St. Arnaud

Today I relearned the meaning of Karma.

It was a beautiful morning in Nelson and I decided it was a perfect day for hitching to the west coast. Little did I know that the motorway starts about 8km outside of Nelson, so with my 15kg backpack I staggered along the port till I could see the hallowed motorway sign.

My first chauffeur was a Dutchman, living in NZ for the last 18 years, previously an engineer, now a beekeeper. And why not? He brought me the 8km as far as Richmond. Hey, only 200km to go. No worries.

My second lift took the shape of a battered old pick-up truck with a septuagenarian driver with an amazing similarity to Santa Claus. He was a born again Christian and I didn't realise I said "Jesus" that much until he dropped me off, looked me in the eye and told me if I used the lord's name in vain then I would end up in the fiery depths of hell. He also told me he had been there (due to a botched medical operation and a temporary heart stoppage) and that it was a nasty place. I thanked him and ran for cover.

Now I was standing outside a police station in Wakefield (25km from Nelson), it's 3pm and about 2 cars a minute are going by.

Thoughts:
"Hmm, that tree over there looks nice and comfy to sleep in"
"Didn't someone once tell me they had slept in a police cell in Austria?"
"Hope it doesn't rain"
"Maybe if I unbutton my shirt I will encourage some more rides?"
"Help"

Anyway, after dancing around, smiling like a Cheshire cat at the oncoming drivers (probably counter-productive), writing a sign "House trained" and finally just looking very sad and lost, an English couple turned up in a camper van. They tell me they are taking a scenic route around the mountains and that they can bring me closer to the west coast. So I hop in and decide to just go with the flow. We drive through some beautiful scenery, over mountains and through glacier valleys and about an hour later they need to go east and I need west. I jump out, say my thank yous and look around. I was 4km away from St. Arnaud, on a road that does actually lead to the west coast, but it looked like about 2 cars a week would pass by. But the scenery and the sunset shining on the hill tops was so stunning that I was absolutely in heaven. It was really like a scene out of Lord of the Rings. Within 2 minutes a local couple stopped for me (without even having my thumb out) and brought me into St. Arnaud, which is situated on the northern banks of a stunning glacial lake. There was a YHA there, a shop and a hot tub and within about an hour of getting out of the camper van I was checked into the YHA, sitting in the hot tub with a glass of fine NZ Merlot in my hand and looking at one of the most amazing Mountain vistas I have ever seen.

This was a place that I was not going to go to until I got there. Cue rolling stones:
"You can't always get what you want, but if you try, sometimes you get what you need".