The Noble Vagabond

So, I’m two trips out from completing a month and half long journey through the South Island, filming hunting adventures and living on the road. As naturally occurs when you watch hundreds of kilometers of high-country highways pass you by. You get to thinking about the nuances and details of your immediate surroundings. Analyzing them to the foundations. In this case I tried to look past the fall poplars, marching in the sunset. The serpentine dirt roads and cosmic night skies. I could easily write an article about the noble vagabond, going where the road takes him. The van lifer drinking coffee by the beech and watching the sunrise. It’d be easy to convince you that this is what you need to escape the rat race, to feel fulfilled. But here’s what I came up with instead.

The first issue was always power, you can’t be driving all the time, and my phone and later laptop needed something beefier. So, I bought a big ass power box and a solar panel which became an absolute asset, despite how expensive they were. You can’t do this sort of thing, especially when filming without being able to charge stuff. I was never to going to stay in a backpacker or hotel. The unfortunate truth is that when it’s cloudy and especially when it rains power is going to be limited with a solar panel. The first few days of this stint had me cowering under a huge macrocarpa and diligently farming what little sunlight existed while I read a book all day. It could be worse. Truly without plentiful power you feel pretty limited, and find yourself making excuses to drive so you can charge your phone and remain connected.

Another problem to solve, one which took me till summer to realise was a problem, is keeping food fresh. During winter the colder months and especially mid-winter, a powered fridge is just unnecessary. You actually want to keep your foodstuffs warmer because they usually freeze in the -7 nights. Me and my friend, had a month-long journey in the South Island during January and February. Meat spoilage was a massive issue and we found ourselves constantly throwing stuff out and washing out our cooler. This has been solved with a powered fridge which I can charge utilising my solar panel and power box. Unfortunately, I now find it a bit unnecessary because of the coming of winter. But for a short period of time, it was very helpful and likely will be again.

Off course if you’re a vegan, which let’s face it if your Van living you probably are. Meat spoilage isn’t such an issue. What’s really important to ensure is to keep your cooking simple. Bags of flour and making your own bread is a great way to make food go far. A bag of flour lasts weeks and costs little. Vegetables go off and are expensive, basically everything is expensive. You start to look at everything with longing eyes. On one month long stint I lost almost 10kg’s. I was looking very lean and mean. I’ve whittled down my cooking system to take up just a single box of my five-box system. I use my hunting jet boil for brews and a cheap $40 dollar gas cooker in conjunction with a supermarket frying pan to cook literally everything. Although id say I have a skeleton set of cooking utensils and ingredients and I have introduced luxuries. Milk and actual plunger coffee are just necessities now. Stir fries, homemade wraps and burritos are now the go to. Dicing up wild venison and store-bought coleslaw into convenient meals. I’d never craved vegetables in my life, but after a week of eating noodles in the mountains chasing chamois in karst rock mazes. Cooked chamois back steaks and dipped them into canned tomatoes with fried capsicum. Turns out I added way too much cayenne pepper, in moments I was rinsing my mouth with river water while an eel watched me with fascination. The point watch how you cook, keep it balanced and keep it simple stupid.

The other four boxes of my storage compartments hold all my clothes, towel and hygiene stuff. The next holds a crap load of books, something I’d forgotten in the past, camera gear, charging stuff and general writing and art supplies. The next two hold my hunting gear, car tools, my custom tool box, fishing gear, running shoes and camel pack. But remains largely pretty empty. My hunting pack behind my car seat basically holds all my stuff constantly boots on the floor, (gumboots are great). Dog pack and laptop tucked away under the seats and I still have plentiful room.

I can’t talk about living on the road without Kim, make your dog sleep separately from you, you’ll both be more comfortable. Kim has to eat a lot in between our adventures. Dogs lose condition very quickly. In fact, without her I could probably just go straight from one trip to another but Kim would suffer. She eats a lot, cleans all my dishes very nicely, gets dog hair everywhere. Farts on me, keeps me warm or cold nights and is generally both a pain in the ass and my greatest asset and best friend. I’d have gone crazy a long time ago with my canid companion.

Campsites are a hard one, some region like nelson have no tolerance of freedom camping, and rightly so. Having Kim roll in human shit has thoroughly convinced me of this. With a tent or rooftop tent your kind of obvious as far as a camper. Sleeping in your car is comfortable, warmer and easier in general, as nice as those fancy rooftop tents look. in my travels I’ve been slowly building up a network of places to say, marking them on my topo map. Just marking them as I pass by and just knowing what to look for now. I’ve stayed in picnic sights, road ends, riverbeds, bush tracks, parks and under bridges. Generally, the further south you go the better. I’m pretty cheeky with camping, if I didn’t see the sign how could I know? But I’ll never take advantage of private property or especially farmers. Most of the anti-freedom camping regulations are created because of people taking advantage of the system and just generally being pretty gross. Littering and human shit. Thanks whoever did that. So don’t break the rules, but if you do, be careful.

I could continue going in depth with various rules I’ve made and the stories that made them, but lets take the afore mentioned rule and make this simple.

·        No elevated solar panels, the wind will ruin your day. Charge your power box when the sun is out and never take it for granted

·        Fill water container when you can from clean sources.

·        Use a pillow and blanket, you’ll just sleep way better

·        Keep tabs on the closest proximity of every bathroom. Keep toilet paper handy.

·        Do your chores, don’t let your rubbish accumulate, do your dishes, keep up the hygiene.

·        Swim in lakes when the sun is out, wet wipes work good for hygiene too. Your living in your car, you’re going to smell and you wont notice, but other people will.

·        Let the Kim dog out to pee and don’t feed her too many animal bones, you will gas yourself out.

·        Don’t Park under old man pines or other widow makers.

·        Boil animal skulls when you have the chance, before they smell and get nasty.

·        If you can make a fire, make one, they are really freaking nice.

·        Don’t be in such a damn hurry, explore a bit, look at the backroads and backcountry maps.

·        Careful crossing rivers and going through ruts, had to cut down a matagauri forest with a bowie knife to get out the other day.

·        And lastly, beg for forgiveness, don’t ask for permission.

In the past 10 years or so the van lifestyle has really taken off. Instagram feeds flooded with the, hot coffee, clasped in woollen sleeves, watching the sunset of some ‘remote’ beach. A young person would see these sorts of videos and photos and think, “man that’s the life, adventure!” Existing parallel to the overseas journey to ‘find yourself” and just shy of going on the dol and travelling from spiritual dance event to nudist tent village. That young person would think they’d need to make money to survive? You can only consume your savings for so long. If they were lucky, they’d have some kind of remote job they could do on their laptop while drinking coffee watching the beech sunsets (I swear that’s the only thing van life people do). If not so lucky as to have a job like that they’d come upon a few options. Seasonal work like orchard picking or other rural drudgery. For someone not from a farm this is an adventure in itself. A you tube channel, an intimidating thing to just start practicing, talking to yourself like a crazy person. And a range of others, none more considered than a blog or something dumb like that. Can you tell I have skeptical views of the van lifestyle? Now full disclaimer I am not a van lifer. Vans travel through the landscape like water buffalo, big but able to carry a lot. No, I have the vehicular equivalent of a Bengal tiger. A Landcruiser. Far better for adventuring up southern river valleys and muddy 4x4 tracks. Slow, but able to go anywhere. My claim to fame is my time spent on the road, not in an expensive 4x4 setup with rooftop tent, recovery gear and sliding draws. More like a slow turtle with random gear strewn in all corners in unorganised fashion and crudely made, blood and coffee-stained plywood boxes to hold my various inventory.

My most obvious departure though is obviously my meat-oriented intention. My mission to film seven hunting adventures for my rising YT channel, which drew me away from my noble steed and into the far wilderness in search of caves, waterfalls, remanent ice and horned mountain beasts. An activity that compliments the road lifestyle nicely, providing me with stacks of lean meat post every quest. Other than these, my experience has been largely very similar. Because of traveling work and my desire to wander from time to time. I’ve spent maybe a combined period of roughly 5 months shooting past tall golden poplars and around the cold glacial lakes of New Zealand’s South Island. Although I’ve had largely the same experience, I just can’t understand the van life craze. I can obviously see how attractive it looks, it’s an easy thing to advertise. A Vagabond, seeing the beautiful countryside and finding places unexplored. Finding themselves or self-correcting their mental health problems. Meeting interesting people, that sort of thing. I think it has its merits. Escaping the hustle and bustle, the rat race, the cubicle life. Experiencing interesting things and gaining great stories along the way, but if I’m honest. I’ve found it boring, my time on the road, in between hunting adventures has felt like a relaxing vacation not a great adventure. And I hate it. I like reading, part of me likes to look at the snowy peaks and drink hot coffee, but after about two days I start getting a little crazy. I can do this stuff at home. It boggles my mind that this stuff can be classed as adventure. Everything is relative I guess, and I’d encourage everyone to go out and do something along these lines because it’s cool. For some, exploring the country on four wheels is adventure, visiting so called remote places. For me it’s boring, that’s the best way I can describe it. It’s not that I don’t like these activities it’s more that I’d rather do them with a good group of friends and keep it short and sweet. I think it’s a great experience, but it needs to service something, for me it was hunting, filming and writing. Without this it needs to be temporary, an escape with the guarantee you’ll return replenished ready to attack your goals like a grizzly bear. The reality of living on the road is that it’s lonely. It’s hard. The movies are right. I’ve been lucky enough to have a dog for company and on another month long an adventure, a great human friend. For me this adventure has been a motivation to carve my own path, months ago I quit my great job because I felt destined for more, soon I’ll be heading on my first great adventure to a faraway land (you can wait to find out), and all I can think about is the people I love back home, in a warm house or flat, watching a movie with my family or relaxed drinking with friends. In various ways I’ve been running from my problems. I haven’t been a wandering soul with the answers to life, idealistically living life to the fullest. I’ve been doing something somewhat reluctantly because I couldn’t have the best of both worlds. The pull of wandering the wilds and the open road was as strong as my clasped coffee. Catching rainbow trout in montane lakes, long drives through the darkness blasting Mumford and sons, trekking through the mighty backcountry, meeting the challenge of alpine pursuit. Affinity for wild beasts and the mountains they inhabit. Cosmic night skies, by a campfire with a soft muzzle on my chest. These things will always be mine alone, best lived solo. That magnetism will never fade. There is an expectation that these things mean that I dislike people but I love them. Before I trek far from home in a different wilderness, with unfamiliar mountains beasts. I want to spend time with them, in a warm place, with cold drinks. A vagabond coming home for the quiet before the storm.

But before I do that I’ve got two hunts to film, I’m going to give it all I’ve got, I’m going to attack my goals like a wolverine and then I’ll come home.