So you want to hear about hitching, eh?
Yes, yes, I've been hitching. There are several good reasons for this.
1) Hitching is cheap. Not only do you not have to pay for a bus, no-one I've met has even accepted petrol money when I've offered. People even try to buy me stuff occaisionally, making hitching actually PROFITABLE!!! Hooray!
2) Hitching is cool. When you are hitching, you are instantly cooler than everybody who gets to where you are going on a bus. That's a lot of people in NZ, which is smashing.
3) Hitching is educational. One meets interesting people and talks to them. They tell you stuff which isn't very often true, and you nod and make interested noises. Also, one meets locals, and they know all kinds of interesting stuff. One also meets Germans, and they know about being German, which is not so interesting, but is still nice.
4) Hitching is versatile. I've managed to get to lots of places where buses don't go by hitching, and that's dandy, because otherwise I wouldn't have been there.
I first hitch-hiked (this is like talking about the first time you had a gay affair - dirty but cool all at the same time) from the end of the Routeburn track to Te Anau, a drive of about 2.5 hours. Mica and I finished the track and as everyone we were with went the other way down the road, we waited with our thumbs out. While we did this a bus pulled up and started collecting honest, upstanding, paying tourists. Oh, we were tempted, but we remembered the words of our hitching guru... "Commitment. Commitment is the key." So we waved goodbye to the timetabled security of public transport and waited in the rain. Lo and behold, the first actual car to go past drove right on by (several buses had already gone through, but they don't count since they never pick you up). Our hopes were dashed, until the lady in the car pulled a U turn and came back to collect us. SCORE!! All the way she apoligised about driving past. We insisted that we didn't care because we were in her car going places and not standing in the rain - an altogether superior situation. She even drove us into Te Anau, which was bypassed by the highway. Sweet.
Lesson 1: Commitment is the key. Rain helps too.
Flushed with our early success, we tried to hitch from Te Anau (after finishing a track there) up to Queenstown, the tourist capital of the universe. The four of us (Mica, me, and Rohan and Catherine, (my sister and her boy)) split up and began to wait.
And wait.
And wait.
Eventually a really nice policeman told us that the main run of traffic was over and that we would be unlikely to get a ride, so we camped in Te Anau.
Lesson 2: Te Anau is the devil. Hitching is unreliable.
The next day, we got up early and got a ride within about 5 minutes.
Lesson 3: Te Anau is not that bad really. Hitching is unreliable.
Mica and I headed to Queenstown with a Swiss guy. He was one of the zillions of tourists who buy vans that have had the back seats removed and replaced with a bed. These people are great because they love hitch-hikers, but they don't have any seats. Bummer.
From there, I continued my lonely quest to Christchuch (about 7 hours from Queenstown) to collect some mountaineering gear. The intention was to hitch there in a day, collect the gear, stay overnight with some friends and then hitch back the next day, executing a diabolical gear snaffle in just two days. First I had to walk out of Queenstown, then I got a lift with a local out of the next town (about 10 kms) and then a british couple with a superior camper-van thing came by and drove me to Cromwell, where the inland road splits off from the coast road. Crunch time, since if you get stranded from here on you're deep in the poo. The day was getting on, and time was of the essence, which was why I didn't wet myself with delight when my ride stopped at a bridge to watch people bungy jump. It was a slow day in bungy-land. We had to wait a while. In the end it was pretty lame...
Lesson 4: Bungy jumping attracts lazy people who think that falling over will make them extreme. Instead it makes them fat, although they may have been like that beforehand.
From Cromwell I got a lift about 1 km over a bridge to the next tournoff, and from there I got another lift with a local to Omarama. This guy lived in the country and his job was to drive a horse and cart at weddings, so he spent alot of his time delivering the horse and cart in the right places. He was a nice guy, and seemed really quite content with his quiet country life. He also had a nice dog, which was a little bit baffled because I ended up stealing its seat.
Lesson 5: Dogs are good, and there's not much to do in northern Otago.
I stood at an intersection in Omarama for some time in the late afternoon, and began to wonder if perhaps this would be the end of the day's adventure... In the end, I was rescued by none other than Ze Germans!! (In fact they were Belgian, but I think that might be the same thing.)
Lesson 6: There are Germans everywhere. Even in Omarama, where there is nothing else.
They drove me to Twizel. There is nothing of note in Twizel, except a bunch of people playing disc golf. Disc golf? In Twizel? Whatever...
It began to get dark, and I waited a long time. Every car that was going to drive past me ended up turning into Twizel. I began to lose hope. The words of my guru echoed in my mind. "Commitment... Commitment..."
I decided to count out 10 more cars, by that time it would be fully dark and time to find a bed for the night.
Car no. 1 picked me up and drove my the furthest of anyone on my journey.
Lesson 7: The pull of Twizel, though terrifying, is not indestructible.
I got to Ashburton, a tantalising 45 minutes from Christchurch at 10:30. The only backpackers was closed, so I slept on a couch in a motor park and paid the people the next moning when their office opened. I had spent about 14 hours hitching. That's a long time, and I still hadn't quite made it...
Thus ends chapter one of John's Hitching Adventures. Will John make it to Christchurh? Will he make it back to Queenstown in a day? Will he get sodomised by someone on the road?
To find out, tune in next time for "John's Hitching Adventures part II, revenge of Twizel"....
Lesson 7.5: Never underestimate the power of an obscure holiday destination...
