The Toughest Hitching Luck

It was drizzling when we checked out and walked to the hitching point, the entrence to motorway towards Christchurch. The weather was cold and miserable.

the giant chess in front of Cathedral Square at Christchurch

It didn't really help that we have a handmade cardboard sign made from our cereal box with CHCH written on.


It got really freezing cold even when the rain stopped and there wasn't wind. Each time a merciless driver zoomed past, the gushing wind would send the shiver right down to our bone reagrdless of our heavily layered yeti costume.

As more than 3 hours passed, we officially broke our longest waiting record at Renwick where we waited for 2 hrs+ before finally given up and walked some distance to another point where we immediately hitched a ride from the scarry looking but kind hearted Steve to Havelock.


However this time, we didn't really have the option to give up as that was the only motorway entrance from Kaukura to Christchurch direction.

To add salt to wound at our already sucky situation, a pair of teen in their dad's old car drove pass us and the girl sitting at the passenger seat threw an egg at us!(and why the heck would they have eggs in their car?! they definitely didn't look like they'd just helped mum shop grocery) yd was so blurr he didn't even know he was the prime target until the egg missed his frozen face landed on the ground, smashed. He still had the 'where the hell did this egg came from' bewilded face while I was already fuming and yelled at the spolied brats who didn't slow down a bit. I guess there just are bound to be some trash everywhere in the world albeit how beautiful the country is.

As we had nothing better to do while waiting for the next kind soul to pick us up, we read all the graffiti and notes left by previous hitch-hikers. It's really depressing and demoralising as most of the messages were negative such as


'don't wait here' and 'We've been here for 2 hour, still going strong...'

There was even one SNOB CLUB tally that counted 150++, and the classic belongs to one that said 'hitching in NZ w/o gun is like fishing w/o a hook' (What the ???!!! mate, there's actually a term for hitching with gun, i.e. hijacking)

After what seemed like forever, a car finally pulled over the shoulder. It was a japanese guy, who was going to Christchurch, but he was asking $10 each to share his petrol cost. We were desperate and cold and tired, beside $10 each was also a lot cheaper than taking coach or staying back another night and tried again tomorrow. We told him we didn't have enough cash with us but we can pay $20 petrol for him at his next refill.


Throughout the journey, we made small talk. He was from Osaka and had been travelling in NZ for quite a while and he was going to extend his stay because he love the country so much. He told us he came to learn English by working holiday and hence he prefered not to work for Japanese restaurants or other Japanese speaking business environment.

When he told us that before he arrived in NZ he didn't know how to drive as it was so difficult and notaffordable to drive in Japan. However his driving skill was none the better than mine and we had quite a scary journey in his car. I knew yd was scared too when he subtly offer to drive if he was feeling tired or just need to get off the wheel but was declined.

When we finally reached CHristchurch, he dropped us off near Cathedral Square and we waited for Koo to pick us up. We were so hungry for we hardly ate much after breakfast and had been out in the cold all day. Later Koo brought us to have buffet at the Cabage Tree.

the cathedral square, christchurch

After dinner, we went to the gondola hill near Koo's place and yd took some night shots as the weather was pretty clear and cloudless in Christchurch that night, dispite the bitter coldness in the air.

Christchurch night view