Latest / Son of a Boy Dad / Fran vs. Wild | Son of a Boy Dad #363

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Fran vs. Wild | Son of a Boy Dad #363 · Son of a Boy Dad

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  Speaker 1: He Son of a Boy Dad listeners. You can find
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  Speaker 1: every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members
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  Speaker 1: can listen ad free on Amazon Music.
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  Speaker 2: Cracker Barrel is home to all the more country anytime
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  Speaker 2: that means buttermilk pancakes whenever you want them, homemade classics
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: like chicken and dumplins, and a country store full of
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  Speaker 2: fun fines. Swing by and visit Cracker Barrel.
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  Speaker 3: Today so you'll know that we're big fans of Cracker Barrel.
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  Speaker 3: In this holiday season, I will be sat at their
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  Speaker 3: table with a big plate of country fried turkey and Brandon.
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  Speaker 4: I'll be right there with you, and I'll check it
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  Speaker 4: off my Christmas list in the country store. While I'm
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  Speaker 4: at it. We'll make a nice holiday tradition.
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  Speaker 2: Oh that's so cute of you.
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  Speaker 4: Enjoy all the more holiday traditions only at Cracker Barrel.
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  Speaker 5: Hello, Son of a Boy Dad fans, Nope, don't love
• 0:51
  Speaker 5: that intro. Welcome back to Son of a Boy Dad.
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  Speaker 5: Today is a unusual episode. It's just me Francis coming
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  Speaker 5: to you live from HQ fourteen. I don't know, I
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  Speaker 5: don't know that's Harry's job, but I'm in New Zealand.
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  Speaker 5: As some of you may know, and traveling solo through
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  Speaker 5: this pretty magical country, and I'm going to try to
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  Speaker 5: walk you guys through some of the experiences that I've
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  Speaker 5: had so far and tell you what's going on. Right now,
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  Speaker 5: I am sitting in this tiny little cabin on a
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  Speaker 5: sheep farm in hawiyah Hawaya. I don't know how to
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  Speaker 5: pronounce any of these names, close to Wanaka, which is
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  Speaker 5: an hour and a half north of Queenstown, which is
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  Speaker 5: the main one of the main places to go on
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  Speaker 5: the South Island of New Zealand. I'm a week in
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  Speaker 5: to this solo trip and I've had some fun adventures
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  Speaker 5: so far, so I'll tell you guys about them. I
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  Speaker 5: landed on the North Island on December twenty. First flew
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  Speaker 5: from Boston to La la Auckland and I took a
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  Speaker 5: bus from Portland, Maine. I went to see my family
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  Speaker 5: in Portland main for Christmas for a couple of days,
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  Speaker 5: you know, early Christmas, and then went via bus to
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  Speaker 5: Portland excuse me, to Boston. Logan didn't have that. I
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  Speaker 5: had like two hours when I got there, and they
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  Speaker 5: have a brand new Delta one lounge. It was in
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  Speaker 5: terminal a different terminal from the one I was in.
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  Speaker 5: I was in Terminal A because my first flight was
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  Speaker 5: just to La, so it's the domestic terminal. But in
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  Speaker 5: their international terminal they have a new Delta one lounge.
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  Speaker 5: And I said, who would I be if I were
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  Speaker 5: to not check out the brand new Delta one lounge
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  Speaker 5: at Logan Airport. And yet everybody who worked at the
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  Speaker 5: airport that I ran into told me I didn't have
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  Speaker 5: enough time to go because it was in a different terminal.
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  Speaker 5: And I said, I'll be the judge of that. Don't
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  Speaker 5: keep me from the premiere Delta lounge. So I took
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  Speaker 5: a shuttle across the tarmac from Terminal A to Terminal
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  Speaker 5: E and then raced up the stairs went checked in
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  Speaker 5: at the Delta one lounge and they looked at my
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  Speaker 5: ticket and they were like, yo, if I were you,
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  Speaker 5: I would not be here. You should go right back.
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  Speaker 5: And I said, first, I need to have a free
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  Speaker 5: drink and something to eat for free. And let me
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  Speaker 5: tell you something. This Delta one lounge, dear God, dear
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  Speaker 5: e me. It felt like the nicest private social club
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  Speaker 5: in New York City. If you're familiar with those places.
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  Speaker 5: First of all, fuck those places, but say Margo sam Be, Sente, Bungalow,
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  Speaker 5: Cassa Chipriani, you know, once upon a time, Soho House,
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  Speaker 5: all these places that go by the wayside because their
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  Speaker 5: members end up saying that they're lame a year and
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  Speaker 5: a half in and going on to the next school thing.
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  Speaker 5: I think the Delta one Lounge at Logan Airport might
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  Speaker 5: be the nicest restaurant in Boston, truly. I had the
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  Speaker 5: Kale lobster chowder and in a groani. I was there
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  Speaker 5: for eight minutes and then I turned around, raced back
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  Speaker 5: across the tarmac, got to my gate as as the
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  Speaker 5: plane was boarding, got on nice seat all the way
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  Speaker 5: to LA. Tried not to sleep because I knew what
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  Speaker 5: was coming. Landed in La around ten o'clock and then
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  Speaker 5: had a fifty minute layover, went straight to my gate,
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  Speaker 5: got on a much bigger plane. This was an Airbus
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  Speaker 5: A three fifty. So my Delta one seat on this
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  Speaker 5: flight was far nicer than my Delta one seat going
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  Speaker 5: from Boston to LA. I mean, I really it was.
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  Speaker 5: I had a door, a sliding door that closed me
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  Speaker 5: off from the aisle, and I did something that I'm
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  Speaker 5: told real travelers know to do, which is I eschewed
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  Speaker 5: the meal service on this flight, didn't have anything to drink.
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  Speaker 5: It was it was like ten o'clock ten pm when
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  Speaker 5: we took off ten thirty. So once we were airborne,
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  Speaker 5: I reclined my bed, took a at a van I'd
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  Speaker 5: never taken that before, and and conked out. And I slept,
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  Speaker 5: you know, waking up a couple times, but for about
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  Speaker 5: eight eight and a half hours of the thirteen hour flight.
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  Speaker 5: And then when I was done sleeping, I woke up
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  Speaker 5: and watched Lincoln, What a movie, and then enjoyed the
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  Speaker 5: rest of the flight. As we landed in Auckland at
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  Speaker 5: eight thirty in the morning, I went straight from there
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  Speaker 5: rented a car. Okay, they drive on the left side
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  Speaker 5: of the road in New Zealand. I got into my
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  Speaker 5: rental car and I sat down in the passenger seat
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  Speaker 5: like a fucking moron, just kind of wondering what was
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  Speaker 5: going on for a second, pretty disoriented from you know,
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  Speaker 5: twenty four hours straight of traveling, and almost felt like
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  Speaker 5: I was in an uber you know, I'm sitting on
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  Speaker 5: the left side, steering wheels on the right and I'm like,
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  Speaker 5: is there a driver coming? And it took me about
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  Speaker 5: twenty seconds to realize, Oh, I'm driving, I need to
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  Speaker 5: get out of the car and go to the other side.
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  Speaker 5: And everything's flipped around, so the turn signal is on
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  Speaker 5: the right side of the steering wheel and the windshield
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  Speaker 5: wiper operating stick is on the left side, which meant
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  Speaker 5: that every single time I tried to indicate that I
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  Speaker 5: was making a turn, I turned on the windshield wipers.
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  Speaker 5: That gets frustrating quickly. That gets frustrating quickly. I had
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  Speaker 5: an hour and a half drive northeast of Auckland. I
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  Speaker 5: was going up to see a friend of mine, This guy,
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  Speaker 5: a Kiwi guy that I knew. He used to live
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  Speaker 5: in New York and he moved with his family back
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  Speaker 5: up here. Awesome dude, golfing buddy of mine, and he
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  Speaker 5: has a beach house up in this place. This place
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  Speaker 5: called the Manga Phi spelled manga Y, but they pronounce
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  Speaker 5: it Manga Phi. It's kind of like a mix of
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  Speaker 5: I guess i'd call it mon talk before it became
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  Speaker 5: douchey and maybe northern California. So beach town surfer kind
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  Speaker 5: of diving vibe, not particularly swanky. It was nice. It
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  Speaker 5: was Bohemian. It was cool. And what's interesting about that
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  Speaker 5: area is that I think it was in twenty sixteen,
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  Speaker 5: there was this billionaire American guy, older guy, who was
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  Speaker 5: taking a helicopter from a destination golf course on the
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  Speaker 5: northern tip of Sorry, if you guys can hear the boats,
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  Speaker 5: I'm on this lake on the northern tip of New Zealand.
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  Speaker 5: There was a course up there called kry Cliffs that
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  Speaker 5: everyone loves, and this dude had played it and was
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  Speaker 5: taking a helicopter back to Auckland, and his pilot told
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  Speaker 5: him to look out the window and that there was
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  Speaker 5: this big plot of land right on the water as
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  Speaker 5: they were flying that was for sale, and they circled
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  Speaker 5: it a couple times, and the guy bought the land
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  Speaker 5: and built three golf courses with the help of he
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  Speaker 5: hired the designers Court Crenshaw and Tom Doak. Those guys
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  Speaker 5: always seem to work together on projects, and these are
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  Speaker 5: the best golf course designers in the game right now.
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  Speaker 5: I mean, they've done a bunch of the Banded Dune's courses.
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  Speaker 5: I'm pretty sure they did Cabot Links out in Nova Scotia. Oh,
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  Speaker 5: they did a bunch of the stream song courses. If
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  Speaker 5: you're building natural sort of sand dunes type golf courses
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  Speaker 5: that are built into the land and don't really need
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  Speaker 5: to put down a tonnel like soil and sod and
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  Speaker 5: are wild and wind swept, you hire these guys. They're unbelievable.
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  Speaker 5: And he built a course called tara Et tara ed
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  Speaker 5: the local say tara Et, and this thing is one
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  Speaker 5: of the best golf courses I've ever played in the world.
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  Speaker 5: It's a top I think twenty in the world now.
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  Speaker 5: And then that was the first one he built, and
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  Speaker 5: then two years ago he finished the other two TIII
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  Speaker 5: North and South courses, and those are also spectacular. So
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  Speaker 5: there are three golf courses within ten minutes of each
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  Speaker 5: other in this area, all of which are in the
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  Speaker 5: top hundred in the world. They have the TII. Those
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  Speaker 5: two are public and you can stay in the really
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  Speaker 5: nice lodging. They're unbelievable food, everything's brand new, you know,
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  Speaker 5: truly high touch, awesome golf destination spot. Tara Edie now
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  Speaker 5: is fully private. They had a policy for a number
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  Speaker 5: of years where if you made it all the way
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  Speaker 5: over here, they would let you play the course one
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  Speaker 5: time in your life. To experience it, and I think
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  Speaker 5: they've done away with that, so you need to know
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  Speaker 5: a member. I'm lucky that I did had a ball. Johnty,
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  Speaker 5: that's my buddy, took He also took us out on
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  Speaker 5: his boat. He's a This guy is some kind of superhero,
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  Speaker 5: you know. He's a diver, loves to dive. And he
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  Speaker 5: threw on his dive gear in this cove, just fell
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  Speaker 5: off the back of the boat and went down into
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  Speaker 5: the kelp to hunt crayfish with his bare hands. And
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  Speaker 5: you got to be quick because they they're fast too,
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  Speaker 5: And he caught one, brought it up in his bag.
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  Speaker 5: We threw a couple fishing lines over. I caught two
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  Speaker 5: red snapper. We brought those in and we went back
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  Speaker 5: to the house and cooked everything up. Actually, one of
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  Speaker 5: the red snapper we made into savice, which was fucking awesome.
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  Speaker 5: I'm telling you this fish was. It went from the
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  Speaker 5: ocean and swimming around into my mouth in an hour.
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  Speaker 5: You want to talk about fresh? Holy shit? Did a
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  Speaker 5: little coconut milk, some red onion alpano. I didn't do
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  Speaker 5: any of this. They did. They knew what they were doing.
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  Speaker 5: And then we pan fried the other red snapper and
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  Speaker 5: we just steamed the crayfish that look. I hate to
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  Speaker 5: say it. I'm from main major lobster guy. I think
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  Speaker 5: crayfish is tasty. You just eat the tail. There's not
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  Speaker 5: a whole lot in it, but my god, it's sweet.
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  Speaker 5: It is unbelievable. They've started, they're going, they're about to
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  Speaker 5: do a fire. I've your ban on the hunting of
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  Speaker 5: them in this area, I think because the numbers have
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  Speaker 5: dwindled and they're trying to replenish the fishery. But anyway,
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  Speaker 5: that was awesome, played golf and I was there for
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  Speaker 5: three nights or three days, and then I went back
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  Speaker 5: to Auckland, crashed at an airport hotel for the night,
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  Speaker 5: woke up early on Christmas Eve. By the way, I'm
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  Speaker 5: eighteen hours ahead of the East Coast. That's a crazy
• 13:36
  Speaker 5: time change. I'm a full day ahead, so my Christmas
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  Speaker 5: Eve was still December twenty third for everyone else back home,
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  Speaker 5: and I flew to the South Island easy flight, Queenstown, landed,
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  Speaker 5: rented a car, drove two hours south to this place
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  Speaker 5: in Fjordland. Now this is where the town was called
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  Speaker 5: now I don't know. This is where Milford sound is.
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  Speaker 5: This is what everyone talks about. This is the destination,
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  Speaker 5: the major tourism destination in this part of the country,
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  Speaker 5: the South Island of New Zealand. There's two islands, North
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  Speaker 5: and South. Everybody lives on the North Island and then
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  Speaker 5: you go to the South Island for wilderness, adventure, hiking, outdoors,
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  Speaker 5: all of that. But I think most of the population
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  Speaker 5: lives on the North Island. That's where Auckland is. And
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  Speaker 5: everyone who has been to New Zealand told me to
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  Speaker 5: spend the vast majority of my time on the South Island.
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  Speaker 5: We'll see. That's what I did. I was only on
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  Speaker 5: the North Island for three days. Flew down and right
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  Speaker 5: of my car. It is stunning down here. I mean
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  Speaker 5: it's all mountains, snow capped mountains, unbelievable lakes, huge, vast farmland,
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  Speaker 5: sheep everywhere. Crazy. And I drove to TNW, which is
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  Speaker 5: two hours from Milt excuse me, from Queenstown. Kind of
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  Speaker 5: a tough drive. You're hugging the lake for the first
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  Speaker 5: half hour. The roads are really narrow, switchbacks, people bombing around,
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  Speaker 5: and then people from New Zealand get annoyed that you're
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  Speaker 5: driving carefully, so you have to pull over one of
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  Speaker 5: these tiny little pullouts to let them pass, which I did.
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  Speaker 5: That made me feel good about myself. You know, go ahead,
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  Speaker 5: go ahead. Otherwise though, I will say people are pretty
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  Speaker 5: friendly down here. I got to my place, Fjordland Lodge.
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  Speaker 5: This was like a rustic fishing lodge, fishing and hunting
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  Speaker 5: in tn Now. And the whole point of me being
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  Speaker 5: here was I wanted to check out sort of Fjordland
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  Speaker 5: National Park and I had a day of fishing with
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  Speaker 5: a guide booked and I wasn't sure if I was
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  Speaker 5: gonna go to Milford Sound. Milford Sound is what everybody
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  Speaker 5: talks about. There's also Doubtful Sound, but that was farther away,
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  Speaker 5: and Milford Sound is two hour drive from where I
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  Speaker 5: was staying, and I wasn't planning to go because it
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  Speaker 5: was so touristy. Milford Sound is like this, Yeah, it's
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  Speaker 5: a fjord and you get on a boat and you
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  Speaker 5: go along the fjord. That's the thing. And I my
• 16:34
  Speaker 5: hotel was like, what do you what do you mean
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  Speaker 5: You're not gonna go. The entire reason the town of
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  Speaker 5: t and Now was built was as a stopping point
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  Speaker 5: for people to go to Milford Sound because it's a
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  Speaker 5: three and a half hour drive from Queenstown and it's
• 16:55
  Speaker 5: only a two hour drive from T and L. So
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  Speaker 5: I said, all right, I guess if I'm this close,
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  Speaker 5: I have to go. And I went and it was
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  Speaker 5: pouring rain and the drive there was a fucking nightmare, terrifying, terrifying.
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  Speaker 5: Straight up a mountain pass, you have to go through
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  Speaker 5: this tunnel that goes through a mountain and you have
• 17:18
  Speaker 5: to wait in front of the tunnel at a red
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  Speaker 5: light because it's only one way traffic. You can only
• 17:26
  Speaker 5: you know the car's coming to you. They all come
• 17:29
  Speaker 5: and then they get through, and then you go and
• 17:32
  Speaker 5: you're in this tunnel and it I mean, it feels
• 17:35
  Speaker 5: like I don't know if you guys are Harry Potter fans,
• 17:38
  Speaker 5: but the bank vaults in Gringots when they take that,
• 17:44
  Speaker 5: when the Dwarfs take them in the trolley down to
• 17:48
  Speaker 5: their vaults, that was what this felt like. It was
• 17:53
  Speaker 5: dark and wet and you're driving through and the lighting
• 17:58
  Speaker 5: is flickering, but you get through and then again switchbacks
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  Speaker 5: all the way down, very steep down the mountain. Scary,
• 18:08
  Speaker 5: gotta drive very slowly to this tiny little sort of
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  Speaker 5: harbor jumping off point for Milford Sound. Okay, this is
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  Speaker 5: where I realized I'd made a mistake. It is so touristy.
• 18:25
  Speaker 5: There are tour buses that are you know, you get
• 18:28
  Speaker 5: stuck behind on this drive and they are carrying tourists galore,
• 18:36
  Speaker 5: and I got it. You get on a boat and
• 18:39
  Speaker 5: everybody on the boat, I would say eighty percent of
• 18:42
  Speaker 5: the boat was Asian tourists, primarily Chinese tourists. That's fine,
• 18:51
  Speaker 5: I don't know nothing wrong with that. I just don't
• 18:54
  Speaker 5: like jostling for position on the deck of a boat
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  Speaker 5: with one hundred and fifty other tourists, all of whom
• 19:04
  Speaker 5: are trying to take a picture of a waterfall. It
• 19:06
  Speaker 5: doesn't really make you feel like you're experiencing something that
• 19:12
  Speaker 5: is unique in a way. This is a well oiled machine.
• 19:17
  Speaker 5: It's a tourist trap, which is crazy given how hard
• 19:21
  Speaker 5: it was to get there. But I did it drove back.
• 19:27
  Speaker 5: I don't know a lot of people take helicopters in
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  Speaker 5: to see this.
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  Speaker 2: Look.
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  Speaker 5: It's amazing, no doubt about it. There's crazy waterfalls. There's
• 19:36
  Speaker 5: mountains rising straight up out of fjord. Don't expect to
• 19:42
  Speaker 5: see a whole lot of wildlife. We saw one seal
• 19:44
  Speaker 5: that was it, and it was you know, foggy and
• 19:49
  Speaker 5: wild and green and wet and very dramatic. It was
• 19:52
  Speaker 5: an amazing place to see, but for what it took
• 19:56
  Speaker 5: for me to get there, I would not necessarily recommend
• 20:00
  Speaker 5: it to other people unless maybe doing the helicopter or
• 20:04
  Speaker 5: doing the plain thing is a better way to do it,
• 20:08
  Speaker 5: and a lot of people had recommended doing that. I'll
• 20:11
  Speaker 5: say this too. Helicopters seemed to be the way around here.
• 20:18
  Speaker 5: There's such an enormous helicopter industry in New Zealand everywhere
• 20:24
  Speaker 5: you go. That's kind of like a normal thing. And
• 20:28
  Speaker 5: I can't say that it's that much less expensive. I mean,
• 20:34
  Speaker 5: it's still utterly expensive to take a helicopter tour of anything.
• 20:39
  Speaker 5: So I'm surprised that that's kind of become such a
• 20:41
  Speaker 5: normal thing. But I did not want to do that.
• 20:47
  Speaker 5: Drove back, was kind of bummed out by the whole day. Honestly.
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  Speaker 5: This is where so I'm on, this is my fourth
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  Speaker 5: day into my trip and I've just I'd been in
• 20:58
  Speaker 5: the car, you know this. I was a four hour
• 21:03
  Speaker 5: day in the car to was two hours there kind
• 21:07
  Speaker 5: of a shitty experience two hours back being in the car.
• 21:13
  Speaker 5: You know that much when you're alone really amplifies the solitude,
• 21:19
  Speaker 5: I would say for me, and you know, it's Christmas
• 21:25
  Speaker 5: Day now, and I don't know, I was just like,
• 21:31
  Speaker 5: what the fuck am I doing here? Did I really
• 21:34
  Speaker 5: need to take this trip? Am I learning anything? I
• 21:38
  Speaker 5: spent a lot of the car ride thinking about how
• 21:41
  Speaker 5: much I wanted to get back to work and how
• 21:44
  Speaker 5: I was missing stage time, opportunities for doing spots at
• 21:49
  Speaker 5: the comedy seller and stuff in New York City, and
• 21:52
  Speaker 5: missing opportunities to you know, work on the book and
• 21:56
  Speaker 5: and podcast with the boys. And I guess in a
• 22:01
  Speaker 5: good way, it did make me realize that I fucking
• 22:05
  Speaker 5: love my work and I'd been off of work for
• 22:09
  Speaker 5: you know, a week and was desperate to get back
• 22:12
  Speaker 5: to it. But I don't know, uh, that was definitely
• 22:18
  Speaker 5: something I was struggling with. On the fourth or maybe
• 22:20
  Speaker 5: it was the fifth day of my trip, was just
• 22:25
  Speaker 5: feeling very antsy, very antsy, like I was just wasting time.
• 22:32
  Speaker 5: Then I went to bed. The food of this Fjordland
• 22:36
  Speaker 5: lodge was very good, to their credit, went to bed,
• 22:39
  Speaker 5: woke up on the next morning early, because I had
• 22:41
  Speaker 5: a whole day booked with a fly fishing guide. And
• 22:46
  Speaker 5: I met this guy and s two expeditions. By the way,
• 22:51
  Speaker 5: if anyone's interested, cannot recommend this dude highly enough. Unbelievable
• 23:01
  Speaker 5: salty dog. He's been guiding fly fishing for I don't know,
• 23:06
  Speaker 5: thirty years or something like that. And he picked me
• 23:10
  Speaker 5: up at eight thirty in the morning and we drove.
• 23:13
  Speaker 5: We drove a while, probably an hour and a half,
• 23:18
  Speaker 5: and a lot of it was on back roads. And
• 23:21
  Speaker 5: I'm in the car and he's asking me about my
• 23:23
  Speaker 5: fly fishing experience. I've probably fly fished like four or
• 23:26
  Speaker 5: five times, and twice have been with Harry. And he
• 23:31
  Speaker 5: didn't give me a single minute of instruction, and I
• 23:36
  Speaker 5: explained I was honest with him. I was like, I'm
• 23:39
  Speaker 5: a beginner. I don't know what the fuck I'm doing.
• 23:42
  Speaker 5: He said, all right, that's fine, and we were very
• 23:45
  Speaker 5: good about level setting. People had told me and I
• 23:49
  Speaker 5: had read that fly fishing in New Zealand is some
• 23:53
  Speaker 5: of the hardest fly fishing in the world because, first
• 23:56
  Speaker 5: of all, all the trout are wild. There's no stocked
• 24:00
  Speaker 5: trout except in some of the lakes I guess. And secondly,
• 24:06
  Speaker 5: the water is so clear that they can see you,
• 24:10
  Speaker 5: and they're very hard to catch. They get spooked very easily,
• 24:17
  Speaker 5: and you might not You might not see a fish
• 24:20
  Speaker 5: for a mile. You might hike a mile along the
• 24:23
  Speaker 5: river to see one fish and you get a you know,
• 24:27
  Speaker 5: one or two casts at it, and if you don't
• 24:29
  Speaker 5: land it, he's running away, and then you're you gotta
• 24:33
  Speaker 5: hike another mile. So that was kind of my expectation.
• 24:36
  Speaker 5: And I said to my God, I was like, look,
• 24:39
  Speaker 5: I understand that, given my lack of ability and experience,
• 24:43
  Speaker 5: we might not catch a single fish. I'm fine with that.
• 24:46
  Speaker 5: I'm just here to have a great day whatever. And
• 24:50
  Speaker 5: he was pretty good. I mean, he tried to level set,
• 24:54
  Speaker 5: but he was not as pessimistic as I was. He
• 24:58
  Speaker 5: brings me to this, I don't know this river a
• 25:02
  Speaker 5: creek really a creek. It's probably twenty feet wide, pretty shallow,
• 25:10
  Speaker 5: surrounded on both sides by farmland. There's a cool thing
• 25:13
  Speaker 5: in New Zealand where I guess farmers own the land
• 25:20
  Speaker 5: that is whatever ten meters back from a river on
• 25:25
  Speaker 5: either side, but they don't own the river itself. That
• 25:30
  Speaker 5: is public land. And if you can get to the
• 25:34
  Speaker 5: river by parking your car on a road at a
• 25:38
  Speaker 5: point where the road is only ten meters from the river.
• 25:42
  Speaker 5: You can fish that river without trespassing on the farmer's land.
• 25:46
  Speaker 5: And also people don't seem to really mind. I don't
• 25:50
  Speaker 5: think the farmer's mind. And everyone's very respectful. Nobody ever
• 25:54
  Speaker 5: fucking pollutes or leaves sandwich trappers or anything like that.
• 26:01
  Speaker 5: Everything's clean, you know, leave no trace. And then when
• 26:05
  Speaker 5: we parked our car, the guide he put a sign
• 26:09
  Speaker 5: in his windshield that said fishing upriver, because if anyone
• 26:15
  Speaker 5: else pulled into that spot, it would let them know
• 26:19
  Speaker 5: that they should go in the other direction and not
• 26:22
  Speaker 5: follow in our tracks, because if they did, they wouldn't
• 26:26
  Speaker 5: catch a single fish. Once you fished a stretch of river,
• 26:32
  Speaker 5: the fish in that stretch of river are spooked and
• 26:35
  Speaker 5: suspicious for like a week, which is why we drove
• 26:40
  Speaker 5: so far to this spot to get somewhere that he
• 26:46
  Speaker 5: was confident nobody had fished in a while. So we
• 26:51
  Speaker 5: get down into the river and you know, right away
• 26:56
  Speaker 5: he sees a fish and he says, all right, cast
• 27:01
  Speaker 5: at it. And you know, I had very brief casting tutorial.
• 27:09
  Speaker 5: I threw out a line. He's watching it and he
• 27:13
  Speaker 5: says lift, lift, and I lift and I land. The
• 27:19
  Speaker 5: fish bites and I'm you know, reeling and trying to
• 27:25
  Speaker 5: keep the rod bent. He'd given me a few tips.
• 27:27
  Speaker 5: It was all very overwhelming because he'd given me a
• 27:29
  Speaker 5: lot of information. But it will Luckily it was not
• 27:33
  Speaker 5: a big fish. It was a pretty small fish and
• 27:36
  Speaker 5: we land it. First fish. I mean, this was in
• 27:39
  Speaker 5: the first twenty minutes in the river and we get
• 27:44
  Speaker 5: it in my first fish, brown brown trout. All we
• 27:49
  Speaker 5: were only fishing for browns right off the bat. The
• 27:52
  Speaker 5: skunk is off the boat, so to speak. We are
• 27:55
  Speaker 5: not getting zeroed for the day. And I was exhilarated.
• 28:02
  Speaker 5: I was like, my god, if we don't catch another fish,
• 28:05
  Speaker 5: We've caught a fish. I've caught a fish on my
• 28:09
  Speaker 5: trip to New Zealand. I've caught a fly fishing fish,
• 28:12
  Speaker 5: a wild brown trout. They said it might not happen.
• 28:17
  Speaker 5: It happened. I did it. I'm better than Harry and uh.
• 28:24
  Speaker 5: That was the first fish. And then from there I
• 28:27
  Speaker 5: caught eight more. I caught nine fucking brown trout and
• 28:33
  Speaker 5: they got bigger and bigger as the day went on.
• 28:36
  Speaker 5: That one was pretty small. I ended up catching one
• 28:39
  Speaker 5: that was four and a half pounds. I posted you
• 28:42
  Speaker 5: guys can see pictures here. I think we'll have on
• 28:45
  Speaker 5: the YouTube. We'll have the pictures over, yeah, over this episode,
• 28:51
  Speaker 5: but you can also check out on my Instagram and
• 28:53
  Speaker 5: the chat BCC. I've been, you know, needling Harry about
• 28:57
  Speaker 5: how much bigger the browns are that I've caught than
• 29:00
  Speaker 5: he ever has. He told me the largest brown trout
• 29:04
  Speaker 5: or maybe it was a rainbow he's ever caught, was
• 29:06
  Speaker 5: twenty inches, and I think we both agreed that I
• 29:11
  Speaker 5: caught at least two browns that were in the twenty
• 29:14
  Speaker 5: two inch range. So yeah, I am a better fly
• 29:19
  Speaker 5: fishing angler than Harry is, and it really didn't take
• 29:24
  Speaker 5: me that long to surpass him. Nine browns really was amazing,
• 29:31
  Speaker 5: and it was you know, I got better and better,
• 29:35
  Speaker 5: sort of got the hang of the casting, turning the cast.
• 29:38
  Speaker 5: You know, he would have me cast into very specific spots.
• 29:42
  Speaker 5: There were times where I had to cast side arm,
• 29:46
  Speaker 5: which was a tricky skill to learn, but I figured
• 29:48
  Speaker 5: it out because I'd have to get under a branch
• 29:50
  Speaker 5: or something like that in order to get it into
• 29:53
  Speaker 5: the area. I had to get it into. One of
• 29:55
  Speaker 5: the coolest moments that happened was I caught. I got
• 30:02
  Speaker 5: one that was huge, and it ran and it ran
• 30:06
  Speaker 5: and it ran, and we were in a very wooded
• 30:09
  Speaker 5: area of the river and he the fish knew to
• 30:13
  Speaker 5: run into the willow branches that were in the river,
• 30:18
  Speaker 5: and it ran in there and then it just stopped.
• 30:21
  Speaker 5: But the line stayed taught, so we weren't sure if
• 30:27
  Speaker 5: my line had just he had just wrapped it around
• 30:30
  Speaker 5: a branch, or if he was still on. But it
• 30:33
  Speaker 5: wasn't moving, and my guide said, sometimes they'll just go
• 30:38
  Speaker 5: into a hole and sit. They know to do that,
• 30:43
  Speaker 5: so he might still be on. And my guide had
• 30:46
  Speaker 5: to take his jacket gear off, stripped down to his
• 30:52
  Speaker 5: undershirt to walk in wade in deep into this very
• 30:59
  Speaker 5: dense wooded area of the river where the water is
• 31:03
  Speaker 5: up to his nipples almost, and he gets all the
• 31:07
  Speaker 5: way in there and he goes, oh, my god, he's
• 31:10
  Speaker 5: still on. He's still on the line. He could tell,
• 31:15
  Speaker 5: and he tried to reach down and was planning to
• 31:19
  Speaker 5: just grab him by the tail and pull him out.
• 31:24
  Speaker 5: But somehow at that moment the fish sensed him and
• 31:30
  Speaker 5: I guess wrapped the line around another branch, and then
• 31:34
  Speaker 5: the knot of the leader and the line got caught
• 31:40
  Speaker 5: on an edge and the fish snapped the line off,
• 31:44
  Speaker 5: so we came up empty handed. By the way, I
• 31:49
  Speaker 5: hooked fourteen fish and five managed to get away through
• 31:56
  Speaker 5: various mistakes I made or just unlucky situations like that one.
• 32:05
  Speaker 5: So you know my yield, I don't know, nine for fourteen,
• 32:09
  Speaker 5: which is also not even to count the ones I
• 32:11
  Speaker 5: cast at that very nearly bit but got spooked at
• 32:15
  Speaker 5: the last second. I mean, we saw a lot of fish.
• 32:17
  Speaker 5: We had a lot of opportunities. This was not as
• 32:22
  Speaker 5: sort of rare of a fishing experience, meaning it was
• 32:28
  Speaker 5: not the hike a mile see one fish cast at
• 32:31
  Speaker 5: it that I had feared I might experience. It was
• 32:36
  Speaker 5: I don't know, every twenty yards or so, there was
• 32:39
  Speaker 5: a fish to cast at. They were eating mayfly spawn,
• 32:49
  Speaker 5: which was and there was a hatch happening early in
• 32:52
  Speaker 5: the early part of the day, and then we stopped
• 32:54
  Speaker 5: for lunch. We caught most of our fish in the morning,
• 32:57
  Speaker 5: and in the afternoon everything changed. They started eating willow nymphs,
• 33:04
  Speaker 5: sure like the larvae that you know from that from
• 33:09
  Speaker 5: the tree that fall into the river. Sorry if I'm
• 33:13
  Speaker 5: really not that keyten on how all that works. But
• 33:19
  Speaker 5: an incredibly successful day, awesome experience guide was the fucking man.
• 33:25
  Speaker 5: We spent I don't know eight and a half nine
• 33:27
  Speaker 5: hours fishing, truly from nine am until five pm, the
• 33:32
  Speaker 5: whole time. And when we finished, we went back to
• 33:40
  Speaker 5: his car and he pulled out a folding you know,
• 33:43
  Speaker 5: soccer mom chair, sideline chair, and he had cold beer
• 33:48
  Speaker 5: and we sat on the side of the road. There
• 33:51
  Speaker 5: was a cow pasture on the other side with I
• 33:56
  Speaker 5: don't know fifty cows that were all just staring at us.
• 34:00
  Speaker 5: And they were all different colors too, which is kind
• 34:02
  Speaker 5: of weird. I've never seen that before. And then on
• 34:05
  Speaker 5: our side was the river and we drank a couple
• 34:07
  Speaker 5: beers each. Here's something interesting. New Zealand has no open
• 34:11
  Speaker 5: container law, and that applies to the drivers of cars.
• 34:18
  Speaker 5: I don't know if you can actually drink while you're driving,
• 34:21
  Speaker 5: but you can sit in your car behind your wheel
• 34:24
  Speaker 5: and have a beer as long as you are not
• 34:28
  Speaker 5: over the limit, which you know, I think is like
• 34:31
  Speaker 5: two beers. It's probably similar to ours, like a point
• 34:33
  Speaker 5: oh eight or whatever. BAC, But these I mean, they
• 34:38
  Speaker 5: drink right up to the limit. They really do. And
• 34:44
  Speaker 5: speaking of which, New Zealand is a drinking country. Thank god,
• 34:51
  Speaker 5: what a relief, none of this sober curious stuff going on.
• 34:57
  Speaker 5: Nobody just you know, willingly opting for sobriety, not because
• 35:03
  Speaker 5: they have an issue, but because you know, well I've
• 35:06
  Speaker 5: read the science, or I don't like the way it
• 35:09
  Speaker 5: makes me feel. Look all power to those people, I
• 35:12
  Speaker 5: guess in America, But as a drinker myself, it's nice
• 35:17
  Speaker 5: to be among drinkers.
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: It is.
• 35:21
  Speaker 5: It's nice to drink with like minded folk. And I'm
• 35:25
  Speaker 5: on vacation, so I'm drinking pretty much every day at night,
• 35:29
  Speaker 5: you know, once I've earned it. And the wine, the
• 35:34
  Speaker 5: wine here is really good. They've got a They're big
• 35:36
  Speaker 5: on pino noir. That's their big thing. Otago is the region,
• 35:41
  Speaker 5: very good pino. I've been having wine and beer every night. Excellent.
• 35:50
  Speaker 5: That was my day of fishing. That was really the highlight.
• 35:54
  Speaker 5: And at the end of that day it really turned
• 35:58
  Speaker 5: the trip around for me because remember, just the day before,
• 36:01
  Speaker 5: I'd had these feelings of you know, why am I
• 36:05
  Speaker 5: Why did I need to take such a giant trip away?
• 36:10
  Speaker 5: And what am I actually learning about myself other than
• 36:13
  Speaker 5: that I like to work, and this transformed it. It
• 36:20
  Speaker 5: flipped it around. And in that space of time you
• 36:25
  Speaker 5: may have seen that I tweeted somewhat joking but mostly
• 36:31
  Speaker 5: self loathing tweet about how I had gone to New
• 36:35
  Speaker 5: Zealand with the express purpose of, you know, learning to
• 36:39
  Speaker 5: be by myself and I guess love myself or whatever
• 36:43
  Speaker 5: live with the thoughts in my own head. And it
• 36:47
  Speaker 5: only took me four days to realize I fucking can't
• 36:51
  Speaker 5: stand being alone and being by myself. And then sure enough,
• 36:56
  Speaker 5: you know, fishing day with again with a companion, which
• 36:59
  Speaker 5: was key. What was just such an awesome experience. So
• 37:05
  Speaker 5: that was great. I highly recommend that if anyone's coming
• 37:08
  Speaker 5: this way and wants to know about who that guy is,
• 37:11
  Speaker 5: just shoot me a DM and I'll link you guys up.
• 37:14
  Speaker 5: The Son of a Boy Dad is brought to you
• 37:16
  Speaker 5: by Cracking. Let's be honest, Christmas is full of trash gifts,
• 37:22
  Speaker 5: ugly sweaters, desk toys, funny mugs, useless garbage. But this year,
• 37:29
  Speaker 5: Kracking's letting you flip that crap into something that actually
• 37:32
  Speaker 5: holds value. Bitcoin got a shit gift roast it, post
• 37:37
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• 37:41
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• 37:45
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• 37:50
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• 37:55
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• 38:00
  Speaker 5: everybody got an iffy gift, Snap a pick post it
• 38:04
  Speaker 5: tag at kraken fx and you could score some bitcoin instead.
• 38:10
  Speaker 5: That's at kr A k E n f X. Disclaimer.
• 38:17
  Speaker 5: This is not investment advice. Crypto trading involves risk of loss,
• 38:21
  Speaker 5: and it has offered to US customers excluding New York
• 38:24
  Speaker 5: and Maine through Payward Interactive Inc. Terms apply day ends.
• 38:29
  Speaker 5: I drive two hours north back to Queenstown. Here's something funny.
• 38:35
  Speaker 5: I uh, I was just crashing for the night in Queenstown.
• 38:40
  Speaker 5: So I got in at nine to thirty pm and
• 38:43
  Speaker 5: I knew that was going to be the case. And
• 38:45
  Speaker 5: then I had to wake up early the next day
• 38:46
  Speaker 5: to go play golf again at one course down here
• 38:50
  Speaker 5: on the South Island called Jack's Point. More on this
• 38:52
  Speaker 5: in a second. So I didn't really care about having
• 38:56
  Speaker 5: a super nice hotel on this evening because it was
• 39:00
  Speaker 5: just a place to crash. So I opted for a Hilton.
• 39:05
  Speaker 5: You know that was got fine marks on Google Maps
• 39:08
  Speaker 5: and trip Advisor and all that. And sure enough I
• 39:13
  Speaker 5: get to this Hilton and right off the bat, the
• 39:19
  Speaker 5: signs are are not looking good. They tell me I
• 39:24
  Speaker 5: can either valet my car for fifty bucks or park
• 39:27
  Speaker 5: it myself in a garage that's like five hundred yards
• 39:32
  Speaker 5: away for thirty bucks. And I said, wait a second,
• 39:36
  Speaker 5: you're you're a hotel, a pretty decent hotel, I mean
• 39:40
  Speaker 5: not you know, top of the line, but you're a
• 39:43
  Speaker 5: hotel and you don't have any free parking. Maybe I
• 39:48
  Speaker 5: don't crazy, but that just seemed insane to me. Piss
• 39:53
  Speaker 5: me off. So then I, you know, checked in, went
• 39:59
  Speaker 5: to my room and the sink in the bathroom had
• 40:04
  Speaker 5: the beard trimmings of the previous guest black hairs. This
• 40:12
  Speaker 5: guy trimmed his beard in the sink, and the cleaning
• 40:15
  Speaker 5: ladies didn't catch it. How I'll never know. I don't
• 40:20
  Speaker 5: know how you missed that white sink black beard hairs
• 40:26
  Speaker 5: pretty overt. I started laughing. You know, not gonna fucking
• 40:32
  Speaker 5: make a complaint. It's too late. I just need to
• 40:35
  Speaker 5: go to bed. However, I didn't need to eat, so
• 40:37
  Speaker 5: I went down to this pub. They had this kind
• 40:39
  Speaker 5: of restaurant and they said that the main dinner menu
• 40:42
  Speaker 5: was closed, the kitchen was closed, but they were serving
• 40:45
  Speaker 5: their bar menu. I looked at it. It's like a
• 40:48
  Speaker 5: burger and some other shit. They had a salmon entree.
• 40:52
  Speaker 5: I said, I'll have the salmon. They said, how do
• 40:54
  Speaker 5: you want to cook? Said medium, rare. Came out, middle
• 40:59
  Speaker 5: was frozen ice cold. Middle of the salmon also bathed
• 41:07
  Speaker 5: in like so much butter. It was a joke. Once again, laughed.
• 41:11
  Speaker 5: I'm not gonna complain. You get what you pay for.
• 41:15
  Speaker 5: But it was so funny. You know. It was like
• 41:20
  Speaker 5: God's way of telling me not to not to to
• 41:26
  Speaker 5: sort of live you know under the I guess, I
• 41:32
  Speaker 5: guess the level I was expecting to do or paying
• 41:36
  Speaker 5: for the rest of the way. And that sucks because
• 41:40
  Speaker 5: I don't have a problem staying at a three star
• 41:43
  Speaker 5: instead of a five star hotel, but the one that
• 41:47
  Speaker 5: I'm me at for the one night of my trip.
• 41:50
  Speaker 5: You know, I stayed at an airport hotel that one night,
• 41:53
  Speaker 5: knock on those, and that was fine. But this place,
• 41:56
  Speaker 5: fucking man, they they got to figure it out at
• 42:00
  Speaker 5: Hilton anyway. Sorry to complain about that. I know I
• 42:03
  Speaker 5: sound like a snob, but it was just a shitty
• 42:07
  Speaker 5: experience in a lot of different funny ways. Checked out
• 42:10
  Speaker 5: in the morning.
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: Uh.
• 42:12
  Speaker 5: And then I drove to Jack's Point golf course. Now,
• 42:16
  Speaker 5: so I played the three best the on the North Island.
• 42:19
  Speaker 5: I played Tara Edy and then TIERI North and South.
• 42:23
  Speaker 5: Did I finish telling that story that guy he built those? Yeah,
• 42:27
  Speaker 5: I think I did. They're all unbelievable, unbelievable golf courses. Uh.
• 42:33
  Speaker 5: And then Jack's Points. So that's those are ranked number one,
• 42:36
  Speaker 5: number two, and number three in New Zealand. Jack's Point
• 42:43
  Speaker 5: on the South Island is the seventh ranked course and
• 42:46
  Speaker 5: is a really interesting and super cool course. Crazy mountain
• 42:53
  Speaker 5: views were in the Southern they call it the Southern Alps,
• 42:57
  Speaker 5: and it's snow capped mountains and just really does feel
• 43:01
  Speaker 5: like the Swiss Alps. You got people paragliding down with
• 43:04
  Speaker 5: their colorful paraglides. There's lakes, gigantic lakes everywhere, and played
• 43:13
  Speaker 5: golf there. They welcomed me with so much warmth these people.
• 43:20
  Speaker 5: I walked in really nice pro shop, great restaurant, Great
• 43:24
  Speaker 5: Golf Club. They brought me a gift bag with a
• 43:30
  Speaker 5: note and said that said, we are so honored to
• 43:34
  Speaker 5: host the inaugural Internet Invitational champions.
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: My god.
• 43:41
  Speaker 5: And they gave me some really nice souvenirs. You know,
• 43:44
  Speaker 5: have a headcover and a belt and a flask, which,
• 43:47
  Speaker 5: by the way, flasks really quick. I don't know too
• 43:52
  Speaker 5: many people that carry a flask or have carried a
• 43:56
  Speaker 5: flask since Times eighteen thirties whatever. If you have a
• 44:04
  Speaker 5: friend that carries a hip flask on himself that actually
• 44:11
  Speaker 5: has whiskey or fucking I don't know what you put
• 44:15
  Speaker 5: in that, you need to probably have an intervention. That's
• 44:21
  Speaker 5: a sign of a problem I think in this day
• 44:25
  Speaker 5: and age. But still a lovely gift. And they were
• 44:29
  Speaker 5: super super nice. They all knew who I was, they'd
• 44:33
  Speaker 5: seen me on the t sheet. This is a I
• 44:35
  Speaker 5: think a testament to the reach of the Internet Invitational
• 44:41
  Speaker 5: in the golf world, because man, that thing. I mean,
• 44:46
  Speaker 5: I'm across the world and everybody there, everybody here watched it.
• 44:52
  Speaker 5: They were super super cool. And then someone else had
• 44:57
  Speaker 5: called in Johnny Monsour shout out Johnny, he's a chef
• 45:02
  Speaker 5: at this restaurant that I'm going to called amas Field
• 45:05
  Speaker 5: in a couple of days or he was, and he
• 45:08
  Speaker 5: knew from listening to the pod that I was playing
• 45:11
  Speaker 5: Jack's point, and he called them and bought me a
• 45:14
  Speaker 5: nice bottle of Pino noir to have. So I showed
• 45:18
  Speaker 5: up and I'm getting showered with gifts before I even
• 45:22
  Speaker 5: tee off. And I was a little late to the
• 45:26
  Speaker 5: tea box because I was eating a nice egg breakfast
• 45:30
  Speaker 5: and rushed out there. Didn't get to warm up hop
• 45:35
  Speaker 5: on the first tea. This lovely guy Sam from Canada.
• 45:42
  Speaker 5: Was he from Alberta? I think Calgary. Yeah, lovely guy,
• 45:48
  Speaker 5: young guy. He was doing one of these they call
• 45:51
  Speaker 5: it work studies, and I think a lot of all
• 45:55
  Speaker 5: the British, the former Great Britain, I don't know, protect
• 46:00
  Speaker 5: Dritz or countries like Canada, New Zealand, Australia, England, they
• 46:06
  Speaker 5: have this concept or this program where young people can
• 46:13
  Speaker 5: go to any one of these other countries for an
• 46:16
  Speaker 5: entire year or sometimes even two and work for two
• 46:21
  Speaker 5: years with a visa. No you know, no difficult paperwork.
• 46:26
  Speaker 5: You don't need to be sponsored or whatever to stay
• 46:29
  Speaker 5: beyond that. You would, but a lot of young people
• 46:32
  Speaker 5: do this and they work at you know, I've seen
• 46:34
  Speaker 5: you go to like Whistler in British Columbia and every
• 46:38
  Speaker 5: young person that is working as a bartender or a
• 46:41
  Speaker 5: waiter in all this the restaurants or along this, they're
• 46:44
  Speaker 5: all Irish, weirdly, and they're all doing the same thing.
• 46:49
  Speaker 5: So I thought that was a pretty cool concept and
• 46:53
  Speaker 5: definitely something that you know, if we had that, I
• 46:56
  Speaker 5: probably would have taken a crack at it somewhere. Would
• 46:59
  Speaker 5: have been cool at that age. And uh, we played up.
• 47:04
  Speaker 5: We played golf, being Sam. We had a ball great guy,
• 47:10
  Speaker 5: uh fan of the pod, but I didn't find that
• 47:12
  Speaker 5: out until the eighteenth pole and shout out to him
• 47:16
  Speaker 5: for being so discreet. We linked up with two other
• 47:22
  Speaker 5: New Zealand guys because pace of play was a little
• 47:25
  Speaker 5: got a little slow and we figured we might as
• 47:27
  Speaker 5: well just become a four ball. These guys were a
• 47:30
  Speaker 5: fucking riot too. Uh. They were terrible at golf, but
• 47:35
  Speaker 5: they didn't give a shit, just batting it around, hilarious
• 47:42
  Speaker 5: drinking and the course is unbelievable. It's it's crazy, you know,
• 47:48
  Speaker 5: elevated t shots. There's a signature par three at the
• 47:52
  Speaker 5: holds five through seven are insane. People said it was hard.
• 47:56
  Speaker 5: I actually thought this was easier than the courses I
• 48:01
  Speaker 5: played up North, and I played pretty well. I shot
• 48:03
  Speaker 5: two over, not to brag, had had four birdies, nice birdies,
• 48:08
  Speaker 5: which I was pretty happy about. They had just punched
• 48:10
  Speaker 5: the greens like a week ago, so they were rolling slow,
• 48:13
  Speaker 5: which usually means, you know, it's pretty gettable. But that
• 48:19
  Speaker 5: was the best round I had. I shot like eighty
• 48:22
  Speaker 5: eighty one at the tri courses. I think I shot
• 48:25
  Speaker 5: seventy nine at Tire eight, and then I took off
• 48:31
  Speaker 5: from there and I went to h That was my
• 48:37
  Speaker 5: last golf round. So the golf is done. And I
• 48:40
  Speaker 5: drove from Jack's Point Queenstown up to Wanaka area, Like
• 48:48
  Speaker 5: how we where I'm staying at? Where I'm at right now.
• 48:52
  Speaker 5: That's an hour and a half and you drive over
• 48:54
  Speaker 5: a mountain pass again We're talking switchbacks, sharp turns, steep driving.
• 49:03
  Speaker 5: Not easy. You do on the descent. You come down
• 49:09
  Speaker 5: on the other side of the mountain and you pass
• 49:13
  Speaker 5: through this little tiny town called Kadrona where there's this
• 49:17
  Speaker 5: famous hotel right on the side of the road. It
• 49:20
  Speaker 5: looks like something out of the old West the Kadrona Hotel.
• 49:23
  Speaker 5: If you're ever going along this route, I highly suggest
• 49:26
  Speaker 5: you stop there. Super cool looking. You go in very
• 49:32
  Speaker 5: kind of dive Barr pubby. They out back. They have
• 49:36
  Speaker 5: a beautiful courtyard. It's been around since I think the
• 49:40
  Speaker 5: eighteen sixties and it's just an awesome, cool place out
• 49:47
  Speaker 5: of time that doesn't seem like it's changed a bit.
• 49:49
  Speaker 5: They actually have twenty rooms you can stay at and
• 49:52
  Speaker 5: it's close to a big ski resort where people I
• 49:56
  Speaker 5: think it's the biggest ski resort in New Zealand. I'm here.
• 50:01
  Speaker 5: It's summer, which, okay, quick note on that I knew
• 50:06
  Speaker 5: it was summer. What I'd forgot that that meant is
• 50:10
  Speaker 5: that all the kids are on summer vacation. Their summer
• 50:16
  Speaker 5: vacation goes from like, I don't know, December one until
• 50:23
  Speaker 5: February or something. That's weird. That's weird. My idea of
• 50:30
  Speaker 5: summer break is so rooted in June, July, August, back
• 50:37
  Speaker 5: to school in September, football season. All of that. Our
• 50:41
  Speaker 5: sense of kind of at least my sense of the
• 50:44
  Speaker 5: calendar year was so locked that to hear that kids
• 50:49
  Speaker 5: had just gotten out and now they're on break for
• 50:52
  Speaker 5: two and a half months. Was very weird. And imagine
• 50:56
  Speaker 5: having summer break through Christmas and New Year's that's weird anyway,
• 51:04
  Speaker 5: just a different wave, different part of the world. So
• 51:11
  Speaker 5: I passed the Kadrona hotel, I walked around. I didn't
• 51:14
  Speaker 5: have a drink. The driving was just too hairy. I
• 51:17
  Speaker 5: didn't feel like having a beer and then driving. And
• 51:21
  Speaker 5: then I went the rest of the way on to
• 51:24
  Speaker 5: Wanaka and I pulled into this place I'm staying. It's
• 51:27
  Speaker 5: called Lake Hawiya Station. I am on the lake. It's
• 51:30
  Speaker 5: a sustainable farm that has a couple of high end
• 51:36
  Speaker 5: like cottages and I am in the littlest one. It's
• 51:39
  Speaker 5: called Little l It is tiny, and I am on
• 51:43
  Speaker 5: a like a literal sheep pasture. When I come into
• 51:48
  Speaker 5: my spot, I have to get out of my car,
• 51:52
  Speaker 5: unlock a sheep paddock paddock gate, drive in, get out
• 51:58
  Speaker 5: of the car again, close the gate so that the
• 52:01
  Speaker 5: sheep don't run out onto the road, and then drive
• 52:04
  Speaker 5: across grass as sheep are fleeing for their lives out
• 52:10
  Speaker 5: to get out of the way of my car, down
• 52:14
  Speaker 5: to my little tiny I don't know cabin. I mean,
• 52:18
  Speaker 5: this thing is it's two hundred square feet at most
• 52:24
  Speaker 5: one hundred and fifty, I would say, but unbelievable view.
• 52:29
  Speaker 5: I'm looking right out on the lake and the mountains.
• 52:33
  Speaker 5: And at first I was a little miffed because I
• 52:39
  Speaker 5: messaged them through the WhatsApp and I was like, is
• 52:42
  Speaker 5: there no central gathering spot or restaurant or anything. They're like, nope,
• 52:50
  Speaker 5: you can hire our private chef come cook for you
• 52:53
  Speaker 5: for a night. But they're all about, you know, disconnecting.
• 52:58
  Speaker 5: There's no Wi Fi in my room and I have
• 53:02
  Speaker 5: one bar of cell service, and you know, I'll tell
• 53:08
  Speaker 5: you what. By halfway through the first day, I was like,
• 53:11
  Speaker 5: I'm buying in and I'm not going to be on
• 53:14
  Speaker 5: my phone at all, which is a tough thing when
• 53:18
  Speaker 5: you're traveling alone. That is that has been one of
• 53:21
  Speaker 5: the biggest challenges. I've eaten so many meals by myself,
• 53:25
  Speaker 5: so many dinners. I would say that this is the
• 53:27
  Speaker 5: hardest thing for me, being at dinner by myself at
• 53:33
  Speaker 5: a restaurant and trying not to be on your phone
• 53:37
  Speaker 5: and just sit with your head up looking around like
• 53:40
  Speaker 5: a fucking psychopath, like a mirror cat. You know that
• 53:46
  Speaker 5: there's a level of people watching that gets invasive. You
• 53:51
  Speaker 5: can only watch a family of four eat dinner for
• 53:54
  Speaker 5: so long before they start to feel uncomfortable. But you know,
• 54:04
  Speaker 5: I've been trying trying not to be on my phone,
• 54:08
  Speaker 5: trying not to be thinking about work and all the
• 54:11
  Speaker 5: stuff back home, social media, all that bullshit, and this
• 54:16
  Speaker 5: place that I'm staying has really helped me to disconnect
• 54:22
  Speaker 5: and it feels good. First full day that I was here,
• 54:28
  Speaker 5: I went for the hike in this part of the world.
• 54:31
  Speaker 5: It's called Roy's Peak Roy's Peak, and I read some
• 54:37
  Speaker 5: reviews this one trail map place said they called it easy.
• 54:44
  Speaker 5: It was rated easy, and I pulled into the parking lot.
• 54:47
  Speaker 5: It's very popular. It's very crowded. I mean there's the
• 54:51
  Speaker 5: parking lot. I had to go to the overflow parking
• 54:54
  Speaker 5: lot just to park my car and I set out
• 55:00
  Speaker 5: and right away it was a staircase. I'm talking straight
• 55:07
  Speaker 5: the fuck up. Straight up. You can't look around. You
• 55:11
  Speaker 5: gotta look at your feet so that you can find
• 55:14
  Speaker 5: a rock to step your next step onto, you know,
• 55:20
  Speaker 5: switchbacks left and then cutting back to the right. And
• 55:23
  Speaker 5: there's also these you can you can go kind of
• 55:27
  Speaker 5: the long route, or they'll have these little shortcuts that
• 55:30
  Speaker 5: go straight up, and I being a fucking ready for war,
• 55:36
  Speaker 5: in shape, best shape in my life guy, I said,
• 55:39
  Speaker 5: I'm I'm taking the straight up route. Big mistake, Big mistake.
• 55:47
  Speaker 5: It was. They said that the the hike takes five
• 55:51
  Speaker 5: to six hours round trip, so I said, I'm gonna
• 55:55
  Speaker 5: beat that. I was very determined. A lot of as
• 56:00
  Speaker 5: on the hike. I don't know. I'm talking too by
• 56:03
  Speaker 5: low like people who weren't in shape, people wearing jeans
• 56:11
  Speaker 5: and fucking I don't know, sandals. I don't know. I
• 56:14
  Speaker 5: truly do not understand how these people made it, because
• 56:20
  Speaker 5: this was so fucking hard for me. And I'm not
• 56:25
  Speaker 5: a huge hiker. I don't have a ton of hiking
• 56:28
  Speaker 5: experience lately, and I live in New York City. But man,
• 56:35
  Speaker 5: I don't know. I don't understand how this is an
• 56:38
  Speaker 5: accessible thing for somebody who's fifty five from Scotland with
• 56:42
  Speaker 5: a beer belly. I don't get that. I don't know
• 56:47
  Speaker 5: how they did the same thing I did. Maybe they
• 56:50
  Speaker 5: just went way slower, but even then it was still
• 56:55
  Speaker 5: really fucking hard. I made it up in two hours flat. Uh,
• 57:02
  Speaker 5: there's a place you take a photo and there was
• 57:06
  Speaker 5: a line line of Asian tourists, Dutch people, you know, Scandinavians.
• 57:16
  Speaker 5: So I waited my turn, I got the photo, and
• 57:18
  Speaker 5: then I started on my way down. And the way
• 57:23
  Speaker 5: down was even more painful to the body. This hike
• 57:27
  Speaker 5: was injurious, I don't know how else to put it.
• 57:31
  Speaker 5: It hurt me. It was not good for me. So
• 57:34
  Speaker 5: there's not a healthy experience. You know, the way down,
• 57:38
  Speaker 5: every step you're just you're basically walking with the e
• 57:43
  Speaker 5: break on your knees the whole time. My knees were
• 57:49
  Speaker 5: in horrible shape, and your feet are crammed into the
• 57:54
  Speaker 5: front of your shoes because you're just you're pumping the
• 57:58
  Speaker 5: brakes with every step the whole way down. So I
• 58:02
  Speaker 5: had lunched at the top of the mountain and then
• 58:04
  Speaker 5: got down. I did the whole thing in like four
• 58:07
  Speaker 5: and a half maybe four yeah, probably four hours, so
• 58:11
  Speaker 5: I beat the time. Look, I was determined. On the
• 58:14
  Speaker 5: way up, I was really determined. I actually ran a
• 58:19
  Speaker 5: cathe are into my urethra and hooked it up to
• 58:22
  Speaker 5: my camelback so I could piss directly into my mouth
• 58:27
  Speaker 5: and not have to stop to hydrate. And that was painful.
• 58:32
  Speaker 5: But the only people who passed me, and I was
• 58:36
  Speaker 5: proud of this were the psychopath trail runners who are
• 58:42
  Speaker 5: literally running up the mountain with ski poles and shit.
• 58:46
  Speaker 5: I mean, my god, do we need that? Do you
• 58:50
  Speaker 5: need to do that? That didn't make me feel great
• 58:55
  Speaker 5: because I was having a hard enough time, you know,
• 58:57
  Speaker 5: walking up I'm listening. I'm not so some one who
• 59:00
  Speaker 5: can pace myself particularly well. So this hiking thing. I
• 59:05
  Speaker 5: Rosillo talked about it on his travel recap of New Zealand,
• 59:09
  Speaker 5: which that was pretty much the inspiration for this whole trip.
• 59:13
  Speaker 5: If you haven't listened to it, it's great. He gets
• 59:16
  Speaker 5: into the history of the country and the people and
• 59:19
  Speaker 5: all that. I am not going to do any of that.
• 59:21
  Speaker 5: But he made the point. He was like he went
• 59:26
  Speaker 5: for a hike, and he was like, do I even
• 59:28
  Speaker 5: like hiking? I had the same thought. I was like,
• 59:33
  Speaker 5: why am I doing this? You know? The thing for
• 59:37
  Speaker 5: me about hiking, because I don't do it very often,
• 59:40
  Speaker 5: is that I've realized that once I start the hike,
• 59:45
  Speaker 5: I have the idea to go do it, and then
• 59:47
  Speaker 5: the second that I'm in the hike, the only thing
• 59:52
  Speaker 5: that stops me from turning back is not one to
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 5: be angry with myself quitting. That's it. It is the
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 5: deterrent of failure that keeps me going. It's not the
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 5: joy of being outside or the payoff of the view
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 5: at the top, or the feeling of satisfaction from the exercise.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 5: I can get all of that. I mean, the views
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 5: here at the lake level at the bottom are breathtaking
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 5: in this area, and I can get exercise going to
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 5: the gym, you know, hitting the muscle groups I actually
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 5: want to hit, instead of only exercising my achilles and
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 5: my calves for fucking four and a half hours and
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 5: beating my knees to carpaccio. I don't think there's any
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 5: fucking tendon left in my knees right now.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: But that was it.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 5: That's the That's the whole m O for me of
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 5: hiking is once I've started, I won't stop until I
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 5: get to the top, because to turn back early feels
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 5: like failure. And maybe that is a lot of the
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 5: mentality of a lot of challenges in life is you
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 5: just don't want to fail. But I think that I
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 5: was trying to think about other things where I continue
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 5: through pain or difficulty because I because I don't want
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 5: to fail or quit early, and I would say everything
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 5: I could come up with had some other payoff in it.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 5: You know, whether it's hard work like you make money,
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 5: or I don't know, reading a long book that's dense
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 5: you're learning.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 4: I don't know.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 5: The other thing I'll say is that the UV index
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 5: here in New Zealand is off the fucking charts. I
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 5: don't know if they just fried their ozone layer beyond
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 5: anywhere else in the world. But I mean, I am
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 5: layered up, I've got sunscreen on. I was wearing a
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 5: full brim hat and I got smoked. I'm wearing SPF fifty.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 5: I know how to protect myself from the sun, and
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 5: I'm still getting absolutely crushed. So be mindful of that.
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 5: If you have fair skin and you come to New Zealand,
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 5: the sun is working on some other level from anything
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 5: I've ever experienced. That was my big hike. Oh I'll
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 5: say this. On the way down, I did amuse myself
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 5: by aggressively saying hi to every single person that passed me.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 5: Coming up as a way of gauging which nationalities, which
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 5: ethnicities were the most likely to say hi back, Who
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 5: are the warmest people on the mountain? And I'm gonna
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 5: tell you the ranking that I came up with. Okay,
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 5: and we're gonna group some people together. Let's not get
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 5: weird about it. But this is my definitive ranking of
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 5: the friendliest people you pass on a hike. Okay, off
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 5: the bat, number one, friendliest, uh, most likely to say
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 5: hi back or to even initiate a high I'm gonna
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 5: tell you right now. It's Americans, Americans and Canadians. These
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 5: you know, everyone here is on if they're from those countries.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 5: They're on vacation, they're having a great time, they're psyched
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 5: to be out. They're proud of themselves for taking a
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 5: hard hike. They're proud of you for taking a hard hike.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 5: You're in it together. That's an automatic Hi. Hi, Hi,
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 5: how you doing?
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: Hi?
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 5: Yeah, you're almost there, you know, really warm, really nice.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 5: That's number one on the list. Right behind them. I'm
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 5: gonna go, uh, anyone from Great Britain, Scot's Irish. I
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 5: know that's not technically Great Britain, Ah, Welsh, Uh Brits.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 5: These these are you know, similar thing?
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 5: How you gotting? Yeah? All right?
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 5: Hi hi hi yahr chase mate, Yeah, just great. You know,
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 5: right behind, just maybe a little slightly less likely to
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 5: uh to say hi back. After that, I don't This
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 5: is where the nationality's got a little tougher for me
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 5: to actually distinguish. But I'll probably throw like French and
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 5: Dutch and Spanish people, you know, that part of Europe
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 5: all in one category. I'd say fifty percent hit rate,
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 5: fifty percent high back. There's some language barrier that we're
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 5: working with there, I get it, you know, but whatever
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 5: middle of the pack there. Now we're going to get
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 5: into what I would call ice queen territory, okay, and
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 5: we're gonna go Asia next. You might have thought that
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 5: they would be bottom. They're not Asia, the continent people
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 5: from Asia, okay. Uh. They were like twenty five percent.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 5: And again I'll give them the benefit benefit of the
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 5: doubt major language barrier there, but they were not very
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 5: likely to say hi. In fact, they were surprized when
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 5: I said hi to them. It felt like I was
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 5: being aggressively friendly to them when I passed them. And
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 5: there were a lot of them on the mountain, a
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 5: lot of them. Okay. After that, I am going to
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 5: go with Germans. Germans were noticeably not warm. They were
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 5: not likely to say hi at all. It was not fun,
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 5: not a fun experience, a very non consensual greeting. When
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 5: I would say hi as I passed them, that's Germans.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 5: And the way I knew they were Germans was that,
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 5: you know, they'd be walking in a group or something
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 5: and I'd hear them speaking German and I'd pass and
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 5: I'd be like hi, and they just either wouldn't respond
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 5: at all or maybe maybe a little bit of a
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 5: head nod whatever, okay. And then the bottom of the
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 5: list the least likely people to be kind on a
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 5: hike bar none in a category of their own. Scandinavians.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 5: Holy shit, I mean, you want to talk about ice queens.
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 5: These people, Danes, Norwegians, Swedish fins, my god and name.
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 5: They're hikers too. They're wearing the right gear, they're decked out.
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 5: Anytime I said hide any of these people, it felt
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 5: like I was telling a career woman to smile more.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 5: Holy shit. It was unwanted, unwanted overtures, just me saying
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 5: hi as I'm passing anyone from Scandinavia. Nothing in return,
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 5: absolutely nothing, So you'll learn your lesson. I know that
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 5: they're not a particularly outgoing bunch. That is a standoffish
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 5: group of people in my experience, which I've never fully understood,
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 5: but so be it. Cultural differences. Finished the hike, went
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 5: straight to the lake, jumped in. It's cold, but it
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 5: felt great, felt great, needed it. I mean, I was
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 5: smoked and sweaty. I did something funny too. I was
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 5: so looking forward to how refreshing the jump in the
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 5: lake would feel. That as I drove from the parking
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 5: lot of the base of the hike to the lake,
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 5: which was like a fifteen minute drive, I kept my
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 5: windows up and I kept the heat on, and the
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 5: car had been baking in the sun the whole time
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 5: I was hiking, too, so it was hot as hell.
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 5: I just wanted to stay hot for the jump in
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 5: the lake. I'd also run out of water, which I
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 5: don't know that's on me. I had no water for
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 5: the descent. I finished my water as I was having
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 5: lunch at the summit, and ended up feeling very dehydrated
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 5: by the end of it. So I had this huge jug,
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 5: this massive yetti from my hotel area or my lodge
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 5: or whatever. But it's heavy and it's hard to know
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 5: how much water is actually in it. And I thought
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 5: there was a lot more than there actually was. So
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 5: that was on me. Then I went to this awesome restaurant.
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 5: I came back home, I cleaned up, and then I
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 5: went back into Wantaka to this awesome restaurant called Kika's
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 5: fucking top marks, really really excellent. I did you know,
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 5: all the add on some kind of chef's choice where
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 5: they're like, if you're really hungry, let us pick for you. Yeah,
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 5: fire away. And it was three appetizers and entree and dessert,
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 5: and then you had the option to add oysters and
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 5: a wine pairing. Of course I did both. Of course
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 5: I did both. The New Zealand dollar is not particularly
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 5: strong to the American dollar. I think it's like seventy percent.
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 5: My whole meal at this unbelievable restaurant with the wine
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 5: pairing with the oysters came out to one hundred and
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 5: forty US dollars. I don't know how that's possible with
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 5: a tip to like, I don't know how that math
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 5: worked out. That doesn't make any sense to me because
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 5: I thought it said that the wine pairing was one
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 5: hundred and fifty dollars New Zealand additional which again that
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 5: wouldn't make any sense, but that's what showed up on
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 5: my credit card bill. So you know, praying, we're praying.
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 5: That was last night. Then went to bed, woke up
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 5: this morning, went up there. There's a gym at this
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 5: sheep farm lodge. It's run by this family. There's only
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 5: like five different little buildings you can stay in. And
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 5: the gym was awesome, really good gym. So I hit
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 5: a workout hard. And then they had told me, they
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 5: were like, look that Roy's Peak hike you did. That
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 5: is very, very difficult, and everybody does it. If you
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 5: want something that is a little easier, it's only half
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 5: an hour to the top. Just drive up the road
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 5: along the lake about twenty minutes and you'll see the
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 5: turnoff and it's called Breast Hill. And I did it,
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 5: and once again I was like, why the fuck am
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 5: I hiking? How did I not learn my lesson? How
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 5: did I not? This was one day apart and I
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 5: I'm hiking again, and again I don't like it. I
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 5: don't like it. This was better than the one at
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 5: Roy's Peak. It was a far better hike, much less crowded,
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 5: narrow goat trail. You know, you got grasses brushing against
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 5: your legs the whole time. But I made it to
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 5: the top in about half an hour, spectacular views, and
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 5: then came down again. It's always the descent that really
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 5: does hurt my knees much more than the going up.
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 5: And then I went for a good long swim in
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 5: the lake and now I'm back in my spot. I'm
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 5: gonna go out to dinner. Oh one other thing I'll say,
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 5: which was fun. On the way back from town yesterday
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 5: after my Roy's Peak hike, after my jump in the lake,
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 5: I crossed a river that had on one side it
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 5: was a campground and it was, you know, it was
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 5: pretty sort of like a white, trashy campground type place,
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 5: you know what I mean. And uh, there was a
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 5: bridge across a river, and on one bank of the
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 5: river was a big rope swing that had all these
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 5: kids jumping off of it, and I was like, I
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 5: want to fucking do that. So I parked my car
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 5: at the campsite and I only had my briefs my
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 5: underwear to swim in, and they're fucking sweaty and wet
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 5: from jumping in the lake. So I'm not looking my best.
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 5: I'm looking a little suspect, and I had to cross
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 5: the bridge on foot, barefoot. And I get to the
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 5: other bank and I go down and there's a line
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 5: of kids and I mean, they're, you know, fourteen, and
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 5: they're all key we kids, and they're all laughing and
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 5: having a ball. And I get in the back of
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 5: the line, just the thirty six year old man in
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 5: the back of a line of fourteen year olds, all
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 5: of us wearing bathing suits, Me and my skin tight
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 5: briefs that are wet. You know, I'm kind of doing
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 5: everything I can not to not to let them seem
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 5: the outline of my of my hammer. And they saw
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 5: me and they were like, oh, hey, there's a line.
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 5: We should let him go. And I was like, no, no,
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 5: that's okay. And they're like, oh, where are you from?
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 5: And I was like America and they're like America, you know,
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 5: they said in an exaggerated way. And then they were
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 5: really nice to me. They all let me kind of
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 5: pass on this slippery tree trunk that I had to
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 5: walk with my hands and feet out onto and then
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 5: you go up these tiny pegs on the tree and
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 5: there was this really sweet kid that had he was
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 5: sort of manning the swing for everyone because it was
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 5: hard to get You had to go to a very
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 5: high branch to get it and then pass it back down.
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 5: And he was like, all, I just swing at, you know,
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 5: lean at, hold on, swing at, swing at eh. And
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 5: I was like, okay, and I did it. And the
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 5: river I jumped in and I did well, I did
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 5: saw it. You guys would have been proud of me.
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 5: Let go at the right time into the river. River
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 5: was fucking freezing, holy shit, and fast, moving fast. You
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 5: had to swim as fast as you could to the bank.
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 5: I still ended up forty yards from where I had
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 5: gone into the river, and it wasn't easy. But you know,
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 5: these kids, they're they're cut from a different cloth. So
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 5: that's what they were doing all day long. And they
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 5: were jumping off the bridge too. You know, no wonder
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 5: like rugby is just their national sport, which again rugby
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 5: is just football without pads. I don't understand it. I
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 5: don't understand how there aren't more deaths. But that's what
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 5: they grow up doing and they love it. So I
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 5: like the people. The people here really nice, really really nice.
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 5: And you know what, they like Americans. They like Americans
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 5: and they don't like all their tourists, but they do
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 5: like Americans. I think that New Zealanders and probably Australians too,
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 5: are the most adjacent culture to America in a way,
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 5: probably even more than like Great Britain and the English.
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 5: I think that this is I don't know, it's it's
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 5: not Europe. It's a capitalist society. They have a strong
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 5: social safety net and all that, but they are they
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 5: are you know, people want to get rich here, and
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 5: it's competitive and they work hard. I think I actually
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 5: don't really know. I did a little research, not enough
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 5: to speak on this with any authority, but I do.
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 5: I do like it. I like the people here, and
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 5: I think there's really no culture shock at all. When
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 5: you come, just instantly you can plug and play and
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 5: and jump right in. It's it's not hard other than
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 5: learning adjusting to driving on the other side of the road.
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 5: That's that's the only thing. Huge fan love New Zealand.
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 5: I knew I would, And I'm on the back half
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 5: of my trip now. Tomorrow I'm going to drive back
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 5: down to Queenstown and be there for New Year's even
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 5: New Year's Day, probably do a little bit of partying.
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 5: I haven't really done much of that. You know, we'll see,
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 5: we'll see. I think it's going to be a young,
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 5: pretty fratty scene, so I don't know if that's exactly
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 5: my tempo. And then I'll go back to back up
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 5: north to one other spot is really my fanciest place
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 5: called Lindis Lodge, which is going to be more fishing,
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 5: more hiking, and then I fly home. So have I
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 5: learned anything in traveling alone? No, I think I've kind
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 5: of told you guys everything so far that I've learned
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 5: from this experience. Mostly it's that I just do love
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 5: my life back home. I love my job and I
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 5: miss it. I don't think that I need to take
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 5: a two week vacation from work. Ever, this is this
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 5: is long, A week is plenty. I am kind of
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 5: ready to come home. And if I came home tomorrow,
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 5: I would feel that I had had an amazing experience.
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 5: And I don't think that I would feel I had
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 5: been short changed or had left anything on the table
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 5: as far as you know, a trip. But I do
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 5: think it is good too to try to balance your
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 5: life and have experiences. I think that if I were
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 5: traveling with a buddy or more more like a significant other,
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 5: a longer trip is good. You know, you can split
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 5: the driving. The driving is tough because I'm passing unbelievable
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 5: scenery and the roads are narrow and I can't really
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 5: look because I'll drive off the road. So it would
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 5: be nice to divvy up the driving with somebody and
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 5: the meals, you know, it'd be nice to have the
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 5: meals with some Those are the big things. So I
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 5: think a longer trip like this with a significant other
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 5: would would do well. But being alone for two weeks, yeah,
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 5: don't don't really need this much time. That said, you know,
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 5: I am proud of myself. I guess in that there
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 5: was a moment there where I was like, Ah, the
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 5: fuck this, I'm gonna go home early, and I didn't.
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 5: I stuck it out and went fishing and turned everything around.
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 5: I was being a little bit of a bitch. I
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 5: was being a little bit of a bitch. I should
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 5: be so lucky as to be here. One thing that's cool.
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 5: I'm not worried about how much money I'm spending at
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 5: all because of my Internet invitational winnings. The way I
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 5: did that, I got paid out. We split a million
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 5: dollars three ways, meat, beef, and Brad and that came out.
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 5: We also had the like fifteen thousand dollars of Skins money,
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 5: so call it three hundred and fifty grand that came
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 5: out after taxes to two hundred and twenty two thousand dollars.
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 5: That's what I walked away with. And I took two
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 5: hundred thousand dollars of that and put it into safe
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 5: you know, bonds and spy equities, just whatever, handed it
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 5: right over to money manager, and then I allowed myself
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 5: to take the twenty two grand as play money. And
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 5: I'm not spending all of that in New Zealand. But
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 5: you know, I think I feel like I've done a
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 5: somewhat responsible thing by putting the vast bulk of it
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 5: away to grow. And then I have no problem, you know,
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 5: spending one hundred and fifty dollars on dinner every single
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 5: night here. That's fine. So look, it's a luxury, I
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 5: get it. I'm not saying everyone has to do it
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 5: this way or can do it this way, and you
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 5: could enjoy yourself just as much without spending that much money,
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 5: without staying at the nicest places, but as a luxurious
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 5: trip goes, which you know I earned by winning that tournament,
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 5: which again very lucky in a lot of ways. It's
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 5: nice that that is a piece of traveling alone too.
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 5: That is nice. You're not paying for anyone else, You're
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 5: not worried about divvying up expenses whatever. I'm just eating
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 5: what I kill and paying for it for myself. So
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 5: that's where I'm at. I'm in a healthy headspace. Things
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 5: are good, views are amazing, and I think hopefully I'll
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 5: make some friends down in Queenstown. Maybe you have a
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 5: beer with a few people, but I've met some good people.
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 5: So thanks for listening. Maybe we'll do one more of these.
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 5: We'll see, but I hope you guys enjoyed it, And
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 5: if you have any questions about New Zealand or whatever,
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 5: feel free to just reach out. All right, thanks guys. Bye,