67 days until the wedding...
A couple of our housemates dropped us at the bus station and Sophie and I travelled up to the east coast to Napier. It's a small enough town which I had heard mentioned a lot back working for the Earthquake Commission - it was totally destroyed by one in the 1930s. It was rebuilt in the fashion of the time and its now out-of-fashion Art Deco buildings are its number one tourist attraction.
The weather was crap, but we still happily had a bit of a wander around the jazzy buildings and along the foaming beach. We visited a penguin recovery centre and were able to feed and hold a few little blue penguins which was great. Other then that, we chilled around the hostel and it felt great to be back in this atmosphere.
Leaving Napier, I was even closer to the end of my time in New Zealand and it was clear that I was in danger of leaving it on bad terms. The last year has been great, but as a country it hasn't really done much for me. I decided to give it one last chance and throw myself completely at the mercy of the Kiwis. I would rely on the kindness of others, and of my hobo skills, to make my way up to Auckland. This would be done in 3 main ways:
Firstly, I wouldn't pay for transport - after the initial bus ride out of Wellington I would hitchhike.
Secondly, I wouldn't pay for accommodation - I would use the potentially brilliant couchsuring.com to find good-natured and like-minded and other-hyphenated people who would offer me a bed, couch or patch of carpet to sleep on.
Finally, I wouldn't pay for food - I acquired dozens of 'customer loyalty stamps' for a sandwich bar chain and would cheekily use these to score free meals. It's what I like to call 'The Great New Zealand Subway Robbery of 2006'.
Sophie and I went our seperate ways; she went up the centre of the north island while I carried on up the coast. To confirm my hobo status I dressed appropriately: A pair of jeans I had gotten with a McDonalds voucher; a t-shirt I found on the floor in South Carolina a few years ago; a (possibly woman's) jacket I found in a cupboard in Auckland; a hat Malone gave me; and the underwear Mick and Nodlaig treated me too. In this guise I headed north. ['guise' - good word, proud of that one]
I got picked up by a bunch of Maori kids who were driving (I assume it was a car but it was totally shrouded in smoke) to Taupo. They dropped me at my turn off where I was picked up by a hippy couple before I even had a chance to stick out my thumb. They bought me lunch and dropped me in Gisborne where I met my couchsurfing hosts.
They gave me a bed in their beautiful family home, fed me, gave me beer and let me use their computer. It cost me nothing and they were a fantastic introduction to couchsurfing. It was great. I stayed there for a couple of days before carrying on north, leaving them to join the rest of the town in running up a hill to avoid that Tsunami which never existed.
Gisborne was nice. Beautiful wide roads with trees, lots of beaches, and some nice look-out points. I visited a decent museum dedicated to the Maori who had fought and died in World War II, and also the site of Captain Cook's first landing. The meals I didn't get from my temporary family were provided with my sandwich scam.
I carried on up to Whakatane and couchsurfed with a great guy and his Samoan missus. Again, they totally looked after me, givning me a taste of the local life and asking nothing in return.
I met Soph in Whakatane and we took a day trip out to White Island - an active marine volcano which in theory could erupt at any point. We had to wear hard hats and gas masks at some points. It was superb. Our group strolled around and took a closer look at the steaming volcano, which has at times sprayed ash over Whakatane. I'd heard alot about it in the Earthquake Commission and it was the last thing I wanted to see in NZ - a great way to finish off the year.
As great as the hitching and couchsurfing was, I couldn't really face any more of it and would only be going through the motions. It was great and I'd recommend it, but I was feeling a bit like a trapped miner and was getting fed up and impatient to leave New Zealand. So I got a bus with Sophie to Auckland.
I wouldn't say this freeloading experiment changed my view of New Zealand too much. But I'm grateful for the opportunity to meet these decent and generous people. If anything the experience taught me that everything is so easy. I was reminded yet againg that with positive thinking, faith in yourself and others, and common sense I think everything goes your way. Paul Coelho might write a load of patronising shit sometimes, but he's positive and uplifiting and he was dead right when he said that when you want something, the whole universe conspires to help you achieve it.
It might be that we're all in this together and something good has begun, or I might just have accidentally inhaled too much of the stuff my rides were smoking.
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