Driving, somewhere between Invercargill and Queenstown

Today we are driving back up the country towards Queenstown to meet the students of Lincoln on their road trip. E. is driving while I get to sit in the passenger seat writing my blog. Of course I have to take the occasional break to look at the countryside that we are passing through – oh, and look at a crashed car that we drove past. Somehow the driver had managed to get his car off the road and leaning up on a barrier, without actually crashing through the barrier or even doing any damage to it. It looked like it had just been picked up by a giant and gently placed in the ditch – weird.

Oh, I’m tired. Checkout day and having a barbecue the day before is exhausting!

Yesterday afternoon we got to know the group of Germans who were also staying in the hostel. Of course they were German, every hostel is full of Germans. They had the same idea as us and we all found ourselves in the kitchen preparing for a barbecue at the same time. Of course we decided to merge into one big group and make it a real barbecue. A., a girl from Munich, gave orders and everyone got a job – preparing the salad, baking bread, cutting vegetables and E. ended up as the barbecue master.

By the end we had a big table full of tasty dishes, some alcohol and a group of people who acted like they had been the best of friends for years. Enjoying the food we chatted and told each other our backpacker stories. For the first time on the trip I actually sat and had conversations in German. There were 8 of us at the table and the only English speakers were E. and P. (the British guy who was in charge of the hostel). We occasionally stopped and translated for them if we got too carried away, but sometimes they were left making their own conversation in English while we were busy laughing at the next story at the table.

A., who by the way is slim and blond, told me of her first experiences with backpacking. She saw somewhere that to be a backpacker you have to have one backpack on your back, one on your front and of course the essential plastic bag in your hand. When she arrived in New Zealand, prepared like this, she walked down a street and the first gust of wind kicked her off her feet and flat on her back. She was stuck laying on the street with her arms and legs up in the air like a little bug that had been flipped on its back. She had to get help from an old lady passing by just to get back on her feet.

Of course I wet myself laughing at the idea of poor little A. carrying more than her own weight in backpacks, being helped up by an old lady. We told stories late into the night, and kept drinking at the same pace, until eventually things slowed down and we went off to our rooms to bed – full, happy, and maybe a little drunk.

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