illegal mini-golf - halloween style

initial thoughts of living in a hostel - the first 10 days

Picton & the South Island w/ Jorg

Arriving in Picton –

It’s hard to write a blog when everyday is the new best day of your life. I have so much to write, and I’m so behind, but I’ll try to catch up. My last entry was typed on the ferry, so I’ll pick up from there.

The night before the ferry, I attempted to use the stupid NZ payphones to let the hostel know I was coming (and bringing 2 others), however, the payphones here are horrible (or I'm just stupid) and I gave up after a few attempts. In the end, we decided to just go and figure it out. Jorg thought this might cause troubles with the big “Aaron is here” celebration, and that the bands might not be ready for our arrival. Well there were no bands to welcome us, but there were more than 30 dolphins putting on a show beside the ferry for a good 5 minutes at the end of our cruise through the Marlborough sounds. It was fantastic, and the biggest pod of dolphins I’ve ever seen.

We surprised Sheira (the mom of the family) and the result was a totally booked hostel. She had a few spare mattresses, and we threw them on the ground in the theatre room. It was a beautiful day, about 90 degrees and sunny so we went out for a hike where we could get a good view of the sounds. Picton is right in the middle of hundreds of small islands that line the northern tip of the south island. We came back to a feast of New Zealand lamb, and then went with a group from the hostel to check out the little caves with glow-worms outside of town. Sleeping in the TV room was horrible. I hate TV.

For the first week of the trip, we ate at a lot of cafés. A funny, although embarrassing, thing always happened. Des would order some food, (usually soup) and then complain about how everything was expensive. Ten minutes later, the food would come out and not look the same as “back home.” She would taste it, then just sit there the rest of the meal and not eat. 9 dollars gone.  Then, at the next café, she would ask “is there any actual vegetables in the vegetable soup, or is it just puraide?” No doubt, she would make the same mistake again, and repeat the sulking process of wasting another 10 dollars on nasty soup. I’m not sure kiwi’s know the term “puraide” anyway. This all led to her wanting to eat a KFC all the time. I remember being that sort of traveler back in 2004, but im eating a surprising amount of new foods lately. Trying new foods has peaked recently, during my days as the kitchen vulture… more on this and hostel life later.

Picton is a small town, with only 5,000 residents so its pretty quiet, but the business district is bigger than you would expect because the ferry runs 6 times a day, and cruise ships port here, so there are always people hanging around in transit at any given time. A lot of these people are laying around in the park across the street, so it’s easy to get a pickup game of Frisbee going while people wait around for their ferry. The hostel is in the best location possible, just across the street from the park & beach, and just around the corner from “the strip.” You can walk anywhere in picton, and I usually do that or unicycle, but I do have free access to a good mountain bike.

Speaking of bikes, you have to wear a helmet when you ride a bike here, and if you don’t pay attention you’ll find yourself thinking that Mormons are taking over the country. (to me, at least,  when I see a dude on a mountain bike wearing a helmet riding down the road, I figure there is a good chance he’s a Mormon.)

New Lingo: “Sweet As” can be used for anything really, mostly “cool” “great” or “thanks” as far as I can tell.

Traveling around the South Island – mostly car, a taste of hitchhiking

During this section of the journal, I am going to bold a few places I think are worthy of a google image search if you are interested in any geography or visuals of New Zealand. Looking up information on these places will make you want to come over if you don’t already.

After our one night stand with Picton, Jorg, Des & I started our one week driving intense trip around the South Island. We started in Abel Tasman National Park where Des and I called it a beach day, while Jorg paid for a water-taxi to take him to a famous hike he heard about through a German alpine club. We had a pretty rushed trip, so taking a beach day was nice. There were a few islands off of this particular beach and Des & I had an adventure getting to them. She is not the best swimmer, and hates cold water so it took some convincing. In the end, I just decided to swim halfway and let her make up her own mind. The last time I convinced someone to do something, Kara Wilson nearly died jumping off a 50ft. bridge in Switzerland and I had to carry her out of a river on my back, and then load her onto a train later that night and hear stories of how she couldn’t go running 6 months later. Anyway, on the way out to the islands, we took the shortest route possible, but that included climbing all of these sharp rocks and our feet were really sore. So, from the islands, I decided to swim a really long way back, around another island and back to a beach that was pretty far off. Des was going to go back by land, although I think that it was harder. In the end, I got back to the place we agreed to meet at least an hour before she did. She came back nearly in tears, and had a horrible story about how the tide had risen, and the rock climbing was much more intense on the way back, and that at parts she had to carry the camera in her mouth with just her head out of the water! Gee- glad I swam!

That night, we drove south to some lake which was another national park. I forget the name, but I have a picture of me jumping off a dock in my facebook pictures, and that’s the place. There were a few good hikes, but the sand flies there were so intense it almost wasn’t worth it. The water was pretty cold, and we nearly left without getting in, but I convinced Jorg to go for a swim in the morning, after I told myself that I would probably never have the chance again.

From there, we drove a whole day down to Queenstown. Although, it’s the “adventure capitol of the world” we really just stopped to campout and continued going south the next day to Milford Sound. There is a funny story about camping though. Ok, in NZ, there are two different types of campgrounds. There are DOC (dept. of conservation) campgrounds & privately owed campgrounds. The first would cost 6 dollars pp & is on the honor system (we usually paid per tent instead of per person (so much for honor)) and they have minimal facilities, whereas privately owned campgrounds have showers, laundry on site, etc. and cost around 15 dollars per person. Anyway, on the drive we got to a privately owned campground around midnight and Jorg suggested we just drive in, sleep till 6AM, and leave without paying. I could write a whole journal entry about the history of traveling with Jorg, how travis & I would go to great lengths to sneak into places we went with Jorg, but make him think we paid. (some of you might know the story of the Colorado hot-tubs that is pretty epic) Anyway, Jorg’s idea surprised me, but I was all for it. We did it, slept somewhere inside the campgrounds, but it wasn’t really a camp spot. Anyway, it was fine. We were in and out during the dark, so it wasn’t a big deal.

We drove to milford sound on the road to milford sound. This is the road with 1,000 plus waterfalls, and since it was raining, they were super intense. It’s a really scenic road, similar to the road to Hana on Maui in Hawaii. (ok, maybe only travis & heather know what I’m talking about) There are a few pictures on facebook of this too.

The view at milford sound is supposed to be one of the best in all of New Zealand, but on our only day there, it was overcast and rainy. Oh well, I’ll be here 5 months, I’ll get to see it again.

So, we drove north and hiked on the routeburn track which is known as the “best hike in the world.” It was another must see for Jorg, who had heard all about it from his mountaineering friends at the alpine club. We stopped at a few cabins, where people on multi-day hikes go for lodging. It’s pretty cool in the cabins, where 25 or so random hikers hangout around a stove drying out their boots and such. It sort of felt like I was on the Appalachian trail, from what I know from Bill Bryson’s book A Walk in the Woods. 

After a few hikes, we drove back up towards Queenstown and planned on stopping there for awhile this time. We got into town around 6PM and since we hadn’t showered in a few days, Jorg suggested that we go back to the same campground we snuck into the previous night, but this time, just drive in and use the shower and then leave. Another good idea from Jorg! Only, Jorg does not take the same precautions as I would. We just drove in the front gate (during the day mind you) and walked towards the showers. The showers had plenty of water pressure, and the water was hot. Everything was nice. We took our time, even shaved. Then, Jorg’s only escape plan included leaving one at a time to get back to the car. Des didn’t need to shave, so she was going to go first, but she didn't know how to get back to the car, so we left together. As we got close to the car, I noticed a guy watching us and instinctively whispered to des “the dude is watching us, just continue on walking past the car.” We walked beyond the car and kept going outside of the campground, walking down the road and into a neighborhood. I never looked back, but Des did from time to time and she kept me updated, “hes following us” she would say. I just kept walking. We would turn a corner, and wait, and sure enough a few seconds later the chase would continue as he rounded the corner. The visual is better if you imagine us walking fast through a neighborhood, carrying a towel and our toiletries bags, leaving a campsite and walking towards nowhere like we just didn't shower and run. If it were just Des & I, no doubt we could have escaped, but with the realization that Jorg would be waiting on us forever back at the car not knowing what was going out, we decided to face our fears and just stopped in the middle of a sidewalk about 10 blocks away. Pretty much the dude just said “that’s stealing, and you can pay me 6 dollars per shower, or I’ll call the cops” I didn't argue just forked over a 20 dollar bill. He said I could come to the office if I wanted change, but I just figured I’d let it go. We all turned around and walked back towards the car, us just a few steps behind him. “It’s not about the money” he said “its about it point. What you would do if someone just came into your house, opened the fridge, ate your food, and took a shower and left?”  In the end, I thought “ok, we learned our lesson, but its not that you should pay for the shower, it’s that you should park down the road.” Jorg deserves more than I gave him credit for, in his willingness to sneak into places.

After we used our get out of jail free card (or $20 dollars I should say) we hit up Queenstown. It was good night, but nothing worth blogging about really. In the morning, we window shopped and checked out all of the adventure tours, but didn't really have the money to do anything. On the way out of town, however, Jorg announced that we were passing “the bridge” where the famous AJ Hackett (the dude who invented bungee jumping) started the first commercial bungee jump. Anyone who has been to NZ knows what I'm talking about, but anyway, as we passed it, I suggested that we go back and watch a few jumps. At some point, Jorg said “I’ll do it if we don’t have to wait in line forever.” We inquired, and it was only a 30 minute wait, so Jorg jumped. There is a pretty funny video of it, but the craziest thing is how much control they have over the jump.

They weigh each jumper and then, because the jump is over a river, they ask “how much contact do you want with the water?” You can choose “no water”, “half-water” or “full submersion” and then they calibrate the cord to your wishes. Jorg choose “half-water” and so at the very end of his jump, he went headfirst into the water all the way to his waist. Jorg usually avoids “tourist” stuff, but claims it was “the bbbest!”

From there, we drove to Mt. Cook National Park and went for an amazing hike. This was my favorite day of the trip by far. First of all, it began as a 3 hour hike that ends with a close look at a few glaciers. As if that’s not cool enough, there were 2 different rope suspension bridges crossing raging rivers. Those are the best, because Jorg & I jump and run and shake the bridge as much as we can, and it always seems we are seconds away from death. Once we crossed the river the first time, I decided to rock hop out as far as I could. I love doing that. The water was raging though, and freezing cold. Eventually, we got to the end of the hike, and there was a big lake-ish body of water with a lot of iceburgs, and you could see the full glacier just above the horizon. Everyone else was satisfied with ending their hike at that point, but I wanted to get up close the glacier. (Little did I know that just on the other side of the mountain, at fox glacier, two other tourists, brothers from India, were doing the exact same thing as me, and died in an avalanche.) Long story short, I came to a dead end at this out of control river, and nearly gave up on my quest to play on the glacier. However, as I started to think about turning around, I knew I couldn’t live with regret, so I made it my mission to cross the river. By this time, I am a few hundred meters away from Jorg and Des, and when they insisted that I go back, I just waved and tried to motion that they should just hike back without me. Being out there alone, made the death-defying rock hop across the river even scarier. I thought I was going to die when I was in the middle of a river that was rushing down the mountain at about a 45 degree angle standing on a rock just big enough for one foot. Miraculously, I made it across, and ran off towards the glacier singing “a whole new world” from that movie Aladdin. (Ok, maybe I wasn’t really singing it, but that’s what it felt like). I spent about an hour playing on the ice, my favorite part being where there were huge chunks of icebergs in the lake. I would run across them as each individual piece sank, but I would jump to another just before the one I was on went under (or broke). I was just out there, running around forever, playing in my own field of dreams. On the way back, I decided crossing the river in such a dangerous fashion was not worth it, and just took off my shoes and wadded through the still ferocious river, but I choose a much safer crossing and just froze instead of nearly dying like the first time I crossed. In the end, I hiked back, the happiest boy in the world, and found Des & Jorg waiting a little ways down the trail.

From there, we drove on towards Christchurch which is the biggest city on the south island. On the way, we passed mirror lake which is famous for being super still and there are tons of pictures of its reflection. There is a sign that says “mirror lake” upside down and inverted so that when you look at the reflection it reads the right way. It’s pretty cool, I guess. In Christchurch, we did city-ish stuff, like checked out the cathedral, botanic gardens, museums, etc. and ended up camping outside of town at a privately owned campground, where again, we hid des in the car and paid for two people, which wasn’t really that bad, because she always slept in the car anyway. Jorg wanted to eat breakfast at a café that was recommended in his bible, lonely planet, and was willing to drive an hour for it. So we did, and I think it was worth it. For one, he paid, and two, I had the best blueberry pancakes ever. Jorg kept the tab open, and we sat and ate so much food, we ordered anything we wanted and drank so much juice. At this point, I had 15 dollars left, and Des was down to 5 or less (and she hadn’t been paying for camping, or showers for everyone, etc in quite awhile) So, needless to say, we hadn’t really eaten anything other than bread and bananas in quite some time.

After breakfast, we decided to explore the tree crop farm. (www.treecropfarm.com) (I think). This place was awesome, and really hard to describe. If you have seen the photo of the tree house on my facebook, then that’s just part of it. This was a hidden gem, and they only way I can describe it is that, a lady spent forever building her dream, with a labyrinth of gardens, outside baths (heated by firepits below) tree houses, & about 10 other cabins. Then, there was a balcony area where she had a café and when we ordered hot chocolate. It came with tim tams, (a local snack – sort of chocolate covered cracker) rasberrys and roses and it was just outstanding. She went the extra mile with everything she did and the place was just fantastic. Des was in love, and wanted to live there and at one point said that Jorg and I could just leave her there. The lady said “oh, but living out here comes with cold nights” as she looked towards me. Des gave up that dream, and it wasn’t until later, that she realized she had made a mistake. You see, everyone assumes that Des & I are a couple, but we are not. When the lady said “but it comes with cold nights” she wasn’t actually referring to the weather, (which des thought) she was speaking of lonely nights without me. That’s why she was looking towards me when she said it. This was the same reason, when the family back at the hostel wanted to know how we met, des was confused and I gave a short answer (because it is cool, we met while I was building a bee-hive in Abilene) but ultimately answered with “we are not dating.” Then, later, des was like “Why did she care how we met” and I said “because she assumed we were dating.” Anyway, if Des would have understood that it was not actually cold, she might be living there now.

Jorg was flying out of Christchurch the next morning, so from the farm, we were just going to drive a little north of the city where he could drop us off for our hitchhike back to picton. Just a few minutes down the road, we passed a group of 3 girls hitchhiking. I had complained the whole trip every time we passed hitchhikers, and since we needed to “build up our credits” because we would be hitchhiking in an hour or less, I convinced Jorg to go back for them. We had a lot of crap in the backseat, plus the 3 of us, but when we found out the girls were just going 10 minutes down the road, we all packed in. We didn't have so much time to talk, but we found out they were going to a sheep shearing festival. I thought that sounded perfect, so we started to make plans to tag along. However, when we got there; it looked more like a carnival, with temporary Ferris wheels and such, so we just dropped them off and hit the road.

After Jorg & I made plans to meet again in Hawaii and South Africa for the World Cup, he dropped us off on the side of the road for our 5 hour hitchhike back to the hostel. We got picked up after 3 minutes, and taken 1 hour down the road. This dude was well traveled, and was in a band that was playing in Picton in a week, so we made plans to check out his show. After that ride, we waited 15 minutes and got picked up by this awkward 35 year old (I would guess rugby player) who really didn't say anything other than “I'm going to picton to catch they ferry” but I couldn’t understand till the 3^rd time because his accent was so thick. For the next four hours, we rode in complete silence. He would even stop sometimes, get out and run around without saying a word, such as “be right back, just going into the post office.” Des and I just went with it, and were ok with it mainly because it allowed us time to sleep and I made a big list of things I needed to do on the back of our cardboard sign. (the result of this, was me carrying around a huge cardboard sign for a few days marking off things like “get kyle to change my phone plan.”

The first week in NZ -- Impressions of the North Island.

I actually wrote this a while back... but its just now making its way to the internet.

We arrived on NYE around 10AM. We passed through immigration without much of a problem, but we were scared because the couple beside us was being questioned really hard. Among other lies, we said we had 5,000 US dollars each (really, des had 200, me 300), my friends were really our relatives, and that we had a trip planned to Australia in order to break up of 3 month free visitors visa. Oh, and of course, that we didn't plan on working here.

My friend Jorg picked us up at the airport. That’s a first, I usually just fly into a strange country and start hitchhiking right away. Like the time Kyle and I landed in Frankfurt, and were in the back of a police car within 30 minutes because there is no hitchhiking on the autobahn. On our way to the hostel, we stopped for Kabab’s, my staple food a few summers ago in Europe.

Back at the hostel, Jorg and I took a city walk and made plans for the night. At some point, I fell asleep and assumed jorg would wake us up around 10PM to go out into the streets for the New Years celebrations.  

He didn't. He came running into the room two minutes till midnight and said “wake up, look out the window, 2 minutes till new years.” We did. The streets were pretty packed, but not like Sydney, or New York. We ran downstairs to catch the fireworks and various other street celebrations. The harbor was quite nice. We tried going into a club, but the dress code prohibited my shorts. On the way back to the hostel, we all witnessed this guy try to jump a street barricade and fall. It was pretty high, about 4 and ½ feet high. I looked to Jorg and said “I could jump over that.” He challenged me, and pretty soon we had bet breakfast on m jump. If there is one thing about Jorg, it’s that he loves his breakfast. It is his biggest and most important meal of the day, and keep in mind, we do not travel on the same type of budget. Needless to say, it was critical that I make the jump. I did. Breakfast that next morning was great, and it’s a good thing I cleared that barricade, because the tab was 60 New Zealand Dollars (NZD).

After breakfast, we went to some west coast beaches. The sun was out, and it was about 90 degrees outside. We did a few hikes and went for a swim. I can’t even describe how awesome the beaches, waves, mountains, and rock walls are so I’ll just post some photos soon. After a few beaches, and ripe tides that kyle would get lost in for hours, I turned into a lobster and we headed back for the city.

Side note: I kept hiking on the wrong side of the trail, running into people as I tried to stay on the right, them on the left. If this didn't single me out as American, or at least a tourist, carrying barrack obama’s “the audacity of hope” and, at least at the start of that day, being white as a ghost surly did.

Skipping ahead a bit, we drove the entire length of the north island in one day making our way to the capitol, Wellington, which also happens to be one of the “windiest cities on the planet.”  After two consecutive nights in a hostel, our budget called for a campout. We drove to a beach outside of the city and tried to find a place without so much wind. It wasn’t much of a beach, more like rocks, so we headed up a mountain right beside the beach, into sheep territory.  New Zealand, afterall, is famous for having “more sheep than people.” A long story short, we compromised on a spot that was not so flat, but appeared less windy. That all changed about midnight, when the wind got out of control, and I thought my tent would rip apart if I didn’t take off the rain-fly.

Emergency management at midnight doesn’t come easy in a group of 3 when you are secretly sleeping in the nude, I mean, I started out with clothes and the best intentions, but I was inside my sleeping bag and sliding downhill, the shorts were too aggravating, and besides, who would know anyway? In order to save my tent, I escaped out the door and tip-toed around the sheep poo, and started taking off the fly. However, just when I thought things were under control, the wind would catch it, and inevitably it would start flapping around out of control. Every time I tried to grab it, it would just whip me, like those bullies at the pool when you were a kid that hit you with their wound up towels. Needless to say, getting whipped by a tent in freakish winds was not the best time to be a closet case nudist.

In the end, I saved the day- and the tent- and had to apologize to des and jorg for sneaking around naked. We didn't get too much sleep, but the place was so, as jorg would say “wwwild”, that it was worth it.

We visited Tu Pappa, the New Zealand national museum and “Wellington’s pride” It was awesome. There were 7 floors of really cool stuff, but maybe you should just go see for yourself. My favorite exhibit was the colossal squid that was caught near Antarctica.  There have only been a few caught, and this was the only one on display in the world. I’m still not exactly sure what “Tu Pappa” means, but I just like to think of it meaning “your daddy” in Spanish, although, I know that too is incorrect.

Some other Wellington highlights, included going to some “world class” mountain bike trails yesterday. The route took about 4 hours, going up a mountain 4200 meters (M) and then riding down. Des and Jorg rented mountain bikes, but I did it all on my unicycle. It was an awesome workout, and a lot of fun. Just as we drove up to our hostel after such a long day unicycling, I opened the car door looking forward to going inside and showering, when 6 local kids passed by on some hardcore “trials” unicycles. I thought to myself “oh no” but yelled “wait up” grabbed my unicycle, told Jorg I would catch up with them later, and headed off with the unicycle gang towards the harbor where there was some good ledge riding and plenty of stairs. I rode for about 2 hours, and we all tried to show each other up and exchange tips on tricks. Its awesome how riding something like a unicycle can bring a group of people together. They never asked any questions, and neither did I, we just rode together conquering the streets of Wellington pretending there wasn’t a 10+ year age gap between us. (Will I ever grow up? Doubt it. I think I’m meant to play baseball with neighborhood kids in Cuba (who ask for my t-shirts) the rest of my life). I have more fun hanging out with the 12-15 year old locals than anything on most of my travels.

The hipster scene in Wellington revolves around Cuba street, which has more café’s per capita than any other place in the southern hemisphere. We ate a café called “Fidels” and passed by “erenesto’s” (Che Guevarra’s first name). It was cool to sit around in Fidels café, exactly a year after my Cuba trip, and tell other people the history of the Revolution and explain the embargo and such, much of which no one else had a clue about. By the way, I just finished an awesome book “bay of pigs” and now I know so much about that. I would recommend that book to everyone, ask if you want the author. It has everything I like in a book. Its non-fiction, tells CIA secrets, tales of 1.5 years in a communist prison, and gives a look into the life of Fidel. Sorry for the Cuba sidetrack (although I never finished my journal for that and the ending is awesome.)

To end our Wellington stay, we decided to order some cheap food for the first time, and ultimately decided on Domino’s pizza. Because the large looked so cheap (10 NZD for a large pizza compared to $16 for French toast at the previously mentioned breakfast in Auckland) we splurged and ordered two larges. To our surprise, although we should have known by now that the rest of the world eats in much smaller quantities than us Fat Americans,  our “large” pizza was about the same size, if not smaller, than what Americans call a “small”.

Today, right now, I am on a ferry to the south island where I will be living for the next 5 months. I have made arrangements to stay with that family, and work as I need it, but other than that I don’t know anything. I don’t know about the status of the hostel, where we will stay, how much we will make, anything. But, I have looked through my guidebook, and although the place we are staying is small (5000 people) and when kiwi’s hear that we will be living there they say “why, there is nothing there” I am good at making the most of anywhere I live. Especially, when the sea is just stones throw away, and there are more islands around than people. I figure, I’ll talk to hostel into buying me toys. For example, “you should get a few kayaks, so you could rent them out” the same for mountain bikes, and a handheld GPS. “just think, you’ll be the only hostel offering geo-caching!” Anyway, that’s my plan.

The best part is, from the map, it looks like across the street there is a big dolphin show. I’ll for sure volunteer there. Anyway, I’m off to the sun deck to enjoy the sunshine on our “cruise”

Tonight we are staying in “my” hostel, and then it’s off for another week around the southern island by rent-a-car with jorg.

hitchhiking to LA for my NZ flight.

The history behind what I think will be my greatest trip ever

I have not been very true to my blog in the past year. Last summer, for the first time in 6 years, I traveled all over Hawaii and didn't really blog at all. This time, I’m making plans to bring back the travel blog.

As I mentioned in September? I am moving to New Zealand in what looks to the best trip ever.

Back in the summer of 03, I was bumming around the Florida Keys and I met a family living on a sailboat from New Zealand. Their 8 year old daughter became my best friends, and we ran into each other all over the place—at the library, on Mallory square, and other places around town. Her mom invited me out to their boat for lunch one day, and I kept up with their round the world sailing by email for a year. That next summer, in 04, that family invited me to join them on the journey from Guatemala to Columbia on the Caribbean side of Central America. I lived on their boat for about 3 months, and it was one of the best experiences of my life. There are archived blogs about that trip, so I wont get into it much, but one specific day that summer has led up to my current trip. While hiking around in Nicaragua one day (or was it Guatemala?), the family stumbled upon a small castle and decided “that’s it!”  After 8 years of sailing around the world, they had decided when they made it back to New Zealand, they were going to build a castle and make it into a youth hostel. They liked that castle in Nicaragua so they took enough photo’s so that they could rebuild a replica on the south island when their sailing journey was over.

When I left their boat that summer, we agreed that one day, when they were back in NZ and I was finished with school, I would fly over and help build their castle. I checked in with them one spring break, about a year after our trip through central America, when they were sailing around the west coast of Mexico waiting out the hurricane season. My friend Nick and I hitchhiked to Puerta Vallarta to sail with them a few days, and then over to Mexico City for the weekend. On that trip, I learned that their hostel plans had become much more extravagant. Now, they had began compiling a network of people around the world with cool trades. Their dreams at this point, included bringing in ladies from the Corn islands to teach basket-weaving and ladies from Guatemala to teach work with textiles… (maybe im getting the people and their trades mixed up, but the point is the same-  they want to bring in people from all over the world to teach their trade to the guest of their hostel)

 In September I wrote them saying “hey, im graduating in December and looking to go someplace warm. I’m thinking about Hawaii, but New Zealand would be better. How is the castle coming along? I would like to come, but I would need a way to pay my student loans” In their email back, Sheira, the mom, just said “Buy your plane ticket now, it’s not easy to hitchhike here. Consider your bills paid… just get here and we will have plenty of work if you want it.”

I tried asking questions later, like “should I get a working visa” but their replies were always short. “just get here and quit asking questions!” … so, I’m not exactly sure as to the status of the castle, or of the different people from around the world teaching their craft.

What I do know, is that they spent about 6 million on their hostel, and that they just registered it a few months ago. It should open “about the time you get here” and after they registered it as an official new Zealand hostel, the letters from the adventure tour companies started coming in. They all said the same thing “you and your workers can come do anything you want for free—just tell your guest about us.”

This is all leading up to what I think will be my best trip ever.

When they said I could come out, I knew I was going, but didn’t know how I could afford the 1,700 dollar plane ticket. The very next day, I got a phone call from a KSU professor. “hey aaron, I have a great opportunity for you. We need some help with an urgent research project interviewing hurricane gustav evacuees in New Orleans. We are leaving in 3 hours. For your time, we will pay you 1,500 dollars and we will be gone 5-7 days.” Perfect. I went. It was great, and the plane ticket was paid for, especially, because I found a website, www.studentuniverse.com, with a special from LA – Auckland for $1,060. For those who don’t know, I always find the cheapest plane ticket leaving from anywhere and arriving anywhere in the country where I am going.

After I knew the dates of my plane ticket, I e-mailed another friend Jorg from Germany. We have a long history of traveling together. In January 2006, we met while on a 3 day scuba diving expedition on a live aboard boat out of Cairns, Australia. After our dive trip, I talked him and a few others into going on a waterfall hunting trip around northern queesland. It was a blast. The next summer, I went to Europe and Jorg invited me and some friends to his place in Kiel,  Germany for a big sailing festival which turned out to be more of a wild week long street party. Then, last spring break, Jorg flew over to Colorado and joined me for an epic weeklong “ski tour of Colorado” where we hit up brekinridge, keystone, vail, Beavercreek, and aspen.  Long story short, I wrote jorg and told him to meet me for new years in New Zealand.

This all leads to what promises to be my best trip to date. Jorg is picking me up from the airport once I arrive in new Zealand and we are taking his rent-a-car on a 2 week trip around both islands. Since I will be there for 5 months, I said “you just book the trip, I’ll do anything you want since I’ll be there longer.” He has been there since mid December and I told him to do all of the city stuff he wants to, and lets have some outdoor adventure with our time together. In his latest email, he says to prepare to “climb a mountain a day- no kidding” so that’s what I know.

After our two week journey, he will drop me off at the castle and my time at the hostel will begin. So far, the only thing I know about this part is that I can work as little as I want to cancel out my room and board, or I can work more depending on if I want to come back with money or just spend my time in New Zealand playing. I think we all know that answer, so I plan to work a day a week.

This family is the coolest. They just want people to be happy. I don’t know if they will ever make their money back on the hostel, but I know that is what they want to do the for the rest of their life, and that it will make them happy.

So, once I arrive at their hostel (totally broke) I’ll work for awhile to get some funds and then no doubt go on trips every week with random travelers I meet coming through the hostel. I can’t imagine a better way to live. That, combined with access to “free adventure tours” makes it look like it will be the best trip of my life.

At one point, after bragging to a few friends everyone wanted to know if they could come too. I e-mailed the family awhile back and they said “yes, bring as many friends as you can, the more the better.” I mentioned it to a few people, and in the end, my friend Des who I really haven’t talked to in a year and a half and has been living in Florida decided to come along. I didn't even talk to her about it until Christmas day, and then we started the hitchhike to LA the next day.

The Hitchhike to LA. 12/26-12/18/2008

Our flight leaves at 11PM on Monday the 29^th, but just to be  sure we made it with time to spare, and because not much else was going on in Texas, we started hitchhiking around noon on the 26^th out of ft. worth. It was kind of stupid to start hitchhiking that late in the day, but it was the only time we could get a ride to the side of the interstate. No worries though, we were not in a rush since we left plenty of time for the hitch to the LA airport.

Here is how the trip went, with a ride and time breakdown.

My dad dropped us off on the side of the I-30 in ft. worth. We waited 7 minutes and got a ride to Abilene, where I did my undergrad.  It was a typical ride, with some former Dead heads who used to hitchhike. The husband was a biker dude, and the wife looked like Ozzy Osborne. They had a dog who was wearing leather and has “a whole wardrobe, and sometimes shakes her head when she doesn’t want to wear a particular item of clothing.” The most interesting part of the ride was when they told us about the ghosts who live in their house. They had a few funny stories, but ultimately decided that “they were there before us, so we respect that.”

Before leaving Ft. Worth, I called my friend Bryce who was in Abilene and said “depending on our rides, I hope to stop and have lunch in Abilene.” It seems our friendship over the last two years has been limited to side of the road visits including one on my hitch back to Kansas from Portland back in August. The rides worked out perfect, as I would not have stopped in Abilene if, say, my first ride was willing to take us to El Paso. That is how hitchhiking works. I call friends along the route and say “hey, if it works out, lets hangout, but don’t be offended if I blow you off due to a good ride.”

It worked out, and Bryce bought Des and I lunch at Chili’s. It was good to see him and catch up on everything. He took us to my favorite spot to hitch out west out of Abilene, and it wasn’t there anymore! So he took us a mile further and dropped us off.

Outside of Abilene, we got a ride to sweet water with an old ACU alum who was living in Austin but going to visit some friends in Colorado. He took us to Sweetwater and dropped us off.

From there, we had a short wait and some guys driving down from Oklahoma to work in the oil fields for a week picked us up. Their company was called Great White and they were fishers on the drilling scene. So, if a pipe were to break, or something fall into the well, these guys were the specialist and would use a random assortment of tools to fish stuff out of the mile + hole in the ground. They promised a ride to monohans, texas where they would be turning to head south to ft. stockten about an hour south of the I-20. It was cool to talk to them about the oil industry because I grew up in Van, Texas, a boomtown in the 20’s that still thrives off of the oil industry. Even my own brother has been a roughneck for years, and I didn't know much about how the whole process worked until I talked to these guys for a bit.

This ride would have dropped us off in Monohans around dark, so we had a few choices to make. Ride with them as far as they were going on the i-20, and get out after dark, or we could ride with them a ways, and jump out early in hopes of catching a long ride through the night. Sometimes, hitchhiking across the county comes down to a few gambles like that. In the end, the two guys, after over-hearing our “should we jump out early” debate, offered to let us join them on the ride south, to ft. stockten and stay in their hotel. At first that sounded nice, but I didn't want to go an hour south. Then, the guys said that their hotel was right on the I-10 and we ultimately decided that, yeah, we would do that. The I-20 & I-10 would join together later anyway, so it didn't matter which one we hitched on. Plus, it was getting cold and neither one of us had a coat. We had plenty of time, so we took the safe choice and opted for the Hampton Inn in ft. stockten.

Out of the two guys, one, Byron, bought us a few snacks at wal-mart and then let us have the spare bed in his hotel room. It was a lot of fun getting to know a 48 year old cowboy who we never would have otherwise if it weren’t for hitchhiking. Byron was the nicest guy in the world and we had fun staying up for a few hours telling each other stories. I don’t know, it was an instant connection and the guy was just cool. He left for an hour or so, and on his way back into the hotel he called up to the room just to “make sure he wasn’t interrupting.”  It was funny becase, when the room phone rang, my first instinct was to tell Des to answer it “its probably byron” but just as she said hello, I thought “what if its his wife… this isnt going to look good.”

As you already know, it was just Byron, but it was funny either way.

Later, I showed Byron some traveling pics on facebook, and after he told me his daughter was in college I knew she would be on there too. I said “whats your daughters name?” he told me , and I pulled her up. In her profile picture, she was laying beside some dude and Bryon, who had never heard of facebook was like “oh… who is that guy?” it was really funny.

Later, while I was in the shower, Des taught Bryon about glaciers, and geography. He wanted to know where London, germany, and new Zealand were located for various reasons.

In the end, we had an awesome nights sleep at the Hampton, woke up to a huge breakfast downstairs and said our goodbyes to Bryon, the 48 year old roughneck dale earndhart jr. fan who I probably would have never gotten to know if he hadn’t stopped to pick us up on the side of the road. The three of us had some connection, and I think we will keep up with Byron forever now.

The I-10 was just infront of our hotel, so we walked out and started hitchhiking. 10 minutes later, byron calls from the hotel window “you are hitchhiking the wrong way, that’s east!” No wonder no one was stopping for our “LA” sign.

With byron’s reccomendations, and des’s compass conformations, we crossed the street and started to hitchhike west. There was hardly anyone on the road, and after a 20 minute wait, another, new employee of Great White pulled over. He explained that he had just had a chat with Byron, and Byron was worried that we were too cold. Since Byron did not have his own vehicle, he had convinced this other guy to drive us an hour down the road, past where the interstates merge, to Kent, Texas, where there would be more traffic.

From there, the rides went quick. Our first ride was pulling a horse trailor. I don’t remember too much about him, but Des might.

He dropped us off in El Paso where we had the longest wait of our trip, 45 minutes. There, another guy pulling race horses picked us up. For work, he dug up cactus on his 60 acres of property and sold them to landscapers. He told us all about the complexities of that, and how big the roots were, etc. It was pretty interesting.

Then, we got a 3^rd ride in a row with a guy pulling a horse trailor. His were race horses too. He was huge cowboy, and former hippie. He was the coolest of the 3 rides and told us stories of “when he was young once.”  Des is 5’2” and pretty slim, so she tried getting a jockey job on his race horses, and I think she will be calling him up sometime.

The final cowboy dropped us off in Las Cruces, New Mexico where we had a 10 minute or so wait. While standing around, I noticed a car on the other side of the interstate pull over with what I thought was a flat tire. The crazy guy driving got out flailing his arms and the traffic that passed and started walking backwards, towards us. I seriously thought the guy was insane with his funny hat and the way he moved, especially the way he flaied his arms. Gee, he just had a flat tire, why would he be doing all of that? We continued to hitchhike with the cars going our direction, until the guy ran up to us. As he got closer, I could see that he was just a normal guy with a funny cap. He explained that he passed us, turned around, and for some reason just stopped on the opposite side of the interstate so he could pick us up, then turn around and drive us ALL THE WAY to LA.

Perfect.

The dude had just graduated from Winthrop University in N.C. and was driving to LA to work on a tall ship sailboat. We connected on all things NC and Sailing as we walked towards his car. (probably 100 yards away) When we got there, we quickly realized there was not enough room for both Des and I, but after 10 minutes of re-arranging we cleared out the front seat. Not one to pass down a 12-14 hour drive through the night (and avoid a freezing night camping) Des and I jumped into the car and tried to get comfortable sharing the front seat.

It was a cramped ride, but we made it to LA. The guy drove straight to Long Beach and we stayed in his girlfriends apartment. The heater was out, so we slept in the kitchen with the stove on and open. Not too sure how safe it was.

We made it to LA with 2 days to spare, so we went to Redondo beach, home of my favorite taco stand ever, then hungout in Hermosa beach, slept at the LAX, and made a friend who joined us on a day trip to Venice beach before we left.

I have been in Auckland for awhile now. I’ll write more on that later.