My last official day of work was on Tuesday 22/05/2009 (although I was there unofficially on Wednesday till lunchtime, but never mind). I had the 'official' Abscheids Apero (formal farewell drinks) on the roof of the building and invited as many of the UBS folks I could remember the names of. I had luck with the weather, as it was the first really sunny day in around two weeks. Around twenty people came along drink a beer and to say Tchus. Thomas had done some leg work and organised an Amazon gift voucher worth 210€, which surprised me a bit. I suppose I've got some reading to do. All in all, it was a good way to bow out.
The following two weeks posed a problem for me however. I had holidays until my new job started on 02/06/2009, and I had no idea what to do. I decided to go cycling, as one does. I used the next few days to gather the necessary items for my trip. I bought a bike rack, some bike pants (which look like normal shorts, but are still padded), a bike shirt, a tent and a bed roll. I borrowed Moni's saddle bags, and was more or less set. There are a bunch of national bike routes running through Switzerland, and I chose the Lakes Route, which takes you from Montreaux in Lake Geneva through to Interlaken, Meiringen, Luzern, Zug, breifly into Lichtenstein, and ends in Rorschach at the edge of Lake Constance. The map of the route can bee seen here.
On Friday afternoon I loaded my bike onto the train and took it to Lausanne. I remembered that Adrian, an american postgrad who plays DnD with us, lived there and asked him if I could crash at his place. He set me up on the futon and I was set. On Saturday morning I did some last minute shopping and cycled along the lake towards Vevey, arriving just in time for breakfast of crepes and birchermuesli.

Breakfast in Vevey

After breakfast, it was time to do the first real bit of cycling. There was one nagging problem, however. I couldn't find the bloody route marker which pointed in the direction of Bulle. Most of the time they are pretty obvious, but in Vevey I lost the trail and couldn't find it again. So I just followed the street signs in the direction of Bulle. After ascending for some time I asked a local who gave me detailed instructions in French. I continued on in the wrong direction for a bit and then spotted a map of the area. Oops... I was on the wrong side of the valley. But no problem, I'll just go a bit further up and scoot across that bridge over there. I'll be right as rain.

Bugger

Ah huh. The plot thickens. Just in case your wondering, the big orange sign mean "Detour" is actually pointing back down the hill from whence I came. It's not so clear in the picture, however they'd actually stripped the seal off the road making it really impossible to cross. James Bond could have done it I think, but he would use a porsche or a harley; not a heavily laden mountain bike. There are limits. And it would just look stupid, besides. The additional grain of salt in the wound is that there was a route marker here helpfully instructing me to cross the bridge and I'd be on my way.
I did find another bridge spanning the valley a bit lower down. The second picture depicts the same bridge but from a, er, slightly different angle. You can get a feel for just how far off target I was. So being finally on the right road I endeavoured to start actually making some forward progress. The route followed the main road for a distance, going up up up. It was hard work, and when the route took a left turn and started following a charming country trail it got even harder. I am willing to admit I got off and pushed. Nevertheless I felt like I was making progress. I was doing a cycle tour!
As I neared the top of one particular rise, something particularly unexpected happened. This is best illustrated in the following picture.

Oh, Bugger Me	Camping back in Vevey

Yes, bugger me indeed. My pedal bent at first, and then snapped off completely. Yippedydoodaa. What's there to do except stop, eat some fruit, fiddle with it to realise you can't fix it, and then get back on the bike and continue. Going down hill was fine, and along the straight was maneageable. Pedalling with the left foot was impractical but I could at least push it down far enough to bring the right pedal back into position for another thrust. Up hill meant pushing.
In fact I wasn't that far from the next town, Chatel St. Denis, pronounced all Frenchy like "Schah-tell Soh Te-nee". (I've never grasped French pronounciation, but I can be sure that no matter how I try it'll be wrong.) From there I commandeered some help from a group of young local guys. One of them spoke some English, and tried to help me out by taking me to the hardware store to see if they could fix it. Alas, in vain. But I was able to load my bike onto a bus and take it back to Vevey, where the pedals were replaced for CHF25. Sweet. I swam in the lake, took a shower, and biked around town a bit.

Breakfast, Chatel St. Denis	Back on the road again

I rose with the sun on Sunday morning, packed up the camp, and took the bus back to Chatel St. Denis (like hell I was biking there). I had breakfast in a local cafe, saddled up, and rode out of town like the cowboy I was.

The next few photos should be watched with Steffenwolf's "Born to be Wild" playing in the background. Enjoy.


Sunday was a hullova long day. I biked from Chatel St. Denis to Bulle, to Gstaad, and eventually konked out in Zweisimmen. I did around 80km that day. If you consider that very little of that was flat, that I was carrying my snail shell around with me, and that I'm not really a cyclist, that's really a hullova long way. But the weather was perfect, and the scenery magnificent. The route is usually well marked, and whenever possible it leads you away from the main road into side streets and down country trails. Despite the fact that there is almost always an Autobahn within a kilometer of you, it still feels like riding along in the country.

Camping ground, Zweisimmen	Laundry day

I camped, showered, washed my clothes, and said "to hell with it" and went for a three course meal at a local restaurant. My camping spot cost CHF20 for the night, and the meal CHF50. Life's all about priorities, right?

Tuesday was a cruise from Zweisimmen down to Spiez and then to Interlaken. My knee was complaining a bit, and despite my awesome padded bike shorts my nether regions were in dire condition. I loaded my bike back onto the train, and went home.

First glimpses of Lake Thun

So... where was I? Oh, yes. I remember now.

November 2008:
Things returned mostly to normal. Hosted a few couchsurfers, jammed a bit, dnd'd a bit, worked a bit. Kind of a bitsy month.

December 2008:
Ah yes, December. There was the iLogs winter event to speak of. Same deal as every year (every year being third time running). Arrive Thursday evening, get completely shit-faced until around 4am, stumble to the hotel and rise early Friday morning completely unable to function (or even look half-way functional), ignore a few hours of blabbering and company goals and wait for morning tea. This year it was chicken. I don't remember what the project presentations were about, but I remember that morning tea was chicken. It was good, too though last year's pizza was much better for recovering from a hangover. Then there's a few hours where you can go back to the hotel and sleep for a bit, followed by bowling and then the main event in the brewery across the road. We ate, we drank, we got drunk, we had deep philosophical conversations to the background of blaring music which would be forgoten the next day. There were speeches. There was dancing. There were many feeble attempts on the brewer's daughter/barstaff. Glasses were broken. Vomit of unknown origin was discreetly deposited behind the buffet and just as discreetly cleaned up by the aforementioned daughter. Drunken workmates were found asleep on the toilet, pants around ankles and unresponsive to door-knocking, speech, shaking, toilet-flushing or having water poured over their heads. Yes it was, as I shall put it, the fulfillment of the Austrian dream.

New years 2008 was spent in a small region in switzerland called Obersaxen. Some friends of Alex and Claudia had rented a batch and wanted some more people to fill the remaining spaces, so we answered the call. We were there all told for three days (two nights, over new years eve). The whole place was covered in snow, so ski lifts were operating. It was the first time during the whole winter that I'd actually made it to the snow (as opposed to vise versa, which was the case for most of the winter). I didn't really have the drive to go skiing though, so I joined Moni and walked around the tracks in the area. We hired a sled for a stretch and experienced the dangers of sledding first hand. Great fun. The rest of the time was spent eating and playing games. Bang! was quite cool if you ever get a chance, and there was this weird german one called Killer Bunny or something where you try to grow rabbits and kill off your opponents. It made no sense, as the winner was more ore less determined randomly based on which cards you picked up, and the main part of the game was more of a mildly entertaining distraction. I got in some penguin-style belly-sliding goodness too. Great fun.

And that's 2008.

January 2009:
Another 'bitsy' month. A bit of this and that. Highlight was having wisdom tooth pulled. It was voluntary/preventative, and I only have one of them. Took a full ten minutes of twisting and wrenching, but it was nothing like my previous ordeal, and it came out clean. I got to keep the tooth too. :) That reminds me, the dentist who did my root canal sent me another bill last month for another 50 franks. I have no idea what for, but I paid it just to shut him up. It had a lot of little details on the bill like "First 5 minutes" and "Last 5 minutes"... I guess he must have forgotten those on the original quote, huh?

Febuary 2009:
I have announced my resignation. Yes, I've had enough. Januray and Feburary were entirely dominated by support. Bugfixing if we were lucky. Unfortunately providing third-level technical support for an application that nobody from our firm had ever had anything to do with, it didn't rate very high on my 'impressed' score. I spoke to my boss about my work dissatisfaction, but nothing was (able to be) changed. My incessant complaining about my work situation had evidently bothered Alex enough to mention that his work was hiring. I updated my resume (with the gracious help and encouragement of Moni) and sent it in. It took around a week to complete the two job interviews, and had a confirmed job around the first week of Feburary. I relayed the news to my boss, got him to sign under the dotted line, and it was all done. The new job starts in June.

March 2009:
Bitsy. Everything and nothing. A lot of dnd it seems. One of our Changeling gamers Zahid announced his departure and threw an 'Abscheids Apero' (farewell party). Was cool.

April 2009:
Spring! As soon as the weather started showing signs of becoming warmer, everything exploded into spring mode. Even I was jumping around like a spring lamb. That winter had been the longest, coldest, unrelenting, depressing winter I've ever experienced. The snow seems to have started in October, and just didn't melt. Well it melted enough to become ice and then refreeze. And if it actually started to disappear, new snow would replace it just in time to destroy the hope that had begun to grow in your heart. No I did not like that winter. Right now I am sitting on my balcony with the shade cloth deployed, and liking it very much. I check how my basil and parsley seedlings are going every morning, and have just noticed that my lilly is sprouting again. Hooray for spring!

The great part I have noticed about changing jobs, is it gives you the reason to blow all your holidays. The only hard part is deciding what to do with it all. Well for a start, Moni and I went to Barcelona for a week. I'd been adamant that I wanted to try couchsurfing, however I was blind to the fact that it was easter weekend, and also that Barcelona is a popular destination over easter. That meant I had no chance for couchsurfing, so we arrived in BCN with no accomodation booked and spent most of the first day looking for a place to stay. We did find a place in the end, but it was out in the suburbs and it had rained on us.

The next morning we headed into the centre and found ourselves a youth hostel until after the easter rush. We checked out some restaurants (one was bloody fantastic, I have to say), ate a lot of tapas, bought some t-shirts, and visited the regular tourist stops one might expect to avoid if one lived there. My experiences there lead me to believe that Barcelona has two main cultural inspirations. Soccer, and a fellow named Antoni Gaudí. Soccer is a well known sport where two teams of gentlemen attempt to put the same ball into well guarded nets, using only their feet. Fantastic stuff. Gaudí was an architect who designed a lot of stuff in Barcelona, and finished some of it. His masterpeice was Sagrada Familia, a church which is still being built. They're still building it because it has to be built using donated money, which they don't have much of. As tourists they let us donate 11 euros each to go in and see what they'd finished so far. We thought we would go to the roof, and were helpfully informed once we were inside that you have to donate a further 2 euro to take the lift. That, and that using the stairs is just plain illegal. I staged an altitude strike right then and there.

On Tuesday night we had our first success with couchsurfing, and a couple volunteered to host us. I was astonished at how much effort they put into us, and a little embarrassed. Normally I do something with my guests like cook a meal or go for a beer, but Miquel and Eva really took us under their wings and showed us around. We had lunch together at a restaurant in the country somewhere, then we were driven to the hills and we went for a walk. On Wednesday evening we went to the beach, and were driven around 100km north to Girona for dinner. It is also old with a castle-like inner city, but is out of the way of tourists so has retained its charm. At points, Barcelona felt like an amusement park in comparison.


Thursday we bid our farewells and took the train into Barcelona. We had lunch in a park in a sunshower. Moni did a rushed fly-by of some of the shops along a street called Diagonal (because it is), and we headed the airport, spread our wings and flew home.

...continued from last post.

September, 2008:
The first thing which happened is that everyone came back from holiday and my working hours were suddenly reduced to normal. I was able to offload a lot of work to others, and well... sort of went on holiday for a bit at work. I guess you could say my motivation wasn't quite all there. I'd lost my muse, as it were. This phase lasted for most of September, and I whittled the month away trying to relax a bit, spending time with Moni, going home early now and then, and not caring about work too much.

The highlight of the month was my two ex-flatmates Sean and Tanya coming to visit for almost a week. Since we were flatting together they started going out, then were engaged, and now are moving to London for a stint. We spent a bit of time together, discussed the good old days, had dinner at Moni's, and went to see the fog at Interlaken. It was good to see those guys again. Sean wrote me a while back and posted pictures of his stay at my place on his blog.

October, 2008:
A lot happened in October. I graded in Kung Fu to the 3rd grade. Moni was interested to see where I get all my bruises, so she came along and watched.
Went bowling with some guys from work, and Sefi, our competent team leader at work. Was actually really cool, despite that my bowling is beyond salvation.
Went with Thomas, Jürgen, and another five random Austrians to Dublin for five days. Everyone thinks that when you go to Dublin that you do nothing else than drink. Well they're right. Mostly. During the daytime we went out to Howth on the peninsula outside Dublin and walked around, took a tour around Dublin, visited a grisly historic prison, and finally the Guiness brewery of course. Evenings were spent mostly around Temple Bar, and downing glass after glass of black Guiness goodness. Actually, since then I haven't drunk a single Guiness. Can't think why.

By day...	...by night.

Monday: Get back from Dublin.
Tuesday: work + Changeling (roleplaying).
Wednesday: work + Echoes of Heaven (my game, Dnd).
Thursday: work + Jam Session.
Friday: work + Rollout
Saturday: Fly to Rome.

Yup, a restful week of work to help me relax, and then off to Rome with Moni. I'd hoped to try Couchsurfing as a guest rather than a host, however Rome's rather popular and nobody had space for us. We did get a tip from someone that his Aunt was starting a B&B, and was taking people for 50 Euro/room/night. No problems! So we stayed with a nice Italian woman who didn't speak a word of English, but was a great host. Moni's broken Italian saved me utterly, as I had only my electronic translator which painstakingly spits words out one at a time. A good friend of Moni's made an 'insiders' map to Rome for us. It had the main attractions, plus some insider tips, good restaurants, ice-cream bars, etc. that we ought to check out. And check out we did. We missed the Cistine Chapel and maybe one or two other things, but I think we got everything else. The Colosseum, the Forum Romanum, the Caesar's palace, the Vatican, the statues, the ruins, the old buildings... heaps and heaps and heaps of history packed into one buzzing city. We took tours, walked a lot, stopped at restaurants, and took a lot of photos. We got caught in monsoon rain one evening which soaked us completely (despite our feeble umbrellas) and flooded the streets. We eventually found refuge in a great little bar we found. (A branch had fallen off a tree and landed on a car outside the bar.) Afterwards we went to a nice little restaurant. There was a power outage, so it was a romantic dinner-by-emergency-lighting. Nice ambience.

Markets	Palatino
The Colosseum!

Other things that impressed me were the streets. The driving is completely chaotic, and any open space is per default a parking space provided it doesn't block trafic (this includes intersection corners, pedestrian crossings, and adjascent to other paralell-parked cars). To cross the street on a pedestrian crossing you must a) make eye contact with the driver, b) boldly step onto the road, thereby stating your superiority, and c) be ready to jump the hell out of the way in case there is any contest of wills. It's really like that. We went everywhere by subway, and the thing that is most different in Rome vs Zürich is that in Rome nobody waits for the passengers to get out before others start pushing in. It's just a scrum of bodies pushing past each other, either trying to escape onto the platform, or a desperate push to get to that one free seat before the little old lady over there gets it. I think I'm just spoiled.

The ruins.
The Aqueduct	Fontane de Trevi.
St. Peter's basilica	St. Peter's square (Vatican city).

Yes, we saw a lot in Rome. When we left it was still raining heavily, though it was quite hot (around 20 degrees, and I had to change my t-shirt). The mother of all thunder storms was happening as we took off, with lightning crashes every ten seconds or so. It dissipated once we got above the clouds, but arriving in Zürich we saw that it was zero degrees and snowing. "Welcome home", said Zürich.

We went back to Europa park before the end of the month, too. There were far too many people there to really enjoy it, but it was the Halloween special and well... it was okay. After that trip though I was thoroughly buggered, and ready to take a weekend off.

Wow... I haven't posted since March. I must have been busy. I'm getting sick of starting posts by lamenting how guilty I feel about not posting, so I won't. Not that I don't feel guilty, mind. The blog is like a plant which hasn't been watered in six months. Well, maybe more like a cactus.

So, we left our intrepid hero after his incredible adventure around the world. What happened next? Well... a hullovalot. Lets break it down month by month, shall we? I'll use my calendar for reference.

April, 2008:
Arrived in NZ, and hit the ground running. Went straight back into DnD, Kung-fu and jamming like I'd never actually gone. I had a tax declaration waiting for me when I got back (think compulsory IR3 in german). Sonja's accountant took care of it for 80 very well spent franks. And, I moved into my flat in Zurich. Awesome. It has one large bedroom, a small kitchen, a lounge, a balcony and a bathroom. Comes with cellar storage space, laundry + drying room provided in basement, and is in a very quiet neighbourhood. The big bonus was that it was more-or-less fully furnished. I took the lease from Petra, someone who I knew at work who was moving back to Vienna. Most of her stuff is cheap IKEA stuff that you have to assemble yourself. It cheaper for her to buy new furniture in Vienna than cart it all the way there, so she gave it to me. I had a functional flat on day 1. Perfect.

One of the things I did first off was to register my flat on couchsurfing. Never heard of it? Have a read here. I just get random tourists crashing for free on my couch every so often. I really like the idea, and had my first guests around the end of April. I've got some pics of the flat on my couchsurfing profile. Take a look.

May, 2008
Couchsurfing started heating up. I hosted five guests in three groups. That means that three of the four weeks in May I had one or two randoms staying at my place. The week I had off I caught up with an old group of friends from NZ. They were uni students at Canterbury, and I knew them through Josh when I was flatting there. Pedy and Martin were going to visit Virgine and her boyfriend in Toulon. Road trip! I met Martin in Geneva, and we drove to Pede's place in Lyon. We stayed there the night at someone that Pedy vaguely knew. It was awesome. We played this murder mystery game where someone is the killer, someone is the police, and everyone else is victim/witness (chosen randomly). The killer kills, and the policeguy/girl tries to guess who was the killer by asking witnesses. Oh, and we played that game where someone puts a name on your head and you have to guess who you are with yes/no questions. Well these guys were really nice. I didn't speak a word of French (except what Paul taught me, but lets not go there) and some of them spoke a bit of english. They fed us, gave us a place to sleep, and were fantastic. Loved it.

Next morning we drove south to Toulon. I saw Virginie again. She's doing some administration role now for the Navy! Who'd have thought?! Her boyfriend is kind of a full-time artist who does this funky monochrome art. I swam in the medeteranian for the first time! It was cold as hell, and started raining shortly thereafter, but I had to. We went walking in the hills around Toulon, played this crazy French card game (which I was too slow for), had ice-cream by the waterfront, and drove back on the Sunday (arriving 10 minutes in Lyon before my train left...). Yeah, that was an awesome trip.

So that's it for May, huh? (Just kidding Moni... really...)
Moni and I started going out. We've known each other from DnD since November 07. Moni's works as a senior receptionist, is educated (biology), is studying (kinesiology), has studied massage (great, I know), plays dnd, and is a great cook. What more could I ask? ;)

Here are some photos.

June, 2008
Life dominated by work, couchsurfing (9 guests in 5 groups), DnD, jamming, kung-fu and of course Moni. Otherwise, very little noteworthy.

July, 2008
4 couchsurfers this month. Highlights were Alex and Claudia's wedding party (Alex's pictures are here), and walking for four days in Switzerland with Alex, Claudia and Moni (I always like it when people are more organised than I am, because I can just link to their pictures instead of uploading my own - thanks Alex).

August, 2008
This was officially the crappy month of 2008. Three people from work scheduled three weeks of holidays after the testing phase of our project. That's all fine and good, except that the test phase was extended, so I was left on my lonesome to fix the plethora of defects that the customer's team of testers were still finding. Yes, it was one man fixing the bug of many testers. I did overtime (10+ hour days). I worked public holidays, two weekends, a the Saturday of the third. I had no time for laundry, dishes, Moni, or life in general. I started hating work. August was dominated purely by work. I had no time or energy for hosting couchsurfers, and started reserving weeks for 'NO COUCHSURFERS' in my calendar. I was tired, burnt out, frustrated, and I'd missed the best month of summer. People told me I looked pale when they got back from holiday. I really was.

Needless to say, come end of August I was not a happy chappy. Neither was Moni. It wasn't just the workload which was bothering me; there were several things (which I won't detail here because of the professional implications it may have). Point is, I was giving serious consideration to quitting, and even started updating my resume. In the end I had a very direct conversation with our management, which led to a small pay rise and the reassurance that 'things were changing'. I decided to stick it out a while longer and observe the 'changes'. I decided that I would only ever endure one more month like August in my company; the next would be the last.

One nice thing that happened at the end of August, was building a bumble bee nest. Alex and Claudia, two good friends of mine, had married earlier on in the year. Alex had an interest in bumble bees. One of his books had the directions on how to build one. I thought an appropriate wedding gift would be to find a way to build the nest, so I called my cousin Roger who, like most males from the Dörfliger family excluding myself, is a woodworker/joiner (Schreiner in German). It took a bit of juggling schedules and such, but eventually Alex and I made it to Fulenbach to build the Hummelinkasten with Roger. It was really cool. Alex was obviously impressed how fluently and quickly Roger built that thing. Actually, I was too. He spent a bit of time analysing the diagrams, made up a cutting list, made the cuts, then just screwed it all together. Add a few finishing touches, and it was done within an hour or two. Not bad.

From this...	...to this

Wednesday the 12th of March: Fly to Invercargill
Rowena drops Max and I to Christchurch airport, stopping for a last minute shop en-route. We board a plane and fly to Invercargill, arriving a little after midday. Watched 10'000BC, bought cooker fuel and spent night at Tuatara backpackers.

Thursday the 13th of March: Arrival: Christmas Village hut
We take a shuttle bus to Bluff (the southern-most town on the South Island) and a ferry across foveaux strait to the Oban township on Stewart Island, arriving at 9:30am. It was a beautiful day, but apparently this isn't a regular event. "If you can see Stewart Island [from the mainland], it's going to rain. If you can't, it's already raining." I was impressed with the crystal clarity of the water in the harbour and the constant sound of native birds around the town.
Max and I are still discussing which track we should do to make the best use of our time. The northern circuit takes 9 days. The southern circuit is shorter, but muddier and less spectacular. There are various options of taking shortcuts using water taxis or flying in and out from various points on the track. Walking tracks run the perimeter of the northern half of Stewart Island and apart from an abandoned settlement in Pegasus bay, the southern half of the island is completely untouched. One of the last remaining pristine places on earth. Several of the outlying islands have been cleansed of pests and are wildlife reserves. While mice, cats, deer, possums and other pests have been introduced to Stewart Island, it's one place you can still see Kiwi birds in the wild. There's even talk of blowing NZ$500M on making the entire island pest free. Good on them if they try, but even with $500M it's a pretty big place. Good luck, I say.
We eventually decide to do the northern circuit taking a water taxi in to Christmas Village hut and out again at Freshwater hut, allowing for one 'hut day'. We head to the information centre to book and... the next water taxi goes at 6pm. Bugger.
So we have cappuccinos and carrot cake at the Just Cafe, fish and chips at the quaint little fish and chip shop, and explore the township.
Oban is an old fishing town and has around 300 people, nestled into the northeast corner of Stewart Island. The two main sources of income are fishing and tourism, though the fishing is now cut back because of the quota system brought in to prevent over-fishing. I found Oban charming and friendly, however my discussions with locals discovered that socially, it's sadly not such a pleasant place to live. There are three main camps in Oban: fishers, tourists and DOC workers. The camps are separate, distinct and do not mingle. Worse, those engaged in tourism compete fiercely with each other, and do not mingle amongst themselves. Particularly the water taxis, apparently. Well I don't know whether it's really like that but it's a sad, isolated way to live I think.

Oban Township	Fish 'n Chip shop

Well 6pm eventually rolls around and we taxi up to Christmas Village hut. There's an American couple (Chris and Tiff) tenting and a Canadian couple (Jason and Chris) sharing the hut with us. We settle in, eat and sleep.

Christmas Village hut	Sunrise at Christmas Village

Friday the 14th of March: Yankee River hut
We rise early, eat a cold breakfast and go. It was threatening to rain, but didn't. We get our first taste of wilderness walking past lush rain forest and ferns. The air rings with singing birds. The track conditions are pretty decent though my Achilles tendon is still playing up a bit, but isn't too bad.
There are a family of hunters from Balclutha staying in Yankee River hut. They share around some Paua and Blue Cod which was nice of them. I've lost more of my Kiwi accent than I'd realised, and enjoyed hearing good old Kiwi banter again. Chris and Tiff (the American couple) keep walking to the next hut and we don't see them again.

When tracks go wild	Ferns & Fauna

Lucky Beach	So lush

Canopy	Don't Remember Where

Saturday the 15th of March: Long Harry hut
More walking, more bush, just as incredible. We meet more hunters bivouacked out at Lucky Beach. Rather than sharing a DOC hut, they set up their tents and tarpaulins around an existing fireplace/chimney and camp out there. It looked cozy.
Long Harry hut was amazing, out on a small peninsula with incredible views into the bay and across the ocean. There weren't any hunters, and the peace was noticeable. I went exploring along the beach and discovered this awesome cave which tunnels right through this huge rock face and emerges on the other side. I clambered around on the rocks and took photos.

Our Heroes	Smoky Beach

View from Long Harry	The Cave

That's one BFT	Find Long Harry hut

Sunday the 16th of March: East Ruggedy hut
Again, beautiful scenery and views. Consistently awesome. The next bay has a beach where aeroplanes can land, which makes the hut very accessible to hunters. The hut is full.
When first mentioned to me I didn't understand why, but it's slowly becoming clear to me why hunters and trampers are often so incompatible. It's all about perspectives. I think that most trampers bring minimal gear, live and eat simply with few 'luxuries', carry everything in and out on their backs, and enjoy the peace and tranquility. Many hunters bring in lots of gear, live and eat normally with many 'luxuries', and have their gear and rubbish shipped in and out with minimal carrying. (Note that by 'luxuries' I mean things a tramper would call luxurious, such as beer, steak, gas bottles etc.) Hunters tend to move in to a hut for several days, where trampers use the hut overnight and move on. The hunters have a lot of gear too, and spread out. It's hard to explain without sounding whiny, but I experienced it at East Ruggedy hut and understand it.

Monday the 17th of March: Big Hellfire hut
Mud was the theme of the day. Glorious mud. Actually, there was a really nice walk along the beach at the start of the day, but the memory was slowly swallowed by the mud. Plus it rained, which had the dual effect of dampening our spirits and creating more mud. I saw a Kiwi beside the track though. He was just chilling out and looking for worms and ignored us completely. I got up pretty close and took some photos, but the Kiwi cunningly hid his head behind a fern in each picture. How did he do that?
We arrived at Big Hellfire hut after a long muddy tramp through mud, into mud, up mud, down mud, and out of mud, and we were exhausted. I admit I was really happy there were no hunters. We cleaned up, got the fire going, gathered firewood, chopped it up, and settled down comfortably.

Surf this	Glorious Mud

Tuesday the 18th of March: Masons Bay
The walk consisted of two main parts: an arduous muddy slog up and over a hill; and a 5km long or so walk along the beach at Masons Bay. Interestingly enough, we learned that our map had the wrong lat/long coordinates printed on it, which lead to a certain amount of confusion before trusting our gut and going the correct way. Masons Bay hut is near a small river inlet.

Sunrise at Big Hellfire	We gotta go over that

That would be me	Masons Bay

The beach makes a great airstrip, and the water taxi get within a few hours walking distance at high tide. It's also one of the best places on Stewart Island to go Kiwi spotting. Thus, the hut was overflowing not with trampers, but tourists. Heaps of them. There weren't enough bunks so some people had to share. Our Canadian friends arrived a bit after us and missed out on bunks, sharing a mattress in the kitchen instead.
Max and I went to the beach, collected some wood and started a fire. After a bit Jason and Chris joined us. We made tea on the fire and sat there chatting until it got dark. It was a perfect end to a great little adventure.

Wednesday the 19th of March: Back to the backpackers
Awoke in Masons Bay after a lousy nights sleep. The bunk room was quite humid and the mattress was sort of adhesive. Yuck. Plus the midnight choir was performing at full volume, though I am told I occasionally do the odd solo.
We walked inland to Freshwater. It was crazy. These board-walks stretch for miles across deep slushy swamp and bog. I guess there was no track before the board-walks were built. You'dve had to have swum. It was certainly a nice change.
We arrived at Freshwater and hailed a water taxi to Oban, drank a coffee, ferried to Bluff, shuttled to Invercargill and checked back into the Tuatara backpackers.
As a tramper, you have really no idea how badly you stink. We dropped our bags in the dorm room and went off for an oh-so-necessary shower. As we returned, someone was walking around in the hallway asking 'who was staying in that room?'. The clothes in our bags had stunk the room out. It was horrible. By then the reception had closed, so we took our clothes upstairs and left them in soak for the evening. By the next morning the water had turned tea-coloured. Wow.

Thursday the 20th of March: Hanging around
Washed clothes, went shopping, read. Watched Bucket List at the cinema. Saw Jason and Chris again. They'd just checked into the Tuatara and were going to the same movie. Crazy.

Friday the 21st of March: Fly to Chch, repack
Rise, pack, breakfast. Farewell Jason and Chris for probably the fifth time. Walk to airport, catch plane, meet Rowena, drive to Bergli. Unpack. Make gear list for Abel Tasman trip. Send list. Print out maps, tickets, etc. Pack. Tidy room. Sleep.

Saturday the 22nd of March: Drive to Marehau
Up and go, leaving Bergli at 7:30am. Drive to Marissas, then to Bev's, then north to Marehau. The drive is decent, taking 7 hours from Christchurch. We organise tickets, pitch the tent, make friends with an English guy called Neil, and get drunk on beer, scrumpy and kava. Excellent.

Sunday the 23rd of March: Kayaking: Anchorage hut
Los! Los! Los! Get up, eat, shave, pack the bags, clear the campsite, park the car. We assemble in a fashionably late fashion at the kayaking office, go through the safety briefing, and get onto the water. I'm feeling bright as a spark, but apparently Bev and Marissa are hungover. We find the nearest beach and they loll around like zombies. A swim freshens them up, and we continue. We check out Adelle Island, then cut back to the mainland and hug the mainland until we get to Anchorage.
I used to sail to Anchorage bay quite a lot with Max when I was a kid, and it's as gorgeous and golden as I remember. We explore the estuary at low tide, then return to cook dinner on an open fire in the evening. Tea, stargazing, bed.

Appletree Bay	Anchorage Beach

Monday the 24th of March: Awaroa hut
We wake early to catch the low tide. As we are stumbling around in the pre-dawn darkness, we realise that we've forgotten the cooker. Oh, shit. Some sweet talking gets the loan of of a cooker and our wonderful hot breakfast goes ahead unhindered.
The estuary by sunrise was beautiful, but that was just the beginning. The track rises above the bay and along the shore, giving idyllic views to river inlets, estuaries, bays, and beaches along the Abel Tasman coastline. We stop at Bark Bay for a swim, by which time I am thoroughly sun burnt.

Estuary behind Anchorage	Inlet. Somewhere.

Dunno.	Something native. Not Rata.

As we drop down into Awaroa, we come upon a fork in the path. You can take the high road, or the low road. The low road is tide-dependent, but it goes past a cafe. Ha! A cafe? This'll be funny. Well it's almost low tide, so we go for a gander.

Bark Bay

I find myself standing on a tiled street. A yellow clayish wall runs along to our right, and cafe-style music drifts from beyond. An outside fire is burning, and a large building stands before me. I see sun umbrellas in the courtyard, waiting staff and little 'reserved' signs. Eh? Another sign says 'Please wait to be seated'. A waitress emerges and welcomes us. She is clean, tidy and mildly attractive. Quite unlike myself. I deshoulder my rucksack and notice Bev and Marissa are there too. We sit down on a couch and order three Monteiths Radlers which they have on tap. The music changes to Cafe del Mar. The beers arrive in cool glasses. It is cold and refreshing. I order a second, this time Monteiths Black, which is also on tap. Man, this is the coolest delusion I've ever had. The figments of my imagination representing Bev and Marissa agree. After a while we check the time (as if such a thing exists in this place) and realise that the tide will be on the rise soon. So, sensing that it must be time to wake up, we graciously say our goodbyes, shoulder our burdens, and continue.

Awaroa Lodge	Dream come true

Suddenly I am back on a dusty trail, miles away from anywhere remotely civilised. The sun seems to have dropped since I blacked out. I must have been out for some time. I consider telling Bev and Marissa about my dream... Nah. They'd just think I'm crazy. I am quite parched, however and suggest we rip into that wine bladder I bought with me. Smashing idea! Out comes the wine, and the good times roll. By the time we get to the Awaroa estuary I'm so drunk I don't even remember which side the hut is on. We cross it, read the sign which says 'The hut is on the other side, you drunken morons!', and find the hut. We borrow another cooker and make dinner. Man, what a crazy day this has been.

You're going...	the wrong way!

Tuesday the 25th of March: Walk/Boat/Drive, return to Chch
Another sparrow-fart awakening, eating and packing. We cross the Awaroa estuary for the third and final time, and arrive on Totaranui beach a few short hours later. Rather than lounging around the whole day, we opt to take the next available water taxi out and make an early start on our return journey. Bev has to drive to Dunedin, so making sleep an option for him would probably be appreciated.
And so, we catch the water taxi at a bit past ten, and drive to Christchurch. We pick up an international water rafting/kayaking guide extraordinaire called Gordon, and convince an Austrian pedestrian named Pia that she's in fact a hitch hiker despite not actually having her thumb out, and take her part of her way. Marissa takes over the driving and I snooze for a while. We arrive in Chch and head to Marissa's. She shows us the dvd called Wonder Showzen she's been raving about. It's some messed up stuff, with kids drinking blood and sesame-street-style puppets having sex and giving birth on camera. Kind of like an extreme monty python kids show. I drop Bev off and return to Bergli. Shower, spa, sleep.

Wednesday the 26th of March: Loose ends/Blogging
That would be today. I've sucked the photos onto my laptop and sat in bed all day blogging and drinking tea, with regular pauses to pet the cat, play the guitar, and use the bathroom. Called Paullo and tidied up a bit too. I almost went up the hill with Max, but that would have required leaving the house. I think tomorrow I'll be out and about again.
Oh, and I'll put the photos on when I get to Paullo's place. Perhaps tomorrow. It's kind of a pain in the ass to upload stuff on an unreliable 42K dial-up connection.

Tomorrow and thereafter: The Future
The next step of my journey involves hanging around Christchurch, shopping, visiting friends, a week or so in Australia visiting relatives, and then a flight to Zürich where jet lag, bills, work and bureaucracy await me. Needless to say I do not anticipate anything really blog-worthy happening. The main adventure is now over, and it's time to tie up the loose ends.

Over and out,
-Marco

Friday the 29th of February: Back in NZ
The trip to NZ took around 23 hours in the air, and cost two calendar days. I slept in Singapore airport for eight hours. I arrived in Christchurch airport at 10:20am, but had been awake for around 12 hours.
I spent the first day alerting friends of my presence in NZ and planning the first phases of my adventure. It was a long day, and I made it until 7pm before finally crashing into a catatonic slumber.

Saturday the 1st of March: Double-Glazing, Paullo's & Jet Lag
I woke up at 5am, fresh, revived and ready to face the day. What does one do at 5am? Call friends in Switzerland, naturally. Max heard me shuffling around downstairs and suggested we make an early start installing some windows at a client's place. We arrived on her doorstep at 8am sharp and had the job finished by around 3:30pm. Next stop was Paul's place. I brought some swiss chocolate and some of the mead I'd brewed before I left NZ. The mead was fantastic, by the way. It had aged wonderfully, and was both sweet and slightly dry at the same time. It went down superbly. We played a bit of muzac too, though I must admit the guitar/amp I borrowed was definitely the 'guest' set. Well it was fun to hammer out some old songs and talk some of the old BS with the old flatties. The jet lag took me towards the evening and I fell asleep in the car on the way home.

Sunday the 2nd of March: Pancakes at Marissas
Every first Sunday of the month Marissa hosts a pancake brunch at her place. We share several mutual acquaintences, so I caught up with many of my old friends there. It's good to see that the old social circles are still intact. I helped her and Shagor, her fiancee, plant some vegetables and crashed at her place overnight.

Monday the 3rd of March: Nina - Robertson Tramp Day 1
Panic and Chaos reigned as I tried to find a way across the Lewis Pass where I had organised to meet my mum for a tramping trip. Marissa dropped me into town and helped me find a way across to the coast. I'd missed the bus I needed by minutes, so we kicked back at a coffee shop in the square, had some bagels for breakfast, and waited for the information centre to open. Sometimes surrendering to fate is the best plan.
In the end I was only able to bus as far as the Hamner junction turn-off, and I hitched the rest of the way across the Lewis pass. I actually ended up being early.
Brenda arrived an hour or so later. She'd brought her friend Jan along, and the dog. We left the car at the start of the track and continued on foot, arriving at the Nina hut just before the rain started. Perfect timing.

Tuesday the 4th of March: Nina - Robertson Tramp Day 2
Day two of the track was really tough - quite a bit longer and harder than we'd planned. We rose, ate, packed and were walking by around 10am. We crossed through the Nina river and started up the valley.

The tracked stopped at the Nina bivouac, from where we bush-bashed and followed the river. I stepped on a wasp nest and was stung once on each leg, which nettled me for the rest of the day and itched like mad for days to come. (Ironically, I was the only person wearing long-johns and also the only person stung by wasps. My particular long-johns have horizontal black and blue stripes, with red and white lines. The colour scheme is indeed horrific, and I now accept that the wasps were not stinging me for trampling their nest but punishing me for my crimes against fashion.)

We navigated steep inclines, stepped around spaniards and splashed through waterways to eventually reach the ridge at the top of the valley. At one point Brenda put the dog in her pack and carried her.

The next obstacle was a massive scree slope we precariously traversed. If you're unfamiliar with the art of scree traversal, you haven't missed a thing. Every step you take slips half a step downhill. Every rock you stand on rolls. You frequently lose balance and it's slow going. We were quite tired upon reaching the other side.

And then the sun set. We were still on the tops, searching for our way down. Fortunately we'd found enough of the marker posts and had studied the map well enough to more-or-less follow the post. We found the bushline as darkness fell. The track was not very well travelled, but well marked with orange markers. I would scout ahead in the darkness where I thought the track went until I found a marker, at which point Jan and Brenda would move to my current position. By the time we found the hut we'd walked an estimated twelve hour day, and I was thoroughly fatigued. We all were. Even the dog.

Wednesday the 5th of March: Nina - Robertson Tramp Day 3
We had the option of taking two days to walk out, or firing all our guns at once and walking the 18km in a single day. Still knackered from the previous day, the novelty of being in the bush had been replaced by a weariness and remoteness, and there was only forwards. I opted to walk out.
The track went along the valley floor, and wasn't particularly difficult, however my body was still complaining from the previous day's jaunt so it was no easy frollic. The track was boggy, river crossings meant wet feet, and hook-grass was everywhere. I've never seen such dense hook grass. Even my famous stripey blue long-johns didn't save my leg-hairs from being pulled. We were even treated to another scree traversal. My achilles tendon became inflamed towards the end of the day and my knees ached. Jan's car at the end of the track was the most welcome thing I've seen in a long time.

Thursday the 6th of March: Reefton
I slept in, did some laundry, checked my email, visited an old school-mate in Reefton, and spent the day hanging out with Brenda. The dog hardly left her box the whole day, and when she did she hobbled around as though both her hind legs were in casts. Poor thing.

Friday the 7th of March: Wild Foods Road Trip Day 1
I bid my farewells and caught the east-west shuttle bus to Christchurch, arriving sometime after twelve. I dumped my backpack at Marissa's work and caught a bus to Lyttelton to have lunch with Max and...er, pick up the Wild Foods Festival tickets I'd left there. I took the bus back into town, regrouped with Marissa, Sean and Tanya, and embarked on our road trip to the Wild Foods Festival in Hokitika. We arrived after dark and caught up with Bev and his two workmates Danielle and Erica. We ate, returned to our dorm and played drinking games into the evening. Our dormatory was apparently an old alcoholic rehabilitation clinic. We drank to that.

Saturday the 8th of March: Wild Foods Road Trip Day 2
Burboun & Coke for breakfast, with marmite on toast to wash it down. Marissa and I engaged on a mullet hunt, and shot quite a few prize beasts throughout the course of the weekend. One of our prey, Peter, went on to become our official mascot, and turned out to be a surprisingly good dancer.

The Wild Foods Festival was quite interesting. We sampled many vaious delicacies, including crocodile, muttonbird, pickled nikau palm, wasp larvae ice-cream, worm surprise red-bull shots, huhu grubs, whitebait kebab, kava, testicle stew, and many more. We missed out on mountain oysters, live grasshoppers, and bull sperm shots (oh no, not me. That's where I draw the line.)

She likes wasp larvae.	He likes wasp larvae.
But not everybody likes wasp larvae.

There was some pretty good live music and it was raining, so we danced in it for a while, went shopping, and returned to the dorm for tea.

We'd all bought tickets to the dance, but were pretty tired and were undecided on whether we should go or not. In the end two english lads persuaded us to go and ordered a taxi van. Reluctantly, we obliged.
The sounds of Elvis echoed across the grounds as we arrived, and people were streaming from the main marquee towards the drink stands. West Coast Breweries had wrestled the sponsorship from Monteiths this year, and had placed a strict 'Ours or Nothin' policy. Their beer was revolting so we stuck with wine, and waited for Elvis to die. The next band to come on was a great little cover band which played a lot of well-known songs. We danced, jigged and barndanced until 1am rolled around before carrying ourselves home to bed.

During the night, Marissa patiently defeated the series of improvised locking mechanisms I'd placed to prevent unwanted manipulation of the old hospital bed I was sleeping on. I awoke as she was raising the end of the bed, much to my chagrin. Well at least the wheel brake was still on, or I could have awoken rolling down the hill.

Sunday the 9th of March: Wild Foods Road Trip Day 3
We went for a tiki-tour up the coast. We were drenched in a sudden downpour at the pancake rocks at Punakaiki. We went down the Truman Track and meandered along the little beach. We stopped in Charleston to visit the beach I always used to play at when I was a kid. We farewelled Bev, Erica and Danielle, stopped in Reefton for fish & chips at Brenda's, and finally got back to Christchurch around midnight.

Monday the 10th of March: Return to Bergli, laundry & packing
I bought some decent tramping trousers, some plain black merino long-johns, a 1GB memory stick for my camera, and met up with Max. We bought some tramping food for our trip on Wednesday. I did laundry. Wrote some blog.

Tuesday the 11th of March: Packing & blog
Just that. Tomorrow we fly down to Invercargill and will cross the Foveaux Strait to Stewart Island. We have ten days to stroll around the island and admire the wildlife, the coastline, the bush, the rain and the mud. I anticipate plenty of all aforementioned. My achilles tendon is still a bit 'creaky'. I hope it holds out.
There will be no internet or cellphone access down there, so I'll be under the radar for the next ten days.

Zurich to Singapore
Departure: 12:15 Wed 27/02/2008 Zurich, Switzerland
Arrival: 07:05 Thurs 28/02/2008 Singapore, Singapore
Airline: Singapore Airlines SQ345 Duration: 11:50
Fare type: Economy Restricted Aircraft: Beoing 777-300ER

Single occupancy Standard Room for eight hours in Terminal THREE

Singapore to Christchurch
Departure: 19:45 Thurs 28/02/2008 Singapore, Singapore
Arrival: 10:40 Fri 29/02/2008 Christchurch, New Zealand
Airline: Singapore Airlines SQ297 Duration: 9:55
Fare type: Economy Restricted Aircraft: Boeing 777-200/200ER

Yup... Marco's taking a holiday, getting on a plane, and coming home. And I'll be there on Friday. Today I caught up on two weeks' sleep, made a to-do list, cleaned my tramping boots, printed some stuff out, packed, gathered documents, had lunch with my grandparents, and finally posted my travel times somewhere public so people know when to meet me at the airport. :)

Yesterday I picked up the keys to my new flat. It's effective from April but we're getting all the paperwork out of the way because I'm going on holiday. When I come back I'll have my own pad! That's pretty cool, methinks. I won't have any more holidays till the end of the year, so having a comfortable working environment will be nice. The biggest plus is I won't have to live out of a suitcase, and that my work to home commute is reduced from an hour-and-a-half train ride to a ten minute stroll. Incredibly, finding the flat was yet another stroke of luck. Someone from work is returning to Austria and needed someone to take over her flat. Me taking the flat simplified matters immensely for both of us. She doesn't have to throw all her stuff, as it's not valuable enough to sell or cart to Austria. As for me, well... *FULLY FURNISHED* flashes in red neon.

Tomorrow I'll go to dinner with Emil, Sonja, Claudia and Rene. My shout. They've all helped me through my cultural adjustment period, helped me out with stuff I didn't understand, and generally put up with me for a year and a half. Extra merit goes to Sonja who washed and ironed my clothes since I've been in Switzerland. Not to mention cooking and cleaning.

Wow... this holiday is going to be fantastic. I'm incredibly excited, though a little concerned I might have picked up a swiss accent. Gosh. Then I'd sound like... Max!