Been away...
Hey hey, just been away touring round the north island so have been a bit quiet on the blog front but back in full vigour now.
I ended up hitching most places and had some marvelous rides so before I forget it all I just wanted to document it all.
I started in Greenlane to hitch to Womad. As it turns out greenlane is not the best place to hitch from after recent road changes, market road would have been better but no worries, I was still picked up within about 30 seconds by a guy called Mike. He was a yoga teacher from Wellington but originally from Gisborne and was on his way to Womad. Bonus! He was very interesting and told me about yoga and his family. He has travelled to India a bunch of times to learn from a special yogi who no longer teaches yoga but his grandson carries on his teachings. It was fascinating what the generational differences were with the yogi’s family. The son of the grand daddy yogi bailed to america at a young age and still lives there racking in the dough and spreading his own version of his fathers teachings. Grand daddy yogi’s grandson has stuck with the much more traditional approach and still teaches in India. Anyway, it goes on, message me if you want more information on it, or if you are looking for a good yoga place in the Hutt.
So, rocked out at Womad and then got a lift from ma julie to te kuiti, which doesn’t really count as a hitch cause I knew her.
From Te Kuiti I got picked up by a lovely guy called Des (pronounced dez) and his wife. This was one of the worlds sweetest lifts ever. Des drove a big 4 door porsche really really quickly which loud music blaring from his iphone… ewww baby, it feels right, music sounds better with you…… awesome. There was a bit of a rush cause his son had broken his color bone in the weekend doing motor cross but really I think he just liked driving fast. He insisted that Whaketane would be a better place to hitch from than rotorua and get this, when we got to Whaketane he invited me to stay at his house. His house was lush as all hell. It was way up on the hills of Whaketane and was a nice piece of archetecture. I set up my tent on his lawn, despite him offering me a bed, and watched the sun go down accross the Whaketane plains. After eating a beautiful meal that he cooked me and hanging with his family for a bit I went to bed in the tent but when it started to rain in the middle of the night scarpered inside and sprawled out on the floor in the middle of the lounge.
I was woken early at des’s and went down to Michael (an old Fleet DJ) radio show that he does on b side FM. This was all unplanned but was very funny. Michael then cautiously gave me a lift out of town to a good hitching spot. Cautiously as he was only on his learners and was driving his new car.
I was then picked up by a guy who was on the… err… gritty side of stock control. We didn’t delve into that too much but instead talked about talkback radio which I thought was quite amusing.
He dropped me off at a service station where I was quickly picked up by a guy called Max who was in charge of one of the local Maori Trusts. We didn’t speak too much but I could tell he was onto it. There was another lady in the car who was sorta like Max. They gave me a lift to Ruatahuna in Te Urewera National Park. They mainly talked in Maori to each other and we stopped twice along the ride, once to get a quote on some machinery and the other time to get some pies. They dropped me at the comunity hall in Ruatahuna and pointed me to a good place to get picked up form. I was standing beside the road when a guy appeared out of no where offering me a cuppa. I said no but said he would bring me one anyway. After bringing a cuppa to the road side he said I should come inside to have it so I did. I could go on for ages about the interior of his house but I won’t. He was a brilliant host and before you knew it he was giving me a lift down the road to the next settle ment. I thought his car was falling to pieces but he explained all the modifications and the purpose of them, such as the missing muffler to deliver extra power and what not. Very funny.
Next I was picked up by a couple of hunters. They were pretty choice. The car was filled with bows and arrows and guns and whiskey and all other essential hunting items. We listened to rave music from the Netherlands and talked of women and parties. Pretty sweet. They gave me a lift further than they were going which was much appreciated as it was late and I had to start my walk around lake waikeremoana.
After the walk I was smelly and tired and was picked up by a disorientated couple from South Africa. They thought highway 38 was a sealed road not a long windy dirt road that takes about 4 hours to drive down. They picked me up about halfway along the road and I did my best to explain the local maori history (the little that I knew) and they told me about life in South Africa and about the current situation with Mugabe.
They dropped me off at the end of highway 38 in between Taupo and Rotarua where I was picked up by a couple if young Isralis. We went to some hotpools which we shared with rats and angels. It was quite nice. They then gave me a lift to Rotarua where I unsuccessfully tried to hitch back to Auckland in the evening so ended up staying in a sweet backpackers where I washed and internetted and drunk beer. Good times.
Next morning I got a lift from Rotarua to Manukau from a guy who works in tourism in Rotorua for summer then goes to the Northern part of Wisconson for winter where he has been working as a camp leader for 5 years. He was a very chatty 22 year old and told me a lot about repping hard for NZ while he is away.
For the final ride of Manukau to AK I got a lift from a guy who works as a lawyers assistant getting people who lose there drivers liscence limited liscences. He was very stoked about a new bill board that he had got put up beside the motorway. He said it was good because he could monitor how effective the advertising was as it was the only place he advertised. Nice guy.
Anyway, that’s all very much in brief, I could write a lot more about it, especially Mike as he was really chatty, but hopefully these notes will help me remember in the future.
