Kristal Tits' Travel Log Dispatch

I am back at my very favouritest internet cafe in Christchurch. It's funny when you're on the road how strange things start having so much meaning to you. I feel like this little piece of coolness in the middle of the city is my home. I was really looking forward to getting here. Sadly, my favourite attendant (the gay man in his forties with the wonderful smile) is not here this morning. Instead I find the young little upstart who usually mans the afternoon shift. No matter. The music is still decent, though not as good as the trance/dance/techno stuff my friend usually puts on.

It was by plane that I arrived back in Invercargill, the city that doesn't have a pulse. I feel more confident in saying this openly now, because I have chatted with quite a few people and they all seem to agree that Invercargill sucks. All except this 12-year-old girl I met on the beach. She was obviously into water sports (here they call inner-tubing "sea biscuit-ing"!) and she told me Invercargill has a great indoor pool. Well! Can't argue with that. Still in other respects, the city has a rather depressed feel.

I was staying at the A&P (agricultural and pastoral) out on the field behind the would-be stables, and I stayed in the city long enough to email you last time, and buy a pair of boots. Yes, that's right, I already bought a pair of boots.

Not only that, but I bought a bleeping good pair of boots. And I've already used them.

I had met up with one of my Stewart Is, NWC tramp friends, and we decided we wanted to do another track, but a bit easier this time. Off to Te Anau we went and the very next day we were starting the Kepler track.

A lot easier it was. NO MUD! but then again, is that really a good thing? OK, it's a good thing if there's no mud inside your boots, but I have to disagree with my father when he said that the whole mud thing sounded less than appealing. You see, the mud cushions your steps! And very well. Your knees will like the mud...

On Stewart Island the NWC loop starts out as the Rakiura loop does. The Rakiura loop on Stewart Island is a "Great Walk" and therefore highly pushed. All great walks are almost perfectly manicured trails of moderate difficulty and usually last maximum 4 days. The Rakiura lasts 2 nights 3 days. On the last day of the 10-day NWC loop, you meet up with the last day of the Rakiura loop. Picture this; you have been slogging through mud, crossing creeks and basically having a hell of a time when all of a sudden the trees practically part, the light shines down, you can almost hear a chorus of angels singing the final "ah" of "alleluhiah" and there is this HUGE sign clearly stating that you are now on the Rakiura Great Walk track. Immediately a wooden boardwalk starts up. There is no more mud, or if there is, you can avoid it. You think you are happy.

Twenty minutes after hitting the Rakiura track, my knees were begging for mercy, the boardwalked steps being particularly cruel.

Whatever, the great walks are still undoubtedly easier, so we thought we would give ourselves a break and do the 67 km Kepler track. We even decided we would do it at a slow pace, over 3 days and a half.

The first and second days were through beech forest, along rivers. Very pretty. There was only the third day to challenge, the alpine section. So there was a climb of almost 800 metres which we did in an hour. After that you walk along a ridge and up to the summit of mount Luxmore (1450m) before going down again. We had timed it beautifuly and got the best weather on that day, thanks to pretty accurate weather forecasts at the DOC office in Te Anau. (and that's startling)

The only difference with the NWC was that I was carrying a tent, I had forgotten to try and pack light, and I was wearing new boots. Those three huge bars of Cadbury roasted almond chocolate didn't seem so essential after the second day.

That, and I'm never taking anyone camping unless I've known them for over 2 years and am confident that no matter what they do I can handle it. Turns out my NWC friend was NOT a seasoned camper;

*30 minutes after lights out on the first night the sound of buzzing can be heard, presumably coming from outside the inner, under the fly. There is also some sort of biting insect in the tent. I despair that the evil noseeums are a presence in NZ and wonder why my netting isn't noseeum-proof*

*I get up and sure enough there are about 30 of them flying around carefree, in MY tent*

The next morning the blood spatters were everywhere inside the tent, broken insect bodies lying here, there. Shit, the Dalai Lama wouldn't be proud of us now. Also, my esteem of Martin (the NWC friend) had gone down tremendously.

Since I have to get up north to Tauranga (for the nash hash yay!)and he wanted to do the Dusky track (another torturous affair that even the experienced kiwi trampers take seriously), we parted ways.

I have decided though that before leaving the south island, I will get one other tramplet in: The Queen Charlotte Walkway. And you can't get much better than that. It's a coastal track with undoubtedly tons of water taxis coming and going, the possibility of having your pack dropped off at destination and therefore hiking packless, and several inns, lodges, and even a PUB line the walkway.

I just have to hit the Pak'n'Save today and get my bus ticket and then I'll be on my way.

I'll probably catch up with you all again once I've crossed the ditch and find myself in Wellington!

As promised, I am now catching up with you all from Wellington, on the NORTH island. As the kiwis say, it's practically a different country.

So the last time I wrote I was in Christchurch, and I already had a plan. I stuck to the plan and this is how it went:

Woke up really early in Christchurch (5:45am) and tried to make as much noise as possible packing up all my stuff so that I woke up all those kiwi experience bus types who came in at 4 am, waking ME up.

Side note: what is the 'kiwi experience bus' type? Or, rather, what is the kiwi experience bus? WELL, basically you pay a company (Kiwi Experience, Magic Bus, Stray Bus) anywhere between 300-1300$ to be able to use their buses on a given route. The 1300$ on Kiwi Experience lets you go around both islands. The bus stops at most of the major tourist spots for one or two nights, but you can "get off the bus" for extra time in any city if you want to.

The reality is that every time the big GREEN Kiwi Experience bus pulls into your hostel, you groan and curse your luck. Nicknamed the 'booze bus', the 'f*** truck', the kiwi experience caters mostly to 18-25 year olds who are 'just out for a good time' and wouldn't know the difference if they were in Australia or Tibet, and wouldn't care, just as long as the beer is cold. I have noticed a high proportion of Australians/Americans on these buses (may just be purely coincidental).

Anyway, so I got to my 7am bus and got off at Picton, half a day later. The intercity driver on this one was real chatty and I learned a lot about the industries that line the east coast. I learned how they farm (??) the salt and a lot more about hops.

The very next day I was off on what I had dubbed my 'relaxation tramp'. For 58$ I was getting a water taxi to the head of the track, pack transfers for three days, and a water taxi back to Picton from the end of the track. That meant NO PACK while hiking. Wow, it was all I could do to keep from running outright. And the Queen Charlotte Walkway is very well-groomed as well.

Now, if that weren't enough, it seems that the Queen Charlotte Sound is THE place for kiwi vacationers so there are tons of baches (summer cottages) and lodges lining the sound. At midday on the first day, I came across a lodge and decided, what the hell, I'll have fish'n'chips for lunch. So there I was having lunch on the track, sitting in a bar listening to good music and watching tennis!

In the water taxi on the way to the track I met this other canadian, a guy from Sudbury, and we chatted for a while about all sorts of things. In the end, canadians meeting canadians overseas will inevitably talk about Canada. By the time we got to the camp site we were having a Canada love-fest and listing our favourite canadians (Leonard Cohen - did you know he was a McGill fratboy?? - , Glenn Gould, Trudeau, The Kids in the Hall, Mike Myers, Neil Young, etc etc etc).

We decided a beer would be nice after all this talking and went to the lodge next to the campsite. That's when, believe it or not, I saw

Scottish pot-head Charlie enter the bar! I knew then that I must have done something right if Charlie had deemed this track worthy of his attentions. He had just spent the afternoon in the lodge's spa and was looking nicely reposed. We caught up on what he had done since Stewart Island. Turns out he spent New Year's at a 'really special' party in Christchurch. You know it must have been good because he was smiling just talking about it. He then talked to Malcolm, my canadian friend, about his Victoria, BC experience (the time he spent his last 200$ on a flight from Toronto to Victoria and had 67 cents in his pocket, spent the night under a bridge, got a waitressing job the next day and then had "possibly the best 6 months" of his life). We chatted also a bit about his next trip: a cross-USA then cross-Canada road trip. When I suggested that if renting a car he should at least go for a van, he said he was not going to slum it anymore and that he would get one of those massive RV deal thingies and do it in style. He told us his days of doing stuff like living in India on two pounds a week were over. Good on ya, mate.

So after Charlie wandered off, Malcolm and I chatted with Glenda the waitress, who had also been to Canada. She said she had a wonderful time there and met this Calgary girl who invited her to stay at her farm. She stayed nearly two weeks. When Glenda disappeared, we chatted to her boyfriend, the launch operator, and it turns out he had once spent three months out in the bush near the Nelson area. Wow. Apparently all you need is a rifle. He would build his bivvies out of palm trees/ferns and other such things, catch cray fish and trout with his bare hands, and occasionally shoot a deer or two. Sounds real nice. Glenda came back in time to tell us that yeah, going in the bush with someone who knows how to survive it is really neat. After that, Malcolm and I walked back to camp, in the rain, spotting some gloworms on the way.

The next day, after having brough the pack to the wharf, I set out on another really easy 6-hour day. At the end of that, Malcolm and I again went to the pub, this time at the Portage Resort Hotel. We had quite a few jugs of Speight's and a bit too much fun with the jukebox. Although I guess at least one gap-toothed sailor agreed with my ten selections: (to Malcolm) "Your old woman sure has good taste in music". Later on, to some Pink Floyd, Janis, Bob Marley, Bob Dylan and Nirvana, we teamed up to beat two of the local mussel fishermen at pool. After that, they invited us back to their boat: "Hey, come back t'the boat for a feed."

At 1:30am we were leaving the boat, heavy with mashed potatoes and chicken, carrying a bag of cherries (dessert?). Luckily I had brought my flashlight this time and we managed to find the campsite.

The next day was pretty uneventful and everyone was at the wharf to catch the water taxi back to Picton. There was this guy from Connecticut, an engineer, who was talking to Malcolm about life in Wellington, what to look forward to, etc. Malcolm warned him that kiwis don't particularly care for Americans. "I'm not your stereotypical American" he informed us. Later on, he was also heard saying "Yeah, it's tough for us Americans, always having to police the world. We don't necessarily want to be doing that, you know."

I managed to get to the on-in of the Wellington Ladies Hash House Harriers and met a few people, including Ass Teaser from Edmonton H3. I also met W.E.N.D.Y. who told me all about tent errection parties at big hashing events. It's all about knowing your tent, man. You don't want to show up at an event, get drunk, then try to set up your tent, because there will be a crowd of onlookers, complete with lawn chairs and chilie bins, to laugh at you. It's considered even better if there is a familial/spousal argument included in your debaucle. Luckily for me, I know my tent like the back of my hand and I have already pitched it while intoxicated, in the middle of the night, without the help of a flashlight. I should be OK.

I may go and see Lord of the Rings again today, this time in Peter Jackson's own favourite theatre, where he himself tinkered with the sound to get it just so, the theatre where they will be having the world premiere for the last installement of LOTR next year.

So the weekend started out in style with the hash scribe *almost* being late for the Red Dress Run. But, then again, it's hard to be late for anything 'hash'.

After getting bussed into town, it was a pretty standard pub-pissstop-pub run type scenario, and included several conversations that I DO remember. As people were mostly sober, these are very dull and so I will spare you the details. Running Bear and Funnel of Gympie H3 did provide some entertainment with a hertfelt rendition of 'Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend' dressed in their matching Flamenco Floosies outfits complete with head dress. HEAD? WHO SAID HEAD? (ed. note: this passage was not heard once during the weekend, this NOT being an american hash group, and so its presence in the narrative is very welcome if not downright soothing.)

On the bus back, Running Bear impressed even further with a dozen or so verses of Eskimo Nell while standing in the aisle holding onto the side railing.

The ensuing festivities were quite adequate. Many forgot that you shouldn't really get too too pissed before the big Saturday r*n. Oh well. Thank goodness most tents were already set up.

The main thought r*nning around on Saturday morning was "Breakfast was at WHAT time!?!". That's right, 7am breakfast, and even the guy blasting his horn didn't wake everybody up. Still, most made it up in time for the departure of the busses. What do you mean I signed up for a ball-breaker r*n?.. 'No good can come of this'

So there went the silly canadian, clutching her newly received MUTTON DRAPES (!!!!), onto the r*n r*n. (as opposed to the walk r*n, or the walk walk). The morning went something like this: r*n, stop, barf, r*n, stop, barf, r*n, other means of transport, barf, boat/barf, hash circle, down down for other means of trasnport, etc etc.

I should mention that by this point Mutton Drapes had gained many admirers with dirty dirty minds. In the circle she was defiled as someone grasped her away from me and somehow impaled her on a flagpole end or some such thing. This was after the banana up her ass. I did manage to get her back though, and I will be looking into a chastity belt for her so that she can get through this holiday in kiwiland intact.

At this point it started raining so most people huddled under trees. Wellspread though this was a perfect opportunity to get dressed, and so she did. Gladdy/Show Us Your Coconuts might have wanted to as well, but since this was the 'tropicl island' and she was one of the bloody organisers, it wouldn't have been seemly. We would probably have had to toss her into the lake/ocean/river/whatever the hell that was.

Back at the venue, those still in shape enough hit the dice for another few rounds of MEXICAN, my new favourite game. (ed note: this will shortly be introduced to the Montreal gang for future international competitions/piss ups.) We were also subjected to another hash meal and then a band. The highlight of the evening came/arrived as MudFlap gave Orgy her stagnight lap dance. I had no idea corpulent people could move that way! Truly memorable.

Sunday morning -- breakfast reprise. Then it was the new Zealand hashes GM's meeting. Ass Teaser, EdmONtON H3 and I sneaked in anyway and were present as W.E.N.D.Y. was erected New Zealand GM for the next two years.

As though that weren't enough for the day, we were then corraled into another r*n. OK, OK, might as well r*n then. Things were going fine, and it was almost all over when up ahead we heard cries of "WASPS!". A little further up and yes, there they were the little buggers, frantically protecting the territory between the shrub and their tree. Did we stop? Did we try to go around the area? Did we display any desire for self-preservation? Of course not. We ran through the bastards and in turn the bastards obliged and stung us.

The remainder of the day went something like this: chapel service, NZGM's fine circle, or 'time for another game of Mexi'. This was because the new NZGM had been given some foul concoction by the outgoing GM and was making little or no sense. There was a hash wedding, Orgy and Snag being eternally united by the bonds of complete stupidity and lots of hard liquour. Mongo made the event more touching with selected readings from the Penthouse Favourites; "I Cum Home to Find that the Neighbour is Playing With Herself and the Next Day She Has a Friend Over", followed by "My Car Isn't R*nning Well, Can I Have a Lube Job?". Drinking games were next, with Snag, clothed in the requiste wedding gown, face down in the grass with a banana up his ass (envious of Mutton Drapes's freedom perhaps and acting out?). This set the stage for the down down competitions. The women's 1L was won/lost by BirdTable in approximately 12 seconds. This is even more impressive when you consider she is about 5' tall and weighs less than a large male german shepherd. Talk about a powerful suck. My own down down was still nothing to be scoffed at, finished in 20 seconds. The men's 2L was less of a competition and more of a spectacle. Throw up bin over here, please! Troll Up's barf/drink barf/drink barf/drink party trick was a real crowd pleaser. (ed note: wasn't that drink/barf drink/barf drink/barf?..)

There was some more stuff referred to as "food" and then it was the big hypnotist show, also known as a licence to make a complete ass of yourself. Must have been real powerful hypnotism judging by the looks of Mongo. He was out of it, and he was only in the audience.

There were apparently some hash acts as part of the evening, but I must have sneezed at that particular point, for I can only remember Enos asking me what I thought of his water noises thing.

The rest of the night is a blur of dice games ("In this game there are no winners"), Full Monty Hash, Mexi-Garden Chocolate Chip Chili Hash House Harriers, where you eat chocolate chips with salsa and drink schnapps after and before cramming yourself with 12 other people into a standard size watercloset in the women's bathroom, banner stealing (ed note: thanks to GateCrasher for the swiss army knife), and singing, all this well into the wee hours of the morning. Cheers to The Worm for his wonderful repertoire and keeping us going an extra couple of hours. New Favourites: The S&M Man, special mention to the "Who can take a blowtorch" verse, The Whore From Singapore, etc etc.

So then there came/arrived the Monday. Most people had their livers carted off seperately, IV carts in tow. Some were still way back into Sunday and others still had pissed off early. Lucky bastards.

But, Monday is a hashing day, so a group of Australians made their way back to RotoruaH3 for the Australia Day r*n. No stuffed wallabies or possums this year, but plenty of trash to go around. The highlight of this r*n came/arrived when the hare (a bloody aussie convict descendant) was given a boomerang. He promtly and unceremoniously threw the thing over the fence while falling back into a pile of broken glass. The boomerang quickly went out of sight and most definitely did not come back.

one guy getting 20+ chairs piled around him in a dome-like formation while he slept --> should get renamed "The Chairman"

the realisation that kiwis only have three songs on the jukebox (dirty old town, april sun in some tropical place -- not Tauranga--, and another one I can't remember)

Cheers to all the Kiwi hashers for their wonderful hashpitality, W.E.N.D.Y. and Short Planks in particular.

So finally I didn't go see LOTR again. I just shopped for a bikini instead. Lime green bikini. I was sooooo looking forward to wearing that on the beach at some point during the nash hash weekend. But that was not to be, as we shall see later.

I did get to wear it at Culture's place when W.E.N.D.Y., Moldie and I went over for a BBQ. Apparently a favourite activity here is to go over to Culture's, have some beer, eat some really good BBQ (prepared by somebody else), sit in the spa and phone up people to rub their faces in the fact that they are not sitting in a spa. RLD got the brunt of it and had to talk to all four of us.

With the big weekend coming up, I was making my way up to Tauranga, hanging out with hashers all the way.

The next day we went to the Blues, Brews and BBQs. Sort of like a combination beer and food festival with live music (or silly people who think they are clowns doing some stupid routine in the middle of the field with no microphone on). This is when I found out that beer and New Zealand sun do NOT mix well.

Still recuperating, W.E.N.D.Y. and I hit the road. We played several thrilling games of 'horse', most of which I won. (haha. who's gonna contradict me anyway!?)

Driving into Rotorua, the sulfuric smell greeted us softly. Ah, a place I know. Yes, yes, I have been here before...

Short Planks was kind enough to bring me into his home and let me pretend his dog, Clark, was my dog for a few days. Not only that, but he took me hashing that Monday, and took me to Cricket the following day. I think I finally understand SOMEthing about that singularly bizarre game. I *think*. Maybe.

Anyway, Friday rolled around and we were off for the big weekend to 'Tropical Tauranga'.

Ok, so we were lucky with the weather. (that's what they say here when it doesn't hail or there are no windstorms, no downpours). Still, it wasn't beach bunny time or anything. No lime green bikini.

I had lots of fun running around, and the weekend would have been perfect but for that one wasp who decided it was going to have a piece of my leg. As I was explaining to various people after, I have been stung by many things in my life, but none of them caused any of my body parts to lose their intrinsic shape. Let's face it, I didn't have an ankle anymore.

But, I should have known better than to mention it to anyone for they all told me to shut up and 'get hard', 'stop whinging', etc etc.

A day or so later I went to the pharmacy and the guy behind the counter basically told me I was stupid for not treating the sting earlier. I purchased some anti-histamines and some spray-on crap that turns white after it dries up. It's supposed to ease the itch, but I never noticed it working.

Well, all this ('this' includes the copious amounts of alcohol consumed) contributed to my feeling a few decades older than at the start of the 4-day weekend.

ANYway, I made myself a burden on Short Planks and his darling wife in Rotorua another couple of days before heading south. During this time, I was made an official (is there such a thing in the hash?) member of the RotoruaH3, and I started to notice that I was feeling quite homesick. Or maybe that was just sick.

Early on the Wednesday morning, Short Planks dropped me off at the bus station. I made it to the bench, and then I lay down for a little snooze -- 45 minutes sleep.

That's how my little game of 'Sarah the Narcoleptic' began. It kept on going on the bus, much to the dismay of Ike, the commenting bus driver. Once in Turangi, a lovely lovely spot with at least TWO gas stations!, I managed it all the way to the front of the caravan park, but there was a wonderfully peaceful looking tree there -- 30 minutes. Once at the office, I got my little tag and stumbled to the campground -- 45 minutes. I took out the tent bag and put up the inner -- 2 hours, one half in the inner, the left foot on the grass and the right foot on my liner. Very comfortable.

It went on like this for some time, until I had the tent completely set up with my gear completely strewn about the inside, and my teeth were brushed. I slept nearly 24 more hours only waking up periodically to take my anti-histamines.

But boy did I feel good after! And even though my ankle is mostly yellow and purple now, at least my leg has a shape again.

SO this is where I'm at. I should mention that this morning I reached into the drawer, grabbed a spoon and thought, wistfully, "This looks exactly like a spoon I have back home." Is this an indication that it is nearly time to go home?

I know, I know, what will you do without the NZ travelogue? Hie thee to the nearest bridge my friend. Still, one would hope that getting me back in person early could make up for it, at least in a small way.

And, also, I should point out that I would love to answer all the mails I've gotten lately, but internet here in lovely lovely Turangi, the townlet I chose for my nash hash convalescence, is about 10$ an hour, and I have been known to stare at the screen for half an hour at the time per email... so I'll get back in touch once back home.

Dispatch : Tuesday , February 25, 2003 3:29 AM

Yes, I'm back!

I've been back in balmy Montreal a few days now, feeling guiltier and guiltier by the day for not sharing what turned out to be one of the best episodes of my New Zealand trip.

I left you all in Turangi, recovering from the Nash Hash weekend. Well, it took a few days, but by Thursday evening I was not just a little bit bored. The next morning I went to the secondhand shop and looked for a book, a puzzle. I found a brand new copy of Don Quixote and a puzzle of the RCMP doing their famous carrousel. It was meant to be, obviously. Well, the puzzle anyway. I'm still struggling with the singular stupidity of Mr. Windmills and his dumber sidekick, Mr. Sancho "I want a kingdom" Pansa. You should read the book if you really want to know about that last bit, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend it.

I spent my last two days in Turangi hanging around the Mustardseed Cafe, the only place in town where you can get shishi froufrou coffee while listening to a selection of TWO CDs playing muzak/Ella and Louis/other jazz stuff. "Who chooses the music?", I asked the guy at the counter. He nodded in his co-worker's direction. Later, I asked him why he didn't suggest adding some more music to the rotation. The music itself was fine, but I had already heard the whole selection several times over since coming to this cafe and often at least once and a half in any given sitting. He told me he had suggested it, but, the boss is adamant. It's those two CDs and nothing else. Sort of like the Soup Nazi on Seinfeld, she was the coffee shop music nazi. Poor staff.

Apart from that little detail it was pretty good. Really good caramel/chocolate slices...

Monday rolled around and I packed up my tent, revealing a bald patch on the lawn. Had I really been there that long!? No matter, I was about to spend just as much time in Tongariro National Park doing the 'Round the Mountain track followed by the very popular Tongariro Crossing.

Starting out in Whakapapa (pronounced FA-ka-pa-pa, this became my favourite swear word: FAK!.. -apapa...), the first day took me across some pretty flat, barren-looking country. Most plants were knee-high, scraggly-like and tough. The soil was a variety of shades of orange, burnt sienna, crimson, sparkling chocolate and there were some amazing degrades worthy of the finest artists. All the while there was a great view of Mount Ruapehu, the mountain referred to in the "Round the Mountain" title. Ah yes, I guess it'll be a few more days of that, eh?

The first night was craziness, staying in the Great Walk hut at the intersection of the Northern Circuit track and my track. Mike the Overly Friendly Hut Warden was especially annoying, going on and on about how nobody ever knew how to play cribbage, and how he hadn't had a good game of cribbage since god knows when. The other occupants of the hut included a group of 15 american college students on a course. Their class of the evening consisted of Mike talking to them about the Park Ranger system in California, his home state. After that they all went for a 15 minute botanically-oriented walk, and then called it a day. The remaining hutters consisted of a Japanese couple and a group of Europeans (1 German, 2 Dutch, I Swiss-German, 1 Brit) who didn't invite me, or Mike for that matter, to play cards with them.

The next day was spent almost entirely in Rangipo desert. It was very neat, crossing "known lahar pathways", seeing the vastness of the land, seeing the mountain from a slightly different angle, suspension bridges, the heat of the sun on my sunscreened neck. Following a trail of little sticks up and down a landscape formed by the violence of Mount Ruapehu's multiple erruptions, you couldn't help but feel very small and insignificant. And there, in the seeming middle of nowhere, right behind a slight rock outcrop, was the hut.

Up on the hill behind the hut, I could see what looked to my eyes like a warm-coloured sarong floating partly in the wind. I could also hear some faint flute sounds. This should be interesting, I remember thinking.

Vera had left out all her books on the hut table, among them "Thus Spake Zarathustra", several books on Zen and meditation, a novel by Janet Frame, a kiwi author who apparently was misdiagnosed for many years as a manic depressive and who was put into an electroshock therapy programme and who now lives in Wanganui, the craphole town of the North Island. Turns out my Cali friend-to-be had already spent three days at that hut and hadn't met anybody else there. I hated to have to tell her that two other Dutch girls were headed our way. She left her books out just the same.

Later on, three speleologists from Australia showed up, just before we got swallowed up by the clouds. They had just finished two solid weeks caving at Waitomo and were throwing in a 'bonus' trip to this park to climb the famous Mount Ruapehu.

According to one of the hut logbook entries our centrepiece mountain was the one and only Mount Doom of Lord of the Rings fame. The entry went like this:

Name: Eddie

Country: England

Planned Itinerary: RTM - Mount Doom

Main Activity: Chasing Frodo, destroying the one ring, Botanising.

I never did meet Eddie. He was three days ahead of me.

Anyway, the Aussies were interesting in their own right. Two of them once went caving on the south island, planning their trip carefully and all, but unfortunately they did not go over EVERY SINGLE DETAIL of their planned trail. After having abseiled down 10 pegs, they tried to find their way out of the 14km cave, only to find that the water level in the part where the exit was marked on their map was much higher than anticipated. They camped out in the cave camping site for 3 days before the search party came to escort them out. They made Aussie news headlines.

The next morning, after watching Vera eat her breakfast of dried red bean flakes, soy chocolate spread and trailmix with coffee beans, I set out for another gorgeous day of walking.

I met Owen who begged me to rip out any Canadian pine trees if I saw any. "You're from Canada? Did you know that here, the Canadian pine is a NOXIOUS WEED!?" "You don't say. No, I had no idea." I also met a guy whose cologne preceeded him by several feet, and a gentleman well into his seventies named Harry who charmed me by proclaiming 'Sarah' a beautiful name.

That night I had the hut all to myself and admired the view -- Mount Ruapehu, of course -- till the sun went down. Then I watched the oranges melt into pinks and purples and deeper blues. Then the stars came out.

I had roughly two more days/nights of this, and then I was out, back into civilisation again. FAK! -- apapa.

Well, at least I was going to have a nice lunch at the coffee place in the village. Five days of peanut butter and jam, and macaroni and cheese (pb&j and mac'n'cheese for the well-acquainted) can get to even the hardiest of campers.

After that lovely panini and nachos with Coca Cola break, I was off to my last NZ hut experience. This hut was also part of the Great Walk Northern Circuit, so there were a few other people there, including The Loudest Man in the World. He was so loud and overpoweringly PRESENT, getting his nose into everybody else's 'bidness, I noticed half the other hut inhabitants were also taking refuge outside. The evening was looking pretty grim, not feeling up to socialising with the various groups already formed, I stuck to myself and looked forward to an early night and a real early morning (5:30am).

Just as I was heading towards the hut, I noticed a shaven-headed form huddled somewhere back of the still-camera-happy sunset watchers. Vera!?!?!

I am happy to report we stayed up really late catching up and annoyed the hell out of the Loudest Man in the World. She told me about meeting Mike the Overly Friendly Hut Warden, about her exit from the low-population Round the Mountain track onto the comparatively over-crowded Northern Circuit, how she freaked after seeing so many people after a week and a half in the empty RTM huts and sort of ran up to the hills clutching her 2-minute noodles, watching the others eating their fancy meals with actual vegetables and BOTTLES OF WINE, about how she got lost after having climbed to the top of Mount Ngarahoe, and all sorts of wonderful tales.

The next day I walked the Tongariro Crossing; I walked through volcanic craters, geothermal areas, past emerald lakes and down steep slopes of volcanic ash, past yet another Great Walk hut and all the way out to the Ketetahi carpark. The day was interesting for me and the several hundred other people doing the walk that day because of the VERY strong winds. Only after going down the ridge did the Aussie guy walking nearby tell me the story of the lady who fell off the trail the previous week. "Well, what happened to her?" "Oh, she died of course." Sometimes it's better NOT to know everything.

So after that it was just a question of getting from Turangi to Auckland and catching the plane.

I did manage to spend some time in Auckland, but also, on the last weekend I was lucky enough to be able to participate in a relay race around Lake Taupo with other members of the Rotorua H3. Boy was that fun. They don't stop traffic on the road for the hundreds of people participating. I guess it makes it easier to concentrate when the MAC trucks are whizzing by you.

On the way home I got to spend one night in Kowloon, Hong Kong. I spent most of the next morning/early afternoon eating food and feeling bad because I didn't know where/how/what to shop. It's frustrating to know that you're sitting on a goldmine but don't know what to do about it. Oh well. Will have to go back.

Next time though I would almost seriously consider dishing out for first or business class. You know it'll be bad when you count at least 7 kids under the age of 10 in your 6-seat square area...

On the bright side, this time around we didn't have to go to Anchorage, so the trip only lasted 15 hours. Also, I got onto an earlier flight from Toronto to Montreal.

So it's been a pretty amazing vacation. I have a tan, I know what a "panelbeater" is, I could probably bullshit my way through a basic conversation about cricket, I made some wonderful new friends, I got fit, I now possess Mutton Drapes, I saw a kiwi, I have come to truly appreciate the kitchen and laundry room in my home, I have a new sense of what is possible and I can't wait to do this all over again!!!!!!!

So it looks like perhaps South America is up next. Any takers???

Caroline?

Till then, On On and happy trails!

Sarah

PS: attached are two pictures from the last walk in Tongariro