Tales of a Hitchhiker

I’ve only hitchhiked a handful of times in my life. Growing up in the UK you never come across it, and when you do the stories usually involve a murder or sexual assault or something to that effect. Over-the-top fanaticism no-doubt, it does happen from time to time. The only time I’ve consistently hitchhiked was when I was in New Zealand, in fact, rather proudly I can say that I hitchhiked from Auckland to Queenstown, from the top of the North Island to the bottom of the South Island. In this month long trip, I spent money on transport only once, on the ferry between the two islands.

Whilst I’m sure some of you would gawk at the unnecessary risk involved in this, its actually fairly common. New Zealand is made up of islands similar in size to the British Isles, unlike Britain however it has a population only a little over 4 million. Over a quarter of which live in Auckland anyway. There are no trains, and only a few coaches connect the various cities and towns. Most of which, on the sparsely populated South Island, book up weeks in advance in the summer months. As such, most people either plan their journeys weeks in advance, or hire cars. For those who do neither, one must hitchhike.

In the entire month I only felt slightly concerned once, it was on maybe my fifth hitchhike, I was hitching from Rotorua to Taupo on the North Island. Fortunately at the time I was with my friend James, taller and stronger than me I wasn’t concerned. the couple who picked us up never actually did anything specifically wrong, they were just damn weird. They kept sniggering at some inside joke, taking indiscreet glances to the back seats, and the car had all sorts of strange paraphernalia strewn across it, I remember used plasters and cigarette butts in my footwell. The driver was also swigging a can a beer on the drive, which never fills you with confidence.

Except for that, I always felt completely safe, if a little awkward. I was picked up by families and sat in-between a baby and a toddler in the back of a camper van one time. It was just for a fifteen minute trip down the road. As soon as I was sat down and buckled in the mum asked me to feed the baby from a bottle for her. I had no idea what I was doing but it showed the general level of trust and honest between various tourists and locals. I’m convinced the mum just picked me up because she couldn’t get the baby to stop crying and needed someone to feed it for her.

The most awkward journey I had was from Franz Josef to Wanaka on the South Island. It was about a four hour drive and I was picked up by a french guy driving a BMW. He was heading the whole way, which should have been a pleasant surprise. But twenty minutes in I wished he wasn’t. Before I got in, he lay a towel on the seat as if I was diseased and liable to infect the car. Granted it was a BMW and I was a stuffy looking backpacker wearing hiking boots, but still, a little offensive don’t you think?

He spoke barely a word of English and stopped every 15 minutes to get out and have a cigarette. He’d pull over to the side of the road, give a typically french grunt, gesture towards his window and clamber out. This made a four hour drive last nearly five hours. To be fair to him though, except for the towel thing which pissed me off a little. He didn’t do anything wrong, he was entitled to take as long as he wanted on the drive, it was his car after all, I was just freeloader. The following day there was torrential rain and a huge landslide blocking the highway we had just driven down. It took them a day to clear it and all the cars and coaches on the road at the time were stuck there for 24 hours. It’s safe to say I dodged a bullet on that one.

The best experience I had was on a journey from Picton to Nelson. Picton is a very small town on the South Island that basically just functions as a port town for the ferries between the two main islands. There were very few hostels there, there may have only been one, but either way they were all booked up. I had booked a bed in Nelson, a two hours drive away, the ferry didn’t get in until about six in the evening though, and after forty five minutes stood at the side of the road with my thumb out, I was starting to get worried that I was going to have to sleep in a field. Just as I was on the brink of giving up, a rusty old camper with surf boards strapped to the roof clattered to a halt in front of me. Saved at last. Out jumps a bald, ageing American bloke, probably in his early 60s. A hippy from head to toe, this guy wore a tie dyed vest, a shark tooth necklace and had several surf boards and wind surf sails jammed in the back and strapped to the roof. For two hours we chatted non stop, he was an American with a distaste for America. At 25 he had moved to Germany, married a German and had two kids. Following marital issues they amicably separated and he had essentially been travelling the world ever since he was in his forties. He was on his way to Nelson to visit his son who was a kite surfing instructor there. By complete coincidence I was headed to Nelson for kite surfing lessons and had spoken to a German lady over the phone to book them. It transpired this was his daughter in-law. On clattered this rusty old camper into the sunset as he told me stories of growing up a hippy in early 70s San Francisco. He lamented the current political state of US and spoke passionately about the need to preserve indigenous culture in the countries such as New Zealand and Australia that still have one. All the while he played soulful reggae music from New Zealand bands such as The Black Seeds, Stick Figure and Fat Freddy’s Drop the whole way. When we got to Nelson he told me that he was going to be in New Zealand for another month, gave my his phone number and said to call him if I ever needed help on the road. A more interesting person I never have met. It’s a shame that hitchhiking isn’t really advisable in other parts of the world, because my experience of it was incredible.

Happy travels,

OH xx