The Big House

Jarrad's buddies Stan and Kyle got here on Monday. Stan is vacationing for 3 weeks, while Kyle is staying here for good. The day after they got there, we waited for Jen to get off work, and then headed out late on a road trip to Napier, which is in the Hawke's Bay region. It was about a 5 or 6 hour drive, so we got in rather late. Here's some photos from our trip.

The first night we got there we stayed at a hostel that is actually a converted jail from the 1800s.



This is Kyle and Stan on the inside.


As you can see, the accommodations were not too great.

Just kidding, this was our room. It was nice except for the unfriendly German we shared it with. But you could actually stay in converted cells. There was a huge group of fruit pickers from the Vanuatu Islands staying in most of them.

This note was in the office. It's from a kid, I don't know how old who went on a school field trip of the prison, and then wrote this letter after. Enlarge it and read it. It's pretty much the most amazing thing I've ever read in my life.

After we checked in, we took a quick little tour of the prison.



These toilets were just out in the open courtyard, basically outhouses with plumbing. There were cobwebs and spiders and shit all over the inside of them. Not the most ideal shitting conditions.

The building on the right is the one we stayed in.

Around the corner of our building there was a Coke machine that obviously hadn't been used for awhile. How'd you like to reach through all those cobwebs for your Coca-Cola? This wasn't a prison prop. It was real. Real gross.

Ghetto workout room. Funny thing is, I think that this room was actually being used as a workout room.

Any caption necessary?

Apparently in New Zealand there are two rival gangs, the Mongrel Mob, and the Black Power. Strangely enough, almost all of the gangs are made up of Maori, the native people of NZ. There was some pretty gnarly graffiti in some of the cells. Thing that is weird about it is, Maoris definitely should not be rocking swastikas. I don't think Hitler would have been to fond of them either.


And of course I am obviously stoked anytime I get to see creepy weird mannequins.




This motherfucker's lucky he's locked up or I would have rolled him for that sick fucking t-shirt.

"But why was he black?" - Luke Wheeler

Apparently the first hanging ever at Napier Prison was a bigfoot.

Cultural reasons?

I've found god on the inside.

Can you blame a guy?!




Who you tryin to get loco with, esse?

Jarrad killed it on this one for sure.

After our morning look around, we checked out, and went into this hostel, which was the same price, but a lot nicer. No spiders or praying mantis looking things in the shitters. Except it was $23 a night, and you didn't get a blanket. That cost you $2 extra, which they didn't inform you of. Why the fuck not just make it $25 and give you a goddamn blanket? Ah well, I wore the same clothes and slept in them for 3 days anyway. Fuck a blanket.

After checking in we went on a wine tasting tour.

I don't even really like wine, but I got kind of drunk, so that was nice.




At one of the stops, every one made fun of us because we were playing with this barrel with water in it for a good 10-15 minutes.


Like I fuckin cared.




After the wineries, we went to a brewery where for 10 dollars you picked 6 different things you wanted to taste. They had a bunch of ciders and stuff. I didn't really like too many of the things I sampled, but I got pretty drunk, so that was nice.



After the brewery, we went back to the hostel, drank a bunch more, then headed around the corner to some Irish pub for more drinks and supper. There was this dude playing really bad acoustic songs at the bar. One of them was Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay by Otis Redding, but as if Chad Kroeger from Nickelback was covering it. Really horrible. Kyle went and asked the bartender if I could go up and kick out some jams, and the guy said if I was better than the dude up there he'd buy me two beers. But I pussied out big time. However, I got really drunk, so that was nice. Kyle got the bangers and mash for supper.


I was killing it with the ladies, of course. This lady and about 3 other old people hung around us all night, even when we went somewhere else. She gave us her number so that when we go to the part of NZ she is from, we can stay with her for free. I got mad booty calls set up, son.

You gotta watch out for spiders. You never know where they came from. I pissed and pissed and pissed all over this guy, but he didn't drown in piss, he just curled up in a ball and then when I could piss no more, he started to climb out. Yuck. Watch out for piss-spiders.

I don't know, some sort of picture I thought was artsy when I was drunk.

Outside these two rockabilly dudes rolled up carrying a case of beer and started blasting out some Johnny Cash, and then they told us about an acoustic night around the corner that was only $2 to get in, and they were way better then Kroeger Redding inside, so we followed them. This was before we took off though, and I was really feeling the old dude getting into the music, so I took a video. Sorry about the singing along, but by this point I was super drunk, so that was nice.

The rockabilly dudes weren't as good on stage as they were on the street.

But then Kyle decided they needed some drum accompaniment, and just walked on stage without asking, picked up the sticks and started playing along. I was scared for his life for a second, but they were stoked. I tell ya, this guy is really living the 7 day weekend.

And then the rockabilly guy stole my lady-friend, so I went home.

Well actually I didn't go home. Stan hooked up with some British bird from our hostel, Jarrad and Jen went back to bed, and me and Kyle went back to the hostel to conquer the taste a little more, then we met some German girl and got her to come out with us to another bar, at that bar we met some random dude who wanted to buy us drinks all night, so we juiced some pints, then took off with him and his buddies to some techno bar. I don't really remember much after that, but I woke up the next morning in my clothes, got up and went to the car. Then we got a flat tire, got it fixed, then drove home. It was a great couple days.

Oh yeah, I found some sick stuff to skate, but it was raining for those 3 days straight, so I couldn't skate any of it. I wrote all about it here.