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Published: March 11th 2007
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we were cowgirls
the madatory theme was cowboys and Indians Well the Wildfoods Festival lived up to its name in many different ways. I don’t think we really knew what we were getting ourselves into by signing up for the bus trip there, but I can definitely say that over the past 48 I have had one of the weirdest, but most wonderful weekends ever. I’ll start from the beginning…
The bus was supposed to be leaving at 7am “sharp” so we were told to arrive at 6:45. We walked over to the car park on time and were greeted by a large crowd of cowboys and Indians (that was the mandatory bus theme). There was also a tower of 12 packs and boxed wine that was being passed out. By 7am there were several people drinking pretty heavily, especially considering it was 7am. The busses were late but we managed to be on the road by 8:30. The trip to Hokitika, which is on the west coast, is about a 3-4 hour drive. Add in 160 people drinking and needing their “piss breaks” it took about 5. The ride there was pretty relaxed and there were some drinking songs being sung, but nothing out of hand by any means. We
How LOTR is THIS?
the view out the bus window...Castle Hill I believe? got there and headed into the festival. Our first wild food we tried out was the whitebait fritters, which are some kind of a fish larva that is mixed with egg and made into a patty and put on bread. It was actually pretty good and is considered to be a little fancy here. From there on in we also tried kangaroo, venison, rabbit sausage, vegan gonads, German waffles, homemade donuts, kowlua and milk (its Kahlua just spelled differently), grasshopper and marmite on toast, and the worst one a shot of red bull with a small worm in it. “Why?!” you might ask? Because you are only a 20-year old living abroad in New Zealand attending a wild food festival once. Then again it might’ve also had something to do with the liquid entertainment on that 5 hours bus ride there…but that’s neither here nor there.
After the festival we went back to the place we were originally supposed to be staying to find it pretty trashed beer on the floor and people had gotten sick in the bathrooms. We decided to find new accommodations and headed to the beach with our sleeping bags. I had met up with my
tasting the 'roo
yes, I ate kangaroo. no, it was not good. roommates earlier at the festival and they met up with us on the sand as well and we had a nice campfire going. Kelly and I went to get fish and chips and we got to see a little more of the town. Not much larger than Camden or Geneseo until 10,000 people invade it for this once a year event. We ate at a very shady looking place, but there was a long line and the food was decent. We went back down to the beach and spent the rest of the evening all huddled around the campfire. It was awesome to look down the beach and just see fire after fire in the sand; everyone just migrates there after the festival is over. People were just walking up and down the beach campfire hopping so we met a lot of random kiwis and Americans as well. We finally went to bed around 3:30am, and I literally just fell asleep staring up at the stars. They were all over the sky, you could even see the Milky Way a bit as well at the southern cross. We were lucky to get a full 4 hours of sleep before we
had to be up to catch the bus home. The sunrise on Sunday was gorgeous; the sky was a beautiful yellow and pink color. We collected our stuff and found a nice local bakery to grab some breakfast and tea at before we boarded the bus. The bus ride home might just be the cultural highlight of the trip, which is saying a lot considering the fact that I ate a worm and a bug in the same day. Little did we know that we boarded the bus that had been designated “the drinkers bus”. We were surrounded by kiwis that were either still drunk from the night before or had already started in for day two. Either way, it was crazy from the get go. I’ll have to admit it was very entertaining for the first half of the trip. Once the exhaustion started to set in though, my mind changed quickly. Though I am going to censor the details of everything that they were doing on the bus, you can trust me when I say that I have seen few, if any, events in any frat house in Geneseo that would rival it. It was binge drinking at its best, which could also be considered its worst. But I do have to say they were in no way disrespectful to us and were fine with the fact that we were not partaking in the 48-hour drinking extravaganza. It made for an interesting trip. By the time we got to Christchurch, I was very ready to be off that bus.
All in all, it was just a strange weekend. Fun, but strange. Make sure to check out all of my pictures from it! I couldn’t describe some of the events in words if I tried!
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