You really got to love the kiwis. Went out for a drink night with the girl i got a lift with today and since everything was closed and the town was even more like a ghost-town than usual we ended up in a locals bar. Twas quite the unnerving experience. Was like a mix between an under-age disco and a 60th birthday party. There really is not a lot for people around here to do so they seem to make up for it with alcohol. Stayed around for a while as there was a live band playing. In the end though we got bought drink not once but twice by random locals who came over talking to us, i guess we just did not look that much like the locals, lack of gills probably. Hurrah anyway.

The H.P. Lovecraft Diaries

So i just arrived in a charming little town called Greymouth. And when i say charming i am actually being sarcastic. Its a little fishing town that seen better days and is as dreary as its name. I keep expecting fishy looking people to crawl out of the sea, something which very well may happen tonight as there is a storm expected, 130km winds and shit. Was a nice enough drive up here, going through rainforest and then by the coast.

"It was a town of wide extent and dense construction, yet one with a portentous dearth of visible life. From the tangle of chimney-pots scarcely a wisp of smoke came, and the three tall steeples loomed stark and unpainted against the seaward horizon. One of them was crumbling down at the top, and in that and another there were only black gaping holes where clock-dials should have been. The vast huddle of sagging gambrel roofs and peaked gables conveyed with offensive clearness the idea of wormy decay, and as we approached along the now descending road I could see that many roofs had wholly caved in. There were some large square Georgian houses, too, with hipped roofs, cupolas, and railed "widow's walks". These were mostly well back from the water, and one or two seemed to be in moderately sound condition....

The decay was worst close to the waterfront, though in its very midst I could spy the white belfry of a fairly well-preserved brick structure which looked like a small factory. The harbour, long clogged with sand, was enclosed by an ancient stone breakwater....

Here and there the ruins of wharves jutted out from the shore to end in indeterminate rottenness, those farthest south seeming the most decayed. And far out to sea, despite a high tide, I glimpsed a long, black line scarcely rising above the water yet carrying a suggestion of odd latent malignancy. This, I knew, must be Devil's Reef. "

Paul: The Glacier Climber

Alright so i decided to spice things up and see if i could put a few photos up here. Just back form a glacier walk. Took eight hours in total but i am actually pretty happy with how little it tired me out, all my tramping around must be paying off. So the glacier was pretty sweet, it was pretty slow going as our guide was cutting and cleaning a lot of the steps as we went. The glacier itself is one of the fastest around, moving at a blinding 35 cm a day, in some places it moved nearly a metre a day, amazing stuff. Got talking to our guide and it seems like such a sweet job, Pa you should do it. Get up and spend your entire day outside trekking up and down a glacier either leading a group or exploring yourself trying to find new ravines or caves. Once i finish here i am heading straight backt o the hostel for a whiel to chillax in the hot-tub with a beer, mmmmmm.

Tomorrow i think i will perhaps be just going a few miles up the coast to a lagoon where there is lots of kayaking to be done, hope the mosquitos are asleep. The next day i have already organised a lift with one of the girls from the hostel so that is all good. Will spend another week or so travelling up the coast and when i reach the top of the island around Nelson or Blenheim i will try and get me a job fruit-picking or pruning or something. Correct me if i am wrong Amanda but i think Nelson is one of the sunniest places in NZ, over 300 days of sun a year, huzzah.

I will put up more on Bebo some time in the future, its still slow putting them up from this computer.

I am like Dr Jack i am.

So i finally arrived here in Franz Joseph after a 4 hour road trip. When i got off the internet last night and went backt o the hostel i overheard this couple talking about this place so i casually entered the conversation and voila, i got me a lift the whole way up here.

So this place is really 'Lost' territory. Really high steep mountains covered in trees and bits of cloud and mist foating through the valleys. There is a big glacier up the valley a bit so i will go and do a hike on that tomorrow or the next day. After that i dont know what to do, i am completely at a loss with regards to plans and to be honest i am loving it. If i could get a job cleaning i might stay here for maybe a week, otherwise i will just move on. Louise was on to me there and she should be in Australia now actually, she will be calling over for a short visit some time in the next three months, god only knows where i will be, prelemenary plan in Wellington in 5/6 weeks-ish, maybe. It all depends on money to be honest, i will keep moving while i have the funds to do so but will have ot stop here and there to make enough to survive on.

One bad thing about living in the middle of a rain-forest at the minute is the emergence of little biting insects. Some of ye might remember my posts from Maine http://hallofthegreenman.blogspot.com/2005/07/mustkeepcontrol.html when i was plagued by mosquitos. It turns out that hre West Coast is also well known for its horrible biting little shits. I have 4 bites at the minutes, all from different insects; one big swollen one with a blood dot in the middle, one little red one, one that looks like a spot but is itchy like crazy and another one like a big bump. I think my blood must just taste too good. Going down to the pharmacy now to try and buy some drugs, blessed blessed drugs.

Hitch-Hikers Guide

SO i did not quite make it the whole way to my destination today. Started hitching around 11 in the morning after i finished all my little jobs in Queenstown and said goodbye to everybody. Was not waiting that long for most places but at one stage i was dropped off on this small little road and ended up walking around 4km with my huge backpack. Eventually this little old woman stops and gives me a life, which i found surprising cuz women travelling on their own rarely stop, especially elderly ones. So all in all i managed 120km today, walked around 10km of it, but come 3 o clock i still had around 200 left. Was standing at one place getting bitten by insects for an hour and a half until 5 o clock and i decided to call it a day. Got a lift 20km back the way i came and am now staying in a town called Wanaka. Will get out of here early in the morning and try to get the morning rush. My poor shoulders are killing me.

I am all packed up and ready to go. Will be a bit of a relief to get out of Queenstown, getting a bit of cabin fever here. The scottish girls did not have room in their car for all our gear so i will head off tomorrow and start hitching. Lets hope it does not rain.

Packing is getting easier and easier, its not even that i am losing my stuff as much as i used to, i am instead just realising that i dont need half the cloths i brought with me. My motto at the minute, dont get attached to anything. Had to get rid of all the music on my Mp3 player as well there over the weekend, wanted to add some new stuff onto it but had to format it first, since i was adding 5000 new ones i thought it would not be much of a sacrifice to get rid of the 2000 already on it. So between all the music i have been listening to since i arrived, my jade pendant and all the cloths i have lost i think i am ready to give up on all the material possessions. Dont really have anything with me anymore that is of sentimental or monetary value, well bar camera and Mp3 player of course, but they can be replaced easy.

my poor tummy hurts and my neck is uncharacteristicly lighter

So had my last Saturday in Queenstown yesterday and a fun day was had by all. Around 20 of us went bowling during the afternoon and i owned everyone. My bowling skills flucuate madly but i was kicking bum, got 3 strikes and 2 spares. After we finished that a few of us went back to the hostel and got in the hot-tub for a few hours. Had a floating table in the middle of it and were just drinking from 6 til 9. After that we all went and played drinking games for more several hours before heading into town. There was some match on but just kind of ignored it. So the night was going really really well til, while playing the fun 'put an ice cube down the top" game ,some wench managed to tear off the leather strap that my jade neck thing was attached to. Queue lots of looking around but to no avail, will have to go down to the bar again today and see if it was found during clean-up. Well that put a dampener on the night and i only stayed out a wee while longer but all in all, bar that horrid incidence, a very good way to spend my last Saturday in Q-town.

I was supposed to do the Canyon Swing and bungee jumps this weekend but i am really just not in the mood, they cost a lot of money and interfere with my timetable. There are three scottish girls driving up the coast tomorrow and i asked them for a lift i dont know if its definite yet. Was going to hitch but its like hitching from Cork to Belfast, will have to make it a few days.

Queenstown Queenstown, goodbye

The problem with writing these posts is that i forget what i have and have not said before, even as i write that sentence i am wondering if i have said all this before.

Anyhow i have made a decision and i am going to leave Queenstown. I have been here pretty much since the end of June and i think its time for a change. I am giving up on the snowboarding and if i wanted to disappoint myself i could look back on it and say it was a waste. It did have its plus points however, had a good laugh when Anna and Robbie called over to visit; went snowboarding with some cool people a few times; my last month in Bungi Backpackers have been a lot of fun and of course there was the sky-diving and the soon to be done bungi-jumping. Also if i did not come here for an entire season then i would not have gottent he chance to go to Dunedin as much and have a good a time as i did there.

So i have packed up my expensive winter gear to send home and donated all my cheap shit to the Salvation Army. My board is in being repaired but i think i will just leave that with them, dont want to pay for it and then dump it. My boots i will try and sell for some bit of money, not a profit by any means but hopefully enough. If all goes to plan i should be out of here by Monday or Tuesday so heres loking forward to that.

Poo

ARGHHHHHHH!!!!

Just found out the Robert Jordan died yesterday. He was the author of a series of books that i have been following for years, The Wheel of Time ones. The 12th and last one was due out 2009, lets hope his wife finished it.

http://www.dragonmount.com/RobertJordan/

apathy

Was going to write a longer post but could not be bothered today. Back in QUeenstown, not much snow so will have to reevaluate what i'm doing here

1 Day in Christchurch

Have to admit that i was a little underwhelmed by Snow Patrol's concert last night. Arrived halfway through the secong support band The Op SHop which were alright. The venue itself was pretty shit, a big kind of convention centre with a stupidly high roof and no atjmosphere, the bands looked dwarfed up at the top of it. THey played all their hits but hjalfway through i realised why i like Snow Patrol but cant listen to them for very long, all their songs sound similiar. There were a few times throughout the night whwn i was sure that they had played a song for the second time but it turned out that it was just another clone, there was one about 'Shut your Eyes' and then another one later about "Open your Eyes", i mean they were good enough to sing along to but at the end i was not clapping very much for an encore, which i am almost sure was just one of their songs repeated. Parhaps i did not enjoy it as much as i was very very tired. Had a good last nihgt in Dunedin but did not get a lot of sleep before we had to drive up to Christchurch, a drive that took 5 hours. There was just myself and one girl who were driving up so i had to stayt awake to keep her awake. Today was nice though, there was actually a good bit of heat in the sun so a group of us spent the day in the botanical gardens, leaving only to get some lunch and the Sunday newspapers. Three of us ewven had a nap for an hour or two down by the river, sleepy days.

Click on the Picture for it to enlarge

So everytime i actually talk to any of ye, no-one seems to know where i am talking about and i have to re-tell so hopefully with the aid of this equisitly crafted map ye will have a better idea of which i speak. I spell good and stuff.

So got talking to this random Irish guy from Westmeath this morning. He is around my age and turns out that he spent most of his childood summers down in Fanore, just down from our caravan. Small world ehh.

You know, i try and not make my blog just about 'What i Did Today" but to be perfectly honest, most of the time that is all i do with this. Any of ye that have blogs know how tough it is to actually try and think of something to say once you sit in front of the screen and the effort involved in thinking of pertinant current affairs opinion things to write about is just too much. I do think however that maybe i will start trying to write smaller more regular posts, in the style of Sarah in her hey-day. When i read back through my blog, something that is fun but someimes cringing, i think my best posts were in Maine, when i would actually go to the bother of putting in pictures and stuff. Appearantly you can embed videos into the blogs now so how cool would it be if i started a video blog? You could see me hum and haw for an hour while i try and think of something to say. fun times

In Which Paul Rants about Nicholas Cage

Good god i wish i could go back in time and get that 90 minutes of life back. Went to go to the movies there, was originally going to see The Tattooist but a fe of the people i was with had heard bad things about it so we decided that a Nick Cage action movie might be alright. How wrong we were. The pile of shit is about NC or TW for TwatHead as a stage magician who can actually see 2 minutes into the future. All in all its a crock of shite. God i spent the entire time thinking how much i hate Nicholas Ever-Retreating-Hairline-And-Really-Unrealistic-Brown-Hair Cage. He gets with Jessica Biel in the film, i mean i was actually squirming watching it as he is obviously old enough to be her father, and definately looks it. It says a lot about a movie when Jessica Biel is the best actor in it. what a pile of shit. I hate TW and his mumbling sothern shitty drawl. I wont even tell you what it was called, just dont ever go see a TW movie again

So my plan for the next month has been thrown a little askew. I am not working this week. The job i was on finished and yourman was being very unefficient at getting us a new one, like he would ring early on morning we were supposed to e working to say the job is not on, or else on days off we would get a call at 6:45 saying that there is work for us that day. So i have worked 17 days and made a bit of money for the next while so hopefully that will be good. I had also planned to go to Dunedin this Friday but am onw thinking of just going tomorrow.

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, now sure yet, there was a huge snow dump last night and one if the guys i have been hanging aorund with, Emmerson, asked if want to stay for the weekend and go snowboarding. Dont think i will though, will trust that there will still be snow when i come back from Christchurch on the 16th.

Speaking of leaving and coming back, said goodbye to several people that were leaving the hostel today. Have been hanging around with them for the last month and they were the ones i went on my weekend trips and hikes with. I have written about this before during my stay in Dunedin but to be honest i think it will be a constant theme in my stay here. I was talking to Sarah about this on MSN just this morning and what she said is true, you have to get to know people very quickly over here and then just as quickly they are gone forever. ITs very emotionally draining but i think unavoidable, the only alternative is to become a recluse which is not fun either.

I am not too bad, Emmerson is still around for 2 months, as is Makoto the Japanese lad. I am looking forward to leaving Queenstown though, just have t do my bungee jumps and that is everything i want to do here done.

ON a completely different note, i am thinking of getting my hair cut. Have put up a poll on my bebo site to see which one people think looks better. DO IT!





So am talking at this very minute to Joan and Sarah on MSN.