Of possums, profits, and posterity

Hitch-hiking can sometimes be an effortless experience in which you are flung along your chosen road, ride after ride bringing you swiftly to your goal location. It can also be the most demoralising thing imaginable, as you watch dozens of likely rides fly by full of empty seats and are cheerily waved at by the drivers as they plunge on at about thirty times your current speed. By length of description you can infer which I experienced when leaving Nelson: from the outskirts of the suburb of Richmond I walked approximately 16 kilometers to the village of Wakefield, all the while doing constant pointless pirouettes with a fixed smile and jovial Canadiattitude turned up to maximum. As I prepared to leave Wakefield along the same seemingly pointless highway I had been following, however, I happened to see a car pull up some 50 metres behind me and expel a 20-something young man with a backpack, some serious workboots, and an average-sized rifle in a transparent carrying case: I waited for him to catch up, and discovered that he was Thomas “call me Tom, mate” Murphy – recently resident in a local logging camp. Thus it was that I formed my first South Island travel supergroup.

It took us some time longer to find a ride, which we passed in conversation about local activities and proclivities, but soon we were southern bound at breakneck speed in a series of decreasingly excellent automobiles, the last of which driven by a man who (alarmingly) had recently given up the “bad drugs” and lived for a month in silence at the local Buddhist/hippie retreat and was eager to talk. So it was that Thomas and I found ourselves pulling into the town of Murchison (Tom’s hometown) as evening began to make the likelihood of me getting further towards the coast seem less and less likely. We went to the local, ordered a welcome beer after our day’s travels/travails, and set to chatting as we cooled down from the road.

To say that Murchison is a different kind of place would be an understatement. It’s where hostels spring up in basements (replete with owners that scream at their dogs for being “cunts” when they come inside smelling of awful), sandals are referred to as “Samoan safety boots”, and “horse pooh” can be bought from smiling children for $2.50 a large sack – or $1.00 a grocery bag, if you please. The hostel manager, a sweet-seeming young woman about my age, was happy to have my business but was sure to warn me to hide any contraband (my word), as the police were due to come by later as part of some probation agreement she’d agreed to; this was a town where getting arrested “attempting” (my favourite part of the story) to urinate on a cop car’s windshield was something to slap knees over, rather than manacles onto wrists. It’s also where I agreed, after several games of pool and a few beers gifted by locals (all profoundly heterosexual men, oddly enough), to join in with Tom and his friend on some ‘possuming’ the next night.

Possuming is pretty much what you would think it was, given a moment’s thought about the status of possums in New Zealand (invasive species, threat to birds and dairy industry, etc.). After lunch and a collection of .22 shells being done from friends at the hostel (who mostly obliged) and some at the bar (who had them in their trucks), we were off to the hills south of Murchison to attempt to profitably denude the forest of the malevolent marsupials. As I hadn’t fired a gun since boy scouts, my role in this enterprise was to direct a spotlight, hastily roped to the top of the pickup, towards the bush as Tom’s friend drove along a remote logging road in the hills. Tom, standing beside me rifle at the ready, was to shoot at the possums as the light glinted off of their eyes, before merrily jumping off of the slow-moving 4x4 to go and quickly dispossess the dispatched possum of its skin. Remember, now, that the possum is ruining large tracts of NZ forest from an ecological perspective, and that (perhaps most importantly) buyers will pay ten dollars or more per skin in order to make attractive coats, socks, and a remarkable range of apparel (possum thong, anyone?): ‘possuming’ can be big business if done efficiently.

While somewhat grisly from a cargo perspective, the possum pelts were undeniably fine – as such things go – and a few remarkably short-feeling hours later we returned to camp out of bullets (if not good cheer in a manic backwoods-y kind of way) and took stock of the night’s produce. In all Tom had collected 31 skins (thus making the job worth about $100 dollars per hour), and offered to pay me $50 dollars for my part once he took them to Greymouth to meet with the fur agent. While I love NZ songbirds, fear the evils of bovine tuberculosis, and support rustic business as much as the next guy, I didn’t feel quite right taking payment for my small part in the hunt; instead I opted to accept a ride to Greymouth without having to pay a share in the gas money, and to have another free beer before retiring to my tent. As I lay down, reflecting on the odd circumstances that led to my sleeping in the wilderness outside Murchison, I heard the (presumably grateful) calls of the local Morepork owls – so named because of its call which sounds unerringly like an owl saying “MOrePOrk!!”. All was once again right in that stretch of woods.

A quick breakfast and a 3 hour drive in the back of a 4x4 pickup truck – with almost 3 dozen fairly fresh possum pelts for company – later, I found myself happily bidding adieu to Thomas and his friend, and hello to a rather serious washing-up in a gas station bathroom. A reorganising of my bag, a stocking-up on dry goods, and a short yet profound mental reel later, I pointed my boots south along highway 6 – otherwise known as the only road heading south. Through an improbable series of events beginning outside the hamlet of Wakefield I found myself on the wild West Coast of the south island and, to be honest, I couldn’t have been more pleased. The sun beat down as I watched the waves to my right, and I restarted my ungainly pirouettes.