Wise Lesson From a Fellow Traveler

Neill and I meet a 50 y.o. Floridian woman has been travelling around the world for over 10 years, so Neill asks her, "What is one thing travelling has taught you?" She replies, "Letting go." I never got her name, but I will remember what she said for the rest of my life.

After our Thanksgiving in Nelson, we drove down to Christchurch for the weekend and visited the zoo (take note Jon and Tim!) so I could see the infamous Kiwi, and went to a rather cheesy Christmas music festival where nearly half the population of the south island attended. Any of you who have seen Monty Python's Meaning of Life and remember the scene when they sing, "It's Christmas in Heavan Every Day" will have an idea of what this festival was like. Neill and I also went clubbing with our new friend, Timo, a German who lives in Christchurch that we happen to meet in Queenstown. He speaks phenomenal English, and with a kiwi accent! He took us to a club called The Holy Grail. I go into the bathroom and see a woman there inspecting the deep scratches on her chest. "What happened?" I ask. She replies, "Oh, I got into a fight with some girl on the dance floor. You should see her, though." I exit the bathroom to witness the police escorting a bunch of people out. Rough place, but I had fun dancing with Timo and all his friends, especially lovely Rochelle. It was her 28th birthday that night.

We took the ferry from Picton to Wellington where Neill and I met the wise Floridian traveler, czeched out the Te Papa museum, and became honorary pilots of Fly By Wire. For those of you who don't believe me, I have a video to prove how I learned how to fly a jet propelled rocket!

We had to hash, as well, seeing as Wellington had a bid for the 2004 Interhash. Neill and I ran with the men's hash on Monday, and the Port Nicholson Hash on Tuesday. I made friends with a very friendly 13 year old hasher, Tax Man's Daughter, who had never talked with an American before. How cool is that? Thanks for the t-shirt TMD!

After Wellington, we drove up to Napier for a night, stayed at a hostel run by an American from San Diego, partied with the numerous German backpackers at an Irish pub that night (Neill talked German with them for over 3 hours!), then drove up to Te Aroroa to see the sunrise at East Cape, the most easterly point in the southern hemisphere. Neill and I cracked ourselves up by pointing out the most easterly cow pie in the southern hemisphere, damaged the muffler on the Moon Unit driving on the most easterly dirt road in the southern hemisphere, and got zapped crossing over the most easterly electric fence in the southern hemisphere. The sunrise was pretty spectacular though. We were the first to see the sun rise in the world on Dec. 6th, 2002!

After East Cape, we drove on to Rotorua, and stayed with my hasher friends, Norma and Roger. I met and chatted with them for, maybe, 20 minutes on the yellow dress run 3 months ago in Goa, India. Norma emails me and invites me to stay with her when I'm in town. So here we are! She's an ER nurse, so I'm filling up my brain with the knowledge from her nursing journals. Who knew I'd be starving for that stuff?

In Rotorua I just had to czech out the Waitomo Caves, famous for their glowworm displays. We rapelled down 30 meters to the cave entrance, blackwater rafted down the river inside the cave, and then got to rock climb out. The glowworms look like tiny blue stars on the cave ceiling. I spent some time pointing out all the constellations to Neill. It took awhile, as they kept moving around. Of course, no one was amused but me. Norma also took us to many of the hot springs here, and we got to swim and soak in a hot river, warmed by a nearby thermal pool. Rotorua is built on the edge of an old volcano, so there are tons of hot springs and mud pools. She said some people build their house, then have to move it because of thermal jets that suddenly appear under the house! The mud pools smell of sulphur and bubble just like the Bog of Eternal Stench from the movie Labrynth, with David Bowie.

We're off to Auckland next, to stay with our friend Rod (Goldfinger), a hasher we traveled around Rajistahan with. Hope all my family and friends on the East coast of the US are surviving the snow storms.

Love you all and miss you!
Carla