NNNNNNNNNNNNN: 02/01/2009

Being back in the UK means I have access to a computer that isn't flashing at me to insert more dollar coins every minute, which means I have more of an incentive to document my recent odd journeys through one amazing island, here is an initial "chapter".

I landed in Christchurch on the fifteenth of January with little in the way of intentions or funds - just the idea "I want to see some nice things." After a nights sleep and a few hours of wondering to myself I had a seat in a car with three others - a German, a Canadian and a Swiss man. What followed was a week of impossibly blue lakes, listening to stories about "this one chick I nailed", and being told off by life guards. By the twenty fourth I had lost the car, most of my money, and my backpack. The twenty fourth was also when my time in New Zealand really began.

I was in Queenstown when I decided to go to the mountains, and that's where I got my first lift - from a jolly single mum-on-the-run called Michelle. This lady also had with her a young nameless puppy that decided to go to the loo, fully, all over the backseat. A nice introduction to my new hobby, but once we stopped to clean up and open some windows it was forgotten about and the dog rode in the front with us all the way to Glenorchy - the last town. I set off the next morning, and was feeling pretty good about things. I was warm, everything was stunning and new and I had enough energy to walk for ten hours straight without really realizing.

I made it to the mountain hut where I joined a guy from Mauritius in funny, brightly patterned fluro trousers and an old and grumpy sort of a man from "near Frisco" who was bitter about something I wouldn't understand - he had a red beanie covering his balding head and drank soup constantly. The American started telling us all about another hut down in the valley that had become a Mushroom House. "It's all the Christians, they come here for the mushrooms in fall - when it's the season, for new visions." Anyway, he said the hut I'd passed earlier had been painted on the inside with, fairly predictably, ten foot high mushrooms. Then I realised my legs had seized up and I went to bed.

When I tried to get up the next morning I knew the day wasn't going to be particularly easy. This was also the time I decided I definitely didn't have enough food unless I got a serious move on, this was a day of madness. I set off limping and hungry, up the mountain like some sort of impoverished son of Frodo and Paula Radcliffe. The next four hours followed a simple pattern: As I grew more tired, my surroundings grew more epic. I was into a dreamlike state by early afternoon, scrambling beneath the awesome Mt. Edward and its crazy blue glacier. By around mid-afternoon I had reached the next hut, where I had some precious food with an old Australian lady before carrying on into what had now become a bottomless green Beech forest. I got lost a few times on the Cattle Flats and had to dry my feet for half an hour as I began to fear a mild form of Trench Foot was emerging, but I made it to the next hut - five hours through the woods no less.

The final hut was already my saviour, it had beds and was said to be just six hours from the road. By the time I'd finally fallen through the door, ten pairs of eyes glued themselves to me. Trying to work out where this weird smelling and panting child had arrived from, and they didn't quite believe me when I told them. Anyway, this group of middle aged friends from the North Island, literally threw food at me. They said they were getting rid of it, and whilst I got questions thrown at me from all directions, I was getting also getting thrown soup, pasta, and biscuits continually. I was the little English mountain urchin, a famished charity case with my tail between my legs and in fact they might as well have fed me dog food, I would've eaten it. So with food inside me once more, I collapsed into an aching sleep again. The final hut was certainly my saviour.

The hospital crew left a few hours before me in the morning, but not without leaving me another bag of treats and a bowl of porridge to see me on my way, then it was time for re-hab...