West Coastin'

It's been a little while since I last updated this, and for that I apologize. With that said, let us enter the no-spin zone. The west coast of the South Island is hundreds of miles long but only has two towns of any significant size (both under 30,00 people), Westport and Greymouth. I'm in Dunollie, which is a village next to the town of
Runanga, which is a few Kms outside of Greymouth. I've decided to spend the winter here. Being a transient living out of a van is fun, but winter is coming, it's getting dark early, and it's getting cold at night. I think I should stay indoors for a little while. So I've made a little arrangement with the Dunollie Hotel. Basically I stay
here in exchange for three hours of work a day for five days a week. The work... bartending. I guess the Dunollie is what would be considered to be a "historic pub". Most of the clientelle are regulars, most of the regulars are coal miners, and most of the coal miners are on strike. So I'm the new guy serving people who have been
drinking at this bar since before I was born. Judging by the casualness that many of the regulars just walk behind the bar to get something (darts, ect) I think that most of them have worked behind this bar at one point, and a few of them have probably even owned the place at some point (pubs tend to change hands every few years).
Frankly, they're all a bunch of drunken smart asses, but down deep they're good, freindly people and it shines through.

In Asheville, if you got me started on the subject of tipping, you probably would have heard me say that I think the concept of tipping is silly; that I would rather my server get paid more by the hour and
I pay a little more instead of perform some strange ritual of calculating a percentage and and leaving it in some a pang of either guilt of pity. The response I usually got was that since I wasn't in a service position, I wouldn't understand. Well... I'm in a service position now, I don't get tipped, and I like it that way. It just seems more
normal like this, I think I understand.

They West Coast is a beautiful place, it's going to be a little while before I can add any more pictures, sorry.. Geographically, it reminds me a little bit of the Blue Ridge Mountains, except that it is near the sea, a little bit warmer, and the vegetation is sub-tropical, lots of ferns and whatnot. But there are plenty of waterfalls and
excellent hikes that I intend to explore over the winter. Speaking of vegetation, the use of cannabis seems to be the norm amongst all age groups I've encountered, while it is illegal, nobody seems worried about it and several are quite open about participating in the growing process. I think it's a "West Coast thing". Too bad for this East
Coast boy that he gave it up a while back...

PHOTO: Coal Creek Falls, Dunollie.

PHOTOS: Pancake Rocks, Punakaiki

Wellington

I'm not going to kid around, I came to Wellington for one reason, and one reason only... to see Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, arguably my favorite band ever. Most of you have never heard of Nick Cave, and most of you who have heard of Nick Cave don't particularly care for Nick Cave. As soon as I heard of this show, I had to go. I bought my ticket within an hour of it going on sale. A Christchurch show would have made my life a bit easier so I could remain on the South island, but I was not so fortunate. So it turns out that this was going to be a bit of a pricey trip. I had to buy a round-trip ferry ticket (the scenery is absolutely beautiful!), a few nights hostel accomodation in Wellington, I had to pay to park my Zelda in Picton, and to top it off the ticket wasn't very cheap. Given the change I would do it all again. Humoring myself with the notion that anybody other than me cares, here's the setlist: Abattoir Blues, Messiah Ward, Hiding All Away, Red Right Hand, City of Refuge, Get Ready for Love, Easy Money, Supernaturally, The Weeping Song, Breathless, Babe You Turn Me On, The Mercy Seat, O Children, There She Goes My Beautiful World Encore 1 Come Into My Sleep, Deanna, God Is In The House, Do you love me?, Encore 2 The Ship Song, Stagger Lee

Wellington is a really cool city. There's lots of nightlife and culture and whatnot. Te Papa was awesome, it's basically the Smithsonian of New Zealand. You could spend a few days there... and it's free. There are more cafes in this town than you can shake a stick at. I was passing one that looked too trendy to pass up called the Film Archive. Just by looking at it from the outside I thought You know, if I got an espresso here, people passing on the street would think that I was really trendy. So I went inside and got a cup of coffee. I came to realize that it was called the Film Archive for a reason. The basement it a huge library of preserved, catalogued film. News footage, commercials, feature films, music videos, some of it dating back to the 19th century. All free to look at. Not knowing what to look for I watched the news feeds from the day the Rainbow Warrior was sunk in 1985 and when everything went down with Jim Jones' People's Temple in Guyana in 1978. Total time warp.

Also worthy of a mention... I spoke with several people before I left Asheville about the subject of running into somebody that I knew in New Zealand. You know... the "small world" effect. I never doubted that I would run into somebody, it was just a matter of how long it would take. Well it took just under two months. At the Nick Cave show I ran into a booking agent from Chicago that I had worked with at the Orange Peel. I wonder who else I'll run into.

Has anybody noticed that at the end of these entries there is a place to click to leave a comment? Well you are more than welcome to use it if you feel so inclined. Say whatever you feel like... comment, remind me about money that I owe you, share a bad joke... it doesn't matter.

The Grapes of Wrath

"It was supposed to be a pleasant working holiday in wine country, but for this traveller, it turned into a nightmare."

If my last couple of days were a cheap paperback, that's what it would say on the back of the book. I thought I had a plan for winter; go to Blenheim, get a job pruning in the vineyards, make a fistfull of cash. Yeah, right. It turns out the vinyards are paying "contract" rates, meaning that they pay you by the plant instead of the hour. 40 cents for each plant you prune to be specific. I busted my ass, eight hours a day, for two days for a whopping $40 (before taxes). So basically a hard days work (and it is quite hard) was earning me enough money to buy one bottle of the local Pinot Noir, if I didn't buy food, and I prefer Shiraz. Minimum wage in New Zealand is $9.50 an hour; I was making about $3 an hour.

But enough about the crap pay (the pay was the problem, I didn't mind the work), let me tell you about where I'm staying. Ahh, the Blenheim Motor Camp. It's basically a ghetto campgroud. It cost me next to nothing to park Zelda here for a week, hence my decision. It's mostly frusturated vineyard workers here at the moment, some living in tents, come living in the cabins. This place is NEXT to the railroad tracks. About every 90 minutes a train comes roaring through, shaking Zelda from side to side as I sleep. There's a few characters staying here. My favorite is the the conspiracy theorist from Fiji. Every chance he gets he'll talk to me about Area 51, time travel, life on Mars, ect. He's given up on pruning too.

But don't worry about me. You can't travel around the world without a few things going wrong. And besides, next week, I'm going to see the Master himself, Nick Cave in Wellington. Ah, my beautiful world.

PHOTO: My evil plans for the motorcamp have been foiled. Drat!