It has taken me 7 minutes to actually get to this site and start writing this post. holy fuck i hate these pay-for internet places.
anyway yesterday started around 11 am even though i haad said to my brother i had to leave around 9. yeah i'm unreliable like. He had given me a room that fully resembled harry potters room underneath the stairs in the first few books. this was a problem because it had no window and my body just decided to not wake up because it it was still pitch black in the room at 11. so i did eventually get up get my shower gather up my now clean clothes (woooo clean clothes) and set out to leave. matt drove me out to a small town called winton to catch a ride out i was pretty happy about getting a ride so far out (took about 20 mins) until i realised the massive pizza that my brother girlfriend made me for the trip was sitting back at the house.
It was a sad sad time.
I got out and stood by the road bid farewell to matt and held out my sign.
ok. i have like 10 minutes left so this wil;l just be a quick overview of what happened so that i can come back later and add stuff.
i got picked up by a father and his son going from winton to Te anau to see the glowworm caves his son had come down from dunedin to be with his dad for a bit of the holidays it was pretty sad because the father was trying to talk to the kid but he wasnt saying anything. which made conversation a little... boring i guess. i really hate having boring rides because i feel like because im the hitchhiker my purpose is to entertain the driver and everyone else witrh my stunning personality. Conversations,however are a two wayt hings and if they dont say much then what do i have to build off?
anyway. they dropped me off in te anau and i cooked some noodles for lunch by the side of the Lake. Everyone looked at the starnge hobo looking man sitting by the lake cooking but i didnt really give too much of a shit. those nboodles rocked.
it was about 12 or so by that time and i tried to hitch into milford sound for about 3 hours. i realised it wasnt happening so i flagged it and walked to the road to queenstown.
took about 40 minutes before i got picked up by a nice lady who owns a place in Te Anau (Birchwood cottage. go there and repay her kindnesss for me :)) we talked the whole way there and it was great because finallly here was aperson who i actually had a good long conmversation
ah! 2 mins
uh./. got dropped off in 3 rivers then picked up within a minute by a surfer and his son who was friends with Mr cristella. small world. he said there was probably qwork in cromwell and so i thought oh shit maybe i could get some work but if i cant i can probably gho find luke and have a bed at his aunts. so i got dorpped of in queenstown picked up by two asians who took me to cromwell. no interent when i got to cromwell so i couldnt post this yesterday fuck 30 seconds... uhh it was great the asian couple were reallyu inetretsun
bey
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Monday, January 3, 2011
Planning
Unfortunately couldn't find any jobs in Invercargill so i am leaving to Milford Sound tomorrow. My phone cant be fixed because Telecom is a shit company who likes to make phones that break after their warranty. Today will be uneventful because really i am just writing down all the things that i need to do along my way.
Hitch
This is the first actual travel related thing on my blog. so anyone who subscribed to this blog before may not find this interesting anymore because i'm mainly using this to document my travels for my mates and me in the future.
so thats my little disclaimer.
So my little hitching holiday begins!
Woke up at 9 having rolled off my matresses on to a table next to me to see the sky pissing out all that it could muster. a pretty shit start i must say. Theres nothing worse than waking up to heavy rain when you actually need to do something. So in my usual lazy way i went back to sleep and hoped it stopped raining.
Luckily it did. So after getting my shit ready and getting pissed off at adams homo-erotic version of a hitching sign we drove to the other side of dunedin and sat on the side of the road to start hitching.
I've learnt that people who drive holdens are assholes. They have to make damn sure that you know that they are too cool to pick you up. Its not enough to just drive past they must show how awesome their car is by speeding up when they go past you.
Yeah, i mad.
Anyway, i waited by the side of the road for around 20 minutes or so and a really cool surfer guy called Josh. The car smelt like incense and Bob Marley was blaring and i couldn't be more pleased with my first ride. I chucked my shit in and he said he could take me as far as Balclutha because he had to turn off there to go to the Catlins to surf. I didn't really mind at that time because i was just glad to be in a car but holy fuck would that turn out to be annoying.
So we talked about surfing, adventure tourism, travelling and most importantly for me his job as a Chef. I had previously thought that being a Chef would rock as a job because i just genuinely love cooking but then the reality dawned on me that it'd probably be a shit job due to shit hours and hectic work but Josh, by about 1/4 of the way through the trip, had convinced me that as a career, it totally suited me. Josh said he had worked in: France, GB, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Belgi... Yeah. he went through every european country apart from Bulgaria Croatia and Bosnia. (Turkey too but i dont think thats counted as part of Europe yet) So needless to say i almost came.
We kept talking about how more people need to get out into the forest and how more people need to give a shit about the environment and all that hippy shit that i am so fond of until he dropped me off in Balclutha outside a pub on the road to Invercargill.
So i waited.
and i waited.
and i waited.
Then i saw a bunch of 20 year olds get in a car at the pub and start driving over to me. Fuck they were drunk as hell.
They pulled up next to me after drifting into the opposite lane 2 times in the 200 metre stretch between me and the pub.
"Can you like get in and we'll like drive you ten minutes up the road?"
As tempting as it sounded to get in a car with 5 really pissed people i had to decline. she swore at me and left and not a fuck was given.
So i waited.
And i waited.
And i waited.
And finally after about maybe 2 hours since i had been left in Balclutha these two farm boys named Zac and.... fuck it started with Sh.. It was like Shawny or something.
That drive was uneventful. Although i thought it was funny that they were listening to some of the girliest music that you can throw out. Two big muscley farm boys listening to fireflies was funny.
they dropped me off in Gore which proved to be much like Balclutha. Alot of assholes pulling the fingers and doing the thumbs up and laughing.
Why do people do shit like that?
Anyway. i waited for about an hour and a half before three guys from gore pulled over and shouted out the window: "where you going to? and do you want a drink?"
Sold.
I chucked my gear in and was handed a woodstock. They explained to me that they had just been going down the road saying that it'd be fun to go down to Invercargill when they saw me with my sign saying Invercargill. So they all decided "well, why the fuck not?" They stopped at a liquor store just up the road and got another 12 pack (i think) of woodies and the woodies kept flowing. They were funny guys they talked about getting pissed, new years (i've got a feeling this will be my default topic of conversation when i have nothing else to say) and sluts. Oh how these guys loved sluts. They went on about how much they wanted to go down to invercargill and pick up some hot sluts in the bars and pick up some hot sluts in the supermarket, the dairy they were pretty confident that there were hot sluts hiding round every corner.
We entered Invercargill around 7-8 and they drove me straight to my brothers place which was pretty sweet. I said goodbye and told them how awesome they were then came inside to find an awesome dinner of lamb racks (oh dear lord how much i enjoyed them) various salads then cheesecake and mousse for desert.
All in all a success all round! Hopefully all of this will be just as awesome!
so thats my little disclaimer.
So my little hitching holiday begins!
Woke up at 9 having rolled off my matresses on to a table next to me to see the sky pissing out all that it could muster. a pretty shit start i must say. Theres nothing worse than waking up to heavy rain when you actually need to do something. So in my usual lazy way i went back to sleep and hoped it stopped raining.
Luckily it did. So after getting my shit ready and getting pissed off at adams homo-erotic version of a hitching sign we drove to the other side of dunedin and sat on the side of the road to start hitching.
I've learnt that people who drive holdens are assholes. They have to make damn sure that you know that they are too cool to pick you up. Its not enough to just drive past they must show how awesome their car is by speeding up when they go past you.
Yeah, i mad.
Anyway, i waited by the side of the road for around 20 minutes or so and a really cool surfer guy called Josh. The car smelt like incense and Bob Marley was blaring and i couldn't be more pleased with my first ride. I chucked my shit in and he said he could take me as far as Balclutha because he had to turn off there to go to the Catlins to surf. I didn't really mind at that time because i was just glad to be in a car but holy fuck would that turn out to be annoying.
So we talked about surfing, adventure tourism, travelling and most importantly for me his job as a Chef. I had previously thought that being a Chef would rock as a job because i just genuinely love cooking but then the reality dawned on me that it'd probably be a shit job due to shit hours and hectic work but Josh, by about 1/4 of the way through the trip, had convinced me that as a career, it totally suited me. Josh said he had worked in: France, GB, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Belgi... Yeah. he went through every european country apart from Bulgaria Croatia and Bosnia. (Turkey too but i dont think thats counted as part of Europe yet) So needless to say i almost came.
We kept talking about how more people need to get out into the forest and how more people need to give a shit about the environment and all that hippy shit that i am so fond of until he dropped me off in Balclutha outside a pub on the road to Invercargill.
So i waited.
and i waited.
and i waited.
Then i saw a bunch of 20 year olds get in a car at the pub and start driving over to me. Fuck they were drunk as hell.
They pulled up next to me after drifting into the opposite lane 2 times in the 200 metre stretch between me and the pub.
"Can you like get in and we'll like drive you ten minutes up the road?"
As tempting as it sounded to get in a car with 5 really pissed people i had to decline. she swore at me and left and not a fuck was given.
So i waited.
And i waited.
And i waited.
And finally after about maybe 2 hours since i had been left in Balclutha these two farm boys named Zac and.... fuck it started with Sh.. It was like Shawny or something.
That drive was uneventful. Although i thought it was funny that they were listening to some of the girliest music that you can throw out. Two big muscley farm boys listening to fireflies was funny.
they dropped me off in Gore which proved to be much like Balclutha. Alot of assholes pulling the fingers and doing the thumbs up and laughing.
Why do people do shit like that?
Anyway. i waited for about an hour and a half before three guys from gore pulled over and shouted out the window: "where you going to? and do you want a drink?"
Sold.
I chucked my gear in and was handed a woodstock. They explained to me that they had just been going down the road saying that it'd be fun to go down to Invercargill when they saw me with my sign saying Invercargill. So they all decided "well, why the fuck not?" They stopped at a liquor store just up the road and got another 12 pack (i think) of woodies and the woodies kept flowing. They were funny guys they talked about getting pissed, new years (i've got a feeling this will be my default topic of conversation when i have nothing else to say) and sluts. Oh how these guys loved sluts. They went on about how much they wanted to go down to invercargill and pick up some hot sluts in the bars and pick up some hot sluts in the supermarket, the dairy they were pretty confident that there were hot sluts hiding round every corner.
We entered Invercargill around 7-8 and they drove me straight to my brothers place which was pretty sweet. I said goodbye and told them how awesome they were then came inside to find an awesome dinner of lamb racks (oh dear lord how much i enjoyed them) various salads then cheesecake and mousse for desert.
All in all a success all round! Hopefully all of this will be just as awesome!
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Hitchhiking
You know I never understood the fear of hitchhiking...
Perhaps its because i grew up in New Zealand where there is a small population thus less crazies. I have family in America and i told them that i intended to go hitchhiking for a while and they immediately responded with "Oh you can't do that! its so dangerous! you could get attacked or killed!" I responded by saying something to the effect of "do you honestly believe that as soon as you get into a car with a stranger that they are going to instantly want to rape and or murder you?" they responded, quite offended at that, by saying that they are just trying to look out for my best interests and they know that hitchhiking is dangerous.
When did we become this fearful of our fellow man? Was it the mass media that convinced us that any person that wasn't intimately known by us was out to kill us? How did we become so parilysed by fear? By this same logic that they are using i shouldn't go into a church or a community building for fear of getting violated in some way. How do these people make friends? I like to think on my idealistic days that humans don't try to go out of their way to harm other people do other not share this view?
Personally the reason why i hitch is because its free, a hell of alot faster than walking and i get to meet new people. Granted, not every person i meet is nice or interesting its still a better way to travel.
I talked to my american cousins more on this subject and they said they would never EVER pick up a hitch hiker "because it could be anyone!" That is the fucking point! do you not find it interesting to meet new people? where is your charitable instinct? Lastly and once again HOW CAN YOU ASSUME EVERYONE IS OUT TO GET YOU?
ok. i feel like im rehashing the same shit but god damn i get pissed at this shit.
PICK UP HITCHHIKERS.
we don't bite.
Perhaps its because i grew up in New Zealand where there is a small population thus less crazies. I have family in America and i told them that i intended to go hitchhiking for a while and they immediately responded with "Oh you can't do that! its so dangerous! you could get attacked or killed!" I responded by saying something to the effect of "do you honestly believe that as soon as you get into a car with a stranger that they are going to instantly want to rape and or murder you?" they responded, quite offended at that, by saying that they are just trying to look out for my best interests and they know that hitchhiking is dangerous.
When did we become this fearful of our fellow man? Was it the mass media that convinced us that any person that wasn't intimately known by us was out to kill us? How did we become so parilysed by fear? By this same logic that they are using i shouldn't go into a church or a community building for fear of getting violated in some way. How do these people make friends? I like to think on my idealistic days that humans don't try to go out of their way to harm other people do other not share this view?
Personally the reason why i hitch is because its free, a hell of alot faster than walking and i get to meet new people. Granted, not every person i meet is nice or interesting its still a better way to travel.
I talked to my american cousins more on this subject and they said they would never EVER pick up a hitch hiker "because it could be anyone!" That is the fucking point! do you not find it interesting to meet new people? where is your charitable instinct? Lastly and once again HOW CAN YOU ASSUME EVERYONE IS OUT TO GET YOU?
ok. i feel like im rehashing the same shit but god damn i get pissed at this shit.
PICK UP HITCHHIKERS.
we don't bite.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Education
First off i will say public education has failed us in teaching the things in which we really need to know in life. As important as the subjects i used to take were (drama english maths social studies history science) they didnt teach us anything close to what we needed to know to survive.
Its strange that not one of those subjects adaquately covers the basic needs of the human. Things like food, shelter, warmth, clothing. We aren't taught these things because we are expected to let someone else do these things for us.
Our short sightedness starts early. By not being taught these things we are forced into a society built money. This is my argument to peopel who say "well if you dont like it go live somewhere else!". The reality is that we are educated in such a way as to make it impossible for such a life to happen. To live i need to know how to forage, keep animals or grow my own food. I would be suprised if any of you learnt that at school. by not being taught this i'm forced into depending on a system that will cause me and millions of other people suffering.
If our society crumbled (and im not so idealistic to believe it might) huge amount of people would just die. This is the failure of our education system and our society in general. We have become so complacent and wasteful that taken out of our enviroment we would die almost instantly.
If we truly want to be enviromentally friendly if we truly want to end poverty and suffering if we truly want to change our lives for the better we need to change our education system to something that reflects our actual needs.
Ideally i would propose survival skills agriculture studies building skills and travelling skills as compulsory classes but i recognize that that is idealistic. To be realistic all i would like to see in my life time is that physical education become a compulsory class throughout all of schooling for basic agriculture knowledge be taught in science class and for Traditional skills (a mixture of the four classes listed above) to be an optional class for all students.
Is that too much to ask?
Its strange that not one of those subjects adaquately covers the basic needs of the human. Things like food, shelter, warmth, clothing. We aren't taught these things because we are expected to let someone else do these things for us.
Our short sightedness starts early. By not being taught these things we are forced into a society built money. This is my argument to peopel who say "well if you dont like it go live somewhere else!". The reality is that we are educated in such a way as to make it impossible for such a life to happen. To live i need to know how to forage, keep animals or grow my own food. I would be suprised if any of you learnt that at school. by not being taught this i'm forced into depending on a system that will cause me and millions of other people suffering.
If our society crumbled (and im not so idealistic to believe it might) huge amount of people would just die. This is the failure of our education system and our society in general. We have become so complacent and wasteful that taken out of our enviroment we would die almost instantly.
If we truly want to be enviromentally friendly if we truly want to end poverty and suffering if we truly want to change our lives for the better we need to change our education system to something that reflects our actual needs.
Ideally i would propose survival skills agriculture studies building skills and travelling skills as compulsory classes but i recognize that that is idealistic. To be realistic all i would like to see in my life time is that physical education become a compulsory class throughout all of schooling for basic agriculture knowledge be taught in science class and for Traditional skills (a mixture of the four classes listed above) to be an optional class for all students.
Is that too much to ask?
Sunday, October 3, 2010
In our society its hard to find all those things and often to get any of those things it comes at huge cost. For us to have food whenever we want people must starve in third world countries. for example, to keep costs down for coffee huge coffee companies will pay no more than the bare minimum for coffee grown by Ethiopians. I watched a documentary not too long ago called "Black Gold" about coffee. Within that documentary the Ethiopians said to the cameraman that for a kilo of coffee they could expect to get 12 U.S. cents. They then went on to say that on that price they couldnt properly sustain their families and that their villages were suffering. When asked what they thought could sustain their families they said around 56 U.S. cents and after they said if they wantd to start paying for community projects such as wells or schools $1.12 U.S. would suffice. However this is far beyond their reach. No major coffee company would pay such a ludacrious price for a kilo of coffee. so they starve. Because we expect our coffee to be a certain price and for it to be delivered straight to us another person must starve.
In our society feeling like you achieved something day to day is not a given. it was for our forefathers and it should be for us but it isn't. Mindnumbing labour is what we achieve daily. whether it be at school where we are indoctrinated or be it at work were we slave in jobs we hate. You can come home rewarded with the thought that at the end of this day not a thing you have done was something worth being proud of. Even better than that however is the knowledge tomorrow will be no better. In days past when we were nomadic you could go to sleep happy that you had perhpas created a hut succesfully trapped an animal created a tool or just gotten further towards a goal (perhaps travelling to a new land). Now we are lucky if we feel a sense of achievement about anything.
We lack freedom but becoming a vagrant offers you that again. Our forefathers had it right all their basic needs were fufilled. Only we, "civilised people", are dumb enough to think that we can improve on what we started with.
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