Only a few days left
There's good news and there's bad news. The bad news is that shortly after fixing my camera, it broke again, in a different way. Something is spinning loose inside. I can probably fix it later but I'll won't be able to record my second trip through the South Island. Which leads me to the good news, I've been traveling and CouchSurfing through the South Island for some days now with another CouchSurfer, a French/Moroccan nomad named Kamel.
I've seen the west coast again, stopping for the night in Granity (a town of 300) and Greymouth, two nights in Wanaka, then down through to Invercargill for two nights. Invercargill, the southernmost city in New Zealand is home to Burn Munroe who I wrote about earlier. The Southlander who hosted us was less impressed with Anthony Hopkin's accent than the Aucklander I mentioned, by the way. From there we've headed back north along the east coast, and today I write from a public internet terminal in Dunedin.
We spent one evening at a hostel in Greymouth, which was the first and likely the last night that I've needed to pay for accomodation in New Zealand. Isn't that incredible? It's not about the cash, though I'm glad for the savings. But in comparison to all of my other accomodations, the hostel was the least interesting evening. Transportation for this trip has been entirely hitchhiking, which has been extremely easy and fascinating. Highlights include a 10K ride with 5 dogs and a baby pig in small 4 seater car with a young hippy couple.
Next stop, the city of Christchurch, New Zealand's second largest, and then St. Arnaud, a tiny town next to a national park. Afterwards, I'll spend my remaining few days back at the Collective in Nelson. This post has contained a lot of names of places meaningless to you now. I hope to tell the tales of this places later. Just wanted to catch you up. I will have several photos to post when I return home to SF - thanks for all the compliments! Hopefully, I'll get a couple more blog posts in too.
I'm at the point in my long adventure when the reality that it must end soon had fallen upon me. It adds a mixture of poignency and urgency to my days. I won't be sorry to return home, but very sorry to leave. New Zealand seems to be all the best of once were times in the history of the US: A cheerfully relaxed attitude of constant progress, an earnest regard for neighbors and strangers alike, a liberetarian bent, progressive and peace leaning politics, a safe and relatively violence free environment, a home-spun and locally based economy, and an vast ecotopia.
But all of this is changing rapidly, especially on the last two counts. New Zealand's natural resources have been preserved not through wise politics but through sheer lack of population. Corporatism is taking hold here as well, driving out consumer choice and local flavor. No dire predictions here, but I will be very interested to return here in 10 years and see if they have escaped the pitfalls the US has blundered into.
More to come...
I've seen the west coast again, stopping for the night in Granity (a town of 300) and Greymouth, two nights in Wanaka, then down through to Invercargill for two nights. Invercargill, the southernmost city in New Zealand is home to Burn Munroe who I wrote about earlier. The Southlander who hosted us was less impressed with Anthony Hopkin's accent than the Aucklander I mentioned, by the way. From there we've headed back north along the east coast, and today I write from a public internet terminal in Dunedin.
We spent one evening at a hostel in Greymouth, which was the first and likely the last night that I've needed to pay for accomodation in New Zealand. Isn't that incredible? It's not about the cash, though I'm glad for the savings. But in comparison to all of my other accomodations, the hostel was the least interesting evening. Transportation for this trip has been entirely hitchhiking, which has been extremely easy and fascinating. Highlights include a 10K ride with 5 dogs and a baby pig in small 4 seater car with a young hippy couple.
Next stop, the city of Christchurch, New Zealand's second largest, and then St. Arnaud, a tiny town next to a national park. Afterwards, I'll spend my remaining few days back at the Collective in Nelson. This post has contained a lot of names of places meaningless to you now. I hope to tell the tales of this places later. Just wanted to catch you up. I will have several photos to post when I return home to SF - thanks for all the compliments! Hopefully, I'll get a couple more blog posts in too.
I'm at the point in my long adventure when the reality that it must end soon had fallen upon me. It adds a mixture of poignency and urgency to my days. I won't be sorry to return home, but very sorry to leave. New Zealand seems to be all the best of once were times in the history of the US: A cheerfully relaxed attitude of constant progress, an earnest regard for neighbors and strangers alike, a liberetarian bent, progressive and peace leaning politics, a safe and relatively violence free environment, a home-spun and locally based economy, and an vast ecotopia.
But all of this is changing rapidly, especially on the last two counts. New Zealand's natural resources have been preserved not through wise politics but through sheer lack of population. Corporatism is taking hold here as well, driving out consumer choice and local flavor. No dire predictions here, but I will be very interested to return here in 10 years and see if they have escaped the pitfalls the US has blundered into.
More to come...
posted by Mattthew Brauer at 7:45 PM
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