Wild Food Festival
Trip Start
Sep 13, 2006
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61
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Trip End
May 08, 2008
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Hokitika,
New Zealand
Monday, March 12, 2007
Friday was stunning and the drive through the southern alps and Arthurs pass is famous for its scenary. The Alps just rise up from dead flat farm land, so we took several photo and pee stops en-route. Stopped off at a hotel bar outside Arthurs pass which was in the middle of nowhere for a drink and a break from the drive. It was pretty cool then to drive on to see the Tasmin sea on the west coast and a few km down the road is the town of Hokitika population 4000 and swells to over 20,000 for this festival.
Typical lads we didnt book any accomadation or bring feck all with us but we did borrow a tent from another lad at work...(nobody knew how big tent was either).. all the camp grounds were full but we found a camp site at the high school...sorted and the tent was plenty big ..nice one..
another family shot
All the other Kiwi's at the campsite were pulling out fancy bar-b-q's and deck chairs which made us look a bit lame.. but we were more than happy with our crates of speights. Anyway it was well time for food so we all got fish and chips down the town and took a look around and hit the beach for the views and the sunset. Hokitika is a small clean town and has a backdrop of several snow peaked mountains so its quite stunning.
We made out way through a few bars in town and Jeff another guy we work with came to meet us with girlfriend and friends. I knew Rachel was coming down for the weekend too and her van broke down on the way but she eventually made it with Cecile a french girl who she works with to meet us. We stayed in the Red Lion Tavern for the rest of that nite and got back to the tent camp groung fairly late. I got bugger all sleep but 10 am saturday was the start of the food festival... The festival was packed and turned out to be a crackin day too some of the lads were a little afraid of the weird food but myself and brian were well up for sampling everything so we ran about eating anything and everything which included, Huhu grubs..(live ones).. Possem pies, sheeps testicles, marlin, crickets, grubs, wild boar, cows udders which were foul and some other stuff as well.. Needles to say most of this was washed down with Montheits finest brews and some weird fijian drinks that make ur mouth go numb.. supposed to be a kind of juice but we reckoned it was bog water.
When the festival was over we headed for the Railway bar looseing jeff and debbie on the way as she wound up with a concussion after bumping her head. We stayed in the railway bar till late on until we had to leave..or rather Karl feel asleep and had to leave so the rest of us left too and we all went back to the Red Lion tavern. As tired as i was it was still hard to sleep in the poxy tent saturday nite.
Sunday it was up early... not mine or karls choice as Brad thought it would be a great idea to take the tent down while we still slept ...get packed up and hit the road.. he didnt account for poor brian our driver and he wasnt moving for a few hours yet (well hungover..lol). A pie for breakfast, met up with Rachel before i left and then we hit the road for the drive back to Christchurch. On the way back we stopped at a lake for a swim.. well myself and Brian swam...and it was bloddy baltic.. But refreshing and definitley woke us up. Stopped back at our bar in the middle of no where for a coulple of drinks and home then to Christchurch. Sunday evening myself and Karl made it down to the bog for a few drinks, did make it home early enough and work again monday..
