lovely Lumsden

Its small, and thats being modest. There isn't much to do, the library is open three days a week. There's no nightlife, no movie theater, no traffic lights, no traffic, no fast-food, one gas station, one market,  one, pharmacy, one hardware store, and the restaurants can be counted on one hand. Population 450. Stress is a foreign word here. Where stress seemed to occur once an millisecond in DC it seems to occur once a week in Lumsden. You can walk from one end of town to the other in about 10 minutes and its fantastic! I know most people would go crazy here for lack of things to do, but for me right now its perfect. I love being able to walk to anywhere I need to go. If I want to go further, hitch hike, people actually stop. I have a comfy house and free food, tv, and internet. Well sort of free, I am working for it, but the work is good and so is the company.

I wake up, shower, brush my teeth and eat breakfast. I walk over to the cafe and get a complimentary americano. I sit and read the paper. Start working around 9:30 and put in a good 6 hours of elbow grease. After work I usually hang out around the cafe drinking coffee, chatting with the peeps, and surfing the interweb. Occasionally helping to eat leftover scones and sandwiches. Its rough, I know, but I make do. When I get antsy I can go for a hike down by the river or set up my slack line and try not to break an ankle. There is also some good local entertainment just to keep things spicy. My excellent host, Rob a member of the fire brigade invites me to come to their weekly trainings. This weeks training: a practice burn on an old shed, neat-o gang! So basically pace of life is ideal, I haven't been this relaxed since I can remember, and I haven't had such a centered sense of being since... ever.

In such a peaceful state its a challenge to get excited about leaving. I've just bought my plane ticket to Sydney and will already be leaving New Zealand on the 5th of April. I could have stayed until the 30th, but airfares were increasing and I want to keep the momentum going. Well, thats only half true, I am starting to run out of money and am eager to find a job in Australia. Not that I want to go back to a "regular" job but I have a lot of places I want to go and plane, train, and bus tickets don't appear out of thin air. So work I must, but Sydney seems like a cool place to do it. I'll be hitting the ground running when I arrive and hope to land something in an outdoor sports equipment store. Kathmandu is their version of REI, and I'm thinking its a good place to hear about local adventuring and meet cool folks.

Here, there and everywhere

The Heaphy Track was a success! Four days of peace and solitude in the backcountry of South Island. I'm not gonna lie though, I should have had better hiking boots. To say I had blisters would be an understatement. Here's a nice grodey story for you. I had to pop my blisters, or hiking the next day would have been miserable. So I sanitized my pocket knife and got ready to operate. As soon as I stepped out of my tent I was swarmed by sand flies. Not exaggerating, swarmed. So I had to act fast. I quickly and carefully pulled off my shoe and sock, so basically my only exposed flesh was my swollen blistery foot. The flies were quick to act and covered my foot instantly. A quick slice in the back of my heal and between my big toe and second toe and let the puss flow! This of course brought more flies. So as soon as it was drained I quickly bandaged up the funk foot and slid it back into my sweaty old sock. It felt better already and I swan dived back into my tent. All was good until the itching started. New Zealand sandfly bites are similar to mosquito bites but come on more suddenly and intensely. Its about 5 days later and footsie is all better now!

This is from a music video I shot with Sting

Despite the foot drama the experience was very therapeutic and cleansing. It was refreshing to be completely unplugged for about 6 days in total. I've decided that this needs to be a regular routine. At least for one weekend per month.

The beach I had all to myself for an entire day!

So after getting off the trail I began my journey down the west coast of South Island. I spent the first night in Westport at a nice hostel called the Trip Inn. We hung out and watched Lord of the Rings, it was cool to actually see some places that looked familiar. The next morning I boarded the bus once again for a 6 hour ride down to Fox Glacier. There are two big glacier towns on the west coast, Franz Josef and Fox Glacier. I chose Fox, the less touristy of the two, although it was still quite touristy. The "town" is basically a strip about 200 meters long of glacier guides, helicopter tours, and skydiving companies. I have been on a pretty tight budget lately, so as much as I would have loved to go ice climbing on the glacier, I chose to do a self guided hike up to a view point of the glacier instead. I know, I know, woe is me! So after a quick night in Fox Glacier, and a stay at not my favorite hostel, it was back to the bus. Next stop Queenstown.

Queenstown is the birthplace of bungy jumping, or so they claim. It is a posh little town that caters to the extreme sports enthusiast and the young partiers who choose to both "grip it" and "rip it". I really didn't get much of a chance to explore this extreme village, because my bus got in around 8pm. But to my surprise, the town was still awake at such a late hour. Most everywhere else I have been in NZ seems to close down around 5pm and Queenstown was still alive and bumpin' at the wee hours of 8pm! No partying for me though, it was back to another hostel to chill out after a long bus ride. I shared a room with some cool British kids who have been traveling all over the place for the past 7 months. I picked up some good travel tips, and have an ever growing interest in going to England. Not one of the primary places on my list, but I have met several people now that go on and on about it.

Pancake Rocks 

My next destination was Lumsden, a small rural town in the middle of Southland, about an hours drive to several cool areas in the South. There's a little cafe there called the Route 6 Cafe where I arranged to do a help-x stay. So the only way to get to Lumsden from Queenstown via public transportation is a $20 bus ticket that goes through Dunedin and has a layover, all in all taking about 10 hours. This makes absolutely no sense because Lumsden is only one hour due South of Queenstown. So I did like so many other backpackers do in NZ and stood by the side of the road with my thumb out. Within about 45 mins a camper van with two very lovely ladies from Belgium and Israel pulled over and picked me up! Not only were they nice enough to give me a ride but they also offered me some breakfast. Their only request: pay it forward. Indeed I shall.

So I arrived at the cafe and was greeted with a hot cup of coffee and slice of delicious foccacia. My host here owns the cafe and runs a canvas photo print shop, as well as being the "mayor" and member of the fire brigade! Its a very small town and the people seem to be very warm hearted and down to earth. I really can't complain about being payed in espresso and pastries, looks like it will be a great couple of weeks. My plan is to chill out here for a few weeks to slow things down a bit and save some money and its looking like the perfect place to do that. I'll have some free time too, and plan on hitching some more rides to take some weekend adventures. Life is good.

Hop on the bus, Gus

Avondale market!

Three weeks in Auckland. Tell anyone who has traveled through New Zealand that you spent three weeks in Auckland and they look at you like you're crazy. Ok, so it was a little longer than I really wanted to spend there but it did give me enough time to see several different sides of the expansive city. I saw the life style block aspects of the North Shore, a higher end region of Auckland. I saw the wild West coast, a bohemian haven with scenic beaches, exotic bungaloes and beautiful hiking trails. And I saw the mixed cultures of South Auckland, a concentrated area of Pacific Islanders. I don't regret spending that much time there, but it was definitely time to see other things. 

I bought a 5 trip pass with Naked Bus lines and scooted over to Napier in Hawke's Bay. Napier is a cute little town that was rebuilt in all art deco fashion after the city was destroyed in a huge earthquake in the 30s. It sits on the bay and has a very touristy feel to it. One thing I don't really get about New Zealand is that all the stores close at 5pm, maybe 6 if you're lucky. That includes coffee shops and cafes. Some restaurants of course stay open for dinner, but it gives the towns a ghosty feel after everything has shut down. 

I spent a couple of nights in Napier at fittingly named Andy's Backpackers. A nice quiet and comfortable hostel which is much better than the chaotic ones which are packed to the gills with just-left-the-nest 18 year olds getting geared up for frat parties next year (aka hell).

After getting a heavy dose of art deco I was ready for something else so I got back on the Naked Bus and went down to Wellington, the nation's capital. Wellington is the major art hub in New Zealand and I was lucky enough to catch it in the middle of both the International Arts Festival and the Fringe Festival. They have a great last minute chance to get tickets for all the sold out shows. On the day of the show if you line up at the box office in the middle of town they sell 10 tickets to each show playing that day for only $20. Its a pretty sweet deal. I was able to get a ticket to a play from the UK called the Wild Bride, a Grimms Fairy tale interpretation with blues, bluegrass and puppets; very cool. However the next day when I went back to try to get Bon Iver tickets for 20 bucks I had no such luck. Of course there were enough die hard fans who were camped out all night. Bummer.

Wellington has been a blast, good art, good coffee, beautiful scenery. I have one more night here and then I take the ferry down to South Island!  I'm pretty stoked about South Island, I start off my journey there on a 4 day back country trek called the Heaphy Track. It crosses 78km from Golden Bay on the North side over mountains and beaches to the West coast. Its the longest of New Zealand's "Great Walks". Not too strenuous and not too popular, so it should be a good time.

I've recently received my working holiday visa for Australia! I'm going to have to raise more "funds" to keep things going. New Zealand turned out to be a lot pricier than I had thought. When I left the US, the NZ dollar was worth about 75 cents USD, its already up to about 85! So yeah some work is in my future, I'm thinking a couple months of fruit picking should put me back on track. If anyone knows of good places to find work in Australia I'm all ears! I don't have a definite plan, most likely just going where the work is and taking it from there.