The seasons they are a changin'

Yet another transition time, and even though I’ve done it now dozens of times, it never stops feeling weird. I usually take my sweet time packing up, and leave all my room decorations up to the very end to keep my home intact for as long as I can before I become transient once more. I lingered in Texas for three whole weeks after I stopped working— it was quite good to have an extended time of relaxing and saying my goodbyes and focusing on the community at base for one last hurrah of trail mail and community dinners.

The different thing this time is that I left a place that I’ve been working at for two years (seasonally, but still it counts), and am going to a place that I’ve known for most of my life. And for context in case you think two years is short… that’s the longest I’ve been in a place since my sophomore year of college in 2011. So wow, yeah, the place I’ve spent the most time at in ten years!! Had to type that out to fully realize that! But now I've been gone for 2+ weeks, and I feel Very far away from my desert home. I'm whirling around DC, bouncing from cherry blossom viewings to walks with friends to many reference calls to tackling e-mails to finally meeting up with my team of fellow camp director people in person, not on zoom. I'm trying to take in only a few items from my car, because in a couple days I'll be in WV, moving into a cabin for the Spring, and settling into my busy busy life of prepping the facilities, planting the garden, and ya know, planning for a full spring and summer of school groups and camp.

    

So I'll head to a place that is most familiar to me, doing a job that is semi-familiar to me, working to build community again, and processing what is sure to be a lot of varied emotions. I cried last week on the road as feelings caught up to me. The closer I got to The Cove on my road trip, the more started to feel these waves of emotion that hit every couple of days. Sometimes they’re anxious heart flutters, full of worry about this big new job and all the pressures that come with it. Sometimes I'm just hit by the unfairness and sadness of Vini’s death. And sometimes I think I should feel emotions and feel nothing at all. I’ve been picturing driving by the garden and then by the crop circle and croquet lawn and then to the dorms, feeling the excitement of entering the Cove, and then backing up down the driveway to unload, and looking expectedly towards the lodge, smelling that familiar lodge smell, and… not seeing Vini. I am dreading that. It could be a rough transition from the stat of denial I’ve been in these last few months, to having to face the reality that no, Vini isn’t just working in her garden until dark, she’s just not there. 

And at the same time, she will be there. Every single thing will have her handwriting on it, every google doc has her snarky notes, the garden will certainly have her presence, as will the swim dock and the croquet lawn at golden hour. I’ll hang up my own decorations on the wall of the Phoebe’s Nest, my collection of memorabilia from loved ones that I won’t take down until the moment before I leave the Cove in late Fall. I’ll hear Vini’s voice muttering about how she *still* hasn’t had time to put up her decorations and it’s already May goddammit. I’m hoping after the initial shock of reality hits me, I’ll be hit more often by pleasant recollections, a faint buzzing among my breakfast dishes.

Written Processing- Vini

 I don't exactly know how to start writing this post or what the purpose is. Verbal processing on the phone and in person has been my go-to, but I have a desire to be more reflective in writing as well. To have something that documents my thoughts right now, so I can look back later when my memory is fuzzy. Do I want to describe what these last three weeks have been like? That feels easier than attempting to describe Vini and what she means to me. I think I'm avoiding that reflection, because it feels insurmountable to describe how much of an impact she has had on me, and in which ways.

 I'll start with just the narrative of what happened with me. Day 14 of a 30 day Outward Bound course that was going really well. It was the second afternoon of Solo in the Solitario- a very remote spot in the state park at the end of our backpacking portion. All our students were spread out by their tarps, I was in our instructor base camp 3/4 of the way through individual check-ins with my students. I looked up and saw a man backpacking on a hill nearby one of our students. I made eye contact with my co-instructor Hannah and we were on alert-- it's pretty rare to see other people in the Solitario, and our students would be freaked out to see a random hiker. The random hiker got closer, and we said to each other that the man looked a lot like our supervisor, Will. Seeing your supervisor wandering through the desert towards you when you aren't supposed to see them only means something bad has happened. Sure enough, Will appeared and took me aside and delivered the news that Vini was dying from cancer with weeks to live. I've always thought of Vini as invincible, so to say this news was bizarre to process is an understatement. Vini, sick, in Virginia. Me, in the middle of the West Texas desert, completely out of touch. Will told me about the decision process Outward Bound went through to decide to come tell me. My camp friends had all found out on Sunday/Monday, and worked through many venues to figure out how to contact my supervisors and explain the situation, and that I had to find out as soon as humanly possible. So then on Wednesday, I was packing up my backpack, driving out of the spectacular desert with a vice-grip clutch on my cell phone, waiting to get into service and get in the loop.

That car ride was a looong two hours. And that evening and night was a flurry of phone calls, getting in touch with my dear people and hearing how their process had been, and feeling so strange about being a couple days behind in finding out, not sleeping more than an hour that first night. The next morning I texted Vini to figure out when to call. I was terrified to speak with her. What the hell was I supposed to talk about, was this supposed to be when I said goodbye to her? Would I be going back into the field with my group? Should I attempt to fly East? What about my students? What about the pandemic? How would I feel if I didn't try to see her? How would I feel about going into the field again and being completely unable to contact my support system?

After a ton of indecision and inner turmoil about it, on Friday afternoon I decided to leave Texas. It took me putting myself in the shoes of future me, paddling on the glorious Rio Grande in a few days, out of service and having no idea of what was happening back east for an eight day stretch in the field. Once I envisioned that possibility, it was glaringly obvious to me that I couldn't be fully on course for my students and my co-instructors while this huge thing was happening. And most importantly, I couldn't let a chance to see Vini  go by me without trying. So I said goodbye to my students on Saturday morning as they embarked on their river portion of expedition, and I made plans to leave base until January. Outward Bound was hugely supportive of me, and said they would make it work with whatever I decided.

And even though I still have found myself feeling unsure about it, it was totally the right decision. Being able to see Vini for a few minutes was really difficult, and also I'm so glad I was able to laugh with her one more time. And being able to see my camp friends in person,  to call and text them at all hours of the day and share our thoughts, on the spectrum of happy to heavy, has been exactly what I needed. I needed to be in touch, to process this period of extended shock and grief, to hear about my friends' experiences and share mine. I needed to be with the people who shared this collective knowledge of camp and Vini, because it's just incredibly hard to describe to people who didn't grow up in this community. That whole first week of being home I was totally engrossed in thinking about "it", unable to have trivial conversations with anyone aside from my camp friends. They were all I wanted to look at, be with, talk to. And I still feel semi like that, but at the point I"m writing this point I feel totally able to have normal interactions with other friends too.

My shock and sadness hit me most while I was still in Texas in those first couple of days of finding out and trying to get in touch, and trying to contact Vini. At this point of writing this post it's been almost two weeks since Vini died, and I haven't felt many emotions about it. I've felt conflicted about that-- why am I not feeling very sad, and when will it happen?  Maybe I'm still just numb, or maybe it won't truly hit me until I show up at the Cove this summer and realize that she's not there. I've been doing things like going through all my snail mail correspondence and emails with her, photos, facebook comments, everything I can find with her handwriting on it, trying to see if dredging up these things will make me feel anything. Mostly, these things have made me really happy and sentimental and glad that I'm such a packrat. And there have been countless moments of looking through memorabilia where I think: Oh I need to share this with Vini! And then realize that the only reason I'm home and looking through all this shit is because she's gone. 

So, I'm trying to be OK with however my emotions are. I feel fine right now, less like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.  I had an amazing dream about Vini last night, and it felt good. We hugged for a while, and she told me things I needed to hear, something in the vein of her being proud of me and that I was a talented educator, aka the highest praise from the educator I look up to most of all. It felt like more of a goodbye than my in person "goodbye." Because how the hell do you say goodbye to a person who means the world to you? 

Photo of the day: Quarantine Edition

Greetings from Snowmass, CO! I am here just... waiting until 1. I am done with my 14 days of quarantine required of anyone coming in to the state and 2. for some other option to come up of where to go during this weird time. My coworker Bennett kindly let me stay for this undetermined amount of time at his parent's place. We drove here in a single (read: long ass) day from Texas, and I'm going to try and tell you what we've been up to in photo form, because we have a strictly enforced photo-of-the-day requirement, and a rule that no two photos can be taken in the same spot. It's been a pretty ideal quarantine situation and I have not been bored yet! 

Day 1: Driving Day! We wore these masks made by Nina and drove for 18 hours, including this shopping trip to stock up for the next two weeks. 

Day 2: Virtual Passover! We hosted a quick seder over Zoom with some Outward Bound friends. I made matzah ball soup and Bennett hid both a virtual and real afikomen. Twas a nice way to connect.

Day 3: Guitar Lessons! Bennett has been teaching me guitar almost every day. I have worked up from Ode To Joy and am now picking along to Worried Man Blues. Our running joke is that Bennett is a really mean teacher and makes fun of my "skills." It is true that I have absolutely no rhythm. 

Day 4: Snow Day! Porch pic from the beginning of the day-- a lot more snow came throughout the day and I tramped around in it and ate some of course. It was pretty bizarre to come from 80 degree Texas to a foot of snow here in Colorado.

Day 5: This Huge Puzzle. We worked on it for 8 days-- a typical morning involved a couple solid hours of puzzling while sipping coffee and listening to BingeMode Harry Potter (highly recommend). 2,000 pieces, so we're feeling pretty dang accomplished now that it is done.

Day 6: Hallway! We aren't really supposed to leave the apartment according to the county rules but I have been carefully going outside for a lil exercise every day. I kick all the doors open to leave and use hand sani on the way in.

Day 7: Avatar. We have been watching Avatar: The Last Airbender every night in quarantine. This began down in Redford where we all watched the first season together, and now that we are separated, Kevin and Carly have been watching and so have we. So one night (day 7!) we video chatted with them to discuss our feelings about the second season.

Day 8: Best Fiends. This is my current quarantine vice. A phone game where you try to destroy evil slugs... we are both obsessed and have definitely wasted hours and hours on it. Here we are, fiending away. 

Day 9: High Tea! Spurred because I found some cooking lavender, so I made an eggless lavender cake loaf and we had tea with fancy jam jars and it was quite nice! Inspiring of course by High Tea at Cove work weekends.

Day 10: Virtual Gaming! We have so far played virtual Catan with Rachael and Thomas on a website and then on this day we tried virual Pandemic using two video chats, a real board on our end, and good communication with Maxx and Jaimie on the other end! Sadly we did not win, but it was a successful endeavor. So many screens!

Day 11: Abs squad! We do 15-min abs every other day with the Redford homies-- a tradition that began during our Redford Quarantine (see previous blog post) and is still going strong over fb messenger video. We mostly just hang out and chat but also do our workout. This day had a strong turnout and many giggles as we were introduced to the wild world of filters by Jaime and Maxx.

Day 12: The Kitchen! We take turns cooking every day. Lunch and breakfast are half fend for yourself, half one of us sometimes makes more of a thing. Dinners have been fun in that one of us is totally responsible each day, so you just wait and see what the other person whips up from our funny assortment of freshies and random dried trail food. I've made Challah for Shabbat both Fridays, and Bennett's specialty has been eggless cupcakes. We made our two dozen eggs last 12 days, wooohoo! Shoutout to chia seeds and applesauce. 

Day 13: Garage Trip. We try to limit trips to the car where the majority of our stuff still is because it's technically a public space, but on this day we went on a mission to grab yeast and Ticket to Ride. Just essentials, ya know.

Day 14: Bath pic! Finally took this one-- it was our plan since Day 1. We each have a bathtub in our rooms and pretty much every night we watch Avatar until 8:30 or 9 and then go take a luxurious bath. Bennet's mom has a lot of bath salts that we've been testing out, and I've brought in an array of candles and I read Terry Tempest Williams by candlelight and it's quite dreamy.

Ok, that's all for now so I can post this today and check that off the to-do list! Despite what our photo count says, we still have tomorrow to be in quarantine and then on Tuesday we are technically free! Well, free to go to public spaces like a grocery store and free to drive to a trailhead. The only parts of our quarantine not included in this photo series is our art table where we watercolor. Hope you enjoyed a peek into our quarantine life! Next up: who the heck knows. I sure don't!

West Texas Quarantine Log

Greetings from Redford, TX! I have been living here since September and have neglected to blog for lack of time and a plethora of other things to keep me entertained, so now here I am ~ a week in to our Quarantine of sorts. It's Saturday and there is not a whole lot going on because for once in our outdoor educator lives we are observing proper weekends.
I thought I'd give my dear readers (aka my mom) a glimpse into the life of our Redford Quarantine. Not gonna lie, it's been pretty swell, especially when I compare our situation to friends who are stuck in their apartments in big cities. Hopefully this post doesn't come off as me bragging about how great we have it. We do have it great, and we are very lucky to have been able to stay here for some extra weeks. We're trying to enjoy this community time while we have it because we know from watching the rest of the world in isolation how special our situation is. In ten days we, The Quarantine Ten, will be going our separate directions into this changed world because the Texas base has to close down to save money.

But until that time comes, we've been keeping quite busy with service projects and events and have set up a system for living here. I'll give you a run down:
We had a long meeting once it was established that ten of us would be staying on base for as long as we possibly could. To stay here we would have to contribute 20 hours of service to base each week to earn our room and board and we would also have to abide by the Outward Bound community living guidelines as directed by the CDC. No physical touch, bleach down every surface two times per day, use your own bathroom only (luckily we each have our own bathroom), don't go into other people's rooms, one person is the designated errands runner.
We had to move things out of the Melon (where we keep tools and supplies) so that we limit people going in and out of certain spaces.

Then we decided on jobs and crafted a Quarantine Living Agreement.
Kevin had all the projects in mind so he was elected to be Bob the Builder.
I was obviously the Post Master, responsible for checking the mail.
Arty was dubbed 'The Explorer' and is responsible for trips to town every three days for groceries.
Maxx is 'Senor Limpiador' or 'Profesor Maximilian' because he is the best at Spanish and is responsible for a weekly Spanish lesson and for making the daily bleach solution
Nina is the Laundry Lady- since we can't go to town for laundry anymore she does it at her house
Jaimie is the Town Scribe- she made all our informational posters
Dan doesn't seem to have an assigned job but he's in charge of the burn barrel
Bennett is the Party Planner, keeping up with our schedule of social events
Brian is still doing his normal job of Program Director
Yoshie and I are tag teaming the food room- we are the Ration Rats and operate the "store" on base where we give out dried food if people need more

Every Sunday we have community dinner. We have to be served food by the cooks, but otherwise it's a pretty normal affair. Tomorrow is Indian food, last week Arty made this beautiful array of dishes.

We have a projector in our community space so many evenings we watch a movie. So far we're watched O Brother, Where Art Thou, Gladiator, 1917, How to Train Your Dragon, and Moulin Rouge. We're been board gaming a ton, armed with hand sanitizer in case we accidentally touch our face while gaming, and a rule that we have to wash our hands before and after. We've collectively played 8 games of Pandemic, 1/2 a game of Twighlight Imperium, and talk of Catan has been in the works for days. We had a hilarious cooking competition a couple nights ago. Each team was given 5 ingredients from the food room and had 1 hour to craft an appetizer, main, and dessert using those ingredients plus whatever else from their personal food that they wanted.

Tonight we're having open mic night, and already today we had trivia hosted by Willie over Zoom. A couple days ago our Spanish lesson was a mock courtroom where we had to split into two teams and argue about the ownership of a dog. As you can see, we're pretty dang busy, and I haven't even gotten into our projects during the day.

As I said, we're expected to do 20 hours a week and Kevin is our task maker. A big project has been filling the ground of the gear-clean station out back with small rocks to promote better drainage. We devised a system of digging for rock 50 yards away from the site and loading it into a wheelbarrow using a giant hand-made sieve to get rid of the dirt.
Another project is painting: we are still working on painting the inside of the Melon, and we unearthed two bathrooms on base that were covered in dirt and random stuff and have painted them and turned them into what will soon be the most popular bathrooms on base, once Nina figures out the plumbing. And it'll bring our grand total of bathrooms on base to 12!

It really is an ideal situation. Very limited contact with the outside world, a very fun community to be in, freedom to socialize and be outside... I love it. Every day I go on a bike ride, typically at sunset because the days have been pretty toasty. We have our neighborhood pups that come visit every couple of days. Someone is always baking something delicious. We do 15-minute ab workouts every other day. I think reality is going to hit pretty hard when our time here is up, but for now, everything is peachy. And boy do we have a lot of canned peaches in case we get really desperate.

WWOOFing in New Zealand

Here’s a scattered post about my experience wwoofing in New Zealand so far. The wwoofing expectations are these: work 4-5 hours each day, get meals and a place to sleep. Within those loose parameters, anything goes. You might leisurely work 4 hours and then lounge the rest of the day, or you might works from 9 til 7 because it would look weird for you to lounge while the farmers are toiling away. You’ll always have breakfast on time, but never any other meals (this is a constant at each place I have been). 

Coffee break is pretty normal, dinner is sometimes called tea. You can plan ahead for the wwoof spot of your dreams, contact the farmers months in advance if you want. But as this is my blog you all know that I definitely did not do it that way, I have been doing it anywhere from two weeks to a few days in advance, which actually works well. Some hosts are so used to wwoofers flaking our on their plans that they don’t even let you book a spot until the date gets close. Wise, because plans change here so much, depending on who you meet, the weather, and just how you’re feeling about working on a farm versus exploring the country. 

I am currently writing from my 3rd wwoof spot of my trip, and I plan on having 2 more. I am lying on some cushions next to the wood stove, it’s 8:40 pm, and I just did a load of dishes at the sink after saving the house from burning down, I am a hero! Sort of kidding, but I did walk in to the house right when the pot of butter on the stove went up in flames and I put a plate on top of it and took it outside. My host has an 8-month old baby you see, and was trying to put her to bed and was also trying to cook dinner at the same time. Here's a pic I took of the cosy-looking house that was actually a kitchen fire.

 I volunteered my dish washing skills on my wwoof profile, and I have been cashing that in at this spot even though I’ve only been here 3 days. There is no running water here because they’re still getting set up, so dishes involve filling a jug from the tap outside, boiling some in the kettle, pouring it into the bucket on the sink because the sink isn’t attached the the plumbing, soaping things, then rinsing, then dumping the bucket outside somewhere. Honestly a four bucket trail crew system would be easier, but alas I only have the one bucket. Anyways enough about dishes, the view at this place is absurdly beautiful. My tent/ palace overlooks a stunning mountain range and the nights have been clear enough for the Milky Way. I have walked down to the Dart River 4 times in two days for cell service and bathing and admiring the views, and because it gives me something to do. 

 Basically the purpose of this wwoof site is to bide my time until I do a 4-day tramp in this area, and to live cheaply and learn something during those extra days. My previous site was to experience a working sheep and beef farm, which is what so many farms in New Zealand are. I suppose my first wwoof site was just chosen for location convenience and to try out wwoofing for the first time. They all have served a different purpose for me in my travels, and I’m glad for each spot. You really get a taste of family life in this country, and a sense of opinions and politics and natural history and customs.

Update: now it’s three weeks later and I’m just gonna post this as is, because I am with a friend with a computer and in good WiFi, a great combo! Of course there is a lot more to say on this subject and more interesting stories I could share, but you’ll just have to ask me in person!

Tramping: Hut Edition

Often whilst hiking I have a lot of mixed feelings throughout my journey. Why am I doing this when I could be chilling? Why am I subjecting my feet and back to blisters and aching? What is the point? My mind wanders, I usually don’t have any deep life musings, and I often just distract myself from the surroundings by singing a song or turning on a podcast if things get desperate. Then I arrive at my destination, and everything changes, every single time. I feel awe for the place I am camping. I feel grateful for my feet and legs for carrying me all this distance and impressed with myself for sticking it out. I feel like an amazing chef when I make my backcountry dinner, and I relish the part when it is totally ok to climb into my sleeping bag at 8:30.

These are my normal feelings when doing backpacking trips in the US. In New Zealand, it has been pretty much the same except for the addition of the array of huts to stay in each night. At the time of sitting down to write this post, I have stayed in 5 different huts for a total of 8 nights. Hopefully I will get a few more nights in because I bought a 6-month hut pass for 95 bucks and so far I haven’t stayed enough nights to make buying the pass worth it (edit: have now stayed 4 more nights, got my moneys worth!). There are a few types of huts. The Great Walk huts must be booked in advance and are crazy expensive, and you can’t use your pass. There are popular huts that are not on the great walks that you also have to pay for and cannot book in advance, but they are reasonably priced (20 NZD a night, and in really cool locations). Here is Lake Angelus Hut, makes sense the it's a popular one!

The next step down is a serviced hut- they have running water and sometimes flush toilets and are generally slightly nicer, these are 15 per night and are first-come first-served. Then your standard hut, which usually has water but could run out, but as far as I can tell still has the amenities of a serviced hut but is only 5 per night. Then there is basic, which I have not yet encountered but I assume it’s just a cabin without much else. Some are really just run-down shacks, but hey it's better than a tent! None have lights, some have solar charger ports, all have an excellent porch and bunks with mattresses. 

So that’s all the boring hut stuff out of the way, now it’s time for some observations and stories. When I walked into my first hut experience, I felt pretty awkward and nervous. Everyone turned to me and asked where I was coming from and how my trip was and I felt the need to announce that this was my first time ever staying in a hut so let me know if there’s anything I should know about. Their main advice: just be yourself. The other hut expectations are to clean up after yourself and to go to bed when it gets dark. Pretty simple rules to follow! I did find it pretty comical on my first night when everyone climbed into their bunk exactly at dark and all of a sudden it was quiet time. People are generally up early to tramp, and it just makes sense to go to bed when you can’t see. Also all the mattresses are touching each other so you can really tell when someone climbs in or out, and you don’t wanna be that person. Some huts have candles to extend bedtime and to enable me to lurk outside and creep on these trampers.

I think the biggest luxury of hut life is to stay at one for two days in a row. You can claim your bunk and not pack up your sleeping bag and upend your mattress in the morning, what a treat! And then you get to actually explore the area you’re in. While I was on my most recent tramp, I got to leisurely stroll out to a huge glacier!

I feel incredibly lucky to have had the hut experiences I’ve had so far. Each stay I’ve met really wonderful people and have had great conversations, learnt something, and felt at ease. And maybe that’s just normal here, but to me it feels novel and fortuitous. My favorite experience that I’ve already gushed about on my instagram is about my stay at Bungaree Hut. I arrived to the remote Stewart Island (the 3rd less traveled and known island in NZ) not being totally sure of any plans- I had hitchhiked there from Dunedin, taken a ferry, camped at a hostel, and then showed up at the visitor center on the island with grand ideas to do a burly loop that were quickly squashed by the staff there. Four nights was not enough time, and a water taxi was quite expensive, and was I prepared for the mud?? It was their job to instill fear to prevent unprepared people from taking on more than they could chew, but still I felt miffed that they were doubting my abilities. However, as most things tend to play out, I’m so very happy that my planned loop didn’t work and that I did an out and back tramp where and when I did. And it all comes down to people. Scenery is grand too, but the humans that I interacted along the way made my long journey so very worth it. I was having quite a slog of a first day- 13 miles in, starting at 11 am in the rain, and once the track left the gravel of the Great Walk sections it was rugged. Like, clambering over roots down and up steep gullies and boot-deep mud pits and fallen trees kind of rugged. I was feeling all the aforementioned doubt, and then I emerged on a beach and saw a plume of smoke coming from my hut, and I felt instant relief. 

A fire to warm myself by, and probably some awesome people. What was different about this hut was that it was overtaken by a 10 day hunting and fishing party. Initially I was wary- so many people sharing a small hut? And will these guys be up late blasting music and partying? Turns out that yes they were big partiers, but it was one of the most hilarious parties I’ve ever attended, and the most welcoming.

Instead of being separate from the stinky tired trampers, they welcomed us into their circle. They had brought extra chairs, beers, and food for trampers. They even offered us use of their hot shower set up (imagine being on the trail for a whole week like some people had been and then stumbling on a camp with a hot shower and a cold beer... holy moley). They passed around actual silver platters of fish and chips, and the fish was caught that very day. Next came a platter of fried oysters and scallops, and I was somehow forced into trying an oyster even after declaring my great dislike for them. 

At some point after dinner and before the decadent pavlova with fresh whipped cream and berries, one guy brought out a razor and shaved a couple heads and beards, and hilarity ensued. The rest of the night continued in a ridiculous manner, to the tune of country music Wednesday’s on the boom box, sporadic rain showers that forced us to take cover a couple times, and then we were serenaded by another tramper who stood on a bench and sang Etta James. Nights like this are not the norm for hut travel, but meeting genuine warm-hearted humans here has been a constant. I could write a separate blog post for every night of a hut, and for every person I’ve met... there is just so much good to reflect on. But for now, the end!

Tramping in Haiku Form

Beers at punga cove
Throw rocks into the water
Nope we see nothing

One phosphorescence
Two bioluminescence
Three glow worm party

Tramping team scroggin
Do you want some tuna fish
Hey where is the deet?

Klaus might be danish
He might also be a goat
Which would you prefer

There is no jetty
What the fuck cowshed campsite
Bless flush toilets

Want a ride with us?
We can provide a surplus
Of puns unfinish

Strangers stop in front
Of us, were like what what the fuck
Dehydrated, help


Really not picky
We could ride inside your boat
Please please please please please

Riding with Hussein
Would you like the seat heat on?
Good lort, pray for us

Later in the day
Cigarettes in the ash tray
Should have been picky

The Second Sunday
 in September suits us fine
Gotta mind that child


Ok this doesn’t make a lot of sense, I know, but  it is a pretty good summary of a bunch of inside jokes and stories from the last few days tramping on the Queen Charlotte Track and then hitchhiking back to Nelson. More coherent blog post coming someday...