Kea Attack on the Kepler Track!
This week, Adam hiked the Kepler Track: one of New Zealand's 11 Great Walks. The 60km loop, located in the South Island's Fiordland National Park, is a stunning track, including forests, lakes, ridge walks, and destructive native birdlife! Tune in to find out why the endangered Kea is New Zealand's most dangerous bird.
Tales of a Trip returns with a backpacking horror story involving more native wildlife. Perhaps camping in Australia’s outback isn't the best time to watch a horror movie after all.
Submit your travel stories here: https://www.tripologypodcast.com/talesofatrip
Help support the show and access bonus content. In this week's Lost & Found section, Alun shares a story involving hitchhiking, a rainforest night walk, and a rare tarsier sighting!
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/tripologypodcast
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 - Intro
02:17 - Kepler Track
06:59- Day 1: Brod Bay and the campsite fireball
14:44 - Day 2: Brod Bay to Iris Burn; the hike that never ends.
21:28 - Kea Attack
27:48 - Tales of a Trip: Creepy-crawly horror story
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TRANSCRIPT:
Alun:
[0:02] Hello, and welcome to this episode of Tripology. It's the only backpacking show where the hosts are constantly ever so tired because we're sleeping in different beds and just whisking around the world. It's the right dilemma. I'm Alun, and I'm here with one of the greatest backpackers of all time. It's the ever never-ending... Adam.
Adam:
[0:24] I certainly hope that's right mate. I hope I am never ending because I'm having a little bit too much fun at the moment. We've got an awesome show this week. I'm going to share a story with you that I've been wanting to tell you for a couple of days because it was that recent. I went on the Kepler track which is one of New Zealand's great walks. I'm absolutely knackered but looking forward to talking about it. And then of course we've got tales of a trip at the end. There is a sort of a theme in this episode. It's the native wildlife trying to ruin the day let's say and then I mean we've got an amazing story for you from you in the patreon section in the lost and found you're going to talk to us about something that happened to you uh very
The Kepler Track Adventure
Adam:
[0:59] recently as well mate involving involving another very very rare species of animal.
Alun:
[1:04] We don't like to gatekeep stories here on topology it's a beautiful free podcast and a beautiful free community but i have got an absolute blinder of a story where i got to see very tiny 45 million year old species of animal very rare to find and I can't wait to share it but we're going to put it in the Patreon section because Tropology is growing it's getting ever so beautiful and big and nice and luscious and we would love some of you who are really committed to the show to head over to Patreon there's a link in the description fling us a couple of bucks you get to hear a story about this mythological creature in the jungle but I'm very excited this week adam because i've ravited on and on and on the last few weeks about my adventures in borneo and we've always said one day soon we'll get around to hearing your tales in new zealand so please embark upon them tell me the tales i'll shut up and occasionally i'll make funny jokes good.
Adam:
[2:04] I'm very looking forward to it um 45 million years old wow that's even older than me and i tell you what mate i do feel every single year as old as i am big 36 37 next year I don't want to think about it, but I did manage to complete the Kepler track, which is, of course, one of New Zealand's great walks. It was just a matter of days ago. I didn't think I could do it, but I'm going to give you the step by step. run down just in case anyone wants to do it anyone wants to reach out anyone wants to wonder whether they're carrying too much stuff on the Kepler track which is what I found out on day one mate okay.
Alun:
[2:37] As you're telling this story do you still have the symptoms of delayed onset muscular tendinitis that sort of thing are you still throbbing you still hurting are your calves experiencing pain.
Adam:
[2:49] They I would say they are I mean I have also done an awesome amount of driving we're probably talking somewhere in the region of a thousand kilometers since stopping the track and there's been a couple of Lord of the Rings filming locations involved in those few days but yeah I tend to find that when I take my walking shoes off and put my Birkenstocks on, the reason I mentioned that Birkenstocks because something happened to me this morning actually where I was in a cafe and two guys were on a different table pointing underneath my table about my Birkenstocks and making fun of me as a result. I'm pretty sure that's what was going on, right?
Alun:
[3:24] I didn't like you saying Birkenstocks there. It stunk to me of the kind of thing that people do where they go, oh, have you seen my lighter? It's a Zippo, of course. Or, oh, my bag's an Osprey. Or, oh, my hair straighteners, GHD. That sort of shit.
Adam:
[3:40] Well, I think, I mean, maybe Birkenstocks, just like the Hoover, have now, you know, they're so, so popular and so ubiquitous that they've actually become more important than the product itself it's more people know the brand before they say sandal yeah.
Alun:
[3:54] Let's name a couple of others you've got the of course sellotape in the uk you don't think of sticky tape without thinking of sellotape.
Adam:
[4:01] Uh well yeah throwing it back to me um yeah oh i don't know um beats by dre would that be an example people always refer to them as beats instead of headphones well.
Alun:
[4:11] That particular product but people don't refer to headphones writ large as.
Adam:
[4:15] Beats oh let me grab my beats, um yeah i might be 36 but you know i know what the kids are like these days they do say that sort of stuff i promise you i said we got in those beats topology all right well i'm glad to hear it.
Alun:
[4:30] Anyway adam you're delirious from your older hiking continue.
Adam:
[4:33] I am i am uh so anyway we set off on what we thought was going to be day one my partner and i partner and i had our bags packed uh we pulled into a campsite in tianal which is kind of the biggest town in that region still bloody small by the way everything shuts off at seven o'clock everyone goes to sleep because they're all old and uh it's on the very edge of the fiordland national park which is uh one of the most beautiful one of the wettest places in all of the south island of new zealand and the kepler track of course forms part of that uh as well but we we woke up early the next morning, to an untold amount of rain and we spoke to the department of conservation who advised us that you would be stupid to start the walk today you.
Alun:
[5:14] Can't go to you now you'll have to go to you later.
Adam:
[5:19] Yeah that's what they said that's what they said uh the whole department of conservation office was uh rolling around on the floor with laughter and we said well what options have we got and they said look free of charge because the weather's so bad you can just knock you to campsite bookings a lot of people stay in huts which are incredibly expensive but we thought if we're going to do it we'll do it properly we'll carry our tents on our back with mattresses and sleeping bags and all of our food for three days um so we're kind of doing it the hard way i suppose and there wasn't really any training that went on i mean it's a 60 kilometer loop which isn't over the course of three or four days isn't really that difficult not too bad no what were the sort of distances you were doing in the everest region oh.
Alun:
[5:56] Adam i don't even want to talk about it mate because I think it's going to take away from your story.
Adam:
[6:02] Because let me.
Alun:
[6:02] Tell you 60 kilometers for me in the Everest region before breakfast.
Adam:
[6:06] Before you tucked into your momos for the day you're already doing 60ks but anyway we we decided to delay we stayed at the campsite for another night and then we we gave all our valuables to that campsite we chucked our van in the car park and we set off on the first day which was only going to be a short day it was still raining mind you. but we just did a short 15 16k to the first campsite and we were very very uh glad to see a little opening for us on the beach so the first stop was a place called broad bay which is very very beautiful the walk goes through the forest the entire way and it's rainforest that goes right along the lake shore it's absolutely stunning uh the the walk itself was quite um well trodden i guess you call the path it was well kept i mean there's a lot of money that goes into the conservation around um around new zealand as a lot of people who have been here will know and then broad bay is this sort of campsite that goes lengthways along the lake front and then you can just sort of camp along the beach and we got we were the last people there we were pretty tired but we left it as long as we possibly could so the rain um would stop it didn't um but anyway we got there nice and dry a little bit tired set up the tent without too much uh too many issues and then we tried to tackle all of our newer camping equipment that we hadn't tested mate we were starving uh and we had to cook some food.
Alun:
[7:28] Well one question i do have you know we all know that you're an exceptional backpacker you're very experienced you've been on the road for a long time i don't really have you down as a as a good camper as a good like you know i don't really have you down as a survivalist in the wilderness who's taking the lead in these sort of interactions your partner or you is she like going adam we need to set up the tent let me put this here let me put that there or are you very much sort of the dominating force there.
Adam:
[7:56] I'm going i'm just doing a thumbnail for instagram give me five minutes um stop hold this ring light, I didn't realise it'd be this kind of camping. It was six to one, half a dozen to the other, but neither of us experienced campers, fair to say. I would go as far to say not only am I not that experienced in camping in the wild, I also am not that interested in it. Being out in the middle of nowhere, even with the lovely views, don't get me wrong, I love a hike. I hike for weeks.
Alun:
[8:28] You'd have let her fucking know as well, wouldn't you? You'd be like, just so you know, I'm not really interested in this. I'm mainly here for you.
Adam:
[8:36] So if she could hear you say that now, I think there'd be another discussion afterwards, because that's not too dissimilar to the sort of conversations we've already had.
Alun:
[8:44] I know. I've been camping with you. And me and everyone else on that trip was made to feel like they were doing you a colossal favour.
Adam:
[8:54] That's funny. That's funny. Luckily, she doesn't listen to the show. But no, her family, in particular her dad, has gone on a load of wildlife trips. He's actually a photographer. so he's been away many a time and he sent us lots of voice notes and a pdf document and all this sort of stuff and i mean my partner's been around him long enough to know uh the sort of bits and bobs that we might need any sort of weight saving techniques and this sort of stuff turned out the weight saving technique was just to load everything on my back.
Alun:
[9:19] That is a good technique isn't it if you're a more diminutive person just sort of trying and snare a larger man into a relationship and then load him up like a proverbial camel.
Adam:
[9:33] Yeah, no, it was wicked. But I do think it was probably... You know when someone sort of takes the lead, you then allow them to in future situations. Do you know what I mean? There was a number of times when, i sort of went you know you know you know what you're doing and i kind of don't so i'll just let this play out and let me know if you need a pair of hands or whatever well.
Alun:
[9:54] You know what lao tzu said he said to lead people walk behind them so it often oftentimes you can be like i'm letting you take the lead and by virtue of that i am leading you that's what i like to tell people.
Adam:
[10:06] Oh wow well that's pretty cool i guess that was appropriate for some situations but um it was obviously a test about our physical and psychological capacities uh we we tried to get our new camping cooker working which is so lightweight it's basically just an application or an attachment that you put on the top of a gas canister and i was uh i don't know what i was doing putting the bags away or doing something and my partner was twisting the top onto the gas canister and then had the lighter ready lit it up in this little communal kitchen area just as the sun was setting and hadn't realized that the the hissing sound that was coming from from the gas canister was actually a leak underneath the application and as she lit the thing i mean the size of the fireball so sort of sent her flying backwards it was a it was probably bigger than a basketball this this flame what.
Alun:
[10:59] Did she think the hissing was initially was she like oh this is such a perfect location if it wasn't for all.
Adam:
[11:03] These snakes around, I honestly don't know. Is that one of those things that when you look at what happened, of course it was still the gas leaking. I mean, it was so obvious. But when you twist the application on the top, because it's kind of a valve, isn't it? It does hiss a little bit, and then you have to twist it further until it fully shuts, and then you have the on and off switch on top, which then allows the gas to come out or shuts it off. But it hadn't been twisted on tight enough.
Alun:
[11:33] So it was a huge vertical fireball.
Adam:
[11:34] Fireball yeah it was like a massive is.
Alun:
[11:36] That why you're wearing fake.
Adam:
[11:38] Eyebrows are they fake are they not i used to get bullied for my eyebrows at school mate be careful what you say you bring up some trauma no they're beautiful i'm sorry the girls at school used to bully me because they could not believe i didn't pluck them well.
Alun:
[11:51] That's just envy mate that's just envy.
Adam:
[11:53] When you were a 14 year old boy what do you know you.
Alun:
[11:57] Know adam plucks his eyebrows that's the only way he could possibly be so perfect and he's had a bunch of plastic surgery and he spends all his time in the gym. God, I love him.
Adam:
[12:07] And he loves camping so anyway a huge fireball went up and my poor partner I mean she was beside herself she couldn't believe it she was she thought the thing was going to explode that was her initial reaction she couldn't believe it didn't explode evacuate.
Alun:
[12:21] All the snakes.
Adam:
[12:25] To the fire assembly point which was ironically next to where we were standing but yeah it was just one of those I blew it out you know stayed calm would you believe in these circumstances blew it out we made a delicious meal of pesto pasta which was overcooked and undercooked at the same time somehow but you know we're getting used to we're getting we'd actually a little tip for you a little technique you know have you got some of those silicon plasticky silicony bottles that you can top up they're like generic things that you can just put sun cream in or yeah.
Alun:
[12:57] Like a hundred mil travel pack.
Adam:
[12:59] Yeah yeah we put some pesto in one of those because it's much lighter and a smaller quantity than a jar that you buy it in and we took that to kind of pimp up our pasta yeah it's pretty good fuck the government you know i mean we were the envy of all yeah once we'd uh you know put our hair out we went back over oh my god you know shame about setting the place on fire but i like the look of your pesto yeah so um so that was it mate that you know we went to sleep we woke up with the sun over the lake you know the the door just the door of the tent opened onto the uh onto the water it was i'll put some photos on instagram of course for anyone that follows us at tripology podcast if you're listening to this show and you don't follow us on instagram i mean what are you even doing but um but yeah it was absolutely stunning stuff mate really lovely forget about the sand flies don't worry about them um but overall great first day.
Alun:
[13:46] Great mate well i'm looking forward to hearing about the rest of the trip but first a little word from this advert, Hello, us again. Just here to remind you about a wonderful thing called Patreon.
Adam:
[14:00] For as little as a few dollars, I mean, that's a bowl of rice or a coffee. We know you drink coffee. You can help support the show and you get access to loads of bonus content.
Alun:
[14:08] It seamlessly fits in right into your podcatcher stream. Like say you're listening on Spotify, for example. It'll just come up the Patreon episode every week. And after the theme music, you get a whole 15 minutes of me and Adam talking all kinds of nonsense.
Adam:
[14:23] And we're accessible as well. You can send us a message. We talk to people all the time on Instagram, emails, the lot. So we'd really love to have you form part of the community. We really appreciate the support.
Alun:
[14:32] There's a link in the description. Go and click on it. Head over to Patreon. We'll see you there. Oh, what a glorious, handsome advert that really was. Adam, tell me about the rest of your trip.
Adam:
[14:43] So there we were, day two. It was like one of those, I'm sure there's lots of people listening to this who can relate to this, but you wish you knew how long, never ending, you might say, your day was going to be at the very beginning, so that you didn't drag your heels, so that you didn't boil the water for a coffee in the morning, so that you didn't go and take a load of photos and videos of the lake. If you knew how long your day was about to be, you would have just left A, two hours earlier, and B, not faffed around with all of the unnecessary bollocks.
Alun:
[15:15] I think asking you not to faff around in the morning is like asking someone else to not sleep or not wake up. It's a complete fictitious event.
Adam:
[15:31] Yeah, I'm actually learning a lot about what I'm like around the people I'm close to now. So this is, yeah, it's almost therapy for me. Yeah.
Alun:
[15:40] Do you find that a lot of people have a very linear experience of you?
Adam:
[15:43] Certainly the ones I'm close to. There seems to be some things that I've heard many times before.
Alun:
[15:48] Yeah, once my mum cooked food for you and she was dead excited for you to try it. And she said, oh, dinner's ready, food's ready. And you're off doing something else. I watched her beautiful Polish demeanour sing because she had to cover it with a plate to make sure it didn't go cold in the time it took you to get over to it.
Adam:
[16:04] Oh no, what was I doing? Faffing around?
Alun:
[16:06] You were faffing, yeah.
Adam:
[16:10] Sorry sorry mrs davis i'm just doing a thumbnail for instagram yeah um hold.
Alun:
[16:16] This ring light for me while i eat.
Adam:
[16:17] No your mom's a wonderful cook she is and uh i can't wait for the next time i um have some of her pesto pasta perfectly.
Alun:
[16:26] Insulated beneath the plate.
Adam:
[16:28] Yeah amazing uh but yeah day day two we started off it was broad bay to iris burn campsite now a lot of people do that do this walk they either stay in huts or they take their own tent more people stay in huts i think or you can do day hike sections um but but i mean broad bay to iris burn is a mammoth day by any stretch because you actually go up to a place called luxmore there's a place called mount luxmore and luxmore hut as well which is in a beautiful region it's like meadows and mountains in the background lovely um sort of plants very hardy windswept plants up there it's quite barren but um most people would stop at luxmore but we then went on for another six hours after that point after having lunch we stopped for lunch for an hour and a half um had we known and uh it was just one of those days where it like i like we said at the top of the episode it never ever ended now my partner and i probably carrying at least 10 15 kilos on our backs felt more like 30.
Alun:
[17:29] Well it probably was more like 30 for you and probably more like 10 for your partner. She said, I've evenly split it. It's 10 kilos each. You were like, really? Because mine feels like 30.
Adam:
[17:42] Yeah, I'm no expert, but my spine is in about five different pieces.
Alun:
[17:46] A spine, of course, normally in way more than five pieces. It's got several vertebrae.
Adam:
[17:53] They'd started joining together.
Alun:
[17:54] Oh, you've given me the backpack that fuses my spine. Thank you very much.
Adam:
[18:01] We did uh we we were quite proud of what we took but little well little message to anyone out there maybe don't take fresh fruit because it weighs a fucking ton but i was there stubborn as anything saying no i need my bananas i need my peanut butter i need my apples and i need my oranges and.
Alun:
[18:18] Don't even think about hiking without a bucket of kimchi.
Adam:
[18:24] When this podcast gets to a size where people start sending us free shit I'm always down for some kimchi, especially if it's free.
Alun:
[18:31] I've never seen you pay for kimchi, but I've seen you consume kilos of the stuff.
Adam:
[18:38] No, so anyway, this is where we met our first, it was the first encounter with what turned out to be our arch enemy on the trip, which is the indigenous,
Encountering the Kia
Adam:
[18:50] the native, the celebrated, the protected.
Alun:
[18:53] Maoris.
Adam:
[18:59] Not the Maoris. Not the Maoris, no. The parrot, the very intelligent, one of the most intelligent bird species there is, the kia. Now, did you see a kia when you were in New Zealand?
Alun:
[19:10] They've got a hooked beak, haven't they?
Adam:
[19:12] They do.
Alun:
[19:13] And as such, I consider them some of my closest friends.
Camping Catastrophes
Adam:
[19:22] Yeah, we could have done with you at the campsite, actually, when we realised that the tin of salmon that we'd brought didn't have a ring paw on it.
Alun:
[19:28] Alun, you didn't say you were going to surprise me in New Zealand Oh, it's the Kia.
Adam:
[19:34] You're far less annoying. I mean, they are amazing birds. They are beautiful. They've got lovely feathers, lovely plumage. Is that the right word you would say, plumage?
Alun:
[19:44] Yes.
Adam:
[19:46] And they're kind of an olive green, a bit of royal green in there, some shades of blue. It's almost pearlescent and that sort of stuff.
Alun:
[19:53] Oh, you're differentiating between the different types of green that Akeia has.
Adam:
[19:56] Yeah, no, there's a few different.
Alun:
[19:57] Oh, I don't know if you're more olive or royal, but you're beautiful either way.
Adam:
[20:01] Is that emerald? but yeah they are they're everywhere mate and anyone i mean there are signs at all these campsites and huts and stuff that say please do not leave food out please don't feed the kias by the way uh and also don't leave your stuff because they're very destructive so we came up against one of them at the mount luxmore hut but then we still had another six or seven hour journey and um the walk after that i mean it just keeps going up forever and i know like i definitely don't want to complain i was having a wonderful time i mean this this is one of new zealand's great walks one of the 11 and it is sometimes people's favorite so you know i was having having an amazing time but i think again when it comes to travel and expectations and uh that's they what kind of govern happiness when you think your day is going to end and it doesn't and that happens five times in the day and you've got a huge backpack and you're fucking knackered and you've slept in a tent and you're being you know abused by sand flies and native bird life it's uh it's you know it's not it's not all good all the time i would say i.
Alun:
[21:06] Understand your mood started crashing so what was this key you're doing then mate.
Adam:
[21:09] Um well i mean i can just i can probably just skip to when it was at its worst we we finally got after a very long very arduous absolutely spectacular, walk to Iris Byrne we then went down into the rainforest zigzagged all the way through again felt like it went on for hours and hours and hours, Finally got to the campsite, set up the tent, and there we could hear the unmistakable call of a load of kias that seemingly never sleep. They just work around the clock. I'm sure they're doing fucking shifts, a lot of them.
Alun:
[21:38] Yeah, fuck them.
Adam:
[21:39] And we managed to rustle up our favorite dish in the evening.
Alun:
[21:45] Pasta and pesto. Pasta and pesto served with a show, a great big fireball into the sky. And then 20 minutes later, undercooked, overcooked, pastory pesto, baby.
Adam:
[21:57] Yeah. Oh, I nailed this one. You know, like a fucking twat going, do you want it al dente? Or like, I've got any fucking control with this gas.
Alun:
[22:06] Yeah.
Adam:
[22:09] So that was pretty good. And then we managed to muster up the energy to do that. And then a tent was already set up. That was the first thing we did. And then we went to sleep. and uh we were woken up multiple times in the evening by what what i tried to convince my partner was the wind so these kias being disruptive and destructive and uh hungry it would seem you actually at the iris burns campsite you actually have a separate storage which is basically a cage with a gate and you're not you're told you can't put your bags anywhere near the perimeter of the cage and all the food is to be hung from the roof using a carabiner or a hook because the carabiners will get in there and you can't have any food in your tent otherwise they will come and attack you.
Alun:
[22:53] The carabiners will get in there.
Adam:
[22:54] No, no.
Alun:
[22:55] Like they're sort of animated.
Adam:
[22:57] No, no, no. So, you know, make no mistake, we were aware that these things were going to affect us if we didn't follow the old rules. And we did absolutely that. We put all of our food away in the storage. We kept our bags away from our tents in this cage thing. And we went to sleep thinking it was going to be a wonderful, wonderful night. Because, again, I'll put some pictures on Instagram, but the campsite itself is outrageous in terms of how it looks. It's huge mountains that come down dramatically into the valley floor. And then there's just, I think it was a five or six tents or something. You're paying about $50, $60 for a campsite, by the way, in the neighbouring hut, which we were told repeatedly by signs and rangers, you absolutely cannot use the hut facilities if you haven't paid for it, are sitting pretty sweet at the moment at about $145 a night. For some basic, basic, basic accommodation. So think about that, what you will.
Alun:
[23:51] Quite spenny.
Adam:
[23:52] Yeah. So, you know, load a load of noise in the night, very windy. And I was sort of half asleep, thinking it's probably just the wind that's rattling the tent. and my partner was like yeah last time i checked the the wind wasn't pecking the back of my head it feels a little bit more like a like i'm being attacked by a bird funnily enough and i was like no they wouldn't do that we didn't leave any food in here and you know i'm sure through.
Alun:
[24:15] The tent it was pecking her head.
Adam:
[24:17] Yeah so we we basically we have a very small tent just for two people and it's obviously got one of those outer waterproof sections on it as well before before we went to bed this was when she my partner was brushing her teeth and i was just cleaning up and stuff i could see some commotion with my head torch going on over in our tense direction and as i ran over there this this little bird which were actually quite big to be honest um scuttled away and the thing with with birds in New Zealand please someone send me a message if you've ever noticed this because there's no predators in new zealand the birds walk on the floor they almost never fly it is absolutely crazy they just saunter along like you know they know no one's going to fuck with them it's amazing so this thing kind of hopped away, And, um, and then I could see the damage. One of my flip-flops was off to the side. They'd basically ripped apart the handle of one of our walking poles. And then I could only find one of my partner's hiking shoes.
Alun:
[25:12] Wow. So it was thieving, it was robbing, but how was this avian terrorist getting to her head through the outer skin of the tent?
Adam:
[25:21] Well, yeah. So, I mean, the end of that story is basically I had to go searching with my head torch in a very large radius, finally found her shoe that was just been chucked into a bush. unapologetically brought that back put everything in the tent this time then when we went to sleep we just thought you know there's no way that anything else is going to happen surely these fucking birds go to bed at some point and then we've got this cover over the main tent which is just waterproof i guess but they they come under goodness me what a saucy little bird, what the fuck am i supposed to say to that, you could at least pick my head first yeah so uh so yeah i mean yeah we woke up in the in the middle of the night multiple times i could hear that it was trying to get to it was just so, persistent and annoying this thing just trying to eat eat away at us and um so.
Alun:
[26:15] It's burrowing under the outer skin and then it was inside the internal thermal it's probably attracted to the heat as well mate.
Adam:
[26:21] It wasn't that fucking hot in there you.
Alun:
[26:23] Got yourself a heat-seeking.
Adam:
[26:24] Kia yeah i could tell you that much but it was um super aggressive and annoying and i almost refused to believe it because of how ridiculous it sounded um but then when we woke up in the morning we we had a very quick breakfast and we put all the camping equipment away a quick breakfast of kia smoked by.
Alun:
[26:42] A fireball baby.
Adam:
[26:46] I don't want to know what the prison sentence would be for, yeah, cooking up one of those.
Alun:
[26:51] Well, that's good, mate. I like that you had an arch nemesis on your hike. Too few tripological stories have a supervillain.
Adam:
[26:59] Yeah, well, I mean, yeah, it wasn't just that. It caused damage, serious damage. When we were packing up in the morning, I got the sleeping bags out and the mattresses and stuff. I saw three or four really large holes and rips in the tent where it had been at it with its beak. So I don't know who's going
to pay for that. I would imagine it's us. uh but but you do need to be careful with these birds it's no fucking joke they will attack you.
Alun:
[27:21] There you go well i love that story mate i love that you're out there living adventures and having a fun time out there in new zealand i'm sure we'll hear more in subsequent weeks thank you for sharing but on this show we wouldn't be anything without you the listener so we always at the end of the show give one of you an opportunity to tell us your greatest travel story you can go to topologypodcast.com link in the description to submit your tales of a trip let's hear what this week's listener had to say.
Tales of a Trip:
[27:48] About eight years ago, I was backpacking through Australia with my friend Michelle and some other friends. We had two cars with us and we were basically hopping from campsite to campsite, going on adventures during the day. And at night we'd cook some dinner, chat, chill out. And on one particular night in, I think it was in South Australia somewhere, we found this campsite, which is completely empty. So we were literally the only ones there, which was kind of nice. Yeah, we had some dinner, cleaned up, and then we were talking about possibly watching a movie together. So one of us had a laptop with them. And yeah, so we were talking about the kind of movie and someone was like, oh, we should watch Wolf Creek.
Tales of a Trip:
[28:42] Now, just in case some of you might not know Wolf Creek, spoiler alert a little bit, it's a horror movie about backpackers being kidnapped into the bush and tortured and killed. Wonderful. I know. um anyway that's what we ended up watching um so it was getting darker and we had this laptop which was on uh we were sort of picnic table so the laptop was on one end of the head of the picnic table basically and we were sitting along the table um and the light of the laptop was sort of projecting right towards the other end of the table as a kind of a spotlight. So we were very, we were watching this movie, very intensely.
Tales of a Trip:
[29:35] Faces uh obviously uh since it was a scary movie and at some point it became it there was this weird thing that happened where all of a sudden not only scary things came from the screen itself but also from underneath the table like out of nothing there were these massive legs shadow shadows of legs that were sort of like boom boom boom started walking across the table and, it turned out to be a really really big huntsman spider and but the shadow of the spotlight made those legs so much bigger than they were I mean this is a big kind of spider guys but it made it so much worse and we were screaming the four of us oh my goodness it was so scary, and later we looked at the spider and we're like oh my god you're so big and oh that we couldn't finish the movie after this so we decided to shut down the laptop, and watch it another time, Australia and its animals oh my goodness.
Alun:
[30:44] Iris there with an australasian arachnophobic horror escapade of epic proportions thank you so much for sending in your tale of a trip i've actually been to the movie poster of wolf creek has has a road on it and i have here is a picture of me uh laying down across that road juxtaposed with the movie poster there you go.
Adam:
[31:07] Oh very cool so the road.
Alun:
[31:10] For those of us listening to the video pod yeah.
Adam:
[31:12] But you've been to the road where that um film is based from.
Alun:
[31:17] Where the movie poster was shot and i believe i've not seen the film because i don't like horror movies but i believe it features in the film yeah wolf creek famous backpacker horror movie escapade and huntsman famous of course for being a big spider yeah.
Adam:
[31:31] Yeah i mean it's one of those that you just almost can't write if if you ever i mean if you're going to write something and not be in the uh experience yourself i mean a big horrible hairy huntsman spider coming out of the shadows looking much bigger because of a spotlight when you're watching one of the scariest films that you equally could be a part of because you're a backpacker i mean as a scary experience it's right up there isn't it.
Alun:
[31:56] Yeah and you know i think that thing where the shadow cast makes it look much larger that's almost a cliche used in movies It turns out to be a little small thing. That's never happened to me in real life. I've never experienced that big shadow cast and I've gone, what's that? It's so big and it's turned out to be small. Have you?
Adam:
[32:13] Not that I can remember. I wouldn't have thought so. I mean, I also don't, much like you, don't really look to be scared. That's not sort of a feeling I enjoy. And, you know, both you, you've been camping with me and now my partner, you might... you might find it quite easy to believe it's not a huge jump that i don't watch any scary movies and i certainly don't want to be hanging around with any sponsor uh sponsor certainly don't i'm bloody terrified uh don't want to be hanging around with uh kias or huntsman's or anything else just a bit unpredictable mate i um it's not my bag yeah.
Alun:
[32:50] Not for me my mind is too it's too disturbed anyway to introduce any external disturbing.
Adam:
[32:57] Thank you so much for.
Alun:
[32:58] Sending in that Tales of a Trip. Listeners can do the same. There's a link in the description. Now we're going to go over to Patreon. It's going to be a blinding story about me trekking through the jungle, finding this ancient monkey, and then trying to get home desperately. So please head over to Patreon and listen to that story. It's going to be great. We'll see you next Tuesday.
Adam:
[33:19] We'll see you there. Bye.
