Hygiene for Dirtbaguettes

Hygiene for Dirtbaguettes

If you’re like the two of us at Trail Talks, you spend a considerable amount of time without  convenient access to a shower, sink, or Western countries’ comforts in general. We have spent the last year or more living out of of tents, cars, and generous friends’ couches. We are not the type who take dishwashers for granted and find our hair looks best after a weeks’ worth of dirt and scum embedded in the roots to increase volume. Sometimes laundry consists of throwing our climbing pants in the backseat, “forgetting” after a week or so if they’re clean or not, and donning them again to sweat our hoo hahs off all over again. Sooooo for those of you who are sick of having to cross your legs as a necessity rather than a want, for those of us who like to live outside but sometimes like to adhere to societal standards just to see what it feels like, please read on for some tried and true tactics from y’gurls at Trail Talks.

1. The ever-reliable Slut Shower

Now, listen here, kiddos. Just because you use this kind of shower doesn’t mean you are a slut. It just happens to have acquired the label because of the pleasing alliteration. (On that note, be a slut! Keep your legs closed forever! TT doesn’t judge.) What you’ll need is a large stack of Baby Wipes or associated off-brand. Scent and size up to your discretion. Now what we want to focus on here is Pits, Tits, and Lady Bits. Or to make it easier for everyone, just y’Bits. The Slut Shower saves water, is quick, portable, and can be useful in backcountry situations where you really need to ration your underwear and prefer not to have dirt turning to mud under your tits.

2. Off-the grid baking soda

If you’re like the gals at TT, deodorant is expensive and usually unnecessary and filled with shit that kills fetal puppies. But in the case that you’re just smelling a little too funky or for whatever ridiculous reason need to hang out with fancy people, ninety-nine cent baking soda will do it. This common ingredient also won’t make you smell like eau de zucchini or lady dragon butthole or whatever nauseating scents people seem to be coming up with. It simply neutralizes your odor until you can go back to being the chicken-soup scented goddess that you are. A quick word of warning: too much use will result in extreme dryness and itching and adhering to a societally-accepted odor will be negated by your aggressive scratching. We recommend coconut oil if needed.

3. A pee rag

TT has done a fair bit of backcountry missions where, for days on end, it is necessary to drop trow and squat to pee. As ladies, we are unable to shake an appendage to be rid of dripping and oftentimes don’t have the time or patience to let the breeze dry y’bits. This can result in some soggy underwear and a general stench of urine. In this case, TT recommends a pee rag. We used matching ones while backpacking the Maze in Canyonlands National Park and were subsequently able to wear our shorts commando, no longer afraid of seepage. Since it was a dry environment, we were able to hang the pee rags from the backpacks so they could air out. (Laundry by Mother Nature!) If using a pee rag, TT recommends hand sanitizer before cooking shared backcountry meals.

4. The She Wee

Evin recently acquired one of these babies as a generous and practical gift from her boo thang, and in her words, it has, “changed the game.” If you’re unfamiliar with this specific technology, it involves a sort of funnel but in festive colors where one pees into and thus can avoid squatting and becoming quite an exhibitionist. Some things to keep in mind: be sure to rinse your She Wee before placing in your pocket (Evin learned her lesson the hard way) and be sure to pee in locations where you can avoid splashing. Perhaps seek advice from male friends on further technique.

5. Stop giving a shit

Everyone stinks, everyone probably has pee in their underwear and maybe even accidentally pooped in the parking lot of your rafting company without a wiping accessory nearby. We promise that once you accept that your armpits want to express themselves and that vaginas don’t owe you anything, you’re unstoppable. Be free, my stanky Himalayan snow leopardesses.

A descriptive, non frustrating, mostly accurate, and fairly quick guide on, how to clean and re-glue your very effed up split board skins.

Sometimes I find "How to..." anything to be incredibly frustrating. It seems there is not nearly enough information, not enough pictures/media or way to much about an entirely different subject. With this "how to" I hope that it is straight to the point, how I wish "how to" tutorials were when I need them.  So here we go, "How to fix your skins when they are incredibly f***** up.

Let me define "incredibly f***** up". When I went to pull them apart for the first tour of the year it was very difficult and as I pulled each end, little stringy fibers (that seemed to be a foot long) stayed attached to either side. That can't be good, I said. And the logical person I am continued to put them on my split board. One can imagine the difficult time I had when I went to transition... glue was stuck everywhere, and I mean everywhere. It was all over the bottom of the board, my bindings, gloves, pants... you get the idea.

Flash forward a few weeks of endless frustration and internet searches. At last I found some direction. To summarize, I needed to get all the gross, hairy glue off off my skins and then re-glue them.

Necessary materials

• Iron
• Paper bags and/or sketch pad paper 
• Skin glue, I used black diamond gold label adhesive
• Old rec. pass (credit card and other plastic cards will do) to spread new glue 
• Rubber bands or other creative ways to hold the skin onto the ski while you iron

SO here we go, step by gooey gross step.

1. Crack open a Montucky... whew I feel much better and ready to tackle this project 
2. Find the least janky spot that you can lay out your ski/splitboard upside down with the skin laying on top of them with the glue side up.
3. Find something to attach the skin to the ski with so that it doesn't slide around. I don't have a fancy work bench, I don't have clamps, so I tried out rubber bands and it did the job.
4. Locate an absurd amount of paper bags, orrrrrr sketch pad paper will to the trick. 
5. Cut paper bags/paper into long strips, make sure they are at least as wide as the skin. Lay out the strips to cover the length of the skin. 
6. Begin to iron the paper bags, I set my iron heat between 4-5 (that would be medium to high). Do not leave the iron on one section for more that 10 seconds, keep it moving! 
7. Once you have worked your way all the way down the skin, begin to peel off the strips.
8. Repeat steps 6 & 7 until there is practically no glue left. If you have a bunch of dog hair and crumbs on your skins as I did, this will remove all of that. Once it is no longer sticky icky to the touch you are ready to move on. 
9. Crack another montucky, your doing great! 
10. Posssibly re-locate your work bench if yours was as janky as mine was. I moved to my counter top, make sure if you also do this, to put down some card board. Montucky 12 pack boxes work great. 
11. Lay the skin down with the "new to be glued" side face up. Clamp down each end of the skin, yet again I chose the most fancy of ways...duct tape, tye dye to be exact.
12. Nowwww we are ready to re-glue. (See in video). Work in small sections. Squeeze a good amount of glue onto the skin and the spread with your chosen plastic card. 
13. Make your way around the entire skin, work somewhat quickly as the glue does begin to get tacky. 
14. Repeat for the other skin.
15. Hang to dry in the bathroom, or a more convenient space. Make sure to open windows, the glue is strong and a bit stinky
16. Crack a monutcky because you just fixed your skins all by your badass self.









One of the many yucky pieces of paper I pulled off my skins












17. Once the skins are dry, test them for stickiness, repeat gluing step if they need more.

Clean up: Clean up your mess, if you were super messy and didn't put cardboard down and there is glue everywhere first try to clean it with soap and water. If that doesn't work you need something stronger like rubbing alcohol or if you have it, toluene. 

And my favorite, pictures and media so you know what the heck I am talking about.

Least janky spot as mentioned in step 2

This video shows the skins after a few rounds of ironing paper, still gross. Then a short clip of the skins with paper, just for a visual, and the skins nice and fresh and ready to be re-glued. Finally it shows a very professional time lapse and the finished product. Enjoy! 

An incomplete compilation of people who deserve to have cactus spines between their toes

This half of Trail Talks has been fucking around in New Zealand for three months now. I’m on the road again after three weeks working at the disastrous Penguin Bar and Cafe, run by a perpetually stoned Canadian and her alcoholic yet kind Kiwi husband. On the way down the scantily inhabited west coast, I’ve done a couple magnificent “tramps,” climbed a little, and listened to now three Harry Potter audiobooks while driving down narrow, winding roads with jaw-dropping views and absurdly high speed limits. I presently find myself in the touristy, adventure hub of Queenstown. 

If you’ve traveled internationally before like the white middle class privileged little shit that I am, you know being so far away from home is challenging, exhilarating, and tends to show endless examples of humanity at its finest. There was the kind man running a food truck (serving pancakes, of all things) who gave me and my traveling companions clandestine directions to a cave that has been shut off to tourists for decades; the Colombian traveler who enthusiastically helped push the White Whip back to safety when it went into the ditch (entirely of its own volition!); the banker who, after I broke down crying in frustration, did some mild forgery so that I could set up an account without proof of address (“Oh, you poor wee thing.”); and of course the many wonderful people from around the world who were strangers just weeks ago but have since become dear friends. Yes, there have been so many times when I’ve thought to myself, “Maybe humanity won’t die a brutal, fiery death after all.” 

Yet through it all, one must sometimes step back and concede that some people are just jackasses with no redeeming qualities. So intensely loathsome that I can only seethe and imagine the worst possible fate befalling them: going about their business barefoot and carefree only to trod directly upon hundreds of intractable cactus spines. 

Below I’ve compiled a list of such figures. If you find yourself amongst these goons, keep in mind that my opinion doesn’t matter whatsoever and you could just as easily counter with a lengthier list of, “reasons Monica Nigon deserves to have cactus spines between her toes.” I anxiously await its publication, and in the meantime will only wear close-toed shoes. 

But I digress. Here is an abridged version of people who, in my never-sought-after opinion, should go step on this quintessential desert flora. 

1. People who leave lengthy Trip Advisor reviews, particularly if it’s about a certain female server who “put the plates down on the table loudly and without smiling.”  

2. People who snore in the Grannity Hut on Mount Owen in Kahurangi National Park and don’t even have the decency to sleep in the mud outside so the rest of us can get some shut eye 

3. Those who use the term, “literally,” when in fact they mean, “I’m trying to stress an important point to you, but I am in fact speaking purely in a figurative sense when I say ‘it was so loud my ears were literally bleeding.’” 

4. People who shout, “Freebird!” at every concert they attend, even in small island nations in the Commonwealth. That was funny only one time, and it was at a cozy venue where Jack Johnson was playing early in his career. 

5. Those who take their time in public restrooms, particularly when a young woman pacing outside mi is about to shit her shorts and keeps testing the doorknob not because she thinks it will be miraculously unlocked of its own accord but because she’s trying to tell you to for God’s sake hurry up.

6. Food judges (if I want to have peanut butter for breakfast and lunch and beer and cigarettes for dinner, I will!) 

7. People who, upon meeting you, give you a hug and say, “I’m a hugger!” without considering that you are absolutely not a hugger unless it’s family or close friends and you will involuntarily strike said hugger in the kneecaps if hugged without warning 

8. Secular white people with dreadlocks and culturally appropriated tattoos who walk barefoot in grocery stores 

9. People in rented camper vans who drive 30 km/hr under the speed limit and pass no less than 10 pull off opportunities where they could easily let the girl behind them pass who also happens to be late to work (“fucking tourists!”)

10. Old, greasy drunk men who call me, “sweet” and make lewd comments and are then surprised when I smash a glass over their toupees. 

11. Bloggers. Wait....what was that? Oh...fuck. 

Travel wrenches

Today I had the pleasure of participating in Kiwi culture - to truly live like a local - not by attending a Maori welcome ceremony, not even by bunjee jumping or seeing a flightless bird. No, today I went to the dentist due to a small chip in my front tooth.

At the time of writing, I look like a bit of a mess even though the injury to my central incisor has been repaired. At the procedure the dentist numbed my upper gum and lip to avoid any sensitivity to the point of trauma on the aforementioned tooth. Although I can now smile without looking like a “pretty Floyd from Dumb and Dumber” (as one kind friend put it), my lip now droops in a way that hides my front teeth altogether. I was given no information on how long I can expect this side effect to last.

It turns out dentistry in New Zealand functions in much the same way as North America except the situation is somewhat more pleasant given their cuter accents and a national insurance covering accidents from extreme sports. (If anyone asks, I chipped my tooth while mountain biking, not on the metal mouthpiece of my water bottle.)

I also currently have somewhat of a doozy of a black eye which makes it look like I went rogue with lavender eyeshadow. Above the purplish eyelid, northwest of my eyebrow, is a large bump that is the cause of the bruising below. My left eyebrow subsequently sticks out a bit further than the right rendering a rather Neanderthalic vibe on that side.

The bruising on my eye is due to a pretty unfortunate incident. If any of my aunts are reading this, the accident involves someone missing my shoulder when playing punching me when they said, “aw, shucks,” in response to some witty retort. But for the rest of the Trail Talks audience (Aunties, this is where you leave us), the grim appearance of fifty percent of my face is the result of me being a real dumbass.

I was out climbing at what now I now consider to be my home crag - Paine’s Ford - on a little ditty of a route called Lost Soles. I was chatting with friends, not paying great attention, actually rehashing an earlier incident in which I’d fallen off a climb before the first bolt (meaning I wasn’t clipped in to anything) and dislocated my friend’s thumb as he attempted to spot me. I was chuckling about how silly that was and how I wouldn’t make a mistake like that again when I reached out to clip the bolt and in seemingly no transition time found myself headfirst in the dirt. About ten people rushed to my aid, and I sat up dazedly but otherwise OK, small cuts in my shoulder and forehead. I felt fine, but judging by everyone’s reaction, I had jumped into the waiting jaws of death itself. Unprompted, a stranger nearby said I should watch out because she has a friend who took a fall EXACTLY LIKE MINE, (“actually, you look a lot like her, her name is Annika and she lives in a parallel dimension“), and now she can’t walk or talk anymore. And while I of course offer sincere sympathies to this stranger’s friend, I didn’t exactly want a list of horrific worst case scenarios before I’d even brushed the dirt off of my elbows. 

As of now, I’m still walking and talking normally, except of course for the slight (hopefully temporary) lisp I’ve acquired as a consequence of my droopy lip.

As I continue to receive wrench after wrench in my plans, I’ve created an image of some evil cosmic force throwing them, cackling madly, rubbing their hands together and wondering how much more I can take before I pack up and go home. Well, listen here, Cosmic Demon! My trials with an overall fucked-up face are easily ignored because so many other things are incredible. The almost daily climbing with some friends with whom I’ve grown remarkably close, hiking to the top of a peak through  a temperate rainforest to take in views of craggy mountains and a turquoise bay, laughing with friends about my teeth, and declaring my purple eye to just be a trendy makeup routine.

The best compliment I’ve ever received is that I’m “resilient, like a potato.” And while I hope my friend was not making the comparison in a physical sense, I am proud to say that no matter what I’m thrown, no matter how shitty shit gets, I’ve always kept going. It’s part of what brought me to New Zealand in the first place.

So, put up your dukes, Evil Universe Bummer. I wouldn’t mind evening out my black eye anyway.

The time Monica disappeared in New Zealand

It was New Years Eve. Monica and I both had our respective many drinks in our respective countries. We exchanged a few texts, something along the lines of "I am getting roaring drunk"- Monica and "sorry I was too drunk"-Evin. That was our last exchange before I figured that the only explination was a strange disappearance. Now it is January 2, It is Monicas Birthday in New Zealand (because she lives in the future). I send her a Birthday text, then 2, and 3...4... No response. So obviously I come to the conclusion that something has gone terribly wrong. It hadn't been more than 48 hours, the legal amount of time that someone has been to be missing before its recognized as a missing person. But of course I know best and I feel in my core that something is wrong. My best friend has disappeared.

I decide to cover all my bases. Maybe her phone wasn't working, was flushed down a toilet or taken by a Kiwi (the bird). So I blew her up on all forms of social media. No response. I am sure now that something terrible happened on New Years, she was either in a ditch somewhere, locked in a basement or maybe ended up in a strange town. No response on other platforms either. It is Now Thursday January 4 ( for me , and the 5th for Monica). I decide to take the next step. I looked up the camp she is staying at and tried to call. Forget the international call fee, my friend is in trouble! And I was certain. The first time I called I got no answer. So of course I e-mailed them, explaining the situation and that I needed a response stat. I was to anxious and couldn't wait, I called again. This time someone said hello, I quickly described the situation. Apparently a lot of people are at the camp and so it was hard for this man to picture Monica. She has beautiful eyes, great biceps, is a wicked climber and is hilarious I said. She also currently has a chipped tooth, and it clicked. "Ohhhh yes Monica!, I saw her the other day", he said. I unclenched finally. He said he would let her know I called when he saw her. Apparently he rushed all over the camp looking for her, finally someone who understood my worry.

At last I receive a message on Facebook from my dear Monica. Apparently my texts did not go through and she was camping out of service. The logical scenario was the correct one, who would have thought. Clearly not me. I understand that my thought process wasn't all that rational. But how would you react if you were certain your Best friend was laying in a ditch... Thats what I thought. 

Unceremoniously

I have a Webster's Dictionary app on my phone, read a book per week, and conversations around the table with my family at holidays inevitably turn to rants about grammar pet peeves topped by highly competitive games of Bananagrams. To me, the pleasure of utilizing a thesaurus is comparable to a delectable piece of chocolate cake. On that note, I'd never fully appreciated the meaning of the word "unceremoniously" until I was, without ceremony, tossed out of the hostel where I'd been living and working for five days.

I was in the town of Marahau near Abel Tasman National Park, a laid-back beach town with shallow, turquoise waters, plentiful sea birds, and gentle breezes. The Abel Tasman Coastal Track was just minutes away from the hostel and meandered in and out of the rainforest to steep outcroppings overlooking Sandy Bay. Colorful sea kayaks bobbed along, paralleling the shore, shadowy gray mountains in the distance contrasting darkly with the vibrant water.

Six days a week, a small pack of fellow Working Holiday Visa holders and I were required to work for three hours in various hostel-keeping tasks such as scrubbing toilets, changing sheets, emptying garbage cans, and counting down the minutes until one o'clock, when we'd be free to go to the beach or trek along the coastal track. In exchange, we stayed at the sprawling compound called, "the Barn" free of charge.

"The Barn" is by the far the most Versailles-like hostel I've experienced. (The workers being the desperate French peasants.) There were spacious private cabins, a movie room with squashy couches, and two massive open-air kitchens. Even their dorms were small boxy cabins with sliding glass doors, personal patios, and cushy beds, not at all reminiscent of the sagging, mysteriously damp mattresses and dreary rooms I'm accustomed to in the budget hostels I favor.

I had turned up at the hostel hastily, without a number called an IRD, which is apparently required by people on a Working Holiday Visa to ensure you are taxed appropriately. However, since I was not working for money but for accommodation and the untethered joy that comes with polluting my body with ammonia-dominant cleaning fluids, I assumed I did not need the aforementioned number. Furthermore, acquiring this number had proven to be a big, if I could speak plainly, pain in the ass. It required a lot of things I simply didn't have: a local bank account, a local address, or the patience to figure out the esoteric terms outlined on the Inland Revenue Department's website.

When I showed up at "The Barn," they said I'd need one of these sequences of digits. I tortuously opened the bank account online, but needed a day to go to the closest town to finish activating it. But like I described above, there's a beach. And warm, non-shark-infested waters. And a rainforest. So, as the Kiwis say, I couldn't be bothered.

A few days passed, and the work grew more and more tiresome. I furthermore began to realize I am not a beach person and sat in the shade fully clothed, avoiding the searing sun as my comrades splashed about in the salty waters playing frisbee. (It turns out that the notorious Hole in the Ozone Layer is located like a bullseye above New Zealand and after a couple hours in the sun, I start to feel as if I'm sitting too close to the burner on a stove.) The Coastal Track had even lost its charm.

After the third day in a row on toilet duty, I was sitting at the beach on the phone with my brother getting advice on whether it would be a morally shitty thing to do to just leave the place by the dark of night. In a word, he shrugged. Not five minutes after I hung up, feeling restless and watching the undoubtedly melanomic freckles blooming on my arms, I returned to the small staff house. There I was accosted by Carlo, the manager of the cleaning posse. He said Andrew, the owner, had gotten wind that I didn't yet have an IRD number and "wasn't happy."

"So, I'm sorry, but this is your last night here."

I tried to look disappointed, but I think my whooping and pumping my fist in the air betrayed my true feelings. I was free, in regards to both guilt and contract. It was, however, rather embarrassing to tell my co-workers that I had been sacked. They expressed their disappointment, as I had grown quite popular amongst the sheet-changing squad. I packed my bags and left early in the morning, nursing the hangover from celebrating my imminent departure a bit too heartily the night before.

I'm now in the town of Takaka, emphasis on the first syllable, which is known for being somewhat of a hippie haven. Indeed, I have never seen more dreadlocks and the main street reeks of patchouli. I am only so pleased to be here though. I can cook in the kitchen without the anxiety of having to scrub it in the morning. More importantly, I live within a ten-minutes walking distance to Paine's Ford, one of the best rock climbing locations in the country. I'm staying at a campground called, "the Hangdog," fondly called "the Gay Carabiner." (I haven't figured out why yet. It seems so far that the rates of homosexuality are no higher than a standard sample size.)

In conclusion, I think the winds have blown me in the right direction. In the spirit of Trail Talks, I will continue to adventure by the seat of my pants. Unless it involves an IRD number. Then count me out. 

First New Zealand Impressions

So far, my biggest obstacles in New Zealand haven't been bunjee-jumping, navigating glaciers, rafting Class V whitewater, or rock climbing on coastal cliffs, all of which I plan to do while I'm here. No, my biggest obstacles have been trying to survive without Evin on the other side of the world, airlines, and the madness that is driving on the left side of the road.

I arrived in the windy, coastal city of Wellington, New Zealand, wearing essentially my pajamas to make the 30 hours worth of travel at least somewhat more comfortable. (Side note: Kiwis claim Wellington to be the windiest city in the world, and the windiest part of the city is where the airport is. The landing was rougher than the dirt road in Nepal I once experienced as a runway.) My clothes consisted of baggy black sweatpants and a t-shirt that had "take me to the river" emblazoned on the front in rather aggressive font. I deboarded the plane at last and  followed the herd of travelers toward baggage claim, cheesing like a lunatic, my adventure finally under way. I was looking forward to fresh clothes and a hot shower before exploring Wellington. I was staying in the city for just two nights, enough to get the jet lag under control, before heading off into the countryside. I waited at the baggage carousel as one by one my comrades seized their bags and proceeded to customs. It got more and more quiet, more and more bleak. My smile wilted incrementally. At last, it was just me and a family with three young rambunctious daughters, glass-eyed and staring with dwindling hope at the still rotating carousel. I stood up straight and pushed back tears, trying to be grateful that at least I didn't have three tiny children missing their strollers and diapers. The kind Kiwi attendant informed me my bags were probably in Sydney and would be arriving in the next couple days. To cut to the point of this story, I'll tell you it took four days of asking the hostel employees if there were any bags behind the desk, four days of them saying no, getting more and more annoyed with me, until at last the fellow said, "You know what? We'll just let you know."

The good news is I often spend four days straight wearing the same clothes in my pursuits as a ski bum and river guide. In those cases, however, I can jump in a cold river to rinse off or in the wintertime don more thick layers to cover my stench. I spent the first three days at the hostel friendless, lurking about in the shadows with puffy red eyes. It was rather difficult at first to summon up the confidence to talk to strangers when my hair was stringy and plastered to my head with grease and my clothes hung wrinkled and limp off my body. Luckily, after a few of New Zealand's famous Scrumpy Ciders on day four, my missing baggage and haggard appearance was a funny icebreaker with some drunk English travelers at the hostel and I started to cry less about it.

Since my bags have been recovered and I look a little less homeless, I've acquired a tiny car. I'm terrified of it. It is a 1992 Ford Laser XL, resembling the car from Back to the Future but without the cool doors and time-traveling capabilities. Buying the White Whip, as I've chosen to call her, was one of my more impulsive decisions given these Kiwi freaks drive on the left side of the road and my little vehicle has a manual transmission. I'm forced to shift with my left hand and sit like a fool on the right side of the car. Additionally, the blinker switch is on the right, so I've been turning on the windshield wipers regardless of the weather instead of signaling to my fellow drivers which way I'm planning to turn.

While driving, I whisper to myself in alternating order, "Left, stay left. Ok here we go, so I'm turning right, so that means I go this way, oh god, look out pedestrians!" and "What the hell have I done, buying this thing?" My blood pressure is off the charts and I've chewed my nails down to the quick.

Furthermore, the simple act of walking around has proven a mission in defying death. When there is a situation like a split median, I find myself looking in the wrong direction, causing much blaring of horns and general mayhem on the streets of Wellington as I march happily off the curb right into oncoming traffic. Now, just to be extra cautious, I look left, right, left, up, down, right behind me on the sidewalk, and then repeat the whole process twice more, mumbling to myself and trembling slightly, before considering leaving the warm safety of the sidewalk.

It's good for me these Kiwis are friendly. Just this morning, I sat in my car at a stoplight through three cycles of green lights because I couldn't summon the courage to participate in an incredibly intimidating intersection with multiple lanes and seemingly no order whatsoever. The person behind me gave me a couple beeps on the horn, but seemed otherwise unbothered. On an excursion to get gas (which took me an hour and a half to navigate two kilometers), I did the inevitable and turned into the incorrect lane, gasped, and froze, bracing for impact. The couple cars in front of the oncoming fleet simply slowed down and one fellow even pointed me to where I should actually be driving.

After my gasoline excursion, I collapsed weakly onto the saggy couch at the hostel, my hands cramped in permanent claws from gripping the steering wheel so fiercely. I took deep breaths, but with dread I knew eventually I'd have to get in the White Whip again. I shook my fist and screamed, "Damn you, British imperialists!" startling hostel guests. Today or tomorrow, I'll finally leave Wellington and head north to Turangi.  While there, I'm hoping to go rafting with a friend on the handful of class IV and V rivers on which she guides.  I laugh that I used to be scared of hurtling down steep, raging water in a small inflatable and puncturable craft. It seems quaint compared to the nightmare that is me in the White Whip.