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Hey, Son of a Boy dad listeners. You can find every episode on Apple podcasts, Spotify or YouTube Prime. Members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. Cracker Barrel is home to all the More country anytime. That means buttermilk pancakes whenever you want them. Homemade classics like chicken and dumplings. And a country store full of fun finds. Swing by and visit Cracker Barrel today. So y' all know that we're big fans of Cracker Barrel. And this holiday season I will be sat at their table with a big plate of country fried turkey. And Brandon, I'll be right there with you and I'll check it off my Christmas list in the country store while I'm at it. It'll make a nice holiday tradition. Oh, that's so cute of you. Enjoy all the more holiday traditions only at Cracker Barrel. Hello, Son of a Boy dad fans. Nope, don't love that intro. Welcome back to Son of a Boy Dad. Today is a unusual episode. It's just me, Francis, coming to you live from HQ14. I don't know, I don't know. That's Harry's job. But I'm in New Zealand, as some of you may know, and traveling solo through this pretty magical country. And I'm going to try to walk you guys through some of the experiences that I've had so far and tell you what's going on. Right now. I am sitting in this tiny little cabin on a sheep farm in Hawaii. Hawaii. I don't know how to pronounce any of these names. Close to Wanaka, which is an hour and a half north of Queenstown, which is the kind of main, one of the main places to go on the south island of New Zealand. I'm a week in to this solo trip and I've had some fun adventures so far. So I'll tell you guys about them. I landed on the North island on December 21, flew from Boston to LA, LA, Auckland. And I took a bus from Portland, Maine. I went to see my family in Portland, Maine for Christmas, for a couple days, you know, early Christmas, and then went via bus to Portland. Excuse me. To Boston. Logan didn't have that. I had like two hours when I got there. And they have a brand new Delta One lounge. It was in terminal. A different terminal from the one I was in. I was in Terminal A because my first flight was just to la. So it's the domestic terminal, but in their international terminal they have a new Delta One lounge. And I said, who would I be if I were to not check out the brand new Delta One Lounge at Logan Airport. And yet everybody who worked at the airport that I ran into told me I didn't have enough time to go because it was in a different terminal. And I said, I'll be the judge of that. Don't keep me from the Premier Delta Lounge. So I took a shuttle across the tarmac from Terminal A to Terminal E and then raced up the stairs, went, checked in at the Delta One Lounge. And they looked at my ticket and they were like, yo, if I were you, I would not be here. You should go right back. And I said, first I need to have a free drink and something to eat for free. And let me tell you something, this Delta One Lounge, dear God, deary me, it felt like the nicest private social club in New York City. If you're familiar with those places. First of all, fuck those places. But Che Margot, San Vicente, Bungalow, Casa Cipriani, you know, once upon a time, Soho House, all these places that go by the wayside because their members end up saying that they're lame. A year and a half in and going on to the next cool thing. I think the Delta One Lounge at Logan Airport might be the nicest restaurant in Boston. Truly. I had the kale, lobster chowder and a Negroni. I was there for eight minutes and then I turned around, raced back across the tarmac, got to my gate as the plane was boarding, got on nice seat all the way to la, tried not to sleep because I knew what was coming. Landed in LA around 10 o' clock and then had a 50 minute layover, went straight to my gate, got on a much bigger plane. This was an Airbus A350. So my Delta 1 seat on this flight was far nicer than my Delta 1 seat going from Boston to LA. I mean, I really, it was, I had a door, a sliding door that closed me off from the aisle. And I did something that I'm told real travelers know to do, which is I eschewed the meal service on this flight, didn't have anything to drink. It was, it was like 10 o', clock, 10pm when we took off, 10:30. So once we were airborne, I reclined my bed, took a Ativan, I'd never taken that before, and conked out and I slept, you know, waking up a couple times, but for about eight, eight and a half hours of the 13 hour flight. And then when I was done sleeping, I woke up and watched Lincoln what a movie. And then enjoyed the rest of the flight as we landed in Auckland. At 8:30 in the morning. I went Straight from there. Rented a car. Okay. They drive on the left side of the road in New Zealand. I got into my rental car and I sat down in the passenger seat like a fucking moron. Just kind of wondering what was going on for a second. Pretty disoriented from, you know, 24 hours straight of traveling and almost felt like I was in an Uber, you know, I'm sitting on the left side, steering wheels on the right. I'm like, is there a driver coming? And it took me about 20 seconds to realize, oh, I'm driving. I need to get out of the car and go to the other side. And everything's flipped around. So the turn signal is on the right side of the steering wheel, and the windshield wiper operating stick is on the left side, which meant that every single time I tried to indicate that I was making a turn, I turned on the windshield wipers. That gets frustrating quickly. That gets frustrating quickly. I had an hour and a half drive north, northeast of Auckland. I was going up to see a friend of mine, this guy, a Kiwi guy that I knew. He used to live in New York, and he moved with his family back up here. Awesome dude. Golfing buddy of mine, and he has a beach house up in this place, this place called Manga Fi, spelled Manga Y, but they pronounce it Manga Phi. It's kind of like a mix of. I guess I'd call it Montauk before it became douchey and maybe Northern California. So beach town, surfer kind of diving vibe. Not particularly swanky. It was. It was nice. It was bohemian. It was cool. And what's interesting about that area that I think it was in 2016, there was this billionaire American guy, older guy, who was taking a helicopter from a destination golf course on the northern tip of. Sorry, if you guys can hear the boats. I'm on this lake on the northern tip of New Zealand. There was a course up there called Kari Cliffs that everyone loves, and this dude had played it and was taking a helicopter back to Auckland, and his pilot told him to look out the window and that there was this big plot of land right on the water as they were flying that was for sale, and they circled it a couple times. And the guy bought the land and built three golf courses with the help of. He hired the designers, Cor Crenshaw and Tom Doak. Those guys always seem to work together on projects. And these are the best golf course designers in the game right now. I mean, they've done a bunch of the Band and Dunes courses. I'm pretty sure they did Cabot Links out in Nova Scotia. If, oh, they did a bunch of the stream song courses. If you're building natural sort of sand dunes type golf courses that are built into the land and don't really need to put down a tunnel like soil and sod and are wild and windswept, you hire these guys. They're unbelievable. And he built a course called Tara ITI Tara et locals say Tara ite. And this thing is one of the best golf courses I've ever played in the world. It's, it's, it's a top, I think 20 in the world now. And then that was the first one he built. And then two years ago he finished the other two tri north and south courses. And those are also spectacular. So there are three golf courses within 10 minutes of each other in this area, all of which are in the top hundred in the world. They have the tri. Those two are public and you can stay in the really nice lodging there. Unbelievable food. Everything's brand new, you know, truly high touch, awesome golf destination spot. Tara Edi now is fully private. They had a policy for a number of years where if you made it all the way over here, they would let you play the course one time in your life to experience it. And I think they've done away with that. So you need to know a member. I'm lucky that I did had a ball. Jonty, that's my buddy, he took a. He also took us out on his boat. He's a. This guy is some kind of superhero, you know, he's a diver, loves to dive. And he threw on his dive gear in this cove, just fell off the back of the boat and went down into the kelp to hunt crayfish with his bare hands. And you got to be quick because they, they're fast too. And he caught one, brought it up in his bag. We threw a couple fishing lines over. I caught two red snapper. We brought those in and we went back to the house and cooked everything up. Well actually one of the red snapper we made into ceviche, which was fucking awesome. I'm telling you, this fish was. It went from the ocean and swimming around to into my mouth in an hour. You want to talk about fresh. Holy shit. Did a little coconut milk, some red onion, jalapeno. I didn't do any of this. They did. They knew what they were doing. And then we pan fried the other red snapper and we just steamed the crayfish that. Look, I hate to say it, I'm from Maine major lobster guy. I think crayfish is tastier. You just eat the tail. There's not a whole lot in it but my God, it's sweet. It is unbelievable. They've started, they're going, they're about to do a five year ban on the hunting of them in this area I think because the numbers have dwindled and they're trying to replenish the fishery. But anyway, that was awesome. Played golf and I was there for three nights or three days and then I went back to Auckland, crashed at an airport hotel for the night, woke up early on Christmas Eve. By the way, I'm 18 hours ahead of the East Coast. That's a crazy time change. I'm a full day ahead. So my Christmas eve was still December 23rd for everyone else back home. And I flew to the south island, easy flight. Queenstown landed, rented a car, drove two hours south to this place in Fiordland. Now this is where the town was called tnu. I don't know, this is where Milford Sound is. This is what everyone talks about. This is the destination, the major tourism destination in this part of the country. This the south island of New Zealand. There's two islands, north and south. Everybody lives on the north island and then you go to the south island for wilderness adventure, hiking, outdoors, all of that. But I think most of the population lives on the North Island. That's where Auckland is. And everyone who has been to New Zealand told me to spend the vast majority of my time on the South Island. We'll see. That's what I did. I was only on the north island for three days. Flew down and rented my car. It is stunning down here. I mean it's all mountains, snow capped mountains, unbelievable lakes, huge, vast farmland, sheep everywhere. Crazy. And I drove to tnl, which is two hours from, excuse me, from Queenstown. Tough, kind of a tough drive. You're hugging the lake for the first half hour. The roads are really narrow, switchbacks, people bombing around. And then people from New Zealand get annoyed that you're driving carefully so you have to pull over into these tiny little pullouts to let them pass. Which I did. That made me feel good about myself, you know, go ahead, go ahead. Otherwise though I will say people are pretty friendly down here. I got to my place, Fiordland Lodge. This was like a rustic fishing lodge. Fishing and hunting in Tnau. And the whole point of me being here was I wanted to check out sort of Fiordland national park. And I had a day of fishing with a guide booked and I wasn't sure if I was gonna go to Milford Sound. Milford Sound is what everybody talks about. There's also doubtful Sound, but that was farther away. And Milford Sound is two hour drive from where I was staying. And I wasn't planning to go because it was so touristy. Milford Sound is like this. Yeah, it's a fjord and you get on a boat and you go along the fjord. That's the thing. And I, my hotel was like what do you, what do you mean you're not gonna go? The entire reason the town of Tnau was built was as a stopping point for people to go to Milford Sound because it's a three and a half hour drive from Queenstown and it's only a two hour drive from T and now. So I said all right, I guess if I'm this close I have to go. And I went. And it was pouring rain and the drive there was a fucking nightmare. Terrifying. Terrifying. Straight up a mountain pass. You have to go through this tunnel that goes through a mountain and you have to wait in front of the tunnel at a red light because it's only one way traffic. You can, you know, the cars coming to you, they all come and then they get through and then you go and you're in this tunnel and it, I mean it feels like. I don't know if you guys are Harry Potter fans, but the bank vaults in Gringotts when they take that, when the dwarves take them in the trolley down to their vaults, that was what this felt like. It was dark and wet and you're driving through and the lighting is flickering but you get through. And then again switchbacks all the way down. Very steep down the mountain. Scary. Got to drive very slowly to this tiny little sort of harbor jumping off point for Milford Sound. Okay, this is where I realized I'd made a mistake. It is so touristy. There are tour buses that are, you know, you get stuck behind on this drive and they are carrying tourists galore. And I got you get on a boat and everybody on the boat, I would say 80% of the boat was Asian tourists, primarily Chinese tourists. That's fine. I don't know nothing wrong with that. I just don't like jostling for position on the deck of a boat with 150 other tourists, all of whom are trying to take a picture of a waterfall. It doesn't really make you feel like you're experiencing something that is unique. In a way. This is a well oiled machine. It's a tourist trap. Which is crazy given how Hard it was to get there, but I did it. Drove back. I don't know. A lot of people take helicopters in to see this look. It's amazing, no doubt about it. There's crazy waterfalls, there's mountains rising straight up out of fjord. Don't expect to see a whole lot of wildlife. We saw one seal, that was it. And it was, you know, foggy and wild and green and wet and very dramatic. It was an amazing place to see. But for what it took for me to get there, I would not necessarily recommend it to other people. Unless maybe doing the helicopter or doing the plane thing is a better way to do it. And a lot of people had recommended doing that. I'll say this too. Helicopters seem to be the way around here. There's such an enormous helicopter industry in New Zealand. Everywhere you go, that's kind of like a normal thing. And I can't say that it's that much less expensive. I mean, it's still utterly expensive to take a helicopter tour of anything. So I'm surprised that that's kind of become such a normal thing. But I did not want to do that. Drove back, was kind of bummed out by the whole day, honestly. This is where. So I'm on my. This is my fourth day into my trip and I've just. I'd been in the car, you know, this was. I was a four hour day in the car. To us, two hours there, kind of a shitty experience. Two hours back. Being in the car, you know, that much when you're alone really amplifies the solitude, I would say for me, and, you know, it's Christmas day now and I don't know, I was just like, what the fuck am I doing here? Did I really need to take this trip? Am I learning anything? I spent a lot of the car ride thinking about how much I wanted to get back to work and how I was missing stage time, opportunities for doing spots at the Comedy Cellar and stuff in New York City, and missing opportunities to, you know, work on the book and podcast with the boys. And I guess in a good way, it did make me realize that I fucking love my work. And I'd been off of work for, you know, a week and was desperate to get back to it. But I don't know, that was definitely something I was struggling with on the 4th, or maybe it was the 5th day of my trip. Was just feeling very antsy, very antsy, like I was just wasting time. Then I went to bed. The food at this Fjordland lodge was very good to their Credit, went to bed, woke up on the next morning early because I had a whole day booked with a fly fishing guide and I met this guy and S2 expeditions by the way, if anyone's interested. Cannot recommend this dude highly enough. Unbelievable. Scott Salty dog. He's been guiding fly fishing for I don't know, 30 years or something like that. And he picked me up at 8:30 in the morning and we drove, we drove a while, probably an hour and a half and a lot of it was on back roads. And I'm in the car and he's asking me about my fly fishing experience. I've probably fly fished like four or five times and twice have been with Harry and he didn't give me a single minute of instruction. And I explained I was honest with him. I was like, I'm a beginner, I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. He said, all right, that's fine. And we were very good about level setting. People had told me and I had read that fly fishing in New Zealand is some of the hardest fly fishing in the world because first of all, all the trout are wild. There's no stocked trout except in some of the lakes I guess. And secondly, the water is so clear that they can see you and they're very hard to catch, they get spooked very easily and you might not, you might not see a fish for a mile. You might hike a mile along the river to see one fish and you get a, you know, one or two casts at it and if you don't land it, he's running away and then you're, you gotta hike another mile. So that was kind of my expectation. And I said to my guide, I was like, look, I understand that given my lack of ability and experience, we might not catch a single fish. I'm fine with that. I'm just here to have a great day, whatever. And he was pretty good. I mean he tried to level set but he was not as pessimistic as I was. He brings me to this, I don't know, this river creek, really a Creek. It's probably 20ft wide, pretty shallow, surrounded on both sides by farmland. There's a cool thing in New Zealand where I guess farmers own the land that is whatever 10 meters back from a river on either side. But they don't own the river itself. That is public land. And if you can get to the river by parking your car on a road at a point where the road is only 10 meters from the river, you can fish that river without trespassing on the farmer's land. And also, people don't seem to really mind. I don't think the farmers mind. And everyone's very respectful. Nobody ever fucking pollutes or leaves sandwich wrappers or anything like that. Everything's clean, you know, leave no trace. And then when we parked our car, the guide, he put a sign in his windshield that said fishing upriver. Because if anyone else pulled into that spot, it would let them know that they should go in the other direction and not follow in our tracks, because if they did, they wouldn't catch a single fish. Once you've fished a stretch of river, the fish in that stretch of river are spooked and suspicious for like a week, which is why we drove so far to this spot to get somewhere that he was confident nobody had fished in a while. So we get down into the river and, you know, right away he sees a fish and he says, all right, cast at it. And, you know, I don't. I had very brief casting tutorial. I threw out a line. He's watching it, and he says, lift, lift. And I lift and I land. The fish bites. And I'm, you know, reeling and trying to keep the rod bent. He'd given me a few tips. It was all very overwhelming because he'd given me a lot of information, but it will. Luckily it was not a big fish. It was a pretty small fish. And we landed first fish. I mean, this was in the first 20 minutes in the river. And we get it in. My first fish, brown. Brown trout all. We were only fishing for browns right off the bat. The skunk is off the boat, so to speak. We are not getting zeroed for the day. And I was exhilarated. I was like, my God, if we don't catch another fish, we've. We've caught a fish. I've caught a fish. On my trip to New Zealand, I've caught a fly fishing fish, a wild brown trout. They said it might not happen. It happened. I did it. I'm better than Harry. And that was the first fish. And then from there I caught eight more. I caught nine fucking brown trout. And they got bigger and bigger as the day went on. That one was pretty small. I ended up catching one that was four and a half pounds. I posted. You guys can see pictures here, I think we'll have on the YouTube. We'll have the pictures over, yeah, over this. This episode. But you can also check out on my Instagram and the chat bcc. I've been, you know, needling Harry about how Much bigger the browns are that I've caught than he ever has. He told me the largest brown trout, or maybe it was a rainbow he's ever caught was 20 inches. And I think we both agreed that I caught at least two browns that were in the 22 inch range. So, yeah, I am a better fly fishing angler than Harry is. And it really didn't take me that long to surpass him. Nine browns really was amazing. And it was, you know, I got better and better. Sort of got the hang of the casting, turning the cat, you know, he. He would have me cast into very specific spots. There were times where I had to cast sidearm, which was a tricky skill to learn. But I figured it out because I'd have to get under a branch or something like that in order to get it into the area I had to get it into. One of the coolest moments that happened was I caught or I got a. I got one that was huge. And it ran and it ran and it ran. And we were in a very wooded area of the river. And he. The fish knew to run into the willow branches that were in the river and it ran in there and then it just stopped. But the line stayed taught. So we weren't sure if my line had just. He had just wrapped it around a branch or if he was still on. But it wasn't moving. And my guide said sometimes they'll just go into a hole and sit. They know to do that. So he might still be on. And my guide had to take his jacket gear off and strip down to his undershirt to walk in, wade in deep into this very dense wooded area of the river where the water is up to his, you know, nipples almost. And he gets all the way in there and he goes, oh my God, he's still on. He's still on the line. He could tell. And he tried to reach down and was planning to just grab him by the tail and pull him out. But somehow at that moment, the fish sensed him and I guess wrapped the line around another branch and then the knot of the leader and the line got caught on an edge and the fish snapped the line off. So we came up empty handed. By the way, I hooked 14 fish and five managed to get away through various mistakes I made or just unlucky situations like that one. So, you know, my yield, I don't know, 9 for 14, which is also not even to count the ones. I cast at that very nearly bit, but got spooked at the last second. I mean, we saw a lot of fish. We had a lot of opportunities. This was not as sort of rare of a fishing experience, meaning it was not the hike a mile, see one fish cast at it that I had feared I might experience. It was, I don't know, every 20 yards or so there was a fish to cast at. They were eating mayfly spawn, which was. And there was a hatch happening early in the early part of the day. And then we stopped for lunch. We caught most of our fish in the morning and in the afternoon everything changed. They started eating willow nymphs, which are like the larvae that you know from that, from the tree that fall into the river. Sorry if I'm really not that keyed in on, on how all that works, but an incredibly successful day, awesome experience guide was the fucking man. We spent, I don't know, eight and a half, nine hours fishing, truly from, from 9am until 5pm the whole time. And when we finished, we went back to his car and he pulled out a folding, you know, soccer mom chair, sideline chair, and he had cold beer. And we sat on the side of the road. There was a cow pasture on the other side with, I don't know, 50 cows that were all just staring at us. And they were all different colors too, which was kind of weird, I'd never seen that before. And then on our side was the river and we drank a couple beers each. Here's something interesting. New Zealand has no open container law and that applies to the drivers of cars. I don't know if you can actually drink while you're driving, but you can sit in your car behind your wheel and have a beer as long as you are not over the limit. Which, you know, I think is like two beers. It's probably similar to ours, like a 0.08 or whatever BAC. But these, I mean, they drink right up to the limit. They really do. And speaking of which, New Zealand is a drinking country. Thank God. What a relief. None of this sober, curious stuff going on. Nobody just, you know, willingly opting for sobriety. Not because they have an issue, but because, you know, well, I've read the science or I don't like the way it makes me feel. Look, all power to those people, I guess in America, but as a drinker myself, it's nice to be among drinkers. It is. It's nice to drink with like minded folk. And I'm on vacation so I'm drinking pretty much every day at night, you know, once I've earned it. And the wine, the wine here is really good. They've got. They're big on Pinot noir. That's their big thing. Otago is the region. Very good Pinot. Been having wine and beer every night. Excellent. That was my day fishing. That was really the highlight. And at the end of that day it really turned the trip around for me because remember just the day before, I'd had these feelings of, you know, why am I. Why did I need to take such a giant trip away? And what, what am I actually learning about myself other than that I like to work. And this transformed it. It flipped it around. And in that space of time you may have seen that I tweeted a somewhat joking but mostly self loathing tweet about how I had gone to New Zealand with the express purpose of, you know, learning to be by myself and I guess love myself or whatever, live with the thoughts in my own head. And it only took me four days to realize I fucking can't stand being alone and being by myself. And then sure enough, you know, fishing day with again with a companion, which was key, but was just such an awesome experience. So that was great. Highly recommend that if anyone's coming this way and wants to know about who that guy is, just shoot me a DM and I'll link you guys up. Son of a boy. Dad is brought to you by Kraken. Let's be honest, Christmas is full of trash. Gifts, ugly sweaters, desk toys, funny mugs. Useless garbage. But this year, Kraken's letting you flip that crap into something that actually holds value. Bitcoin. Got a shit gift? Roast it, post it, tag Kraken, and you might just get yourself a stack of Bitcoin instead. The best performing asset of all time is better than that scented candle your aunt gave you. So here's your move. Take the L, flip the gift and get the bitcoin. Simple, secure Kraken. Here's the move. Okay, Everybody got an iffy gift. Snap a pic, post it tagrakenfx and you could score some Bitcoin instead. That's AC Kraken F X. Disclaimer this is not investment advice. Crypto trading involves risk of loss and it is offered to U.S. customers, excluding New York and Maine through PayWord Interactive Inc. Terms apply. Day ends. I drive two hours north back to Queenstown. Here's something funny. I. I was just crashing for the night in Queenstown. So I got in at 9:30pm and I knew that was going to be the case. And then I had to wake up early the next day to go play golf again at one Course down here on the south island called Jack's Point. More on this in a second. So I didn't really care about having a super nice hotel on this evening because it was just a place to crash. So I opted for a Hilton. You know, that was. Got fine marks on Google Maps and TripAdvisor and all that. And sure enough, I get to this Hilton. And right off the bat, the signs are, are not looking good. They tell me I can either valet my car for 50 bucks or park it myself in a garage that's like 500 yards away for 30 bucks. And I said, wait a second, you're an, You're a hotel. A pretty decent hotel. I mean, not, you know, top of the line, but you're a hotel and you don't have any free parking. Maybe I'm crazy, but that just seemed insane to me. Pissed me off. So then I, you know, checked in, went to my room, and the sink in the bathroom had the beard trimmings of the previous guest, black hairs. This guy trimmed his beard in the sink and the cleaning ladies didn't catch it. How, I'll never know. I don't know how you missed that. White sink, black beard hairs, black. Pretty overt. I started laughing, you know, not gonna fucking make a complaint. It's too late. I just need to go to bed. However, I did need to eat. So I went down to this pub. They had this kind of restaurant and they said that the main dinner menu was closed, the kitchen was closed, but they were serving their bar menu. I looked at it, it was like a burger and some other shit. They had a salmon entree. I said, I'll have the salmon. They said, how do you want it cooked? Said, medium rare came out, middle was frozen, ice cold, middle of the salmon. Also bathed in like so much butter. It was a joke. Once again, laughed. I'm not gonna complain. You get what you pay for. But it was so funny, you know, it was like God's way of telling me not to sort of live, you know, under the, I guess, I guess the level I was expecting or paying for the rest of the way. And that sucks because I don't have a problem staying at a three star instead of a five star hotel, but the one that I'm at for the one night of my trip, you know, I stayed at an airport hotel that one night in Auckland that was. And that was fine, but this place, fucking, man, they, they gotta figure it out, that Hilton. Anyway, sorry to complain about that. I know I sound like a snob, but it Was just a shitty experience in a lot of different funny ways. Checked out in the morning. Uh, and then I drove to Jack's Point Golf Course now. So I played the three best the on the North Island. I played Tara, Edie and then Tri north and South. Did I finish telling that story? That guy, he built those? Yeah, I think I did. They're all unbelievable, unbelievable golf courses. Uh, and then Jack's Point. So that's. Those are ranked number one, number two and number three in New Zealand. Jack's Point on the south island is the seventh ranked course and is a really interesting and super cool course. Crazy mountain views. We're in the southern. They call it the Southern Alps and it's snow capped mountains and just really does feel like the Swiss Alps. You got people paragliding down with their colorful paraglides, there's lakes, gigantic lakes everywhere and played golf there. They welcomed me with so much warmth, these people. I walked in, really nice pro shop, great restaurant, great golf club. They brought me a gift bag with a note and said that said we are so honored to host the inaugural Internet Invitational champion. My God. And they gave me some really nice souvenirs. You know, a head cover and a belt and a flask. Which by the way, flasks, really quick. I don't know too many people that carry a flask or have carried a flask since mining times, 1830s, whatever. If you have a friend that carries a hip flask on himself that actually has whiskey or fucking, I don't know what you put in that. You need to probably have an intervention that that's a sign of a problem, I think in this day and age. But still a lovely gift. And they were super, super nice. They all knew who I was. They'd seen me on the T sheet. This is a, I think a testament to the reach of the Internet Invitational in the golf world. Because man, that thing, I mean I'm across the world and everybody there, everybody here watched, watched it. They were super, super cool. And then someone else had called in Johnny Mansour. Shout out Johnny. He's a chef at this restaurant that I'm going to called Amasfield in a couple days, or he was. And he knew from listening to the pod that I was playing Jack's Point. And he called them and bought me a nice bottle of Pinot noir to have. So I showed up and I'm getting showered with gifts before I even tee off. And I was a little late to the tee box because I was eating a nice egg breakfast and rushed out there, didn't get to warm up. Hop on the first tee. This lovely guy, Sam, from Canada, was he from Alberta? I think Calgary? Yeah. Lovely guy, young guy. He was doing one of these. They call it work studies. And I think a lot of all the British, the former Great Britain, I don't know, protectorates or countries like Canada, New Zealand, Australia, England, they have this concept or this program where young people can go to any one of these other countries for an entire year, or sometimes even two, and work for two years with a visa. No, you know, no difficult paperwork. You don't need to be sponsored or whatever to stay beyond that. You would. But a lot of young people do this and they work it. You know, I've seen you go to like Whistler in British Columbia. And every young person that is working as a bartender or a waiter in all this. The restaurants along this, they're all Irish, weirdly, and they're all doing the same thing. So I thought that was a pretty cool concept and definitely something that, you know, if we had that, I probably would have taken a crack at it somewhere. Would have been cool at that age. And we played. We played golf, me and Sam. We had a ball. Great guy, fan of the pod, but I didn't find that out until the 18th hole and shout out to him for being so discreet. We linked up with two other New Zealand guys because pace of play was a little. Got a little slow, and we figured we might as well just become a four ball. These guys were a fucking riot, too. They were terrible at golf, but they didn't give a shit. Just batting it around, hilarious drinking. And the course is unbelievable. It's. It's crazy, you know, Elevated tee shots. There's a signature par three at the holes five through seven are insane. People said it was hard. I actually thought this was easier than the courses. I played up north and I played pretty well. I shot two over, not to brag. Had had four birdies, nice birdies, which I was pretty happy about. They had just punched the greens like a week ago. So they were rolling slow, which usually means, you know, it's pretty gettable. But that was the best round I had. I shot like 80, 81 at the tri courses. I think I shot 79 at tar 80. And then I took off from there and I went to. That was my last golf round, so the golf is done. And I drove from Jack's Point, Queenstown, up to Wanaka area, Lake Hawea, where I'm staying now, where I'm at right now, that's an Hour and a half and you drive over a mountain pass. Again, we're talking switchbacks, sharp turns, steep driving. Not easy you do on the descent. You come down on the other side of the mountain and you pass through this little tiny town called Kadrona where there's this famous hotel right on the side of the road. It looks like something out of the Old west, the Kadrona Hotel. If you're ever going along this route, I highly suggest you stop there. Super cool looking. You go in very kind of dive bar Y Pubby. They out back, they have a beautiful courtyard. It's been around since I think the 1860s. And it's just an awesome cool place out of time that doesn't seem like it's changed a bit. They actually have 20 rooms you can stay at. And it's close to a big ski resort where people. I think it's the biggest ski resort in New Zealand. I'm here. It's summer, which. Okay, quick note on that. I knew it was summer. What I forgot that that meant is that all the kids are on summer vacation. Their summer vacation goes from like, I don't know, December 1st until February or something. That's weird. That's weird. My idea of summer break is so rooted in June, July, August, back to school in September, football season, all of that. Our sense of kind of, at least my sense of the calendar year was so locked that to hear that kids had just gotten out, now they're on break for two and a half months was very weird. And imagine having summer break through Christmas and New Year's. That's weird. Anyway, just a different way of, different part of the world. So I passed the Kadrona Hotel. I walked around. I didn't have a drink. The driving was just too hairy. I didn't feel like having a beer and then driving. And then I went the rest of the way on to Wanaka and I pulled into this place I'm staying. It's called Lake Hawea Station. I am on the lake. It's a sustainable farm that has a couple of high end like cottages. And I am in the littlest one. It's called Little L. It is tiny and I am on a like a literal sheep pasture. When I come into my spot, I have to get out of my car, unlock a sheep, past paddock, paddock gate, drive in, get out of the car again, close the gate so the sheep don't run out onto the road and then drive across grass as sheep are fleeing for their lives to get out of the way. Of my car down to my little tiny, I don't know, cabin. I mean, this thing is. It's a 200 square feet at most, 150, I would say, but unbelievable view. I'm looking right out on the lake and the mountains. And at first I was a little miffed because I messaged them through the WhatsApp, and I was like, is there no central gathering spot or restaurant or anything? They're like, nope, you can hire our private chef, come cook for you for a night. But they're all about, you know, disconnecting. There's no WI fi in my room, and I have one bar of cell service. And, you know, I'll tell you what, by halfway through the first day, I was like, I'm buying in and I'm not going to be on my phone at all. Which is a tough thing when you're traveling alone. That is. That has been one of the biggest challenges. I've eaten so many meals by myself, so many dinners. I would say that this is the hardest thing for me. Being at dinner by myself at a restaurant, and trying not to be on your phone and just sit with your head up, like, looking around like a fucking psychopath. Like a meerkat. You know, there's a level of people watching that gets invasive. You can only watch a family of four eat dinner for so long before they start to feel uncomfortable. Um, but, you know, I've been trying. Trying not to be on my phone, trying not to be thinking about work and all the stuff back home, Social media, all that bullshit. And this place that I'm staying has really helped me to disconnect. And it feels good. First full day that I was here, I went for the hike. In this part of the world, it's called Roy's Peak, Royce Peak. And I read some reviews. This one trail map place said they called it easy, was rated easy. And I pulled into the parking lot. It's very popular. It's very crowded. I mean, there's a. The parking lot. I had to go to the overflow parking lot just to park my car. And I set out, and right away it was a staircase. I'm talking straight the fuck up. Straight up. You can't look around. You gotta look at your feet so that you can find a rock to step your next step onto. You know, switchbacks left and then cutting back to the right. And there's also these. You can. You can go kind of the long route, or they'll have these little shortcuts that go straight up. And I, being A fucking ready for war in shape. Best shape of my life, guy. I said, I'm. I'm taking the. The straight up route. Big mistake. Big mistake. It was. They said that the. The hike takes five to six hours round trip. So I said, I'm going to beat that. I was very determined. A lot of Asians on the hike. I don't know. I'm talking too, by, like, people who weren't in shape. People wearing jeans and fucking, I don't know, sandals. I don't know. I truly do not understand how these people made it because this was so fucking hard for me. And I'm not a huge hiker. I don't. I don't have a ton of hiking experience lately. I live in New York City, but, man, I don't know. I don't understand how this is an accessible thing for somebody who's 55, from Scotland with a beer belly. I don't get that. I don't know how they did the same thing I did. Maybe they just went way slower. But even then, it was still really fucking hard. I made it up in two hours flat. There's a place you take a photo. And there was a line. Line of Asian tourists, Dutch people, you know, Scandinavians. So I waited my turn. I got the photo, and then I started on my way down. And the way down was even more painful to the body. This hike was injurious. I don't know how else to put it. It hurt me. It was not good for me. It was not a healthy experience. You know, the way down, every step, you're just. You're. You're basically walking with the E brake on your knees the whole time. My knees were in horrible shape. And your feet are crammed into the front of your shoes because you're just. You're. You're pumping the brakes with every step the whole way down. So I had lunch at the top of the mountain and then got down. I did the whole thing in like four and a half. Maybe four. Yeah, probably four hours. So I beat the time. Look, I was determined. On the way up, I was really determined. I actually ran a catheter into my urethra and hooked it up to my camelback so I could piss directly into my mouth and not have to stop to hydrate. And that was painful. But the only people who passed me and I was proud of this were the psychopath trail runners who were literally running up the mountain with ski poles and shit. I mean, my God, do we need that? Do you need to do that? That didn't make me feel great because I was having a hard enough time, you know, walking up. I'm. Listen, I'm not someone who can pace myself particularly well. So this hiking thing, I. Resolo talked about it on his travel recap of New Zealand, which. That was pretty much the inspiration for this whole trip. If you haven't listened to it, it's great. He gets into the history of the country and the people and all of that. I not going to do any of that. But he made the point. He was like. He went for a hike and he was like, do I even like hiking? I had the same thought. I was like, why am I doing this? You know, the thing for me about hiking, because I don't do it very often, is that I've realized that once I start the hike, I have the idea to go do it. And then the second that I am, I'm in the hike. The only thing that stops me from turning back is not wanting to be angry with myself, quitting. That's is the deterrent of failure that keeps me going. It's not the joy of being outside or the payoff of the. The view at the top or the feeling of satisfaction from the exercise. I can get all of that. I mean, the views here at the. At the lake level at the bottom are breathtaking in this area. And I can get exercise, going to the gym, you know, hitting the muscle groups I actually want to hit instead of only exercising my Achilles and my calves for fucking four and a half hours and beating my knees to carpaccio. I don't think there's any fucking tendon left in my knees right now. But that was it. That's the, that's the whole MO for me of hiking is once I've started, I won't stop until I get to the top because to turn back early feels like failure. And maybe that is a lot of the mentality of a lot of challenges in life is you just don't want to fail. But I think that I was trying to think about other things where I continue through pain or difficulty because I. Because I don't want to fail or quit early. And I would. The everything I could come up with had some other payoff in it. You know, whether it's hard work, like you make money or, I don't know, reading a long book. That's dense. You're learning. I don't know. The other thing I'll say is that the. The UV index here in New Zealand is off the fucking charts. I don't Know if they just fried their ozone layer beyond anywhere else in the world. But, I mean, I am. I am layered up. I've got sunscreen on. I was wearing a full brim hat and I got smoked. I'm wearing SPF 50. I know how to protect myself from the sun, and I'm still getting absolutely crushed. So be mindful of that. If you have fair skin and you come to New Zealand, the sun is working on some other level from anything I've ever experienced. That was my big hike. Oh, I'll say this. On the way down, I did amuse myself by aggressively saying hi to every single person that passed me. Coming up, as a way of gauging which nationalities, which ethnicities were the most likely to say hi back. Who are the warmest people on the mountain? And I'm going to tell you the ranking that I came up with, okay? And we're going to group some people together. Let's not get weird about it, but this is my definitive ranking of the friendliest people you pass on a hike. Okay? Off the bat, number one, friendliest, most likely to say hi back or to even initiate a high. I'm going to tell you right now, it's Americans, Americans and Canadians. These, you know, everyone here is on. If they're from those countries, they're on vacation, they're having a great time, they're psyched to be out. They're proud of themselves for taking a hard hike. They're proud of you for taking a hard hike. You're in it together. That's an automatic. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hey, how you doing? Hi. Yeah, you're almost there. You know, really warm, really nice. That's number one on the list, right behind them. I'm going to go. Anyone from Great Britain. Scots, Irish. I know that's not technically Great Britain. Welsh, Brits, these. These are, you know, similar thing. Yeah. How you going? Yeah, right. Yeah. Hi. Hi. Hi. Yeah, all right. Cheers, mate. Yeah, just great. You know, right behind, just maybe a little slightly less likely to. To say hi back after that. I don't. This is where the nationalities got a little tougher for me to actually distinguish. But I'll probably throw like French and Dutch and Spanish people, you know, that part of Europe, all in one category. I'd say 50% hit rate, 50% high back. There's some language barrier that we're working with there. I get it, you know, but whatever. Middle of the pack there. Now we're going to get into what I would call ice Queen territory. Okay. And we're Going to go Asia next. You might have thought that they would be bottom, they're not Asia. The continent people from Asia. Okay. They were like 25%. And again, I'll give them the benefit. Benefit of the doubt. Major language barrier there. But they were not very likely to say hi. In fact, they were surprised when I said hi to them. It felt like I was being aggressively friendly to, to them when I passed them. And there were a lot of them on the mountain. A lot of them. Okay, after that, I am going to go with Germans. Germans were noticeably not warm. They were not likely to say hi at all. It was not fun. Not a fun experience. A very non consensual greeting. When I would say hi as I pass them, that's Germans. And the way I knew they were Germans was that, you know, they'd be walking in a, in a group or something and I'd hear them speaking German and I'd pass and I'd be like, hi. And they just either wouldn't respond at all or maybe, maybe a little bit of a head nod, whatever. Okay. And then the bottom of the list, the least likely people to be kind on a hike, bar none in a category of their own, Scandinavians. Holy shit. I mean, you want to talk about ice queens? These people. Danes, Norwegians, Swedish Finns. My God. And they, they're hikers too. They're wearing the right gear. They're decked out. Anytime I said hi to any of these people, it felt like I was telling a career woman to smile more. Holy shit. It was unwanted. Unwanted overtures. Just me saying hi as I'm passing anyone from Scandinavia. Nothing in return. Absolutely nothing. So you learn your lesson. I know that they're not a particularly outgoing bunch. That is a standoffish group of people in my experience, which I've never fully understood, but so be it. Cultural differences. Finished the hike, went straight to the lake, jumped in. It's cold, but it felt great. Felt great. Needed it. I mean, I was smoked and sweaty. I did something funny too. I was so looking forward to how refreshing the jump in the lake would feel. That as I drove from the parking lot of the base of the hike to the lake, which was like a 15 minute drive. I kept my windows up, I kept the heat on, and the car had been baking in the sun the whole time. I was hiking too, so it was hot as hell. I just wanted to stay hot for the jump in the lake. I'd also run out of water, which I don't know, that's on me. I had no water for the descent. I finished my water as I was having lunch at the summit and ended up feeling very dehydrated by the end of it. So I had this huge jug, this massive yeti from my hotel area or my lodge or whatever. But it's, it's heavy and it's hard to know how much water is actually in it. And I thought there was a lot more than there actually was. So that was on me. Then I went to this awesome restaurant, I came back home, I cleaned up, and then I went back into Wanaka to this awesome restaurant called Kika's. Fucking top marks. Really, really excellent. I did, you know, all the add ons, some kind of chef's choice where they're like, if you're really hungry, let us pick for you. Yeah, fire away. And it was three appetizers, an entree, a dessert, and then you had the option to add oysters and a wine pairing. Of course I did both. Of course I did both. The New Zealand dollar is not particularly strong to the American dollar. I think it's like 70%. My whole meal at this unbelievable restaurant with the wine pairing, with the oysters came out to US$140. I don't know how that's possible. With a tip too. Like, I don't, I don't know how that math worked out. That doesn't make any sense to me because I thought it said that the wine pairing was $150 New Zealand additional, which again, that wouldn't make any sense. But that's what showed up on my credit card bill. So, you know, praying. We're praying. That was last night. Then went to bed, woke up this morning, went up there. There's a gym at this sheep farm lodge. It's run by this family. There's only like five different little buildings you can stay in. And the gym was awesome. Really good gym. So I hit a workout hard and then they had told me, they were like, look, that Roy's Peak hike, you did that, that is very, very difficult. And everybody does it. If you want something that is a little easier, it's only half an hour to the top. Just drive up the road along the lake about 20 minutes and you'll see the turnoff. And it's called Breast Hill. And I did it. And once again, I was like, why the fuck am I hiking? How did I not learn my lesson? How did I not? This was one day apart. And I. I'm hiking again and again. I don't like it. I don't like it, this was better than the one at Roy's Peak. It was a far better hike, Much less crowded, narrow goat trail. You know, you got grasses brushing against your legs the whole time. But I made it to the top in about half an hour. Spectacular views. And then came down again. It's always the descent that really does hurt my knees much more than the going up. And then I went for a good long swim in the lake. And now I'm back in my spot. I'm gonna go out to dinner. Oh, one, one other thing I'll say, which was fun. On the way back from town yesterday after my Royce Peak hike, after my jump in the lake, I crossed a river that had on one side it was a campground. And it was, you know, it's pretty sort of like white trashy campground type place, you know what I mean? And there was a bridge across a river and on one bank of the river was a big rope swing that had all these kids jumping off of it. And I was like, I want to fucking do that. So I parked my car at the campsite and I only had my briefs, my underwear to swim in. And they're fucking sweaty and wet from jumping in the lake. So I'm not looking my best, I'm looking a little suspect. And I had to cross the bridge on foot, barefoot. And I get to the other bank and I go down and there's a line of kids and I mean they're, you know, 14 and they're all kiwi kids and they're all laughing and having a ball. And I get in the back of the line, just the 36 year old man in the back of a line of 14 year olds. All of us wearing bathing suits, me and my skin tight briefs that are wet. You know, I'm kind of doing everything I can not to not, not to let them see the outline of my, of my hammer. And they saw me and they were like, oh, hey, there's a line, we should let him go. And I was like, no, no, that's okay. And they're like, oh, where are you from? And I was like, America. And they're like, America. You know, said it in a exaggerated way. And then they were really nice to me. They all let me kind of pass on this slippery tree trunk that I had to walk with my hands and feet out onto. And then you go up these tiny pegs on the tree and there was this really sweet kid that had, he was sort of manning the swing for everyone because it was hard to get. You had to go to A very high branch to get it and then pass it back down. And he was like, all right, just swing out, you know, lean out, hold on, Swing out, swing out there. And I was like, okay. And I did it. And the river. I jumped in and I did well. I did solid. You guys would have been proud of me. Let go at the right time into the river. River was fucking freezing. Holy shit. And fast, moving fast. You had to swim as fast as you could to the bank. I still ended up 40 yards from where I had gone into the river. And it wasn't easy. But, you know, these kids, they're. They're cut from a different cloth. So that's what they were doing all day long. And they were jumping off the bridge too, you know, no wonder, like, rugby is just their national sport, which, again, rugby is just football without pads. I don't understand it. I don't understand how there aren't more deaths, but that's what they grow up doing and they love it. So I like the people. The people here are really nice. Really, really nice. And you know what? They like Americans. They like Americans and they don't like all their tourists, but they do like Americans. I think that New Zealanders and probably Australians, too, are the most adjacent culture to America in a way. Probably even more than like Great Britain and the English. I think that this is. I don't know, it's. It's not Europe. It's a capitalist society. They have a strong social safety net and all that, but they are, they are. You know, people want to get rich here and it's competitive and they work hard. I think. Actually don't really know. I did a little research. Not enough to speak on this with any authority, but I do, I do like it. I like the people here. And I think there. There's really no culture shock at all when you come. Just instantly, you can plug and play and jump right in. It's. It's not hard, other than learning, adjusting to driving on the other side of the road. That's. That's the only thing. Huge fan. Love New Zealand. I knew I would. And I'm on the back half of my trip now. Tomorrow I'm going to drive back down to Queenstown and be there for New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. Probably do a little bit of partying. I haven't really done much of that, you know, we'll see, we'll see. I think it's going to be a young, pretty fratty scene. So I don't know if that's exactly my tempo. And then I'll go back to back up north to one other spot is really my fanciest place called Lindis Lodge, which is going to be more fishing, more hiking, and then I fly home. So have I learned anything in traveling alone? No. I think I've kind of told you guys everything so far that I've learned from this experience. Mostly it's that I just do love my life back home. I love my job and I miss it. I don't think that I need to take a two week vacation from work ever. This is, this is long. A week is plenty. I am kind of ready to come home. And if I came home tomorrow, I would feel that I had had an amazing experience and I don't think that I would feel I had been shortchanged or had left anything on the table as far as, you know, a trip. But I do think it is good to, to, to try to balance your life and have experiences. I think that if I were traveling with a buddy or more, more like a significant other. A longer trip is good. You know, you can split the driving. The driving is tough because I, I'm passing unbelievable scenery and the roads are narrow and, and I can't really look because I'll drive off the road. So it would be nice to divvy up the driving with somebody and the meals. You know, it'd be nice to, to have the meals with some. Those are the big things. So I think a longer trip like this with a significant other would, would do well. But being alone for two weeks, yeah, don't, don't really need this much time. That said, you know, I am proud of myself, I guess in that there was a moment there where I was like, fuck this, I'm gonna go home early. And I didn't. Stuck it out and went fishing and turned everything around. I was being a little bit of a bitch. I was being a little bit of a bitch. I should be so lucky as to be here. One thing that's cool, I'm not worried about how much money I'm spending at all because of my Internet invitational winnings. The way I did that, I got paid out. We split a million dollars three ways. Me, Beef and Brad. And that came out. We also had the 50, I like $15,000 of skins money, so call it 350 grand. That came out after taxes to $222,000. That's what I walked away with. And I took $200,000 of that and put it into safe, you know, bonds and Spy equities, just whatever, handed it right over to money manager. And then I allowed myself to take the 22 grand as play money. And I'm not spending all of that in New Zealand. But, you know, I think I feel like I've done a somewhat responsible thing by putting the vast bulk of it away to grow, and then I have no problem, you know, spending $150 on dinner every single night here. That's fine. So, look, it's a luxury. I get it. I'm not saying everyone has to do it this way or can do it this way. And you could enjoy yourself just as much without spending that much money, without staying at the nicest places. But as a luxurious trip goes, which, you know, I earned by winning that tournament, which, again, very lucky in a lot of ways, it's nice that that is a piece of traveling alone, too. That is nice. You're not paying for anyone else. You're not worried about divvying up expenses, whatever. I'm just eating what I kill and paying for it for myself. So that's where I'm at. I'm in a healthy headspace. Things are good, views are amazing, and I think hopefully I'll make some friends down in Queenstown, maybe have a beer with a few people. But I've met some good people, so thanks for listening. Maybe we'll do one more of these. We'll see. But I hope you guys enjoyed it. And if you have any questions about New Zealand or whatever, feel free to just reach out. All right, thanks, guys. Bye.