He Ta¯ ngata:
Jonny Clapcott
For a long time I didn’t really have a passion for travel but, after teaching PE in Te Puke for two and a half years, my girlfriend decided to go to London, so I thought I’d go too. I flew in about two months after the London bombings and, at the end of my first day teaching, I was walking out the drive when something flew past and I thought, “Man, that looked like a brick”. I came across a feud between Turks and Kurds and half of them were in school uniform. Security ramped up after that, and for a while I thought I’d made a massive mistake but, in the end I really enjoyed the school.
One long weekend we flew to Dublin on Ryanair and it cost us $23 each. We rented a car, stayed at a B&B. The whole thing cost two of us about $200. I couldn’t believe how simple and cheap it was to have a long weekend in another country. That was a real eye-opener and the more I travelled, the more I realised there was to see and the more I wanted to do.
I met a woman from Canada — also a teacher — and together we moved to Toronto. I got a job at an outdoors shop, selling gear and talking to people about their upcoming travels, which was cool. My girlfriend’s parents had a cottage in Nova Scotia so we drove there from Toronto. People say Canada looks big on a map but it’s not until you’re on the ground that you comprehend the scale. It took more than 30 hours of driving — after 18 hours, we were still in Ontario. My first winter there, it got down to -16C and I thought that was the coldest temperature imaginable.
In Canada, I had a job interview with a guy who was looking for teachers in Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia. He sold the place as having an up-and-coming cafe culture, and he made it sound quite cool. I accepted a job at the American School but on arrival, I realised the man’s sales pitch was completely untrue, although construction was booming. When we arrived there was nothing but grassland around our school and two years later, there were high-rise apartments and a supermarket. The countryside is stunning, although winter was brutal. If I thought -16C was cold, Mongolia got down to -62C. One great thing about the cold, we put boards on the football field then turned on the tap so for three months we’d ice skate for P.E.
I met my wife in Mongolia and we did a 10-day trip to the Gobi Desert. Once you leave the city, after 70km the roads stop and tar-seal turns to dirt, so we hired a driver and guide.
We’d stop at people’s homes, the gers, those round tents. You don’t book, and nothing is ever locked. The philosophy is, if someone has travelled far enough to get to you, you
welcome them in. So we’d rock up, the guide would ask random families if we could stay and we’d go in and they’d offer us salty, milky tea. They were such incredibly open, welcoming people. Coming back from Mongolia, my wife and I came to Taupo¯ and got teaching jobs. My wife is Dutch and she made it clear she still wanted to travel, so we went to South America. Colombia was the surprise country for us. Because of the CNN effect, I’d assumed it would be crazy and dangerous with people getting shot. But it was beautiful and the people were friendly so we stayed a week longer than we’d planned and had no hassles whatsoever.
Bolivia was outstanding. We went to a silver mine in Potosi and hired an ex-miner to guide us on a short tour. We took gifts of dynamite, coca leaves and fizzy drinks to give to the gods but while we were underground, the mine entrance collapsed and we were trapped with 40
miners. I was freaking out a little bit but we based our mood on the miners’ and they seemed pretty relaxed. Our guide said it had never happened before — but who knows how often he says that? It took four hours to remove about 10 tonnes of stone, then we crawled through a tiny hole to get out. The only time I felt frightened was climbing though that tiny hole and hearing people tell us to hurry up. Hearing the urgency in their voices was scary. Once we got out, the miners blamed us for it happening so we had to buy three massive crates of beer. But walking out of the tunnel, and standing in the open air, we were so relieved, we didn’t mind buying beer at all.
Back in Taupo¯ , we opened a B&B because my wife said, “If I can’t travel, I’ll bring the
travellers to me”. Then one day a guy told me about a mountain bike shuttle business that was for sale, so now we run the B&B and offer bike trips. Cycling is such a cool way to see New Zealand. We have incredible nature, forests and birdlife, amazing bridges and I love that you can be just a few kilometres from civilisation but completely in nature and so far from the hustle and bustle.