"Fatties should keep well away"

Thank you Laura for typing this up. So I sent my parents christmas presents and the wrapping was pictures of new zealand, and some of the packing material was scrunched up newspaper articles that I found on the coffee table where I was living on Ohakune. I knew my mom would read some of these, and I knew she would find nuggets of information that would describe new zealand in ways I never could. That is exactly what happened. I somehow also knew that anything worth reading would come back to me, which it did. Well my mom shared it with Laura, and Laura shared it with me, so here it is. Trips in Doubtful sound have been going AWESOME. Will post pictures soon. This excerpt from a letter to the editor describes the Kiwi mentality to a T. If you don't like honesty, stay out of New Zealand. If you're fat, then don't bother either.

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Last week on TV One's Close Up, the main item was about an immigrant with type-2 diabetes being denied entry. A professional medical assessment said that the woman in question would cost the country 25 000 a year for up to four years. She'd already lost about 30kg, allegedly ate only healthy food and her husband was a chef. To be blunt and totally politically incorrect, we don't want any more fat people in this country, given already strained medical services thanks to the complications of fat people and their lifestyles. It costs a lot of our hard-earned tax money to help these fat people try to life a normal life. No one forces them to eat and live a lazy life. Why should we put up with the same old excuses? They should be ashamed, eat less and exercise, and blame no one but themselves. Slimmer people live happier and healthier lives. The global scourge of diabetes is stoppable or at least solvable, so I agree with our immigration service- if people are fat and a health risk, they should stay away from New Zealand.

dropping in

Another entry. . . in 2 days. I'm catching up to myself.
Here are some shots of the rafting extravaganza. The first on is of us doing the drop, and the other one is of us trying to stay in a surf at the base of a falls. . . I will post some passages here. Deb, sorry, you already read this, but I thought after I wrote it that it really sums things up here for me in a lot of ways, and time is money on these stupid machines, so why not be economical and share? So here is a fragment of an email to Deb. . .

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I am really enjoying working here, however I'm nervous about my transition and what, if anything I'll find in Manapouri. Totally normal fear I think, and probably unfounded, but it's just that I was just really getting some good friends when I left Ohakune. It was a really small town though with a lot of small town politics that I won't miss. Also I wouldn't have made enough to get out of NZ there, and vietnam is still in the cards after all, so off to Manapouri it is. Anyway I do like the kiwi insights of working here, and it makes doing things really cheap. So far I've paid for the bungy jump and everything else has been free through interviews or favours, which is awesome. That's a trend I hope to continue on the south island, hopefully here in Queenstown (fingers crossed). Oh there was the other day when we snuck into the thermal wonderland outside Rotorua, but that was out of principle. How could they charge us to see something natural? In the words of Bill Bryson, "Well, honestly." The best part was we had to sneak up a stinky thermal creek to get in. When locals talk to me I just laugh my ass off, not at them, with them, but I'm still laughing. The amount of times I've heard "Fucking Canadians" is countless. One of them will say it and whoever else isn't canadian will join in. It's great. Every friendship I had for the first five or so started the same way. 1) Establish where I'm from 2)Talk about how Canada and NZ are the same because we both live next to assholes 3) make fun of Americans for a bit 4) make fun of Australians for a bit 5) talk about ignorance and stereotypes 6) become the best of friends. And no the irony of 4 and five coming right before 6 does not escape me, but it may have escaped the kiwis, not sure. the best par though is forming my own stereotypes, because I feel like they're true if I make them up. For example, if you want to confuse the shit out of a Kiwi, and get the same reaction every single time, do this: Get a piece of bread, put peanut butter on it. Then take some jam, and put that on the peanut butter. If they haven't said anything yet, look at their face. They will have stopped making their sandwich and will now be looking at yours. At this point their face will be the picture of thinly veiled disgust, but trying to remain civil, as Kiwis do in these situations, the subject will say "Jem on paynut butta, ay." It's always the same tone of voice too, I love this. the last time this happened I was standing next to a guy from vancouver who was friends with the kiwi family we were on trip with, and we would rip into them together in alternation with their rippings into us. After I made the sandwich and Grant, the kiwi delivered the line (he's a waitangi treaty lawyer, but not Maori: awesome). I said, "this is standard trip fare in north america, we always eat this." Reidar (Canadian) chimes in "do you know what someone tried to feed me the other day? A peanut butter sandwich with cracked pepper and tomato"
"Here?"
"Yeah, here"
"Jesus"
Grant adds "well there's nothing inherently wrong with savoury things on peanut butter, such as cracked pepper and tomato, but Jam. . ."

And round and round we go.

**

Mike, a british bloke, and myself were pretending we were in the war the whole time we were sneaking in to this place, up to our tits in eggy murky water in a little creek filled with sticks and branches. The whole thing was about 2 metres wide and in a little valley covered in tree ferns and manuka, which is tea tree. When it was faster to get on land we had to scramble because the river banks were deep mud which was thermal, so if you sunk in for more than 1 second you'd get a burn, so it was a matter of grabbing branches to scoot out and help the other guy up. We giggled and giggled. Next thing we knew we were next to the path and we were ducking, shirts on our heads and the rest of us covered in dirt and grit stuck to us by eggy water. People were no more than 2 metres away walking past oblivious to the two sketchy guys in the bush. When there was a gap in traffic we broke through one at a time and got dressed quickly. We enjoyed our time at the Wai O Tapu thermal wonderland, thank you very much, and it was all for free. I bought some sweet shirts on the way out for about the price of the entry fee. . . Just thought I'd share that anectode. The first shot is mike trying to keep his shirt dry, and the second is of a source of the evil egginess. After this was done we swam where the cold creek meets the hot thermal creek, and you can sort of puddle around till you find the temperature you like. I let the water get in my nose before reading the sign with the skull and crossbones next to the swimming hole that very specifically stated not to put your head under for the reason that the water was rampant with "amoebal meningitis" which is lethal, and can invade the system through the nose. . . fuck. If you don't hear from me for another month you'll know why. I feel fine so far and that was like 3 days ago though, so I haven't lost any sleep over it.

You killed my cat/possum/sheep/goat/dignity

Ok so this is literally a month behind but fuck it. Much has happened. I haven't uoploaded partly cause the computer sucks where I was living, but I'm out iof there now. Also I was really busy, and also I was afraid to give boring updates, not that things have been boring. Instead anecdotes will do. I am back on the south island, just landed today and passing through Queenstown on my way to the fiords. I like Kiwis. I like how their schools are lax with the rules. I had a teacher from Namibia on one of my trips who told the kids to call one of the south african boys a Trassi. That's Afrikaans for "Transvestite". Also the fact that the teachers just giggled when the kids would say Maori words as an excuse to swear. For example "what the WHAKapapa where you thinking?" or "How the WHAKAhoro are going to do that?" See in Te Reo Maori (the Maori language) wh is pronounced 'f'. So that was funny. I also like when they went "SHITtake mushrooms!". After that point I figured it was okay to tell the story about how I told Evan DeBoekhorst not to be such a dickfor on one of my trips. We had Evan so confused that after a few minutes he was yelling "WHAT THE FUCK IS A DICK FOR!?" at the sky. That's when it clicked. Instead of being embarassed he thought it was the funniest joke ever and kept reporting back to me and Mike Pope every time he'd nailed another one of the kids with it. Well the Kiwi boys loved it, including old Earl, the salmon-coloured tight wearing old man teacher who looked like the sargeant from full metal jacket. The boys and the teacher thought it was gold. Kiwis like to tackle or shoot land dwelling mammals, because all of them were introduced here. There is a national obsession with hating things that are introduced, plant and animal alike, even if it's beautiful or not that harmful. Every time you mention a mammal they say "Yeah, the last one was shot in" [insert date and story here] or, "yeah, you can shoot those." I saw a plaque for a bird the other day that was explained as having introduced itself from Australia. Introduced itself? Is there any other way to show up somewhere other than straight up evolving there?

Well since there are SO many ferrell goats around the banks of the Whanganui river, it's a natural kiwi instinct to try to tackle them. You don't have to tell them (kids or adults, guides or clients) to do it. They'll naturally chase them up the river bank and tackle them. It's universally understood that mammals not fenced in (or sometimes even fenced in) are to be tackled. The kids on my last trip caught a baby goat, and the most priceless moment was when they were trying to decide on a name. Earl piped up from the stern of his canoe and proffered: "How about Dickfor?" So there's a goat in some kid's backyard ('garden' in NZ) named Dickfor, at the reccommendation of his high school teacher, who is in his 60's.

Another story. A good friend of mine here, named Dazza is full of stories. a coupleI loved:

From the point of view of Dazza, who's a real back country Kiwi cowboy type.

So a mate of mine had a neighbour with this pet rabbit. One day he comes home from work and finds the cat playing with the neighbour's dead rabbit in his yard. The rabbit is covered in blood and mud and is for all intents and purposes mangled. My mate thinks "Ah fuck" and tries to work out how he's going to break it to him. He decides he'd rather not so he grabs the rabbit from the cat and takes it to the sink. He washes it and shampoos it untill it's clean and fluffy and not covered in blood anymore. My mate hops the fence and puts the rabbit back in it's cage and thinks "Job's a good 'un". Next day the neighbour's like "Dude! You're not going to believe this! It's a fuckin miracle ay! The other day Lily's rabbit died and we buried it in the garden, this morning I found the thing dead in its cage!"

One more

A mate of mine is a builder, ay. One day as he's driving home from work a cat leaps out in front of his car, and he just canes it. He gets out to see the damage. He sees this cat lying in the gutter, still alive. Being a builder he gets a spade from the trunk and decides to put it out of its misery. He goes up to this cat in the gutter and starts beating the tar out of it, and the lady that owns it comes running out of her house. "Stop! you're killing my cat! Stop it!" She will not listen to reason, she's totally hysterical, and he can't get a word in edgewise. Eventually the cops show up, and when the lady finally calms down my mate explains. "Lady, I'm sorry but I hit it with the car before you came out I was just putting it out of it's misery. The lady goes "No, my cat was sunning itself, the cat you hit is still under the fucking car."

This is why I love New Zealand. More to come.

The other day I went off a 7m waterfall in a raft. That is another reason I love New Zealand. The owner of our guiding company (we raft as well) knows the owner of another company near Rotorua, so we got to raft for free there. Since we were all guides of some description they gave us our own raft and we ran it blind. Needless to say a class V waterfally blind is somewhat terrifying but resulted in more laughter than anything else. Pictures to come, video on facebook.

Goodbye Ohakune

Well so a stint on the north island ends. What was I doing here? Why are there no stories? Well there were lots to tell but internet ain't cheap. Don't worry, I'll get to it. I've been spending my communications budget in other sectors. I am leaving Ohakune, at the base of a big ass volcano where I've been living here on the North Island, and I am heading down to Fiordland. Again. This time I definitely have a job though. first I'm going to head a little further north though. That's all for now.

Later I'll tell stories about possums and dead cats and assholes and old rivers and volcanoes.

Later

Love you