TravelStream™ news feed for member fuzzyhatjon on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/fuzzyhatjon en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Mon, 17 Aug 2009 23:56:00 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fuzzyhatjon/3/1250567704/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fuzzyhatjon/3/1250567704/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fuzzyhatjon/3/1250567704/tpod.html Mon, 17 Aug 2009 23:56:00 -0400 Chapter 3 - Australia

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Cradle Mountain-Lake St. Clair National Park, Tasmania, Australia

I got up and on the road earlyyesterday.I stopped by Queenstown for some fuel. The place is not much like it's New Zealand namesake. The bare andbenched mountains hint at the town's unapologetic past.Getting closer to Cradle Mountain thedriving got better. Sun-bleached corpses of formerly stubbornlyproud trees stood guard over a tired landscape. Red, purple, yellowand red soils. Dry scrub. I smell cheese.I was welcomed to the camp ground by apair of wallabies. Slamming on the brakes and scurrying for mycamera didn't seem to bother them. “Stupid bloody tourist. Probably another goddamn Canadian”.My plan was to get up early and do along hike. The area has produced some amazing photos and I wantedin.The morning didn't look promising;overcast with promise of rain from the weather service. I went upanyway.I was on my way up to Cradle Mountainpeak at 1100 when the wind hit. On top of it, visibility hadactually gotten worse and was no more than 50 m. Thinking of the“gale” warning I received this morning I turned tail and headedback to base. By the time I got back to the shuttle, the weather hadcleared. Damn.Walking through cloud is an interestingexperience. The low visibility and the mist gives a uniqueatmosphere. It's neat watching people walk out of the mist. The“cloud” also precipitates onto your hair, but keeps your skindry. Eye lashes seem to attract the moisture causing your face torain.I was too tired to head back up afterthe several hour hike down so I went to the Tassie Devil Farm. Theyhave an interesting mating ritual; the men fight, the winner then“fights” the female and then she lets him drag her back to hisburrow. I know some human females like it that way too.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fuzzyhatjon/3/1250567447/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fuzzyhatjon/3/1250567447/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fuzzyhatjon/3/1250567447/tpod.html Mon, 17 Aug 2009 23:51:32 -0400 Chapter 3 - Australia

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Strahan, Tasmania, Australia

It was a long day of driving. Idecided to take the “somewhat long way down” as opposed to thedirect route.I almost slammed on the brakes an hourinto my drive when I saw “cheese tasting” on a sign beside theroad. I love cheese. So I got some chilli cheese for lunch and myfuzzy hat got to pose with a cow. Not a real one, bot a cow of thedecorative type. It was a psychedelic cow. Mmmm, psychedelic cowsand chilli cheese.The place was a working cheese factory. Heaven. I let out a very audible gasp and started drooling afterturning a corner and seeing rows upon rows of cheese. The couplemaking out by the cheese (cheese has the same effect on me, I can'tjudge) looked at me strangely. Young love and cheese.I passed through Penguin, a nice littletown with a large statue of a penguin covered in bird crap. The roadstarted winding after Penguin.I pulled into Strahan just past six. Srahan looks like a town under construction, trying to find itself. Not sure just how pretentious to be.The “hostel” was nothing fantasticand was quite over-priced. And quite empty; I got a room to myself.Out of loneliness I forced myself intoa conversation with the few others that were in the hostel's kitchen. I love backpackers. They are your best friends after 10 minutes. After 30, we were watching the sun set over the sand dunes just downthe road.I got up this morning early and burnedmyself some pancakes. I had plenty of time before the cruise I haddecided to take. I even had enough time to wander around with thedozen others taking photos while waiting for the cruise to start.I wasn't sure about the cruise, as itwas pretty pricey for a backpacker at $90 and full of old people. Itwas a nice day though, and the guy in front of me was an old hippiephotographer. I generally take the presence of old hippiephotographers as good signs. Kinda like being crapped on by a bigbird.The weather was great; not a cloud insight. We passed through New Zealand's Hell's Gate and stopped at afish farm before heading up the Gordon River.A six-hour cruise including a one-hourguided tour of an old penal settlement (Sarah Island) and all thecheap coffee you can drink (I stopped counting after seven cups)! Not bad value after all. Then they said there would be a buffet. Bonus!Anyone who knows me is aware of myamazing ability to eat my own weight in food. I must have paid formy cruise by my third helping. Old people take a long time to eat. Suckers!After lunch we went on our guided tourof Sarah island. I think I was the youngest non-accompanied byadult. Our tour guide showed us one of the better preservedstructures which was even better preserved before some miningengineer blew it up. Turns out he was ashamed of his convict past. Out of all the things an engineer should be ashamed of, ha.Halfway through the tour I suddenlyrealised that downing all that coffee before a long walk was a badmistake. The tour guide must have been somewhat confused by the lookon my face and my sudden disappearance just as she informed us thatsex with a goat on the island was illegal and wrong even for theconvicts.I made it back to the boat in time, butwas moving pretty fast. The chilli cheese from yesterday helped lendthe name “Hell's Gate” to the toilet I was punishing. Karma formy gluttony?The rest of the ride went mostlyuneventful and I avoided the coffee the rest of the way back.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fuzzyhatjon/3/1250564497/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fuzzyhatjon/3/1250564497/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fuzzyhatjon/3/1250564497/tpod.html Mon, 17 Aug 2009 23:03:18 -0400 Chapter 3 - Australia

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Launceston, Tasmania, Australia

Last night was pleasantly uneventful. Aside from the 3 am red-neck bashing that took place outside mywindow of course.The hotel turned out to be allright. Iarrived in the pouring rain and went directly to bed. The firsteight hours sleep I've had in almost a month.I picked up my car with no dramas. Ithink I was expecting them to tell me that there was a mistake andnone would be available. I guess I'm paranoid (duhhh).A quick tour of Cataract Gorge and I'moff!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fuzzyhatjon/3/1250564408/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fuzzyhatjon/3/1250564408/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fuzzyhatjon/3/1250564408/tpod.html Mon, 17 Aug 2009 23:01:21 -0400 Chapter 3 - Australia

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Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

You'd think they'd have a clock in anairport bar. Especially after I paid $9 for a beer. Crooks.I've gone back to writing my journalsby hand. Sitting in from of a computer is too distracting and I'vemanaged to get nothing done over the past six months.I picked up an over-priced Moleskinenotebook at the airport shop. I should have got one of the manyrelatively cheap ones I spotted while looking for my Molesineplanner. I've spent untold hours looking for a 2009 version to noavail. So I settled for the 2008-2009 version. An extra 40 pages tolug around. Bastards!I made the mistake of not booking myLaunceston accommodation until the last minute. As of last night allthe hostels were booked. In a panic I rushed home from work andcalled all the numbers in my Lonely Planet. I got lucky and found aroom in the “Sportsman's Hall” hotel. I was really worried. Imust have called close to ten places that were full. “Must be ared neck convention I told Jeremy, thinking of my Tamworth“adventure”.A “hotel” in Australia is a Pub. I'm curious to see what it is I've gotten myself into. I should behappy; for a while I was considering sleeping on a park bench.Last call then I'm off to thesouthernmost state in Aussie.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fuzzyhatjon/3/1250563979/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fuzzyhatjon/3/1250563979/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fuzzyhatjon/3/1250563979/tpod.html Mon, 17 Aug 2009 22:55:32 -0400 Chapter 3 - Australia

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Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Blah.Douglas Partners had their annual “TechSeminar” this weekend. As with all engineering group get-togethersof this nature it's considered a “piss-up” and an excellentchance to have a good time under the façade of learning about dirtand rocks. So I was particularly disappointed to find that the techseminar was scheduled for February 14th; Valentines Day.Normally I hate Velentine's Day, aka“Hallmark Day”. This year was supposed to be different. Nothere was no woman involved (fortunately), but there was a festivalinvolved; Good Vibes. Fatboy Slim, the Presets, DeadMouse, etc. Ihad agreed in advance to the festival and purchased the rather priceyticket because I reckoned that no one in their right minds wouldschedule a seminar for Valentine's Day weekend. I was wrong. Iunderestimated the lack of social connection that enigneers have.I was still pretty excited about theweekend until about halfway through the week, when the realisationset in that the weather just was not going to be cooperative. It'sbeen hot all January and this continued the first week into February. I even got my first + 40 Celsius day! That's a confirmed 80 degreedifference in my life now! Unfortunately the weather didn't hold outand it's been raining pretty steady for the entire week. And when itrains here, it really rains. I left for Sydney on Friday night,stayed in a hostel and got up early. A quick drink with somestrangers and a chat with the backpackers in my room reminded me of adifferent life. I hate it when people ask me what I do. I don'tlike saying I'm an engineer. I don't want people to think I have acareer. They always judge and wonder what I'm doing in a hostel. Idon't want to be different. I'm always different. People I workwith have a life, a family, a house. Travellers are young, free anddon't stay anywhere longer than a month. They don't have obligationsor clients or have to work overtime for free.The festival went horribly. It waspissing down rain. Transport sucked, the trains were down fortrackwork (again, as usual), and I had to wait in the rain for a busfor almost a half hour. The festival itself was wet, muddy and cold. Mobile phone service was down so I couldn't get in contact withanyone. I spent close to 4 hours looking for friends. When Ifinally found someone I knew, she lost other friends, and we spentthe next two hours looking for them. I got to “enjoy” about anhour of music in the pouring rain and mud.Win some, lose some I guess.I did manage to go to the Reptile parkwith Jeremy and some other friends a little while ago. I got to seesome reptiles and didn't even get bitten!My major jobs are shutting down thisweek and so I've managed to get a week off of work. I'm heading downto Tasmania this weekend, flying out of Sydney on Friday. Finally! Almost a year later, I finally get a chance to do some travellingaround the country.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fuzzyhatjon/3/1250563668/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fuzzyhatjon/3/1250563668/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fuzzyhatjon/3/1250563668/tpod.html Mon, 17 Aug 2009 22:49:13 -0400 Chapter 3 - Australia

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Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

OK, quick holiday update. I'm a littlebehind, so I'm rushing.I worked up until the day beforeChristmas and decided to hate Christmas and spend it alone. I toldeveryone that I had something going on because I hate being a charitycase.The day was nice and quiet, I onlyheard one “Merry Christmas”, from a random guy while I wassurfing. It may be sour grapes, but it was one of the betterChristmas' I've had. No pressure, no expecting to please anyone. Iwould have liked to have talked to my family, but they were too busyto answer the phone. But I'm not bitter...Boxing day was good. I did some quickshopping at the very few places open. It's funny, they have boxingday sales here the following week, but no where is open on boxingday. Strange.After shopping I went to the races withJeremy and some other friends. A lot of booze. Holidays inAustralia are just an excuse to get drunk. Not a lot of Christmasspirit. Which was great! Once again, not bitter.Following boxing day, I followed Jeremyand selected persons to do some camping. It was quite urban campingbut it was nice to get away and relax. There even was a shower! AndIreland trying to spoon me, but that's ok.I got back to Newie just before NewYears and headed down to Sydney with some other friends to celebrateNew Years. We talked ourselves into making our way down to SydneyHarbour Bridge to watch the fireworks. Once in a lifetimeexperience. No really, never again. Ridiculously crowded and busy. I had trouble enjoying myself.We got back to our friend's house justin time for Fab and I to drive back to Newcastle and make the 5 amflight to Melbourne where we spend the next couple days.I picked up a last minute ticket to“Summadays” (sp?), a big festival with lots of electronic typemusic. We stayed with Fab's aunt and uncle, who were reallywonderful people and I got to see another friend that I haven't seenin a while as she lives there (with Fab's aunt and uncle) now.Back to Newie, back to work. Phew, abusy week and a half.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fuzzyhatjon/3/1250563391/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fuzzyhatjon/3/1250563391/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fuzzyhatjon/3/1250563391/tpod.html Mon, 17 Aug 2009 22:44:44 -0400 Chapter 3 - Australia

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Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia

Ho ho frikkin ho
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fuzzyhatjon/3/1229824320/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fuzzyhatjon/3/1229824320/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fuzzyhatjon/3/1229824320/tpod.html Sat, 31 Jan 2009 00:09:14 -0500 Chapter 3 - Australia

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Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia

My working visa expired in November. Well, the working part anyway. I was only allowed to work for one employer for up to six months. Two days before that six months was up, I still hadn't received my new visa. They had, however, sent a "supplemental form" for me to fill out. Apparently they reserve these for the "special" cases. The only other instances of this form I could find on-line were almost all attached to some guy named "Ahmed" or "Osama", or to guys also asking "if they really do check to see if you have a criminal record". Guys were taking bets on how long it would take me to wind up on "Border Patrol", a reality show that follows customs guys deporting people or arresting them for smuggling fruit across the border. I had just put together a letter begging some minister or other for a pardon, when my visa came through with one day left. A record two weeks processing time. The 457 visa has some caveats; I'm no longer on a working holiday. I'm here to serve my company. They word it in a way that makes me seem like company property. "Thou shalt not work for any other, thou shalt work until blood is shed from your fingertips, thou shalt not say anything negative to any human rights organisation", etcetera and such. The good news is I can now stay for another 2 and a half years. Or until my employer decides it would be funny to deport me. Cue the immigrant song.The running joke at work is that the only reason they let me stay is so when I leave they can blame the Canadian. The up side is that I've been put on some rather interesting jobs. Interesting being the key word here. At least I'm now one step above the students, even if I'm still taking orders from the trained monkey. I'm sick of flinging poop at clients that don't pay their bills.My shoes broke. They kind of got worn through. I'm not too impressed with them. They were light and comfortable, but offered no support and fell apart to readily. I finally save up enough to buy some new shoes and retire the old. It sort of feels like the shoes represented my backpacking spirit, and it was kind of sad getting rid of them. I even took a photo and offered a lamb in their memory. By offering a lamb, I mean I ate lamb chops. I love lamb chops. You just take some virgin olive oil and some rosemary... oops, off track.November was the month known as "Movember". A month where some of us grow a moustache and get sponsors to give us money so that we can serve as public warnings against cheesy facial hair to others. Thanks for nothing for not sponsoring me by the way. You all suck. I did get some sponsorship from people at work. I think I'm officially responsible for raising over one hundred dollars for depression and cancer charities. The last day of Movember was a day at the races with a bunch of folks from work. The races is a phenomenon that has taken off in the South Pacific. It's an excuse to get dressed up all fancy and get real drunk and make a fool of yourself. I didn't disappoint of course. Now they don't serve bottles of wine any more.I decided to file my taxes. Staying on the good side of the law is conducive with not loosing my not showing up on Border Patrol wager. It's a good thing I did, because I got $1000 back! Sweet, I can finally afford to take a vacation!I dropped my camera a couple weeks ago. Again. It's been slightly problematic for a while now; the autofocus has not been working properly and the focus seems to me to be out a little bit. This last drop really did it. This is not something I wanted to happen now. I took it to a camera shop in Newcastle hoping they could do a test photo or two to check to see if it is the lens or the body that is the problem. I was pretty sure it was the lens (for a while I just thought I was crazy. Turns out I am, but that had nothing to do with the camera problem), but shelling out $500 for a new lens to find out that the old one is perfectly good would make me feel like a pud, so I wanted to make sure. They were completely useless. The only reason people go to small independent camera shops is because they provide services like this and have good, friendly and knowledgeable staff. This store had none of the above. On top of being useless, they were unfriendly and the products were overpriced. Gee, I wonder why you're going out of business. They offered to ship it away to have it looked at for $30. I said no thank you.I had been searching on-line for a new lens for some time and found the one I wanted for a good price in Sydney (the good thing about Newcastle is it's close enough to Sydney that I can drive there, but is far enough away that we don't have to deal with Sydneysiders on a regular basis). The place also did camera repairs. They would look at it for free and let me know if it was worth fixing it. So I dropped it off and waited for the good word.I got a call back a couple weeks later. The camera was in good condition. In need of a good cleaning, but other than that, in good shape. Phew. The lens was "uneconomical" to repair. Ouch. Oh well. At least I know I'm not crazy and have now identified the problem even if it will eat up half of my tax return.That Friday I took off from work early and headed down to Sydney. I drove as the train is more expensive and takes longer (even with my giant petrol-guzzling tank. Citirail sucks. Public transport in Aussie is atrocious. They should be ashamed). It took longer than I thought it would to get down. I budgeted 3 hours, thinking it would only take 2. I didn't take into consideration Friday rush hour traffic in Sydney and getting lost downtown. With 15 minutes left to closing time (last day before Christmas shut-down) I find an overpriced parking space and with my bladder about to burst hit the street running only 5 blocks from the store. Halfway there I realised that I wasn't going to make it without urinating all over myself. Ducking into a local pub that was packed with after workers, I waddled around sweating, looking conspicuous and above all, not finding the toilets. They were hidden upstairs behind an unmarked door. Obviously.I made it to the store with 5 minutes to spare. Some ditzy girl shoved her way in front of me. She needed a camera. She didn't know what camera, but she needed a camera. I hate people. After 5 minutes of the salesman trying not to kill her or himself, she finally decides on some crap that he tells her she shouldn't get and prepares to pay with her credit card. Phew. Finally. Only the credit card is rejected. So she calls her mommy's boyfriend and starts yelling at him. The clerk gives up on her as she is now ignoring him and cursing at the phone, luckily for me I'm the last customer of the day. 60 seconds later I've picked up my camera, paid for the cleaning, donated my old lens for parts and purchased a brand new $500 lens. The girl is still cursing over the phone. The new lens works wonderfully.Trish.I could write a book. But I won't.Trish was my flatmate. She seemed a little odd at first. Kind of quiet, tall with that "Mortishia Adams" meets Paris Hilton thing going on, but we got along fine. Until she started seeing Mark, then she wouldn't even make eye contact with me. Seems to be a thing with certain friends of mine who suddenly acquire a boyfriend (no one that would be reading this, obviously).Mark is a former "Footy" player. See attached photo. That's Mark in Trish's red top. At 3 in the morning. In my bedroom. "Oi! Jono! Oi"! Why me. Dear god, what did I do to deserve this.Mark and Trish would get drunk and fight. She would throw him out of the house at odd hours of the night. Then he would try to wake me up to get me involved or bang on my window to let him in after she locked him out. The next day they would sober up and it would be like nothing happened.Mark told me that they were going to move to the Gold Coast together in February (by now he had moved in with us, but wasn't paying for utilities. He was also leaving a mud wherever I cleaned and leaving messy dishes around). The timing was great because I'd had just about as much as I could at that point and was going to move out in January myself until they came up with this fantastic idea. I told them to give me as much notice as possible so I could find a flatmate. Ok, she said she was going up to the Gold Coast to scope out housing situations mid December and would have a better idea of exact dates then. Great, life isn't so horrible after all! Then gave her three weeks notice. I would need to find someone for between Christmas and New Years. Who the hell wants to move between Christmas and New Year? I asked her the exact date, she said she didn't know, but she would let me know the exact day this week as she was going up to scout out houses. Between Christmas and New Year's was all I had to go off. By a huge stroke of luck, a friend of my friend Kym was looking for a place just then! She was flexible but said that it couldn't be before Christmas. Great, Trish won't be gone until then anyway!Then Trish got back and gave 10 days notice that she would be out two days before Christmas. "If the new girl can't move in then, you'll just have to foot the bill. It's not my problem". Grrr. I talked to Rachel, and managed to work something out. She wasn't sure, but she would try to get time off early to move in. I had to volunteer to pay for the one week's rent out of my own pocket, but it's better than having to try to find another flatmate to move in the day before Christmas with a week's notice.Everything was kind of working out. Trish was moving out, I wouldn't have to live with mass cockroaches chasing after their mess that they didn't clean up, no more listening to reality tv blasted until midnight every night and the new girl seemed really nice and reasonable. This change seemed well worth the one week's rent I would have to foot.Then I got in contact with the landlord. Trish hadn't been very communicative over what was going on, so I took the initiative to contact the landlord myself. And it's great that I did. I sent her an email saying that I was currently living there and that we had found someone to replace Trish. She sent an email back saying that she was going to evict us if we didn't give her the money we owed. Huh? What money? I had been paying rent two weeks in advance since I moved in. Turns out that when I moved in, the house was in pretty bad order. For several years people had been moving in and out and the paperwork hadn't been kept up to date. The result was that we were actually one week behind on rent and half of the bond was missing. To top it all off, the landlord didn't know that I had been living there and was angry that we (me and my other flatmate) hadn't submitted an application and were living there illegally. This was all news to me.When I moved in, I had paid out the last flatmates bond at $520. I had also been paying my rent bi-weekly in advance. Somewhere someone pocketed a week's worth of rent, upped the bond from $300 per person to $520 and pocketed the rest, and Trish had been paying the late rent late at times as well. I was going to be homeless and out of my bond for Christmas. I was not happy.The effect was that we all needed to pay one week's extra rent and would sacrifice half of our bonds. I was negligent to the whole thing, and had receipts for my bond, but didn't want to drag this out in court while living out of my car, so I talked to Trish and proposed that we all split the loss and move on. She said no. She wasn't going to pay the back rent and was going to take her $520 of bond. What was I supposed to do I asked her? "Take extra money from the girl moving in, like I took from you". But the house will still be in the hole. That won't solve the problem, only prolong it! Not my problem she said. The problem falls on the last person moving out. I couldn't believe it. Was she that dumb, or really that evil? She had known about this problem from the beginning. She had actively committed fraud against me. My other flatmate wasn't much help. He wasn't there for most of it as he had been travelling Europe and living with his girlfriend in Melbourne the entire time so he didn't know what had been going on. He was wishy washy. "Hmm, you both have good points". No, she doesn't, I said. That's fraud and collusion. That's illegal. "What's fraud", she said?In the end I wound up eating over $400 of the loss. Declan, my other flatmate, ate his portion and Trish ate a little less than her portion. I would also have to fix the holes punched in the walls by the previous tenant as I had given him all the damage deposit back (ohh, the painful irony). The upside is that Rach agreed to move in the day Trish moved out, so I didn't have to cover the rent. In retrospect, $400 was a cheap price to get our house in order and to get rid of giant source of stress. I took over most of the responsibility; paying rent, getting rent, repairs, utilities, getting a washer, getting furniture. Kind of a pain, but at least this way it's all done by the books (except that Declan wasn't on the lease for a while. I'm glad I'm the one running the show. If you want something done right, do it yourself). So by the time Christmas came 'round I had a clean house, two good flatmates, was not going to be thrown out, didn't have to worry about Footy players dancing around in my room in a red bra and had a camera that was working. And it only cost me my entire tax return (minus $60) and half of my remaining hair.Phew. I deserve a $60 scotch.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fuzzyhatjon/3/1228182540/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fuzzyhatjon/3/1228182540/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fuzzyhatjon/3/1228182540/tpod.html Fri, 30 Jan 2009 22:55:45 -0500 Chapter 3 - Australia

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Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia

I vanished from the electronic world some months ago. Plagued by issues of some variance or other, I have been too occupied with other junk to catch up with my blog, let alone wish people happy holidays. I'm not actually writing this December 1st. It's really late January. I know, I'm a bad person, but this should give me the "prod" I need to get going.Bottom line is I've decided to dig myself out of a rut. This will include, somewheres along the line, writing more blog entries, complete with photos and horrific stories of space travel and alligator wrestling! Well, not really. But that would be cool.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fuzzyhatjon/southpacific2/1207986060/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fuzzyhatjon/southpacific2/1207986060/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fuzzyhatjon/southpacific2/1207986060/tpod.html Sun, 25 Jan 2009 01:15:31 -0500 Chapter 2 - New Zealand

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Lake Mahinapua, New Zealand

My ride to Nelson was courtesy of Graham, an elderly dairy farmer from the Golden Bay area. My group had dissolved and split up by now, so that I was all alone.Graham had a hearing aid and shouted. I had to shout back so he would hear. He had driven by me and scoped me out previously in order to get a "feel", he said. Not a lot of people pick up male hitchers, apparently it was my "hello" that sold him. The ride to Nelson was enjoyable with the standard talk being shot back and forth, as well as a little bit of politics and a few comments about the kids these days.I stayed one more uneventful night in the Paradiso before hopping back on the Kiwi Bus.Our first stop was at Westport. An unremarkable little town with a beach that takes too long to walk to. The trip to Westport took us through the beautiful Nelson Lake Park, with some beautiful scenery.The next night took us to Lake Mahanapua and the notorious Poo Pub. A kiwi Experience only hostel and the home of the Kiwi Bus' infamous fancy dress party.The theme of the party was "tight and bright". I dressed up as Borat in a "man-kini", complete with hair and suberglued-on moustache. Sniffing super-glue all night led to a terrible headache, my sinuses being burned, me getting high and terrible waxing-of-the-upper-lip experience. It was all worth it however as I won first prize; a river-boarding trip in Queenstown. Sexy Time!!
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