A post written out of boredom.

I haven't written a post out of sheer boredom for a long time. Not since Hamilton in fact. Well I am that bored and now I don't even have any Germans to entertain me. So to keep me occupied I shall impart to you my musings on German foreign policy.

They are taking over the world you see. Slowly but surely. No, you say? They've learned from the past and now are no longer bent on world domination, that we should look to the Americans or the ever 'evil' Russians for plans of world domination. Well you're right about one thing they have learned from their mistakes. At some unspecified time after world war 2 the 'secret leaders' of Germany sat down to discuss their next move. How they would take back what was rightfully theirs and make the rest of the world pay for the embarrassment that followed the second world war. Seated at the table were all the usual evil villain type suspects, they spoke in that stereotypical evil villain accent.
"Ve must take back vaht vas lost" they said. "But how to do it?"
"Build a massive army, the like of which the world has never seen" said one.
This idea was dismissed.
"Utilize the hatred and despair currently widespread in the country and turn it on an easy to single out minority group, then use said hatred to our own means"
This man was kindly asked to leave.
"Ve could just not take over the vorld you know? Just because ve are Germans does not mean ve must be evil. Vhy can't we all just get along?"
There was an uneasy silence followed by an abrupt cough. This man bowed his head and slunk back in shame.
"Gentlemen, I shall present to you the weapon of the future." said another, he was tall wore a uniform complete with hat and had an eye patch of course "Behold, the BP mk1" A man then walked to the center of the assorted villains. They could tell he was not one of them instantly. His hair was not neat  and tightly cut as was customary, it was just a little bit and ever so slightly messy. He wore a sleeveless top with "Save water, drink beer" written on the front. He wore sandals and a pair of Hawaiian shorts with those really big pockets.

"Vith this veapon ve shall rule the world. Gentlemen, this is a backpacker"
There was murmurs of confusion. How could such a creature help them take over the world? What use could it possibly be? It didn't even look like a stereotypical German. Mr. eyepatch explained ; First every second new born child would be fitted with a computer chip when born. The first job of this computer would be to instill within the child a wish to travel and broaden their horizons. So half the population of Germany would go and make their way elsewhere in the world. The second function gave them a sense of humor and made them appear to be easy going and nice individuals*. To lull the world into a false sense of confidence. These backpackers then bide their time. Some even settling down, building families. All their offspring of course will be chipped too.  The the third and final function of the chip. Well lets just say we don't really ever want to see this function implemented. For the backpackers reach far and number many and the world would be able to withstand their rise.**


*You ever meet those really dull Germans? You know the ones that you'd cross a busy motor way to avoid. Well they're the rare few that travel and were not actually chipped when born.
**You see what happens when I get too bored!? I do hope I haven't insulted any of my German friends with this post. You might think I'm a bit mad but go traveling for a while and you'll see how many of them there are...

I've found something

So I've found some work. It's not exactly gainful employment but it'll keep me here a while longer and safe me from spending so much money. Working with a guy called Steve who is renovating his house to make into some form of accomodation. And you might ask "Huh rennovation, how did you get that? With no experience in such work". Well maybe I should have asked myslef the same question.

Anyhow, he was showing me around the house and telling me every that needs to be done. Wall paper stripping, painting etc. Then he said something along the lines of "well you won't really be here much". It was then the alarm bells started ringing. Our little tour brought us outside. "Now this is more you forte". The garden. You see I had entirely forgotten that I had put my time with CVNZ on my CV. "Conservation Volunteers New Zealand : Wide variety of work on different projects. Including planting, weeding and pest control". I have put him under the impression that I am some kind of expert gardener. I am not. At this point I started saying to myself "Shit. Shit. Shit." Even s I said out loud, 'oh it doesn't look too bad' and 'oh I've seen much worse than this with the conservation work'. And informed him rather knowingly which plants were weeds and which weren't. Despite the fact that I don't actually know. Aside from the obvious like thistles.
So tomorrow I start work on the garden. As gardens go I don't think it's too bad, it's quite big and a bit overgrown but I figure it's not too much work. I hope. Ah what's the worst that can happen, I'm not being paid so... Will you keep you posted on how this develops.

So what next?

                                           An awesome picture of me and Birtta at the airport

So after Stewart Island I accompanied Britta here to Queenstown, where yesterday she caught a flight to Sydney. Britta was one of the coolest people I've met here.  At first she appears to be very quiet and shy, however once you get to know her you find out the opposite is in fact true. She's prone to punching people and telling customers to fuck off. There's also that sarcastic sense of humor of hers which she keeps pretty hidden most of the time. So anyway yeah I've had some of my best days here in New Zealand in the company of this lady. I wish her the best of luck in the Australia and I hope everything works out for her. With any luck I'll see her again sometime soon.

Oh I've also realized that I haven't told you about Queenstown, or at least I don't think I have even though I've been here like 3 times now. Queenstown is a beautiful little town nestled among huge mountains and at the edge of pretty lake. So what? You might say, everything is mountains and lakes in NZ. Well Queenstown is the extreme sports capital of the world(self proclaimed I am sure). So you walk through the streets turn your eye to the sky and you will undoubtedly see any number of people floating around on parachutes of some kind, or look to the lake to see large jet boats speeding around. There is also any number of things that you can jump off of or swing across(canyons and such). It's a shame I have no interest in any of these things I think. Anyway I'm off to Dunedin later on where I'm going to begin looking for some sort of employment. Wish me luck. I reckon I'll need it

Lost at the bottom of the world (or what I did for my Christmas holidays)

So it was some time ago I realised that it was looking increasingly likely that I would be by myself for Christmas. All the Germans were leaving and for a while I didn't quite know what to do. So I decided to get a midget... Wait no that wasn't it... In general I'm not a huge fan of Christmas but I figured it would probably be better if I wasn't alone. Ah yes that was it, there was Britta. Who to my knowledge at the time was wandering somewhere in the south island woofing. Woofing is.. I don't know what the acronym stands for but it's basically where you work for bed and board. Anyway I tried to get in contact with her a couple of times ands failed. Called and text etc. Then I found through the amazing medium of facebook I found out that she was down in Stewart Island working in a restaurant. The most remote place in New Zealand. An hour boat trip off the south coast. So I swiftly made plans to head down that way. Which was a bit of a trek, at this point I was in Christchurch. Quite a bit away from Stewart island. Took me close to ten hours of a trip to get to the port where the ferry goes from. I must admit on the bus on the way down I was a bit worried about the whole affair. I hadn't seen Britta in a long time and I was a small bit afraid it was going to all be a bit awkward. When I got off the boat to the island I was greeted by Britta and her fellow restaurant workers and cookies. If this wasn't enough to allay my fears later I went to the pub with them where did not have to pay for a single drink. The owner of the restaurant, which is called Church Hill by the way and he is called Gary, is one of the most generous people I've ever met. A gracious host. After the pub closed he said we'll have to go back to Church Hill. For some reason I was a bit behind them on the walk back. And here I shall describe an incredibly surreal scene. We trudge up the hill to the restaurant, coming to overgrown path that leads to the front door, a few unkempt trees and ferns reach across, looking mildly threatening in the darkness. Emerging from the path, you see the restaurant, the flickering light of the fire through the window. There is music playing. to fully get the strangeness of the scene you need to know the song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1SEd6Oyn0M. Inside the restaurant in the main dining area the tables have been pushed aside and the there's people dancing. The large fireplace is at the center of the room. Some candles have been lit and the light of the fire makes silhouettes of the dancers. To add even more to atmosphere the restaurant's Frisian chef Styhze dances in a style that I would compare to Bill Bailey. There is woman from the pub alternating between cackling in the corner and dancing around the room. I'm told to help myself to beer from the fridge and also we're allowed to smoke. This all went on to about 5 in the morning, with the music varying between Bob Dylan, Pink Floyd Johnny Cash and just about everything else you can imagine. It was one of the coolest experiences I have had here thus far.

So I spent 5 days down in Stewart island, with the hospitality of Gary never wavering. Spent the few days in the company of the lovely Delphine, Bernadette and Britta. Was even invited to Christmas dinner with them, which was lovely. How many of you got your Christmas dinner done by a professional chef?
I thoroughly  enjoyed my time on the island, it was like stepping out of the world for a few days. No phone reception and internet so dear it's impractical. The island itself is mostly wilderness aside from the little settlement of Oban. My excursions into said wilderness were limited at best, just some short walks. Could you blame me? Great company and beer just down the road from my hostel. The dining room in Church Hill with the fire going, after the customers have all gone home is one of the most comfortable places I've had the pleasure of being. So I whiled away my evenings on Stewart Island there talking away with the wonderful Church Hill girls. Also must give a mention to Sythze who I only met a couple of times but enjoyed his company quite a bit. An entirely unique character, who has given me some new music to get interested in. So yeah my Christmas was great. If any of you Church Hill people ever find your way to my little blog a very big thanks goes out to you. You provided a haven for a freeloading Irishman such as myself.

A proper update then...

Right so the last update was not of the highest quality I must admit. So long story short. We went to the southern most part of the island then to a somewhat unpleasant lake, although could maybe be more to do with the mood I was at the time. So I shouldn't really blame the lake. It was the deepest in New Zealand. Very impressive, you could really see the deepness... Or depth even. So after that we wandered around for a bit. Coming to rest in Akaroa on the Banks peninsula. Very picturesque area just outside Christchurch, deep green valleys with large inlets and flanked on all side by the sea. It was a nice place to finish up our travels I think. From here we went back to Christchurch where we spent 4 days, meeting up with Paulina and Katharina again for the last time in this fair land. I'm sorry to say I can't actually remember the dates or days these things happened. It's somewhat of a blur. It was sometime very shortly in the past, the week before last I think.

Anyway, twas in Christchurch where our road trip ended. We returned Sam mk II on the second day of our arrival there. Oh! Now I know the date. We returned Sam Mk II on the 19th... I think. We spent a few days messing around Christchurch. Did some shopping (Well I did some standing around, Nils did some shopping). Had a rather muted night out. And then I believe it was last Tuesday myself and Nils went our separate ways. He went back up to Auckland and I headed for the most remote place I can think of, and probably the furthest away from home I'll ever be. That's for another post though. So I suppose I should tell you all something about Nils Welbers, my professional chauffeur for the last while. Well you know what is there to say. "You know what we say about Belgians in Germany?... They rape children" . I couldn't possibly sum up our trip in a blog post and I'm not going to try( you've been reading about it for weeks now, so you should know). We've been through a lot, battled our way through hordes of sand flies, solved problems with small people diplomatically, ran from angered sea lions(well that was me, but he did take pictures of it). Found every dead end in the country and also eaten in any Burger King we were within a few kilometres of. There's been Irish rebel songs sang(from my limited repertoire) and deep discussions about the merits of good step building.   An epic journey you will no doubt agree. Nils is now gone to Australia where he's bumming around for a while until his return to Germany to pursue a masters degree in step building, he's trying to get the highly sought after job of Chief Step Builder. I wish him all the best with it. So he's gone and I'm left having to carry my pack yet again. It's pretty tough, for a while it was hard to imagine what I'd do without him then it was all clear. I'm going to get a midget. And he shall carry my pack.

So, that brings to a close my blog entries about my travels in with Nils. I'm sure I've missed plenty tis hard to cram 5 weeks of travelling into a blog you know. I fear it's likely to be the most interesting part of my travels too. Hmmm... the internet cafe is seemingly closing now. I had intended to do another post tonight. Oh well. Tomorrow we move into the realm of me going to look for work and also my five days off from the world in Stewart island. Sounds good doesn't it. And yes I have nothing better to do than hang around in an internet cafe tomorrow. My bus doesn't go til something past 3. Must check that out.

Taking a break

Just to let you know I'll be taking a break from blog writing til after Christmas.
After that I'll write a few for ye, I know how badly you depend on my blog at this point but you'll just have to be patient.

Time flies...

Well I suppose ye'll be expecting a post sometime soon. Hadn't realized it had been so long since the last. But I'm not really in the form to write one at the minute. Again I've done quite a lot since the last time I wrote. Which is odd cause before I wrote the last blog we had no idea what we were going to do for the past days.

Well we managed to find things to occupy ourselves...

We left Christchurch last Friday week and set course for Mackenzie country, not quite knowing exactly what it was. Only that there was mountains and lakes involved (as per usual). We decided to forsake the boring coast road and went for the inland scenic route. Which wasn't really very scenic. Well there was some highlights like a lake the name of which i can't remember, it was near Mt. Olympus.* It was pretty nice, unfortunately it was like an hour drive to get there. Local authorities in attempt to gain more tourism have resorted to some unscrupulous methods. Signpost reads : Lake Coleridge Town 24km, Lake Coleridge 26km. So we figured, hey that might be nice. And it's only 26km away. So we veered off the main and down country roads that almost match the quality of Irish ones. After a half hour, signpost reads : Lake Coleridge Town 2km, Lake Coleridge 4km. A half hour later, there's still no sign of the lake. At some point another sign post appears. Lake Coleridge 4km. We did eventually find it, a nice lake. Surrounded by craggy mountains and we were greeted by hundreds of sheep hanging around it's shores. And one unfortunate sheep floating in it.

So after this 'brief" detour we headed on again to Lake Tekapo and Mackenzie country. Mackenzie country is awesome. Its a vast flat plain, dotted with some small hills, surrounded on all sides by mountains. The impressive snow covered southern alps to the west, north and south and a smaller very nice but not quite as impressive range to the east.

Lake Teakapo lies near the edge of the mountains. It's a amazing shade of blue, it looks unreal. Green almost, a colour from a painters palette rather than life. We stayed here for one night then went on to Mt.Cook. New Zealand's highest mountain. And couldn't see anything other than a shroud of clouds. It's very odd to think that you're not very far from something over 12,000 ft tall and you can't see ANY of it. So we left here rather swiftly and headed back for the coast. Staying in a little place called Otemata on the way. In the creepiest place I have ever stayed. The main hostel was one long corridor of about 50 rooms, for decor think the Shining if the hotel had been a bit of a shit hole. Definitely from the same time period anyway. AND we were the only ones staying there. The whole place creaked and some of the doors swung lightly on their hinges all the time...

Anyway from here we headed down for The Catlins. A place quite like Ireland. Rugged coastline and rough sea etc. We went to the southern most part of New Zealand and the very cool Lost Gypsy Gallery. A gallery based in an old bus. With many strange wind up inventions(the pleasant nose pincher), very like Wallace and Gromit. When you walk in the door a little train sets off on a track all around the shop. Then there's the winding theater of thoughts. An area of much larger wind up inventions. I can't really do the place justice. Take a look at the pictures on facebook.

Right that's all I can manage for now, I'll try and do you a better one tomorrow, maybe.