The Routeburn Track: Why You Shouldn't Run New Zealand's Great Walks
Adam ran the Routeburn Track and regrets it! Nestled in the Fiordland National Park, and perhaps New Zealand’s most beautiful ‘Great Walk’, the Routeburn Track stretches 32km, through alpine meadows, stunning valleys and lush forest. It’s possible to complete the track in one day, but should you? Adam shares his thoughts and feelings on running the track, as well as the surprises, struggles, and how the experience relates to the broader topic of travel.
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TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 - Intro
08:30 - The Routeburn Track begins!
13:34 - Forests, mountains, and Adam's reflections
18:10 - Relating the Routeburn track experience to world travel
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TRANSCRIPT:
Alun:
[0:01] Hello, and welcome to this episode of Tripology Podcast. It's the only backpacking
Welcome to Tropology Podcast
Alun:
[0:06] show where the hosts literally don't stop travelling.
Walking Before Running
Alun:
[0:10] I'm Alun, and I'm here with the ever-reflective.
Adam:
[0:13] Adam in this week's show thanks ever so much for joining us we are going to be talking about the reasons why you should learn to walk before you run there's going to be lots of reflection lots of hindsight and lots of sore bloody legs mate and then of course we've got a wonderful story from you Alun in the patreon yeah.
Alun:
[0:32] Link in description for anyone wanting to hear that of course walking before you can run an evolutionary prerequisite that's come true for you in your life. Tell me how.
Adam:
[0:43] Yeah, well, this week I'm going to tell you a story about the Routeburn track, which is, of course, one of New Zealand's great walks. I cannot move for hiking at the moment, Alun. Honestly, it feels like I'm doing about 60 kilometres every single day. If I'm not walking, I'm driving, very rarely sleeping. And this story in particular, I think is, it can be sort of extended into a metaphor for life, really. I'm really looking forward to sharing it with you and the audience and getting your opinion on the matter.
Alun:
[1:12] Yeah, I'm proud of you for doing all that hiking, Adam, because there was a little period where I was in the Philippines and you were working in Queenstown and you kept on saying, I'm going to buy a car and I'm going to go on hikes.
The Rootburn Track
Alun:
[1:22] And it seemed like it wasn't really happening. And me and a lot of the listening audience were growing concerned that you were all bark with very little in the way of a bite. But I'm glad to see that you're traveling now, you're hiking about, and all the stories that you're accruing, I'm sure, are going to be worth their weight in gold. to us.
Adam:
[1:41] Yeah, I hope so. Definitely hope so. I do feel incredibly fortunate to be living this experience.
Adam:
[1:47] You know, I should probably mention that my partner is doing most of the organising, if not all of it. So I'm doing a lot of the driving, driving around in the van, the aforementioned van, which is got a new tyre last week, actually. That does feature in this story. Maybe I'll tell that in the Patreon as well. But we desperately, desperately needed a new tyre. However, the Rootburn track... Which is going to make up the bulk of the episode. It is about 32, 33 kilometres long. Now, the organisation comes into the fold because of the way that we were moving around that region, which is, again, sort of the Milford Sound, Fjordland National Park area, i.e. Shit weather most of the time. It's pretty difficult to fit it into our schedule because most people take, say, two or three days and my partner was looking at the weather, looking at the equipment we needed to take and was thinking, can we squeeze it in? The way we want it to work, we were going to stay basically with our tent for one night in a place called the Valley of the Trolls. And we spoke to the Department of Conservation beforehand, and they said that due to some snow that's still there, and the chance of sort of heavy rain and that sort of thing, the area where you're allowed to free camp is still covered in snow. Therefore, you will not be able to camp. It is, you know, out of bounds, essentially.
Alun:
[3:12] Now, when you hear that, are you concerned? Because we know that your partner is very resourceful when it comes to camping in a.
Adam:
[3:17] Previous episode she of course filled a.
Alun:
[3:20] Shampoo bottle with pesto so she's proven herself.
Adam:
[3:24] To be quite.
Alun:
[3:24] The innovator so you must be thinking no worries she'll take.
Adam:
[3:27] Care of it exactly i would say don't worry about it at all to the department of conservation i just said look we'll basically put the application on top of the gas canister we'll turn the whole place into a fireball it'll melt the snow in no time um yeah no no it was um And it was a bit sad because it is one of those very iconic, very picturesque, if you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about, the Valley of the Trolls on the Rootburn track. Amazing, amazing scenery, wonderful place to camp, but it just, it should have been possible at this time of year, but it just wasn't. So we were dicking around, looking at the calendar, looking at the weather, looking at the logistics of it, trying to figure out how we could get it in the way we wanted to with all of the different moving parts. And she said, you know what? I'm just really not sure. I'm kind of down about the fact things aren't working out. And I said, well, I would really like to do it.
Trail Running Challenge
Adam:
[4:18] So why don't I just absolutely fucking blitz the thing and trail run it in one day?
Alun:
[4:26] Without her?
Adam:
[4:27] Yeah. I mean, we'd already come to the conclusion that we were either going to leave it out or, Or the only way that we could do it, and I think I wanted to do it slightly more, but was because I thought it was possible to do it in one day.
Alun:
[4:40] What do I think? I think it sounds like you. I think that there'd have been an aspect of you that couldn't bear the idea of not doing it. Because the, I mean, fear of missing out is a term that a lot of people throw around these days. But for you, it's quite pathological. I think you wouldn't have been able to sleep. You'd have got quite irritable. You'd have been quite frustrated. You just thought how dare god bestow this weather upon me which has now prevented me from doing that which i came for I think for her sake it's good that you just ran the thing.
Adam:
[5:12] Yeah yeah well i'm i'm sort of glad i mean this will come sort of full circle that you know the well.
Alun:
[5:18] It should if a trail run should come full circle and if it doesn't you've got lost.
Adam:
[5:21] Well i'm so glad i'm so glad that you mentioned that because the the difficulty with the root burn track is the logistics and exactly it is exactly because it is not a full circle it's not a loop it's a point to point they.
Alun:
[5:34] Always say that don't they when you say to the person the people at the reception you go how difficult is this track they go do you mean physically or.
Adam:
[5:41] Logistically because.
Alun:
[5:42] Physically it's a piece of piss but, logistically, it's a fucking nightmare.
Adam:
[5:47] Mate there will be some people listening to this who go no adam we understand the root burn track is a fucking pain in the ass to organize so it's about an hour and a half two hours away from queenstown past a place called glenorchy which again is absolutely stunning uh you go from a place called the rootburn shelter that's at one end and then you go 32 kilometers through the mountains and wonderful forests and all this sort of stuff and then you end up at a place called the divide which isn't that far away from milford sound milford sound famously nowhere near queenstown so you've got a huge drive through tier now all the way back around to Queenstown takes hours and hours, and the only way to do it This is a really cool thing, by the way, a little tidbit for you. If you are here and you've got some friends or you've got access to Facebook, you can go on these groups where people agree to key swap. So imagine me and you, mate. Imagine we don't know each other.
Alun:
[6:38] Oh, shit. Swingers.
Adam:
[6:41] Imagine me and you, we don't know each other. We're not friends, but we contact each other on Facebook. And you say, look, I'm going from the Rootburn Shelter to the Divide on this day. And I say, well, I'm doing the exact opposite on the same day. What we can do is.
Alun:
[6:54] Oh, my God, let's swap keys.
Adam:
[6:55] Swap keys and have sex um what what you can do is just swap keys on the trail somewhere and then drive each other's car back to a named location and then pick up your cars that way so that saves hundreds of dollars because the only other way to do it is organized with one of maybe two or three tourism companies shuttles to either end right but.
Alun:
[7:20] You're doing the trail running your own, so your partner will still be in the car. That's got to be cause for concern.
Adam:
[7:27] Well, obviously I floated the idea. I was like, maybe you could drive the van all the way to the divide and meet me at the other end. But no, I didn't want to put that pressure on. It would have been a pretty lonely drive. And I thought, There were other options that we could have explored, which were, and because my lovely partner works in tourism as well, she was able to get me a pretty sweet deal on a shuttle that went from Queenstown to the Rupert Shelter and then also a return shuttle all the way from the Divide back to Queenstown on the same day. And this is where the problem started. There I was.
Alun:
[8:06] Okay.
Adam:
[8:07] Are you ready? I realize that's a very big run up to the start of where the day starts, but it is about to get very interesting.
Alun:
[8:14] I thought the problem started when the weather was so bad that your girlfriend tapped out and you said you were going to run the whole thing. But it turns out that was just a mere bump in the road compared to what's about to occur.
Adam:
[8:25] Yeah, you know, the road trips, mate, there's things happening, you know, almost on an hourly basis. So I got up very early, 7 o'clock, got down to the tourism office where I was going to get my shuttle with a load of other people all the way to the Rootburn shelter. Now, the bus was supposed to drop me off at 9.30am and the return shuttle was supposed to pick us all, well not us all, but anyone who has booked that shuttle up at 3.30am. So that gives me six hours to do 32 kilometres.
Alun:
[9:02] Easy.
Adam:
[9:02] Well, it is easy on paper. It is definitely easy on paper.
Alun:
[9:06] But logistically...
Adam:
[9:07] As long as you're jogging, a light jog, what's that, six to eight kilometres an hour? You can definitely do it. If you calculate it, it's doable. And I thought, as long as I keep that pace, it doesn't really give me much time to take photos or stop refill water bottles, have a bit of a lunch break, etc. But I thought it's definitely doable. And this this sort of the run became more about me trail running it and it being sort of a personal challenge and an achievement than it did about me sort of enjoying the walk at my leisure and just having a bit of a gander at the beautiful scenery. So we we got to Glenorchy and lo and behold, true to form, I had been out the night before and had one of the spiciest Thai curries I've ever had in my life. Now we were about 10 10 minutes away from glenorky um there was it was just a tiny shuttle there was no toilets on the bus and i was thinking oh my god it much in the in the same way that your brazil story took um took hold shall we say or unfolded.
Alun:
[10:07] Yeah briefly for those who don't know i needed a.
Adam:
[10:10] Poo on a bus in brazil i had.
Alun:
[10:11] To stop the driver and do it on the side of a road.
Adam:
[10:17] So yeah, I sort of flagged the driver down and I was like, mate, are we going to be there soon? He was like, yeah, yeah, 10 minutes. I was like, I've probably got five if you can put your foot on it. So we stopped. I said, where are the toilets? Oh my God. He said, well, they're just around the corner, but we are only stopping here for five minutes. So you do need to be back because the bus will leave without you. So I pegged it into the toilet. Did the business as fast as i could as efficient as i could congratulations.
Alun:
[10:41] That's more than i can say.
Adam:
[10:42] I was um i was sweating for multiple reasons because i didn't want to miss that um miss that shuttle and then ran back to the shuttle for the the next leg of the journey but the driver was actually just chatting to a chinese couple who seemingly needed some help with something and five minutes went by 10 minutes went by 20 30 minutes went by now this wouldn't have been an issue had i not had a shuttle at the other end booked so i i was basically just watching the amount of time that i had allotted to do this thing dwindle and i was thinking oh my god as every minute passes i'm now i've now got to run faster around this track basically so we ended up getting dropped off just before 10 a.m i thought holy shit i've only got five and a half hours to do this thing and then i received a text message and my partner had said just so you've got your confirmation on the way home i've just checked the return shuttle's actually uh 3 15 and not 3 30 so there goes another 15 minutes and i was like no you can't be serious i mean i'm you're.
Alun:
[11:44] Losing time to the chinese couple you're losing time to your girlfriend's efficiency you're gonna have to sprint it mate.
Adam:
[11:53] I am there was another guy on the bus as well who who we didn't speak but he looks like a trail runner it did see said trail running on his t-shirt he looked fit he had one of those did it he had one of those um he'd shaven his legs he had uh one of those little jackets you know the little what are they like a camelback they're kind of a drinks thing and a vest and he looked it was high viz he looked the part uh he looked super fit handsome gentleman it was hot stuff mate it was hot stuff i thought if there's anyone on this shuttle bus that is running this thing other than me, it's him. So, I set off and you quickly go.
Alun:
[12:32] Excuse me, I need the toilet again. Shaving your legs in the bathroom.
Adam:
[12:38] I set off and got underway. Luckily, one of our friends had actually completed the course in less than six hours the previous day. So his advice was possible. His advice to me was was really precious. He said, whatever you do, just don't stop and make sure you make the most of the first section. The first sort of seven kilometres or so is through the forest and it's relatively flat. I mean, it's certainly not literally flat. It does go up and there's, you know, a few things to consider. But he said, if there's a part that you can sprint, try and make it that. So there I was. I was off. I was going. I quickly realised that I was nowhere
Reflections on the Run
Adam:
[13:17] near as fit as I thought I was. And I think that's a great place to stop the first section of this episode.
Alun:
[13:24] Okay, well let's let you catch your breath with a brief interlude and we'll be back to hear the rest of your story in a little second. What a beautiful little second that was. And now, the rest of your story.
Adam:
[13:39] My goodness, what a professional. So yeah, I basically darted through a lot of the forest and managed to make it all the way up to the mountainous area. You go past a load of different huts, and I afforded myself the luxury of taking a load of photos, taking some videos, which will be up on Instagram, of course, when this episode goes out. I've put a little reel together, so you'll see what it looks like link.
Alun:
[14:05] In the description.
Adam:
[14:06] The link in the description the scenery is absolutely jaw-dropping i mean the rootburn track itself is known as being one of the most beautiful um certainly one of the most achievable uh but i was quickly coming to the realization that i i had made a mistake and this is where um this is where i started to get a bit reflective because three or four hours in i was i was realizing that the the track itself was it wasn't too difficult to run i wouldn't have said, But it was becoming unsafe. It really was. Because in order for me to make the time, which is sub six hours, let's say five and a half, I had to run so fast that I was putting myself at risk. You know, the terrain isn't just a flat surface that you can run on. It's not a wide, well-trodden gravel path or anything. I mean, you are scrambling some of it. There are some rocks. Some of them are big. Some of them are incredibly loose. Some of them go across, you know, along the edge of a cliff. you have to jump over like waterfalls and things like this so um i thought if i go any is.
Alun:
[15:12] Camelback handsome man with you.
Adam:
[15:14] No no so at this point uh i'm glad you mentioned him at this point, i had um thought to myself either he's much quicker than i am or i left and i'm much quicker than him so he's either running it much faster than i am or he's just walking and i got it wrong and he's not actually a trail runner how.
Alun:
[15:32] Did you get confused did he did you not see him run ahead or lag behind?
Travel Connections
Adam:
[15:36] No, because when I got off the bus, I immediately went for a second toilet visit.
Alun:
[15:40] To shave your legs, yeah, I remember.
Adam:
[15:46] So, yeah, I sort of... It's quite meditative, you know, doing these long walks. And a couple of observations for me, and, you know, hopefully some people listening at home can relate to this and maybe even use this if you do do long hikes and you have the option to do it with a partner or a loved one or a good friend or whatever. I quickly realised that I felt very disconnected from the other people on the track and I know that might sound quite weird, But because I was running it and every other person was walking it, I didn't feel like I was on the same sort of mission that they were on. I didn't feel like I was enjoying the track that they were enjoying, you know, the same way that they were enjoying it. And I know it might sound really weird, but I just felt very disconnected to the experience of enjoying the track because I was trying to blast it as quickly as I could.
Alun:
[16:40] Sounds quite analogous to bad travel in a way, doesn't it? Everyone else was enjoying the culture of the track, the natural beauty of the track. You were just blitzing it and as such, weren't immersed in it fully and were disconnected from the other people as well. Like someone who, instead of meandering through a country over the matter of a few months, just sort of does it in a weekend on holiday.
Adam:
[17:03] Yeah, you're totally right, mate. And it kind of rendered large parts of the track quite unenjoyable. I was running, I would say, as fast as either I could in terms of my physical capacity or as fast as I could literally because of the terrain and I didn't want to fly off the edge and die. That would have been, then I definitely wouldn't have made the shuttle bus.
Alun:
[17:21] How long does it normally take, the track?
Adam:
[17:23] So it's 32 kilometers and people usually take two, sometimes even three days.
Alun:
[17:28] Right.
Adam:
[17:28] And I was attempting to do it in five and a half hours.
Alun:
[17:31] Yeah.
Adam:
[17:31] I mean, it's pretty difficult. Yeah, five and a half hours would have been great because I had that shuttle bus on the way home looming. And also I was sort of thinking to myself, You, you should have really just done it with your partner. You know, you should have, there should have been more encouragement. There should have been maybe more flexibility. And am I really enjoying this on my own? Have I just embarked on this just to say that I've done it? And am I really taking, taking it in? I do think one sort of abstract thing that I thought of on the trip was, do you think that some people are able, are able, even when they travel, or maybe even in any context, it's very hard to articulate. But if someone goes to a city for two days, and they feel like they've got a good grasp on that place, and its energy, how it moves, what the people are like, what the culture of the city is like, and some other people go for a month, naturally we would assume that the person who goes for a month or six months has a much better grasp of the city than someone who's just been there for a couple of days. But do you think in some cases, if you're someone who's incredibly receptive and allows everything in interacts with locals you know connects with the environment around them just as much as because there are some people who go somewhere for a month and then not really interact with anyone at all and just.
Alun:
[18:55] Sure do.
Adam:
[18:57] You sort of know what i mean.
Alun:
[18:57] Yeah i think to an extent yeah but i think that time brevity is in and of itself an immovable barrier to true connection to some extent whilst I guess what you're saying is is it possible to do everything in a city in a weekend and be as connected to that city as you would if you did fuck all in a hotel room for a month yeah I think kind of yeah but, The fact that you've really just done everything. I think to some
extent, the relaxed approach of hanging out for longer periods of time is how you absorb and reflect on the place itself. So I think that you certainly pack the trail in. But maybe the way in which you did it was a blocker to any kind of enjoyment that you could have got.
Adam:
[19:53] Yeah, I think you're probably right. I mean, maybe it's a conversation for another day. But I did feel like on the track, there's just no way I could have been experiencing it as well as it should have been experienced. I felt very underappreciative. Like I didn't do the track justice because I was just flying through it. And even though I was, you know, almost jokingly, it was a comical fashion, sort of looking around going, OK, you've seen that now. OK, now you can run on to the next bit. And OK, you've looked at that. And now you've looked at that waterfall. And now you've taken a quick picture. And now you must run. It was, it kind of reduced the track to, you know, far, far, something far less than it should have been.
Alun:
[20:33] I think that I've, I'm very happy that you've had this epiphany. Because for someone who's such a wonderful traveler and so against the concept of box ticking, I think the exact kind of travel that you're not is someone who goes like, okay, here's a list of things you've got to do in a place, tick them off. That's not who you are, but you do create boxes for yourself and a checklist for yourself and your mental health suffers to some extent if you don't get through that checklist, I think. I've observed that in you where you kind of have a list of things that you want to achieve in a place and if you don't achieve them I feel like you think you've not had a full experience and I think that sometimes it might be better to take a step back from that I'm just going back to my experience in the Himalayas right like I took my time hiking through the Himalayas for 21 days my favourite memories of those Himalayan tracks aren't the things I saw but, they're the slow moments where you're just with your friends slowly hiking we stopped at one point for like three hours for no reason and just played in the snow and i love that and i think that sometimes that is its own reward.
Adam:
[21:51] Yeah no no i totally agree um i am glad that we're having this discussion and i do think that in some ways doing even though it sounds counterintuitive when you travel doing less it overall is actually a more rewarding experience and i know that a lot of people that, that maybe just think of that you know if you go to a city you've got a list of things you should see in some cases if you just throw that list out the window and just let the weekend let's say it's a weekend in paris or whatever and you don't hit the sites overall you might just have a wonderful experience but it is this sort of niggling the counterintuitive you know voice in the back of your head that's going oh but you haven't done that and you haven't experienced that and that's what you sort of thought you were going to see and that's what people say you should see but if But overall, at the end of it, you've had a really wonderful experience and it's been positive overall.
Alun:
[22:43] Yes.
Adam:
[22:44] Surely that's the point.
Alun:
[22:45] Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. That's a really important point to drive home. I think that oftentimes that voice is the enemy of actual enjoyment. But to run the track in five and a half hours is an incredible feat. Did you make it back in time for the shuttle?
Adam:
[22:59] All so this is where it gets really interesting because i arrived at the sort of the the last hut for me on you know sort of the direction that i was doing it uh i arrived at the last hut and i knew because of someone i'd spoken to there's a place called lake mckenzie i took a couple of photos of that in a video you'll see it in the real is absolutely exceptional um but the the hut after that which i had been told you know was it was a good sort of hour from the divide where i was going to be picked up i reached it at 2 54 in the afternoon so i only had 21 minutes to make to make what the sign department of conservation sign said would take an hour and as soon as i went past the sign and started uh going into the forest continuing on this trail the path went up you know, very steeply. It was like a fucking wall. And that's where I just threw the towel in. I thought, there's just no way. I mean, there's no way. I was so knackered. I'd had so many of these, um, you know, thoughts and reflections and just sort of, I'd accepted that there would be a way for me to get home somehow. Uh, and, and I sort of.
Adam:
[24:12] The trip then was sort of, I was a bit angry with myself and, you know, feeling a bit down. And I thought that you could have done that section quicker and you shouldn't have stopped there for as long. And, you know, it was really sort of psychologically beating myself up a little bit because I also wasn't as fit as I thought I should have been. And, yeah, I was feeling a bit defeated. So I just thought, fuck it. Do you know what? Just enjoy the last section of the walk. If it takes an hour or an hour and a half or 30 minutes, whatever. But there's no way on earth you're going to get that shuttle. So I just enjoyed the last section of the walk, past loads of people who were like, hey, how are you? You're on the third day of your walk. I was like, no, no, I started about five hours ago. I'm absolutely fucking knackered. Please don't talk to me. You know, you are going to have a great time because I've seen what you're going to see that way and it is absolutely magical. So, you know, you guys should be really super excited.
Adam:
[25:01] And then when I got down to the divide, to the last, to the car park where I was due to be picked up, I was 20 minutes late and I thought, right, now you have got you know something you've got more work to do basically because now i needed to get home and i knew i'd missed the shuttle uh i spoke to some people that i saw on the track who arrived a few minutes afterwards and one of them was wearing a branded t-shirt they were part of like this tour group and i said are you guys going back to tia now at all or even queenstown and um she said yeah yeah we are is there any way i could like jump in your van or whatever and she said um i'm really sorry for liability sort of insurance reasons we can't take anyone who's not on the tour, but...
Alun:
[25:40] Oh, grow up!
Adam:
[25:45] I said, we're in New Zealand, it'll be fine. I got, I just got, basically she said, go out there on the corner, stick your thumb out and I'm sure you won't be waiting 10 minutes. And on my way to the road, to the main road to go and put my thumb out, I saw some road workers wearing high viz's that were just having a fag by their trucks, just parked over on the side of the car park. And I thought, I wonder if they're going back to TNL. I'll just quickly go over there. I said, lads, chaps. Hey, chaps.
Alun:
[26:16] Oh, you put on your working class sort of tributary accent, did you? All right, governor. I'm ever so much hard up at the moment.
Adam:
[26:24] I'm in a little bit of what you might call a pickle. I said, I don't suppose any of you going back to TNL, are you? I've just missed my shuttle. They said, yeah, give us a second, mate. We're just finishing up our fag, and then we'll take you back, mate. You're more than welcome to come in our car. And I didn't do the accent because the guy who took me was English.
Alun:
[26:41] No, I was just about to jump down your throat.
Adam:
[26:44] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. He said, a fellow countryman, come on, come on in. So within 10 minutes, the whole thing was rectified.
Alun:
[26:53] Crikey.
Adam:
[26:56] Driving through the beautiful, beautiful Milford Sound area, Fjordland National Park, feeling a little bit defeated, but I thought the story's taking a turn. This is wonderful. And we were having a nice old chat. They're arborists. They're in charge of sort of making the road safe by taking down trees that are, you know, in sort of fall zones and all this sort of thing on the road. So really, really interesting, guys. If you're listening, guys, they did ask me about the show. So you know who you are. Thanks ever so much for taking me all the way back to Tia now. Now, there is a little twist, mate, which I know you love. Halfway back, I managed to get some signal on my phone. There's hardly any signal at all, by the way, in this region.
Alun:
[27:35] Oh, so the shuttle doesn't know why you've not taken it?
Adam:
[27:38] No, no, the shuttle just leaves. They do a sort of a roll call. And if you're not there, they just go.
Alun:
[27:43] You weren't able to tell them in advance. Gotcha.
Adam:
[27:45] Unfortunately not. I'm sure I had the bloody breath anyway. But I was talking to these guys and we were about 20 minutes outside of town and they, They said, where do you want dropping, mate? And I said, oh, let me just get up on a map. I'll just have a look at where the best place is, where the best hitchhiking spot is, so I can get back all the way back to Queenstown. It's early enough that I'll give myself a good shot. And a text came through from my partner, and she said, is everything okay? Like, where did you get to? And I said, oh, unfortunately, I was running late. I was about 20, 25 minutes late. So I missed the shuttle. But I'm just being taken back to TNL by two lovely blokes. They let me hitchhike with them. and she said well hang on because she booked the she works in tourism she booked all the shuttles for me and stuff she knows their sort of routes and their itineraries she said the same shuttle that you would have got is actually waiting in tier now and doesn't re-depart for queenstown until 5 p.m you've got 20 minutes how far away are you so i looked at a map and we were 19 minutes away oh.
Alun:
[28:46] Get in that shuttle baby.
Adam:
[28:48] I said i said to the boys i was like uh guys we we might we might be onto a winner here uh do you mind taking me to this holiday park uh there's a there's you know the shuttle that i would have got actually leaves again at five and it's about 20 minutes away the driver he just sort of half looked around at me and went don't worry mate i can drive faster he just put his foot down blitz past three cars whipped it around a corner and uh it was so funny we as we came into tier now we pulled up alongside the uh the car park and we could see the big shuttle bus with the company name on it i was like that must be it he went that's not going anywhere without you mate he pulled right in front of it crashes into it, he parked his car so unbelievably close to the front of this thing just blocks it in completely, you know big handshakes guys you've been amazing thanks so much i really appreciate it uh and then i just sort of gave my name yeah should have been on this one back in uh you know the divide but can i come on now yeah your name's yeah get on and uh that was it mate i was away there's.
Alun:
[29:52] Got to be immense satisfaction from catching the shuttle that you were meant to catch anyway because it feels like then you did it in the right time the right order the universe protected you.
Adam:
[30:01] That's really cool.
Alun:
[30:02] Man and i'm ever so proud of you for having that experience as well and having that epiphany and taking some time to sit and reflect i think that it was very brave of you to attempt to do that track in such a short time but even braver to take a beat and be like hey i'm not going to push myself and ruin the experience entirely i think that is a great moral to this week's story.
Adam:
[30:24] Yeah well i really appreciate it i'm sorry i let you down i'm sorry i let the fans down um i wish i could have done it maybe i'll give it another attempt uh at some point in my life or maybe no.
Alun:
[30:33] That's the wrong lesson.
Adam:
[30:34] You've taken the wrong moral from the story you don't need to.
Alun:
[30:36] Prove anything to anyone enjoy take take a beat take it slow on that fucking epiphany.
Adam:
[30:43] But yeah i mean the story itself and the way things unfolded uh it was better that it ended up that way and i got to chat to those two guys and the hitchhiking experience and the miss shuttle then the court shuttle so overall it was a wonderful wonderful day and i realized a lot of things i saw some incredible incredible stuff that
Hitchhiking Adventures
Adam:
[31:02] you will see on instagram as well uh thanks very much for listening to my story yeah.
Alun:
[31:07] Head over there's a link in the description if you want to see those reels on instagram of course the story displaced tales of a trip for yet another week but if you want to send in your greatest backpacker stories there's a link in the description to do that now though i've got ever such a story to tell on patreon.
Adam:
[31:24] Yeah can't wait to hear it Alun i've been dying to hear this one for a long time so we'll go over to the lost and found again link in the description we'll see you there guys we'll see you there. Bye!
