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Published: April 15th 2006
Well after 2+ days of driving, I’ve finally arrived in Picton, and am waiting on the 1:40 ferry from Wellington with Mike Wilson on it. I left Te Anau on Thursday morning and have pretty much been in the car ever since. I spent a few hours in Queenstown to do the pictures and a few hours at Mt. Cook. Really did the drive by on Mt . Cook. “Look kids, Big Ben.” What a shame, Mt. Cook really deserves more time, but a strange sequence of decisions pretty much killed my time for Mt. Cook…. But we’ll get to that later.
It’s Easter Weekend here, and this is a big holiday. Most people get Good Friday and Easter Monday. So they travel. (oh before I forget… Happy Easter) For the last few days there have been steady streams of cars going south. More than I though existed in this country, anywhere other than Auckland. On Thursday evening many of the cars were carrying boat trailers for fishing or skiing. Yesterday as I got closer to Christchurch there were lots of whitewater kayaks. Headed to the Rangitata, I assume. A Geraldine native swore to me that the Rangitata was the best whitewater in NZ, class IV to IV+. He said it would be the highlight of NZ paddling… too bad I missed it. The cars loaded down with boats really made me want to go though, they reminded me of our annual WV trip. Today I mostly saw surfboards. There is some good surf on the northeast part of the S. Island.
Oh and Good Friday is a huge holiday. Everything in Christchurch was closed down. Not a shop and most restaurants were closed. I was afraid that everything was closed until Monday. Luckily its all open today so I can stock up on groceries for the sea kayaking. Of course the tourist town if Kaikoura was mostly open yesterday, so I got my crayfish (rock lobster) dinner.
I have learned a few bits and pieces about Kiwi culture… so to speak. Both of these come from conversations at the pub in Te Anau.
1) I made the comment that NZ didn’t seem dog friendly. It seems like all public campgrounds and public areas say no dogs. It was explained to me that NZ is very dog friendly. The problem is that NZ native fauna is mostly birds… they don’t have any native predatory mammals. So dogs are a real intrusion and really disturb the native bird populations. So its not about keeping dogs out, its about preserving the native fauna…I’ll concede this one. Oh yeah, if you want to take your dog deer hunting with you, you have to prove to DOC (department of conservation… equivalent of our forest service) that your dog won’t chase birds.
2) deer farming… its everywhere. Venison is almost as cheap as beef, ok maybe not but its cheap. Anyway, I was wondering, why can they do it and we don’t. Well it turns out that the deer here is a red deer or a waikpu (spelled wrong), but its an elk like deer. Not as high jumping as white tails…. But still skittish so you they worry about them spooking and breaking their necks in the fence. I was told though that after a couple of generations they calm down. Almost all the deer farms were started with “live capture” stock.
Oh yeah, I expect this will be the last post until after Wilson leaves, but then I'll fill everyone in. That will be like 1-2 weeks from now.
Ok, now my story. Just so you know this isn’t’ really that good a story. It has a really lame ending. Actually it’s a story that will bring back that old college saying about “prison” and “pardons”. Anyway because I feel I should tell the exciting, good, bad, and lame… here it goes.
The story actually started in Queenstown after canyoning. I had made lunch plans with a girl on the canyoning trip for Tuesday, the 11th. I was supposed to be done sea kayaking on the 10th, head to Queenstown on the 11th and then either stay in Q-town or head to Mt. Cook. Well due to weather considerations the sea kayak trip got moved out a day, though I still planned on being in Q-town on the 12th for lunch.
Of course after returning from Doubtful Sound, a round at the pub was required for all that could go. Pete, Deiry, and myself started at The Ranch for dinner and happy hour. After that we headed to the Moose, for another round. Deciding that neither place was really worth staying in, we decided to complete the walking tour of Te Anau’s drinking establishments by heading over to the Red Cliff. This place seemed like it had more going on. It really didn’t just smaller. But the bartender was cute and friendly.
We were joined at the bar by two others. Both of whom worked there, but were off and had been working on getting drunk. The girl I had seen on Saturday when I was here for live music, already decided she was cute. Ok now it all starts to get fuzzy, and some of this was filled in by Pete the next day. Anyway we all got to talking about music and whatnot. Then there were shots… Jagr, Mini-guiness and lay-backs (aka Upside Down Margarita or CAANDY). There was also dancing with the cute girl… and falling down and falling into the coal bucket. At this point I’m not sure if the guy is her boyfriend or not, but I think it might be…. Oh yeah, there was also kissing. And in my mind, I recall her saying something about it being too bad I wasn’t staying in town longer… or something like that.
At around 3AM, Jo… bartender, makes Deiry and I leave.
The next morning, I’m doing laundry, and packing still planning on leaving. When I run into Pete who fills in the info about the shots and explains that he didn’t think the guy was with the girl, he thought the guy was with Jo. Anyway we joke, wonder what time Deiry left for Picton… 16 hour drive in one day. And I tell him I’m most likely leaving for Q-town.
I get about 10Kms out of Te Anau and turn around. I decide what the hell, give it a gamble. I then spent the whole day in the library typing my Blogs and being hungover. I have to say, I think Pete and Jo were shocked to see me. Maybe not as much as Jemma though. Well the first few beers were slow going down, but they got better. For some reason I ended up doing another “lay back.” Because I told Jo how we would sometimes pour them in college, she thought it would be funny to thumb the sweet and sour and just give me straight tequila…. Thanks Jo!!!
Oh, yeah, what about Jemma. Well nothing really. I don’t think she really wanted me there or wanted to talk to me at all. I tried. Well you win some and you lose some…. And I got the story of deer farming. She did mention that she had a boyfriend in Milford. Also I got a ride home to the campground with Jo, and Jemma so at least I didn't have to walk in the rain.
So in Q-town, I find out mt friend is up in Glenorchy for the day. I have to call up there and find out that she has dinner plans with another friend who is leaving town. Maybe later or on Friday. Well Friday doesn’t work, since there is no way I could get to Picton in time to meet Wilson on Saturday. So I bug out of town, knowing that if she txts me later, I’m going to be pissed. Anyway, she didn’t txt me until Friday so getting out was the right decision….
And that is my lame ass story.
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Vince
non-member comment
...sigh...
Dude...WTF... you can get that kind of drama here in Atlanta.......did you ever meet up with Andy Fuller?