“Nunc est bibendum, nunc pede libero, pulsanda tellus.”
— Horace, Odes
If I must choose one word by which I might sum up my 1985, that word is "serendipity". If the plans I made did not turn out quite as I intended, then the unexpected developments more than compensated me. If I missed some things which I dearly wanted to see and do, nevertheless I did and saw other things which suited me quite as well. For this is the essence of serendipity: that you must be willing to cast all else aside to grasp the chance that comes, and you must be willing to follow wherever that chance may lead you. In 1985 I realised a number of my life's goals, stepped closer to others, and discovered not a few more that I had never previously considered.
`Let us step back a few months in time. The place is the outskirts of Wanganui and the time is the 3rd of January. I am carrying a 31kg (70lb) pack, a bankroll worth about NZ$270 and a Visa credit card worth $800.
`The First Leg: Ferry Hard to Stomach
`My father dropped me off on the motorway south and my nice new pack received its baptism of road dust. I had to grunt as I lifted its weight onto my unfit back. As always, I had set out with too much junk and too little useful gear. No matter: sorting dross from platinum was one of the minor objectives of this exercise. And within fifteen minutes the weight was off again and I was in a car driven by a semi-retired man on his way to a wedding in Palmerston North.
`It was an interesting ride. As with most older people, he possessed a strong opinion on almost every subject that came up, and since standard hiker etiquette demands the evasion of argument with your ride, we got along famously. The Labour Government, he affirmed, was doing a pretty good job — but he wasn't too sure about this Super surtax. A bloke, he asserted, worked hard and paid taxes all his working life and had a right to expect something back when he retired. "But can the country afford the Superannuation Scheme?" I timidly suggested. Of course it could, was the reply. Put those lazy buggers off the dole and marry off some of the solo mothers and you'd soon have plenty of money for Super. As things stood, though, he was going to have trouble paying for the yacht he was having built up in Whangarei. He and his wife would have to give up their planned world trip to pay for it.
`He dropped me off at the turn-off at Sanson. Another ride and I reached Wellington, four hours out from Wanganui.
`I didn't feel like looking anyone up. I felt distinctly seedy and wanted to lie down somewhere. "Too soft," I muttered to myself. So off I went to the Columbia Hotel, haunt for the twelve months after my return from Australia. For $13 I got a comfortable room for the night.
`I did not, however, spend a comfortable night. I felt nauseous, and twice lost control of my stomach. By hindsight I know that I'd caught a virus from my sister the night before. She'd left her infant son with my parents overnight, and I must have picked it up when she came round to collect him. But this did me no good at the time.
`The next day I caught the Cook Strait Railferry to Picton. It was a fair day and I was on the Arahura, newest and largest of the ferries, so the crossing wasn't too bad. I alternated dozing in a corner with going on deck to calm my insides. I managed by this to debark at Picton feeling, if anything, a little healthier than I had when I embarked at Wellington. Neither sea nor travel-sickness have ever been a nuisance to me.
`An easy walk through Picton brought me to the local Youth Hostels Association establishment. In due course it opened and I renewed my membership in the YHA ($15) and booked in ($6) and bought the mandatory "sheet sleeping bag" — picture a Queen sheet folded lengthwise, with one end sewn shut and the other end folded over to form a pillow-case. $8.50 for that. I slept on a mattress on the floor in the male dormitory (a converted classroom: the Picton YHA is a seasonal hostel, open only December/January) for this first night of my exploration of the South Island.
`Travail to Nelson: Fun in the Sun
`I was on the road early the next morning, and reached Blenheim easily. (I did not know, at this point, that there was a good road from Picton to the town of Havelock direct, via the base of the Marlborough Sounds. So I'd taken the long way round to cover the same net distance). I walked up the Nelson road awhile, then walked some more, and then some more. I rested frequently by the roadside, thumb out, and in this stop/start fashion walked some 10 km (6 miles) before someone stopped. It took me almost four hours — double the time similar distances were to take me once my fitness picked up. The locals were friendly — one roadside stall keeper sent her daughter out with two ripe apricots, for example — but the cars would not stop. I nearly reached the point of examining my pack to see if there was a bloodstained axe sticking out of it.
`Discouraged, I went into the YHA at Havelock, thinking I might give travelling away for the day. There I was told that for $5.90 I might catch a Newmans bus though to Nelson. I decided to do that — but first to try hitching on. By now it was after 1pm and the day was stinking hot. Just as I decided to turn back, a car stopped. This pattern was to repeat itself several times throughout the trip: almost enought to convince me of an all-powerful and malicious force hovering over me. I couldn't fool it by pretending to turn back; I had actually to do so.
`The ride took me to Pelorus Bridge: a metal structure cast across a deep ravine through which flows a deep and cold river. It is a popular place: people drive in from Nelson and Blenheim to escape the heat. I watched with envy as I crossed the bridge: people running, diving, swimming, sunbathing. Several people dived in off the bridge, a distance of some 15–20 vertical metres (about 40 feet). Almost, I stopped and stripped down to join in. But I decided that if I did that I might not make Nelson that day. If I'd found myself in the same position later on, I would have given way — and serendipity would likely have given me my lift to Nelson. As it was I gained nothing by my stoicism. I walked three more hours before a truck picked me up, 8 km (5 miles) further on. That same truck picked up three other hikers, one of whom had stopped for a swim at Pelorus Bridge …
`So I finally arrived in Nelson around 7:30 pm and found the Nelson YHA full. Fortunately there was a "summer overflow" across town, and that had room for me.
`As it turned out, the "overflow" — the dormitory of a local girls school — made for better accomodation than the main hostel. Hostels aim to put up people hardened to travel. Their facilities are therefore complete, but spartan, as a rule. The "overflow" at Nelson, however, spent most of the year catering to the needs of young girls fresh out of their homes …
`I stayed in Nelson three nights, sorting through my pack and also buying a few things I'd neglected earlier — such as a rain cover for the pack. I also went to the beach and got myself quite dreadfully sunburned.'
And also received the second of three lessons in serendipity (the first wasted opportunity, of course, was when I had walked on over Pelorus Bridge).
`While lying there roasting, I enjoyed watching an attractive woman who arrived shortly after I did and who arranged herself a few yards away. After a couple of hours she stood up and collected her belongings. Catching my eye, she came over and asked directions for getting into central Nelson, and also how to find the "Cobb & Co. Hotel". I gave her directions for the former, and on learning how long a walk it was she decided to take a taxi. As to the latter, the only "Cobb & Co." that I knew was a restaurant. She was not sure this was right, but I gave her directions for that anyway — it might be attached to the hotel. I then finished by pointing her in the direction of the nearest phone-booth so that she could call her taxi. In the process I learned that she was Australian and that she had spent the night at the nearby Tahunanui Motor Camp.
`A few minutes later, feeling the sun, I packed and started back myself, walking. I saw a pair of red shorts waggling some distance ahead, but thought nothing of it until I came up level. "I thought you were taxiing?" Turned out she'd decided the walk would do her good. So we enjoyed a pleasant walk around the shore line, and I got invited out on the town. Still not educated in the intricacies of serendipity, I declined and instead accepted a lunch in a coffee-house. We exchanged timetables and agreed that if (as seemed possible) we were both in Christchurch at the same time, we'd look each other up. (In the event, I went through Chch long before she was due, so nothing came of that.) She told me her address in Australia and I didn't write it down and I forgot it. After all that, I practically wasted a very rare occurrence (being picked up rather than vice-versa) and have regretted it ever since.
An incident written down at the time is an incident written down for posterity. An incident missed because you were writing down trivia is an incident lost to posterity. Discriminate!
`New Ground: Into the Unknown
`Another early start, for this was the day I looked up a few orchardists to see if I couldn't pick some fruit. A couple of obliging drivers trekked me all round the area, but the nearest I got was berry picking without accomodation near Redwoods Valley. I might have taken it, but the pay was fortnightly and I did not think I'd be there long enough. So I gave that away and walked several kilometres back to the Greymouth road.
`I'd missed the early traffic — it was now long past noon — and I wound up, several hours later, walking near Belgrove. The sun was dropping but, true to form, just as I gave up hope and the traffic died to zero, a woman stopped and picked me up. She had just tramped Abel Tasman National Park. Her story fired me with a great desire to see the Park, a desire I have not yet quenched. She lived in Dunedin. A friend had driven her car up for her to drive home with. She was on her way to Chch, where she planned to stay with friends. She invited me along. Regretfully, I got out at Murchison — where there was a YHA — because I still planned to hike down the West Coast and return up the East. If I'd had that ride later on, or if I'd known what was waiting in Greymouth, I'd have gone with her through the Lewis Pass and quite likely have had even more fun than I eventually did have.'
This was the third and final missed opportunity. After this I had learned my lesson.
In Greymouth I formulated Greg's Rule for Hitch-hikers:
The first attribute a hitch-hiker needs is patience. The second is persistence. The third is determination. But the fourth, and often most important, is the ability to let go of a cherished goal and to accept an alternative when circumstance and serendipity dictate. This saves a great deal of frustration.
Greymouth
It rained and rained and rained:The poem goes on to outline the aqueous events of the next few days, including downpours, gentle rains, etc, before concluding: "and then — the rain set in!" Only too apt! The West Coast of the South Island gets a tremendous rainfall, and I arrived in Greymouth on the verge of a proof of this. I woke next morning to the sound of rain. The weather forecast predicted rain for at least the next two days. Franz Josef Hostel, my next planned stop, was booked-out for the next two days. So with my newfound wisdom, I veered — through Arthur's Pass to Christchurch.
The average fall was well maintained;
And when the tracks were simply bogs
It started raining cats and dogs.
`I've often blessed that rain since, though I cursed it at the time. If it hadn't rained that morning, I would probably have gone on to Franz Josef and been rained-in or locked-out there. Instead I saw Arthur's Pass, where otherwise I might not have gone.
`The road starts easily, winding up through green foothills. All inconspicuously, however, the surrounding peaks get higher. I saw none of this because the cloud layer was too low. But I did see the Pass in what is arguably one of its lovliest phases: in rain, with all the waterfalls running and higher clouds wrapping the peaks. The road is often badly maintained and narrow. I was on the right-hand side of the bus, and there were places where I sat, barely breathing, as the wheels of the bus rolled along a foot or so from the edge of the road. Beyond the road there was a couple of feet of soft, slanted mud — and then a drop of one hundred and seventy metres (about five hundred feet) to the swollen Otira River. In one place the road went up steeply to get above a kilometre-wide shingle-slip which had often closed it in the past. In another place we passed through the spray from a waterfall that came down beside — and on — the road, making the bus shake.
`After this section the road levelled out, and by the time the township of Arthur's Pass came out of the muzz I was becoming jaded with bleak hillsides. We'd climbed 920 metres (5/8 mile) in about 80 km (50 miles). Ahead lay a similar fall, but spread out along 155 kilometres (100 miles) on the road to Christchurch. The scenery was still beautiful — as pretty as anything in the Lewis Pass, for example — but it was an anticlimax after the gorgeous western stretch. I'm told that Milford Sound has more lovely scenery, but as second-best, Arthur's Pass will do.'
From 1986, here's another version of this trip:
`Arthur's Pass is beautiful in the rain. The clouds descend to grip the mountain-slopes in a grey ceiling. Looking down the valley from the top one has the unreal thrill one gets whenever one's eye is caught by those superb visualisations in L-5 literature, of the inside of a space-habitat. The land tilts crazily, with superb waterfalls at every angle and in all ranges of size. The clouds complete the illusion of looking along the axis of a tube by blotting out the sky and (beyond the western end of the valley) the horizon.
Christchurch and south
`Overnight in Christchurch, then on to Dunedin. But now I had a new reason for heading south, in addition to my long-standing aim of reaching Bluff. While in Chch I had seen a notice on the Information Board. Apricot-picking in Clyde, central Otago. Phone, etc. I rang them and they said come ahead — they'd take me.'
This job was the second fruit of serendipity: for if I'd not come to Christchurch I might have missed out on it. And with money starting to run low — I'd already used my credit card to stretch it (dangerous when you have no income) — I couldn't afford to turn down a good chance at some wages.
Money is like sleep to a traveller — grab it while you have the opportunity!Dunedin was a beautiful city. It did have its tacky side — a fountain which played badly distorted music and squirted in time to it, for one thing. But the statue of Robbie Burns was just twee, rather than tacky. Dunedin was a happy city, and I couldn't understand what some people (hi, Tom) had against it.
`Onwards the next morning, striking at last for Invercargill. My memory comes up blank on this trip, except for advice that several rides gave me: "Head for Gore — but don't go there!" Sure enough, I wound up in Gore and spent several hours of an otherwise uneventful day trying to get out. In a cold wind and spitting rain. I caught a chill and sniffle, almost the only illness I suffered in the whole trip.'
I think that every hitch-hiker is familiar with the concept of what I call holes. A hole is a place that is easy to hitch into and very difficult to hitch out of. They are commonly located in large centres of population set amidst thickly populated farming areas. Three holes in New Zealand that I feel I must warn prospective travellers about are: Hamilton city, Dannevirke, and Gore. There are lesser holes in Whangarei and Blenheim and Nelson. I feel I must add that the South Island is not nearly as good for hitching, on the whole, as the North Island. A rule-of-thumb for North Island hitching is 1.5 times the travel-time by car. For the South Island the factor is from 2 to 3 times the car's travel-time, depending where you are.
Hitch-hiking is not for travellers in a hurry. If you are travelling against a deadline — don't hitch. This will save wear and tear on your nerves.`Invercargill, considering its size and wealth, is a dull and bland city. It has few distinguishing features. Not even the floods of a few years back, which turned most of the town into a lake, have left any real mark: a few walls still tidemarked, a few empty lots. Plenty of new paint. Few decrepit houses. I suspect the flood- relief aid that entered the town in the wake of the water was more than adequate. There was no sign now of hardship.
`Two days in Invercargill, even so. I was determined to fulfil my first major objective of the trip. On the Sunday, after several misdirections, I found the H&H bus that links Invercargill and Bluff. Settling back, I was rolled out through low hills and along the peninsula. Where I finally got out, the Tiwai Aluminium Smelter bulked hugely across the bay. I walked the last kilometre of State Highway 1 until, rounding the hill, I came finally upon the end: a small carpark/turnaround, focussed on the famous weatherbeaten International Distances sign. I made a note of the distances but can't find it now. The only one that stuck in my mind was: "Cape Reinga — 1401 kilometres."'
It's actually not quite the southernmost tip of the South Islland, but it's close enough.
`I didn't go over to Stewart Island. The ferry was exorbitant and the airfare, while cheaper than the ferry, was similarly beyond my slender remaining funds. Besides which, it was raining there, had been raining for days, and looked set to continue for another day or so.
`And so to Queenstown, jewel of the southern lakes.'
(If Invercargill was my southern goal, Queenstown was my backstop target, in case of failure. I counted on it to lift me out of the doldrums in case I arrived there depressed and dicouraged. In the event, not needed.)
The notable event of the Queenstown-wards leg was the ride with three yobbos. The car reeked of beer and marijuana. Nevertheless, rides being thin on the ground, I took it. But I kept a hand on my pack — and particularly on the unzipped side pocket which held my knife. Never hitch without a good, sharp knife (15 cm blade).
When the car turned off onto a sideroad, I almost brought the knife out. "Where are we going?" I asked instead, staying calm.
"It's alright, mate, there's always a panda car up the top of that next hill so we're just taking a cut around it."
Nevertheless, I kept my hand on the knife for the rest of the ride, and have rarely felt so relieved as I did when the car eventually turned back onto the main highway. One of the hitch-hiker's nightmares is being in a car which turns suddenly and inexplicably off the main highway. Think of this, Oh reader, should you ever offer someone a lift!
Queenstown was the busiest small town that I had ever seen. With a census (1981) population of less than 3,500, it managed to give the impression of a small city. The setting was exquisite. It nestled in the shadow of mountains, on the shore of a lake, with more mountains all around. For those not satisfied with the view from lake-level, there was a gondola lift to the Skyline Restaurant, from which you could walk into the mountains on good paths or just stand and take in the scene. The 'Skyline' by night was an intriguing sight, for from the town all you could see were the lights, rather like a brightly-lit-up aircraft, frozen in approach to landing.
Probably the biggest drawback to the town — which burg had not yet been so completely spoilt by its success as a tourist "trap" as Rotorua had been — was that it is expensive. Even food from supermarkets was more expensive than you would expect from consideration of transport costs. If you planning to stay there a while, you would save money by stocking up on croceries elsewhere.
Smoked apricots in Clutha
The work was on an orchard about three kilometres from the Clyde PO, across a bridge that spanned the Clutha River. From the bridge I could look upstream to the great concrete wall of the dam, and see beyond it some of the mammoth earthworks that were changing the shape of the river-valley for many kilometres.
I stayed with the other workers in a small, overcrowded hostel. It was never very tidy, nor clean. But in the long summer afternoons after work (I was not picking, but rather slicing apricots ready for smoking in sulphur, so I worked to set hours rather than as long as the light lasted) I could walk up a dirt road between the groves to a small irrigation lake. The water was always cold and deep, and it made an oasis where I could escape the heat and maybe find someone to talk to in peace and privacy.
The slicing machine consisted of a hopper at one end of a conveyer system, on which full bins of picked fruit were placed. The fruit were shaken gently onto the belts, which separated them into rows. Each row passed under a rotating disk-blade which neatly bisected the fruit as far as the pit. The cut fruit passed onto another conveyer where workers armed with tea-spoons grabbed them and scooped out the pits. The pitted fruit finally slid down onto a latticework board which, when full, was removed and stacked ready for the smoking house. Two boards were used in alternation, so that one was always available to take fruit. When the machine was operating correctly it would slice as many fruit as a dozen seasoned tea-spooners could handle, and the boards would keep two people busy arranging the fruit and stacking the full boards.
My job was mainly on the boards. I worked in conjunction with a woman or girl named Nicola, from England (Sussex, if memory serves). We would work side-by-side to fill one board, then swing a gate to switch the flow of fruit to the other board. Nicola would go on with that while I carried off the full board and replaced it with an empty one. We talked incessantly, for the job was hot and boring. I worked there from the 15th til the 22nd of January, then decided a week's wages would do me for the time being and that nothing — not even Nicola's pleasant company and quick mind — could keep me working so hard for so little money while the road still sang in my blood.
Whether this was a case of missed opportunity — the chance to gain a travelling companion by waiting a little longer — is debatable. In light of later events, I suspect not. I'd guess the horsetrade worked out even.
Picking up my mail from the Clyde PO, I bussed back to Queenstown. The YHA Hostel was full, so I found a place in a share-room at the Hotel Wakatipu with three other lucked-out travellers. We went out on the town and got roaring drunk, singing songs and throwing glasses at the 'NO SKI BOOTS' signs. Then we lurched off in search of food, late at night. The Canadian told a story about a Pizza Hut he'd once been in where he found baked cockroaches in his pizza.
Following an aroma, we eventually came within earshot of clinking dishes. "I hope it's not a Pizza Hut," said the Canadian.
There was room in the YHA Hostel next night, so I stayed there; and the next day I moved on via a gruelling 8½-hour walk-a-hitch to Wanaka. From Queenstown to Wanaka via the main highway was about 115 kilometres, if you want to measure my speed.
Wanaka was lovely. A gentler landscape than Queenstown, but lacking the tourists and the high prices. The lake was breathtaking.
I walked around a corner and up a hill, passing behind a huge boulder-cum-hill that stood out into the lake, then coming out to an even lovelier view afterwards. There I stopped and ate my lunch, lost in the scenery. No traffic passed me in either direction. Finished my lunch I packed the rubbish and lifted my pack to my back — and a car came round the corner, slowed as it approached, and stopped beside me.
The driver — an englishman, but related to one of my schoolteachers from High School! — made good company. We jolted our way over unsealed road at The Neck, up over the saddle of Haast Pass, and entered the West Coast from the south. The sandflies came up to meet us (sandflies are similar to midges, blackflies, etc.; they bite). Windows up, we cruised — with many a stop at scenic points — to Fox, didn't like it, and went on to Franz Josef. Side trip down a dirt road to Lake Matheson, where we missed the famous reflection because clouds covered the mountains. In Franz, off to the Hostel I went — and there was room for me.
Franz Josef Glacier
`The Franz Josef and the Fox are fairly steep as glaciers go: they drop about two hundred metres in a kilometre — a one-in-five grade. The Franz, fifteen kilometres, is a bit longer than the Fox and is about the same length as the longest Swiss glacier. NZ's longest is the twenty-nine-kilometre Tasman Clacier near Mt. Cook.'
— Colin Simpson, Wake Up To New ZealandI stayed three days at Franz Josef. Despite spending half my new wealth (or so it seemed) at Queenstown, I was flush for the moment and inclined to make the most of the spell of good weather that arrived at the glaciers coincident with myself.
There were many walks and tracks around the township, and I followed quite a few of them — so many that they jumble together in my memory. I didn't go down the road to the "local" pub (in one of the THC Hotels), and so I missed out — cheerfully — on the main portion of the nightlife; but I was still fresh from Queenstown, and was interested in Franz for its setting, not its people.
The main feature of the setting, of course, was the glacier.
I walked south out of town and crossed a bridge over the milky Waiho River which carries the chilly melt from beneath the glacier face. Then I turned left and followed a winding road (dirt? — my memory fails me) into native bush. It was an idyllic walk, and I was so enraptured by it that when the tourist bus that runs from Franz stopped and offered me a free ride the rest of the way, I said "no". Some tourist aboard, astonished by the apparition who preferred walking to riding, snapped my picture. I wonder where that photograph is now?
Eventually I emerged from the trees into a vast rock-strewn valley. My first thought Awas, "My God! Helm's Deep!" Later thought changed that to the road to Khazad-dum. A flat, boulder-covered floor flanked by huge cliffs that rose sheerly for some hundred metres or so. I walked between those cliffs, awed by the scale of the place, in my tatty t-shirt, shorts, and jandals. (Jandals: Australians, read "thongs" or "flip-flops"; others — hell, I don't know.)
The air was still warm when I started up the valley, although I could soon see the glacier. From a distance it was hard to believe that it was ice: you felt no cold, and the face just looked like a white-painted wall with blue highlights, hanging in the other end of the valley. A stage-prop wall, wrinkled and soiled from too much use.
Everywhere there were signs: Beware of falling rock. I bewared, for the foot of each cliff was cluttered with evidence that the signs were no tourist bumf. I clambered over a couple of falls that had fallen in the last couple of days and buried the track beneath them.
I couldn't approach the ice-face from the normal side of the Waiho, for the track was completely destroyed by a treacherous mass of fallen rock near the end. So I retraced my steps, back across the Waihou by a hanging bridge whose approaches had been carried away by another fall, and then up to the tourist lookout. From there I followed footprints downslope to the south side of the Waiho, which then led me, eventually, to the glacier face. I didn't feel the cold until I was almost up to the ice-face.
There was ice floating in the river. On my way back, I stopped by a swirl-pool in the bank and picked out a breadloaf-sized chunk. This souvenir proved quite popular back at the hostel — the Americans especially took pleasure in stepping on it and saying that at least now they could tell their friends back home that they'd set foot on the ice of the glacier … I put the ice in the fridge, and it lasted until the morning I left Franz. The last hand-sized sliver I placed in a sink and melted with hot water. It was the least I could do.
Up to Greymouth, which town excited me no more this time than it had before. Rather than walk in my own footsteps back to Nelson, I decided to take an alternative route via Westport. This would allow me to see the Pancake Rocks at Punakaiki — not to be missed!
I intended to turn aside short of Westport, at the Buller turnoff; but when I reached it the signs were up: ROAD CLOSED. DANGER. BLASTING. So I went on to Westport and spent the night in a cabin at a local motorcamp.
The Buller Gorge
I walked up that road, friends. And I walked. And I walked. And eventually along came a Ministry of Works car, which offered me a ride. The road would be opened about noon, the driver said, and I might be able to cadge a lift then.
So I spent a couple of hours watching the demolition of "Hawk Crag", one of two rock outcroppings which had long strangled the road to single lane and which, Somebody had decided, Must Go. The job was first intended to be finished the day before, but someone bungled the explosives and so they were still blasting when I came through.
I became quite blasé about the crack! of a charge going off — but only until one charge went whomp! instead and I saw everyone dive beneath cars. So I dived under the nearest car, too, and something heavy went bang on the bonnet. When I clambered out I was able to put my thumb into the dent left by that chunk of debris.
A cyclist rode up around 1:30. We talked a while, exchanging yarns, and then a MoW person came over to tell us they were opening the road. So we walked across the big hump of earth that graders were still shovelling over the cliff-edge, admiring the glittering angles of the virgin rock-face above us.
I walked again, no cars stopping for me. Again I walked, on and on. Gradually I stripped off my sodden clothes until I had only my bathers and pack against my sweating body — and felt overdressed! I wished I had a sun-umbrella.
Finally a blessed car stopped, and the elderly couple in it drove me down to Inangahua Junction, where I turned for Nelson.
I was late getting into Nelson, so I rang the YHA Hostel from Tahunanui. The hostel was full. So I booked into the nearby motorcamp and spent the night under the stars. Next night I was in the hostel, still resting from my Buller escapade. But after that, short of money, I struck out for Havelock, determined to make it my last stop in the South Island.
As if my birthday the day before had brought mercy into the breast of the deity of hitch-hikers, the rides came fast and easy. I reached Havelock by early afternoon. And while I was at the hostel, easing a few things out of my pack preparatory to seeing about kayak-hire for the afternoon, serendipity struck again, in the form of a bearded guy who dashed in and yelled, "Anybody here wanna job?" So I said, "sure!" and that's how I became a mussel rancher.
The Canadian, it turned out, had just spent two months on the mussels, but his time in NZ was running short. So he'd grabbed a lift to Havelock, and had been asked to replace a "work available" sign in the hostel. Seeing people there, he'd thought to save time and effort by calling out.
He walked me up the main street, pack on back, and introduced me to Steve, the guy who'd given him the lift into town. Steve looked at my pack. "Ready to go?"
For reply I tossed the pack into the back seat and climbed in beside Steve. Five minutes later, we were tearing along the blacktop, aimed into the heart of the Marlborough Sounds.
