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Blog number 3 – Definitely Stewart Island & stint back home – 09/02/2009
Again folks it is time for another instalment of Chris’s travel adventures. Or as some may like to call it ‘Chris’s sedate bludge-fest’. But regardless of what others may think I tend to put myself into the same category as Captain Cook, boldy heading into uncertainty, ever so fraught with peril… seriously take this morning for example I could’ve choked on the delicious organic muesli I ate for breakfast this morning, choked! Luckily enough the pieces of cranberry and bran were small enough to fit down my honed esophagus, but if they hadn’t been and I had somehow lost function of the ability to chew my food… Dum dum dum! (that was pitiful attempt at the scary music). It happens I saw it on Discovery channel ‘When random everyday s***, goes horribly wrong’.
Ok I kinda lost control there, you people really should slap me with a wet fish or something, I forget that I am here for a higher purpose sometimes… To enthral you all with my travel stories (that you may or may not be using vicariously as a way to drown out the screams of small children and buzzing of continual photocopying) not to discuss in detail the random thoughts that spurt through my mind… So anyhew, where was I? Ar yes, we were getting onto our ferry to Stewart Island after having my shoes stolen by… im just gonna call him dickhead, if you haven’t paid enough attention to my previous blogs, then shame on you and I hope you spend the rest of the day stewing over the endless possiblities of whom ‘Dickhead’ might be.
So we jumped on the ferry after paying our $60 one way and briefly attempting to ride for free in exchange for a pleasant conversation with an aussie… I like to think that we would’ve got somewhere with that hadn’t Mike’s had one of his ‘crazy old senior moments’ and start talking about his cribbage tycoon era…Ok that might have been a bit of an exaggeration and slight apologies to Mike for unfair unrivalled friendly banter (dry those crocodile tears my smelly haired friend), but it is quite funny how many people think mike looks like the cliché stoner and thus treat us accordingly ( I am naturally the buff good looking bodyguard that protects our extensive range of narcotics… Jesus I think I suffer from ostentation (for those struggling with that one I like to use large words I recently discover it helps me remember them, but that one means to seriously lack elegance through pompous over indulgent vain actions...fitting to me huh?)
So after we tried our best to test our sea sickness abilities, eating copious amounts of food attempting to play hacky sack and drinking beer, we exited the ferry an hour later, fine, much to the discontent of a particular disgruntled woman who sat crouched in the foetal position in a dark corner of the boat peering up at us through bitterly envious eyes whilst desperately trying to force truck loads of ginger biscuits down here throat.
We quickly scoured the immediate surrounds and after locating the only pub we sighed relief and headed off to the backpackers in hope that they would accept wwoofing for payment. Liz and Heath turned out to be the owners of this particular hostel and after telling us they had no room called a lady whom happened to be 20 metres down the road to see if she had a place for us to wwoof at. Fortunately she did and within 2 hours of being there, we had a place to stay for as long as we wanted. The lady’s name was Pip and her and her husband put us up in this 4 bedroom spare house right at the end of the bay with awesome views of the ocean and our own little beach a few minutes walk away. As part of the deal we were only given accommodation in exchange for being pips garden b****es.
Again I wont go into the finer details of our work cos It was too boring most of the time, chasing the seven thousand different type of weeds around her garden, especially gorse, I developed an intense hatred for gorse here. One could glorify me in some a holy light as a super hero, ‘the destroyer of gorse, in fact I have had several calls from marvel comics asking if they can characterise me in a new series… Moving on, one of the first highlights of Stewie island was the community Christmas night that we were some how invited to the day after we arrived. It was a crazy turn out and the food, oh man the food was divine, so much salmon, mussels, paua, cod, and everything else. I had to try everything and was not disappointed, I gorged myself. The night was the great we found some somewhat local Americans to befriend, however it seemed to end on a sour note as apparently I was being too flirtatious with someone’s girlfriend… well excuse me for providing some humour, I think a certain someone was a holding onto that relationship with his fingertips. Honestly I wasn’t trying anything but being myself, just cos she was laughing at me doesn’t mean I’m gonna slip a rohypnol in her drink and drag her home…loser! ON a more positive note I ripped my knee open again (yes the same one at the same spot) attempting to skate on some little kids half heel roller skate things… Yes I stole some kids skates, probably his only method of getting food and clean water to live I am an evil evil man… but I gave em back! I decided that I needed to burn of some energy and lose some blood after this and set about having a crack at every sport available in the sports centre. I must’ve looked like a retard running around chasing a squash ball by myself (mike stood ashamed in the corner). After I developed a serious liking for the game of squash I decided to return to the party, mostly because if I didn’t I would surely pass out from blood loss. We were introduced to some very friendly locals. Most interesting to us was Vicki and her boyfriend hippie. Vicki was an extremely loud English woman who we found out later was going to be the boisterous and ever so vulgar host of every Sunday afternoon quiz at the pub. Hippie was a perfect match and as his name suggests was exactly that, swaying to the gentle breezing of marijuana floating around his head he would look at you as if he had just seen a little puppy dog shaped curl in your hair, a cheesy smile and a bloodshot glaze would soon follow.
A couple of days after that were invited to spend Christmas day at the ‘orphan Christmas party’ for forgotten youth of Stewart Island. Well if forgotten was the theme they certainly followed through, they all forgot to tell us that the road they were on had been partially wiped out in a flood and you had to access it via a completely different route. Fortunately in our attempts to find the place we stumbled across a random house, in which a man named jack invited us in to spend time with his family, eat his food and drink his rather expensive whiskey… it was the most random display of kindness I had ever experienced (something I would soon learn Stewart Island was full of as they openly accepted us into their community). Jack eventually drove us to the right place and when we arrived we were greeted with haccy sac, beer pong and another incredible feast of seafood and salads. It was here that we met most of the young people we would eventually hang out with on a regular basis and it is here we were introduced to what would become an influx of awesome chilled out stewart island paced music artists.
A day or two later we decided to go on one of the many hikes around stewart island (it is 85% national park) we were lifted out by ian ( a water taxi operator) to one side of the island and would spend the rest of the day hiking through some really cool habitats to some mega sand dunes and kiwi territory. We spent the night there in a very nice parks cabin and spent the evenings spotting the road runner like kiwis. We must have covered over 50 ks in those few days, most of which I did after spraining my ankle in the first few k’s… I know I am such a legend and so tough, you should all bath in my superiority… cough cough … bulls***!
We also got to go to ulver island during this period, which Is a remote island separate to Stewie in which all ferals have been removed and bird life is at a maximum here. It was a beautiful little sanctuary which left me wishing I had tree climbing gear and knew how to do it (they are so hard to climb when the first limb doesn’t start until 20m up)
A day or two later we went to the wharfside where Matt (the guy we met in Bluff) had told us to come look for work. After talking to the manager we were eventually put onto our first shifts as dish pigs a couple of days later. What would pursue would be a rapid course in hospitality as I was quickly promoted to the front of the shop and within a week of being there I could make awesome coffees and run the front for a tea shift all by myself. It was such a testing but rewarding experience for me and I was happy to be working in something completely different.
The following week and a half would result in both me and Mike pulling 8 to 12 hour days at the wharfside, 4 hours of work at pips place to maintain our home and whatever other ridiculous hours we would spend getting drunk at the pub or the one of the guys places. On the few days that it actually reached a descent temperature (mind you only 25 max but felt like 45 due to the massive hole in the ozone layer above us) we went for dips in the near freexing cold waters of stewart island fresh from the artic,, it was actually a very cool experience and left me feeling energised and pumped each time I did it.
On New Years I had to work till 11pm but this didn’t matter to me much because I knew that the place really didn’t start cranking till then anyhow, so I worked the 12 hours shift knowing I would get time and half for a public holiday. The festivities consisted of the whole entire town having a giant party with a band and a bonfire on the beach right in front of the pub, blocking off the main road, forcing anyone who wanted to pass to join in. I had arrived late, but aware of my many pasts mistakes in playing catch up during my life I tried to take a steady pace. I was really enjoying myself, I knew so many people and it was far better than any new years I had at the renmark pub, where the people I knew could be listed on my hands. However things turned sour rather quickly seemingly right after I accepted a bottle of homebrew from an American (two of the same American we met a couple weeks before, the nice ones, we became good friends at the end). But I quickly lost all ability to stand and fell to the ground on the beach next the fire, where I struggled for what seemed an eternity trying to pull myself up and trying not to crawl into my recent puke pile ( I swear that homebrew was dodgy or something I have never experienced that so randomly). Eventually Mike, my knight in shining armour. Literally picked me up and carried me the 2 kilometres pack home. I am pretty sure this is about the time when the town started to think we were a gay couple and I was forced to make it a personal endeavour to notify everyone that we were not in fact that way inclined.
It wasn’t long after this that I received the sad news from home that my poppa had passed away just after new years. (I know my tales are deviating from there usual pleasant demeanour to something more serious). I knew my family did not expect me to return home for his funeral but I knew that I wanted to go home for it and I knew it would be beneficial to my family that I did. So I set about making arrangements for my departure, knowing that I would probably not be returning to stewart island upon my return to NZ. In an attempt to make me feel better Matt (whom I had become quite good friends with by this stage), tried to set me up with a 16 year old local girl who apparently was stalking me and ‘wanted me bad’ in his words. Despite the fact that she was rather attractive , I saw through the layers of make up and saw someone way too immature for me (I know a lot of you are thinking that a three year old is mature enough to be with me, well shame on you for thinking such a perverted thought..tsk tsk!). That and I couldn’t bear to live with the shame of doing anything with her. I would feel wrong and somewhat paedophilic doing so… So I managed to keep her at arms length long enough until I caught the ferry off the island. My farewell was so surreal, half of the town had come down to see me off and I realised as I left how much of an impression that place and its people had had on me and as the ferry turned the island into a distant shadow I waved goodbye to the most humbling place I have ever been.
I arrived back home after what seemed like an eternity of travel and was more or less straight away greeted with my family. I remember thinking how foreign it was too me after new Zealand to be back in Adelaide, how much I wasn’t ready to be back. However in the week that followed was the build up of an intense appreciation for my family, my friends, my country, my work and even the Riverland. It had been building for a couple of weeks prior to my arrival back in Australia. It was something I never saw coming, the entries in my diary when I left indicated that I was ready to leave and had very little problem doing so, even thinking that despite my status of leave without pay at work I hadn’t even considered coming back, other than for family and friends. It was a complete 180 and I was blown away by how much it hit me (although it didn’t truly hit me until a couple of weeks later in NZ). I actually was sad this time to be leaving Australia, a part of me wanted to stay, but I knew that I wasn’t finished with my travels, not for the seeing the world side of things but expanding my knowledge, opening my eyes to the world and getting to know myself better (I know its getting pretty deep now) So after a week back home I semi reluctantly flew back to Christchurch to continue my travels (for the first time alone). My Poppas funeral was also a very humbling experience for me, it seemed that the last two weeks including the week of his funeral would be one of the soon to be many moments of massive personal growth. I realised he had meant so much more to me than I realised and had influenced me quite dramatically in the person I am. I also realised he was the foundry in which my families closeness was formed on and I am ever thank full for his presence in my life… I also know that he would have wanted me to continue this journey.
This ends this blog and I know it ended up being far from the usual but there is a serious side to travelling that I never thought would exist and there definitely are moments of travel blues, where all you want to do is go home and you become extremely envious of those who are. For me the next two weeks would shape the rest of my travels… so stay tuned. I know you probably don’t need to hear all the sad and deep stuff, but if you wanna travel with me vicariously or learn anything from this its kind of important, I hope that in the very least regardless of id you find these blogs entertaining you are somewhat more prepared for any travel you may want to do… it is definitely not all parties and fun.
p.s. Mike smells…. Haha now you have to leave this with a smile
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