Off the Top of My Head
By Paul Murray
Lorenzo Sebastio hits the road and heads south after spending the night at Rongo Backpackers & Gallery at the top of the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand.
Italian traveller Lorenzo Sebastio is a real backpacker and there aren’t many left.
He calls himself a “snail” as he carries his house on his back everywhere he goes and go he does. His current adventure is to walk from Cape Reinga, the northern tip of New Zealand, to Bluff the southernmost point of the New Zealand mainland.
Lorenzo’s Route: Cape Reinga (E) to Bluff (A)
Walking is his thing and he shuns offers of lifts from passing motorists, but randomly door knocks people’s homes to ask for permission to erect his tent in their garden to spend the night, before moving on again in the morning.
(Presumably, he doesn’t tell people he’s a giant snail before they grant him permission to camp near their vegetable patch)
He arrived at Rongo Backpackers & Gallery, the hostel I own and operate in Karamea at the top of the West Coast of the South Island after having met a couple of the Rongo crew––Violetta from Germany and Yoshie from Japan, wwoofers (volunteers) who were helping us out at the hostel––on the Heaphy Track a couple of days prior.
Lorenzo is a qualified chef and I agreed to let him stay at Rongo for free if he made us a genuine Italian risotto for the pot-luck dinner we had scheduled on the night he arrived…and also if he agreed to be interviewed on Karamea Radio, which broadcasts from the shed behind Rongo Backpackers. Once a quid-pro-quo arrangement was established, we had the pleasure of his company and he the pleasure of a dry, warm night in a comfortable bed and a hearty meal with the Rongolians.
Lorenzo proved a wonderful house guest, fluent in numerous languages after having lived and worked in France, Spain, Scotland and Germany and was genuinely interested in the other guests, he contributed many wonderful insights to the conversation over dinner from his experiences on the road in Aotearoa and elsewhere around the world.
After spending a day with little company other than the sound of nature, the beat his feet and the occasional brief chat with passing motorists, Lorenzo was enthusiastic for conversation and human interaction and he marshalled interesting dinner-table discourse well into the evening.
The solitude of walking long distances on the road (he averages over 20 kilometers per day) affords plenty of time for introspection and Lorenzo has developed an aspiration to retrace the adventures of compatriot Marco Polo as recounted in his 13th Century travelogue, known in French as “Livre des merveilles du monde” (Book of the Marvels of the World), in Italian as “Il Milione” (The Million), or in English “The Travels of Marco Polo,” and to contemporarily rewrite the tome.
The route travelled by Marco Polo from 1276 to 1291 (Source: Wikipedia)
In preparation for that rather lofty challenge, he photographs his New Zealand hosts and writes a short account of his encounter with them on his journey with the view to compiling the notes and images into a book and publishing his New Zealand travel experience.
Anyway, that’s enough from me…check out what Lorenzo himself has to say in his Karamea Radio Interview below and if you see him on the road say hello…and if he knocks on your door, invite him in for the evening as he’s a very entertaining, interesting and polite house guest.
I wish him well on his Aotearoa Adventure and beyond.
https://soundcloud.com/rongobackpackers/interview-with-traveller-lorenzo-sebastio-june-25-2014
Lorenzo hits the road after spending a night at Rongo Backpackers & Gallery in Karamea at the top of the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand to continue his trek south to Bluff.
The Rongolian Star 
Artist Almut Prange Rediscovers Her Muse
Off the Top of my Head
By Paul Murray2014 LivingInPeace Project Resident Artist Almut Prange
German artist Almut Prange was travelling around New Zealand on holiday and found the experience spoke to her muse. It said, “You must go somewhere quiet and concentrate on painting.”
She listened to her inner voice it led her to Karamea at the top of the West Coast of the South Island, where she settled for a month as a resident artist at the LivingInPeace Project, a venture that supports aspiring artists and helps to promote their art.
Like many creative people, Almut was experiencing a frustrating artistic block, but she quickly overcame the barrier when she arrived in Karamea and took up residency in the “Artist’s Bach,” a quiet, peaceful self-contained cabin on a permaculture farm, which is part of the Karamea Farm Baches complex. With chickens on out one window and grazing sheep on the other, she set to work on rediscovering her inspiration.
A prolific deluge of artistic production ensued and Almut not only overcame the mental obstruction to her creativity, but also found new direction in her work from the quiet contemplation afforded her by the residency and being surrounded by the beauty of the Kahurangi National Park that envelops the small rural community of Karamea.
The New Zealand landscape, Maori cultural influences and the patterns and forms of nature became evident in her new works. She collected driftwood from the beach and began to add paint to enhance the natural shapes and designs on the wood. Abstract portraits were enhanced with Maori-like patterns and influences and her art took on a new dimension.
Social interaction in the evenings with the staff and guests at Rongo Backpackers & Gallery, which is also part of the LivingInPeace Project, provided her further inspiration. “I really enjoyed hanging out at Rongo surrounded by artworks from previous resident artists, watching movies in the cinema, enjoying the music on Karamea Radio, eating dinner together…great food and good conversation,” she said.
Dinner in the Rongo Gallery, great food and good conversation with people from all over the world every night.
Almut showed her gratitude for the artist residency by leaving behind several of the artworks she finished during her stay, some abstract portraits and painted driftwood that was instrumental in her rediscovering her artistic inspiration. Rongo guests will be able to see her work and that of many other resident artists on display in the gallery at Rongo Backpackers.
Thank you Almut for coming all the way to Karamea and accepting an artist residency and for the beautiful artworks you left us with, we wish you all the best for your future in art and life.
Before heading off to continue her travels through New Zealand, Almut agreed to an interview on Karamea Radio, which broadcasts from Rongo, you can listen to the interview by clicking on the link below.
https://soundcloud.com/rongobackpackers/interview-with-almut-prange-livinginpeace-project-resident-artist-june-25-2014
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