentally and physically exhausting day.


Day 8:

In the morning, the continuing rain diminished our hopes of getting out of there. We went to the Catholic mass that morning because we had nothing else to do, but also wanted to pay our respects to Father Chris. We restlessly hung around as some people were flown out by helicopter to catch their scheduled flights and such, and the roads finally opened by 2pm.

We left with the Aussie couple again because they were begin super awesome the whole time, and as we passed where the road was being fixed, we saw what looked like a giant chunk bitten out of the road by like a dinosaur or something. I’ve posted some pictures of it; it’s hard to see but if you look closely you’ll see that half the road is missing. Ah, the power of water.

The Aussies dropped us off at Fox Glacier. We felt bad for imposing on their holiday to such an extent, so we just said our thanks and had them drop us off as soon as possible. We tried to hitchhike again from that point. It was raining again (surprise surprise) and our chances looked gloom as few cars were passing because of the bad road conditions. I guess we give up too easily because we were losing light and about to go look for a hostel when a massive decked-out SUV pulls up. He was a good-looking muscular middle-aged kiwi guy coming back from work and meeting his family in Wanaka (which was our next destination). Kathleen and I both agree that the Kiwi guys here age extremely well, probably because they are hard-working farmers all their lives; seriously, everyone’s a looker. Besides that, he gave us a generous 4-hour ride through to the other side of the Alps and finally away from all the rain!


Day 9:

I’ve always loved Wanaka, and I always hear Kiwis raving about it as the perfect holiday home; the alpine air is endlessly relaxing and refreshing. We walked around, got ice-cream and then walked to Puzzling World. The last time I was in Wanaka I went to this place, but it was still awesome in its childish glory of crazy puzzles, illusions, holograms, and giant maze that took us 2 hours to get through. By 4pm we decided to hitch to Queenstown where the real fun is packed at. We ended up walking down the wrong road to get there and so had to walk back across town and up a few hills to another motorway that led in the right direction. By then we were exhausted and sick of walking around all day, and had wasted so much time that it was nearly dark and once again the uncertainty of being stranded crept up on us. We should have learned by then that everything works out in the end. A young emo Kiwi guy picked us up. The conversation at this point was getting a bit redundant, as we explained where we’re from, what we’re doing in New Zealand, where we’ve been so far, the differences between Kiwis and Americans, etc etc etc. I was a bit over it, so I let Kathleen do most of the talking.

We knew of a group of Lincoln people that were in Queenstown, so we tried to find the hostel they were staying at. We got a bit turned around, but two Aussie guys who were searching for the same place helped us out. Actually, quite randomly, they asked us out for dinner. I found this weird because I didn’t (and still don’t) even know their names. Afterwards we all met up with the Lincoln crowd at the bars for the night. Queenstown is always great after travelling down the west coast where there’s no people, because this place is the active haven of young travellers and night life. It was a nice break.


Alritey, I’m a bit tired of writing now. More later.

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