One half of a chain on Stewart Island, the other in Bluff, the southernmost part of the South Island
For some reason, the rude driver wasn’t the only thing bothering me. The weather was dreary and the “scenic” route to the Catlins was nothing more than grassy fields. The Catlins weren’t too spectacular either, with the exception of Nugget Point which happened to be the only sunny part of our day. It had been a while since I had seen the Pacific Ocean, but it was just as blue and wet as I left it.
I got back on the bus and was still sour. It wasn’t that I was tired of traveling. It wasn’t that I was homesick. It wasn’t that I wanted a lazy day. I eventually figured out that I was bored of the Stray bus. I didn’t come to New Zealand to take a bus tour, and I have always considered buying the ticket a compromise of my entire concept for this trip, no matter how handy it has been.
Nugget Point
Boiled down, I realized that I was tired of having predictable days sitting on a bus. I came to New Zealand for adventure, not to be shuttled around like cattle. I needed to be stranded in a wet tent again. I needed to be out of water in the middle of a sand dune. I needed to put away the camera and find myself outside of my comfort zone.
And there was one thing that could do the trick: a little bit of hitchhiking. I’d already decided to thumb my way back to Queenstown to do the Routeburn track, so I figured I’d find my adventure the next day.
Stray took us to our pre-arranged hostel in Dunedin safely and on-time. Boring.
Dunedin seemed nice but I couldn’t seem to find any citizens in the city, even though it is the second largest city on the South Island. Everybody was out celebrating their summer holidays. Dunedin in a college town with the country’s oldest university – The University of Otago. Walking through the ghost town campus and surrounding streets I was reminded of Columbia. The pizza and sandwhich shops. The liquor stores. The notice boards advertising crappy bands. And darn it all – it actually made me miss Columbia a little bit.
The next morning I was on the street with my thumb out, looking for a ride to anywhere closer to Queenstown. This was everything I was looking for: something unpredictable, something unplanned, and something that could leave me in a predicament.
Not ten minutes into hitching, I was in a white car heading south with a student from the university. She was nice to talk to – a change from the “I’m from the USA traveling for three months and I’ve done X, Y, and Z” conversation I’ve had a zillion times. An hour later our paths parted and I was standing outside Milton with my thumb in the air. I figured Dunedin was a large city, so easy to hitchhike out of. Milton, however, is a small town with no major highway leading directly to Queenstown. Now it’d be challenging.
Not ten minutes later was I in a car with a married couple from Dunedin heading directly to Queenstown. I was there in a couple of hours and back at Aspen Lodge – my home in Qtown.
It certainly wasn’t as adventurous as I hoped, but I enjoyed it much more than the previous day. So far, things have run a little too smoothly on this trip to be the “spontaneous New Zealand adventure” I originally planned. Little did I know that this would all change the next day…
