Kiwiana

Some New Friends

2007-01-30T20:13:00.000+13:00

I'm preparing to leave New Zealand in just a couple of days. Here's a last look at the places I've been and the new friends I've made who have hosted me in their homes (ordered chronologically):

Tamzin & Joe - Auckland
Kath - Hamilton
Diane - Taupo
Jeff & Pauline (Family friends) - Paraparaumu
Kamel's HC Hosts - Granity
Gary
Kamel's HC Hosts - Invercargill
Ross - Dunedin
Kirsty - Christchurch
The Sherwoods (Wonderful Strangers) - Wairau Valley
Jennie - St. Arnaud

And of course, my many new friends made at the Collective.

Only a few days left

2007-01-21T19:45:00.000+13:00

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...

Latest Trip Map

2007-01-08T00:13:00.000+13:00

Click on the illustration to see where I went on the camping trip. I did quite a bit of driving, and driving on the left is fun. My next goal is to travel South again and do some more CouchSurfing.

Fixing My Life

2007-01-07T22:40:00.000+13:00

I tried to repair my camera when it first broke. I knew it was a mechanical problem, not an electronic one. The retractable lens had stopped coming out. At first I took out all of the visible screws and still couldn't figure out how to get into it, so I put it back together. Then I tried again and realized that it has a tricky way of interlocking the front, back, top, together. That got me past the outer housing. I was really wary of breaking a cable, and there are two connecting the screen to the main unit. Of course, the main unit and screen were now no longer held together by the housing, and twisting them incorrectly could have snapped the cable. Plus getting into the main unit looked really daunting. So I put it back together again with some difficulty. It turns out that re-interlocking the major parts is harder than unlocking them.

Next I tried to find a repair shop, but the only camera place that could repair it was in Auckland, and the turn around time would have been too slow to bother. So by New Years I had given up on having a working camera while in New Zealand.

But after badly wishing I had it during my last camping trip, I decided to give another try at repairing it myself. So yesterday I sat down to it determined that I could at least take it completely apart without breaking it. Again I removed the housing, then took out the screws from the main unit. That fell apart into two pieces connected by a tiny cable, one of which was connected to the screen by two tiny cables. The other peice was the lens unit, which came apart after I took a few more screws out. I now had a tray of screws lined up in the order that they had come out. When I took apart the lens unit, a pile of beach sand spilled out. That was culprit! Once again I put it back together, but in the process managed to drop one of the tiny screws essential to the process.

Arg! A single screw the size of a grain of rice would mean I'd never get the camera back together. I had dropped it into a wilderness of carpet from off a desktop. It could have bounced anywhere. Note to self: don't repair a camera in a carpeted room. But I knew that it was certainly in the room somewhere. After 30 minutes of careful searching on hands and knees, I found the screw. I never did see it, but found it by feel. First I carefully searched my clothes, the removed the chair and desk from the area, then gridded off the carpet and ran my hands across it row by row.

I finally got the camera back together and turned it on, but the lens still didn't come out. I knew that I had made progress though by the sound. It sounded different - like something was whirring inside instead of jamming inside. Once again I took it apart and noticed that two little gears where misaligned. I fixed that, put it back together, turned it on and now the lens came out, but the screen was blank! I took it apart again and realized that somehow despite my care I had severed the cable connecting the screen to the main unit. Now I really despaired. After all that trouble, I had actually repaired the original problem only to be thwarted at the last minute by the mistake I had taken pains to avoid from the beginning.

But the cable didn't look snapped after all. The end was too clean. I figured that it had actually slid out of a port on the main unit. I could have slid it out from the beginning. Finally I slid the cable back into the port, reassembled the camera, turned it on and hallelujah! It works again! And here is the first thing I photographed:

The lesson here is that with extreme care, extreme patience, and extreme tenacity, you can fix most of life's problems.

Free Walker

2007-01-06T00:03:00.000+13:00

What an amazing week. I thought that I would just spend two days at the music festival, but we decided to keep the trip going for a week and went as far south as the Fox Glacier. I'm am refreshed. I got everything I was looking for a more. I'm glad to be back in the comforts of this house that just a week ago I couldn't wait to leave. Back in Nelson there are new faces and new ideas brewing.

I love this country. The adventures I've had here this past week could never have happened in the US because they would have been prohibited for no good reason. I couldn't have built a slept by a campfire on the beach that I built from driftwood I found there. A ranger would have woken me up instead of the glorious sun reflecting from softly breaking waves. I couldn't have provided a ride to two kiwi hitchhikers (illegal in many of our states) who gave me invaluable perspectives on the New Zealand zeitgeist. I couldn't have washed my face in the pool of a 1000' waterfall of glacier melt in solitude because I'd be surrounded by 100 other tourists. I couldn't have hiked off trail around the Glacier because it would be prohibited for my safety. I don't say this to US bash but to tell you how great it is here.

Since I can't show you pretty pictures (they exist in the cameras of my friends), I'll share some words. Government should exist on one simple principle - it is here to grant us freedoms not to take them away. Our government prohibits us ostensibly for our protection (NZ's too, just less so). But in reality, it's not for our protection but for liability reasons. If we hurt ourselves, we can sue the state for not trying to prohibit us. In New Zealand, there's no need to sue (and indeed it's difficult) because health care is provided.

Imagine a country where all laws and boundaries are optional. In 90% of places and circumstances, if we hurt ourselves or fail to provide for ourselves, the government provides for free the services to keep us healthy. In 8% of places or circumstances, such as entering undeveloped wilderness or driving without a seatbelt, the government warns us that it will not provide services for free. But it will send rescue to the wilderness and it will repair our mangled body at our expense. In 2% of cases, such as engaging in a truly dangerous pursuit, it won't even promise to rescue us. It says, do what you will, but you're on your own.

We went off trail at the glaciers and went past signs that said, "Danger! You should only proceed beyond this point with an experienced guide." I'll tell you that I went far beyond that point but never came close to exceeding my personal limits or putting myself in danger. I've spend years exploring nature and know how to test my weight on a rock, check for slipperiness, observe my surroundings and know my limits. The secluded waterfalls and jungle paths I explored with my friends were not suitable for many who have never left the safety of a sidewalk. But there were safe for us. We could have even climbed the glacier itself but we knew the ice is slipper and unstable. But it safe for those with proper equipment and knowledge of the stable patches of ice. Thankfully, New Zealand recognizes that I'm responsible for the risks I take and doesn't prohibit me from taking them.

We ran into an professional guide who chastised us for walking on a well maintained and safe but not idiot-proof path without paying for his services. It was his legal responsibility to warn us, and I'm happy that he did. But his tone of superiority and derision was unnecessary. After warning us he switched on his radio and said, "We've got free walkers on the trail." He didn't mean it as a compliment, but I took it as one. Free Walker. I want that to be my life's job title.

Leaving Collective for Two Nights

2006-12-30T11:19:00.000+13:00

We watched "The World's Fastest Indian" the night before last. A feel-good movie set in New Zealand made in 2005 that seems like it was made in 1985. Watching the movie reminded me of a story that my friends, the Wendies, told me about reading a book about Burning Man while at Burning Man. It's laughably absurd.

The situation here is a bit different. It was totally fun to sip wine and watch the film with my friends here at Collective and call out the obvious bits of Kiwiana, like the scene with the plastic tomato that hold ketchup. We also had a Kiwi present who we asked to rate Anthony Hopkin's accent. Verdict: very authentic!

But I'm even more excited about leaving Nelson for a couple of nights and seeing more of New Zealand with my own eyes. I'm headed to the Phat outdoor electronic music festival for New Years, and I'm not taking the laptop :))

2006-12-29T14:25:00.000+13:00

On Xmas eve we had some piñata fun. Here's me holding my trophy. In case you've ever wondered, Santa is filled with candy and whistley toys.

My New Zealand Trip Map

2006-12-26T17:29:00.000+13:00

My New Zealand Trip Map, originally uploaded by mattthew.

I talked to my parents on the phone today and they asked me to put up a map of my travels through New Zealand so far. This map includes how I got from place to place and who I stayed with.

Many Thanks to Give

2006-12-25T16:53:00.000+13:00

It's Christmas day already in NZ (for my friends and family it's a day earlier), and I have many thanks to give. To my friends and family who support me and showed me so much love especially just before I left to come here: I'm thinking of you now and so glad that I you'll be there when I return. If you're reading this because I asked you too, it means so much to me. Happy holidays!

I also need to give thanks to many people I've never met who sent their love and support to the Collective. Everyone here feels a responsibility toward the many CouchSurfers who have supported us with donations and towards all members who make the network great. We all want to work to make CouchSurfing better. However, some here question whether the Collective is a good use of those donations.

We don't spend money frivolously or on any unreasonable luxuries, but we could have saved money by going to a less beautiful location, a smaller house further from town, or by buying only rice and beans to eat. We could work 16 hour days. We could do more for less. Should we have another Collective after this one? Or should small groups working simultaneously around the globe suffice? How much fun and convenience do we who are working here deserve? These are important questions I can't answer. I can just say that I feel that we are very lucky to be here, but that we are doing good here. I am so grateful.

We have received several postcards of support from members around the world. They've all really touched us. They're hanging up on our mantle. Here's a sample of what people have written:

Awesome People of CouchSurfing Collective:

LIVE IT
LOVE IT
RESPECT IT

Aloha! Kia Ora! Go you good things go! Hope everybody is exceptionally well. So stoked you managed to find the gem that Nelson is. I grew up iin Golden Bay and have fully enjoyed the many benefits/experiences that CS has offered me this past year. I'm in Hawaii but will be home in early December and will be knocking on your door! Keep up all the great work. I can't wait to come and help. Everything you do is worth it.

[anonymous]

A couple of weeks ago, we received a care package of many delicious snacks and Earl Grey Tea that I had been craving without realizing it for days. That package from an anonymous benefactor made me so happy. Here's another:

Dear CouchSurfing Team,

We want to thank you for all your hard work in putting together & running such a wonderful service. You've made it so easy for us to meet new people and we've had so much fun with our guests and hosts alike.

We've been singing the praises of CouchSurfing to everyone who'll stay still long enough to listen!

Keep up the good work chaps!!

Merry Christmas and happy new year

Best wishes from [----]

Birmingham, UK

Of course, these cards weren't sent to me. They were sent from people who don't know me and have no idea of I'm doing anything for CouchSurfing or trying to spend its money wisely. They were sent by people like me who felt that this service gave them experiences and were moved to say so.

It's not a sacrifice for me to be here. It's something I'm lucky to get to do. It's as much retreat as it is volunteer work. I hope that I do something lasting that makes people happier.

Kings of the Hill

2006-12-22T13:48:00.000+13:00

Kings of the Hill, originally uploaded by mattthew.

This is just a silly photo of me and some other CouchSurfing Collective participants at the top of a hill. This was taken at the trip to Cable Bay a couple weeks ago. Sadly, my camera is no longer working, so I can only post old pictures - hopefully I can get it repaired while I'm here.

Center left is Joe, one of the CouchSurfing software developers. He's quite a deep thinker with very strong opinions that always challenge us. Joe is ascetic compared to most people in the house. This morning during coffee chat (though he doesn't drink the stuff), he brought up the very good point that the Collective is much like a hostel. It has its own sub-culture, and that makes it hard to take part in the culture of the country its lodgers are within.

Joe and I have been debating a rewards system for the website. My model (based on the work of many others) gives rewards for hours of participation. Under that model, we at the Collective would be deserving of some awards. But Joe points out that volunteering is not creating "intercultural understanding" directly. We're only facilitating others to do that. So we need to reward those members who are not necessarily volunteering, but fulfilling the CS mission directly. Right now, the only way we have to do that is by counting number of surfs and hostings. But we need a way to identify the experts at connecting people and cultures. Great food for thought.

Center right is Leo, one of the founders of CouchSurfing. I'm just beginning to understand Leo. He's very emotionally expressive and visionary, whereas I'm much more reserved and logical. In meetings with Leo, it's a challenge to stay focused because he's always thinking big and far-out ideas. He always surprises me with his honesty and directness. He's like a big kid sometimes. It's a fun contrast to my personality.

On the far right is Casey, creator of CouchSurfing. Last night after work, we all went out to a local bar in a finest party mode. During one moment of perfection in revelry with some of the most wonderful people from around the world, I reminded Casey, "You know you're responsible for all this?" He sloughed the notion off saying, "You mean the molecules in the air?" This is typical Casey. He hates to be made responsible for CouchSurfing.

No doubt, CouchSurfing and the Collective are the result of hundreds of people's brilliance, dedication, and generosity. CouchSurfing's aim is to be a completely decentralized network of people, not a pyramid with Casey on top. Casey loves the opportunities CS opens for him, but his goal for the past three years has been to remove himself from the center of attention and responsibility.

Casey is also a determinist. He believes that the laws of physics direct each atom along it's course, even the ones that make up our brains and therefor our thoughts and actions. The universe in every moment proceeds along a single course of causality. So he's almost serious when he implies that he's no more responsible for CouchSurfing at this moment than he is for the molecules in the air at this moment. His philosophical arguments are compelling. Yet, even if a mere chain of universal causality led him to create CouchSurfing, that same chain filled his character with the compassionate mischief that is the core of the network.

Island Rescue

2006-12-16T21:29:00.000+13:00

It was a harrowing day. Right after posting the last entry, my house mate, Gardener, suggested we all go swim to the island. Eight of us went down to the beach. Once you're down their it looks quite a bit more daunting. In actuality, the distance is about 250 meters (800 ft.). Me, Gardener, Kris, Jim and Kristin decided to go for it. Kris and Jim immediately realized they weren't up for it after waiting in, but the rest of us kept up.

Kristin is an excellent swimmer. She made it to the island and immediately swam back just for the exercise. I on the other hand, am a terrible swimmer. I had no business trying to swim that far, but it's so hard to judge distance with no frame of reference. I got my frame of reference when I was utterly exhausted half way across and I could see the little dots of Gardener's and Kristin's heads in the distance. I was loosing my breath and had swallowed a bit of water, so I started to panic a bit. But really I knew that I could just float on my back and wait for rescue if worst came to worst.

I decided to press on by slowly back-stroking. By this time, Kristin had swam back to shore, but Gardener was waiting for me. I landed on the island only to discover I had to make my way across another 10 meters field of crustacean encrusted rocks. I was too exhausted to do it standing, so I crawled ashore.

Once there, we had a great time. The island is often visited by boaters, and has picnic tables, a porta-john, and electricity. It's basically a forest and beach camp ground. Beautiful flowers, native flora, and screeching pied ostercatchers. Deserted at the time we were there.

After quite a bit of tramping around the island, we went back to shore to swim back. But it was getting very cold and windy, and the tide had risen, as well as the size of the swell. I thought about it for a while and decided I couldn't make it back. We debated if Gardener would swim back alone and get help. But instead we went out to the pier and waved at passing boats like the stranded fools we were. We weren't sure if we would be noticed for for hours. But pretty quickly some friendly kiwis motored up to find out what our situation was. Gardener and I hugged each other as if we had been rescued after weeks of foraging for food and water. They dropped us ashore at the yacht club down the road from where we started the adventure three hours earlier.

Views from the Collective House

2006-12-16T13:24:00.000+13:00

The Sun Sets Over Nelson, originally uploaded by mattthew.

Here are some photos of the view from the back deck of the CouchSurfing Collective house. Every evening brings a spectacular sunset, always unlike the previous evening's sunset. The long shadows and orange glow lighting lasts for about an hour because the sun sets so slowly. The sun finally disappears at around 9:00pm.

Compare these two photos from sunset and dawn. Both show the little island just off shore from the beach below the house. Some of the CouchSurfers have swam out to the island, and sail boats often lay about there.

My internal clock doesn't quite know what to do with these long days. When it's 9pm, it feels like 6pm, then it's midnight before I've noticed it's evening. This photo was taken one night that I stayed up until dawn. It was the first time I saw the moon in New Zealand.

Craters on the Moon, Taupo, New Zealand

2006-12-15T00:36:00.000+13:00

Craters on the Moon, Taupo, New Zealand, originally uploaded by mattthew.

While on my way to Nelson, I stopped in Taupo for the night. I was hosted by Diane through CouchSurfing who showed me some of Taupo's natural beauty. She also let me know that Taupo, a Maori word, does not rhyme with cow-toe. It rhymes with Poe-awe.

Diane was awesome and knew lots of great spots in Taupo, but Craters on the Moon was my favorite.

Panorama of Cable Bay

2006-12-13T04:03:00.000+13:00

Panorama of Cable Bay, New Zealand, originally uploaded by mattthew.

On Sunday I went on a hike around Cable Bay, just outside of Nelson. The first telegraph cable connecting New Zealand to the outside world landed there. Before that it was named Schroeders Mistake, but I can't find any explanation for why. In any case, the views - like everywhere in New Zealand - are stunning. This composite panorama gives some sense of that.

On this same hike we saw baby lambs literally bouncing along rock faces too steep for us to climb, then we walked down into a forest of fern and palm trees before ascending to views of our house in Nelson from a great distance.

What makes these views even more incomprehensible in person is that they change massively by the minute. The rapidly moving cloud masses change the sky, the reflection and shadows on the water, and the way that sunlight reflects off of everything. Every minute brings a totally unique vista that stretches out in unblemished clarity to beyond where the eye can make out.

My First Video

2006-12-11T15:43:00.000+13:00

I've been in New Zealand for a week, and I have many stories to tell. Right now I'm staying at the CouchSurfing Collective in Nelson. For those of you who don't know what that is or why I'm here, the other volunteers here have created web pages to explain what the Collective is all about.

This past Saturday, some of my housemates and I went on a trip to Nelson's city center to visit the outdoor market. Since part of my job here is to create media for CouchSurfing members, I created this video. I've got a bunch of stories and pictures that will tell you about New Zealand, but for now, meet some of the people I live with:

By the way, here's the address where I can receive mail:

22 The Cliffs
Brittania Heights
Nelson 7010
New Zealand