Where did my Scandinavian fascination start? As a young nipper, charging round the bull rush filled school playgrounds of the Deep South, I completed a project on Sweden. Too young to really appreciate much more than some basic geographical facts and at the tender age where girls were infested with cooties, I had merely opened the book. It would be some years later while living in the tourist mecca of Queenstown and taking my first steps out into the big wide world abroad that I would begin to flick through the glamorous pages of what would develop into somewhat of an obsession in later years . While travelling I began to notice several trends relating to blonde hair and blues eyes which all invariably led back to Sweden. However like any good Kiwi male, I’m not one for directly confronting issues, so I skirted around the fringes with trips to Denmark and Estonia. These trips, like a gold miner finding the first few specs of gold on a new claim, only served to drive me deeper in search for the large nuggets which rested on the bedrock. “You can be a student anywhere but you can only be a Scarfie in Dunedin” Mark Wilson looks at the prospect of extinction facing this New Zealand cultural icon.
New Zealand has an unfortunate habit of removing species from existence or pushing them to the brink of extinction. Since human settlement we have killed off the mighty Moa along with one species of bat, at least 50 other bird species, three types of frogs, three lizards, one freshwater fish, four plant species, and a number of invertebrates. Imagine taking the entire crowd of the Wellington Sevens, complete with costumes, cloning everyone at least twice before sending them off running, walking and dancing through the Capital to Lyall bay on the Pacific Coast. Why not bus in 100’000 curious spectators form the Hutt and Porirua to line the course and you may be able to fathom the insanity that is Bay to Breakers.
San Francisco Oyster Festival - View Website Being a Southlander I’m filled with great pride to be from the home of the Bluff Oyster surely the world’s finest and most succulent example of a marine creation ever to be liberated from Neptune’s larder. So given the opportunity whist in San Francisco I stoically took up the challenge laid down by the locals to give the 11th annual San Francisco Oyster Festival a nudge and sample the accompanying locally sourced Drake Bay Oysters. It’s billed as must do and after 5 days in and around Thailand’s Koh Pha-Ngan Island for thefabled Full Moon Party I can concur it’s an eye opening, exciting if not a little scary experience.
Getting to Koh Pha-Ngan Thailand’s 5th Largest Island from New Zealand is like most things in Asia, easy as pie in the brochure and travel guide, but in reality there are a few hurdles and challenges along the way. Flights to Thailand are numerous, budget seekers can sneak through Australia to Bangkok on Air Asia or some concoction of budget carriers direct if you’re extremely lucky or via a series of Asian hub cities. From all accounts it’s long and painstaking but you can save a good amount of dosh if you have the time and patience. I took the far more convenient and comfortable Air New Zealand option which actually sees you flying on code share partner Thai Airways direct form Auckland. Yes it shifted a little more gorse from the trouser pocket but when you arrive in a big, hot smelly Asian city you at least want to do feeling as fresh as possible. EACH and every year a pilgrimage of sorts occurs in the deep south and from many areas of the country. Parents pack off their children to go and become adults, while they’re at it grabbing a degree or two from the long established home of the Scarfie and great southern proving ground Otago University (not to forget Polytech and T-Col). Times have changed and no-one would deny some change has been required, while other changes have in my mind been for the worse within this great institution.
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