The day starts of in Dunedin with baking pancakes and cookies. Aurora asks her fiance “Can we keep her?” In her green mini she brings me to a gas station so I can start to hitch hike to Queenstown. A home stay dad walks up to me at the gas station and offers me a ride to a better hitching spot out side of town. He loves being with his kids must he misses the camaraderie from colleges. His solution: fishing. He can talk to guys again. I share a ride with s mother with teen daughter visiting son in prison. “He’s in there for 2 years now. The beginning was though since you don’t know whats gonna happen.” Her son changed a lot. He grew up there. “He was cocky when he got in. He turned into a man. Is more responsible now.” The weekly drive to prison has become routine. Two 60 year old ladies bring me to further. One of them just started the nomadic live style.
At 6 pm I arrive in Queenstown, a lot of different languages occupy the streets. The kiwi accent isn’t prevalent. Since there are so many tourists I decide Queenstown isn’t going to be the place for me. I’m interested in the New Zealand story. So the schedule for the coming days is wide open, I also don’t know where I will stay at night. But there’s a party announced on couchsurfing, so it will work itself out. A fire is lit, music on. The first person I talk to is Ruby, an enthusiastic couchsurfer and filmmaker from Invercargill. She invites me to Invercargill. She’s driving there tonight or tomorrow at 6 am. But in the latter case she also has a place to stay for me. After a few hours of sleep I wake up in a vineyard surrounded by the mountains. Light is coming through The sun rises behind us. Ruby comments on the scenery: “It’s as if somebody put a smoke machine on behind that mountain and let it with a red light. ”
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