Thursday, May 10, 2012

When one door closes...

After 4 nights in Queenstown, it was time to move on.  It would have been cool to go further south and check out Invercargill, Stewart Island, and the Caitlins, but I didn't have enough motivation or money to plan all that out or willingly travel to colder temperatures, so I decided to continue on the Magic route to Dunedin with plans to explore the Otago Peninsula.

Somewhere in the past week, I managed to catch a cold.  Last night my muscles were aching and my throat felt like it had a knife lodged halfway down, so I went to sleep instead of packing up my bag.  This morning, I couldn't make myself get up, and slept in an extra hour, leaving me with 45 minutes to pack, eat breakfast, and walk a block over to the pick up stop.  It should have been no problem.  The bus was set to leave at 7:45.  At 7:40, I was just about ready to leave. At 7:47, I made it out of the hostel. I wasn't too worried because the Magic Bus is always late.  At 7:49, I watched it drive past me.

Fuck.

I was oddly calm, and even entertained by my complete uselessness.  I stood on the main street and contemplated my options.  I was locked out of the hostel, and reception wouldn't get there for another 2 hours.  The Magic Bus wouldn't come back for 2 days, and I was done with Queenstown anyways.  I could call Intercity (similar to Greyhound), but..

In the past few months the romance of hitchiking in New Zealand has grown ever more appealing.  So I started to walk along the road out of town.

My first ride took me from Queenstown out to the traffic circle past all the suburbs, which gave me a better chance of hooking up with a driver who was actually leaving the city.  He was a fellow traveller on a working holiday visa who got sucked into the black-hole appeal of Queenstown and luckily found a job working out at the airport.

From the traffic circle, I was picked up by a businessman from Christchurch who had been doing work in Queenstown, and was heading to Wanaka for a final meeting before returning home.  We chatted mostly chatted about his kids, who are all my age and in various stages of 'leaving the nest'.  He also told me I had to see a rugby game before I left the country, and that conveniently there will be one on Saturday in Dunedin.  He dropped me off in Cromwell.

My third and favourite ride was a 68 year old from Dunedin named Richard who worked for the rural school board union in Otago.  He was visiting the schools along the highway between Cromwell and Dunedin.  He said he hitchhiked across the country when he was 20, and always picks up hitchers to pay his dues.  At one point he pulled over to a rest stop and said, "We're going to stop here because I have to pee. Please don't be anxious."  I laughed.  Something about his fancy new car, grey hair, jazz music, and purple/pink/yellow flowered tie made me trust him completely.

Richard had to stop over in Roxburgh to visit a school, but he told me if I hadn't found a ride in half an hour he would pick me up again.  But he didn't need to, as Carol from Clyde was on her way to Dunedin to see the "Menopause the Musical".  She enjoyed picking up hitchhikers to bring the world to her since she didn't have the money to see the world.  It was fun to hear her life story.  She was born in Clyde, and stayed there her whole life.  Her kids moved to other parts of the country for a while, but they came back as there is apparently something appealing about the town that Carol couldn't name.  She is heavily involved in the community, and I found her passion for it really cool as I really don't have that kind of attachment to Edmonton.

Carol was stopping over to visit her aunt just outside of Dunedin, so she dropped me off in a suburb so I could pick up a ride for the last 20km to city centre.  Within 5 minutes, I saw three different police cars drive by.  Hitchhiking isn't illegal in New Zealand, but I wasn't about to put my thumb out for them.  Right after the third car drove by, a truck pulled over.  Turns out the truck was an unmarked police vehicle who was a part of the police car caravan.  The police man moved over a police vest and police files into the back seat, and I hopped into the cab not entirely sure if I was being arrested or just getting a ride.  Turns out a group of them had gone out to do some police dog training outside the city.  The puppy was in the back of the covered truck.  It took me a few minutes to calm down, considering I was surrounded by police gear like a flashlight/baton, buttons for sirens, and a police radio, but he was just a friendly guy who radio-ed in that he was picking up a hitcher and would be a few minutes late.  He gave me some suggestions for things to do in the city, dropped me off in the Octagon (which is the very centre of town) and wished me luck.  I love this country.

In the end, I didn't have to wait more than 10 minutes for a ride at any point.  And when I got to my hostel, I told the receptionist how cool my morning was and she said that people off the Magic Bus had been checked in minutes earlier.  So I didn't waste any time, and have a memory that will last a lot longer than "that one time I took the Magic Bus again."

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