Days 13 and 14 Wanaka and Beyond

I woke up at the Wanaka hostel and decided to take a little adventure run. On my way to the hill/mountain I noticed a little farmer's market and had to stop. It was a good thing I did. I sampled all sorts of honey, restocked on delicious cherries and found a trinket or two for back home buddies. 

My adventure run was nice. I took several walks around Wanaka later in the afternoon in addition to a little hike around the lake. I had a quiet dinner at the hostel and eavesdropped on the conversations around me. A European woman was extolling the wonders of New Zealand to a friend and talking about how she only had six weeks to visit this time. Her first trip to New Zealand was three months! 

I shouldn't have gotten angry, but I did. What the fuck is wrong with all these people? I thought about how I was getting sick of explaining to people that I only had a four week vacation and two weeks in New Zealand. The lady I was listening to was lamenting that she only had six weeks in New Zealand! I decided the next person who asked me how long I had in New Zealand and commented that my time was too short was going to get smacked in the head. Europeans be damned, four weeks is a long fucking time to travel!! And honestly, even if I could travel for three months, or six weeks, I don't want to! I love my home, my friends and family, and all my animals. 

Has anyone else had a similar experience encountering other cultures weird travel expectations? 

Don't worry, I didn't act a fool. The woman with the flimsy six week vacation never knew I thought she was a giant douchebag, no one has been smacked, and I quietly retired to my room that evening.

The next morning I went for a quickie run after waking up. Then I packed up and headed back to Queenstown in my car. Just outside Wanaka I spotted a hitchhiker. Let’s take a quick break and talk about hitchhiking in New Zealand.

I had read on the internet prior to my trip that hitchhiking in New Zealand is incredibly safe. This proved true. I found this out because just about everyone you talk to in hostels and other places uses this form of transportation. You see hitchhikers everywhere and they don’t look like American hitchhikers. They look like normal people with backpacks. That said, I told Joseph I wouldn’t hitchhike so I abstained. However, I made no statements to Joseph about picking up hitchhikers. 

Back to the story. I saw the hitchhiker on the side of the road and I had an hour or so drive ahead of me. Some company would be nice and the hitchhiker looked pretty harmless. I pulled over out of sight and thought about the prospect of picking him up. I decided to circle back and have another look. A second look assured me he was very normal looking. I looped back and stopped the car. I rolled down the window and offered him a ride. He came up to the car and got in after throwing his relatively small pack into the back seat. 

Would you believe he was German?? Of course he was German. Everyone in New Zealand is German. Anyway the little fellow had been plugging away in a research lab at “uni” (university) in Germany, got fed up with the shitty pay and lack of stability and came to New Zealand. Like any good generation X'er he was trying to find his path in life. He’d been traveling New Zealand the past year just hiking and WWOOFING. WWOOFING is a worldwide thing where you work on organic farms in exchange for room and board. The initials stand for "willing workers on organic farms. It’s a very popular thing to do in New Zealand. 

Back in Germany, before my hitchhiker fled, he had been researching educational psychology.  He told me that only tenured professors in Germany had good gigs. I found it odd that university jobs were so unstable. I told him about my "uni" experience and found out that this guy's dad and brother were doctors. Then we talked about healthcare and alternative medicine. It was a good conversation.

We got to Queenstown where I was going to have another walk about town before heading to the airport for my flight. My hitchhiker was in need of lunch. I offered my services if he wanted to go closer to the airport. He did want to ride along to the airport so he left his pack in my car and we agreed to re-meet in an hour. The hitchhiker driver relationship in New Zealand bears no resemblance to the one we have in the United States!

Queenstown round two

At the airport later that afternoon, my flight was delayed. Thanks to a complete lack of security at New Zealand airports, I was able to kill some of that time outside stretching with beautiful mountains in the background. 

Back inside the airport I was wasting time in a little pharmacy when I noticed some colostrum pills. Colostrum is the first breastmilk produced for a baby after a woman gives birth. It is really important for the newborn to get the mother's colostrum because it is potent and filled with essential nutrients and antibodies that will help to protect the infant's fragile and undeveloped immune system. Given that colostrum is only produced for a tiny amount of time for each birth, how is someone selling colostrum?? The colostrum for sale was cow's colostrum, not human, but still I wondered, how did they get it? And if they are selling in a store, that means the mother's baby, who the colostrum was produced for, is not getting it. Somehow this whole thing sounded incredibly corrupt, unethical, and highly unlikely. All that said, they were offering free samples, so out of curiosity I ate a tablet of colostrum stolen from some poor baby cow.

Next time: Wellington to Sydney!

There will be no new blogs over the weekend as I am off for a weekend to Melbourne and am leaving the computer behind. See you soon!