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Blog Entry No.2 – 17/1/2008 Dunedin, The Catlins, Stewart Island & Home
Well it has been way too long since I have written a blog, I honestly didn’t expect that it would be this long between entries. So I apologise to all those who are no doubt desperately waiting for my next entry so that they can carry on with normal lives (its ok, dry those tears and pull yourself up from the foetal position I have returned). I also apologise to those that may use my blogs as a mild form of entertainment and will instead now be sucked into what will be an epic entry that rivals the bible in length and complexity. I would gently discourage anyone with the attention span of a small child in a shiny toy factory or violent tendancies towards boredom to not start reading this particular blog. Personally I think if you manage to get through this blog in one session you probably deserve a medal, gold star or a 2 for 1 voucher at the local big M. Although having said this I will probably run out of patience myself in writing it and shorten it up dramatically.
Anyhow, I will actually start the blog instead of talking about it in such an irksome manner. So I think I left the last blog at the end of my time at Akaroa. Which at the moment seems like an eternity ago, but I will try to remember that far back.
So we left Akaroa via the very helpful Tania who very happily dropped us off at the closest point to the edge of Christchurch so that we could start our way down to Dunedin. Upon arriving in Christchurch and suffering from serious chai tea withdrawals we headed into the local Big M (incidentally without a 2 for 1 voucher … Hey Microsoft turn your colon and end bracket into an actual un-smiley face, what’ll that crafty Bill Gates think of next! Wow ‘un-smiley’, I am quite adept at the English language aren’t I, sorry massive tangent ). Whilst in the Maccas we foolishly asked a nice old elderly woman about the nearest op shop, where we could buy some cheap clothes. After a three quarter of an hour discussion about the intimates of every op shop within a 45 kilometre radius (managing to miss our bus out the city several times), we subtly left op shop nanna behind through various suggestions of needing to wash our hair. We eventually caught our bus out of the city and then proceeded to start walking towards Dunedin, thumbs outstretched wind blowing in our hair with the fresh smell of tarmac and dead possum parading through our noses, life really couldn’t get much better. We were eventually picked up by a farm manager named Tom who gave us a lift to some pokey little town. We knew hitchin from there would be hard so Mike pulled out the big guns and proceeded to sit around on a park bench saying hello to every person who walked through the door of a local driver reviver tea shop. This must have screamed desperate, because a couple of minutes later we had a ride a little bit further up the road to Timaru, with an overly skeptical. Pessimistic Englishman who frustrated me with his continual use of sarcasm. After fluking a free sausage sizzle at the local New World store (equivalent of Woolworths) we caught another lift to some other town with a New Zealand male version of a Elizabethian. Who’s dog was instantly attracted to me, maybe it was because I reeked of freshly eaten free sausage and thought that if it licked me to death it might be able to eat for the first time in a month. This dog was seriously gaunt, if it wasn’t for the fact that we were getting a lift I probably would’ve smuggled the dog into my backpack. We were at least half way to Dunedin by this stage and quickly got another ride with a rather openly gay man named Brian to Dunedin (nice bloke, but our conversation didn’t extend much further than pottery and yet again more bloody op shop banter… seriously I think op shop is a code word for crazy talk). We cheekily waved to the obviously pissed fellow hitchhiker whom we stole our ride off of… My god I have to start to limit the details here, otherwise this is going to talke forever! Basically we arrived in Dunedin after a full day of hitchin, to find our couch surfer for the night. I woman whos couchsurfing profile was titled ‘madteapartier’. What was to follow was a short lesson in diligence when checking out couch surfing profiles. She was a lovely woman, who would give you the shirt off your back, but she was definitely a few smarties short of a packet. I think she ended up notifying us she had Aspergers (or as lovely Mike put it arseburgers) syndrome which gave me a lot more respect for her. Her cat I shortly found out was a human being in her eyes and would only become our friends after many hours of kinky kitten talk and gently wooing… So after briefly considering dedicating my life to making mittens dreams we quickly headed out the door to try and spend as much time as far away from her crazy random stories about bumblebees and beset toilet plants. Upon returning we were partially relieved of our ear thrashing duties by a group of Austrian travellers whose sole purpose seemed to be to relieve Jackie (madteapartier) of all of her alchohol and weed. So Jackie was kept busy trying to kick the Austrians out of the house while they ‘munchied’ their way through a whole forest of food, swearing to each other about Jackie in German (in front of her)… Rude b******s, I mean Jackie was probably not going to be receiving a Christmas card next year but I at feigned interest out of respect and sheer friendliness. Myself and Mike shortly retired to our rather comfy (the ‘cramming yourself in a milo tin’ kind of comfy) couch and decided that sleeping head to toe would minimize any chances of randomly waking up a little too close to each others personal space. This proved to be a good choice as Mike regularly ventured towards my 3cm of bed space. Fortunately a swift blow to the kidneys moved him back and controlled his snoring.
The next day we ventured around Dunedin only to realize it wasn’t really for us. We got to go the Otago University and lined up some volunteer work the next day. Unfortunately DOC (Department of Conservation) proved to be less helpful, but I did get to see and yes photograph the most pictured railway station in the world… I know all of you that are watching from a distance would be feeling very green with envy at the thought of me strolling through a site so fraught with cultural heritage… I almost wet myself! I also got to visit the local Cadbury factory and after almost choking on the horrible horrible cocoa beans (seriously have you tried them before? They put me off chocolate for weeks) and watching these rather disturbing Stephen King style string puppets (which I am sure were an ingenious marketing ploy aimed at emotional chocolate eaters scared by these monstrosities), we left rather quickly.
The next day we left Dunedin and jumped in the back of the Otago Uni bus to do some work in a nearby wetland. It ended up being a wet cold day, but we got to help them radiotrack some perch (for those scientifically minded people they were trying to determine resource use via constant radio –triangulation). I was also informed that we had stumbled upon one of the seven thousand locations they used to film lord of the rings. After briefly considering calling my closest nerd friends to brag I realised just how lame that would make me and instead resorted to crawling around through flax lilies looking for ‘my precious’. We were left on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, and within moments of the bus disappearing out of site a giant rain squall came in which sent us ever so pathetically packing to the underside of a truck trailer stored on the side of the road. We eventually gave up on that hiding idea when we realized we were actually getting wetter under the holey truck and walked back up to the road to stand around like desperate wet dogs (smells and all, particularly Mike whom I am sure momentarily suffered from a brain spasm as the pygmy indigenous community that have colonised Mikes dreads sunk their rain tarp pegs into mikes skull). It is suprising how much longer you have to wait for a hitch when it is raining fortunately (surprisingly nobody wants wet back seats) we eventually were picked up by a farmer and his wife. We got as far as Balcutha and were gobsmacked by the sheer amount of clear blue water that flows down the Balcutha river (it s***s all over the River Murray). We left here and carried out the last leg of our journey with a German backpacker whom couldn’t really drive or speak English very well…joyous!
We arrived at the Whistling Frog Café (our place we would WWOOF for a week), to be greeted warmly with offers of food a comfy bed (our two biggest weaknesses as back packers). The site was surrounded by what I thought was pristine rainforest and the actual café and farm claimed to be eco friendly. Everything was looking great, but then it all fell apart at the seems pretty quickly after that. We were introduced to some fellow WWOOFer’s whom were a couple (whose names seem to have been misplaced somewhere inside my now eldery mind… that’s right, now ive hit the big 25 everything that all seemed so easy is hard, but yet somehow always were harder when compared to these young whipper snappers) from America (oh that’s right the guys name was Miriam, now forgive me for laughing but HA! Poor fella im surprised he doesn’t have a massive complex about it or at least change it via depol to something less girlie, like Julie or Annabelle. Anyhow we were introduced to them and there last duty was to show us the ropes and daily chores… sure I thought that sounds cool. Our first duty was to collect up the recycling containers and put em into the back of the ute… cool I thought, how fitting for an environmentally aware site. Then we grabbed all the food scraps to feed to the pigs. Which again seemed cool as it seemed they were going to produce organic bacon from these pigs. We rocked up at the pig feeding station to find two absolutely reek pigs (now I know pigs are normally bad but these were atrocious. They were crammed in this tiny wooden cage, and im sure one of em eyes was poking out a little too far to be normal. To add insult to injury they just through the food into them covering the pigs in all kinds of slops and juices, bits of lettuce and fish heads rolled of them like a gentle stream, but these pigs didn’t seem to mind in fact they seemed to revel as they noisily slurped pumpkin pieces of each other. Im not sure if this had caused the stench, but im pretty sure the pigs should not smell that much like bacon before even being cooked, I think it was deliberate plan to marinate the pigs while they were alive by smothering their pores in used teriyaki sauce.
I could look past this, but then we took an awfully long drive with these recycling bins, to a rather large hole in the ground. Upon getting there the americans through everything from every separate container (glass, plastic etc) into one giant pile and set a match to it a little too maniacally. Mike and I watched in horror as plumes of black smoke rose up from the separate piles of plastic, glass and paper. We were also informed that the what looked to be pristine forest behind us was going to be felled so that they could replant it with forest and get money for carbon credits… what a joke. If it wasn’t for the fact that the area surrounding this site was littered with cool things to see we would have packed our s*** and left.
The next day the friendly hospitaility we had seen the night before upon arrival was culled as we were bascically told that most of our would mainly consist of mash potatoe and lamb, and that everything including unfolded napkins and dwindling toothpick numbers would be placed on a higher pedestal than us. This aside we headed out to our first day of work, with a slightly positive ‘things’ll get better’attitude. This didn’t last long as Mike decided it would be a good idea to test the donut making abilities of the farm landcruiser and trailer. He basically came around a blind corner a bit too fast and we ended spinning rather swan lake like along a dirt road, narrowly missing the rather steep decline of the side of the road to find ourselves stuck in a ditch. Naturally I had s*** myself during this moment which seemed to go in slow motion and upon realizing that I still had both my legs and arms got stuck into Mike about his driving abilities. Now before you start to think that Mike is a complete loser, I must admit that I also faltered shortly afterwards when our ingenious idea to unhitch the trailer carrying over tonne of concrete aggregrate, quickly turned sour as we both forgot to chock the tyres and the trailer careened down the road and off the ledge into the forest below, almost taking several trying to be helpful tourists and the owner of the property ( who arrived almost perfectly in time as we unhitched the trailer). Now at the time we were both s***ting ourselves that the owner/manager would have us shot for screwing up royally, but in hindsight the look on that pompus dudes face as he saw several hundred dollars he might have otherwise spent on surgically inserting the broomstick further up his arse, was hilarious! We eventually got the trailer and ute out mostly in one piece, and were banished to only use our little tonka truck.
I wont bore you with the daily work details but they basically included lots of concreting and fence removal. However I will embellish on other such details that might pertain your interest. During our time we visited what I thought was one of the most relaxing walks/waterfalls I had ever seen several times (Macleans Falls). Countless times I would sit near on under the huge waterfall, mist rolling past me, dragonflies landing on me as I watched these cool little robins bravely danced through the rapids catching small insects… I know sounds like I am leading into a romantic novel… and Ronaldo gently caressed Julie as the waterfall cascaded over her pulchritudinous body… I know good huh, im expecting a cheque from my publisher any day now.
We also went for a ‘short’ walk to the beach, which we were led to believe was and hour or so away. However this soon became a mammoth walk as the road we thought would lead us there wound its way through acres of pine forest before dying out just in sight of the coast. Determined to reach the coast and inspired by the sight of the ocean, we foolishly ventured off track with little more than a couple litres of water our ipods (the most important survival device) and an apple. We soon came across a river and decided the logical thing to do was to follow it through to the beach. So after some very cool but very tiring marathon muddy walk through thick rainforest and slippery rocks, we made it out to ocean, upon which we screamed and danced around like little school children ecstatic about the fact that we no longer had to eat Mikes arm. (in a fashion similar to that expressed kindy kids when they finally uncover the long lost purple crayon, imperative to the colouring in of Barney the Dinosaur)
We finally returned from this mammoth adventure to receive our first beer and piece of chocolate cake (which we found out later was only given to us because it was too mangled for regular human beings). We also had our chance to grill the owner about his neglected eco friendliness, however in typical entrepreneurial fashion he quickly was interrupted by a more pressing issue which required his immediate attention somewhere over there… I think he moved to the corner of the room where he sobbed violently about how mean and obtrusive we were being.
We also scored a free ride to Curio Bay with a fisheries officer (whom revealed to us in detail every fishing regulation and steakout he had ever been on, seriously I don’t know why he needed to do that he was already the epitome of cool in my book). I did however think it was quite hilarious that he carried around a box full of lollies so that whilst issuing the parents a $500 fine for undersized Paua (Abalone) he would hand the children some free lollies so that they remained hyper for the solemn ride home…Anyhow, Curio Bay was a cool little area filled with petrified forests, long deserted beaches, penguins and some kick arse ice cream.
We spent our nights hanging out with drinking goon and playing ping pong championships with Levi (One of the chefs in the Café) and Wallee (a Egyptian immigrant who barely spoke English), who were the only two people on the property who gave a s*** about us.
We eventually left a week later and got a ride to further south to Invercargill ( a city somewhere between Mildura and Adelaide) which was the next port of call on our way to Stewart Island with the farm manager and his son (whom was the biggest smartarse 6 year old kid ive ever met, who was in desperate need of a good kick in the butt, but this guy had already proved his extremely poor parenting skills after letting his very curious toddler daughter eat a handful of cement powder.)
We quickly learnt that there wasn’t much in Invercargill for us this time and headed down to the Bluff where we would catch our ferry ride over to Stewart Island. However by the time we reached there we had missed the last ferry ride over and were forced to stay the night at the backpackers. Fortunately we still didn’t have to pay for accommodation as we managed to wangle work in exchange for our room.
Soon after we had arrived we met up with Matt, a young, kind of emo looking guy from Stewart Island who had also missed the ferry across. We quickly developed a friendship with Matt and before long the beers were flowing and we were munching our way through some what seemed to be abandoned chops.
The next morning we awoke to find out that the chops we thought were abandoned belonged to a very unsociable Italian man who came in at 3am. Apparently he wasn’t happy with his missing 3 chops and so we went down to the local 4 square (NZ version of IGA) to buy some more. However upon returning I realised my hiking boots which I had purchased the day before were missing, and the only person who could have taken them was Matt (who wouldn’t be so stupid, seeing as he knew we were coming to stewie island to see him) or the Italian man, who I politely nicknamed dickhead. I swear he stole my shoes as some kind of stupid self empowered Karma… I hope karma hunts his arse down and causes him to develop some kind of toe fungus that smells remarkably like lamb chops… Sorry I am clearly still bitter about this some months on im sure the last thing you want to read about are my boring vengeance plots based loosely around the contraction of tinea. It turned out better anyway cos the nice lady at the backpackers let me borrow her really cool hiking shoes. So we grabbed our gear and headed off to Stewart Island.
So yeah this has taken me some time to write up this much and its quite lengthy in itself, so I will stop here, mostly cos I am lazy and it gives me some time to write the next blog before you starting reaching for the anti depressants again. Ill leave the Stewie Island and Home one for next time, but they’ll prob all come at once as I want to get them all done before I leave NZ. Which only leaves me 4 days! Meh!
Stay tuned folks. Stewie Island is fantastic, well I at least thought so.
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