Stop 4: Karamea

Well this stop is where my "fly by the seat of my pants" theory failed me. Well... somewhat. My plan was to stay in Westport for a day, but when my bus pulled into town and I looked around, I started to doubt that plan. I went to the i-site (every town has one and they take care of all your bookings and travel advice for free - GREAT RESOURCE) for some advice on what to do and when they didn't look too enthusiastic about it, I asked about Karamea (Care-uh-Me-uh) because the bus driver had been talking about it. Though I thought he was saying Caribbean. They said it was a great day to go and there was a great hostel there and the bus there happened to be leaving in thirty minutes, so I said put me on it.

Coincidentally another American girl happened to be getting on the same bus, which was good because it was the only time I've been here that i've felt like I might be unsafe. We get about ten minutes down the road and the driver stops, grabs a hard hat and gets out of the van, unlocks a gate to a barbed wire fence and starts taking stuff out of the van. The girl and I looked at each other like what is going on. He gets back in, we deliver a generator to a farm, beer to a hotel/bar, tires to another farm, and who knows what else to probably every farm on the way. Once we realized that the main purpose of this transport was goods and shuttling people was just another addition, we felt a little better. (We picked up the mail on the way back, along with all sorts of other things) We finally get to the hostel and take a walk into town. I learned that all the activities are a $30 transport away and you need two people in order to do everything (otherwise the companies lose money) and the American girl was there to work, so she couldn't join. So I'm left with nothing to do in this town except walk down to the beach (which was beautiful). I figure I'll at least stay another day and then leave since I came all the way out there, but then I learned that the shuttle back only goes during the week and its Thursday. So, in the end, I spent half a day in Karamea.

The cows just stared at us and followed us when we walked down the road.

 

I ended up having a blast. Everyone at the hostel was WWOOFING (live on a farm and work for food and accommodation) except for me and I was the only guest they had had all week.One of the girls was leaving, so they had a big potluck dinner that night and a bunch of the locals came to the hostel for it. I had so much fun sitting around a giant table with everyone and I felt like part of the group. The hostel was really uniquely decorated and I had a great time. I didn't want to leave.

Fun decor on the wall. Its made out of postage stamps.